Procrastination

From the archives.
JJ Hart

I am well versed in most areas of procrastination. 

After all, I have spent most of my long life procrastinating as a transgender woman. Recently, I received the inevitable question of why I waited so long in my life to finally tackle my gender issues and transition. Even my daughter who has displayed the ultimate in acceptance in my transition over the years (and has a transgender child) shyly questioned me one day about if I had always known I was trans. With very little thought, I answered I had always known but I did not tell her how long I procrastinated doing anything about it.

One of my excuses has been times change over the years and the late fifties and early to mid sixties were dark times for anyone with gender issues. In fact, I remember the stories I saw about the police rounding up any transvestite or gay men in paddy wagons and taken to jail in the pre-Stonewall revolutions in New York City. So, when I included a very non accepting family life, the period of time was not a good time for me to outwardly explore any gender issues. 

Another excuse I had for procrastinating my coming out and living as my authentic self for so long was I lived in the pre-internet dark ages. In fact, my wife Liz and I went shopping for a new computer for her. Long story short, I was intimidated and totally lost in the whole process, I faded into the background. Liz needed a specific type of computer for her art business and had researched the whole computer situation. The only thing I could do was later on compare her research to mine when it came to me even considering I was transgender. Plus I was pleased when the clerk, checking Liz out referred to me as "she".

As times changed and more and more information concerning gender issues became available, I changed too. But not to the point I was ready to accept the fact I wanted to do more than just look like a woman, a part of me was screaming I was a woman. Now I know some would argue there is no way I will ever be a woman and I argue back my mind tells me I am even though in between my legs tells me I am not. Even though I could not experience periods or being pregnant, I went through so many things cis woman could never conceive of doing. Even so, I still went against my inner feelings and procrastinated again and again that I was indeed transgender. 

Deep down, I knew the truth but kept putting off the fact I was trans and letting the pressure build on myself. Finally when I went out into the world, I knew I wasn't trying to fool anyone. I was just being myself. When I couldn't lie to myself any longer, on a magical evening I will never forget I faced an internal mirror and decided who was looking back at me. No longer was I am a victim of the world and I was done procrastinating. From that point forward, I decided to go all the way and move forward to explore my full potential as a transgender woman. Major moves were ahead and exciting yet terrifying such as the major impact of adding gender affirming hormones to my system. 

It wasn't until I was truthful to myself and decided to follow a feminine path which I should have followed years ago did I become happier than I ever thought possible. My mental health improved and I got off almost all of the alcohol I was so fond of. Procrastination was behind me and just do it became my theme. 

The Ultimate Gender Grab

Image from the author, 
JJ Hart.

In many ways, this is an extension of yesterday's post which partially examined my transition from my male self into a feminine world. 

Along the way, there needed to be an ultimate gender grab to be successful. Very early on, the desire to view my image in the mirror was the fun part. I struggled to dream high and stay grounded with my gender desires which always threatened to change my life for the worse if anyone discovered my secret life in dresses and hose. I found I needed to reach out quickly and grab on any small amount of unattended time to cross dress away from my male self into my authentic transgender self. 

Sadly, my male self and society kept trying to grab my gender reality away from me. Some of it was my fault early on with how I presented myself in public. I found any edge I gave the public to "discover" me often led to a bad reaction. Serious side effects included my fragile novice transgender confidence being shattered. When it all happened, it took me weeks or even months to try again to grab my true gender back from the world. 

At that point, all the pushing and grabbing became almost too much to bear and I resorted to therapy to shore up my frail mental health. Plus, I fell back on a high level of alcohol abuse. When I went out to venues to see if I could make it as a woman, invariably I appreciated the false sense of bravery the alcohol gave me. The only positive came when I discovered other women friends in the venues I went to and they helped me to make a giant feminine gender grab which helped me towards my dream. All of a sudden, actually living as a transgender woman became a reality. The need for alcohol faded away.

The grab became so close, my male self panicked and did his best to hang on to all the work he had put into my old life. My feminine self came to the rescue and grabbed back her share of my life and ultimately won the war, even though she had lost all those battles over the years. Amazingly, all the battle scars she had sustained were easy to heal. She was saying, she had been there and done it as a subservient second fiddle to my male self and had enough of the lies. She thrived under the new life she had inherited and grabbed back all of the gender privileges she had only dreamed of. Better yet, she didn't care what the public thought of her and her confidence soared. 

It's no secret to anyone how the final gender grab would end up with me. My trans woman over achieved to an extent I never thought possible. When I was able to set back and trust her to run the show, the future was secure.   

 

Gender Black-Mail

Image from JJ Hart, Ohio River
in background.

 Even though I have been living as a transgender woman for over a decade of my life now, my male past still comes back to haunt me. 

I suppose I am expecting too much from my gender transition since I spent such a long period of my life trying desperately to fit in with a male world I did not really want any part of. Recently, sadly an acquaintance of mine who was a fellow DJ on a local radio station passed from cancer. When I learned, memories flowed in including good ones and those not so good. One of the more interesting memories I have was of the time his wife (also deceased) told me about a new DJ at the station I used to work at who actually was starting her gender transition. I was surprised she had a fairly positive reaction to the gender issues so long ago. Way before the term transgender was popularized. Why I am mentioning it at all is it always amazes me what I remember or don't remember from my male past.

As I moved closer and closer to crossing the gender border, it seemed my old male self had an unfair advantage over me because he always mentally pointed out the good times there were when I was a guy. It was similar to gender black-mail. He would always say what about all the good times I had with guy friends when we were out partying. Essentially, overuse of alcohol allowed me to forget about my gender dysphoria for awhile and I could have a good time for the wrong reasons.

In addition, it was so so easy to fall back into my old male patterns and enjoy all the privileges I had earned from surviving as a man. When I transitioned into a feminine world, losing those privileges made a significant impact in my life. It seemed at the time, when I encountered most men, single or in a group, they held it against me that I had left the male club for greener gender pastures. Their way of black-mailing me was to shun me from any or all contact. At that point, their resistance just showed me I was on the correct gender path and I was more and more encouraged to try to advance to my dream.

Another facet I mention often is how my second wife and my male self enjoyed ganging up on my novice transgender self. My wife in very begrudgingly situations would let me go out with her as my authentic self. Predictably, she didn't like me no matter what I did and when she was mad at me would say I didn't know anything about being a woman. I equate it to applying for a job you have no experience in and the company won't hire you because you have no experience but won't allow you to gain any. I was learning the hard way, she would not help me to go behind the gender curtain to women only spaces. It would take me years to earn the respect or right of other women to play in their sandbox. Even if I was getting sand thrown in my face. 

It was obvious at the time, I was experiencing gender black- mail from many women also. I was too much of a woman to be accepted by men anymore and still too much of a man to be accepted by many women. Eventually, I solved the problem by keeping pushing forward towards my feminine dreams. It was very difficult to stay laser focused on my goal when I was still trying to maintain a life in both of the binary genders. So before I totally destroyed myself, one had to go. At the time, I compared where I was at to standing at the precipice of a very steep cliff and fearfully looking over the side. When I could not take it any longer, I took a long time to consider my gender options and came to one conclusion. I had always been living a lie as a man and no matter how much black-mail I had to put up with, I knew which path to take and I jumped. 

The path took me to gender affirming hormones and I never looked back. I knew I had made the right choice when I felt so natural and satisfied with my life. It turned out the only real black-mailer in my life was myself.