Gender Freedom

Image from Irina Rudnick
on UnSplash

 I found freedom was fleeting many times during my life.

The first time I can remember is when I did not ever have the power to cross dress when I wanted to during my early life, I had to really be aware of what I was doing to avoid detection. Of course, if discovered, any life I was living would have been destroyed. I could only imagine falsely promising I would never cross dress again or find myself in a version of conversion therapy. 

The second time I vividly remember my freedom being compromised was when the Vietnam War draft began to loom in my future. It was an unreal situation which became all too real. After college I took my physical and was pronounced fit to serve in the military. I ended up enlisting for three years to be able to further my career as I served my country. 

All along, my youthful self was learning the basics of freedom. I found rare ways to express my true gender self by sneaking out the back door of the house and initially walking around our neighborhood. Plus there were the yearly Halloween parties I went to dressed as a woman to get me by. Both attempts to ease my gender pressure did work, for a short while and then I was back searching for more freedom and often still risking everything I had to achieve it. When I could, I was making the fifty mile trip to nearby Columbus, Ohio to meet and socialize with a very diverse group of transgender and LGB individuals.  From them, I was able to learn more about how far I would have to go to have a semblance of gender freedom.

It was not until I began to really explore the world as a transgender woman, did I finally begin to experience just a bit of freedom. As gay bars and other unforgiving venues began to fade into my rear view mirror (along with malls) did I begin to discover a glimmer of hope I could survive in the world as a transgender woman. With the hope, came a new push to do whatever I could to make myself into a better woman. It turned out, I was not making anything. She was already there waiting very impatiently for her turn at freedom and life.

I learned also, freedom is never free and you have to work for it. In many ways I had paid my dues and it was time to take the chance and collect my winnings. After following a very winding and bumpy gender journey for all those years, many of the traffic signals turned from red to green and destiny stepped in to insure my gender freedom.

My mental health improved and became stronger with everything else in life. Improbably a cis-woman found me and wanted to love and nourish me at one of my lowest spots, so freedom again became a breath of fresh air. Now our gender freedoms are at risk in the upcoming election. One of the candidates who is not female wants to take them all away. Don't let him!  

Tomorrow is Here

Labor Day 2024.

 Throughout my life, I was the best at putting everything off. From homework to attacking a gender issue, I kept putting it off, hoping it would go away. 

Of course it never did and I was stuck until the last moment trying to do something about it. My best laid plans for escape never did work. Especially when it came to my gender issues. When I was young, the whole plan seemed simple enough. Cross dress as a girl as much as I could get away with and then escape back into my male world. No matter how painful that was. 

It was a good plan until life became more and more complex and I wanted more and more from my cross dressing activities. In other words, I wanted out of the mirror and into the world. I started innocently enough with quick trips to the mail box during the day when I was the only one home. Of course I had to wear my shortest skirt and feel the cool air on my freshly shaven legs and I was hooked for life. 

The problem was, tomorrow was never quite here. Once I cross dressed for a quick day, I needed to go back and try to exist in a male world I never really wanted and I deeply resented it. Repeating the entire routine over and over again made me moody, grumpy and overall difficult to live with. Perhaps the worst part was, I had no one to talk to concerning my gender issues. So a full fledged gender tomorrow never came for me. I was just digging myself a deeper hole, thinking someday my life would change. Then, I didn't know it would but I didn't consider how much work it would take me to do it. 

Days, years and even decades went by and still I hid from myself all my gender truths. Most of the time I did not live in the present while I kept in the back of my mind the next time I could cross dress and enjoy my small but growing feminine wardrobe. All of the waiting created it's own set of issues. During that time, my male self was doing his best to survive and prosper in the world. Which at the same time, made the idea of transitioning into a transgender woman more complex and intimidating. It was easy to keep putting off what I knew deep down was true, I was always meant to be a girl. I just had to be in the position to reach out and grab her. 

During that portion of my life, it seemed my gender tomorrow would never be here and massive roadblocks stood up and blocked my way. Navigating them in my newly acquired heels would be a challenge I would have to accept as I crossed the gender border to play in the girl's sandbox. I found myself to be way past the tomorrow mode and started to believe my dream of living as a full time transgender woman was very achievable. 

Very quickly tomorrow became today and with the help of others, I seized the opportunity before I became too old to enjoy it. I am not shy of saying I waited until I was sixty to transition and begin HRT for what ever reason. I ended up feeling so natural, I wondered why I waited so long. 

I Knew my Life had ro Change

Pride Image from Christian Lue
on UnSplash.

As I grew more proficient in the art of feminine makeup and fashion, the possibility of leading a feminine life grew more and more feasible. 

When it did, I experienced certain moments of knowing I could never go back to my male life and I was lying to myself if I thought I could. Still I was stubborn and refused to listen and I was uncontrollable in my search for my true gender. I resorted to self destructive behavior such as self medicating my mental health with alcohol. 

An example was when I cross dressed and went out into the world. What happened was I was emboldened when I drank to do more. I chose and was accepted in a few venues I was used to going to as a guy. Even though I was radiating with anxiety, I managed to calm down and change the way I was thinking. I went from thinking I was trying to get by in the world as a man cross dressed as a woman to thinking I was actually a transgender woman trying to find herself in the world. It was a dramatic change to say the least and quite a bit to comprehend. Specifically, I remember vividly the night in question as once I arrived as a transgender woman, the more I knew I could never return. 

Return I never did. I was firmly occupied in my quest to be the best trans woman I could be. Including researching what my second wife was telling me. She kept saying I made a terrible woman which had nothing to do with my appearance. It had everything to do with how I conducted myself in a new feminine world which I learned I knew nothing about. No one would let me behind the gender curtain until I made the first move. The move meant so much more than just obsessing on how I looked and went into how I acted as the new feminine person I desperately wanted to be. The learning process turned out to be more intricate than I ever imagined. 

Time and time again, communication skills stood firmly in my way when a stranger (mostly other women) wanted to invade my little world. I don't know what I thought was going to happen but what did happen startled me. I needed to do my best to talk to the world as a transgender woman. Matching my external self with what my internal self was feeling. No longer could I try to render myself invisible and visible at the same time. No more going out to buy myself a drink and enjoying it by myself. I think now the last time I did it was when I treated myself to a date night as a woman. I went to an outdoor concert one night to watch an aging blues rock and roll star. I managed to have an enjoyable time and knew right then I had made the right decision and I would not be attending any other events as my old male self.

I knew my life had to change and I was changing it. At times, the process seemed to be agonizingly slow but at others, so fast I wondered if I could handle it. I weathered all the changes and turned them into progresses. I procrastinated my final changes as long as I could. I quit lying to myself and jumped off the gender cliff. Never to return to a male world I never should have been in to begin with. Gender affirming hormones sealed the deal and my body took to them as if they always should have been a part of me. Finally, it never occurred to me the feminine hormones may have somehow been a part of me to begin with.

Maybe the hormones were to blame for a lifetime of gender stress and tension. I will be the last to know.