Passing the Big Tests

 

Image from Shifaaz Shamoon
on UnSplash.

Throughout the years, I found out I had time after time when I needed to "pass" or present well as a feminine person in key situations.

Probably, there are too many to remember but here are a few I recall besides the major one I always write about. It was when I went out to see if I could exist in a world of single professional women in a bar/restaurant I went to as a guy. I really wanted to see if I could make it from the other gender side I had always dreamed of. I wanted to be the other women so badly and now I found I could actually do it. Of course from that point forward, my life changed and I could move forward on a different gender path. 

Forward had it's own set of challenges. One aspect I was really successful at was accomplishing two things at once such as going to the grocery store. By doing so, I was accomplishing a task which most women do again as my feminine self. From there I was able to expand my horizons to other venues such as antique malls where I could admire myself in the old mirrors and at the same time shop for a gift for my second wife. The effort was especially valuable around the Christmas season. 

All along, my experiences were adding to my overall confidence in my new exciting life. Even though, I did not really approve of or buy into the concept of passing, I did approve of blending into the world as part of my transgender womanhood. I was cherishing the time I spent in my new life and increasingly hating any of the time I needed to go back to my old male ways. I was fascinated with how quickly I was adjusting to my new feminine ways. The entire process proved to me I should have been living this way all this time.

Still, I had big tests to pass. It seemed I was going back to school and everytime I passed one test, there was another to go. Another one I just went through was having a mammogram. As I wrote yesterday, mammogram day was upon me again and the nurse could not have been nicer. She asked me about my family history with breast cancer and we went on from there without any invasive questions. She was much better than the nurse last year who acted as if I was some sort of bother.

To arrive at the point I am today, I needed to pass the communication test. There was a time when I would be shy and reluctant to look another woman in the eye when I was talking to her. With quite a bit of practice and trial and error, I found myself enjoying the interaction with other women. I have passed the gender test.

Of course life will always present other challenges around blind corners. I just hope I am up to the challenge, especially when someday I know I will have to face off with a transphobic person. In the mean time, I will do the best I can to pass the big tests when I can. It all continues to be so different than back in the male days when I could simply try to out bluster the other guy. Over the years, I have had so many knives I have pulled out of my back from other women, I think I am ready for more claw marks.

It's Mammogram Day

 

JJ Hart, image from Columbus, Ohio.

Once a year, my doctor puts in a request for a mammogram screening for me. Mainly because breast cancer runs in the family. My maternal grandmother died of it back in the 1950's when I was quite young. 

If you have never experienced a mammogram, there is some minor discomfort involved but nothing major. In fact, I consider the whole procedure to be a rite of passage of sorts for me into my own transgender womanhood .Even though I have a difficult remembering for sure, I think this is at least my sixth or seventh mammogram. So by now, I have a very good idea of what I am facing. 

For the most part, I have been met with an inclusive caring staff and have had only only one experience with an unpleasant nurse who asked me vague questions about if I had any work done down below. Like it was any of her business one way or another. She was border line evil and happily I have never seen her again. Anymore questions like that and I would have had to report her.

I am going to a new, closer hospital today for the test and I will be interested to see how it goes. Plus it could be my last breast test because of my age. My Doctor said no one gets them anymore past the age of seventy five. So I guess when you get old, you are on your own. Regardless, I am hoping for a clear mammogram today since my blood work did not come back so good. I have an appointment with hematology coming up in mid November. Even though I want to worry about it, I am trying my best not to build any un-necessary bridges to jump off of before I need to. 

I know this is a short post but I need to get ready to go here fairly soon. It's a fairly rapid procedure, so I should have most of the results back today.  

Running but not Hiding

 

Inage from JJ Hart
at the Cincinnati Witches Ball.

Over the years I considered myself the complete procrastinator. If I could put off anything, I did. 

My running and hiding continued unabated when I began to express myself as a girl. In fact, it got worse. Once I had the opportunity to cross dress and jump in front of the mirror, I could not wait to get back. I wanted to so bad, I tried my best to put my male life on hold until I could. I was running as hard as I could but was making no real headway. The real problem of course was because I was attempting to run my gender life backwards. I was a girl all along who was forced into being a boy and I needed to be increasingly careful to hide it.

The older I became, the more running I needed to do to hide my true gender. Even though I needed to take a break from my running when I was in the military, when I returned to society, I picked up where I left off. This time, I tried changing jobs and geographical locations to hide my true nature which was increasingly leading me to accepting me into transgender womanhood. I picked up and moved my small family from more conservative Ohio to liberal leaning New York City as an example. Deep down I felt I could express my gender desires there more effectively. Within two years, I more or less discovered I was wrong and decided to move back to my native Ohio. 

My moves continued around Ohio as I sought out the ideal job when in fact I was running from myself. I finally discovered no matter where I was, my gender issues would be there also. I was good at running but bad at hiding as I slowly added others into my secret world. For example, both my first and second wives knew I was a cross dresser and/or transvestite before we were married. The problem was I was so much more than a person who wanted to wear the clothes of the opposite gender, I wanted to be the opposite gender. Which was the deal breaker for my second wife.

It took me years to grow into my authentic feminine self as I slowly experimented in the public's eye.. All of a sudden the only people I was hiding from were the most important ones in my life. Which certainly did not make life any easier. I am referring to my family, friends and bosses. By far the three most important people I needed to come out to if I was going to ever live my dream as a transgender woman. At the same time, I was successfully building up a new life as a trans person so once again I was somewhere in the gray area of running but for once not hiding. The entire process, caused me tremendous mental health problems. Running head on into my old unwanted male life when I was trying my best to learn a new femininized existence was no fun.

Essentially what I did was keep running until my second wife as well as many of my close male friends had passed away. Leaving me fewer and fewer people to let into my gender reality. I would not recommend doing a transition the way I did but we are all different and it worked for me.

I ran until I could not anymore and finally was mentally exhausted enough to put my male life behind me and live my truth. All hiding was behind me.