Now What?

 

Image from JJ Hart

As I cautiously discovered I could make it in the world as a transgender woman, rapidly I kept coming to the conclusion of now what.

How would I face a whole new life without the old male standbys to fall back on. I had taken the time and effort to build a family, friends and a fairly successful job which I had to possibly give up. Naturally, I spent hours, days and weeks trying to figure out what I would do once I entered fulltime transgender womanhood. I had long since passed the point of just being satisfied with existing as a part-time cross dresser. 

Ironically, every time I was successful in public as a novice trans woman, I wondered now what I  have I done and what was next in my life. The problem was, I had several major roadblocks which were looming in my life, such as helping to care for aging parents and a spouse who was totally against me transitioning any further than I was. To diminish the impact of all the gender stress I was dealing with, I did what many males try to do and internalize all of my problems. Even though I was going out as much as I could as my authentic feminine self, the fact remained I would have to go back to my old unwanted male life sooner more than later. As Paula from the UK put it in response to a previous post:

"For me it was the depression that followed "putting Paula back in her box", each time I went back to being "him" it was like a bereavement, in the end it was bowing to the inevitable. Arguably transition was the most selfish thing I have done, but like so many others I was insufferable trying to maintain my male persona, in the end it wasn't so much choosing my feminine side as choosing life."

Similar to Paula, the entire transition process for me came down to life and death for me. Like so many other transgender women or trans men, I attempted suicide to relieve myself of the brutal gender related stress I was feeling. Fortunately now, I was unsuccessful and lived to write about the experience. In fact, it was one of the reasons I began to author a blog.  In order to help others. 

Perhaps you are wondering how now what worked following my attempt at self harm. I still was not smart enough to listen to my inner female and tried to purge my fairly extensive feminine wardrobe and makeup. It was during this time too, I began to notice my second wife's health was slipping badly and she would end up passing away at the age of fifty.

Then I really entered the now what part of my life. The door had suddenly opened for me to live my dream of living fulltime as a transgender woman. I followed my soul and began gender affirming hormones at the age of sixty and never looked back.

All the days of wondering now what were behind me. All the risks I took were with it as I began to happily live an authentic life. And, by the way, Paula thank you for the comment and thanks to all of you reading along. 

I Chose Me

 

Image from the JJ Hart archives.

In an extension of yesterday's post, I decided to explore how I chose my inner feminine soul over my forced male existence I was rebelling against.

Basically, the deciding factor came down to how natural I felt as I cross dressed in the very beginning of my gender path to freedom. Very early, I remember vividly how I so desperately wanted to be more than just a boy dressed as a girl in the mirror. I wanted to be the girl. Why did I have to put up with all the male problems I had so much a problem with. 

As I embarked down a very long path to having the courage to finally living as me, as I write about often, the longer I waited, the more baggage I needed to do away with. Often I was my own worst enemy when it came to having any success as a male as it seemed every male privilege I secured someday I would have to give it away. This extended to making any new friends. It was very difficult to be close to someone who may reject me when I set out to live a new life and let the old one go. 

At the many milestones I encountered on my gender path, deep down, I needed to choose me. Especially when I learned there would be more than one major transition I would have to take. My primary go to example was the momentous evening when I suddenly decided I was done with being a cross dresser. I wanted so much more. It was the night I went out to mingle with other professional women getting off work at a bar/restaurant by the mall I always went to. The whole process was basically a mental move, in that for the first time I was going out in my mind as a transgender woman trying to be the equal of any other woman I met. I wasn't a man at all.  It meant the world to me when I was successful and knew right then I could never go back on my journey. Somehow, someway, I just had to be me.

My main roadblock was my second wife who accepted me as a cross dresser but always drew the line at any suggestion of me being transgender. Especially when gender affirming hormones were brought up. She rightfully saw her man she married slipping away and wanted no part of it.

Unfortunately for both of us, I had gone too far to turn back on my dream of living as a transgender woman. I was following my path the best I could and did not want to go back. Choosing me, over the life I had was the most difficult decision I ever had to make. The pressure was on to make my choice and for the longest time, I tried my best to live a life in both the binary genders. Plus, it seemed when I thought I had life all figured out, more and more questions arose. Like what was I going to do about my sexuality was a big one. Was I going to pursue men or become a transgender lesbian. 

Once I made my decision, the rest was easy. The pressure was off and I was free to be the me I should have been all along. What a relief!

Trans Girl Preparedness

Image from Ben White
on UnSplash. 

Since it took me approximately fifty years to fully emerge as a transgender woman, I had plenty of time to prepare.

The challenge comes when we trans women or men need to begin from scratch. We did not benefit from a gender peer group such as other girls to have sleep over parties and experiment with makeup and clothes. No one to tell me I looked like a clown in drag. I learned I needed to resort to the mirror for help but sadly ran into problems when the mirror had the habit of lying to me. I could still look like a clown and the mirror would not tell me the truth.

What I did was go out to into the public's eye and receive an honest feedback on my appearance. In the beginning, the experience was brutal as I was met with stares and even laughter. Many times, I could not wait to go home to the safety of my own room to start over again. I kept thinking, regardless of all the negative feedback I was getting I could do better. For the first time in my life, I needed to decide what I wanted worse, to hide in my closet and not advance toward my dream of ever living a feminine life, or advance and begin the learn the basics of makeup art and fashion which at the least fit me. I found the entire process to be exceedingly difficult for me. 

Spoiler alert. I did learn the hard way what I needed to do to blend in with the rest of the women around me. It was a powerful lesson to learn when I found out how women ruled in their own worlds and how I could join in.  In the meantime, I was learning how to erase my male past and start over. To make matters worse, my male self naturally fought against the gender change to transgender womanhood he was facing. 

Through it all, I was naïve to think I was progressing towards my gender dreams. I thought that just doing my best to look like a woman was all I had to do. When I entered the wild and wonderful world of women, I was excited yet terrified of my future. After all, I was risking all of my male life as I had known it. What would become of my family, friends and income? To arrive at the point of knowing all my gender questions, I just had to be better prepared.

At that point, I started to go out into the world with a purpose to learn if I could make it as a transgender woman at all. Primary issues remained such as communication problems. Plus, I went the distance to try to stair step my way into an increasingly active public community. I purposely tried out more and more challenging situations. Away from the no challenge opportunities I was facing in clothing stores and malls. I even tried to avoid the book stores and antique malls I had become fond of but never presented any sort of a gender challenge to me. I needed to feel OK with who I was, where I was before I was able to move on. 

At the same time, my male life was successful and was pushing me to stay the same and not transition into a women's world even farther. All the struggle did was wreck my mental health. What I did not recognize yet was my feminine self was my dominate personality and needed to be freed. The harder she fought, the harder he fought. Finally, he gave up and I found a deep seated relief I had never known before.

Primarily, after all the time and effort I put into changing my exterior gender to what my inner self was always telling me, was the reason I felt better about my life. Sure, the gender affirming hormones I began to take made the transition easier also but bottom line, I was just prepared to do what came naturally and live it.