Nothing but a Reflection

 

Woman in Mirror from Darius Bashar
on UnSplash.

It seems for some reason, recently, I have been obsessed with thinking about my earliest days of admiring my girl, cross dressed reflection at home in the mirror. I hope in this post I will be able to take my obsession a step further. 

I believe women have a head start over transgender women when it comes to the basic concept of being viewed in the public's eye. To begin with, women are faced with more appearance scrutiny than men. Women have to put up with the reality they are viewed more closely by both genders. Whereas men don't have to face nearly as much scrutiny. Then, being a transgender woman takes even more work to survive in the world. 

Then there is the reality of reflection between genders. Women traditionally resort to makeup, beauty spas and fashion to reflect the best version of themselves to attract men and to a lesser extent, impress other women. It is at least a multibillion dollar a year business. Now, back to me, and where I was on my path to transgender womanhood. 

Where I was on my path, was I was still struggling with even having the beginners' basics on how I could reflect woman to the public at large. With the help of continued work on my makeup and me attacking the nearby thrift stores, I finally began to reflect feminine to the world. When I did, I could begin to refine my approach and relax in the world as a transgender woman or more advanced cross dresser. Mostly, that meant putting my mirror's reflection in motion. It was very difficult in the beginning, as I needed to look the women and men in the world in the eye and be myself. Humans have the tendency to explore the world through their eyes and I quickly became used to having other women look at me totally head to toe. 

All too soon, I was ripped from my mirror and living a very scary but exciting life in a new world. Very quickly, I was able to put my fears behind me and understand who was really looking at me. Men paid me very little attention because I always assumed I was not attractive enough, but on the other hand, I was really receiving much more attention from cisgender women than I had ever had before. Obviously, for whatever reasons, my reflection with other women was working well and I loved it.

I was on a remarkable gender journey as I left the mirror behind and joined the world. As I refined my feminine outlook, I needed to accomplish a couple major goals. The first was, to never not refer to myself internally as a man again. I was a she and that was it. The second was, I needed to concentrate on establishing my own feminine aura. I started to really begin to zero in on whom ever I was talking to into knowing they were interacting with a woman. If it worked or not, remains to be seen, but I kept on trying.

Projecting my aura was the last stop in my progression out of the mirror and into the world. I viewed it as taking the last vestiges of any light I had ever seen in the mirror and turn it into a bright light of hope. It was scary because I was not used to being in a such a new world as a transgender woman. Along the way, I took on my share of setbacks but kept on moving forward.

Now, the reflection I see in the mirror, is only the one I need to apply my makeup and closely shave before I go out. I have also worked hard to do away with any remaining gender dysphoria I may still have. When it does hit me, it normally happens in the morning when I first look at myself in the mirror. I finally have come to the conclusion I don't look as bad as I think or as good, I think I do with my makeup.  The middle point has become good enough for me, and the mirror has again become nothing but a reflection.

What Came First?

 

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash. 

Today was "patch" day, when I changed out my gender affirming hormonal estradiol patches, which I do twice a week. 

Every time I change out my patches to new ones, I think back to all the changes I went through when I first started years ago. Among other things, I remember how impatient I was to see and feel changes I hoped were forthcoming. I was also disappointed when I learned I would have to start on a very minimal dosage until the doctor and I could see if there were going to be any negatives to the treatment. Fortunately, there were not, and I was given progressively higher doses until I was finally assigned to an endocrinologist for more specialized treatment. At the time, the Dayton, Ohio VA Hospital did not have an Endo, so I needed to wait until they found me an outside provider for my care. After quite a bit of pushing on my part, the VA finally came through and I was set until they came up with their own Endo. Which I have to this day.

In the meantime, I was experiencing many significant changes to my body and surprisingly, to my mind. It was like my body had already been set up for the new HRT hormones and felt very natural with the changes. It is easy to write about the external changes I always mention, such as breast growth, hair growth and the overall softening of my skin. As I mentioned in a recent post, suddenly I was able to present better when I was out in public because I was able to wear less makeup and get my own hair styled and colored how I wanted it. 

Less obvious to the world, but more obvious to me were the internal changes I began to rapidly feel with the new hormones in my body. What came first was I was losing more and more contact with my old male self. I was losing my old testosterone edge and began to really mellow out. I went through puberty again and even experienced my first hot flashes as my body adjusted to the new femininized world it was in. Most certainly, my male self-had come first out of necessity, but the HRT allowed my feminine self the chance to catch up. I even learned women were not making it up when they were saying they were cold all the time, when my thermostat went crazy, and I was too. 

One of the only drawbacks I experienced was I needed to move up my life transition timeline, because changes were beginning to happen so rapidly. I could no longer wear most of my male shirts because of my new breasts and I needed to always be careful to tie back my hair when I was butching it up when I was going out. Also, my facial hair never really changed as I knew it wouldn't, but my body hair nearly completely went away, which was great.

As I said, there were no drawbacks when I left my male world internally. I never missed the actions of my male self who always seemed to be on edge. I became very introspective on what I was going through and could even began to be able to cry for the first time in my life. It was then I learned there were different sort of tears. Tears of sorrow and tears of joy were quite possible. 

I had no choice, my male self-came first and I ended up trying decades of cross dressing to fight him. But as I changed, gender affirming hormones were a huge part of it. In many ways, HRT was the deciding factor in finding my way into transgender womanhood. 

It turned out the second part of my life turned out to be so much more fulfilling than the first part. Even though I was frustrated at times that I waited so long, it was worth the wait. Especially when I learned the hormones did not change my sexuality. I was still attracted to women, and I found some were attracted to me as a transgender lesbian. It was all so exciting and new, I could not get enough of my new life and it did not matter what came first.

Seasons Change

 

Image from Jamiethlene Reskspe on
UnSplash.

It appears that Spring has quit teasing us here in Southern Ohio and is finally here to stay. Spring teases us every year, so it is no real surprise when it happens. We can go from summer like weather to winter in one week. 

What it means is wardrobe adjustments which account for cooler mornings and warmer afternoons have to be made.  Plus, I always use the unique seasonal changes here to completely go through my clothes to see what will stay and what will go.  From nearly the very beginning of my love of everything feminine, I had admired how girls and women had the opportunity to completely change their fashion with the seasons. Putting aside all the challenges I had with having any resources at all to buy new fashion, I still did my best to meet the seasonal change challenges. 

My biggest challenge this year is coming up in the middle of April when my wife Liz and I have been invited to my daughters in laws house for a lunch get together. I am planning for it already and am planning to wear a two-piece lightweight top I just purchased for our trip to the Florida Keys. I will pair the top with leggings I have and hopefully will be dressed well enough to blend in with the rest of the women who will be there. Sadly, I don't think my transgender grandchild will be there because they (pronoun of choice) will be hiking the Appalachian trail with their partner. I will have to find out from their mom if they still are going to have a job as a civilian nuclear engineer with the US Navy or did the orange felon's threat against transgender women and trans men destroy any hopes of having a job. 

In the meantime, it is opening day in Cincinnati for the pro-baseball Reds, which has a huge parade and is close to a complete local holiday. Since the parade is televised during the afternoon, and I really don't care much for parades, it will give me a chance to get started with my spring wardrobe assessment. I know right now, I am setting fairly well with my collection of light weight tops and T's. Especially when I added a few select T Shirts from my trip to Key West, Florida. I purchased a very colorful T(shirt) from "Harpoon Harry's" where we ate lunch and later made a special stop in Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" shop where I picked up another shirt to add to my collection. My second wife and I were huge fans of Jimmy and when he passed way, another of my bucket list items went with him.

Watching Buffet's famous Cincinnati summer riverside concerts were always a hit with us, but little did my wife know how badly I wanted to be one of the women watching the show. My transition took so long, I sadly never made it. 

Now, I hear the birds chirping and a pile of clothes awaits to be sorted to be worn or donated. It has always been a labor of fashion love for me to go through the seasonal changes which made being a woman much more fun for me than being a boring man. Even though, sometimes I think the fashion experience is shallow in nature, it has always been fun to me. 

Especially, when I can shed the boring dark colors of winter and become a part of the new bright spring flowers and budding of the trees. Everything I wanted to do when I started my path to transgender womanhood. It also time to put all my sweaters away and turn another page towards my future and bright as a new season.