I Made Nothing

 

Image from Camillo 
Contreras on UnSplash.

Several of my earliest memories of success as a cross dresser came during the Halloween parties I went to. 

When I wore my very short mini dresses, showing off my freshly shaven legs, I found I had several women come up to me and say, I "made" a good-looking woman. Years later, when I began to understand "woman speak" better, what they probably meant was I "made" a good-looking woman, for a man dressed as one. 

Furthermore, I soon came to realize, I was not making anything. I was simply being who I was. In order to learn that simple fact, I needed to live decades of life as a parttime cross dresser or novice transgender woman. Or I needed to live my gender truth before I could claim it. I needed to get out of the mirror and into the world to learn if I really belonged there. Those were the days when no one in the world around me would give me a break. The public was laughing at me (rightfully so) because for the most part, I was dressed like a clown in drag. Plus, my old male self, my second wife and my mirror did not want to let go of me. Making my life miserable and destroying what I had left of my mental health.

Juggling two genders at once was a tremendous challenge when I caught myself practicing living one gender when I should not have been. Being called "Ma'am" at my macho management job was certainly not cool or good but somehow, I survived to live on to the next day when I was determined to do better.  What happened was, I did keep getting better at my feminine side and increasingly began to leave my male side behind, which scared him.

Fear, as they say, is a powerful motivator and instead of giving up, my male side and my second wife grew increasingly close and forced a battle of the wills. In other words, neither one of them wanted to lose their place in the world. Which included my universe. It turns out, I did make something...a huge mental mess for myself. It is one of the excuses I make for taking nearly fifty years to break out of my gender bonds and flourish out of my closet and mirror. I just had to make sure I was making the right choice and there was so much pressure on me. 

As I grew out of the mental gender mess, I had made for myself, I gained the critical confidence I needed to establish myself as a secure transgender woman. Not just a femininized man. Since I had spent a lifetime getting there, the personal coming out was extra special to me. It was as if my feminine self was telling me what took so long. As it turned out, I shared her belief in wondering why I took so much time and wasted so much nervous energy I wish I had back. As we all know, worrying over what we did in the past is a waste of time, unless we are learning from our mistakes.

I felt better when I realized I did not make anything, when it came to my gender issues. Rather, I inherited them from some unknown source which made life a challenge. A challenge I needed to finally accept before the pressure I put on myself had grown too heavy to carry and I had to put it down and go with the life which made me feel natural and alive. When my transgender womanhood became secure thanks to friends I had, I felt so much better as I built a new life.

Do the Right Thing

 

Image from UnSplash.

I learned early on from my parents when in doubt, you should always do the right thing. At the same time, I learned from them, dressing to look like a girl was not doing the right thing. So, I needed to completely hide it.

Later, when I attempted to navigate my gender path, I found many obstacles I did not foresee hurting me. But they did and brought about many doubts. Of course, the main doubt was, should I be doing all the cross dressing I was doing in public at all. Still, I persisted and improved my craft at presenting well as a femininized person. Finally, I arrived at a point where I could leave my dark gender closet and attempt to live a new scary yet exciting life. The more I explored as a novice transgender woman, the more I wanted to do. Which brought me back to the question, was I doing the right thing. 

Similar to so many of you, I suffered from extreme guilt as my second wife kept telling me my gender desires were selfish pursuits. The sad part of it was, for the most part, she was right. She wanted very little to do with me wanting to be a woman, so I kept it away from her. Not the right thing to do in a marriage but was my only recourse. At that time, I only had a distant dream of perhaps living someday as a transgender woman. All I needed was the courage to face my reality. 

Because of a number of reasons, I needed to do much more exploring the world as a transgender woman to see if I could survive. First, I had to look the part, then I needed to live the part. Standing in my way, were the usual questions of transitioning to another gender such as what would become of my family, friends and job. As well as did I really hate my male life that much. I wasted hour upon hour antagonizing over what I should do and would it be the right thing. 

I was stubborn of course and refused to do any more than observe several transsexual women I knew from a distance. From their stories I did know they had really good safe jobs or were close to retirement so they could support themselves whereas I did not and had no idea of what I would do for an income. Plus, I also needed to consider, both of them were flat out gorgeous and had no problems presenting in the world as women. I did not labor under any idea I even came close to being as attractive as them and did not have that going for me either. After taking all of this and much more into consideration, I did not know what I could do about my gender dilemma which was not doing my mental health any favors.

What I did do was try to continue on the path I was on. To increase my awareness of the world as a transgender woman as much as I could at a time, I went as far as I could. Even absorbing major clashes with my wife over what I was doing. I can't always say I did the right thing as I learned more and more about living in the new world I was seeking. There were too many times when I had to out and out lie to get out of situations, I found myself in. In all fairness to my wife, she told me to stop it and just become a woman to bring peace to both of us. Still, I did not have the courage to change my life and leave her behind. I did not do the right thing. 

You regulars know what happened next. My wife passed away quite tragically from a heart attack leaving me all alone with my dogs to put my life back together. I rapidly turned to my inner feminine self as the strongest person around and did the right thing and finally turned to a life I always just dreamed of. 

On a side note, I may be missing a day of blogging tomorrow as my wife Liz and I have a daylong seminar to attend. Sorry for the inconvenience!

When too Much Wasn't

 

JJ Hart (Middle) with two friends.

As I continued along my long and winding gender path, I (on occasion) ran into situations when the public seemed to be too much. 

Examples were the times I was approached in public by strangers when I did not want to be. Very quickly I needed to judge their motives. Did they see me as a man in a dress on one hand, or as a woman on the other. Naturally, it made a big difference when I returned home and rated my experiences as a novice transgender woman out in the world for the first time. How did I do? Was I too much for my own good and did I need to tone it down, or attempt to do more?

There were the times when I managed to thrive in situations where women dominated and times I could not and ran home. Back to my gender drawing board. There seemed to be so much to learn, I was overwhelmed by the task ahead of me if I was ever to achieve my dream of living a femininized life as a transgender woman. 

In the end result, normally I found too much just was not when I was trying to get ahead in a new world I was just getting used to. The problems occurred mainly in the areas of fashion and makeup, as well as where I was trying to go when I went out. Once I got them under control, I was able to build a stable new life in the girls' sandbox. Once I earned my way in. Often earning my way in, had its own set of challenges. Mainly I had to find out how to play correctly to be accepted. On the other hand, even though it was difficult to do, I had to play to learn a life's full of lessons in a hurry. As I always say, my women's workbook was blank to this point, and I needed to write it. 

I found as I struggled to fill out my workbook, I needed to be extra vigilant in how I viewed other women, since I was totally on their turf. For the most part, I did my best to hold back on my opinions and speak mainly when I was spoken too. It worked well enough until I could get my feet on the ground, and I could move forward as a transgender woman. My goal was to build my new life as a confident, intelligent woman in society, but I needed to prove to myself my goal was not too much and would destroy my dream of transgender womanhood. Fortunately, throughout my life, I had several strong positive feminine role models to work from and add to my workbook. When I was able to add their influences to the inner female, I already knew was there, the women formed a strong bond to guide me through my struggles.

Overall, I discovered rarely too much just was not. What was happening was, I was just paralyzed by fear to move on with my new life. Once I got over most of my fears, I was able to move on and be free to live a better life. A better mental health life waited for me when I quit fighting two genders to survive.