The Long Wait

 As I mentioned in a recent post, often I regret waiting so long to cross the transgender frontier and live as my authentic self. 

Most of you regulars probably know I am seventy two years old, considered myself to be a crossdresser for over a half a century and did not start to transition seriously until I was in my early sixties. At that point in time I started hormone replacement therapy (HRT). 

As many of you know, especially of the same age bracket, the world we grew up in has changed drastically for the best in the transgender community. The biggest changes came with the advent and advancement of the internet. I remember vividly the first time I made contact with another like minded person on our home computer. I also remember the pain and suffering I went through when my wife found out. I had no idea the computer kept track of where I went to but she did. As always I tried to ride out the problem and rearrange our life once again. I reestablished myself and set my next goal, to  make an excuse to buy a combination printer/copier/fax machine so I could send pictures.

By this time in my life, I did know and had met other transvestites at mixers I had went to, so the computer was just another tool to advance my knowledge. All of a sudden, there were chat rooms and search engines which could further my research into who I was as I walked the fine line hiding my info from my wife. Which didn't work forever of course.

Keep in mind also, the whole word "transgender" was a new term. For the most part, there was the "transvestite" word which roughly aligned with cross dresser  and then "transsexual" which meant you were planning to pursue sex change surgery (as it was known as) then move away never to be seen again. The problem with that was as a transgender generation we lost most all of our potential role models.

Looking back now, these years were a blur for me. I spent most of my life trying to outrun my gender dysphoria. Taking what opportunity I could to see if I could truly understand what a woman went through in her life and seeing if I could do it too. Even though I was a good student of the feminine  binary gender, I felt like an outsider looking in, and was. 

It wasn't until the 1980's  when I started to seriously explore an everyday life as a woman. I would jump at any opportunity to do errands such as the grocery shopping while my wife was at work. The more I was able to do,  The more I did, the more natural I felt and for the first time began to consider I was much more than a cross dresser. 

The next milestone I reached in my gender transition was when I had to begin to communicate with the public as a woman. Of course I was paranoid about my voice but then I learned the keys to gender communication I write about so much. During the whole process I was slowly aligning my inner feminine self with the person the public interacted with. 

Once I did it, the long wait was worth it. In no way was I waiting lessening my standing as a transgender woman. I was making the best of life's situations as they presented themselves. I totally dislike it when a trans person attempts to say they are more trans than another.  As a community we have all the layers as society does and we need each other.

My fondest desire is the younger transgender persons of today have the freedom to explore themselves  and don't have to wait as long as I did to live as their authentic selves. 

Gender Baggage

 It's no real secret we transgender women and men carry a ton of baggage with us as we cross the gender frontier. Even though the amount of baggage we carry varies, we all seemingly have our share to bring along. 

Photo by Caroline Selfors on Unsplash

The older we are, perhaps the more baggage we have to bring along. In many cases we have years of building families, jobs, friends and lives in general to deal with as we transition. 

By the time I was able to transition I could cross a couple of the items off the list.   First of all, at my age nearly all of the few close male friends I had passed away. Secondly I was newly single and of the age I could consider an early Social Security retirement. Finally, my family was mostly distant and really only consisted of my daughter and brother. 

Tragically as I look back I wonder how much life I lost by not embracing my gender dysphoria and doing something about it. My excuse is my fear of transitioning held me back and I tried to not get close to many in the outside world.  After all I didn't know how many would accept the true me.

Years later, as I began to transition in earnest, I learned most of my fears were not grounded in reality. Looking on the bright side, I found I was presented with another opportunity to rebuild myself...from scratch. An opportunity many humans never have. As I was approaching my new gender challenge I learned I was experiencing a true void. The biggest example was my love of sports. How was I ever going to watch and enjoy sports again. My stereotypical brain told me cis women just didn't delve into sports as much as I did. Plus on the rare occasions I encountered a man who wanted to talk sports, I would have to "dumb" myself down and act as if I knew very little.

What really happened was I found three cis women who shared my passion for sports. All of a sudden we began to gather in big sports bars to watch key games. We even went to a women's roller derby event in Cincinnati. The biggest thrill (and scariest) was when I was invited along to a pro football game which I will go into in another post. 

All of a sudden I was just one of the girls and since two of the others were very outgoing I didn't have to worry about interacting with any men. The guys always took aim for them.

As you can tell, I was fortunate when I transitioned. I brought my love of sports with me and was able to shed most of my old male baggage. I give credit to my hormone replacement therapy also as the world seemed to soften around me. 

Whatever the case I was able to pick and choose what I wanted to keep in my new feminine life and move forward in life. The whole process leaves me wondering why I waited so long to do it. Which is also a topic for another post.  

Transgender Validation

 The power of gender validation is strong. Especially after we take on all the intense work and struggle to cross the binary gender frontier. For most transgender women and trans men validation is difficult to achieve as we attempt to live a new life as our authentic selves. In the past I have attempted to document my struggles with validation. 

Looking back, I suppose it all started with my earliest days of cross dressing in front of the hallway mirror growing up. Unlike girls of my age bracket, I didn't have any feedback. Except from the mirror.

Mirror Photo
Source Cyrsti Hart

Which I discovered later wasn't the best choice. The mirror was excellent in telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. Not what was really happening. A tendency which would cause me tons of pain as the years progressed.

Perhaps the biggest mistake I made in the validation process was getting past the idea women primarily don't dress themselves with men in mind. They dress for other women. As I began to understand the feminine validation process, I started to grow up mentally and began to dress to blend. My "style" shifted from borderline trashy into my beloved "boho" style which was coming back into fashion. I was able to relive a portion of my youth and still have the style to blend into the public's eye. This included upgrading my ill fitting clownish wigs into more expensive but presentable hair. Once I did all of this, I was able to achieve a feminine presentation which allowed me to explore the world as a woman without getting laughed at. 

At this point of my validation process was when I gained the nuances of gender communication. Of course I always knew women and men communicated differently but I didn't realize how much until I started to communicate one on one with other women on a regular basis. Many stereotypes were true. For example men really don't listen to women who communicate on a totally different plane than men. With my gender background I carried so many biases with me. For example, I knew many of the men I knew only looked at women on a sexual level and rarely paid any attention on a professional or intellectual level. Even still I wasn't prepared for the immediate gender rejection I experienced when I attempted to interact with a man.

My very first experience I remember was when my car suffered an untimely breakdown. As I waited for a tow truck of course I was "helped" out by a well meaning policeman. Fortunately, it didn't take long for the tow truck to arrive and the cop and tow driver got together on the best route to get my car home. Amazingly neither of them wanted to listen to my directions! I guess living there wasn't good enough. Finally as I rode back in the front of the tow truck, my perceived lack of intelligence presented itself again and again. As the driver painstakingly described his truck I finally dumbed down to asking the most basic questions. It turned out this experience was one of many as I explored being validated as a woman from men.

Women were much easier. As I quickly accepted, learned and ultimately enjoyed my new communication roles  my confidence grew as well as my validation . Most of it occurred when I learned non verbal communication skills women use.

Looking back at the transgender validation  process, it was a long experience to jump from the mirror to the world. But, it was worth it.