Changing Closets

Yesterday's Cyrsti Condo's post concerning You Tube make up star Nikki de Jager as well as a couple of well read posts on my Facebook feed led me to think again how difficult the changing of one's gender can be. 

First of all, it needs to be pointed out Nikki de Jager was essentially forced out of her closet by a threatened blackmailer or blackmailers. How sad is it has to happen in this way. Here is a closer look at Nikki's background from Wikipedia:

"Nikkie de Jager, better known by her YouTube channel name NikkieTutorials, is a Dutch makeup artist and beauty vlogger. She gained online popularity in 2015 after her YouTube video, "The Power of Makeup", went viral and inspired many other videos of people showing their faces with and without makeup."

Her story led me to think about some acquaintances I have encountered on Facebook. It seems the more festive smiling party pictures they post, the sadder they become. In fact, one of them just said the exact same thing. Changing closets had become too brutal for her and she felt she had to go one way or the other.

I remember vividly how terrible it was for me when I was splitting my life down the middle between genders. Finally, when my wife passed away and I could actually look at beginning HRT, I could see which way I could go and live my life full time as a transgender woman. 

It was quite the slippery slope and until Liz came along and we found each other, I couldn't see another solid relationship in my future. I viewed myself as slipping down on long hard road towards a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff I changed my male closet for a feminine closet. 

It all worked for me although I needed to lose almost everything in my life when I did it. Fortunately, I was able to sneak back into my male closet and bring former interests with me (like sports) and family members such as my daughter came with me.

Leaving all the male clutter behind though never really bothered me. After all, how many humans really get the chance to start over?

Out She Comes!

Cyrsti's Condo "Quote of the Day"

From transgender model and activist Billie Lee:

"The journey to self love brings you down a dark alley of emotional shame, guilt and abandonment. If I want to fully love myself, I must begin where it all started."

Daniela Lourdes Falanga

Daniela Lourdes Falanga was the first trans woman to be elected president of a section of Arcigay, an Italian group defending LGBT + rights (Instagram / @ danylourdes)

The eldest child of a mafia boss overcame his strict family education to become a transgender woman and one of the main LGBT + activists in Italy.

When Daniela Lourdes Falanga was born, it was believed that she was the first male heir to the Camorra clan and was to take over “the family business”.

She proved them wrong!

What's Next?

Seemingly, the more I think about my past, the more I consider the future. Realistically speaking, most of my life lies behind me and I have written many times here in Cyrsti's Condo concerning my fear of being "cared" for in a nursing home with a very transphobic staff. Hopefully society will continue to inch forward in it's knowledge and support of transgender women and men.

Then quickly my mind returns to thinking about my past experiences I can put in the book. Many are buried deeply in my mind to a point where I can barely remember them.

Currently, I am writing about the very few men in my life including the first one. My meeting with him was brief and happened the night of my first professional make over at one of the transvestite mixers I went to. I guess I could say I had interactions with two guys that night since the make up expert who worked his magic on me was the first. Indirectly leading to the second.

During these mixers, I loosely tagged along with the "A" crowd or as I also called them, "The Mean Girls."  Approximately five or six of them always formed a clique which very few others were ever welcomed into. It turned out on that magical night, not even did I tag along, I crashed the clique.

Perhaps you noticed I said "crashed" and not joined. No matter how popular I became for one night, there was no way I ever wanted to become a permanent part of their exclusive group.

Now, back to the evening.  As I said, the make up expert did a wonderful job on me and even I was amazed. It was my first experience with someone else (who knew what they were doing) doing my makeup.

As I have written about before, the clique of the most attractive cross dressers or transgender women (before there was such a word) went out to party at gay venues after the mixer. Early in the evening I had the usual unremarkable time tagging along. It was later on when I was approached by a guy in the last venue we went to. He asked me to stay and he would by me a drink. Since I was dependent on the clique to get me back to the hotel, I declined.

More importantly though, the clique was dazzled I was approached and none of them were.

Sadly, the next day I had to go back to my usual male boring existence.