Near Death Experience

Just when I think I have all the possible wrinkles ironed out in my transgender experience, another possibility comes along to worry about.

Last week I had an opportunity to communicate with a woman who deals in insurance and other retirement planning.  She wanted to know more about issues dealing with transgender elderly as they face long term health care. 

As is the case with many transgender people I know in my age group 70+, I am on a fixed income life with very little extra cash to play with. Years ago I lost quite a bit of money when I had to close my restaurant down. It was an especially dark period in my life when I lost my wife and close friends to death and my 401K's plus a sizable inheritance to a failed business.

These days, all I have to cover my infamous "final expenses" is a couple small life insurance policies which are good for life if I keep paying on them. My new paranoia comes from how my transgender status will effect the policies. For example. I took out the oldest policy when I was living a male life and now I have to send in all the paperwork for a name change.

Plus, most importantly of all, my basic gender is an issue... again. I am legally a female but biologically a male because I don't plan on ever under going gender realignment surgery. 

I may be making too much of an issue with this but once again I am faced with a transgender issue when I die. On the positive side, I have been researching information on the insurance front and the news was the companies are learning and adjusting to the needs of transgender individuals. So the future could be brighter.

Finally, if any of you have any relevant info, please let me know! 

Transgender Infantry

 Regardless of what the former administration did to discourage transgender service in the military, several trans troops managed to survive the purge. 

An example is Staff Sgt. Patricia King:

Staff Sgt. Patricia King did as many have done by trying to lose themselves in the masculinity of  the infantry. The difference, in this case, is 16-year veteran SSG King is still on active duty making her the very first out transgender infantry sergeant. SSgt King recently said to "Planet Transgender"

"Everyone else I know who was on active duty like myself felt strongly compelled to wait until after we got out to come out. It wasn’t a choice. Even back in the 80’s it was ok to be perceived as gay, especially in a shortage MOS (job classification)  like mine, no one would say anything unless you stood on the commanders desk and shouted it out."

King went on to say: " "I'm the first openly transgender infantryman in the Army," King said.The Army has accepted lesbians and gays into the ranks since 2011, but transgender life is a violation of regulations - a fireable offense. "These conditions render an individual administratively unfit rather than unfit because of physical illness or medical disability," Army regulations say."

Of course now as I write this, President Biden  lifted  the ban on service by transgender troops. Making Patricia Kings' service so much more remarkable. 

De-Transition?

Every once in a while, I see a post concerning someone deciding to stop their gender transition and reverse it.  

While I would never consider it, I see the entire topic as an issue which can be seized upon by transphobes everywhere. After all the, the transphobes now have the chance to say they were right about suggesting attempting the daunting task of a human gender change was wrong to start with. 

Even though I would never consider going back on the life path I have chosen, I can definitely understand why someone else would. As I was learning how to negotiate the feminine world, I found I had no real idea of how complex the process would be. I found out the hard way I would have to learn so much more. I thought once I achieved a certain level of feminine appearance, I had completed my Mtf Gender Transition. Little did I know I was just beginning. 

Heading down my new feminized path showed me how communication provided me the beginnings of a new relationship I would have to learn in the world. As I have written about many times, the first couple of times I was reduced to a second class citizen by men was very enlightening in a negative way. Had I not been so certain of where I wanted my path to take me, losing my male privileges would have been a great place to return to being a part time cross dresser. 

I was fortunate too in that I didn't have to deal with very many friends or family during a time when being transgender was very mis-understood. I was even able to retire so I didn't have to face a hostile work environment. My point is, I can understand how all that pressure could convince someone to de- transition.

Ironically, as I enter the final years of my life, I now face the possibility of being forced to back track down my gender path in an assisted living facility. That though is a topic for another blog post which includes a topic about life insurance. 

In the meantime, all the transphobes can go to hell.

2016

 By accident I found this picture from 2016. It was taken with a couple of old friends (cis women) who helped me find my way as a novice transgender woman. As a matter of fact, I think I was still wearing a wig when this was taken:

Is Passing Mainly Confidence?

 When I write many posts, I usually come up with ideas I could have added. Normally I didn't add them because the post was already written or would have made the post too long. The same thing happened to me yesterday when I wrote a post concerning passing privilege. 

Then I began to remember a few of my previous posts as well as various comments from Cyrsti's Condo readers such as Connie and Paula. One theme seemed to come through, having confidence in yourself was the main way to "pass" successfully. 

Speaking of "Paula" I enjoyed one of her comments referring to a few of her ill advised fashion choices in her early cross dressing days as being a "howler." I know I was too and no amount of confidence could help me. As a matter of fact, I was doing my best to destroy any confidence I was building by making poor choices. My main example was being way too fond of wigs which were better suited to drag queens. Unfortunately also, the drag queen wigs weren't my only "howler" mistakes. Mentioning them all would make this post way too long! It's easier to write, if there was a bad cross dressing mistake to make...I made it.

The good news is I survived and once I learned to blend in and to dress for other women, I developed confidence and you could say I gained "passing privilege". 

Ironically, nearly all of passing to me became a reality when I arrived at the point when I didn't care what the public thought of me. I just followed my basic rules of blending and confidence and/or passing followed.

I was able to live my life as a transgender woman and put my howler days behind me.