Three Month Check Up

 Yesterday was my twice a month therapist virtual visit and today was my virtual check up with the VA nurse practitioner who monitors my moods and medications. Both of which of course are very important to me. As you regulars probably know, I am a Vietnam era transgender veteran receiving Veterans Administration health care. 

Way back in the day the whole process was even more important to me. The problem I thought I was going to have was persuading a psychologist my gender dysphoria was a completely different issue than the bi-polar problems I was having. One did not cause the other with me. To be fair, I have heard from other transgender acquaintances who have said once they started to transition and began hormone replacement therapy, they were able to stop taking their anti depressants all together. Good for them! But my anxiety with life's other issues as well as my mood swings were continuing. 

I was fortunate in a couple ways as I look back on my mental health care. First of all, my therapist (or psychologist)  had no problem at all separating my gender issues with my over all mental health. She followed through with setting me up with another person to monitor my meds. 

The second thing which happened was I am still with the same two people almost a decade later, which has been exceedingly rare for me when it comes to my other providers in the Veteran's Administration health care system. At least around here. I know also, care standards vary completely between different VA hospitals and/or clinics.

Being with at least two of the same providers for all those years has helped me in that I have not had to educate a new person into what a transgender patient was all about. In fact, as I remember back to the days when I was first being treated, times have really changed for the better for me. At the beginning, I was fairly certain I was the first transgender patient most of the providers had ever seen.

With the help of the two persons I have mentioned, I have been able to stabilize my moods which has helped my anxiety and moods. By helping my moods, I have been able to do away with the great majority of my thoughts of self harm.

My next round of check ups comes in April when I visit my endocrinologist. She of course prescribes the all important Estradiol and Spiro prescriptions which have gone so far into making me the outwardly feminine person which allows me to sync up with my inner female. That visit too includes stopping at the vampires for blood tests/labs. 

When I was younger, there was no way I could have predicted any of this would happen. In fact I was in many ways forced into the VA health care system when I lost nearly everything I owned. Now it seems
it was the best move I could make. 

No Body Cares

 In response to my Amish post about Liz and I's trip to one of the Amish centers of Southern Ohio,  I received several wonderful comments. 

The first comes from Paula over in the UK:

Photo Courtesy Paula Godwin

"In my experience here in Europe most people simply do not care a fig whether somebody is trans or not, inevitably on occasion some of us may get a little more attention than many cis women, simply because of our size. However this does remind me of a couple of things, like the occasion when in total exasperation my wife exclaimed "Not everything is about gender" ~ only now am I really beginning to believe this, as for several years pretty much everything in my life was about gender.

The other occasion was one of those "out of the mouths of babes" moments ~ back in the day when the world was experiencing me as a man, but y internal identity didn't match I was experimenting with androgyny, presenting, I thought, pretty much non binary. I was walking around one of my favorite gardens when I heard a little girl ask her mother (Mummy, why has that lady got a beard" I took this as a sign that I had to make some changes!"

Yes, Paula, a beard may not be a preferred fashion touch! Thanks for the comment! 

The second came from Angel Amore:

"Similar to the first time I went into a Cracker Barrel in rural Missouri dressed as my dollicious self. Anyway, the sky didn't fall and nobody cared. So I now go back every once in a while. Always overdressed compared to the natives, except on Sunday, when you can dress like a church lady."

Thanks Angel. I too have eaten in several rural Cracker Barrels with very little negative feedback. Perhaps the most interesting was when our tour bus stopped at one. Of course then they were so busy no one had a chance to notice me. Even when I had to use the woman's room. 

Do the Amish Care?

Ohio has several areas dominated by the Amish culture and one happens to be within a day trip of our home in Cincinnati. 

Photo Credit: JJ Hart

Since the weather was actually becoming more hospitable, Liz and I decided to make the trip to one of the major Amish stores in the area. If it sounds like a contradiction in terms it isn't. After driving miles off the Appalachian Highway in the less than liberal rural Ohio, we reached our destination. Out of nowhere near "Dunkinsville" (true story) in a farm field was a layout of what amounted to an Amish Mall. It had three major shops plus a big workshop building where they built everything from furniture to chicken coups. 

By now I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. Here I was in decidedly tRumpt country heading into an Amish store. I felt as if I was the only transgender woman within a hundred miles. As it normally does for me, time slowed to a crawl as we went in the front doors. Once I did, we found ourselves in a wonderful store with one side devoted to everyday housing needs and the other half to what we came for. All sorts of different delicious jellies, candies and too many pickled products to mention. 

As we browsed the shelves any thoughts I had of being mis-gendered went away. Everyone was too immersed in their own shopping to care about me. It was true. My deceased wife once told me "it's not always about you." Later on though it did become all about me. 

The store also had a mini deli where you could buy bulk meat and cheeses or a place where you could order a sandwich and various sides. As Liz and I chose of of the few remaining seats, we ended up sitting next to a rather rough looking family with several teen boys who couldn't stop glancing at me. About that time I braced myself for the comments to follow since I was sitting close enough to them to hear everything they said. 

Finally, I survived and heard no ugly gender comments and was able to enjoy one of favorite treats, a garlic bologna sandwiches on big slices of sourdough bread. The family finally left ahead of us. leaving my last interaction with the Amish themselves at the checkout counter. 

The Amish man at the check out register didn't give me a second glance but his daughter did. I approximated her age to be around seven or eight and she paid me quite a bit of attention. When she looked at me it brought back memories of an encounter I had in a clothing store when I was shopping. As I was checking the blouses, I abruptly came across a young girl. She promptly announced to her Mother look at the big woman. I thought at the least she perceived me as feminine and then she said a big mean woman. From then on, I resolved to change the old male scowl on my face and I did the same thing with the young Amish girl. I looked at her and smiled. When I did, she turned away and went back to whatever she was doing.

Looking back at the day, of course the Amish wouldn't care if I was transgender or stare. After all , I would imagine they go through the same problem if they journey outside of their home base. Plus, we were spending money with them. 

We paid and headed back to civilization.

Crossing the Cross Dresser

 Recently I think it was Mark who was confused by a few of my comments about me transitioning from a cross dresser all the way to a full time out (and proud) transgender woman.  Finally, I got it through my thick noggin not all people understand what I am writing about.

Over the years too, I have tried not to be condescending to all cross dressers by appearing to take a "transer than thou" attitude. Most of the time I tried to add a sentence alluding to the fact, in many ways I spent nearly a half a century trying to decide or gather the courage to face head on my reality...I was always destined to live in a feminine world. Completely. 

Finally I came to the conclusion my life was a series of gender transitions. From innocent explorer into my Mom's clothes to a full fledged exploration of girl's fashion all the way to hormone replacement therapy and living full time as my authentic self. All of them sandwiched in between life's normal transitions as we age.

If I had been true to myself I would have understood years ago I was more into being a girl than I was looking like one.

As I wrote in a recent post, there are very few people who knew me at all in my cross dressing days and Connie was one. Here is her comment:

Cross Dressing Photo
JJ Hart

"I guess, technically, I met you (online) when you were still considering yourself to be a cross dresser. I remember expressing my doubt to you when you told me you were content balancing your male and female lives. Of course, I never knew the "before you," even if you were showing that to others. It didn't feel to me as though your transition was anything other than inevitable - even as hard as you were trying to make a cross dresser's life work. I knew it because I had realized it of myself. I think that I even asked you if you thought you were cross dressing as a female or a male. ;-)"

Thanks for the insightful comment. Again it wasn't until I started to live as my authentic gender self, did I realize I was viewing life the entirely wrong way. All those years I was pretending  to be a macho man, all I was doing was cross dressing as a man.

So, as you can tell, I believe there are many levels of cross dressing to consider and the bottom line is if you feel good doing it you should.

Life is too short to go at it any other way.  Only you can determine how supposedly selfish it is to involve your gender pursuits with others. I have been amazed over the years how some cross dressers either are able to stay in the closet. In many ways they could be a better person than I. Straddling both sides of the binary gender spectrum nearly killed me.

Crossing the cross dresser was the only way I could go.

A Clean Transgender Slate?

 As I sat here this morning it was one the few days I didn't have any clear idea of what I was going to write about. It also helped that neither my problem knees or back weren't really bothering me for a change. I was ready to face the world...or the computer.

Photo Credit : Jessie Hart

Of course as it usually does, my mind started to work overtime and I started to wonder if any transgender person really does ever have a clean slate when it comes to their lives. It seems to me the baggage we carry from our youth and/or the continuing gender dysphoria we experience stays with us in various forms for our entire life. 

On occasion I find my writing to be a source of personal therapy and any response I receive between here and the Medium writers format is a form of icing on the cake,  Take for example the response I received from Lsjaffee on my recent post "Whose Fault was It?" Which made a reference to the pregnancy drug DES:

"The irony is that my mom took DES because she was conditioned in the 1950s to think that women at 30 couldn’t get pregnant. Like you, I wonder what impact it had on how I turned out. But in her case, she was homophobic and transphobic (the latter I discovered late in her life when dementia ate away what little brain cells she had yet). Yet I had sympathy for her when she, in a rare moment of clarity, described being groped on the subway when she was a teenager, or how her father mentally abused her mother. It was in a letter from my mother to my grandmother that I found 10 years ago cleaning out a drawer that revealed she took DES. I tucked that revelation away until 2 years ago when I tried making sense of why I am. It’s definitely clearer now."

That comment alone helped me to take another look back at my past and showed me one of my posts could be therapeutic to others. How all of that relates to a "clean transgender slate" remains to be seen. In fact, now my devious mind is stuck on being paranoiac about landing in a transphobic nursing home in my final years of life. Finally, I am working my way out of all the needless anxiety which it fosters.

Along the way also, a "transgender clean slate" has meant to me being able to ignore the people in my life who decided not to accept my transition to my authentic feminine self. My prime example is my brother and his in laws. After my wife passed away, who took it upon herself to cook for the entire family on Thanksgiving, my sister in law inherited the task. It just so happened it was just before the holiday when I decided to come out of the closet and tell what was left of my world I was a transgender woman. Before I came unannounced to the family gathering as my new authentic self, I decided to give my brother the benefit of the doubt to see if my invitation still stood.  It turned out I wasn't and we went our separate ways. Sad but true. 

Through it all, I knew I wouldn't be able to come through my transition unscathed but more or less I did.

It's the only reason I was able to reestablish myself in the world as the person I was always meant to be and set up a new :Clean Transgender Slate." 

Always a Surprise

 This  happens to me very rarely, in fact about once every  two years and a half. Yesterday I received a friend request on Facebook from a person I ultimately decided I knew from my old male cross dressing days.  Recently I have been accepting requests from those acquaintances I have met or people who live close to me.  This person actually lives in a town I used to run a restaurant in just before I retired. So I accepted.

Almost immediately she messaged me about how much I had changed for the better. Which of course was nice. From there we exchanged niceties and remembrances concerning the places we happened to hang out  together with mutual friends. Ironically one of the friends was one I was thinking of fondly a couple days ago. He ran a neighborhood tavern I used to go to quite frequently. From his clientele which ranged into a few gay and lesbian types, I often wondered how I would have been accepted as my authentic self. Sadly I was never able to find out because I never had enough courage to try and he ended up passing away shortly after all of that. I fondly remember him as a kind man who accepted most all types in his tavern as long as they weren't trouble makers.

It only makes three people (all cis women) who I "imprinted" as my false male self now who have tracked me down over the past decade. On occasion it is fun to ponder the "what if's". What if I had thrown caution to the wind and transitioned? Even though the three women who accept me now  gladly do it, would they have done it then when the world was different as far as transgender women and men were concerned. Actually, even back in those days, I was exploring the feminine world in my own way to answer my questions about transitioning. I have written before how I had very few male friends to start with and they all died.

Even though I still knew several cis women, more importantly I was forming new friend bonds with other women so my transition was made so much easier. The photo is me with Nikki and Kim to the right. They quite possibly helped me to save my life and made my Mtf gender transition so much easier. 

Along with Kathy and Mim who invited to my first girls night outs, my gender confidence soared.

All of them including my partner Liz of course helped me to pry the transgender closet door open and allow me to finally escape. 

So. it is always a surprise when I happen upon a person who knew the "before me:" Almost to a person, no one ever guessed my "secret." Which only meant I was very successful at hiding my authentic feminine self. 

The biggest surprise was on me when I discovered how natural it all felt after I transitioned.   

 A friend of mine is working to complete his doctorial thesis and is looking for survey participants who can answer yes to the following  questions: 

1.- Do you identify as LGBTQ or Ally?

2.-Have experienced self identified spiritual religious or spiritual trauma. 

3,- Have experienced self identified growth after said trauma.

4.-Do you currently live in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky or Tennessee

5.- Are you 18 years or older.

The 15 minute anonymous survey is being conducted by Ryan Joseph Allen  at Xavier University.

The hope is the study will yield understanding and spotlight areas of future research and service to those who have experienced religious trauma and PTSD spiritual growth within the LGBTQ Plus Community.

The survey can be accessed directly from this link:

https://xavier.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6QHkickaCjCQOtw

Thanks! For further info, feel free to contact me.

Parental Guidance?

 A couple days ago I wrote a post which spotlighted parental fixation from transgender women and men. Or the how's or whys  of our lives as we grow into our adult selves. 

Connie responded with this comment:

Photo Source: Connie
Malone

"The last words my mother uttered, as she lay in her hospice bed, were, “It’s nobody’s fault.” I think that was her way of making a final confession in general, but I’ve chosen to embrace it as a sign of forgiveness for me, her oldest son, even though I longed so to be seen as her only daughter. I doubt, though, that she would have been any less critical of me, but I still know that I’d have been a much happier daughter than the son I was forced to be. There was no need for me to come out to her, as I’d been caught more than once in my trans expressions. Although we never discussed the subject, I was chastised and humiliated on a number of occasions – even beaten with a stick – during my childhood for being (unacceptably) different.

The beating incident took place when I was 13, after I’d put a small dent in her car during one of my middle-of-the-night jaunts out as my feminine-self. Despite the beating, though, I remember the whole thing with some humor. Her main concern was not that I’d dented the car, nor was it that I’d snuck the car out – never mind that I was only 13. No, it was her fear that someone might have identified me as her, being out at 3:00 AM! The optimistic way for me to remember this is that she thought I looked convincing enough for people to mistake me for my mother, and that it was a back-handed compliment for my ability to pass. Back-handed compliments were the only kind she ever gave me, anyway, but I was driving her car, wearing her clothes and wig, and I have always resembled her facially. Unfortunately, I also resembled her in temperament and sarcastic wit. I have learned to forgive myself for that, though, and I’m a much nicer person than I used to be; she never really got there.

Gender identity is not a fault, but much fault can be attributed to how one deals with it – whether that be the person dealing with the dysphoria directly or others that are affected by it. So much more is known about it now than was known 60 years ago. I don’t blame my mother for how she handled who she thought was a sick and disgusting son. I do place some blame on both of us for never having had a frank discussion about my gender identity, however. Sorry, Mom, you were wrong to say that there was no fault. There was, but it was for what we didn’t do, and not anything that was done.

“IN THE END… We only regret the chances we didn’t take, the relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make.” ― Lewis Carroll"

Thank you so much for the in-depth look at your life!

Following in Whose Footsteps?

 Perhaps you have seen the insurance company television commercial where the middle aged participants were becoming their parents.

Photo Credit: JJ Hart

We as transgender people, similar to most other aspects of our life look at the process differently. We for whatever reason, fixated on the parent of the opposite gender than us. In my case, my Mother. In my earliest years I do remember watching my Mom putting on her makeup and noticing certain other mannerisms. 

I also grew up being told and recognizing it was true how much I resembled my Mother, even though I outgrew her clothes very early in life. She was only a little over five foot in height so it didn't take much. She was also part of the WWII/depression generation which meant full make up and nice clothes most of the time when she went out. Plus she was a full time high school teacher which meant professional attire for her.

Ironically, not a whole lot of her "fashion" wore off on me. As I grew up, I was inspired by the Boho "Hippie" girls around me. I simply loved the fashion of that period all the way from mini skirts to bell bottomed jeans. I was able to secure a small amount of those clothing items for my little "stash" of feminine collectibles.  It wasn't until college when I was able to afford a long straight blond wig I loved dearly which went a long way to completing my outfit of the times.

By this time the military was knocking on my door and the writing was on the wall when I passed my physicals and was pronounced  fit to serve by Uncle Sam. One of the ways I had to stay away from actual combat was to enlist for three years. I happened to be working for a small radio station owned by a Congressman I used his influence in part by saying I will serve, just don't let them ruin my career in the broadcasting industry. When in fact I wanted to say don't let them ruin my time as a cross dresser. Which of course I couldn't. 

In the years following my time in the Army, I mostly followed in my Mother's footsteps in the make up department. For any number of reasons I obsessed into looking my best feminine self. I learned so well, my two wives along the way asked me for help with their makeup.  And no I wasn't marred to them at the same time. 

Through it all, I retained a love for wearing a Boho based fashion.  I say based because I wasn't totally into my old Hippie based world until it became back in fashion. But I did keep my fondness for wearing feminine pant suits and slacks. So much so I was called out for my fashion sense at a cross dresser mixer I went to. Someone asked me why would I want to dress feminine and not wear a dress. I responded that I see plenty of women not wearing a dress.  I should have finished the comment with now mind your own business.

If indeed I was following in my Mom's footsteps, I would have said exactly that. She was very outspoken and while I didn't retain much of her sense of fashion, I did retain her attitude. 

Fashion too is generational of course and if she was alive today, I'm sure Mom would not approve of my jeans, boots, and sweater wardrobe, While I watch tons of old movies from the 1940's I truly am fascinated with both gender's sense of fashion. I just can't see myself following in their high heeled footsteps. But, I certainly respect those that do.