More Transgender Survivor

As I promised, here is the second part of my "Survivor" post in which I went into detail how I survived growing up trans into my college years.

Photo by Denny Ryanto on
Unsplash

Since I have written in depth concerning my three years in the military, I am mostly going to go past the time in my life except to write how much I missed cross dressing during those days. I believe I spent the greatest majority of my free time day dreaming of being feminine again.

When I was discharged I made arrangements to meet my first wife after she was discharged approximately six months after I was. She knew I was a cross dresser and/or a transvestite so that part of my life was temporarily not a problem.  Little did I know, big changes were on their way which had nothing to do with my gender dysphoria. In a relatively short period of time, my daughter was on her way and my life would change for the better, forever. To this day she accepts me completely and has led the way to me being accepted by my three grandkids plus her in laws. Along the way she more than has made up for the lack of support I received from the last remaining member of my family, my brother.

During the earliest years of her life, my gender activities were largely restricted to Halloween adventures which were highly satisfying but all too short. Nearly all the activities proved were yes I could be seen in public and it felt so natural. I just had to figure out how to expand my time as a feminine person. Around this time also, I was stepping up my activities with friends in nearby Columbus, Ohio. One of which in particular gave me all of their feminine supplies when they "retired" and purged themselves from the group. Except for a love/hate relationship with one of the organizers who went on to have genital realignment surgery. Overall, I learned quite a bit from this diverse group who included everyone from the occasional lesbian all the way to several impossibly feminine people who were still deciding on their own gender paths. 

In many ways I was in the same situation. By this time my first wife and I dissolved our marriage and I moved on to my second wife. Before we became serious though, I let her know too I was a cross dresser. As the years progressed she remained fine with that but she never accepted me being transgender. This set in motion an on again, off again battle between us for twenty five years. Over time I have written about some of the battles when she told me to be "Man enough to be a woman."

Through it all, I was working on doing just that. Of course I loved her completely and did my best to firmly keep a camp in both binary genders. By doing so it tore me up. So much so after breaking yet another promise not to leave the house as my authentic self, she caught me and the fight was on. This time though, I couldn't take it anymore and washed down a whole bottle of anti depressants with Jägermeister.  As my therapist later told me all it would do to me was make me lethargic not kill me.

As you regulars mostly know, she got the last laugh on me by passing away at the age of fifty from a massive heart attack. Naturally, I was devastated but all of a sudden I was free to pursue my ultimate dream of crossing the gender border and living fulltime as a transgender woman.  By doing so proved to me once again how much I still had to learn.

All of this brings me to a group of women I write about consistently who took me in when I was lost and desperately lonely. Plus the all important support from my daughter. Between all of them and my partner of ten years Liz, I was able to learn the basics of creating a new person in a gender I always could just dream of becoming.

Thanks to all of them I survived and the wait was worth it.

Transgender Survivor

 It could be argued we all are transgender survivors. Even if you are not trans but are the ally of one. Crossing the gender border is not for the faint of heart. 

When I think back at all the error and trial I went through as I negotiated a gender transition, I don't know if I would have attempted it at all. 

Perhaps the biggest problem I had was understanding my true gender. Sure I can use the excuse again of  being raised in the pre internet generation. I felt so alone all the time assuming I was the only boy in the world who wanted to be a girl. By crossdressing in the very few feminine clothes I could get my hands on, I was able to survive this part of my formative years. 

Photo Credit
JJ Hart

When I became a teen ager and beyond, I discovered I wasn't the only boy who wanted to be a girl. When I was fifteen and almost old enough to drive I used to hang out with a friend of mine who could drive. On many days we used to stop in at his aunt's small variety store for a bottle of pop and a chance to look at her collection of "racy" magazines. No porn but different. Similar to lower class Playboy magazines. Every once in awhile I was rewarded with an article featuring female impersonators. It was a rare occurrence but enough to show me there was another world out there where impossibly feminine men made their living as women. Mostly in far away cities such as New York and San Francisco. On the rare occasions I found such a magazine, it was impossible for me to buy it because of my friend and his aunt knowing me so well. 

The closest I ever came was finding out a group of softball players who played in drag would be visiting our Midwest city. As badly as I wanted to go, again there was no possible way I could give anyone any indication I wanted to. This continued into high school when even though there were no womanless beauty pageants for the boys,  some occasional drag would creep in mostly for laughs. Except for the occasional participant who was just a little too good. Through it all I managed to survive and make it into college without giving anyone a glimpse of my true self. 

During my first couple years in college the severe changes I was going through being away from home as well as being exposed to new people and ideas led me away from any cross dressing desires. For awhile that is. I ended up transferring back home to a nearby university where I graduated from. While I was back home I also graduated back into exploring my feminine self. It was during this time I really wished I was born female so I wouldn't have to worry about going away to fight in Vietnam. I have written many times on how I survived this time in my life and was rewarded with an interesting three years in the Army.

Following my three years, I entered one of the most active times of my life when it came to exploring my authentic self.  As my first issues of Transvestia magazine arrived I found myself to be within driving distance of several of their regional mixers. As I was able to attend, the whole experience opened up a whole new world to me. I had survived and made it this far. 

During these mixers I found a curious group of attendees who were neither cross dressers or transsexuals. They fit somewhere in between. They were to become known as transgender and they were me. It turned out the easy work was done when I realized where I fit on the gender spectrum. The hardest part was figuring out how I was going to survive it. A topic for another post.

 

Stand with Ukraine!

Transgender Obsession

 Over the years, I have encountered several different obsessions. The first of  which was when I was very young and was exploring my strong need to wear feminine clothing. The more I snuck around and did it, the more I wanted to do. I have written in depth about  saving my small allowance as well the money I made from a newspaper route so I could purchase my own make up and a few other items I could afford. The thrill of being able to buy my own pair of women's shoes which fit still is a vibrant memory.

Photo Credit JJ Hart

From there, I developed a complete obsession with looking like a girl. I tried every second I could to be by myself to cross dress. I even found a hollowed out tree to hide a dress and panty hose in the woods next to our house so I could be alone with my obsession. I felt practice makes perfect so I thought I was progressing fairly well in the makeup department. Of course it was only me and the mirror doing the judging so winning the judging wasn't so difficult.  We lived in a semi rural area so my range of friends was very limited. Surprisingly though, I did find one acquaintance whose Mom let him dress in her clothes and makeup but he ended up moving several states away before I could communicate my desire to participate in the cross dressing with him. 

The only thing I was having a difficult time learning was why the feelings I had after I participated in my obsession didn't last. It was years later when I finally figured out I wanted more than the pretty clothes and makeup. I wanted to actually be a girl. The difference in my mind between a cross dresser and a transgender woman. 

Of course, my early obsession didn't turn out to be the last I would experience. In fact, I almost fell victim to another persons' obsession many years later. Which I will get to in a second. Before I do, I developed a real obsession with getting out in the world and seeing how well I presented myself as a woman. These were the years I was married to my second wife. Somehow we made it through twenty five years before she passed away. I kept making promises to her I would not go out in public unless I had a motel room to get ready in. So I wouldn't risk being seen leaving the house as my feminine self. Perhaps, as you may have figured out, I couldn't stick to the plan. Which led to lies and huge fights. The hardest part of the whole obsession was me being dishonest with her. I finally was able to grow a beard and forced myself to stop everything for the last eight months of her life.

As I promised, another's person's obsession almost harmed me one night at a party my wife and I went to. I will refer to him as a transgender "admirer". Or a man who has an obsession with being with a transgender woman or cross dresser sexually. This person towered over me and outweighed me too and on the night in question, I was wearing an ultra short mini dress. Highly disapproved by my wife. As it turned out he got me cornered in a narrow hallway where I couldn't escape. For the first time in my life I felt threatened and nearly helpless. About the time I didn't know what to do my wife appeared and defused the whole situation. After the evening was over she had some unkind words for me becoming someone else's obsession. 

I guess in many ways human obsession's are different critters. In some ways they drive us forward into new frontiers and in others they can endanger us. Crossing the gender border can provide us with many opportunities to explore wonderful new adventures. We just have to be careful when we do it. 

  

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."