In the Passing Lane

 Today I went through more old posts from last year and came up with this one from early 2021. It seems this topic never gets old in the  transgender and or cross dressing communities. After all, the importance of  syncing up our internal and external selves can never be understated.  At the least, it gives us the confidence to leave our dark gender closets and go forth in the world as our authentic selves.  This post includes a comment from Connie:

" I do agree that, for me, "blending in" is not really my desired goal. I had always been pretty quiet and rather shy as a man, while my feminine side wants to be much more social and involved. I have often joked that all I really want is to be the most beautiful girl in the room - which is only a joke if I really think that I ever am. Still, I'd much rather shine than blend. I can't make my feminine appearance be as good as Phaylen's (highly filtered and possibly photo shopped) pic portrays, but I have learned that there is so much more to "passing" than the way I look. It's much more about the self-confidence and living in truth. Although it took much longer than it should have, I finally realized that I belong and have every right to be anywhere I choose to be, as does anyone else. I want to pass as a person (the person I really am) more than an illusion I may have created."

(The "Phaylen" Connie is responding to is an LGBTQ activist and actress and does have passing privileges' probably due in part to advanced makeup and photography techniques many of us don't have access to. See below:)

More Connie: "I suppose that I have some "passing privilege" - at least, I have been told this many times. My dysphoria keeps me from recognizing this allegation, however. Beyond the primary, my secondary (male) sex characteristics add up to be a real challenge for me. Sure, there are cis women who are taller, or with broader shoulders, or with large hands, or with big heads and necks, etc. - but very few of them possess all of them together. Nevertheless, these are things that I do possess, and that I can never change. I have managed to change my attitude, though, and that has gone more toward achieving any passing privilege I have than has anything else."

Connie. Making Seattle beautiful. 

Perhaps my emphasis on blending in has to do with my intense interaction with other women over the years. Even though I had to act as if I were a man, I interacted as if I were a woman. My gender dysphoria has told me over the years I couldn't be the best looking woman in the room and just being perceived as a woman in the room was good enough. 

Anything else will have to wait until my next life. In the meantime, I just have tried my best to exist in the passing lane.

The Archives are Overflowing

 Every now and then I get brave and go back through a few of my 6500 plus posts I have written over the years looking for a fresh idea or two. Needless to say, fresh ideas are difficult to come up with. Today I went back to September of last year for this post:

"And, as Madonna would say, I am a material girl. Then again, don't all of us have to be one way or another? Unless you are living off the grid and probably aren't reading this at all. 

Picture after first hair appointment
Credit: Cyrsti Hart

Actually, I am a very basic transgender woman. Give me a comfortable pair of jeans or leggings, add a tank top and tennis shoes and I am happy and secure as the transgender woman I am. Ironically as basic as I am, I still dress more femininely than my partner Liz who is a cis gender woman. Meaning she was assigned female at birth.

Backtracking a bit, when I first began to explore the feminine world in public, I was much more materialistic. All my accessories such as jewelry, purses, shoes etc. were so much more important to me. All my attention to detail worked too when I was complimented on my appearance by other women. 

All went well until I really started to transition, aided by the effect of hormone replacement therapy. One of the first changes that happened was I was fortunate and my hair really started to grow. So much so that my daughter gifted me my first visit to her upscale hair salon as a birthday present after I had come out to her. The visit remains in my mind as one of the most exciting yet scary experiences of my life as I crossed the gender frontier. Having to walk the "gauntlet" of women who had nothing else to do but to watch and judge me was amazing pressure to say the least. 

I learned too, it was a material world when all of the sudden I was paying to have someone else take care of my hair. My old twenty dollar haircuts at a barber shop were long gone. Also when I was going out, I had to learn there was a back to my head also. All those years of wearing a wig had spoiled me. Of course I could simply turn the wig around on it's stand and brush it out. 

Another of the main problems I faced as I MtF gender transitioned was the cost of trying to maintain two wardrobes. Along the way I was biased because shopping for the feminine side was so much more fun and satisfying. Once I settled into my feminine natural role and quit cross dressing as a guy, of course the costs went down.

I suppose it could be argued we all live in a material world. Transgender women may experience it all in such a unique way."

I called the post "Material Girl" and the photo as I mentioned was taken after my first birthday present following coming out to my daughter. I was scared to death the first time I went to the upscale women's hair salon where my daughter was a regular. I learned quickly what I had been missing, I loved the experience almost as much as I loved my daughters acceptance of the new me. 

On the day at least I was the material girl. 
  

Gender Dreaming

 Do you dream in gender?  In other words during your dreams are you just you or are you distinctly one of the binary genders.

As I have progressed through life into finally being able to live as my authentic self as a transgender woman, I believe my dreams have began to change. Early in life I remember the elusive (even cruel) dreams when I was the girl. When I woke up I was severely disappointed. This went on for years until I was able to find my way out of the closet and live in a feminine world. As my dreams began to transition in their own way, so did I.

Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash

When I went out more and more I was nearly completely entranced with my appearance. I would spend hours shopping for what I hoped would be the perfect outfit. The amount of effort I was putting into transforming my external self must have been seeping into my subconscious being when I was asleep. My dreams went from just being a girl to being an attractive woman. Either way, I was waking up severely disappointed.   

As time went by, slowly my gender dreams started to change. 

Along the way I spent many hours wondering why I was living in a feminine world, living relatively successfully as my authentic self. I thought my dreams should be changing also when I had dreams which I knew specifically I was returned back to my hated male self in more than a few of my dreams. 

I am far from an expert when it comes to dreams and what they mean and I am aware I may be putting too much worth to the whole process. My partner Liz  is much more knowledgeable on the subject and says simply I have lived too many years in a male world. My subconscious mind just has not caught up yet. 

She may be correct because recently I have been dreaming in situations where I am the feminine person. Perhaps my gender dreaming is catching up with my everyday life. For whatever reason it is important to me. Small wins I guess for small minds. But then again the entire process is just another indication of how important the transgender life process is to us. 

Dreams can come true!

It's Prom Time

 Spring has finally sprung around here and with it comes prom season in the local schools. With prom comes most every young novice cross dresser or transgender girls dream of being the lovely girl in the fancy dress enjoying a night out. Excluding those who write cross dressing fiction, dreams are all the envious boys will experience.

Photo by Amy Kate on Unsplash

Way back in the day, I ended up going to my high school's junior prom one year followed by actually going to two proms (with the same girl) my senior year in high school. It was because we actually went to competing high schools. So all in all, I was able to experience too much prom for my own good. Ironically I had to spend my own hard earned money on something I was so envious of. Instead of me being restricted to a tuxedo, I had to present a corsage and purchase dinner for my finely dressed prom dates. 

The only positive I could see coming out of the whole evenings was for the first time I was actually going out with girls. Leading up to that point, I was so shy and confused about my own gender, I still could barely talk to girls at all. I continued to place them all high up on an impossibly high pedestal. The pedestal included being jealous on my end of a date in a pretty formal with professional makeup and hair. So badly I wanted to be her. 

The closest I ever came was years later when the supper club we went to eventually closed and changed into a gay venue. It took awhile but at least finally I made it into the same rest room/powder room my date went to. A small victory to be sure but at the least a small amount of satisfaction of the fact finally I was making strides in the right gender direction.

Today, from the outside looking in, times seem to be better for an increasingly larger number of young transgender girls. Every now and then I read about a trans girl being elected to her schools' homecoming court etc. Plus there doesn't seem to be the social pressure for actual prom dating. I remember how my first date was set up through in betweens.  In other words friends of the girl who turned out to be my first date set her up with me because they knew I didn't have a date .Being so far removed from the school scene these days I can't even speculate on current proms.

I do know an increasingly number of LGBTQ organizations around here are organizing "adult proms" for those who for whatever reasons never had a chance to go to a prom. Plus I know of a couple of places locally who deal in used discount prom dresses for those who need them. 

The closest I have come to needing anything remotely formal to wear was several years ago when my partner Liz and I attended a holiday performance of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra I think I was as scared going to the performance as I was so long ago on the first prom. For the evening I managed to pair a long flowing pair of black pants I owned for awhile with a black sparkly sweater top I located in a thrift store, belted at the waist. A beaded small black purse completed my outfit.    

Hopefully, during this prom season you can do something such as attending an  adult prom to see what if anything you missed.

"Endo" Day

 Every six months or so I need to "face the music" and visit my endocrinologist or "Endo" doc. Quite possibly it is the most important doctors appointment I have.? Because she  controls my hormone replacement therapy medications. 

From the Jessie
Hart Collection 

In my case, that means I have to make a trip to the vampires to have my blood checked at the Veterans Administration blood laboratory.  From that point forward it is up to her to judge my overall health and give me her blessing to continue on my meds. 

Needless to say, my hormone meds are near and dear to me because the meds have allowed me to become the transgender woman I am today. No pressure...right? I write quite a lot about the changes HRT have contributed to my growth as a transgender woman. Mainly when it came to the  feminization  of my exterior to match my inner self. 

Adding to the pressure of this visit is I needed to do a new test I had been putting off for nearly a year and/or two appointments. This time I had to provide a twenty four hour urine sample. So , not only do I not know what the test is for, I don't know how it will enter in to my HRT, The VA has an on line site where you can view test results I just don't know how to translate the results. I guess that much is her job. 

Many times I have the ability to conjure up irrational fears. Hopefully this is just another one of those. 

 

It Takes a Real Man

 It takes a "real man" to be a woman. Because first we have to decide what a "real man" is, or should be. Unfortunately both genders do not begin life as a full fledged woman or man. We are socialized into our preferred gender. The problem being how stereotypes enter into the process. Presumably nearly all of us grow up with unfair media images of what our gender should be like.

The problem is compounded when one is growing up transgender. In my generation we had the influx of cowboys to watch on television who were basically the strong silent types. Women on the other hand were either long suffering but tough bar girl types or the all knowing suburban Moms who always stayed home to raise a family. Between the two feminine stereotypes, I wonder now why I even wanted so badly to be a girl. Through it all I suppose I wanted to be the feminine person being pursued by a guy, rather than the guy doing the pursuing. Over the years I often thought most of my gender thought process came from the fact I grew up in such a patriarchal dominated family. Maybe I was too shy and intimidated to be a quote "normal aggressive boy". It wasn't until much later I understood my gender dysphoria went completely deeper than what was being portrayed on television and film as the strong male stereotype. 

Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash

What I also didn't realize being born a genetic male came with it's positives and negatives. Sure you had to be the aggressor on a number of occasions including sports but once you did you were rewarded with a certain amount of male privilege. Plus, since I was white, society was set up for me to succeed much easier than others. Of course the journey was not all sweetness and light. Being perceived as a male meant I had to face the uncertainty of a three year military career exactly when I didn't need it. During those days and years I really resented the fact that only males were drafted. It didn't matter, I left home and served like so many others served my time. At that point in time I didn't know if any of it entitled me to the "real man" status. But at the least it all kept most of the people I knew fooled concerning my true gender desires. 

Life went on and as I tried to fight my gender dysphoria, the further I slid towards wanting to live as my authentic feminine self. It was during those days my second wife and I began to have massive fights when she caught me out and about as a transgender woman. She knew ahead of our marriage I was a cross dresser but never once accepted me as being transgender. She was also a very strong person which is why we were together twenty five years until her untimely death at the age of fifty. So when we fought, we fought. 

It was during one of these fights she actually told me to try to be man enough to be a woman.  Initially I was stunned. Sadly, it took me many years to understand exactly what she meant. If I wanted to end our relationship and live as a transgender woman, I was going to have to summon the courage to do it.  I was going to have to step out of what was left of my gender comfort zone and give up my male privilege.  Sadder yet I didn't do it until she passed on. 

I will never have a way to know if she would have ultimately approved of the person I became.  I can only hope to show her it did take a real man to give up nearly everything and become a woman.  

Sugar and Spice?

 Many years ago in my formative days I firmly believed in the old gender stereotype of girls being sweetness and light and everything nice. A big part of the problem was I didn't grow up with any girls at all, so I never had a chance to form realistic ideas of what being feminine at all was all about. The feminine gender existence was so mysterious and wonderful to me. So wonderful I couldn't wait to come home and become one of the "pretty, pretty princesses" I so admired. Evidently I retained the "princess" tag for years because my second wife called me it much later.

From the Jessie Hart Collection

It wasn't until I began to live more and more exclusively as a transgender woman in a feminine world did I understand what my wife was trying to tell me. My perception now comes from my learned experiences. It turns out all the years I spent on the outside looking in on women was wasted. Of course, the more femininity I experienced the more I learned "sugar and spice" when applied to the female gender was a huge misnomer.  

I referred to the whole process as playing in the girl's sandbox. When I jumped in to play I discovered quickly first how different it was from what I was used to and secondly how serious the whole process was. It turned out the women in the sandbox had their own issues and weren't afraid to share them with you...or should I say, punish you with them. Especially if you got in their way.

One of the main issues I learned was the idea of passive aggression being the way to fight. Long gone was the male idea of attacking someone head on. Even if wasn't a physical attack, you still knew where it was coming from if you dealt with another guy. It didn't take long for me to learn to be careful of my back when it came to other women. One of my first lessons was to make sure I was guarding my back in the girl's sandbox. Especially when it came to using the rest room. I could go (no pun intended) from being one of the girls to an outcast when nature called. 

Other times I had to be very careful about were the rare occasions when a spouse or boyfriend was being nice to me. I think the wife or girl friend most likely came after me first and then saved the worst for him later. One way or another, the claws came out and the woman in question became very territorial. Whatever the case, it didn't take me long to learn girls/women were not sugar and spice and everything nice. 

The entire process turned out to be a positive one as I learned my new gender boundaries. Perhaps, most importantly I learned what my wife was trying to say when she called me the "pretty, pretty princess." Reading between the lines she meant I really had very little knowledge of what a woman's life was all about. I was consumed with how I looked. Thinking appearance would go so far in allowing me to be feminine Plus in those days, I was locked into a fake male persona I hated, so I wasn't the easiest person to live with.

It wasn't until I spent some quality time with other women in the sandbox did I discover the truth. Sugar and Spice was a myth.

Monday Monday

 Another week has passed here in the Condo and it is time to face another Monday. 

What better way is there than to feature one of my favorite Facebook acquaintances who features a new photo nearly every Monday. I am  featuring again a transgender woman from Wisconsin Melonee Malone who along with her cis woman wife have what they call "Boy Toy" nights every Saturday. 

As I point out every time, Melonee has transitioned well and is fully "post op" meaning she has gone through the genital realignment surgery.

Hopefully her picture will make your Monday (and week)go a little bit better!

What Would You Say?

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

 I discuss being a senior transgender woman quite often. To my knowledge I have never discussed what I would have told myself during my stressful teenaged years concerning my future.  Of course I am aware it's a useless exercise because my crystal ball was broken. In fact, those of you who may remember the "Eight Ball" game, I would have been behind the eight ball more than in front of it. 

Looking back, I would try to advise my younger self to be patient. Easier said than done when you are advising a teen ager, or even  a later age. I often wonder how my life would have been different if it would have not been re-directed by my military service which was forced upon me during the  Vietnam War by the draft. 

Through a series of fortunate circumstances I was able to continue my passion to work in the radio business as a DJ even when I was in the Army. The problem I continue to have was what would I do about my gender dysphoria while I served my time. Of course I was scared to death and wondered how I would make it through three years without so much as touching any of my feminine collection.

It's easy to say now but I should have known where there is a will, there is a way. In fact after approximately a year and a half of my three years of service, I was able to gather my courage to come out to several of my closest friends. I told them I was a transvestite following a Halloween party I went to dressed "to the nines" as a woman. Somehow my "dirty little secret" was never revealed to my superiors by anyone and I finished my three years without any incidents. 

Through it all, I still resisted any offers to re-up and extend my military service. My impatience was at a all time high and I couldn't wait to return to my civilian world. Little did I know, all I would do was begin a frenetic life's journey designed to try to outrun my gender dysphoria in my twenties. Perhaps the biggest warning came from my earliest gender psychologist who told me I was Bi-polar (which could be treated) but I would never get past my gender issues. 

I was seemingly doomed to continue down a path of alcoholic fueled activity. After buying (and losing) a small bar, I divorced my first wife and remarried and picked up and moved from Ohio to the metro NYC area. One of the reasons was I secretly felt I would be closer to a much more prolific and liberal cross dressing scene. I did take a partial advantage by going but it was short lived and my second wife and I ended up moving back approximately two years later. 

I wish I couldn't have gotten the point across to my younger self if I tried to relax and live my life as it played out everything would be fine. As it was I continued to chase my own tail by moving to other areas and countless other jobs.

What happened was, the world finally caught up to me in many ways. A prime example is the use and understanding of the use of the transgender word itself. Through my life I was able to witness a better idea of what gender dysphoria is and how it fits in with being transgender. 

As I enter my senior transgender years, finally I have been able to look back and say I should have relaxed and I was on the correct gender path. A path which would lead me to being able to lead a life as a full time transgender woman. I would have had a difficult time telling myself I would live long enough to do it.