Pride Beckons

 LGBTQ Pride Month is June. Which according to my precise calculations is coming up in a couple of weeks. Yesterday, the transgender - cross dresser local support group I am part of has started to search for help with "manning" tables at several different local Prides. Even I am amazed at the number of Prides which have established themselves in recent years. In the Cincinnati metro area alone there are four separate events. It will be interesting to me to see how well (hopefully) trans persons or cross dressers turn out to help. Hopefully it will be better than the Transgender Day of Visibility event earlier this year. The group struggled to locate volunteers for their table.

The difference being, was the "TDOV" was during the week and the Prides are during the weekend. Potentially freeing up more people to help. By now you are probably thinking what does all this have to do with me. Actually nothing unless you choose it to. 

Pre Covid Pride 
Jessie Hart Collection

I know  this whole idea of Pride is under review. More than a few view Pride as a chance for big corporations to buy their way into the LGBTQ community for a couple days a year only to disappear when their help is really needed on key issues. While I recognize the truth in all of that, my concerns around Pride is the influence of drag queens. I can't begin to tell you the number of Prides I see around here publicizing the drag show they will have. Even though as a transgender woman I prefer to blend in with the crowd, even seeing a cross dresser in a ultra tight dress trying to make her way through with ultra high heels makes me cringe. Then I have to pull back and understand the cross dresser is using Pride to release her fantasies and may never again try to punish her feet and body like that again. If she is having a good time, who cares!

Cincinnati Pride, as has been the case as long as I can remember has a liberal sprinkling of the drag queen culture all the way to a baseball Reds Pride night plus their stage presentations this year will begin with an exotic women's burlesque' troop  

At this point I am undecided on what Liz and I are going to try to do this year as Pride returns to an in person event. Volunteering to work at the group table may be difficult because of the walk involved to get there. Plus, we would also love to attempt the Pride Pub Crawl that night. My problem again is avoiding excess walking which is very hard on me while at the same time be able to do as much people watching as possible.  Affording the whole deal will be an issue also because we live a distance from downtown where Pride is happening. At this point since we won't drink and drive we are looking into taking a bus going and returning via Uber. 

Whatever happens with us, I hope the group is able to staff it's table well with volunteers. It is so important to be able to tell and/or show our side of the Pride LGBTQ experience. 

Quiet Time

 This Monday morning Liz is off and since I am retired we took advantage of the cooler morning temperatures to take our walk. It was non eventful as always as we normally have to clean up after our dog who somehow needs to complete his morning "constitutional" in the neighbor's yard. The same neighbor who we saw this morning as she was leaving for work.

Photo by Hello Revival on Unsplash

We have lived beside her, her husband and daughter for years now and have never received a negative comment about a transgender neighbor. Whatever the occasion it is nice to be accepted. Following the walk, I returned to my morning coffee and to ponder what I could write about on such a quiet day.

Finally I decided to write about the rare pleasure (on my part) of having a quiet day. Given my mental makeup, I don't have many moments when I am able to set all my demons aside and just relax. I was fortunate when I found I was able to discuss my Bi-Polar anxieties with my therapist and not have them complicate further my life on the transgender interstate highway. I learned long ago my gender journey was far more than a path...it was more like an interstate. Always busy and rarely quiet. Much like I am. If I am relaxed I am sleeping. 

Throughout my life it has been difficult to separate my anxieties from my gender dysphoria. In fact for years I thought they were intertwined. I have read and/or heard from others when they completed their gender transition, they were able to discontinue using their anti depressant medications all together. No such luck with me. Even though I was able to begin a full time transgender experience in a feminine world, my depressions and anxiety stuck around with me.  Again I am fortunate in that I have been able tolerate my medications for years. Giving me a chance to appreciate the rare quiet morning.

It does give me the chance to thank all of you readers on my long time Google blog and my relatively much newer Medium writers format which is growing dramatically. I completely appreciate all of you who read all my experiences and especially those who take the time to comment. Your input makes my whole effort so worthwhile. 

Thanks to all of you again and I hope you can have your own "quiet" time away from all the pressures the world tries to burden us with. Adding gender to those pressures is similar to adding cruel and unusual punishment to your world.

Achieving a Transgender Goal

 Similar to other human beings, we transgender folk follow a long path to hopefully discovering our  true selves. 

Even though we face a difficult and often cruel journey to arrive where we are heading, others are not immune from going through similar yet different struggles. It is my belief that even though cis women and men are just born female or male they have the chance to hopefully grow in life to be quality women and men. I see the same struggle with transgender women and men as they grow into their authentic selves. 

Connie and I used to refer to them as "trans nazi's" back in the day. They were the ones who seemingly held the number of gender surgeries you had or didn't have against you. More than likely another version of "I am more Transgender than you" movement. How sad is it any of us have had to go through anything like it. 

Early Cross Dressing Picture
Jessie Hart Collection

My earliest remembrances go back to my first visits to "transvestites' mixers" in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Out of all the different types of cross dressers in the room, the ones who perhaps influenced me the most were the ones I called the "A" Listers. The attendees who were impossibly feminine and attractive. Unfortunately, they were the biggest bitches in the crowd. I didn't want to act like them, I just wanted to look like them. With the help of practice and a timely makeover, I finally earned my right to go out with them and party after the mixer was over. 

Slowly but surely, I was achieving a transgender goal I didn't really know I had. Ironically, I never did fit into a niche group there either. I wasn't one of the "A" listers, nor was I a so called run of the mill  cross dresser. Finally, the term transgender came along to save me. I found my niche. 

Overall though, goals are difficult to achieve for many transgender women and men. We have huge hurdles to overcome when we come out to friends and family. Many times, those same friends and families don't understand they have to transition also. Rarely do we stay the same as we make the journey across the gender frontier. Hormone replacement therapy alone takes awhile to fully set in so transitions are far from complete when a trans person comes out. 

Then there are the gender surgeries. All the way from breast enlargement, to facial feminization, to gender realignment it's often a difficult and painful path to take. It takes a special friend or family member to understand and follow one through such a drastic journey.

Perhaps the most cruel goal of all is the conscious desire to forsake any gender privilege you may have built up over the years living as your non authentic self. Depending upon your age, you had potentially accrued the so called right and knowledge to live a certain way. I was to the point in my life when I had earned the hated "Sir" word. If I was deserving or not. 

I'm fortunate in that I have been able to achieve my transgender goals but I have had plenty of help along the way. I can't forget any of them.   

Not a Choice

 This morning I was watching the news and came across a story about the average everyday person and choice. What the reporter didn't really ever say was for most things in life, we don't really have a choice. If we like it or not, choices are increasingly being made for us. By now you are probably thinking here comes another rant concerning politicians coming after transgender and even women's rights as a whole. But you are wrong. You all know my positions on the anti LGBT legislation sweeping the country. I would have to be Caitlyn Jenner not to. 

Jessie Hart Collection

What I am referring to is our lack of choice we feel as we transition our gender. Male to female or female to male, it doesn't matter. Normally we go through stages of despair and denial which has led the best of us to "purge" and throw away all the items we have acquired from what would become our authentic selves. My example came from when a close acquaintance of mine decided to purge his "collection" of feminine items. I was gifted a whole box of makeup, wigs and breast forms. Ironically, it wasn't so far before that when I did the same thing. 

During my purges I was sure I still had a choice and could quit the pesky idea I wanted to  be a girl. The feeling was so enlightening, for a week or so. Not being the sharpest tack in the box, I finally learned  my feminine desires were not going to magically disappear simply by throwing away my "collection" of feminine articles. Through it all I was slowly learning my true gender was not a choice and it was not the gender I was trying so hard to live as.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on those who don't understand why are living our choice to be our authentic selves. Female or Male. After all they were fortunate to grow up not having to question which gender they were. I will forever remember the lonely mornings when I woke up questioning why I was still a boy following dreaming I was a girl. Resentment  ran deep during those days. Why couldn't I have a choice on the gender I wanted to be?

Of course, gender choices during the 1950's and 60's were even more rare in those days than they are now. In other words, they didn't exist for me. I needed to learn any other method I could to depress my gender dysphoria. I resorted to sports and cars to basically just get by and hide my true gender from family and friends. 

Somehow, I bided my time until I could finally fully transition to a full time transgender woman. During the decades I experienced the highs and lows while living my life in a perpetual gender flux. Through it all, I wish I could impart on all of those considering a gender transition it is not a choice. Although I know the biggest problem can be convincing family and friends why you need to make such a radical move. 

It was never a choice. We just didn't know it.   

Sing Like a Bird

 It has been awhile it seems since I have written on any of my past experiences which directly led to my coming out of my closet and into the world as a transgender woman. Several happened in small lesbian bars which seem to be disappearing these days. 

One of the bars was basically a hard core biker bar and they did not like me, To put it mildly but on the other hand they still took my money and served me. I was just stubborn enough to keep going back and even playing Shania Twains' I feel like a Woman on their jukebox, I found it humorous when they found no humor in my musical tastes. Through it all, I was never asked (or told) to go. So I kept going back until I found another venue.

The second place turned out to be a much more welcoming spot. Part of it was it turned out my male self knew one of the bartenders and to my knowledge she never shared my secret life with anyone. Even to a few of the other customers. I always assumed everyone knew I was a cross dresser but never volunteered the information. Along the way I had several very interesting encounters. 

For this post I have added a very old picture showing a little how I looked when all of this was going on. Normally I wore tight jeans, a nice top with heels or boots depending upon the weather. Topping it all off was my favorite blond wig. I guess I was trying my best to an "lipstick lesbian" look.

One night it worked when I was approached by a woman every bit as tall as I and she bought me a beer. Then she said she should take me home with her. I quickly panicked and thought what was I going to tell my wife who was still very much alive at that time. She was working a night shift that evening so I only had a certain amount of time to have my fun and head home. Then once I got home I had to try to remove any stray makeup so presumably she wouldn't know I was out again leading my double life as a novice transgender woman.  I figured she wouldn't buy the excuse I was kidnaped by a scary/ vicious lesbian. 

It turned out to be another night when  I seemingly could have been forced into doing something against my will. Before I get into what happened, here is my disclaimer. I am a terrible singer and don't subject myself or others to the torture of my singing. One night though when a very stout, butch lesbian in a cowboy hat came in the bar during karaoke night and picked me to sing with her. Of course I tried to politely decline but she wasn't really giving me a choice  Again I panicked and wondered what I had gotten myself into. The only saving grace I had was my new "cowboy" friend was giving me the choice of songs I wanted to try to sing. The only karaoke song I had ever tried was a David Allan Coe  tune called "You Never even Called me by my Name." If you are familiar, Coe can't sing well either. 

Having chosen my ballad, we did actually sing. Which is probably an insult to the sing word. Having finished she turned to me and said my voice was actually lower than hers. About that time, I saw my chance at freedom. She went for another beer and I paid for mine and vacated the venue quickly. As luck would have it, I never saw her again. I also never sang again.

The only other time I wished I could have stayed for was when the owners arranged for several exotic dancers to visit the bar. I waited as long as I could to check out the fun but had to leave before the dancers arrived.

Sadly, small lesbian venues seem to be disappearing everywhere leaving one less place to go and have a good time. Or, sing like a bird. 

Now What? A Transgender Odyssey.

My life as a transgender woman has certainly produced it's share of peaks and valleys. As I look back on it, I remember so many times I seemingly hit a wall with my male to female gender transition. Along the way I became very good at either climbing the wall or finding a way to go around it. 

I have plenty of examples. Perhaps one of the bigger ones occurred when I was very young. Even though I didn't really understand at the time my gender problems really had very little to do with the clothes I was collecting to at least outwardly present myself as a girl. Very quickly the thrill of looking at myself in the mirror faded and I was left with the same old feelings of gender dysphoria. Of course then, I had no idea of what gender dysphoria even was. I simply went around the wall and kept dressing in my feminine clothes hoping to relieve the pressure I was living under.

Incredibly I lived with this pressure for years until I began to take my first tentative steps out of the closet in the late 1970's through the early 1980's. During this period of my life I felt as if I was in some sort of a gender maze. I would be successful during a few of my trips out as a feminine person. One day I would experience little or no problems in the world only to be confronted with laughs and giggles other times. It took me awhile to get to the point when I finally figured out I was building my own walls. Primarily from attempting to dress too trashy. Once I finally learned my lesson, my transgender odyssey began to calm down and be more productive. By productive I mean I was experiencing fewer stares and laughing and was beginning the very first stages of establishing a whole new life in a new gender. Gone were the days of just obsessing on my looks and mannerisms and all of a sudden needing to really consider what the new person i was becoming would be. 

Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

By this time, the walls were coming fast and furious. Just when I thought I had a handle on my new feminine self, new challenges came along. As I developed a whole new set of friends, they expected me to come along when they did fun things. I found myself going to lesbian mixers all the way to a NFL football game. Even with all this new excitement going on in my life, I still had to keep one foot in the male world. Which led me to continually be in the gender maze. 

It wasn't until later on I finally was able to climb all the walls and escape with my life. Perhaps my biggest miscalculation was not understanding how much more complex feminine lives are over what a man experiences. When I transitioned I had to unlearn all the male privilege power structures and relearn what a women has to do to survive and even flourish. 

Ironically, even though I have negotiated the gender maze fairly well, larger challenges still await me. Yes I am afraid of the increasingly malevolent attacks on women of all types and I wonder what it will mean to me in the future. Primarily if I need to go to a nursing home. 

It looks as if my transgender odyssey is far from over,   

Normal? Archive Post

 Today was therapy day so I have limited opportunities to post. So I decided to go back to the Fall of 2020 for this post:

 As transgender women and/or crossdressers, we spend much of our lives wondering how we ended up being a person who has such non normal urges. Or so we feel. I know I lived so many years wondering how I was the only one I knew who had the peculiar habit of wanting to cross dress in clothes of the opposite sex (women). Then, first I learned through magazines such as "Transvestia" which was started by "Virginia Prince" in the 1960's and later through the internet, I was far from being alone.

However, the feelings of normalcy persisted. I finally learned no one was truly "normal" and I learned to embrace my true self. Last night, during another virtual meeting of the transgender/cross dresser support group I am part of, I found out once again how normal I wasn't. Out of the ten or so attendees last night, I was the only one who made it to the point where I live full time as a transgender woman. Many of the others were really bemoaning the fact their weekend trips out as a cross dresser had been seriously curtailed, or stopped all together by the virus. I too, don't like it but the fact remains I know what gender I am when I wake up in the morning. 

To look at the process from a different angle, let's bring in Connie:

"I was reminded of Transgender Week of Awareness last Friday, when a local newscast mentioned it. At first, I thought it was funny to start a week on a Friday, but then I realized it is so that it would culminate on the third Friday of November - which is Transgender Day of Remembrance. I actually joked to my wife that it was a good thing for the news to remind me that I was trans, and needed to be made aware of it. Really, though, I don't think there are any activities in Seattle until tomorrow - TDOR. That will be virtual this year.

By the way, about that joke I made to my wife: She said that she doesn't think of me as trans very often, anymore. I guess that maybe one can be so aware that it just becomes the norm. As I like to say: When the extraordinary becomes ordinary, that is truly an extraordinary thing!"

Indeed Connie, it is an extraordinary thing. I'm sure the two of us are not the norm in finding spouses who accept us so totally. The norm becoming the norm is truly an extraordinary thing.

Cover Girl

I have chosen to feature another photo from one of my favorite Facebook transgender woman acquaintances. This is Melonee Malone before her and wife Lisa went to an upscale country club party. Not to be outdone, Melonee decided tp go all out to impress.

I'm sure you will agree, she probably did not disappoint!

 

The Dreaded "M" Word

 All was going relatively well during my visit to the local vampires to have my blood labs checked. When my name was called, no gender pronoun was attached to it. Such as the dreaded "Mister" word. The nurse simply came through the door and screamed my last name. In no way warm and fuzzy but effective which is all I really cared about. 

After they quickly took my blood samples I sat back down as directed and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally I followed the instructions on a sign in the waiting room which said if you waited more than fifteen minutes, go up and check in with the receptionist. I should have known trouble was coming when I had to interrupt her being on her phone. She then rapid fired questions at me asking who set up my second visit with my new primary provider. Then grew frustrated when I told her I didn't know who I talked to. At that point I should have known to be prepared for the worst. It turned out just not being seen by my new doctor right then wasn't going to be the biggest complaint I had. It came when she used the dreaded "M" word with me. In other words she called me "Mister".

Photo by Javier Martínez on Unsplash

When I promptly corrected her through her thick glass window, either she chose to ignore me , didn't care  or was doing it all on purpose because she promptly turned to the woman next to her and called me "him". Again I corrected her. 

It all ended up as my appointment was shifted to a video visit a little later on that day. The whole affair just turned out to be a trigger object for my impostor syndrome. As a long time, full time transgender woman it seems I am always waiting for the other shoe to fall as far as someone  not viewing me as a feminine person. 

Basically the entire situation just hurt my feelings. After a while though, of thinking all the years of trying to prefect what the world sees my gender as has been a failure. I decided to move on and redirect myself to my feminine self. Maybe during the shut in time during the pandemic I just grew too lazy and neglected my appearance, 

Then again maybe I was over-reacting to a woman who rarely see's any other women come into the VA health facility where she works. Maybe she didn't really even look at me and my voice is not the most feminine. 

One way or another, I fortunately don't have to go there much, so I won't have the opportunity to test her "gender reflexes" again. If I do and she fails, I will be writing a formal protest to her bosses.