The Gender Blender

Photo from Unsplash 

Recently I have been binging on PBS cooking shows. In other words, Martha Stewart and her minions for some reason interest me because even though I can cook, Liz does most all of it for us. So  the same as most of the things I do in life nothing makes total sense. 

As I watched the shows though one of the things I noticed was the reliance all the cooks have for food blenders and/or processors. Then of course I started to think how my gender during my life has been affected by a huge blender.

Early on I seemed to add in (or sneak in) as much feminine life I could. As the blender turned, my old male self prevailed and I still tried my hardest to pursue a false life as a male. The solution was I began to add more and more feminine ingredients into the mix.

First it was just going out shopping as a woman. Then it grew into a much more serious path as I met and began to meet and establish friendships with those people who only knew my feminine side. Even with all of this happening, or maybe because of it, I started to add a bigger share of feminine ingredients into my gender mix. The more I added the better the mixture tasted. Even though I was risking the life of friends, family and male privilege I had worked so hard to establish. 

Finally, since my mixture was tasting so good and the results felt so natural, I decided to take the major step and add the hormone replacement therapy ingredients into the mix. Of course when I did it, the outward balance of my gender perception really began to shift to the feminine side. Plus  internally my emotional make up was changing also. 

The more I blended away my old male self, the more I didn't miss him. Life made it to a point where I barely remember him at all. Plus, I am so happy I made the choice to keep adding more and more feminine ingredients to my gender blender.

I am waiting now for a well known transgender chef to come up with their own cooking show and feature their own gender blender!

In the meantime, I can't thank all of you enough who subscribe, comment or clap for all my posts on several different writing platforms, it means everything to me and I even am able to retain a portion of your hard earned money if you subscribe. Thanks again!

Pic Nic Day

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

 I didn't think about it immediately but the picnic Liz and I attended yesterday was my first ever as my authentic self.  None of that mattered however, I was just looking to enjoy the day. 

I guess rule one with a picnic is having good weather and we were blessed with a close to perfect mid summer southern Ohio day. Rule two for me is having a place to sit down and eat. It is also important to note the picnic was hosted by the transgender - cross dresser group I am a member of. The majority of people attending I believe were transgender in various stages of transition along with a few spouses and cis women. 

The food was good and even the diverse group of people managed to play well together without any of the "I am more trans than you" rhetoric or any other politics sneaking in. With me others know what side of the political fence I am on and they leave me alone if they wanted to or not. 

It was nice also to see a few acquaintances we haven't seen in awhile and of course look back on a few of the long gone gay venues in Cincinnati we happen to frequent on different occasions. I am not from Cincinnati so my visits were far fewer than others. Plus I had to really try to come up with excuses to use on my wife on why I was spending a night away from home. How I worked it out was my company's headquarters was in Lexington, Kentucky so Cincinnati happened to be about mid point in my trip from home. I only managed to find it and make it there twice. Instead of staying overnight in Lexington, I would stay in Cincinnati.

One of the visits was very memorable. I got all dolled up in my best tight short mini, black top, heels and blond wig and I was ready to go after applying my makeup. From my knowledge of gay male venues I was not expecting much attention but I got a real surprise. Fairly quickly I was attracting quite a bit of attention from a guy at the bar. In a relatively short period of time, he moved over close to me and started a conversation. 

It wasn't too long after that when he started to try to  touch me until this other woman showed up looking for him. Quickly I was thinking now what I did I get myself into. Then he made things worse in my mind when he aaid to her "Why don't you have legs like her (me)!" I just gave her a sign like I give up and walked away and luckily she did also. 

That was my share of picnic topics  while the other person was talking about having sex in cars with other guys. I guarantee our topic was spicier than the food! I can't speak for the rest of the thirty or so people that were there but I imagine their conservations were rated "PG". 

    

And the Process Begins

 

Liz on left and I. Photo courtesy Jessie 
Hart

After nearly eleven years, my partner Liz and I have decided to "tie the knot" and get married. No need to hurry, right? 

This morning I was able to fill out the necessary paperwork forms on line here in Cincinnati. 

Overall, we are looking to have a very small wedding in October with Josh our "officiant" my daughter and anyone who wants to come from her family plus her son AJ.

This will actually be my  third marriage and none of the others were really fancy affairs. On the other hand, it is Liz's first marriage so I am leaving the planning up to her. At this time I don't anticipate donning a fancy white wedding dress for a number of reasons. For one white should be out because I am far from a virgin. Secondly I can't see spending the money on a dress I would only wear once and finally none of my other weddings were "dress up" affairs so there is no reason for this one to be either. 

There are several other decisions we have had to make ahead of time. One of which was one of us who would naturally migrate towards the wife's role and that would be me. So you could say Liz put a ring on it after eleven years. The second major decision was who was going to change names (if either). To make things easier on me, Liz has agreed to take on my last name. 

I am sure as we grow closer to the actual marriage date there will be other hurdles to jump. In the meantime I am going to try to enjoy this latest chapter to my life. 

The Broadband Gender

 

Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash

"Wikipedia" defines broadband as "In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections."

For this post I am attempting to equate a transgender person with having a broadband look at gender. Even though we have our peaks and valleys of transitioning, the end result is we still have the chance to live as one gender or another during your life. 

Going back to the definition, the ability to transport multiple signals also describes many transgender women and men. Rather if we like it or not, along the way in our life we learn the hard way (in my case) to live as a male cross dresser. It took me years to finally come to the conclusion that all along I wasn't cross dressing as a woman but doing the exact opposite. 

When I transitioned into a feminine world and started to try to date men, I found I was left out in several areas. I was biased but I felt a transgender woman had a lot to offer a man in a relationship. After all I had spent enough years on the other side of the gender border to have an idea of what a man would want. My only drawback was I was woefully unprepared sexually. I was prepared to learn though. As my life would direct me, I would meet and stay with other women mostly so I never had to explore further being with a man.

For the longest time, I couldn't understand why more women were interested in me as I was transitioning than before. Maybe it had to do with the fact I was obviously not living a lie and sexually women weren't as uptight as men. So they were not so shy to be seen with me. Through it all I was able to become the "broadband gender." All the time I was spending with women allowed me to learn, communicate and live my way into a life I only ever dreamed of living. 

Sometimes I think much of society which is against the transgender population is jealous of us. We are the select few who somehow negotiate the often perilous journey to finding our true gender selves. How many of the gender bigots secretly wish they could live just a portion of our lives. Then there are the cis women who will always refuse to accept transgender woman just because at sometime in our lives they think we were men. 

Either way, it is a steep path to where we can take advantage of being a part of the broadband gender. In many ways it can be described as reaching a sort of gender euphoria. Was it singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell who wrote the song "Both Sides Now".  The song itself is about love but has a couple verses which can lend themselves to a transgender life:

"I've looked at life from both sides now

From win and lose and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really don't know life at all"

Maybe being the broadband gender we do have an idea of life from both sides of the gender spectrum. 

More Gender Euohoria

Gender Euphoria: Courtesy 
Jessie Hart

 For most of us, gender euphoria is difficult if not impossible to achieve. When it does happen it is normally a memorial experience. 

Gracie Rose wrote in and commented on her recent experience with gender euphoria:

"I take immeasurable pleasure when referred to as ma'am, she etc. I not only feel like I'm accepted, but it reflect how I have felt inside for over 50 years." Similar to you Gracie, I am also gratified beyond measure when someone calls Liz and I ladies. Thanks for the comment!

I believe my first and perhaps most important case of gender euphoria came when I went to the well documented visit to Fridays venue. For those of you who may not know, Fridays was the original restaurant/bar venue to accept single women. They spread quickly from their original locations in New York City and Dallas then opened one close to me in Dayton, Ohio. After "scouting" the venue many times as my male self, I decided to see if I could visit and be successful as my authentic feminine self. Even though I was terrified, I made it through and gender euphoria filled my soul. I knew from then on I could never go back to being just an everyday cross dresser (even though there is nothing wrong with that) again. 

We are fortunate when gender euphoria comes along to rescue our gender journey. I remember many times after I was reduced to tears following a particularly unpleasant experience with the public, I then found acceptance and/or kindness with others in the world. All the resultant euphoria helped me to keep going down my gender journey. 

During my journey also I was fortunate to be able to find gender euphoria in a many unlikely places. One of which was the NFL Monday Night Football game I was invited to by a very close friend. Of course I was terrified but managed to make it through a major new experience as a transgender woman. From lesbian mixers to just hanging out at the bar, good times were had by all. And perhaps most importantly I was learning how to play in the girl's sandbox. 

As I experience the world as a fulltime transgender woman, gender euphoria is more difficult to come by. I suppose it is because we don't get out as much as we used to, so we don't encounter many strangers. We are going to a picnic this Sunday but it is with the transgender - cross dresser group I am a  member of.  No strangers, no euphoria, I just hope to enjoy seeing some of them again plus it's supposed to be beautiful weather day. 

In the grand scope of life we deserve our share of gender euphoria. We earned it.  

Digging a Hole

Photo from Karin Klosterman
on Unspash

 As I entered my second gender transition from cross dresser to transgender woman I considered it as sliding down a very slippery gender slope. For years I was paranoid about how I would negotiate a landing. Or, how would the world and people close to me accept the reality of my gender transition. 

Little did I know my paranoia would be wasted because of friends and most of my family accepted me with no problems. 

The hole I dug happened before all of that. As I attempted more and more to explore the world as a transgender woman, I became increasingly brave in how I was attempting to accomplish my goal. An example was how I was able to leave the house cross dressed so many times. Seemingly without exposure. I did most of it from an 1860's vintage brick house we were restoring. Since at one time in it's past it was a boarding house, it had several doors I could use to sneak out. Many times in the very beginning I was able to go out and walk around the block. Before I moved up to being brave enough to take the car and drive around  knowing full well I was risking a huge fight or even a divorce if my wife ever found out.

Still I worked hard to dig my gender hole deeper. I went as far as saving all the spare change I could find to augment my ever growing stash of clothing and makeup which I was able to hide in a spot she (my wife) never went. At one point of time I needed so much room I needed to expand to another rarely used closet in the house. If my wife who already knew I was a cross dresser ever caught on to my extra buying habits, she never let me know.

As I went deeper, it was increasingly difficult for me to turn back and try to find my way out. The problem was too, I felt so natural, I did not want to turn back. It was around this time I decided to bring out the big digging equipment and seek out more life as a transgender woman. Mainly to see if I could. The short answer was I found I could and positively loved it. The problem I still had at the time was my wife was dead set against it and I couldn't live as a woman and stay with her. 

In a fairly short period of time the issue resolved itself when she unexpectedly passed away from a massive heart attack at the age of 50. I was heartbroken but I saw my gender door open wide. With just a little more digging I could start hormone replacement therapy and seriously further along my feminine transition. I thought the whole hormonal process would be mainly a physical one but I was very mistaken when the internal changes occurred too. Which I will save for another blog post on HRT.

As I look back at the entire process of digging a gender hole, I know now I wasn't sliding down a slippery slope to living as my authentic self,  in reality I was climbing up a hill I never asked for to a life I always wanted.

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Mirror Mirror

 

Mirror Image Courtesy 
Jessie Hart

Yesterday in my post I briefly mentioned my life in the mirror as a cross dresser. As I remember I wasn't giving the mirror enough credit for running my life.  Then ss I concentrated more and more on my feminine appearance, the mirror began to take on an increasingly  important role. So much so my mirror worship began to extend itself into the public eye. 

What happened was as I began to explore the world as a girl, I sought out the nearest mirror to critique my appearance and reinforce the idea I was finally escaping my gender closet. I found and located all sorts of mirrors to occupy my interests. Examples included numerous mirrors in clothing stores all the way to mirrors in craft or warehouse improvement stores. If there was a mirror, I found it. 

My all time favorite as I remember was a mirror in a coat warehouse store I used to frequent. Somehow I picked out a light blue wool beautiful winter coat I could never afford. The closest I could come was to admire how good I looked with that coat on in the mirror. I am surprised I wasn't kicked out of the store for never buying it. 

The huge problem with using mirrors as feedback is, it is only one way feedback and highly biased. I can't begin to tell you how many times I thought I looked fabulous only to be immediately laughed at when I went out. It took so many years for me to realize my strengths and weaknesses I had a problem too of trying to validate myself as a woman with men simply by pushing the standards of classy dress into the trashy category. It all led to the mirror leading me into more than a few screenful situations when I went out. 

Finally I made it to the point where I could trust the mirror to tell me the truth. I backed it up with how other women treated me, Finally I learned to cross dress to blend. My feedback became from how I was treated as a person as my closet door began to open more and more. As it did, society became my mirror and I was able to afford clothes which better highlighted who I was trying to become as a woman in society. The clown wigs went away and were replaced by more realistic wigs which better reflected who I was. 

Even now though I still fight the mirror. Most mornings when I wake up I always fight the temptation to look at myself in the mirror. Most of the time I think who is the old hag staring back. Then I think well at least I am a 73 year old feminine old hag nd maybe with a touch of makeup I can improve my image, 

At any rate, by now I should know to never trust the mirror anyhow. Take the best you may feel you look and combine it with the worst and believe you are seeing your truth.  

One Little Word

 

Photo Courtesy
Jessie Hart

Often I wonder how one little word gained such power in my life. That one word of course is "she." 

From my youngest days I also wondered how magical it would be to be called the she word. It never happened. As life went on and I became a little more advanced in looking feminine, I dreamed of getting out of the mirror and into the world as a feminine person. Many, many times the mirror would lie to me and not let on to me how much farther I would have to go to achieve my goal. Plus the only time I was sneaking out of the house as a girl was when I snuck out a few times to walk down our longish driveway to the mailbox. 

Time went on and I stubbornly kept working on my craft...applying makeup and finally in my college days I gathered my courage to leave the house at night and drive to a local shopping center to see if I could see my reflection in the windows of the stores. A few I could and I was thrilled and encouraged at the sight. Still though, it was a lonely experience and there was no one to call me "she". I would have to wait many more years for it to happen. 

Next up were my Army days and it wasn't in the drill sergeants' vocabulary to call me she. Even my rather successful Halloween appearances as a woman weren't good enough to earn me the title. 

It wasn't until I began to become very serious about my appearance and experimenting with going out in public more and more did the she word become tantalizing close. What happened was the public I was increasingly interacting with indirectly was demanding I be more feminine. 

The tipping point came when I started hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I always considered HRT was the dividing point between my first and second gender transition. The first was when I was a cross dresser and the second was when I went down the transgender path. Finally the changes I was experiencing under HRT demanded she would enter the vocal format when it came to me. In no way shape or form I was a "he" anymore. 

Approximately during this same time period HRT made it much easier to transition my main pronouns from he to she. Relatively quickly I became so androgynous the public was becoming confused when they met me. 

It may have taken me fifty years to do it but people started to finally call me she. My authentic pronoun. I did discover also I was correct when I was young it would be a wonderful magical experience to be called "she". 

A Strong Woman

Female Body Builder. 
Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash

 Recently I have noticed a rebirth of the posts asking what is a woman. As always I see the entire subject as essentially unanswerable. A woman to me is a highly personal subject which depends on the socialization of the person. I believe no one is born a woman, or a man. In both cases, life socializes both genders into whatever life they end up living. 

Currently, especially with the latest Supreme Court decision there are different pressures on women. Perhaps now, more than ever it is more difficult to be a strong woman. And, as always being a transgender woman becomes even more tougher. 

In some circles, we transgender women are rejected by cis-women as somehow being bogus. Surely our route to womanhood is very different than theirs but who is to say it is a wrong one, or even a dead end. Reading all the experiences on Medium has helped me to reinforce my belief in following the transgender pathway as a true gender journey to becoming a woman. Often a stronger woman due to all of the life experiences we have faced. Following a path we have no real choice but to follow, we have to fight the effects of testosterone and the loss of male privilege. 

I met an example a couple nights ago I met in person a Facebook acquaintance who is also a part of the transgender-crossdresser group I am part of. She works in the healthcare industry and carries herself as a confident young (to me) woman. I couldn't help but be confident our transgender future is in better hands with people such as her in existence. 

It's easy to point out a woman is the stereotypical gentle mother figure. The glue who holds the family together. The truth as we all discover, a woman is so much more. It took me a while to learn what my wife was trying to tell me when she said I had no idea what being a woman was really all about. In fact it was just a couple days after I was mistaken for a cis-woman at a transvestite mixer I went to. I was on a cross dresser ego trip when she brought me down saying I made a terrible woman. I replied how could that be when I was almost denied admission to a mixer I went to without her. She immediately said she wasn't talking about how I looked, it was how I acted. It wasn't until much later when I really began to live a feminine life did I know what she meant.

I learned the hard way women live a much more complex life overall than a man. Everything from raising children to communicating a different way within their own gender. A strong woman has a lot to learn and keep up with. 

I have been fortunate to have known, loved and even learned from some of the best.