Only a Fool

 Only a fool knows everything is a quote I recently heard. Of course when I heard it I made a mental note to try to remember it and use it for a blog post. Amazingly I did remember since my memory is not what it used to be, or never was to begin with. 

Photo Courtesy
Jessie Hart

What I was thinking of when I heard the quote was how many times I was the fool when I thought I knew all there was to know about completing my gender transition to a transgender woman. Living my dream fulltime. Looking back I realized there were many times when I thought I knew everything and was certainly the fool. 

The first time was when I was very young and thought my new exciting girl like image in the mirror really meant something. It took me years to realize the cross dressing process did mean something. What it meant was the mirror was lying to me and the underlying reason I was feeling the gender stress I was came from the fact I wanted to be a girl rather than look like one. I did some foolish things when I came out dressed as a girl to a neighborhood friend of mine. When he refused to even look at me, I knew I had done something wrong.

Following my failed experiment of coming out to a person I knew I went back into my deep, dark closet for years. Approximately twenty I think. I certainly did not want to be the fool again when my deeply hidden secret saw the light of day. As it turned out, I would still have plenty of time to play the fool as I attempted to grow into my authentic self. The most self destructive urge I had was the one I document so often in my writings. By far the biggest mistake I made was when I tried in vain to dress sexy which in turn came out as no more than a trashy attempt at validation. I was so stubborn and the mirror lied to me so much, I'm lucky I came out of my trashy period of life relatively unscathed. The worst which happened to me was to get laughed at. Obviously I was the fool who thought she knew everything about being a woman but was just getting started. 

My learning curve finally stated to kick in and I realized if I dressed to blend in with women and not to supposedly attract the attention of men, amazingly I could exist successfully in a feminine world. But still I was caught playing the fool. In what seemed like a small period of time, I had to build on merely looking like a woman and develop a personality to go with it. I had to quit changing wigs every time I went out and doing crazy things such as changing my name to go with the wig I was wearing. Darcy was the redhead, Karen was the brunette and Roxy was the blond. Of course all I was doing was destroying any attempt I was making to establish a solid base for my brand new feminine persona. This time it took me just a short period of time to quit playing the wig game and settled into to a person who had wanted out of me for so long. My closet finally was coming open.

Even with all of this new found gender success, I had to guard against being the fool again. An example was one night when a cis woman with her smiling face in essence tricked me into thinking we could be friends. I learned the hard way she was carrying sharp claws behind her back and was just making fun of me. From that point on I learned a smiling feminine face did not necessarily mean acceptance into the girls sandbox. Until I grasped the whole world of how women communicate with each other, I was doomed to play the fool when I was cornered in the world.

These days, I am a combination of being guarded and on the other hand confident at reading other women. However, I don't think I know everything concerning a transgender transition which would make me the fool.  

When Did you Kniw

 
Not long ago my daughter asked me indirectly how long was it since I knew I was transgender. Then she corrected herself  by saying I probably had always known. To refresh your memory, my daughter has always been a staunch ally of the LGBTQ community and has a transgender child. Of course I said yes, I had always known. Which perhaps wasn't always true. Back in the dark ages before the internet, as I always refer to, there was a huge gender void filled only by the sparse offerings of Virginia Prince and her "Transvestia" publications or the news of an American G.I. (Christine Jorgensen) who changed their sex. I was having a difficult time figuring out all my gender issues. 

Photo Christine Jorgensen
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It wasn't until social media  became popular along with the world wide web did I learn how others shared the same gender issues as I did. One example is Paula from across the pond in the UK  when she wrote in and said: 

"  Our generation growing up had no role models, no concept of transition, hey, we didn't even have the word transgender. Without the vocabulary it us difficult to understand the concept, or more importantly the feelings we were having."

 And she goes on to write:

"Younger generations growing up now have different issues, but at least they have the vocabulary to investigate them ~ I suspect this is the reason why so many of our generation transitioned later in life ~ long live the interweb!"  

Thank you Paula. I imagine similar to so many age related disparities most younger transgender women and men can not relate to not even having a word (transgender) to describe their condition growing up. 

Looking back also, I discovered many unresolved gender issues which would have led me to believe I was indeed transgender. A prime example of how envious I was of girls my age and the perception I had that they had life so much easier than me. Or how one Christmas I wanted a doll baby but was gifted a BB Gun instead, The list could go on on and on but the point which kept on proving the point indeed I had been transgender my entire life. 

While we are on the subject of generational transgender change, social media and the internet too have contributed to a more cohesive LGBTQ group for political action. I am proud to say the Ohio version of yet another anti transgender bill was rejected in committee yesterday. So at least for the time being the State of Ohio is not joining an increasing amount of states with crippling anti transgender legislation.  

When you come right down to it, young or old, transgender or not we spend a lifetime growing into ourselves. Sadly on occasion we can't see the life forests for the trees. It happened to me, I missed the reality of the fact I was transgender for too long. I should have always known. 

Why Do I Write

 

Image Courtesy Aaron Burden
on UnSplash

As I took on the challenges years ago of writing a daily transgender non fiction based blog, many questions came about. During the years, often who my audience was began to change. Initially I thought my readers would be primarily transitioning gender women and men who may be able to benefit from the lessons I learned. I mentioned transgender men because I know of several who read the blog including one who was my first date with a guy. It was quite the experience. I added non fiction because I see so many fantasy based blogs with their filtered pictures, I felt along the way somehow without being over bearing I had to explain all of these experiences really happened to me and they were not stories. I couldn't make all this up if I wanted to. 

Because I had so many errors in my trial and error periods of my life, I  decided to write about them. When I did I  began to receive so many good comments. I kept it up again hoping I could help someone else. The old don't do what I did sermon which I never listened to anyhow. Like going out to public spaces dressed as a teenaged slutty girl in my oversized male body. It's no wonder my second wife didn't approve of the way I cross dressed most of the time. Luckily, it didn't take me very long to grow out of this phase of my transgender life.

 During this time I considered (and still do) my main reader audience to be transitioning transgender women. I had a real pleasant shock when I received comments from wives trying to understand their spouses gender issues. Then I considered adding more information which may be important to a wife. Until  I thought I wasn't or shouldn't be in a position to offer any advice because I did such a poor job communicating my gender challenges during my marriages. Finally, I thought if anyone learns from my past mistakes again it is a good thing. 

Currently I think transgender women and men of age are my primary audience as well as a small group of people who allowed me to join their circle of friends when I so desperately needed it. I could name a few names but I am afraid I would leave someone out. Also recently I have discovered a growing group of transgender veterans on both platforms I write for, Google and Medium who share similar experiences to me when they served in the military. It always has been amazing to me how the dark days before the internet and social media affected us all as we had little to no help when we battled our gender struggles. A battle we may have to have never fought if we had access to the transgender information which is available today.

Probably, the group I leave out for no particular reason are the crossdressers. Even though I can certainly write, I spent a half century as a crossdresser, I think I don't spend enough time including them in my writings. Or, worse yet end up sounding as if I am better than someone else because I started hormone replacement therapy and made the move to living full time as a transgender woman. Without the lessons I learned from my crossdressing days both as a man and woman I would have never made it to the life I live today. 

 

The Stairstep Method

 Probably there are as many ways to complete a gender transition as there are transgender women and

Image Courtesy
Darius Cotoi on UnSplash

trans men. We are like snowflakes, no one is alike. Over time I have thought I was everything from a gender rat in a maze to someone climbing a steep set of stairs. As it turned out, many of the steps were steeper than others. 

Very early my first steps were basically quick and painless. I snuck around and acquired a small collection of women's clothes, added some of my Mom's makeup and I thought I looked just like a cute girl. My time on this stairstep didn't last long because fairly quickly the realization came to me I just didn't want to look like a girl, I wanted to be one. A huge difference I didn't realize was the earliest precursor to living a transgender life. From the point forward I decided my time on the step would be limited and I climbed to the next step. 

The next step involved me finding a paper route and doing odd jobs around the house and neighborhood to earn my own money which would go towards buying and expanding my small feminine stash of clothes, makeup and even a pair of shoes. During the process I was scared to death to do my own shopping and couldn't believe the bewildering selections of especially makeup there were. Undeterred though I still shopped and finally achieved a level of success. The success would just encourage me to climb another step. By this time I was frustrated by two main things, the first was the fact I had no way to afford a nice wig and the second was I couldn't do my shopping cross-dressed as a girl. What happened was I needed to spend years on this stairstep before I could advance to the next one. 

The years I waited mainly was because of about this time I was waiting to see what the Vietnam War military draft would mean to me and yes the wait was hell. The wait nearly went on as that god forsaken war did and finally I was drafted out of college and chose the Army due to their offer of the job I was interested in. Little did I know, the lessons I learned in the military would serve me well in my life and encourage me to climb another very steep step. An example was the day we were on a very long and hilly forced march in basic and I learned to never look back and look forward to the future if I just kept pushing forward. Many of you regular readers know also during my time in the Army was when I first came out as a transvestite to a few close friends.

After I had successfully completed my military service, the steps appeared to be less steep and easier to climb. Encouraged by several very successful Halloween parties when I appeared as a feminine person, I found I could possibly climb the ultimate step and transition to a full time transgender woman. The problem was I soon tried to climb too many steps way too quickly and even had to retreat back a time or two and refocus on exactly what I was trying to do. Major decisions on sexuality, friends, spouses were just a few problems I had to face.  Plus, once I had climbed this many steps fairly successfully I had to decide if I wanted to take another giant step and begin hormone replacement therapy. Once I finally took the step I found HRT was one of the best steps I have ever taken in my life. Finally my inner soul had another chance to sync up with my testosterone poisoned exterior. 

All I can hope for at this time of my life for a good as possible health and a chance to pass on with dignity as my chosen authentic self. The final stairstep.     

More Conversation

Joanna S sent in this very relevant comment on yesterday's post concerning the conversation I had with my son in law on Thanksgiving. It primary revolved around his family's acceptance of me as an out transgender woman. I mentioned also this was somehow the first conversation I had initiated with him in over a decade. To this, Joanna replied:

"It is very difficult sometimes to have open conversations especially with people who knew us in different wrapping. Here we can be our own worst enemies and assume we know what they are thinking so we clam up. It's an ongoing process of being kind to ourselves as well as others."

Thanks for the comment! I know I have two of the issues Joanna S mentioned. The first is early in my days of coming out of my gender closet I automatically and sometimes completely unfairly formed ideas of what others were thinking of me. It wasn't until the confidence in my feminine self grew that I was doing the right thing transitioning that I began to not care as much or little ( if at all) care what others think of me. It worked because I literally learned not everything in the world revolved around me as a transgender woman. Most of the world just didn't care. Plus, being kind to myself was something else I carried with me from my previous male self. I was very self destructive and it took many years and my wife Liz to relearn how I could actually be kind to myself. 

On any level, obviously any conversation is good when it comes to the LGBTQ community and especially the transgender tribe. Can you imagine how beneficial it could be for all these politicians writing all these harmful anti transgender bills  for once  sit down and get to know a transgender person.  It goes too for all of us within the transgender community. Those who want to put themselves up on pedestals for so many reasons, Examples are being more transgender than you are because of the surgeries they have gone through or they are a better trans person because they transitioned earlier in life. It's difficult on occasion to even have a conversation between ourselves, let alone others who have no understanding at all. 

In fact, it was primarily an often terse discussion with people we called "Trans Nazi's" which led to essentially my conversations with Connie which then led to me to begin to write this blog. By "Trans Nazi's" I mean those who did battle with us on claiming we were transgender at all since we had not gone through any gender surgeries. Seemingly the Nazi's had carried over their old male ego's into their new feminine lives. At the time we all were enjoying the benefits of being able to hide behind our keyboards with our comments. Most likely if we were meeting face to face, our comments may have been more affable. Leading all of us to be kind to others. 

My pedestal is non existent for any of this. It took me years and most likely quite a bit of age and estrogen to mellow out. My partial proof is the fact it took me a decade to have any sort of a quality conversation with my son in law. In todays divided country conversation seems a far away possibility. Plus all sorts of issues such as gender privilege and mistrust get in the way. Not long ago I wrote a post

Photo Courtesy Paula

called why "Men Don't Trust Me" to which Paula replied:

" Two thoughts come to mind, one is " I have nothing against masculinity, indeed I rather like, just not in me!" the other is a phrase that I find I keep using in all sorts of situations, "Nothing makes you understand privilege like giving up" Well said!

One of the reasons I so hurt myself was tied into Paula's comments. I still on occasion liked the male life I had worked so hard to maintain and didn't want to give up.  Trying to live my everyday life in both binary genders nearly tore me to pieces. I was fortunate in that I was able to establish conversations with cis women to learn from and then reestablish myself as a transgender woman. At that point my inner feminine soul took over and life became so much better.

The Conversation

My daughter has been married many years to a man I always considered an acquired taste. She met him all the way back in her college days at the University of Toledo. (Ohio) Over the years we have never talked much about anything. For some reason, all of that changed on Thanksgiving. All of sudden he came out to the living room to join me as I rested my back on a soft surface. The conversation began the way it normally does with him being the know it all on how to try to tune in one of the pro football games on his Mom's television. I tried to tell him how to do it but was quickly ignored so I thought here we go again. About the time I was thinking we would have the usual silence between us, he surprised me by asking about my brother.

Photo Courtesy
Jessie Hart

I said I haven't head anything from him since he turned me down on coming as my authentic self to his house for the Thanksgiving family dinner. In essence he chose his redneck religious in laws over me and that was it for our relationship. To keep the conversation going, I took the chance to tell him how much I appreciated his family accepting me Their support certainly softened the blow of losing any support I expected from my brother. 

Looking back at all the years we never had any sort of a conversation I felt somewhat ashamed it took so long to happen. On top of all of the vocal feedback he mentioned he raised his family as well as ran his scout troops to include diversity in everything they did. Which is all good since one of his three offspring turned out to be transgender. Before the conversation with him, I had basically given all the credit for their incredible family diversity to my daughter. 

Perhaps my entire problem on starting potentially difficult conversations goes back to the fact essentially I am a shy person. When I came out as transgender made it that much more difficult. Plus, the fact my son in law knew me many years as my male macho self made the whole conversation very difficult too. 

As I have written, the Thanksgiving experience was wonderful except for the dining room chairs which give my back fits. My transgender grandchild couldn't make it so I hated to miss them but they couldn't get off work as a novice fire ranger. 

At least now I can speak to my son in law in the future after we established some sort of bond following all of these years. The conversation was better than any of the wonderful desserts we were able to go home with. It's my fault I didn't press the issue sooner. I have with his parents but never with him. How could I miss he had to be a wonderful LGBTQ ally also? I don't know but I am certainly glad we had the conversation. 

My First Black Friday

Prior to finally getting out of the closet and beginning to explore the world as my true feminine self, I always considered The Black Friday estrogen filled shopping experience as one I would never be able to explore.

Image Courtesy Marcus Spiske
on UnSplash

As luck would have it, my time to make it out with the largely feminine masses who frequent the Black Friday shopping experience was about  to happen. For those of you who may be across the pond and not know, Black Friday comes on the day after Thanksgiving and normally offers all sorts of sales to entice shoppers to spend their money. My second wife was a big fan (until she found herself in a retail job) and rarely missed a chance to shop very early. Often with a couple of her best women friends. Leaving me to be quite envious.

Finally since my wife was working the day shift at the bookstore she managed,  I saw my opening to be free to explore my first Black Friday shopping experience with many other women. Back in those days it took me longer to get ready and femininize myself so I sat my alarm to go off approximately the time I knew my wife would be leaving. Following making sure she had safely departed I climbed out of bed, knocked down a cup of coffee and proceeded to shave my legs and face. New pamty hose followed  by my bra, false breasts and padded hips. The excitement was building as I carefully applied my makeup and reached for my fuzzy oversized warm sweater which I wore with a knee length skirt, flats for comfortable mall walking and my blond shoulder length wig. Once I was satisfied with the way I looked, off I went to meet the great unknown, as a woman. 

Predictably, parking spaces were at a premium but I was able to park fairly close to the side entrance I always used. Once I was inside the mall, I was used to where I should try to go to pick up an extra gift or two and I was not surprised to see the crowd was at least two thirds women. All of which made it easier for me to blend in. As the morning progressed, I made my way through the mall with no problems what so ever since everyone else was in their own worlds and on a shopping mission. Giving them very little time to notice a stray transgender woman in their midst. 

Back in those days also I had sort of a cross dressing "bucket list" of new feminine experiences I just had to try to see if I could accomplish them. Braving the crowds of Black Friday shopping was on the list to conquer. Once I did make it through the experience I wondered what all the fuss was about. Similar to my women's restroom experiences. So called "sacred spaces" reserved for cis women just weren't that special to me. 

On the plus side, I was able to buy several gifts for my shopping list which were much more fun to shop for as a woman rather than my old male self. Once I accomplished going through a real live Black Friday experience successfully. I was finished with the thrill and actually have never done it again. I replaced it with trips to antique malls to search for vintage gifts for my wife who was really into gardening. 

All in all, discovering the vintage garden gifts made for better gifts anyhow and was more fun to do. So I was able to accomplish two priorities at once  The problem was when I had to return home with my treasures and have to return to my male cross dressed life. I couldn't wait until I could shed my old male clothes and sneak out the door as my feminized self again. When I was able to buy my wife a gift at the same time, it made it all so worthwhile.

Pre Thanksgiving Thanks

 We actually have a fairly busy time ahead for the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. On Thanksgiving Day we make the hour journey north to the Dayton, Ohio suburbs where we have an invitation to my daughter's Mother in Law's dinner. Which means a blog post for tomorrow will be an extremely difficult thing to accomplish.

Normally, the get together involves my first wife as well as many others. She also has another get together on Saturday which we can't attend because of a certain college football game between The Ohio State Buckeyes and the team up north (Michigan) the game has huge national football playoff considerations. So we decided to choose the Thursday meal to attend. 

Always before we leave and sometimes even during the dinner, I make sure I pass along my appreciation for being accepted into their family when my own rejected me after I came out as my authentic self...a transgender woman. It still feels different after all these years to need to pick out the proper outfit to wear. This year I have decided on a cream colored cable knit sweater paired with black leggings and my charcoal gray boots. Obviously I don't want to overdress the casual occasion but on the other hand don't want to go too casual. I don't go looking for compliments but it is always nice to be complemented by my first wife who was around for my early years as a cross dresser. Often with questionable results.  

I know how fortunate I am to have essentially two accepting families for the holidays. My daughter, her in laws and my wife Liz's family. I see so many LGBTQ and/or transgender women and men who have been totally rejected by their families when they broke out of their gender closets. I am also lucky in that even though I can cook, I prefer to leave the work to those you seemingly enjoy it such as Liz. 

Another extremely satisfying part of going also is the chance to see my transgender grandchild and their partner. I feel Liz and I are good role models. During a holiday season which was seemingly started by the tragic "Club Q" shootings, I feel blessed by the situation I am in. In other words, I am so thankful this time of year.

While we are on the subject of being thankful, it's time to repeat what I always say, how thankful I am for each and everyone of you who take the time to stop by and read my writings. I always try my best to answer any and all relevant comments. Plus this year, I have everyone on the writing platform "Medium" to thank also. It's not a contest but I thankfully have developed a nice small following on the platform. Again thanks to all who have subscribed to, commented on, or clapped to my writings.

Transgender Risk Management

Through life, transgender or not we face risks. Who do we marry, when do we have kids are just a couple of examples. We transgender women and men face many other risks other than the normal lifetime choices. 

Club Q Memorial

The major risks we face as we are beginning to emerge from our gender closets is to try to present well enough to blend in with the public and look like a clown which I often did. Unless we are one of the very few "naturals" who are very androgynous appearing to begin with, we face major hurdles as we attempt to grow into our authentic selves. In my case, once I learned to dress better and apply makeup more skillfully I was able to make it to the next level of risk. Which was trying to communicate with the world as a transgender woman. In a relatively short period of time I was able to master the artform of feminine communication. In other words I learned the subtleties of how to talk to another woman as a woman. The process was so fascinating and different. Once I had mastered this risk of  being able to comprehend what was really being said to me, I had to move on to the next level. Another example was being complemented on my appearance as a woman, when they were really saying I was a good looking woman for a man. 

Around this time was when I was extremely lonely and began to go out to venues I was familiar with as a single transgender woman. I called it going out to be alone. Again, in a short period of time I developed several venues which I considered low risk I go go to and be accepted. I didn't have many problems being a single transgender woman in those venues but when I started to expand my places to go was when I pushed too hard and tried new venues to see if I presented well enough to get by and hopefully add a new venue to add to my regular places to go. A few succeeded and others I had the police called on me, mainly when I tried to use the women's restroom. Needless to say, I never went back.

Another major risk I tried was when I began hormone replacement therapy. When I started HRT I was in my early sixties so I had my age to consider as well as possible health considerations. Would my body be able to accept the changes I was putting it through and benefit at the same time. Following a very slow exploratory time on hormones, my doctor determined it was fine to increase my dosage to a point where I could really see the changes. Even still, as dosages go, I am on a comparatively low dosage so as not to risk blood clots and other complications which could occur at my age of seventy three. In the words, I know I have been very fortunate to have been able to experience the deep feminizing wonders of HRT.

As I wrote this post, I decided to save the biggest risks for last. The risks we transgender women and trans men face when it comes to the high probability of losing jobs, friends and family when we gender transition. Especially as we approach the holidays, I see too many transgender folk in despair because they are alone when family has refused to accept them. Then, let's not forget the physical harm risks we all face which was tragically proven at the "Club Q" tragedy in Colorado. I believe two of the five killed were transgender.

With the future looking as if we LGBTQ individuals are going to have to struggle to overcome every risk we have to face, perhaps the most challenging opportunities for risk management are yet to come.