It's Nice to be Wanted

 

Remembering Warmer Days!
From the Jessie Hart Collection

It is especially nice to be wanted during the holidays as an transgender person. Yesterday my wife Liz and I went to her circle's celebration of Yule. Being a special gathering I was invited since I am not a full member. The circle is heavily LGBTQ involved and actually the leader was our officiant at our wedding. Fortunately I found once of the guests was an excellent pastry chef of sorts and brought two trays of his home made cookies to sample. I am a huge lover of peanut butter cookies and the ones he brought were among the best I have ever sampled. 

The host also has two dogs which were very friendly and I felt again how much I missed not having a dog since both of ours passed away. Perhaps after we get our living arrangements straightened out, we can go to the animal shelter and pick out another dog to spoil. 

Since most of you already know my experience of being banned from attending what was left of our families holiday gatherings by my spineless brother who refused to stand up for me when I came out as transgender to him over a decade ago. I bluntly asked him if I was still invited and he just as bluntly told me no. So that was the last time we spoke. His in laws are very conservative bigots and I think he was afraid to face them with anything to do with me wanting to live as my authentic feminine self. I always felt if he and my sister in law were that shallow, I didn't need them anyhow and it turns out I didn't. I was fortunate, I fell into having an extended family which was far more cohesive than anything I had known in the past.

First of all, through my entire MtF transgender transition, my daughter stood by me and even embraced the change. So at least I had some remaining blood relation which supported me.  What I didn't anticipate was the amount of support I received from my daughter's in laws. Their support was nothing short of amazing to me. I was invited to any or all family functions as if nothing had changed. To add to that, Liz's ultra conservative late father even came to a begrudging support of me. So, all in all I came out of the holiday process in a better space than when I went in. It was nice to be wanted.

I should point out also, the group yesterday at the Yule ceremony the other Gay and Lesbian people there went through being ostracized from their families also. Thus, the group was more giving and happy when gifts were exchanged. The whole celebration felt to me as if I had found s new home. These days with the increasing number of LGBTQ centers around the country and cohesive social media contacts, it is very possible to locate other non-blood family replacements to attempt to sooth the pain of having no family for the holidays.

I hope through the holidays ( it is hard to believe Christmas is almost here!) you have some sort of family to replace the one so many of us have lost in the transgender community.

Transgender Winners

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Collection 

Is there such a thing as a transgender winner? We go through such trauma to achieve our goals to live as our authentic feminine selves. I know I wouldn't wish portions of my life when I tried ill advised cross dressing exploits on anyone. The amount of times I was laughed at, stared at and overall just rejected as a human being was ridiculous. I learned the hard way and relied on my experiences to propel me further on my journey.

When I first started my journeys into the feminine world, my wins were rare but very appreciated. I remember those rare times when I was treated as a woman. Very early I thought I fooled the public before I realized I was just fooling myself. I was always meant to be that way. My feminine inner soul was just expressing herself when I finally allowed her to. Anytime a man opened a door for me, I viewed the act as one of the rare privileges women have. After all how could  anyone mistake opening a door as a courtesy while at the same time I being viewed as the gender with a lesser overall intelligence. I took a small win as a win and moved on.

Probably the biggest win I was able to achieve was when I learned to exist in the world with other women. To look them straight in the eye and attempt to read their feelings about me. I discovered several layers of acceptance existed. The ones who didn't seem to care at all were the biggest group of all. Followed by those who knew I was new in their gender world and wanted to help. Finally, there were the ones who viewed me with disgust which I learned to project their nasty attitude right back at them. I learned to feel sorry for their miserable lives and move on because I also learned I wasn't put on this earth to change anyone's feelings. If I did, well, that was a win!

Even though wins were rare in my transgender universe, I used them as positive fuel to continue to move my feminine dreams forward. For every negative, suddenly I was able to add a number of positives. Proving to myself perhaps I could win and live a successful life as a transgender woman. I can't tell you enough how far away the trans dream was. With a lot of work and a lot of help, I was able to win and be a transgender winner. One award in my life I am quite humble about. 

Knocked off Another Pedestal

Image from Deva Williamson
on Unsplash

 Recently I participated in a Veterans Administration survey. It primarily revolved my treatment at VA facilities as well as background on my life as a transgender woman. Included within the survey were heavy questions on had I attempted any surgical gender intervention, as well as treatment I had personally received as various VA facilities. As I have said many times, following a very slow and unsure start my treatment has evolved to a positive experience.  

Long ago, I decided at my age, I would decline any and all gender surgeries including facial feminization, breast augmentation all the way to genital realignment surgery. In other words, I decided the numerous and welcome changes I experienced through hormone replacement therapy would be sufficient. My thought pattern was and is my gender is a highly personal matter and was decided by what was between my ears and not my legs. It didn't hurt either the only surgery I had ever undergone was to have my tonsils removed. Who was I to attempt to question success. My rule of thumb was to not undergo any or all unneeded pain. Such as elective gender surgeries.

Overtime I built up a bias towards those who viewed me as less transgender than they were since I have not gone under the surgical knife. While I still think the "transer than thou" ideas of certain post GRS persons is completely unfounded, I understand why some of the younger trans individuals would desire the surgery more than others. An example would be at the age of seventy three, my life is at a point where I am secure where I am currently at as far as my life as a fulltime transgender woman. Again, I don't see surgery giving me any sort of improvement.

The more I thought about the surgical questions in the survey, I put myself in the place of a much younger transgender person. Throughout my younger years, lack of insurance support and financial considerations would very much stop any idea of gender surgical intervention. These days though, there are more and more ways to finance surgery. Even the VA was asking in their survey. Perhaps most importantly there are more and more surgeons who can do a quality GRS and not mutilate their patient. After all, no matter how you cut it (pun intended) genital realignment surgery is a major operation. Major or not, if I was a young transgender person looking ahead at life. If I was in their shoes, I would desire any benefit I could get to live my life as happily as I could. 

Luckily when I fell off my pedestal, I didn't hurt myself. Plus I realize also many older transgender adults go through GRS for any number of reasons. I'm sure many see the surgery as a natural progression in their gender lives. Sadly our trans community puts too many up on their own pedestals as they try to find a way to look down on others. It's a human condition.      

Holiday Errands

It is time to venture out into the world at large and run several errands with my wife Liz. 

Since she is

Photo from Jack Dylag
on Unsplash

now on her near to end of year vacation from work she has something close to eleven days off. As Liz is used to doing, she normally uses the time to push together everything we need to do.

The one thing I don't think she ever understands is how the simplest of errands can affect me. On occasion, just thinking of facing the public can set off my gender dysphoria. Even though it probably has been over a decade since I have been confronted concerning my gender, I still have flashbacks to the days when I was laughed at or questioned. My fear is with the current trend of anti-LGBTQ feelings I may be centered out for negative attention. 

Our first stop will be to a big box store which happens to have the best prices on the cat food our feline critters eat. I imagine they will be fairly crowded with holiday shoppers too involved in their own shopping to worry about me. Also, since my handicapped placard has not arrived back from the state of Ohio yet, the amount of walking I hope doesn't bother me much. Perhaps if I am quick about it, I can sneak a peek at the stores selection of holiday sweaters. 

From there it is off to the grocery store where I have never had a problem before. So I don't anticipate any issues this time. Certainly nothing exciting, except shopping for munchie ideas for the holidays. New Years Eve is out this year because this year the semi final national football playoffs are scheduled and The Ohio State Buckeyes are playing the Georgia Bulldogs in the late game. We are huge fans and will be in front of the television. 

Along the way today also, I may talk Liz into stopping for a light lunch depending what time and how hectic the day becomes because we most likely will make another stop at the pharmacy also.  

As far as what I am going to wear, I already have chosen my charcoal gray cable knit sweater for warmth and I am pairing it with my navy blue leggings and faux fur boots. The outfit should be warm enough for comfort along with showing off my developing hips. Plus at the same time be comfortable and not attract attention. From that point forward, an application of light makeup and brushing out my hair and I should be as ready as I ever will be to face the world. 

I just don't understand why after all these years I still have to put up with all my gender dysphoric doubts. I keep telling myself all the success I have had as my feminine self in the world after all theses should mean something. It does until I look in the mirror and all the old doubts come rushing in.  

Transgender Life

Often I am amused when less than knowledgeable individuals or transphobes say we transgender women or trans men had a choice of transitioning our gender. Those of us who are in the middle of traveling a gender transition path know our decision was never a choice. Many times the whole process is a matter of life and death as is proven by the extremely high suicide rate in the transgender community.  

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archives

Using my own gender path as an example, I can easily highlight the highs and lows of the journey. Highs included the times I tried and succeeded in breaking out of my own very dark gender closet. Early on, I was excited when I was accepted and even helped by clerks in clothing stores. Soon I learned most of the clerks were just doing their jobs and went out of their way to sell me something. From there I went on to seeing if I could present well enough as a woman to easily be able to prowl the malls around me looking for the occasional bargain. When the malls started to become mundane and boring, I decided to step up my journey by stopping different places to eat lunch. What I didn't realize was, how going face to face with servers and hostesses would expand my need to establish a real live feminine personality. As I climbed my gender affirmation staircase, for the most part I had more successes than failures when I learned how to dress to blend with the rest of the women around me. The less attention I created the better. 

When I was successful, there was nothing better in my transgender life. Even before I really knew what the term transgender was all about and how it fit in with me. On the other hand, when the lows set in, they were really low. I still remember vividly the nights I was laughed at and literally went home crying. Slowly but surely I recovered and re-committed myself to the goal of being able to present as a woman to the public without being stared at and ridiculed. Once I went through going back to the drawing board as many times as I did, I finally made it to a point where I had the confidence to go out as a transgender woman and exist in my own little world. Little did I know, my own little world would not stay little very long. My new and improved transgender life proved to provide the force to propel me forward. Sadly, the force was sending me straight on a collision course with my life as a man. 

Predictably as I was trying desperately to live parts of my life as a man and then as a woman, something would have to give. That something was my own mental health as I stepped up my attempts to sneak out behind my wife's back as the woman she disliked so much. The more I was successful doing it, ironically the more depressed I became. Leading me to a suicide attempt following a fight in which I was caught out in public by my wife. As with any other suicide attempt, I saw no other way out. 

Luckily I wasn't any good at self harm and the bottle of pills I took wouldn't have killed me anyway I found out later. Life is but a circle and if we are fortunate enough to live long enough to find out the bad times can reverse and become the good times. Most certainly a transgender life can be fulfilling if we are given a fair shot of being able to live it.     

More Gender Travel

 This is an extension of yesterdays post concerning many of the moves I had to make during my college and military days. As it turned out, these moves were not the only ones I was destined to take. As the years went by after I became a civilian again I ended up back on the road several times. 

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Archives

Before I did, in my hometown I founded and owned a small bar/pizza parlor for several years with a couple of friends. Until I lost it due to various factors such as an economic depression and in house theft. I just didn't know what I was doing. Seemingly the only real advancements I was making were my crossdressing strides. Finally given the opportunity to pursue feminine opportunities drove me further into an alcoholic driven desire to do more to look like a woman. Somehow I managed to hold onto reality, have a daughter and pursue a career in the commercial food business in the cut throat world of fast food management when chains were going on mega expansion binges. 

Following losing my tavern, I fell in love with and eventually married my second wife whom I was destined to spend twenty five years of my life with until she passed away at the age of fifty. Somehow I managed to talk her into getting married and moving with me from our native small city Ohio to the major metropolitan area of NYC. (New York City) I received a handsome raise for taking the job, rented a moving truck and off to a new world we went. Of course I managed to pack and bring along my feminine wardrobe, wig, shoes and makeup with us. I always mention she knew about my cross dressing before we were married.  Plus I was looking forward to moving to a decidedly more liberal environment so I could possibly expand my feminine pursuits. Along the way in New York my plan did work as I had a couple of occasions to attend transvestite mixers as we were called in those days. One in particular was successful when I presented so well as a woman I had to show my male I.D. to be admitted. I managed to survive NYC for nearly two years before I got the moving urge again and we moved back to our native Ohio. In order to do it, I had to promise to restore our old two story brick tavern into a loft style house While I was doing the work, it was very difficult to dress as a woman at all. So somehow I had to control my urges. 

Once we moved back, I managed to stay at a couple jobs locally so moving was not an option. Plus another option cropped up which tried to curtail my progression towards becoming my feminine dream. At the time I joined a local service organization and rose through the ranks as president. It was all good until I realized the more recognizable I became in the community, the more pressure I felt not to be discovered as a cross dresser. What did I do then? Decided to try to talk my wife into moving again. This time to rural Southern Ohio along the Ohio River. Again I was driven by the obsession to succeed as a man and push my feminine desires to the background. Once we settled into our new house out in the woods, it didn't take long for the old gender desires to creep back in and before long I progressed to doing shopping trips to the grocery store and shopping center dressed as a woman. The problem was I was becoming successful doing it and everytime I was, I needed more. 

The answer again was another move. This time back to a more metropolitan area around Columbus, Ohio where I knew there was an active transgender or cross dressing community. By this time it was difficult to tell exactly what was driving my frenetic urge to change jobs more...my gender dysphoria or the desire to improve my employment and finances. I managed to do both until after my wife passed away and I lost nearly everything I had worked for as a man but gained a life as a full time transgender woman.

Hopefully, my final move was made when I moved in years ago with my wife Liz in Cincinnati, Ohio. I always had enjoyed my trips to Cincinnati in my past and felt the move would do me good and was my destiny in many ways. Perhaps my lifelong obsessions will lead to a positive senior life and I won't have to do any more gender travel.   

Alawys Going Somewhere

Image from Louis Paulin
On UnSplash

 Back in what I call my formative years, I grew used to trying to outrun my problems. Between college and my military service I literally was moved or decided to move on my own an average of every year and a half. It all started when I left home for college for a year and a half. Amazingly, during this time my gender dysphoria disappeared and suddenly I was free to live a somewhat normal gender life. I say normal because during this time I had several dates with girls from the East Coast who were much more sophisticated sexually than anything I had seen in my shy Midwestern upbringing. In fact, my Mom unknowingly set me up with my first sexual experience with one of her older (not a minor) students where she taught high school.  I think she was nineteen and I was eighteen, so I had a lot to learn. 

The school I went away to was one a group of Midwestern Ivy League schools for students on the East Coast who couldn't make it into the top notch schools or universities in their back yards. What happened was I ended up partying with my friends mainly from Philadelphia and Baltimore and not studying enough to maintain grades to not get drafted into the Vietnam War. After a year and a half I picked up and moved back home to attend a much more academically forgiving nearby university where I could thrive. Which I did by even making the Dean's List several times before I graduated. More importantly to me back then was the fact I was drawn back into my old cross dressing memories of home while I was able still to land a Disk Jockey job at a small local radio station which happened to be owned by a very powerful congressman which turned out to be very important to my future. For awhile I was quite satisfied with satisfying my cross dressing desires by putting on my feminine clothes when my parents weren't around just like the old days while at the same time attending to school while I built my self a career in the commercial radio business. 

Just when I thought I had it all together, Uncle Sam came along with several all expense paid tickets to work and travel in exchange for three years of my life. I was able to salvage my radio career with the help of the congressman I worked for but my cross dressing would certainly have to be on hold for the foreseeable future. My first move was a bus trip to beautiful (?) Ft. Knox in Kentucky for Army basic training. I didn't get to see any gold but I saw many fellow recruits going through tank infantry school. A nice way of saying they were headed to Vietnam to be cannon or grenade fodder for the war. Basic was tough but not tough enough to wash out any or all ideas I had of ever following my feminine dreams. In fact in many ways I think basic just made my dreams stronger because I couldn't wait to get out and live them.

Following Basic at Ft. Knox, little did I know the amount of travel Uncle Sam had planned for me. It all started innocently enough by getting transferred for advanced training at the Defense Information School in relatively close by Indianapolis, Indiana. It was close enough to my home I could drive back and forth for weekends and leave but not close enough for me to cross dress when I was home. It turned out I wasn't going to stay in Indy long before I was sent to Thailand along with my close knit classmates to help run a radio/tv station in Udorn which had recently been destroyed by a battle damaged F-4 fighter jet which crashed at the end of the runway killing all working in the station. Since we were Army working for the Air Force, we received extra pay to live off base. Of course living off base put me face to face with the Thai Ladyboy culture. As advertised, many were indeed beautiful but all I did was admire from afar. I was afraid of any stigma which would have been attached to me if I had tried to know any of the alluring creatures further. 

After my year in Thailand, I was trying hard to get assigned to Europe and work for the AFN Radio Network. I finally did make it but not with more moving around. What happened was I had two sets of orders. One verbal and one paper. I decided to follow the one on paper and report to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland for duty in their information office. What turned out was I wasn't supposed to be there and was sent back home with another weeks worth of leave before I had to leave for Germany, where I wanted to go to start with. After all those convoluted military moves I finally had the chance to live out my dream of seeing Europe because once again I received extra pay to live off base.

I am fairly sure all of this moving affected me in many ways when I was honorably discharged from the military and through with school. More on how it affected my gender dysphoria in another post. 

Woman Up

 Perhaps you have been told to "man up" and do something during your life. The best example I can come up with is going through basic training in the military. These days with the welcome influx of women in the military, basic training may be a different experience but in my days it was definitely not a coed experience. Since it was during the days of the Vietnam War draft days, I had no choice but to man up and make it through. Which I did. I ended up taking approximately twenty five pounds of fat

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Archives 

off and replacing it with muscle. All of that was good I suppose but at the same time I was desperately missing my urge to cross dress into my feminine clothes. There were times when we were on forced full gear long marches the only thing which kept me going was dreaming of the times I had when I dressed as a woman. I had to "woman up" or hitch up my non existent feminine panties and successfully concentrate on the task at hand. 

Over the years it became evident to me the whole Army experience became a focal point in my life. I learned the hard way I could eventually overcome almost any obstacle on my way to living as a fulltime transgender woman, On occasion I was certainly terrified of crossing the gender frontier and losing my male privileges' but I went forward anyway mainly because deep down I felt so natural doing it. As I entered the second major transition in my life from cross dresser to novice transgender woman, the thrill I experienced when I succeeded and survived was like nothing I had ever experienced before. It felt like I had finally had woman-ed up I did what came naturally.

The problem was all my good feelings were directly challenged by my wife's desire not to live with another woman. The process became a prime example of being stuck between a gender rock and a hard place. I felt I had to continue to explore living as a transgender woman but she was standing in my way. In all ways she represented any chance I had of continuing to live what was left of my male life. Finally one of our fights became so bad she told me to man up and become a woman. She was prophetic in many ways. After a failed suicide attempt on my part and a sudden death from her, the doors swung wide open for me to finally allow my dominate feminine being to exist. As it happened, my life really changed and I had to hitch up my big girl panties or woman up to survive in a world I had only dreamed of. As I discarded all of my old male clothes, with the limited funds I had I had to make sure I was buying useful utilitarian clothes which i could be attractive in and still blend in well with the other women I met. 

It was around this time also when I decided I could retire on early Social Security pay as long as I sold the house full of antiques and collectibles I owned. Through a couple of on line services I used, I was able to exist and retire so I didn't have to attempt to transition on the job in the very conservative company I worked for. I guess you could say I missed being able to woman up by transitioning at work and dodging a major hassle other transgender women and trans men face. 

From that point forward, the biggest hurdle in my MtF gender transition was my decision to woman up and schedule a doctors appointment to see if I could begin hormone replacement therapy. When I found out I could, I was ecstatic. I could now woman up again and take another major step towards achieving my gender dream. In life though nothing remains static and now I remain ready for the next challenge I have to get ready for. Or woman up again. 

How to be Transgender

What a question...right? All of us most certainly have a different but yet oddly similar answer to the question. Along the way here on the blog we have created quite the niche with transgender women who have decided to complete their gender transition later in life. A commitment such as that requires quite the sacrifice. Often we have to give up long time family ties losing beloved former friends and family who refuse to accept our new authentic selves. 

Photo from the
Jessie Hart Archives

Along the way, we had to learn our own ways what it meant to enter a new and very foreign feminine world. I know in my case, often the whole process was terrifying. It occurred to me  I was giving up years and years of effort to be a person I never really wanted to be. I know none of that sounds different than the path you followed. Other examples include time in the military and the time and effort you had to put in to grow up fast as your transgender self. After all, we didn't have the benefit of a mother, sister or peer group to aid in shaping our new world. For me it was very difficult to learn I would never be able to recapture a past as a girl I never had. As I write many times, I was guilty of trying to dress as a teenaged girl stuffed into an oversized male body still loaded with testosterone. 

By living my mistakes I learned how to become my unique form of transgender woman. More than likely many of you did also. Many of us are fortunate to have been shaped by the cis women around us. For each disapproving spouse there are so many more who often begrudgingly come to accept the new woman in their relationship. I know with me, even though my second wife never accepted my transition to a transgender woman, she still shaped my transition in more ways than she ever knew. Her comment I was a terrible woman was an example. It came after a practically successful time for me when I presented as a woman. It turns out she wasn't referring to my appearance at all but more about the remaining male ego I still dealt with. It took me years to finally realize what she meant. I'm sure many of you, similar to me, considered yourself to be students of all things feminine. It was difficult to figure out what was good and what was bad for me and entered into how I felt I had to progress towards how to be transgender.

Many of us also who were raised in the pre-internet generation feel our gender growth was stunted in many ways. Leading us to feel we lost the chance to work on a gender transition earlier in our lives if we only had the information to learn from. Since we can't go back in time, we just became better in working with what we had to work with. Sometimes we pashed too hard when we tried to explore outside our restrictive gender closets and had to dial our goals back just a bit until we could get back on track and put our lives back together. 

Together was the key term. Since we have lived longer, the more gender baggage we had to consider bringing with us as we crossed the gender frontier. For instance I had to decided what I was going to do about my lifelong passion for sports. I ended up solving the problem by discovering and being able to socialize with several other women who enjoyed sports as much as I did. How to be transgender for me suddenly became a positive experience for me. On the negative side, my brother who I used to watch many games with vanished from my life when he and my sister in law refused to accept my new feminine self. Of course there were many more important baggage items to consider such as property, jobs and family to name a few. It all is the exact opposite to what young transgender folks face. Their problem is how do they face the future of difficulties with employment and benefits as they build their lives. It seems nobody wins. 

The bottom line is how to be transgender is never easy and is for gender survivors only.