The First to Know

Do you remember the first person you told you were transgender? Chances are you do because it was such a traumatic experience. I had some sort of experience in the process because back in the day I came out to a group of close friends as a transvestite. The difference being was I was coming out to them as a relatively harmless desire to dress in women's clothes versus the more permanent drive to actually becoming a full fledged transgender woman. The whole process brings to mind the old joke "What's the difference between a cross dresser and a trans woman...approximately three years." Of course you can change the years to fit your own situation. 

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The first person I actually came out to as a transgender woman was my daughter. Needless to say I was very nervous. I called her up and scheduled a breakfast with her. After exchanging pleasantries I finally gathered enough courage to blurt out I was transgender. To my amazement, she paused a second and said why was she the last to know. When actually she was the first to know. Of course she mentioned her Mom and I told her Mom knew of my crossdressing desires but never knew I was trans. In all fairness to her Mother, I didn't really know of the depth of my gender dysphoria until later in my life. Also, for some reason, I don't remember any questions concerning my second wife or my daughter's step mom. 

It didn't take long to find out her response was a positive one. In fact, over the years, she has turned out to be a staunch LGBTQ ally and is now dealing with one of her three children coming out as transgender. I guess in many ways I was just a ground breaker in providing her with new gender information. She even went further by offering to take me shopping for women's clothes which I politely turned down because I was doing quite well on my own and was beginning to feel secure in my fashion choices, finally. On the other hand, what I did take her up on was an invitation to have my hair done at her hair salon. The first time I went I was positively scared to death but came out of it knowing I had just gone through one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The estrogen in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife. 

Sadly the experience of coming out to my daughter was not going to be the norm. In reality because I had waited so long to come out of my gender closet, most of the people close to me (including family) had passed on. Out of the very few remaining was my only slightly younger brother. Deep down I knew coming out to him would not be easy because of his redneck right wing in laws. Would he chose the easy way out and terminate our relationship. The answer was predicable and swift and came around the Thanksgiving holiday. 

When I came out to him, I told him I would respect his wishes if he didn't want me to come to the family holiday dinner as my authentic feminine self. In no time at all, he said no I would not be welcomed. It happened over a decade now ago and we have not spoken sense. If he couldn't look past his in laws and accept me for what I am, I had other options to fall back on. I know as the transgender community as a whole goes, I was very fortunate to have those options and moved on. 

I am sure all of you have your own often dramatic coming out stories. I hope your experiences tend to go towards my daughters acceptance and not my brothers rejection. 

No Mo Therapy?

Photo from the
Jessie Hart
Collection

Over many many years, my Veterans Administration therapist  has remarkably stayed the same. I am talking about going back to approximately 2009. Over the years she has helped me begin my hormone replacement therapy and provided me the documents needed to secure my feminine gender markers. Including the important paperwork to change all my VA gender markers also.

It is important to note I was initially given a VA therapist because of my bi-polar/anxiety issues which I needed to prove were not part of my gender dysphoria. Out of all the available therapists, I was lucky to be assigned to one (way back then) who had a basic knowledge of LGBTQ issues. I did not have to work very hard, or at all, to explain to her my bi-polar depression had nothing to do with my gender issues. Both were totally different topics for discussion. Early on I was very nervous talking to her. Once I became comfortable, my words flowed as well as my ideas and I was prescribed certain medications to deal with my depression and anxiety. As far as my gender dysphoria went, we all know so far there was/is no magic potion to deal with my gender closet problems.

Fortunately too I didn't have to educate my therapist on the basics of being a transgender person. She already knew some of the basics. On the other hand, she changed my expectations of what therapy should offer. Along the way I didn't see any major miracles but rather a smooth transition into my life and how I could make it better. She always stood by me in offering suggestions of how I could make my VA experience better when new and improved services came along for the transgender community such as free wigs or breast forms. 

Sadly or not for all of the right reasons, all of our sessions had become relatively routine. For years now my moods have been stable due to meds and my own coping mechanisms. Plus my gender dysphoria now is also fairly stable. What triggers it now is usually lifelong issues with the public all the way to my morning meeting with the mirror. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion the process is one I will have to deal with for the rest of my life.

During our last session, we decided to shut down my VA therapy and give up my slot to a person who needed it more fully. I have her to thanks for much of the progress I have seen over the years and if I regress at all, my therapist is still just a phone call away. I am fortunate also in that my wife Liz is also in tune with my moods and can usually pull the problem out of me. It is sadly one of the negatives I have continued to fall back on from my male past is a tendency to hold my problems in and not talk about them. I am trying to do better daily.

Overall, I view my therapy as a rite of passage I needed to undergo. I know I was lucky to be placed with a VA therapist who helped me so completely. It was with her help I made it to a point of "No-Mo" therapy. February the fourth will be our final outtake session and it will be bittersweet at it's best.   

The Transgender Day of Reckoning

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on UnSplash

Finally I couldn't take it any longer. My gender issues  were getting the best of me and doing a better and better job of ruining my life. I had to make a decision to save myself. On one hand I had my old male self to deal with who had done an admirable job of keeping me afloat in an existence I didn't really want to be in. Together, we were able to carve out a life which was fairly successful. Even culminating in the birth of a daughter. Around this time was when I was seriously exploring if I could live a feminine life also. Also was the key term because I found out the hard way I couldn't live my life in a situation where I lived a couple a days as a man and several days spending all of my spare time being a woman. 

Finally it became increasingly evident to me the only real obstacle to me living as my authentic feminine self was my wife of twenty five years who I loved dearly. So much so months before her unexpected sudden death, I made what I thought was the ultimate gender sacrifice by putting away my make up, wigs and clothes grew a beard and again tried my best to live a masculine life. Spoiler alert, It didn't work for tragic reasons. 

First of all, trying my best to live as a man was making me extremely sad. As a result I tried to hide myself in a bottle which in turn led to overeating and weight gain. I ballooned my body up to two hundred seventy five pounds. Of course, before all of that was an ill advised suicide attempt  which fortunately I did not do a good enough job with. My intense sadness was destined to change when as I said my wife suddenly passed away. All of a sudden, the door was thrown wide open for my feminine inner self to have her chance in the world.

I remember the night I decided to listen to her as vividly as if it was yesterday when in fact it goes back to 2007. After taking the time to dress in what I considered to be a nice outfit complete with wig and makeup, I sat by myself in one of my favorite venues sipping on a drink pondering my future. All of a sudden a calmness came over me and I felt as if the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders. The answer to my ultimate life question I had put off for so long was now clear to me. There was nothing stopping me from living my dream. To live fulltime as a transgender woman. Clearly I heard this voice tell me what took so long. 

From then on, the transition doors began to swing open fairly easily. I was fortunate in that my Veterans Administration assigned therapist had LGBT knowledge and could look past my bi polar issues and treat my gender ones. She was instrumental in helping me begin my hormone replacement therapy. From then on, there would be no looking back as I had my legal name changed as well as my VA gender markers.

My day of reckoning most likely had a sweeter ring to it because I waited so long to step up and take care of what always came natural to me. I was just too scared to accept the consequences. When I did, I was on the road to finding true happiness with myself.    

Better Late than Never

Photo Courtesy of
Jessie Hart

I go through many stages of emotions when I see a post saying or alluding to how we older transgender folk may somehow be less "trans" because we waited our life to evolve farther before we came out of our gender closets.  Of course there are many reasons we waited that the younger questioning transgender person doesn't realize. 

First and foremost they have no knowledge of the era or time we grew up in. They have no inkling of what life was like in the pre internet era. Closets were deeper and darker when it was more isolated. We weren't able to imagine a life without the world wide web and computers so small they fit on your cell phone. Plus,  I didn't even mention being without all the social media platforms. The many and varied platforms have
dramatically shortened the distances of the world. All of a sudden, it's easy to read about what Paula is up to on her blog  "Paula's Place" from the UK  or Franziska from Germany on her "Out and About" blog. Both are examples of just how much easier life would have been in my world if I had known there were others like me in the world back in the day. 

All of that aside, I would be remiss if I didn't mention how much baggage we build naturally as we go through life. Over the years, we acquire families and children. Not to mention a circle of friends, jobs and property. It is a daunting task when you are stopping your life as you know it to consider a gender transition. On the other hand, I know younger transgender women and men have to consider building a life from scratch as their authentic selves with many having no family support at all.

Overall it is a shame we can't all get along better and learn from each other. Especially these days when anti LGBT (especially transgender) laws are becoming so prevalent. In the closet or not, young or old we need to organize our resistance and stick together before laws are proposed again, similar when I was growing up. stopping all men from even crossdressing as women in public at all. Some state politicians are trying to even ban drag shows. Young LGBTQ folk need to understand my urgency in resisting all of this negative change because I saw it in motion when I was younger.

Sure, it took me until my sixties until I fully came out of my gender closet and many times I regret not doing it sooner. It just took me longer to realize what I had as a man wasn't as promising of what I could have as a transgender woman. Finally I increasingly felt so natural as my feminine self, I decided to undergo hormone replacement therapy and live full time as a woman. Better late than never.

Selling Transgender Lemonade

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You have probably have heard of the saying "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade". Many times it seems we transgender women and trans men have had more than our fair share of lemons. A frequent example I use is when during my earliest days of life I woke up in the morning wondering if I was still a boy and why did I have to be. Similar to so many of you , I wasn't given any other choice but to try to carve out an existence in a gender I didn't feel comfortable in. Be-grudgingly I took the gender lemons I was dealt and learned the hard way how to make lemonade. 

The hard way, I learned to exist. I learned to play sports to keep the bullies away and add to my masculine act. I acquired and tried to work on a few muscle cars such as the now classic Pontiac GTO. I did my best also to date a few girls who I had more of a secret interest in being them rather than having any sexual interest, Even with that, I managed to perform well enough as a man to father my daughter later in life. As was to be proven later, she was the ultimate in making a tasty drink from the lemons I was given.

All in all, I can not stress enough how difficult we trans folk lives can be. Crossing the gender frontier can be brutal as we chance losing our lives as we knew them. Family and friends can and do reject us as our new authentic selves and we can even lose our jobs and livelihoods. It is all a very difficult journey which can lead to a very sour drink or lemonade. 

It is also very easy to feel so sorry for ourselves to even give up on life or even de-transition our gender. Lemons can be brutal to deal with, especially for those who weren't so called 'naturals" in the transition process. Testosterone poisoning is very difficult to overcome. Both externally and internally. It is tough to finally align our internal gender to match our external selves which the world sees. In my case it took doses of feminine hormone replacement therapy to finally help me to present more authentically as a woman in the world. As my skin softened, my hair and breasts grew, it became easier to have the confidence to go forth in the world. My number of lemons grew as I entered the never-never land of gender androgyny. My second puberty as I entered my version of womanhood even involved the uneasy introduction of sore breasts, hot flashes and even hips. 

In many ways, we transgender women and trans men even are able to sell the lemonade they have created. Unless you have transitioned very well and were blessed with a small body, at some point in time you most likely will be in the position to be the first trans person another person has ever encountered. It's a difficult position when you are seemingly clearing the way for another person similar to you gender wise who will come after you. You could say if your lemonade was good, the public will have a tendency to have a favorable response to the transgender community as a whole.

The fact remains that fair or not we all have been given our fair share of lemons in life. It's up to all of us to sell a good and refreshing transgender lemonade. 

A Brave New Transgender World

 One positive which came from yesterday's partial debacle during my Veterans Administration colonoscopy experience was finding out to take nothing for granted in my dealings with the world as a whole. As you may recall, for the first time in a very long time, I was mis-gendered at the VA. What made it especially frustrating is that I have gone through the trouble to change all my gender markers at the VA to female. One of my disclaimers is remarkably most all of my dealings recently as a transgender veteran have resulted in me being treated with respect including being being gendered correctly. 

My point is unfortunately around  every corner is a person in the world we as transgender women or trans men have to educate. Since in many ways we live outside the gender norms in society it is no surprise there are people who make no effort to understand or accept us. Sadly it seems there will always be. Plus with the advent of all the proposed new anti transgender laws, it will take us all to fight back and keep our rights. I would say anti LGBT laws but too many are directed to specific transgender people, I left the rest of the initials out.

On the other hand, once you have shaken your gender bonds, there is nothing better than experiencing your life as your authentic self. For me at least the whole process felt so natural. Even though the process of testosterone poisoning  hit me hard, I was still lucky enough to barely fit into a few feminine parameters such as size. Even though it was not easy to find women's shoes and clothes in my size it was far from impossible. Plus about that time was when stores began to stock larger sizes for women which unknowingly (maybe) included cross dressers and novice transgender women. As they say, timing is everything and the world seemed to be changing ever so slowly and slightly in it's understanding of gender dysphoric individuals. Even coming up with the new term to describe it called transgender. 

Just when we thought we were making advances, along came the transphobic person who would not accept us for who we are. At that point sometimes it was possible to educate the person to understand we trans folk aren't really much different than the rest of society. We had to overcome the years of talk shows and movies which depicted men who dressed as women as somehow being up to no good. Showing the public we were just ordinary people just trying to live their lives in their accepted gender. It's my opinion to this day, men don't trust us since we left the so called "brotherhood" and women were more likely to give us the benefit of the doubt since we were seeking to join their sisterhood. All of that entered my thinking when I was recently mis-gendered. Since I was, when I go back, I will be ready for them to the point of explaining who I am. Hopefully to prepare them for the next trans person which comes along. 

Photo courtesy of Mandy

Before I conclude this post, I would like to welcome "Mandy" of the "Me to Mandy" blog back to Google Blogger. You can find her also on my Blogroll. 

In the meantime, no matter where you are in your progression to a brave new transgender world be patient. Together we can make it. 

A Transgender Set Back?

Photo Courtesy 
Jessie Hart

Yesterday I needed to go the Cincinnati Veterans Hospital for a colonoscopy. If you are not familiar it is a procedure when they run a small camera up and through your colon looking for what they call polyps.  Polyps if left unattended can sometimes lead to colon cancer. If you have ever been through a colonoscopy, you know the prep work before is no fun as you have to essentially fast for two days while drinking copious amounts of a liquid laxative which tastes like salt water. 

Recently I have not had to undergo any challenges to my gender. Sadly all of my gains were going to be erased yesterday. First of all, the intake nurse who was taking care of me came out into the waiting room and screamed "Mr. Hart." I cringed and said Mr. Hart wasn't here but would I do. She never replied anything and back to an intake room we went. By this time, I thought to hell with her Mr. Hart, let's just get this procedure over with. I also thought I was done with her so I wouldn't have to go through being mis gendered again. Plus there was always the chance she said it before she ever saw me and they don't see many women in the VA. 

Then came the worst part of all, I had to take all of my clothes off and put on one of those infamous hospital gowns, opened up the back. Even though hormone replacement therapy has taken care of most of my body hair, it was impossible for me to shave my backside, the one they were going to see. Again, by this time I just wanted the procedure to be all over so Liz and I could go out and get something to eat. I am sure with my highly androgynous appearance (since I have had no surgeries) at the least I may have given the nursing staff something to talk about. 

There was only one nurse who asked what I wanted to be called. I mistakenly thought there was going to be a light at the end of the gender tunnel when I told her my legal first name. Everything went well in our conversation until out of the clear blue sky she called me "Sir". I just said I wasn't a sir and everything was over...for now. The head doctors assistant told me I had four polyps, two of which they had to remove so I will probably be asked to come back in for a repeat procedure in six months to a year. I know the VA is trying to make a serious effort in their treatment of transgender patients, so maybe by then I will see a difference. I try my best to keep into consideration the people I meet who mis-gender me aren't being mean. They are just being ignorant because they have never met a transgender woman. Since I know what I will be facing when I go back too soon for my liking, maybe I can turn a transgender set back into a positive by educating people. Perhaps the next transgender person won't have to go through what I did. 

No pun intended but in the end result. all I want is to be kept free of colon cancer.     

Building on Success

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I have written often on the times I was a dismal failure when I first came out of my gender closet. The times I went home crying following encounters with the public. To make a long story short, I was stared at all the way to being out right laughed at. Similar to many of my novice crossdressing or transgender sisters, teen aged girls were my worst enemy. During this time I kept asking myself why would I leave my fairly comfortable male world I worked so hard to build and survive in for a new existence in a feminine world. I had a long way to go because I had put so much effort into hiding any female mannerisms I may have had. In nearly all ways, I was (or tried to be) a man's man. It worked because I was rarely bullied or had my gender questioned at all except the one time my evil nephew thought he was hurting my feelings when he said I threw a football like a girl. I just replied thanks and moved on.

During all of the setbacks I did seem to have just enough positive feedback on my gender journey to keep moving forward. It could have been because my feminine inner self was starved for attention and wanted her chance to enjoy the spotlight of life.  Very early in my transition, success came when I wasn't laughed at and merely blended in with society as a whole as a woman. Very quickly I learned just blending would not be enough. I found others, mainly women, wanted to talk to me so I needed to quickly develop some sort of a feminine persona. An example was when I kept encountering a long dark haired beauty in not one but two of the venues I frequented. At first when she approached me she was very standoff-ish so I wondered why she even bothered. After a while though she started to warm up and we were able to chat awhile. Who knows, maybe she was just intrigued by the fact she was really interacting with someone who wanted to give up all their male privilege's and enter her world. All too soon, for whatever reason I never saw her again. 

Having success with women such as her led me to open my feminine self up to the world even farther. It proved to be easier than I thought the gender frontier process would be once I started. Looking back at the process, my inner previously hidden feminine person was finally getting her  chance to live. She was building upon her success and loving it. From then on it was a struggle with what remained of my old male self. After all. he provided years of success to my life's equation. It was difficult to finally totally let go of him but I had to if I wanted to keep living at all. Both of my genders were in a vicious struggle for survival. 

As I continued to build upon my feminine successes, I found not only could I play in the girls sandbox but I deserved my place as well as the next woman. Of course I was not able to benefit from growing up as a girl but again I put in as much time and effort as I was allowed to seeing how girls interacted with society. Finally, once I was able to go fulltime as a transgender woman, I learned so much more on how women exist in the world and how strong yet layered their existence is.  My path to success was slower than most but worth the wait. 

Another Transgender Lesson Learned

Yesterday I wrote a post concerning my limited experiences when I transitioned to a novice transgender woman and tried to date a few men. The process was a failure and then I moved on to the warmer and more responsive experience of getting to know other women as I was completing that phase of my gender transition. With their help, I learned so much on how to survive in a new feminine world. It turns out Fellow Blogger "Paula" from Paula's Place encountered some of the same pressures when she came out of the gender closet:

"  There was a time when I tried dating a few men. It never quite worked out, mostly for the reasons you too found, they were either ashamed to be seen with me, or were not attracted to me a person, but as an object. Maybe that was part of my induction into the the female world, but in the end it was not for me.

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Collection

When meeting new people I'm never sure just how much of myself to reveal, I try not to out myself, but sometimes it's difficult not to, so much of my experience has been male ~ often in what at the the time were exclusively male environments. Women were excluded from some Brass Bands well into the 1980s, and for some it was still an issue into the current century! and as for sport! Do I just sit quietly in the corner, or admit to some knowledge and experience and so out myself?"

Thanks for the comment Paula. I too was afraid to reveal too much information about my previous life  when it came to men An example was when sports came up as a topic, my knowledge was at least equal to the man I was attempting to communicate with so I needed to "dumb it down" so I wouldn't scare him off.

Through it all, the point which was lost on me was all of what I was going through was in many ways the same things cis women go through on a daily basis. I read all the time of the problems women have finding a good or stable man. I used to subscribe to "Cosmopolitan Magazine" and usually their letters to the editors  had to do with how to find and hang onto a quality man. Competition it seemed was fierce as both binary genders struggled to understand each other. In fact I wrote a few blog posts years ago pointing out the virtues of dating a transgender woman. The biggest benefit to dating trans as my biased self noted was we understood both sides of the gender fence. Especially the male ego. Unfortunately dating trans never became a real thing and to this day we transgender women still remain little more than fetish objects to too many men. Not to mention the cis women who resent us entering "their" world for whatever reason.

The end result is we transgender women have to be more skillful in how we approach the world. Paula used sports as an example. Since both Paula and I played sports in our pasts and still show a passion for it, how far do we go before we out ourselves to strangers, Just another of the reasons there is always another transgender lesson to learn.