The Future Transgender "A" Listers

 Back in the day when I was first exploring my public feminine self, I learned the hard way there were many cliques, even hierarchies in the new transvestite community I was witnessing. First I think I learned that although the group was supposed to be exclusively heterosexual, it clearly wasn't the case. Even though nothing sexual was flaunted in public there was plenty going on behind the hotel's closed doors. particularly among the group I called the "A "Listers.  

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archives

To me the "A's" were the impossibly feminine attendees. Other groups included the cross dressers who were trying desperately to maintain what was left of their masculinity even though they were trying their best to be feminine too. Then there were the rest of us. While I did my best to look the best I could, I also found myself to be an observer on the highest level. The reason was because I was still so confused on several issues which were dominating my life. At the time, I had no idea if how far I could go as an aspiring transvestite or even if I wanted to go farther at all. Then there was the pesky sexuality question. Little did I know, I would face years of self searching and practical experience before I would come up with any solid answers. 

Even though I didn't fit in with the "A's" appearance or personality wise, I found they could offer me a unique way of seeing the world as a feminine person. One way was even though this was before the transgender term was even invented, the "A's", clearly were a step above most of the other cross dressers who came to the transvestite mixer. However not all of the steps were positive ones. All too often they formed a clique not unlike the prettiest girls in a high school. Regardless, what appealed to me about the clique was they would go out into the world to select gay venues after the mixer was over. I didn't care what they thought of me, I just wanted to get out and explore the world to learn if I could make it as my authentic self. I took advantage to the fullest and even ended up achieving a great result one night after a meeting which included a free makeover to anyone who wanted one. I gathered up all my courage and went for it and was rewarded for an invite to go out with the "A's" to party. 

During our night out, I was further rewarded with a guy coming up to me in a bar we went to who wanted me to sit with him or play pinball. The group was amazed when I was picked up and none of them were. Mainly because I was in a different city than I was used to, I decided not to stay and went back to the hotel with the group. Plus, I didn't know how much the guy who approached me knew of my not so little gender secret. 

In the years following my earliest adventures at the mixers, I actually became a regular acquaintance of a couple of the "A's". One of which I even attended regular parties at her house in Columbus, Ohio. I knew that her as well as the best of group (appearance wise) went on to undergo genital realignment surgeries. Unfortunately, I lost contact with them after that. 

All in all, I learned quite a bit from being an hanger on to the group. I was torn because I badly wanted to look like them but in no way did I want to act like them. In the long run maybe I achieved both.

Hot Flashes?

 I have been on hormone replacement therapy for quite a while now. In fact, as far I can determine, I have been on HRT for nearly nine years now. All I remember from starting the hormonal trip is I started with my wife Liz at a LGBT night club in Dayton, Ohio. To make the whole affair more dramatic, I decided to wait to start on New Years Eve. 

As I said, it was a long time ago as HRT experiences go (maybe). It wasn't so long following the evening when I began to experience fairly dramatic changes on a fairly quick basis. I started to feel sensitivity in my breasts as well as noticeable growth. Very quickly I arrived at a point where I had to be very careful which shirt I was going to wear. All in all, my new and exciting feminine transition appeared to be going smoothly as I was under a doctors care. My hair was growing quickly, my skin smoothed out and my face lost some of it's masculine angles. I'm sure it helped because I was already in my sixties when I started HRT so my natural testosterone levels were already decreasing. Most likely, my biggest surprises came on my internal feelings. For the first time in my life I could cry. 

Another surprise in my new feminine puberty came when I experienced my first major hot flash. I remember sitting at a venue enjoying a drink when all of a sudden I felt as if I was burning up from the inside out. I was so self conscious at that point, I felt everybody was going to be staring at me. Even more so since I was already ultra aware of my surroundings since I was the only single woman at the bar. In a relatively short period of time, my hot flash went away and I returned to my state of normal. Whatever that was. The longer I was on hormones my body settled in on my new puberty my body adjusted and my hot flashes more or less went away. Until this morning it seems.

I have been on a twice a week patch dosage of Estradiol for years now. The only change comes when the brand name of the patches differs because of pharmacy availability. The only other constant I have is how well the patches stick on to my skin. At certain times of the year I have more trouble than others getting them to stick because of temperature and humidity. Through it all, every now and then I do notice more fullness in my breasts and even more so my more sudden development  in my hips. I really have a small feminine hips now.

The reason for this blog post however is wondering why I had a major hot flash this morning. All I know is either I did an extra good job of attaching my patches yesterday or somehow I attached patches which had a slightly higher dosage. As I said, I apply my patches twice a week, so I will have plenty of time to monitor future results. It makes more sense now why some mornings I have a red face when I get up and look at myself in the mirror. Just not as major as this morning. 

I never thought my feminine puberty journey would resume again at my age. My endocrinologist visit is coming up in three months so if the hot flashes continue I might mention them to her. Whatever the case, I really don't want to have my hormone dosages decreased because I enjoy the results so much. 

Benefits of Crossing the Transgender Divide

Quite often it seems our journey across the gender divide is perceived  as only being a negative experience. Equally as often, our early coming out experiences add to our overall thoughts about breaking out of our dark gender closets. Every time we are completely rejected by the public, it reinforces the negative ideas we may have had which led to the many purges we went through of all of our feminine possessions. 

Jessie Hart in the Ohio State
Student Union

Still we endured as we walked down a lonely path to gender discovery. So much frustration and even tears led us to risk much if not all of our lives. For the fortunate ones, we were blessed with enough gender euphoria to move forward. For each time we were rejected and belittled for showing off our feminine selves, there was another time we were embraced by someone else in the public's eye. The best part was, gender euphoria felt so natural. So much so if I could sing, I would have since I felt that good. 

Looking back, I think the first time I felt the benefits of spending time on both sides of the binary gender fence was when cis women began to ask me for advice on how to understand their husbands, Even though I did my best to help them, I still had to explain (regardless what they thought) most all men were not all alike. The majority of their problems came from communication. It wasn't so much that men didn't listen, it was more as if the men just didn't comprehend what women were saying. An important part of my learning process came when I realized women did communicate vastly different than men. I learned the hard way to look for non verbal cues when talking with another woman.  Before I was allowed to play in the woman's sandbox I suffered many claw marks and back wounds before I learned how to play. 

All in all, my gender wounds were worth it because once I gained access to the sandbox, I didn't ever want to go back. I see the process now as a real benefit in my life. How many other humans can say they experienced such a deep process as living a life experiencing both sides of the gender divide. A recent experience which could have caused me to be mis-gendered at the VA may have been caused by how I answered a question by one of the nurses. She asked me who my driver was after my colonoscopy . I said my wife when maybe a better term to use would have been partner or spouse. I am a believer in how the smallest details can help me get along in the world. 

Even though I had to give up so much of a male life I never really wanted, the work of learning the feminine gender was a work of pleasure because mainly I felt so natural. The topic for an entire other blog post. 

Now I am happy to say I have made it to a place of gender understanding. However, I think I am far from knowing it all. I don't think I will ever know why I was chosen for this gender journey. Hopefully when I pass on, I will find out the answer. 

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. 

Image from Sai de Silva on
UnSplash

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

Image Courtesy Elisha Ventur
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

Image from Earnest Porzi on
Unslpash

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.