The High Mainetenence Gender

Image from Amin RK on
Unsplash

I don't think I would receive much argument from women or men that women are certainly the high maintenance gender of the two. An example would be what a woman (trans or not) has to go through to appear well dressed in public. Instead of just putting on a nice shirt and pants as her man does, the woman in question has to make sure her legs are shaved all the way up her body to how her hair looks. Plus, I didn't even mention applying tasteful makeup and adding extras such as jewelry as well as other matching accessories. 

In addition to the physical aspect of being feminine, there is the actual bodily changes a woman goes through in her life. The major changes of puberty all the way to menopause isn't very long when you think about it and I am not even mentioning the impact child bearing has on a woman's body. Estrogen doesn't get the press testosterone does as being a powerful hormone but I can tell you from my viewpoint coming from being on both, estrogen does pack a wallop. Just consider the hormone surges a woman goes through at puberty and pregnancy and the reversal when menopause sets it and I wonder why I ever wanted to cross the gender frontier and live full time on hormones as a transgender woman.

As I look back, much of my love for cosmetics and the obsession with the way I presented as a woman was fun to me. Or at the least it was all very satisfying, when it worked. It's easy to forget all of the times it didn't work and I came home crying. Still I wanted desperately to become the high maintenance gender. I wanted to be the well put together woman if I was attempting to blend in as a business professional woman or a boho hippie. I was having fun doing what felt natural to me.

At the same time, I was leaving all the boring male trappings of society behind me. I was bored with all the same old drab colors and fashion which never changed. Being the high maintenance gender was heaven to me. Even as I become older and my introduction to estrogen has been part of me for awhile now I have even changed the way I think about pregnancy. Whereas before I always considered it "woman's work" to carry a child, now I consider it a blessing to be able to bring another new life into the world. 

I guess my life wasn't complex enough as a man, I wanted more. As a member of the high maintenance gender. This morning is an example. Just to go to the pharmacy, I had to make sure I was wearing a light foundation, eye makeup and lipstick. Along with my long hair pulled back. I wonder if my Mom would approve as she was the standard bearer for me as an example of the high maintenance gender. 

Life is Too Short

As I went through many years of being a cross dresser, I knew time was running short ( I was sixty) if I was ever going to make the big jump to living as a full time transgender woman. As life went on, two major ideas set in.. Perhaps the hardest one was facing my own mortality and knowing I had lived longer than I was going to live in the future. The writing on the wall was telling me I was entering my senior years and time was growing short for any major lifetime changes such as a gender change. Of course changing my gender involved the possibility of losing friends and family as well as my financial livelihood. 

Photo from the Jessie 
Hart Collection 

The second major factor in changing my gender closet was how natural I felt when I was out of my old dark and lonely closet. Somehow the gender euphoria which flooded over me when I was out and about presenting as a woman was a feeling I had a difficult time expressing. Because there was no one to tell how I was feeling. At the time, my second wife was completely against any idea of me pursuing a transgender lifestyle. Being a pretend male at the time, I did what I was trained to do...hold your emotions in and get over any problem you may encounter. Or, man up and get over it. 

For the sake of saving my relationship with my wife, I did my best to go against my own natural feminine instincts time after time. Finally, the stress I was living under became to much and I tried yet another very aggressive act of self harm. I have written about it several times here in the blog because it is so important to me to spread the word that suicide is never the answer to your problems. Mainly because life is too short as it is and secondly what is true today may not be true tomorrow.

In my case, I learned the hard way to accept my own mortality when close friends and my wife all passed on within a relatively short period of time. All of a sudden, the old "now or never" narrative set in on me with a vengeance. So, after exploring being a woman in all the various ways I knew how, I decided to jump off the cliff and transition. I started with hormone replacement therapy and never looked back. Again the more I explored the world, the more natural I became and felt. It got to the point when I was massively depressed when I had to face the world as a male. Mainly because the hormones stripped away almost all of my male privilege's by making my appearance highly androgynous. Plus, at that point, I hadn't made it to the point where I could sample any of the female privilege's. 

Finally, I got it through my thick, stubborn noggin that my life acting like a man was over. More so because the whole male gender process should have never been undertaken to begin with. The weight was finally taken off my shoulders when I decided once and for all to live a full time feminine existence as a transgender woman. Even then I knew the process wouldn't be easy. The time I spent exploring and learning to find my way around told me to be prepared for more hidden curves and walls on my gender journey. 

On the other hand, I had prepared myself the best I could with assets such as appearance and communication so I could begin the journey. I figured life was too short not to do it. There was no attempting to succeed, I was going to make it.

Dreaming Beauty Queen

I have written numerous times I am capable of having dreams in either gender on any given night. The truly unique nights are when I have both. I can start out as a guy and finish as a woman in a whole different dream.  It has been awhile though since I have outdid myself in the dream world. I have so many dreams, I don't remember all of them, unless they are very vivid.

Marilyn Monroe in the
Seven Year Itch 

Last night I had one of my most recent feminine dreams when I was in a beauty contest with an equally as attractive transgender friend. To make it more exciting and memorable, we were both wearing dresses and heels reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe's famous white dress in the 1955 Billy Wilder film "The Seven Year Itch." If you don't remember the dress (with Marilyn in it) I have added a picture. As you can see, if you are going to have to come up with a dream dress, this would be a good one to begin with.  This picture was taken with Marilyn supposedly caught unaware standing over a sidewalk subway grate in New York City. 

In my dream, all was going very well and I was even walking easily in heels. Something I have not been able to accomplish now for years because of a bad back. Also I remember how pretty my matching nails were on my hands and feet. My friend and I were certainly the belles of the ball.

For some reason we never made it to the pageant and ended up being confronted by several evil looking men. Plus, to make matters worse, my wig was starting to come off at exactly the wrong time. As I was frantically trying to find a place to fix the wig before the men noticed me, I woke up. I was so shaken by the dream, I was shivering for a couple minutes afterwards. Finally I calmed down and went back to sleep prepared for my next dream adventure.

Presently I have been very fortunate in that I have been able to stay away from many of the nightmares I used to have. I know the medications I am on to control my bi-polar mood swings can cause vivid dreams. In addition I wonder when the tipping point will come when I have more feminine orientated dreams than the old male ones. I guess I  need to keep in mind I did live most of my life in a dominant male world which continues to dominate my subconscious.

In the meantime, I have never been anything close to a beauty queen, so I guess deep down I wanted to always experience a little of how it would feel. Dreaming about it will be a close as I will come as a transgender woman. 

Transgender Euphoria

 

Photo Courtesy 
Jessie Hart

Yesterday was my quarterly appointment to see the dentist. Dental is the only medical related service I don't receive from the Veteran's Administration.

 Surprisingly (or not) I have never been mis-gendered when I have been there. Equally as surprising to me was the informational questionnaire I needed to fill out before my initial appointment. The questionnaire included a fairly deep dive into what my gender was and how I wanted my preferences as far as pronouns etc. to be. Amazingly, someone must have read my answers because from day one I was referred to as "she". Yesterday was no different. I was just there for a cleaning and my insurance unexpectedly covered nearly the entire cost so I was happy. I didn't have to fight for my gender and pay for the privilege. 

From there I needed to stop at a fast food drive thru and pick up lunch for my wife Liz and I. For as long as I can remember, drive thru's have always been a challenge for me due to concerns over my voice. I can't tell you how many times I have been called "sir" at the speaker and then be subjected to funny looks when I pulled forward to pick up my order. Yesterday was what I considered a neutral win because the woman was so busy with everything she was doing, she didn't have time to consider or even care about my gender. In no time at all, with no side glances or comments to other employees I was on my way with our food. 

My final stop of the day was a trip to the pharmacy to pick up medicine. Normally it is another neutral gender experience with no pronouns attached. But yesterday for some reason was different and the young man at the window unexpectedly called me "Ma'am". All of a sudden, in an instant, the sky was bluer and even the bitter taste in my mouth from what the hygienist used to polish my teeth went away. Gender euphoria was wonderful. 

The rare ability to be able to experience gender euphoria makes the process so wonderful when it occurs, even in so small doses. I wrote about it briefly in my "Customizable Gender" post recently. Among other points I attempted to go into, the process when we change genders stand out as important when we start all over to build a complex transgender woman person. Fellow  blogger "Paula Godwin" picked up on the idea and commented:

"I often reflect that one of the (few) advantages of being a transgender woman of "a certain age" is that I had opportunities that very few women my age had ~ in sport, music, education, and employment all of which definitely favored men." 

As always, thank you Paula for the comment. Indeed, when you have the chance to experience the privileges of living as both of the primary genders, you have the opportunity to be a better person.  Transgender euphoria only makes the experience more worthwhile.

A Brave New Gender Path

 

In essence, every turn we take down the path can involve us making our way into a brave new gender world. Little did I know how long the path would be or how many twists and turns it would take. Often I think I should have known more about the gender change process before I started. On the other hand, I was deeply protected from the world in my very dark and isolated gender closet. Even though I was dealt many setbacks as I tried to appear feminine, I was able to experience just enough gender euphoria to help me continue on my journey .

Very early in my life I found I could run my own newspaper route and save my allowance from doing odd jobs around the house to save money to buy my own feminine items such as makeup, hose and even shoes. Then I discovered saving the money was the easy part. Just exactly how was I going to be able to get to a store to spend it because I was still of pre-driving age and only had my bicycle to try to make it into town. I found where there is a will, there is a way when you are dealing with the powerful urge to cross dress and look like a girl. Since my Grandma lived in our nearby city very close to downtown, I could make an excuse to want to go in a see her for a day when I had the chance. From her house I could easily walk downtown to several stores who specialized partially in selling makeup and other women's items. 

Once I summoned the courage to try to shop for the first time on my own, I needed to be extremely careful because my Dad also worked downtown and it would be hell if I was ever discovered.  Little did I know, being discovered by Dad would not be the only hell I would face. Once I found the cosmetic section, I was ill equipped to be prepared for all the different products and brands I was suddenly faced with buying. I remember to this day the panic I felt when for the first time in my life I picked out a few select makeup items and even a pair of my own panty hose. I was flying blind for the most part on what shades of lipstick or foundation to buy but the panty hose decision was much easier since I could buy the largest size the store carried. 

In what seemed like an eternity, I made my selections and gathered my courage to take them to the checkout line. My nervousness I felt would give me away and a suspicious clerk would ask me what I was doing with all the items I had hurriedly selected. All my nerves proved to be wrong and I think the bored clerk never even looked up to see who she was checking out. I paid my hard earned money, looked around again for my Dad and headed back to my Grandma's where I easily hid my purchases. Like it or not, my brave new gender world was beginning to change. During the course of the next few decades I began to learn how deep my gender dysphoria would go into my soul and how far I would go to try to satisfy a  journey often filled with terror and euphoria as I followed the best I could all the gender mileposts. Mileposts which led me finally to a brave new gender world. I am sure I will write more on the subject in later posts. 

The Customizable Gender

Photo from the
Jessie Hart Archives

One of the positive aspects of being a transgender woman I feel is we have the chance to customize our gender. 

Often it is a lifelong process as we learn to live as our authentic selves.  We start by admiring the girls around us who we  were sent to school with or even grew up with when we had sisters. Somehow I knew I had to learn first hand to finally live as a woman. In fact, when I was young, and someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, the only true answer I could never give was I wanted to be a girl. To say something like that would have resulted in severe repercussions, so I kept my mouth shut and opinions about my gender to myself. 

It took me many years of suffering and wondering what my true problem was to finally embrace my true gender and learn a happiness I never thought I could ever find. In my family, happiness was a fleeting emotion we never saw. Whatever good happened, you could always do better. And, if you had any sort of a problem, you could just get over it. Vintage thought from my parents who came from the WWII-great depression era. I always point out my parents were great providers but poor emotional providers. Certainly not the best atmosphere for a transgender child. Relying solely on myself somehow I made it through my emotional wasteland and managed to grow up on my own terms while hiding my severe gender dysphoria. 

What I learned from that time of my life was I could be forced into a male existence I never wanted and basically survive doing things I didn't really enjoy. I tried sports but never really excelled and tried my hand at auto mechanics which I hated. Not ever knowing completely why I was so miserable, I persisted. Looking back, the only positives I learned were what I never wanted to do as a male in my life. I kept thinking if I could ever make it to my goal of living as a woman, I could have the chance to remake myself into the person I could only dream of.

As I finally had the chance to experience a feminine life in the mirror, I was able to experiment with different clothing options and makeup choices. Quickly I learned the new life I was living in secret was just the beginning. I was faced with learning the multi faceted life cis women lived. I became the customizable gender as I learned to live a life in a brand new world. Ironically, the more I explored, the more natural I became as my long closeted feminine inner self took over my life. I could tell, she felt life should have always been this way.

Finally, I began to think of my life being a blessing in so many ways. How many other guys get the opportunity to break out of their boring existence and live the remarkable life of a transgender woman. Very few humans are afforded the chance to see both sides of the gender binary. We are truly the customizable gender. 

Transgender Runners

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Archive

Rarely in my life have I ever considered myself a runner in any shape or form. In fact, the only times in my life I have done any sort of serious running were when I was in the Army or playing football. These days I think of myself as another sort of runner.

When I look back at all of my frenetic job moves to various parts of the country, I wondered why I pursued such a different path than say my Dad or younger brother who in the case of my Dad lived in the same town his entire life and worked the same job most of it. My brother followed the same path since in his formative years he was able to escape any military training.  I can't blame my vastly different path exclusively on being transgender but it certainly helped.

I started my path to separating from home when I went away to college and ironically the dramatic cutting from home ties caused me not to think anything about my gender issues for six months or so. In the long term scope of things, not a dramatic long term pause but significant in that it was one of the few times in my life I quit worrying about my gender. Moving forward, the process of moving out and meeting new people helped my well being when I had to find my way in the military. Which, by the way, did absolutely nothing to suppress my gender dysphoria. In fact, if anything, the process of military training made everything worse because I resented having to be there at all.

After I was honorably discharged from the Army, my gender issues increased as I had the freedom to explore more deeply how far my femininity went. At the same time my running increased also. I tried moving from my native Ohio to the urban jungle of NYC, then back to the heavily rural area of Southern Ohio. All of the sudden I was doing the grocery shopping (unknown to my wife) dressed completely as a fashionable woman of the 1980's. With big hair and short skirts. One day I did so well, I drove a grocery bagger boy to stutter and asked me if I needed help to my car all the way to when I encountered by accident my wife's boss in a parking lot outside of a big box store. A venture I came to regret when he mentioned seeing a "big redhead" that day when he went to the store. She of course mentioned it to me and asked if I was out sneaking around.  It took awhile for all of that crisis to blow over. Finally it did and I sought out another job and indirectly more transgender adventures somewhere else. This time I settled on fairly nearby Columbus, Ohio. In the recent past I had several fond memories of cross dresser and/or transgender mixers I attended and wondered if I could have more. Plus, Columbus was close enough to my wife and I's hometown so I could move my wife back home. 

During this portion of my life you could say I was trying to outrun my gender issues. By going to NYC and even Columbus, I was attempting to help myself by moving to more liberal situations with more to do. 

Finally, I learned to live with myself and I quit running. Even though my life of running led me to many interesting situations, mostly positive, I grew tired of the process and my transgender running ended.

It's Urgent to Read This

 If you haven't seen Stana's "Fenulate" post concerning the state of affairs due to the continuing attacks on the LGBT and Transgender communities, you need to read her post "Who's Next".

If you are an in the closet cross dresser all the way to a fully transitioned transgender woman, you should be very afraid of what the future could bring.

Follow the link above to read more.

Transgender Habitation

Image from Kyle on
Unsplash

 Every so often I receive a comment to a post so profound I just have to share it. This is one of those comments from "Mdanastrauss" concerning the "Transgender Trial by Fire" post which should be repeated:

"The goal of attaining womanhood is not solely or even for the most part about clothing or mannerisms. It is about how you feel about your inner self and how we are mirrored by others as women. This can take years to fully inhabit your womanhood and can be just as daunting."

To take you back, the post partially dealt with the process of coming out in the world as a transgender woman. Or a person needs to walk a mile (or so) in those high heeled shoes before deciding they want to make such a bold move. As the quote said, transitioning to your authentic self  is so much more than walking in heels or finding that perfect dress. 

I can not repeat enough how females are not born women. The same as trans women they are socialized into it, as are men also. In my case, everytime I thought I was successful in my goal of being a quality presentable trans woman who could take care of herself, another wall became a priority to climb. One of the walls I had to climb was learning how to judge a room as a trans woman. Yesterday for example when I went with my wife Liz to her doctor's appointment, I was invited to go back with her to an in-take room staffed by women only. When I first got there I felt I needed to look each one of them in the eye and see if there was any negative reaction to me.  Once I was satisfied there wasn't, I could concentrate on what they were telling Liz. 

Then there was Thanksgiving last year when my first wife got me aside and told me I was really progressing in my transition. I totally appreciated her compliment since she knew me from my earliest cross dressing days as a self professed transvestite. Then there were the wonderful days when the hormone replacement therapy began to show results. Surely I thought, growing my own hair, breasts along with the softening of my skin would further all my feminine goals. Of course the answer to that was no it didn't help achieve my goals of living full time as a transgender woman. Hormones didn't help at all with learning to communicate with either gender as a woman. Nobody really warned me, nor did I give it much thought what would happen to me when I lost all my male privilege's. The only one privilege I had any idea about losing was the one pertaining to my personal safety. In my cross dressing days I encountered several occurrences when my well being was in question and I was lucky to escape unscathed.

I also have known several other transgender women and men over a period of time to the point when I could see firsthand how they developed the confidence following making the plunge to live as their authentic selves. Referring back to the comment, it took years to fully habitate their transgender selves.