Finding New Friends

 

Image from Dave Goudreau
on UnSplash

In an extension of yesterday's post, I promised to write another post explaining how I found a complete new circle of close friends as a transgender woman.

As it turned out, going out to be alone resulted in me being embraced by several other cis women I met in person in the venues I became a regular in. The first came when I was approached by a bar tender who was always very kind to me and treated me with respect. One night she asked me if I would consider meeting her lesbian mother for a drink. Without hesitation I said yes  and a friendship was formed which continues to this day. Her name is Kim and she is the person who included me in a small group of family and friends who went one night to a NFL Monday Night Football game. Of course during that time, I was still fairly new to going out in the world as a transgender woman and this would be a major undertaking.  Attempting to blend in and enjoy an entire pro-football game with my ill fitting wig was going to be a challenge and I was terrified I would be spotted and harassed by another drunk fan. But I wasn't and the game went off without any big problems. In fact, the only big one was my team was defeated and I had to accept it as the new woman I was. The whole experience will go down as one of the major coming out points of my gender journey. Proving once again to me I was much more than a casual cross dresser or transvestite and quite possibly learn to live full time as a transgender woman. Kim's kindness will forever be appreciated.

The second of three lesbian cis women I met was Nikki. In the years that have gone by, she has been off social media and I have lost contact with her. We met (similar to Kim) in a venue I was a regular in. One night when I was doing my usual being alone, Nikki came in to pick up a to-go food order. While she was there she glanced down the bar at me and sent a message down to me. Sadly, I don't remember now what the message said but we ended up meeting and drinking together for several years afterward. Usually, Kim, Nikki and I would meet somewhere and watch sports or just talk. Plus, Nikki is the person who got me involved in going to Lesbian mixers with her and Kim. Since I had support, usually the mixers were a good time and as always I learned a lot.  One night I was even asked to be a "wing person" and was asked to summon my courage and ask another woman to respond to Nikki's desire to know her. I thought, I only live once, so why not.

The third woman I met came from an on-line dating site. Of course I needed to work my way through tons of rejections and trashy people before I stumbled upon a big winner. To expand my experience and the possibility of finding someone I always told the truth about being transgender, To change it all up, I would sometimes go on the women seeking women page and on occasion reverse it to men. One day I received a response from a nearby person who lived in Cincinnati, Ohio. This all happened nearly twelve years ago and the woman who contacted me was my current wife Liz. To this day, she is very open to anyone who is interested that she picked me up because I had "sad eyes." From there we started to write each other after work daily until I had enough courage for her to hear my voice over the phone. Finally we decided to meet in person when I asked her out to a drag show which was happening at a venue nearly halfway between where we both lived. To make a long story short, we enjoyed ourselves and have been together ever since. Plus we were just married last October. 

Along the way, I felt my success in being able to locate and keep the relationships I did came from me going full circle in life. My good times made up for the extreme low points I felt when I was so lonely and confused due to my gender dysphoria. To this day, I am never shy of giving the new friends I found the credit they deserve for helping me with my intense MtF gender transition.

 

Becoming Involved Through Isolation

 

Photo from
the Jessie Hart
Collection

When I first decided to leave my dark lonely gender closet and attempt to live as a transgender woman, I was extremely lonely and more than a little confused. 

During that time I had lost nearly everything which was dear to me. My wife had just died, along with many of the close friends I had managed to know and on top of all of that, it was becoming more and more evident I was going to lose my restaurant which I had invested so much time and money in. During this time of extreme duress, one of my only releases from the pain was resorting to my feminine self to help me.

In order to figure out where I was going to go, I had to consider several important points. The main one of course was which venue I should go to. Previously I was taking the easy way out by going to the safer gay venues I had heard of. In some ways, they were safer but surprisingly acceptance for transgender women such as me just wasn't evident. Most of the time I was considered to be just another drag queen, which of course I wasn't. Plus, if I ended up looking similar to a drag queen, all it proved was I had a lot of work to do on my feminine presentation. Another point I failed to consider was, the vast majority of men in the male gay venues I was going to didn't want anything to do with a woman anyhow. So I was left out again. 

Since I really didn't care for the overall atmosphere, I needed to find other places to live my new reality. Finally I decided to attempt to go to places I previously enjoyed as my male self, upscale sports bars with cold draft beer and many big screen televisions to watch my favorite sporting events. The best of both worlds for me if I could find acceptance as my feminine self. 

Other than a few notable rejections when I was asked to leave a couple venues I shouldn't have been in to start with, I did find acceptance. Even to the point of gaining women's room privilege's. I was still alone in a spot where single women don't go, I still was able to be considered a regular by the bartenders who even came to my rescue when I needed it due to unwanted attention from overly drunk men. To dissuade the men even further I used my cell phone as a prop. Once I sat down and began to get settled, I then would pull out my phone and acted as if I was waiting for someone to join me. Often all of my act was wishful thinking because again I was very lonely. I was stressed because on one hand I wanted to find a friend as a woman but on the other hand, I was very troubled about the how's and why's of how  it could ever happen. Those were the days I was very confused about how my gender transition would effect my sexuality. Which turned out to be a non issue which is a topic for a whole other blog post.

Speaking of other blog posts, it was through my being alone to find someone, paid off very well for me. Through the process, I ended up finding cis-women friends who were very instrumental in my navigation of the MtF transition process. They taught me more than they ever knew. 

Possibly the route I took to my transition success is not the path others should take but becoming involved through isolation worked for me.   

Losing. A Transgender Privilege?

 

Front Cover of Book by
Jan and Dianne DeLap

Is losing a privilege of being transgender? Without a doubt yes. Right now I am reading a book by "Jan and Dianne DeLap" called Living and Loving a Transgender Life Together. Briefly, Dianne is approximately the same age I am (74) and has shared many of the same experiences. Including losses.

Included in her experiences was losing her wife of many years who had transitioned with her and all the trials and tribulations of changing careers to earn a living. In other words, she writes about how much she had to lose to finally live a life as a transgender woman she always wanted. If you would like more information on Dianne's book contact me at Cyrstih@yahoo.com. Or her book is available on Amazon.

Very definitely, it didn't take reading Dianne's book for me to realize when you are transgender you have to realize you may lose some or all of the major facets of your life. Such as losing family, spouses, employment and even housing. You regulars know I write about all the possible losses you may experience from changing your gender often. I use the losses as a way of describing what we do in our lives is in no way a choice. We needed to complete a transition to live. 

As we become more and more involved in a gender transition as a transgender woman, we find out quickly we are kicked out of the "boys club" as we lose our male privileges. It's no secret just one of the main privilege's we lose concerns personal safety. Cis-women grow up with the knowledge of trying to insure their personal safety by not finding themselves in questionable situations. Such as not being alone at night in the dark,  in isolated situations or trying to sense which men may be toxic and dangerous. Transgender woman face the task of catching up to what cis women are taught at an young age to be careful of. I was lucky when I learned the hard way, danger as a trans woman could come my direction also. I wasn't injured but could have been.

One aspect of transitioning I don't write about enough is when we win as transgender women. Many times we win just because we have achieved living a life as our authentic selves. Referring back to Dianne, her life (similar to mine) revolved learning all the aspects of who we were as we continued to slowly understand our true selves. Slowly but surely the realization came to me if I didn't transition I would die. I needed to make the choice before living any life as my old unwanted male self precluded me living at all. At that point, I realized I needed to trade in all my male privilege to simply earn myself a way to continue to live.   

When I finally did summon the courage to follow my ultimate dream of living fulltime as a transgender woman, I began to reap the benefits.  Primarily, my long diagnosed Bi-Polar depression began to  decrease in it's intensity and on occasion, I was even able to locate and enjoy brief moments of happiness which had been noticeably absent in my life. 

So there are ways to recoup the losses I sustained in life when I transitioned. Although I do think my ultimate gender transition will not happen until I pass away. Because I am still living and learning. Most certainly losing is but one aspect of our lives as transgender women and trans men but gaining our lives is worth it. 

Unhappiness

 

Image from Abigail Keenan
on UnSplash 

When someone asks me why I ever would give up the male privilege I reluctantly earned to pursue a life as a transgender woman, it's easy to answer.. The entire process required me to jump into an existence I didn't know really much about. Regardless of spending a lifetime of closely observing almost every girl/woman I saw. 

One of the simplest responses I could ever come up with, as well as one which was easiest to understand, was I just unhappy with who I was. 

In many ways the whole process started when I was very young when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I always answered without fail and didn't tell the truth. Instead of the usual doctor or lawyer answer everyone wanted to hear, all I could keep thinking was I wanted to be a woman when I grew up.  Imagine the shock I would have received if I had ever told the truth. So I did the natural, for me, and held my ever increasing gender dysphoria to myself. I built a very dark and lonely gender closet while I was very unhappy. Even when I achieved some success in my male dominated world. It was difficult enough to achieve happiness in my family to begin with but nearly impossible when I added in anything to do with my gender dysphoria. Keep in mind, all of this occurred back in the days when being a transvestite or transsexual was considered to be a mental health issue.

Even still, I knew I wasn't crazy, all I wanted was to be was feminine. As I went through a life which included graduating with two college degrees along with surviving a stint in the Army, I never lost my desire to be a woman. In fact, the more I explored my chances to live as a transgender woman, the more natural I felt. When I was successful in my explorations I did feel so natural and yes, even happy. Since happiness was an emotion I had never felt in my life, I knew I was on the right path. The problem was, I was so used to existing with an underlying unhappiness in my life, I didn't know how to live without it. Or, in some ways, I thought it was just the normal way of living. Plus most of all the other transgender or transvestites around me seemed to be unhappy also. Even when they were supposedly going down a gender path which made them happy. 

The problem which became evident also was how much baggage could I bring with me from my old male life into my new feminine one. Since I had spent so much time acquiring all the life's knowledge I had, I didn't want to lose it all. Mainly because not all of the experiences I acquired as a guy were unpleasant and I wanted to remember them. I found rather quickly I couldn't bring much of my knowledge with me because society didn't dictate women didn't know (or shouldn't know) about subjects such as sports or politics. By joining the feminine gender, I literally lost a portion of my intelligence. I knew it was going to be a reality when I transitioned to being a transgender woman but even still I was shocked in how fast it happened. 

By this point in my transition I needed to decide what was more important to me, my male privileges or my happiness in life. For once I had the chance to throw away all of the privilege and choose my happiness.. I finally had the chance to live my childhood dream of living as a woman.    

Keeping Secrets

 

Image from the
Jessie Hart Collection

These days as my memory tries to fade in situations I want to remember, I struggle to understand how I ever was able to pursue a life as a novice cross dresser. 

The only thing I do know is somehow I became a very skilled person in hiding my small wardrobe of clothes and when I could wear them. Very early I was able to combine my meager allowance I earned from working around the house with money I earned from delivering newspapers. I was fortunate in that my Grandma lived in town within walking distance of several of the old five and dime stores which sold makeup as well as a small selection of women's clothes. It was scary and exciting when I could visit her, sneak away, go downtown, and try to shop for my own feminine accessories. My memory has not failed me when I remember how terrified and confused I was when I made my own tentative steps to purchase items. First I needed to figure out what I was going to try to buy and then buy it. I was certain the clerk who checked me out would stop and ask me what I was doing with all my selections but of course she never did. 

Another problem I had when I went downtown was my Dad worked nearby the stores I was going to. I certainly did not want to meet up with him with purchases such as lipstick or panty hose. Happily, I never did. Then, once I returned to Grandma's, I needed to hide my treasures from her and begin to figure out how I was going to sneak them into the house past the two most inquisitive members of my family. My slightly younger brother and my Mom. I can't imagine now how I did it but somehow I managed. Slowly but surely I was able to end my reliance with trying to wear my Mom's clothes and use her makeup. Except for using her electric razor to shave my legs. How did I ever get away with that? You would think someone in my family would notice my hairless legs but no one ever did as I was hooked on the electric sensation when I put on panty hose with freshly shaved legs. 

I know one of the ways I found a semblance of privacy to cross dress as a girl came when I had acquired enough clothes in my wardrobe to hide a second small "stash" in an old hallowed out tree in the woods next door to our house. After school, I was able to slip away from my brother before my parents came home from work and visit my "wardrobe" in the woods. The entire process was far from ideal but I was able to feel the sensations of the clothes and it was enough to get me by.

I suppose the whole process of growing up with gender dysphoria taught me how to be a better sneak. Which I was never proud of. I was so sad I needed to keep such an important part of my life so hidden from the rest of the world. It turned out to be the beginning of a gender process which continued as I finally went through the process of transitioning into a transgender woman. Several of my least favorite memories which are still vivid (sadly) are when I tried and failed to sneak around on my second wife. Even though she had bent over backwards to help me as well as she could with my cross dressing, I still had to try to sneak around and do more as a novice transgender woman learning the world. Of course she would find out on occasion and all hell would break out. 

Keeping secrets was certainly no fun and with my straight forward personality, I don't know how I was able to keep up my all male  appearances but I did. Perhaps not remembering all that I went through is just a case of selective gender memory.    

Living Your Transgender Truth

Image from Brett Jordan on Unsplash

To live your truth as a transgender person, you first have to figure out what your truth is. 

In many cases, accomplishing knowing your truth when in comes to gender is very difficult. Even though I had realized from a very early age I wanted to be a girl and strongly admired everything feminine, it was still a difficult journey until I could actually live my truth. I believe the earliest  remembrances I had of being transgender was when I discovered just dressing up as a member of the feminine gender just wasn't enough. I actually wanted more. I wanted to actually be a girl/woman. Sadly, when I was discovering all of this, there was no internet or social media so I still felt isolated from the world. It wasn't until years later when I heard the term transgender for the first time. 

As the years rolled by and I learned more and more concerning what a transgender person actually was, I increasingly felt the term described me. Primarily because I felt just cross dressing as a woman was just never going to describe me. Plus, I had for the first time encountered other persons who identified as trans and I just knew I wanted to learn more about their lives. It turned out to be the right move since two of the people in my circle made their journey's all the way to living full time as women.  Right or wrong, they both became role models. Through it all, I wondered if I could ever follow in their footsteps and live an impossible dream as a transgender woman. 

One of the main differences was neither of them were involved in a serious long term relationship with a strong woman who did not approve of a gender transition. Also employment wise there were major differences such as one of the women I knew was a fire-person and had served out her initial twenty years so she had a good pension coming. And, the other woman was a very successful electrical engineer. She knew she was in demand employment wise and would have no problems with securing employment. Also, to make matters worse for me (or better for them) they were both gorgeous. Here I was just doing my best to look the best I could while all the time knowing I would certainly lose my job and my wife if I transitioned. Living my truth during that time in my life turned out to be rather murky. I was considering following in my acquaintances footsteps but couldn't quite figure out how it was possible. 

Through it all, I took my usual male sides approach and tried to hide my truth. Predictably, the entire process was ill advised and finally led me to a very serious self harm (suicide) attempt. To save myself and live my truth, it took a series of events in my life to do do it. Sadly, the biggest was when my second wife of twenty five years passed away when she was just fifty. Her passing, along with the fact I was quickly approaching retirement age led me down the path to being able to attempt a gender trnasition. It was during this time when I began hormone replacement therapy or HRT. The hormonal change propelled me even further to learning my truth...I always should have been a woman. My body just screamed for the changes it went through and it all felt so natural.

I realized in my early sixties, destiny was on my side and finally I would be able to live my transgender truth.

You "Gotta" Own It

 

Image from Alysha Rosly 

As a transgender person, one of the main accessories we can have is confidence. 

Of course, when we change genders, confidence is very difficult to come by and then even possess. In my case I needed to go out in the public's eye sometimes in very questionable outfits before I finally learned what I could do to survive as a transgender woman. Even though I was going through times of being stared at (or worse) somehow I needed to pay my dues and own up to what I wore, before I could hurry home and change into a more realistic outfit which was better for my testosterone poisoned body shape. The whole process was very difficult but I survived and slowly build a very fragile confidence. 

One of the main problems is the human animal is in fact an apex predator and showing any weakness is similar to having blood in the water around sharks. Seemingly, some humans are better in sensing weakness or even uneasiness in others. If you are a novice transvestite and/or transgender person, it takes a lot of will power to have confidence in your new found ability to blend in with the public. I vividly remember so many days when I thought I had it all together just to be destroyed by one person with a mis-placed comment in public. The whole process would quickly send me back home to reconsider everything I was attempting to do with my gender presentation. One example came when I was minding my own business shopping one morning in the women's clothing section of a favorite store when I tried not to encounter a young girl running around in the store. She was better than I was when she found me and exclaimed loudly to her Mom, "Look at the big lady!...the big mean lady!" 

I quickly thought well at least she did call me a lady but resolved to do something about the old ingrained male scowl on my face. As my new self, I certainly did not want to appear unfriendly or even mean to others. Lesson learned as the Mom retrieved her child and rapidly left the store. The only other negative I ever faced in a clothing store which really hurt my confidence was when a clerk took an unappreciative look at my short skirt and said something to the point that I better cover up those big old legs. I didn't buy anything and never returned to that store again. 

Through it all, I did manage to build upon my fragile confidence all the way to point where I could own my existence. I became so confident I thought if someone had a problem with my gender existence, it was their problem, not mine. Once I made it to this point, I was able to relax more and enjoy the new exciting gender path I was on. But looking back, it was never an easy journey for me. 

First and foremost, the biggest problem I had was, I needed to go all the way mentally as far as my desire to live as a transgender woman. I do think, along the way, my old male self was working in the background to sabotage any idea of living fulltime as a woman. Once I shook him off totally, I was able to continue to build my confidence and own who I was.   

"Passing" as a Goal

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Archives

First of all, let me contradict myself and use the term "presenting" instead of "passing". I just think it is more appropriate because presenting describes more accurately what we are trying to achieve. By saying I was trying to "pass", I was just trying to fool someone into thinking I was a woman. By presenting, I was seeking to show an authentic look at my inner feminine self. 

Whatever I referred to it as, the fact remained I was obsessed with doing it. I wish I had back a fraction of the time I wasted admiring all other women and wondering if or how I could ever look the same. What happened was I grew more and more frustrated with my results when I cross dressed and tried to admire myself in the mirror. The only relief I received was when the mirror lied to me and told me I was an attractive woman. The relief was short lived and very soon I was a very difficult person to live with as my gender frustrations increased. 

Very slowly and with a huge amount of effort, I was able to better learn the artform of makeup and which clothes actually flattered my male body. Even still, it took me years and years to get to the point when I could concentrate on being my authentic self rather than looking like a person I wanted to be. Nothing changed until the wonderful evening when I finally decided what I was trying to do or go with my life. By this time I was seriously considering I was more transgender than anything else. Considering it more than living it was a different experience all together. To do it, I needed to quit obsessing on "passing" and start "presenting" myself as a total feminine person. I chose a venue where I knew single, professional women were accepted and after a stern talking to myself, in I went to sample what turned out to be a new life. I was terrified to say the least.

After the evening turned out to be a success, I knew me "passing" was forever gone and now I could move on to exploring how my life could turn out if I lived my dream to live as a fulltime transgender woman. Deep down I knew I could never go back to living as my old unwanted male life. I will never forget the evening and I am sure if my life indeed does flash before my eyes, I will see the evening again. That's an idea of how important the entire happening was. Plus, once just "passing" ceased to be a major part of my life, the being a fulltime transgender woman became another obsession.  I set out to try to do new and different scenarios in which I put myself in situations an everyday woman would face. Examples were when I decided to lessen my visits to malls and clothing stores and try to eat and associate more with the staffs at different restaurants I could go to.

Since this entire post has been primarily dealing with semantics anyhow, I guess you can say I associated "passing" with being a cross dresser or transvestite and presenting with being a transgender woman. None of it really mattered to me, if I was advancing my goal to live my new gender dream.  Which destiny showed me the way to do as it turned out to be a life or death situation.   

It's a New World

 

Raquel 

Without bringing up too much unpleasant history, it was possibly the time of Donald tRumpt's election when it became more and more in vogue to outwardly criticize transgender citizens.  I have an example. 

A long time acquaintance of mine moved from Ohio to Texas eight years ago and lives full time as a transgender woman, mostly with no problems. Recently though all of that changed when she went to a diner she knows well. Her name is Raquel and here is a partial look at what went down:

"I avoid news/politics. But I feel like I'm on people's radar lately. Yesterday as I was walking out of a diner, two drunk couples were in a booth, and this big tough guy gets my attention...

"GUY: Hey! You're not a dude, are you?

ME: [loudly] F***. You.

GUY: I'll take that as a yes!

(his friends are kinda looking around like WTF I'm not part of this)

GUY: No, you're beautiful! You had me fooled!

Coincidentally, this was the 8th anniversary of the day I moved to Texas, and it was also one of the only times I've been carrying pepper spray with me. Because people are crazy. And something's up. And nothing would make me happier than hitting this guy in the face with cop-strength capsaicin."

First of all, I admire Raquel's courage in not backing down from this guy but I remember her well and am not surprised. Years ago, she was with me the night three drunk guys started playing "Dude Looks Like a Lady" non stop at a sports bar we were at. Both of us were determined not to back down and let them chase us out of the venue. I am also surprised all she was carrying was pepper spray. I believe she has gone through firearms training.

I get the feeling the public these days is more emboldened to leave their comfort zones and challenge our transgender ones. It is sad we have to go through all of this as well as all the anti-LGBTQ or transgender bills in the state legislatures these days. Little does the public know we have been a part of them since history has begun and we are not going anywhere now.

Even still it is important to note it is a new world and I am always prepared to be confronted about my gender status when my wife Liz and I go out in public. We have not gone as far as buying pepper spray but have equipped our key chains with devices which could be used to stab and hurt would be attackers.

More than ever before, it is time to be aware of our surroundings as transgender women. It doesn't look as if these times are going away anytime soon.