Define or Refine

1940 Image of
Virginia Prince

 Refining your image in your chosen gender is always a challenge. We spend countless hours working on  and obsessing about our appearances. 

Last night I watched the documentary "Casa Susanna" on the "PBS" Network and came away impressed by many of the MtF gender transformations which were featured. The feature took me back to my days when I was first attempting to come out in the world as a woman. As far as a more complete review of the show, I will direct you to Stana's Femulate Blog where she has one. Since I remembered the oppressive days when "Casa" was active, my over-riding hope was/is we never have to go back with all the anti-LGBTQ laws which are being passed. 

I remember too the impact early transgender pioneer "Virginia Prince" had on me along with her "Transvestia" publication when she was mentioned on the show.  I know how eagerly I awaited a new edition every time it was due. After all, it was the only connection I had with others in the outside world with similar transvestite or cross dressing experiences. Reading the publication made me feel good in that there were others like me. But another factor always lingered. By looking at the featured "girls" I wanted to refine my image to possibly resemble them. I remember dedicating myself to working as hard as I could to get to my goal of being an attractive woman.  

As time went on, I followed the lead of "Transvestia" and found organizations I could actually meet with when they had mixers (or meet ups) which were close enough for me to attend. The need to meet others in person was strong and I learned many things everytime I went. First I tried to go all out with my appearance but sadly found myself lacking when I encountered the impossibly feminine "A" list women as I called them. There was no way I could come close to looking as feminine as they did so I had to settle for the next best thing, knowing I needed to work even harder to try to refine my approach. 

Of course the more I tried to refine my gender appearance, the more I wanted to try. I became obsessed on losing weight when I could and taking extra care of skin to aid my transition. Before I knew it, I was seriously considering if I fit the mold of a transgender woman. Once I did, I knew I would need to accomplish quite a bit more before I could go further down my new chosen gender path,  But I did and decided to keep following the path I was on. By doing so, I needed to refine exactly who I wanted my new woman to be and begin to communicate with the world.

Refinement became a huge task because I already had defined what I wanted which was to see if I could live a life as a fulltime transgender woman. After much work and refining I found I could. Plus , I enjoyed help from my friends I can never leave out. More than they will ever know, they helped me to define who I was and believe in myself. In many ways, even though I have defined myself as a transgender woman, I still work daily on refining who I am. 

The Fear Factor

Fear Image from Alexandra Gorn
on UnSplash

No matter how you identify in the transgender community (or beyond into the LGBTQ world) fear on occasion dictates what you are able to do when you go out in the world.

I'm referring to the all encompassing terrifying paralysis you feel when you think you have been able to dress your prettiest and put on your best makeup to go out the door as a novice transgender woman or transvestite / cross dresser. I mention the different labels because they matter to so many in the community.

Of course, in my case, fear of discovery was always a part of who I was. What if the small world as I knew it discovered my deep dark secret of wanting to be feminine. What if my parents found out I rather have the baby doll on Christmas rather than the BB Gun I was gifted? I knew my life would immediately change for the worst and most certainly I would lose my small circle of friends. I felt my overall paranoia was well deserved.

Through all the fear, I managed to keep moving forward. I slowly learned how to dress myself in my chosen gender and became relatively proficient at putting makeup on. During that time I was lucky in that I only had to answer to the mirror. There was no one else. I am sure if my Mom had ever caught me she would not have taken the time to help me be more convincing as a girl. I would have been in for appointments to therapists who back in those days had no idea of how to deal with a transgender client. Many still don't.

Fear was my first and only companion for years as I came out into the world. I can remember how scared I was when I decided to leave the gay venues I was going to and try to make it in the real world of straight places. I don't know now how I did make it but I did. Slowly but surely I was able to use my fear as a motivator and it became one of my best accessories. I think now it pushed me on to be better and improve so I could convince the world I belonged. To this day, memories of past rejections keeps me on my transgender game. Even though I don't put all of the time and effort into my appearance that I used to, I still have the motivation to look better than the average cis-woman who for the most part does nothing when she goes out in the public's eye. I am fortunate in that I have been able to undertake hormone replacement therapy and it has provided me the feminine basics to get by. Such as my own hair, breasts, hips and softer/smoother skin.  

Since anxiety of all kinds has had a tendency to rule my life from many different angles other than just being transgender, I have been able to develop my own set of coping skills to survive. For instance, now I have learned not to be shy in public and be proud of who I am.  It helps to combat the basic fear I have always had of strangers as I was always naturally shy around people I didn't know. I remember a class I needed to take in high school where I was required to be up front at a podium and give a prepared speech. Yes I was scared but I made it through it and the entire process taught me a valuable lesson that I could make it if I tried. Sort of how I was afraid somehow I wouldn't make it through Army basic training so I tried harder and made it. Lessons learned which I used when I began to go out in public as a woman scared to death. If I could only make it the first time, I could make it forever. 

Of course forever turned out to be an elusive term because it took me many more tries to fail before I was successful in my overall presentation as a transgender woman.

After I developed my coping skills and gathered my courage, the fear factor turned out to be beneficial for me.

 

The Most Difficult Steps

 

Image from Mak
on UnSplash

In my life, I have viewed my gender transition into a feminine world as a series of steps.

As with any climb, there were many steps which were more difficult than others and even those which needed extra time to negotiate. Looking all the way back to my childhood, my most difficult step was just being able to hide my secret "hobby" of dressing like a girl from the rest of my family. I was born into a very macho style group and for certain no one would have ever understood. For the longest time, any prepared plans to take more steps forward as a novice cross dresser would have to wait as I obsessed with just watching the girls around me from afar. The only step I really remember was how lonely and dark my gender closet was since I grew up in the pre-internet era where information was difficult to come by. Sadly, when I did come across any information about a cross dressed man, he was usually doing it to disguise himself as a woman for bad reasons. 

Still I persisted and managed to climb a few steps at a time when they became available to me. I was able to buy and use makeup to the point I thought I looked feminine in the mirror. At the same time I broadened my outreach as a girl to dressing up and going to the mailbox (down our long driveway) on the rare days I found myself alone in the house.

Little did I know these baby steps were preparing me for the more difficult ones to come in the future. One of the most difficult steps I ever undertook was the night when I was determined to go out for the first time feeling like my version of a woman and not just looking like one. This step happened after several Halloween parties when my "costume" got me mistaken for a woman. So I was ready to try and see what happened. What occurred was after being very frightened, I did my best to dress to blend as a professional woman and ventured into an upscale bar/ restaurant I knew catered to a similar clientele. The venue was located very close to a mall with many women workers who came after work and I tried to be there when they came one night. It turned all my paranoia was wasted because I was able to finally go in, find a seat at the bar and have a couple drinks. Most importantly no one said a word to me outside of the ordinary and I had managed to climb one of my biggest and most feared steps. No longer would I consider myself just a transvestite or cross dresser. In reality I had taken the step to being a transgender woman.

From that step upward, the climb was no easier but seemingly came at a faster rate. Following my learning experiences in the world communicating as a transgender woman, looming ahead was my next big step. Deciding yes or no to pursue hormone replacement therapy. Knowing full well if I did decide to undergo HRT, there would be no looking or turning back on my stair steps. Before I could decide though, I needed to be checked out by a doctor to see if I was healthy enough to undertake the new feminine hormones in my body. I did take that step and have never looked back.

These days my steps have slowed with age and now I have the final step to look forward to. Knowing I really don't have much say in the process, I just hope it's as a painless step as possible, After all, it's the biggest step of all.

Planned or Evolved

 

Image from UnSplash

Completing a gender change is a difficult experience, to say the least. 

Sometimes I think my path to a transgender life was planned, sometimes I think I just evolved. I think that because the more I planned, the less I accomplished. There were literally years which went by without much change at all, or so I thought. Those were the days when I thought I had perfected my wardrobe and makeup but then failed miserably when I went out in the public's eye and found out I still had a long way to go. In other words, putting the feminine image in motion was the plan but I found I needed to evolve into it. I needed to walk the feminine walk more than I had ever had. The mirror had to take a back seat to reality.

Along the way, I was able to plan on carving out precious time in my male life to explore the possibility if I could further explore a transgender life as a woman. I went to many mixers in nearby Columbus, Ohio which were attended by everyone from transsexuals to transvestites to male "admirers:. Somewhere in the middle of all those people was me. I guess I could have been described as a questioner who was just observing all the others to see where I fit. Through it all, there was no way I could plan my next gender move, I needed to evolve into it. 

It wasn't until much later in life until I tried to plan my future. Fairly quickly after taking my time in my MtF gender transition, the time was quickly approaching to pick up the pace. For one, I wasn't getting any younger and if I was ever going to try, I better do it. Plus another major issue was I was becoming better and better existing in public as a transgender woman. If in any way I was receiving negative feedback perhaps I would have felt differently about transitioning but it was different because I felt so natural the more I did it. The more I communicated and existed in the world as a trans woman, the less I needed to plan my next move. I could just sit back, relax and evolve who I was. 

Evolution eventually led me to beginning hormone replacement therapy and never formulating any plans to ever go back to my old unwanted male life. The hormones I was fortunate enough to be approved for helped me to evolve much further into a feminine life I wasn't prepared for. I learned quickly there was no way anything I had accomplished in life HRT opened pathways in my life I could have never planned for, I needed to evolve into as a new human being. 

Once I evolved I was able to be a better person as the stress of attempting to live between two of the main binary genders drained off of me. Even my long bout with having a prescribed Bi-Polar depression disorder became better. Probably because my consumption of alcohol went way down also,  All because I quit planning to change my gender and evolved into a transgender woman I could be happy with.    

Muscle Memory

Image from the Jessie Hart
archive. Ohio River background. 

If you are into sports at all, perhaps you have heard the term "muscle memory". Athletes use it to describe how they approach certain aspects of their sport. A prime example is how a batter in baseball prepares the same way everytime when he comes to the plate. 

As transgender women and trans men often we face the same dilemma of how to cross the gender frontier and establish ourselves successfully as new women or men. Naturally along the way we have a tendency to carry characteristics of our previous gender we need to erase. One of the first aspects of my old gender I attempted to change was how I walked. What I encountered was, I finally achieved a certain level of presentation in my mirror and then I had to put the entire feminine image into motion. I needed to break so many bad habits when I was trying to cross dress as a man, I felt I needed to practice as much as I could. I even went to extreme measures such as going to big box stores later at night and practice walking as a woman. Even though I was still dressed as a man. I always wondered what the store detectives watching on camera thought of me. 

Over time my ability to move more as a transgender woman improved to a point I felt more secure in public. At that point I discovered another serious problem I was facing was how I held my facial expression. It took a small child loudly telling her Mother "Look at the big mean woman!" The obvious compliment was the kid called me a woman but the bad side was she thought I was mean. From that point forward I tried to take the old male scowl off my face and replace it with a more welcoming look. With my new look, along the way, I attracted more positive communication as a woman in the public's eye. 

Muscle memory for me was difficult to maintain. I really needed to concentrate to make my gender image complete. My old male ways were so ingrained. It seemed on occasion the harder I tried, the more mistakes I would make. An example was the time my high heel became wedged in a small crack in a mall sidewalk I was in or the time I was leaving a venue where I was a regular in. One night I was wearing my high heeled boots, got up to leave and promptly fell in a wet spot. Fortunately I was not injured in either case except for my pride. I went back to the drawing board and I challenged myself to walking better in high heels. All part of the new muscle memory I was attempting to assimilate in order to be a more accomplished transgender woman.

These days I am trying once again to improve my movement muscle memory. Since I went through a period of time when I was having mobility issues. I finally found myself at a point where moving as a woman wasn't as important as just moving at all. Happily I am beginning to do better with my mobility now so I can again concentrate on moving as a woman. 

All in all, muscle memory is a very important phase for all transgender women and trans men to go through. Why should we spend so much time and effort in looking good for the world and destroy the image completely when we put it into motion. 

Gender Secrets

 

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archives

Transgender women and trans men most certainly carry their share of secrets during their life. 

My secrets started quite early. The first I can remember were when I was asked what I wanted to be later in life. Instead of the usual answers (which adults wanted to hear) such as a doctor or a lawyer, all I could secretly think of was I wanted to grow up to be was a woman.  Little did I know, the secrets in my life were just beginning. First there were times I needed to sneak around my families' back to try to just look like a feminine person in my mirror. 

As I said, those were the "easy" secrets to keep as I kept my small feminine wardrobe hidden from my family. Plus, every cent of my hard earned money went to adding new items of clothing or makeup. I worked a newspaper route at a young age as well as earning a meager allowance by doing household chores. All helped to invigorate my passion to be female. Somehow I still managed to hide my secret from my family.

Other secrets I could never share with anyone else were many and varied. For example, when I was a defensive end on the high school football team all I really wanted to be was a cheerleader in one of their short flouncy skirts. Then there were the two proms I went to when I was a junior and senior in high school. There was no way I wanted to be the male in the relationships. I wanted so bad to be the person in the beautiful prom dress with the corsage I needed to buy. I wonder now if there was anyone else to talk to about my feelings would it have led to much change. As it was, it would not have been possible because I was still living in the pre-internet dark ages before  Even if therapy was available to me, no one knew anything about my gender issues. I actually did try to bring my cross dressing up to one therapist after I served my time in the Army and was roundly rejected. It wasn't until I discovered a therapist who specialized in gender issues did I get any relief. She told me there was nothing she could do about my being a transvestite or cross dresser but I was also bi-polar and could help me by prescribing medications. The medication did relieve much of my depression.

By the time I began to consider getting serious with women to the point of marriage, I quickly experienced the positive and the negative of keeping gender secrets. My first time of sharing my secret with a woman who was my first fiancé was a total disaster. She held it against me later when I was facing being drafted into the military. Even with this experience, I was determined to not change how I disclosed my deepest secrets to the women I was very interested in. By doing so, my first and second wives knew before they married me that I was a transvestite. As it turned out, telling them did not have any real effects until I began leaning towards being transgender with my second wife. Even though we fought continually concerning what my gender desires were, at least for the most part I was out front about who I was.

It took me many years to learn but all my years of thinking women had it easier in life, I was wrong. When I found I needed to put my secrets away and begin to peel back the multi layered life's women I was wrong. I needed to experience the same path females follow before they can claim the title of being women. Sadly, some never make it and just can only claim to be female. Which is a subject for a whole other blog post.

In the meantime, it is so enlightening to be able to not having to keep so many heavy gender secrets....secret.  

Transgender Doors

 

Image from Nathan Wright 
on UnSplash

Anyway you look at it, doors are meant to be opened. No matter how scary and difficult the door may appear, to try to see what is beyond it is a part of being human.

As a transgender woman or trans man we have many doors to go through to live as our authentic selves. The first door I remember distinctly was the one when I fought to free myself from the mirror and venture out into a feminine world. The entire process was scary and required maximum effort for me to succeed. Primarily I needed to always remember to keep trying, no matter what the circumstances. Along the way, many times, I needed to turn my tears of public failure into eventual success. 

Another door I needed to go through in the beginning was the fact I was going to have to succeed as a transgender woman on my own. My wife knew I was a transvestite or cross dresser but constantly remined me she never signed up to live with another woman. I understood and went about learning all I could about being a trans person on my own. To do it, I needed to do many things I am not proud of, then and now. Primarily, I was going out on her to be with another woman who turned out to be me. Sadly, I would go to any lengths to further my goal of exploring the world as a feminine person. 

As I began to see progress in my presentation as a transgender woman, it just so happened I found many more doors I needed to open and go through. First and foremost I needed to decide I was transgender and what the term meant to me. I needed to leave the transvestite term behind, as well as any idea I was anything more than a very serious cross dresser. Taking the whole process a step further, I had to face the one fact I had always secretly known about me, I wanted to do much more than just look like a woman. I had known for many years I had lost any attraction to just wearing the clothes and needed more. I also learned each door I had the courage to go through showed me how natural the process was for me. 

I learned also some doors opened easier than others. Basic communication with the world was an example of a very heavy and difficult door. First I needed to establish my own self confidence before I could even attempt to communicate with others. Especially other women. I learned to look strangers in the eye and not care if they thought I was transgender or not. Once I did, I needed to establish my new personality which involved opening a whole different door. I most certainly did not want to come off as an unfriendly or somehow evil person. After all, how many humans have the chance to rebuild another person from scratch. The pressure was on not to screw it up since I had such a wonderful knowledge of how both primary genders operate. I desperately wanted to be a person someone would want to know. 

Even though I found many doors I needed to open and negotiate, I loved the inherent excitement of gender discovery. No matter how heavy or how scary I managed to keep going forward to my goal of living full time as a transgender woman.

That Missing Something

 

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash

Throughout my life it seemed there was always something missing. No matter how big or small the occasion was, I was never satisfied.

For the longest time I blamed my parents because of the way I was raised. Nothing was ever good enough for either of them. If I managed an "A" in any subject I studied should have somehow earned an "A+". So it was easy to blame my parents for everything. After I began to think about it years later, another idea began to be considered.

What if all those years later I was missing a key ingredient and that was gender. My excuse is it took so long for me to come to terms with the fact I was a transgender woman. Perhaps it was the reason I could never be completely satisfied with anything I was doing. An example would be the professional baseball games I was asked to go to by one of the companies I worked for. Here I was enjoying the game with other managers and I was busily admiring the beautiful women I saw and wishing I was them. A huge part of my life was missing and I couldn't totally enjoy anything because of it. I wish I could get back just a portion of the time I waisted dwelling on my gender issues.

Finally I was able to transition fully enough that I was able to not spend all my time admiring other women. Through experience I was able to understand what they went through to appear the way they did and furthermore no cis-woman was secure in her looks completely anyway. Women lead a multi layered existence and it most certainly takes awhile to learn all of the layers. Proving once again we transgender women have every right in the world to call ourselves "women". We just became from pursuing a different journey than those women who were born female. That extremely negative female you may know possibly missed a step or two in her development to cause her to react to the world the way she does.  She could be jealous of your trans-femininity. 

As we go through life, most certainly it is impossible not to miss out on many possibilities. It turned out to be impossible for me to experience the life of the girls I was so jealous of when I was growing up. They were developing the curves I wanted while all I was getting was hard angles in my body. It took me years plus the addition of hormone placement therapy to develop curves of my own. 

It turns out, the missing something in my life was my gender. When I finally began to live more and more as a transgender woman, I was able to figure it out. By the time I did, I couldn't do anything about the time I lost but I could take the opportunity to grow into the woman I always wanted (or should have) been. When I did, my entire life was more complete and the missing something just went away.

 

Gender Side Effects

 

Liz on Left from the 
Jessie Hart Archives

When a human being attempts to cross the gender frontier to live a life as their authentic selves, they naturally undergo many side effects. 

Perhaps the biggest side effect is just having to live as the gender you had always dreamed of living. Quickly you find the grass isn't always greener when you transition. My primary examples include when I suddenly lost a part of my intelligence when I started my life as a transgender woman and when I found out the hard way my personal security most certainly wasn't the same. The entire process most certainly was an eye opening experience. All of a sudden, I was more than the "pretty, pretty princess" my wife called me, I was discovering how a woman really lived. 

Other side effects came when I began to live more and more as my feminine self. Gender discoveries were coming fast and furious and were often as terrifying as they were exciting. My male self did not want to give up all the white male privileges he had won in the world. It seemed just the time he could have been situated to enjoy the positives of his labors, it was all taken away because he decided to live as a transgender woman. Side effects for my male self were all negative. 

When I was able to step back and view the entire gender trnasition experience as a whole, the biggest side effect was the entire process felt so natural. When I was having any of the self doubts concerning moving forward in my transition, deep down inside my feminine soul told me to just keep going and everything would be alright. I just needed to learn my own way how difficult the process would be. It seemed every layer of womanhood I learned would just be scratching the surface of what I needed to learn. How was I ever going to be able communicate with the world as my new self and would I ever be accepted to being able to play in the girl's sandbox as an equal. Just two of the burning questions I was facing day to day as I considered reaching for my dream.

Another huge side effect was the time it was taking me to move forward in the world. For every step forward I felt good about, the were two steps back I needed to worry about. Examples included, what was I going to do about a very non approving spouse and how could I ever live without the fairly high paying job I had worked so hard to obtain. As it turned out, biding my time while I learned more about what being a woman was all about turned out to be a good side effect because I was more prepared when the time came to actually begin my life as a full time transgender woman. By the time my transition fully happened, I don't think I had ever prepared better for anything in my life and I was in my early sixties at the time.

Now I can safely say, the final side effect for me was a positive experience. By transitioning I have been able to live out a lifetime dream and never looked back.