Total Disclosure

 

Liz to my right at the Picnic
from the Jessie Hart Collection

Total disclosure of our deepest gender secrets often comes at a huge cost to many transgender women or trans men when we choose to let others into our authentic life. 

Losses are well documented, such as losing everything from spouses and family to employment and friends. Sadly it all happens when we simply decide to tell others. Plus, not many realize we trans folk never really had a choice of whom we just had to be to live. Then we have to go through severe nervousness  we decide who to tell and when. 

In my case, I decided who I needed to tell and ranked them in order of importance to me. I chose telling my only child, a daughter to tell first. Total disclosure to her was rough. I couldn't believe it was my words telling her I was transgender and then waiting for a totally negative reaction. It turned out she was shocked and then a little upset. She asked why she was the last to know. Truth be known, she wasn't the last to know. Her Mother knew I was a cross dresser or transvestite back in those days but thought it was a fairly harmless side "hobby" of her husband. She (or I) didn't know how deep my gender urges ran and how much I put in to denying who I really was. 

The only other person my daughter could be referring to as far as people knowing about me was my second wife, her step mother. Since she is deceased I will never know how many people (if any) she ever told. As with most cis-women, I feel as if she may have confided in her closest friend because of how the friend started to treat me. So all in all my daughter, who made my coming out process so incredibly easy essentially spoiled me. Next on my list to tell was my only brother because my parents had long since passed on. 

As it turned out, as well as my experience with my daughter went, my brother's was just as bad. Mostly I think because of his fear of dealing with right wing Baptist in laws, he wouldn't/couldn't accept me. To cut the only real tie we had as family, he pulled my invitation to the annual family Thanksgiving dinner back. That was close to a decade ago and we have sadly not spoken since. So much for brotherly love when total gender disclosure was involved. It seemed with the total disparity between my daughter and my brother was involved, destiny had taken a moment to show me both sides of disclosing my authentic self. My daughter just wanted me to be happy, while my brother just wanted to ignore the entire matter. 

I waited so long to let others in to my world, most had passed on. Also with the help of my remaining and new supporting friends and family, I was able to build new support systems without the worry of total disclosure. Since the new people already knew me. Which was quite the weight off my shoulders as you can imagine. 

Sadly, as transgender women and trans men face total disclosure, we still face too many obstacles to live as our authentic selves. Many end up living lonely lives although I believe social media is beginning to provide connections within the trans community. Until the problem is totally resolved for the benefit of all, we have a long way to go. 

Shadow Man

 

Image from Stormseeker 
on UnSplash

For years I have struggled to describe most of my gender journey from being a semi successful man to living as a fulltime transgender woman. 

Finally I came up with one idea. During the male moments of my life I was merely a shadow man. Even though I acted as if I was in the moment, I wasn't really all there. I was just looking for a way to survive the lie I was living. In order to do it, many times I needed to overdue my put-on macho image to hide my true self. I don't believe I was a toxic man but I certainly hung out with the macho guys even though I was still in the shadows. 

Perhaps it's the reason I had so few male friends. I was so afraid I would slip up and friends would see my true feminine self. It's also possible it is also the reason keeping so few people close to me meant I would have fewer people to tell if and when I came out of the shadows. With me, tragically the plan worked when most all of my close male friends passed away within several years of each other. So I don't recommend the path I took at all. 

Over the years in the shadows I also learned well the male privilege's I came to expect as I led the life of a white male. Perhaps the only drawback which turned out to be a positive was my time in the Army. The three years I served led me to very male pursuits such as learning how resilient I really was. Lessons which would serve me well when I became a father as well as other as surviving other male dominated areas such as my job. In many ways, I could go in to a room of my peers and hold my own. I didn't especially want to but at the time it was great to have a back up plan for my shadow man.

Perhaps, once I seriously started to complete my Male to Female gender transition, I began to realize how my gender life was directly backwards. Instead of being a feminine crossdresser or transvestite, I was a female cross dressing as a man. My dominate gender increasingly turned out of be feminine not masculine. Which meant my shadow man left the spotlight and retreated ever deeper into the background of my life. All in all, the deciding factor turned out to be was how natural the process turned out to be. When I subtracted out all of the moments I was totally terrified when I suddenly was losing all of my male privileges. Life was suddenly much fuller and exciting. What a shock it was the first night when I learned I had suddenly lost a significant part of my intelligence when I unknowingly was involved in a male dominated conversation. To add insult to injury they were discussing a topic I knew quite a bit about but it didn't matter. 

As it turned out, my path was illuminated when I finally gave up on being a shadow man. When I embraced completely being a transgender woman, I finally was living my truth . She had waited years and years to let any sort of light come in to her very dark and lonely gender closet. Once she was out in the light, she was determined to make the most of the opportunity and with the help of several close friends, she made the jump into the real world. 

The shadow man was exposed to the light and disappeared. Never to be seen again.      

Rites of Passage

Image from the
Jessie Hart
Collection

Yesterday I made the appointment for one of the main rites of passage I have decided to go through as a transgender woman.

What I did was schedule my annual summer mammogram. My Veteran's Administration primary provider (family doctor) always pushes me hard to have a yearly mammogram due to my family history with cancer. My maternal grandmother passed away years ago in the 1950's from breast cancer. I strongly feel because of my history I need to follow up.

If you have never had a mammogram, it is a relatively brief procedure when the nurses put you in a big X-ray machine and provide pressure to take pictures of your breasts. Not a pleasurable experience but a necessary one. Since I often think of the irony I would have to respond to if I did develop any sort of breast cancer as a transgender woman. Also I neglected to mention having to strip down to your waist and wear one of those fashionable (not) hospital gowns. I guess it's no worse than having to strip down for your military draft physical.   

The remainder of the appointment process has normally been very routine. Except for the nurse who aggravated me by asking  if I had any work done "down there". Like it was any of her business. The only other humorous thing which happened when I sat up the appointment was when the reception person was having a difficult time matching my voice on the phone with anyone needing a mammogram. She finally asked me what relation I was to the patient. 

For any number of reasons I consider having a yearly mammogram one of the top of the rites of passage I have had to go through on my gender journey. Others would include the night I decided to see if I could throw my cross dresser or transvestite ideas aside and decide if I could try to live as a transgender woman. From there I went on years later to an even bigger decision. Which was to start hormone replacement therapy. The path that started the breast growth I needed to start having mammograms. 

Hopefully this years test results will be clear of any abnormalities in my breasts so I can face my primary physician with the results. Also I hope I don't have to encounter any more rude nurses with off the wall questions. For the most part, everyone has been nice to me and the VA has handled the payment process without a problem. 

The appointment is scheduled for close to the end of the month so I will have sometime to think about it. Plus, this year, my wife Liz is going with me, so she can handle most of the driving as well as the directions to get there. Always good to have company.  

Confidence is your Greatest Accessory

Image from Alysha Rosly 
on UnSplash

In my post from yesterday about Ohio's vote, I didn't mention how much I appreciate being able to vote with my driver's license state ID which is gender marked with a "F". For female of course which I worked very long and hard to secure.

I am always proud to be able to vote and also proud to vote as my authentic self.  Yesterday when I voted. I proudly walked up to the first available poll worker and handed him my drivers license. I was surprised when I saw he was a younger person. Normally the workers seem to be my age or above. I was even more pleased when the man was very nice to me. It's been a long time since I have ran into a man who seemed at the least bit happy to see me. 

The reasons could be many. I automatically assume the men have read me as transgender and in some way think I am less attractive. Or some men just treat women as lesser citizens anyhow and they aren't treating me any different than they would any other woman. One way or another I try to approach situations with the public with as much confidence as I can muster. 

Confidence of course for a transgender woman comes as we progress from a novice cross dresser-transvestite all the way to living full time as your authentic self. If you are lucky (as I wasn't )  you will be spared the public humiliation of being stared at all the way to outright laughter. It is nearly impossible to build any confidence at all when you have to suffer through that. However, if you stick with the process you can slowly learn to apply artful makeup and dress yourself to begin to blend in with society. When any or all of the process begins to happen, confidence does also. 

Perhaps most importantly, confidence allows you to face the world eye to eye. Human's are like sharks and they can sense when something is wrong.  It took me years of trying before I gathered enough confidence to look at others with the idea something was wrong with them, not me. I also needed to learn the difference in dealing with other women or men. Women proved to be much more of a challenge to me as they were/are more discerning than men. Going back to the poll worker who was so nice to me, I wondered if he was somehow attracted to my appearance or was he in his own closet and his trans-dar was going off. Whatever the case, I am sure I relieved the boredom for him as he checked in people to vote.

Confidence is also a chicken or the egg type story. Did the perfect outfit (along with makeup) come before the confidence or was it vice versa when you achieved your goal of existing in society as a transgender woman...or what ever label you want to attach to yourself. One thing is for certain, you never know until you try to make your exit from the mirror and head into the world. 

You go girl!    

 

Mama Didn't Raise no Fool

Liz on Left. New Years Eve
from the Jessie Hart
Collection

 Before I get into this post, I need to mention how happy I was when the State of Ohio overwhelmingly rejected a power grab move by the political party not called Democrat. The move now clears the way for a November vote on the amendment to insure women in Ohio are protected against restrictive abortion bills. It's a huge start in the right direction for women's rights in Ohio.

The whole failed ballot initiative proved for once many parents didn't raise fools here in Ohio. 

When I was growing up, politics were basically a private topic in our house. My Dad (a banker) never talked about his politics although I always suspected he was always leaning to the right. On the other hand, I thought my Mom (who was a teacher) would have been a Democrat, She almost went as far as mentioning I dodge the Vietnam War draft by heading to Canada. Which of course I never did.

By now you are most likely thinking what does any of this have to do with being a transgender woman. One of the main things is my Mom and I never really had the chance to discuss how I really felt about my gender. I only brought up to her that I was a transvestite or cross dresser one time and it was after I was discharged from the Army. As suspected, she soundly rejected the possibility of me being feminine at all. In fact she offered to pay for a therapist because back in those days, we were still in the dark ages when any gender dysphoria was considered a mental illness. Plus, she was firmly rooted in the "greatest generation" mentality. The WWII/Great Depression group who were long on providing and short on emotion. Looking back now, I wish I would have brought it up to my Mom again before she passed to see if she would have at the least changed part of her thinking.

My Mom and I were much alike, I favored her in actions and in appearance. I even added her first name as my middle name when I had it legally changed years ago. Mainly because I feel she would have finally came to some sort of a begrudgingly acceptance of my authentic self over time. 

Most importantly, Mom taught me to think for myself  and to be as free as possible. In other words, not to be a fool. Ironically, she raised me so well to do it that it came back to haunt her when I finally had the courage to come out to her, or completely let her into my life. When she rejected me, that was it and we never talked about my gender dysphoria again before she passed away. I feel in many ways I was the fool for not pressing the transgender issue with her when the information began to become available. My excuse is life got in the way and I didn't. 

As far as my Dad goes, he was a wonderful provider and distant father. Coming out or letting him in to myself was never an option. Most likely similar to many of you. 

As I said, perhaps the biggest fool I faced was myself because I took so long to embrace who I really was in my life. 

Destruction

Image from Mika Baumeister
on UnSplash

At various stages of my life I survived being so very self destructive to everything around me. 

Of course being gender dysphoric as well as bi-polar didn't help. Before I was diagnosed and received medications it seemed all I did was go from being very depressed to being very mean and nasty. I am surprised my wife was able to stay around as I tried to tear down everything I attempted to build. Often I would change jobs at a frenetic pace just to see if I could. During the process I uprooted and moved my wife and I from our native Ohio, to New York City, then back again to West Virginia. She didn't like the moves but came along anyway.

It took me awhile but finally I came to the conclusion I was trying to out run my gender issues by all the moving we were doing. Since my inner feminine self didn't respect all of the work was male self was doing to be a success, she did her part to resist and tear all the work down. Very self destructive to say the least. 

One of the biggest pillars of my life which was left was my marriage to my second wife which I write about often since it lasted twenty five years. She knew I was a cross dresser or transvestite from the very beginning so in many ways dressing like a woman for me was a non starter with her. She didn't really care and/or put up with it. The deciding factor came when I began to feel the urge to see if I could actually live as a transgender woman. I can still hear her words echoing in my head, I never signed up to live with another woman. After tremendous gender focused battles and me essentially cheating on her by leaving the house behind her back, I finally gave in and tried to purge most all of my feminine belongings before she passed away. I view the whole experience now as a fight between two strong willed women, my wife and my female self.

After I began the MtF gender transition to living life as a transgender woman, I needed to go through a relearning process of sorts to not be so self destructive. Among other things, I needed to dress more conservatively to blend in to where I wanted to go and I needed to be much more wiser when I did it. I almost learned the hard way about being in the wrong place at the wrong time as a trans woman. My male safety privileges were stripped from me when I crossed the gender border and I needed to learn the new rules of being a woman...fast. 

As it turned out, my new feminine self was much less self destructive than my old male self. Once she had finally got her way, she wanted to keep it and build a much more pleasant life.

Planning Ahead

Image from Mohamed Nohassi
on UnSplash 

At some point in my transgender MtF transition I was forced to plan ahead.

The point I am referring to is when I came to the point I knew I was going to attempt to go "all the way". When I did, I needed to seriously consider first of all how I was going to be able to support myself. I worked at a job which was very male dominated and relied on serving the public, so I knew my company would resist my gender changes. Plus I couldn't even imagine how a kitchen crew would react to a transgender manager. 

I ended up taking the easy way out and was able to retire early on my Social Security benefits and augment them by selling the houseful of antiques and collectibles my wife and I had obtained over the years. Between the two, I managed to support myself as a novice transgender woman. Perhaps what I didn't plan so well for was the experience of actually living as a trans woman. Once I threw away or donated all of my male clothes, acquiring an everyday women's wardrobe proved challenging. I learned very quickly I couldn't be the "pretty pretty princess" I was for most of my transvestite or cross dressing years on a daily basis. I needed to fall in line with the women around me and dress for comfort when they went about their normal life's. Blending became my word of the day when I faced the reality of dressing feminine on a daily basis.

Once I conquered dressing the part, I then needed to adjust to going to places I may  have felt uncomfortable in as a transgender woman. Examples included places such as auto parts stores all the way to junk yards when Liz and I searched for a hard to find part for our old car. Through it all, I tried to keep my head up and deal with situations (which for the most part) never came up. What I didn't realize was  dealing with other women on a daily basis would prove to be the most challenging experience for me. All of a sudden, I was forced into deeper communication other than I love your ear-rings. Specifically from women who wanted to pry into who they were communicating with. Some were gentle and calculating while others were more blunt and to the point. Similar to how a man would attack. The most important point was I learned quickly how to  protect myself when I began to be out on a daily basis as a transgender woman.

I learned all the planning in the world all of a sudden didn't do me any good. I was making good on a lifetime gender dream and there was no turning back. I just can't say enough how big the changes were when I finally had the courage to go full time. I will never forget the experience and how fulfilling it was for me. 

Civil War

Image from Valentin Salja
on UnSplash

When I see a gender bigot of any sort  who says we transgender women or men had a choice of our gender lifestyles. I just shake my head in disbelief. Having any sort of a choice in my gender battles has always been the furthest  thing in my mind.

In my case, the best way I can describe the torment of the transgender dysphoria I went through was similar to fighting an individual civil war. My feminine side fought a vicious war to free herself from the male self who was fighting equally as hard to remain in control. Even though deep down he knew the existence was built on a false premise. From a very early age, I knew I deeply admired the girls and dreamed of how it would be to have the chance to be the cheerleader instead of the defensive end on the football team. A prime example among others including not have to wear the same old boring clothes. I so envied the girls with their pretty dresses and shoes.

None of my envy did me any good and my civil war grew more intense the more I did to relieve the problem. Even though I was able to increase my meager wardrobe of feminine clothes, the more I wanted. Especially when I was able to buy my own makeup and began to experiment ever more seriously when I viewed my new image in the mirror. Even though most of my attempts were predictably clownish, I slowly became more skilled and every now and then even was able to catch a glimpse of my true inner female in the mirror. Sadly, when I did, I usually wanted more which did nothing to stop my civil war.    

Through it all, my male self behaved predictably. He held on, refusing to give up any of his battlefield. He made the process much more difficult by internalizing his pain. Looking back, he fought back the only way he knew, to be brave and fight on. He thought I would lose most of my beloved hobbies such as sports , as well as friends, if my female took over after winning the civil war I was going through. Even though most all of that turned out to be false, the fear was real.

All my gender battles created extreme pressure within me. Finally the strain culminated with me attempting a self harm or suicide attempt. Fortunately I wasn't very good and failed. From the attempt I began to think back at all the other self destructive attempts I tried in my life. Not all as dramatic but all equally as sad. If I had not been busy fighting my own destructive civil war, how much more could I have accomplished in my life. 

No matter how you cut it, civil wars are never kind or pleasant and transgender civil wars are no different.  

What If?

Picnic picture from the 
Jessie Hart Collection. Liz on right.

Often I think about what my life would had been like if my wife had been transgender and I was the one trying to deal with it.

What if she wanted to become a he and started to date other women? Of course the easiest answer would be I would be the accepting one but would I have been if I had never been trans. Then I think of the amazing spouses which have come to acceptance of their former husbands new gender. The wives who come to understand the internal self is the important part of the total person are so special and in so many instances so rare.

My second wife, as well as my current spouse are prime examples. My first wife was a very much go with the flow person and I often thought if I told her I would be gone for a few months to complete gender reassignment surgery, she would have not missed me. Second wife was very much against me being a transgender woman at all and Liz, my current wife encouraged me to follow my gender dreams. I guess you could say I covered almost all the aspects of being married when all my spouses knew I was at the least a cross dresser or transvestite from the very beginning of our relationships. The only feeling I hid was the fact I was so much more than just a relatively harmless cross dresser just pursuing a hobby. My excuse is the whole time I was hiding the truth from myself as I tried my best to live a lie as a male person.

Looking back at my second wife a little deeper, I think she was suffered from a little paranoia of her own sexuality. We were members of a very active civic organization which did an incredible amount of good in the community. Within the group were several women whom I considered to be lesbians as well as a couple gay guys. All were in the closet and nothing was ever said, I think. What I wonder is if my wife ever was attracted to those other women and was in fact some sort of an embedded lesbian. It is all speculation on my part because she passed away in 2007.  Sometimes I think she protested my gender dysphoria too much.

 The exact opposite happened with Liz, my current wife. When we met, I was still trying to live a life which straddled both of the two main gender binaries. Within a very short period of time, she told me I should shed what was left of my male self and live entirely as my feminine self. As it turned out, she was the final push I needed to come out of my closet and live as my authentic self.

For all of you who are fortunate and have an accepting spouse, you have an understanding of what I am attempting to say. Gender is such a basic need and to change it is such a big deal. Often the road to acceptance for wives takes years. If you have the power to do it, try to understand all the dynamics which are going on. Plus, if you can do it, try to put the shoe on the other foot and what if your spouse was considering changing their lifestyle in such a dramatic way. 

What if you could change or not.