The Power of Pain

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Jessie Hart Archives

 Perhaps you have heard of the expression "What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger". Most certainly it is easy to equate the quote with being transgender. 

As we go through life as a trans woman or trans man, our upbringing follows us. If you suffer from gender dysphoria as I did, or not, very few of us escape the torment of our lifetime of taking a long gender journey. A journey which presents new challenges at every turn. First of all, we have to deal with the challenge of perfecting our appearance so we can attempt to go out in public at all, As I write about often, I went through severe challenges before I learned the hard way I needed to dress myself to blend rather than excite. 

Once I learned those hard lessons, I was able to move on to even more challenging moments in my male to female gender transition. The pain I was experiencing led me rather quickly to another big fork in the road when it came to living in a woman's world. What I needed to learn to be able to play in the girl's sandbox was to be able to understand how women communicated between themselves. I needed to adjust to living in a largely passive aggressive system in order to survive and even flourish. Also, I needed to learn what women were really trying to say when I was attempting to make it successfully in a system they were good at and I was still a novice trying to learn. 

Many times I didn't escape the pain when I was backstabbed or clawed in the back by another woman I thought accepted me. It wasn't until I found a small group of women friends who accepted me for who I really was and didn't use it against me. At the same time I learned from my friends the basics of learning to validate myself without a man and more precisely accept myself on my own terms. Sadly I still had my own share of pain. Then I experienced even more pain when I entered  the dark time of my life. Somehow it seemed I had to lose nearly everything else to gain my time to emerge as my true self. Truly a time of intense rediscovery and finally I was able to move on regardless of the pain I felt. I needed to take the difficult step to learning to trust myself again as a totally new person in the world.

Looking back at the painful dark portion of my life, I think I very much was able to emerge as a better person.  The biggest positive was I had the opportunity to live as a functioning member of both of the two binary genders. In fact, for awhile I found myself advising other women on communication problems they were having with their men. I was humbled and flattered to be included in their thoughts but still thought there was better advice to be had than mine. 

I guess, in the end result ,pain is what you make of it. Very few humans escape real pain as it is built into our lives anyhow as we all experience death. However it seems, being transgender brings even more pain to lives which don't deserve it. It is one of the reasons our trans selves have molded ourselves into such a resilient tribe.

Why When How

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It's been awhile but every now and then someone asks me how I knew I was transgender. 

The question should be when did I accept the fact I always knew deep down but refused to accept...I was born to be feminine and could not rest until I achieved my goal. In fact, I tried to hide my goal from myself for the largest part of my life.

Even though I was forced to pursue such ultra macho activities such as playing sports, working on cars and completing my military obligations, I made it through. Like so many others, I was drafted into the Army but ended up serving three years instead of two to have a better chance of not going to Vietnam to war. I was honorably discharged in 1975 and would proceed to become a father for the first and only time in 1976. Through it all, I tried my best to ignore my biggest inner truth by trying to drink and run away from the fact I was transgender. 

When I gave my male self his best shot to succeed the more I became increasingly miserable. All the drunken nights did nothing to relieve my gender tension the next day. The only time it did help was when I came out to a close group of friends as a transvestite as a cross dresser was known back in those days. Fortunately for the rest of my Army "career" nobody outed me any further which would have resulted in an immediate dishonorable discharge.

As October and another Halloween is upon us, it is time to focus in on how important the day was to become to me. Halloween proved to be the beginning of my "when" on my path to coming out as a transgender woman. As I will pass along in future Cyrsti's Condo posts, I will detail how important Halloween became to me. In the meantime when started to become so real when I was thinking about my future and how it meshed with the possibility I was transgender. Even though I was working on the when, I still didn't have much of an idea of why I was facing my gender issues at all. At the time I was subjected to extreme bouts of gender dysphoria when sometimes the mirror showed me my old male self and others when it showed me glimpses of my inner feminine self. 

As I moved on, the "how" of what I was trying to accomplish began to weigh heavily on me. After all, I had a lot to potentially lose if I attempted a male to female gender transition. What about my family, friends and finances when my life faced such a radical change. To say the least, the how was very intimidating. What happened was the doors to change opened wide due to lifestyle changes I could in no way predict.

In the short space of two years, my second wife suddenly passed away. Since she was the major force in not starting hormone replacement therapy, I could now research if I could do it. Ironically, soon after I was approved health wise by a doctor, the Veterans' Administration healthcare system which I was a part of began to approve and administer hormones to trans veterans. As far as family went, my only daughter became my biggest ally while I lost all contact with my only brother. And the final how took care of itself when I was able to take advantage of early Social Security retirement. So I didn't have to worry about coming out at work. So almost all the why, when and how's were in place, except the why which I have never quite figured out to this day. Truthfully, I probably never will. 

The whole gender process was just something I was born with and should have come to grips with much earlier in life. If I did, I could have saved myself countless hours of stress and thoughts over why I had to be the one who was different. Once I arrived with the knowledge I was different, I embraced it all and moved on to a better future. 

Finally, I don't say it nearly enough but thanks to all of you who read and comment on all of my posts. Your participation makes it all worthwhile to me.

Success Equals Confidence

 

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As with anything else in life, when you are successful you want to try harder to replicate your success.  

An example happened way back in the day when I played with friends on a local softball team. One game we were behind in the last inning by one run when our team had the last at bat. To make a long story short, my best friend and I came up with back to back home runs to win the game. For several days, months and even years, we had bragging rights because of the back to back home runs. While I was never a good hitter, at the least my brief success helped me to forget how much I wanted to be sitting with the girlfriends and wives who were watching from the grandstands and concentrate on doing better when I batted.

While I was never able to achieve the success I experienced that night, I did other times under different circumstances. When I reached a point when I began to explore the world as a cross dresser or transvestite, I had a very difficult time with my appearance. I knew I wasn't in any sort of way a "natural" and needed to work very hard for any success I had when I left the mirror and ventured out. Many times I was stared at and even laughed at behind my back. Even with all of the negative feedback, I was able to have enough positive filter it's way in to keep going. Whatever success I found equaled substantial confidence. 

I discovered there were feminine privileges such as when I went Christmas shopping for my second wife one night at an Oak furniture store in Columbus, Ohio. I wore my nice black pantsuit. sensible makeup and blond wig. Then I discovered the perfect gift, a Oak bookcase but wondered how I would ever load it into the back of my SUV.. When I gathered my courage to go to the sales counter and pay, I was amazed to see two young men waiting to load my purchase for me. I thanked them profusely and was on my way back home. I knew my male self wouldn't have any problem with unloading her gift which she loved. 

The problem I then began to experience was I was gaining too much confidence too quickly. Every free moment I was planning yet another trip into the world. I was rapidly becoming a novice transgender woman which put me at direct odds with my wife. She didn't mind my cross dressing but hated any idea of me taking my gender issues to another level and start hormone replacement therapy. The final chapter of the story was never written because she suddenly passed away from a massive heart attack. I will forever wonder what would have happened if she had lived. I know my success at living as a transgender woman was deeply ingrained and the problem we faced as a couple was similar to being between a rock and a hard place.

Most certainly, gaining confidence in living as your authentic feminine self is one of the most powerful accessories you can have. Much more powerful than that favorite dress or shoes, confidence can help you face the daily world with success.    

Transgender Qualified

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 How does one finally get to the point where they can move around in society as their authentic selves. Obviously it takes a lot of work before you can graduate.

In addition to becoming proficient in the feminine arts such as makeup and wardrobe, we trans women or men have to play gender catch up because we did not have the chance to experience growing up as a girl or a boy. There was no one to interact with on life issues such as how we look or how we deal with the opposite sex. Not to mention how our parents treated us. I am sure my Mom would have put so much more pressure on me if she had a generic daughter rather than a transgender child she never had the chance to accept. 

I only tried to come out to Mom once when I was in my early twenties and out of the Army and was roundly rejected. So I never tried again. To be fair, her generational bias was strong and information on gender issues was difficult to come by. Mom was firmly entrenched as a "greatest generation" person with an upbringing during the great depression and WWII. I am fond of saying they were long on providing and short on emotional support. Very certainly, dealing with gender issues was an emotional subject and I never received any.

As far as being qualified to feel as if I was transgender, I needed to transition again in my life. As I always say I considered myself a very serious cross dresser or transvestite but became very intrigued about the idea of being trans when the word began to be used. I started to seriously begin to watch the people around me who identified as transsexual to see if I fit in and more importantly follow the same path. During my search I was very shallow in my approach. The individuals I was beginning to interact with were very attractive and I was intensely insecure about my feminine appearance. In those days, I only thought appearance qualified me to be transgender or however I identified. Little did I know, there was so much more.

It turned out my destiny did not lead me to any extreme gender realignment surgeries. I finally became secure in the knowledge gender was between the ears and sex was between the legs. Plus with the help of an entirely new set of cis-women friends, I was able to come out of my gender shell and flourish as my new transgender self.

I think any "qualification" to be trans is a totally mental process which involves complete confidence in yourself. The process can take many years or then again, less time, depending upon the individual. I am always very pleased to meet a younger LGBT or transgender person who has set out to make a life for themselves. They won't have to wait through a lifetime of struggle to live as their authentic selves. Plus the younger ones seem to be more politically active which is something we all desperately need. 

Sadly, as I always bring up, the fight to maintain our authentic gender selves continues right up to our death. Recently I had a reader mention they needed to put in their will how they wanted to be referred to at death. Hopefully, it will be enough to stop the gender bigots in the family from taking away hard fought gender rights when it matters most. 

Gender Preview

 

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For nearly a half a century (sounds old!), I considered myself a cross dresser or transvestite as it was known back in those days. 

Depending upon the so-called dressing cycle I was going through at the time, I thought I was just pursuing a more or less innocent hobby, all the way to wondering if I had a more serious gender issue. The main problem I kept having was no matter how good I felt following my cross dressing, very soon I was back in my gender depression. I even considered for a time my wanting to be feminine was an addiction which would go away if I could fight it long enough. The fight just ended up in me "purging" or throwing away my feminine clothes and vowing to go totally male again. 

"Purging" is not a new concept in the novice transgender community and depending upon the individual  doesn't last very long. None of my "purges" lasted very long before I sought out the mental relief of dressing as a woman. During my time between "purges" I was still learning the basics of how I could enable myself to appear better when I approached my mirror. Slowly but surely over the years, I learned the basics of making myself up so I wouldn't appear so clownish. But, most importantly, I grew up in my wardrobe choices and away from trying to dress as a teen girl when I had the testosterone damaged body of a man. 

Slowly but surely I kept on going on my gender path until my ultimate goal began to come into focus. Once it did, it presented more issues than promises. It seemed all the time I worked so hard to present positively as a woman was working out. When it all came together and did, the question became then what. What if I could carve out a life as a transgender woman? Similar to several of the friends I found in the trans community. If they could make it, why couldn't I? Of course the answer wasn't that easy as I had family, friends and finances to consider. So, in the meantime, I kept treading water waiting to see what would happen with my gender future. The entire process almost pulled me under the water as I tried to exist in the middle of the two binary genders, male for three days and female for four. 

Following a suicide attempt, I knew I needed to choose a gender and my preview years came along to help me greatly. Early on, I was just basking in the glow of the mirror and experiencing gender euphoria for a short time. It was similar to the difference between lust and love in a new relationship. Once lust wears off, the true work of building a relationship begins. When I compared all of it to what I was feeling as a novice transgender woman, my gender world began to come into focus. I was building what it really took to live in a female dominated world. 

One of my final considerations to transitioning was I felt so natural as my feminine self and just didn't (and never had) as my male self. I so wanted to take away the three days a week he had of my life and give them to my inner woman who was gaining so much confidence. 

It turned out my gender preview worked for me, even though I wish now it didn't take so long. As I figured out life is very unforgiving and you only have one chance to make it a success. I took the chance and destiny made it the correct one. I learned there was never time to cry over spilled makeup. 

   

Letting the World In

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Today I have two meetings I need to attend to. 

The first is a LGBTQ Veteran's support group session I haven't been in awhile. The reason I haven't is because I have been going to (virtually) the special ten week group meetings which concentrated on the overall impact the VA (Veteran's Administration) has had on my life during the span of my dealings with them. I make no secret of the fact I have been satisfied with my experiences. In fact, I consider my VA therapist to be one of the top influences in my life as I attempted to transition fully to a transgender woman. 

She, my therapist, was front and center for me when I needed help with starting my hormone replacement therapy all the way to when I needed help changing my legal gender markers in the VA system. This goes back over a decade ago when transgender veterans were not so well known in the system and many were not respected. So, I will be interested how many of the "regular" attendee's will continue to come to the meeting which as I said, restarts this afternoon, 

Also today and much more challenging will be the monthly meeting of the Alzheimer's group of Greater Cincinnati's diversity council. I will be challenged this time because the meeting is across town and is an in person event. Mainly because one person wants to look everyone "in the eye" as she talks to them. As we all know, looking someone in the eye is a major priority anyhow for any trans woman or man who is trying to make their way in the world. Shying away from making eye contact is one sure fire way to quickly lose respect. I don't really think the "eye contact" woman had me in mind but we shall see.

The whole meeting also has brought up two other other concerns. The first of course is appearance and I have been obsessing for quite some time on what I am going to wear. I decided on going casual with a light sweater and my new jeans which will pair up nicely with my canvas "camo" bag. Of course I will need to spend time on my makeup and make sure my long hair is properly pulled up and back. I keep reminding myself, I am a volunteer and a very rare one at that. There are very few LGBT persons willing (or able) to step forward and help and even fewer transgender ones. 

The other challenge for me will be the drive across town in the infamous Cincinnati rush hour traffic. I still don't know my way around yet and will have to rely heavily on my "Google Maps" app to get me there on time. Fortunately,  I can leave early enough to give myself plenty of time to arrive. 

Letting the world in sometimes is not potentially the easiest way to live  But it is the best way to explore being trans in the world while being around new people. Plus it is certainly one of the most beneficial ways to show others we are just similar to so many others. It is the true transgender day of visibility. 

A House of Cards

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For most human beings living a life with no severe downs is very rare. Most live a life with some sort of ups and downs.

In many ways, I was fortunate enough to live long enough to have seen many severe ups and downs during my life. I went through possibly a thirty year period when I could say I was leading a good positive life. Even when it came to my gender issues, I was living on the transgender edge but still managed to walk the tightrope and keep my all important marriage afloat. Looking back on the process, all I was doing was building a house of gender cards. 

My cards I was playing included all the times I went behind my wife's back to explore living as a woman. I was living large each time I presented well and was able to get by when I went out. I became the person in the family who did a portion of the grocery shopping, all the way to becoming a veteran shopper in certain venues. Through it all, no matter how excited or secure I felt about being a successful serious  cross dresser or transvestite, I was just playing more cards I didn't really have. At times, I even gambled and played them very recklessly.

I did crazy things such as flashing semi trucks on the interstate when I adjusted my mini skirt up my leg to it's limit just so I could validate myself as a woman. It took me quite an amount of time before I could outgrow this portion of my life and become a more or less secure novice transgender woman. In the meantime, my house of cards grew and became less stable.  Little did I know, I was headed like a runaway train down a track which would end in failure.

What began to set off my failure was the arrival of death in my life. Since my parents had passed on before as well as several other close family members, I thought I had some sort of handle on how to deal with the finality of death and dying. I had no idea of what I was going to face when my house of cards came crashing down. The crash began when I had several close friends pass away. Adding to the impact was the fact I didn't have many to begin with. Plus, it was during this time, my second wife passed away quite suddenly leaving me no time for grieving and/or closure. As my world tumbled, I was a hot mess and wondered what else I had to lose. 

It turned out, I didn't have to wait long to find out. In the middle of a crippling economic recession in the old Ohio rust belt town I lived in, I lost my restaurant I owned and fell behind on my house payments. Perhaps the worst part of it all was the fact I somehow deserved all my problems. Out of all the friends and loved ones I had, why was I the only one left standing.  Why?

Once I met my wife Liz over twelve years ago, she began to help me rebuild another, much more secure, house of cards. Hopefully one which is built to take on the ups and downs of life. At the least, with my gender journey mostly behind me, I won't have that portion of my life to worry about. I can now commit more deeply to enjoying my life as well as the life of loved ones around me so my current house of cards can continue to be stable. Until the end.  

From Dreams to Reality

 

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Very early in life, when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never told the truth. I would fall back on the politically gender correct answer and say the usual such as a lawyer, doctor etc. The reason I say politically correct is because how I really wanted to answer was with the truth. All along I wanted just to be a woman when I grew up.

I do think, at the time, I did know what a difficult proposition being feminine was all about. Primarily against my will, all along I was becoming more entrenched in a male lifestyle I never wanted. When I was being the square peg being pounded or forced into societies' square hole, I hated it. Even then I put up a brave front and liked the popular male things such as sports and cars, in reality I wanted to be the kid with the new doll baby at Christmas rather than the BB Gun I was gifted. But, life went on along with a pending meeting with the military along with the Vietnam War. I outran the war as long as I could. Finally it caught up with me and I enlisted for three years in the Army, rather than being drafted and insuring me a sure date with Vietnam. 

I dreamed of pursuing a goal of pursuing my early career in the radio broadcasting business while I served my military service for my country. Sure it was all a long shot but the long shot suddenly became a reality with the help of a local congressman whose radio station I worked for. With his backing, I was able to work a year in Thailand for the AFTN Radio and Television Network and then against all odds, managed to end up in Germany working a year and a half for AFN or the American Forces Network Europe. In doing so I was able to experience new cultures on different continents while I tried to keep my eye on the goal I couldn't seem to lose, the desire to be a woman.   

As we approach Halloween season, it is important to note how important Halloween was to me. Primarily because the parties I attended in "costume" as a woman allowed me to experiment on how far I was advancing  my feminine presentation and more importantly could I exist in the public's eye as my dream  woman. I have plenty of posts I will be sharing as we come closer to the actual day of Halloween. 

Spoiler alert, of course I finally did overcome all my doubts of ever being able to live out my dream but found I still had a long distance to go on my gender journey. Every time I think I was making progress, I found I still had so much farther to go.  As destiny directed me, I painted myself into a gender corner I couldn't delude myself to continue. I was ready to take the final step and live my dream of being a full time transgender woman. No more of just thinking I was just a weekend cross dresser, I needed more.

When I did, the final step was till more scary and ambitious than I ever imagined. I still remember the day I gave what was left of my male clothes to the thrift store and resolved to never look back on my old male life. No more just hiding behind my cross dressing until I could escape back to my comfortable world of male privileges. Through it all, my HRT or hormone replacement therapy helped to alter my male body enough to help my difficult attempt to present convincingly as a woman. 

From dreams to reality, the long twisting gender experience was worth it. My lifelong dream was a true one and I learned I was not making anything up. I was living how I wanted. 

Letting the World In

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Recently, in one of my Veteran's Administration LGBT support sessions I have been attending, the moderator mentioned we weren't coming out as much as we were letting people in.

The idea resonated with me and I have used it extensively recently. Even more so when I considered adding it to my post from yesterday when my daughter included me in a group of her women friends who were attending a drag show. Even though I was extremely new in my explorations in the world as a transgender woman, I decided to go along. No matter how scared the whole idea made me feel. The problem was I had always thought I had carefully planned my progression within the gender labels I was dealing with at the time. In other words, for the longest time I had considered myself a cross dresser or transvestite even though (deep down) I didn't feel as if the labels fit me. 

When I was procrastinating with my gender development, people such as my daughter, my wife Liz and friend Kim were prepared to propel me quickly forward. I guess they saw more potential in my feminine self than I did on occasion. Plus, there was always my old male self to deal with. He was holding me back as he didn't want to lose what was left of his existence. Understandably he still controlled a few very important facets of my life which I could not let the world into. Those facets included my employment and interaction with friends or family to name a few. He was stubborn and very difficult to overcome so I had a tendency to try to go slow. 

Over the past several posts I have written about how going slow went with my daughter. When I summoned the courage to let her in to my true world, she went all in to help me. First with an invitation to go shopping, to a visit to her beauty parlor/salon for my first hair styling experience and last but not least, an exciting but scary night out with her girl friends. If I was going to be a woman around her, I learned quickly it was time to put my male self on hold.

The pattern continued with my friend Kim who invited me to an pro-football game with her and her family. Again, I hadn't been living as my authentic self very long and ended up wearing my old ill-fitting wig and out I went to the game. Sure, it was scary but I will forever remember Kim for the kindness she shared with me when I needed it the most on my gender journey. In addition, she really propelled me out of the closet and let the world in. She saw me as the true person I was.

Perhaps the person who propelled me the farthest ahead was my wife Liz. When we first met over twelve years ago, I still had a few basic ties intact with my old male self. At that point she told me one day why didn't I transition the rest of the way as she didn't see any male in me. I had finally reached the end of my transgender journey. There was no excuse to even consider continuing to live at all as my old male self.

With the wonderful help of the people I mentioned, plus others I didn't, my gender journey was put on hyper speed after years of going so slow. Once I let the world in, they came and conquered.