Secure Beginnings

 

1966 Transvestia Cartoon

This morning I read a post by a transgender man I follow on another writing format. 

The number one fact I took away from his post was how accepting his grandparent was when he was growing up. In fact, the grandparent took him to get his hair cut and purchased him clothes to match his authentic gender. After I read the post I responded by saying how good it must have been to have a supporting person in their life. 

Sadly, I was never able to take advantage of having anyone even knowing about or having any inkling about my gender issues. I knew without any shadow of a doubt, I was expected to be a boy in all aspects of my life. My parents were of the "Greatest Generation" which was the WWII and Great Depression generation. As a child growing up in the 50's, I was expected to fit neatly into a square male hole and survive the best I could. in a world I did not embrace.

The entire experience of being totally alone in the world as a boy who wanted to be a girl led me quickly to extreme cases of gender dysphoria. It wasn't until many years later when I learned of Virginia Prince and her "Transvestia" publication did I discover there actually other transvestites as they called themselves back then. Thinking back, I am fairly sure the publication was mailed out every two months and I couldn't wait until the next one arrived. Thanks to "Transvestia", I was able to learn about actual mixers which were close enough for me to go meet  other cross dressers or transvestites. As I began to see others in those mixers up close and personal, I learned how many levels of difference there were in a community which I imagined to be so similar. For example, the idea of the mixer being for only heterosexual transvestites only was quickly dispelled when too many of the participants disappeared behind  their hotel room doors too quickly.

Ironically, through it all, I still didn't feel as if I had found any sort of a home with others who supposedly were supposed to feel similar to me. Looking back, I think it was because the concept of being transgender had not been widely publicized at the time. I knew I did not belong with the cross dressers trying to deny their male selves or the transsexuals in the group considering radical gender realignment surgery. In those days, anyone who went down the surgical path was recommended to move away and begin a totally new life. As severe as my gender dysphoria was at the time. I couldn't imagine myself doing all of that.

It took awhile but I eventually stopped blaming my parents for ignoring my gender issues. Part of it was my fault for never attempting to tell them what was really bothering me, so I took the traditional male approach and just bottled it all up. I hid it all so well until the night after I returned home from the Army. I came home late from drinking my share of beer and found my Mom waiting up for me. We started to talk and along the way, I tried to come out to her. She followed her instincts and offered to pay for mental health counselling and I followed mine and never brought it up to her again. She has long since passed away so the best I could do to honor her anyhow was to change my new legal middle name to hers nearly five years ago. 

I needed to realize the "Greatest Generation" was good at providing and not so good at emotional support,  at least in my family. Once I accepted the facts of my upbringing, I really needed to work hard to not repeat the cycle of my upbringing. Once I began to feel secure in my transgender life, I was able to  do it.    

First Impressions

 

Picnic Photo, Liz on Right

Following up on my Halloween post from yesterday, I began to think of all the first impressions I noticed when I first went out in public as my cross dressed feminine self.

My biggest takeaway from the experiences came when I was interacting with men I knew. Nearly immediately I felt a rejection as if I had been excluded from the male club. Later in life, I would figure out I was just experiencing a loss of my male privileges. The better I presented as a trans woman, the quicker my male life went away. When I did, I learned I needed to live my public life with a perceived loss of intelligence and personal security among other things. I just didn't realize in those early days of public interaction exactly what I was experiencing. 

Along the way I also learned how the power of first impressions changes between the binary genders. Men seemed to concentrate on sizing other men up as more or less another threat while women were more accepting. To this day, I need to adjust to smiling first when I meet another woman and not to walk around with what is left of my old male scowl on my face. The problem I have is pre-judging the reaction someone else is going to have to me. You would think by now I would not be so affected by my thoughts anymore but I am. Most likely my thoughts still come from when I first started meeting up with the public. Halloween or not.

First impressions also involve how much confidence you have in yourself. When you can summon the courage to know without a doubt you are in the right place at the right time leads others to believe you are too. In her own way, my wife Liz encourages me to step forward as a confident transgender woman when we are interacting with the public in places such as restaurants. Even so, confidence in public can be a very fragile thing as I found out very early. Even when I was going out under the cover of having a Halloween "costume." 

The more parties I went to, the better I became at refining my outfits. I wanted to try my best to be mistaken for a genetic or cis-woman and not myself. The good news was it actually worked on occasion and the bad news was I needed to wait another year before I could build on my experiences and discover if I could really be able to ever live out in the world as a trans woman. Spoiler alert, I could but the process was to be a very difficult one for me. 

The first problem I had was figuring out which wardrobe I could choose to hide my testosterone poisoned male body. I started the process by losing nearly fifty pounds and finished by undertaking HRT or hormone replacement therapy. When I did, more and more I was pushed out of my old male comfort zone and into a new and sometimes terrifying feminine world. I had to learn all over again the power of first impressions and how to deal with people. 

For the most part, my life experiences now have been positive ones. The problem people I run into often have a negative world of their own which has nothing at all to do with me. I am merely invading their space. 

It is the best I can do!  

The Power of Halloween

 

Image from Danie Franco
on UnSplash

During my life of realizing how deeply my gender issues went, the more important Halloween parties became to me. 

I could say going to Halloween parties dressed as a woman began innocently enough. All I really wanted to do was go out and feel the thrill of wearing a short dress with freshly shaven legs and new silky panty hose. Little did I know, I would experience so much more as the years went by.

My first "costumes" were simply trying to dress as trashy as I could, trying my best to "thrill" my friends into thinking I could be an attractive woman. It turned out to be a process I would go through for Halloweens to come. Dressing to thrill just wasn't enough, dressing to be mistaken for a woman became my goal. 

Even still, my first Halloween party when I seriously dressed as a woman was a memorable one from several different reasons. Ironically, the party happened when I was in the Army stationed in Germany. I was fortunate when I was assigned to work at the AFN (American Forces Radio and TV Europe). Naturally, compared to others with more strictly military duties. I also managed to live in a separate barracks with others assigned to a medical commissary. We had it easy. 

When Halloween rolled around, the people in the medical group decided to have a big party and it was my big chance to put two years of being cross dressing frustrated behind me. Finally I had the opportunity to cross dress again if only I could find the clothes and makeup I needed to look the part, Since it has been so many years ago, 1975, I don't really remember how I came up with all the necessities I  needed to dress as a prostitute but I did. Short mini dress, high heels and long blond wig completed my outfit and to the party I went. I ended up having a great time, which included too much German beer and Jägermeister. Through it all, I remember all the prying hands I needed to fend off from places they should not have been.

The big question I had was, did I do too good of an effort to be attractive? I always considered shaved legs was the deciding point between someone who casually dressed as a woman for Halloween and someone else who was way too serious. Plus, I still had to keep in mind, I still had a year to go in the Army and I did not want to lose my chance for a honorable discharge if someone looked at my "costume" and decided it was too gay. 

It turned out not to matter anyhow. A couple weeks later when my group of three close friends and I got together for dinner (and beer) I ended up being indirectly asked how serious I was about looking like a woman. I blurted out very serious and that I was a transvestite. The first time I had admitted it to anyone. As free as I felt at the moment, putting myself out there could have been potentially very harmful to me as I tried to finish my military service. Fortunately nothing ever came of my letting others in to my "secret" and I served out my time with an honorable discharge. 

From then on, I couldn't wait for my next chance to leave the mirror behind and express my feminine self in the world. Sadly, the only time I could do it was Halloween which I will have plenty of interesting posts about coming up.   

Opportunity or Challenge

Image from UnSplash

During our often long and torturous gender journeys, we often face many difficulties.

The first obstacle we face happens simply because we faced the problem of having no chance to really experience the world as a youth as the gender we really wanted to be. Transgender woman or trans man, both have to catch up with what we missed as a youth. Not being able to socialize with others as our authentic selves really would come back to haunt many of us when we first ventured out from our dark and lonely gender closets. Of course, in the case of trans women, we needed to learn the basics of makeup and wardrobe before we could seriously move forward in the world. 

In my case, moving forward meant saving my meager allowance and adding it to my paper route money (I had a rural newspaper delivery route) so I could purchase my own make up and even was able to buy my first pair of women's shoes. I learned quickly, just having the money was one thing but having the courage to spend it was another. I needed to gather my funds and courage then try to sneak out from where my Grandma lived to visit a nearby Woolworth store which featured (among other things) an intimidating section of makeup supplies. I do not  remember now how I was able to maintain any sort of composure to buy anything but I did and was able to slowly build my own small collection of makeup which I was able to hideaway from prying eyes at home.

It turned out I had faced the challenge of purchasing my own makeup and then had to face the opportunity of how to apply it. I was on my own and had no peer group to question me if I was doing it right. I only had the mirror to rely on. During this time, I only tried once to come out to a male friend of mine who was my age and was completely rejected. So back into the closet I went. The only relief I had that there was anyone remotely similar to me was another young male friend of mine who sued to dress in his mother's clothes. However, before our explorations moved ahead too far, he ended up moving a couple states away and I was alone again.

Much later in life did the challenges begin to disappear and the opportunities began to become very relevant in my life. The days were upon me when the term "transgender" was becoming widely used and more importantly I could apply the word to myself. In addition, my trips into the world became less and less anticipation and more and more realization. Step by step I was learning who the real me was and she felt so natural. 

I was able to keep my thirst for change up and kept finding ways to meet new people (primarily women) who accepted me for the trans woman I was and with them at least, they had never met and had no knowledge of my old male person at all. Challenges became fewer and fewer until it was time for me to consider taking the step and starting hormone replacement therapy or HRT. The changes in my gender hormones provided me with opportunities I had only previously dreamed of. As my skin softened and my hair grew, I was able to present a more natural version of myself to the public. 

Now I look at all my gender challenges as opportunities to grow and do better in life. I ended up living my dream and succeeding in experiencing both sides of the binary gender border. Not always fun but always satisfying. A place I never thought I never could achieve.  

Staying in Your Own Lane

 

Image from UnSplash

Staying in each others own lane has been increasingly difficult for the transgender community. 

Much of our existence changed under the four year rule of a certain former president who brought out hate in our country. All of a sudden, more and more people became less reserved about changing lanes and invading the LGBT world. Recently I have a close friend whose world was invaded by gender bigots crashing her world. It happened at a relatively upscale casual dining restaurant very close to where my wife Liz and I live and I felt so bad for my friend. 

To make a long and personal experience short, her and her wife's dinners were ruined by other patrons who referred to her as a "Fa--ot" and worse, such as religious slurs. In our experience in the venue, I was laughed at once by a server but that was about it. Even then, we felt bad enough about it to never go back. Plus, that was years ago and people and times have changed. So many think it is acceptable to hurt others with their feelings. So now, it could have been so much worse for me. 

I have said or written it many times how fortunate I am to have Liz with me most of the time when I interact with the public. She is approximately the same height as I am and opens many gender doors for me and others have a tendency to stay in their own lanes. An example happened a couple days ago when Liz went to one of her pre surgical appointments. As always, I didn't have any issues in the doctors offices and especially when we went to a nearby coffee shop to order a cup of caffeine and a breakfast sandwich. The coffee shop was very near one of the  local major university campuses, so the extreme majority of the patrons were college students who certainly had no gender issues other than their own.

In other words, all the people I encountered had no reason to leave their own lane and enter mine and I was free to enjoy my own transgender life. 

For all of you who are attempting to live as your authentic gender selves, I hope people stay out of your lane and you can enjoy your life. I know I am preaching to the choir but you deserve a stable and pleasant gender existence. My blog gently weeps for all of you locked in your dark closets or are just out in the world trying to stay in your own lane. I know my basics of being out in the world is easy, be nice to everyone I can and tip well when I need to. I also benefit on occasion from being easily remembered because of how well I present as a transwoman or don't. 

Either way, I am sadly waiting for the day when a gender bigot decides to veer out of their lane and into my own. 

Always on Stage

Image from
the Jessie
Hart Archives

Very early on I learned when I entered the world as a novice cross dresser, I was always on stage. 

More precisely, not only were men judging me, I also needed to worry about other women. Even more so than men as it turned out. As women in particular had the tendency to be more picky than anyone else because they had been through the process of appearing in public. Women know all of the intricacies of fashion and makeup. Even if they decide to follow the rules or not. At the least, genetic or cis-women don't have to follow the rules when they go out in public. 

How this all translates to transgender women is, we all have to try harder than the average woman just to get by in the world. Not only do we have to blend in with the women of the world in general, we have to do it better. My biggest mistake was when I began to transition, I was still mainly interested to pleasing men which eventually led me to try to dress sexy. Which eventually turned out to be trashy for me. The entire process for me led to me creating too much negative attention that resulted in embarrassing situations. I was trying to fit my testosterone poisoned male body into teen girl fashions, which in no way worked. 

Finally I learned the hard way to blend in but with an edge. By an edge I mean I still had to work hard on my feminine image. I needed to out do other women but not look like I was trying. To work towards accomplishing my task, I had to perfect an understated fashion look. What were other women wearing and how could I come close. Not to mention the makeup I chose for where I was going. 

Since I was always on stage, I became used to it. I became secure enough not to retreat when I was approached mainly by other cis-women. I kept my cool and was able to learn from them. How did they handle the world around them. Specifically their interaction with other men. It turned out, for whatever reason, I never was able to have much interaction with men to worry about. As I said, women were a different matter. Other women often were able to start a conversation with me by complementing me on an accessory such as my ear-rings. probably because most were just curious why I wanted to be in their feminine world. Through it all, I found overall acceptance and was able to slowly perfect my on stage presence. So much so, I began to feel natural doing it.

Feeling natural soon became a primary goal for me. As my old unwanted male self began to slip away, I felt better and better about myself. 

Even though being on stage was very un-nerving for me in the beginning, I became used to it as a normal way of life for all women in the world. Both men and other women were always looking at me. Once I got used to it, life became so much easier to survive as a transgender woman in the world.

Coming Out Day

 

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash

Recently I know I missed "Coming Out Day" which I think was actually on October 11th. 

My excuse is I have been so busy with medical appointments between my wife Liz and I, I barely had a chance to write a post at all. Today, following a very early morning trip to Liz's hospital for pre surgery instructions, I had a chance to sit down, do a little research and write concerning the when's and how's of my actual coming out.

Following a bit of quick math, I determined I actually decided to shed what was left of my old male self and come out in the year 2010. Up to that point, I was still attempting to recover from the loss of my second wife who passed very unexpectedly in 2007 from a massive heart attack. In reality, she was the only major hold back to me coming out in the world as transgender excepting what would I do for employment. I knew for sure the company I worked for would not accept me as a trans woman so I needed some way to support myself. Since I was already in my early sixties, I researched how much I could make if I retired early on Social Security and determined I could make a living by selling off all the vintage collectables my wife and I had accumulated over the years. 

I ended up selling enough to even pay off the back taxes I owed on my house before the bank came after it when my loan became due. I moved in with Liz and let the house go which is something I should have done years before. 

I remember vividly the night I decided once and for all to turn my back on my old male self and live full time as a transgender woman. Primarily, I was exhausted from all the gender tension I was putting myself through. Plus I had started hormone replacement therapy and was rapidly approaching the point when I was at the least, very androgynous. I had put myself in a gender corner I couldn't get out of and deep down didn't want to. As I stared into the drink I was enjoying, I finally said enough was enough and why did I have to live the way I was living. I was dividing my time between the two primary binary genders and I wouldn't wish the ripping and tearing I was experiencing on my worst enemy. It became so bad, I needed to consciously consider which gender I was going to live as when I awakened in the morning. 

As you can tell, I have been out and living as my chosen feminine self for many years now. As much as I wish I could, I can't take all the credit for shedding my old male self and never looking back. I mention often the small circle of women (cis or genetic) who helped me along my transition path. It turned out I was making the whole process much more difficult than it had to be. It was Liz's final push which sent me down the slippery slope to a new life when she told me she had never seen any male in me at all and why didn't I just transition and get it over with.

I suppose somewhere along the line I should have been keeping track of my coming out anniversaries but life always seemed to get into the way and the reality of the situation of living my dream of living as a transgender woman was too much. 

The old saying is true, time fly's when you are having fun.   

Visiting the Doctor

This morning I completed my latest visit to my Veteran's Administration health primary provider. She is the equivalent to someone's family doctor. 

Most importantly, once again I was greeted warmly and treated with respect which wasn't always the case in the VA clinic I go to. Early on, I was not treated well. Almost to the point I felt as if I would have to file an official complaint against one woman who insisted on calling me "sir." 

Imagine my surprise this morning when the nurse who was checking me in had a special place on the form for transgender woman. I know several times I had responded to LGBTQ survey's from the VA exploring our needs in the system. I guess they were listening and finally responded. I know several other veterans read the blog who interact with various levels of the VA health system and have had differing results. I am just happy to report mine have been very positive recently.

Now, onto the important news. Today, all my vitals were good including weight, blood pressure, heart and lungs sounded good. In addition, I had my bi-annual blood labs taken and a flu shot. The lead vampire lady who does all the lab work as always was very nice and instructed the student following her around I was one of her favorite patients and referred to me as "she."

Perhaps the only negative was I have to have another colonoscopy early next year. It has only been one year since my last one and due to the fact they found three polyps so they wanted to see me again relatively soon for yet another fun filled experience. I look at it this way, the alternative is much worse. 

So until the results of my blood labs come back, I can rest assured I am in (knock on wood) pretty good health and I even was able to make an appointment for the next available Covid vaccine. 

At least I don't have to worry how I will be treated due to being transgender when I go back. 

Gender Walls

 

Image from Marcus Loke
on UnSplash

One of the reasons I waited so long to transition into a fulltime feminine world was when I tried to escape the walls which were forever threatening to close in around me.

Little did I know, each successful move I made came back to haunt me. Ironically, success just showed me perhaps I could live my dream as a transgender woman. Before I arrived at my final conclusion, I needed to seemingly transition more and more on my gender journey. My prime example has always been the time I decided I needed to change my mind set when I went out into the world cross dressed as a woman. Somehow it occurred to me I needed to reverse my thinking and decide I was going out as my authentic self  and all this time in my life I had been crossdressing not as a woman but as a man. When I realized my gender truth, I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable in the male world I worked my entire life to be successful in.

Very quickly when I went down this new path, deep down I knew I could never go back. I was suddenly sliding down a very slippery slope to a new life. A life I felt very natural and excited to be a part of. I had no idea if the outside world perceived me as being any different and I may have just been playing with semantics but as I said, the feelings were much different for me. I had crossed the line in my mind from being a cross dresser all the way to being a transgender woman. The first night I tried to change and was successful was when I went all out to dress to blend in with a group of professional women who always gathered after work at a nearby "Fridays" venue for an after work drink. Even though I was scared to death, I was able to relax and enjoy myself to the best of my ability. The best part was, no one gave me a second look. The bartenders were nice to me and I knew I was changing forever. 

Following all of the excitement and gender euphoria, ironically the walls began to close in on me again. What would I do with all my new found freedom to cross the gender border. I still had a wife I loved of twenty-five years, friends and family plus a very good job to consider losing. The pressure was intense. With the pressure I began to do all the wrong things. Primarily when I began to emotionally cheat on my wife by going out as my feminine self as much as I could. Of course, I was caught on numerous occasions which led us into massive relationship straining fights. While I never cheated on her physically, the emotional cheating was bad enough to put extra strain on me which I didn't need. All the pressure eventually led me to another self harm (suicide) attempt and my wife finally telling me why I wasn't man enough to be a woman. She passed away before she was able to see how prophetic her words finally became.

The end result of all her criticism became, I re-committed myself  to learning more and more what my life would mean to me if I took the final steps to living as a fulltime transgender woman. My steps included being cleared by doctors to begin HRT or hormone replacement therapy. At that point I knew there could never be any turning back as eventually I changed my legal name and settled into a new life with my wife Liz. 

Of course my final wall to overcome will be if and when I need to face what will happen to me when I have to go into assisted living or face being mis-gendered by part of my family when I die. It seems there are always walls to face when you are transgender.