Transition within Transition

Image from the Jessie Hart Archives

Along the way down my gender path, I often considered each change to be the final transition I would ever need to suffer through. I was wrong and it turned out a few of my transitions were pleasant, some not so much.

Perhaps I should refer to my many changes more than just transitions within my gender issues. The prime examples I could use are when I needed to break all my home ties out of high school and enroll at an university one hundred miles away or the time I was forced to go away to Ft. Knox to fulfill my military obligations during the Vietnam War. Two major life changing transitions to be sure for my male self. Then there was the human transition I went through when I became a parent for the first time. I remember it as one of the profoundly life changing experiences ever. 

Before you think the only major transitions I went through were on my old male side of life, you would be wrong. I have always considered crossing the binary gender border, is one of the most difficult journeys a human can undertake. My feminine transitions include when early in life I determined I wanted  to do more than just wanting to admire myself in the mirror as a girl, somehow in my dreams I wanted to be a girl. In order to do so, my path ahead became very difficult. Initially, the mirror was very kind to me and the world much more scary to negotiate. 

Plus, there was always the question of how my strongly entrenched male self would react to all the gender changes I wanted to go through. In many ways, he was allied with my wife against the survival of my inner feminine self. Both of them strongly wanted him to survive not her. Secretly, she won out as she continued to transition herself when she took advantage of the times she had to be in the public's eye. It wasn't so long after she started her public explorations, she decided she wasn't a cross dresser at all but fit into the newly adopted and publicized transgender category. Her long standing dream of living a feminine life as a trans woman was coming closer. At the same time, my true self was exploring the world's reaction to her by meeting new people at parties and mixers and learning how to communicate with them mostly woman to woman because very few men would have anything to do with me. Forcing me to develop myself more completely as a new person at least on the feminine side. I still had plenty of questions to answer. Was I gay? Was I a trans-lesbian? So much to learn.  

In the midst of all this new life skill I was learning, it seemed at times, enough was enough and I had achieved most of my goal. Of course I learned enough was never enough and there were always new discoveries in life to make. It at times was not easy when I was bounced out of restrooms or even entire venues for simply being trans. Ironically, one of the managers who made me leave his venue one night got fired and the crew found me in a neighboring venue and invited me back. I had my revenge. The manager was wrong because all I was doing was minding my own business, spending good money and tipping well.

Looking ahead, which I do quite a bit at my advanced age, I see many more transitions ahead. Some are as big as they come. Transitions such as elderly life care and even my final transition (death) are now real possibilities. 

When it all comes, it will just be another transition within a transition. I have managed to survive to this point and at times had a good time doing it.

   

Gender Euphoria

Image from the 
Jessie Hart Archives

When I consider the balance of my gender life , I sometimes try to break down the amount of time I felt dealing with my gender dysphoria versus the rarer moments of gender euphoria. In my down times of dealing with my gender issues, euphoria for whatever reason kept me going. 

Similar to so many of you, I experienced many nights of dread, not knowing where my life was heading as well as wondering why me and should I just give up and try the impossible, to purge all my feminine clothes and makeup then give up on my feminine self. Following the first couple of rather expensive purges I went through I gave up on the useless practice. Mainly because I felt so natural when I was exploring my true self. Even though I started out in the mirror being my only friend fortunately my life's destiny was directing me the correct way. 

The path I chose was very bumpy along the way and involved many wrong turns. There were many decisions to be made such as what to do about my family, friends and finances not to mention one big one...my sexuality. Did I follow the main thought pattern of the day and transition then disappear and start a new life with a man? I followed my instincts and allowed my new life to play out complete with all the effects of gender dysphoria and euphoria. 

Mainly, since I was far from what I called a "natural" when it came to presenting well as a woman. To say the process was intimidating was a big understatement.  Finally, with quite a bit of work and attention to detail, I acquired the confidence to go out and succeed in public. I stress confidence because even though I thought I passed well as a woman, I was still a transgender woman attempting a public life. I'm sure many times, my acceptance was just because people (mainly women) were just being nice to me. Or were just curious why I would want to change my gender. In the meantime, my inner battle between dysphoria and euphoria continued unabated. Some mornings when I first looked in the mirror I saw a vaguely feminine person and was satisfied but on others, the masculine image I saw sent my gender depression soaring. 

As my transgender explorations continued, so did my reliance on gender euphoria to get me by in my life. Probably, the biggest impact occurred when I decided to begin my journey on gender affirming hormones. Formerly known as HRT. In the absence of any surgeries I was not planning to aid my development in my brave new world, I decided on hormones to aid in presenting better as a transgender woman. When I did, I was able to experience more gender euphoria than I ever thought possible. My body softened, I grew breasts and extra hair and I had many unexpected internal benefits also. To simplify the process, I call it when my world began to soften. My old testosterone edge went away and a new better life began. There is one disclaimer to the hormonal process. The entire medical hormone procedure should never be attempted without medical supervision because the process can be harmful. I was just one of the many who tolerated the hormonal changes well.

My biggest example of gender euphoria happened recently when I was visibly prepping my body for a medical procedure I have to go through (colonoscopy). Most of my body hair has long since disappeared but there were a few stray hairs which needed to go away. As I was examining my naked body from the neck down, all I saw was a feminine body, complete with breasts and hips. Of course I stopped at the waist. It was enough to feel good about the changes the hormones have caused over the years. 

My euphoria later in life has seen most of the old dark gender days shrink far into my past. With just the most severe memories coming back to haunt me I am good to go. Plus, it took me awhile to recognize there is a middle ground to how I feel about dysphoria. It is never as good or as bad as it seems. The key for me was to use my dysphoria as a powerful motivator and learn to appreciate the all too brief moments of euphoria which kept me moving forward towards my impossible dream of being able to live a life as a trans woman.

Men are From Where?

 As we attempt to cross the gender border from one side to the other, we certainly suffer from a lack of much training at all.  We had no understanding of which planet we trans folk came from to begin with. 

Partially because most of us didn't have the benefit of having an understanding mother or sister who participated in our progression into the feminine world. We never were able to indulge in girls only sleepovers where clothes, makeup and other girls activities were discussed and acted upon. Thus, when we actually began to have the chance to live in the world we always dreamed of, we had no idea of how to do it. The only ideas we had were from the outside looking in. 

The whole void we stepped into all of a sudden left us (as novice transgender or cross dresser persons) in a spot which was difficult to conquer. Many of us, including me, went through my feminine teen years which I never experienced in the public's eye. When I did stuff my overweight male body into tight female clothes designed for teen agers, many times I was laughed at when I attempted to go out in public. I found out the hard way my mirror only told me what I wanted to see and the mirror only reflected what my old male self thought was appropriate to present well in public. I was very stubborn in my approach so it took me awhile to realize to survive as a transgender woman in the world, I needed to be able to communicate with all other women. As I did it, I keenly felt the problem I had having no previous training growing up as a girl. Naturally, all the time and effort I put into surviving in a male world were a waste of time.

Perhaps, the biggest hurdle I faced when I transitioned from male to female came when I tried to communicate with other women. Quickly I learned the value of non verbal communication. Which is one of the reasons men and women sometimes misunderstand each other. Ironically, it was much later in my transition when I was finally was invited behind the gender curtain to truly experience how women communicate. I was warned by my wife one time when we had a fight, she told me I made a terrible woman and it had nothing to do with just appearing as one. So I set out to learn what she meant.

It took awhile but lessons were learned. An example was when I knew I had arrived as a trans woman when I was approached by a man in a venue. Instead of looking at him, I looked at the bartender (woman) who was looking back at me in essence to leave the guy alone. It was the first of many communication lessons I learned when it came for me to communicate with other women.

Other painful lessons came when I was involved with other women who I thought accepted me. They smiled and were overall nice to me until when I turned around and they had their claws in my back. Learning the new world of passive aggressiveness would prove to be difficult for me to adjust to. Of course I was used to the more forward aggression men deal with when engaging each other. I had no training in any of this public interaction as a transgender woman so I had so much to learn. 

Perhaps you remember the book "Men are from Mars-Women are from Venus". In my gender explorations I found the book to be true on many levels. Starting with and including communication. As a trans woman, I brought a totally different outlook to the binary gender standoff. I was flattered when women friends of mine asked me to explain what their men were thinking. 

At that point I wondered if the binary genders had a planet, why didn't we transgender people because we occupy such an unique position. Many ancient societies used to recognize us as special. We need to find our way back there again. We just have to be trained to do it. 

Creating a Tangled Gender Web

Image from Robert 
Anasch on UnSplash

When I look back at my life, I wonder if I knew all it would entail would I do it all again.

The only change I would make would be to have have the courage sooner to go ahead and transition from male to female. Even though it sounds like a good idea to have jumped off my gender cliff earlier, the problem became the world around me. I am seventy four and the world at large has gone through several different realities when it comes to the transgender world. Back in the day, there was very little feedback when it came to being transgender at all. Basically, there were only two categories, transvestite (or cross dresser) and/or transsexual. Neither of which felt very natural to me, Plus if you went the transsexual route, you were expected to move and leave your old life completely behind. I never thought I could do it either. I still had a daughter I loved plus enjoyed small parts of my male life.

In other words, I was stubborn to the point I thought I could still transition my own way. If indeed I ever came to the conclusion I was trans. As I procrastinated through life, I created an increasingly tangled gender web. I was trying to balance what was left of my male life along with a long term marriage with a woman I loved very much. At that point, I was trying my best to try to discover my true gender self. My web grew ever tangled the more I tried to either escape or relax and enjoy the ride. The ride included taking my transition one step at a time. I found as I struggled in my tangled web I needed more than one transition to move forward. It took the evening when I finally decided to go out to be a transgender woman rather than as a very serious cross dresser just out to escape my male world. to change my mind The difference was major in that I was striving to discover who I really was rather than just playing some sort of game I had indulged in for most of my life. Much of it was in front of a mirror. Naturally the world was much more brutal and I needed to be better.

As it turned out, I was increasingly successful in both of my lives in the main two binary genders which caused my web to be even bigger and more tangled. I ended up sneaking out behind my wife's back, which caused severe problems with my marriage. It was increasingly evident I was stuck in a battle between two women. My wife and my inner woman were both strong feminine people and the war weighed heavily on my overall mental health. Before it killed me, I needed to finally escape the tangled web I was in and begin to live as a woman. Or, as my wife told me, be man enough to be a woman. 

Once I escaped, and with the help of several key friends, I was able to start all over in a new feminine  life. Although, once I began the life, I understood the fact my new life wasn't so new after all. My inner self had been waiting and observing my life just waiting to take over. Of course after I escaped the web, she had her chance and I was living my dream life.  At the least I never led a boring life. 

   

Testosterone Challenged

Image from the Jessie
Hart Archives

Recently it was time to take our car into the shop for an oil change. When I learned I needed to accomplish such a simple task on my own (with no help from my wife Liz), my anxiety level began to rise up. 

All my anxiety stems from my early upbringing when I was struggling to find my footing at all as a male type person. On a fairly regular basis, my brother and I would accompany my Dad when he visited his best friend who happened to own and operate a auto salvage yard. For better or worse, my brother and I got to see so-called pet alligators all the way to dynamiting ponds and salvaging the fish which floated to the top. to eat.

On occasion, the experiences were fun but at other times I was wondering how I could ever break out of my well hidden feminine tendencies and be a man in the mold of my Dad who was in many ways a man who fit the stereotype of a self made man. He rose from struggling through the depression to become vice president of a bank and building his own house. I never came out to him during his life. I forever grew up in his shadow and always experienced huge doses of anxiety when I needed to participate in any male-centric activities. Which included going to any sort of auto parts stores. 

Which brings me back to my oil change experience. My basic problem was I thought I could have been taken advantage of since I am a transgender woman. 

The staff at the place was predictably all male and the testosterone level was very high and yes I was intimidated but I survived. It turned out the only major questions I needed to answer or respond to were how to open the hood, turn on the lights and operate the turn signals. Outside of not knowing where the hood opener was, I didn't have any major problems. Very soon, they were finished and I was on my way. No worse for wear from the extra testosterone I had to experience.  As with anything else, the build up to the event itself was much worse than going through it. I have a colonoscopy coming up in approximately one week and I know the build up would be much worse than the procedure itself. The biggest problem I had the last time I went through it was being miss-gendered by the staff. Hopefully by this time the staff will be more progressive and I won't have to put up with that this time.

Since the staff who dealt with me last time was all female, I hope they recognize my testosterone level is as low as theirs and my appearance is only damaged by an unwanted male puberty I went through.  Plus as I look at it now, the biggest problem I may face is having another sizeable polyp which would have to be removed and I receive a clean bill of health. Health, after all is everything and miss-gendering is ignorance. 

Through it all, I am sure my testosterone didn't increase and I survived my anxiety level went back to normal so I am satisfied.   

Arrival

Image from the Jessie Hart
Archives circa 2010

The beginning of 2024 has given me the opportunity to look back at the years of my life when I became very serious about the reality of entering the feminine world and living as a transgender woman fulltime. This post my give you some sort of an idea of the time sequence I went through in my lengthy gender transition. 

The year was 2010 and three years had passed after my second wife had died. In those three years, I had a brief fling with another single woman as my old male self. Predictably the relationship didn't last and we both moved on. Not before she stood me up on a summer in the park outdoor concert I invited her to. Not to worry, I dressed in my best concert clothes and took my inner female instead. I ended up learning quite a bit and enjoyed myself immensely. Until my wife Liz came along, I was certainly my own best friend. 

As it turned out, 2010 also was the year I decided to go down the road of gender affirming hormones as I sought to change my outward appearance as much as possible. Little did I know, how much the hormones would change my internal life also. It seemed as much as my emotional outlook changed, my entire view of the world softened as my testosterone "edge" disappeared. To highlight my trip down the new road in my life, my first dosage of the new hormones came that year when Liz joined me for a special evening as we were out celebrating New Years Eve.

Even though I had officially started this new path in my life, I found I still had a long way to go. Arriving meant I needed to do more than take gender affirming hormones and feel the part. Then, more than ever, I needed to walk the walk and talk the talk of being a full fledged transgender woman. Meeting the world one on one proved to be both exciting and terrifying as I needed to give up all the male privileges I had fought so long to earn over the years. I learned quickly how I would be barred from any future benefits of being in the men's club. Plus, at the same time. I needed to quickly understand all the responsibilities of being allowed in the women's club. Early on, it took me awhile to see any real benefits from being a trans woman except for the occasional man who would open a door for me.

In the meantime, arrival also meant having to learn things such as a whole new way of just using the restroom. No longer was just peeing taken to such a high level of etiquette. I needed to train myself to look other women in the eye and smile when I used the woman's room and be certain to always stop and check my makeup plus wash my hands no matter how threatened I felt. All of this was just a start.

In essence, arriving also meant being able to relax and enjoy myself in public as my authentic self for the first time in my life. So 2010 was a landmark year for me but at the same time was just the beginning. 

When I was stuck so many years as a closeted cross dresser, little did I know how bright and exciting the world would become as I started to arrive.

 

New Years

 

Image from Joshua
Kettle on UnSplash

It doesn't seem possible but it is time once again to look at a year behind us and look forward to another. As my Mom used to say, life is similar to a roll of toilet paper. The closer it comes to the end, the faster it goes. Very philosophical of Mom to be sure.

In my younger years I used to use a lot of alcohol to celebrate the coming of a New Year. The process didn't really amount to much other than a tequila or Mescal fueled evening of misadventures. One will forever be ingrained in my mind when I kissed my future sister in law before I kissed my future wife when the New Year began. Not to worry, my wife got even with me for years after the huge mistake I made. 

Of course the biggest problem I always had was trying to drink away my gender problems at the beginning of a New Year. Each year I wondered deep down if the year coming up would see me finally being able to live my gender truth and cast aside the shackles I had always felt living as woman cross dressed as a man. 

Eventually, it turned out all the grand predictions I made on New Years the year to come was finally going to be the one when I would explore all the changes I would need to make to transition into a transgender woman. Would I ever have the courage to do it. 

The whole process in many ways snuck up on me. Even though I stayed the course, good or bad as I kept exploring my options and I almost waited too long. The self destructive behavior I indulged in many times almost killed me. The end result was my resolutions to change my authentic self would finally come true. 

Now my party days are behind me and I will spend New Years with Liz from the comfort of my couch hoping nothing crazy happens when the ball goes down in  New York's Times Square. No matter where you are in your life journey, may you spend the New Year enjoying new beginnings which lead to a more fulfilling life.

Happy New Years! Thanks for stopping by Cyrsti's Condo over the past year. You make the whole effort worthwhile. 

The Home I Don't Live In

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on UnSplash

It certainly took me awhile but I finally learned my male self was simply an empty shell I existed in to get me by in the world.

Over the years, even though it was difficult, he managed to secure a spot in the world and earn his white male privileges. Participation in such male dominated activities such as sports and muscle cars led the public at large off the beaten track of who I really was. I was a cross dresser or a woman pretending to be a man. Along the way, I was still able to build a fairly strong home I didn't live in.

Around that time, my life in an an empty house became predictably lonely, even though I was doing all the traditional male activities. I was married, had a child and served my time in the Army to add to two college degrees. It seemed the more I tried to do, the less fulfilled I felt with my life. It wasn't until years later when I understood much of my frenetic pace in life had to do with my gender desires being off center. In essence, I was building a home I couldn't live in. 

In it's place, I was increasingly becoming more and more serious about discovering if I could actually pursue a dream of living as a transgender woman. What I was doing was observing others in the trans community who were moving towards living fulltime feminine lives. I wondered if they could do it, why couldn't I? I was learning consistently by going to small mixer/parties in nearby Columbus, Ohio. The get together was hosted by a soon to be retired firefighter who restored an old house in a well known restoration district. I was extremely interested in her path because she was going against all the so called "rules" back in those days. Back then it was expected when one fully transitioned into being a trans woman, she was expected to leave her old life behind and start all over again. The woman I knew was going to not do any of that and I dreamed of doing it also. The same as her. Plus her parties included a diverse group, including the occasional lesbian and I learned early of the attraction I felt for lesbians' and vice versa.

Even though I did manage to slightly follow in her footsteps, leaving the male house I built proved to be anything but easy for me. To arrive at my destination, I would have endure intense moments of pain and suffering. As my old male self finally crumbled, I would be remiss, if I didn't mention the group of friends I found to help me build a new house. This time the correct one, complete with a life in my chosen gender. 

Even though the challenge was there to build my new house the correct way, I still needed to make sure all the improvements were built in to further make my new life more pleasurable. Out went the old male clothes and in came women's clothes including shoes, wigs, and makeup. 

The end result was, I discovered I could indeed build a brand new gender house and redirect the rest of my life living in it. The home I didn't live in was long gone and I felt a freedom I never thought I would ever have again in my life. 

Sizing Up the Crowd

 

Image from Uwe Conrad 
on UnSplash

One of the earliest lessons I learned when I first began to attempt to present as a realistic woman in the world was how I was always on stage. It presented a problem since I had always been very shy around people.

It didn't matter because both men and primarily women sometimes went out of their way to size me up. Plus, while I am on the subject, I was very insecure about my size as a novice cross dresser or highly questioning transgender woman. Initially I made the mistake of walking slightly hunched over to hide the fact I was nearly six foot tall. Then I realized there were plenty of other cisgender women around me and I could stand up tall and project confidence to the world. I learned the hard way that people were similar to sharks and could sense another person's insecurities so I needed to do better in all aspects of my presentation as a trans woman. 

One of the key insights I learned quickly was quite naturally, the world I was trying to enter was run by women. So I needed to figure out how to effectively play in their sandbox. On the other hand, men were out since they had a tendency to ignore me anyhow. If a man did pay attention to me, he would normally treat me as a lesser individual. When men paused to size me up, my reaction was to quickly keep moving. I did have a few very rare interactions with men but didn't feel particularly secure with the experiences. 

Women were a different story. When I started my male to female gender transition I received more attention from women than I ever had as a man. As I soaked in the attention, I thought most of the women were just curious of why I was in their world and became amused when I needed to encounter the everyday issues they did in a feminine world. Such as personal security, hot flashes etc.. They would  simply smile and say welcome to their world. Little did they know how badly I wanted to be in their world. Being included in a group of women helped me not to be singled out for attention. When the group I was in was sized up, I was simply part of the group and not an individual. 

The group of women I was a part of just happened to be lesbians so I faced a unique situation when it came to what sort of crowd was sizing me up. On several occasions we would attend lesbian mixers, so blending in met a nice pair of jeans, top and in season boots in the winter. In terms of the society I was trying to fit in with was I attempting to present as an attractive lipstick lesbian. I was successful on occasion attracting super butch lesbians and in fact, one of my first dinner dates I had with a man was  a trans man. We stayed in touch and often he made fun of me for being scared to death on our date. Which I was!

Scared or not, over time I became experienced in sizing up the crowd and bracing myself for the impact I would make. Somedays I receive little or no response to my public appearances. When nobody seems to notice me I know I sized up the crowd and won my gender struggle. Other times, when the room I am in goes silent and I am stared at, I know I wasn't so successful. At this point in my life, I am used to all sorts of reactions, so I can move on quite easily. 

Even still, I am aware of the public crowds I face and do my best to size them up and react appropriately. No longer am I so shy.