Supporting Casts

 

Girls Night Out. I am on the Left.
From the Jessie Hart Archives

One aspect of my gender journey, I don't mention enough is the importance of the supporting cast I had around me to help me along.

They clearly helped me during the times of my life when I was down and almost out when it came to me going any farther as a transgender woman. A prime example was when I started gender affirming hormones and was wondering if it was the right move to make. By just being a part of my life and understanding what I was going through brought about a significant need for moral support. Another example was when I began having hot flashes and my women friends (cis-gender) just smiled and said welcome to their world. Which is exactly where I wanted to be. 

Over the years, there was only one woman who held my gender issues against me. She was my first fiancé who in the past, one time cross dressed me head to toe as a woman. The whole process turned out to be a bittersweet experience. For the first time in my life I had tried to share my deepest secret with another person and turned out to be less than impressed with the entire outcome. When she had finished with my makeup, I saw no real improvement over my efforts which ended any ideas I had that women had an edge over cross dressers when it came to makeup applications. So, the sweet part was limited and doomed to fail to begin with. The bitter part came later on when my fiancé broke up with me after I refused to say I was gay in order to not be drafted into the military during the Vietnam War. Lesson learned and I went back into my deep dark gender closet for years until I met my first wife. Even though she always knew I was a cross dresser or transvestite, she never made a big deal about it. 

Around that time of my life the biggest support I received ironically came from a man. A stranger who was doing makeovers at a cross dresser mixer I attended. I put on my big girl panties, removed all my makeup and let this stranger work his makeup magic on my face. When he was finished, I couldn't believe the transformation. Plus, I was actually able to understand and redo the makeup steps and repeat them. The entire process takes me to my experiences with my second wife. Similar to my first wife, she knew I was a transvestite from day one in our marriage and even supported me...to an extent. Keep in mind, we were married for twenty five years and during this time, I was slowly transitioning more and more into the transgender woman I am today. Before my wife's untimely death, we had numerous fights over my desire to be a woman and begin gender affirming hormones. Her stance until the end was she didn't sign up to be with another woman. To make matters worse, I don't think she ever liked my inner feminine self and the two women battled continually.

After she passed on, it took me a few years for me to recover from the shock and get on with my life. One positive I carried with me was how affirming the presence of my feminine side turned out to be. As it turned out, destiny led me to other groups of women who essentially adopted me into their tribes and helped me to flourish. 

I can never say enough how much I learned from all our girls nights out together. Without all of them I can never imagine how much longer and which direction my transgender transition would have taken.  

Empty Houses

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archives

 As I grew up in a male world, I naturally adopted many male dominated activities and hobbies which I stored away in my house I had to build as a guy. 

Mainly because I was frantically chasing
my desire to be feminine, I sometimes jumped from activity to activity rapidly. Plus none of this was accounting for the traditional male things I was doing such as building a family and trying my best to provide as good of a house I could. As far as actual house goes, I was trying to follow in my Dad's shadow and come as close as I could to either remodel or build my own house. He built his own house while I worked hard to renovate an 1860's era brick tavern in the town I was from. I came close but I don't think he understood why I did it. 

Bu it wasn't easy. I needed to teach myself the basic's of plumbing and electricity among other important things associated with remodeling an old structure. The end result was my second wife and I were able to live comfortably there in the years before her death. Then, I was all alone with a couple dogs and a cat in this huge empty house. At that point, I needed to decide which direction my life would take physically and mentally. What I mean was, was I going to continue to try to live in the house I remodeled with all it's memories or try to move on. With all the animals of course. What I decided to do was make the house even emptier by selling all my wife and I's vintage collections on line and using the money to augment my Social Security money I was making. In doing so, I managed to keep the house going for awhile as I sought out the possibility of taking an early retirement. Eventually, years later, I was able to move us all in with my current wife Liz in nearby Cincinnati, Ohio. 

As it turned out, the physical aspect of having an empty house was much easier than the mental part. Since during my life, even though I started out shy, I became a rather social person with deep ties to my home town. Sadly, those ties had nothing to do with my increasingly dominant feminine self. With no one to stand in my way, I was actually able to pursue if I was indeed transgender or not. Or just a serious crossdresser who wanted to their best to look like a woman. Since I had the options and inspirations to discover my true self further, I finally gave in to my inner female and set out to attempt to build a new life.   

Surprisingly, leaving behind my old male life was easier than I anticipated. Destiny (and effort) led me to meeting a new group of cis-gendered women friends I could be social with and learn about a new house at the same time. Plus, all the years I dreamed about decorating a new empty gender house came to pass as I adopted relatively easy to my new gender affirming hormones and life as a fulltime transgender woman. Then my relationship with Liz, who I met on line flourished, and we were married years later after my daughter suggested we finally do it. She made sense, we married and moved on to a new chapter of building my feminine house and making it much less empty.

I am sure, when one discusses genders, not many humans get the chance to empty one house and start all over again in a new one. It is a scary yet exciting journey. 
 

Scaring the Public

Image from Raphael Renter
on UnSplash 

Often when we transgender folk encounter the public, sometimes we scare them. 

Sadly, we have been demonized by all the politicians in the country with all their ignorant bills in state legislatures. Seeing as how the majority of the public hasn't had the chance to ever meet a trans person up close and personal, they have nothing to work with. I ran into it the other day when I was at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Cincinnati. I was waiting for my wife Liz to park the car, I was leaning against the wall and most of the people just ignored me, except one. I guess these days, I pass easily as being old because she was insisting on finding me a wheelchair. As I talked her out of it, I saw the smallest pause in her demeanor and I thought, here it comes. She noticed I was transgender and there was something wrong with the picture I was presenting. My excuse was I was wearing no makeup at all because after all I was headed for a colonoscopy. Somehow, I didn't care how I would look for the procedure since they would be up close and personal with me anyhow and would know my gender truth. 

It is sad we scare the public so much seeing as how we are just trying to live as normal life as possible as the next so called hetero-gender straight persons. Another reason we scare the public so much I think  is because we have had the opportunities to see and learn what goes on behind the curtains of the opposite genders. The entire process gives us an unique perspective on society as a whole. When I was seriously involved in my gender transition, I had women friends several times ask me what their men were really thinking when they couldn't understand them. Since I had been on both sides of the gender border when I was suddenly shut out of conversations between men and I. So I had an idea of what the women were going through.

Fortunately I didn't have to explain to very many men why I would want to give up all the hard earned male privileges I had worked for. Most of all my close male friends had passed away by then and the remaining close women friends I had who first were surprised by my decision to transition into their world and then supported me. Their support of course meant the world to me and more than made up for the loss of contact with my only sibling, a younger brother and his right wing in laws who refused to support me. Since we transgender folks have been so demonized by the politicians, I hate to think what the relatives would think of me now. So I put them out of my mind. 

Hopefully, the younger generation will be able to erase all the potential damage to future generations of trans youth. What the politicians don't understand is we have been around forever and cannot be erased by laws. We may have to temporarily go slightly underground in some areas of the country but we will always continue to exist. 

As pockets of diversity continue to exist, transgender allies will continue to exist too. Perhaps by then, the average public will not be scared of us. All we want is acceptance and equal rights. 

Supporting Casts

 Recently I wrote a post concerning (among other things) the power of having cis-gender women friends to help your transgender transition along at key times. If you are similar to me, you started your gender journey in the mirror and dreamed of the day when I could enlist another more experienced woman's aid with my wardrobe and makeup. 

In response, I received this comment from "Anonymous" : " It’s nice to see the positive side, the genuine sense of joy in transition. I know I have felt euphoria as I have gained the confidence to comfortably present myself authentically to the outside world. It’s interesting that you mention feeling more comfortable in the company of women. That has been my experience. I am not attracted to men physically. Frankly, I prefer women as friends or if given the opportunity, as intimate partners." 

Thanks for the comment! 

For some reason, during my life I have always felt more comfortable around women, even though there were very few girls in the neighborhood I grew up in. In order to survive, I needed to develop strong masculine tendencies to basically keep the bullies away. Even though I was successful, I still for whatever reason, never really had many close male friends Maybe, it was a result of my inner feminine self. Or an overreaction to thinking I maybe gay. My own inner form of homophobia. In later years I wondered if the fear of my own sexuality would carry over into my own inner transphobia. Essentially when I feared what would happen if I went too far into living as a fulltime transgender woman. 

In passing the other day, I mentioned certain early cross dressers or transvestites' who were seemingly using cigars to back up their reliance on so called male stereotypes. to which I received this partial comment from Georgette who happens to still smoke cigars, even though she has transitioned:

" Why do so many people break everything down to a Masculine or Feminine thing, I get a laugh or no response from many part-time CD/TV that will say that they still enjoy all those "Manly" things, I started smoking cigars in my teen years and still do. It is a world of difference from smoking in general."

Thanks to you Georgette  for the comment!  I think too many people over-simplify the masculine and feminine thing. Including me. Sometimes I get lazy when I write and get ahead of myself. On the other hand, describing the differences between the two main binary genders becomes very tedious for me. As far as cigars go, they were part of my life when I needed to out macho another man, or at least connect with him. Before I transitioned and grew away from them, a good cigar was a priority of me so I understand where Georgette is coming from in her comment. 

As far as comments go, I always invite any of you to participate in the blog by commenting and I will try to add in your input when I can, Sometimes it is applicable, sometimes not. The same way I felt I couldn't use the makeup advice I was given very early on when I was a novice crossdresser. If the truth be known, I probably had more experience with makeup than some of the women I was with. Later on was when I discovered how much I could learn from the women around me about really being women. As Georgette said going much farther than simply breaking down life to a masculine versus feminine existence. 

It took me awhile to finally learn my second wife was trying to tell me the same thing when she said I made a terrible woman. Perhaps my problem was I was making a terrible person to begin with. It took the emergence of my inner female to recognize the difference with the help of a strong supporting cast.  

Positive Out Reach

 

Today I am able to pursue one of my favorite past-times, explaining my main passion in life, which is trying to address problems with LGBTQ or primarily transgender folks facing problems with assisted living conditions. 

I am providing an interview for a publication here in Ohio called "The Buckeye Flame."  My input is a part of an overall effort by the Alzheimer's Association  to provide experiences from people affected by the extremely ugly and tragic disease.  As you may recall, my Dad passed away from Alzheimer's years ago and in his last days deteriorated so far he could only drink water. 

Personally, one of my biggest fears is being de-gendered in an as assisted living facility. Meaning, I will be forced back to my old unwanted male self. In many ways, it would be cruel and unusual punishment  to have come as far as I have come in life, then be forced back into my gender closet. 

Since I have been chosen to be part of several people speaking out about their experiences with the disease, I feel I need to take the opportunity to tell my story and for people to appreciate it. 

My opportunity to network my passion has come because I became part of the Greater Cincinnati Alzheimer's diversity committee. Since my representation as a transgender woman is so rare, opportunities to speak out have become more common. 

Sadly, my chances to interact with others in the LGBTQ Veterans community have lessened with the departure of my longtime therapist who served as group leader or facilitator for group meetings where I could share my passions. 

All in all, it will be interesting to see how far this can go towards meeting my goal of letting as many people know as I can of the bad possibilities we face as we age.  

It's Your Journey

 

Image from the Jessie Hart
Archives...

There are many different paths on our transgender journeys. Some are eerily similar some are very different.

On occasion, our paths align due to age considerations. We were the ones who grew up in the pre-internet days before it was invented as well as the social media which has become all so powerful. We are the ones who grew up in very lonely and dark gender closets which made it feel as if we were the only ones in the world who wanted to be another gender. At that point many of us chose to subscribe to Virginia Prince and then received our cherished and closely guarded issues of Transvestia. The magazine Prince published. 

Perhaps you are younger and experienced another journey through the internet. I remember vividly the days when my wife and I could afford our first computer along with the ultra slow dial-up internet. Almost immediately I found myself in trouble when my wife caught me corresponding with a like minded individual on a message board in a nearby town. She turned to be more computer savvy than me and learned to track my movements on our system. What I learned was, I needed to better hide what I was doing or stay off the message boards all together.   

At that point, I was using my issues of Transvestia to locate transvestite mixers close enough to me in Ohio so I could travel to them. When I did, I was able to see and meet other cross dressers who were following similar journeys as well as many who weren't. There were the ones who seemingly trying to out run their feminine desires by still acting super masculine in a dress and heels. I certainly didn't feel a part of that cigar smoking crowd. (Before cigars became cool for women). Then there were the future transsexuals on the other end of the spectrum. They were impossibly feminine and I felt were far out of my league as I was very insecure about my appearance as a cross dresser. Even though I wanted to be a part of their world, it was difficult to be admitted. I partially solved my problem with blatantly tagging along with the so called upper class when they normally would go out to gay venues and continue to party after the majority of the group had retired to their rooms in the hotel where we were meeting. 

It wasn't until many years later, after many errors and successes in the world as I tried the basics of living as a transgender woman did destiny set in and I was accepted by small groups of cis-gender women who allowed me to really learn the basics of existing in the feminine world. 

Over the years of writing a blog, I have been able to correspond with other trans women who were able to benefit from similar situations. Mainly when they were invited into "women only" spaces. It was during these times I learned the true essence of communication women use when no men are present. My obsession changed from appearing feminine to actually acting feminine. I learned how much I have changed when I go back to the earlies days of blogging to see what I was up to. 

Whatever your journey, I hope it has been a successful one for you. There are so many facets to consider such as family and spouses which lead to staying in some sort of a closet by choice. Which there is certainly nothing wrong with that. I will forever wonder what would have happened with me if my wife would have lived on. Would we have ultimately split up when she said she would never live with another woman or could have a compromise been reached for both of us. Pursuing gender affirming hormones for me was the breaking point which I was free to do after she passed. So as you can understand I am not putting myself up on any sort of a pedestal because destiny led my journey to living as a fulltime trans woman. Pedestals are very fragile and easy to break. 

Hopefully it has been your journey and you have been able to live it with a positive outcome.  

Labels

 

Coccinelle, early transsexual woman

As a long time transgender woman, I have seen my share of different labels coming and going over the years.

The first one was the declining use of the word transvestite. I remember the days when there were very much only two labels you could use to describe yourself,  If you cross dressed in the clothes of the opposite gender, you were a transvestite and if you desired a sex change (as it was known then) you were a transsexual. Over the years, the sex change terminology went through it's own changes, As I remember, the sex change became known as gender reassignment surgery. Then gender realignment surgery. All these labels lead to the same result. As most labels seem to do in the LGBTQA+ community.

While we are on the subject of the LGBTQA+ letters, the expansion of the letters themselves needs mentioning. As our community expanded and the knowledge of the overall gender spectrum expanded, more letters needed to be added to the initial LGBT letters. To include more people the abbreviation was expanded to include more than the initial, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. At that time the queer or questioning was included plus the "A" which stands for Asexual and/or Ally. I guess the plus just stands for any more possible additions in the future.

Way back when, transgender wasn't even a term at all and even though it is rumored Virginia Prince (transvestite pioneer) was the first to use the term, it's true history is murky.  The best history I could find is transgender (or it's shortened trans term) first appeared in the 1950's and 1960's. I only know I started to be aware of the term in the 1970's. The whole process meant so much to me because all of a sudden I had a term or label which applied to me since I knew I was much more than a cross dresser and not as much as a transsexual. The perfect fit for my gender questioning mind. So I adopted it as my own.

These days, labels seem to change as fast as the world around us. The word transgender sadly has been made infamous by all the political attacks' against it. In the same way, LGBTQ+ has been popularized also when associated with the unfortunate uproar over the trans situations. Yet another change has recently been updated also. Hormone replacement therapy or HRT is now known as gender affirming  hormones.   

Of course the bottom line is all these terms are nothing more than labels which often lead to confusion all the way to altercations. Especially in the transgender community when people start to think they are more trans than someone else. It all comes at a crucial time when we all have to stay together to present an unified front to the world.

Through it all, if you are into the increasingly complex world of labels, I hope you have found one which fits you. 

Updates

Well another fun (?) colonoscopy has come and gone and I promised an update.  I have a partial one. 

Since I had to have a driver, my wife Liz came along. I needed to have a driver because I would be put under anesthesia for the procedure. I had the work the same place I had the last colonoscopy at the Cincinnati Veterans Hospital so we knew the way and arrived at the required appointment time. After signing in, I was encouraged the wait was only approximately ten minutes, so I thought I would be moved along quickly. As it turned out I was wrong.

Once I was taken back to the intake area, the gender fun started to happen. As I said in my last post, I knew the VA was attempting to do better with their treatment of transgender patients. So I was curious how my treatment would have changed over the previous year when grumpy staff called me "Sir" several times.  This time, to my amazement, the intake person asked me if I was born female since it was what it said on my VA paperwork. Because of the requirement to have a pregnancy test if I was born female. At that point I told her I had transitioned my gender to transgender woman in my early sixties. She didn't say anything else and we moved on with no other problems and I answered the million other questions she needed to ask. 

Shortly she left and another nurse came in to start my I.V. and take my blood pressure, which she did and left. Then, within a short period of time, the nurse came back in and asked how I would like be referred to, a woman or a man. I said woman and again we moved on. At that point I was encouraged I was going to complete everything fairly quickly and finally would be able to eat again after two days. Then the wait started. To make a long story shorter, I needed to wait an extra hour until the operation room would be open and ready. For all of you familiar with the military, one of our most memorable sayings was we had to hurry up and wait, suddenly I was back to my Army days as I laid in a hospital bed and waited and waited and waited. 

Finally, I was wheeled back to the operation room and the the operation happened. In fact the main surgical nurse remembered me from my last visit. Something I wasn't so proud of. In a way having frequent flyer miles in a colonoscopy operation room is not my proudest moment. But she was nice, the anesthesia kicked in and I felt nothing and I was wheeled back to my room.

Sadly, they found another polyp  which is defined as a tissue growth in the colon which could be or turn cancerous. Again they cut it out and sent it away for testing. I was told I would have the results in a week or so. 

In the meantime, I needed to get dressed and leave the hospital. Fortunately they let Liz come back and help me because I was feeling a little unsure of myself. So unsteady I needed a wheelchair and an aide to get to our car. It was at that point when the only person who miss-gendered me stepped in to ruin the whole experience. The man who wheeled me quickly down to the car called me "he" when talking to Liz. Of course at the time Liz quickly corrected him and away we went.

So overall, my assessment of my health care visit was one of improvement. My gender was correctly displayed as female on my paperwork and I feel it is always OK for caring individuals to question me. Especially if the process leads to a better experience for me. Which is what happened to me. Maybe I helped make the experience better for the next transgender veteran who takes advantage of the health services. 

So now I need to wait and hope my news comes back as "non-cancerous."   

Facing Medical Care as a Trans Person

Image from Anton on UnSplash

Perhaps I should lead this post off with medical care as referring to myself as a "pre-opt" transgender woman. Since I have never had any of the gender affirming surgeries so appealing to more and more trans women, when I go to the hospital for any sort of a procedure I face the reality of being called a "biological male" as one gruff nurse called me years ago. At this point of my life, not undergoing any major surgeries at all is my final decision and I am sticking to it. For any number of reasons, having a vagina has never been that important to me to define my gender which resides firmly in my brain. 

Regardless I will face another gauntlet of doctors and nurses when Monday I go in for yet another colonoscopy. Which, if you have been through one, you know the prep work and fasting you have to go through is much worse than the actual procedure which is done under anesthesia. 

The last one I had was a year ago and the doctors found enough potential problems to schedule me another fun filled visit in a year. This time (again) I will have the work done at the Cincinnati Veteran's Hospital so I will be interested to see if there is any progress in how they handle transgender patients. The last time, I encountered one in-take nurse who couldn't or wouldn't attempt to use the correct pronouns with me. Even though I am listed as female on on my paperwork at the VA, she called me "Sir". I know in the last year, the VA has made a concerted effort to educate their staff in Cincinnati in the proper pronoun use, all the way to having a question specifically for transgender patients when you are visiting. I have seen improvement in past visits.  

Another problem I have is, because once I have arrived to when the procedure is about to happen, I am so hungry and sleep deprived from the prescribed prep (as well as being a little scared) I just want the whole deal to be over with. Call me anything you want, just get me out of there. By the way, my fear doesn't come from going through the operation itself which I barely feel, it comes from getting the results. Last year, the doctor cut out a polyp growing in my intestine which fortunately turned out to be non-cancerous.  Hopefully, I will receive a clean bill of health for at least another year. Even though I know the prep and procedure isn't the most pleasant thing in the world to go through, the fear of having any sort of colon cancer is much worse. 

Also if you are familiar with the colonoscopy prep, in addition to fasting, the remainder revolves a day and a half of a rapid "clean out" of my intestines'. In other words, the toilet will become my best friend on the next couple of days so I may not feel like posting. 

With any luck, I will be back soon with an update.