Tearing Life Apart

 

Image from Darius Bashar 
on UnSplash

Sadly, before many things have a chance to change, you have to tear them apart and then reassemble the parts. 

In order for me to pursue a life as a transgender woman, it was necessary for me to essentially tear down my past male life and start all over again. This was painful for several reasons. The main one was I was giving up all the hard work I put into to surviving in a male world. Secondly, I needed to fight the male in me completely because he was totally fighting any gender change which was happening. 

It all started when I left the mirror as a novice cross dresser and went into the world. I learned the mirror was an easy challenge until I faced the public. Primarily because the mirror didn't move and neither did I so when I may have stumbled on the perfect look with my makeup and fashion, it all had to change when I needed to put it all into motion. Was I walking and talking like a woman? The whole process caused me extreme gender confusion when I was trying to separate the days when I was a trans woman with the days I was in my everyday working life as a guy. Perhaps the biggest problem I faced was dismantling one life and beginning another in the middle of the entire transitioning process. I felt everytime I was successful in public as my novice transgender self, I had to stop and return to a male world I increasingly didn't want anything to do with. 

Even though, I was risking all I had worked for in life including a loving wife and family and a good job, the fact still remained I thought I was living a lie. I just couldn't keep living a lie and continued to tear down my old life and prepare myself for a possible dream scenario where I could possibly live as a fulltime transgender woman. The entire process was cruel and unusual punishment to me and destroyed my mental health until I could get it restored much later in my life. In the meantime, I needed to find ways such as diverse gender mixers I was going to, to try to feel better. It seemed everytime I attended a party made up of everything from cross dressers to transsexuals, I learned more about myself and where I fit in to a new expanding LGBTQ community. Primarily the new term (transgender) which seemed to fit me the best. 

As I was busily considering tearing down one life, I had other serious others issues to contend with. Such as my sexuality and how was I going to be able to communicate in a new world as a trans woman. It turned out, I was overthinking the whole process and destiny would come along to answer my most pressing questions. You regulars know the story of how I found and was adopted by a small group of cis-gender women who taught me the basics of communication and how to conduct myself in my new world. And then there was my wife Liz who rescued me from very dark times, took me in as my authentic feminine self and eventually married me.

It has been such a long trip from standing cross dressed in front of the hallway mirror growing up and the ups and downs of tearing one life apart to start another has been scary. But eventually I made it.  

Writing Euphoria

Image from the Jessie Hart
Archives

Every now and then I receive a comment which brings all the effort I put into writing a daily transgender blog into focus. 

When I started writing this blog over ten years ago, I set out to hopefully help anyone else with gender issues similar to mine. Back in those days, when I revisited my old blog posts, I mainly see an over riding interest with my feminine appearance and not much else. Of course when I transitioned into a fulltime life as a transgender woman, I discovered all the other challenges I was going to face. It was all much different than my life as a casual cross dresser. 

This is where the writer's euphoria comes in. I recently received this comment from Jennifer " Thank you for publishing your thoughts and experiences. I am an older, but not that wiser, transgender woman just starting out on the road to femininity. Your blog helps me much to understand the hurtles I am about to encounter. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and opening up to your experiences.

Thank you, Jennifer" You are welcome Jennifer and thanks for sharing such a wonderful comment. 

Somehow, along the way, the blog made it's own transition into looking at my life as a senior transgender woman. I found, being "more mature" in many ways had it's advantages. Primarily when it came to beginning gender affirming hormones. Because at my age, my testosterone level was already in a decline, the rush of new estrogen in my system seemed to be more natural. On the other hand of course, I needed to go through the medical screening process to determine if I was healthy enough to proceed on the program I was prescribed. 

As far as being "older but not wiser", I think I faced that aspect of my life also more than I could ever write about. For better or for worse, I had already went past and missed my formative feminine years and needed to master the mysteries of makeup and fashion on my own. There were no teen girls to critique my look and for me to return the favor. Plus, I spent way to much time alone with no girlfriends to shop at the mall with. 

I discovered too, there was a small niche of older transgender women who had lived through the dark and lonely pre-internet years. I am amazed how many readers still remember fondly the "Transvestia" publication along with Virginia Prince. But then again, it was all we had to provide any sort of light in our gender closets. 

These days, I am still committed to attempting to provide any guidance I can to anyone like Jennifer who needs it. After all, our gender journeys through life on one hand are so similar but on the other not so much. Each of us needs to navigate how we are going to shed a life of living male and begin all over again. And just when we think we have it made, we need to face the reality of being trans in retirement communities and/or assisted living. Regardless of all the negative publicity we receive from politicians, I still believe more people such as the "Alzheimer's Association" are researching ways to be more inclusive to the LGBTQ community. So, there is hope. 

Thanks again Jennifer, Jen (another reader) and all the others of you who join in with me here on the blog. You give me writers euphoria and improve my mental health.

Gender Euphoria

My wife Liz on the left
From the Jessie Hart archives.

Sadly, gender euphoria is too rare for most transgender women and trans men.

For too many of us (including me) gender dysphoria rules the life.  Throughout my life when I get up in the morning to begin my day, a quick look in the mirror tells me I am living my external gender as yet another day as a guy and my gender dysphoria sets in. I describe my gender dysphoria as being a deep seated issue caused by my desire to live as my authentic feminine self. From then on my day is set on how it will go.

However, every now and then something comes along to reassure me I am doing the right thing with my life. It could be as little as my wife Liz referring to me as "she" all the way to a server calling Liz and I "ladies" at dinner when we eat out. Whatever the case, gender euphoria is brief and dysphoria is always lurking in the background. 

I think part of the problem is all the difficulty I experienced as I followed the path to living my transgender dream. In the days when I just considered appearance as my number one feminine dream, of course there were always plenty of other women (trans or cis) to compete with because they were far more attractive than me. My impossible dream was to do the best I could to survive in a sometimes brutal world as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman. Initially, I made the mistake of attempting to dress sexily to validate myself in the world. All too often, my attempts came off as trashy or even clownish. Plus, one night my wife had to rescue me from a huge man at a party who had pinned me against a wall in a narrow hallway. In no way was there any gender euphoria or feminine validation involved that night. Just my wife reprimanding me for not taking better care of myself ahead of time. Not to mention, she hated what I wore. In my mind, I was trying to keep up with the beautiful transsexual women who were there also.

Through it all, I managed to have enough moments of pure gender euphoria to keep my gender dreams alive. Very early on all the visits to mall and women's clothing stores provided me with positive one and one feedbacks with the clerks to think I was doing everything right as a novice feminine cross dresser. It took me many years to realize, the clerks were mostly nice to me because of my money. Years later, after I came out to my daughter, she told me of her days working at Victoria's Secret when the occasional man would come in shopping for lingerie in his size. Other clerks would refuse to wait on him but my daughter did and pocketed the commission. I could have been green and most of the clerks would have still liked me.

My mall days continued my gender euphoria to an extent I never thought possible. I used to go to the up-scale malls in the area in my very best business professional fashions. Including a very stylish black jumpsuit I loved with my black heels and blond wig. It seemed I never had any problems and my euphoria soared along with my confidence. Sadly, I normally found a way to push the so called envelope too far and get rejected in the world and my gender dysphoria would set in again.

It wasn't until I began gender affirming hormones did I reach the point of no return in my male to female gender transition. Regardless of what happened to me, negative or positive, I needed to attempt to move forward towards my dream. Happily, the feminine hormones improved my exterior image. My skin softened, my hair grew and my facial angles softened which made my whole presentation easier to do, since I needed to do it every day. 

Even with all the help. I still have the dysphoria/euphoria battle with the mirror every morning. Sometimes I win the battle, sometimes I lose but most importantly, I have learned neither aspect of my appearance should rule my day. Nothing is as good or bad as it seems.

Thanks to all of you who join me for my experiences! I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and even comment. It all means the world to me.

It Was Never Easy

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash

 Two things amaze me when people bring up to me when they learn I am transgender. The first is when someone thinks I had a choice and the second is the entire process was at all easy. 

Since I was never a so-called natural feminine person to begin with, I needed to struggle completely to reach my goals of surviving in the public's eye at all as a woman...trans or not. The best description of my passing struggles came when my transgender friend Racquel told me I passed out of sheer will power. I knew what she was trying to say. I wasn't the best looking woman in the room but I was going to force the issue anyhow. 

Early on, I had only the mirror to do my gender battles with. I finally learned too late the mirror often lied to me. Night after night, I would think I looked great only to be immediately stared at or even laughed at in public. It was difficult learning how to try to dress myself so my feminine fashion helped me to live a life I had only dreamed of, not hurt it. At the same time, I tried to lose as much weight as I could and take care of my skin so I could wear less foundation. None of it was easy. But it was worth it.

In order to accomplish all I wanted to do on my difficult gender journey, I needed to learn something new and different. I had to learn to be my own best friend. I never liked my old male self and was just learning all the new possibilities of my feminine inner soul. She had many problems to face as she fought for acceptance from my male self who fought completely for all of his rights. At times, it was an ugly, bloody battle I never want to go through again. It was anything but easy and never a choice to go through as I was to find out later. 

I ended up suffering so much, I almost ended my life several times from various reckless self harm attempts all the way to an attempted death by pills which failed before I decided enough was enough. In order to survive I had to make a choice, so yes I guess I did have a choice and it was a very desperate one. Self survival meant I needed to pursue what measures I could and change my life forever. The final determination was deep down I felt more natural as a transgender woman and needed to find out where I would need to end up in the new pack of women in society. It was then I learned how deeply layered a woman's life could be and perhaps even more so as a trans woman. I had all the extra baggage of my previous life as a man which I carried with me to the other gender side. I knew the male gender expectations men had of women which made me extra shy of the entire gender dance between men and women. Primarily I learned why both genders often have a difficult time communicating in their relationships and wished often I could go back and do my life different. Maybe then, my second wife would have never said I made a terrible woman. Which I did and thought it only had to do with how I looked.

The final example for this post I will use was the amount of time it took me to finally face reality and come out fully as a transgender woman. Adding up the years, I struggled with my ultimate gender issues for nearly a half century. It was certainly difficult to break out of my old male chains and live the life of my dreams. I realized I never had a choice.

You Can't Buy Love

Image from the 
Jessie Hart Archives

 One of the first lessons I learned when I was first brave enough to date girls was spending more money equaled to more dates with certain girls. Sadly, the plainer the girl, the less potential spending was going to happen. When I flipped my gender, I found out how evil it was.

As a transgender woman, I was or am not the prettiest woman in the room. As such, I never managed to have many dating interactions with men who most of which just saw me as some fetish object. They wanted the first date to be a motel room. I drew the line at any sketchy first dates and demanded a meeting in a public place of my choice. What happened then was a predictable amount of being stood up on possible dates. While I did have a couple meaningful dates with men, often they were unscripted moments in the regular venues I went to often. One night in particular happened with a man called Bob who treated me completely as a woman and I loved it. He lived far away and was married so there was no chance at any further involvement. 

Through that period of my life I was questioning my sexuality also so any dates with men added to my possible knowledge. The farthest I ever went was very brief episodes of heavy petting or making out. From it all, I learned I still preferred the attention and company of women. With the help of a few female friends I learned the meaning of what it meant to be to be a transgender lesbian. In order to do it, I found I didn't have to have a lot of money spent on me to be happy. I was more into spending more money on my feminine self to attempt to improve my public's appearance. I ended up saving every extra penny I had to buy that next extra wig I didn't really need to be more attractive than ever before. At least in my mind. As I acquired more fashion and makeup, slowly but surely was acquiring more acquaintances to try my new fashion out on.   

Which leads me to another woman I don't mention much anymore who is Amy. Amy is the woman who recommended me practice with a banana to get ready for my intimate moments with men. So as you can tell she wasn't shy. One day in particular  with her comes to mind when she invited me over to her house for a spaghetti dinner with friends. I didn't really ask who else was coming, I jumped at the chance to enjoy a home made dinner. Fashion wise, Amy had only seen me in my short denim skirt days, so I decided to wear one over to her house again not thinking who else would be there. It turned out she also invited two men so the group included a cis woman, a transgender woman and two men who were seemingly ill at ease with me. I made the decision to join Amy in the kitchen and serve the men their delicious Italian dinner. I decided if the men were going to be ill at ease with me, I wasn't . I enjoyed the meal, helped clean up the mess, stopped to socialize with Amy and left the men behind. Just another learning experience.

I finally was able to slow down on expenditures on fashion and makeup and spend more on my personal interactions. My experience with dealing with both sides of the binary gender spectrum helped me to truly understand what buying love really meant. I understood both genders often expect intimacy in return for how much money you spend. The last woman I ever dated me as a man suggested to me we go to an expensive steakhouse for food before our first date. I politely saw through what she was up to and declined and we went to a more reasonably priced venue of my choice. Probably dooming our relationship from the beginning. She was quite attractive and a diva to begin with so I figured she thought she could do better than me and our brief fling ended after three or four dates.

Since we live in a money driven society, buying love is hard to do and even more difficult to resist as a transgender woman.  

Following the Path

 

Image from the 
Jessie Hart
Archives

The path I followed as I chased my gender truth at times turned out to be very difficult. 

It all started with having a very unaccepting family environment and continued from there. Similar to so many of you, I needed to wait for just the right time to pull out my small stash of girls clothes and cross dress. Because of that my available times to dress up and do my best to follow my new path were few and far between. Plus, the signs I desperately were looking for were distant and difficult to read. When I came to gender cross roads, I was having a hard time figuring out which one to follow. 

This was all happening during my pre teen years so I was confused enough about my life to start with. On top of the usual questions kids had growing up, I had added problems wondering what gender I was, all the way to my sexuality. I felt as if I was attracted to girls during puberty but the how I was attracted became the problem. I was facing the sexuality issue of desiring women because I wanted to have sex with them when all I really wanted was to be them. To make matters worse, I was extremely shy around people I didn't know. Especially girls. None of it was making my path any easer to follow.

To make matters worse, when I was in high school, the political powers to be decided to dramatically expand the United States presence in Southeast Asia or the Vietnam War in particular. On top of all my other worries I needed to add possibly being drafted to serve in the military. Not a good feeling to carry with me all those years. How could I possibly serve if I didn't want to be a man at all. It turned out, I didn't have the choice after I stayed in college for four years, I was drafted anyhow and my path became very clouded. 

The best I could, I went down my path adding three years in the Army to my life experiences. At the least, I had more knowledge of the world to base my gender decisions off of. Or, at least I thought so. Not long after I was discharged from the military, I went through the life altering experience of having witnessed the birth of my first and only child, a daughter who turned out to be my biggest supporter to this day.

As I was building a rather successful life as a man, I also began to explore other cross roads on my gender path. Possibly the biggest one was when I started to think of myself as more than just a casual cross dresser and more of the newly minted transgender individual. Most certainly just thinking I was trans rather than a guy in a dress petrified me. To make up for all my gender fears, I did my best to hide my true authentic self from the world. When I did, I kept hitting more and more dead ends on my path. 

Years later, as I was stumbling along attempting to find my way, I sustained so many bumps and bruises I could take it no longer. I made the effort to see a doctor and be approved for HRT and all of a sudden my path became more of a highway to my future. I guess it was more like an interstate as I was able to easily pass more and more milestones on my journey. 

It certainly took me long enough to get to my destination but once I did, it was all worth it.

Gender Migration

 

Image from Stephan 
Stephancik on UnSplash

From the early days cross dressing in front of the hallway mirror to finally coming out in the world as a transgender woman, I found my gender migrating away from my masculine side. 

The migration was slow at first because my old male self was resisting any and all changes to his existence. It seemed the more I tried to cross dress as a girl, the more he hated the process. The problem quickly became more apparent after I appeared in the mirror as a girl, which would involve or invoke a fast reaction as he responded negatively to anyone else in the world. Family and friends became targets of his gender frustration. Why? Because even though he did not know it, he was fighting an impossible battle. Even though it was possible for him to win the occasional battle, there was no way he could win the entire gender war. My feminine inner soul was just too strong.  Every time she was successful in coming out to the world, she wanted more and more.

Through my life's middle years, advancing in my job and raising my daughter, my migration slowed but never went away. In fact, it showed up in the most inopportune times when I had company business meetings to go to, or a family vacation to act as if I was having a great time when all I wanted to do was go on the vacation as a transgender woman. Of course my wife always sensed I was having a problem and tried her best to pry my thoughts away from me. I became very good at hiding my emotions as any true man would. 

In my case, I found if I waited long enough and tried my best to express my true feminine gender the best I could away from my wife and friends, I could get by. Those were the frustrating migration days of sneaking out behind my wife's back and beginning to establish myself as a woman in the world. At the time, I viewed the entire process of slipping down a very steep and slippery slope which would change my life forever. As much as the process scared me, at the same time I desperately wanted it to succeed. At times, too much when I couldn't keep my mind on which gender I was day to day. I knew I had gone too far when a stranger in my restaurant would refer to me as a woman instead of the macho man I was playing that day. 

Finally, I gave up, started gender affirming hormones and started a totally serious pursuit of a gender migration. From that point onward, I let go of my old unwanted male self and re-entered the world as a transgender woman. As I always point out, friends and family were there for me to enable my final migration to be a successful one. I am not sure I could have done it without them. 

Another Holiday?

My Favorite Valentines. Liz on left, daughter 
on right.
From the Jessie Hart Archives.

 Following the Christmas holiday season which presents so many problems for transgender women and men, here comes yet another rather traumatic holiday. 

Both of the holidays revolve around personal relationships, to which trans folk often have lost close friends or family because they set out to live as their authentic selves. When I read all the social media posts from transgender folk who are lonely, my heart goes out to them. The entire process just goes to show how much a person can lose following a gender transition. Once again it shows how much of a choice we don't have when we set out on our gender journeys. 

I am fairly sure I didn't think of losing family the first time I looked at myself cross dressed as a girl in the hallway mirror but then again maybe I did because I was so frightened about getting caught. Maybe my fears were justified so many years later, when I did lose all contact with the brother I was afraid of exposing my secret to so many years ago.

Overall, I know how fortunate I am when certain holidays such as Christmas and Valentines Day come around each year. Through a mix of work, destiny an sheer luck, I was able to find another person in the world who accepted the authentic me. My wife Liz basically picked me up off the trash heap and made me a believer in myself again. Something which I thought was impossible at my age of sixty two. In fact, I had given up on the idea of another serious relationship in my life and felt I was doomed to live alone as a transgender woman trying to make her way in the world. 

Perhaps, more importantly, I was able to rebuild family connections which were lost. Through my daughter's in laws and Liz's family, having a Christmas with family and friends became a reality again. And, even though I had never been a big believer in Valentine's Day, it is still very nice to tell Liz happy Valentines Day and I love her and for her to return the favor. Plus, I can't forget all my bonus checks which were added to because of Valentines promotions in the restaurant business I was in.

At the least, Valentines Day only lasts for one day and hopefully you can mend the hurt you may feel from having no one to celebrate with. Anyway you cut it being transgender should not deny you a chance to be happy with another person...but it does. 

It is just another holiday designed to stimulate certain areas of the economy not hurt the ones who happen to be single when it comes around. If you are one of those people, Liz gives out the best hugs and I am sending a big one to each of you.

Beautiful...Inisde and Out

 

Image from the Jessie Hart 
Archives...

As I obsessed with looking the best I could as a novice transgender woman or cross dresser, all I could think of was how I looked. Little did I know there was so much more coming up in my journey to living fulltime as a trans woman. I needed to live my looks as well as just admiring myself in a mirror. 

This morning turned out to be a prime example. Today I tagged along with my wife Liz to her mammogram appointment. Before I went, I applied my usual minimal amount of makeup, brushed out my hair and was essentially ready to go. While I was doing it, I felt it was time for a change. I thought I have been in a rut I have been in too long. I have essentially stopped working on my appearance and then being shocked when I am mis-gendered. 

Of course, nothing negative happened morning when it came to the doctors appointment because there were very few people waiting to begin with plus no one was paying any attention to anyone else. Since I had a spare moment, I went shopping on my phone for a foundation specifically tailored for older women. A group I naturally fit into. I found their on-line site and decided to give it a try. 

Currently, I am relying on the skin effects of gender affirming hormones, so I don't have to use a foundation at all. Or so I thought. It's occurring to me now the hormones have been a crutch for me to quit trying as much as I did. I ordered the new foundation and I will let you know my feelings. 

The end result is I need to work harder to make my inside and outside match up again. I learned long ago, similar to many cis-women, I will never be the prettiest woman in the room. I needed to find other ways to survive in the world as a new transgender woman. Little did I know, my biggest positive as a new person was already within me. My discovery was my inner feminine soul was actually good people. Opening up to others turned out to be one of my biggest pluses. The world turned out to like me. 

Doing my best to be beautiful to others, inside and out, turned out to be one of the most beneficial things I have ever done. Now, I feel it's time to get out of my rut, have some fun and get back in the game. Maybe to the point of treating Liz out to get our nails done and then have some dinner out at our favorite restaurant

I need to get us both out of the house.