International Womens Day

 

Image from Joeyy Lee on UnSplash

As International Women's Day rolls around again, it is always worth mentioning how transgender women fit in the the group of women at large.

Of course, there is a group of "TERF's" or transphobic cis-gender women, who feel we trans women should be outright excluded from any sisterhood. Shame on them for their narrow minded ideas. It has always seemed to me, the more the merrier in how the feminine population is perceived and should be important to all women. Especially now with all the attacks on women's reproductive rights by Republican politicians across the country. Bottom line is diversity in how women hood is achieved should be celebrated not restricted. 

Which brings me to one of my favorite points concerning womanhood and how it is earned not just given at birth. Even though many women are born female, it doesn't mean they necessarily ever go through the process of becoming women and the same can be certainly said for men. As a transgender woman, I feel I have had to follow a gender path which has led me to my own particular brand of womanhood. So I should be included as much as the next person in "Women's Day." One day in the past I was when I was chosen to participate in a photo shoot celebrating the diversity in all women, not just the classical beautiful ones. Even though the album wasn't chosen to advance to a competition  in Chicago, I was thrilled to be a part. But that wasn't all.  

In my journey, I have been fortunate to have experienced many more positive feminine role models than negative ones who aided me in my journey. Many were lesbians who brought their own brand of being women with them since primarily showing me I didn't need a man to be validated in the world. I could stand alone and make it. On the other hand, I had other women around me who built their lives around children and family and I learned from them also how to further cherish what I had with my marriage to Liz and relationship with my daughter and her grandkids. Especially when my oldest grandchild decided to carve out a non-binary gender path of their own. All of a sudden, I was a role model on how to be brave enough to pursue a life outside the normal gender boundaries. Primarily since I never pursued any gender realignment surgeries, I still deep down knew who I was and needed to make changes  to live my truth.

Also, I don't understand why most all women don't accept trans women on "Women's Day" or any other day to speak of. After all. we have spent time on the other side of the gender fence and decided we did not or could not live there. I have discovered though many more women than men have embraced my change. Men especially are very fragile in their sexuality and have a tendency to ignore me while women are just the opposite.   

If you are still working your way out of your closet into the world and are wondering how you fit into "Women's Day", rest assured you are in the learning process and the day is for you too. When you look at all the young women being educated and starting their own businesses, the future is certainly female and we are certainly in the right group. 

Transgender Assimilation

 

Image from the Jessie
Hart Archives...

This morning I went to the Veterans Administration local clinic to have my hearing checked and make an appointment in the future with my primary provider (family doctor). 

When I arrived, both waiting rooms were over half full, so I had no choice but to assimilate myself with the other people after I checked in with the receptionist. Ironically, in the past at this clinic was when I was blatantly mis-gendered by a woman who I don't think is no longer there. Even though I corrected her twice, she managed to call me sir three times. It was so bad, I almost filed an official complaint because the VA at the time was making a serious effort to discover how transgender veterans were being treated. I didn't and she is gone and this morning the receptionist did her job correctly. 

The next big step came when I was called back to the room where the hearing test was being administered. Since the three or four previous people (all men) in the waiting room, when they were called back, a "Mister" was attached to their name. Not to worry. This time, I was referred to by name with no gender marker. From then on the appointment went well. The audiologist was very nice and commented on how long and nice my hair looked. Plus, probably the best part was my hearing had not deteriorated much at all since it was checked two years ago. So for now, hearing aids are out. 

Since I went all out with my new makeup this morning to present my best face to the world, I hoped walking past a full waiting room on the way out would not present any problems. I also decided to wear a rather form fitting outfit consisting of a sweater and leggings. Rather unusual for the normal VA waiting room nearly full of men with very few women. So I was trying my best to not get clocked as anything other than an attractive woman out running her errands

My next in person visit has been scheduled for a week from now and it will be a much more serious deal. I am going to schedule having blood done for my psych meds as well as a possible decrease in my kidney function. Plus, I am having an possible skin issue with a spot on my forehead. Just guessing but they most likely have to have it checked. I suppose the whole deal is just part of being old.

Most of my advanced medical paranoia comes from when and if one of my doctors recommends I decrease my gender meds to help my blood work improve. I need to jump off that bridge when I come to it.

In the meantime, today went well for me as I was able to assimilate myself into the world as a transgender woman. I even was able to experience a little gender euphoria at the coffee shop I stopped at on the way home when I was treated with a big smile from the guy at the counter. Life is good.

As we all know, assimilation is so important for every transgender woman or trans man in todays often challenging political world. Often it takes us many years with our gender dysphoria to gather the confidence to become comfortable in our own gender skins. Undoubtedly a topic for another post.

Gender Truth

 

Ripley, Ohio Image from
the Jessie Hart Archives

Following years of living a huge lie, I decided to live my gender truth. All along, I should have never been a male and felt so natural and alive when I was being feminine. 

As with any lie, you need to be more and more skillful to keep the ball rolling and not be discovered. The process all started when I was a kid and was carefully hiding away my small collection of girls clothes and makeup. Some of the items, I "borrowed" from my Mom when she discarded them and others I was able to purchase myself with funds I earned doing odd jobs around the house and from my newspaper route. I will never forget the first trips I had made to stores in nearby downtown Springfield, Ohio to buy makeup. I was scared to death since my Dad worked close by and I thought for some reason he might catch me there. Even though, it was my money and I was spending it the way I saw fit, I still felt guilty. The truth of my life still escaped me as I did my best to live in the male world. 

Somehow I was able to hide away all my clothes and makeup and even managed to shave away the hated hair which appeared on my legs when I became a little older. Probably, I was shaving my legs earlier than some of the girls I knew with strict Mom's who wouldn't even allow them to use lipstick. Looking back, I am sure I would have had the same problems with my Mom had I been born female. I just know she would have tried to restrain me the same way she did when I was her oldest son. All she really accomplished was enabling me to be more skillful in hiding my truth. I think. At the least, nothing was ever said to me by either of my parents.

As I cross dressed my way through college and my post military days, hiding my gender truth became increasingly more difficult. Primarily because I was slowly doing more and more in the public's eye as I left my closet to explore the world. The new truth I needed to face was how or if I was going to tell potential spouses who crept into my life. Even then, it seemed to be extremely unfair to both of us to not come clean from the very beginning. Except for my first fiancé, none of my future wives held my gender truth against me. Primarily because of a Halloween party, my first wife attended also, she was around when I confessed to a very small group of friends my costume was more than a casual fling to dress as a woman. As the years progressed and I became more assured of my gender truth, I decided I needed to tell my second wife also before we became married.

The problem became with my second wife was when I though I was telling her my gender truth about being a cross dresser, I wasn't. All along I was lying to myself and I was really transgender, not a cross dresser. Which was always a major problem for my second wife. She didn't care about the cross dressing but drew her line in the gender sand when it came to any idea or discussion of beginning any gender affirming hormones. Which, had she lived, would have probably ended our relationship.

Years later, at the age of sixty, I thought I was done with anymore serious relationships and wives is when several other friends came along, including my current wife Liz. With them, I basically had the opportunity to go full circle with my gender truth. Specifically, with Liz who told me at the time, why didn't I just leave the rest of my male life behind because she didn't see any man in me at all. 

Her push was all I needed to throw out what was left of my male clothes and concentrate on living my gender truth. The only problem I had with how it all worked out is why I waited so long to see it and live my gender truth. 

Live Action Week

 

Alzheimer's LGBTQ Shirt 

For some unknown reason, I have had several scheduled and unscheduled appointments come up this week. One on top of each other. 

One of the scheduled appointments was today when my wife Liz and I had our yearly maintenance taken care of on our fairly new heat pump and hot water tank. Since the equipment is new and the work is already paid for in our contract, we did not expect many worries/.Which is exactly what happened. What I did not expect was the work which showed up without notice in our front yard this morning. It turns out, our internet provider picked today to replace service on our street which is all underground. 

To prepare to face all these expected and unexpected workers in our world this morning, I went ahead and shaved closely last night. The only other thing I was going to do was tie my hair back and try my best to be out of the way the best I could. It worked fairly well, since the two workers who needed to come in the house were courteous and did not mis-gender me one way or another.

Coming up in a couple of days, I will have the opposite happen to me when I need to go to my local Veterans Administration clinic to have my hearing checked. For the visit I plan to try out the new makeup I just purchased and do the best I can to present well as a transgender woman. Since I have had no real problems at the clinic recently, I don't expect any this time either. It will still be interesting since I need to interact closer with a receptionist to make another appointment with my primary provider, which is what the VA calls my family doctor. I have blood work to request for my endocrinologist and another nurse practitioner who monitors my psych medications. It seems like every six months or so everyone wants a shot of my blood to examine so I might as well get a head start on the process. 

Finally, for this month I have another Alzheimer's diversity committee meeting coming up and for the time being, it will be another virtual get together which is much easier for me. As always, I urge you to contact your local chapter if your are having potential or current dementia problems in your family. I have found the Cincinnati/Dayton groups to be very pro-LGBTQ+ friendly in their approach to me. 

I am sure I will have more to add to this post after my upcoming visit to the VA but for now, I hear the equipment working in the front yard so I don't have much faith in the internet staying on. 

Trans Lost and Found

 

Lost woman from UnSplash

During a transgender persons' life, we experience many enormous periods of  lost and founds. 

Perhaps the biggest loss most of us face is with our families. In the transgender transition process, often many in families choose not to understand our journeys to living as our authentic selves. I am very familiar with the process when my brother decided to end all dealings with me when his family decided they did not want me at a family Thanksgiving dinner. We have not spoken since and that was over ten years ago. Needless to say, I am not happy about all I lost with my brother. As I always write is how fortunate I was when I found other family to fill the void. Between my wife's Liz's family and the acceptance I found from my daughter's in laws, I found more than I lost. 

Another major portion of our old male lives we have a tendency to lose is much of the old baggage we have to try to bring along. Interests such as mechanics and sports are stereotyped as male and are frowned upon back in the day when transsexuals were expected to go through gender realignment surgery and then move away and start a brand new life. I saw the whole process as one of the biggest obstacles of me potentially giving up everything which I earned to start all over again. I wanted in a large part to have my cake and eat it too. Could I really, transition into a feminine based life and keep most of my interests? 

I was stubborn and found out I could when destiny led me to a whole new group of friends who helped me into a new world. In essence, I found more than I ever lost, even though going through the separation from my old male life was very traumatic and stressful. More than anything, the finality of the loss off of many of my old male friends to death was tough to take, including losing my wife of course. Before the found began to flourish in my life, it seemed the losses would take over and they almost did. 

It took awhile but slowly and surely. I began to climb out of my valley and begin to climb again at the age of sixty. I shed (or lost) almost all the parts of my male life and even though I was scared of the future, I could at the least look ahead to better times ahead. Finding more than I lost became a fun goal for me as my life changed. 

I hear from so many other transgender women whose lives parallel mine. Either they continued with a skill they earned earlier in life or were able to meet others who made their gender transitions so much easier. One way or another,  the losses didn't feel as bad. Sadly, there are the other trans women and transgender men who never seem to not struggle with their loss of family or employment. It is just another example of how being transgender is everything but a choice. 

Perhaps, as being transgender continues to be better known thanks to the internet, everyone will have the chance to pick and choose with more confidence what is lost and what is found with their life. Then have a chance to cherish what is found.

Fight or Flight

 

Image from UnSplash

Perhaps you have heard of the "fight or flight" reaction when you are confronted with a potentially dire situation. Or do you stay and fight or get the heck out of there. 

In the military, no matter how well you could be trained to be in peak physical condition or shoot a weapon with accuracy, the powers to be knew there was nothing they could do about predictable you would be when you were subjected to actual combat conditions. 

By now you may be asking, what in the world does all this mean when compared to the strain of changing genders. Since I am an Army veteran, here are my conclusions. 

First and foremost,  you learn as a man to control your fight or flight reactions in many different ways, most difficult. I remember a black eye I suffered when I refused to back down from a potential future bully all the way to surprisingly winning half of a hand to hand contest with the biggest guy in the platoon. Never mind, I just managed to make him mad and he came back to get even. None of it mattered, because there was nowhere to hide. Especially behind a dress. From there on I learned to at least put up a good front when it came to confrontations with other guys. After the problem I couldn't just run home and take refuge in my small collection of girls makeup and fashion. 

Of course all my ideas and reactions to confrontation needed to rapidly change forever when I transitioned into the life of a fulltime transgender woman. The prime example I always used when I was cornered and was facing a forced molestation action by a much larger man. The lesson I learned was to never get myself into that position again if I could help it. I couldn't just fake my way out of a situation just because of my male privilege's. The other example I like to use was when I was naïve enough as a novice transgender woman to walk alone on dark sidewalks and parking lots. It took me being stopped late one night when I was leaving a gay venue to learn my lesson once and for all. When I went back, I made sure I had a friend go with me.

Once I realized women learn early in life to not put themselves in dangerous situations to start with then rely on masculine behavior to bail themselves out. My "fight or flight" mechanism had come full circle in many ways from my old unwanted masculine days. I started looking ahead for potential problems. Another example was when I prominently began to use my cell phone as a prop when I was out by myself as an unescorted woman in a bar or restaurant.  My thought pattern was, if a potential unwanted suitor was watching me, he would see my phone and think someone was coming to join me. Those were the many nights when I was going out to be alone.

In the meantime, the entire "fight or flight" idea was just another example of my lifetime desire to follow a transgender path. For some reason I was shocked how important the idea was to my safety and lifestyle. Learning to do my best to not put myself in compromising situations was the best thing I could do.   

Joining an Inclusive New Club

Girls Night Out Image, I am on the
first row far left.
From the Jessie Hart Archives

 In many ways, this is just an extension of yesterday's post concerning transgender love affairs. 

In the post I mentioned indirectly when I was finally able to play in the girl's sandbox without having to deal with un-due harassment or even scorn. In my post yesterday (and often) I mention how difficult I had it dealing with my second wife dealing at all with me as a novice transgender woman. She was having nothing to do with the process, even though she knew from the beginning of our marriage I was a cross dresser. In no uncertain terms did my wife show my emerging feminine self any encouragement what so ever. She wasn't going to help me join an inclusive new club.

I accepted her ideas on my gender because we both agreed being married to another woman wasn't anything my wife ever signed up for. At that point was when I decided to go it on my own and find out if indeed I could carve out a life in a new gender world. Slowly and very unsurely, I found out I could make it as a member of a new club. Game changers as well as the occasional bouts of gender euphoria helped me along. Examples included the successful Halloween parties I went to. Compliments were easy to come by when people told me how good I looked as a woman. For the longest time, I didn't realize the true extended compliment was how good I looked as a woman, who was really a man. None of it mattered as I made my way along a path to becoming a fulltime transgender woman.

Overall, I am proud of all the work I put into joining a new very exclusive club. To begin with I faced the necessity of learning all the basics of makeup and fashion. Starting from point zero, compared to other girls, catching up was difficult. Especially when I really didn't have much of a feminine body to begin with as well as having a very non-approving male dominated family. More than anything else gender confusion reigned supreme in my life.

What I don't mention enough is the feedback I received later in life from other women when I transitioned. I get the idea from other trans readers I hear from, sometimes acceptance is not so hard to come by but is such a powerful tool when it comes to a transgender transition. We all know, women live a different more layered existence than men and a life which takes no small amount of work to learn. If you do learn the intricacies of what if being offered to you when you are invited to women's only spaces, you will know you have made it into an inclusive new club. Once you are there, chances are, you will never have to go back to an old unwanted male life.   

I will forever remember the  women who helped me along in my journey and opened their worlds to me. Being able to exist on my own in the girls' sandbox or club was something I never thought I could do on my own.

They will never know all they did for me. Even to the point of saving my life. It was the major spark I needed to discover my true sexuality and live as I always dreamed of.

Who Do You Love?

Image from Freestocks 
on UnSplash

Along my lengthy transgender journey I learned the hard way I had several love affairs. 

The main one I want to refer to is the love affair with my wife and  the one with myself. Or should I say my feminine self, since I had never really liked my old male side I never asked for. I think the worst part of having two love affairs was the guilt which came with it. I think my major problem came from how much I threw myself into the process of being feminine. If I wasn't cross dressing in front of the mirror, I was spending my time studying all the girls or women around me. I am sure along the way, my wife caught me daydreaming too much and wondered why I was not paying more attention to her and our marriage.

Along with the daydreams came the frustration I felt when my wife was able to do all the things a woman does in her life. Plus, she wouldn't let me in to her world very much and she infuriated me when she wouldn't. The entire process led me to try even harder to improve my makeup and fashion ideas since at that time I was far away from realizing looking like a woman was only the very beginning of my long gender journey. At the time also, since I was putting so much time into myself, I am sure my wife felt unloved and I am surprised we made it through twenty five years of marriage. 

Much later, after she passed away, did I learn to love myself. I learned then the fact you needed to love yourself before you can love someone else was so true. Once I started to complete my transgender transition, I did start to love myself. Or, at the least, I started to have more respect for everything I had achieved in my new world I had chosen to live in.   

It was about that time I was feeling deep frustration because of the way my life was headed. Although I did enjoy the small social group of women I was apart of, I still felt I was doomed at the age of sixty to live my life alone. I found I was still a social creature and did the best I could to change the situation. Fortunately for me, my attempts at dating when I was still a guy were miserable short term failures which led me to believe I was on the right path to living as a trans woman...even if that meant living alone. As a stop gap measure, I still had my friends to hang out with.

For the most part, my experiences in the on-line dating world were failures too. I tried every combination on the sites I could afford to list on. One month I would try "man seeking man" as a transgender woman, then the next time try "woman seeking woman". Again always being up front I was transgender. The only men who responded for the most part wanted me to dress them up as a woman or let them wear my panties, so they were out. 

There was a happy ending to my on line dating woes after sifting through tons of rejections and trash, my wife Liz responded to one of my ads. She lived fairly close to me in a city I had always loved (Cincinnati) so I was interested in knowing her more. After corresponding by text initially, I finally became brave enough to talk to her on the phone. I was so insecure of my voice. From there, our first date was a local drag show at a gay venue midway between our homes. From then on we became a couple for ten plus years until we decided to get married. 

I guess the moral to my story is, the darkest moments of your life can turn around if you continue to put yourself out there. Sure it hurts and is painful to be rejected but often there can be a light at the end of the tunnel. The sad part is, you went through a transition to find your authentic self and you discovered self love and now there is no one to share it with. 

On the positive side, I am seeing an increase in wives staying with their transgender spouses when they transition. I have the utmost respect for the love expressed by these women and wish we could all experience the same. 

Go Get a Life

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Archives...

Following all the struggles with being transgender in my life, I finally decided I was living a lie and needed to go out and find an authentic life. An existence which helped rebuild my mental health and made me feel natural. 

My struggles have been well documented here in my writings. All the times, I faced the public for the first time as a novice cross dresser and came home in tears. Finally it all led to the magical evening when I decided enough was enough and I went out to intermingle with the world for the first time as a transgender woman and not a cross dresser. The difference was I was trying to become the trans woman I always dreamed of and not just looking like a feminine person. In spite of being scared to death, I managed to make it through the evening and even started a path where I could be a regular in the venue I went to. From there I was bolder and began to check out other similar venues which were much different than the gay bars I was going to because I thought I would have a tendency to be accepted more easily. 

Along the way, I found I wasn't easily accepted in male gay venues and in all but one lesbian bar I went to, so I kept going back to where I becoming a regular was helping me to build a whole new life. Through it all, the problem I was having was while I was on the fast track to achieving my gender dreams, I still had a wife and family to deal with at the same time. In addition,  I hadn't even thought about the possibility of losing my job. I was so busy learning about life as a possible transgender woman, I had a difficult time thinking of anything else when it came to my marriage and employment. 

The gender pressure I was under kept building until I could take it no longer and changes needed to happen to save my life. I was tired of all the self destructive behavior I was subjecting myself to over the span of my life. All the times I set myself up for failure in my male life had to change and for once I needed to succeed at something I really wanted such as living as a trans woman. I found going and getting a new life was going to be scarier and at the same time more exciting than I ever imagined it being. Somehow, I managed to barely hang on to my marriage when I was sneaking out behind my wife's back to explore the world. I was lucky I didn't lose my job because I was good at what I did and the company left me alone so, for the time being, the job was a non factor in my transition. 

What I never factored in were the times when I needed to interact with the world as a woman. How would I talk and communicate primarily with other women became a priority. Getting a life took on a whole new meaning. Plus, I can't speak for the others in the transgender community (women or men) gender affirming hormones were the tipping point for me in my new life. Once I started the medications, there was to be no turning back in my gender journey.

When I went out and finally had the courage to be me, I saved my own life. For once I was a success.