Be Passionate

Image from Ian Schneider 
on UnSplash

When someone questions why I transitioned genders during my life, the main thing I want them to know my decision was not a choice. It was something I needed to do to save my own life. In that sense, I was selfish.

Perhaps, more importantly, the passion I needed to make it down my extremely bumpy, sometimes dark and gloomy gender path, I found I needed an extraordinary amount of inner fortitude to make it. More than I have ever used before in my life. In fact, I'm fond of pointing out, all I really wanted to be in life was a woman, not a doctor or lawyer. 

From that point forward, I knew I needed to follow a difficult path to achieve my feminine dream. To add insult to injury, I started from point zero with very few so called natural feminine appearances to help my cause. In other words, I had a long way to go to approximate looking like a girl and then later on as a woman. Plus, I needed to endure the onset of puberty and all the unwanted male changes testosterone poisoning was making to me. The whole process took an extra amount of passion to conquer by knowing deep down I was doing the right thing. Every time I suffered any sort of a set back, I needed to somehow pick myself up and get back in the game. Something I fought against doing in my male life. When anything bad happened to me, I knew I could run to my closet for a dress and makeup and everything would be all right. But what if I was already in a dress and makeup when the bad happened, what was next? 

What was next, was the chance to do my life better as a cross dresser or novice transgender woman. Being a novice trans woman was such a change for me over cross dressing, it required a whole new passion and learning curve. So many times, I found myself completely in over my head with no clear way on how I was going to find my way out. Somehow I did and knew I was on the right path. To define it more precisely, when I was a cross dresser, I felt as if my main goal was to look good as a woman and when I perceived myself as transgender I needed to be a woman...move better as one and communicate better in the world.

None of the process was easy for me, some of it still isn't to this day. Changing fifty plus years of striving my best to live as a man was difficult to change. More importantly, when the changes did occur with extended girls' time out with my friends happened, I craved more and more time with them. For the first time in my life, my passion was paying off. I remember vividly a Pride I went to in Columbus, Ohio with Kim, Nikki and Liz when we visited many gay and straight venues. With my tolerance to alcohol, I was having a great time and never wanted the evening to end.

I think now, what my friends may have seen in me was my passion shining through and it may have rubbed off on them. At least I hope so. 

These days, I do my best to lead with a smile when I see the world and hope for the best.

My Gender Clock never Stopped

Image from the Jessie Hart 
Archives. Ohio River in back
ground.

 Although it is difficult to remember my thoughts when I first viewed my girlish image in the hallway mirror growing up, I am certain I had a mixture of emotions. 

Probably, my biggest emotion was elation and from that point forward, something within clicked and a new gender clock was set and running. From then on I had a new goal and possibly a new life to consider. One of the things I needed to figure out was how deep my gender leanings were running. My young mind needed to consider was I just trying to look feminine or was there something much deeper going on. At that point, my clock dramatically entered the picture. Within a relatively short period of time, everytime I cross dressed, the "buzz" would wear off and I needed to try to sneak around and dress as a girl again and again. Something just wasn't right and my young mind was feeling it. Looking back, my clock issues with cross dressing could be easily explained away. I was in the earliest stages of considering I was transgender, which I ran from for most of my life.

As I grew older, I grew braver in my gender outlook and I began to search for ways to open my closet door and see the world. Sometimes I was successful and other times I wasn't. The successful times when I was able to negotiate the world as a novice transgender woman essentially set my gender clock forward a few minutes. When I wasn't, my clock was set back when I needed to head home and attempt to figure out what I was doing wrong. For some reason, I wasn't able to complete what was going on with my gender puzzle. On occasion, when my feedback was quick and brutal, my clock had more than it's shares of setbacks.

On the bright side, as hard as I tried to wreck my male life as I knew it, I was never successful as I searched desperately for my truth...could I really or ever live a life as a happy fulltime transgender woman. Since happiness was always difficult to define in my family growing up, I often wondered if gender was the missing ingredient for me to survive. 

Then there were the times I needed to put my gender clock on hold due to many major life changes such as going away to college and serving my time in the military. Essentially, again to survive, I needed a safe spot in the back of my head to store my clock until I could put it into use again. Thanks to several well attended Halloween parties I went to and tested out my prowess at being a novice transgender woman, I was able to set my clock forward to some sort of version of gender savings time. Because, at the same time I was watching the time, I was saving my life for the future. 

As I set the time forward, my life as a cross dresser became so intricate, I needed to seriously consider making a change. Finally, I came to the conclusion I was a woman cross dressing as a man and I needed to perceive myself in a different way. The different way involved me seriously considering if my gender clock wouldn't stop until I started to live more and more on the feminine side of life. At that point, my gender clock went into overdrive. I quickly started to develop a new life as a woman where very few people knew the old male me and I made the major decision to begin gender affirming hormones. 

Luckily, all this activity made my mental health better and my gender clock stronger. To this day, it has never stopped. Plus, if the world didn't like me, it was their problem, not mine.

In another side note, I received comments from "Sunshine Jen " and others on my health situation. So far I just found the main Cincinnati Veterans Hospital wants to take a further look at the spots on my head. So we are still in a wait and see place. Thanks for asking!

Somewhere between Heaven and Hell

 

Image from Sara Kurfess
on UnSplash

Very recently I received a comment from "J" asking me about my experiences coming out to my immediate family. After giving the comment some brief thought and I came up with this explanation, my coming out to family was somewhere between heaven and hell. 

To begin with, I had it relatively easy coming out since most of the important members of my family who needed to know anything about my transgender issues were not around. My parents, as well as many of my uncles and aunts had all passed away, leaving me only my daughter and my slightly younger brother to tell my truth to. 

The heaven and hell came in with both of these two close family members, it seemed as if destiny was showing me both sides of coming out. To begin with, I chose telling my daughter first at one of our breakfast meetings we often scheduled to catch up with our lives. One very nervous, scary morning, I chose to tell her I was indeed transgender. I will never forget her reaction which initially was a resounding why was she the last to know. Keep in mind by this time in her life, her Mom was long divorced from me and her Step Mom (my second wife) had recently passed away. So I guess she resented neither one of them telling her the depth of my gender issues. It certainly wasn't their fault because even though they knew I was a cross dresser or transvestite, even I resisted the idea of me possibly being transgender. In the meantime I was trying my best to hide any feminine desires I had from the rest of the world. Evidently, I did a good job and I was also amazed the cross dressing subject never came up with her. When she asked me why was she the last to know, I had no answer.

From then on, she gave me more support than I could have ever asked for. My daughter initially offered to take me on a shopping trip which I politely declined and then since my hair had magically grown to the point of being able to be professionally styled, she offered me a styling at her upscale spa and salon for my birthday. A gift I just couldn't turn down and after conquering my fears of going to the salon, I learned why women were so in love with their salon visits. I loved mine and I was in heaven. To the day, "J", my daughter has provided me with the heavenly acceptance I needed to make my male to female gender transition so much easier.

Now, the hell part comes in with my brother and his extended family. As luck would have it, I told my brother just before Thanksgiving over ten years ago. I wanted to know if it was OK if I attended as my authentic self or not. Before I asked out of respect, I knew the answer I would be given. My brother's in laws were all right wing leaning Southern Baptists, many of whom I always argued with during family get togethers. 

After some brief discussion with his wife, my brother sold me up the creek and said essentially it would be better if I did not attend the only family get together we planned for the whole year. The dinner was always the most important get together for my second wife and she did all the cooking a preparation for it for years after my parents passed away. So the rejection hurt a lot. I moved on quickly and haven't talked to my brother since. Which describes the end of my hellish experience of coming out to family.

Plus, I was lucky, I had my wife Liz and my daughter's extended family step in to fill the holiday void. And, I turned out better in the long term. 

I don't know, maybe destiny just wanted to show me the heaven and hell of coming out to family. While I didn't have the quantity of people to come out to as being transgender, I certainly was able to experience the quality of seeing both sides of the rejection/acceptance spectrum.

Thanks for the comment! I hope my experiences help. I value all your comments and questions! 

A Rare Night Out with Family

 

Image from
the Jessie Hart
Archives

After my appointment with my veterans doctor, I forgot my wife Liz and I had agreed to meet up with her son for a rare night out at our favorite Mexican restaurant. 

It was welcome news for me for several different reasons. First of all, the evening was a chance to get out of the house again and experience the world. I spend way too much time in the house. Liz has been encouraging me to get out during the day when she works and  I could write my blog posts and even might encourage me to begin work again on my second book, which I have long put off. So I take responsibility for at least not taking our laptop to a nearby library to write. The move would help me to re-improve my makeup skills as I get out in public again.

Secondly, yesterday, since I had already applied a light amount of makeup for my doctor's appointment at the Veterans Administration, I would just have to lightly update it for my evening out with Liz and her son. Being the basically lazy person I am, it gave me time to catch up with an afternoon nap I need because I am old.

Before we left for the restaurant, Liz and her son had the time to catch up on life, not to mention when we arrived at the restaurant and were seated. The venue is very casual and I even didn't need to change clothes except to add a light fleece jacket/top my daughter gifted me for my last birthday. We had major storms pass through the night before which killed three people not too far away from us in central Ohio and dropped the unseasonably warm spring temperatures we had been experiencing. So the fleece was a welcome addition to my wardrobe. Once we arrived, I noticed the venue was almost full, including many families, which normally is good for me not getting noticed as a transgender woman, just another customer. When I did, gender euphoria set in for me.

Dinner was enjoyable, the food was great as well as the company, the server was just interested in getting us served and on our way, so he did not pay me any extra attention one way or another. Which again was a good thing.

Certainly, getting out again was good for my mental health and well being. Can't wait to do it again. Unfortunately our upcoming appointments are with our doctors. It will be interesting to me to see how the dermatologist's perceive the skin growth I have on my face. It could be nothing or something they are concerned about such as cancer. Which of course concerns me deeply. But I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Another Trip to the Doctor

Image from the Jessie Hart Archives

Today, I needed to go to a follow up appointment to the  doctor's office. 

You regulars know, I am a transgender veteran and take advantage of the Veteran's Administration health care system. I know over the years, I have heard from many trans vets with differing ideas on how they were received in the system. 

During the earliest days in the system (approximately ten years ago) I felt as if I was the teacher in the system and that most all of my providers knew nothing about trans people at all. Fortunately, over the years my perceived ideas of how I was treated started to change. So much so, the Cincinnati metro VA hospital as a whole began to solicit ideas on how they could improve their service to the LGBTQ community, especially the trans population they serve. It worked, because I saw a big improvement in even the most backward sattelite clinic I had ever been to. Which happened to be the closest to me.

In the past, it is the clinic where a receptionist basically out and out refused not to call me sir. It was so bad, I was almost to the point of filing an official complaint if she was still there when I went back, which she wasn't. I haven't seen her since and everyone else has been nice to me. To be clear, there are several ways of respect I expect to be shown. One of which is to use no gender markers what so ever when it comes to referring to me such as "he or she or sir or ma'am." Or just refer to me as my first name which is cool also.

This morning all went well with everybody except with one person. The receptionists I checked in and out with didn't mis-gender me at all and were very pleasant as was everybody else. So much so, one of the dermatologists who was checking a spot on my face complimented me on my makeup. In addition, my actual appointment with my primary provider went off as it usually does...very well and she treated me with respect. 

The only problem moment came (and there always seems to be one) was when I was being escorted into what I call the vampire's home, where I had my blood labs taken. Primarily because my endocrinologist always wants to see a reading of my estradiol levels.  When we entered the room, she announces me as "Mr. Hart." I was quickly shocked when she did so but I recovered in a hurry and corrected her and she changed her greeting to "Ms.  Hart" which I was satisfied with.

The most important point of course is how all the labs and reports come back on my health. As far as the spot on my face goes, they took pictures to send down to the main Cincinnati VA hospital for them to take a look at. The results probably will take a couple days to come back. 

I have always said, my most precious possession is my health and how I am treated as a transgender woman is just icing on the cake.  

Saving my own Life

 

Image from the 
Jessie Hart Archives

As I began to transition into a transgender life in earnest, the more and more I knew I was saving my own life.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, all the obstacles I conquered on the gender path I was on just made my entire life more complex. Every time I met a stranger and established myself as a transgender woman to them was a new exciting time but not one which had it's share of fear. After all, I was losing all my well secured male privileges I had worked so hard to have. As a guy, I knew how to react to almost any situation negative or not. As a trans woman, I was in a different world and still had so much to learn. When I was first confronted with losing part of my so called intelligence in a group of men I somehow found myself in, I knew then my life had forever changed. I discovered the men just wanted to ignore me and my thoughts on what they were discussing.

In order to save my life, I needed to adopt what the other women in the world around me were doing. In many ways, they ignored men the same way men ignored women and it became very evident to me why the two main binary genders had a difficult time communicating. I was lucky because after my male upbringing, I had many of the tools to understand what men were really saying. While, at the same time viewing their comments from a woman's viewpoint. Even though the whole concept seems so easy for me to grasp now, back then, I really needed to understand which side of the gender fence I was on since for the longest time I tried to live in both a female and male world.

Soon, I found myself in a gender pressure cooker. On one hand, I had all the male positives to live by which I had learned to expect. On the other hand, the new and exciting (but scary) feminine side of life was increasingly opening gender doors for me. Since I was beginning gender affirming hormones, my world became a softer more sensitive place to be in. The ripping and tearing of my reticence to make a final decision on how I was going to live was slowly but surely destroying me. I was stuck in a gender world never never land which I would not wish upon my worst enemy and I needed to get out and save my own life.

It's no secret what decision I finally made. With the help of several close women friends, I donated all my men's clothes to a thrift store and never looked back. I equate the entire process with jumping off a huge cliff, then having a soft landing in a feminine world. It was difficult, yet it saved my life by making life fun again while at the same time restoring my mental health. 

Saving my own life never felt so good.    

Climbing Transgender Walls

 

Image from Katherine Hanlon
on UnSplash

Just when I thought I had conquered one obstacle in my gender transition, another obstacle suddenly appeared for me to climb.

The problem I had was I am very afraid of heights and some of the walls were taller than others. For example, makeup was not a big wall since I had so many years at home alone in front of the mirror to practice. By the time I went public, I had perfected most all the makeup ideas I needed. Plus, benefiting completely from having a professional makeover at one of the transvestite/cross dresser mixers I went to. The makeup artist really showed me how to scale the wall which on occasion had made me look like a clown.

At approximately the same time, I was fighting climbing another obstacle called fashion. For years I dressed my feminine self for what my old male self thought was appropriate  The whole process was completely backwards as I should have been trying to present as close as I could to other women of my age so I blended in. Once I scaled the obstacle, my life as a novice transgender woman in public became so much easier. Once my life became easier, I thought I had it made but I was so wrong. What happened was gender doors began to open for me I wasn't really ready for. I found it was much easier for me to move around in society as my feminine self than it was to actually sit down and have a conversation with another woman or man. Communication for me was a huge wall to climb. So much so, I even ended up taking vocal lessons at one point in my life to sound like a woman. 

As I write this post on walls, it occurs to me, I should have added in all the stop signs I went through on my path to living as a fulltime transgender woman. Coming to mind were all the times my male self was screaming stop!!! when his domain was being challenged. All the times, I put my marriage at risk by sneaking out behind my wife's back when she was at work is an example of running a stop sign just to try to climb another gender wall. What I was doing was slowly but surely building a way around the old male obstacles I faced, to build a new life as a transgender woman. At that point, if I had been honest with myself, I would have known my new life felt so natural, it would win out in the end. But, I wasn't honest and boxed myself into what was left of my male life which I had hated so much.

Finally, the world around me changed because of dire situations where family and friends had died leaving me the freedom to climb the final walls out of my gender closet. I came to the point where I had the tools I needed to conquer my fear of existing in public as a trans woman thanks to gender affirming hormones and pure courage to live. 

The walls I kept facing kept declining to a point where I had no choice but to do the right thing for myself and go ahead to live my lifetime dream of living as a woman. Looking back, maybe I should have described all the obstacles or walls I went through were more of a maze. Maybe I should have paid more attention in the scouts or the military to find myself an easier way through. Although, after communicating with all the other transgender women and trans men I do, maybe an easier way just wasn't possible. 

Making it all Effortless

Image from the Jessie Hart Archives

When I decided to go all out and attempt to go public as a novice transgender woman, I found I had plenty to do before I go conquer the world as my authentic self. 

Reversing all I had learned to try to fit in to an unwanted male world proved very difficult to accomplish. Even more so when I learned I needed to make the gender transition seamless and effortless if I was to survive. The first problem I had to beat was getting myself out of my mirror. Just posing in my spare time cross dressed as a woman wasn't getting it anymore. Deep down, I knew I needed more if I was going to survive in my scary new world.

As I attempted to put my new feminine self into focus in the real world, I knew I needed to put away all my deeply ingrained male mechanisms. The prime example was doing away with my permanent leave me alone scowl on my face. I needed to replace it with a softer, kinder gentler look. I needed constant reassurance from myself to make it happen. Primarily because I didn't want anyone approaching me. I found out the hard way my methods were completely unfeminine and I was coming off as a bitch or worse yet, a miserable mean human being. I even was called a big mean woman in a clothing store one day by a little girl, so I knew I needed an immediate change.

The second most profound change I needed to make was how I moved as a transgender woman. Of course, it is no big secret women move differently than men and even though any added dimensions to my hips and butt were due to foam padding, I still had to practice overtime to accentuate my new figure. What I resorted to was trying to practice every second when I thought I was alone trying to walk like a woman. The problem I always encountered was everytime I thought I had put the total package together of makeup, hair and fashion and put the movement with them, I needed to go back to my male world and try to forget the whole thing. Through it all, I became very frustrated. I was having real problems making my whole feminine image effortless. 

Even still, I continued to make it a priority and finally began to see improvement in how I was perceived in the world as a transgender woman. I know, athletes call it "muscle memory" when they repeat a motion over and over again until they get it right and that is exactly what I needed to do. I started to look the public in the eye when I communicated with them and paid attention to what they were saying to me. By doing it, I was able to more precisely tell is someone was reacting negatively to me because I was trans and then what could I do next time to improve my presentation. 

Making it all effortless, did take a great amount of work but it was what I needed to do to accomplish my goal of leading a life as a transgender woman. Plus, I could not have done it without closely observing all of the women around me and the many ways they reacted to the world.    

What is Holding you Back?

My Hair. Beaded Trans Hair Clip
by Liz T Designs on Etsy

If you are still in your gender closet, tentatively looking out, what is holding you back is a big question. 

By now you are thinking there are very many big variables holding you back from leaving your closet behind and living as your authentic self. Examples include the possibility of losing spouses and or family, jobs and finances and even your home. Any way you cut it all the chances are major losses which can become lifetime setbacks. Been there, done it. 

The worry concerning all of the variables I mentioned kept me in the closet for over a half a century so I am no stranger to having one foot in my closet for years. It is the one big regret in life I have is I spent so much time and energy on my gender issues. In addition to losing portions of my life I could never get back, the whole time I was engaged in a terrible struggle with my mental health which I attempted to resolve with medication and therapy. Not to mention the time and money I spent trying to over medicate myself with alcohol. Many times when I was drinking, I felt over confident with how I was appearing to the public when I flipped my cross dressing script (in reality I was a woman cross dressing as a man) and went out in public thinking I was a man cross dressed as a woman. It took me years to figure it all out.

My excuse was I was still experiencing some sort of benefits from keeping one foot planted firmly in my male life. I had a good marriage, a loving daughter and a job with increased potential. In other words, I was living a very good example of the ideal male dream. The problem was becoming the more I gained, the less I liked the idea of what I was doing. But, even still, it was enough to hold me back as I dreamed of the possibility of someday living a life as a fulltime transgender woman. 

As with any thing else, success often comes with pressure and I was feeling it from several different sources. At the time my second wife was against any idea of me beginning a transgender path on gender affirming hormones, my job was adding pressure to do better continually and make the company more money. At the time, the pressure became so much I couldn't take it anymore and I tried the suicide I write so much about. I tried to take an overdose of my bi-polar medication and it luckily didn't work. 

From there I tried to retreat and live again totally as a man and bought my own restaurant. Both ideas turned out to be a total failure as my close friends and my spouse all died around me. All of a sudden, with nothing to lose, I found myself with nothing holding me back from my transgender dreams. I had reached the age of sixty and really was at a crossroads again in my life. I could go on living an unhappy male existence or begin a life I always wanted. 

For once I took the right path and started hormones so there would be no turning back in my decision. Plus, I wasn't getting any younger, so the time was right for me to make the jump off my gender cliff and see what happened. It turned out, the only thing holding me back was myself and the fear I head of rebuilding a new life as a transgender woman. Even though I thought I had completely thought out all the possibilities of such a move, it turned out there were many I didn't consider which is a topic for another post I will be writing soon.