Breaking the Gender Chains

 

Image from Arlem Lambunsky
on UnSplash.

For years and years I blamed myself for my transgender issues. 

I did not have access to the proper information to know otherwise. I thought somehow I was addicted to seeing myself in the mirror as a femininized person. The chains of being a male person weighed heavily on me. It was not until much later in life that I had the chance to learn I was completely wrong and I had never really had the choice to attempt to break all the chains which were restricting my life. All of this occurred in the pre-internet years and it was not until I bought my first computer did I finally began to see there were others just like me who struggled the same way in life.

At approximately the same time, I began to meet more and more diverse individuals in the new LGBTQ community. Primarily, I learned the difference between cross dressers and transgender women and men. Those involved in pursuing a life in transgender womanhood were much more serious than the average cross dresser who was actively embracing how they appeared as a woman. I was able to meet several impossibly feminine transgender women who embraced being a woman, not just looking like one. At the time I was intimidated and wondered if I could ever make the jump myself. Plus, I knew before I attempted such a radical move, I had quite a bit of work to do on myself.

I became the mistress of excuses of why I could not break my gender chains and move forward into the great unknown. What would I do about the remnants of my male life and what if anything would I do about my sexuality among with other important parts of my life. One thing I knew for certain was my desire to live as a fulltime transgender woman was more than an addiction because the process felt so natural and affirming. The entire process was stressful and damaging to my mental health because I was firmly stuck between the two main binary genders.  I would have not wished the stress I was feeling on my biggest enemy and the worst part of it all was  how I needed to internalize my feelings to the world. 

Life was so black and white at the time. Half of the time I was in the darkness of being chained to the wall of my old male life as I daydreamed of the lighter times when I could explore again and again the times I had as a woman. 

Through new woman friends and a good therapist, I was able to break out of my old gender chains and live my dream. Proving time and time again I was living the life I was meant to live. In no way did I have any lasting attraction to just wearing woman's clothes. The clothes were just a larger indication of how I wanted to live my life and were an external view to the world  which enabled me to open gender doors which were previously closed to me. 

I could not believe after the chains were broken and the new doors were opened, how much brighter my world became. Somedays I wonder if the wait was worth it. 

Good News from the Doc

Image from JJ Hart.

Yesterday was my Hematology appointment at the Cincinnati Veteran's Administration hospital.    

The hospital itself is surrounded by other medical facilities mostly owned and operated by the University of Cincinnati, so space is at a premium which means parking spaces are also. Even though we have a handicapped placard for the windshield, sometimes spaces close by to the door are not close enough for me to easily walk to. Regardless, I was going to try to make it yesterday with the help of my new cane. Plus, in addition to the walk to the door, I knew my wife Liz and I were facing an equally long walk once we arrived in the hospital.

I was scared and was running on extra energy as we finally made our way to the medical department where the appointment was scheduled so we actually were there ahead of time. I was scared of what the doctor would tell me about my platelets being down again from my last bloodwork. Of course, then I began to read up on what it meant and Leukemia was one of the possibilities. Then I started to build all sorts of negative bridges in my head about my mortality. So my blood pressure and nervous energy was at an all tine high when I finally met with a medical team of three. One doctor and two other fellows, whatever that meant. I was hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

It turned out almost all my worry was for nothing . I had  what was called an iron overload in my body. I have had it before and it seemingly went away for years before coming back to haunt me. It used to be I needed to go for regular blood draws called "phlebotomies" which brought the iron problem under control. So instead of Leukemia, I have too much iron in my system again which can cause fatigue, joint pain and skin discoloration among more serious issues.

From the doc, I was then sent down a couple of floors to the vampires so they could do more bloodwork before setting me free. I should mention through it all so far I was treated with respect and was never mis-gendered. I was referred to as Ms. Hart or my first name all through my visit to the VA hospital...until the very end. Just as I was leaving the bloodwork room, the woman said "thank you Sir.' Ruining my perfect day in the gender department. 

However, I was not going to let one person spoil my medical and gender euphoria I felt when we stopped off for lunch on the way home and we were referred to as "Ladies"  again. 

I am sure, I will get back my bloodwork today and will find out when my first phlebotomy in years will be scheduled. Hopefully I will feel improvement soon because Liz and I are planning a trip to the Florida Keys in January and more energy along with less back pain would be a welcome relief. As I will need all the gender euphoria I can get to help me along.

I will have much more later as we get closer to the date, in the meantime, I have some iron to get rid of.

Finding your Happy Place

 

Image from Priscilla du Preeze
on UnSplash

These days you may think finding any sort of happiness as a transgender woman or trans man may be impossible but it is not.

Take this morning for me as an example. As I was getting dressed and viewed my bare thighs before I put on my pants, I had forgotten how nice it is to view their increasingly femininized form thanks to the use of gender affirming hormones. In other words, I have developed my own hips, finally following years of hormonal usage. In many ways I took the slow cautious route when I started down the medical transition path on the advice of my doctor. He advised me to take minimum dosages until we could judge the effects on my body.

At the age of sixty, my body took to the new feminine hormones wonderfully and naturally. Soon I was put on higher doses of HRT and bigger changes began to take place rather quickly. I had set up a semblance of a timetable of when I wanted to shed all my male clothes and live fulltime as a woman but it turned out the timetable was a waste of time. What happened was I became very androgynous looking in a very short period of time. While I was developing an increasingly noticeable set of breasts, my skin began to soften which in turn softened the lines of my face. So much so that anyone who knew me from before would notice the difference.

Even though I was shocked at the rapid exterior transformation of my body, the whole process felt so exciting and natural I could not wait to do more and more as I accessed my new transgender womanhood. It all meant setting up new plans and timetables on who I was going to tell and when. By this time in my life I had outlived most of my family and close friends, so telling many people was not going to become a problem. I had even retired so I did not have to worry about transitioning at a job. All of this left me with two main people to come out to. My only daughter and only slightly younger brother. 

I knew at the time, I had a better chance of succeeding at telling my daughter the truth about me than my brother. My daughter was much more liberal while my brother's in-laws were right wing Baptists and I figured he would sell me out to appease them. It turned out I was right on both accounts. I found my happy place when my daughter totally accepted me and was down when my brother did not. I took my fifty fifty win/loss record and moved on.

To this day my happy place continues with my daughter and her extended family. In fact, my wife Liz and I just accepted an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at my daughter's Mother-in-Law's house which makes up for the decade long snub from my brother. 

As the holidays approach, I hope all of you can find a happy place to celebrate with family, blood relation or not. In the transgender community, often we find the best family in non traditional situations. It is a wonderful time of the year to discover or re-discover a new happy place for yourself.

Outreach in Transition

Paula from the UK.

Recently, I received this comment  from long time reader "Paula" who is from the UK: 

"Here in the UK we are all pretty nervous about talking to journalists, especially TV journalists as so much of what is broadcast is at best negative and at worst downright attacks. Having said that the work you are doing is important, as more and more of us approach our dotage with more of us out than ever before elderly LGBT+ care will be more important than ever."

Thanks for the comment Paula and after a weekend to think about doing the interview, the voices in my head told me to shy away from doing it. Due to me mostly listening to the voices I have in my head and going forward, after seeing our new president in action, I have decided to dial back much of my outreach activities and be more careful of the crazies who are popping up. 

Hopefully, none of that will impact the blog in anyway which I am still dedicated to and I remain true to my initial vision when I began this writing journey over a decade ago. I wanted to share my transgender experiences with anyone who could benefit from them. 

Looking ahead at my own future, I am fortunate to be surrounded by a supportive cast of transgender allies who could help me when  potential difficult situations arise. The main one I can see happening is if tRumpt and his minions try to meddle with my Veterans Administration health care which could mean I would have to seek out a new more expensive source for my gender affirming hormones. I will have to jump off of that bridge if it ever happens. 

A  much closer bridge to jump off of for me is coming up Wednesday when I go to my Hematology appointment. Following my last round of blood work, I was told my platelets were low again and I needed a consult. Never a good thing to hear when you are seventy five like I am but I will see what they say coming up very shortly. 

One way or another, I thought I would keep you all involved with what I was doing with my curtailed outreach attempts. Most certainly I will continue my Cincinnati Alzheimer's diversity committee work I do and as I said continue to write the blog which has undergone so many changes over the years. When I look back on any of the early posts I wrote, they were mostly appearance related whereas today the posts are lifestyle intensive.  

May we all survive the future the best we can. In the meantime, thanks so very much for reading along with my experiences. Hopefully they can help you in the best possible way.  

Outreach the Easy Way

 

Out with my wife Liz
on left.

Last night, I took Liz and her son out to a steak house for her belated birthday dinner. She is a big fan of a good steak. 

To show you how popular the place is, we needed to wait for an hour for a table. There were not even any seats in the waiting area, so we had to wait outside on a solid metal seat. Fortunately,  the weather was unseasonably warm and dry so all we had to do was watch the other customers come and go. By doing so, I was able to notice the amount of fancy pickup trucks in the parking lot. A fancy pickup truck in my mind will forever tell me the driver is a fan of the new president I dearly dislike so I wondered if I would face any negative feedback from being transgender in the restaurant.

Once we finally made it into the venue, the pressure was on to see what everyone else thought of me. My fears proved to be unfounded. Even though the other people in the lobby had nothing else to do but to people watch, nobody zeroed in on me. I was essentially invisible to the world which is what I wanted. Men, women and children ignored me as they fidgeted, all waiting for a seat.

To be sure, it was not always this easy for me. I went through years learning the art of makeup and fashion I needed to transition out of a male world and into a feminine one. I was stared at the least and laughed at the worst when I went out to eat. All along I was a woman on the inside just waiting to get out. I was in my own version of gender heaven and hell. It all paid off when I have experiences such as last night but sadly I still have scars from unpleasant past experiences. 

By this time, you may be thinking I am a person with a huge trans ego problem. My second wife was fond of  telling me my femininized life was not all about me. She in most senses was not wrong, I was going all out to be the best cross dresser or novice transgender woman I could be and I needed to watch the room and other people around me to judge how I was doing. There simply was no room for anything else in my life on most days. 

It took me years to learn to relax and enjoy my new transgender womanhood as I was too busy still trying to read the people around me. Last night was one of those rare evenings I could relax mainly because I felt I looked nice, sounded confident and even felt physically better which all contributed to a fun evening. A good night of transgender outreach to all those pickup drivers who saw us portrayed as monsters during the previous election. As I look to the future while I process my past. 

What did I wear? My The Ohio State University sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes to blend in with all the other Ohio State fans in the venue wearing their fan gear. However, I did step up my hair and makeup with eye makeup, foundation and lipstick. So I wasn't a total plain jane. 

Whatever it took, I needed to blend in with the masses at the steakhouse and I did, they were not interested in me which was good. Outreach invisibility at it's finest.

If You can see it You Can be It

 

Image from Trans Ohio party JJ Hart.

Long ago, when I first glimpsed myself in the mirror as a feminine person, very soon I realized just seeing myself was not enough, I wanted to be the girl I was watching. 

In the classic if I had known then what I know now, I would have known then I was less of a cross dresser and more of a transgender woman. Way before the term transgender was ever used. Now more than ever before, it is time for us to blend in with the public at large as transgender women or trans men. We just have to be better and better.

Fortunately, I had years of preparation to be ready to face the world. Since I had plenty of testosterone poisoning to overcome, there was work to be done and I needed the courage to do it. Along the way, I viewed the whole process as stairsteps towards what I perceived as an impossible dream of transgender womanhood. Facing the world with confidence was my biggest problem. Every time I took a positive step forward when I went out in the world as a novice transgender woman, it seemed then I faced several steps back. When I was on point with my fashion and makeup, I lost it with my voice. Or vice versa on other days when I caught myself slipping back into my old male ways and walking like a linebacker. Adding to my problems was I was still trying to maintain a life stuck between the two main binary genders which made my existence even more difficult. I needed to consciously think all of the time which gender I was dealing with the world as. I was in.

Very slowly, I worked through this phase of my life and found women friends who I could learn from. I learned I could relax with them while at the same time learning how it was in woman only spaces. At the time, when I looked in the mirror, I was seeing it and being it which felt wonderful and so natural I knew I was in the right place. For the first time in my life, I thought my dream of leading a feminine life could be realized.  

Through it all, I still needed to work on my makeup and fashion skills to blend in with what my lesbian friends were wearing. It was a challenge because I needed to look as if I was not wearing any makeup at all when I was. I needed to work harder than the average woman to succeed in the world. By this time, I was used to it and worked hard to instill confidence in what I was doing with my gender goals since there was so much at stake. I was playing a high risk game with my life. Was the grass really greener on the other side of the gender border. 

I found out indeed the grass was greener but often not so easy to enjoy. I met more than a few women who did not want me in their world and did not hold back on their dislike for me. When they did, I needed to quickly pull the knife out of my back, smile and move on to friendlier situations. 

By this time, I was so close to seeing my dream goal of transgender womanhood, I pushed on even harder. I started gender affirming hormones with my doctor's approval. When I did, the changes came quickly and naturally as my body adapted to the new feminine hormones. Predictable changes such as hair and breast growth were quickly proceeded by inner changes with emotions as my life suddenly became softer. With my softer skin my facial changes were fairly dramatic and I knew then I could see it and be it.

As with any other long journey, you wonder was it worth the time and effort. With me the trip from the mirror into the world and beyond was just finding my true self. 

A Day at the Coffee Shop

 

Transgender Outreach Image
University of Cincinnati. JJ Hart

My first meeting with the Pulitzer prize winning television journalist lasted nearly two hours and went well I think. 

Of course with the new current state of affairs we are dealing with in the transgender world, I was a little nervous. Ironically, my nerves were settled a bit when another customer stepped forward and purchased my coffee. While I am positive he was not overwhelmed by my beauty, perhaps in his own way he was supporting the transgender community. Regardless the journalist arrived and we began the interview, nerves and all.

Looking back at the time we spent, it is rather difficult to sort out all the details. In no real specific order we began discussing my work with the Cincinnati's Alzheimer's diversity council and how I became involved. It turned out the network I developed with the statewide (Ohio) article I did for the "Buckeye Flame" issue which was read by the journalist and he wanted to know more. That is where the meeting today came in.

Along the way, we covered almost all my life and how I arrived at the place I am today and of course what the election meant to me. I did mention I was surprised a television station would want to do an interview with a transgender woman after all we had just gone through. Essentially, he responded he liked doing stories outside of the ordinary and we started to go through my life I quickly centered the conversation on the fact I had led a fairly normal life for someone of my generation. I grew up playing football, graduated with two degrees and had served my time in the military with the American Forces Radio and Television Service. 

All of the time I served in all the different capacities of my life have led me to believe I am not much different than any other transgender person. As our lives pass us by we acquire family, friends and occupations we need to get and then need to get rid of as we change. The point I was trying to get across was we trans folk are really not that much different than anybody else and certainly not the monsters the election set us up to be.

We ended the interview with another appointment for him to join me for an upcoming walk when I sometimes come up with ideas to write about daily. 

It was an exciting day and I am looking forward to more outreach if I can do some good.   

I am Back

 

What greeted me this morning on "Femulate:

After much thought, I have decided to return today with another post. If you are not aware, the gold standard of transgender blogs "Femulate" has decided to go "dark" after yesterdays' devastating election results. 

One of the main reasons I have decided to go on is a message I received from my transgender grand-child yesterday when they said thanks for supporting them and thanks for being me. When I received the note, I knew there was no way I was going back. 

Essentially, Stana at Femulate said she did not want to encourage anyone to enter a dangerous world and get injured. That has been one of my thought patterns also and need to repeat my usual warning: Just because I took certain risks when I was learning to be my authentic feminine self, does not necessarily you should too. Everyone of us faces different paths to transgender womanhood. So be careful.

Plus I can not say it enough, I have been so fortunate to have met and married a very supportive ally in  my wife Liz. Ironically too, I still have the outreach interview scheduled with a television reporter tomorrow on the topic of Alzheimer's care for elderly LGBTQ adults which is my passion. It will be interesting to see how it goes.   

One thing is for sure, transgender women and trans men are NOT going away, we have been part of society forever. In my life, I have just laid out one path of many to achieve a very certain dream or goal and I  have always written to my truth.

Following a lot of thought, I will continue attempting to build around a theme that takes us to a point our gender transitions involve so much more than clothes and fashion. Our unique paths to trans womanhood run deep and can not be taken away.

Uncomfortably Numb

Image from M on UnSplash

Following yesterday's ill-fated election, I wasn't going to write anything at all but decided not to be a coward. 

Needless to say, I did not think the election would be as bad and disappointing as it was. It was a generational defeat for transgender women and men everywhere. 

Essentially, I will take the day off to mourn and try to figure out what it all means to me. One second I am scared and the second I am defiant. Plus I have my own health to think of, since I have a hematology appointment coming up next week. 

In the meantime, I will stay uncomfortably numb to twist an old Pink Floyd tune and be back tomorrow.