Creating Gender Tension

Image from Tim Mossholder 
on UnSplash.

 
I am aware of the natural tension which goes on between the binary genders of male and female. 

I am also aware of the added tension which goes on when a transgender woman or trans man tries to cross the gender frontier to live on the other side. For me, at least, the tension became ridiculous and ruined my mental health which was already fragile. Before I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, I was diagnosed with being bi-polar also. At the time, the diagnosis seemed to be a double-edged sword because I was wondering why I suffered from deep mood swings and blamed the swings on my gender issues. When I found I had deeper mental health issues, in many ways, it was a relief they were not tied in with my cross dressing. On the other hand, ideally, I could treat being bi-polar with medications and move on with my life.

My worry was any future therapy I might seek out, would involve the therapist attempting to tie my mental health in with my need to be a woman. Even though it was true, my gender needs did conflict with my mental health and cause tension, they were both separate entities and needed to be dealt with separately. I was fortunate in that I had two long term therapists who agreed with me, and I was treated as such.

However, my gender tension never went away, and, in many ways, I just learned to live with it. What I did was, resort to what I did when I was younger and try to cross dress my way through my transgender life. Predictably, when I was cross dressing, life was good and when I was not cross dressing, it was not. I was mean and tried to take it out on the world around me. I became so mean on occasion; I lost a job because of it. What no one understood was, I was being tougher on myself than anyone else. In typical male fashion, I was internalizing my feelings until they exploded. I even used therapy as a crutch with my second wife who had to put up with me. The best way for me to explain it is, I would never quite tell my wife what my therapist said. The prime example I can give you is, very early in my sessions with a certified gender therapist, she told me there was nothing to do concerning me wanting to be a woman. Sooner or later, I was to just have to follow my instincts.

There was no way, I could tell my wife that when I was supposed to be undergoing therapy to save our marriage. So, I ignored what the therapist told me and predictably, the gender tension continued and even became worse. I did my best to tread water and try to live a life divided between being a man part of the week and a trans woman when I could the remainder of the week. It nearly killed me as I tried my best to maintain an impossible life. My best was not good enough and I attempted an ill-fated suicide. When I woke up the next morning after taking all the pills I had and chasing them with alcohol, self-preservation kicked in and once again I made the wrong decision and resolved to purge most of my feminine fashion and make up, then go back to my male life. 

We all know the majority of gender purges don't work. Certainly, it did not work for me, even when I grew a beard to satisfy my second wife that I was not doing anything related to cross dressing at all. Once again, my gender tension rose to a very ugly level, and I was very unhappy. Little did I know, my life was due to change in a very tragic and dramatic way when in approximately six months, my wife passed away from a sudden heart attack. 

The life changing experience led me back to my feminine self and I never looked back. When I did, the gender tension I was suffering from disappeared and I felt free.  

Nobody Understood

 

Virginia Prince

What really hurt me when I first realized I had gender issues was when I had no one to share them with. I was all alone with my problems, or so I thought.

I lived in fear of discovery all the time from my parents or my slightly younger brother. Even then, I knew discovery meant an unpleasant trip to a psychiatrist. The closest friend to me who may have shared a few of the same feelings, ended up moving away. With him, both of us were allowed to experiment wearing his mom's old clothes and putting on her makeup. It was the closest I would ever come to having anyone to share my true life with. Ironically, we never talked about the cross dressing we were doing. We just did it. 

As I said, my friend and his family ended up moving far away and years later, I often wondered if he had any gender issues too which stayed with him. Plus, as I always point out, I spent my youth and the years leading up to college in the information "dark ages", or the time before the internet became so popular along with social media. All I had was my cherished copies of Virginia Prince's "Transvestia" publication to get me by. At the least, "Transvestia" showed me there was a community of others with the same gender leanings I had. Also, in my well-worn issues I saw meetings or mixers within driving distance of me which I could go to. I was excited when I learned I could actually meet other self-proclaimed transvestites in person. The problem was, once I learned I could meet them, was I brave enough to do it. 

You all know, I was brave enough to meet them but then I encountered another problem. No one at the mixers still seemed to understand me. I was too much of a woman for the cross dressers and not enough of one for the transexuals. This was back before the transgender term and meaning was even used and popularized, so once again, I was stuck with no one to understand me.

Finally, the world began to catch up with me and I understood where I was when it came to the cross dresser - transgender community. Even better, with the help of the internet and social media, I began to stay in touch with others with similar views. Suddenly, in many ways, everybody had some sort of an understanding about how I felt. It may have taken me a lifetime to do it, but I made it into the only community who knew what I went through.  

Maybe the problem with the world as we know it these days has been influenced by people who have never met a transgender woman or trans man at all. To understand a trans person, it certainly helps to have followed a similar path. Even briefly. 

In recent years, I went from no one to understand me to having a whole group of people who have not taken the time to even accept me on a basic human level. It seems, I have gone full circle to arrive nowhere. 

Once Your Eyes are Opened

 

JJ Hart, Club Diversity, Columbus, Ohio

In my case, once my eyes were opened as a transgender woman, I could never close them again.

Perhaps it is because I went through so many trials and tribulations to arrive where I wanted, or even desperately needed to be in my life. Since I had so few natural feminine traits to work with, I really needed to work hard to achieve a feminine presentation. I tried all sorts of ill-fated ideas before I ever got it right. Yes, it was me making the routine cross-dressing mistakes such as attempting to dress as a teen aged girl when I was thirty and had a testosterone poisoned body. All I accomplished was directing unwanted attention to myself. 

 It took me awhile to realize what I was doing, and my eyes were finally opened to what I was doing. The perception I had was I was dressing for men, when in fact, I should be doing the opposite and dressing for the women around me I needed to co-exist with. I learned the hard way, women ran the world I wanted to be part of, and I needed to do my best to get there. All of this meant I needed to keep my eyes open and do the best I could to study the women around me. Or how did the women react to the world around them, good or bad. 

Sadly, blocking my way were women such as my second wife who wanted no part of living with another woman, transgender or not. She was content with letting me learn on my own what women needed to survive in the world. Looking back on it, her process for me was the best way to go because once I learned something in my new transgender womanhood, I never forgot it. Also, magically, once I opened one door to my new life, my eyes were opened to another door. 

As I opened a new door, I knew I could never go back to my old male life which was bringing me down. I felt so good and natural in my new life, there was really no choice to be made. The only problem was what was I going to do with all the male baggage I had acquired over the years. Similar to most of you, I had the usual assortment of spouses, family, friends and employment to deal with. Fortunately, I started my transition process with the person who turned out to be the most accepting of all my family and friends. I am speaking of my daughter and her immediate encouragement helped pave my way to more attempts at telling the world about my authentic self. I ended up going one for two in the family process when I was roundly rejected by my brother and his family. He opened my eyes to what transgender rejection could really be like.

Still, I persisted, knowing I was on the right path and my eyes were not deceiving me. It took me awhile, but I finally gained the confidence to look another woman in the eye and communicate one on one with her. To do so, I needed to not concentrate on how I sounded and instead put an emphasis on what I said. In order to survive, I needed to keep my eyes open at all times because certainly every other woman was not going to be my friend. 

I did keep my eyes open and learned the hard way to keep my head on a swivel. There were many claws I needed to be aware of. Quickly, I was hardened to what the new world was like around me. More and more, I could never go back to the male privileges I had before. Even though, I lost much of my intelligence according to most men and especially lost my personal security, I still wanted more and more of my transgender womanhood. 

You might say, I acquired new 20-20 vision and it was perfect in many ways. It was a long and difficult learning process, but it was the best life I could have ever imagined, and I just felt I had done it sooner. 

Nice to be Wanted

 

Image from UnSplash.

This morning, I had several errands to run. 

Neither of the errands required much prep time on my part since I knew ahead of time what I was going to face. Speaking of face, almost all that I did this morning was shaved mine. After a very close shave and an application of moisturizer, I was almost ready to go. 

When I arrived at my first destination, it was mostly empty, so I headed directly for the greeting/birthday card section. The pressure was on to buy the right cards to the best of my ability. The first card I needed was for a longtime friend of mine whose mother who is turning one hundred this year. I was thinking what in the world type of card could I ever get which would be appropriate for a person reaching such a wonderful milestone in her life. I think I picked a card which would be fine for the occasion.

The second card I had to pick out was for my wife Liz's brother who was reaching a milestone of his own. His 60th birthday. In addition, he has a very dry sense of humor, so it was difficult to judge which, if any, card would work for him or Liz. One way or another, in a vacuum, I made a decision for better or worse and moved on to the other items I needed to pick up. 

My first interaction face to face with a person in the store was with a clerk who was checking me out. In more ways than one, I think. To be clear, I don't think he found me attractive, but I do think he knew I was transgender. The reason was, he was very, very nice to me and made me feel very welcome as I left the store with my cards and other items I needed.

After a couple of other stops, equally as positive, I finally stopped at a coffee shop drive thru to pick up coffee and breakfast items for Liz and me. After the give and take with the guy at the speaker and window, I received my order and was pleasantly surprised when the name on my cup said, "You Rock!"  

The whole morning was obviously very supportive for me, and I am fortunate to live in a liberal suburb of Cincinnati and it showed this morning. Plus, I was waited on by younger men who seem to be more accepting to an obvious transgender woman. 

Changing the subject now, my resignation from the Greater Cincinnati Alzheimer's diversity council when they decided to drop the "diversity" part of their name was accepted so it now is a part of my past. I am saddened but was something I needed to do and not be a hypocrite.  

Finally, today, I am awaiting news on my request to renew my Estradiol prescription with my VA endocrinologist. The whole process used to be fairly routine but now, I am not so sure. When I hear back, I will let you all know. 

For me, it has been a busy day.

In a further update, my request to renew my Estradiol patches has been approved, so I am very relieved! 

The Comfort Zone

 

My trans friend Racquel

As a transgender woman or a trans man, you often encounter major barriers when it comes to reaching our gender comfort zones.

We have all sorts of setbacks such as family and spouses, employment and potential loss of friends. Giving up the life we had been leading is never an easy decision to make. It's definitely more than just an easy choice which a percentage of people (or transphobes) think it is. For some reason, they think it is just a matter of transgender people putting away their clothes and returning to their birth genders. They don't understand how deep our experiences run. Along the way, we become very resilient in our journeys and for the most part, our tribe is strong.

We are strong, in part, because of the time and experiences we went through to reach our comfort zones. I know I had to endure stares all the way to out and out laughter in the early days when I went out and challenged the world. Catching up with all the years I lost not growing up as a girl really came back to haunt me when I had to struggle to catch up. No one taught me the basics of fashion and makeup. More importantly, I did not have the confidence I needed to move forward to even learn if my gender dreams could ever become a reality. Which was the most important thing to me.

Slowly but surely, with success, my time in the comfort zone came around and I survived. It was never easy. To this day, when we traveled to the Florida Keys recently, after all I had been through in my life chasing my gender, I still was very nervous about several things I would face along the way on the bus tour.  I did not know how I would fare as a transgender woman on a bus full of strangers. Especially when it came to having restroom privileges as we traveled through the deep south. However, I can't spotlight the deep south for its anti-transgender laws when my native Ohio recently has passed some of the most restrictive trans laws in the country. I guess you could say, I could run but I could not hide.

Quickly, my fears dissolved as the other women on the bus began to not so slyly question my wife Liz and I's relationship. The reason was one woman said to Liz, she thought we were sisters. Which really increased my confidence and put me in a comfort zone which would last for the rest of the trip.

My comfort zone expanded, and I was able to enjoy my new reality of acceptance in my transgender womanhood. Of course, it was all challenged when I caught Covid on the way back to Ohio and ended up in a suburban Atlanta hospital. I was fortunate in that I had my Covid vaccine three months before and my case was lessened in its severity. My three days stay in the hospital really challenged my comfort zone because I have never had any gender altering surgeries. So, even though the staff initially thought I was a woman, it quickly became evident I was still a biological male. Hopefully, I won't have to go through an experience such as that for a while again.

As we all know, comfort zones are fleeting and have to be earned. You need to be patient and do the best you can until your confidence as a transgender woman or trans man comes along, and you are finally comfortable in your own skin. 

Tomorow is Here and It Is Ugly

 

Image from 
Charlesdeluvio on UnSplash

Back before the election and I was voicing my concerns about a tRumpt presidency, I received a comment from a self-professed transgender woman who said she was a conservative and supported the felon. 

Her reasoning was, he had not been that bad during his first term. She also mentioned nothing about all the negatives he spewed about the transgender population. Well, he is here now and in all his glory has shown an indication to destroy the foundation our country was built on. It turns out, the self-professed "king's" attacks on the transgender community were just the beginning. In fact, the attacks on DEI have reached down as far as my association with the local, Cincinnati, Alzheimer's chapter. 

For those of you who did not know, I have been a member of the local Diversity Commitee for the past several months or nearly a year. Very recently, the message came along from the council saying the Diversity Council would be changing its name. They were removing "Diversity" from the title. Naturally, I was shocked to say the least. The long tentacles of hate from the new felon's administration had suddenly become a stark reality to me. 

Since that time, I have decided to resign my spot on the committee in protest. The remainder of the group can pursue their new "health initiative" without me. 

With everything else happening in our country right now, I wonder what all the transgender women or trans men think now. 

As far as I go, I live in fear of my future. Not as far as being attacked is concerned but what potentially is going to happen with my Veteran's Administration health care benefits. I have a potentially key appointment coming up soon because my Estradiol prescription has run out. So, I will see if a problem getting my gender affirming hormones is going to be a problem or not. 

Looking further ahead, I fear after the Musk/tRumpt social security purges, what will happen with my future payments I use to live on. 

Bottom line is, I resent all the challenges I have to deal with at the age of 75. Just because a bunch of billionaires can increase their wealth. To hell with being a conservative or liberal, I just want to live and can't help being deeply resentful to all who support the king felon. Tomorrow arrived for me, and it is ugly.

Trans Girl at the Symphony

 

Cincinnati Music Hall

I really don't know why but this experience usually slips my mind. Even though, it is one of the most dramatic experiences I have ever had. 

All of this happened several years ago when I was still attempting to navigate the world as my authentic self for first time. Also, my future wife Liz felt the time was right for me to accompany her to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Christmas concert. The whole idea petrified me, but I could not say no and I set about preparing for what I could wear to a semi formal event. My first.

Fortunately, thrift shopping came to my rescue as I found a very sparkling gown to wear in black. As I prepared by shaving, applying makeup and doing my hair, my nervousness subsided a little as we waited for the Uber, we called to take us downtown to the concert hall. 

When we arrived, my nerves returned as we were stuck in a crowd of people waiting to go to their seats. The only thing which saved me was, no one seemed to be paying me much attention. When I sensed no one cared about me, I began to calm down. As far as the musical performance went, I admit I had never been much a fan of classical music, but I did the best I could to enjoy it, and I did. Once I calmed down. Ironically, I was very calm until the lights came up and intermission began. People were moving around which put me in danger of being discovered as a transgender woman. I was not, and the concert resumed. 

Before I knew it, the experience was over, and I could breathe again until we stopped at a venue along the Ohio River for a drink or two to celebrate the holidays and our relationship together. Once again, my nervousness increased until we settled in at the new venue. Again, we were treated very well. I even used the women's room with no repercussions which was becoming a necessity.

What I learned from the entire experience, I found if I did not try harder to expand my horizons as a transgender woman, I never would. Plus, there was never a better time in my life to do it. Because I was spending my time with Liz, it made the whole time so much more pleasurable.

The concert was only the beginning of me building my confidence in my transgender womanhood. Liz wanted to travel, so I learned to travel and again learn new horizons of fitting in with strangers as a woman. I viewed it as a layered trip to learn more and more about my new world. Most importantly, I learned to interact one on one with other women and basically ignore the men who were ignoring me. 

It all was an important springboard into my future desired life which I had to do in a hurry, since I had such a late start at the age of sixty. I can't stress enough, when I did start, despite my fear or nervousness, I enjoyed it immensely. The entire process, proved once again, I had made the right decision when I chose to live as my authentic self. Plus, I needed to discover for once and for all, who was my true self before I could move on with all the major decisions I needed to make.

As I said before, I had never been a real fan of classical music, but it started me down the path to a beautiful future. 

Always Running

 

Image from JJ Hart

Much of my life was immersed in running from my gender problems. 

As fast as I could, I changed jobs and even places my wife and I lived so I thought would make a difference in my life. The prime example was when I picked up and moved my small family from our native southwestern Ohio to the huge bustling New York City metro area to operate a fast-food restaurant. By doing so, I thought deep down I would be closer to a population which would be more friendly to my cross-dressing desires.  I only made it a year before the culture shock pushed me back to our native Ohio.

In the meantime, I did have several moments when I was in New York which I will always fondly remember. One of which was the night I actually got out of the house by myself without my wife and drove myself out to Long Island for a transvestite mixer I had read about. Once I was out, I had two major surprises waiting for me. The first of which was I was happy I found the venue at all. The second one happened when I tried to get in. There were two women at the door monitoring who got in or not. I was flattered when they refused to believe I was a man at all and asked for an I.D. to prove who I was under all the hair, makeup, and fashion. 

The second most memorable night was again when I managed to be out alone in the world as my authentic self. Quite unexpectedly, I was invited to a Halloween party by one of my female assistant managers. Of course, I did not to think twice before I accepted her invitation and began to plan ahead on what I could wear that my wife would approve of. Finally, I learned she would never approve anything I wanted to wear, so I set out on my own to come up with a costume I would have fun with. It turned out my short tight dress and heels matched perfectly with what the other women in our little group were wearing. Plus, the women were all tall and I really blended in well in our heels.  

As I said, the culture shock of NYC over Ohio wore me down and we ended up moving back. When I did, I immediately fell back into the whole cross-dressing culture I was in before. I was unhappy and hidden away from the world, so I found another place to move to and uproot our lives. The job I was working offered me an opportunity opening restaurants along the Ohio River in southern Ohio. A very conservative area to be sure so I needed to up my cross-dressing outings. Somehow, throughout the whole adventure I grew tired of having limited places to go and wanted another move to improve myself. 

This time, I tried to move back to the Columbus, Ohio area where I knew several very diverse friends in the LGBTQ community, specifically the transgender crowd. Following a lot of work, I finally landed the job I wanted, and we moved again.

Finally, I grew tired of all the running I was doing, and I needed to settle down and face my gender issues head on. It took me until I was sixty to realize I needed to make a change to a full-time transgender lifestyle. When I did, a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders and I went on to start gender affirming hormones or HRT. It was a wonderful way to live. 

Someone is Paying Attention

Image from Alena Garrett
on UnSplash. 

One thing I immediately noticed when I left my mirror and went into the world as a novice transgender woman was when I was suddenly noticed more by both primary genders, male and female.

Of course, being raised in an unwanted male world, I knew how many guys made a big deal about the appearances of the women around them. What I was not prepared for was the amount of attention I received from other women. Especially, younger ones as teen girls were especially observant. I cannot or prefer not to recount the times I was stared down by a group of teenaged girls or younger. 

My primary example was the day I was out shopping in the racks of a women's clothing store when around the corner came a small child who startled me. Obviously, I startled him also because he ran back to his mother (who was close by) and said, "Look at the BIG woman!" Initially, I was relieved because he had called me a woman. Then he continued and said, "The big MEAN woman." Naturally, I learned a big lesson. The BIG mean woman should always be prepared to be friendly, which means I needed to immediately learn to wipe that old male scowl off of my face. If that was all I needed to do to not scare little kids, it was an easy lesson to learn. 

For a while, I was intimidated by all the attention I was receiving until I began to understand where it was coming from. The more I dressed to blend in with other women, the less attention I received from men. Primarily, because I just wasn't that attractive. On the other hand, the increased attention from women came from the fact most of them were just curious what I was doing in their world or were appreciative of my efforts to look the best I could. If I had a dollar for every time I was complimented on my jewelry or earrings, I would be a rich person now. 

It took me time but eventually I learned my lessons well and adjusted to the fact, my appearance as a transgender woman was a fact of life and in many ways a form of female privilege I needed to live up to. My observations made me work even harder on my feminine presentation. In other words, it was all part of my rite of passage into transgender womanhood. Plus, in many ways, I needed to work even harder to present well than the average cis-gender woman who was just getting by because she happened to be born female. Which, by the way, did not automatically allow her to be a woman. Neither gender birthrights allow them the permission to claim an automatic right to claim a title of man or woman. Which comes from socialization. 

I learned if someone was paying attention, I should make the most of it and adjust to my new surroundings. Once my confidence built to a point I could do it, I was able to project a strong feminine aura. When I did, questioning my gender became someone else's problem. Not mine.