Confidence is your Main Accessory

 

Image from 
Jon Tyson on UnSplash.

Some assume I have reached the point of life I am at, through very few challenges.

The truth is that I faced many challenges along my very long gender journey to living fulltime as a transgender woman. I write about many of them often. As I look back, the one main challenge I faced was having the confidence to move forward to my strong dream. Perhaps the earliest confidence I needed was when I walked down our long driveway dressed as a girl to check the mail. Hoping someone would notice the girl in a miniskirt out of the house on a winter’s day without a coat. Then hoping no one would see me and somehow report me to my parents. Nothing ever happened, so I gained the confidence to keep doing it.

The problem was, there were only so many trips to the mailbox I could take to feel good about my cross-dressed feminine self. Here I was taking all that time and effort to feminize myself and having no outlet except the mirror. I was frustrated in my little closet which I had no idea of how to escape from. I was like a caged animal, I knew I wanted out of the cage, I just didn’t know where to go when I escaped.

As the years passed by, I traded going to the mailbox with a yearly trip to a Halloween party. Even though it took me years to get it right, I finally figured out how to figure out a “costume” which helped me to build my confidence that I could present well enough to get by in the world as a woman. My goal always became to be mistaken for a woman in a costume, not as a man dressed as a woman and I achieved it. From there, my problem became Halloween only happened once a year, and what would I do the rest of the year about my growing gender dysphoria. My final decision was a simple one, if I had the ability to do it. I would have to manufacture my own reasons to sample the world as a novice transgender woman and see if I had the same positive feedback I received on Halloween. I discovered most of the world did not care about how I was dressed, and I gained the confidence to do more.

I made it to the point where I began my “bucket list” of things to do as a transfeminine person. Or could I do other things that women do in their everyday lives and succeed. Every time I did something such as taking myself out to lunch, or negotiating a bookstore and buying a coffee, I checked them off my bucket list and proceeded to move on to more difficult interactions with the public.

Of course, not everything I did was a success. I was told to leave a venue I thought I was a regular in one night when three drunk guys thought it would be fun to play “Dude Looks Like a Lady” on the jukebox over and over again. Initially it hurt me, until I got my confidence back and found another venue right up the street. My success was complete when the crew of the place I was asked to leave found me one night. They told me the manager who told me to leave was fired for drug abuse and they wanted me back. Retribution was mine as well as a real boost to my confidence. It felt good to be wanted as their token transgender woman.

Even so, to this day, I wonder why my confidence is so fragile. In September, my wife Liz and I are taking another bus tour. It’s our fourth one, and this time we are traveling from Ohio to Boston and then up into New England by train. Even though, I have never had any real problems with anyone else on the trip before, in the back of my head I still worry about some right-wing woman questioning my gender and ruining my trip. I am sure I am just paranoid and should be worried about catching Covid again and ending up in another hospital. Which is how our last vacation ended up. Hopefully I can get an updated vaccine just before we go. Which will build that part of my confidence.

The only way I know to build your confidence is to keep being yourself and improving your presentation as a transgender woman or cross dresser if you prefer. Perhaps it will always be fragile like mine is and it is something we always will have to deal with. One thing is for sure; you cannot build it by hiding yourself away. Expect some setbacks and keep moving forward as you are building a new future. It is a huge step forward. Having nice fashion and applying beautiful makeup is wonderful but it all means nothing if you do not have the confidence to pull the picture together. Humans are like sharks and they will know something is wrong if you let them.

 

 

In Over my Head

 

Image from Wilhelm Gunkle
on UnSplash.

As I thumbed through my new feminine workbook, I sadly discovered there were no chapters on what to do if I got in over my head. In my well-built male world, I had been able to figure out strategies on what to do in times of duress. I could choose to stand and fight, try to bluster my way through, or just run from the problem.  None of which was available to me anymore on the gender path I was on.

Even though I was blessed with a healthy male body which was slightly bigger than the norm, I had hated the changes testosterone made to it when I had no choice but to go through male puberty. Very quickly, I grew past the sizes of my mom’s clothes I was trying on and had to find other ways to build my wardrobe on the very limited budget I was on. My newspaper route money, along with the small allowance I got for helping around the house, just didn’t go far. Still, I was able to sneak out of our rural home under the pretense of visiting my grandma who lived downtown and do some shopping for makeup and hosiery. I just remember how incredibly overwhelming the makeup selection was and how much I was over my head with my selections.

After I was able to smuggle my purchases past grandma and my family, then I needed to work earnestly on how to apply the makeup I bought and not look like a clown. After looking in the family mirror and feeling like a clown in drag, I knew I was in over my head and just had to find a way out, or in as it turned out. I wanted out of the male world and into a feminine world. The mirror was wearing off, and I needed to improve my presentation, or I was doomed to forever occupy a male spot in the world where I knew I was not in over my head. The white male privileges I was building up were just too easy to not take advantage of. Ironically, all the good I was accomplishing in the world with my family, friends and job was frustrating me because, deep down, I did not want it.

What was happening was my frail mental health was being destroyed by all the gender ripping and tearing I was going through. One day I was a successful man and the next I was working to present my self as a woman was very destructive to my everyday existence because the whole process took me back to my gender fluid days when I was a kid. Back in those days, no one knew about the gender fluid term, or used it which put me in over my head before I even really started in life. Remember, I grew up in the pre-internet dark ages when anyone who cross dressed was considered mentally ill. At least I knew, even though I might be alone as a transvestite (another term from the dark ages), I was not mentally ill.

I barely survived the dark ages when I did learn there were actually individuals like me who wanted to dress as women. I would be remiss if I did not mention Virginia Prince and her Transvestia publication at this point. It was my lifeline to the cross-dressing world and opened my closet for the first time. When the light came flooding in, at first, I was blinded, and it was difficult to find my bearings. My first transvestite-crossdresser mixers I went to left me more confused than ever before. I knew I was in over my head when I saw and occasionally chatter with a few of the ultra-feminine women who I could see no masculine traits at all and on the other hand, I knew I was innately more feminine than many of the cross dressers I met. So, I left with more questions than answers.

I was caught in the same place for years as I explored the world looking for myself. Surely, along the way, I found myself in over my head as I transitioned but I kept going anyhow. Too stubborn to quit and waste the new feminine privileges I was working so hard to gain. To use another example, I threw myself into the deep end of the gender pond before I had learned how to swim. I gave myself no choice but to make it. Fortunately, all the mirror time working on my presentation as I wanted to be like the beautiful cross dressers I saw in Transvestia came back to help me. If I could present myself to blend in with the world, it gave me one step up to make it as a transfeminine person.

I certainly was in over my head enough to earn my right to play in the girl’s sandbox, and fill out my gender workbook.

 

Transgender-When Life Throws you a Curve.

 

Image from Chu CHU on UnSplash.

It’s baseball season as we head down to the “dogdays of summer” around here in Cincinnati. As I have mentioned many times, the gender gods allowed me to take my passion for sports with me when I transitioned from male to female. This year, I have been completely emotionally immersed in the Cincinnati Reds professional baseball team. So much so, sometimes I feel guilty about my involvement.

Overall, though, life threw me a real curveball when it came to sports. For several reasons, athletics helped me to keep the bullies away, since I was doing “boy” things. As I played, I found I could not hit well at all, primarily a curveball and resorted to running home to my dresses and makeup to feel better about my failures. And I did, which solidified my deepening idea I should have been a girl all along. Dressing in my pretty feminine clothes certainly felt better than crying in the shower after I committed a key error or struck out to end the game.

As time went on, I faced the reality of non-athletes everywhere, life had thrown me a curve ball I just couldn’t hit. Somehow, I just needed to adjust and become the fan I am today and quit being a victim. I think perhaps it was my Army duty which took any idea of self-pity away from me. So what if my draft number was twenty-three, I would just have to enlist for three years to make the best of it. Plus, the entire routine of basic infantry training took any idea of being a victim away from me. At least I was not one of the guys crying on the night bus to Ft. Knox in the middle of a Kentucky winter. Somehow, I would have to make the best of a situation I did not want to be in.

It turned out, that idea carried right over into my gender dysphoria. The older and more experienced I became as a transgender woman, ended up clashing with my increasingly successful male life. Life had thrown me a gender curveball, and it was not fair but the problem was mine to deal with.

Initially, I kept striking out on my path to transgender womanhood. I was woefully unprepared for the world I so desperately wanted to enter. The path was quite dark with many bumps and curves, so I needed to be careful with the high heeled steps I was taking. Perhaps the most important problem I faced was when I was completely outed as a man in a dress was quickly going home and attempting to figure out what I was doing wrong. Was it my fashion, or my makeup, or what?

This time I refused to be fooled by a gender curveball and hung in there until my life began to change for the better. Slowly, I was being accepted as my true transfeminine self in the public’s eye. I was not hitting any home runs yet, but I was making contact with the public and was successful.

Incredibly to me, the more contact I was making, the more I needed to make. In particular, women were curious what I was doing in their world and drew me into conversations which were uneasy for me in the beginning. Life was throwing me curveball after curveball, and I became halfway decent at making contact with the strangers I met. I think too that after the public met me, more than a few of them reacted to the fact that I was a person who was living with their truth. Then I needed to catch up and respect myself for living my truth. Which was difficult for me to do for years.

Ironically, at that point, I went to work for a company which would not accept any of their successful managers being victims. I carried their training over into my real life and was better prepared for any and all setbacks I encountered. I began to see my supposed setback in life just could be a positive if I made it one. Not so much different than when I went to Army basic training wondering how I was going to make it without my cross-dressing crutches.

After immersing myself in the world of cisgender women, I came out as a better person. Certainly, well rounded in how the two main binary genders interact with each other. I could not ever make it as any sort of an athlete, but it turned out I could as a transgender woman. A journey I came to respect many times along the way.

 

When Who You Are is Against the Law

 

Kim Davis wants YOUR Rights.

Yesterday, the spineless governor of my native Ohio agreed with the felon/pedo in chief tRumpt to send national guard troops to Washington DC.

The move was a stark reminder to me of how close we are as a nation to a fascist state with a dictator in charge. And, on the battle lines are transgender women and transgender men who at least here in Ohio have watched as our rights have been taken away by a heavily gerrymandered Republican legislature who prefers doing its dirty work under the late-night cover of darkness.

I am extra paranoid because I vividly remember the gay/ cross dressers being rounded up in police buses when I was young in Dayton, Ohio. I certainly don’t want those times to return for myself or especially for my transgender grandchild.

Especially horrific are the Caitlyn Jenners of the world who insist on supporting the regime in Washington. Obviously, they never really learned how it was to have their rights taken away. Perhaps you noticed, I refused to refer to Jenner as “she.” Recently, on a popular social media site I am on, a rather spirited (to say the least) discussion about cross dressers and transgender women. The moderator waded in with some sort of a statement that cross dressers cannot be transgender women and tied the discussion all in with the male privileges CD’s refuse to give up the way trans women have. Then used Jenner as an example. Being smart for a change, I stayed completely out of the fray. Almost.

I did use the example of the cross dressers and/or transgender women I knew who were strong orange felon supporters. I will never understand how they could throw themselves or the trans community under the bus and keep doing it. Their excuse was, he couldn’t be that bad. Well, he was.

Then there are the comfortable gay and lesbian tRumpt supporters who sat back in their shells and thought all the misery being brought upon the transgender community couldn’t happen to them. Now Kim Davis is back asking the corrupt supreme court to formally destroy the same sex marriage ruling the gays and lesbians celebrated so many years ago. Now their refusal to get totally behind the transgender community in our time of need is coming back to haunt them. It could and would be coming around again.

I know one of the problems with this post is I stereotyped too many people along the way. I know many in the gay, lesbian, and cross-dressing community who don’t support the sick felon and do support the trans community and that is powerful because we need everyone behind us in these desperate times.

Just imagine if you are a novice crossdresser trying to decide if you want to attempt to jump out of your gender closet and are afraid of being arrested. It’s uncomfortably close to happening in states such as Ohio. The midterms are coming and make sure you vote from your closet for the right candidates.

On the bright side (and there always is one), there are pockets of support in major cities around the country. If you are struggling, try to find a LGBTQ support group to help you come out. In the meantime, buckle up for a rough ride and stay safe.

Sorry for the rant, sometimes I just have to vent.

The Only Constant is Change

 

Image from Brad Starkey
on UnSplash

In life it seems, the only constant is change. Especially for transgender women and transgender men. As with most of you, my life of change started quite early when I started exploring my mom’s foundation drawer. To make matters worse, I then started raiding her makeup collection.

As I viewed myself in the hallway full length mirror, little did I know what a long trip I would embark on to battle my gender dysphoria. My male self was strong and put up quite the battle when all along my feminine self was plotting how she could win the war. All he could do was resort to typical male actions and reactions such as internalization of the gender problems all the way to completely running from them.

Change became reality when I started running from my problems by changing jobs and moving my family several times. My first move took my wife and I from our native southwestern Ohio home to the radically different environment of the New York City metro area. I was naïve and thought moving to a more liberal area of the country would provide me the opportunity to pursue my growing serious cross dressing “hobby.” Nothing of the sort really happened except a couple of times. The first of which was when I made the journey out to Long Island to attend a cross dresser – transgender mixer. I was so successful that I was carded at the door to prove I actually was a man.

The other example was a Halloween party I was invited to by a fellow manager of the restaurant I managed. Somehow that night I managed to escape the criticism of my second wife who wasn’t going with me anyhow and dress the way I wanted to. I chose my favorite wig, short dress and heels and slipped out of the house. Away from the unapproving prying eyes of our landlord. The evening turned into my dream scenario when I found I was going with several other tall and sexually dressed women as I was. The ultimate camouflage was I fit right in. My successes fueled my ego and pushed along my changes. For the first time in my life, I began to believe I could achieve my ultimate dream of living as a transgender woman. If I was fooling the world on these evenings, why couldn’t I do it more.

In the short term, my male ego hurt my ability to change. Being briefly accepted as a woman only pushed me on for more change. Leading to huge fights between my main feminine gatekeeper (my second wife) and myself. In typical male fashion, he oversimplified the gender problems with the same old results. It was time to run again and move from NYC back to a different part of Ohio. This time, to a very rural area along the Ohio River. Surprisingly, change came easily to me in this rural area of Ohio. I was able to cross dress and do the grocery shopping as well as other trips.

Still, change haunted me and I felt the need to find a job in Columbus, Ohio where I had been successful in the past in the crossdresser-transgender community. I felt if I could go back there, I could again fit right back in.

This move or change ultimately led me back to my hometown which was close to Columbus. I had come full circle with my changes which led me to finally face my gender reality. I was and had always been a woman at heart and had made my own way down difficult paths to find her. Plus, I was so tired of running all the time, so I did not have to accept the only constant being change. The only constant was my whole life as a male was a lie, and I had to do something about it.

I ended up taking advantage of all that I learned the years I was a novice transgender woman and using the lessons to make my transition more flawless. For once, I was changing in place as I threw my mirror out the window. I started using the public as a mirror to see how well I was presenting as a transfeminine person and went on to live my life.

For me, the final straw which ended my ill-fated male life was when I changed my life for good and started HRT or gender affirming hormones. I could not believe all the changes I went through and how good they felt. I know all people go thru changes in their lives but not to the extent most transgender persons do. It is certainly a difficult journey and not recommended that you take the path I took.

Not the Man I Used to Be

 

Image from Ava Sol
on UnSplash.

Almost daily, I feel as though I am not the man I used to be, and it feels great!

In many ways, I was a man’s man as I went through life desperately attempting to survive in a male world. To do it, often I needed to bluster my way through life confronting other men I met. Although nearly all my confrontations fell way short of being physical, I still was able to win more than I lost. As I said, I hated the life I was living because deep down it did not feel right.

While being a man’s man took the life right out of me, it seemed being a transgender woman put it back. As I settled into my own woman’s arms, I instantly felt better, and I did not care if I was no longer the man I used to be. However, what was easy in the beginning became increasingly difficult as I went along up my gender path. It seemed like each wall I scaled on my path was a little higher as I stopped to look around to see if I still wanted to keep going.

By now you know I never stopped moving away from the man I used to be, and I had many lessons to learn. Particularly around personal security which I always took for granted as a man. I was always over average size, and people usually left me alone. It got to be so bad I couldn’t even scalp tickets to a football game I wanted to attend with my wife. The illegal scalpers thought I was a cop and would not sell to me. I had to let my wife approach them as the tickets were not illegal but where they were selling them were back in those days.

Other aspects of life I hated about being a man was always having to make the first move. All the way from being the one asking the woman out, all the way to where we were going for dinner. Then being told somehow my choice was wrong. Through it all, I could not wait until I was the one who did not make all the decisions. It was all I did at work, and I felt I shouldn’t have to at home which did not work well with my wife. On the other hand, I did learn always being the one who asked someone out was not the popular way to go with everyone. Just waiting around to have someone ask you was just as bad for the woman.

Finally, as I began to put all of that behind me and was beginning to put together a new life as a transgender woman, my life as a man began to fade in my rearview mirror of life. Not being the man, I used to be a welcome change and was where I was headed anyhow. I was trying to find specific small things I used to do as a man and change them over to feminine ones. Large examples included how I walked all the way down my gender path to learn how to better use the nonverbal communication women routinely use between each other. Very quickly I learned how one glance from an employee at a regular venue I went to meant I was in possible trouble if I stayed. In an instant, my gender world changed as I knew I could not stay and fight my way out or try to neutralize the situation with a male scowl. So, I picked up my purse, paid for my tab and left. Along with my male ego. 

Then there was the ultimate challenge to any remaining masculinity I had left. It came when I was approved for and started gender affirming hormones. Very rapidly, HRT caused what was left of my male strength to fade away. I used to put trucks away in my busy restaurants all the time and move very heavy beer kegs around with no help. Not a chance of that ever happening again since I was on the hormonal medications. As I learned I was not the man I used to be, my body started to change, and androgyny began to set in. All before I made the fateful decision to give away all my male clothes and live fulltime as a transgender woman.

For me, deciding to never go back to the man I used to be was a simple decision I should have made years before. Out of all the decisions I had to make as a man, I was unable to make the biggest one and set my life in the right decision…away from the man I never was.

You Make a Terrible Woman

 

JJ Hart on left. New wife Liz on right.

As I was initially coming out of my intensely lonely and dark gender shell, I dealt with quite a bit of guilt. Especially when my wife called me a terrible woman. I initially thought she was referring to my looks, which she told me she wasn’t.

My second wife was also fond of telling me coming out was all about me which as I look back on it, she was right. My transition was all about me, and I was completely immersed in it. Every time she even made the slightest move to interact with me, I shunned her as I was scared, she was just going to be negative. To be successful, I needed to do it alone it seemed.

I am sure the progress my wife saw in my overall presentation made her feel insecure about the future of our marriage. No matter how guilty I felt about the journey I was taking without her, deep down I knew I had to stay on my path if I was ever going to have a chance to achieve my dream of living as a transgender woman. Which my wife was dead set against.

As I progressed on and on the guilt grew, I was having. Here I was jeopardizing a good marriage, family and job just to wear women’s clothes and makeup. My problem was, I was still refusing to accept the truth about myself. In other words, my desire to be a woman in any sense of the word ran much deeper than just looking like one. When my wife told me I made a terrible woman because I hadn’t paid my dues past looking like one, I knew somehow, I needed to set out to learn what she was talking about, regardless of the guilt involved. To survive, my transition had to be just about me, and I stubbornly pushed forward.

The problem was, the more guilt I felt, the worse my mental health became. I did not know who to listen to, the world at large or the person I was closest to. The world at large was slowly coming to accept me as a transfeminine person while my wife was as standoffish as always about my progress. What she did not know was I was making the strides needed to prove I was not a terrible woman and in reality, a fairly likeable one. Or at least I was trying to.

Time marched on, and my guilt increased to the point where I committed suicide or tried to. When I failed, the entire self-harming episode left me with further problems with my guilt and mental health, so I sought out therapy. Fortunately, I found a good therapist who understood depression and the transgender community, and my life began to improve again. My therapist told me it was alright to feel guilt about the gender transition process and sometimes you must leave loved ones behind so you can live. Beyond all of that, she taught me extreme gender dysphoria was difficult to deal with and before long, our in-person meetings at the Veteran’s Administration were between her and my authentic self. What a relief!

My guilt subsided as my joy increased in my life. Sure, I still had rough spots to contend with, but with my overall knowledge of the world and what to expect, I knew I had finally overcome my fear of actually “making” a terrible woman. In reality what happened was I had the chance to live my way through what my wife told me and in addition. I was not making anything. I already was a transgender woman and had always been. I was just guilty of trying to hide it and internalize it too long. Surely, it was all my fault, and I never had the chance to apologize to her because of her untimely death from a massive heart attack at the age of fifty. I wanted to show her I had paid my dues in the world, and, at the least, I hoped we could be friends. Actions speak louder than words and I know she would never back off from saying I made a terrible woman and in turn at least like the new me.

In life, we rarely have a chance to make a second impression, and it has been nearly an impossible one for me since most of the people I knew as a man (that mattered) had passed away. I needed to concentrate on the new acquaintances I met as a trans woman who never knew my old male self who in his own way had passed on also. Since I did not have a difficult time making and keeping friends in my new life, I must not have been a terrible woman after all.

Out in the Testosterone World

Hair by JJ Hart, Beret hand beaded
by "Liz T Designs" 

Just a short post today as I just returned from braving a testosterone heavy environment. More precisely, it was time to get the oil changed in our car, which was slightly overdue. By the time I was done, I wished I had a dime for every tattoo I saw on the completely male staff.

For some reason, any trip to a male dominated (such as auto workplace) has always caused my gender dysphoria to flare up. Even after all these years that I have been out as a transgender woman, I still feel the same trepidation. Which makes me feel even more frustrated with myself.

This morning, as I pulled the car into the next available bay to be serviced, I cannot be sure, but I think the manager called me the dreaded “Sir”. But, as the work progressed, he became increasingly nice to me. I never know if it is the result of age privilege but at least he never called me “Sir” again. Very soon I was on my way to my next stop which was the coffee drive thru for wake-up drinks for my wife Liz and I encountered yet another young man at the drive thru window who was at least honest with me. I asked him how he was doing, and he said he was looking for a cot to lay down on to take a nap. I just looked at him and before I could say anything, he quickly said what I was thinking. He was working in a coffee shop, stop and get a cup to wake up.

One way or another, we made small talk, and I was again on my way, this time back home and he had acted as if nothing was wrong with how I was presenting as a transgender woman.

At least, the short trip out this morning into a potentially difficult world built my confidence up that I could do it again when my wife Liz and I go on an extended vacation to New England in approximately a month. A vacation which will challenge me in many ways including restroom privileges.

The end result of this morning was, I need more public adventures into potentially difficult situations to enable me to build the all important confidence I used to have when I was spending more time in the world.

  

Deadly Serious

 

Image from Nicholas COMTE
on UnSplash

Looking back at my long (50 year) gender journey, I wonder now how I became so deadly serious as I considered myself more than a casual cross dresser.

I came a long way from just experimenting with my mom’s clothing to where I am today. As I live fulltime as a transgender woman. Many days, if I have the time to even think about it, I wonder how I went about connecting my dots during my travel from the male to female gender. But, before I go any farther, I should mention two things. First of all, I have nothing against cross dressers, as I spent too many years being one to attempt to put myself up on any sort of gender pedestal. Secondly, I don’t consider myself a female in the strictest sense of the word. That is why you might notice I use the transgender or transfeminine word more frequently. In addition, I strongly feel the woman word (and man) are both socialized terms as many females or males never make it to being true women or men. Now, since I got all of that out of the way, what does that have to do with being deadly serious about anything. Not much, but I always like to clear the air.

In my life, I can only remember being deadly serious about two things, the first was following an often-vague path to my own version of womanhood and the other was Army basic training. In the Army, your secondary MOS or job classification is infantry which means I received the same training as everyone else who were going to Vietnam for a very uncertain future. So, the bottom line was, I took my military training deadly seriously. Just in case I needed it later. Fortunately, I never did. Naturally, pursuing my feminine path was destined to be just the opposite.

It seemed, the more I tried to do as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman, the more I wanted to do. I forced myself away from the easy gender experiences I was trying, into a true interaction with the world and my challenges became much more serious but not quite to the deadly stage. I think the reason was, I was still experimenting with people as strangers. Not like somebody I would see more than once. I was naïve and thought people would not remember me for what I was, a man in drag or a dress. When other people began to see me repeatedly it was good for both of us because I needed to up my presentation game and quit changing wigs every time I went out. To succeed in the new world I was creating, people needed to see I was deadly serious about being accepted in the new mainstream venues I was going to when I gave up on going to the gay venues I tried.

More importantly, I lived through all the bumps and bruises I suffered as I silently fought back against the gender bigots I faced. Some of which were not so silent as I attempted to enter the so-called women only spaces such as restrooms. One night, I was called a pervert by an irate cisgender woman before I backed her down. She was the one I had to threaten with LGBTQ sanctions on her business if she did not leave me alone. Which she did.

The more comfortable I became in my transgender world, the more deadly serious I became about doing more. Soon I was to the point where I was like a runaway train heading down a one-way track as my manhood was coming to an end. One of the final acts of severing what was left of him came when I was approved for and started gender affirming hormones or HRT. My body took to the new hormones flawlessly to the point when I wondered why I hadn’t been on them all along.

The reason was relatively simple, as the changes from the HRT would preclude me from going back to the male life I had worked so hard to establish. Would I be deadly serious enough to risk all I had built up such as a long-term marriage, a family and friends plus a very good job which I could have never transitioned on.

Finally, after years of introspection, I made the decision to go as far as I could without surgery into a transgender life. With all I had to lose at the age of sixty, I decided “playtime” was over, and it was time to be deadly serious again and never look back as I had reached my dream of living in a transfeminine world.