For Better or for Worse

 

JJ Hart. 

In this case, for better or for worse should not be totally applied to the state of a transgender person’s marriage. Although, it often is.

In this case, I am talking about what happens when we attempt to break out of our dark, lonely gender closets and enter the world. I write long and often concerning the struggles I had when I first tried to come out of my mirror and appear in front of the public as my authentic feminine self. By doing so, I quickly learned I was in over my head as a novice transgender woman or even a cross-dresser. Even worse, I had my second wife telling me I had no idea of what it was like to really be a woman. Even though I was stubborn and did not totally believe her, I set out to discover what she was trying to tell me. The worse part when I tried to find out more about cisgender women was, I was not prepared to go behind the gender curtain to find out what was going on. In reality, I was years away from having the experiences of knowing what my wife was talking about.

At that time, I was still obsessed with how I made my male to female transition appearance wise. All I need to do is go back through all my old blog posts to see how vain I was about how I looked like a cross-dresser and how it dominated my life. As I focused on every little aspect of my appearance. At first, it was all great fun before I began to focus on a higher goal. Something kept telling me I was going to have to do more than just look like a woman to ever satisfy my gender dysphoria which would not leave me alone. As I wiped the makeup off, I sadly knew my male life awaited me again. I so badly wanted off the gender merry-go-round I was on then get on with my life.

It helped a little bit when I finally came to the conclusion, I was more than a weekend cross-dresser and fit the definition of a transgender woman perfectly. All of a sudden, my life had some sort of a meaning it had been lacking. I began gaining access to cisgender woman spaces I had been denied in the past and I was able to see what my wife was talking about. Or I was paying my dues to achieving womanhood on my terms. The better of for worse began to sneak in when I found all the negatives I would have to learn as a transfeminine person. Primarily when my male privileges were taken away and I lost all my personal security I had taken for granted my entire life. And the easy access I had to just going to the rest room as a man. Going as a woman, was such a different experience I could (and have) written complete blog posts about my experiences.

The better part of all of this was, I did not have to put up with the male drama that most ciswomen go through in their lives. I was a prime example of a terrible male partner for my wives to live with. Time and time again, I tried to not be selfish with my desire to be a woman and have it destroyed our entire relationship. The worse of the better or worse was when I became completely jealous that my wives could live as women and I could not. I just could not help myself. Plus, when I came out fully and transitioned I did it in the company of ciswomen who I was used to and did not ever have to adjust to male drama again. I am now married to a ciswoman lesbian who I have been with happily for over a decade now.

I was fortunate when my best transition plans worked out as well as they did. I love it when a plan comes together and even though it was a blind plan, somehow it still came together. It helped when my feminine inner soul was able to take over and run my life. She had been waiting for years, not so patiently wanting her turn to live. She provided the backbone and comfort I needed to move forward in the latter stages of my male to female gender transition.

What I considered a burden, and the worse part of my life, turned into the best part of my life when I was able to experience my impossible dream of living as a transgender woman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sealing the Final Deal in my Gender Struggle

 

JJ Hart. Key Largo last year.

Sealing the deal on my male to female gender transition was the most difficult decision I have ever had to make in my life.

It is the main reason I kept putting it off until I was nearly sixty years of age and could take the pressure no longer. The only way I kept what sanity I had was to cross-dress my way along until I could take bigger, more substantial steps.  One of the problems was, I had learned that cross dressing was not nearly enough to solve my gender issues and sooner or later, I would have to face the truth of who I really was. Also, I was very naïve and thought I could balance the influence of two genders in my world as I grew older.

As I set out to build a reasonably successful male life, at the same time, I was trying to fill out my feminine workbook with absolutely no help from other women. I was stuck being on my own for years, until I progressed to the point where I could leave my closet and explore the world as a novice. After brief successes (and a lot of failure), I was able to see portions of my future and judge if I could ever seal the deal and live my dream of being a fulltime transgender woman. Even though I was still progressing, I was still hitting roadblocks on my path to trans success and had to keep working my way forward through failure.

All I could see in my future was a life I would have to live alone with no way to support myself as a transfeminine person. My sexuality did not change, and I wanted basically nothing to do sexually with men, and I knew how incredibly difficult it would be to find a ciswoman who would accept me the way I was. I had pulled off some other seemingly impossible things in my life but accomplishing this and sealing the gender deal was too much to hope for.

Then, as I lived my new life as a trans woman, I learned that maybe my dream was not too much to hope for and one thing was for certain, if I did not try, I never would know if I could make it. I expanded my explorations with men and managed to have a couple real live dates when I enjoyed myself but nothing sexual happened, so I set my sights in lesbian bars for a ciswoman who wanted a woman with a little bit extra experience in the world. Amazingly to me, I was moderately successful in one lesbian bar where they accepted me. Which brought me so much closer to thinking I could seal the deal and live my dream.

Now I was to the point where I had to really see where I wanted to take my life. I was an executive general manager of a large casual dining restaurant which I had put in years of hard work to arrive at. If I transitioned, all the work I put into my career would be gone (along with the money) and I would have to start all over again. Behind the world as a transgender woman. Naturally, the whole situation was a major roadblock.

It finally came to the point where I faced sealing the deal like I was jumping off a cliff into nothingness. At that point destiny set in for me and made my final decision so much easier. Tragically, I lost my second wife and almost all of the close friends I had to death and could start with a clean slate in life. Plus, the restaurant I owned was failing and I was losing it also, leaving me a couple of years to work before I could retire early on Social Security which would give me enough income to get by. As You can tell, the doors to transition were opening wide and I would have been a fool not to walk through them.

Most importantly, my mental health was suffering and my self-worth as a man was at an all time low, so it was time to end the torture I was feeling and jump off the cliff and seal the deal. It was during this time too, that the Veterans Administration health care system, which I was already a part of, approved veteran’s care for gender dysphoria with mental health counseling and HRT if approved. I was quickly approved and ended up taking another giant step towards achieving my dream and sealing my lifetime goal.

What did I have to lose? I was leaving a male life I never really felt comfortable in to jump off a gender cliff and land in accepting women’s arms as I joined their world. When I did, I tried to take every little bit of advantage I could from all the learning experiences I put in over the years. Landing on my feet in high heeled shoes was a challenge but I managed to make it in fairly good shape. I came out fully at the age of sixty when I finally decided to seal the deal and never looked back. I could not take balancing two genders any longer and took the easy way out into the world of women where I should always had been.

As always, thanks for reading along, and any comments are welcome! I always do my best to respond.

 

If Your House of Cards is Broken, What Then

 

Image from Nik Korba on UnSplash.

If your house of cards is falling, what then?  Is something many transgender women and transgender men face as they transition to the gender of their choice.

The problem is, we hide our flaws so well over the years that many of the friends and family we associate with never had a chance to see the true selves we are internalizing. In my case, I knew very early on I had deep flaws that eventually I would have to adjust to. Somehow, I carried the misconception that age would solve all my gender problems which I hoped magically would just disappear. In the meantime, I set out to build a stable male existence on a house of cards.

The longer I built my house of cards, the harder it became to rationalize tearing it all down and starting over. As I started my path towards achieving my dream of living my life as a transgender woman. What I ended up doing was, trying to explore the world in stages as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman, to see if I had any chance of making it at all. Very early on, I had my doubts as my futile attempts to blend in with the world were met with scorn. I knew without a shadow of a doubt what I was doing was breaking my male and female self and I needed to discover ways to fix it.

It was then I began to shove my male ego aside and begin dressing for the segment of the population I wanted to blend in with, cisgender women. I began to re-study all I had ever thought of women as a whole and started to fix the way I was trying to look. I was certainly not making it as a teen girl dressed to thrill and settled in on a more mature scaled back look I could handle with my testosterone poisoned body. I immediately began to see dividends as I started to successfully blend in with the world.

The problem I discovered was I was beginning to be too successful in my exploration. Suddenly I realized I was not a casual weekend cross dresser at all. I fit in with the new up and coming term transgender almost perfectly and I began to change my mindset from thinking I was a man trying to be a woman to I was actually a woman trying my best to be a strong, successful man. When I discovered this, my life in some ways changed for the best, but in other ways turned out to be problematic. It was easy to accept my changes, but it was hard to decide what to do about them because of the seismic problems they caused. My house of cards was shaking and becoming broken, and I did not know (or want to face what I needed to do about it.)

To attempt to hold my broken world together, I kept trying to apply the strongest male glue available. All I ended up doing was hurting my mental health more in the process of trying to save myself. All the ripping and tearing of my gender dysphoria was literally killing me. Finally forcing me into action to save myself. As I struggled, I continued on my not so merry way, exploring what it would really mean to me if my house of cards collapsed and I had to fix it. The only thing I had going for me was all the experiences I had built up as a transfeminine person in my life. So, I did not have to start from ground zero when I decided to go after my male to female transition for the final time. I was secure in my feminine appearance and communication skills, and I had major hurdles behind me. Then all I needed to learn was what would happen when I lost all of my male privileges which were a major part of my house of cards. In many ways, losing things such as my security and intelligence as a trans woman were breaking all the remaining chains I had to my old male life.

The bottom line was I took a male life that was not broken and broke it anyhow. Giving up nearly everything I knew as a man. Gender affirming hormones or HRT put the finishing touches on everything I had ever known and shifted my knowledge of gender privileges to the feminine side of the gender spectrum. As my testosterone decreased and my estrogen level increased, I was free to build a new life. Which for once was not broken or flawed. No more house of cards for me, nothing was broken.

 

 

A Trans Girl and her Football

 

Ohio State versus Michigan. 

When I seriously began to think of pursuing my male to female gender transition, I wondered what I would do about all my male baggage in my new feminine life.

Since I was nearly sixty years of age, I had plenty of baggage to consider what I was going to keep and what had to go. By far, my sports baggage was the largest piece of baggage I needed to wonder about was my love of sports. Especially football and baseball.

Ultimately, I found I did not have to worry about anything because ciswomen around me were catching up to me in their love of sports. To make it clearer, as I looked around during the big games I was watching in the sports bars I was hanging out in, I was beginning to notice more and more women in their football jerseys around me. All of a sudden, I did not feel so out of place. I knew some women were into sports, such as my second wife, but not to the level I was.

Also, what helped me was the customer/regular relationships I built with the bartenders I saw on a regular basis. It even got to the point when my beer was always waiting for me when I sat down in front of a big screen television to watch a game.  When all of this was happening, I was deciding I could take my love of sports with me as I transitioned into transgender womanhood. It was just part of my inheritance.

Little did I know, the best was yet to come, and I could bring my sports baggage with me. It turned out, my wife Liz and other ciswomen friends I had made along the way were all as passionate as I was about watching sports. I even was living life large when I was invited to go to a women’s roller derby match one day in Cincinnati by my lesbian friends. It was also a dollar beer night which also added to the fun.

The whole focus of this post is “The Game” is today. Or in other words, the Ohio State/Michigan football game. I make no secret of my love for the Ohio State Buckeyes as Liz is also so we will be tuned into the game. Ironically, the game was one of the main days out of Thanksgiving and Christmas we ever got together. The good news is, I have a better person to watch football with (my wife Liz) who helped me build my life as a transfeminine person, rather than tear it down like my brother did.

No matter how the game goes, I will forever be grateful to all the cis women in my life who encouraged me to be me which included bringing along my love of sports. It probably all came from playing sports (primarily football) which kept the bullies away at the same time. So, it worked well, even though I made it through a couple broken bones. One funny story I have about broken bones was when I broke my collar bone. The doctor who examined me said he would not reset the bone, and I would always have a lump where the break was. Then, the doctor said it would not matter since I would not be wearing a strapless gown in my life. I thought, if he had really known, he would not have said such a thing. Of course, I was worried from then on about that lump on my collar bone and always remember what the doctor said.

Any piece of advice I may have for anyone considering a gender transition of their own, is to look at your baggage closely and then what the ciswomen around you are doing. The world of women is always evolving with the world and is never staying in one place. It happened to me with sports and can happen to you too with some of your questionable baggage. It could be a chance for you to be a leader rather than a follower. If you follow your heart, others will find no problems with you. People are like sharks and have the tendency to circle the wounded ones quickly. Don’t give them the chance to see you bleed.

I know it is impossible to bring all your male baggage with you. Afterall, he had a hand in making you who you are today. Possibly, it all could make you a better person as a trans woman. You already are because of the understanding you have of the two main binary genders and you can build on that success.

Maybe you can be a trans girl with her football too, and GO BUCKEYES!

 

Gender Euphoria equals Black Friday Fun

 

Image from Markus Winkler
on UnSplash.

Yesterday’s Thanksgiving feast at my daughter’s -in-laws proved to be everything I thought it would be.

To begin with, all the usual suspects were there, including my trans grandchild who drove back from Maine with their partner for the dinner. Of course, my daughter and son-in-law were there also, with my first wife who I remain friends with today. Even though she slips up on occasion and calls me by my dead name. I forgive her because she is the mother of my only child and is getting a little forgetful in her old age. As I am.

To be surrounded by family who knew me before and to be accepted the way I was, always means a lot to me. Giving me a family to fall back on when my blood family rejected me, which I wrote about in my last post. I have never forgiven them for what they did and have kept my distance for over a decade now. If you missed my post, my bitterness stems from when my brother and sister-in-law asked me not to come to our Thanksgiving dinner when I came out to them as transgender.

As I have mentioned several times, my new chosen family has more than made up for my blood family loss. Especially in times such as yesterday when I am supplied with plenty of gender euphoria. Which brings me to the second part of this post, my first “Black Friday” shopping experience as a transgender woman.

The whole “Black Friday” woman’s shopping experience was always one I wanted to experience on my own as a transfeminine person and finally I had the chance because my second wife worked retail and would be busy. I knew if I played my cards right, I could set my work schedule up so I did not have to be at work until later in the afternoon, so I could pull my dream off. I knew what I was going to wear and knew where I was going to wear it, so I was set for an early morning departure as I pulled up my panty hose and picked out a big fluffy sweater, mini denim skirt and comfortable walking shoes. Just in case I could not find a close spot in the parking lot at the mall I chose.

As I found a parking spot and entered the crowded mall, I could not believe I was living out one of the big bucket list items on my gender dream. I was actually shopping for Christmas bargains with many other ciswomen who were oblivious to having a trans woman among them. The only problem I had was time. I did not have very much of it before I needed to head home and get ready for work in my old boring male clothes. Even still, I managed to walk away from the experience with the knowledge I could, indeed, make it in the public’s eye as a woman going about her everyday life.

Little did I know, my experience on “Black Friday” set me up for other bucket list activities and ones that required me having more skill in my new exciting yet scary gender. By going down the path I was on, I slowly realized I could never go back. Even if I had wanted to. As I always point out for me, my biggest problem was communicating with other women. I was always shy to begin with and the whole idea of talking to strangers as a transgender woman was staggering. Life became more than just interacting with clerks in clothing stores when I set out to learn how I may be treated in my male to female gender dream world. I even went as far as taking voice lessons to improve my vocal quality of life.

What proved to be the deciding factor was every time I was accepted in the world as my true self, I felt the flood of gender euphoria and wanted more. I felt so natural in my dream life, it did not feel like a dream anymore. It felt like I was living the life I always should have lived.

To get there, I needed to cross many bridges, some of which were very steep. Since I was afraid of heights, many times I was afraid to climb them and needed all the internal encouragement or gender euphoria to keep going. Thanksgiving dinner proved to be a big help as I was able to gain the confidence of a group of people I knew before I transitioned. It was the bridge I needed to do a lot of holiday shopping which I will write about more as Christmas approaches.

 

 

My Thanks to You

 

Image from Priscilla Dupreez 
on UnSplash. 

As another Thanksgiving approaches, it is time again to give thanks to all of you.

I know the holidays are a difficult and lonely time for many of us in the transgender community and many of us have reached out to non-blood acquaintances to fill the void we lost from an unapproving family. I make no secret of the problems I faced with my only brother on Thanksgiving over a decade ago.

I was just coming out of my gender dysphoric closet and needed to tell what was left of my family about my desire to live as a woman. It just so happened; my timing was perfect as the holidays were right around the corner. Rather than just show up as my transgender self, I decided to do the right thing and ask my brother and sister-in-law if they still wanted me to come to dinner. I was quite naïve at the time and was riding the high I felt when I received an all-out acceptance from my daughter.

I should have known better when the Thanksgiving door was rudely slammed in my face and I was told it was best not to come. I should have known better that my brother would not stand up for me in the face of strong disapproval from his rightwing Southern Baptist in laws. Pressure was thicker than blood with him and we both went on our separate ways. I have not talked to him since and have not missed the interaction.

As I said, my daughter, along with my future wife Liz stepped up in a major way. Not only was I invited to one family function, but I was also invited to two and I had plenty of turkey to eat.

I hope something like my experience has happened to you. Perhaps in the meantime, you have found non-blood friends to fill the family void you lost from rejection. Sadly, Liz’s dad has passed away and her only brother wants nothing to do with Thanksgiving, so the only dinner we are going to is at my daughter’s mother-in-law's up in Dayton, Ohio. For the first time in many years, her son is supposed to come along so it will make it a family get together.

In many ways, I feel as though I have all you regular visitors to the blog as family also. As you have read along with me, I feel you know more about me than most anyone else. In fact, my daughter set me up with a book writing subscription service so I could write about my life to my family after I am gone. I am at question number eighty-one so far.

I hope in many ways; this beginning of the holiday season brings a festive start for all of you. If you are traveling, be careful and make it safely to your destination.

Once again, thank you for joining me here for my journey no matter where you are.

 

 

 

Stopping was Never an Option

 

Image from Josiah Niklas
on UnSplash.

Very early on, during my very confusing crossdressing years, I wondered if I could just stop the madness of wanting to change my gender as I grew older. I did not know at the time that stopping would not be an option.

As I grew older, my desire to be a pretty girl (then a woman) grew with me. The more I cross-dressed in front of the mirror, the better I became at the basics of makeup and whatever fashion I could get my hands on. Plus, the better I became, the more I wanted to do more to improve myself. Increasingly I knew stopping and purging all my feminine clothes was never going to be an option even though I tried and tried. At that point, I tried a clumsy attempt to come out to a couple friends I had but was rudely rejected. I needed to return to internalizing all my feelings of wanting to be a girl if I was to survive in my world. Which was cruel and unusual punishment for me and more importantly, my fragile mental health. I was already stuck in long periods of depression before I was diagnosed as being bi-polar by a therapist I went to as I grew up and away from my parents.

When I did move away to college, I actually lost my desire to cross dress and act like a girl for almost a year. I did not know how to act when stopping all of a sudden became an option.

Of course, before I knew it, my gender dysphoria came creeping back into my life. I then needed to build my wardrobe fashion, undergarments and makeup all from scratch. I vividly remember the trigger object which started it all. My future fiancé for some reason, found a short wig to cover her long straight hair, and tried to surprise me with it. I was not pleased and let her know it. I then set out to get her a wig I liked. Funds were tight as I worked at a small radio station where I went to college, but I managed to scrape together the money to buy a beautiful long blond wig I had seen in the window of a beauty shop in my hometown. Under the guise of buying, it for her, I had really wanted it for myself. As luck would have it, she did not like it, and I was able to “inherit” the wig when we separated years later.

I kept the wig until I joined the Army for my Vietnam War tour of duty and beyond, as I was able to hide it away on the rare occasions, I could use it to “top” off my outfit when I cross-dressed. Even with all the traveling I was doing with “Uncle Sam” I still was able to anchor myself with the belief that stopping my idea of being a woman was not a fairy tale and could still be possible someday.

It wasn’t until I seriously began to explore the public’s perspective of me as a newly minted transgender woman, did the world start to change and I knew nothing that I was trying in my new world was going to change…ever. Even still, ever became a big word for me as I hit a series of roadblocks to become a full-fledged transfeminine person. Just when it seemed I was moving in the right direction, something would come along and temporarily stop me. At that time, through all the roadblocks, I finally realized I could see my dream of living like a woman was certainly not an option and it would be a shame to waste all the time and effort I put into my path.

I also needed to make the final decisions I would need to successfully put my male life behind me. What I would do about supporting myself and coming out to my remaining family became very important decisions. My only child (daughter) made it easy on me because she accepted me totally. While on the other hand I was rejected by my only sibling (brother) and we became estranged. My parents, second wife and most of my friends that mattered had passed away which made my coming out process easier. One way or another, I had decided to go my own way no matter what anyone thought.

If I had realized earlier that stopping my male to female gender transition was never an option, life would have been so much easier for me. I would have been allowed to live the best I could, make all my mistakes earlier and achieve my ultimate dream sooner. Rather than stubbornly hanging on to a male life I was born into but never wanted.

 

 

 

Transgender Dreams

 

Image from Felipe Delgado
on UnSplash

Obviously, we transgender women and transgender men do a lot of dreaming when it comes to the ultimate results of our lives. For example, when I was very young, I could never speak truthfully when an adult asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Saying I wanted to be a woman would have never been acceptable and would have rewarded me with a visit to a psychiatrist. So, I said something more acceptable such as a lawyer or a veterinarian.

I had to save my ultimate desires to be feminine for my dream world and often went to sleep thinking of how it would be if I could wake up as a pretty girl. Of course, I was never able to take advantage of such a thing happening to me and I needed to make the best of what I had to work with. Which was about ready to radically change for the worse when I went through male puberty. As I started my growth spurt, I rapidly outgrew all my mom’s clothes I had tried to squeeze into and had to rely on my meager allowance added to my newspaper route delivery money to try to sneak out to stores and buy my own clothes and makeup.

Through this portion of my life, my mirror was my friend and helped me to bring dreams of being a pretty girl to life, no matter how I really looked. It wasn’t until I began to experience the public’s reaction to me did, I finally get a fair and accurate reaction to how I really looked. I desperately dreamed of being more than a clown in drag. After tons of work and trial and error experiences, I finally made it to where the public at least knew I was being serious about achieving my dream of being a woman. Little did I know, the real work I would need to do to achieve my dream was about to begin.

The more I explored the world as a novice transgender woman, the more I found I had to do to survive in the new exciting feminine world I had dreamed of being a part of. When I was in the public’s eye, I found I attracted the attention of ciswomen as never before and as I did, I needed to get radical and do things such as talk to them. Initially, I was very shy and completely unprepared to take such a big step, but I was way past the point of ever turning back. For the first time in my life, my dream appeared to be within reach, if I kept learning what my new world meant.

I found I was stuck in some sort of a gender never-never land. Ciswomen instinctively knew I was not Cis but on the other hand, wanted to be in their world. Fortunately, I found most of them let me into their worlds and showed me a path to being successful, if they knew it or not. I did not care how I received the help and guidance; I was just trying to achieve my dream of living as a successful transgender woman. As I tried to point out in yesterday’s post, I went past the point of trying to be trans all the way to just being me. Which I think the women around me accepted because of my honesty. By now, you may be thinking what about the men around me? For the most part, they left me alone. Which was fine by me. I wanted out of their club and wanted nothing to do with going back if I had anything to do with it. I was successful and never did. My dream increasingly appeared to be reachable, and destiny opened her doors for more success for me. Primarily when it came for time to consider going down the path of gender affirming hormones or HRT.

I knew first, I needed to find a doctor to approve taking the hormones and I found one in one of the Dayton, Ohio LGBTQ publications. He had openings and I was able to get in for a checkup and then receive my precious prescriptions for initial minimum dosages for estradiol and spiro to get started on a new path towards achieving my dream as never before. After I began the minimum dosages, I had no adverse reactions and in fact the opposite was true. I felt as if I should have been on the meds for my entire life. They made me feel so good.

By this time, I felt as if I was living proof that transgender dreams come true if you pay your dues such as I did. The dues I paid were certainly the best investment I ever made.   

 

Is There a way to Be Transgender

 

JJ Hart in Mystic, Connecticut.

To be fair, I saw this question posed on a couple different sites on the internet and thought I would comment on it. The question is, is there a way to be transgender.

As I thought about it, I initially thought for years that there was a way to be a transgender woman and that would be to copy all the other cisgender women around me. Even though I thought this was the best way to go, in the long run doing it hurt me. Why? Because doing it stopped me from becoming my true authentic feminine self.

Surely, cis women are guilty of forming cliques while men form teams and to be included in a feminine clique, you have to look and act the part…at first. I discovered that once I was accepted by an alpha female, my entrance requirements became easier to come by. But what I did not realize was how perceptive the other ciswomen in the group would be to me and how women can spot a fake a mile away. I would have to proceed with caution if I was going to succeed at the invisible goal of being transgender. To succeed, I did all the usual things such as obsess on my appearance so I could blend in with the other women when I received a cherished invitation to a girl’s night out.

Then, when I arrived at the function and my fear began to subside, I needed to look around and judge all my reactions to the conversations going on around me. Which marked my first real idea that there was not a real way to be transgender. Afterall, when the conversation turned to kids, I still could participate because I had one that of course I did not birth but still participated in the trials and tribulations of raising her. Similar to the other women in the group. It was just a small example of how I survived the evening as I added in my input when I could. It seemed to work because all the other women except for one accepted me and I ended up enjoying myself.

As the years went by, and I began to experience many nights as my transfeminine self, I found there was no way to be transgender but there was a way to be myself. When I did was when I became more and more successful in the world as a trans woman and my ultimate dream of living a full life as such could be realized. Also, during that time, I spent quite a few evenings socializing with a transgender woman friend of mine before she moved away to Dallas. The two of us were prime examples of differing ideas on how we wanted to pursue our lives as trans women. My friend Racquel wanted surgery to look the best she could and attract men, while I found myself comfortably in the company of lesbians who I found for the most part accepted me for who I was.  I did not and have not to this day desired any major gender surgeries. Mainly because I did not need them to help me to realize my way to be transgender.

Of course, as human beings, we are all different and one of the problems we have now is being forced into one small box by a society which does not understand us and for the most part has never met a transgender woman or man, that they know of. Some, like me, are forced into forms of living stealth just to survive. When just using the bathroom becomes a threat to your existence in some parts of the country, something needs to be done, yet we continue to be forced backwards in most parts of my native state of Ohio. It all makes just being transgender so difficult to do.

Enough of the negative, and now on to the positive. Even here in Ohio, the LGBTQ winds of change are blowing with several more communities proclaiming they are safe zones for us. And, with the strong showing so far for the Democrats in the country, real change could be on the horizon for change as we need it.

If and when change does happen, it will make it easier to live your gender dreams and realize one thing. In the end you are much more than just another transgender woman or trans man. You are you, and that is the most important fact to realize if you are to be successful in your world.

There is no way to be transgender but there is a way to be you.