Interesting Questions

Civil War Veterans Cemetery
Jessie Hart Archives 

Most of what I see and react to on  my social media has to do with politics or the occasional reference to the chicken chain I refer to as "Bigot Chicken." (Chick-fil-A) Last night though I received one of the more interesting questions I have seen in a long time. It came from a guy who was new to me and I immediately thought it was one of those leading posts wanting me to send them a friend request or worse. Of course I never respond to those comments. Surprisingly,  this comment was much different.

It turned he didn't care at all I was transgender. He cared because I mentioned I was transgender so prominently in my profile. He went on to say he hoped I understood he wasn't being negative but on the other hand it seemed these days everyone is trying to push their feelings on to everyone else. He used vegetarians as an example. I thanked him for the comment and said I would probably make a blog post from it. I also told him my opinion was people are so picky in promoting their preferences  is because our country is so divided these days. And the divides lead us to wanting to support a certain lifestyle. Especially when it is being threatened to be taken away.  

Then I began to think about what he said. Years ago, my ideal would have been just to live my life as a woman. Without the transgender part added on to it at all. I would have been flattered if I could have been able to go "stealth." as a woman in my life. I would have arrived at my goal of being in the same category as many of the other impossibly feminine transsexuals I had encountered in my life up to that time. What would be the harm in removing the transgender portion of my on line profile and see what happens. After all, for all intents and purposes, I have led a stealth gender life for years now in the public eye, so why not do it on line also?

Suddenly it dawned on me, going stealth about my transgender status would be repeating the same exact mistakes many of the trans generation did before me. Perhaps you remember the days when anyone who went the distance and underwent a sex change surgery (as it was known in those days) was expected to move to another town where nobody knew them. There they would to all intents and purposes disappear and never be heard from again. Which left very few "gender educators" for the rest of us to follow. When I started writing this blog approximately a decade ago, I did it with the hope I could help others who were questioning their gender also. In that sense, nothing has changed. I still hope others receive help from what I write. Even the guy who wondered why I pushed my transgender profile so hard.

I thought I would mention again briefly how important it is to stand up against the gender bigots who want to destroy us and suddenly going stealth on line would certainly not help the cause. So in the meantime, I feel I will leave my profiles alone. I am proud  of being a veteran as well as being transgender and hope I can carry it forward the best I can.   

"Trippin" Trans Style

Photo from Eduardo Soares
on UnSplash

To escape the Sunday shopping crowd at our local super sized grocery store, my wife Liz and I decided to get an early start. For the occasion I decided to just pull my long hair back, get a close shave, add some moisturizer, eye makeup and lipstick and went for it. Jeans, tennis shoes and a fleece finished off my shopping outfit. 

I suppose it is a good thing when I can be so mundane and seemingly invisible in public as a transgender woman. No one gave me an extra glance, not even the woman who took our order for  coffee in the in store coffee shop. I was allowed to push the cart which serves as sort of a walker so I could survive the long walk around the store. All due to my sore back. So it was good to relax the best I could while Liz did the serious shopping. 

For a short time at least, all the worry of being harassed because I am a transgender woman faded into the background and I was just living my life just like any other human being. The threat of not being able to do so is becoming very real because right across the river, the state of Kentucky is on the verge of passing another very strict anti transgender bill. I have several transgender friends on social media from Northern Kentucky who are rightfully ultra concerned. Once the LGBT dominoes start to fall, who will step up to stop them. 

Perhaps now, more than even before it is up to we transgender women and trans men to strive even more to blend in with the remainder of society. I also am of the opinion now is the time for anyone, even cross dressers in the closet, should be ultra aware who they are voting for. Because in the future, you could be the one who needs to go "trippin" trans style. Rest assured if the Republicans are making drag queens an issue, you could be next. Closets are destined to become darker and darker unless we unite to fight for our rights. 

These days, I don't get out much anymore and mainly when I do, I run into a sour lady at the pharmacy who glares at me everytime she sees me. I can never tell if she is reacting negatively to me or the world at large because she is miserable. Because as I was told years ago by my second wife, it wasn't all about me. We all know though during our times as novice transgender women or cross dressers, it is all about us. As we try to navigate the new gender path we have chosen on the road to our authentic selves the entire process is very intense. 

Now that we are starting here at home to actually go the grocery again away from having groceries delivered. Which just became too expensive, I can look forward to getting out another day each week. More "trippin" for this transgender woman is in my future. 

 

Stay Safe out There

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Archives

 These days it seems, with all the Republican anti LGBT bills which are mainly directed towards transgender women and trans men, it's increasingly difficult to relax in public. Who knows when the next shoe will fall and another person will confront you about living as your authentic self.  Sadly, in today's society people are less into minding their own business and more into minding yours.

All of this creates the extra gender pressure I previously mentioned. Through it all, the ability to present yourself authentically becomes extra important. Sadly for some of us cis-women are seemingly not so into taking advantage of what nature gave them. If I was going to go out and run errands right now, I'm sure I would see almost no women who took the time to wear any makeup and dress up at all. The real dilemma for transgender women is to look feminine without really trying. It is certainly a product of having to try harder than the average cis-woman to be accepted.  All ready there are stories surfacing about cis-women being rejected from using the woman's room by over zealous gender bigots. 

Rest rooms of course produce a unique challenge to the average transgender woman. Unless you live in the rare state or area which you are protected by law to use the restroom of your choice, it pays dividends to pay extra attention to your surroundings and be careful to use common sense women's room etiquette. Examples are many but a few of the most important ones are to sit when you pee (look at the seat first) always stop to wash your hands, don't be afraid to make eye contact with other women and don't put your purse on the floor. Perhaps the most important point to remember is to have the confidence to use the rest room of your choice.

It hasn't always been easy for me during my transition to use the women's room. Years ago I had the police called on me as well as other harrowing experiences. The scariest experience came when my wife Liz and I were on a tour bus trip from our native Ohio to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The bus made regular rest stops which were bad enough but the one at the border of Mississippi/Alabama was the worst. First of all, I had to wait in a line of women just to pee which I did. When I finished and opened the stall door I came face to face with two hostile looking women glaring at me. I hurriedly excused myself and went to wash my hands and got out of there. It took me a half hour on the bus to finally relax. I half expected a highway patrolman to pull the bus over and seek me out but it never happened. 

Of course, perhaps the major loss of male privilege we experience when we transition away from the "men's club" is personal safety. Growing up we never had the chance to learn what other cis-women are raised to know. Some men are predators and need to be steered clear of. As a male I learned how to not exist with toxic males by being the better guy no matter how hard that was. By bigger I mean the times I had to "puff" myself up to ward off any unwanted angry advances. It was a real gender upbringing when all of that was stripped away and one night I learned the hard way how a man can trap a woman and force himself on her. Nothing happened when my wife walked in except learning a valuable lesson concerning my new life. It could have been much worse. 

These days, more and more cis women face the same pressures we trans women do when it comes to their personal safety. It's important we all keep our heads on a swivel to stay safe when we go out in public. Stay safe out there.

Vocal Transgender Presentations

Photo from the Jessie
Hart Archives.

 As  most of you know, I am a transgender veteran. This morning I went to the Veterans Administration local clinic to have them take blood for my latest upcoming appointments. Not so long ago, at the same clinic  I seemingly always faced someone who would mis-gender me. I was always infuriated and dejected for two reasons. The first of which I was not presenting well enough as a woman to get by and/or why should it all be on me and my transgender status to be accepted. It became up to the VA. 

I said exactly that to anyone who would listen at the VA. At least in the clinic I go to someone seemingly listened because the clinic has not mis-gendered me once in the last couple of times I have been there. Plus, others in the system have taken the pronoun usage such as "Sir" out of their vocabulary all together. 

Furthermore, this morning my voice once again had a chance to play a bigger role in my presentation because the clinic is still requiring facial masks to get in and be looked at. So, it was up to my voice to carry the day since most of my face was covered up. As far as my voice is concerned, I feel at it's best, it's borderline feminine. In my past I have taken vocal lessons to improve my voices feminine qualities and I do my best to remember what I was taught. It was an easy fix this morning because my technician was so chatty to begin with and started out the conversation with the proper pronouns. I didn't have to do anything but give my blood for the lab tests and I was free to use the exit through the waiting room so everyone could look at me. 

This morning, no one barely raised their head to look at me which is a good thing. So I removed my mask and headed back out to my car through the heavy rain we have been having. But...

Overall I still need to work harder on my voice. One of these days I am going to have to gather my courage to talk to my wife Liz about what she thinks about it. I look at the whole vocal process as putting on the finishing touches to any feminine gender presentation. It's a shame when we transgender women work so hard on our appearance from head to toe, to have it all destroyed when we open our mouths. I know there are many inexpensive tutorials around on line to improve vocal presentations. Many have to do with inflection and how you form your voice in your upper body. My training came through the VA and was very helpful in a short period. 

As with seemingly anything else these days, there are ways around any problem on the internet. I will probably seek out more help when and if I begin interacting with the public more. It's called having your voice and using it too.

It's Women's History Month

 

Image courtesy Christian Lue
on Unsplash

It's Women's History Month which means the world to all transgender women. It's the time of the year when we should scream from the rooftops we belong in the feminine universe known as women. I know you regulars probably have noticed over the years of writing this blog, I have attempted to keep being female and being a woman separate. Why?  Because I equate being a woman as a socialization process.  Being born female is an act of fate while making it into the status of being a woman is a learned process which many females never do a good job of completing.

Plus there are the age old theories you have to be female to birth a child, which is true but on the other hand you don't have to be a woman to not wanting or able to birth a child. My second wife was a prime example of a woman who never wanted a child of her own. All of that disputes the "birth theory" of womanhood as a fact. 

It seems with the rise of anti-transgender feelings has given the "TERF" movement, or transgender-exclusionary radical feminist added chances to be vocal. Especially across the pond where reader Paula Godwin lives. She once described the U.K as "TERF Island." Radical feminists reject trans women and refuse to accept us as sisters. Especially in "women only spaces". You are welcome to do your own research on "TERF's" but it proves to be a complex subject. To oversimplify it,  I always thought the radical feminists  resented us primarily because we used to be men in their eyes. 

I don't know why many so called feminists don't reach out and embrace transgender women during times such as Women's History Month. Most certainly we trans women had the chance to embrace the benefit of male privilege but we soundly rejected it for any number of reasons. Plus, with the state of anti-transgender issues everywhere, there needs to be strength in numbers. While we weren't born female, there still is much we can add to being a feminist. After all, we have seen  first hand the prejudice and discrimination which goes on against women. In fact many of us trans women suffer from a double dose of discrimination. First because we are trans and secondly because we are women. 

The end result to all of this is transgender women arrived at where we are by taking another path to our womanhood. But arrive we did and deserve to be recognized for it. Go head and celebrate your part in Women's History Month!

The Pain of Gender Transition

Image from UnSplash

When anyone states gender dysphoric individuals or gender fluid folks who seek to live as their authentic selves did it because they  had a choice, I think they are crazy. They obviously don't  know anything  how much pain and suffering goes into our journeys.  Most of us from our earliest days grew up with unapproving parents. It took me until my early twenties to come out to my Mom. Which at that time I was rudely rejected by the offer of psychiatric treatment. At the same time I never came out to my Dad and both of my parents have long since passed on. In fairness to both of them, at that time, there was very little information available on any gender issues. 

Even still, none of that excuses the pain I suffered. I went through days and even weeks wondering currently exactly which gender did I want to be on any given day. Of course the more I researched my mind, the more I knew I wanted to be feminine. I just couldn't find a path to get there. Plus, once I started to find my way, I needed to figure out if it was the correct path and what were the roadblocks going to be in the future. As it turned out, there were plenty.

As I always mention, the thought of losing my male privilege's as well as friends, family and work consumed me. The pain led me to drink too much alcohol as well as developing an active self harm personality. 

As far as my male self went, I fought every feminine encroachment as hard as I could but it seemed the only way I could numb the pain was to give in to my gender desires. No matter how many times I tried to relieve the pressure to be feminine by cross dressing, all was good for approximately three days or so before the urge to present my femininity began to build to a pressure point I could barely maintain. In the meantime my old male self became a disaster to be around. To this day, I don't understand how the significant others in my life stayed around me. On many days I didn't want to be around me. 

As my pain and suffering continued and even increased the tearing of my inner self approached the point of no return. I made it to the point I thought death would be an improvement to the way I was living. A place I found no one should ever be but an overwhelming number of  transgender are. In itself, the threat of suicide should prove to the doubters being transgender is far from being a choice. It is a deep desire and need. 

Sadly the transgender transition path is lined with many obstacles along the way. Once we conquer one roadblock more complex ones crop up. The whole process again proves those following it are in it for the long term and it was never just a choice.   The pain was real.

Escaping the Closet

 

Photo Courtesy  Becca McHaffie
on UnSplash

During my long path to finally discovering I wasn't a man at all, I realized I made many mistakes along the way when I considered how I treated women. First of all, I was very shy around girls and or women, so I had a tendency to go slow when I actually met one. In fact my shyness held me back from really getting to know the gender I was so attracted to, for all the wrong reasons. By the wrong reasons I mean I didn't really want to date or be with a girlfriend, I wanted to be them. For this reason, I think most women weren't particularly attracted to me. I certainly wasn't one of the so called "bad boys" but came off as being too nice. I had one woman in college tell me something to the effect I was similar to dating a comfortable living room chair. Which was the last time I ever saw her.

I guess I was trying too hard not to be the guy around me who only mentioned a girls' physical attributes. When at the same time, I secretly wanted to be the girl the guys were making all the fuss about. In turn, these girls were the focus of how I wanted to look like in front of the mirror when I had the rare privacy to cross dress. My feelings also carried over into my sports activities when I would watch the cheerleaders instead of concentrate on my position on the football team. I again thought the cheerleaders had such an easier and glamourous life, so I wanted to be them. 

About this time, the military draft stepped in to change my life forever. I was forced to go to college earlier than I should have so I could put off the draft as long as possible,  The whole experience reinforced my inner opinion women had it better because they didn't have a forced military adventure in their future. For some reason, after my current fiancé and I called it quits, I decided to go it alone during my three years in the Army. Sure it was lonely and often I was envious when my friends received all their letters (remember them?) from home. The only correspondence I ever received was from my Mom. I learned the hard way what didn't kill you made you stronger. The true reason, deep down, I didn't follow up on any possible female attention I could have had was because I wasn't so sure of where my deep seated gender dysphoria would take me.

It turned out to be my own forced loneliness was the smart way to go. The whole process enabled me to see the extent of my gender dysphoria and try to come up with any sort of plan to deal with it. Of course that was easier said than done. When I returned to civilian life, I basically started back in  where I had left off. Secretly attempting to sneak in dressing in women's clothes whenever I could find the time and privacy. Plus the birth of my daughter, all of the sudden added another spectrum to my life. Like it or not, she brought stability. Which for me was often hard to accept. Even still, stability did not bring any major changes to my gender issues. During this time I was suffering from undiagnosed Bi-Polar mood swings and gender problems dealing from not being able to get out from behind the mirror and free myself from my gender closet. 

With therapy to help my mood swings and gender knowledge from the internet to help me, I slowly began to see the light at the end of the tunnel was not the train. In essence I had to set aside most of my past male self and learn all I could about living a life from a woman's perspective. The entire process was terrifying, exhausting and exciting all at the same time. Before I knew it, I could put a huge portion of my past behind and start building a promising new future. Free from my dark and lonely gender closet. 

No Gender Fear

 

"Rest Room Selfie" from the
Jessie Hart Collection

On the rare occasion I hear from someone who thinks I was brave for pursuing my gender dreams. First of all I consider the "brave" word should be reserved for those who really deserve it such as those in the military, first responders etc. I was just doing what I needed to do to survive my reoccurring gender crisis stemming from my extreme gender dysphoria.

Looking back, I can vividly remember all of the times I was positively frozen in fear when I was trying for the first time to express my femininity. The times when I felt all eyes were on me when I first entered a new  venue and the walk from the door to where I was going to sit seemed to be at least five miles away. I also felt as if my feet were stuck in sand as I tried to remember to mimic every feminine move. Of course the harder I tried, the more I would mess up. It wasn't until I became more relaxed that I began to do better and enjoy the experience.  

Then, there were the dreaded rest room visits. Since I was known to consume lots of beer, a rest room visit was more than a luxury, it was a necessity. I found out early in the presentation game to beware of women who would quickly follow me into the rest room. When they did, I needed to be especially careful to follow the basic etiquette of using the woman's room. There were so many (and continue to be), all the points would fill another blog post. Again, it took me awhile to settle down and relax before I could even think about being accepted. 

As I climbed the invisible ladder to being a more presentable transgender woman, it seemed the times I experience extreme panic would come and go. Many times I felt how my overall presentation was working dictated the results I was going to experience. Examples included the nights I hurriedly was  sent packing in a lesbian bar I was frequenting. From the well documented time I was forced to sing karaoke with a big butch lesbian in a cowboy hat all the way to another woman who said she ought to pick me up and take me home, my fear set in and I rapidly left the bar. After all, what would my wife say?

As you can tell, fear struck me in many ways. Since I was basically a shy person to begin with, I was extremely intimidated by the idea of talking to another person (woman or man) as a feminine person. On one hand I was flattered they wanted to talk to me but on the other hand what would I say. In those days I still basically was dealing with the usual male life topics such as work and sports. I was truly scared when I came to the communication aspect of transitioning. I never planned ahead because I never considered I would make it this far. When I did indeed scale the gender ladder to a point I could reach the transgender woman level, of course I was scared. Among other things, I was scared of losing my family, friends and living. I was never scared of anything more in my life. 

The farther I went in my gender transition, I was able to put my fear in my past. Mainly because for the first time in my life I knew deep down I was doing the right thing. It wasn't bravery, it was survival. 

The Sweet Spot

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Collection

 Relax, this is not another post about food. Following my post called "Cake" I almost went searching through out  the kitchen looking for baking supplies to augment my non existent baking skills. This post on the other hand, concerns the gender sweet spot we encounter when we finally are able to align our inner feminine gender selves with the exterior we show to the public.

As we all know, attacking the problem of presenting a respectful exterior self to the public as a brand new gender is very difficult. We face all sorts of issues from the lack of peer pressure to having (or acquiring) a knowledge of clothing and makeup In other words, we had no mothers, sisters or girlfriends to provide feedback on our journey to public womanhood. Through it all the pressures of maintaining some sort of a male existence  while at the same time trying our best to express true womanhood seemed to be an impossible task.

For those of us left literally alone on the gender frontier, often the mirror became our only friend. The problem was the mirror only showed us what we wanted to see. Not what the public was seeing in reality. The process led me to suffer tough love when I tried too many fashion statements. To put it mildly, they were ill fated and led to public rejections. The extra pressure of trying to disguise my testosterone poisoned male body was intense. Following more failures than successes , I finally found what I was searching for... a chance to live my life as my authentic self. The basic lesson I learned was when I began to dress for other women and stopped dressing for my outdated ideas of what men thought women should look like.

What my new path set in motion was a chance to live a life I had only previously just dreamed of. Even though I had set my new life in motion, it turned out I still had a ways to go before I found my sweet spot where my internal and external feminine genders aligned.  I knew I was coming close to alignment when gender euphoria set in for any number of reasons.  Primarily, one of the main changes I went through was when I was forced into communicating with the public as a transgender woman. To more than a few women I knew I was a curiosity but it was all good because we were learning from each other. They had a chance to learn why a man would want to join their "club". On the other hand, I had the opportunity to learn from the women how it was to communicate one on one with another woman. 

The more I was able to explore finding my sweet spot, the more I knew I could never go back to my old male self. Even though I knew it was a certainty I could not go back, I still stubbornly held on to my past. For what ever the reason, it finally felt as if  I was jumping off some sort of a gender cliff. I was on a very slippery slope until I hit the very edge and I let go. I was fortunate in that I had friends to catch me when I landed. All were women and I can never thank them enough. The whole process was similar to going to some sort of a finishing school.

Locating my gender sweet spot was a lifelong journey and was often very difficult. Deep down I knew the process was something I just had to do and it all became worth it.