A Transgender Set Back?

Photo Courtesy 
Jessie Hart

Yesterday I needed to go the Cincinnati Veterans Hospital for a colonoscopy. If you are not familiar it is a procedure when they run a small camera up and through your colon looking for what they call polyps.  Polyps if left unattended can sometimes lead to colon cancer. If you have ever been through a colonoscopy, you know the prep work before is no fun as you have to essentially fast for two days while drinking copious amounts of a liquid laxative which tastes like salt water. 

Recently I have not had to undergo any challenges to my gender. Sadly all of my gains were going to be erased yesterday. First of all, the intake nurse who was taking care of me came out into the waiting room and screamed "Mr. Hart." I cringed and said Mr. Hart wasn't here but would I do. She never replied anything and back to an intake room we went. By this time, I thought to hell with her Mr. Hart, let's just get this procedure over with. I also thought I was done with her so I wouldn't have to go through being mis gendered again. Plus there was always the chance she said it before she ever saw me and they don't see many women in the VA. 

Then came the worst part of all, I had to take all of my clothes off and put on one of those infamous hospital gowns, opened up the back. Even though hormone replacement therapy has taken care of most of my body hair, it was impossible for me to shave my backside, the one they were going to see. Again, by this time I just wanted the procedure to be all over so Liz and I could go out and get something to eat. I am sure with my highly androgynous appearance (since I have had no surgeries) at the least I may have given the nursing staff something to talk about. 

There was only one nurse who asked what I wanted to be called. I mistakenly thought there was going to be a light at the end of the gender tunnel when I told her my legal first name. Everything went well in our conversation until out of the clear blue sky she called me "Sir". I just said I wasn't a sir and everything was over...for now. The head doctors assistant told me I had four polyps, two of which they had to remove so I will probably be asked to come back in for a repeat procedure in six months to a year. I know the VA is trying to make a serious effort in their treatment of transgender patients, so maybe by then I will see a difference. I try my best to keep into consideration the people I meet who mis-gender me aren't being mean. They are just being ignorant because they have never met a transgender woman. Since I know what I will be facing when I go back too soon for my liking, maybe I can turn a transgender set back into a positive by educating people. Perhaps the next transgender person won't have to go through what I did. 

No pun intended but in the end result. all I want is to be kept free of colon cancer.     

Building on Success

Image from Our Life in Pixels on
Unsplash

I have written often on the times I was a dismal failure when I first came out of my gender closet. The times I went home crying following encounters with the public. To make a long story short, I was stared at all the way to being out right laughed at. Similar to many of my novice crossdressing or transgender sisters, teen aged girls were my worst enemy. During this time I kept asking myself why would I leave my fairly comfortable male world I worked so hard to build and survive in for a new existence in a feminine world. I had a long way to go because I had put so much effort into hiding any female mannerisms I may have had. In nearly all ways, I was (or tried to be) a man's man. It worked because I was rarely bullied or had my gender questioned at all except the one time my evil nephew thought he was hurting my feelings when he said I threw a football like a girl. I just replied thanks and moved on.

During all of the setbacks I did seem to have just enough positive feedback on my gender journey to keep moving forward. It could have been because my feminine inner self was starved for attention and wanted her chance to enjoy the spotlight of life.  Very early in my transition, success came when I wasn't laughed at and merely blended in with society as a whole as a woman. Very quickly I learned just blending would not be enough. I found others, mainly women, wanted to talk to me so I needed to quickly develop some sort of a feminine persona. An example was when I kept encountering a long dark haired beauty in not one but two of the venues I frequented. At first when she approached me she was very standoff-ish so I wondered why she even bothered. After a while though she started to warm up and we were able to chat awhile. Who knows, maybe she was just intrigued by the fact she was really interacting with someone who wanted to give up all their male privilege's and enter her world. All too soon, for whatever reason I never saw her again. 

Having success with women such as her led me to open my feminine self up to the world even farther. It proved to be easier than I thought the gender frontier process would be once I started. Looking back at the process, my inner previously hidden feminine person was finally getting her  chance to live. She was building upon her success and loving it. From then on it was a struggle with what remained of my old male self. After all. he provided years of success to my life's equation. It was difficult to finally totally let go of him but I had to if I wanted to keep living at all. Both of my genders were in a vicious struggle for survival. 

As I continued to build upon my feminine successes, I found not only could I play in the girls sandbox but I deserved my place as well as the next woman. Of course I was not able to benefit from growing up as a girl but again I put in as much time and effort as I was allowed to seeing how girls interacted with society. Finally, once I was able to go fulltime as a transgender woman, I learned so much more on how women exist in the world and how strong yet layered their existence is.  My path to success was slower than most but worth the wait. 

Another Transgender Lesson Learned

Yesterday I wrote a post concerning my limited experiences when I transitioned to a novice transgender woman and tried to date a few men. The process was a failure and then I moved on to the warmer and more responsive experience of getting to know other women as I was completing that phase of my gender transition. With their help, I learned so much on how to survive in a new feminine world. It turns out Fellow Blogger "Paula" from Paula's Place encountered some of the same pressures when she came out of the gender closet:

"  There was a time when I tried dating a few men. It never quite worked out, mostly for the reasons you too found, they were either ashamed to be seen with me, or were not attracted to me a person, but as an object. Maybe that was part of my induction into the the female world, but in the end it was not for me.

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Collection

When meeting new people I'm never sure just how much of myself to reveal, I try not to out myself, but sometimes it's difficult not to, so much of my experience has been male ~ often in what at the the time were exclusively male environments. Women were excluded from some Brass Bands well into the 1980s, and for some it was still an issue into the current century! and as for sport! Do I just sit quietly in the corner, or admit to some knowledge and experience and so out myself?"

Thanks for the comment Paula. I too was afraid to reveal too much information about my previous life  when it came to men An example was when sports came up as a topic, my knowledge was at least equal to the man I was attempting to communicate with so I needed to "dumb it down" so I wouldn't scare him off.

Through it all, the point which was lost on me was all of what I was going through was in many ways the same things cis women go through on a daily basis. I read all the time of the problems women have finding a good or stable man. I used to subscribe to "Cosmopolitan Magazine" and usually their letters to the editors  had to do with how to find and hang onto a quality man. Competition it seemed was fierce as both binary genders struggled to understand each other. In fact I wrote a few blog posts years ago pointing out the virtues of dating a transgender woman. The biggest benefit to dating trans as my biased self noted was we understood both sides of the gender fence. Especially the male ego. Unfortunately dating trans never became a real thing and to this day we transgender women still remain little more than fetish objects to too many men. Not to mention the cis women who resent us entering "their" world for whatever reason.

The end result is we transgender women have to be more skillful in how we approach the world. Paula used sports as an example. Since both Paula and I played sports in our pasts and still show a passion for it, how far do we go before we out ourselves to strangers, Just another of the reasons there is always another transgender lesson to learn. 

Home to see The Parents

From the Jessie Hart
Archives

Way back when I was seriously considering dating men as I gender transitioned into a transgender woman, I was stood up (or gaslighted) by approximately half of the men who told me they were going to meet me. One of my requirements was we meet in a public setting of my choosing, which could have been pat of the problem. Who knows, maybe they really did come and secretly took a look at me and were scared off. I always thought the least they could have done was tell me. 

All of this time of being disappointed led me to wonder if the men in question were too afraid to be seen with me in public, what would happen if the relationship became serious enough that I was invited home with them to meet their family or even parents. It turned out I never had to face that terrifying  possibility because I never met and became that serious with a man at all. However, I did meet several women who embraced me for what I was and invited me to family functions. It turned out the transgender attracted men I met were just interested in me as some sort of a fetish object. They probably found out I could not compare to the transgender porn models they were watching who were impossibly beautiful. Before you think I am stereotyping all trans attracted men with a broad stroke, I did meet a couple of men I enjoyed my time with who weren't afraid to meet me in a public place and treat me as a woman. Plus there were a couple men I became friends with and often wondered what would have happened if they had not moved out of town.

Regardless, it was always my cis women friends who took me in and treated me as my authentic self. Often I was terrified and excited when women like Kim insisted I join her and her immediate family for a Monday Night NFL football game. I was so nervous I was sure every camera in the stadium was looking at me. It was one terrific learning experience. Then there was my wife Liz. 

It was not too long after we started seeing each other seriously she invited me on a family birthday party at a local steak house. It was her very conservative elderly fathers birthday and it was the first time I had ever really met him. Plus her brother was there who was not far removed from serving his third term in the Army in the Middle East. I felt I was surrounded and was very ill at ease. Somehow I made it though and even managed to enjoy part of the meal. For the rest of his life, I don't think Liz's Dad ever knew how to take me but at the least he wasn't mean to me. As far as the brother went, I barely see him and he barely talks when I do, so he is very much out of my life. 

I don't have any words of wisdom when it comes to going home with a friend to meet their family. For me. as I said, it was a terrifying experience but one I felt I had to live through to be accepted fully into the world. All part of my learning experience of what being a woman was really all about. I really appreciate those who weren't afraid to include me in their families.  Thanks all for the learning experience. I really needed someone to lean on.

2023 A New Year

 I am not sure which part of my life led me to be so short sighted in my thinking and planning. Perhaps it was the time during college or the military when I was forced to pick up and move every several years.

Along the way, I thought perhaps being transgender had an extreme baring on my short term thinking. I was always trying my best to not establish any long term relationships or even friendships because I never knew when I was going to have to give them up. If the friends or family discovered my deep dark secret of wanting to be a woman.

Maybe all of this background life led me to a point of where I tended to take each New Years as just another opportunity to drink quite a bit of alcohol. Many times, I didn’t even know if the current job I had would be long term enough to think about having a resolution about it. Luckily I was in a career field which offered the possibility of many and varied new jobs. So changing jobs to out run my gender issues became easier to do.

Even though now I didn’t drink much alcohol at all on New Years Eve, I still didn’t make any major resolutions. I just hope I can be more active in the New Year.

I understand it takes approximately sixty five or six days to establish a resolution into a habit. At the least I don’t have to worry about counting off the days to make a new habit I may have to work to change later. Maybe that should be my resolution isn’t one. Maybe one possibility I should take into consideration is thanking all of you for stopping by for taking the time to read my work. So many of you have taken the time to subscribe, clap or comment on my posts. I appreciate all of your effort more than I can say.

See you in the New Year!

A New Year

Happy New Years from
Liz (left) and I

 It doesn't seem possible but 2022 is history and it's time to face a new year. I do believe the older you get, the more time flies.

Looking back at the year gone by, I suppose I should mention a few highlights or even low points. The major highlight  of 2022 was my continued relatively good health. Without your health you have nothing. The major test I passed in the year gone by was a clear mammogram. I hope I never have to experience the irony of developing breast cancer in the breasts I so desperately wanted. To the point of the long term hormone replacement therapy which now is a big part of the developing of hips I am experiencing. It's another development I take for granted but shouldn't. 

Another major 2022 happening was when Liz and I were married. Since we had been together for eleven years, my daughter finally said why don't you two get married. And we did during a small ceremony with a few family members. It all turned out to be a low key start to the rest of our married life. I guess low key could be a good descriptor for the rest of the year.

Liz and I did manage once a month to get out and explore sometimes new places to eat or visit a couple long time favorites. My lack of walking ability restricted a few of the big events such as Cincinnati Pride but as long as walking wasn't a big priority, I was up to it. Just getting out into the public's eye helped me reinforce my confidence in presenting well as a transgender woman. My lack of being able to be as mobile as I wanted to be was one of the low points of the year. It's also one I hope to do better with in the upcoming year.

Another big positive was discovering Medium as another writers platform. While the content is the same as here on Blogger, Medium gives me a whole new audience to write for plus a chance to make a few dollars which helps to offset my hours of work.  As always I deeply appreciate all of you who stop by either platform to read my efforts. Thank you!

By far the low point of 2022 was the influx of anti-transgender and potential LGBT bills being pushed by a certain political party. In some states the politicians are trying to legislate we transgender people out of existence. Sadly, it is only going to get worse in 2023. We are just going to become more politically active to fight the gender bigots. What the bigots don't realize LGBT individuals all ready have developed a core strength which we can use to fight back. 2023 will have to witness our strength

Whatever the case, I hope you have a warm, safe and festive New Years!.  

Dating Myself

 This post goes back to my intensely lonely days following the loss of my second wife and several dear friends. Throughout my life I had plenty of acquaintances but very few people I could call friends. Perhaps it was because deep down inside I did not want very many people close to me in case someday I would follow my dream and come out as a transgender woman. I just didn't feel many of my friends would remain with me, or would I want them to as I went through such an extreme lifestyle change such as changing a gender. Personally, I knew of all the stress and tension caused by crossing the gender frontier myself and couldn't imagine anyone else understanding. As it turned out, this wasn't the first time in my life I decided to go it alone (so to speak) when I was attempting a major life change. The same thing happened when I had to go away and serve my military duty. When the time came to go away to basic, I had done away with any possible serious girlfriends and barely communicated with anyone at all. The only mail I received came from my Mom. 

Early Acquaintance on Right
from the Jessie Hart Collection 

So, all in all, I had experience dealing with extreme loneliness but I didn't really want to face it again. What happened was I ended up falling back on my inner feminine self for comfort. It turned out in times of extreme duress, she was the strong one who comforted me and kept me going. It was no different as I entered yet another lonely period of my life. This one totally unexpected when my wife passed away with no warning suddenly at the age of fifty. 

Rather than stay at home every night with my dogs, I packed them up and headed out to one of my favorite venues, dressed as my feminine self. My problem was I knew I would be attracting attention as a single woman where I went so I had to be careful. I was not in anyway trying to pick anyone up. On the other hand, I did not want to be ridiculed. Ironically the venues I chose to go to I had gone to as a guy to check out to see if my feminine self would be safe. Once I decided they were, I started dating my new self there, 

As it turned out, I couldn't stay by myself long. I started to interact with other people if I wanted to or not. First I had to learn how to communicate with the world as my authentic self. It was quite the growing process but surprisingly an easy one. Because it felt so natural. I wondered why it took me so long to do it. I fortunately became on speaking terms with one of the bar tenders at a venue I was going to. In turn she introduced me to her Mother (lesbian) and we hit it off. Then, there was the night another woman came into and ordered a to go order and in the meantime slid me a note down the bar showing interest in me. Over a relatively short space of time, the three of us became party buddies and I didn't have to worry about spending nights alone. What happened was, once I finally freed up my inner girl, she established herself in the world fairly quickly. 

Dating myself proved to be a process which taught me a lot in a short period of time. But again I have several other women to thank for my journey. I learned so much from Liz, Kim, Nikki and Hope on how to socialize myself successfully as a woman. In all of their own ways, they were strong, successful women in their own rights. By allowing me to tag along, I learned so much about my true self. Most importantly, they looked past my gender issues and saw the real me. They built me into the woman I am today. So much so, I can't imagine dating myself ever again.  

Love Hate Relationship

 In a bit of extension on yesterdays' post, today I have decided to write about my life long love-hate relationship with mirrors. In my family home growing up we had a fairly long hallway which happened to have a full length mirror at one end. When I began to cross dress at a very early age, I used to walk slowly up and down the hallway admiring myself in the mirror. I did it so much I an surprised I didn't wear a path in the carpet. Probably the only thing which saved me was not having all the time I wanted by myself to work on my feminine presentation. I cherished the all so brief periods of time I could actually be by myself. If the mirror could talk I could only imagine the stories it could tell. 

Mirror Selfie from the
Jessie Hart Collection

As I progressed through life, the urge to have a friendly mirror grew with me. In fact when I was apartment shopping with my first wife, the location and access to a full length mirror was always a deciding factor. Even though I never said anything about it to my wife. The truth of the matter was I was addicted in a way to my beloved mirrors. One of the reasons was the mirror only told me exactly what I wanted to hear. None of it became evident to me until I began to seriously push open my gender closet door and see if I could exist as my feminine self in public. The more I tried to adjust my appearance, the more the mirror would tell me I was already doing a wonderful job. What I didn't understand was I did become fairly proficient in changing my male self to a feminine person but all of that wasn't nearly good enough. In order to survive in the world as a woman, many times I had to do better than just blend into the background. Plus a part of me was telling me loud and clear how much fun would it be anyhow to just blend in with a group of women increasingly falling away from the art of dressing up.

Finally, after my well documented failures as a novice transgender woman or cross dresser, I began to be successful in finding a sweet spot in my search for a dependable presentation. I discovered I could fall back to a fairly intense business woman look or on other occasions fall back into a much more casual jeans, boots and sweaters look. Normally, if I followed my developing feminine instincts and stayed within one of the two looks I mentioned, I found I could magically navigate society as a woman. Ironically at this point, mirrors would begin to help me. I found when I was out in public, the occasional glance in the mirror would calm my gender dysphoria and give me the courage to push forward into the brave new feminine world I was exploring. 

It is important to note also, I had to learn the hard way to establish a truce with my mirrors. I came to the decision I didn't look as good as I thought I did. But on the other hand, I didn't look as bad as I thought either. At this point, all mirrors became a tool I could use to improve myself. In other words, my mirror became more of a reality check and my life really began to improve. Even though I still have the occasional morning battles with my mirror setting off my gender dysphoria, increasingly I am able to cope by thinking I am not as bad as I think. It's just the mirror playing it's tired mind games with me. No more love-hate relationship.

Gender Euphoria

Image Courtesy Matt Moloney
on UnSplash 

Every so often I grow weary of waking up in the morning and having to look at the same face staring me back in the mirror. Regardless of the softer angles and skin of my face which happened because of my hormone replacement therapy, I still see the same old me before I can apply moisturizer and a little eye make up to help. After a small period of time feeling sorry for myself , I tell myself life didn't have to be fair and move on with what I have to work with physically. Most days gender dysphoria is sadly here to stay. On occasion I do venture out into the public and test my chosen gender myself. It's a  chance to experience a touch of wonderful gender euphoria. 

Sometimes I feel I am cheating the process because I am fortunate to have Liz by my side for the overwhelming number of times I interact with the public at large. I always feel she shields me from any potential haters I may encounter due to my transgender status. In addition, she is always the first to use my chosen pronouns of she and her in public. This morning was one of the rare times I needed to go out without Liz.

After going through the lengthy process of cleaning the remnants of ice and snow off the car, I headed out on the short trip to my Veterans Administration clinic to be administered my latest Covid booster. In the past, I have not been treated very well at this particular clinic and have been mis-gendered several times. Normally just thinking of returning  there sets off my gender dysphoria.      

Happily this morning was different. Before I was called back for my shot, the nurse peeked out the door to make sure I was there. Once she did take a look at me, she very shortly came back out and called "Miss Hart". What a relief! So many times in the past I was called everything but my preferred pronouns. Including the all time worst, Mr. Hart. I have got to give her or the VA credit. Recently I have taken part in several VA surveys wanting to know problems and or solutions with the VA transgender care system. Since that time, in this clinic at least, I have seen a real improvement. Leading to a real dosage of gender euphoria when I was called "Miss" Hart. 

From then on, I felt better as I finished running some other errands and even stopped at a fast food place to pick up breakfast. When I did it, I flashed back to my early days of exploring a feminine existence. I went through drive throughs to see if I would be mis-gendered  or not. Most of the time I just left them confused. 

This morning I didn't care. I knew who I was and that was all that mattered. Everyone needs a little euphoria in their lives. Especially transgender women or trans men. 

Getting Your Groove Back

During my early adventures out of the closet and into the world, I am fond of saying there were more errors than trials. In other words, I made many mistakes trying my best to figure out what I was doing and just fit in. More times than I care to remember I came home with my eye makeup ruined from excess crying and tears. Too many people were just cruel.

Jessie Hart
From my Boho Days

Amazingly, once I had a good cry, I was determined to do better. To learn from my mistakes as a feminine person and try again. My inner woman turned out to be my biggest fan. She pushed me forward and I finally began to learn from my mistakes. It took awhile but I figured out I needed to be more worried about how I looked for other women, who seemed to notice every detail about my appearance. In the past I spent more time thinking about my appearance as it related to how I thought a woman should look...as a man. The entire thought pattern led me down a path of trashy, attention getting outfits. The exact opposite of what I needed to be doing to make it in the world as a woman. It seemed I was destined to repeat what many beginning transgender women or cross dressers do. Dress trashy thinking your testosterone poisoned body would look good in a too tight and short mini skirt, in heels at the mall. I wonder now why the mirror kept lying to me and didn't stop me from going out dressed like that. It turned out, the mirror part of this post is strong enough I should write a separate blog post about it. 

At any rate, I was fortunately having enough success in my closet busting explorations to keep trying. After several mis-adventures with the wrong wigs, I finally settled in on a shoulder length blond style which seemed to work well with my Boho fashion inspired jeans skirt and flowing light weight top. Using the outfit as a base, my presentation success rate sky rocketed. Not only did I have to worry less about how I was presenting, I was suddenly thrust into a totally new situation. By getting my public groove back I found other people who were curious about me and even wanted to know me. All of that was so exciting but the problem was I needed to find the inner woman who wanted out for so long and let her express herself. I just sort of let her go and found out she was a pretty nice person who had been hidden all those years behind a false male personality struggling to survive. Once free, she thrived. 

My groove was back but the problem still remained what to do to clean up and close what was left of a male life which was growing more and more distant. It was about this time when destiny or fate stepped in for my groove. Tragically my wife and many of my closest friends passed away and I had lost nearly everything which was dear to me during the bleakest moment of my life. It turned out my shining star who stood by me was my feminine self. Surprisingly she was stronger than I ever thought possible. She was there all those nights when I was recovering and trying to figure out what to do next with my life. 

I am sure many of you have faced similar dark moments in your life too. Times when you have discovered how strong and resilient your feminine self was. Hopefully she was worth the wait.  

Fantasy World

 

Image from UnSplash

As I look back  on all the time I wasted trying my best to survive in a male world,  I wish I could go back and reclaim just a portion of the time I lost. Just a little of the time I spent thinking about my next feminine adventure while I was still following a fake male life. I have written many times of how the stress nearly killed me.

Even worse than the stress perhaps was the hiding I did behind my feminine desires. All along (from the beginning) I thought girls had it easier than boys. My main playing card was the military service I faced for years before I finally had to serve. I always was of the opinion the military draft should have been an universal option for both genders.

Of course what I didn't realize girls (and later) women had their own set of challenges and often the gender grass wasn't always greener on the feminine side. I am sure my Mom would have put much more pressure on me to do certain things had I been born female. I am positive, I would have been pressured to go to the same university she went to and even join the same sorority. It was bad enough putting up with the pressure of being her son, I never took it into consideration how it would have been to be her daughter. At the least, I could weekly try to get dates even though I wanted to be pursued not the gender chaser as males were. 

What happened was, every failure in life I encountered as a man, I chalked up to not wanting to be a guy anyhow. I would retreat into my feminine fantasy world and not try harder. After all, wouldn't it be much more enjoyable to be a cheerleader than actually be on an compete for a spot on the football team. Back then I didn't consider all the passive aggressiveness which goes on with groups of women. I am sure the claws came out more than a few times when girls competed for spots on the cheerleading squads. 

Finally, it took basic training in the Army to force me out of my closet in some ways. Ironically it was impossible for me to hide behind my skirts and heels and compete in a total masculine world. It turned out I could compete and survive but the whole experience strengthened my resolve to finally attain a transgender status in the world once I completed my military service. I guess in many ways, the process made me a strong enough man to be a woman. I didn't know it then but I would need all the strength I could muster to pursue my gender transition goals later in life. 

Normally in my posts, I can point to some sort of positive which came out of my experience. However, I just can't on this post. The time I spent in my feminine cross dressing world was just a waste of time. I did learn the basics of putting on makeup and trying on panty hose but that was about it. The time I spent observing women which turned out to me interacting with them was all so much more important. 

The fantasy world was just a waste of time I can never get back. I found the hard way women do not have it easier than men.