Neat Little Boxes

These days it seems, everyday a different term or even an alphabet letter comes forward to describe a different facet of the transgender or LGBT community. In fact the latest LGBT acronym has been expanded to LGBTQIA + to include Queer, Intersex and Asexual persons also. Often when I write the original four letters (to me) I feel remiss in leaving out the other groups but for the sake of simplicity, I leave it alone.

Image Courtesy Christine
Jorgensen 

I wonder also why we need such a selection of neat little boxes to identify with. Perhaps it is because we are learning gender has so many different variations to discuss. Again I will throw up my age as an excuse to be mesmerized by the newer facets added to the old school thought that there were just boys and girls growing up. Then we slowly became aware of people such as Christine Jorgensen  was the first to be widely known for undergoing sex change surgery  To put it into perspective Jorgensen changed gender in 1952 when I was three years old. As I grew up, the only vague terms I ever heard or read to describe at all what my gender feelings were transsexual or transvestite. 

The next main person I remember in my gender dysphoric life was Virginia Prince who I started to follow in the 1970's when I subscribed to her "Transvestia Magazine". Some publications give her credit for coining the transgender term but others don't. It doesn't really matter because in the seventies the transgender term became popular anyhow. I viewed it at the time for ideally describing me. I wasn't ready for any life changing gender surgery but on the other hand I knew my cross dressing was more than an innocent hobby. 

It was during this time I progressed into what I called a very serious crossdresser, even to the point of imagining if I could really be a novice transgender woman. I was trying to fit into two of the neat little boxes and I was having a difficult time doing it. My old male self was fighting back as I slid down the slippery slope to living my gender truth. To cloud my judgement too, this was becoming the time more terminology was being added to the system I was identifying with. Terms such as "gender queer" and "gender fluid" became popular subjects in support groups I was attending. "Gender Fluid" I felt could have really gone a long way describing how I felt when I was younger and totally confused. Just when I thought I had the box thing figured out, two of the biggest, most challenging box choices were still to come as I began to seriously pursue a gender transition. 

The biggest of them all came when I made the ill-fated attempt to live a life in both binary genders. To put it very simply, my feet ended up not fitting in either box and the process came close to killing me. The second was when I had to determine my future sexuality as a transgender woman. During my life I had never been remotely attracted sexually to another man so I wondered if I ever could. What happened was after a couple brief flings with men which resulted in no sex, I was able to settle back in with women friends. So I viewed myself as a transgender lesbian which I see more and more of in social media circles.

It took awhile but I finally figured out which of the neat little boxes I fit into. Until someone comes up with another. 

Getting Dizzy on the Transgender Merry Go Round

Photo from the
Jessie Hart Archives

In a recent post I compared coming out of a gender closet to trying to jump aboard a Merry Go Round which is spinning way too fast. It is difficult to catch up to the established gender you are trying to live as. Otherwise known as desiring to live as your authentic self, a transgender woman or a transgender man. As an extension of the post, today I will attempt to look at what happens once you are able to secure yourself a spot on the Merry Go Round. 

First of all, often you are made painfully aware a portion of the other riders don't want you there at all. Gender bigots or TERF's are everywhere trying for some reason to "protect" their gender from those wanting to live a life of their choice in the world. One of the initial ways they can spot you is from your appearance. Sadly, many of us have to deal with testosterone poisoning which gives our body and facial figures distinctly male looks. As we trans women learn the hard way, there are ways we can camouflage torso's which are too thick with certain items of female designed clothing. The same can be said for makeup which is also an appearance crutch for all women, trans or not. The fact of the matter is, women come in all shapes, sizes and appearance. We have to do our best to fit in. 

Once you have jumped aboard the Merry Go Round, sometimes it is difficult to stay there. My example comes from a lesbian social group I tried to join years ago with Liz. Liz identifies as lesbian and back in those days most all of my friends were also. I was naïve and thought I could join Liz's group but was quickly rejected. The rejection probably came from a woman who rudely approached me at a lesbian Valentine's Dance. She kept asking me drunkenly what my "real" name was. She was mean and nasty and it took me a while to calm down after I relocated Liz who was getting us food. Following the experience, it took me awhile to push my way back on to the Merry Go Round. But push I did. 

I compare the experience I had one time when a friend of mine and I (as males) were in Chicago and took a subway to Wrigley Field to see a baseball game. Being new to the experience, I wasn't quite ready for the rush of humanity which pushed their way into that subway car. Looking back, I was in the same situation many times when I explored my gender change path. From being completely rejected by a lesbian social club all the way to being cornered by a huge cross dresser "admirer" one night in a narrow hallway at a party I was attending with my second wife, I thought I had seen it all. I paid the "I told you so" price with my wife who saved me from my entrapment. Of course she didn't approve of the short mini dress I was wearing and blamed me for attracting the man. 

Through it all, I found once I had earned my seat, I wasn't giving it back to any narrow minded person who didn't like me. I deserved my spot as much as they did and I had to give up my hard earned male privilege's to get it. Plus I certainly wasn't trying to infringe on anyone else's rights. Even though the Merry Go Round was still spinning too fast on occasion, I learned to sit back and enjoy it.       

Transgender Merry Go Round

 

Image from Kitae Kim on Unsplash

Every once in a while, I am fortunate enough to write a post which elicits several wonderful insightful comments. "Trans Reflections and Woman Illusion" posts were examples. First, through the Medium writing format Abbie wrote in and said:

"I've only just realized in the last couple years how far behind the 8 ball I am on this front. After 50+ years trying to fit in as a man I'm now trying to catch up with women and I barely know where to start. Obviously I'm going to miss out on some biological functions but all the relationships, ads directed at women, fabulous but too sexy for my age clothes, even the misogynist/glass ceilings and other garbage. How do us older girls make up for all that lost time?"

The comment started my thought processes which took me back to my early days of coming out in the world as a transgender woman and come up with an answer.

First of all, I view coming out as an older woman is similar to trying to jump on a merry go round which is going too fast. One question I do have is how long did Abbie pursue being a cross dresser before she decided to come out of the gender closet. In my case I was a serious cross dresser for nearly half a century which gave me plenty of time to practice, practice, practice my feminine crafts such as wardrobe and makeup. By the time I was trying to jump on the women's merry go round I was fairly proficient in both crafts. So much so, my second wife was asking me tips on doing her makeup. If I was new to the world today as a woman, I would take advantage of "You Tube" tutorials or go to in person events at some of the big makeup stores such as "Sephora". I know going to a store takes a lot of courage but the benefits are worth it. You just have to be careful of how much money you have to spend. The process can be expensive if they try to sell you items you don't really need.

The next big move I would make is a repeat of a recent post I wrote detailing my early love of thrift stores. In certain thrift stores I was able to partially work my way out of my "teen" cross dressing years and discover a wardrobe which fit me and was much more flattering for a fraction of the money I would have spent in regular retail stores. Plus, once I had settled in on what sizes fit me, I could then begin to order on-line sale items.

Another huge move I made when I was trying my best to come out of my dark/lonely closet was when I went to a doctor and was checked to see if I could undergo feminine hormone replacement therapy at my age of sixty. I could and from then on there was no looking back. Somehow, someway, I had to slow that merry go round down to where I could jump on. When my facial features and skin began to soften and my hair really began to grow, I knew my changes were real and imminent.

Then there were the small things I did to improve my feminine image and present better in the world. Even with the hormones which were supposed to cause me to gain weight, I went on a diet of sorts and ended up losing nearly fifty pounds. I thought of the process this way, if I was going to be a woman, I had to give it my best shot by doing extra things such as taking better care of my skin.

Abbie, doing all of this slowly but surely should get you on the merry go round also. While you can never make up for lost time, you can still build a gender future and enjoy who you have become. Thanks for the comment and I hope any advice I can add helps. Plus when you make your way to the gender of your choice there is always the chance to be able to communicate with the world as your new self. It's a terrifying but exciting journey very few are able to take.

There are other comments I will try to address later in the blog.

Is Being a Woman an Illusion?

Image from Caroline Veronez 
on Unsplash

 Put in it's simplest terms, being female could be defined as the binary gender who can birth other humans and can have monthly periods. A statement many TERF'S or certain politicians would like us all to believe. As we all know, gender is much more complicated than all of that. Even the poor misunderstood drag queens have been pulled into the battle. They never wanted to be women to start with, just look like one. Politicians don't want to understand any of that.   

Now, for the moment, let's consider the old saying "Girls are sugar and spice and everything nice." I am fairly sure those of you who have ever interacted closely with women as a transgender woman or as a man, know a woman or two (or many more) who do not fit the old stereotype. I have seen many cis women who are so much tougher on so many levels. I have also seen many women who are able to cover up their toughness by trying a passive aggressive approach instead. It took many years for me to develop eyes in the back of my head to look for hidden claw marks from women who didn't like me for whatever reason.

Along the way, I have seen many transgender women (novice or not) who project extreme femininity. I remember distinctly one attendee to the monthly cross dressing/trans parties I went to at an acquaintance's beautiful house in Columbus, Ohio. The only time I saw this person was when she quickly changed into a lovely nightgown, lingerie set. Even though I thought her choice of wardrobe was out of place, I could not believe the amount of femininity she radiated. I was sure she was destined to "go all the way" to genital realignment surgery or sex change as it was known back in those days. Very rarely did I encounter a person like this. Of course I saw many men who transformed themselves into beautiful women but sadly their inner masculinity found a way to shine through. In other words, they almost were able to create the ultimate gender illusion but just fell short. 

Perhaps it was just because they were just like me and were living a part time life as a man also. In my case I had to take my whole study of womanhood to a whole other level. Similar to the other glamorous cross dressers I encountered, I wanted to do my best to look feminine. I wasn't a natural, so I knew I had a way to go. It wasn't until after another bitter battle with my second wife did I begin to understand I still had a long way to go until I could take the next step and totally undertake being a woman. What happened was the night before I had been mistaken for a cis woman at a transvestite mixer and my male ego was at an all time high about reaching a new goal with my feminine appearance. After the fight calmed down, my wife told me she wasn't speaking about how I looked as a woman. She was talking about I had none of the experiences it took to achieve womanhood. From that moment forward, I dedicated my life to understanding what she meant. It was difficult to study woman from afar but I did the best I could. Sadly, she passed away before I could achieve my goals. It would have been interesting to see if we could ever could have been friends as women. 

In conclusion, being a woman is not an illusion. It is an earned right we are all entitled to. No one is born a woman, we are socialized into the title. Transgender or not, learning what that means is the most difficult part. 

Transgender Reflections

Reflection from
the Jessie Hart
Archive

Reflections from transgender women and men can mean many things. Of course mirrors come to mind first. Through our lives we worship viewing ourselves as a way of reinforcing our new feminine selves. This can go both ways as mirrors have a not so sly way of lying to us. That very short mini skirt which looks very good on an attractive teen aged girl most likely won't look so good on your much older testosterone poisoned body. Most of us as time goes by and we interact with the public more and more come to learn the mirror's shortcomings. It took me more than a couple times of being stared at, all the way to being laughed at to understand the mirror was not coming close to telling me the truth and I was attracting too much unwanted attention.

Finally, what happened to me was I replaced the mirror's reflections with ones from interacting with the public. Specifically when I started to interact one on one with other women. When I began to move forward from just interacting with sales clerks who were always nice because my money was green, onward to stopping at upscale venues for lunch, I really had to step up my feminine game. Specifically, I needed to do more than walk the walk. I needed to talk the talk. In other words I needed to quickly learn how to communicate on an entirely different and foreign gender level. To be clear, I am talking about more than just sounding feminine because I found women communicate on many different levels. Including a fascinating level which I learned which involved speaking on a non verbal level. I learned so much without even speaking from other women. I was spared potentially embarrassing interactions with drunken guys in bars with just a glance from female bartenders. Talking the talk without actually speaking was huge.

Reflections then became more important from a personal point of view. Once I had gained a basic confidence in how I interacted with the world as my new authentic feminine self, I could concentrate more on how others were viewing my reflection. I had the very rare chance to reinvent myself and learn from all of my mistakes. Including the ones I made when I was a new cross dresser or novice transgender woman trying to find my way in a new terrifying but exciting world. Losing my old male privilege played a part also, specifically when I found myself in dangerous situations when I was lucky to not be physically assaulted. It took me awhile to learn there were feminine privilege's too which went way past just having a man open a door for me. Just having the opportunity to be able to play in the girl's sandbox without being clawed was a privilege. 

Even though I still suffer from gender dysphoria when I look in the mirror in the morning, I am able now to look past the shallow reflection and see the bigger picture. In a new life as a full time transgender woman.  

All Kinds of Transgender Dilemma

 

Image from Karla Hernandez 
on UnSplash

We transgender women and trans men have always encountered plenty of dilemmas as we complete our gender transition, or attempt to. Most of us have friends, family and jobs to consider. Sadly we are considered to be selfish as we pursue our gender goals. Ironically there is truth to the selfish idea because we often need to address our most inner souls to find a path. We found muses were difficult to find.

Dilemmas were everywhere. I know one of my biggest drawbacks to transitioning earlier was trying to figure out how I would support myself. Most certainly I would have had to quit the well paying, hard earned male career I had managed to carve out. None of it seemed fair but who said life had to be fair? As I quote my parents who were fond of telling me just that when I didn't want to do something they wanted me to do.

Another huge dilemma came when I needed to learn the new basics of presenting and appearing realistically as possible in my new chosen gender. The whole process really defined being alone with a terrifying array of cosmetics to deal with. Then there was the problem of what to do about a new wardrobe. Styles and sizes became very important as well as cost. I was in a situation where I needed to hide any feminine expenditures from my wife. I found one big solution by shopping the thrift stores. I could purchase ultra cheap clothes and see if they fit on a very small budget. Plus, I was even able to gather the courage to try an item or two on in the dressing rooms. Finally I was able to dress my way out of my teen girl years and into a reasonable facsimile of what a cis woman my age would wear. Thrift stores not only gave me an excuse to go out shopping, and save money, I could also conquer the appearance dilemma at the same time. 

At the same time, I was ignoring the few friends I had accumulated. Slowly but surely my feminine side was sneaking into the forefront and stealing my life. The more I was in the public's eye, the less male time I wanted. It was working out to be a huge dilemma. The more I accomplished as a transgender woman, the more natural I became and all of a sudden the whole impossible dream of living a feminine life became more achievable. 

My dilemma  of telling friends I wanted to be a woman very much went away when my small circle of close friends passed away close to the time when my wife died. There was no one left to tell. Family, as I have detailed several times, my problems coming out to my family was a different process. Even though my parents had long since passed on, I still had a daughter to tell as well as a younger brother. I had a highly successful experience with my daughter and an equally bad one with my brother who I have not spoken with for nearly a decade now.

My final big dilemma was what to do about my finances. At my age I was getting close to being able to retire on early Social Security. I also owned a house full of antiques and collectibles I could sell to raise money, so I took the early out and retired. All of which of course, did away with me have to worry about job hunting as my new authentic feminine self. With most all of my dilemmas in the past, the door was finally open to complete my gender transition.  

Who is Hurting Who?

Photo Courtesy
Kim Petras 

With the deluge of anti-transgender Republican led political bills around the country, it's easy to forget those cis women who may be caught in the gender cross fire. I am referring to the many cis-women (born female) who don't particularly present well as women. Are they going to have to undergo some of or all of the idiotic regulations some one has to go through just to go to the bathroom. I have read some legislators are trying to require monthly records of a woman's period as a basis to judge their gender to compete in sports.

Imagine being an unsuspecting cis woman questioned in a restroom about her gender. Will she take a moment to think about and realize where all political transgender problems are coming from. It's so bad now even the right wing parrots who say they are running for president are mentioning the transgender community as major problems. 

Speaking of problems, the only one I see for trans folk is when they try to go naked in places such as women's changing rooms. As I have said before, I would not be caught dead with no clothes on in front of strangers and resent others who do and discredit my right to life as a proud out transgender woman. Recently, another example of what I am talking about occurred close to where I live in Ohio. A pre-opt transgender woman was naked in a women's changing room and was seen by a group of teenaged girls. Of course, all hell brook loose.  By "pre-opt" I mean the person had no genital realignment surgeries. 

Even with all the negativity in the transgender world, there are still positive signs if you look for them. Signs that point out transgender women and men are not going anywhere. We have always been around and always will be. Recently, I was watching a promo about the upcoming Grammy awards show on

Photo Courtesy
Jazz Jennings

CBS and noticed Kim Petras name mentioned. If you are not aware, Kim is a transgender singer from Germany who began her transition early in life. She is one of the fortunate young trans girls such as Jazz Jennings who have started young with a supportive family and stayed in the public's eye. Although with Kim, you have to search long and hard to find any information about her being born male when I searched Wikipedia and other sources. It's a good thing when she is only known as a singer without the transgender tag added on.

Obviously, as a community we trans folks have enough challenges coming up. Together we have to accentuate the positive such as we are as normal as the population at large. I say that because I never considered I was "normal" even though I identified as a transgender person.  

Perhaps if enough cis women are affected by the ridiculous number of proposed anti-transgender laws being proposed and people get to know other trans people, the tide will turn in our favor and we don't have to rely on celebrities such as Kim Petras and Jazz Jennings to do it for us.  

Life Long Experience or Bad Ass Transgender

I have seen recently several profiles of new followers (thank you) who refer to themselves as "bad-ass" old ladies. At the time I felt Wow! it must be nice to think of yourself in those words. One thing is for sure, it takes the amount of life experience to make such a claim. 

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart
Archives

Certainly, many cis-women have the multi layered experiences to make the "bad-ass" claim.  It has always been my thought that to become women, girls have to go through quite the process. Just one example would be the child birthing experience. Of course most girls have to deal with the fact they shoulder most of the burden when it comes to becoming pregnant. It's still too easy for an underaged boy to trot off into the sunset when there is an unwanted child to deal with. 

Then women through out their lives have to deal with being perceived as being second class citizens in the worlds of being paid less and overall treatment at the hands of men. It wasn't so long ago women finally earned the right to vote and much later to even apply for and receive their own credit card. Bad ass women remember all of that. So where does it leave transgender women? Our life long experience should lead us to a position where we deserve to be bad ass women also. I vividly remember the early days of my gender transition into a feminine world when I rudely was rejected by men. In any and all conversations. Through it all it was evident when I reached a certain level of the presentation I was seeking, I lost huge amounts of my former hard earned male privilege. Primarily I lost my intelligence as well as my personal safety. Ironically, I knew it was coming and didn't miss any of it. What I gained was worth it because it all felt so natural.

None of this of course happened over night. There were so many nights out with my friends engaging the public when I was able to learn what I would need to know later in life to survive. I needed to survive my basic battles just to use the women's restroom as one of my prime examples. Those alone should make huge contributions to my claim of being a "bad ass" old lady. Except I am not. Over the years remembering how testosterone made me feel as well as the new feelings of estrogen in my body mellowed me right out. When someone mis-genders these days, even though it hurts me deeply, I try to take the upper path and educate them to their gender mistake. 

Life long experiences as a transgender woman have made me a better person. Not so much more of a bad ass. Who else is able to cross the gender frontier and live to write about it. Plus, to be bitter at all would negate a life long experience of learning. I do respect those who describe themselves as "bad ass old ladies" and prefer to make them my friend rather than an enemy.  One never knows what is going to happen next. 

Sweet Revenge

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Collection

 I wish to thank everyone who responded to my recent post which dealt (among other things) with my self destructive attempts at self harm. Tragically it is a theme which resonates deeply within the transgender community. 

Now, since I survived a very bumpy road down my gender path. I like to think back and enjoy just a bit of sweet revenge. Too many times it would have been easier to turn around, purge my feminine clothes and wigs and go back to my male lifestyle. I could have reclaimed my male privilege and moved on like nothing happened. Through it all, I faced all the challenges, learned and finally arrived at the other end of a long dark tunnel. It all began in my very dark and very lonely gender closet as I suffered from gender dysphoria. As I continued my journey, there were too many false road marks to guide me and I suffered setbacks. It was during these set backs I resorted to deeply self destructive behaviors.  I took too many risks behind the wheel and drank way too much alcohol as I wrote about previously. In addition to all of those, I even lost a job when my gender dysphoric behavior got the best of me and I took it out on others. 

In desperation I made appointments with one of the only gender knowledgeable therapists at the time in Ohio. She was upfront with me when she said she couldn't help my gender issues but did diagnose my bi-polar ones. Which helped me immensely with a portion of the severe mood swings I was going through. The end result was once again I discovered there would be no magical cure to me wanting to be a girl and I was essentially on my own again. Back in those days, in the early to mid 1980's, there simply wasn't the information available to help any LGBT individuals, especially those with severe gender issues. In addition, I was guilty of expecting too much from my therapy. I was new at the process and just didn't understand the benefits and drawbacks. 

These days, as I come to the end of long series of appointments with my highly motivated and qualified Veterans Administration therapist, I have so many memories of the assistance she has given me over the past ten years. It was her who in many ways helped me in plotting my sweet revenge when she initially provided me the paperwork to begin hormone replacement therapy with the VA. Then she helped me again with paperwork which forwarded my gender marker changes which happened over seven years ago. By gender markers, I mean all the legal identifications I needed to process to change my gender legally through the courts and other places. 

Although, since I have been living for years now as a successful transgender woman , I still don't have all the revenge I so desired when I was younger. Back in those days, I couldn't wait to be prettier and drive a nicer car than my fiancé who dumped me with no warning before I was drafted into the military. Now, with my younger and prettier days behind me, I have mellowed to what is really important in life. My daughter, grandkids and wife who support me.  At the age of seventy three my own personal revenge is staying healthy enough to appreciate my gender journey and what I learned from it. 

 

Being Transgender Nearly Killed Me

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash

Even though I was able to never convince myself I was going through any sort of a cross dressing phase, I finally moved on in my life. By moving on I should say I went through several of the other gender dysphoric questions I faced such as was I addicted to the clothes all the way to was I facing many more gender issues such as being transgender. For reasons only I could answer, being transgender was the scariest proposition of them all. Certainly, thinking I had a part time hobby of being a cross dresser was less threatening to me. 

Through it all, I never turned back and ended up moving more and more towards knowing the inevitable, I was a feminine person and had been one all along. Being the hard headed person I was, I continued to do my best to carve out a male life. But, the more success I had doing it just made me more unhappy. Somehow, someway deep down I felt there had to be more. Another problem I had was the more I tried to test the public as a woman, the more successful I was. The more I did as my hidden self, the more I wanted to do. An example was my wife and I finally came to an agreement I could go and get a motel room, change into my feminine self and explore the world one day a week. Even that didn't end up being enough to satisfy my drive to femininity. What I did was start sneaking out behind her back any chance I got and ending up trying to lie my way out of it if I was caught. Which I was on a fairly regular basis. The whole process was very stressful because in the rest of my life I had prided myself on my honesty. 

Still I didn't stop until I reached the point where I had falsely tried to convince myself I could live part time as both binary genders, male and female. To be brief, the process nearly killed me. I went to the point of being caught one night by my wife and we had a massive fight. I decided to sleep away from her on the downstairs sofa but before I did, I was feeling so bad I took a full bottle of my anti depressants and washed them down with a bottle of Jägermeister liquor. Fortunately the mixture didn't kill me and I don't think my wife ever found out I tried suicide. 

Since that attempt many years ago, with the help of therapy, medication and many close friends, I have been able to put self harm in my past. As far as my wife went, before her passing, I was able to grow a beard and go back to acting like I was a guy for six hard months. Her passing was totally unexpected and sudden from a heart attack and when she died it opened the door for my feminine self to finally be given a chance to take over. Not the ideal way to do it but the opportunity was there and one night I finally accepted the fact I was transgender and had been my whole life. Suddenly, all the other self destructive episodes of my life became clear. All the times I was driving recklessly trying to cheat death all the way to drinking way too much to mask my gender pain, all made sense. 

Most certainly being transgender nearly killed me but it didn't quite succeed. Leading me to a happy, satisfied life as a transgender woman living my truth. I will forever wish though I had not been so stubborn in hanging on to my old male life.   

It's All About the Hair

When I was very young the thought of ever being able to afford a nice, quality wig was the impossible dream. Since I was forced into the fashionable boy haircuts of the day ( a short burr or crew cut), I couldn't even begin to approximate having girls hair when I dressed up. I can't even remember wearing a towel around my head to look more feminine. Somehow, I made do until years later I was able to buy the first wig of my dreams, a sleek shoulder length blond hair piece I loved. In fact I think I bought it originally for my first fiancé and then managed to "inherent" it from her when we broke up. Something like you keep the ring and I will keep the wig. Definite priorities, right?

After I maintained ownership, that hairpiece managed to travel with me around the country when I was able to hide it in my baggage. I learned to be very skillful as I packed a small "collection" of women's clothes with my regular wardrobe. Now, as I fast forward several years to another time in my life, I found myself with enough freedom and financial resources to try and buy several ill advised wigs. I conservatively estimate I bought ten in a years time and of which, only two should have been worn in public. 

Finally, after I started hormone replacement therapy, my own hair quickly grew to a point where I could follow my daughter's lead and go to her salon and have it styled. At that point I felt I was truly making serious advances in my MtF gender transition. I loved fixing my own hair but it was an experience having to learn to take care of the back of my head also. No longer did I just have to rely on turning a wig head around and brushing it out. Paula, from the "Paula's Place" blog wrote in and commented on her similar experience:

Photo Courtesy 
Paula Godwin

"I note your comments about acting, there was a moment when I abandoned the use of a wig, for the first tie I felt as though I wasn't in costume and wasn't playing apart. I was dressing as a woman, I wasn't pretending to be woman, I simply was a woman, I was me. Additionally that was when I first started to understand that in all those (oh so many) preceding years I had been playing a part ~ I had been pretending to be a man. Now I could start being me instead of playing the part society expected of me."

Thank you Paula. I agree with your comment on so many levels. The blessings bestowed on me from being able to undergo HRT therapy among other things accelerated my hair growth and I was fortunate not to have any vestiges of male pattern baldness. 

The "costume" comment resonated with me also. Very quickly, being able to do away with wigs and wear my own hair helped me with my gender dysphoria. In other words, I was able to settle in physically to being my authentic self. 

I too was able to convince myself that all those years of being a cross dresser, I had it all wrong. I wasn't cross dressing as a woman. I was fooling myself and was cross dressing like a man.