Sex Versus Gender

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Jessie Hart Archives

One of the main problems a transgender person faces is the confusion we face in the world over the difference between sex and gender.

My easiest explanation to a "civilian" is sex is between the legs and gender is between the ears. It is the primary reason I chose not to undergo any serious gender realignment surgeries. I just didn't need any reinforcement from my body to reinforce what was my brain was already telling me. Even still, on occasion I have a difficult time explaining to the average person I am transgender but not gay. 

Some would say I was lucky to be able to experience my sexuality the way I did. Back in the day when I was exploring coming out as a trans woman, the trendy act to follow was to find a man you could be at his side so you could validate yourself as a woman. I know I felt the same way, all the way to having several dates with men. Including one transgender man. As I was seriously considering my sexuality at that point, I began to notice I was attracting much more attention from women than from men. Naturally, I was more at ease dealing with women due to a lifetime of experience, so the entire experience made my life easier and very much more fun. Plus I was never good at really having any close male friends in my life and I didn't have to start now. Perhaps the biggest factors I faced when I made women friends was they taught me tons of ideas on how to survive in their world.

Also what most "civilians" don't understand is, both gender and sex are on spectrums. Even though they refuse to admit it, very few individuals are totally straight or gay and fall into a middle point. With new understandings of the gender spectrum we have discovered new terms such as "gender fluid" or "non-binary" humans. It all makes perfect sense for the transgender women or trans men who don't feel completely as one gender or the other on any given day. The whole process makes it very difficult for the people who simplistically attempt to put everyone into neat little  gender corners. The old square peg in the square hole theory. It is basically too complex for many to understand

Since I had never really experienced any sort of a sexual spark when it came to my dealings with men, I was fortunate when I transitioned. Even though there were the men I mentioned dating, I didn't really have any sexual feelings towards them. Plus the hormone replacement therapy I was under, effectively reduced any sexual drive I used to have to the bare minimum.  So if I ever did have to become sexually active again, I would have to get creative. To the point, I even had one female acquaintance tell me I better get a banana to practice. I didn't have to because I never became that close to having a male friend.

On the other hand, I cherished the time I spent with my women friends. They helped me blossom into the person I am today. Speaking of cherish, my days of being sexually active as a man helped to reproduce my daughter whom I love very much and made the time of gender torment I was going through so worth it. It turned out I was on the gender spectrum as a woman and fought it all the way and I never had much choice as far as the sex aspect happened. I never had to really experience the fact I wasn't into men and my sex versus gender was far apart.

 

Working with the Public

 

Image from Brooke Cagle
on UnSsplash

This week I have had several occasions to do a bit of out reach in the community.

One was a meeting I went to for the Greater Cincinnati Alzheimer's Association. I serve on the diversity council and yesterday was my second meeting. During the meeting I told them I was able to write an article for the support group (transgender and cross dresser) concerning my activities on the diversity council. Plus, I also invited any other interested members in the group a chance to participate. And, to increase the reach of my blog, I am sharing one post a month to the group's membership publication.  

During the meeting yesterday I was surprised with the question of just exactly what was the function of the support group I am representing. Since I was caught off guard, I needed to explain to civilians the group provided a connection for transgender women and men as well as cross dressers who are mostly in the closet. I tried to condense my reply so that everyone could understand. In the process, I also used an example from my own family about a recent encounter I had with an VA insurance sales person.

It all started during a virtual meeting with the representative who never questioned my gender. By not outing myself as transgender, I unknowingly set her up for failure when she overstepped her boundaries and called my daughter because she is named as a beneficiary. In my defense, I saw no reason for her to call her at all but she did. The problem arose when the insurance person referred to me as "he" twice. For insurance purposes, since I have had no surgeries, I still am a "he" but not to my daughter. My daughter is especially sensitive to gender pronouns because she has a transgender child of her own and is a fierce ally. What eventually happened was I called the woman and asked her what exactly was she doing calling my daughter anyhow and I was transgender. Naturally, since she is trying to sell me something, she profusely apologized and maybe learned a gender lesson. 

For the group, I tried to keep my explanation brief and impactful so they could understand a little of the family dynamics which can extend into elderly care. Especially when it comes to Alzheimer's. I have been reassured the larger group has guidelines for treatment of the LGBT community but as we all know, the "T" can get lost in the overall shuffle. So maybe I can be a voice in the darkness for change.

The other outreach meeting I have this week is meeting six of my Veterans Administration group virtual LGBTQ get together. Once you join, participation is mandatory and is for the entire LGBT community so we have the full range of individuals from transgender to gay men to lesbian women. It makes for an interesting discussion at times when we all discover we share many of the same problems when it comes to dealing with the public and the VA. 

My overall goal of participating in both groups is to improve my outreach skills and do a very small part to help us all.

It's all In the Preparation

 

Anniversary Selfie from the
Jessie Hart Archives

Anyway you slice it, crossing the gender border to your authentic self is a huge task which takes a ton of work.

First of all you have to attempt to solve the problem of securing and applying makeup and clothes.  When I started I couldn't even paint my model cars well let alone my face. More times than not I ended up looking like a clown. It took me so long to be able to take my own meager funds and then sneak out to a store to buy my own cosmetics. The whole process was one of the scariest moments of my young life. To this day, I don't know how I pulled it off with my Dad working just  a block down the street. But I did and managed to learn the preparation needed to much later on leave my closet and join the world as a transgender woman. Of course with my wardrobe, again the same was true. I needed to mix and match whatever clothing items I could to do the best I could until I could afford to do better.

Perhaps two of the most beneficial things I did to further my transition was to take care of my skin and lose weight. Little did I realize, when I completed my daily hated shaving, I was actually helping my outward appearance, including when I applied a moisturizer when I did it. I am a believer it all helped when I began my hormone replacement therapy and my skin started to naturally soften anyhow. It was similar to going through puberty again. Just reversed from when I did I as a male growing up. The harsh, hated angles I acquired started to soften which made it so much easier for me to present to the world as a transgender woman.

The other main thing I did to further my male to female gender transition was to lose weight. In fact, I was able to lose nearly fifty pounds when I began to seriously attempt to the public's eye and begin to seriously go out. Of course it made finding and wearing fashionable clothes easer to find. It turned out, it was all in the preparation as I shopped for just the right accessory to go with just the right outfit. Fairly quickly, I faced the problem of over dressing the other women around me and needed to be careful if I wanted to blend in and not cause too much attention to me. Because, even with losing the weight, I still was a fairly large bodied woman and needed to do my best to present around the fact I had been subjected to testosterone poisoning in my past. 

Through it all, I learned again what I already knew. Being a woman meant joining the high maintenance gender and everything I thought I knew about being feminine had to be re-learned. A fact my second wife tried to tell me when what was left of my stubborn male ego wouldn't listen to her. When she told me I made a terrible woman, she wasn't talking about my appearance. Which turned out to be very difficult in one sense yet was the easiest  part of my transition in another. 

Often I wonder what it would have been like if I had had the opportunity to grow up as my chosen gender. To have had the peer pressure to look and act a certain way. More than likely, the grass would not have been as green as I think it would have been. Mainly because I think my Mom would have put increased pressure on me to conform to her world. Whatever the case, I think preparation would have been the key. Having more of it at an early age would have certainly helped.