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If you would have asked me when I was young what I really wanted to be when I grew up, the honest answer would have been to be a woman. That’s right. When all the other boys my age wanted to be sports stars, corporate presidents or whatever, my goal was so simple yet so difficult. Somehow I needed to lead a feminine lifestyle.
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Jessie Hart
How to arrive there was the problem. The first hassle I ran into was my impending date with the Vietnam war military draft. I tried to outrun the draft as long as I could by attending and graduating college but was finally caught when my draft lottery number came up to 23. Which meant my fate was sealed. I immediately began looking for the military branch which offered a job classification as close as possible to the job I was doing when I went to college. I worked at a local small radio station which was owned by a fairly powerful congressman. Through his influence, I was able to secure a spot in the Army’s Defense Information School which in turn enabled me to be eligible to work in the American Forces Radio and Television system. This was very fortunate of course but none of it served to help me to achieve my goal of being a transgender woman.
After the Army I was able to resume my journey in earnest. This was my time to explore living a feminine lifestyle out of the mirror by sneaking out of the house when I could all the way to the exciting Halloween parties I went to. Over this period of time I learned many lessons the hard way but on the other…
