The Path

Over the years here in Cyrsti’s Condo I have been amazed how many of the like minded transgender women I have encountered followed the same transition path as I did. Then again, I have ran into many trans women with totally different paths.

I have written a number of times how I used athletics to cover up the fact I really preferred being a girl. For example, being a football player kept the bullies away. Enough said. Perhaps what I haven’t written so much about was my military service. Unlike so many others, I didn’t voluntarily join the Army to make me a man, I was drafted during the Vietnam War. Guess what, my time served still didn’t help me to stay in my male closet. It only helped to reinforce what I already knew, I had a woman lurking to experience the world. In fact, the military provided me the opportunity to come out of my closet to three close friends for the first time in my life. When I told them I was a transvestite.

Now we can fast forward through all the years of Halloween parties being the only opportunity to leave the closet and experience the world as my girl self.

In the 1980’s was the first time I could be aggressive and force my gender closet open and sample the world as a woman. As with any other tremendously difficult endeavor, my path had it’s ups and downs. I was frustrated when I felt I was taking one step forward then two steps back. For example, when I felt I looked the feminine part, I would do something such as twist my ankle in heels.