I write this piece from the perspective of a part time girl who has not had the benefit of HRT or SRS or FFS or any of the medical aids than can help TS women alter their exteriors to match their interiors. If I could sit in those women’s seats perhaps my story would be different. Nevertheless I feel I can accurately represent the expectations of any transgender woman who spends their life flipping the switch from male to female mode and back as I do.:)

As transgender women we go through stages of goals and expectations as we travel on our respective journeys. Once we have decided that we must share our femme persona with the world, we all dream of going out and ‘passing’ as genetic women. I think we all chase this dream for two primary reasons. The first is safety, the fear of being discovered, scandalized and humiliated. The second is validation of being accepted as the women many of us believe we are inside.

When I first started going out to mainstream places, my goal was to blend in and not be noticed by anyone I feared would start pointing fingers at me and laughing. I was amazed and delighted that I could wander silently among groups of people in malls or restaurants without anyone taking the slightest notice of me. My early paranoia and fear was replaced by a haughty sense of invincibility; the feeling that I was utterly, convincingly 100% passable. My vanity certainly had no problem accepting this notion...:).

As my goals changed and expanded with my experience, it was no longer enough for me to go out and wander silently and invisibly among people who were conversing, laughing and enjoying life to the fullest. I wanted not to hide among them anymore. I wanted to join, laugh, converse and live life with them. As I began to engage normally and socially with people I realized that many of them were fully aware that I was not a genetic woman, that I was indeed transgender. This realization came grudgingly and not without a lot of accompanying pain and self doubt. It was as if someone had let all the air out of my fantasy balloon.:)

The incidents that confirmed people’s realization of who and what I was were not all negative. In fact very few were negative. Only a handful of people were rude or mean spirited. Many of the people who read me as TG were very kind and supportive. Most were pleasant and curious. I began to realize that for every TG woman, there would be four groups of people she would meet: those who thought she was GG, those who were not sure, those who knew she was TG and accepted/did not care and a very small minority who were mean or had a good laugh at your expense.

I also noticed something else about myself and how I perceived who I was. I began to realize that the joy of living as a transgender woman wasn’t about going out and passing as a genetic woman. It was about being proud of being transgender and cognizant that this did not preclude you from bring vibrant, attractive, sexy and totally feminine to the outside world. It was about accepting who you are and daring to live and experience life as the woman you want and have a right to be. It was about looking your best and going out and exuding the class and confidence that the most of the world respects from any woman, GG or TG.

I learned that the pain of any negative comment was worth enduring and easily offset by all the times you did pass as genetic or all the times a classy and elegant GG would come up and say “you look great girlfriend, well done..!” I learned that transgender women were treated as women by the outside world as long as you held your head high, kept your confidence and let your smile be both your primary asset and your primary weapon.

I learned that going out and grabbing the life you want as a woman was worth any pain you might endure. Closets are for clothes. They aren’t meant to hide people and dreams.