I have decided to break my pre transition time into two post the the first from birth to July 1971 or the Port Huron years and the second the adult years.
I can remember in kindergarten and my mom saying “you are so handsome.” I was repulsed by the word, ‘handsome’. I didn’t k now why but I was. I did not understand why, I just knew it made me cringe. I had the fortune of going from first to fourth grade in a four classroom building, and had the same classmates for all four years. This was comforting in that we basically went through those four years together. We had developed friendships that went from year to year. We knew our classmates as well as we knew our family. The people you went to second grade with would be the people that you went to third grade with. In the summer between the fourth and fifth grades we moved to the south side of town. I then went to an elementary school that had five fifth-grade classrooms, and I knew no one in class. That did not stop me because of my familiarity with the people I had gone through the last four years with. I was very comfortable being myself. I made friends and I enjoyed a lot of really good times. Things were beginning to change and I didn’t understand. I didn’t know that other people were not experiencing things like I was . This was in preparation of my perfect storm – middle school, puberty, and no longer fitting in.
Sixth grade was where it all fell apart. I had a teacher who had very strong beliefs about what a boy should be and should not be. All of my life I had long fingernails, but in the sixth grade my teacher did not believe that boys should have fingernails longer than the tips of their fingers. Her way of making this point was to cut my fingernails in front of the entire class. I was embarrassed to say the least. But I hated having short fingernails. She didn’t believe that if you had pants that required a belt, you could wear them unbelted. So one day she brought in a piece of rope and tied around my pants – again very embarrassing! It was at this point that puberty started to affect me. My grades dropped and at a parent-teacher conference my teacher suggested that I go to a mental health and child guidance clinic.
So every Wednesday afternoon for the next two years I went and saw a counselor. I don’t know what the outcome of that was, but the cost alone was not producing any positive results. My grades continued to drop, and so it was determined that I should quit going. I don’t know what they discussed with my mother during those sessions. I just know the results were not what people wanted. It was about this time that my grandmother was no longer able to coherently live on her own day-to-day. My parents put her in a nursing home and my dad and I were heading to grandma’s house to clean it out. I said something in the car I don’t know what it was I said. I don’t know how I said it. But my dad pulled the car over and told me he, “wasn’t going to raise a f#*king queer”. I have since realized his reaction was fear for my safety. He understood that homosexuals were put in insane asylums and given electroshock therapy, and he wanted me to avoid that if at all possible. Keep in mind we’re talking 1963 to 1964. Much of what we know today was not widely spoken of as fact back then.
One of the more restrictive policies at the time was that ‘boys’ had to take shop and ‘girls’ took home economics. I wanted to take home economics. This was reinforced in the seventh grade when those who were in home economics, got to wear what they made in the sewing portion of the class. All the girls had made jumpers and wore them on the same day. I really wanted to make a jumper and wear it at school. But I was forced into taking shop, which I hated.
I really did want to learn how to cook and how to sew. I did not think of it as ‘girly’ things or ‘sissy’ things – just stuff I wanted to do. It was in junior high school that I learned rather quickly to parse my words so I did not say anything that would get me attention for the wrong reasons. I began to realize that my way of thinking was not in line with the other guys. In classes where we were working I was very comfortable. Between classes and at lunch, I had to be very careful. I took beginning band two years in a row. I could not make the right music either time.
In the seventh grade when we went into the band room, we were required to go into the instrument room and get our instruments. I did not need to because I played the tuba and it was set up on a special chair. But for some reason, I went in just like everybody else on one day. One of the eighth-graders grabbed my head and put it between his legs and laughed. I knew that I should be embarrassed, but I did not understand why. As I said earlier, I was naïve.
It was also in junior high school that in one class, I found myself repulsed by the guy who sat behind me but I was also strangely attracted to him. I came to realize later that I had a crush on him. I successfully avoided taking gym. For some reason I took it in sixth grade but was able to avoid it in seventh and eighth, which made me just happy.
I felt awkward through most of my junior high school years. My mother said that I retreated into my shell. I was not outgoing, or at least not out going as I had previously been. I came home and went right to my room. I did not want to talk about my school day. History class was a joy, English was a nightmare. The worst words I could hear about any given test was the phrase, “Spelling counts.” I knew I would not get the grade based on my knowledge but based on my inability to spell. This allowed my teachers and parents to determine I was lazy. They seemed to know I had the basic intelligence, but suspected that I didn’t put in the effort because my English was atrocious & my spelling was miserable.
I did not understand the word ‘study’. If I had read it, I knew it – I just couldn’t spell it. So, when someone asked, “Have you studied for the test?” my answer was always, “No.” I did not know what studying was. I read it, I knew it. But then when I did less than great performance, it was assumed to be because I hadn’t studied because I was lazy. This stigma stayed with me through high school. Even in college I never studied, if I read something, I knew it. If the exam was oral, true/false, or multiple choice I aced it; however, if it required written answers or worse yet essay, I failed miserably.
Today people claim, and I don’t deny it, that I have a photographic memory. If I read something, I know and remember it. The problem is sometimes what I read is not what is written. It’s that dyslexic thing again. Nonetheless, telling me I was lazy was not a good reinforcement (as we would say today), but it was what it was.
High school was a time where I really began to want things for me to be more like normal people. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to have a social life. But every time I tried, it blew up in my face. Everyone had a girlfriend. I wanted a girlfriend, that is, someone who I could socialize with and be considered normal. When guys in high school looked at girls they were noticing bodies and physical features. I noticed their clothes, their makeup, and how they would all fit together.
When I was in high school, the micro-miniskirt was in fashion. The dress school policy was that no skirt could be more than 4 inches above the knee. Guys would come in and say, “Do you see the skirt on so-and-so, noticing how much leg was exposed. I was not into seeing how much leg was exposed, I was into the style. How it would fit and did it look right I knew that I was not thinking along the same lines as the other guys. I was thinking weird kinds of thoughts compared to everyone else. This is how I knew that I had to watch what I said every time I tried to socially engage with my peers. I would end up wanting to get out of the situation as fast as I could. I would say something that would be totally stupid in everyone else’s mind.
I was miserable. To make matters worse, at about age 15 or 16, I started getting up early in the morning before anyone else was awake and going downstairs. I put on one of my mother dresses, her only pair of high heels and her lipstick, which was the only makeup that she. I would then sneak downstairs in the basement and sit on a couch and read, or think, or just be comfortable with myself for between 20 and 30 min. I had to put everything back before anyone else awoke.
Typically, the next person awake was my mother. Lucky for me she would of course go downstairs to the only bathroom we had in the house and do what she did in the morning to get ready. So I had time to return her shoes and dress to the closet. But before I went back up to the first floor, I would have to take the lipstick off. This was accomplished by me wiping my lips off with one of the towels in that dirty clothes barrel at the bottom of the laundry chute. Here is where either my naïveté, or stupidity depending on how you look at it, worked. My assumption was that once I wiped the lipstick off no one would know. However, I’m sure that when my mother did laundry she would notice lipstick on the towels. She never said a thing. But she knew, and I believe she knew who.
Anyway I would get up then go get dressed and go off to school or work or whatever I was going to do for the day. I was blissful in the knowledge that no one knew that I spent time in a dress and heels in the wee hours of the morning. It was not until years later that I figured out my mother knew because of the ‘lipstick’ evidence I left behind.
This went on at least three or four times a week during my junior and senior years in high school and my one year of college. So, while I would have at the time denied that this was pointing to non-straight male behavior it was, in fact, a very large sign. I would go to school and act ‘normal.’ The cool thing about people that age is that they are all so tied up in their own stuff that, no one would have thought that this was going on.
I gravitated toward female friends, but none in the terms of a girlfriend. I was in the adult church choir and one day a very good-looking high school freshman who was also in the choir started a conversation with me. We talked about a lot of things and she asked me if I wanted to go out with her. I was so excited about this that I immediately said, “Yes.” I went to her house and her father drove us to the auditorium where the movie was at. It was once we were there that I found out I was the diversion. She was there to meet her real boyfriend who was black; and her parents would never have approved. . That relationship lasted just one date.
I was not ready to come to the terms with the knowledge that, in reality, I was not going to be your typical ‘manly’ kind of guy. I have said on many occasions that there were signs all over the place. I just didn’t know how to read them. In my senior year of high school, I started dating the woman whom I eventually would marry, and with whom I would father five kids. She had graduated from high school and was in college. So we dated and went to my senior prom, and then attended college together – even had one class together.
In college I had a class where there was one woman who wore mid-calf skirts every day. I was totally enamored with her clothing choices. I cannot tell you what she her face looked like – just her clothes. I cannot tell you what her body type, was but I do remember the clothes she wore. At the end of my freshman year academically I was going nowhere, so I made the decision to leave school, join the military, and see if I could get things in the proper order.

I was at the grocery store the other day and the cashier asked if I knew Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner. I answered, “not personally.” As much as I think I pass, my voice typically gives it away but I know this young 20 something young lady had ‘made me.’ She then asked if I did my own nails and makeup. I replied, “No and yes.” She was fascinated with Caitlyn and wanted to ask a million questions, much to the chagrin of the customers behind me in line. She asked if I minded her questions and I said no, I am always willing to educate anyone who is genuinely curious. She then wanted to know my whole history and I said there was not enough time but that. I started my transition about 11 years ago but there was much more to the story. I did say that Caitlyn Jenner started a conversation but is not like 99% of transgendered people. Caitlyn was living as a man on January 1^st and within 6 months is on the cover of Vanity Fair. She had the resources to undergo a 10-hour surgery for facial feminization, and a closet of designer clothes.

Thus it is a Segue for my story.

If I compare my story to that of Caitlyn Jenner there are similarities, just like there are similarities to Kristen Beck, and many others who have transitioned later in life. I am within 3 years of Kaitlyn’s age. I would like everyone who knows me to read this – all of it. Most will not, but I do have to write it so it is understood. Many people have thought this was a spur of the moment thing but I want anyone who wants to know this has been a life long struggle and people besides me need to know.

I started out young and naïve. My assumption early in life was that I was just like everyone else. I must admit I had a great childhood, wonderful parents and great siblings. My parents were amazing! I did not know we were poor the whole time growing up. My parents never went to high school, but they had a whole lot of intelligence and challenged us to always do more and to know more. My father would have discussions at the dinner table about current events and engage us in them. Then when we started to understand his opinion on the subject, he would change it 180°. From that I learned to look at and understand both sides of an argument. Only then can you know your opinion fully expresses your belief given the facts you know. My mother read to us every night usually from the same book so we got to know the stories pretty good.

I had one older brother and 9 younger siblings. As I said, I was just like everyone else. My older brother, Dan, was my mentor of sorts. He blazed the trail of life and I got to follow along a couple of years later. I remember doing most things with Dan. We went to an elementary school with just 4 rooms – Grades 1-4. So when I was in first grade, he was in third. When I got to Jr High School (6^th grade), he was in 8^th. When I got to be a freshman in High School, he was a junior. But more importantly there were activities outside of school we did together. We were on the same baseball team; we were in scouts together; and we were on the swimming team together. We learned how to play chess together (from someone who did not quite know all of the rules correctly)

My next younger sibling was my brother, Gary. There was a certain amount of sibling rivalry between Gary and me. I’m sure Gary never recognized it. Gary was charismatic, musical, and told everyone he was going to be President of the United States. This endeared him or should I say made him very popular amongst the adults. So at this point, historically speaking, I felt like John Adams – right between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The more I tried for the status of Gary or Dan, the less I succeeded. I tried to be witty, but it just didn’t have the same effect as when those two were witty. Another drawback for me, if you will, is that I’m dyslexic. It was not something that was being diagnosed at the time, but it prevented me from excelling in several academic areas including spelling, English, and math.

All that is written before this paragraph is a brief explanation of everything in my life with the exception of my gender dysphoria. What follows is my story of the gender dysphoria which, like dyslexia, was undiagnosed in those years. In both cases, knowledge of both the dyslexia and the gender dysphoria were not widely known. When I approached what we now call middle school (it was junior high school back in the day), a perfect storm was coming. I realized that I was not like everyone else. The dyslexia became more pronounced, so I went from about a 3.0 grade-point-average to about a1.7.

Here is my story broken into several chronological sequences. My next posting will be from as far back as I can remember to when I started my transition. The installment after that will be the story of my transition to date the highlights and hopefully funny sometimes like I said I was very naïve. After that I will post things about what is going on and maybe report things I have put on the web elsewhere, it will not always be about being transgendered but it will always be from me or at least my point of view. So sit back and enjoy the flight!