I am isolated from the trans community in my not online life. I present as female 24/7/365 even though I have never taken hormones, had surgery, or had counseling services for being trans. I would like to do all these things, but my current Medicare Insurance makes a point of not covering trans care, and I can't afford the 35 dollar an appointment fee for office calls for counseling. I have told my medical doctor I am trans and my pharmacist.
I just say that I pronounce my first name of Michael as Michelle. I have never had any trouble voting, when called to jury duty, or getting my senior bus pass, with being my female self, and showing the authorities my driver's licences with a male designation. In fact the transportation service allowed me to use female as my identity, on my bus pass, even though my driver's license said male. Maybe I am just another crazy person in Florida, or I am so non-threatening or inconsequential, that no one cares. Who knows? Or maybe I have always given off female vibrations, even though, I have a male voice, which I have trouble altering. A few males even give me female preferences when getting on the bus. Sometimes I am really confused because sometimes, I am accepted, as not possibly being anything other than a lady, but in the next instant I am a male crossdresser and addressed with male pronouns which the clerk acting like it's normal to see me dressed this way.
Being 68 and a senior citizen, I am becoming more invisible anyway. My family looks at me as being a crossdresser, which I am not, and accepts me going everywhere dressed as a woman. I just don't want to argue about it anyway.
I have gone to counseling for depression and told that counselor I was trans. She just listened to me ramble on and said it sounded like I was dealing well with life, which left me feeling why am I talking to her. It seemed like a waste of time. She was not qualified to prescribe hormones anyway.
I can only identify myself as a female and even prefer to refer to myself in terms of female social roles, such as a lady, or grandma. Facebook lists me as the mother of my children because I identify myself there as a transsexual woman, but being a female who has fathered the children, I am not sure of how to refer to myself personally to my children, maybe ma pa. Most of them are adults and live on the West Coast while I live on the East Coast so it is not a problem in everyday life, except to my 11-year-old at home.
I can make it on Social Security because my kid also gets half of the benefits I would have gotten if I had retired at 66 instead of 62. When he ages out I will be poorer. But my now family is five people with the two older girls 17 and 25 working. The 25-year-old contributes to expenses, but not as much as it would be if she was living on her own. They work for minimum wage.
At 68, sort of, I sit here figuring that at the most I have 20 years left in my live. It would make me 88 and if I make it until then it will be well I am here this year but who knows the next. So every day that I don't physically transition, makes it one less day, that I will live post op whenever it happens.
Now I am a Scorpio, and the only reason, I mention that, it that on Pinterest, when people post the profile of a Scorpio, it sort of fits, how I am carrying on this post.
I get called sir and madam, and have not been challenged in the ladies' restroom, even when the female members of my family call me Michael and refer to me as he. I am very comfortable shopping for women's clothing and uncomfortable shopping for men's. I have no problems going to the ladies' restroom, but, I can't bring myself to enter the men's.
My partner's ex took off 12 years ago and is a post op woman, and my partner still refers to her as he, so I am not going to argue. Her 17-year-old daughter who lives with us defends her school trans friends right to her gender identity but will not accept mine, because she follows her mother's lead. But we have been together 12 going on 13 years.
So life is not simple especially if you live the first 53 years as a dyke female presenting as a male, to accept that you are really a feminine female. Then it takes and other 9 years to be open to everyone about who you really are and get rid of all of your male clothing except for some shoes (male size 13, female size 15, shoe size, yet only 5'6" tall). It's hard to buy size 13 male shoes these days at the cheap shoe stores.
This is my life and how I am coping and if it helps anyone with their life or perspective, it will make me happy.
To the trans ladies who are only accepted as cis ladies, I thought that one of the points of transitioning was to so adapted that everyone would think you were a cis lady. So what's the beef!
I am just gambling on the concept that if all everyone ever sees me as is a lady, that I will be accepted as one. Having been a school teacher most of my adult life teaching as a dyke female presenting as a male, the trans part of me will always be there no matter how I eventually change my body to be more lady like. On the side cis women have problems with me referring to myself as a dyke female, when they can only accept me as a male, they think I am a male trying to co-op their identity, whereas, I am only as a trans woman trying to describe who I was then.
I feel that there are many emotional and social boundaries that I have crossed in becoming the lady that I am. I feel that accepting yourself, getting rid of all of your fears about being yourself and being comfortable about being yourself, and not being comfortable with not being yourself as some of the major steps in transitioning even when you cannot make the physical changes. Living the social roles in your public and private life of your gender identity are really important. And even more important is living your life in such a way that it changes socially what it means to be a man or a woman or nonsexed or whatever your gender identity is.
When I look back at my life I see that lived out the social roles of being a woman, long before I ever accepted privately and publically that I am a lady and have always been a lady.
