Jessie on right with Tom from the image archives. Back in the so-called simpler days when I was growing up, putting on a dress, adding makeup and acting like a girl was quite the rush. The mirror meant everything to me and I couldn't wait to show myself out to it again and again. It took me awhile to grasp the idea I wanted to do and be more than just a girl in the mirror. I wanted to be the girl. It was my earliest fundamental idea I was so much more than just a casual cross dresser, if the knowledge had been available to me, I would have labeled myself as transgender or at ..read more

  Image from Amy Kate on UnSplash I graduated from high school way back in 1967 and where I went to school in Ohio, going to prom was a big deal. I was very shy and as it turned out my junior year in high school prom was my first date with a girl ever. I didn't even really ask my date out, it was pre-arranged by her friends who knew she did not have a date nor did I. So I was set up for success.  Of course success for me was scary. I had no idea how I could ever spend an entire evening with a girl. What would I say? How would I even communicate? The only real interactions ..read more

  Pow Wow Image from the Jessie Hart Archives.  In a previous post I promised to write about the times I was sexually harassed as a transgender woman.  The first time I experienced harassment came when I attended a nearby mixer/party with my second wife in Columbus, Ohio. The parties were relatively small but very diverse group. Anyone from cross dressers to transsexuals headed for gender surgery to male admirers attended.  To begin with, my wife did not approve of the outfit I was wearing, saying it was way too short to start with. Of course I did not listen to h ..read more

Image from Jurien Huggins on UnSplash As I transitioned from a male to a feminine life, I often looked back at my life as a guy to determine if indeed I was a toxic male in any way.  Of course I immediately mentally recoiled when I thought I could be toxic towards women in any way. After all I had spent a considerable amount of time worshipping the women around me, wondering how it would be to experience just for an instance being a girl. How come I couldn't wear the pretty clothes and be the gender who was so admired by the other. The problem with me was, I went way past just a ..read more

Image from Chad Walton on UnSplash. For nearly a half a century, I hid behind the idea I was nothing more than a cross dresser who liked to wear women's makeup and fashion. What harm was I really doing? The answer is, the only harm I was doing was to myself.   Had I known all I was doing was to prepare myself to transition into a transgender woman later in life, I may had approached the process in a different light. The problem was, everything seemed to be so life and death serious. Primarily since I was locked into a very lonely, dark gender closet. I had no role model ..read more

Image from Alysha Rosly  on UnSplash     I make no secret of my Bi-Polar mental condition which went undiagnosed for a good part of my younger life.  Ironically, it was my first gender therapist who connected the dots and determined my condition when I told her I often spent days struggling to even get myself out of bed. I just thought I was riding the waves of gender dysphoria  which kept me so depressed or elevated when I was experiencing brief moments of gender euphoria. During this time of my life, I was far from being the easiest person in the world to li ..read more

Image from Grae Phillips  on Geraldo television show.  If the truth be known, all the way back when I was a kid struggling to understand what gender I was on any given day, I would have been known as gender fluid.  Of course, gender fluid was a term which hadn't been invented yet. Anyone who was interested in cross dressing was branded as being a transvestite and even worse labeled as being mentally ill. In the middle of my gender vacuum, even I knew well enough I was not mentally ill just because I wanted to wear makeup and dresses. I hid my desires and hoped for the ..read more

  From the Archives, Club Diversity. Columbus  Ohio For some unknown reason, I have been remembering more and more what my gender therapist told me so long ago, she couldn't do anything concerning me wanting to be a woman. Now I don't remember if she told me I could not do anything about it either.  If she did and had I listened, I would have saved myself so much inner torment over the years from my gender dysphoria. At the time my male self was not even close to being ready to give up any claims to his life which at the time was becoming relatively successful. After a ..read more

From the Jessie Hart Archives. I am in the middle of two friends. It's no wonder so many women don't trust a transgender woman's desire to play in their sandbox. In my case, it took me years to understand what my second wife was trying to tell me about being accepted as a woman in any form. It took more than just appearing convincingly as a woman to come closer to being one. I was far away from paying my dues and for the most part, she was against me doing it. So, I needed to step out on my own to discover the world on my own. Thanks to all the years of practice in front of th ..read more

Image from Jeshoots.com.  When someone writes or says something about me being a transgender woman being a choice, I have to laugh.  I'm sure those of you who have gone through life the way I have with gender issues would agree. Primarily because we have given up so much to cross the gender frontier. Primarily, I am referring to losing family, spouses, employment and gender privileges to transition. Just losing male privileges alone is a major issue. Very quickly I discovered I lost a portion of my intelligence when by accident I became involved in a conversation with sever ..read more