Seeking Your Transgender Reality

The Desperate Need for Female Moments

I find myself aggressively seeking female moments anyway I can.

I am still stealth, walking about publicly as male. Despite four years of female hormones and a 40DD chest, I have not physically changed enough to confuse strangers regarding my gender. They still see a “man”.

I am currently stuck in the male/female middle ground. I have plenty of male input. A beard, receding hair, male clothes and a deep male voice complete the male outfit. My female input is desperately minimal. My breasts, that are still well hidden, are my only female constant. I can’t wear makeup in public and my shoes and clothes scream “male”. I can’t even wear a bra, assuming that I wanted to, because the straps would be a huge give away. Besides I would look like a creepy guy if I did.

I need more physical female validation.

So I get it buying stuff, stuff that I can’t publicly use but the experience of buying the stuff makes me feel happy. I have already documented my joy of the perfect bra hunt.

I loved that the woman salesperson treated me as a woman and helped me as a woman. I now have six bras that I can’t wear. My current clothing “go to” is shopping and buying online. The joy is less satisfying than shopping in a store but going to the women's dressing room and possibly be being rejected (fear of being the “creepy guy”) would be very upsetting. I am now reaching the limit of storing clothes that I can’t wear outside. I periodically still purge elements of my wardrobe…sadly.

I have recently graduated from buying makeup at a Walgreens on my own. It is cheaper but it is not was much fun as working with a saleswoman. I finally worked up the courage to go to department stores and approach the sales women, admitting that I needed makeup for me because I am transgender and NOT buying it for my girlfriend. Commissioned sales women love me. I am an makeup amateur with credit cards. They are the best because they are paid to sell and I desperately want to buy. We chat like old friends.

I now have a ridiculous amount of makeup that I can’t wear as well as so many samples and business cards. I don’t care. I love it and I love having the chance to be me with strangers. Unlike the handful of friends who know I am transgender and are tired of my repetitious transgender woes, the sale people are good listeners. I am exotically different in their workday and very profitable too.

So, the good news is that I no longer hide my female purchases in a hidden lock box somewhere in my house. I still haven’t intermingled them with my male clothes in everyday my closets and bureau drawers. They are still technically hiding from the public, like me, but my transgender journey isn’t over and we all may see the light of day.

I quietly keep inflating the this female bubble gum world that I love, adding more sticks of gum in my mouth to fit more and more of my real female life in it.

The question is:

How long before the bubble finally bursts?

Emma Holiday

Thank you for reading my work.

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Writers note: If you have read any of my writings on Medium you will have noticed a definite theme: the incredible pain of gender dysphoria and all the difficult aspects of just being transgender.

My writing has three specific goals:

1. Writing is my therapy. I have a very limited outlet for my thoughts so I write to find a way to process the most profound experience in my life. I need to understand and I need to accept myself to move forward.

2. Being transgender, for me, is a very lonely existence and if I can share some of the things that I feel and think as I go through the process of transitioning with others who are transgender and, in some way, lessen their pain and sense of loneliness, then all of this public exposure of my personal thoughts is not a waste.

3. I write to help cisgender people understand that all trans people want is to be simply understood, accepted and treated as a normal person. We are.