My Transitioning Psychology: Public Anxiety

This is probably the biggest issue most transitioning encounter when attempting to start dressing in public or shopping for anything in opposite gender section. The reason for the picture is that there is a strange sense of being visually judged. I am not sure to call it a paradox or whatever but the fact is from what we have to go through makes us tough cookies…but only for vocal defense for me (I do not speak for all). If someone in public were to say something negative to me, I would have no issue in defending myself with something in return. Issue is, I have a deep fear of being stared at or judged visually.

Being stared at hurts more than being name called. I have zero issues and would not be hurt if anyone said something from a person I didn’t know. It only affects me from people I care about. This has hindered me from shopping for things I would like to obtain. In example if I simply wanted to walk around the women’s section in Target, I would feel as if the female customer’s and staff are staring at me to get out of the section. It takes a lot of courage to even step foot on that side of the store by yourself, with gender issues, and anxiety of being stared at.

Some reason I KNOW from experience that 90%+ of customers and staff would not pay any attention to me and they go about their business. I can’t believe I KNOW this fact from being both a customer and working at Target/retail. I personally have sold many items to people that wasn’t for their gender and didn’t think twice of it. So does most of the employees. This thinking is hard to break alone. The moment I step in that section its as if I set off the alarm at the door like I stole something *beep beep beep*.

I try to tell myself why do I put myself in this inner battle when I have the right to buy anything I want because I have money while in there. No store is going to refuse my sale nor anyone else’s. Target for that matter can take all the sales it can get. Reason’s I refer to Target is that its less busy for less anxiety and their line up is better than Wal-Mart. What I do like about Wal-Mart is that they have the self check out. Even with that I was embarrassed one time when I was buying some clothes and it didn’t scan. The lady had to help me and it made a line of people behind me that watched the whole thing haha.

This also occurred in Target once where I had bought a large amount of clothes and my card didn’t work. They staff had to cancel the transaction and I had to call the bank. Then bank was doing a security check and i had to vocally authorize the large transaction. That part was easy but then the manager wanted to personally re-scan all of the cloths. Oh my goodness I was sweating bullets has he un-bagged all of the items and tried to make small talk while scanning. This manager was very professional and didn’t have no issue with what I was buying as it was a 200 dollar total. I was just making it hard for myself.

I believe in my therapy sessions and with the support of key individuals I will do some practice and exercises to get over this strange anxiety of thinking I am being judged when in fact no one really cares much (where I live of course). What is different from being afraid to shop for opposite gender items is simply walking around in public. I had tried this one time with a best friend and that went ok. This specific issue is when I am alone. I cannot always be with someone in public. Therefore this is the second item I need to eliminate.

When I pulled up to the Chase ATM there was a card left in the slot by a previous customer. At the time I was semi-dressed on my way to therapy. It wasn’t like I was in a dress or anything, but to me it felt like I was wearing a sign that said: HEY LOOK AT ME I STARTED TO CROSS-DRESS LOL. Well not the lol part but you get the point. I was superbly afraid to step foot in the bank to return the card someone left to an employee. I have great integrity to do the right things but I chickened out because of said public anxiety. I was afraid I would be visually judged by the employees. Even tho I know that they maintain professionalism no matter what customers look like.

It’s the oddest thing to in your mind know the situations before hand but once you finally, actually make that fantasy into a fact; everything I did know goes out the window. I have to stop letting fear control me when indeed its all in my head. When I say its all in my head this is another one of my thinking patterns I am working on.

My Transitioning Psychology: Virtual Escape

[Screenshot from my characters in GW1 (left) and GW2 (right)]

Everyone who is transgender has some kind of escape from reality to help soothe the soul before or during transitioning. Some people get straight to the cross dressing, some do cos-play of favorite characters, some would visualize themselves as someone else. For me and possibly many others I have known like myself we have a virtual identity.

When I had looked into my past I had always like being the female characters in games. Sometimes or most times actually; I would feel that I had to force myself to be a male character to avoid embarrassment. Not sure why but at the time my friends only used male characters so therefore I has to “fit in” with what they were doing. Deep inside I wanted to always be that female person I selected and to show strength and courage that those characters have  just as much as the male ones. Young boys are very rigid at who they play as in a game. It wasn’t until high school time that I finally had the courage to openly start using female characters.

When I had worked for Target, the electronics team members were trying to influence me to play World of Warcraft. At the time I only worked weekends so I could not afford a monthly subscription to a game. What was going through my mind was how you can make a custom character, dress them up, and roam around with other people around the world. I loved the idea but wasn’t sure how to find something like WoW but for free. Then I had came across Guild Wars. It said Free to Play and I didn’t hesitate to buy. The minute I started this game I was in love.

It took me a good hour just being wondered on how I can make a virtual person and that people would communicate/role play to me as that person. It was a dream come true to live as a female on the internet. In no way did I go around and lie to people who I was. If I made friends and they asked if I was male/female I would tell them the truth. What I had enjoyed was that random people would call me by the character name and use the pronouns when talking about me. I had more  joy out of that than playing the game itself.

Speaking of being called by the character name; my name change is rooted from this game. I had liked the name Jess and made a character named Jessie the Survivor and Jess Wonder. It had a nice feeling when being called that name so secretly I was visualizing and testing out how it would be to actually have that name. Therefore I decided that I would love the name Jessie because it sounds neutral like Jesse but has the female spelling to it.

The last name I had created when daydreaming at the character select screen. I was in the guild [mist], like the name krystal, and lynn. Not sure how but it popped into my head to make Mystalyn. Now you know someone who has remade their name from inspiration via a game. Sometimes I chuckle at myself on how I came up with it but I love the decision and I would never go back. Not only was this fantasy world embracing my gender identity it game me a new name for that identity.

A virtual identity is in a way a good thing for my mind to escape and to release stresses of having gender issues. The problem lies in that I became dependent of this virtual experience or it would re-fuel my deep depression. At one point in time it almost became like a drug. I logged in everyday, and these virtual characters would embrace my self identity via the virtual one. It is not easy how to explain how I can be “feminine” over the internet character but it was like the matrix to me. I plugged in and I gave that character life.

I gained some great friends while living the virtual fantasy who embrace who I am on the inside not what I biologically am. I am very thankful for meeting these key people who I am still friends with today. I had explained my situation and they said it doesn’t matter what I am they recognize me as Jessie, a female friend because of the character I gave life to. These same friends helped me in dark times when I didn’t know how to go about seeking help to start transitional work. They were the listening ear before I went to therapy. Again I am very thankful for those friends and the virtual escape Guild Wars has provided for me.

My Exp@ Target

This was the first job I enjoyed and actually wanted to work at. My duties were the sales floor safety, appearance, and service. It was a nice change to be in a team environment with no crazy conditions. I was initially assigned to Electronics as desired. I sold the most electronics because of my knowledge base and service but that came with an issue. As I was busy the entire shift selling the management’s main concern was if I was making sure the section was neat. I received no recognition for the amount of sales I did for the store and instead was removed from that section for lack of section management. They were right to an extent but its hard to help many people, do sales and then try to neaten up everything. Easy for all the rest of the sections of the store that only have to walk around and neaten up and point to items around the store.

It was nice while it lasted to be in electronics. I was then moved to domestics which is home and bath. I was very good at what I did and my section was very neat at all times. I also finally received recognition of my services through this section unlike electronics where all they cared was on how it looked. After 1.5 years of good service at Target I came across 2 issues that lead to me departing from there. They would schedule me on weekdays to work when they know I was in high school at the time. I was written up for no show and they ignored the fact I was still in high school.

The second issue was that I enlisted in the FL Army National Guard and had to report to one weekend a month from training. At the time in Target I worked only weekends. I passed but the employee lounge were the store leaders were having a meeting and they said I was a waste of time to now only work 3 weekends out of the month. I was disgusted on how they spoke of me like such and gave a written notice to the store manager I was leaving due to the disrespect and lack of care with scheduling. It was a nice place to work at but the people there were doing questionable things as stated above.