We move to Renova Flats on Fourth Street

In August 2022, I gave up the apartment at Regina Marie in West Reno and Amy and I moved into a smaller studio apartment at a new place called Renova Flats at West Fourth and Ralston Streets.

Renova Flats has electric, gas, cable TV, free Wi-Fi, and trash included in the monthly rent, which is reasonable,

Each unit has a dedicated storage unit, central heating, and an individual Air Conditioner.

Renova Flats has a community shared kitchen, outdoor top deck, a main outside area gas BBQ, indoor media room with two large flat screen TVs.

A secure mail area is provided along with private dry food lockers, and a large ice machine.

Renova Flats is a gated community with 24-hour video surveillance. It has several entrances that open with an electronic keychain fob. 

Now that I am an older transwoman I do have to think about my own safety. I know many other trans people have been murdered for no reason.

This is the nicest home I have had in the past decade, and Amy and I love it.

The happiest woman in Reno

Okay. It may be exaggeration, but I am a happy woman living in Reno, Nevada. I have a cat, Amy, who I love. I have a job for which I am experienced. I am self-employed.

Soon, Amy and I will be in a new air-conditioned apartment exactly right for the two of us at Renova Flats, a new community on Fourth Street.

One of the things that made living at Regina Marie difficult for a couple years was that the apartment had no air conditioning. 

Since I moved in June 2021, I managed to get through the fall of 2021 and winter of 2022, okay with just ceiling fans. But spring and summer 2022 were difficult.

That's one reason I decided to move to a studio apartment at the newly developed Renova Flats on Fourth Street and Ralston in August 2022.

Living alone after 50

I can live alone after fifty. Because of my frightful past as a guy, I can absolutely appreciate myself as a woman.

I focus on being the brightest female I can be.

Older women like me feel less stress and remorse, dwell less on negative information, and are better able to control their emotions. That's me.

As a female, I am inclined to be healthier and more active. I also am more likely to have intimate relationships with female acquaintances. 

What embarrasses me is the fact that often, when I rise in the morning, and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I cry from sheer happiness. 

All my life I wanted to be female and now, I am.

Enjoying being a woman

When I was striving as a man for so many years and two broken marriages, all I wanted in life was to suddenly become a woman. 

I did not know back then that my gender identity WAS female.

Countless times I dressed as an ordinary woman, but I was only an imitation with shaved arms and legs and fake breasts.

Two marriages ended in divorce because of my crossdressing.

It took me until I was forty-five to produce a plan. I moved to Burbank, California where no one knew me and lived as a woman 24-hours a day for four years without incident.

During those years, I gradually lost forty pounds and earned the money for my transition by selling books and DVDs on Amazon. I had been a successful imitation woman.

Finally, after my gender affirmation surgery in 2017 and about a year recovery, I started working as a woman in Florida on the day after my 50th birthday in 2018.

What was most significant to me is that I am finally female.

I was destined to become a woman

I was destined to become a woman, but it only became clear to me in the last few weeks.

Ways in which being a woman matches me.

I don't smoke. I tried to for a week back when I was 19 but I couldn't figure out how to inhale and I gave up.

I don't drink. My second wife, Jane, was an alcoholic and I learned first-hand how difficult it is to live with. Today, at 56, I drank water, tea, and milk. No coffee. No beer. No alcohol.

I have no children. This was on purpose. Because I was a crossdresser and was in the words of my mother a "sinner" I did not want to cause someone else to come into my life.

I've only been arrested once in my life (for crossdressing in Texas) and the charges were dropped.

I've never had extra-marital affairs with anyone. 

I have never injured another living human being. 

Although both my marriages ended in divorce, they were better off with me out of their lives. 

So, I've been preparing for being a good woman for all my life.

Blue top and flowered skirt for business

This is one of the outfits I often wear for "business meetings." 

Often, the clients for my editing would want to see me at their own offices, which was fine with me.

I acknowledge the great surgeons at Tampa General that made me into a woman able to pass in public all the time. 

It was a joy I had not anticipated.

Since my face, voice, breasts, and legs all typified female, I didn't have to worry anymore.

What a joy.

I hated being male back in the day

I did not fit in the world as a man. I detested being male and aspired to somehow become female with the wave of a magic wand. 

On 2018, after my gender affirmation surgery, I began my life as a woman after 49 years as a man.

Now I am happy to look like an adult female. It's magnificent. It is delightful to wake up and realize I am female.

One day after my 50th birthday, I began working again. As a woman.

I love the emotive freedom I can express as a woman. I smile a lot more. I love my clothes, my shoes, my bare legs, and my breasts. I love being me. There is nothing immoral about desiring to be an adult female.

I can be satisfied and contented because of my choice to live as the gender I am.  

I am a woman. I am so happy.

Grey top and denim skirt and nice heels

One of my favorite outfits for going to business meetings held in client's offices is this grey top, a denim skirt, and nice heels.

I am happy that I managed to keep my weight loss. In fact, I weigh less than I did when I lived in Florida.

I always prefer clothing that shows my breasts and my legs because they are both characteristic of women.

True joy is an immeasurable, life-defining, transformative stream waiting to be tapped into. 

It requires the greatest submission and, like love, is a choice to be made.

Somehow all the squandered years I spent as a man, have combined to make me jubilant now that I am the woman that I always wanted to be.

Crossing my legs in Reno

Funny thing. Because I was fat early on as a man and a cross-dresser, I could never cross my legs. That always bothered me. 

So, no one was more astonished than I that one day just after I moved to Reno, I attempted and - yes - I could cross my legs!

Just another of the glorious things that happened in my transition from man to a woman.

However, granted, this posture is a defensive attitude in nature. Hence, crossing my legs could mean I lack self-confidence. 

I won't do it anymore.

But glad to know I can.

Awe at my feminine shape

When I put on my bra this morning, I looked in admiration at the feminine shape I am in after all those years of being in the wrong body and I confess I cried with joy.

Having my own breasts and the curves of my body is still a magnificent pleasure for me.

The countless times I cross-dressed over 25 years were not genuine enough to satisfy my desire to be female. 

To simply wake up in the morning and BE a woman.

Now, and for the last five years, I have had my wish and it still startles me so. I enjoy being a woman more than regular women do because it took me so long to realize my dream.

I adore being female and it makes me proud and unafraid no matter how I got here. Gender affirmation saved my life and made it better.

 

A Warner Brothers baseball shirt

Okay. I admit it. When I unpacked and found a Warner Brothers baseball shirt in the suitcase, I could not help but wear it with nothing but shoes.

If I were going to wear it out, I would pair it with leggings and white sneakers for a comfortable, fuss-free look. 

I think being a woman is magnificent, and I am incredibly happy to have transitioned! I feel a whole lot better because I did. 

A considerable number of trans people feel the same. One Washington Post survey found that most transgender adults are happier after transitioning, with 78% of respondents noting that living as a gender outside the one assigned at birth has increased their satisfaction in life.

I know that's true for me.

Glad to be a woman in Reno

When I was stuck as a man for so many years, I wanted more than anything to be a woman.

Viewing movies, I always identified with the women. Reading books, I identified with the women.

Watching the news, I wanted to be a woman like Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC.

Watching Project Runway, I wanted to be a woman like Nina García, the editor-in-chief of Elle.

I did not know back then that my gender identity WAS female. 

For 25 years, I dressed as a woman, but it was only an impersonation. Two marriages ended in divorce because of my crossdressing.

Now, in 2022, I was at home working as a freelance editor. To keep me alert, I adopted a cat named Amy. She was friendly and smart.

Because of the small town feel of Reno, I found myself wearing leggings and ballet flats more often when I went out. Especially when I walked near the Truckee River. 

The river runs right through downtown Reno and it's one of the things I love about this town. 

I have always loved the way my feet look in ballet flats. Very feminine.

Why did I aspire to be a woman?

Why did I aspire to be a woman?

The desire to be another gender happens when your sexual anatomy differs with your gender identity.

In my case, it was a longing to be in the role of the female, to have the freedoms of being a girl, related to a profound feeling that I was born into the “wrong” body.

I do feel I was born into the wrong body, but it took me four decades and two failed marriages to discover I could have gender affirmation surgery. 

But I am glad I did.

Before and after 2013-2022

I do not usually display a before and after photo because most of the ones I see from young transwomen online are an ordinary guy and an extremely sexy girl.

But in the interests of serving my friends and readers, here is one before photo 0f Larry Gable from 2013, after my second divorce, before I planned to have gender affirmation surgery.

After photo is Lauren Gable in 2022, happily a woman for four years.

 

Completely a woman

Being manlike for 49 years came close to damaging me. I contemplated suicide twice. Once when I was twenty-six and again when I was forty-five. Both times were right after my two divorces.

Because I felt a strong resemblance towards women and everything associated with them, I naturally gravitated towards all that women exemplify. As a male, I spent time with women to the point where I avoided socializing with men.

I was a crossdresser for 25 years, and I mimicked how women walk, talk, and appeared. I tried to stop cross-dressing many times but the desire to be an imitation woman overwhelmed me. 

The more I occupied the world of women’s beauty and fashion, the more I paid attention to the women I met in theater and in my own community. My best friends were always women and gay men.

I was born with a mind more closely aligned with women than men. I felt like a female because everything aligned to help me express my natural female self. 

My feminine side was also expressed when I embraced my creative energy, acting in thirty community theater productions. 

Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness. Rather, it defines unease stemming from the discrepancy between the experienced gender (female) and my assigned sex at birth (male). 

Of the transgendered patients surveyed, 96% reported first experiencing gender dysphoria by age thirteen. For me, it was when I was eleven. 

Now that I am completely a woman, I strive to honor my feminine energy. I dance, embrace nature, appreciate my femininity, encourage beauty, and relish my creativity.

 

Red and blue for David

A red and blue combination, which I wore to lunch with a client. 

He was an older man named David who had written a mystery novel. Over lunch we discussed his hopes for publication and talked a bit about his faith.

He had drafted a novel about a crooked televangelist, and he told me that his search for a non-theism religion had brought him to Buddhism.

He was an authentically nice man, and he wrote down the address for Reno Buddhist Center in case I was interested. 

 

A woman all the time

What delights me at age 55 is that I am a woman all the time.

I'm not an imitation, as I was for 25 years as a crossdresser.

I am not a male, which I was for forty-nine terrible years.

I am a vibrant, joyous female adult.

You know, most days I take it for granted, and that’s a shame. It's a miracle!  

There was a time when I would daydream about how nice it would be to be pretty. 

How nice it would be to look like a woman in any clothes, even a button-down shirt. 

How wonderful it would be to have curves, to have smooth skin, to have breasts that were real.

Being a woman is amazing. It’s an incredible, magical journey across the gender frontier. 

 

Satisfaction in my womanhood

I value and take satisfaction in my womanhood because it took me almost 50 years to become female. 

I know I am not stunning, but I fix what I can and carry myself with charm that only a lady can enjoy. Kindness and sophistication are important, and I know how to radiate self-confidence. 

I maintain a mystery about my life which only chosen people can have access to. I have knowledge that comes from experience, from an excess of errors and a life full of authorities. 

Because of my displeasure at being a man, I seek to be the best woman I can be.

All my life, I wanted a body that was so feminine that even a white boyfriend's shirt would look like a woman was wearing it.

Thanks.

 

Green top, flowered skirt. and sensible heels

One of my favorite wardrobe choices to show off my legs, which are satisfactory for an over Fifty woman, is this green top and a flowered skirt and sensible heels.

I started shaving my legs many years ago because I love bare legs. 

It was one thing that allowed me to pass as a crossdresser back then. I even shaved my arms sometimes.

But now that I am a woman, these things are less trouble because of my smooth, soft, silk like skin.

Just one of my favorite things about being a woman now.

Wow, do I love being a woman!

 

The L Word

Another of my favorite television shows was The L Word, starring Jennifer Beals, Mia Kirshner, Laurel Holloman, Leisha Hailey, and Sarah Shahi.

I have watched all six seasons three times. Seventy episodes. Since I love women, I loved watching women love women.

The L Word was on Showtime from 2004 to 2009 and followed the lives of lesbian and bisexual women who lived in West Hollywood, California. 

The L Word featured television's first ensemble cast of lesbian and bisexual female characters, and its portrayal of lesbianism was groundbreaking at the time. 

One of the series' groundbreaking characteristics was its explicit depiction of lesbian sex from the female gaze, at a time when lesbian sex was "virtually invisible" elsewhere on television. 

Since that happened to be the kind of sex I happened to have while trying to be a man, I understood what was going on and loved the characters. 

To me, making love to two wives was like women loving women, because of my gender identity.

While I am scared to start a lesbian relationship, I am certainly open to it.