I Hit the Kid Lottery

 

Liz on left JJ Hart with Daughter
on right. 

One person I don’t mention enough is my daughter who is my only child. The easiest thing I can say about her is that somehow, I won the kid lottery when she was born. 

To begin with, when my daughter came along, I was very much an out of control, alcoholic wreck of a person. Desperately running from my gender dysphoric problems. Very quickly, I needed to settle down and at the least figure out a way to pay for her birth on the close to minimum wage job I was working at a small local radio station. So, you could say, she worked her magic on me before she was even born. Since back in those days, it was more difficult to determine the sex of your baby ahead of birth, my wife and I decided to be surprised when she arrived in the world and more than anything else we wanted a healthy baby.

Not only were we blessed with a healthy baby, I became what I treasured most…a girl dad. I was secretly overjoyed that I would have the chance to be around another feminine person in my life and if I ever had to come out to her as my authentic self, it would be easier to do with a girl than a boy. 

As she grew up to college age, her mom and I were divorced and my daughter ended up growing up in a village who adored her but more importantly shaped her into a very diverse person. Which would obviously come back to help me later with her. The only drawbacks to her diversity came from my mom who wanted to control where she went to school which I would not allow. 

Jumping ahead to when I finally came out of my closet and announced to the world that I was transgender, my kid was chosen as being the first to know. I was very nervous on the morning that I chose to tell her the news, and I was frightened at her possible response. It turned out she was disappointed but not in the way I thought. It was not in the fact she was essentially losing her father figure but on the other hand, why was she the last to know. Then I had to tell her she was the first to know I was transgender. Not a cross dresser such as her mom and stepmom knew that I was. It was a huge difference, and she started to calm down and to my amazement began to make plans to help me along with my transition across the gender border. I knew right then I had won the kid lottery and all the effort I put into raising her for this moment had paid off. 

The first suggestion that she made was asking if she needed to come shopping with me. Which I politely declined since I was able to fill out my wardrobe nicely by then since I was a serious cross dresser for so long. The second suggestion she made scared me to death. She volunteered to treat me on my upcoming birthday to a hair color and styling at her upscale beauty salon and spa. Like I said, the whole idea frightened me but I did take her up on the offer and in a couple of weeks, there I was in the salon nervously walking down a line of ciswomen getting their hair done. After the nerves wore off, I discovered my day was the gift of a lifetime and I understood then what the drawing card was for all women everywhere. In fact, I joked about not needing to take my Estradiol dose that day because the estrogen in the air was so thick I could cut it. On my way out, I set up my next appointment without the help of my daughter. 

Her influence on me did not end at the salon as she worked with me setting up a new legal name which would work easily for her three young children and made it clear she wanted me in their lives. It turned out, I was in a humorous way when my middle grandson ended up in a fourth-grade class taught by one of the cities’ best known out drag queens. My grandson came home one day and proudly announced to my daughter that his teacher and I were just alike, and my kid had to explain the differences between a drag queen and a transgender woman to her fourth grader. It turned out to be the first of many conversations she would have with her kids about diversity in the genders when her oldest daughter came home suggesting she liked girls more than boys. That was the daughter who graduated as a nuclear engineer from Ohio State and then transitioned.  It turned transgender women and transgender men run in the family. 

Later on, it turned out my daughter and son-in-law stepped up in a big way when I needed them again after the breakup between my only sibling and I when I came out to him as transgender. It was around Thanksgiving and he revoked his invitation to me to come enjoy the family. Back then my future wife Liz and I were just getting serious, and it looked like I was going to have no family to visit on the holiday like I was used to. Liz and my daughter stepped up in a big way and invited me to their family’s holiday get together. It meant the world to me.

It proved to me once again that somehow, someone was looking after me and I had won the kid lottery. I even was asked to speak and participate in my grandchildren’s Bar-Mitzvahs when she converted to Judaism. Again, I was scared to death to get up in front of a bunch of strangers I did not know except for a couple of women I knew from before I transitioned and even went along on a girl’s night out trip to a drag show with my daughter. 

Whatever the outcome of my life now, my daughter was certainly a gift which kept on giving. 

As always, thanks for joining in with my thoughts. Any comments are always appreciated!