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| JJ Hart at Faneuil Hall, Boston. |
My wife Liz and I’s vacation from Ohio to New England was wonderful.
Of course, there were many highlights which I will try to
remember and pass along also. but first I needed to conquer my fears of getting
along with any potential problems with a stray gender bigot on the tour. I was
afraid of losing my restroom privileges. I really don’t know why I feel this
way because this was the sixth tour with Liz, and I have been on with no
problems. I guess paranoia runs deep.
At the beginning of the tour, I passed another couple on the
way to the restroom. Then I got the nudge from the man to his wife to look at
me which I dreaded. At dinner that night, we needed to sit in parties of four
and no one wanted to sit with us. By this time, I was not feeling good about
the rest of the trip and to hell with these other people.
At that time, things started to loosen up as I began to
engage with most of the other women. When I did, everything turned out to be in
my head. As I began to actively smile and engage with the other women on the
trip, they engaged with me. So much so I encountered two occasions when I
needed to back off my interactions before I indirectly outed myself. It
turned out that one other woman who appeared to be my age told me she was from
the same hometown I was from and even went every summer to the same fishing
camp for vacation. I was going to ask her what high school she went to, but
then I thought better of it because my mom taught at one of the three high
schools in town and it was a possibility she could have had mom for a teacher
and knew she only had two sons. The other interaction was with a German man who
was from Stuttgart, where I was stationed when I was in the Army. I did not
want to go deeper with him either and never mentioned I was in the Robinson
Barracks area of the city when I was there. One way or another, it turned out to
be a small world with those two.
After I had conquered my socialization fears of others
reacting to me being transgender, I was able to relax and enjoy the wonderful scenery
of upper New England in states such as Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Liz
and I even had great train experiences from Amtrak, a lake dinner train, and the
cog railway which went up Mt. Washington. We were fortunate to have great
weather all the way including our trip to the peak.
Since I needed to take my mobility device with me, which is
a cross between a walker and a roller, I learned the importance of finding
handicapped accessible areas which there were many. In fact, my mobility issues
overcame my misgivings of my being the only transfeminine person around. I was
just being me. I only lost the first day of worry before I gained my confidence
back that I had as much right on the trip as anyone else.
As I said, we had a great time and enjoyed the diversity and
beauty of New England and Boston. I will have several side stories to share
with you about Boston and Harvard themselves in separate posts. As well as a
post about the unique rest room challenges, I faced.
Thanks for sticking with me in my absence.
