Back from Vacation

 

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.

Winner!

Perhaps you have read or heard of Christine Hallquist. To refresh your memory, she won the Vermont primary, becoming the first transgender woman to win a major party nomination for a state governor.

Of course any story of how a trans person can accomplish such a feat is amazing, but here is a bit of Christine's:

In the fall of 2015, the thought of running for office was not even in the “realm of possibility” for Christine Hallquist, she said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Hallquist, then CEO of Vermont Electric Cooperative, was in the midst of 

coming out professionally as a woman to her employees and worried they might not accept her. The company’s website still indicated that the firm was led by a man, Vermont alternative weekly Seven Days reported at the time. Her emails were still signed by her former name.

“Here I am, the transgender CEO of one of the most macho businesses,” Hallquist told Seven Days.

Just three years later, Hallquist could become the country’s first transgender governor.

Of course, there is so much more to her story. 

Such as, Hallquist faces a steep path to the governor’s office. Republican Gov. Phil Scott remains popular in the state, even among Democrats. He has signaled a willingness to work with Democrats on issues such as gun control legislation, which he signed in April. He also has history on his side: No incumbent governor has been unseated in Vermont since 1962.