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JJ Hart and wife Liz on right at Picnic. |
I grew up in Ohio raised by greatest generation parents who lived through WWII and the great depression. Often, they were long on material support and short on emotional backing.
The main thing I remember from my childhood was, nothing was
ever good enough. Take school for an example, while I excelled at subjects such
as History and English, I really struggled with the Math and Sciences. Even
still, I was expected to bring home straight A’s on my grade card every year. I
had no excuses, especially when I went to high school where my mom was a
teacher. She was pushing me hard for good grades to make it possible to get
accepted by a good university.
I guess I became used to the pushing and figured nothing was
ever good enough for myself and it carried over into my gender issues. Every
time the mirror lied to me and said I was an attractive girl, I did not believe
it and had to discover another way to prove it. Very quickly I learned I needed
to replace the mirror with the public. Leaving my dark, lonely closet was the
only way I could learn if I could ever achieve my dream of living a
transfeminine life. It took every bit of courage I could muster to do it but if
OK was not enough (by just standing in front of the mirror), I had to force
myself into the world.
When I did force myself, it was like I was getting adjusted
to a new pair of shoes. At first, I was tight and uncomfortable before I
started to relax and began the basics of enjoying myself. I say I began the
basics, because at every turn on my gender path, it seemed I was hitting a
wall. Those were the times I needed to step back and decide if I was doing the
right thing.
Those examples and failures proved to me I needed to keep
going. Mainly because I felt so natural when I was pushing the envelope to
leave my male self behind and live more and more as a transgender woman.
On occasion, proving OK was not enough and trashing the
envelope almost got me into trouble. Mainly when I began to walk the fine line
when I lost my male privileges. The most important being personal security. I
was out and out lucky and escaped personal harm by men in the world. I wasn’t smart
enough or experienced enough to sense the danger zones women are raised around.
I learned quickly to park in well-lit areas or to ask for friends to walk me to
my car. I did not want to be a statistic.
As I went through the process of living within the same parameter’s
cisgender women have to face, I became a sponge of sorts. Nothing I did as I transitioned
was ever good enough as my parents’ lessons oddly came back to help me. I was
especially attentive when I went out to socialize with my women friends. They
never realized what they did for me as I formed my own version of womanhood. In
many ways I became a gender hybrid. It was impossible for me to leave decades
of living an impacted male existence behind me, so I tried to take the good
with me. For example, I was fortunate to have worked around women in the restaurant
business for most of my life and I knew the trials and tribulations cisgender
women faced in the world.
To this day, I have not shaken the idea of just being OK is
just OK. I must be better just to be successful in the competitive world of
women. I knew they could be competitive but not as much as I discovered when I
finally had the chance to play in the girl’s sandbox. The whole process made me
a better person in the long run, but it was surely difficult at times. Often brief
moments of gender euphoria kept me going in my darkest gender hours. That was when
I needed to provide electricity in my closet to give me the ability to see
right from wrong.
Since my parents were my driving force behind my personality,
I never had the chance to thank them for what they did. My Mom knew about my
gender issues and chose to ignore them, and my dad never knew so I doubt if
either would be pleased about their child raising outcome. They never knew how
well OK was never enough worked out for me in my life.