The Second Time Around

 

Image from JJ Hart.

Not many humans have the opportunity to stop their life and begin again as a new person unless they are up to no good.

Perhaps it is one of the reasons so many people do not accept or try to understand the transgender community. Or then again, they are secretly jealous. Regardless, it is up to all trans women and trans men to attempt to live their second life to the fullest. 

Often, living a transgender life is easier said than done. We all have to remember all the opportunities in life we needed to give up to achieve our gender goals. Opportunities some take for granted who are not at risk of losing spouses, family or employment. I know in my case, any or all of the chances to lose everything was a very real deal. I was fortunate when I lived long enough to see destiny re-open closed doors in my life.

Following a very dark period of losing loved ones to death, just in time I was able to find others to fill the void as I was so very lonely. In many ways, I was a social creature and if possible I wanted to remain that way. Naturally, when I started my path into transgender womanhood, I needed to learn and perfect an entire new set of feminine social skills. It was all so very intimidating. Especially when so many women wanted to know more about me and what I was doing in their world. It was a shock to my system how different my world became so quickly. Gender learning became a priority over just going out to be by myself. 

Deep down I knew I had to learn from my first go around in life as a man and learn from it. Even though I was never a toxic male, there were instances of life I would like to have back. Such as the times when toxic males were attempting to have their way with women. What I did do was observe how women handled it which helped me out in the future. 

All in all, following several rough patches at the beginning of my new life, the second time around was exciting yet terrifying to me. Primarily because my inner feminine soul was just waiting to have her chance to take over my life. It turned out, she was not scared at all. It was my old male self who was frightened about losing his life as he knew it. 

The whole process set into motion a secure second time around in life for me. Being secure led me to a new found confidence in life I had never know before. At the age of sixty, I was able to begin gender affirming hormones and really kickstart my second time around. External changes to my body helped me to present better in the world and internal changes helped me to feel much more femininized than I had ever had before. 

Most certainly, the second time around for me opened my eyes to a life I only had dreamed of. Destiny allowed me to accomplish my dreams and all I needed to do was reach out and grab it.     

Running and Hiding

Image from JJ Hart archives,

I spent over a half of a century in my life running and hiding from the gender issues I faced all of the time. 

First, most of the time I hid my desire to dress like all of the girls around me. Of course, in order to accomplish anything, I needed to suppress any urges I had to be at one as a girl in the mirror. My Mom never knew how much she helped me in my early days of cross dressing. Before I outgrew her, I took advantage of wearing her fashion wardrobe, not to mention her makeup too. Much pressure to hide to be sure because if I was discovered, intensive therapy or worse would be in my future.

Also very early on, I ran to places I thought I would be safe. I hid a collection of clothes and makeup in the woods beside our house in the country. In my own world, I could escape my brother and family and briefly enjoy my small attempt at gender freedom. On other very rare occasions, when my family was not home, I escaped to the bathroom and applied my clothes and makeup which was an ideal time to see myself in the full-length mirror in the hallway.   

As I grew older and my male life became more complex, running and hiding became much more difficult. Plus, I had so much more to lose in my life if I was discovered. The more I ran from my issues, the more pressure I faced. What happened was, after I was freed from the restrictions of my military service, I was able to run harder hoping to free my gender issues even better. I changed jobs and locations frequently trying to outrun my life and for the most part was more miserable than ever before. I moved my small family to the suburbs of New York City, then back again to my native Ohio. Along the way, we lived in an old farmhouse in rural Southern Ohio and back again to urban areas such as Columbus, Ohio.

Sadly, it took me many years to understand all the running and hiding was doing me no good. The problem was inside me and could not be out-ran and was mentally exhausting.  Once I learned the solution to my problems were closer than I thought, my journey to transgender womanhood became clearer but in many ways no easier. I still needed to strip back all the layers of femininity and do my best to cross the gender border. I think now, the communications I had with the world as a novice transgender woman were the most difficult part of the journey. I needed time and effort to overcome the fear I had with looking another women in the eye when we spoke. For the most part, I just wanted to run and hide. 

Every time I did not run, I developed more confidence in myself. In other words, with the help of other cis-women friends I had, I found and embraced my own transgender womanhood. No longer was I stuck in an old male life I never really wanted regardless of all the privileges I had accumulated from just being older and white. 

Running and hiding just became too exhausting and demanding to continue with it. I finally gave into the pressure and began to live in my truth. What took me so long. I still wonder. My male life just wasn't so much fun and successful to continue. I consider myself one of the fortunate humans to escape the bonds my gender roots had confined me with.    

Trans Girl in a Sports Bar

Archived Image, JJ Hart with wife Liz on left 
and daughter  Andrea on right. 

 I have documented several times how I came to be accepted as a regular in a couple sports bars I was familiar with as a guy.

In many ways I was forced into the path I was taking. I did not particularly enjoy the atmosphere I was facing in the male orientated gay bars I was going to. I did not like the music usually and especially did not like it when I was treated like a drag queen. Even though I was not dressed extravagantly like queens did. 

As time went by and I tired of even fighting for a drink at the bar, I decided it was time for a change. To do so, I decided to go back to what was familiar, if I could do it. To be sure, I needed to find out if I presented well enough to get by in a totally new environment except it wasn't. As I previously said, I had been in many sports bars as a guy, so I knew to be friendly, smile and tip well. What I did not count on was how fast I would be remembered in these venue's as a transgender woman. It seemed as fast as two visits in a place, I was remembered and could go from there. Of course the problem was, building a whole new feminine person nearly from scratch. 

I discovered the whole process was relatively easy as I was there to start with to watch the sports on big screen televisions and drink a few beers at the same time. Outside of the staff, I rarely had any interaction with anyone else. 

In the meantime, the lesbian bars I used to go to were disappearing rapidly. For the most part lesbian bars have remained an endangered species until recently. In fact, I saw a story about new women's sports bars which are popping up  now around the country. Without actually mentioning any lesbians by name, it featured one bar opening up by two married women (to each other). In other scenes from the venues, the look of the clientele suspiciously reminded me of the lesbian bars I visited years ago.  

I also was remined of a women's roller skating match I went to with three of my lesbian friends in Cincinnati, Ohio. The crowd that day was overwhelmingly women including me. We all drank one dollar beers and watched women roller skate around and around. Outside of a few side looks, I survived and had a great time. 

These days, with the advent of women's basketball and soccer, not to mention college sports on the regional level, women's sports are really booming. A great time to mesh in your love of sports as a man with your  new life as a transgender woman. It is not unusual these days for a woman, trans or not to be seen in a sports bar and also makes it much easier for transwomen everywhere to carry with them a major portion of their previous lives. I know I was really stressed if I would have to lose my love and knowledge of sports when I transitioned.

On whatever level you consider, even though new women sports bar are not referred to as lesbian bars, they still focus on the success of women everywhere.