Acceptance?

We will never be accepted! Not 100%, by everyone. Never, ever.

Am I talking about crossdressers or the transgendered? No, I am talking about individual human beings. Whoever you are, whatever you are, whatever you are wearing, you will not be accepted by 100% of the people you encounter. It could be because of the color of your skin, or your political affiliation, or the team you root for, or the school you went to, or your religion, or. . .well, you get the point. No one is universally accepted, no one. Even Jesus was crucified and He walked on water!

So, where am I going with this? If you desire to get dressed and go out in public (it is certainly okay if you don’t), then waiting around to be accepted before doing so will never happen. Never.

Now, can you, did I, find a way to be in the mainstream? I am thinking of the mainstream in the context of the last part of that compound word, stream. If life, if the “public”, is a stream, I am fully a part of the flow. I am no different than anyone else and it is quite remarkable. I have spent numerous times over the years in a restaurant (not “CD friendly”, just a restaurant) and/or bar, completely at ease in conversation with my fellow patrons. While I am sure I was mentioned or discussed afterward, I was treated so incredibly well, each and every time. And I have done so a lot!!

I find this fascinating since, I myself, have never really run into a “sister” in mainstream society. And if I did, I would have noticed and probably would have respected her privacy.

Current circumstances [this essay was originally written during the pandemic] have removed many opportunities for me to join the flow, but I always marvel at my art museum work. Yes, I completely acknowledge I am at a place where more accepting people congregate (me being “smart”). And I realize I am very nicely attired (me being “appropriate”). And of course, simply being the main greeter when patrons walk into the building (me being “confident” and of course, “visible”) makes a statement. But I am looked at, spoken to, smiled at (you can still see that with masks), greeted, all as you would any woman. No one handed this opportunity to me. I sought it out and made it work and it makes me so happy!

Seek happiness, not acceptance. Complete acceptance does not exist. Never has, never will.

Just a thought I had and wanted to share.

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A question I ask myself often: Is there anything else that by just doing it brings you such joy?

My two happiest of happy places: Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the world class Cleveland Museum of Art

The answer: There is nothing like it, nothing.

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This is a friend, Jennifer Fitzgerald. She is actively transitioning and posts frequently about it on Facebook. I enjoy reading her posts because I know her in the real world and I also find her thoughts incredibly articulate and real. I am now sharing, with her permission, a Facebook post written June 28, 2026.

“I keep hearing the same thing, over and over: “You look so happy.”

And I am, truthfully – I am happier with myself than I can ever remember. I’ve had some incredibly happy moments in my life: our wedding in 1996, and the birth of our children in 2003 and 2007, to name just a few. But internal happiness with who I am? That’s new.

But of course there’s more to it. Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t only happiness that everyone is seeing. Maybe you are also seeing the absence of fear.

Trust me, there’s a LOT to unpack here – so buckle in.

One of the weirdest feelings I’ve had over the last several months is something that made no sense. I have told a few people this secret: “I think I’m getting smarter.”

Every time I say it, I immediately want to explain myself. I’m 62 years old. I didn’t suddenly develop a higher IQ; gender-affirming hormone therapy doesn’t increase intelligence, and I’m certainly not suggesting that it does. Yet the feeling persists, and it has become one of the most unexpected parts of the last several months.

Last September I began seriously exploring a part of myself that I’d spent decades trying not to acknowledge. In January I finally said the words I’d spent a lifetime avoiding: “Yes, I’m transgender.” Shortly afterward, I began low-dose hormone therapy, and since then I’ve experienced every emotion you might imagine; fear, exhilaration, grief, relief, joy, and moments of peace that still surprise me.

I’ve often said that secrets are poisonous. I don’t believe they’re poisonous because they’re immoral; they’re poisonous because they demand maintenance. They quietly recruit our attention every day, asking us to remember who knows what, who must never know, and which version of ourselves we are supposed to be today.

I think that’s why they exhaust us. It’s not the secret itself; it’s the lifetime of maintenance that quietly drains us.

For a long time I pictured that burden as carrying a thousand-pound weight, but I don’t think that’s quite right. Nobody picks up a thousand-pound backpack all at once.

You pick up one stone.

Then another.

A secret.

Another.

A lie of omission.

Another.

A conversation carefully navigated.

Another.

A dream quietly abandoned because it simply feels safer.

None of those stones weighs very much by itself, and that’s exactly why we keep accepting them. We slip each one into the backpack and continue with our lives, never noticing that we’ve been leaning forward a little more every year.

Eventually the backpack weighs a thousand pounds. The tragedy is that by then it no longer feels heavy. It just feels like you.

The truly insidious part is that we adapt. We become stronger because we have to. We stop remembering what it feels like to stand upright, and eventually we assume everyone else must be carrying the same weight.

But what happens if, one day, you begin taking the stones back out?

Not all at once, but one conversation; one truth; one act of courage; one moment of authenticity; one piece of shame that no longer deserves to be carried.

You don’t suddenly become stronger; you discover how much strength you’ve been spending all along simply carrying the backpack.

And I wonder…

Is that what I’ve been feeling these past several months? Not greater intelligence, but recovered capacity.

Not a better brain, but a quieter one.

Not new creativity, but creativity that is no longer competing with fear.

Perhaps that’s why conversations seem richer now; why music affects me differently; why ideas connect more easily; why ordinary moments feel so much more alive. Perhaps I’ve simply reclaimed mental and emotional energy that secrecy had been quietly consuming for decades.

For months I’ve been calling that feeling “smarter.”

Now I think there’s a better word. Whole.

And if that’s true, I can’t help wondering whether this has far less to do with being transgender than I first imagined.

The details differ, but I suspect most of us are carrying a backpack of our own.

The stones may have different names, but we all know what it feels like to pick up one more because it seems easier than putting it down.

So perhaps the real question isn’t whether I’m getting smarter. It’s this: What might become possible if we finally stopped carrying the stones that were never ours to bear?

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A small coda to today’s reflections on fear, happiness, and putting down old stones:

Tonight, after one of the most emotional days I can remember, the solo artist in the lobby bar began playing a Hawaiian-influenced version of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

I don’t believe the universe sends messages through hotel lobby playlists. But I do believe there are moments when we are finally open enough to hear the world differently.

And tonight, in Maui, that silly little song sounded less like a cliché and more like a benediction.”