GenderBendy

First look

Sweet moment: this morning after my dressing was removed (about which more farther down) I went out into the hedge-encircled garden of the residence to get some air and sun. It was very warm today in Montréal, though not as warm, I gather, as down in the States. Anyway, while I was making up fake yoga and Tai Chi moves on the lawn a gust of wind came along and plastered my nightgown against my front, and I did something I now realize I've been doing a lot for the past couple of years without really thinking about it: an uncomfortable little hitch back of pelvis and spine, to the end of keeping the unsightly bulge from showing. And then I realized: it's gone! I can wear whatever I want - a bikini, 17 artfully interwoven silk scarves, whatever, and that bulge is never going to interfere with my style or the flow of my body ever again. Fucking wow. I'm grinning again as I describe it. It's an all caps moment: IT'S GONE! IT'S GONE! IT'S GONE FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!! :-D

My plan was to avoid graphic clinical detail in this SRS blogging project, but I've changed my mind about that, at least for this post, because having my dressing removed was gobsmacking, and how as a writer can I pass up the opportunity to do a first-person description of such a rare and surreal and emotionally powerful experience? If you'd rather not go there with me, by all means please stop reading now.

The first step to prepare for the dressing to come off was a hot shower. Bliss! I hadn't had a shower in nearly a week. In the bathroom I took a last look in the mirror at the thick red-infused pack of cotton wadding humped between my legs, then got the water running and exulted in the hot stream. After a bit I glanced down and boggled at the amount of blood washing off me. It just kept coming. After a minute of anxiety I decided it was all right or they would have said something, and so went back to enjoying shampooing and conditioning.

Once out of the tub, following my detailed post-shower instructions, I towel-patted dry, cupped one of those blue-and-white mess-catching absorbent pads under me like a diaper, waddled into the room, lay down on the bed, and then called Manon, the nurse, on the phone, to tell her I was ready. She came bustling in with her kit and gloves, pulled the curtains around my bed, and set to work.

The first step was to snip the stitches holding the dressing down. They were pulled very tight, so each one parted with a snap that sent tingling jolts through the skin where they were anchored. Once that was done - six or seven stitches - she used forceps to pull the separated bits of suture out of the skin on either side of the dressing. Some of them had been passed under a good inch of skin, but they came out slick and clean, with only a curious sliding sensation. Next she used the forceps to begin peeling away the layers of gauze. Her face had an expression of intense concentration, and she breathed slowly and evenly as she worked. I watched here pare away the mutant crayfish until all I could see was a smooth pubic swell curving away out of sight, conspicuously devoid of any sign of the old appendage. I could not believe how wide and empty the space between my thighs was. 

Manon couldn't remove quite all the dressing - the last little bit, she said, was stuck to a blood clot and would need to be soaked off over time  - but at length she said I could reach for my hand-mirror and look for the first time at Dr. Brassard's handiwork.

On my stomach and thighs, a rainbow of bruising ran from yellow through green to a dark purple-blue. In the area where the dressing had been pressing so hard there was more normal-colored skin, crossed by the puckered lines of the two main surgery incisions, each about five inches long. The incisions, one on each side, make a large V joining at the opening of my new vagina, at this point still stitched shut. All visible skin was stubbly-nude from the knees-to-bellybutton pre-surgery shave. And, in a line from top to bottom down the center of my crotch, I saw the inner wrapper on my still mostly-concealed new parts: the blood-soaked tuft of unremoved cotton; a short stretch of as yet tightly-sutured incision (those stitches will be snipped tomorrow); the orange rubber tube of the urinary catheter; and just below that and above my anus, the marvelously incongruous detail of the end of the stent, the cotton-crammed condom which is still inside me as I type. Just the end projected out, looking for all the world like a the tied off neck of a balloon. I am the inflatable transsexual.

I've done some more crying today, and some cautious dancing in the grass, and a lot of deep breathing and stretching...and from time to time I go into the bathroom and marvel again at my completely penis-free, scrotum-free, testicle-free body. 

Tomorrow the stent comes out, and I begin my dilation regimen. Tonight (if I sleep) four high-tech color-coded size-gradated designer dildoes will lurk and loom through my dreams.

Genderqueer conversations

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with three fascinating people who identify outside the gender binary. Jules, Lyndon, and Taffy challenged my preconceptions and broadened my perspectives about gender in the same way that I hope my transsexualism challenges and broadens my cisgendered friends' and relatives' preconceptions and perspectives. Our conversations resulted in an article in the summer 2012 edition of Out In Maine, which can be viewed here. (Note this link takes you to a browsable on-line mockup of the magazine; the article starts on page 24.) Happy reading! :-)

Little black dress

On a Saturday in early May Elizabeth had a lunch date with Katz at the Green Elephant, loosely connected to the fact that they had both recently had birthdays. Elizabeth would be going on later to help run the fashion show fundraiser, so she wore clothes with color and texture beyond her usual muted palette, particularly a deep pink floor-length hippie-skirt which swirled pleasantly around her boots. It had a tiny jingle-bell on the waist-tie. On top she had chosen the form-fitting soft grey sweater she wore when she wanted to feel at least a little sexy, and she had picked out jewelry from the more ornate end of her available spectrum.

Lunch was organic and tasty, but incidental to the gushing out of a couple weeks’ worth of pent-up girl talk. Given the opportunity, Elizabeth realized she needed to detail the minutiae of an attraction. There had been promisingly awkward moments, but there were complicating factors...Katz listened patiently and offered encouraging remarks. Then Katz had a fascinating story to tell about family history, and before they knew it an hour and a half had gone by.

Katz treated, which was sweet of her, and Elizabeth invited her to come along on an errand to get some jewelry repaired. She had found out about a place on one of the many secret side-streets of Portland. It turned out to be a charming one-woman shop with display cases full of an impressive array, for one artisan, of styles, materials, and colors, as well as sea shells and art glass on commission. Remembering the ocean motif of Katz’s camp, where she had stayed one night the winter before when her power was out, Elizabeth bought a pretty strawberry periwinkle and then handed the bag to Katz outside the shop with a “Happy birthday.” They hugged.

A little further along they bumped into acquaintance X, a young trans man walking the other way with a friend. There was a minute of friendly banter, and then they parted ways. Around the corner, flushed with the success of present-giving and wanting to impress her friend, Elizabeth forgot her trans-etiquette and outed acquaintance X: “Would you ever guess he was born female?” Then she blushed and, as they walked on, squirmed about this foolish indiscretion.

They had a little more time and stepped into a high-end second-hand store. While Katz took a picture with her phone of a western shirt she thought her daughter might like, Elizabeth tried on a little black dress, made of soft stretchy fabric (good for a snug slimming fit over her big male ribcage) with a sleeve style she didn’t know the name for: two overlapping semi-circles of fabric parting over the shoulder. The skirt had the same style, which meant a helpful double layer of fabric in front camouflaging the unsightly bulge. The skirt stopped at mid thigh; between boot-tops and hem there was a fair stretch of naked leg, pleasingly smooth and rounded with the hormones. “I wouldn’t want to go to the pool hall in this,” she said, and Katz made a cautionary mom face. “No, you wouldn’t.”

Elizabeth bought the dress but did not put it on. Outside they said goodbye and Elizabeth continued on to Asylum, where preparations were under way for the fashion show. Workstudies Cat and Chelsea were there, whom Elizabeth loved for the unabashed pleasure they both took in girlhood. Both had dressed for the occasion - their own versions of the little black dress meme - and shyly she mentioned the contents of her bag, saying she might put the dress on later, for the dancing. The workstudies ordered her to put it on now. Elizabeth went to the women’s room, and with beating heart put on the dress in one of the stalls.

As with so many of the babysteps of transition, it turned out to be no big deal. She received a few compliments (always nice), and otherwise, no reaction. As the evening went on she checked her reflection often, unable to believe each time that the woman-body she was seeing was hers. Perhaps, it turned out, the slowest step of transition was the invisible internal one of really believing that it was actually working, that the world saw and accepted her as not just a woman, but a natural, even attractive woman. So hard to believe after so long in the dark.

The afterparty was a bust - no one showed up - but Elizabeth still enjoyed dancing in the disco lights, watching her shadow on the wall, continuing the long slow work of daring to begin to believe.

 

Countdown, contra, pool hall encounter

So I’ve gotten all fancy with my entries and have forgotten to simply document. Here are some things which have been happening.

Surgery countdown continues. It’s 56 days away as of this typing - June 27th. As you can see, I am counting the days. I’m eager and scared and determined and curious, all at once. There has been a long wrangle about how to pay for it without impacting my children’s college funding, but I think I’ve figured that out. I’m getting pre-surgery tests soon, and arranging for various kinds of assistance I’ll need before, during, and after - a ride up, a ride back, a ride back to the airport for one of my rides. It’s complicated, but just the sort of detailed planning I’m good at. I’ll be taking five or six weeks off from work...and then life will go on.

I can’t imagine the outcome. I mean, really, I can’t. I move forward based on my fervent desire to get rid of the present accoutrements. It is enduringly unpleasant to feel estranged from parts of your own body.

I went contra dancing a few weeks ago, my first time approaching this particular gendered activity from the female side. I was anxious and it was hot, so after the first dance I began to sweat. The hormones have made it so that I don’t stink the way I used to, but still, it was embarrassing - my bangs plastered to my forehead. In the ladies’ room I poked at them in the mirror, and, forgetting myself for a moment, made a vexed remark in more or less my old male voice. A woman just coming out of a stall gave me a second look, but then went on her way. Aside from that moment, I didn’t see any of the double-takes or knitted brows or eyebrow-jumps or face-freezes I have learned to recognize as being read.

It was fun taking hands and being swung and spun by all those different men. It wasn’t sexual at all, but it was physical and gendered all the same. One guy lifted up my arm to spin me and I spun him instead. “Sorry,” he said, looking confused. Next time I go, I’ll work on letting go into following more. And I’ll dress less warmly. This time around I couldn’t resist wearing my new long-sleeve dress, to feel as femme as possible.

The other vignette I've been saving to narrate is an encounter with a man, a stranger. This was at Racks, a tavern on St. John St. in Portland, where I have started stopping some evenings on my way home from work to play pool. I had a table to myself and had worked my way through a couple games of 8-ball, playing both sides, when a male voice spoke behind me, asking if I was alone. I turned and looked. He was maybe 56 or so, tall and large-chested, tan, with coiffed white hair. He wore a sweatshirt and shorts, showing off muscular calves. His face was open and his eyes intent. He was shooting pool alone too - would I like to play? I said yes. We introduced ourselves and shook hands. The question of which of us would give up our table hung in the air. “It’s fine,” I said, not realizing until later what an eyeroller of a line it was. “I’ll turn in my balls.”

Bruce and I played two games before I had to leave to pick up the boy. He watched me in a steady searching way and complimented my better shots. He was a good player - not smashing the balls, as so many male players do, but finessing his leaves. He won both games, though we got down to the lone eight in the second. I liked his soft-spokeness and seeming gentleness. I also liked that he played for real. He didn't ease up or condescend.

Did I find him attractive? Yes. Was I in a tizzy? Only a little, and mostly because I hadn’t shaved since morning, so in strong light what remains as yet un-electrologized of my stubble would have been visible to him. I was also self-conscious about my voice, but then I'm always self-conscious about my voice. Overall I felt cautiously at ease. I’ve learned that once people have read you as one gender or the other, they tend to stick with that read. (One time last year after an hour-long workshop at a conference which I conducted in pretty much my old male vocal tones, a woman participant told me she loved my voice. “It’s so deep - you sound like Lauren Bacall.”)

Mostly I wasn’t in a tizzy because my experience from dating sites is that even decent kind thoughtful men are generally not interested once they know I’m trans, so I don’t get my hopes up. I work on the assumption that when it comes time to have that conversation (and I lean toward having it early in an acquaintance), that will be the end of any possible romance. Of course, it will take only one good man to prove I’m wrong about that, so I do hope a little. Not that it’s guaranteed that I’ll end up with a male partner, but I am definitely interested and curious.

After he sank the eight the second time I said I had to go and we shook hands. I said maybe I'd see him there again sometime, and he said he was from out of town, travelling, and only visited a few times a year. He leaned a little forward as he said this and let a silence open out and I sensed an opening, an opportunity to offer companionship. I would not have taken it even if I could - I had had enough novelty for one night. We shook hands again. There was the awkwardness which bespeaks mutual attraction. As my daughter would say, herp derp.

I was at Racks again earlier tonight and wondered if maybe he had left me a message at the bar, but apparently not. Bruce, I doubt we’ll ever meet again, but thank you for making me feel attractive and womanly. I liked you.

Other things have been going on - some expensive rejected insurance claims for hormone testing, which I’m trying to get covered, and some fruitful counseling with my son - but I don’t feel like writing about them at length right now. Maybe some other time. A sporadic irrational sense of doom aside, things are going pretty well. Half the days or maybe even more, I feel at least somewhat optimistic. Not bad.

 

Maine's Transgender Revolution video

I'm turning 50 next Tuesday. If I figure out what that means, you can be sure I'll post about it. ;-)

In the meantime, video is now available online of a panel discussion I recently helped put together about the past, present, and future of the trans experience in Maine. The panel was presented by the Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine on March 21st, 2012, on the USM Portland campus, and it went really well. My fellow panelists - Margaret Cook, Jamie-Lynn Emma Kane, and Alex Roan - were all excellent, sharing personal stories and general insights in a wide-ranging conversation which was variously funny, touching, profound, and inspirational. We also had some wonderful input from the audience.

Links:  Part One  Part Two

Brief personal viewing notes: I hate my voice still. I have *got* to do something about that. But, I thought I rocked the dress pretty well...panel day turned out to be the first really warm day of spring I anticipated in this post.

Anyway, if you decide to check any of the video out, happy viewing! :-)

Man in a dress no more

Yesterday I bought a dress. So what? Yeah, you’re right, not earth-shaking, but the moment does provide an object lesson in layers of becoming.

One of the first things I did after my gender revelation in ‘08 was buy a grey knit sweater-dress with a big floppy collar, at Reny’s. Oh, my, I was in state - terrified and ecstatic. I couldn’t conceive of trying it on in the store, so I took it home, discovered it was too small, and went back in an even more heightened state to exchange it. The flat hard look the young woman behind the returns desk gave me was my first encounter with the judgemental eyes of the world.

I had fun with my new dress. I put it on along with my new garter-belt stockings and black pumps and costume-jewelry pearls from Walmart and my outrageous rolled-up-sock-with-filbert-nipples boobs and posed for the camera. It was the beginning of figuring out who I was.

As time went on I acquired more dresses, of two types: fancy ones from the evening gown racks at Goodwill, and simpler everyday ones either bought without trying on or given by friends. I continued to have fun wearing both kinds at home, but the only time I wore a dress in public was when I put on one of the fancy ones for a soirée - the USM drag show, the EQ Maine dinner, a holiday party - and it was always a big deal. I never wore the simpler ones in public, even after I was completely out and living full time as a woman, because I just didn’t like the way I looked in them.

Yesterday I met Susan for a shopping date at the mall, and on the sale rack at Banana Republic I found a light soft grey-and-white V-neck dress in stretchy cotton. I tried it on and stood looking at myself in the three-way mirror. Susan looked with me.

Me, to myself: Shoulders back, dear. Chin up. Relax the lower back more, let it curve. Is it binding or bagging under the the arms? No, seems to be just right. Wow, not bad at all.

Susan: Oh, that’s really nice.

Me: I don’t know...I just don’t wear dresses. People don’t, you know? So it’s a thing.

Susan: What do you mean?

Me: Well, I have dresses, and I put them on and look in the mirror, and I see...I don’t know, I’m so tall, my shoulders are still so broad, my hips are narrow...I still see a man in a dress.

Susan: You don’t look like a man in a dress. I’m not just saying that. I want you to feel good, but I would say if you did. You don’t look like a man in a dress.

Me: Thanks, I needed to hear someone say that.

I bought the dress (Only $18 on deep discount - score!), and in a few months, maybe on the first really warm day of spring, I’m going to wear it to work. No back-up outfit in a bag in case I chicken out. I’m going to commit to the dress for the day. And honestly, I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal. Check out how far I’ve come:

12/31/2008:

1/15/2012:

Chatted up

Last night during the First Friday Art Walk, for the first time in my life, I got hit on. As a woman, I mean, by a man.

It was at the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA. I was staring at  the work “Sturm und Drang,” by Stacy Howe, when a strong masculine voice spoke next to me. “Powerful piece, isn’t it?”

He was maybe 60, casually dressed, with artfully unkempt grey hair and beard, full unsmiling lips like my father’s lips, and aggressive eyes. Despite our similar heights I felt loomed over. I arranged my throat for the feminine voice I had been practicing all day. “It’s intense and disturbing,” I agreed.

He began to explicate, pointing out features. His voice was deep, and he spoke loudly. His comments were insightful, knowledgeable, and stated as fact. I felt invited to admire his intellect.

As he spoke he contrived to step back and give me the full-body once over. I was rocking the femme: sandals to show off my lavender toenails, a swirly above-the-knee black skirt, a skin-tight curve-enhancing spangly purple top, big twirly silver earrings, and my new ultra-femme designer glasses. I had my hair clipped back for a soft over-the-shoulder fall, and had made up my eyes.

I listened with my arms fenced across my front and felt acutely my lack of experience responding to a man on the prowl. I wondered if I thought he was attractive, but I was too discombobulated to tell. All I knew was that I didn’t have a clue what to do, and that I wanted to get away.

This proved hard to do. He controlled the conversational rhythm. He would pause for an affirmation, but then cut in again, leaving me no chance to disconnect.

I saw another woman approaching, attractive, physically confident, stylishly dressed. She tapped him on the shoulder. He made an impatient “wait a minute” gesture and turned to her. Clearly at least friends, they greeted each other, hugged, bantered. I gathered from their conversation that he was an artist, and retired. I could have walked away, but I didn’t.

Then he was focused on me again. The other woman hovered. Scraps of coherent thought flitted through my brain: should I drop a hint that I’m trans? He certainly seems practiced at this. Hm, I don’t feel required to have any ideas of my own. What’s with the frown line - doesn’t this man ever smile?

The other woman somehow snagged him back again, and I saw my opening. I touched his shoulder. “Sorry, I have to go,” I said. “Nice chatting with you.”

“Nice chatting with *you*,” he said, like a last reaching out of a hand, and then I was away, feeling giddy, relieved, gratified, womanly.

Whadayathink: should I go back next month?

Three men

    Yesterday at work a campus policeman showed up with a clipboard. He was doing an inspection and needed access to the furnace and such, so I grabbed my keys and led him downstairs. I was dressed particularly femme - turquoise skirt, sleeveless top, sandals - and feeling confident, in a mood to twinkle and flirt with the world. I could see in his body language and eyes the wariness of the politely ill-at-ease to which I am becoming accustomed. Still, our interaction went OK. He asked questions, I answered them.
    On the way back upstairs he noticed the black steel door in the corner of the basement. “Does that go outside?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is it alarmed?”
    “No.”
    I don’t know why I did it - impulse of the moment - but I timed it perfectly, just as he turned the knob: “Dwee dwee dwee dwee!”
    He jumped back, then gave me a sheepish glance. “OK, you got me,” he said, and the rest of our talk was natural and easy.

    Later another man came around the mailboxes to the corner of my desk. His clothes said he was from facilities. He had football-player shoulders and a manly moustache. He shied when he saw me and then stared into the corner. “Is Jim around?” he stammered. Jim is my boss.
    “No, he’s out today. May I help you?” Open, warm. I was still feeling fine.
    “I wanted to ask him a question.”
    “What’s the question?”
    He glanced at me and away again. “No, uh...when will Jim be back?”
    “Not until tomorrow. What’s your question?”
    He was edging away. “It’s just a question about the door.” They had installed a new front door the day before.
    “Ask it.” Pointed now. I was starting to feel offended. It was more than his obvious discomfort. I felt as though he had concluded in the first instant that I could not possibly have any authority, and/or that I wouldn’t be able to understand what he had to say.
    Reluctantly he explained: he had a heavy workload and couldn’t put the door-closer back on for a week...was that going to be OK?  Yes, I said, that would be fine; but still his face was clouded and his eyes skittered away.
    At this point Dale Robin showed up - our other manager. He turned to her with obvious relief and explained his business again. She gave him the same answer I had given him. His shoulders relaxed, and he smiled and thanked her.
    She asked him to look at a sticky window, and off they went. I sat at my desk, trying to absorb the experience. Earlier in my transition it could have triggered a tailspin, but now I just felt stung, as though I had been slapped. In the front room DR was chatting with the man as he ripped apart the casement with his screwdriver...so I went and joined the conversation. He still addressed his remarks entirely to her, except at the very end, when, in response to something friendly I said, he gave me the first and only open-faced glance of our encounter and answered me directly.

    Still later, still feeling fine, I went to drop off an application for part-time work at Trader Joe’s. I had thought of applying there because they hired Eleanor, another trans woman I know.
    The man behind the customer service counter was flusteringly handsome. Eleanor had tipped me that they hire based on personality, so I made an extra effort to smile and meet his eyes. He met mine right back and thanked me warmly for my application. He glanced at it.  “Elizabeth?”
    “I go by Lisa.”
    “Why Trader Joe’s?” He had the uptempo conversational cadence of the quick-minded.
    Oh shit, impromptu interview. Presumable trans-friendliness wouldn’t do - I needed something not self-focused. “Because I like the feel of the place. It’s got a good vibe, you know?” True enough. Attentive, he waited for more. “And I’m a customer - I, you know, shop here to fill around the edges of...” I flapped my hand toward my other store. Fuck. Oh well. I couldn’t say I shopped here only, it not being true. “And I love dried fruit.” The same quip from my application - oh well again.
    “What about ginger?” I stared at him blankly. “We haven’t had any ginger for a couple of weeks. Our regular customers are upset about it.”
    “Oh? Why’s that?”
    “An FDA thing...it’s complicated.” He held out a hand, I shook it, and we exchanged thanks. I left not sure whether I had just ruined my chances, but feeling I had been heard and respected.

    And what useful conclusions might a person draw from these three encounters? From the first two I glean additional evidence that people will have a harder time labeling, dismissing (fearing, hating) you if you can somehow get them to see you as an individual human; and that humor does this particularly well. Also, it clearly makes a difference to try to re-engage after a first snub - you might teach the person something, and in any case it matters to assert one’s dignity. From the third, I conclude that having someone else respond to you from the first moment based entirely on what you do and say is a precious gift.

    Do you suppose it is only coincidence that first two men were white, the third black? And, hey, another femme first: I teased a policeman! ;->

Reporting from the Orinda, CA public library

Halfway through a week’s vacation in San Fran, and travelling trans has turned out to be utterly routine. Either I’m passing, or not noticing when people read me, or both. I do still want to be seen as female...but all I can muster when I’m not is a slight mental shrug, and on we go.

What’s turning out to matter on this trip is mostly family. I’m staying in the guest cottage of an aunt and uncle I’ve only known slightly until now, and I am very much enjoying becoming better acquainted with them, their daughter, and a couple of their grandchildren...preteen cousins whom I met for the first time yesterday. I’m enjoying talking family history with my aunt, my father’s sister. Last night I leafed through her baby book. I find myself fascinated by the women of my family, and I stared hard at pictures of my grandmother as a young woman. She had a hard life and was in some ways a hard woman, but she also had a strong smile and a twinkle and was frankly sexy in a couple of shots...in one picture showing off long muscular legs as she poses in shorts, straddling a bicycle. And my father’s two sisters were both gorgeous young women, and all girl...very feminine.

I have yet to connect with SF’s LGBT culture, but I will tonight; my friend Jamie put me onto an event (and is now insanely jealous that I’m going...sorry girl, I promise to tell you *all* about it) at an LGBT community center in the city, a panel discussion featuring both trans women and cisgendered women talking about femininity and feminism, and featuring a couple of bona fide stars...particularly Julia Serano, trans activist and author, and one of Jamie’s idols. Also, I’ll be taking my cousin out tomorrow for a well-deserved night out (she’s a single mom) to see the play M. Butterfly, the main character of whom is a trans woman. I’m looking forward to dressing for the occasion...I brought my kick-ass pumps, tights, red skirt, and other finery, and I am determined to wear them at least once. Even if it is pouring.

And, I have one other activity planned for this afternoon which may include an interesting gender-facet: I’ve found a chess club in the city where, apparently, you can stop by, pay a fee, and play some pickup games. I have not played face-to-face chess since before I started to transition - only on the internet - and I’ve wondered for a while now how my current gender expression will play in that world. Chess is still a heavily male-dominated sport, and there are still plenty of guys who hate to lose to a woman. How will they feel about playing me? Will they become flustered? Will I win games I would otherwise not have won, as a result? Am I in fact taking unfair advantage of their poor sensitive male egos? Do I care? ;-)

Butching up no more

Tomorrow I have an appointment to have four new tires put on my car. It’s past time: yesterday I had a flat and wouldn’t be surprised if it was because I just wore completely through the rubber somewhere. I’m on the donut for the drive to the tire store.

It has taken me so long to do this partly because I can’t afford it; I’ll be further burdening an already overburdened credit card. But it also has to do with my gender work.

The last time I had to venture with money in hand into the ultra-masculine world of auto-repair (not counting oil changes at Chip’s...he’s an old friend) was a year ago, at inspection time. Since I was still living as male, I butched up for the occasion. [Post here.] But butching up is not an option this time. I’m buying tires as a woman named Elizabeth now, no matter what.

Thank goodness for friends and the Internet! First I sought a recommendation from my friend Dal, who is not only a transwoman but has worked as a mechanic; and then I discovered to my joy that her favorite tire store has a fully-featured website where I could pick my tires, decide what extra services I wanted, select which store I wanted to go to, make my appointment, and get a subtotal on my purchase, all without any human interaction at all.

I did have to make it through the company rep's call to confirm details. Despite prolonged struggles with voice I still sound somewhat male, and I could hear the man’s confusion as he asked for Elizabeth; but then his good sense of customer service engaged and the conversation became less awkward.

Still, the whole business has me feeling uptight and suspicious...and I hate feeling this way. That’s actually the worst part of this: the yucky sensation of helplessly demonizing the probably decent guys who are going to put my tires on for me. I do still have to be careful, just as a consumer; and my shields
will be up, in case I stumble across an unfiltered bigot. My biggest challenge, though, is going to be giving these guys the benefit of the doubt they deserve.

Deciding what to wear would also be a challenge, except wind chills are going to be down to 13 below tomorrow morning. I only have one ensemble for temps that cold. Just as well; I have enough to worry about already.