con coda: a tranny moment

[sistawendy]

I forgot a couple of incidents in the last entry. I'm chatting with mamishka in the hallway in my Hester Prynne outfit when a girl of eleven or so comes up to me and asks, "Are you really a lady?"
I laughed. "No," I answer. She seems a little freaked, but I don't think too much of it.

Fast forward a few hours. I pass the same girl in the hallway, when she volunteers, "You don't really look like a girl."
"Oh well," I shrug.

Yeah, I could have pointed out to her that she had to ask earlier. L'esprit d'escalier. Besides, I was on my way elsewhere, and I was picking up a hostile vibe from her. How sad. I wonder where she got it.

Comments

[breakingglass.livejournal.com]

You looked very lovely Sat night and it was great to see you!

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Likewise. :D

[evillinn.livejournal.com]

i hope that her encounter with you will be the first teensy step towards opening up a little bit. Maybe she'll encounter another tranny, or androgynous person, or whoever else might seem different to her, and will start being able to see the variety in people and life and perspectives. As potentially hostile as she may have seemed to you, this might have been a really good experience for her. I hope.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm hoping, too. With any luck, not pushing the concsiousness-raising won't turn out to have been a mistake.

[evillinn.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was likely a mistake. There is the possibility that it didn't have as big an impact on her as you'd have liked, but, had you pushed it, it may have not gone the direction you wanted. I think its just as important for people to have a number of largely inconsequential encounters with situations/people/lifestyles they aren't familiar with so that they really get the idea that, ultimately, it doesn't matter. Sometimes I think that too many "significant" encounters wind up making the differences seem like more of a big deal than they are.
Its something that I remember thinking about when I was living on the Navajo Reservation. If the fact that I was white was always a big deal, people never seemed to relax. If, on the other hand, the on-going encounters were just non-issues, things eventually just became more relaxed.

[adularia.livejournal.com]

I would submit that kids, even eleven-year-olds, who've never seen a particular type of person before are likely to say stupid things. I can't judge whether she was actually hostile, though I certainly hope she wasn't. I just remember a really awkward, inarticulate period as a kid, where I'd say something really dumb-assed and it didn't accurately represent my attitude at all.

I hope it did open her mind, though you sometimes can't tell until years later.

[ms-vermilion.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see a world where people could view gender in broader terms and not focus on it as being the primary launching point regarding how to communicate with other people. I don't see that happening anytime within my lifetime, though, and in fact I've seen quite a bit of evidence that there's even more strictures on gender identity than ever, which is sad.

I hope that your encounter with her had some lingering, positive impact, which it probably did, but I also know how painful those sorts of in-your-face confrontations might be for you.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

If there's a war against gender roles going on, I'm a reluctant draftee at best. I'll settle for an indefinite truce.

Yeah, it isn't fun to hear that you don't present well, even from an eleven-year-old, but I figure I need to grow a thick skin in my situation.

[ms-vermilion.livejournal.com]

Being unapologetically yourself is a supportive part of that war. There are plenty of other people to step up and take on the fight through the more confrontational aspects of writing, discussions, etc.

[solarbird]

I suspect that the latter comment was her being defensive about having thought you were were, earlier. It's the whole "I meant to do that" thing.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

It did have that defensive quality to it.

[imflying.livejournal.com]

Kids say the darnedest things. To anyone, really. Mostly because they are naive to certain things simply because of their youth. A blue-haired friend of mine told me he was at a bank and heard a little boy ask his mom why that man had blue hair. The woman told the child it was because he's magic. That is the kind of parent most naive children need. I've encountered parents who steer their kids in the other direction upon seeing me, parents who ask their children questions like, "she's pretty isn't she?" when they notice them staring, parents who cover their children's eyes and give me dirty looks, etc... it all depends on what part of the area you are in. People should raise their kids to have more respect for every type of person.

[seven-veils.livejournal.com]

You looked gorgeous in both the outfits I saw you in. It was a joy to chat with you. I hope that child's exposure to you opened up her world a bit. I'm thinking that maybe she was embarrassed for not knowing if you were a boy or girl and was trying to cover it up with the later comment.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

That was no lady, that was Hester Prynne!

I mean really, if she'd just read the book, she'd have known. ;)

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Nyuk nyuk nyuk!