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!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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. ;)