A guy at the bar is having a pretty good time – a few drinks with friends. He comes over to our table and holds out his fist, “Alright man! That is what I am talking about!” He likes my hat. I hold up my fist and we “bump.” It is a startlingly masculine moment.
We have known each other for over a decade, which I find is worth more when you have transplanted far from your hometown. We see each other maybe twice a year, more if one of us is having a baby. Though she was my friend first she has great affection for my amazing spouse. The evening passes – I am mostly silent. I am not sure why.
I met her years ago and now more years have passed than we shared. I have held her in the highest regard and this regard is not entirely unrequited. She provided the reference check when I was initially hired and is now joining our team.
I am sitting at a colleague’s desk with my back to the opening. I hear introductions behind me. She says, “Oh she knows who I am.” I turn, to greet her. I am now perhaps not what she was expecting. I can’t read her. Did her smile falter? A reasonable response while processing new information. Am I being paranoid?
There are several people there. I’m not sure if I said anything. There were too many factors to formulate the best response. I haven’t seen her since.
Does she know now? What does she know? Would someone have mentioned it to her? Was it out of ally-ship or gossip? Am I enough or must I give more? How long is this asterisk going to follow me around?
I am presenting for a group mostly consisting of people I do not know. My heart is warmed when during introductions people start adding their pronouns. Yet I wonder if others who do know me think that I am the reason for this change. And if so, is there resentment for what they see as an accommodation?
I almost fall forward into the void created between the space I expect to be afforded as a minority and that which is offered by a group reading me as a member of the majority. The performer inside is eager to fill that space and that seems the most natural way to reorient and yet I am keenly aware of both the allure of that extra space and the cost of filling it with myself.
“It doesn’t change a thing!”
They offer it in comfort. They mean, probably, “It doesn’t change how I feel about you.” Yet in either case they are incorrect.
When I was in college I did a number of biofeedback therapy sessions in an effort to reduce the number of migraines I was having. I feel privileged to have observed that which is primarily unconscious. Trying to lower my heart rate without attachment to achieving the goal. Trying without consciously trying.
At this stage in my life, I feel like my transition has resulted in what is akin to feeling utterly unchanged while a monitor informs you that your heart rate has doubled.
The world responds to me differently and it changes me.
The dichotomy of euphoria and dysphoria is a vale over everything. And to you, we are only ordering lunch. But I am simultaneously occupied by my feelings about myself and my perceptions of others feelings about me. I know it is *insert all judgmental words* but I have had so many years of practice. Though I have never played this instrument before… and I can’t read in this clef… the scale is foreign and harmonies unfamiliar.
That's Mr. Gender to You 