Yesterday M came around as promised, bringing painkillers aplenty (you're only allowed to purchase what currently constitutes for me two days worth of paracetamol at a time, so I have my visitors bring some as a kind of ticket for entry) and took my car to the garage for me. He got anxious about taking the car without some sort of contact with the owner first, so I called the garage and let them know what was going on, priming them to give me a quote for both part-worn and new tyres, depending on individual costs and number of tyres that will need replacing.
The garage owner, who doesn't know me, started calling me 'love' almost from the start of the call. I generally pass on the phone fairly well, and indeed always have (I frequently picked up the phone at my mother's to have her friends immediately launch into a conversation before I could politely say this was all very interesting, but perhaps they'd like to tell her?) and pleasing as this is on one level, I'm always a little torn between my trans and feminist sides when it happens, as it's also quite a patronising way to be addressed.
I'm a bit torn about passing in general, to be honest.
I recognise that I am a woman only in the sense that that is a description for the collection of psychological expectations we hang on the thing we call my side of gender. There are some physical and cultural experiences that go with being born with a female body and assigned that gender from birth that I will never have. I wish I could, trust me, I'd gladly trade a lifetime of menstrual cramps for being able to bear a child, for instance. Sadly medicine has not yet reached that point yet. Once upon a time I would have felt it was vital that people saw me as a natal woman at all times, were never aware of any other status. But I've reached an understanding with that side of me. I am content that I just be me, and have people treat me in a way that is appropriate to me.
I am not, though, a man. I reject that more utterly than I assume being a woman. If someone wanted to call me a third gender I won't object, but that seems to be bending over backwards in denial. I'm a more stereotypical woman than almost any other one that I know, so if it is a cultural assignment of a definition then I can't see the point in assigning me any other one.
But I am not ashamed of my past. I'm annoyed about it, annoyed at the wasted years of living a lie, angry at some people for forcing that on me, irritated at my own lack of knowledge and grateful for the more recent legal protections that make it safer to be honest. I'm aware not everyone has the benefit of those protections, and amongst my trans friends, some are more nervous than they need to be. They lack the perspective of how much better we have it than 95% of the world.
There are some things about passing I do have anxiety about. I have anxiety about not being seen as a transvestite; this is not a fetish, I dress to advertise what I am, to change how people interact with me, I'm not changing what I am so that I can dress a certain way. I have an anxiety about not quite passing; there is nothing more irritating than that knowing look that says I have found you out. I'd rather not pass at all than that.
The man at the garage kindly dropped the car back today, and I saw his double take as he dropped it off (which did not otherwise register in his actions). It amused me. As much as it irritates me the fact that trans people are a go-to easy joke in our society, dear cis people, please know as much, if not more, as you laugh at me, I am laughing at you.
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