Trans Moments?

[Lightning Blue Ray]

Not sure if this counts, but anyway. On 13 April, this year, on a Wednesday morning, I was preparing for my 2.4 run. It's part of this NAPFA test. I was sitting with a friend, who had another friend on the other side of her. I commented on how the guys were under pressure to do well, because if they didn't, it meant a few extra months doing National Service (NS). I then swung the conversation to how some people don't identify as either guys or girls, for example, neutrois. My friend (who's from China and probably is not well-versed in gender talk) then asked me whether I was a girl or neutral (gender). I replied that I was somewhere in between, and that's one of the biggest hints I've dropped to any of my friends that I'm not entirely a girl. Anyway, it made me happy that my friend even asked the question. I would have answered demigender, if not for the fact that 1. in my country, almost no one knows what on earth nonbinary means, much less demigender, 2. she wasn't very fluent in English, so I didn't want to confuse her any further.

[PhoenixButterfly]

Recently a new group of folks moved into the abandoned house behind my home (in my hood houses are quite close together so we share a fence). I took my dog out one day while two boys, one maybe 16 and the other 10 or so, were in their backyard and this occurred:

Me: "Alright Charles (my dog)."

Teen boy: *freezes*

Me: ...? *waves*

Teen boy: *squints* *tilts head* *has the 'what the f' look painted across face* *runs off*

Me: "....M'kay. Nice meeting you too."

It has come to my attention that he couldn't figure out what I was exactly.

Hmm? Now, you've got me wondering if that's why my next door neighbors try to avoid me. I just moved into a new house recently. And I don't really want to meet our neighbors. But, whenever I'm in my backyard while they're outside, they seem to avoid me. My dad seems to think it's because the husband doesn't speak English. But I told him that some people who don't speak English can still understand it. My dad is completely unaware of my gender identity, which, btw, is agender or possibly gender neutral.

Now, I'm starting to think that my neighbor's grandson, who's six to eight years old from his appearance, is confused when he sees me. I have a short haircut and a somewhat masculine face. And, now that I'm no longer overweight, my clothes hide my body shape pretty well. Usually, when I'm out in public now, people mistake me for a man and call me sir or refer to me as he/him. It doesn't really bother me, though. I guess it's because they don't know me.

That being said, it really bothers me when people I know call me a woman, girl, lady, ma'am, etc. They don't know I'm agender, but I feel like they should have figured it out by now. I realize now that that's ridiculous, to think that they could ever figure out my gender identity on their own. I plan to tell my two best friends and my gay cousin soon. I'm already out to them as gay and they know that I've been trying to figure out my gender identity for a while now.

[TriSpectral]

Procrastinating by looking at Facebook. What else is new?

Anyway, I happened to look at my mom's 'about' section on her profile. I'm listed as her child, because I've set my preferred pronoun to "they". But my brother (cisgender btw) is listed as her son.

I'm kinda excited about this, and kinda scared. Excited because it's me quietly coming out to more people. Scared because she might look at it one day and wonder why I'm not listed as her daughter.

I guess I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it.

[Dodecahedron314]

https://i.chzbgr.com/full/8795442688/h972CAC21/

#relatable

[Finn.]

At work a colleague of mine told a boy to hold the door open for me and another kid, because "they are girls" (which imo doesn't matter, you just gold the door open for people that are close). And then he turned to me and asked if it was okay to still call me a girl, as in instead of a woman? I thought to myself, well is it okay if you call me a woman? No?

But yeah, I am not out. I told him I don't care.

[PhoenixButterfly]

Today I was having lunch with my sister-in-law and nephew and the waitress called me dear. Not ma'am. Not sir. Just simply dear. It wasn't until a little while later that I actually noticed she had called me that. It felt nice to be called something other than ma'am or sir, for once in my life. To be fair, even though my sister-in-law referred to me as she, I had gotten a more neutral looking haircut just a few hours before. Also, my clothing didn't give away any hints to my gender. And I've noticed that my voice is rather androgynous sounding. I don't know if it was a conscious choice of words or not, but she didn't seem to hesitate.

I liked being called dear so much that I changed my honorific from "Sir" to "Dear" on this site. It really suits me, I think. I suppose other acceptable honorific terms would be: honey, sweetie, or darling. None of these terms seem the least bit feminine or masculine to me.

[Lightning Blue Ray]

Just came out as demigender to a friend. She was really nice about it. :lol:

[Emery.]

I liked being called dear so much that I changed my honorific from "Sir" to "Dear" on this site. It really suits me, I think. I suppose other acceptable honorific terms would be: honey, sweetie, or darling. None of these terms seem the least bit feminine or masculine to me.

Really? All of them seem feminine/deminuitive to me. Except for sir.

Definitely not respectful choices. Sir, madam, she and he are respectful, sweetie/honey/darling is borderline not. It's too familiar to adress someone you don't have an intimate connection with. Otherwise it's intruing someone's space.

[PhoenixButterfly]

I liked being called dear so much that I changed my honorific from "Sir" to "Dear" on this site. It really suits me, I think. I suppose other acceptable honorific terms would be: honey, sweetie, or darling. None of these terms seem the least bit feminine or masculine to me.

Really? All of them seem feminine/deminuitive to me. Except for sir.

Definitely not respectful choices. Sir, madam, she and he are respectful, sweetie/honey/darling is borderline not. It's too familiar to adress someone you don't have an intimate connection with. Otherwise it's intruing someone's space.

I'm sorry if I upset you, Emery. What I meant to say was that honey/sweetie/darling would be better honorific terms coming from my close friends and family members. It absolutely drives me "crazy" whenever someone close to me, not in the know about my gender identity, calls me "young lady" or says "because you're a woman." Honestly, I'm tired of everyone seeing me as a woman. I'm not a woman and I've never been a girl, either. I always refer to my childhood memories as "when I was a kid," but my parents keep saying, "You still are a kid." (Btw, I'm almost 28 now.) Now, I say, "when I was younger." My best friend actually slipped up once and referred to me as "he" when talking over the phone to her boyfriend. She then "corrected" herself and said "she." Honestly, it didn't really bother me much, but it made me realize that my best friend is okay with me not identifying as a woman. I haven't explained to anyone (outside of the internet, that is) about my gender identity yet, but soon I plan to tell a few friends whom I am already out to as gay and questioning. It's nice to finally be able to put a label on how I see myself.

And I don't see honey/sweetie/darling as being strictly feminine.

Dictionary.com definition of honey: "Informal. a person for whom one feels love or deep affection; sweetheart; darling."

Dictionary.com definition of sweetie: "Informal. sweetheart." Dictionary.com definitions of sweetheart: "2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an affectionate or familiar term of address. 3. a beloved person. 4. Informal. a generous, friendly person."

Dictionary.com definitions of darling: "1. a person very dear to another; one dearly loved. 2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an affectionate or familiar term of address."

None of the aforementioned definitions mention gender at all. That being said, I realize that these terms are used more for women and girls than they are for men and boys. But sometimes people use these terms when referring to a man or a boy. Etymologically speaking, honey, sweetie, and darling are non-gendered informal honorific terms of affection or familiarity.

[Emery.]

No, you didn't upset me ;) Don't worry.

The thing is... gender doesn't have to be mentioned. It's like poetry. Like art.

http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/resources/seminars/activities/handouts/Hemingway.pdf

Here you see. No gender mentioned - yet it is everywhere. Like air, like a scent.

[PhoenixButterfly]

No, you didn't upset me ;) Don't worry.

The thing is... gender doesn't have to be mentioned. It's like poetry. Like art.

http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/resources/seminars/activities/handouts/Hemingway.pdf

Here you see. No gender mentioned - yet it is everywhere. Like air, like a scent.

I wasn't saying that gender doesn't exist. Of course, some words have a gender. That being said, I read that prose for the very first time just now and the only gendered terms I saw were: pronouns, the Italian words "padrone" and "Signora" and wife. All or any of these words could be swapped and the story would stay the same. Honestly, to me, it sounded a lot like George's wife was a transgender woman or possibly a feminine man. But maybe I'm just reading between the lines too much. Also, it seems to me that Hemingway may have originally written this story in Italian and then translated the best he could into English. Or maybe someone else translated it from Italian into English later on.

[Emery.]

No, I wasn't saying you say it doesn't exist. Yes, all the words could be swapped, and the story would still be the same, that's my point: the wife is a woman and has desires for nice long hair, being taken care of and a baby. You're definitely not reading between the lines too much. The whole story is between the lines. :)

[butterflydreams]

Got my company AmEx today at work (because I'm becoming a manager), and it had "Hadley <LastName>" on it! I asked if that would be ok, and they said in my position, it was unlikely I'd be buying anything in person. Even then it would only be an issue if I got carded for some reason.

I'm consistently amazed at how much you can do without changing your name legally. Just a few weeks ago I was able to deposit a check made out to Hadley.

[Lightning Blue Ray]

My parents are going to Perth, so I asked her to get me sports bras since I can't ask for a binder. She agrees and says she'll get me bras. I correct her, saying "Sports bras." My mum then tells me that I have one already in my room, before realizing that she told me to stop wearing them and to wear proper bras a long time ago. I reply, "These make my chest stick out." She then says, "You have to be a girl." That final word is what does not resonate with me. Maybe it does, but only partially. And certainly not enough that I feel comfortable being told to "be a girl".

[Heart]

*hugs*

[butterflydreams]

I've gone from barely audibly stuttering out my name at the deli I go to all the time to firmly asserting, "Hadley...yeah, H-A-D-L-E-Y".

And then because they recognize me there and often don't even ask my name, the guy hands me my sandwich, "Hadley? Is this yours?" and I firmly assert, "Yes, thank you :)"

Who are you, Hadley? And what have you done with that scared person you were 3 months ago?

[Chardog]

I've gone from barely audibly stuttering out my name at the deli I go to all the time to firmly asserting, "Hadley...yeah, H-A-D-L-E-Y".

And then because they recognize me there and often don't even ask my name, the guy hands me my sandwich, "Hadley? Is this yours?" and I firmly assert, "Yes, thank you :)"

Who are you, Hadley? And what have you done with that scared person you were 3 months ago?

Yay for you being more brave about things!!

[Emery.]

Today in the morning, I dressed and looked into the mirror. Snap judgement. Guy. Not sure if not girl. Hm. Okey, it started to look real confusing, I think to myself. I'm doing make-up to compensate, because, no way, I won't wear anything tight, it's too warm. Damn, I look even more masculine, my eyes sinked even deeper after applying eyeliner. I take eyeshadow and struggle for the next 15 minutes to make my eyes seem actually bigger and rounder with it. I fix the eyebrows with some make-up into a more feminine shape. I put on lipstic. Better. Rouge. Femme as heck. I look as pretty as a doll, I feel the urge to punch my own lights out. But feel a strange satisfaction that I was able to control how I present.

[Finn.]

@Emery.: there's so many cool ways to express your gender! My gender expression doesn't vary that widely (partly because of not having tried/bought a binder yet and other complicated things) but I always feel inspired by people that can totally transform themselves at will, basically. It's so cool to see. I am sure you looked amazing.

My trans moment of the day was a conversation with a colleague. Somehow, without any doing on my part, he started talking about gender. And then he told me that one of his friends is a transguy, they have known each other pre-op already, and then he kind of fumbled with his words and ended up saying that no one can actually totally emphasize with that (trans) experience, if its not your own, as in he can't imagine being a guy but the body doesn't fit. And I was just sitting there... yes.... . Internally I was waving and shouting at him "I'm trans too!" (though not binary), but of course I didn't come out to him. It was slightly awkward, but nice, and kind of hilarious. I don't know.

[Lightning Blue Ray]

Okay, so there's a music key fandom on Tumblr where there are blogs such as @you-had-me-at-d-minor, or @you-had-me-at-b-flat-major, that kind of thing. Another person and I created a kik group, and so far there are 6 of us in there. I'm the only person in my time zone. Although I was already sleeping, one of the other friends' kik acted up, so she thought I sent a message when I'm supposed to be asleep. (I had stayed awake until 3+ talking to them.) Because everyone knows me as Ray, the person who's kik acted up thought I was a guy and referred to me using 'he' pronouns, despite me having shared my birth name earlier (I chose to). I realized that I wasn't as bothered as I thought I would be, and surprisingly, I even liked being referred to as 'he'.

[nerdperson777]

I just... I'm one misgendering session away from abandoning my family altogether.

:( that sucks. I've already had to emotionally disconnect, and even that's pretty lame.

I had to fill out an expense report today at work which you have to sign. As usual, I looked to my boss: "legal name or real name?"

"Real name is fine, it's just an internal report"

It was about this time the obvious occurred to me: I'd never signed my name before! Oh my god...it looked like a 4 year old. Oh well, practice I guess.

I tried writing Calvin [last name] too. It was really weird..

I always refer to my childhood memories as "when I was a kid," but my parents keep saying, "You still are a kid." (Btw, I'm almost 28 now.) Now, I say, "when I was younger."

I'm also more comfortable with neutral words. But with my dad, he keeps seeing age as a relative time instead of exact so nothing will make him stop calling me a kid (I don't like it being used derogatorily). He also likes to say a term best translated as new licensed kid so "to him", I'll always be the new licensed kid even if I've already had my license for the past 4 years and nothing will change when that becomes 20 years.

I also found my new favorite character. I have over 20 screenshots from this anime episode. I can't relate any better to this guy whose short fuse mom wanted a daughter. Mom seriously blows up, although the one here is more of a defiant crazy. She tried to burn down his classroom while my mom would have just kept calm and argued the crap out of someone.

[butterflydreams]

I got carded at dinner tonight with my brother. Which is cool, because it means I still look young. But my ID looks so bad. It definitely doesn't look like me now, and I don't know if it ever looked like me. I was surprised the server even accepted it to be honest.

I guess it was fate that it would be such a bad looking ID. So every time I see it, I feel a little ping of motivation to get it all changed over. As of right now though, I'm still afraid.

[Dodecahedron314]

So, I was recently catching up on podcasts, and in a recent episode of one of them, the main character's boyfriend made a reference to the pharmacist dropping off the main character's prescription. My immediate reaction was "wait...<main character> is trans?!?" I hang around so many trans people on HRT that I actually momentarily forgot that people get prescriptions for things other than hormones...

(To be fair, the main character in question is canonically nonbinary, at least according to the prominent interpretation of a slightly ambiguous remark made by the writers (whom I don't think are entirely up on gender terminology, hence the ambiguity) last year. Also, an additional amusing part of this anecdote is the fact that I've had a long-running headcanon that the aforementioned boyfriend is trans, so if it had been the other way around, I would have reacted...much more strongly, shall we say. As in, possible jumping around and fanby squealing. )

[Finn.]

On Friday we worked at the sheltered workshop and somebody we met in the hallway asked my colleague "did you bring someone new? a new woman? a new man?" They were obviously confused about my gender which I appreciate =) But then my colleague just said "obviously a woman" and that was that. Well, nice enough.

That's the second time somebody was confused about my gender there, and I like it.

[Dodecahedron314]

So I'm staying with my grandfather for a few days, and my dad is also living with him for a week or two as a break from his trucking job. However, I was given the guest room for some reason, while my dad is camping out in the sunroom. I said that it would make more sense for him to be in the guest room because he's staying longer, and that I would be perfectly fine with sleeping on the floor in the sunroom. My dad said, "Well, you're a young lady, and you need your privacy."

I was physically unable to contain my incredulous scoffing even though I knew this was the exact opposite of a good direction for this conversation to go, because my dad is conservative and knows nothing about gender and still occasionally uses the word "gay" in the way that 12-year-olds do. He questioned my reaction, and I said that I just hate it when that term is used in reference to me.

"Well, that's what you are, what else am I supposed to call you?"

"Umm...person? Human being?"

"Well, you're still female, and you need your privacy."

*CUE LONG, INCREDIBLY UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE*

"Um...I....don't think that gender has anything to do with it....? But okay..."

I'm so out to the rest of the world that I've apparently gotten really bad at staying in the closet around my own family. If my dad had any nonzero amount of knowledge of trans people whatsoever, I would've accidentally outed myself right then and there. I really need to get away from my family.

[Heart]

Ha. I forgot that you were AFAB, Dodec. For what it's worth, you're so agendered in my mind that when I ask myself what I had thought you were, a search for "Gender Assigned At Birth" retreives "Error 404: Assigned Gender Not Found" :P

*hugs* though for the awkward sleepover arrangements. I hate gendered sleeping arrangements. The idea that one gender somehow "needs" privacy more than any other... is silly. Or that rooms should be doled out in a gender-segregated way. To stop dilly-dallying....? What should we do with lesbians, gay men, bisexual anyones, or pansexuals? And the implication that two straight people of the opposite binary sexes can't sleep in the same room without having sex... is outdated and disrespectful to every individual's autonomy. In my not-so-humble opinion.

When we went camping as children, the tents were family-based. So brothers and sisters slept in the same tent as their father. I liked that; it made so much more sense than gender segregation! I am much more comfortable changing in front of family than some random other people that are the same assigned gender as me.

[butterflydreams]

I don't know if this is a trans moment, so much as it's an "omg, Hadley!" moment, but I thought it was funny, so I'm gonna share.

I was messaging our HR person at work about why so-and-so wasn't working today.

She responds, "oh, he's still transitioning from Dick's" (As in the sporting goods store)

She set me up, I had to go for it. I responded, "Yeah, I know what that's like."

I hear her start laughing like crazy at her desk. I said I was sorry not sorry, and I know that was very un-PC, but you just teed the ball up. I had to knock it out of the park :lol:

[just an owl]

My friend was talking about some comments I had on my steam profile where a couple people had referred to me as a guy..

He was saying "well that's pretty sexist [which I agree ofc, I never mentioned I was a guy to these people], 'cause you're a girl" and I was just like "oh, yeah.. well it happens..." I was so close to outing myself right there..

[Heart]

I don't know if this is a trans moment, so much as it's an "omg, Hadley!" moment, but I thought it was funny, so I'm gonna share.

I was messaging our HR person at work about why so-and-so wasn't working today.

She responds, "oh, he's still transitioning from Dick's" (As in the sporting goods store)

She set me up, I had to go for it. I responded, "Yeah, I know what that's like."

I hear her start laughing like crazy at her desk. I said I was sorry not sorry, and I know that was very un-PC, but you just teed the ball up. I had to knock it out of the park :lol:

That name for the store though! :lol:

[Kappamaki]

Just got the stereotypical non-binary one today! I've been preparing for it, but it took me by such surprise that I couldn't be as clever as I wanted...

I was just unprepared for it, you know? One minute you're informing the kids that yes, that is a squirrel up on the hill (I have much experience in the spotting and identification of squirrels), and the next moment it's "Are you a boy or a girl?"

And I must've failed my Diplomacy check because instead of going with a chippy "Neither!" or a divertment into education, I went "Huh?"

And then their mom was all "You can't ask someone that!" and went on for a while about that, talking to her kids and not giving me a chance to say something like "Actually it's very actualizing to know that I'm messing up people's genderdar, thank you," and I awkwardly hurried on my way.