Halfway Down The Stairs

So, yesterday I had an interesting few minutes.

At the moment, the assumptions people make about me at first glance are a little... unpredictable. I’m talking here about folks who don’t know me - store clerks, waitpersons, people who interact with me but briefly, don’t know my story and don’t really need to be told it. From these folks, I still mostly get “Ma’am” rather than “Sir,” and feminine pronouns rather than masculine ones. Mostly... but not always.

Now, normally, I revel in every encounter that yields the correct gender identification - the one that fits my internal sense of identity - even though I know full well it’s a response that might easily have gone in the other direction, had the speaker taken time to ponder. In general, humans do tend to make sex determinations swiftly from just a few basic cues, some of them innately physical, others socially determined. So when someone with a short masculine haircut, a whiff of facial hair, and no obvious cleavage, wearing clothing that reads “male,” holds open a door for you... you say, “Thank you, sir” and don’t bother giving it a second look. (Of course, if you do give it a second look and it’s grinning happily, hey, it might be me!)

At any rate... this past weekend a couple of friends of mine drove out to a local event I was performing at, to enjoy the event and to hear my half-hour concert set in the middle of it. (Aside: you guys are awesome!) It was about an hour and a half drive from our home ground, so we stopped for food before heading back out on the road... and later that evening, one of my friends realized she’d left her credit card at the restaurant. An hour and a half drive away.

Since I was going back to perform for the second day of the event, I was happy to agree to pick it up for her. She wrote a note to the restaurant authorizing me to receive the card, and told me apologetically, “I called you ‘she’ because I wasn’t sure how closely they’d check your license.” I shrugged; it made sense in this situation. And like I said, I’m used to people assuming I’m female. No big deal.

Until I got there, and it turned out to be one of those moments when the person who greeted me  made the RIGHT assumption (with a smiling “May I help you, sir?")... which in this case was actually the WRONG assumption (or at least the trickier one), because I was shortly going to have to show her (or her manager) a driver’s license that said the opposite... whee!

Now, I should also add that my driver’s license photo is an old one; it does not reflect my current gender presentation. I’ve never thought of this as being a problem, since I rarely have any need for sensitive perusal of my identity documents... but suddenly it loomed as a possible issue in this unusual situation, as I waited what felt like a long time (but probably wasn’t) for the manager to come out and pronounce me fit (or unfit) to be handed someone else’s credit card.

Of course it turned out fine. Everyone was totally polite, and if perhaps my license and I were scrutinized a little more than just casually, eh, so what. I was indeed given the card in the end, and have already returned it to its happy owner.

But it did make me think some more about the future difficulties of this path I’ve embarked on - especially because I’m planning to transition a good deal more slowly than usual, to try and protect my singing voice. There are good reasons why the hormonal aspect of gender transition is generally accomplished at a good clip, biologically speaking (however harmful to one's vocal properties that might be). It's because our society doesn’t really know what to do with a person who can’t be easily and definitively pigeonholed as either male or female.

For instance, most public buildings have only two restrooms - one for men and one for women. A masculine-appearing person in the women’s room can cause an uproar; a feminine-appearing person in the men’s room can get hurt. Take your pick. Now, admittedly, I like socially-liminal spaces and I’m usually pretty comfortable in them... but I don’t particularly relish the idea of having to worry about the safety of a public bathroom when I’m away from home and really have to pee!

So far, my choices have been pragmatic. My driver’s license says I’m female - and will continue to say that for a while yet. (The legal process of changing genders is enough of a subject for a whole post by itself... one that might easily turn into a rant. You Have Been Warned!) So when the bathrooms are public affairs with multiple stalls/urinals/sinks, I opt for the ladies’ room and cover my silly little teenage-boy beard with a yawn or a cough. This is becoming increasingly uncomfortable and problematic (not to mention that it just plain feels wrong), but it’s the safer option right now, at this earliest stage.

As things progress, though, there may come a time when I don’t really pass well enough in either direction for comfort. This is one reason why those who are actively pursuing a legal gender change are often advised to carry a letter from their therapist explaining the situation - just in case of problems with ID cards, or run-ins over bathrooms. This idea feels... weird. Weirder by far, in fact, than the actual process of transitioning. (Any other Terry Pratchett fans out there thinking of Nobby Nobbs, carrying a note from the Patrician to verify that he is, in fact, human?)

We are a society that still makes a big deal out of gender, no matter how much we have blurred its lines in recent history. The irony is that we make a big deal out of it without really understanding it, or even caring to. We still really want to think that it’s simple, immutable, the lines clear and clean, when in fact it’s complex, obscure, and subject to shaping pressures from both inside and out. Persons who are in a process of gender transition (or who are gender-variant in other ways) bring out those complicated aspects, making them starkly visible in a world that’s more comfortable with binaries... a world that has designed itself around binaries. The Duality Of Space-Time And Bathrooms.

And so tonight this whole thing has been reminding me of an old favorite children’s verse by A. A. Milne: “Halfway down the stairs isn’t up and isn’t down / It isn’t in the nursery, it isn’t in the town / All sorts of funny thoughts run 'round my head / It isn’t really anywhere, it’s someplace else instead...”

I wish I had some deeply wise but Zen-ish-ly simple conclusion to draw from all this. Alas, there isn’t one. It’s just that it’s become particularly clear to me tonight that I am blithely proposing to loiter halfway down the stairs for the next several years.

That may sound like a dull destination, but somehow I suspect it could be an interesting ride.