Games
For the past few months, each day that I drive to work and back, I’ve been playing a game with the toll collectors on the Everett Turnpike. They don’t know, of course; the game is purely in my head. (I’d gladly let them in on it, but then it wouldn’t work anymore.)
The game is this: Will you assume, O Thou Taker Of Tolls - in the five seconds or so that our paths intersect - that I’m a guy or a gal? And - even more interesting - will I be able to tell which assumption you’re making if you don’t use any obvious verbal cues (sir’s or ma’am’s) to give it away?
Two things fascinate me about this game. One is that, yes, it turns out I can generally tell the answer to that question, even without obvious verbal cues. And the other is that I’ve pretty much been getting the “right” gender assumptions from these folks for a solid three months or so now. (Yeah!)
I’ll never forget the first time one of these guys handed me change (yeah, I’m an EZPass holdout) with a cheery “Here ya go, buddy.” Okay, so there was in fact a verbal cue there (“buddy” - which, frankly, made my day completely), but there was also a tone of voice I’d never heard before - at least, not directed toward me from a person of the male persuasion. It was casual and comfortable, with sort of a “nobody here but us chickens” feel to it. He had assumed “male” and admitted me to the club.
(Yes, apparently there IS a club. I’ll let you all know when I get my engraved invitation...)
What I’m sensing here is the adult equivalent of the change I noticed in my younger students when I first began officially presenting as male at work. The little girls now keep a different degree of social distance from me - still friendly but less intimate, especially less physically close; I’m no longer a random snuggle-target. (This is fine; while kid-snuggles are nice, they’re also highly problematic in a professional situation where the rules are stringent.) And the little boys now make more eye contact and participate more, no longer doing that “hang on the edges of the class and pretend disinterest” thing that little boys tend to do when seriously outnumbered by little girls AND a female teacher. (That part is quite cool and more than makes up for the other.)
In adults, it’s just as clear, if perhaps a little more subtle. For each gender, there’s a style of interaction - tone of voice, verbal patterns, emotional content, etc. - that says “one of us,” and a style of interaction that says “one of them.” Not necessarily in a bad way; I think that, for most people, it’s more about differing comfort levels than about any kind of personal judgment. In general (always in general - there are never any hard and fast rules where humans are concerned), men talking with other men are more easygoing, more likely to to speak in short bursts and sentence fragments; women talking with other women are more chatty, emotionally open and inviting of connection. Meanwhile, men and women talking with each other are usually a little more formal, a little more neutral, a little more more conscious of phrasing and word choices.
For many years, in my youth, I was blind to this distinction. I was astounded to realize - eventually - that my conversational patterns were leading unsuspecting males to assume that I was flirting with them. Ugh! No offense, guys, but seriously - that wasn’t happening. And so I had to consciously learn new patterns to try and stop it from seeming like it was happening.
Anyway, it’s been a few months now since I’ve clearly heard the “wrong”conversational tones from the folks I interact with.
Of course, a huge part of the reason for this is that I’m surrounded, in my day-to-day interactions, mainly by people who are in on the game. My friends, my church community, and my work community are all deeply supportive, and have been working consciously to achieve that mental shift with me as far as possible. (If I haven’t mentioned it lately, damn I love you people!)
Up until a few months ago, though, it was still a totally unpredictable toss-up with strangers. Store clerks and bank tellers (and toll takers) were at least equally likely to assume me to be a “ma’am” as a “sir” (even despite my openly displaying WAY more facial hair than most “normal” women in this society would be caught dead with).
The real shift happened when winter came and, instead of leaving my button-shirt hanging open over my t-shirt, I started buttoning it completely. I hadn’t realized how much difference that would make, though in hindsight I guess it’s kind of obvious (duh). (In my defense, I wasn’t actually trying to pass... admittedly, perhaps, in large part because I didn’t think it was possible. I was just trying to feel more comfortable in the way I chose to present myself to the world.)
Either way my (thankfully small) breasts aren’t readily visible - but with the shirt open, there’s more... well, implication of depth, I suppose, from certain angles. With it closed, the overall visual impression sort of... evens out. And so I’ve been fascinated to find that, since shifting that one visual element, I pretty much always get my correct pronoun from strangers.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re actually seeing me as male - I sincerely doubt that I’m passing that well! It just means that I’ve resolved the “big” ambiguities, the defining factors that people use to make a snap decision whether to say “sir” or “ma’am” when confronted with an unknown person.
Trans activist Matt Kailey had a great personal story about this: an encounter with a store clerk in which every new signal seemed to shift the balance. He’s shopping for a gift for a female relative - i.e., in the women’s section - and seen from behind, his slight figure causes the salesgirl to approach with, “Can I help you, ma’am?” ... but upon coming close enough to see his flat chest, she immediately recants, “I mean sir”... Kailey instinctively smiles to try and set her at ease after her error... which socially reads “female” and brings her back, with apologies to “ma’am”... at which point he speaks, and his low voice again shifts her much-abused mental gears back to “sir”... this goes on until the girl - who, it turns out, is luckily of the temperament to confront such stuff straightforwardly - finally just comes right out and asks, “No, really, which are you?”
In other words... gender is a damned complex thing.
In a few kinds of circumstances, sure - such as with the toll guy who called me “buddy” - I may actually be passing for male. (Which, let me tell you, feels totally awesome!) But that’s a whirlwind meeting, a momentary drive-through relationship. And when it does happen, I’m aware that I’m likely being perceived not so much as a man, but as a boy, a teenager or a very youthful young adult. (Luckily, this is okay by me, as I’m used to being taken for much younger than I am; both my appearance and my behavior tend not to fit expectations in that department.)
But the rest of the time, apparently, I’m now at least giving off enough of the right signals - or few enough of the wrong ones - to make people feel comfortable making the decision (consciously or otherwise) to treat me as male. It may still be obvious to them that I’m really something... well, something more complicated than that... but it’s clear enough that my external presentation is meant to be read as “male,” and apparently that’s good enough.
Of course, after writing all of this, yesterday my pharamacist - who of course knows the score (he’s seen the “F" on my driver’s license and the diagnosis “Gender Identity Disorder” that underpins my prescription for testosterone), and whom I suspect of perhaps not quite thoroughly approving of transfolk (although to be fair he has been nothing but entirely professional in our few interactions) - calmly let loose a feminine pronoun in my direction from across the room while directing another person to hand me a phone number I’d requested.
Grrr... I think I’ll wear my “Hello, My Pronoun Is He” button next time I go in there. Right next to my name tag from work, which displays a clearly masculine nickname.
Or maybe I’ll just refer him to the toll guy on the Everett Turnpike, who really knows the score.
The game is this: Will you assume, O Thou Taker Of Tolls - in the five seconds or so that our paths intersect - that I’m a guy or a gal? And - even more interesting - will I be able to tell which assumption you’re making if you don’t use any obvious verbal cues (sir’s or ma’am’s) to give it away?
Two things fascinate me about this game. One is that, yes, it turns out I can generally tell the answer to that question, even without obvious verbal cues. And the other is that I’ve pretty much been getting the “right” gender assumptions from these folks for a solid three months or so now. (Yeah!)
I’ll never forget the first time one of these guys handed me change (yeah, I’m an EZPass holdout) with a cheery “Here ya go, buddy.” Okay, so there was in fact a verbal cue there (“buddy” - which, frankly, made my day completely), but there was also a tone of voice I’d never heard before - at least, not directed toward me from a person of the male persuasion. It was casual and comfortable, with sort of a “nobody here but us chickens” feel to it. He had assumed “male” and admitted me to the club.
(Yes, apparently there IS a club. I’ll let you all know when I get my engraved invitation...)
What I’m sensing here is the adult equivalent of the change I noticed in my younger students when I first began officially presenting as male at work. The little girls now keep a different degree of social distance from me - still friendly but less intimate, especially less physically close; I’m no longer a random snuggle-target. (This is fine; while kid-snuggles are nice, they’re also highly problematic in a professional situation where the rules are stringent.) And the little boys now make more eye contact and participate more, no longer doing that “hang on the edges of the class and pretend disinterest” thing that little boys tend to do when seriously outnumbered by little girls AND a female teacher. (That part is quite cool and more than makes up for the other.)
In adults, it’s just as clear, if perhaps a little more subtle. For each gender, there’s a style of interaction - tone of voice, verbal patterns, emotional content, etc. - that says “one of us,” and a style of interaction that says “one of them.” Not necessarily in a bad way; I think that, for most people, it’s more about differing comfort levels than about any kind of personal judgment. In general (always in general - there are never any hard and fast rules where humans are concerned), men talking with other men are more easygoing, more likely to to speak in short bursts and sentence fragments; women talking with other women are more chatty, emotionally open and inviting of connection. Meanwhile, men and women talking with each other are usually a little more formal, a little more neutral, a little more more conscious of phrasing and word choices.
For many years, in my youth, I was blind to this distinction. I was astounded to realize - eventually - that my conversational patterns were leading unsuspecting males to assume that I was flirting with them. Ugh! No offense, guys, but seriously - that wasn’t happening. And so I had to consciously learn new patterns to try and stop it from seeming like it was happening.
Anyway, it’s been a few months now since I’ve clearly heard the “wrong”conversational tones from the folks I interact with.
Of course, a huge part of the reason for this is that I’m surrounded, in my day-to-day interactions, mainly by people who are in on the game. My friends, my church community, and my work community are all deeply supportive, and have been working consciously to achieve that mental shift with me as far as possible. (If I haven’t mentioned it lately, damn I love you people!)
Up until a few months ago, though, it was still a totally unpredictable toss-up with strangers. Store clerks and bank tellers (and toll takers) were at least equally likely to assume me to be a “ma’am” as a “sir” (even despite my openly displaying WAY more facial hair than most “normal” women in this society would be caught dead with).
The real shift happened when winter came and, instead of leaving my button-shirt hanging open over my t-shirt, I started buttoning it completely. I hadn’t realized how much difference that would make, though in hindsight I guess it’s kind of obvious (duh). (In my defense, I wasn’t actually trying to pass... admittedly, perhaps, in large part because I didn’t think it was possible. I was just trying to feel more comfortable in the way I chose to present myself to the world.)
Either way my (thankfully small) breasts aren’t readily visible - but with the shirt open, there’s more... well, implication of depth, I suppose, from certain angles. With it closed, the overall visual impression sort of... evens out. And so I’ve been fascinated to find that, since shifting that one visual element, I pretty much always get my correct pronoun from strangers.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re actually seeing me as male - I sincerely doubt that I’m passing that well! It just means that I’ve resolved the “big” ambiguities, the defining factors that people use to make a snap decision whether to say “sir” or “ma’am” when confronted with an unknown person.
Trans activist Matt Kailey had a great personal story about this: an encounter with a store clerk in which every new signal seemed to shift the balance. He’s shopping for a gift for a female relative - i.e., in the women’s section - and seen from behind, his slight figure causes the salesgirl to approach with, “Can I help you, ma’am?” ... but upon coming close enough to see his flat chest, she immediately recants, “I mean sir”... Kailey instinctively smiles to try and set her at ease after her error... which socially reads “female” and brings her back, with apologies to “ma’am”... at which point he speaks, and his low voice again shifts her much-abused mental gears back to “sir”... this goes on until the girl - who, it turns out, is luckily of the temperament to confront such stuff straightforwardly - finally just comes right out and asks, “No, really, which are you?”
In other words... gender is a damned complex thing.
In a few kinds of circumstances, sure - such as with the toll guy who called me “buddy” - I may actually be passing for male. (Which, let me tell you, feels totally awesome!) But that’s a whirlwind meeting, a momentary drive-through relationship. And when it does happen, I’m aware that I’m likely being perceived not so much as a man, but as a boy, a teenager or a very youthful young adult. (Luckily, this is okay by me, as I’m used to being taken for much younger than I am; both my appearance and my behavior tend not to fit expectations in that department.)
But the rest of the time, apparently, I’m now at least giving off enough of the right signals - or few enough of the wrong ones - to make people feel comfortable making the decision (consciously or otherwise) to treat me as male. It may still be obvious to them that I’m really something... well, something more complicated than that... but it’s clear enough that my external presentation is meant to be read as “male,” and apparently that’s good enough.
Of course, after writing all of this, yesterday my pharamacist - who of course knows the score (he’s seen the “F" on my driver’s license and the diagnosis “Gender Identity Disorder” that underpins my prescription for testosterone), and whom I suspect of perhaps not quite thoroughly approving of transfolk (although to be fair he has been nothing but entirely professional in our few interactions) - calmly let loose a feminine pronoun in my direction from across the room while directing another person to hand me a phone number I’d requested.
Grrr... I think I’ll wear my “Hello, My Pronoun Is He” button next time I go in there. Right next to my name tag from work, which displays a clearly masculine nickname.
Or maybe I’ll just refer him to the toll guy on the Everett Turnpike, who really knows the score.
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