So the performance at OUT/LOUD went really well, I think. At about the third song or so I had gained some acceptable level of confidence (the power of playing a harmonica and having people actually cheer for you) and the rest was basically a party. I was also very pleased to meet and hang out with Katz of Athens Boys Choir, whose song Fagette was instrumental in affirming my identity as a fem transman, and perhaps most importantly is hilarious and contains the line, "I'm a pansexual, got my hands on the manual, a smooth Jew, a bar mitzvah party animal."
After the show I went to Ben's Judith Butler-themed birthday party, though I mostly just hung out in the garage and drank champagne with the usual types, plus Samuel, arguably my favorite person to frequently sport a skirt and a full beard. Amusing passing anecdote: One of the OUT/LOUD volunteers, whom I've known as a party acquaintance since maybe September, or in any case before I started hormones, said to me, "It was funny, one of my friends said she thought you were a transman!" I did a total double take, and said, "I AM a trans man," to which the rest of the kids chuckled semi-awkwardly and she kind of blushed. I asked her, perhaps a little too forcefully, "What did you think I was?" She kind of shyly sputtered out, "I just thought you were really femme!" It's strange to me to be consistently read as a man, even by people who should, perhaps, "know better." Even though it's what I want (in a lot of ways it one of the main points of transitioning, to get others to see you as the right gender) it takes some getting used to.
I'd also like to look at the statement, "My friend thought you were a transman!" Does this strike anyone else as a strange thing to say to someone? There's some judgment in it: "My friend noticed that you're short and barrel-chested and have a relatively high voice, so she made this assumption about your medical history!" or, "My friend heard from someone that you're trans, but I've known you for a while and haven't picked up on it myself, and it would be such an outlandish thing if you were!" Would you say to someone, "I noticed the way you were limping, and I thought you might have actually had a disability!" or "I heard you were of Puerto Rican descent, how nuts is that?" (I know race/ability/gender aren't all the same thing, but for the sake of an example.) What if I'd been a butch woman? What if I had just been a very femme ordinary dude? Would I have been justified if I'd been insulted? "Looking like a tranny", most notably on the mtf side, is a pretty common insult, even among otherwise sensible people, and even among certain circles of trans people who are wanting, for whatever reason, to be stealth. So, not to pick on this specific person and what she said, but there's more to "I thought you were trans" than meets the eye, so to speak.
At the same time, I can't say I'm not a bit pleased that this girl didn't think I was trans. I guess I just kind of assume that everyone knows I'm trans at all times, at least within my social circle, that they refer to me as, "Yeah, Russell, you know, the trans one?", that I kind of have a sign around my neck about it. I know this happens to a degree, and I don't exactly have a problem with it: I'd rather it not be the main thing people know about me, but I don't not want people to know. But I just feel a little proud, I guess, of my friends for keeping it under their trucker caps to a degree.
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