I hesitate to write this post when things are actually going pretty well, but feel like I need to if I want to work through some of it…

When I started transitioning I knew it would be hard work. Hard physical work, like the excruciatingly painful and horribly expensive hair removal, and hard emotional work, like changing how I interact with friends and loved ones.

What I didn’t really think about were all the little ways in which it would wear me down.

Things like having people I barely know feel that they then get to make assumptions and judgments about me (not even necessarily negative ones!)  because they know I’m trans. Like Jack, whose brother and brother’s wife were both trans, so even though I just met him he felt completely comfortable asking me how long I’ve been on hormones. And, damn me for not thinking ahead, I told him instead of giving a noncommittal answer to indicate it was none of his business. An answer like “trans people go on hormones for the rest of their life” or “none of your bloody business, person-I-just-met.”

Things like the discomfort with names around people I don’t have the energy to explain the transition to. Like Paula, the sister of a friend of my mom’s, who was giving my roommates and I furniture. AR said Paula would be “riding with R” and Paula said, “Who?” And I said (awkwardly) “Oh, it’s a nickname…” Or DK who came in at work one day and asked, “Is R in?” I’m starting to feel bemusedly like I won’t need to tell anyone at work my name, because the front-of-office staff heard it from DK, my boss probably heard it from someone at a show opening when somoene else introduced me as R, etc, etc, etc.

Things like having one of my students at the Workshop ask me why I’m wearing earrings, “because aren’t they for girls?” My circular response of, “Well, I’m wearing them, so it must be OK,” isn’t nearly as good as G’s, “No, silly, earrings are for ears!” Or having a student in the hall over the summer say, “Was he a boy or a girl?” when I went back into the office. Or going down to the classroom space for work to grab something during a class and hearing students say, with gossipy glee, “Was that a boy or a girl?!”

Which isn’t to say that transitioning is all bad (although, still being off hormones, it sometimes feels that way). For example, when I went to Funk, a ridiculously-named club in the city, I went in girl-mode and was waved into the women’s room no-questions asked. Whether or not I was ‘read,’ it was a nice confidence booster. Or I got a kick out of having my boss (who I’m out to) say she “told her [eight-year-old] son about me” and he later said he felt a little uncomfortable around me because it was “weird being around someone changing genders.” (Educated eight year old!)

Well, it’s weird being someone whose changing genders, too!

-R