Airports

Beyond my gender struggles in schools, I also have a problem with airports.  I like them – all full of possibility and potential.  They don’t like me so much, or at least the security team doesn’t.  I get stopped every single time.  I made a mini bet on my last overseas trip that I would be stopped at every one of the ten or so airports we’d be passing though…and I missed it by one. And that was only because the woman in front of me was arrested for drug trafficking and was being cuffed, so they didn’t look too closely at me.

Why?  I really don’t know.  As mentioned, I’m not the most feminine of women.  Do I look like a ‘terrorist’?  I really don’t know what that means anyway, but I don’t think I fit the profile.  Regardless, I have better conspiracy theory.

In August of 2001 I went on my big, post uni round the world trip, and found myself in Canada on September 11.  Ten days later, as scheduled prior to world events, I was due to fly to New York City.  Air space was reopened in time, and off I went.  Well, by then security had changed and was in a scramble to change even more. Everyone was getting looked at twice, and people were pretty jumpy.  I went to check in Vancouver in their special Canada to USA section and handed my ticket to the woman, then my passport.

It took one glance at the ticket, before the passport.  The ticket had my (quite girly) name.  The woman glanced at my not so girly 21 year old butch/ teenage boy traveller look, and the oh so close to the surface alarm bells went nuts.  She grabbed my passport, she double checked me, she got my hat and shoes off in a heart beat (for those of you who remember, this was unheard of pre-2001) and then got security and went through my gear etc etc.

Where is the conspiracy?  I’m convinced they tagged my passport from that in some way.  It was brand new, so for the following ten years of my intrepid 20’s, I was frisked, patted down, glared at, stared at and generally given a hard time in every airport I set foot in.

Then again, it happens here domestically, where I don’t need my passport, so perhaps I am being a little paranoid.  Then again, perhaps I just inspire paranoia in those who work in airport security.

Other teachers

In one school, there was another out dyke on staff. She was only there for a term and I later found out she’d been fired from her previous school.

For taping a kids mouth shut and locking him in a cupboard.

Anyway, she (let’s call her Jenny) took a shine to me.  Now, I’m not the world’s most perceptive person, but I could see the ‘locking kids in cupboards’ crazy coming a mile off.   I was still polite, and that was enough of an invitation for her to seek me out in the main staffroom come by my desk a lot. 

I think we got to know each other when I had car trouble and she drove me to school one day.  It was not my first choice for a ride I assure you, but  she lived in the same dykey neighbourhood.  I get in and she’s blaring Pink’s ‘Fingers’ at top volume and grinning at me.  Being behind all pop culture curves, I didn’t know the song but still managed to feel uncomfortable just listening to the distortion and her singing.

Such an overt display of lesbian ‘friendship’ was unprecedented at my school.  My staffroom was abuzz with innuendo and titters (I never understood ‘tittering’ til I heard it happen.  Unmistakable).  When I revealed I was not thrilled by the attentions of the lady in question, well, that was even better. We had entered lesbian stalker territory!

Now when Jenny visited, other staff would smirk and generally humiliate the woman behind her back.  Awkward for me though.  Don’t like the crazy lady, don’t like the homophobes.  And, as we know by now, I was always going to take the path of least courage…I said nothing. To either party.  I ducked my colleagues comments, I weaved her and I felt shitty about both.

In the end, she was de-registered by the powers that be.  Maybe it was the Facebook photo hugging students, or perhaps the rumours of the affairs that followed.  Either way, she left under a cloud.

The moral here?  Well, there is none.  And there is no winner when your allays are not you people and your people are not your allays.

Passing acquaintances

Despite the challenges, I love my job.  And when something gets difficult, or doesn’t go right, I have some good people inside and outside work that I can talk to.  However, when I tell people I have trouble with kids reading my gender, they don’t get it.  Everyone I know (and most of them are queer) know me as female and can not fathom that other people struggle with it.

They have the best of intentions – they see me as someone they care about who has a rough time over something they can’t see.  So they dismiss it, tell me I look feminine (not really the answer I’m after) or laugh it off (sometimes it’s a good laugh, I’ll admit).  Anyway, without a queer/butch/etc community in a similar context, it’s hard to find solace.  I don’t know many gender non-conformists, and the ones I do are transmen, who pass, or it is their intention. 

I don’t really want to pass.  I want to be read as female, just not the female you think.  The initial confusion, the embarrassment that leads to them or me feeling humiliated…it’s boring and frustrating.  It’s like coming out ALL the time, even when you don't actually have anything to do with the person you’re ‘coming out to’.