Hiatus

Work.  I have limited excuses beyond working as to my silence.

And in that work, I again find myself confusing teenagers and now even my boss.  Well, he knows I'm female (and a dyke), but I ended up in a class with him where kids were asking if I was a boy or a girl.  I handled it with my usual smooth skills (hold your breath for that post) but it was interesting thinking about it later.  My boss is a nice guy, no dramas there.  But normally, if a conflict like that arose about anything else, he'd want to talk about it.

Not this.  How would he raise it?

'Do you know the students thought you were a man?' or perhaps

'How do you think your haircut affects your work?'  (not a good idea, HR doesn't like that kinda talk)

'How do you feel about your gender presentation at work?'.  Nope.

Even the most politically correct boss isn't going to find a good way to mention gender presentation with 'clients', even if it's just to see how you feel about it.  Of course, I could have raised it, but I have no clear answers to give and he's not going to someone who will have them.  So it would have been me exposing my lack of clarity and him feeling like he should help but being a bit out of his depth.

We've never spoken of it.  And of all the dilemmas for a butch looking dyke in education, this is a pretty mild problem.  Just not one with an answer.

Winter

I know, everyone in the northern hemisphere is all sweating and summery.  Well, except for the British, but I don't think they have summer.

But here, it's cold.  Icy in the morning, grey during the day, miserable at night kind of cold.  There are some perks though.  The fashion, for one.  What's not to love about a good coat?  Or a cosy jumper (sweater for the Americans). Wandering the streets it's all black and slate grey with the occasional dapper looking scarf.  I can't help but feel people look classier in winter.  Maybe I feel too much flesh looks trashy, but sometimes it does.  Not such worry in winter -all those layers and even skinny jeans get covered in a coat and a good pair of boots.

And while these wonderful bundles of fabric keep me warm, there is an unintended side affect.  I inadvertently pass a lot more in winter.  No tell tale curves, lots of dark colours, limited gender cues and I think I just speak less in the cold.   And in the back of a classroom, when I'm all rugged up and trying to stealthily observe someone else teach, all the kids can see is a big coat and short hair and they wonder who that guy is in the back row.  Public toilets become more of a battleground and I find myself paying in cash, to avoid pulling out a credit card and having to manage the confusion of having SUCH A GIRLY NAME (thanks mum).

Welcome to winter.

Compliments in the strangest places

Working with someone new, who seems like a nice enough guy.  On the way to lunch, out of nowhere, the following occurs:

Colleague: Have you read any of Alison Bechdel's work?

Me: (stunned) Um, yeah..?

C: You look like her.

M: Really? (I can't refuse a well placed compliment, even though being a lean short haired dyke with glasses doesn't make me as good looking as she is).  

C: Yes.  Have you read her work?

M: Um, yeah.  I liked her last graphic novel...  Have you read her stuff?

C: Oh yes! I loved 'Fun Home'.  It was...

He proceeded to wax lyrical about 'Fun Home' and we spend the rest of the day talking about it and other books. A couple of days later we ended up at a comic book store where I bought (political) graphic novels under his guidance.  Turns out he loves the genre (I have really only read Bechdel's work and some of the Maus series) - and his enthusiasm was contagious.  

What I loved was that he compared me to a intelligent (butch?) dyke who he knew and respected.  It wasn't one of those weird "I like The Ellen Show so I am ok with lesbians" conversations. It was about common ground and it wasn't straight common ground.  It was dyke territory.  And I'm so nice when people are on my turf.

Ok, so I admit it.  I am totally susceptible to flattery.  So sue me.

Travel

There has been a break in blogging due to travel.  Admittedly, I went to the USA where they have the internet, but I was also working so didn't get a chance to come back to this corner of the web.

I was a little tentative about my journey, mainly due to both US and Australian security who generally make getting onto a plane more stressful that it already is (21 hours in transit is no picnic).  However, I got off lightly.  Only once was I frisked and even though a few people got pronouns confused, it didn't cause me to be scrutinised and analysed and generally held up.  Even those creepy scanners were fine, as was the retina and fingerprinting at US customs (really, you need all that?).

Suffice to say I arrived in all destinations safe and sound and even in travelling round, gender was not a big deal. Sure, I was in a major US city, but I still thought there might be tangles.  However, the less I freaked out, the less others did.   But when I was called sir I went with it, and if/when they corrected themselves I brushed it off.  It's easier to be self contained away from home, and much easier to be carefree with others perceptions of you. Here I am with friends/colleagues/etc when gender confusion strikes, so I need to take other people into account, and what they think and feel.  Maybe I'm saying travel can allow you to be selfish?  Or maybe it's just about the ability to reinvent yourself.

Day to day

I wonder if I didn’t take into account how I looked at all, how the world would be towards me. If I wasn’t worried about having to fend off other people’s gender confusion, would that make things easier or harder?  I wonder if it’s on me, that I worry and bring that with me?

Meanwhile the kids are still as perplexed and perplexing as ever.  “Isn’t it a dude” was a titbit last week, as well as kids genuinely asking for help calling me ‘sir’.

I have this one school and class that I go to every couple of weeks. There is this girl, she’s 13 or 14 and gets in my face every time and I really have no idea why.  She comes up to me, quite aggressively really and says “Hi Miss!’ several times. She’ll stare at me during class and sometimes point and whisper. She tracks me wherever I go and when I look up, she’s glaring at me. 

But she’s 13 or 14 and I struggle to find it threatening, even though I think that’s what she’s going for.  I am reminded how glad I am, for all the difficulty one faces, that I can move through the world this way.  That I am an adult and the challenges of being a teenager are behind me.  And when I think about it like that, things aren’t so bad.

Youth of today

Today I was up the back of a year 9 class in a school I’m not too familiar with.  About five minutes in, the kids started asked questions of their teacher:

“Miss, who’s that?”

“What’s that?”

“Miss, there’s someone at the back of the class” (today’s youth.  So observant)

And there were a few others I didn’t hear.  Their tone was not polite.  The teacher quietened them down and said:

“Some of you have asked who’s up the back.  This is Ms______ and she’s from ______”

Well.  If the emphasis on the Ms didn’t give away that the kids were asking pronoun related questions, the “WOAH” when she said it sure did.

Awkward.

And a little unpleasant.

I’m temporary amusement and the kids were soon distracted away from me.  While I felt pretty crap about the whole thing, it’s not so uncommon for me to get this reaction when I’m in new schools.  What was even worse was what happened later in the class. 

When talking politics, they thought Bin Laden was from Iraq.  Turns out their education is not only deficient when it comes the breaking down the gender binary.

Moving in packs

I went out to dinner with a dozen women the other night.  Good friends, all dykes.  For a range of reasons we ended up in a pretty suburban restaurant.  It’s well known by locals and the food is pretty good.  We were seated at a big table up the back and had pretty loud conversations for a couple of hours.  The table next to us knows up better than they wanted to.  It was a good night, for the company and the fact that no one kicked me out of the women’s toilets.  Ok, so no one else was there when I was, but I take any evening without being accosted as a win.

The fun came at the end of the evening.  It’s an average sized restaurant and we had to walk the length of it to get out. Twelve women leaving at once is perhaps a little odd, as most tables were of mixed gender.  But it was the five of us that were clearly not so straight that I think drew the attention.  The rest of the group were guilty by association. And they didn’t look so straight to begin with. Needless to say, the place was pretty silent as we left. 

But it felt ok.  It wasn’t an isolating experience, where I had to second guess myself and wonder if I was imagining it, or checking if I was safe.  I was part of a pack.  And it felt pretty awesome.