Dumb little moment today. I was out rock climbing with some guys from class (ages 22-26) and a third party classmate came up. She's a power lifter and insanely strong -- really gorgeous, sculpted upper body, way more cut than the rest of us. And these dudes were such d-bags about it.
"I was like, 'oh my god, is that a man or a woman.' We were staring for ages as she walked up. I thought it was a trans!" Cue laughter, of course. Ughhh. It was a garbage moment for a lot of reasons:
1. Transphobic horsecrap.
2. The girl in question is very feminine: long hair, female facial features, obviously dressed like a woman. There's no way you couldn't tell what gender she was presenting as just because she has visible back muscles.
3. So what if she was trans? Who cares?
4. Why you gotta police women's bodies, anyway? Real nice how y'all seem to think you're the arbiter of female appropriateness.
But then, also
5. Jesus. You see me as more female than her. I'm not even a little bit gender non-conforming to you. You think it's appropriate to make transphobic jokes in front of me because you're certain that I'm a cis woman, and no part of my own presentation has suggested otherwise.
#1-4 are big bad problems and they've got me steamed, but. Damn it, #5 is such a petty, tiny, personal hurt but literally six hours later, here I am, still sitting miserably thinking about it. It's dumb because I'm pre-T and I absolutely do not expect anyone to magically intuit my gender, I really don't. But I've done absolutely everything I can to look masculine and sometimes the reminder that I'm utterly ineffective at it sits low and curdled in my gut. In moments like this, I somehow feel invisible and under a spotlight at the same time.
I wish I'd called them out on speaking transphobically instead of being like "Hey, building muscles without testosterone is impressive no matter where the hormones are coming from." Kind of wish I'd said, "hey, you know what else is 'a trans'?" ...although I know it wouldn't have gone well.
I dunno, haha. It's kind of a bummer. Guess I just wanted to vent to a crowd that could understand why it hurt.
