We're on our way back to cali after my first ever excursion since making the legal and social transition to my real gender, and it was pretty much a raging success! We went to Atlanta for a technology conference, and it was at least 90% positive, with a few real high points.
We signed up for TSA Pre✔️ as soon as my docs got changed, and it makes such a huge difference in getting through the airport. No shoe removal, no full body scan, no pat-down, I was treated just like a human being both coming and going. I got about 95% correctly-gendered in all of the places we ate or drank, and had the best time with all of our servers.
I had quite a few opportunities to solo in the ladies rooms, and have gotten over a lot of my anxiety, even to the point of chatting occasionally and offering help or a little compliment with enthusiastic reciprocation. I have started to notice the difference in the unsolicited conversations with men vs women, finding women to be far more receptive and friendly to me in general.
The only sort of weirdness was in the conduct of the conference itself, where I felt like I was being given a bit of a cold-shoulder, except by a few of the female student presenters. Maybe it was just in my head, but speaking with a few friends perhaps that's kind of par for the course in heavily male fields like mine, where the female attendance is probably under 10%. It even seemed as if my challenging questions were defended by not only the presenters, but also by the audience, although there wasn't a lot of data on tbat, so I may be overreacting a little.
Finally, I ran into two former co-workers, one who was almost certainly aware of my transition and one almost certainly not, although I'd seen neither since I made the leap. The first fellow looked maybe a bit rattled when I first called his name, but we immediately started chatting and trading stories. The second fellow literally took a few steps back as I approached and called his name. I quickly mentioned that I was now going by "Erin," and we just fell into "have you seen so-and-so" and just catching up without another word about it.
Well, the plane is landing soon, so I'm gonna wrap it up here. Talk to you all soon!
Erin
