...Yet what goes down must come up (a little).
After breakfast and some chores this morning I got a message that a prescription for my dog was ready for pickup at the vet's office.
@SassyCassie and I have set goals to get more exercise to lose weight and get in good physical condition this year. I have a specific need to be in as good shape as possible when I go for GCS in September. I found that the distance from home to the vet is 4.6 miles. Why not ride my bike?
I put on my exercise togs, then tried to figure out what to do about my head. In the past I wore a sweatband or a visor, but I have to protect my hair grafts from all sunlight. That left just one thing that would work on a bike: a baseball cap.
Some of you who've been following me for a while may remember that baseball caps were
his thing, to the point where the neighbors weren't sure if they were actually removable. I had so many of them, and they were so representative of that old life, that one of the ceremonies at my
New Year New Life party last New Years Eve was throwing almost all of my old baseball caps into the fire pit and watching them burn.
I still had one that my neighbor had given my wife that was a shade of pink, which he described as a "girly hat." Putting it on induced a wave of dysphoria, but if I was going to ride in the sun, I didn't have a lot of choice. I rode off, constantly worried about being misgendered.
He was all too evident in the mirror with that hat on.
1.4 miles into the ride was Walmart. I needed to pick up a few things, but was fighting with myself on whether to chance going in and being called
sir. I decided to risk it. Besides, maybe I could pick up a more feminine hat there. I locked up the bike (my unusual looking recumbent) threw my purse over my shoulder, took a deep breath, and marched in.
They didn't have any hats better than what I had, but I picked up the other things I went for and headed for the self-checkout to avoid talking to anyone. As I stood waiting for one to open up, the monitor looked over at me and the two things I was holding, and said, "Ma'am, if that's all you've got, I can check you out."
What? Silent squeee!Keep in mind that I was wearing almost exactly the same things I had on the last time I was misgendered - plus the "masculine" baseball cap. Because of that I rate it as a partial male fail. It can't be a complete male fail, since the girls were pretty evident and there were still traces of lipstick. But considering that this time it worked when last time it didn't, it seems like a small victory.
The cashier rattled on about her cabin and her hound dog tangling with skunks and porcupines, all the while addressing me correctly, and when I left we both were wearing big smiles.
When I got back to the bike rack, there was a male employee staring confusedly at my bike. He'd never seen anything like it before, and we talked about it for a while. No weirdness. The same happened with a lady employee walking by. I was getting all giggly inside as I realized that despite that damned hat, I was still clearly passing.
Off to the vet's office. I was a bit hot and sweaty when I got there, but as I was parking the bike and getting my purse out, a lady came out and we talked about riding instead of driving. Inside I picked up the prescription. My name has been changed in the records for a while, and turnover is such that only the head doctor had ever met
him. As far as I know the current staff just sees me as Stephanie, despite that hat. (One time recently when I and one of the techs were holding my dog on the table, the tech whispered to her, "Don't worry, if you fall off the table your momma will catch you.")
Heading back home I debated whether to stop at Wendy's for a salad. I worried that stopping there would just increase the chances of being misgendered, so I rode on by, reasoning that I was only 1.4 miles from home and could eat there. A couple hundred feet past, I stopped. I was hungry. Heck with it. I turned around, parked the bike and went in. The lady at the counter didn't seem very friendly and I started wondering,
has she clocked me? As I was ordering, my voice failed me (too quiet) and she looked up and said, "ma'am?" I repeated myself while a little squeee was sounding in my head. I got my lunch and none of the people I was elbow to elbow with looked twice.
I finished the ride just before the rain. I don't know if there was much to learn from the whole thing. I'm still not terribly happy with the results from my surgery, but at least my record of being correctly gendered still stands. I can't help be be happy about that...
Stephanie
