I took down my announcement from my discussion forum today. It was there for a month and received 435 views. The number of views per day trailed off to one or two. Some time ago, Jane asked me to take it down and to tell her when it was done. I had intended to keep it there permanently but my business partners indicated that they felt it was going to hurt my sales. Also one of the people I came out to, gave a response to one of my posts in a gender specific way. He corrected me my name instead of simply posting an alternate position. I don't think he did it intentionally to hurt me but it was clear that my status with him has changed. I have designed over 70 models and he has built three of my prototypes, marveling at my engineering. Now he sees me as a woman which is wonderful. However, making this comment in my public forum showed me that he doesn't respect me the same way. The comment went like this "Edi, is right, Kay, blah blah blah". Actually Edi was not right and even if he was, correcting me this way would never and has never been posted in the forum among men. The correct etiquette is to post a contrary response never referring to the person that made the original point. The idea, is of course, not to demean the original poster and to keep a sense of decorum. I responded by proving my case in detail and with the correct etiquette. I got to thinking about the issue and decided that I had to cope the way many women have to which is to downplay their gender. I changed my member name back to my last name only. Ironically, he is taking my three prototype models that he built to a show this weekend and says he is going to make it a big deal about my company. I may be overreacting but when everyone I deal with starts to side with Jane agreeing to take my announcement down and downplay my trans or woman status, these things loom larger than otherwise. Frankly, it is somewhat scary to think that my competence would be considered less because I am a woman. This is all the more amazing because I had the reputation of having the Rolls Royce of WWI scale models. Sales still seem to indicate that I have a growing business. However, Jane who does the web page has not updated it to replace my male name with M.K. I thought in this enlightened time, we were past gender issues and women's vs man's work. Maybe it is the election and a woman candidate that has brought gender issues back to the front page.
