For everyone going through the struggle of going out into the world in a new identity, terrified that people are looking at them and thinking bad things about them, here's some reassuring news.
Most people are much too worried about their own hang-ups to spot, still less care about anyone else's. This isn't just an opinion: it's a psychological phenomenon called The Spotlight Effect. Below is a link to a blog about it by a Psych professor at Berkeley.
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2012/06/05/the-spotlight-effect/And here's his summary if you don't have the time or interest to read the whole blog.
"People (generally) of course know that they are not the center of everybody else's universe. But when we do something atypical, either good or bad, we tend not to sufficiently correct for the difference between our own and other peoples' perceptions.
"The take-home message, I hope, is clear: when you find yourself mortified or overly worried about the impression you'll make, remember that other people simply don't pay as much attention to you as you think they do. Your conversational faux-pas will not linger in their memories, and that coffee stain on your shirt is unlikely to be a conversational topic at the water cooler. You will not make or break a first impression on the basis of one particularly brilliant or embarrassing thing you say.
"This is not to say that people don't notice you at all; only that people do not process information about you as deeply as you do. In other words, while you're stuck ruminating, people have likely moved on. No big deal."
Now, the experiment that established the Spotlight Effect involved a guy wearing an embarrassing Barry Manilow t-shirt. Going out presenting as a woman for the first time is several orders of magnitude more terrifying than just putting on a dodgy t-shirt. But the principle is the same.
Hope that helps ease a few fears, just a tiny little bit!
