Here is how my camping trip went!
I got to my friend's house around noon on Friday, and fortunately I was warned that she had some campers stay the night the night before. I was a bit nervous, and I saw one of them stare at me for a while. She didn't make a big deal out of it, but I was wondering what she was thinking. I found out later that I had her confused - I was obviously a girl, but she wasn't sure if I had been born one (Confused sounds better than knew for certain, so I'll take it!). Since nobody made a big deal out of me, it helped build up my courage for going into a pet store and a Subway on our way out.
One 3 hour drive later, we were up at camp and I tagged along to the grocery store to get food. I didn't see anybody stare at me or look at me twice the entire time (yay!) which makes me think I'm doing SOMETHING right. I was introduced as Anna to everybody else as they arrived, and nobody seemed to think anything of it.
Saturday we mostly hung out at the campsite, with some time spent in the nearby pond. Apparently the water was really cold, so I had a good excuse for not swimming! And most other people used the same excuse, I only saw two people in the water the entire time. But we hung out and chatted and had fun. At one point my friend asked one of the other girls how I was doing, and that girl was amazed to find out I was trans (double yay!). We went to the Dairy Queen as a big group later in the evening and I smiled when the waitress said "this is hers" as my order came up (
).
We went to an Arbys for lunch on the way home today, and once again I didn't pick up on anybody thinking anything unusual about me .
The only people I caught using male pronouns for me the entire trip were my friend and her boyfriend. They're also the only two people that knew me as a guy, so it was definitely out of habit (and I only heard it happen once from each of them). I have no idea what any of the guys we were with thought, but they kept using female pronouns so I'm not going to worry about it too much!
This trip has been a huge boost to my self confidence and I'm really glad I came along. I think that going out in public with friends for the first few times was the best way to do it, and it's helped me see that being around strangers isn't quite as scary as I thought it was. I'll work on pushing myself to go out on my own, next (I still need to go grocery shopping tonight if I want to eat this week...)
