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This is great enjoyment reading your experiences. This thread needs everyone's participation.
- My workplace had a wall outside the Director's Office showing that federal agency's organisation chart of our nearly 150 employees at that site - each of us presented with our photograph and applicable work title. There I was in all my 'male' glory - and obvious shadow (1981). Advance two years (1983). My supervisor critically noticed my feminised changes and absent shadow. She called me to her office to inform me that she was beginning separation procedures to fire me ('I know you are a female working here as a male; we can't have that.'). Their confusion was not something that I was eager to assist correcting, though accurate as it was in their ignorance.
- Two years later (1985) and conversation at the home of a co-worker not unlike any during the preceding four years until she stopt in mid-sentence and suddenly asked why I had no facial or arm hair. Sorry, I was defensive and made some lame comment that Terry knew was a lie. I could hardly have told the truth to her, as was my perspective in 1980s Utah. The passage of time made me eager to tell the truth to her.
- Tim and I were 'rasslin' on his bed. Totally innocent; Tim, a homosexual male, perceived me as a heterosexual male. His knee suddenly landed where no male allows such an intrusion. Tim apologised to me, noticed there was no 'male bulge' where he presumed one to be, and oddly asked, 'Are you female?'. Sorry, another defensive reply I hold valid for 1980s Utah; I told some sort of lie that also did not satisfy Tim, but we moved on with our conversation. A few months later I confessed everything to Tim and he cheered, 'I knew it!'.
- Lisa, a former girlfriend and then girl friend, never saw me during my most 'male' of years (1981 - 1982). She saw me in 1978 when I still appeared ambiguous at best, we kept in touch via regular letters, and she next saw me May 1985 when now I am female who presented as 'male' to her that day. She made no comment of my appearance unaware of the changes that developed those intervening years; I never told her. I keep telling myself, 'One of these days' when I travel to her community on business.
Allow me to defend a lie or a deceptive reply - at least from my perspective. Twice I was fired by different employers 30 years separate specifically on their accusation that I am trans. I perceive stealth and secrecy keep myself from attack. I feel that my privacy trumps intrusion into my personal medical circumstance.
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