I'm stealth, and have been on T for around 6 months...

No one in my university knows that I'm trans except for a few select friends and professors. Today we had an attendance quiz - world's easiest quiz.. only had to be there to receive a 100%. She put the roll up ON THE OVERHEAD on a huge screen in front of the entire class, then proceeded to go through the names. I thought she would at least skip over my birth (and legal) name and just count me as present, since she obviously saw me before class and knew that I was there. However, she scanned it - didn't recognize the name due to her calling me by my preferred name and completely forgetting my birth name, and spoke it out loud... as soon as she got to the last name.. you should have seen her face. She was scared and felt horrible(I cant fault her. I know it was a mistake just by her facial expressions), but she then CORRECTED HERSELF and about three girls that know me in the class turned around and looked completely confused.

Have any of you dealt with being outed like that? What would a good excuse be? I thought about saying that I have a sister with the exact same initials and since our university goes by initials and last name as our user name, the usernames were switched up accidentally when registering for class??? But then that sounds way too over the top. I have no idea what to do. My friend Dan said that I am being paranoid(only one in my lecture hall that actually knows), because no one even noticed... but I really think they did.

On a brighter note, my mom is actually starting to call me by my preferred name... and so is friend of the family's child.. she had a HUGE issue with me transitioning. Shes around 9 years old and screamed "YOURE A GIRL" at the top of her lungs last time I saw her, and now she's actually calling me by my preferred name. I feel great day to day about passing... but actually being outed like that was one of the scariest things I had ever experienced.

actually, yes.

My first week of my first semester in Seminary last year. I had gone through all the hoops to getting my .edu email as Annah, my ID as Annah, my paperwork as Annah. Spent about 6 months prior to that fall semester to get everything completed so there would be no headaches come the first day of classes.

My very first class of the very first day, my professor read the attendance. Since it was an graduate orientation class, it was full of first year Seminary students. About 60 of us. And our professor is the Vice President of the school.

When he got to my name, he called out "Robert <LAST NAME>." He never really flinched...i guess he did not get the memo.

I simply stood up and calmly replied, "Close, it's actually pronounced Annah."

His face flushed red and from that point on, I never been outed there.

As a Prof at Uni I can sympathise with both you and the teacher! It is one of those mistakes that makes us feel terrible. I think most of us try very hard not to out our students in any way. As far as strategy, ignore it. If anyone asks, just say, 'I don't know what that meant, just a clerical error I think'.
On another 'I wish the ground would open up and swallow me, episode' I had a guest speaker called Ray Rogers. There is an old cowboy series starring Roy Rogers, and I was told that the speaker got very upset if he was referred to as Roy Rogers.  After hours of concentrating to make sure I got his name right, you can guess which I used. The audience laughed, he was embarrassed and I was hoping that a flash of lightening incinerated me on the spot.

It didn't

Cindy

Quote from: Annah on March 28, 2012, 11:34:05 PM
actually, yes.

My first week of my first semester in Seminary last year. I had gone through all the hoops to getting my .edu email as Annah, my ID as Annah, my paperwork as Annah. Spent about 6 months prior to that fall semester to get everything completed so there would be no headaches come the first day of classes.

My very first class of the very first day, my professor read the attendance. Since it was an graduate orientation class, it was full of first year Seminary students. About 60 of us. And our professor is the Vice President of the school.

When he got to my name, he called out "Robert <LAST NAME>." He never really flinched...i guess he did not get the memo.

I simply stood up and calmly replied, "Close, it's actually pronounced Annah."

His face flushed red and from that point on, I never been outed there.

Not meaning to derail in anyway but I loved what Annah said! This is the confidence I and other want to have. I applaud you Miss!

I agree with how courageous Annah is lol... amazing

And yeah, today I went near her office and she saw me and called for me to come in. We went over my exam but took time to get personal and apologized. She said she had forgotten that it hadn't been legally changed. She felt so bad. She was like "you reallyyyyyy need to get that officially changed. I wasn't even thinking." - I could tell she was horrified that she had outed me. It was all alright though, everyone that I know in that class spoke with me yesterday and no one acted like they had noticed anything. No change of pronouns, no questioning looks.. nothing. So perhaps my friend from class was correct and no one noticed.

She's right though.. I do need to get it changed. Especially since it's only about 100 dollars for fees and such after the name change papers are bought, and I already have those.

oh god..sorry,...there was one other time lol.

Another professor (love her to death)....ok..lemme explain

That same fall semester I had a final project in her "Wonder, Wisdom, and Education" class. My final project was a multi media video children's book. A book on the electronic black board with music, sound effects, built in video in the pages plus "Twig" the faerie who came into the classroom playing her flute. If you don't know who Twig is...google her lol.

Anyways, I really impressed the professor with it.

The next semester I was in another one of her classes. We went over the syllibus and she said, "and Annah, if you do a final like you did in my other class, You're going to ace this."

Another student asked "Was the project good?"

And my professor replied, "Oh yes. His project was one of the best I have ever seen for that class...everyone was crying."

Everyone was looking around thinking "WTF?? He?? Where??" lol. No one really knows im Trans there but the administration.

After the class, she was so apologetic she was nearly in tears. This woman is probably one of the biggest and most active spiritual LGBT advocates I have ever seen...and she popped the wrong pronoun lol.

I asked her point blank "do you not think I pass or something as a girl?"

She explained that when she interviewed me prior that summer I was presenting as Robert and it was a momentary slip up because she had seen me before I changed gender. Which, I could understand. I wasn't upset. Just water under the bridge.

mhm i had a couple of instances of professors getting it wrong.

on the first day (i don't remember the details, i just remember feeling terrible) there were 3 professors presenting what we would do in the new semester and then they checked for attendance and said my male name. I think i told them, yes i'm here but that's not my name. I talked to them afterwards and apparently they had gotten the memo... they just chose to ignore it because they didn't understand it.

later on a professor i even liked said something like "yes, what [male name] said was right", afterwards he came to apologize and said he forgot my new name so he said the old one... yeah... thanks.

thankfully both those times most of my class already knew me before and are friendly and a part of those i had already talked to beforehand so it wouldn't get weird in class. But there were a few new people and i'm not sure if they know or suspect.

at the end of that semester a professor asked me to present an elective, to an aula full of first semesters i'd be working with later on, that we students developed. When my turn came to go to the front he introduced me with my name but kept saying "he". My friends say they were terrified that he'd do that and how it would affect me, but i just ignored it considering that most people probably would just assume that his english is so terrible.