Standing Out After Coming Out
The surprise result of transitioning was that I suddenly became memorable to… everyone.
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I’ve changed. I’m different now.
Now, before you accuse me of moonlighting as a stand-in for captain obvious from those hotels.com commercials, no I’m not talking about my gender transition.
I’m different because my gender transition makes me memorable.
Before I started transitioning, I was perceived to be a run-of-the-mill, cis-white-hetero presenting male. Nothing memorable about me. Someone who is everywhere in society, controlling everything from the government to women’s healthcare.
I could run any number of errands in a specific day; go the grocery store, to the hardware store, stop and get a smoothie, pick up something from a stranger’s house off Facebook marketplace, back to the hardware store (I inevitably forget something every time), and home, without raising an eyebrow. Minutes after someone had an encounter with me, they would forget what I looked like, or that I was even there. Sometimes it felt like this:
Clerk at Smoothie Store: “Nice to meet you, come back again!”
Me: “…um we met last Friday when I picked up my smoothie…and EVERY FRIDAY before that! You don’t remember me? Oh well.”
But now I’m different. Or should I say memorable.
I should have anticipated this consequence of transitioning genders but I didn’t. I thought I’d be able to go about my run-of-the-mill, everyday life without people noticing me, just like I’ve done since I was born. When I transitioned, it wasn’t motivated by wanting to be memorable. Honestly I just wanted to be myself and being remembered by others was the furthest thing from my mind. I thought people would continue to forget me just like they had in the past.
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I thought wrong.
Now I’m memorable. Now people come up to me as if they know me when in fact they’ve just seen me before. They say things like:
“I’ve seen you in here before. How are you doing?”
Say what?
This phenomenon of being memorable has also led to some of the more interesting interactions and encounters I’ve had with strangers over the last few years. Here are a few.
Early on in my transition, my wife and I were at an art museum. I must have had the vibe of someone early on in a gender transition, someone needing affirmation, because a woman approached us in the gift shop. The conversation went something like this:
Woman: “I have to say something to you.”
My Inner Monologue: Uh oh.
Woman: “I just need to tell you how brave you are. You being you helps so many people.”
Me: “Thank you?”
Woman (now weeping): “Can I just give you both a hug?”
My Wife and I Together: “Sure!”
Woman walks away; me to my wife: “Ok then!”
This was one of the first if not the first encounter I would have like this. Someone comes up to me, overcome with emotion, telling me how brave I am.
Like the woman at the bar who came over to me and a friend and talked with us for 15 minutes, telling me the whole time how beautiful and brave I was. At the time, I appreciated the sentiment, but just wanted to eat my tacos. The more I get into my transition however (multiple years on hormones, longer hair etc.) the less and less this happens, and the more I realize how special these encounters are. They are someone, giving themselves in vulnerability to a complete stranger, in order to affirm my existence.
Sometimes people aren’t willing to put their emotions out there like that, but instead they do things like pay for my lunch. One time in particular I was out to lunch with a friend, again, I must have clearly looked transgender. Halfway through our meal a woman came up and laid a $25 gift certificate down on the table, smiled, and just walked away.
“That was weird,” I said to my friend.
“That is for you,” my friend said to me.
Clearly it was for me and not the run-of-the-mill, cis-white-hetero dude sitting across from me. I am different. I am memorable.
So different and memorable that I was once invited to a women’s brunch by a stranger at Target. She first asked for my help finding something in the grocery section which I was also shopping in. After I helped her find her evaporated milk, she thanked me and kept shopping. 15 minutes later, as I was checking out, she got in line behind me and said “hi there!” We then had this exchange:
Woman: “Ok this may sound weird…”
My Inner Monologue: Uh oh…
Woman: “But I’m having brunch with a bunch of women tomorrow and wanted to see if you’d be interested in joining us?”
Me: “Oh wow, I truly appreciate it, however I have to fly a kite/go to my kids soccer game/ do anything other than walk into a room full of strange women where I am the awkward trans woman.” (Something like that).
Woman: “Ok”
And that was that. I never saw her again. And I’ve always wondered if her plan was to invite me over when she sought me out to help with her groceries, or if she too was just overcome with her own bursting emotions, wanting to affirm my existence, to the point of inviting a stranger in Target over to her house. I’ll never know I guess, but I was truly grateful.
Then there are the constant compliments on my physical appearance. They go something like this:
Me Checking out at Walgreens: “Hi!”
Checker (always a woman): “Hi! Oh I just gotta say…
My Inner Monologue: Uh oh…
Checker: “I just LOVE your nails! I love that color/length/shape.”
Me: “Thanks!” (taking my ramen noodles and leaving)
It doesn’t have to be nails, it could be hair, pants, shirt, sunglasses, anything for that matter.
I’m honestly still thrown when strangers compliment my clothing. This tends to happen now that I’m a woman and not just because I’m transgender, but many times it’s because I’m trans as well (I’m not sure if trans men experience this phenomenon). And there’s a difference between a clerk at Walmart telling me how much she (always a she) likes my physical appearance in order to affirm me, and a dude riding past me on his bike shouting “Nice pants.” (Also, nice pants?)
Actually as I sit here and reflect on all of these instances, it is ALWAYS, without fail, someone I perceive as a woman who comes up to me, cries with me, gives me something, invites me to brunch, or compliments my nails or hair in an affirming way. It has never been a guy.
Even the woman who yelled “nice shirt!” to me in the airport as I zipped passed on the moving sidewalk was affirming my existence. (I had on a black shirt).
These encounters always affirm my existence in a positive way and never are the Rude but Affirming types of affirmations that typically come from men, affirming my existence as a woman (not a trans person) in terribly rude and offensive ways.
I could go on and on about the unique experiences and encounters that I’ve had in the last few years since I came out, but most recently, three of our kids who are in elementary school submitted essays about why their moms are the greatest. Now, not every kid in their classes submitted, but I had two kids win the essay contests for their grade!
I can tell you, as a run-of-the-mill, cis-white-hetero presenting male, my kids never won any essay contests about me.
I will say, their writing is better now, but… I’m different now as well. I’m memorable. Something is unique about me that will never go away and my kids wrote about it.
I’m visible now. And I’m glad I am visibly me, because for all the times I wish I could just blend in again, there are all the awesome strangers that I’ve met. People who I otherwise wouldn’t have encountered in this lifetime if not for being different, someone they will remember simply because I am me.
