First Day Of School -- Between Genders

[Dasein9]

As some of you know, I go to school and teach at a Catholic university. They know me as female there. Well, mostly. We've been on break for a few weeks, and in that time I've been presenting entirely as male, except for a few days home at Christmas.

So, on Thursdays I teach a 10 am class in Manhattan and a 7-10 class in a town upstate. The school has a van service, and I'm using it because it'll cost me nothing, whereas finding my own way north would total around $30 every week with all the subways, trains, and cabs involved. On the way upstate yesterday, the (male) driver called me "ma'am." On the way back into the city, the (female) driver called me "sir." Both asked lots of questions about my dissertation and seemed fascinated with the issue of gender. (The male driver even asked me whether I thought transgender persons are mentally ill. Need I tell you what I replied?)

During the course of the day, I was getting both ma'am'd and sir'd a lot. And it was interesting to watch how people treated me differently. When people read me as female, they sort of coddled me and even spoiled me a bit, i.e., the school's secretary offered to do my photocopying for me. When they read me as male, they assumed I was more independent and gave me more personal space. Oddly enough, no-one that I noticed gave me the "What the heck is it?" stare.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

[wabnaok]

Do you give any thought to the drivers, maybe both of them, may have questions about their own gender identity? That would be interesting!

[Kimberley]

I wish I could compare notes but our administration is a conservative ol boys network and so faculty are required to "conform". We did have a T-girl faculty member a decade ago and they managed to get rid of her. So the message sent was pretty strong.

It ticks me off because the students have full range of self expression and a code of rights that can cost us our jobs if we violate them. Ironic isnt it?

:hugs:
Kimberley

[Marcie Sexton]

I read it one of two ways...

one...they just have the attitude of what ever floats your boat...

or...

...two, maybe and I'd like to believe they are or have learned to become tolerant in our world...accepting what is different for what they are...a human being...:2c:

[Abraxas]

I've had that happen some days, where I'll walk into one store and get 'sir'ed and then walk into another, five minutes later and get 'ma'am'ed. It's kind of weird...
Or I'll go along all day being called buddy, dude, man, sir, whatever, and then I pop into a restaurant with some friends at the end of the day and it's 'and what will you ladies be having?' Rather aggravating, that...

[Dasein9]

I wish I could compare notes but our administration is a conservative ol boys network and so faculty are required to "conform". We did have a T-girl faculty member a decade ago and they managed to get rid of her. So the message sent was pretty strong.

It ticks me off because the students have full range of self expression and a code of rights that can cost us our jobs if we violate them. Ironic isnt it?

:hugs:
Kimberley

Yes, it is ironic. And frustrating. I seriously doubt anyone's going to tell a "woman" with two Master's degrees to dress more like a girl. But there's the danger of the glass ceiling to worry about.

Ideally, I'll end up in a small, not-too-competetive liberal arts college, fully transition over a summer, and then teach only freshmen for a year. Ah, dreams...

My concern is mainly to avoid doing anything that will make it difficult for my students to learn from me. But the self-respect issues, not to mention the unconscious gender presentation, are getting weird, to say the least.

[Felix]

Hi Das I know exactly where you are comin from here I often feel total confusion! I too want the pupils I work with to have a more open minded approach to things like gender and sexuality and wouldn't it be wonderful if ya could just be who ya wanted to be with out worrying about what everybody else thinks :Angry3: As you know I have been slowly introducing my male persona into the place where I work. Haven't had too many problems with that infact it's going well and the female members seem to be more comfortable around me now than before. Maybe they can accept me better the way I am now instead of a butch lesbian even though that shouldn't matter but it obviously does, very sadly. Or Maybe I come across more confidently and that has something to do with it. Sometimes gettin back to the point lol ppl call me mate I really like that. Sometimes ppl don't label when they can't decide, well that doesn't bother me but I am starting to feel more uncomfortable when ppl call me lady or anythin such as this. Cos I dress all the time I am even starting to feel uncomfortable with my female name :eek: never thought I'd say that. I love it when my sons call me Felix or some of the other male nicks they have for me like Yoda or Frodo, Felix bein the one they mainly call me.
I was out the other night with family and at one end Of the room I was refered to as a tomboy by some blokes when I was playing pool. At the other end of the room I was refered to as a lady but I knew this was because I was bein called my female name rather than my nick Felix plus I probably looked like a butch dyke cos I was with three other very femme women. This whole thing totally does my head in at times. Anyways rambling and sorry if I gone off track but this sparked off loads off stuff thats been goin on in my head lately xx Felix :hugs:

[Dasein9]

I find that it does seem to matter to straight women. There are a couple of women in my department who are very pretty and used to getting hit on. When I told them my situation, and that I like guys, they became much more comfortable around me.

Weird, eh?

[Felix]

Hi Das yeah I know what ya mean. I wouldn't hit on any woman as I am in a committed relationship of 5.5 yrs and am monogamous and have no reason to be lookin else where. The thing is I think and no disrespect here but a lot of straight women still think that if ya gay ya wanna get in every woman nickers and that just isn't true. Yeah there are some gay women that do like to have a lot of different partners as in heterosexuals who do and gay men that do. But there are a lot of gays who are serious and stick one on one with who they are with.
I think in my work place although they know how long my partner and I have been together they still for some reason and not all of them just certain ones thought this of me and made it obvious that they did it was not pleasant at all. But now that they have realized that I am not after everything in a skirt they seem to be coping better with me the person instead of me the label, do ya know what I mean? xx Felix :hugs:

[Dasein9]

It's good that they're coping better with you.

As for why some women just assume we're attracted, I suspect it's because to them we're all just nymphomaniac sex freak deviants. ;) And by "we" I think I mean anyone who likes sex other than pure vanilla, missionary position, one cisgendered male and one cisgendered female, twice a month.

[Felix]

Lol thats really funny Das xx Felix :hugs:

[Dasein9]

Lol thats really funny Das xx Felix :hugs:

So are uber-straight people... ;)

[Felix]

LMAO :heehee: Ya make me laugh Das. Ya name when I shorten it reminds me of like Daz in English hope ya don't mind me callin ya Das(z)? xx Felix :hugs:

[Dasein9]

Sure, I guess. Who's Daz?

I took the name from Dasein, which is a German philosophy word. You're a Dasein; I'm a Dasein; my cats, alas! are not Dasein. That we know of, anyway.

[Felix]

Oh Daz is short for Darren, that's why ya name reminds me of it. So ok I could guess what Dasein means but I'm gonna be dumb and ask ya. Although ya said we are dasein but not ya cat lol so I guess ya cats aren't Trans lol :p xx Felix :hugs:

[Dasein9]

No, but I do think they may be as gay as neutered cats can be... Not that they have much choice, only knowing each other and all. ;)

Dasein just means "being-there." Heidegger kind of took the term over and used it to refer to the kind of being to whom being matters. He's talking about humans, but is trying to get away from the traditional way of thinking of people as philosophical subjects. So being-there, or Dasein, is used as a noun grammatically, but should be understood more as a verb.

Does that make any sense? I know you're well-educated, but don't know how much philosophy you've read and tried hard to write the above without making assumptions. But I do like to talk about this stuff, so let me know if it doesn't make sense. :)

[Felix]

Hi Daz, yeah it makes sense and I like the concept very much cos being does definitely matter to me and being is such a big concept which means so many different things to so many different ppl. You know life would be so much easier if we were left to be instead of trying to be what others expect us to be. Then that brings us back to little boxes and social constructs and norms. LOL I've never really lived within the boxes, Ive always felt different and I think I always will be because I don't like bein confined. I know I have to conform in many ways but I like to step outside the norm when I can. I suppose I am doing that now in the way I dress and the way I bend the boundaries of gender. I always liked the concept of fluidity when I studied gender and there are many ppl who like that fluid choice where gender is concerned.
I guess now I am wondering how fluid I wanna be when the strongest element seems to be male! Do ya know what I mean? xx Felix :hugs:

[Abraxas]

I guess now I am wondering how fluid I wanna be when the strongest element seems to be male! Do ya know what I mean? xx Felix :hugs:

You make a good point there, Felix. I've always thought of life as box shaped... I dunno. It's like, I was stuck in the girl box for awhile, and it was cramped, poor circulation, no temperature control, no windows. But now I'm in another box, which is comfortable. It protects me from the elements, it's bigger than the other box, and it's got central heating and big old windows. Even a door so I can go out and hang out in other boxes if I want. And there's probably a ping-pong table. Still in a box, but there's enough room to be comfortable.
Bad metaphor? Eh. lol

[Felix]

I like what ya sayin Abs!! LOL we all live in boxes some of us like the boxes we are in some of us like to deconstruct those boxes and society, well it likes to construct the boxes :heehee: of the concrete variety and the human variety which they also like to keep as concrete as possible :tongueout xx Felix :hugs:

[ZenFrost]

I've been having that experience at my physical therapist. Half of the people who work there think I'm male, the other half think I'm female. Half call me by my male name, half call me by my female name. It's pretty confusing for me because I hardly know how I'm supposed to act.

[Felix]

Hi Zen I know what ya mean although most of the time it doesn't really bother me I think it depends how I'm feeling about everything as to how I feel. My stepson definitely knows how to get my attention he just calls me Felix lol I think he has caught on that I prefere my nick name to my birth name. In work they all call me C**** even though I am very masculine I don't let it bother me cos At the end of the day I have to work there and I've made enough changes at the min lol. I think I would like eventually to be called by my male name and if that happens to be Felix so be it. I think that if ya want to cut the confusion ya have to decide whether ya gonna ask ya work colleagues to call ya by the name ya feel most comfortable with which may bring other stuff to the fore or just find the balance like I have, that's if ya can hun. Hope this is ok hun xx Felix :hugs:

[CaptLex]

What confuses me is that people at work all now call me Lex (since I came out last summer), but they also still call me "she" and "her" (despite all my efforts). I just don't get how they can reconcile the two. :confused:

[Felix]

Hi Capt I had a friend at University he was extremely fem and when he came out to me as transgendered I was not in the least surprised :happy: The thing is because I had known her as a man for a couple of years I often slipped up and used the wrong pronouns :o Funnily enough my SO had only known my friend for a short while and had no problem with the pronouns. I think because ppl may have known ya for some time with ya female name they probably like me with my friend who by the way has had full grs now, don't do it deliberately it's just what they are used to and they have to retrain their mind to like use the right pronouns. This makes it no easier for you but please be patient with ya work colleagues hun cos like you it is a big change for them xx Felix :hugs: :hugs:

[CaptLex]

This makes it no easier for you but please be patient with ya work colleagues hun cos like you it is a big change for them xx Felix :hugs: :hugs:
I know, hun. I know it's an adjustment for everyone, but I think I've run out of any patience I ever had after six months or so of hearing it all day, every day. Anyone know where I can buy some more patience . . . ? :p

[Dasein9]

Okay, this got longer and more theoretical the more I typed. It's not entirely a reply to the Cap'n anymore, but I'm including the quote to which I'm responding so y'all can follow the thought process. Please do not construe it as a specific critique of the Cap'n himself.



What confuses me is that people at work all now call me Lex (since I came out last summer), but they also still call me "she" and "her" (despite all my efforts). I just don't get how they can reconcile the two. :confused:


Maybe... just maybe... You could pull what I call the Three Bears Trick on them. Remember how the one porridge was too hot and the next porridge was too cold, and the third one was juuuuusssst right? They saw a person they thought was a woman for a long time. Now you're someone trying to be just right, but they still see a woman because they've got this stupid habit. It might work to make them see someone hyper-masculine and even kind of macho for a while. No, you wouldn't have to go hunting or anything, but if you spent a period of a few months wearing clothes that are unambiguously masculine and really put forward a butch image in movement, then maybe after a bit you could cheat the brighter colours and softer lines back in without people slipping again. I don't know what your work clothes are like, but if it involves shopping, well, so much the better!

This is a difficult issue, because "he" and "she" and "ma'am" and "sir" have certain meanings in our language, and people have a very hard time with switching from one to the other. And, oi, when they don't know and make a guess! But we've all learned to use pronouns and figure out people's genders according to certain clues. And a lot of the time, children who get someone's gender wrong are shamed for it, so we tend to shy away from things we're not certain about.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure that people like us, who are somewhere in between what most people think are mutually exclusive categories, are being fair to people who aren't gender theorists when we get frustrated over asking them to alter their fundamental conception of gender to accommodate us. Of course, society as a whole needs some real overhauling in this area, and every member of society should be accommodated. But I don't know that the way to achieve that is by alienating individuals who get it wrong. As far as most people are concerned, we're something new. And it's going to take time for them to learn. We can help, but if we want to be called by a certain pronoun, it's because that pronoun means something similar to us that it means to everyone else, and that means that we have a responsibility to make it apply to us.

[bi_weird]

I know, hun. I know it's an adjustment for everyone, but I think I've run out of any patience I ever had after six months or so of hearing it all day, every day. Anyone know where I can buy some more patience . . . ?
Yeah I can empathize in that some people just don't change. On a whole lower level, my problem is with my one housemate. I've probably told her to clean up her dishes a few hundred times in the year and a half we've lived together, as well as frequently getting sick of it and cleaning them up myself. Some people just don't seem to change, dunno why. I don't really have a solution, though. I just nag constantly, and at house meetings I rant again. I did find that talking down to my housemates like they were kindergardeners got them to sort the recycling right. But there are still dishes in the sink, and I have no idea how to get that to stop.

[Kimberley]

Ask them to start buying pressed cardboard so they can throw it out?

:hugs:
Kimberley

[Abraxas]

Yeah, although that can get expensive... You could try, if you can stand it, just not doing the dishes-- or just doing your own and hoarding them in your room. That way you've got clean dishes and they hopefully will eventually figure out that if they want to eat they're going to have to do a bit of cleaning up.

[CaptLex]

Maybe... just maybe... You could pull what I call the Three Bears Trick on them. Remember how the one porridge was too hot and the next porridge was too cold, and the third one was juuuuusssst right? They saw a person they thought was a woman for a long time. Now you're someone trying to be just right, but they still see a woman because they've got this stupid habit. It might work to make them see someone hyper-masculine and even kind of macho for a while. No, you wouldn't have to go hunting or anything, but if you spent a period of a few months wearing clothes that are unambiguously masculine and really put forward a butch image in movement, then maybe after a bit you could cheat the brighter colours and softer lines back in without people slipping again. I don't know what your work clothes are like, but if it involves shopping, well, so much the better!
Hola, Professor . . .

Actually, I hate shopping, and I have to watch my pennies now that I'm paying real rent, but I think I do pretty well with what I already have. My work clothes are usually a buttoned shirt, or polo shirt with plain pants and a belt. Sometimes I wear a blazer over it, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I wear a tie too, depending on the occasion or my mood. In fact, you've seen some of my work clothes 'cause I go directly from work to our support group meetings. Nothing feminine (even though I still have some women's shirts), but nothing too butch or macho either, as you pointed out.

It's not a bad piece of advice, really, and I'm sure it would work well for most people. My concern is that in the past whenever I've tried to go the full-on masculine route, people thought it made me look more like a lesbian - not the Marlboro Man. Maybe I'll be able to grow a full beard by the time I have to return to work. ;)

[Dasein9]

Yeah, although that can get expensive... You could try, if you can stand it, just not doing the dishes-- or just doing your own and hoarding them in your room. That way you've got clean dishes and they hopefully will eventually figure out that if they want to eat they're going to have to do a bit of cleaning up.

LOL. When I was married, on the advice of the marriage counselor, I went on housework strike. It took my ex a year and a half to notice. I never did get that mess cleaned up. It was easier to just move.

Fewer dishes help me keep from accumulating a sinkful of dishes. I have two dinner plates, and so they have to get washed if they're going to get used.

Or... you could strike a deal, wherein you go ahead and keep doing the dishes, within reason, and the others take on a chore they don't mind so much, but you hate. Roommates tend to love me because I like scrubbing but detest tidying. So I'll get the dishpan hands, if they'll straighten up all the common areas.

[Dasein9]

Oh, one other idea I've found works -- a sign over the sink saying "Wash your own dishes, plus one more. " That will eventually get the heinous mess under control, but does take time. If there's a roach or mouse problem, it can be gross.

[Felix]

Here here Daz couldn't have put it better myself!! xx Felix :hugs: