Ria's First Time at University
So I was going to make a vlog about this on the day but work rather got ahead of me in the end, so I thought I'd write this post instead as I know many wanted to hear about it.
As you can imagine presenting female at my university for the first time was both very exciting and very nerve racking at the same time. I'm quite a confident person in general and on the day I wasn't actually that worried, but there were two things I was a little anxious about. One was obviously the toilet situation, which I'll talk about in a minute, and the other was the actual walk there. It's about a 20 minute walk to get to the uni from my house, and slight wind was forecast for the day. This worried me because I didn't want to start to sweat during the journey, thus making me possibly smell bad, and would likely mess up my hair and/or make up. It may be autumn but it's still very humid. Likewise I didn't want it to be windy either, as my hair would be all over the place. I tend to style my hair in a specific way because it does a good job of covering my very masculine brow line. Anything that causes my natural male appearance to shine through makes me feel wrong when I'm in girl mode and also increases my chances of being read as a 'man in a skirt' by others and possibly stared at. Thankfully none of this happened. It was cold enough for a coat (one that does a very good job of making my back and shoulders seem less bulky) but not windy. I didn't notice a single stare or awkward look or anything of the sort the whole way there, nor on the walk back home later that day. It felt brilliant to be able to just walk the streets in the morning as normal with my housemates.
Actually being in uni was quite surreal for the most part. I wasn't really treated any different at all, which seems to be a recurring theme among people I'm out to now. I was referred to as 'he' and 'Ryan' a couple of times but others called me 'Ria' and 'she'. Naturally my whole class isn't going to completely aware of Trans Etiquette right off the bat, so I wasn't bothered about being misgendered as male. I did have a very nice chat with my one of my class mates who I've only really starting talking to more since coming out, which was a lot of fun, and I also spoke to one of my tutors who is only in once every week or two. She's not the one who I initially came out to when we first had tutorials for our projects, but she had previously seen my blog on our course website so she was already well informed, so it was great to go through everything with her too. I did notice a few of my class mates staring at me with interest though. One of them later said something along the lines of 'sorry if I was staring at you, but you looked so pretty today' and another it turns out wasn't sure who I was. She has deleted her facebook so I when I sent the message out to everyone that I was Bi-Gender she obviously didn't get it, so she spent all day very confused as to why there was this girl that looked like Ryan sitting in Ryan's space and being all close to Ryan's girlfriend all day. She did say something along the lines of 'if I didn't already know you I would have thought you were a girl' which is always nice to hear ^_^
But as I mentioned earlier, the toilet problem. It's a constant problem for most gender variant people and I'm no different. If I'm out and about I always use the ladies if I'm Ria, but at uni I was a bit more worried about doing that. Obviously I don't 'pass' completely for female all of the time, and not at all if I have to speak, so using the ladies in somewhere that's more private or less trans friendly than the Shopping Center or the local Gay Pub is a bit nerve racking. Firstly, as I said my class mates naturally don't know everything about Bi-Gender or Transgender people, and I didn't want to have to be trying to explain it in a toilet where there is also likely to be strangers about. Much bigger problem than any of my class mates (who are all wonderfully accepting and delightful people even if they don't understand everything yet) are the College students. Our University was brought out by the college next door and they now own the entire building, have converted most of it into an extended part of the college, leaving only our small bit as the actual university. These people are mostly fresh out of secondary school, aged 16 -18 and generally not as open minded and liberal as my arty friends. While it's doubtful any of them would freak out if they saw in the ladies loo (and it's questionable how many of them would read me as male anyway) it's still naturally a worrying part about being Trans. At the end of our corridor is a single male toilet, which just has a cubicle and a sink in it, so if you're using it anyone that walks in will only see a locked door and just walk out again anyway. There is no female toilet here, the closest ones are in the college and the canteen. I'm thinking of talking to some of the staff about maybe getting this changed to a gender neutral toilet, as it would things delightfully easier for me and any future trans students, but would also allow the girls to have a nearby loo as well.
Overall, an awesome day. Can't wait till next week ^_
