I had an opportunity to travel once again. The trip brought me from the small airport in Westchester County New York to St Louis and back on Monday and Friday respectively. As I have an apartment near the area, I got there by seven AM to prepare for my 12:30 PM departure. I wanted to travel pretty yet had to meet folks in St Louis shortly after I was scheduled to land. An added complication was the fact that other people from the company I work for would be traveling to the same or nearby hotels.
I was concerned about going through a small airport since they are less likely to have been visited by one of our sisters or brothers than the larger airports I have previously traveled to/from while pretty. Well it didn’t take long for this lack of experience to show up. I went to the Delta desk to check my bag. I was hoping to get the woman agent as I just feel they handle me better than men do but, of course, I got the young man. He greeted me with a good morning ma'am. I gave him my boarding pass and ID in order to check the bag. He did an obvious double take and just stood there not knowing what to do. Finally I said “That is really me.” After a pause and a little bit of typing, he said “You need to update your ID.” I replied with “I am not quite far enough along to do that yet”, which is true since I don’t anticipate ever going full time! He got over it, checked my bag in and let me go.
Going through the TSA checkpoint was a breeze and the officer wished me a nice trip. As I said the Westchester Airport is a small airport. So the waiting area is always crowded. In fact, admission to the waiting area is controlled as they only let two or three flights into the waiting area at a time. The only thing that was a bit odd was that the x-ray operator looked at me for an extended time after she looked at my luggage. While I was waiting, I got something to eat on the plane. There was standing room only in the waiting area and I ended up standing near the single use restrooms which meant that I was constantly telling people if they were occupied. Through all of this, there was neither an odd look nor constant stares at me.
When it came time to board the plane, the agent told me to “have a nice trip ma'am”. I had to ask him about the need to take my laptop out of my bag which would be collected at the plane due to the fact that it was a regional jet. Again, we held a normal conversation. I don’t know what he thought of me but it doesn’t matter. There was a nice women sitting next to me on the flight to Cincinnati. We had a few conversations about this and that. I was doing the Sudoku in the airline magazine and, apparently, she had never seen nor heard of it. I explained the rules and a little bit of strategy and went on finishing the puzzle.
While waiting at the Cincinnati airport, I felt like I needed to document my adventure. So the information booth on my concourse was next to a kiosk about a local equestrian event. So I asked the nice man at the booth if he would take my picture to document my being there. He was kind enough to do it even though he might have read me. Again, he treated me like the woman I was and that was all I could ask for. Here is one of the pictures.
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While waiting for the plane, I did some work on my computer and when that was done, I started playing Spider Solitaire. An older couple sat down next to me and then the wife went off to buy something. While she was gone, the gentleman got involved with my game by giving me a few hints (they were not very good.) When his wife came back, he turned to his wife and said “She is playing Spider Solitaire.” That felt good as I obviously had been talking with him and he still thought that I was a “she”.
The flight from Cincinnati to St Louis was uneventful. The gentleman next to me did refer to me as ma'am when he had to get up to let me into my window seat. I used to live in St Louis and I am always on the lookout for someone I might know. Now St Louis is a big city but you never know. As it turned out, I found out later that my sister-in-law was on the same concourse as I was when I arrived. I didn’t see her but maybe she saw me. I don’t know if my heart would have stopped or if it would still be beating at 200 if I had seen her!
After picking up my luggage, I had to pick up my rental car. Avis has changed the way it deals with preferred customers in that they now have a board at the rental site with names and car locations instead of asking for your name as you get on. So, one of the places that could be awkward had been eliminated. I stopped at an abandoned shopping center and changed into my male clothes and went off to meet my colleagues for dinner.
I didn’t have the opportunity to go out while I was in town. I did some underdressing but the group was awfully touchy so that only lasted a day or two. I did have the better part of the day of departure for me to be Leann. I started out going to breakfast en femme while I waited to go to Target to get some supplies. After the Target run, there was a Goodwill just down the road. I stopped by and found a nice, everyday winter coat for $10. I went back to the hotel and finished my preparations for my flight back. Check out was noon and the flight was at 4 PM so I had a bit of time to kill. If you have ever lived in or been to St Louis, there is a wonderful resell it shop in Clayton called the Scholarshop. It is run by an organization that provides college scholarships to deserving youth. Given the nature of the neighborhood, Clayton, the clothing there is top notch and the prices are reasonable. I needed a sweater to go over the dress that I was wearing and I found an apparently brand new one for $5. So if you are in town, check it out. Here is a picture of the outfit I wore while shopping and on the trip.
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Checking in to my flight was not a problem in St Louis except that I did not have an assigned seat. The TSA agent, who I think was the same one I had the last time I went through St Louis dressed, took some extra time to check out the non-boarding pass. He did great me with a “Hello ma'am” and a “have a good flight ma'am” to bookend our conversation. There were no problems going through the screening so I just had to make it to the gate and wait. I did some work while waiting for the agent to appear. Given that I used to live in St Louis, I was concerned that if I waited for them to call my, very unique, name, someone would try to connect with me but not see me and begin to think something was up. Well I got to the agent before she needed to call me and got my boarding pass.
The short flight to O’Hare was just that, short and uneventful. It did give me the opportunity to practice my female art of occupying a small space as the gentleman next to me was quite the opposite. This was OK since I really need to work on keeping a small profile with my elbows in close to my body and the like.
My desire for fashion cost me in Chicago though. I had to go from the end of concourse F to the end of concourse B in my 3.5 inch open toe heels. So I took my time, stopped to get a brownie (dinner) along the way and arrived just as they were ready to board. (I was later happy to take the shoes off on the plane to let my feet rest.) After passing through the gate agent, the jet way was long and served several gates. There was another lady along the way who was again checking boarding passes and as I approached she said “You look very nice today, young lady.” That brought a smile to my face to be sure.
The flight back to Westchester was again nice. I had a young lady next to me and we chatted about a few things. I listened to some tapes off of my computer while she listened on her iPhone. We agreed that I needed to move up in the world of electronics. When we got to Westchester, I was glad that I had bought and carried the sweater as the temperature was down into the forties (about eight degrees for those outside of the US.)
Throughout the entire trip, I did all of the things that a woman would normally do including using the restrooms. I was treated like a lady by everyone including those that realized that I was male and even by those that didn’t know what to do or think about who I am. There were lots of occasions, too frequent to mention, when I was called miss or ma'am. Amazingly, I felt quite comfortable, even natural, traveling dressed and it made the long trips interesting and enjoyable.
I hope this post will encourage others to fly en femme.
Leann
Originally Posted by LeannL
