I am 61, and started living full time as a woman and started Hormone therapy about eight months ago, in August 2018. I pass pretty well now among the general populace, and even have a passible speaking voice.

I have mentioned before that I participate in a historical re-enactment group, the Society for Creative Anachronism. We study and recreate the positive aspects of society between about 500 AD and 1650 AD, primarily in Western Europe. And one thing we do with that knowledge is school demonstrations - having several of our members appear at a school for a class or even the entire school, with displays and hands-on classes about things like spinning yarn and weaving and dying fabrics, casting pewter, metalworking, period sports, and other stuff. My SCA group fully accepts me as a woman, and my ‘persona’ in the SCA is ‘Her Ladyship Katherine Fox’, an English noblewoman from around the year 1600.

Yesterday about 14 of us went to a high school in a small rural community near the town I live in, to do a demonstration of all those skills and more for about 100 freshman students - their entire freshman class. The kids got out of their classes for the day, from 10 AM to 3 PM, to come out on the front lawn, where we had set up three large tent-roofed display areas, and a center field for ‘knightly activities’. I wore black boots, an ankle length brown drawstring-waist skirt, a pale purple peasant blouse, and a white head scarf held by a gold braid circlet, with very minimal makeup.

When the kids came out, our coordinator introduced our group and the key presenters, including me, stating our persona names and noble titles, and the areas of experience we would be displaying. I was there to show a display of various sports items, and to allow the kids to have hands-on fun with an old fashioned version of the game of darts - throwing wooden, feather-fletched darts at a bulls-eye target from ten feet away. This proved to be one of the most popular activities with the kids, and all day long I had lines of 20 to 40 or more of those 13 and 14 year old kids rapidly queuing up to take a turn at the game, then rushing back to the end of the lines, eager to compete with their friends.

It also meant every one of those 100 or so young, rural teenagers directly interacted with me, talking to me and getting instructions from me on how the game is played, while I supervised the activity for safety. And not a single one of them even gave me an odd glance, let alone questioning my gender. I got the same acceptance from the teachers and office staff. On the one break that I had all day, while the kids got their lunch, I went into the school office to use the staff bathrooms. I asked where those staff restrooms were, and was directed without hesitation by the office secretary to the location of their women’s bathroom. And my daughter told me that while I was in the building, some kids wanted to keep playing darts, and one of their peers quickly said, “No, no, we gotta wait for the darts lady! She should be back soon.”

It was a wonderful day, full of fun and acceptance!