My queer-ness is showing!

[AshleyW]

It's only been a few months since I accepted I was trans and started cross-dressing properly. Almost immediately I noticed a whole bunch of areas besides dress where I had been forcing myself to conform to the masculine gender norm. Things I say, how I walk, talk, sit, etc. I determined I would start just being myself in those areas, too. The result, I suppose, is that even in guy mode I now come across as a lot more feminine than I used to.

Last Friday I was making small talk with a co-worker (a straight male) and he asked me casually, "So, do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend?" It was the first time in my life that someone has made it explicitly clear they're uncertain what my orientation is. (For the record, I'm straight). I smiled and said, "Nope, no boyfriend, no girlfriend!" Which, you know, didn't really clarify things.

At first I was quite pleased by this. I liked the fact that someone had noticed my "queer-ness," even if they misunderstood its exact nature. I told myself I would rather people think I was gay than think I was cisgender.

However it slowly dawned on me that perhaps everyone I work with thinks I'm gay. And the more I thought about it, the more it started to bother me. I'm honestly not even sure why. I really really hope it's not due to some latent homophobia buried somewhere deep in my psyche. (I'm ashamed to admit that I used to be a homophobe back in my days as a fundamentalist Christian, though that feels like a different lifetime now). I will have to take some time to think about what this means.

I had set myself the goal of showing up to work with my nails painted before the end of the summer; now I'm no longer 100% sure I want to do this. I probably still will, but we'll see.