An SCC post soon, but for now…
Someone on a local mailing wrote about going to an event at the Galleria and having a great time. And then some little kid “clocked*” her. She felt very bad afterward, so wrote:
Zelda came of age in New Orleans, in the French Quarter. The locals are great people; they don’t care about your eccentricities; they do care about the kind of person you are. If you don’t bother them…
Tourists, however.
Ever notice how some people leave home and decide that the rules of decorum and manners aren’t important anymore? Exactly. I have had people scream “It’s a guy in a dress” at me. I had a lit cigarette tossed at me (it missed). I have been treated rudely, stared at, pointed at, whispered about.
I should have run back to the hotel, crying, tearing off my dress and wiping the makeup off, promising I will never do this again. I didn’t. It just pissed me off at first. Then, I realized that I really did not CARE what they thought of me. I was happy with myself, and that was what mattered.
Since then, I have been all over the country. I have had people make remarks, but that has gotten rarer. I went to the mall last year with a tgirl, and when we were leaving she asked me how I could stand the staring. I had not even noticed…
Do I look better now than I used to? Yes. Am I more “passable?” Whatever that means. Do I have a lot more confidence in myself, feel like I belong anyplace I reasonably want to be, not give a f**k what the tourists think? Oh, yes!
So, one kid clocking you is just little thing. You just go on with the day…
Sometimes you really just need to get on with it. Because when you let others limit you, it’s putting you back into another closet.
And I’m no closet queen anymore.
* Clocked-Having someone notice that you’re not a cisgendered female. They may just stare, or do something else that makes you know that they know.