more camp

As the summer approaches and I prepare to leave for my job as a camp counselor, I find myself thinking about the camp that I worked at last summer. It was an extremely small camp for LGBTQ teens and was only in its second summer. It had a lot of kinks that were no where near worked out, and actually ended up getting shut down by the police after its third week running. I mean, you’re supposed to rough-it at least a little bit at camp, but not to the point where health code violations are being committed constantly and campers stand by terrified as police officers descend on camp.

ANYWAYS, that’s not really the point of my story. The kids for the most part had a great time at camp. In a town where cisgender, white, male gayness is widely accepted, my brilliant group of co-counselors did a fantastic job of working to be inclusive and making sure all the campers’ voices were heard and taken seriously--and that everyone had a great time. The heads of camp were not as versed in trans and non-binary identities as they should have been. This unfortunately led to some big mistakes, such as the volunteer who told a young trans woman camper to “try at least wearing some make-up or girl’s clothes,” despite the fact that this camper could be endangering themselves at home by doing so; or the fact that several of the young trans men at camp suffered from rashes and chafing from running around in wet or sweaty binders without daily access to washers and dryers. These were some of the major failings of camp, and these and other problems stemmed from a lack of awareness and a complete caring on the part of the heads of camp.

On the third day of camp, the entire camp was invited to attend the wedding of one of the counselors and his partner. Although at first I found it rather odd that we were bringing a group of teenagers to a wedding where we only very slightly knew one of the grooms, it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. We hung out in a rented house, eating home-made soup and chatting with men who we had just met. One of the campers even gave a heart-warming toast to the newlyweds that pulled on the heart-strings of some of the people who we had just met. This day set the scene for my view of the town that would be the backdrop of the camp I was working at: everyone was so friendly and inviting, and in the days following the wedding the guests we had met would greet us when we ran into them in the street with a hug and leave us with a word of encouragement. Everyone in town seemed SO INCREDIBLY NICE and warm and welcoming, that I almost completely let my guard down. The only thing I had to worry about was keeping the kids safe and engaged in what we were doing, but I was for the most part unconcerned that anything bad would happen to anyone as we roamed about town all day, and sometimes night. I felt like I could talk to anyone who walked by, and that the entire population of the town was looking out for one another.

come join the party!

The camp had rented out a multi-purpose room downtown right off of main street where we could eat lunch, play games, listen to our guest speakers, and so on. The room, being made up almost entirely of windows, was of intense and inexplicable interest to passersby, who ranged from the casual gawker to the intrusive uninvited front-door opener. Eventually we started to lock the front door and cover some of the windows with paper to avoid the feeling of being observed like zoo animals, but on an evening before we had begun this practice we had one very friendly visitor. The middle-aged man knocked on the front door, and when we answered he introduced himself and explained that he owned the inn just two doors down on the opposite side of the street. He set down a bundle of pens bearing the name and address of his inn and a bag of candies. #redflag #candyfromstrangers “I think it’s really great what you’re doing,” he said “I wish there had been something like this for me when I was a kid.” He was very supportive of and excited about the camp and seemed like a genuinely kind person, which is why I felt like it was ok to stop and talk to him later that day as we passed by his inn on the way to the shops and the beach--that, and the fact that everyone we had met over the past few days had been so nice, accepting, and supportive of camp. People who we had met only briefly at the wedding would stop in the street to say hello and hug us, and the whole town was so gay friendly that there seemed to be this atmosphere of camaraderie and people looking out for eachother.

As we walked down the street later that afternoon, we saw the friendly man in the driveway of his inn, and so I waved hello. He ran over and told us again what a good cause he thought camp was. He asked me my name and we shook hands. “Where are you from?” he asked. When I told him I was from Rhode Island he became very excited and exclaimed that he himself had grow up in Rhode Island, and when I told him what town I was from he was ecstatic. “Oh my god that’s where my parents live!” Wow, I thought, what a cool coincidence! “Oh you’re such a cutie,” he added. He seemed as if he could have gone on chatting all day, but I excused myself, explaining that I had to walk the campers to the location of our next activity.

The next time we walked by, an hour or two later, he was still outside his inn, and he waved and yelled, “There’s my boyfriend Miles!” I laughed at this seemingly harmless joke, and he ran down to the street again. “You really are very cute,” he said. “If you ever need a boyfriend give me a call.” Although it seemed like he was still joking, I couldn’t quite tell if his jokes were getting weird or not. Was he calling me cute like when my mom says that I’m cute? #mymomthinksimcute Or was he being weird? Even when my mom’s friends say I’m cute it’s obviously a compliment, but I didn’t know this middle-aged-inn-owner guy and I couldn’t tell if he was being nice or creepy. I excused myself again, explaining that I had to get back to the multi-purpose room to watch the campers. By the third time that I had to walk past the inn about another hour later, I was feeling a little uneasy. Luckily, the inn owner was occupied talking to the head of camp and some of the camp board members, so I thought I could walk by unnoticed. Once he spotted me, however, he abandoned his conversation and ran over once again. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you were a lesbian.” I was so caught off guard that I just stood there and didn’t say anything, even as he advanced into my personal space. At this point I was getting very uncomfortable, but I thought, everyone here is so nice, he must have just made a mistake. He then hooked a finger into the front of my tank top and looked down my shirt at my chest, presumably to see my scars. “I didn’t know,” he said again, “I thought you were a cute little gay boy. But I should take you out to dinner so you can educate me.” At this point my discomfort and confusion levels were both off the charts, and so I excused myself again saying that I needed to keep up with the campers. As I ran off he shouted, “I really will take you out to dinner, it’s your job to educate me you know.”

#whatwhatwhat

#ineedanadult

leaves a bad taste in your mouth

So obviously there were several things wrong with this interaction; violation of personal space and entitlement to invade that space, hitting on someone much younger than you, implying that trans men are lesbians (I assumed he was investigating my scars because someone working for camp who he had been talking to had told him that I was trans…), and implying that it was my job, as a trans person, to educate him. The last time that I saw him that day, however, was by far the worst. Back at camp it was getting slightly darker as we walked the campers back to the multi-purpose room for the last time that day. The plan was for me and two other counselors to go grocery shopping for dinner for the campers and then prepare the meal while the other counselors entertained them. The head of camp drove the mini-van to the multi-purpose room to pick us up to go shopping, and as he parked in the lot adjacent to the inn my heart began to quicken. As I walked quickly around the van to get to the passenger’s side door, the inn owner ran out towards me. As the head of camp entered the drivers seat, the two other counselors waited on his side for him to unlock the van so that they could sit in the back seat, and so I was alone on the other side of the car as the inn owner advanced towards me. “Unlock my door please!!” I said nervously, but the driver didn’t hear me as he was getting settled, and the inn owner approached me once again. “There’s my boyfriend,” he said as he put his arm around my shoulder--now I was cut off from the door, as he had positioned himself so that I couldn’t reach the door handle and that the door would have hit him if the driver had tried to open it. The driver however, merely rolled down the window. “Miles is my boyfriend,” he said to the head of camp, who didn’t notice me as I flashed him the most intense “help me” eyes I had ever given anyone. “I didn’t know you were transgender,” the inn owner said to me, “but I’ve always wanted to adopt a transgender boy.” “I have parents!” was the only thing I could think of to say. The head of camp laughed, thinking that we were joking, but I could tell that the other counselors sitting in the van had picked up on my discomfort. “I would be a bad foster parent though,” said the inn owner, “because I would adopt kids and then fuck them.”

#nonononononono

#notrealnotrealnotreal

#getmeoutofhere

At this, I pushed my way out of his arm and dove into the front seat of the van, and the head of camp finally noticed that things were getting creepy. “You’re saying a lot of things...” he said to the inn-owner as I tried to roll up my locked window, “and some of them are very inappropriate.” I continued to frantically press the window button, despite the fact that it obviously wasn't doing anything. The inn owner walked up to the window and hooked his pinky finger around two of my fingers, and the way that he blushed and looked sheepishly at me absolutely made my stomach turn. I cannot describe the look he gave me or how creepy it was when he turned away from me to look at the ground and then gazed back at me like an embarrassed child. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ll just have to come to dinner with me so you can educate me.” At this the head of camp told him that we had better be on our way, and began to pull out of the driveway. I was too skeeved out to say anything right away, and the head of camp asked me if I was alright.

“Ummmm,” I said, “Not entirely. That guy is really creepy…”

“I think he was just joking,” said the head of camp.

“He said he wanted to adopt me and then have sex with me…”

“Yes that was a bit weird.”

“He’s a grown man.”

“Well, you’re almost a grown man.”

“No but that was like really gross. And he kept asking me out to dinner…”

“Well me might just have to set that up so he can help us get access to that kitchen he was talking about!”

....

#EXCUSEME

Apparently creepy-inn-owner wanted to help us gain access to a kitchen space that was much closer to our multi-purpose room than the kitchen where we were currently cooking camp meals, and apparently the head of camp thought that he was making a funny joke when he implied that he should pimp me out to creepy-inn-owner for the good of the camp. I spent the night crying in my tent as my co-workers generously picked up my slack. When I thought about the sexual thoughts that this man had probably been having about me, I really felt like I would vomit. It wasn’t until the next day that the head of camp was sympathetic to what had happened to me and offered me the day off.

i'm taking a sick day

The next day, I took the bus to my grandmother’s house, which was just a few hours away. My grandmother and aunt could tell that something was wrong, but I was hesitant to tell them what happened. I felt ashamed. I felt stupid. I felt just plain creeped-out. I will never forget that disgusted feeling that stuck with me for days and crept back each time I was reminded of that man. I felt dirty, and like I would somehow be passing on this uncleanly feeling to my relatives if I told them what had happened. I felt ashamed and so stupid that I had let it happened, I kept thinking to myself, What is wrong with you? Why didn’t you tell this creep off? How could you let him talk to you like that, let him touch you? Why didn’t you stand up for yourself and stop this from happening? I felt completely responsible for what had happened, like it wasn’t his fault at all and that I was an idiot for letting him harass me. I felt anxious and unsafe, and was kicking myself for letting someone get to me like that.

It wasn’t until I told my mother what happened that I felt a lot better. She told me that something similar had happened to her when she was young, and when she expressed her disgust at what this man had said and how the head of camp had handled the situation, it was like she was took all of my anxieties and all the blame I had placed on myself and transferred it to this man. She made me realize that it was completely and solely him who had been in the wrong, and when she understood why I had felt the need to be nice (though she assured me that I really didn’t), I didn’t feel like such an idiot anymore.

The harassment I experienced was obviously not the worst thing that could have happened and pales in comparison to the harassment and assault that many people--namely women--endure every day worldwide. I did take away something from this experience that I find very valuable and have tried to apply to my life since. That being: you don’t owe it to anyone to be polite or hold a conversation with them--especially if they’re making you uncomfortable.

trust your gut

Since the start of my transition, I have almost constantly been asked questions that I don’t want to answer. Now I can more or less see it coming. I usually starts the same way; someone will walk up to me and say “can I ask you a personal question?” like, “do you grow facial hair yet?” “when/why did you decide to transition?” “Why did you change your name? Your old name was so nice.”

…….

#rollofeyes

NEWS FLASH

--> If you want to know about the logistics of transitioning, you can consult this thing called the internet.

--> If you want to know my personal feelings about transitioning but feel the need to ask me if you can ask me about my feelings first, then maybe we aren't close enough to discuss those feelings.

--> If you want to tell me your personal opinion about some aspect of my transition, I really don’t care.

Even if whoever you’re talking to is not making you feel uncomfortable or queezy or scared, you still don’t owe strangers a conversation if you don’t feel like it, and you certainly don’t have to let them grab a hold of your clothes or put their arm around you.

back to school

Going back to school is always an adjustment, whether you’re coming from summer, a different school, a different town, or especially a foreign country and the opposite gender. Several of my school advisors and professors whom I’ve talked to about re-adjusting to life at school have mentioned that our school doesn’t do a very good job of helping students re-integrate after studying abroad. And there most certainly is not a rule-book on how to adjust to going back to your previous school after six-months of gender transition which you began the summer before leaving to study on a different continent for a semester:

So, You’re Freaking Out Because You’ve Been Living as a Man for Six Months in a Foreign Country and Now You Have to go Back to the School Where Everyone Knew You as a Girl: A Transgender College-Student’s Guide to Navigating Awkward Situations and Surviving Multiple Strands of Culture-Shock All at Once Without Failing Out and Losing Your Scholarship.

If only

life is all about balance

Needless to say, it’s been a bit of a rough semester: more stressful while simultaneously much more relaxing than before I left. Before I get into the thick of it, let’s talk for a second about more ordinary reverse-culture-shock. First off, I did hardly any work while studying in Amsterdam apart from practicing; no papers, no projects, no assignments, no written homework to speak of, and I hardly spent any time in class. If you’ve ever gone to school in America, you know how drastically different our school system is here. And lemmetellyou, I had gotten pretty used to doing nothing but practicing and exploring outside of my largely discussion-based classes, so my first dose of reverse-culture shock came in the form of ominous piles of papers, projects, and other assignments that I quickly had to remind myself how to focus on completing. It really shouldn’t have been that difficult of an adjustment, right? I mean I had only been going to school in the US for the past 15 years… But you’d be surprised how easy it is to fall into the habit of reading novels in coffee shops and going to art museums as opposed to staying up until 3am to do hours of homework interrupted only by the occasional desperate late-night outing to Taco Bell.

I am extremely lucky to have such great and supportive friends, whose presence at school has made coming back a hell of a lot easier. They even practiced using my new name and male pronouns while I was gone. I mean, who could ask for more, seriously? And although they sometimes mess up, they are always quick to apologize and correct themselves. They’ve even tried to help me work through some of the transitioning issues I’ve faced since coming back. Luckily I’ve passed the point of TMI (Too Much Information) with most of my pals so we can talk about any issue I may need help with. One thing that’s come up in conversation several times is the topic of dating. And although we joke around about how difficult it is for us guys to find someone whom we can convince to be interested in us, I feel even more at a loss for what to do sometimes.

“Well, let’s go to a gay bar this weekend,” my friend suggested one night as a few of us were talking about how to get a date.

“Why…?” I asked, slightly confused.

“So you can, you know, meet people.”

“But I’m not gay,” I replied.

“Oh yeah,” he thought further, trying to come up with a solution.

Hmmm…

“Are there transgender bars?” My other friend asked.

“I don’t know, maybe,” I said.

“I mean, is that where you would go to meet people? Do you have like a…target

audience?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

do you have this in a larger size?

We were stumped. Did I have a target audience? I don’t even know, but it was very nice of them to try and help. Plus I had more pressing issues to work about. Possibly the most visibly pressing issue I had upon returning to school, was the bathroom problem.

Public bathrooms are the worst. I think we can all agree on this. Being transgender, however, makes public bathrooms a nightmare. I don’t know firsthand about being a transgender woman and using the a public women’s room, but being a transguy and having to use public men’s rooms have made for some of the most revolting and anxiety-inducing experiences of my life. FIRST OF ALL, why are men’s restrooms so horridly wretched? There’s always pee on the toilet seat, hastily-drawn pictures of male genetalia on the walls, and an overwhelming stench that slithers into my nostrils and burns my eyebrows off and latches on to my hair and clothing with its spiny tendrils and drags along behind me for the rest of the day. #forrealthough

SECONDLY, men’s bathrooms just don’t have the necessary facilities for people in transition. There are no waste receptacles in the stalls in which to dispose of any feminine hygiene products (um HELLO can we talk about how terrifying it is to open a tampon in a stall in the men’s room?? And then you when you’re done with it there’s no where to throw it out, so you have to wrap it up in toilet paper and shove it in your pocket (gross) and wait to dispose of it until the next trash can you come across), there’s often not enough, if any, toilet paper in the stalls-- that is IF there’s a working stall available that hasn’t had the door beaten off or the lock broken. GOD I just absolutely DESPISE public men’s rooms. I thought it would be so great never having to wait in line to use the bathroom, but the women’s room (sadly) is WELL WORTH the wait compared to the men’s room.

ANYWAYS

For the first several weeks of the semester I was just too scared to use the public bathrooms at school: on top of all my anxiety about public bathrooms in general, I was sick of explaining myself and I dreaded being happened upon by someone who didn’t know I was transitioning and having to explain to them why I was in the men’s restroom. So, instead of facing my fear, I would run back to my dorm in between classes to use the bathroom. This, however, was not really a solution as it just made me consistently late to class.

Another adjustment I had to get used to was my new living situation. The dorms at school are gender-segregated, and I was afraid that if I explained my situation to reslife I would be thrown off campus and have nowhere to live upon my return from Amsterdam. Luckily, while working at camp over the summer I had met another transgender guy who began his physical transition at about the same time as me. And luckier still, he informed me while I was away that he was looking for a roommate for spring semester: he had been living with his girlfriend, but she was transferring to a different school. He hadn’t told reslife that he was transitioning, and so he had just been living in a suite with three other girls. I thought this was perfect: I could live on campus without coming out to everyone in residential life. Everything, however, was not as perfect as it had at first appeared.

Though he has started transitioning at roughly the same time as me, and had not been living as a man for even a year’s time, my roommate turned out—much to my surprise—to be kind of a misogynist. Yes, you read that correctly. The sexist comments he would make would take me so off guard that first that I felt like I was literally going to lose my balance. I overheard him talking on the phone one night: “haha yeah man, bitches should just learn when to SHUT UP, that’s what I’m sayin’, sometimes girls just shouldn’t be allowed to talk.”

um

excuse me

what?

Did you not spend the FIRST TWENTY YEARS of your life as a female? Being treated as a girl and then a woman? He told girls that his hands cured breast cancer, and on top of all that, he cheated on his fiance almost constantly. He didn’t try and hide it either! He told me one night about having a girl up to his room and how they “ended up” in bed together and how she just “ended up” on top of him and his hands “somehow” came to be on her ass and how “things just went crazy from there.” I mean, come on. And then his fiance would come and visit, and do his laundry, and get food for him, and wait for him all day while he was in class, and I just wanted to CUT EVERYONE. #dramatic

cut, strangle, whatever

At first this just absolutely baffled me. I just assumed that transgender people were the most sensitive and accepting (and overall best) people on earth, but I have to remember that everyone deals with their identity in a different way. Some transgender people want to be visible and active in trans civil rights, some want to go stealth and just live their lives happily, some trans people identify closely with the life they led before transition, some want to forget about the past, some trans people choose to defy gender stereotypes and roles, and some overcompensate by acting extra stereotypical in their gender role in order to not be questioned or disbelieved. And there are valid and respectable reasons for all of these ways to identify. At first I didn’t see why anyone who transitioned would want to be extremely male or extremely female, because that wasn’t the way I felt about myself--on the contrary, through transitioning I have come to feel that gender has little to no importance in society (or SHOULD have no importance), and that I don’t want or have to act in ways “appropriate” for my gender. It took me a little while to realize that not all trans people think this way. Transitioning is hard, I can see why some people might choose to act hyper-masculine in order to be categorized easily and instantly by other people as male, BUT unfortunately acting hyper-masculine basically equals acting like a jerk and objectifying women and such.

Despite the perceived convenience of this rooming opportunity, we we were just not a good roommate match, and OH YEAH ALMOST FORGOT my suitemate smoked and dealt weed out of our common room. One day as I was walking across campus back to my room after class, a friend approached me to say, “hey Miles, why are the police searching your room?” To which I replied I DUNNO PROBABLY CUZ OF THE GIRL DEALING DRUGS and ran off to discover that campus police had searched through my belongings, along with everyone else’s in our suite. (When I went and talked to reslife about this, they told me there was nothing they could do about it unless they literally saw her holding a joint up to her mouth and smoking it--even though EVERYONE on our floor could smell what was going on.)

everybody just act. natural.

SO BASICALLY I needed somewhere else to live.

I gathered my courage, frustration, and disgust and bundled them up into a neat little package and headed downstairs to the building director’s office.

I told her everything.

I told her that I was transitioning, and that I had chosen my roommate just because he was transgendered as well and that I was afraid of being kicked off campus and didn’t want to be homeless after study abroad. I asked (begged) her to check and see if there were any other rooms available ANYWHERE. But first, she wanted to ask me a few things.

LET ME JUST PAUSE HERE to say that this building director is one of the nicest and most helpful people on our campus, and so I don’t want you to think badly of her because of the questions she asked me, which at first angered me irrationally to the point of rage.

First she asked me if I would prefer to live with boys or girls, and I told her that I didn’t really have a preference based on gender, but rather that my comfort in any given living situation would really depend on the understanding and acceptance of my roommates.

Next she asked me if I liked boys or girls. This is where I started to cringe. I can see why she thought it might be valid to ask this question, since she was helping find me a new room at our private Catholic institution, but it’s not really considered a polite thing to ask someone in a professional situation.

you wanna repeat that?

I told her that I like girls.

"So are you gay or...?"

"Um, nope. I'm straight."

"Oh. Yeah. I guess you would be straight since you're a guy and you like girls."

"Yep."
...
Right

So basically, she wasn’t trying to be rude, but this conversation left me feeling offended and oddly violated and I was once again enveloped by unwarranted anger and felt as though I wanted to CUT EVERYONE. #dramatic #testosterone #GRR

Here’s the thing, I’m not the only transgendered person who goes to college and needs to live on campus (duh), and so this is something that professional institutions--especially schools--really need to start thinking about. Hopefully one day people working in schools and offices and such won’t need to go through LGBTQQIA sensitivity trainings, but for now these programs are an excellent and effective way to start learning about the needs of certain members of the work or school community.

In addition to feeling just plain stupid that the building director has asked me if I like boys or girls, I was BEYOND SICK of explaining myself to others. I was so apprehensive upon returning to school that I got all worked up every time I had to tell someone that I was transitioning and that I was going by a different name. Now it’s a different story--I’ve largely stopped caring about being afraid of awkwardness--but several months ago, I was terrified and anxious daily.

On the first day of one of my classes this semester the professor asked us all to go around the room and tell him our name, our major, and something to remember us by. I instantly became anxious--how would I explain why my supposed name didn’t match my name on the roster?? I had added his class late and hadn’t sent him an e-mail explaining that I was transitioning. I sweated with anticipation as my turn approached. The professor was thoughtfully taking several minutes to talk to each student in front of the class as they introduced and shared some interesting fact about themselves. I thought the conversation would come to a stand-still as a girl several places in front of me revealed that she had to try a caesar salad at every restaurant she attended, but the professor was able to talk to her about salads for a substantial time. I devised a plan. Ok, I thought, I’ll talk about studying abroad in Amsterdam and playing music and he’ll ask me all about it and he won’t even have time to wonder why my name doesn’t match the name on the roster.

WRONG.

When it came to my turn I said, “my name is Miles, it says Madelaine but it’s wrong on the roster,” and then talked about travelling to Amsterdam, thinking that I was feeding him lots of intriguing material to ask me about. But, when I finished all he said was, “wow Miles, how interesting, can you tell us how you got to Miles from Madelaine?”

“Umm...well...” I began hesitantly, desperately trying to think of a way out of coming out in front of our entire class.

But then,

I just went for it.

“Well, I’m transgendered. I started transitioning from female to male last summer,”

and went for it some more

“and so I decided to pick a male name to go by, and I wanted it to start with the same letter as my given name so that it wouldn’t be too hard for my friends and family to get used to,”

and just kept on going

“and I’m not really sure if I want to change my name legally forever but I figured that going by a clearly male name would make it easier for people to get used to the idea of me transitioning use male pronouns when referring to me and so that people would realize that I was serious about transitioning.”

brakes? what are brakes?

The professor looked surprised, but not shocked. After what seemed like 3 hours he replied; “Well, thank you for being candid, I appreciate your honesty.” And I was just on such a roll that I apparently couldn’t stop! “Yeah,” I said,” I mean I could have tried to come up with some lie or story or something but I figured that it would just be easier to tell the truth.” He then told me about a book about trans civil rights that he had particularly liked and moved on to the next student.

This particular point in time is when my disregard for what other’s thought sparked noticeably and I truly started to let go of my anxieties about my identity. But confidence is a lifelong process in which there are many ups and downs and realizations and let-downs and which I am still very much in the midst of.

I was not ready, however, to explain myself to everyone I came across at school.

Our school’s cafeteria is named the Orleans Room, or “O-R” for short. Yes, for most of freshman year I couldn’t help but imagine an operating room every time someone asked me to grab lunch. BUT ANYWAYS. The OR employs many very nice people whom students sadly do not always treat very nicely in return. Some students don’t even acknowledge their presence, which I find especially odd when it comes to being swiped in for meals because you stand right up next to the women and hand her your ID so how weird is it to not even look her in the face and say hello?? It is sad that the simple fact that I greeted this woman and asked her how her day was going made us fast friends. Ever since second semester freshman year I’ve made it a point to say hello or how’s it going whenever I walk into the OR, and she in return says, how’s it going baby? or what’s up girl? For the past two years we’ve had a similar conversation every day, and for the past two years she has believed me to be a girl.

Now, after I came back from Amsterdam I e-mailed all my teachers and advisors and such and explained that I was transitioning, so why was I stumped as to how to explain myself to the woman who swiped me in for dinner every night? While it was difficult to tell the big, important people in my life about my transition—because I was nervous about what they would think and didn’t want to be treated differently in a bad way—I’ve found it peculiarly difficult to come out to acquaintances and other people whom I’m not as close to. I mean, how do you bring that up in casual conversation? How do I explain to someone that I hardly know and only ever talk to for 8 seconds at a time that I’m not actually a girl anymore. #awkward And I keep on wondering to myself if she’s noticed the changes that all my close friends and family have: does she think it’s odd that my chest is flat and my voice has lowered half an octave?

I encountered the same problem with my dentist when I went for a cleaning over winter break. My appointment was made under my given name and, living in an extremely small town as I do, the receptionist recognized me as soon as I walked in and greeted me with a hearty Maddy! as did the dentist. Again, I don’t know my dentist very well, we’re not friends. I don’t particularly want to explain my transition to her, and I wouldn’t even know how to. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I go in for an appointment with stubble and an even deeper voice.

Here’s the thing about transitioning, it’s a very personal thing, and our bodies are our own private matter. But, at the same time, transitioning becomes very public, and it has made me aware of myself and my body in a very public way. Transgenderism is visible sometimes but then not other times, and transitioning is also kind of a big deal, but then at the same time it’s not at all. I don’t want to explain myself to every Joe Schmoe I’ve ever met, but sometimes I feel like I have to, or like I’m supposed to. And often times, I’m just at a total loss for how to come out to near-strangers or casual acquaintances.

In the stairwell the other week en route to my dorm room, I happened on a somewhat awkward fellow whom I knew vaguely from music classes and had only spoken to a handful of times. He stopped me as he stood in the doorway:

“Uhhh, hey. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“So, when did Maddy become Miles?”

I immediately became extremely and rather irrationally angry.

“Over the summer!” I spat back, as if he was the most idiotic human on the face

of the planet. I stomped up the stairs towards my room.

this is not my amused face

As if! I thought in an outraged huff. As if it were that easy! As if I could simply “change” from one to another! What was he even really asking me?, I wondered in all my frustration. Was he asking when I started using my new name? When I realized I was transgender? When I began my physical transition? When I started the grueling process of coming out? As if there were one singular point in time when I definitively “switched” from Maddy to Miles!! #!!!!!!

After several minutes I calmed down and realized that perhaps I shouldn’t really be so livid over this. After a bit of reflection, I realized that I had become angry because I had assumed from his question that he thought that transitioning was some easy little task that one could complete without effort in a moment or so. Plus, I was sick of people insinuating that I was becoming a different person or that the very essence of my being had changed. But this, of course, was silly of me to assume. He had merely been curious. Sometimes I have to remind myself that people are not being offensive or belittling my transition, but rather that they are merely curious.

That’s the other thing about transgenderism, it’s not something that everyone knows about. I forget sometimes how little your average person knows about the entire transitioning process and all that it encompasses. And these are the times that I have to tell myself to calm the eff down, because every awkward encounter such as this is really a chance to educate people. And the more people know, the easier transitioning and living as a transgender individual will be in the future.