Trans woman reporting for duty! Here a some of the things I have noticed in how women are treated vs how men are treated. (I started HRT at 22, I’m 31 now.)
One thing that I’ve really come to appreciate is the power of compliments. Women compliment if my hair or make up look better or if I wear new earrings or something, people will notice and say something. It’s taken me a while to get used to complimenting coworkers without feeling weird. I used to worry someone would think I was hitting on them, and I guess I still do a little. It’s also made me aware of much a compliment could really make a man’s day, as while they seem to get handed out with women all of the time, men like NEVER receive them in my experience. Part of that I think is just that men’s socially encouraged fashion is much more restrictive.
Coworkers will offer to like lift heavy things for me. I’m conflicted when it happens. I’m kind of validated to be seen as a woman, but I kind of want to try and see if I can do it on my own. Sometimes I do and can. Other times I feel how heavy it was later and am like, yeah I couldn’t have got that down from that high…
I feel like certain people are less likely to listen to me. I find I have a harder time jumping into conversations than I might otherwise, or for people to interrupt or contradict me, but that could be confirmation bias.
Obviously there’s also the creepy old dudes who hit on you, the customers who ask if you’re married when you try to have a platonic conversation then immediately disengage if you’re in a relationships. The rando dudes I get friend requests from on Facebook every day, and omg, just the way horny dudes are on social media in general. I can’t imagine objectifying people like that…
Another thing I have been thinking about since writing this post is that I feel strangers in customer service settings are far more likely to get uncomfortably close to me. I’m not sure if women do this to, but what I have noticed is this very strange feeling of a large guy getting so close your faces are almost touching and just feeling like, very meek and powerless. It’s hard to explain. If someone stood that close to me pre-transition I feel like it would just feel awkward, not like that. I’m not sure if others experience the same thing.
But yeah, that’s kinda what I can think of.
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