I get mistaken for a woman a lot

I take it as a compliment.

One of the most entertaining times it happened, Joe, a buddy of mine, walked up to me and said:

“I saw this blonde with great hair and great legs.

“I was about to ask her out.

“Then I realized it was you.

“So I didn’t.”

Made me laugh.

A beard does not help

Before I grew facial hair and kept it the confusion happened more often.

Still happens. And before my current job, when I went out more, it happened more often. Still happens. People ask me, quite politely, “what can I help you with, ma’am.” Seemed like it happened every other time I walked into a place where they didn’t know me and most of the time when I walked into a place where they did know me. (I have that kind of circle of friends.)

Now it only happens once or twice a month. Happened last night, as it happens. I feel sure it would happen more often if I went out more often. I don’t think that the beard helps at all.

I might emphasize my feminine features.

Because getting unfair good treatment is stupid, and confusing people has its uses.

Confuse people and fascinate them. That’s how thinking happens.

Extending any kind of favoritism to anyone (or, contrarily, penalizing them) for biological reasons is so insufferably arbitrary. Argue with me that there’s history to support it, and I’ll say so the thingy what? I live now. Ain’t no history surviving now except what gets written in history books that ain’t been published. If you can read those, that’s a great trick, and I’d love to learn it. Future historians may judge me. I say let them.

Clear as my hair is long, my gender identity — as viewed by them looking at me, and not by me — is as transient as what changes after a good look and better light.

People act embarrassed after they mistake me for a woman.

I think it’s right that they should.

I might make it worse for them. I might shave my beard and wear prettier-than-usual clothes. I might do something interesting with my hair. I might wear better perfume and eyeliner more often. I might carry myself with more elegance than I already do. That’ll nail it. I think my posture confuses people the most. If I do all this, I could bring my statistic up a hundred times and get mistaken for a woman every day.

After I do all that, I might do something womanish, or try to be man enough to do something womanish. Something like strength, bravery, self-possession, or wisdom.

Maybe if enough people feel self-conscious about their confusion then more people will think about it. Maybe if I confuse enough people, they’ll spread the news that they’re suffering under an arbitrary delusion propagated by an old and irritating system. The system hasn’t made sense for centuries. I don’t know that it ever made sense. Maybe when tribal survival meant that child-bearing was the most important thing that anyone could do, when we had to protect mothers in order to protect our species. Maybe when that was true then it made sense to treat women like a different class of citizen. It’s been literally a bazillion years since it’s been true — literally a bazillion! I think. I’m not good with numbers. Maybe I’m high-balling it.

Anyway, the survival of our species doesn’t mean forcing women to be timid mothers, and only timid mothers, getting protected by big strong men.

We could update our system. I’ve already updated mine. My last girlfriend was a third degree black belt in karate and judo. I’m barely a white belt in witticisms. One of us would take on the protector role when the roughing-up started, and let me just say blatantly that I’d be cowering behind her.

I had to stay limber in those days. She’s 5'3". I’m six feet tall. Cowering behind her took some careful folding.

It would be nice if we lived in a world where…

People didn’t feel self-conscious about mistaking me for a woman.

It would be nice if the reason they didn’t feel self-conscious about it was because designations didn’t hit so many buttons. It would be nice to live in a world where being interesting and different was a topic of conversation, rather than an impetus for prejudices and presuppositions. It would be nice if more people could get past the programming and just see people as people.

That would be cool.

Although…I don’t know. I’m torn. Sometimes, when they catch on, embarrassed baristas give me free coffee.

Free coffee, dude.

That’s big.