Hard Evidence

en tant que mère

Passing is not the be-all and end-all off presenting en femme. Just presenting en femme works for me, but when I pass, it is icing on the cake.

But how does one know when one passes? Unless you are a mind-reader, you never really know unless you have hard evidence.

I recently wrote about being escorted by a police officer at a transgender conference. He was as friendly as could be, did not seem put-out helping me and treated me like a lady. 

But did he really think I was cisgender female? Maybe, maybe not. After all, I was attending a trans conference, so that might have given him a clue as to my birth gender. On the other hand, there were many cisgender females in attendance, so assuming I was trans just because it was a trans conference could have been an erroneous assumption, but without hard evidence, who knows what he assumed.

Many times, I made presentations at an annual conference for LGBTQ youth. At one conference, I arrived early for my presentation and sat down to go over my notes for the presentation. As the room filled up, a 40-something male sat next to me with his trans child in tow. He broke the ice and began conversing with me about the conference. During the conversation, he introduced me to his trans child and then he asked if I was the mother of a trans child and would he or she be attending the presentation.

I smiled and said no, I was not a trans child’s mother, rather I was the presenter for the presentation he was attending.

He was surprised and apologized for his error. I replied that an apology was not necessary and that he had made my day.

Now that’s hard evidence!

Wearing Colette Rose

Femulating actors in the 2014 film Billy Shakespeare.