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Passing as a man can be a problem as well. I

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  • visited the JobCentre today, not through choice I hasten to add, but to sign on. A couple of seats further down from me were sitting a couple of surly looking brutes who had been making me feel increasingly uncomfortable for the best part of forty minutes. Now I'm not overtly effeminate, I wish I was, but I am feminine. And the more masculine I try to behave the more obvious it becomes I'm not. Anyway, when my name was called and as I rose from my seat I heard one of them say to his friend or to me directly, I don't know I didn't look, the immortal words f***ing queer. Not wanting my personal safety to become a gay rights issue and believing discretion to be the better part of value, or just being plain scared, I scurried out of there as soon as possible. It amuses me now I can see the irony of it. The verbal abuse I received, though brief, was worse than anything I've had for sometime when out dressed. It makes me wonder what passing in public actually means. I obviously didn't pass very effectively as a man at least not as a straight man - and what does that mean! So I am no more safe from verbal abuse and the concomittant threat of physical violence dressed as a man as I am dressed as a girl. I don't know if I should be reassured by this or not - probably not.
    Porscha
      October 23, 2007 3:26 PM BST
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  • After having started my RLE I never tried to pass as a man again. And I probably couldn´t. I haven´t talked like a man since years, not to speak of moving my feet or hands.
    Already before my RLE a small girl said to me on a bus stop: "you are a girl, aren´t you?" And I was without make up in jeans...

    Laura
      October 23, 2007 4:45 PM BST
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  • I know how I look in drab and it's just me without make up, there isn't much difference anymore so I know I must look effeminate or gay but I have never had any issues over it. I think it is more accepting here, so that helps, but it's nice not to have to live a complete duality anymore.

    Nikki
    Every woman is beautiful, some show it with their faces, others show it with their hearts.
      October 23, 2007 7:16 PM BST
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  • It's funny how you should bring this up now because I have been talking about the exact thing with a friend of mine. Many of you know I had my ears pierced back in June and I started laser facial hair removal a month and a half ago. I use to keep my hair fairly short but back around May I decided it was time to let it grow out and now my hair is longer than most people I know have ever seen it. Over about the last month, customers I have had for years are looking at me not saying anything. It is hard to describe the look, but I think most of you know what I mean, that look of question, is he or isn't he. Geez, last wednesday a customer gave me one of those smiles, the kind that says I know your secret. I would say that out of the more than one hundred customers and regular people I have seen since getting my ears pierced, only 5 or 6 have actually said something to me about them. And only one, the gal at the bank asked me why I got them pierced, and the gay guy at the bank treats me like I'm his best buddy, lol. Oh, lol, almost forgot it is pretty much impossible for me to hide the boobs, still waiting to hear a comment on them.
      October 24, 2007 12:00 AM BST
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