Guess what was left over from the lunch talk I just attended re: confronting bias? (Speaking of stereotypes...)
photo cw: food
transmasculine erasure; internalized transmisogyny
so the person who sat next to me had heard the "his work is much better than his sister's" story about Ben Barres, and brought it up in the group, but apparently she was confused about the direction of his transition
but goddamn, did I ever cringe when I realized i'd just interrupted her with "Actually, he was ...," in *my* voice, in front of a *Society of Women Engineers meeting*
sorry, team 😞
misgendering
not sure if it makes me feel better or worse that when she misgendered me earlier and i quietly said "they, pls," she didn't do it again, but kind of just switched to 2nd-person and never explicitly acknowledged it :-/
seriously though? there was maybe one person there out of 30 who might actually have been there as an ~ally,~ and given that i'm wearing a dress instead of jeans like almost everyone else (because engineering grad students) how likely is it that i'm the other one?
misgendering
like she seemed nice enough, i'm certain she wasn't being shitty on purpose, and anyway i can _handle_ "you look trans and i disagree with being trans" because to hell with those people
but it's the "you look so much like a cis guy that i missed all your deliberate signals to the contrary" that really gets to me, because it's not malicious or even intentional
it's just that rarest of all things:
honest feedback
misgendering
@lizardsquid anyway it still sucks and it's hurtful and i'm sorry they're not doing better because you deserve better than that
misgendering
@lizardsquid it's a little (but not much) easier for me with friends and family
on the one hand they definitely know better, but on the other hand i'm kind of sympathetic because heck sometimes i accidentally slip up with _myself_ after 25+ years of knowing me as a dude
strangers though, you know strangers are just calling it like they see it