Blissful happiness

All weekend at an academic conference, and I was accepted as me. I was never once misgendered or questioned about my identity. It was wonderful, and I wish it could have kept on going. At the mixer I wore a nice black cocktail dress, and I looked pretty hot if I do say so myself!

Isn't it bizarre that strangers treat us like they're not, and people we know treat us like we are?

People who have known me from before my transition became obvious, or who--thanks to the joys of government and corporate bureaucracy--know my birth name, are far more likely to misgender me than people whom I met as strangers. Even those who have accepted me at some level slip occasionally, because somewhere in their brains they have me flagged as male, with perhaps a note to the effect "pretend that he his female to make him happy."

There's long experience, or at least a cognitive seed, that plants within their minds the idea of me as male. Once this noxious weed has taken root, it's very hard to eradicate.

On the other hand, strangers who have never seen me before, to whom I have introduced myself using my real, feminine name, and who have never seen what the government thinks about who I am, have no reason to think of me as anything other than my female self. To follow the metaphor from the previous paragraph, the seed of their recognition of me blossoms into a beautiful flower.

The latter group has me flagged as female, and if there's a note, it's something like "she's a geek who likes both dragons and butterflies."

BTW, I speak French, so I know that "papillon" means butterfly. ;-)