As someone who still feels a twinge of nerves every time I go out in public dressed as a woman, I had a very odd thing happen to me today. What happened makes me think I don’t have as much to worry about as I had thought. This time it happened in drab (dressed as a boy), and it still reflects on how I present as a woman.
I spend a lot of time as a woman, but I still do some of my personal business as a guy. I know I should just summon up the nerve and just change everything. Someday I am sure I will do it, but for now I am just not ready.
Anyway I was going to my cable company today to swap out my cable modem and discuss why my bill was so high. When it was my turn I stepped up to a high customer service counter, which came up to, about my armpits. I gave the woman at the counter my phone number and she looked up my account. I verified the name and address on that account and all was good. I gave her the old modem and she got out a new one from the big cabinet behind her. Then we started talking about packages of cable TV and Internet services. I found one that I like that was going to cost less then I was paying now and included an internet phone system too.
Then she looked carefully at the account on her computer. She then said, “I am sorry, but you are not an authorized user on this account.” I thought that was pretty odd because I had been dealing with them for years and the account was in my name, my boy name. It should have been all right, because that was how I was dressed. I told her I was George, the name on the account. She just repeated that I was not an authorized user. We went round and round again. I told her that I was George and that I should be the only name on my account. She finely agreed and let me be an authorized user on my account, when I knew my social security number. Some how I guess I did not look like a George.
I guess I did not look all that butch today. I had a male shirt and jeans. I also just brushed my hair back and put my hair in a pony tail. I did not slick my hair back with jell or anything as I often do, so by the time I left the cable company, and looked in a mirror, my hair was a little windblown and with a curl on my forehead.
I never thought it would happen to me. The woman at the desk saw me as someone, probably a wife, taking care of business, while her husband was at work. Today I had to prove I was not my own wife. This was very odd indeed for someone, who has not had any facial surgery to help change my face. I only had my beard removed, trimmed my eyebrows, and took hormones for a few years.
Today, I did not even have to try, to be taken as my own wife.
