AFRAID OR ASHAMED OR OVERLY ANXIOUS?

recently i went to get some myotherapy on my legs. it worked wonders. i had 2 sessions of slightly painful massage, and got a bunch of needles stuck in my legs. the myotherapist even let me watch as she tapped the needles in. they made my feet twitch, which was pretty cool. about 3 days after the first session, after my legs stopped being painful to the touch, i noticed that my muscles were much more relaxed, and i wasn't getting the burning sensation of shin splints coming on when i walked up the hill in my work shoes. in the second session, the myotherapist was extremely pleased with how my muscles had taken to the treatment, and said i didn't need to come back again. i will probably go and visit either just before or just after our trip in september.

the day before i had the first treatment, i realised i was very anxious about going, and about trans/body stuff. i sat down and worked through this anxiety, and i noticed that much of it was coming from this fear: "i will be outed as trans, and this will effect my treatment". this is a very real fear for trans people. however, when i sat down and thought about it, in this particular circumstance, i believed i was being over-anxious. i am a regular at the chiropractic service where the myotherapist works, and have been since prior to identifying as trans. the chiropractor knows my history, and i feel that it is a fairly safe space for me. i did not think the myotherapist would be an arsehole or discriminate in a transphobic way.

my anxiety, then, transferred to being more about the possibility being "outed" as "really a woman", and being treated as such. for me, this is less about transphobia and more about cissexism (it's cluelessness and assumption, rather than willful ignorance, hate, bigotry). it is harder to track, because it lies in things like tone of voice, the small-talk questions you are asked, the way a person interacts physically with you, the language they use to you and about you. it lies in people reading my own verbal language, voice, body language, discussions of my life not as 'somewhat effeminate queer guy' but 'odd but probably straight girl'. i sometimes tie myself in knots and tangle up my brain, trying to chart where a conversation might go - it's like playing chess with gender cues. "if i say [X] and this person does [Y], then i will probably have to act like [Z] in order for them to think [A]. but they won't say [A], so i will have to decide if they are thinking it by looking at how they do [B]" and on and on and on. the thought of negotiating this at the myotherapy session was making me anxious.

but then it struck me that i - personally, and in this situation - could actually say, "i'm trans" if i felt the need. this has worked for me in the past, talking to people who found some 'discrepancy' in my paperwork and/or appearance (once even at an airport). in this situation i was not afraid that i would be discriminated against or that i would be treated poorly. and i am not, nor do i want to act as though i am, ashamed of being transgender. i am not 'stealth' (whatever that means), except for when i kind of am, because i often have 'passing' (whatever that means) privilege these days. so being out/outed as trans was not something i was particularly worried about, when it came down to it. being treated as a woman was something i could challenge by outing myself as trans, and that in itself was a non-issue to me. i felt that, in a strange way, i had been internalising transphobia. it was such a relief to think, "actually, so what if she notices i have big hips and tiny feet? so what if she asks me to take off my shorts?" i'm trans. that's what i am, and other people have to get used to it and deal with it.

sometimes i think i should actually ask various practitioners about when/if they noticed i was trans. because even if i was otherwise read as a guy, inevitably people ask me about my phd, and i'm probably outed by the subject matter.

i really want to emphasise that i'm not saying "stealth = shame!" or "what are you all worried about!" . . . this was a specific situation in a specific environment. i felt supported by other practitioners there, and the treatment i was seeking did not involve any particularly gendered/sexed part of my body. there are various other privileges at play, too, like the fact i have enough money to spend on this treatment, and if they don't treat me properly i will take my money somewhere else and might make complaint to the powers that be. although i linked queen emily's post, this is a completely different situation.