I got very loudly deadnamed and misgendered multiple times at the doctors office today. This new receptionist ignored the preferred name on my profile to deadname and misgender me loudly, louder than she talked about anyone else in the waiting room. My birth certificate says “F” nex to sex, my medical documentation reflects this, and I was still deadnamed and misgendered.
And the saving grace was a woman and her child. I wear cat-ears and the child too young to speak loved them, and kept pointing and looking at me. I’m assuming her mother kept saying “yeah, she’s wearing cat-ears”, “yeah, that woman has cute cat-ears”, and the like. Her child was enamoured with them, and that woman didn’t misgender me once. And each time my very obviously masculine deadname name came up, she looked upset at the receptionist, but not once did she give me a bad look.
It doesn’t have to be much. You don’t need to be a knight in shining armour, or in someones face. Simply a quiet refusal to play along with someone elses bullshit is enough. It was enough to turn a trying and tiring moment into something that put a smile on my face and joy back into my life. It wasn’t a lot but it mattered to me.
#your love for trans people should outweigh your hatred for transphobes #that’s how you know you’re doing it right 👍 [x]