Transitioning with Strangers

It's hard for me to believe, but I have been going to three of the same places for over four years now. Yes they are straight venues and yes I am talking about going in there as me. At the risk of sounding like an alcoholic, all of these places are pubs or taverns of sorts.

All three are very civilized of course and I'm not talking about a bunch of redneck bars in Ohio. Along the way, I became a regular and began to know some of the other regulars.  I'm sure at the beginning most of them didn't really know much except that's a guy dressed as a girl but I was harmless.   On occasion I did run into a rest room problem and the typical snickers (and not the candy bar).  But life went on and actually all the employees have been exceptionally nice to me over the whole time.

Early in my experience though,  the most jaded of some of the male regulars were never really mean or negative but they always had to slide in the man word into our conversations.  A couple of them even went  out of their way to shorten my name to "Chris" (which isn't my male name anyway).

If nothing, I was persistent and ignored it all. Slowly but surely times started to change.  The effect of HRT and wearing my own hair was huge of course but perhaps the bigger change had to do with meeting my friends there..they validated me as a real person,. I wasn't just a guy dressed as a girl, I had a life. All of the sudden, I moved from "man or Chris" to a person.

For sure, I do get discouraged at the timing of all of this. I'm an impatient person and four years is an eternity! On the other hand, essentially I am transitioning in front of their eyes.

 Who knows, a few of them may even look up the transgender word. In the meantime,  I really enjoy the friendly acceptance I get. Even though I'm their token trans girl.