proteanme

My best man story of this year, so far, although I think I already made that claim back in March, but I called it my best sir story.  The stories just keep getting better I guess.

When I travel through airports, I consistently get mistaken for a being a dude. And not just in Indy or Portland. It’s nearly everywhere I’ve flown through or to: SF, LA, La Guardia, Denver, Atlanta, O’Hare, etc.  And even though it can be stressful because of TSA, I generally like getting my masculinity affirmed by being called sir and I also appreciate the tacit recognition that the gender binary is just not working for me. Yesterday when I was flying back to Portland from Indy and I went through the security xray machine thing, the TSA lady looking at my scan waved me over to a TSA guy, saying to him about me, “This man has something on his chest.”

At first, I wanted to say “breasts” but then I thought that might confuse everyone, so instead, before the TSA guy could start feeling me up I said to both the TSA lady and the TSA guy, “That’s because I’m not a man.”

The TSA guy looked kind of relieved and the TSA lady apologized, kind of brusquely and then sent me through the machine again. I assume everyone correctly identified the things on my chest because I was waved through.