I’d like to share what some of us call “ghost moments”. There are different kinds. Some times I recognize someone but I’m not recognized. Said person has not seen me since I medically transitioned. The result is that I’m read as a male stranger instead of a former acquaintance. In effect, I see them but they do not see me.
Other times people evoke gender essentialism, usually about (my assumed) childhood. These moments can leave me utterly confused though usually at least part of me is laughing.

Necessary background: I’m functionally stealth in academia. In the class evoked below there’s a woman I met pre-transition.

A classmate does a presentation on the gendering of math and science education in elementary schools. She gives two spatial problem solving exercises and times the class. “Do we put our hand up when we’re done?” I ask. In shock she replies “A clear example of a man who benefitted from the male-centric methods of teaching in his education.”
She goes on to say a bunch of bollocks about physiological differences with the way male and female brains compute but that wasn’t a reason to have women fall back in tests, blah blah blah. I shoot my hand up to challenge the load of crap but quickly realise what this requires… Damn it. I keep hoping a woman will finish the exercises but the 4 men in the room finish first. For the love of…
Every time she adds to the bunch of bull, my hand shoots up briefly before I bring it down. The woman who knows my medical history is struggling not to laugh on the outside but she is just about on the floor (literally, she nearly falls off her chair!) The presenter does not inquire about the badly muffled chuckles.
At break I try to bounce ideas off her (the one I met pre-T) to refute my finishing time. We come up with nothing so I call my best friend to make heads and tails of it but I am in such a state of confusion, I can’t shake it off. Back to class nothing resolved.
The next presenter starts by picking me to sit in the middle of the circle for everyone to observe another exercise. I am given the following instructions:

“You are about to go on a gender journey. Close your eyes, think back to high school. Who were your friends, teachers, role models? Now think back to grade 8. Same thing, who are your friends, teachers, role models, etc? Now go even further back to grade school. How are friendships formed? Between who? Now go all the way back to the moment of your birth. Pretend you’d been born the opposite sex.”
I try to “stay in the moment” as I’m told all the ways my life would be different had I been born a girl. The woman who knew me pre-T is now in stitches. It helps me to keep composure to see her express the laughter I can not.

Next there’s a presentation on toys. No one believes me when I explain that gender specific toys were a no-no in my childhood homes. (true story: no toy guns, dolls or equivalents) Five people demand I confess that I had boy toys and those taught me how to be aggressive, take risks, yadi yadi yada while the girls were taught how to be cute, adorn dolls in pink, so on so forth. My head is frazzled. It doesn’t know which way is up anymore. They interchange gender with sex while informing me of my life. I am expected to respond from an experience I don’t own. I want to join the muffled laughing to my right. I opt for silence instead of arguing further. Thank goodness there’s another break.

Time for my presentation. I pass around a teen queer anthology which features a piece of mine. Everyone flips through a few stories; they note the title down. One stops on my story. It makes such an impression on her; she nudges the two people next to her to show them. I witness utter shock on their faces before the book is passed along. Soon, all read part of it and replicate the same effect. None, of course, realise they are catching a tidbit of my past.

I can’t describe how it feels to watch others take in my former pains as they wonder what came of that individual. The future of the words on those pages is next to my peers, hidden in full sight. I am disconnected from my former self even though we are one. I keep watching their reaction. It’s all I can do; observe from the cloak of passing. Unreal.

My presentation ends. I sit back down and debate whether I’m betraying my history or honouring it. My head’s spinning as I simultaneously wonder: Who am I? How does anyone know? What’s my history?