I totally forgot to tell this story from my afternoon of voter registration two weeks ago.
So I’m at the international grocery store working away on behalf of Obama. And this young transgendered person walks by. I believe it was a man who was dressing as a woman…but not cross dressing exactly. I think he was going for more of a gender blurring effect. It was very obvious he had no breasts, and yet was wearing a tight fitting woman’s shirt, non-gender specific jewlery (heavy chains and beaded necklaces and bracelets that I’ve seen on alternative dressing men), nail polish, women’s jeans and men’s sneakers.
He stops at our table and announces that he wants to register to vote because he just turned 18. I say “great!” and hand him a clipboard. As he is filling the form out he says “I don’t know my address because I’ve only lived there for 3 days.” So I say “You can take the form home and finish filling it out there,” and he says “well, my sister will come out of the store in a minute and she’ll know the address.”
I say great, and encourage him to step off to the side to work on the rest of the form. About 3 minutes later, two very tall people walk out of the store and I note in passing that they seem to be men dressed very distinctly like women and think how interesting that is to see 3 such individuals in one day. Just as they are about to pass the table, the kid at our table says “Hey – [name, which i can't remember], what’s our address?” And I think “duh, that makes more sense .”(statistically speaking)
She comes over to the table and recites the address without asking why he wants it, or acknowledging any of us. Her friend continued walked out into the parking lot. As she is standing there, one of my fellow volunteers asks her if she would like to register. She says “no, i don’t believe in it. Bush steals votes.” We sort of laugh a little because…well, we aren’t sure what an appropriate response to that statement would be. She then says “no, i’m serious. I used to live in Arkansas, and all of the democratic votes were lost. And Bush won, even though noone voted for him. I went back after election day to track my vote and it was gone, no one could tell me where it was. Bush is a criminal.”
Now, I was kinda with her until she mentioned the part about going back to track her vote. Then I knew she was a little off. But while she was talking I was watching her and trying to confirm my initial impression that this was a man dressed as a woman, much more deliberately so than the kid. She is aproximately 6 ft tall, wearing a long hot pink kimono style dress over jeans, has long blond hair tied into a pony tail, eye makeup, extremely masculine facial features, an adams apple and a 5 o’clock shadow.
I’m wondering if the 5 o’clock shadow is deliberate or laziness, and what her relationship with the kid is, since I seriously doubt she’s actually his sister. I start imagining a little transgendered commune somewhere in the area, and am fighting the urge to ask when she says to me “You have the most beautiful eyes.” I am immediately embarassed, as I always am when someone says that to me, and I smile and immediately look away. But as I’m looking down at the table I suddenly think “What if she thinks I’m uncomfortable because she’s…her. What if she thinks I’m judging her?!” I’m immediately seized with guilt, and so I look back up at her, and find she is still staring intently at me. I smile nervously, but refuse to break eye contact, for fear of appearing judgmental.
She says “Seriously, your eyes are such a vibrant blue!” And she’s leaning toward me, and I am, as always, uncomfortable under such intense scrutiny. So I look away and make a joke about it being my contacts. Then I’m again worried she’ll think i’m judging her because I looked away.
So I look back at her. And she’s still staring, and is now reaching a hand out slowly toward my face as she says “its contacts? Really? But that’s your natural color isn’t it?”
I laugh nervously and say “its my natural color, but the contacts make them brighter.” I’m watching her as she shifts ever so slightly toward me, and I begin to panic that she’s going to touch me. Which has nothing to do with antying about her specifically, and everything to do with the fact that she’s a stranger and I’m phobic about being touched. And I know that if she does touch me, I’ll totally freak out, and then she WILL think I’m judging her, even though I’m not. And I’m feeling the burden of my need to appear open minded press down on me as I watch her hand coming closer and closer to my face. I’m wondering why no one is helping me, and I realize they are all liberals too, so THEY don’t want to appear judgemental anymore than I do, and so they are just going to leave me to fend for myself. I feel words bubbling to the surface and realize that in an attempt to save myself I’m dangerously close to shouting “I’m not judging you, but please don’t touch me!”
Instead, I suddenly turn and give my full attention to the kid and the short form that he has still not completed. When I look up again a few minutes later she has drifted outside into the parking lot.
I resist the urge to reassure her and the kid (still at the table) that I think their lifestyle choices are just great. But I don’t. I take his form and put it with the rest and spend the rest of the afternoon contemplating what levels of personal peril I could get myself into with my need to appear non-judgemental.
