I keep running into this person in my neighborhood grocery store who is obviously having a lot of fun playing around with gender presentation. This person is probably mid to late 50s, assigned male at birth. Preferred gender now? Hard to say.

E seems to have split gender presentation 50% male and 50% female. From the waist down, e’s going for a feminine appearance. Strappy little sandals, pedicured toes and painted nails, shaved legs and short shorts in a women’s cut. From the waist up, regular guy appearance. V-neck shirt – no breast forms or anything like that, short hair in a men’s cut, no make-up. I think e shapes eir eyebrows. E’ll stroll the aisles in a very swishy manner enjoying the stares from all the other shoppers. What to make of this person whose gender points in two directions, appears misdirected, undirected?

Yesterday I saw someone similar while I was waiting in line at the bank. Another older person, probably assigned male at birth though this time in full female regalia. Possibly transgendered but it was honestly hard to tell if e was trying to pass as female or was just someone enjoying an afternoon of crossing in public and not caring how others read em. Again with the short shorts. Add in shaved legs, sandals with a heel, a frilly blouse, breasts either from breast forms or hormones, and a meticulously made-up face. Short hair with a home dye job. The hair reminded me of my partner’s Aunt Celia; the color must have come out of the same Clairol bottle. Then I realized the whole outfit was something Aunt Celia would wear. She’s a sixty year old woman who procures her entire wardrobe at Forever 21.

Aunt Celia is an object of derision in my partner’s family. Hollywood could not write a more colorful character. She’s utterly oblivious to her age. If she wants to wear clothing from the junior department, she is damn well going to wear clothing from the junior department. She has a concealed carry permit, but she doesn’t bother with the conceal part. Her .45 magnum rides right out in the open, resting on the passenger seat of her cherry red, soft top jeep. She curses like you’d expect the widow of a longshoreman to curse. She’s also one of the most tolerant people you’ll ever meet. Not everyone in my partner’s family is down with the gay thing between me and my partner, much less the transgendered thing. Aunt Celia never fails to make us feel welcome when extended family gets together. I have a definite soft spot for her even if I do want to make her over in some clothes that would actually flatter her figure.

But back to my genderbender seniors. My first instinct on seeing them was to want to introduce myself, find out more about them. I was glad to make note of this response. It’s a change for me. Revulsion used to be my initial reaction to people who refused to take gender seriously (my perception of their actions). Oh, I didn’t care about young people. Yeah, play around with gender in your teens and twenties. A different gender every day of the week. Have fun. But put a grandpa in a sundress and twirling a parasol? I didn’t want to see that spectacle. My reaction was all based in fear. How could they take themselves seriously dressed like that? And if they didn’t take themselves seriously, how would anyone else take them seriously? And if they didn’t want to be taken seriously, how would anyone take my own gender transition seriously?

Internalized transphobia. I certainly recognized my feelings for what they, were but putting the correct label on them didn’t make the feelings go away. I felt about as comfortable with that representation of gender bending as I imagine the gay men and lesbians I worked with felt about my announcement that I was going to transition on the job.

In a nearly unbelievable coincidence, I had my first meeting with my human resources department regarding my intent to change sex on the same day my company announced the formation of a GLB committee. This was the mid ‘90s. I had no idea the committee was forming; they had only recently offered healthcare benefits to same sex partners. Literally I returned from meeting with HR to find a memo announcing a gay/lesbian/bisexual advisory committee (this was in the days before everyone had email addresses so company-wide announcements still came around via a hand delivered hardcopy). I read that memo and absolutely knew I should keep a wide berth of people on that committee. They’d just convinced the firm to publicly announce support of gays in the workplace (not entirely common at the time) and here I was about to embark on something as extreme as gender reassignment. I imagine I horrified them in the same way the gender twisted, swishy seniors horrified me and for much the same reason.

When I say that my recent reaction to seeing these two characters blithely flaunting a mixed gender presentation was one of happiness, I’m also saying that the internalized transphobia I harbor is greatly diminished. It’s not gone. But time has taken care of the worst of it. I don’t have the same fears about comparison that I used to have. I’ve proven myself, I suppose. I made my transition and was judged on my own presentation of gender and not on theirs. I’ve realized that their choices in dress, in individualized expression, don’t impact me in any meaningful way.

They’re like Aunt Celia. They’re perfect in their imperfection. There’s a sort of raw honesty about what they are doing even though it looks self-consciously artificial to everyone else. Rather than being repelled by their appearance, I’m drawn to them. I think the trick would be in convincing them that the boring looking guy at the bank or in the store really is interested in who they are and not just in who they are on the surface.

By the way, my company has grown from a handful of offices in the U.S. northeast corridor to a worldwide presence with offices in eight time zones. GLB and even T employees have advanced in careers here and the company still managed to flourish. The thing of sexuality or gender that seemed so insurmountable, so scary, now seems passé. There’s even a link on the HR page of our internal website for “transgender services”. People can get information just like information would be sought for any life event. I’m just waiting for that employee to come along who’s going to tell the company they are neither male nor female and to please use the spivak pronoun set when referring to them. I hope I get to meet that person in the course of my career.

When I see these outré personalities with their mixed gender signals at the bank or in the grocery store, I applaud their persistence in expressing themselves. I can separate the taste issues from the gender issues in their presentation. They’re basically another version of Aunt Celia - just with an extra dash of gender queerness in the mix.