Traveling

This is the time of year when back pre-2020 I was going to WisCon and then the American Society for Mass Spectrometry conference. I’ve got old Facebook “Memories” posts from back then about traveling, and some gender exploration at both WisCon (safe place!) and ASMS (also weirdly went totally fine!). Some of my first really in-public experiences wearing skirts were at ASMS, my professional conference. I presented posters in my nicest skirt and Serious Professional Person top!

But I had thoughts about choosing clothing to travel in, trying to avoid attracting unwanted attention. It always felt weird to see others going through security at the airport wearing skirts, I was getting bolder but that felt way too much like asking for trouble to me! Or our carpool to ASMS in Indianapolis with a post-doc doing the driving choosing a plain little black dress for the drive since it was comfortable. I had similar dresses, I understood the comfort, but also we were going to be stopping in Indiana for lunch and bathroom breaks and that felt way too much like asking for trouble for me!

Now I just put 2280km on my car with my girlfriend and kiddo driving through Indiana and Ohio to New York. Choosing clothes for this first long trip since 2019 was an interesting feeling. Now I, too, am wearing dresses, that way I’ll be extremely inconspicuous in public restrooms! The whole trip was surprisingly comfortable, even though I’m getting used to life being more comfortable now. Just weird having all these memories while I was going about it.

The thing I’ve gradually figured out is something inside me always saw the women around me, the girls around me when I was young, as the other people like me, as my group. Early transition was emotionally weird in ways I didn’t understand then, because as much as I intellectually understood that the other women looked different from how I looked, and that (obviously) changed how things worked for them, emotionally, they were the other people like me and they all seemed impossibly bold.