When I go to work it is unsafe for me to wear my binder. There is a lot of physical labor and at times extreme temperatures or ventilation issues that would make binding dangerous. I'm fine with that. I am wearing coveralls i dont usually feel weird or dysphoric because of my clothes. Rather, its the people I work around that cause me to feel like shit. I am a vendor, i come on site and work on boats for private companies, their temp workers don't know me, I don't know them. But what I do know is that the moment I introduce myself as Ian, the misgendering and heavily feminine nicknames and comments start flooding in. "Girl", "girly", "little lady", "beautiful" "darling" are the most common that get dropped on the daily. I work with grown ass men in the state of Washington who, if i was presenting as a woman would be rude and biased towards me because of my gender, which happened before I started transitioning publically, and now that I am presenting a different way are doing the opposite. They praise me for doing work women don't traditionally do. They say things like girl power and you go girl. I guess my point is that it's so infuriating that because I am never what they want to see at their work place, the childish behavior never ends and its frankly disgusting. Sorry for yelling into the wind but sometimes it's just a thing you have to do. My heart goes out to all y'all with the same problem and maybe one day the people around us will get their heads out of their asses. If i was a woman my work wouldnt change, I am a good electrician, regardless of gender and my work proves that. Some day these tired old men might be assed enough to see it too.
