I'm properly drunk right now, so chalk this up to that or whatever, but before pride month ends.. have I ever told you about the time I pretended I was trans to one of the trade craft helpers where I work?
I work at a weld inspection company that tests industrial welds out in the industries in my state, I worked day and night at this company as a helper and technician for 3 years before they promoted me to office personnel and today I have a more stable work schedule as an office middle manager, but the field technicians are 24/7 on call, day or night, holiday or not. Having worked that way for 3 years, knowing the turmoil, I do everything I can to make their jobs easier, including subbing out for helpers who are underperforming and training them extra in my spare time when I'm not getting paid.
Anyway, this particular helper, the day before he was telling me how much he appreciates me and how awesome I am. They had been working for 10 hours and I drove in on my personal time with food and drinks, gave him an hour break while I did his part of the job without getting paid, and it gave him the boost to finish the last 9 hours they needed. He was regarding me as a hero.
The next day in my office he was saying some gross transphobic shit and I was like "????? Blake, *I'm* trans. I was born female, raised as a little girl, and transitioned to a man." For any new readers, if it wasn't immediately obvious, this is not true; I am cishet.
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Anyway. I live in south Louisiana, I've only ever physically seen two transpeople here in my entire life. It's not a sundown town but it's firmly a red city, if you know what I mean.
So. Someone so firmly masculine with a work ethic that benefitted him was so beyond his understanding of what a trans person could be. It's not to say transpeople aren't industrious, but he's never had to formally praise a man he knew was trans. He praised me like I was a king the day before (I am one, make no mistake) and now, today, how does he reconcile that his king is transgender? He had so many questions. I showed him how most of his questions were inappropriate. I even had some of our other technicians confirm it, technicians who are transphobic but making fun of a helper was so much more important to them than their transphobia that it solidified it. He believed it. By the time he left the company for a higher paying job he completely believed I was a trans man. With her permission I showed him pictures of my wife when she was 16 as my pretransition images, who he seemed to fall in love with.
On his last day he apologized to me for being hateful way in the past. He said working here made him realize maybe he needed to be more open to how people lived their lives.
It was only one dude, a dude I really didn't like and still don't, but I'm super proud of him for reconsidering. I don't consider it a net positive, I don't think I deserve praise for this, because it took him respecting me first to keep respecting me after and that's backwards. But it was fun, and I hope it taught a lesson. Transpeople are people. All he did was treat me like a person. It wasn't hard. It shouldn't be hard. And you have my sympathy for having to deal with people who try to pretend it's hard.
