Had a celebratory dinner at a French restaurant where the service is… languid. So I when I asked the waiter for more water, I mentioned that I’m taking a medication that makes me thirsty.
What medication? I tell him. What’s it used for? I pause. Do I tell him that it’s used by trans woman to block testosterone? While I can blend well in a crowd, in up-close interactions I just assume people know that I wasn’t born female-bodied. (There’s a few too many tells.) Usually it doesn’t matter and they treat me as a woman. But outing myself in a random encounter is really uncomfortable — Transgender Day of Visibility be damned. Not explicitly outing myself lets me hold on to the illusion that maybe, just maybe, they’re seeing me as the sort of woman I’d love to be, but never will. Which is kind of a fucked up feeling, but there it is.
So I simply say it’s a diuretic. It turns out he’s just curious because his wife is also on a diuretic to counteract water retention issues. He has no idea he’s asked a triggering question.
That’s what life while trans is like. Random encounters where you have to decide whether you want to be out and proud, or whether you want to just enjoy a quiet dinner in peace and not have to deal with Teh Tranz.