I wrote most of this on Thanksgiving, but then life demanded that I do other things than finish it, until now. All names have been changed, for confidentiality.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
There is a woman who lives in my city. Call her Nancy. Not too many years after I was sworn in, she was a teenager, hanging with a dicey crowd, occasionally getting in trouble, but never a bad kid. She was straightforward to a fault, very open. We got along fine, even when I had to tell her where the limit was (for instance, the limit on raucous shouting in the middle of the city at 02:00 in the morning). I saw a lot of her back then, and then occasionally over the years as she grew up a bit and settled down a bit. I haven\u2019t seen her face-to-face for a few years.<\/p>\n
Not too long ago, I was investigating a property dispute, and spoke with Nancy over the phone, identifying myself by rank and last name, as usual, and using my female voice, as always. I was in her area anyway, so I suggested that I swing by and meet her face-to-face, and I did.<\/p>\n
I arrived a few minutes later. She caught sight of me, studied me with a polite smile for a second and then smiled broadly and said, \u201cHi! You know, I was a little confused, but I figured it out. You look good! How are<\/i> you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I smiled. \u201cFine,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Her smile got even broader and in her characteristic straight-to-the-heart manner, she said, \u201cAre you happier?\u201d<\/p>\n
I grinned. \u201cMuch,\u201d I said. \u201cI made it work for as long as I could, and when I had to make a change, I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood!\u201d she said. And we got down to business.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
Awhile before that, I was dealing with an assault at another local business, one big enough to have its own security officers. At one point, I asked a question of one of them. We\u2019ve known each other since before my transition. In smart paramilitary fashion, he replied with, \u201cYessir!\u201d \u2026and an instant later, said, \u201cMa\u2019am, sorry\u201d. I told him not to worry about it. A few minutes later, while I was waiting on a phone call, he told me that he thought that what I was doing was \u201cincredibly brave\u201d, and that he had tremendous respect for me because of it.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
Not too long ago, I was called to cover a road hazard. Some garbage had fallen off of a truck, on a residential side-street. I spoke with a couple of the locals. The garbage was a bit nasty, and if we left it, neighborhood dogs would be spreading it in traffic, so we couldn\u2019t leave it. At the same time, the plow crews from our Public Works department had gone home for rest and I didn\u2019t want to call one in for something so minor. The locals seemed at a loss (and reluctant to handle the stuff), so I knocked on one door and borrowed a snow shovel. Another resident donated garbage bags. (I love the Stone Soup method of solving problems.) Once they saw me doing it, a couple of onlookers pitched in, and we got it cleaned up.<\/p>\n
During one pause in the activity, one young man looking on said, \u201cWhat\u2019s your last name?\u201d (I wear a name tag, but it was dark.) I told him. He smiled gently. He said, \u201cI just want to say that I really admire what you\u2019re doing. It takes a lot of guts to do that. I\u2019ve watched your transition, and I think you\u2019re awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you very much!\u201d I said. \u201c\u2026you\u2019ve, ah, been watching my transition, have you?\u201d His eyes crinkled in amusement. He told me that he was trans himself, and he used to see me occasionally at [local business where my duties often take me], before he decided to leave after someone outed him and people started treating him differently.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
In the first year of my career, I covered many domestics. \u00a0The victim in one case was particularly terrified, but still able to be articulate and detailed. The case had a big impact on me. \u00a0She also, unusually, addressed me reflexively and punctiliously as \u201cOfficer [Annam]\u201d.<\/p>\n
Recently, I stopped a car with a headlight out, and the driver turned out to be her. \u00a0I went through my usual spiel, and ultimately warned her on the headlight and wrote her a ticket for another minor offense. \u00a0After I gave her the ticket and I had answered her questions about it, she cocked her head and nodded a little for emphasis and said, \u201cIt\u2019s good to see you again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good to see you, too,\u201d I said, and meant it.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cIt used to be\u2026 [name close to my old name]?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c[My old name],\u201d I said, \u201cbut not anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGrace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a beautiful name.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you!\u201d \u00a0I told her that I hoped that her evening got better from here on out (I much prefer not to salt a wound; I never issue a ticket and say, \u201cHave a nice day.\u201d). We pulled away.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
A couple of weeks ago, a bouncer at a local bar, whom I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen before in my life, caught sight of me and stepped over to pump my hand, saying, \u201cGrace! Good to see you!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
So today, Thanksgiving, I\u2019m reflecting on encounters like these, as I work my overtime. I drive around looking for stranded motorists (because Thanksgiving comes with stranded motorists as a garden comes with surprise cultivars you never intended to plant). I eat lunch hoping we don\u2019t have to arrest too many people in front of their families (because nothing says \u201cThe Holidays\u201d to a cop like an alcohol-fueled, multi-generational domestic.) And in my free moments, I ponder.<\/p>\n
These sorts of things are always nice to hear. They help me maintain my bulwark against the myriad daily corrosions which come with being trans in this society. These corrosions are not as frequent or harsh for me as they are for some; I have been astounded to find that on casual encounter, I\u2019m not visibly trans. I get along fine, in that almost everyone says, \u201cMa\u2019am\u201d, over the phone or in person, and \u201cshe\u201d in reference to me. I\u2019m pretty sure that people who don\u2019t know I\u2019m trans take me as I am without thinking about it. (There\u2019s no profit in asking. People who knew you before can\u2019t know, either, so you would have to ask the question of total strangers, which is perhaps invasive and unkind, since everyone will get to see their reflexive reaction, instead of their best one. And you can never be sure if someone is trying to spare you, so the answer isn\u2019t actually useful. And there is always the risk that the answer will be shredding.)<\/p>\n
But plainly, I am visible in another way. I transitioned in place, without moving or changing jobs, and therefore many people know about me. How could they not? And those people talk to other people, and I\u2019m a novelty; to people who haven\u2019t given trans people significant thought before, I\u2019m a walking contradiction. And for every gregarious bouncer there are no doubt several hundred who simply see me and take note without commenting to me.<\/i> But of course they comment to each other. There\u2019s an ethic that one does not out a trans person as trans without permission. There are many good reasons for this. But most of the public don\u2019t know about that ethic, and if they did, most of them wouldn\u2019t care, the same way they don\u2019t care about discussing the details of someone\u2019s messy divorce, or the fact that someone\u2019s relative is being treated in a new an interesting way for that colon cancer. Nothing is confidential, in gossip, and anyway, perhaps it\u2019s not really gossip when someone is asked how they met me and they laugh merrily and explain that it was when, and I\u2019m quoting directly, \u201cThis tall, upright, very formal man gave me a ticket, and we all later learned that he, now she, was Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transitioning in place does turn those crisp, black lines of medical confidentiality into great, billowing clouds of gray which no one navigates well. I\u2019m resigned to the fact that people talk. Stealth is dead. I\u2019m visible.<\/p>\n
And contacts like these drive home for me what a subtle and powerful thing that is, to be visibly trans in this very public way, and just by doing that<\/i> introducing people to whole new vistas of \u201cWhy not?\u201d Once, I felt cowardly and ashamed that I could not advocate effectively for the rights of people like me. Now, I\u2019ve stood up,<\/a> and having stood up, I do this work whether I choose it or not, just by looking after my community. I feel enormously privileged to be able to do this work. On this day, when Americans contemplate the things we have to be thankful for, I\u2019m thankful for that.<\/p>\n Grace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I wrote most of this on Thanksgiving, but then life demanded that I do other things than finish it, until now. All names have been changed, for confidentiality. \u2014 There is a woman who lives in my city. Call her … Continue reading