The other day being read as a cisgender dude got me into trouble.
There I sat, all studious-like, in my Psychology class as my professor lectured about noticeably observable gender differences in toddlers.
As she lectured, I reminisced about my own toddlerhood and how I can’t recall noticing any extreme physical differences until the land o’ adolescent puberty. In my case, by the time I entered junior high school, I was all kinds of tall and awkward while all of the cisgender boys were itty bitties scurrying around.
There were a lot of girls who were taller than the boys, having hit puberty earlier. Knowing that this had 95.6% to do with pubertal differences, I wanted to ask about what, biologically, accounted for the much more subtle observable differences pre-puberty in toddlers.
So I raised my hand and said: “I remember junior high, when there were all of these tall awkward girls who had hit puberty before boys…” , and, suddenly, a flurry of whispers and outcry and ooo’s happened. I finished my sentence, confused about what I’d said that had caused so much offence.
Turns out, it was from a perception that I had said there’s something awkward or “wrong” about tall women. Ohmygawd! In my past pre-transition life, if I’d said the exact same thing it would’ve just been a given that, “Oh, hey, she was a tall girl in junior high. That must’ve been an awkward experience at the time!”, instead of, “How dare that douche dude say tall girls are awkward!”.
Oops?
There I sat, all studious-like, in my Psychology class as my professor lectured about noticeably observable gender differences in toddlers.
There were a lot of girls who were taller than the boys, having hit puberty earlier. Knowing that this had 95.6% to do with pubertal differences, I wanted to ask about what, biologically, accounted for the much more subtle observable differences pre-puberty in toddlers.
So I raised my hand and said: “I remember junior high, when there were all of these tall awkward girls who had hit puberty before boys…” , and, suddenly, a flurry of whispers and outcry and ooo’s happened. I finished my sentence, confused about what I’d said that had caused so much offence.
Turns out, it was from a perception that I had said there’s something awkward or “wrong” about tall women. Ohmygawd! In my past pre-transition life, if I’d said the exact same thing it would’ve just been a given that, “Oh, hey, she was a tall girl in junior high. That must’ve been an awkward experience at the time!”, instead of, “How dare that douche dude say tall girls are awkward!”.
Oops?
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