I got hit on today by a guy selling hay.
I imagine its because I’m not particularly gender-conforming. Long hair in my Facebook profile picture, soft, round face, clear glasses, that’s all. With nothing to hint towards how I actually swing (non-binary, probably trans, sic lesbian if that’s true), he probably rolled the dice that I was gay. Not the first time.
(For his sake, I hope that’s true. If he’s just hitting on random men* while conducting business transactions… eep. You know we have apps for that now?)
I was convinced initially that he was a greasy, straight man who thought I was a woman*. Not wanting to lose a fantastic deal on square bales, I told him to “squint a little harder” when he called me cute over PM. But for under $8 a bale in 2023… fuck it, we ball. I’m mostly closeted and in full boymode. I have a buddy I can bring. And hey, it’s rural America, it’d even be socially acceptable to bring a gun. (So I did: a beefy air pistol tucked against the center console, mostly as a bluff in case he was actually one of the internet strangers they warned us about in school.) I’ve gotta use this male privilege card before it expires.
I was surprised to find a rural-ass yee yee twink. Firmly wedged in a queer-oppressive rural culture, he’s an unlucky person who won’t easily get back the opportunities he’s lost. (Which among other things, include some social skills.) It was actually the least awkward hay buying interaction I’ve ever had, if you disregard the part where he hit on me. Pretty much all business, and after loading up, he took my money, we shook hands, and he walked off. Look at my silly, silly heteronormative ass.
Leaving the farm, I was sad for him. I had been in his shoes before… in adolescence. Through trial-and-error, I figured out how to be friends and colleagues with members of the appropriate sex anew after coming to like like them too, though I cringe thinking about some of my missteps along the way. Respecting others, and feminism, are values that can be instilled to some extent. I was lucky to have them instilled in me. But their practice has to be honed through experience.
Here’s a guy in his 20s, maybe early 30s, who hasn’t figured this out. I have strong empathy for him and wish I could help him, but I don’t want to get burned. I know I could. I’ve heard the stories from my lady friends about bad dates, feeling led on by guy “friends” wanting something else, and even assault. Moreover, I have been that guy*, mistaking kindness for interest and nearly laying waste to a friendship or two.
Also, as David Berman put it, “realizing is how it feels inside when it happens to you.” I just wanted to buy some hay, and this bastard dragged sex into it! As I went down my front steps, I thought to myself, “I would not be doing this if I had transitioned.”
A useful teaching example for respecting women is why you shouldn’t hit on a cashier. It extends to other business and professional relationships. She’s just there to do her job and make money, for her. Not for you to try and score with. I found myself on this hypothetical cashier’s end today (albeit buying). I felt a lot better when hay guy turned out to not be a misogynistic good ol’ boy, but my day was still perturbed.
This could be my future though. I worry for myself and people like this farmer, for when someone who actually is homophobic, or transphobic, or misogynistic (or all three) comes along, fucks around, and tries to pin the burden of finding out on us. When this becomes more than something to post about on a blog.
There’s a sentiment I like, that trans people are conceivably more their gender than the average cis person, because they saw the adversity they had to go through to get there and took that on willingly. Especially today, womanhood doesn’t seem like something to take lightly.
Wiped out from the day, and with gender on my mind, I’m now listening to a lengthy interview with Natalie Wynn of ContraPoints. I felt a little part of me sink when I hear her say “I sort of fit a script for women better.” … “I didn’t feel physically connected to the world [pre-transition].”
I laughed in self-reflection by the time she said,
“Trans women who are… not aware that they’re trans yet do a lot of things that they can’t quite explain to themselves like… body shaving, …trying to have a more androgynous look. I guess that’s something that I’d been doing for a long time.”
Oopsie. /r/egg_irl
*To paraphrase non-binary icon Janet from The Good Place, “not a boy.”