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Notes from transition: women in customer service positions are smiling at me more which weirded me out for half a second and then I realized they& #39;re reacting to a heavily tattooed dude who possibly needs to be gently placated and got sad.
On the other hand I am having to learn to do the thing with other dudes in passing where, like, you studiously ignore each other& #39;s very existence while looking for the bug spray or whatever.
Because the thing I did as a matter of course when I was being read as a woman, where I looked them over to gauge whether or not they might fuck with me, comes off REAL DIFFERENT from someone read as a heavily tattooed dude.
Like I got some looks implying I was a psychopath looking for a fight before I figured this one out.
Anyway I have always been polite to customer service staff but now with the women I find myself using every trick I have learned from working with sheep to telegraph "I am not a problem. I don& #39;t want to hurt you."
Quiet voice, quiet eyes, quiet hands, loose shoulders, body angled a little away, stay out of their personal space, be scrupulous not to engage in any more chit chat than they initiate.
Anyway it& #39;s all kind of unsettling.
