i think people around my age seem to be able to clock that i'm trans a lot more easily than people who are middle-aged or older. i have a strange age-gap in my friends, where i seem to only have friends who are also in their 20s like me, or are like 50 or older, and i don't really seem to know anyone in their 30s/40s. so i when i'm thinking about my friends' reactions to me being trans i only really have these two groups to base my data/conclusions on:
- group 1: people i know in their 20s, who are all from university.
- group 2: people i know in who are 50 to 80s, mostly from orchestra/wind band/etc.
despite the fact that the music groups have people from high school age to into their 80s, i don't really seem to have friends in the ages between group 1 and group 2. so i feel like there's more of an obvious contrast to me between how group 1 and group 2 perceive me and my transgenderism, and i don't really have any sort of gradient in-between.
anyway, the point is the group 2 seem to be more surprised when i say i'm trans. not in a bad way, it just wasn't immediately obvious to them. whereas group 1 often have all been able to tell before i said anything about it. i kind of like talking to older people more for this reason, to be honest. i'm not immediately clocked as trans and not immediately judged for it. i use crutches so i'm always immediately recognised as disabled, and there's not really anything i can do about that. people from all ages recognise that the crutches mean some sort of disability or injury. it's nice to not immediately be recognised as trans, and not immediately clocked as being from a minority group (especially in the current anti-trans political climate...) it's nice to not be immediately judged from something i can't control that is only one part of me.
people closer to me in age have been much more likely to out me. one time, i was at a bank with my granny and the person behind the counter asked me for my pronouns. this was really uncomfortable because they had no idea if i was out to my granny (which thankfully i was). they didn't ask the people behind me or in front of me in the queue for their pronouns. they essentially singled me out as trans and forced me to out myself in front of the rest of the queue. other people my age have also said a lot more strange and uncomfortable things about my gender/sexuality (especially people around the university, a public space! god, i do not want to be outed in public!), whereas older people seem to make less of a big thing out of my transness and don't bring it up in public (although i still have conversations about being trans with them, just not in a place where it's easy for random people to overhear. which i'm fine and comfortable with, and i'd prefer to talk about personal things like that in a more personal setting).
i'd prefer people to not necessarily know i'm trans straight away, and then i can tell them later on once i've gauged if they might be transphobic or not. people always know that i'm disabled straight away, and i have had a lot of uncomfortable things said to me by people of all ages about my crutches.
i wonder if part of it is maybe that younger people seem to think they're being progressive? like "oh i recognised you're trans and i'm going to point it out, aren't i a good ally :)", or maybe "i recognised you're trans and so am i! :)" which is maybe nice but i don't know. i don't really like people just looking at me and just assuming i'm trans, when there's so many ways that cis and trans and other people of any gender can exist. i don't really want to be liked or disliked for one aspect of me that i have no control over.
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