CW: references to sexual misconduct
I’ve never been afraid to travel alone. When I was nineteen I bought a round-the-world ticket from Student Flights and took off for an adventure of a lifetime. I thought nothing of it until an old white man on the plane ride over told me how he admired my bravery, a young woman jetting about on her own. I was always read female back then.
I was naive and had grown to believe that I was not prey for men wanting to take advantage. Because let’s face it, that’s the threat he was referring to. Why else would he mention gender? When something is deemed ‘unsafe for women’ it's because there is a male threat lurking about.
I guess because I didn’t really feel like a woman, I didn’t navigate space how women often have to. With care and caution and at a minimum in pairs. How I see myself and how the world sees me is always a little bit different. Fifteen years later and that naivety has crystalised into cynicism.
Heading to the airport I heard the echo of a trans friend warning me about security protocols and body scanners. How they can out trans and non-binary people and make them feel very uncomfortable. Airport security is a clumsy combination of naked eye meets infrared technology.
If security reads a trans person as male they point you to the male scanner and you run through a body scan that reveals a mysterious vest on your chest and a foreign object in your pants. You can imagine how things might get misinterpreted. Not to mention the humiliation of having to explain your body to a potentially uneducated security guard. Not fun. I wonder how I’ll go?
I breezed through security being read as female and the identity documents to back the assumption. Sure i’ve thought about changing the gender marker. You can get X now for non-binary but I don’t know how well that would go down in some countries. It’s not worth the trouble is the controlled apathy I approach this with for now.
I wonder how i’ll be read in Sri Lanka? I thought to myself, remembering most Asian countries assume male. As I walked along the main street in Negombo enjoying the noise and the clutter, a man rode up to me and said “hello sir!”. I smiled and pulled my shoulders back and replied in the deepest voice i could muster “morning”.
We went through the usual chatter, with the added ice-breaker of the coronavirus. It was still somewhat novel at the time so we passed over it quickly and then he asked about family. Not girlfriends, not wife, but about ‘family’.
When you are read female and traveling, especially alone, the word ‘boyfriend’ appears within seconds. But instead, ‘man to man’ we talk of our family and i’m not questioned for not having a wife. I speak of my sister and my mother, and how important they are to me. As we walk together he points out pretty things in the market I might like to buy for my family. It was an entirely different experience and I felt completely safe. He asked what my name was and reluctant to out myself I replied with my nickname “It’s Tea” I said, and he laughed. “Of course, because you are big and strong like Mr. T” gripping his hand across my shoulder.
I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. This was a good sign I was going to get to walk the walk I prefer. If I have to pick a gender for people to read, I’d rather it be male. Sadly it was more of a one-off as the majority of the trip i was read female, and thus treated as such by men.
When a tuk-tuk driver invited me to take the wheel early one morning on my way out to a sunrise hike, I jumped at the opportunity. He motioned for me to squash in next to him on the front seat and proceeded to show me the ropes.
After some patronising encouragement that I was a good driver he removed his hand from the handlebar and onto my knee. I looked down at this gesture but thought perhaps he was just giving me free reign to steer. Then his hand slipped down to the inside of my thigh and I felt my insides erupt.
I stopped concentrating on the road. Time was passing at a frustrating pace as an unfamiliar angst started to envelop me. Normally my visibly queer look protects me from these encounters, but it seems irrelevant here. In that slow passing moment I felt what so many women have no doubt been feeling most of their lives. I got it now. The inner dialogue that starts making excuses and granting allowances like “he just doesn’t have anywhere to put his hand” , “he’s just being friendly” or “maybe it’s a cultural misunderstanding”. I could hear the angry feminist in me begging me to say something out loud.
This does not feel right. You are very uncomfortable. He has no right to touch you. I bellowed at myself from the inside. He started to stroke my leg and I pulled the throttle as hard as I could. The speed made him uncomfortable and he removed his hand to regain control of the handlebars, while I regained control of myself. His hand returned to my leg as I stared at him and he asked if I was ok?
“Yes i am ok, but your hand on my leg IS NOT” I said sternly over the engine noise looking at his hand then into his face.
“No no, its ok” and he ripped his hand away pretending like I was overreacting “no problem, no problem” he kept saying, unsure of who he was trying to convince.
I know a gaslight when I see it, fuckface. I let go of the handlebars and said i’d had enough. I avoided his gaze for the rest of the trip. I felt annoyed at myself for letting it go on for as long as it did without giving him a piece of my mind. Its 6am and your in the middle of nowhere, you still need to get yourself home I consoled myself, pissed about the powerlessness of it all. He danced around when jumpy songs came on and told me I should smile and enjoy myself more. Oh for fuck’s sake, misogyny looks the same wherever you bloody go.
Eventually I figured out the common denominator that tipped whether I was read male or female: ugly flower print shirts. When I was wearing my finest ‘resort Dad wear’ it was obviously deemed too hideous a fashion to be donned by a woman. I was safe in its ugliness. Lucky I packed a collection.
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