The best time a stranger mistook me for a man

When I was younger, I had a bowl haircut... for 14 years. I was small and skinny and was a huge tomboy anyway, so the haircut was really unnecessary if one wanted to confuse me for the opposite sex.

It was not uncommon for complete strangers to mistake me for a boy, especially since I mostly wore boy's clothes and all my friends were boys. I can specifically remember going into a store once with my cousin Seth and the check-out lady said something to us about being cute little boys. My cousin said something about me being a girl. She apologized. Life goes on.

I never corrected anyone, mostly because I was so painfully shy. I guess it bothered me on some level, but not so much that I was awake at night crying about it or anything. Truth is, I would have rather been confused as a boy than be called a girl in those days, I suppose.

But now that I'm 25, certain features clearly mark me as a woman, like my breasts and lack of visible adams apple. Most people correctly assume that I am, in fact, a woman. If they don't, they have the sense to keep it to themselves. That's why I was so taken aback when the following incident occurred last spring.

Courtney and I had just ended a short stay with our friends Lane and Dee in Hilton Head, S.C. It had been a short trip in which we spent most of our time on the beach and eating tasty dishes that rich people from northern states see as novelty and specialty (egg sandwiches and macaroni salad). We observed the gators and water fowl, strolled under live oaks and among former slave houses, and ended the week as guests at a weekly get-together Lane and Dee host for their friends - something Courtney and I now affectionately call Friday night lesbian parties.

I did kind of look like
Justin Beiber, though...

When it came time for us to return to Kentucky, we loaded up my poor, old hybrid, Katie H, and hit the road. As many can relate, we had to make pit-stops at the most non-shady-looking places we could find. A task in and of itself in some areas. So, it was without fear that we stopped at a gas station in North Carolina somewhere (at least, I think it was North Carolina) for a break.

I was washing my hands in the bathroom when a woman in her 30s and wearing a dress walks in. I was wearing a t-shirt with cut-off blue jean shorts - my summer uniform, nothing too androgynous, but nothing too specific, either. The woman looks at me, almost walks past to a stall, then stops, walks back out (to look at the door), then walks back in a couple seconds later. I tend to generally think people are weird, so I really didn't think too much about this.

So, she comes back in, looks at me again, then walks over to me and asks: "This is the women's restroom, right?"

I look at her with what I'm certain is a look of bemusement mixed with complete offense as I say: "Yes." I say "offense," because she could tell she had been an idiot. She says: "Oh, I'm so sorry - I've just been so crazy lately, I thought I'd walked into the wrong bathroom."

Max

Not really an apology.

Apparently, I looked like Max, a transgender character on "The L Word," to this woman because she clearly thought I was a man. And why not? I wasn't wearing a dress, after all, and I mean, why would a woman wear anything except a dress?

She chose a stall and I walked out, kind of laughing to myself. I think about this exchange every single time I walk into a public bathroom now, though. Sometimes I wonder if I should act more girly or something, whatever that means. Most of the time, it makes me think about how some people are completely clueless, and it makes me laugh.

I don't wonder too much about that woman and whether or not she's run into any other women who aren't like her in public bathrooms recently. But I do often wish I were better able to think on my feet. Then, maybe I would have thought to flash that woman to prove it to her. At the very least, I would have been able to think of some really clever thing to say, like Andrea Gibson: "I didn't feel comfortable shoving this tampon up my penis in the men's room!"

Oh well. Yet another lost opportunity to make someone feel really uncomfortable with their ignorance.

Next time, I'll be prepared.