Spare a thought for the flying trans people.
Flying while transgender — a term that increasingly includes not just those who are male or female but also those who identify as both or neither, like me — is undeniably improving.
So transgender means being the sex opposite the one “assigned at birth” and being neither sex and being both sexes. So it’s entirely incoherent. Could its real meaning be just “more special than you”?
Anyway, at least the flying part is improving. Because? Airlines no longer give pink drinks to women and blue drinks to men? But they’ve never done that. It’s hard to see what difference it could make.
Last month, United Airlines expanded its gender options: Passengers can select male, female, undisclosed or unspecified, and can choose the honorific “Mx.” “Fly how you identify,” the airline touted in its feel-good tweet — and American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines quickly promised they’d make similar changes.
Ahhh, I see, it’s purely symbolic. You don’t get called by your name, let alone by Ms or Mx. It doesn’t happen. You’re packed in like sardines, they give you some coffee or gin and maybe a little packet of peanuts, they let you leave the sardine tin at the end. End of story.
But never mind that, the point is that “Mx” in blinking golden letters over your seat row isn’t good enough, because screening.
My hair is clipped to a fade. My shoulders have started to thicken from barbell presses. Even without a binder, my chest is flat. I am often called “sir,” particularly in airports, particularly when I wear the men’s blazer that I have learned differs in some inscrutably minute way from all the other men’s blazers I wear, and makes people read me differently.
But I am more often called “ma’am.” I have a soft jawline and curved hips. Which button had they pressed this time? And what had then caused the agent to reclassify me, rethink me, re-sort me into the other category? The other category — when neither category actually fits?
Etc etc etc fucking etc; me me me me me what I’m like me me me me. How about if we threw out “trans” altogether and just went with “narcissist”? Would be quicker.
Comments
27 responses to “Flying while self-involved”
I look like a standard middle aged woman, with curved hips and a soft jawline. I have long hair and breasts. I am still occasionally called “sir” by a harried airport employee who hasn’t really looked at me, because they are busy with my luggage or trying to ignore the person screaming at someone in another line or are not the one checking my id. What’s the big deal? Oh, right, that’s cis-privilege, right, to not care when they misgender you? Because I am so secure with the stereotypes of my sex that I don’t have to be offended when they accidentally call me something else?
Maybe things have changed a fair bit but I don’t ever recall being addressed even by my name at an airport let alone by any sort of gendered honorific… Perhaps trans (whatever incoherent thing we’re seeing here) people are now equally being asked to move when the wrong sort of rabbi shows up?
This is what I’m saying. Nobody ever calls you by your name, except maybe at the first check in – but you can do that at a kiosk, so not then either unless you’re checking a bag (for the low low price of $50 or whatever it is now). It’s not a call you by your name situation, it’s a move the cattle along situation. Nobody cares what sex each individual item of cattle is.
Oh sure, but when I demand that airline agents refer to me as “Screechy Monkey, Esquire,” I’m the asshole. I just want my specialness to be recognized, too!
(I’m kidding, obviously. I would never do that. I may be an asshole, but not that kind of asshole.)
Iknklast:
I think you might have nailed it there. It might just be a security issue. Understandably.
As John Dryden said in another context: “Happy the man, and happy he alone / He who can call the day his own. / He who, secure within can say, ‘Tomorrow do thy worst, ,for I have lived today.’
https://harpers.org/blog/2007/11/drydens-happy-the-man/
As an older man with long hair, it’s another day ending in Y when a TSA agent calls me ma’m as I’m bending over to get my bag and put it on the conveyor to be checked. Why, it’s like the 1960s never happened! I insist on not being mis-gendered because of my hair, otherwise help, help, I’m being oppressed!
Honestly, it says more about your own insecurities to get bothered when people make harmless assumptions about you.
In my experience, it’s only when you fly first or business class that they start calling you by name throughout the flight. I find it a bit weird personally, but maybe that’s just me.
But this is clearly all about validation. If their chosen gender designation is not constantly and repeatedly affirmed by other people, that’s like violence or something.
It’s almost like they can’t believe it unless everyone constantly reminds them that they are who they say they are.
Sort of like when a person gets that Ph.D. It’s hard to believe at first, so everyone calls you doctor for a while to remind you of your accomplishment. Only it’s an accomplishment, not just a statement of a fact, so I don’t think it’s quite the same…if I doubted I was really a doctor, I could just go look at my diploma.
Well the thing about people remembering to say “Madam” or “Ms Miraculous” or “Esmeralda” is that it means they are thinking about you and paying extra attention to you, and that is worth burning feminism to the ground all day long.
Names and titles aren’t used much on planes, but “ma’am” and “sir” are, and I imagine most people would get tired of being called the wrong one repeatedly. I’m not sure how this addresses that though.
I wonder where we’re going to be in 5 years with all of this. The transgender groups are pretty much getting everything they want. Will that be enough, or will increasingly obscure “outrages” be perpetually found?
No they aren’t.
Skeletor, I’ve never had anyone call me “ma’am” or “sir” on a plane; usually I do going through the Homeland Security, but only in the Lincoln airport, which is a small airport where they aren’t herding people through because they never have long lines of people waiting. It’s an airport where you can literally show up ten minutes before boarding and get through on time. Most other airports, they don’t ever call me anything.
On the plane? Nope. The flight attendants don’t spend a lot of time with that outside the movies, at least in my experience. And I have flown quite a bit, though never first class or business class.
Sorry, but I can’t help but imagine that they’ve somehow improved the aerodynamics, fuel efficiency, or wing loading of airborne trans people. I could actually sort of see the improved aerodynamics thing with regards to breast binding. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before they break the sound barrier altogether. I’m verymuch looking forward to their reaching escape velocity…
Anyhow:
Opposite? Both? Neither? Maybe this writer is “trans” because they’re above it all and they actually transcend gender altogether (unlike the rest of us plebes stuck in the mud, unable to rise above the combined limitations of the gravitational shackles of our feeble imaginations and physical reality)? Of course the TRAs depend rely entirely upon the existence of the gender binary to exist as “transgender” at all (it’s right in the name!) Nailing jello to the wall is child’s play compared to trying to make sense of this unfolding nonesense. Can we just lock the trans and nonbinary ideologues in a room with sharp implements so they can work out who’s right and just let the rest of us know after who won this particular rhetorical knife fight?
DINGDINGDINGDINGDING! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!
I hope they’re happy to be called by the correct honorific when they are clubbed and dragged from the airplane because the airline happened to overbook their flight.
How the fuck do you pronounce “Mx.” anyhow?
Skeletor, if the point of all this was to try to come up with a gender-neutral English equivalent to “sir” or “ma’am” that could be used for everyone, then I could see some value in that. But that doesn’t appear to be the case — instead we’re supposed to lament that TSA agents don’t have individualized terms for each special snowflake who comes their way.
Personally, I think the Python method is fine: use “sir” or “ma’am” according to your best guess, and if corrected, say “I’m sorry, I have a cold.”
Rhymes with “Latinx” of course!
I’m afraid that only works in Notlob.
Screechy: Mix, of course. Appropriate, no?
Comrade.
I pronounce it “mess”.
(squints suspiciously) What’re you, some kinda Commie?
Screechy Monkey,
In what Python class does that method work?
Monty’s
My given name transcends the gender binary – it is Lee. I have met people who knew only my name in advance (say, a receptionist with a list of names for appointments) and have had surprised responses along the lines of “Oh, a man” and such when I identify myself. It used to bother me in adolescence and early adulthood, it no longer bothers me. One difference between then and now was that I am now used to it, but another is that I am more secure in myself.
Also, I declare that all other names are limited, stunted, crippled, unless they have the same broad applicability as mine. /smug
#7 Claire
Speaking of validation…
A telling little slip there – ‘others must see me as I see myself’.
Help– Big Brother isn’t intrusive enough! We demand they use telepathy!
Holms, my name is also one that fits for either gender, and sometimes I get surprised reactions when I turn out to be a woman. Though that is much less now, since it is more common for women than men these days. But there have been famous men with my name, and very few famous women (and the famous women usually spell it differently).
How vague! I’m going with Jesse / ie / y.
Oh, please, Holms, not Jesse/ie/y! Don’t wish that on me!