I Made a ‘Trans Man’ Uncomfortable at the Dinner Table

Yes, even in her most intimate moments, there is a uniquely female process taking place

…And that disturbed her. 

A couple of months ago, I went out to dinner with a couple of acquaintances from my local community center.  

One member of our trio was a lesbian woman of color who uses they/them pronouns—someone who I was very well-acquainted with. 

The other was a white man who I had just recently met, who seemed pretty chill. He fit in remarkably well with the women at our center, and I felt comfortable with him. 

I looked forward to enjoying good food and conversation with the both of them. 

Little did I know, that me making a genuine statement about the nature of lesbian sex and female hormonal cycles would turn into a soft debate about whether biology excludes trans people—and that my quiet confidence would lead this man to a deeply embittered state towards me, with a dramatic outcome. And also…that I would form a surprising alliance with my ‘they/them’ acquaintance. 

Now before I get into this story, I want to say that at the time—I didn’t know that this “man” was really a woman. So this is not a story about me trolling someone, or intentionally trying to make a trans-identified person uncomfortable. 

What I perceived was a short white male with a full beard. Full stop. 

I am pretty good at clocking transgender people, but this individual passed fairly well. I am also guessing she preferred to be stealth, because she did not make a huge fuss about identifying as trans or queer. 

However, long before our big dinner blowout, I did suspect at some point that she may have been trans, because there was one conversation we had in the company of another young woman, where she had mentioned that her favorite musicians growing up were Lauryn Hill and Sinead O’Connor. 

Her level of reverence and personal identification with these particular Artists was just giving soulful lesbian coming of age vibes…

That, and I noticed over time that she was drawn to my butch ‘they/them’ friend.

I couldn’t place whether it was a natural affinity or attraction—maybe a bit of both—but I intuitively recognized it because this mix of feelings is generally how lesbians are drawn to one another. 

But I brushed it off because I wasn’t sure…

She passed as male well enough and I thought, perhaps, she was a bisexual man. I took it at face value and left it at that. 

As it turns out, that façade backfired on her at the dinner table. 

Here’s what happened…