My Not So Typical Trip to the Sex Toy Store

So I am leaving my night class and heading to a certain sex toy store here in town for the purpose of getting some props for a costume. I see a male worker standing outside so I assume he is just checking ids at the door. While I am walking closer I pull out my id so he won’t need to ask me for it. I get up to the door and before I could even show him my id he says, “tonight is lady’s night, so for the next 15 minutes only women are allowed in.” As I held my id close to his face I responded with, “well, thank god I’m a woman.”

Every ounce of me wishes someone was standing there with a camera to capture the look on his face. While that look was amazing, I truly appreciated the apology he gave me as it sounded very sincere.

After that I took some time to reflect; did I really look that masculine? Or was the way I presented myself stereotypically masculine? Sure I had on men’s pants, shoes, button down shirt, and was rockin’ a faux hawk with my short hair, but does that necessarily mean male? I have experienced these misconceptions many times throughout my life; I have been called sir, he, and him on a daily basis but the odd part is, when I cut my hair short that diminished greatly and I started being called ma’am more frequently (who would have thought?).

Our society is so quick to label people on the clothes they wear because they assume that all women should wear women’s clothes and all men should wear men’s clothes. I challenge those assumptions everyday by being true and comfortable with myself.

Has anyone else experienced this; had your sex questioned because of the way you dress or your mannerisms? How do you deal with this? Does it make you feel uncomfortable? Does it make you want to change the way you are so you don’t have to deal with the ignorance?

*rant over*