That German Look

I just got home from a week spent in Frankfurt and Leipzig and it was amazing.
There was also a bit of culture shock.
It turns out that people stare at you a little differently over there, a stare that in the US I would have read as hostile and disapproving.
People don't look away when you catch them staring either.
It was something that I didn't realize had worn on me as much as it did until I got back home and felt the weight of second guessing my appearance start to lift.
While I knew, from an intellectual perspective, that I was getting looks because I'm a 6 foot tall blond who wears very unusual clothing much of the time, it is never the less impossible to suppress the emotional response that feels "they know, they know I'm trans and that's why they're staring like that".
I'm pretty sure this is a familiar feeling to anyone who has gone from being unhappy with their appearance to suddenly being deemed attractive by the world at large.  The persistence of memory is strong and it takes a lot to deprogram one's self image.
I want to go back there already.
In every other respect I had an amazing time, the food, the language, the architecture, I loved every bit of it.
I got to see many family members who I haven't spent time with in years and was thrilled to have them get my name and gender right each and every time.  In fact, not a thing was said by anyone regarding my transition and not in an uncomfortable "we're avoiding the subject" sort of way either.  It simply wasn't important.
It's easy to get too wound up in transition, to start seeing everything through the lens of being trans.  So much so in fact, that a person could easily find themselves with a whole blog to write about the experience!
I'm the first to admit that I'm a pretty narcissistic person and that I have an ego that doesn't feel out of place alongside royalty and the gliterati.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm better than all of them.
There is, however a sort of turning inward towards my own experience that I'm starting to realize is detrimental to myself and my relationships with others.

It was a couple of weeks ago when I found myself dismayed at how many of my cis friends were unaware that the term Tranny is considered a pejorative.
That this surprised was fair enough, however, upon reflection, the fact that I felt offended and angry about it was not the natural and just response I felt it was at the time.
Because honestly, within the context of my friends, I could find no real reason to take offense.
In fact, I've come to believe that I was reacting solely out of received opinion.
I was performing, by rote, the reaction that I'd learned that I, as a trans person, was meant to have.
As much as we may want to believe that intent does not matter, if we wish to deal with people fairly we do need to take it into account.
Not intending to offend does not absolve someone of responsibility for their actions, but we should equally examine out own intent in whether we take offense.
We do bear a burden to educate when we have the opportunity to do so.  Especially when the other choice is to drive someone away with our anger.
The idea that they who wish to be informed do us harm by asking us to educate them is simply a selfish misapprehension of the original complaint, i.e. That it's unreasonable for privileged people to impose their needs over the needs of marginalized groups who they claim to support.
There is a big difference between being asking to have something explained, and derailing the work of others with your misinformed opinion, and then demanding time be taken to educate you at the expense of all else.
It saddens me to see that in the memeification of social justice issues has created a veritable menu of ways to take offense, feel righteously oppressed, and shut down dialogue.  We have enough actual enemies as trans people without our needing to alienate those who may be well intentioned and just ignorant.
Overcoming our own fears is hard, sometimes impossible, but it's not an excuse to be mean.
Sometimes people are just looking at you funny because they're German.