“Hey, Juniper! It’s good to see you!” I gave Ollie a hug and smiled up at him. It had been months since I had seen him, and we were finally able to make a lunch hangout work. We sat, and I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Tell me about what’s going on with you? How’s Amy doing?” I asked. “She’s doing well. Actually, great! We’re expecting a baby this spring!” “Congratulations!” I inquired about how the pregnancy was going, and then we chatted about work. Ollie and I are both data scientists. We used to work together, spending a lot of the day talking about everything from politics to machine learning algorithms. Back then I didn’t have boobs. If I had, our work relationship might have been regarded with suspicion that it was more than it was. It wasn’t and wouldn’t be. After transitioning, I staked out a site in the gay camp, and I can’t imagine abandoning it. On the other hand, I wasn’t helping with the potential optics problem. I had made myself up as cute as I could manage. My
For the last decade I feel like I have been slowly waking up from a dream. The world is far different than I had imagined, and my experience of it was so far from normal. I still don't think I'm anywhere near normal, but at least things feel clearer.