Now, obviously a lot of things go into "blending in", and many of those are plenty important, but the one thing that has always stood out for me is having "confidence". But not only do I believe "confidence" is a huge part of being able to "blend in", I honestly believe it plays a huge role in how an overall transition plays out. Now I'm not trying to say that lots of other things aren't important, and for those of you reading this, you may well believe other things are actually more important. And you may well be right, but since this is my blog, I'm going to make my case for my viewpoint. :)
So how does confidence play into "blending in", or even transitioning in general? First and foremost I believe that when it comes to blending in, that people in general see what they expect to see. By that I mean most people don't give other people much thought - right up until the moment that you give them a reason to give you a more detailed look. Many things can lead to that detailed look, for me for example my voice does it at times - usually when I'm not thinking about it. But I think the biggest thing that leads to those detailed looks and scrutiny is not being confident and not "acting like you belong". It doesn't matter if you are at the park, a restaurant, or the ladies section at your favorite store. If you act out of place, people will notice and that will lead to their scrutiny; and I believe that during a transition that one of, if not the most common reason that people act out of place is that they lack confidence. It may be confidence in their appearance, their voice, their mannerisms, or a myriad of other things.
For me, this manifested itself early on, ironically enough mostly when I was out with J, M, or both of them. I tended to try and "hide in their shadows" because I was worried that I wouldn't blend in. The thing is that in reality all I was doing was bringing attention to myself that I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise. As I've became more comfortable with things I not only ceased trying to "hide", but I became confident in myself and learned to act like it. I'm not naive enough to say that I still don't get read from time to time, I know I do; but for the vast majority of the time it would appear that I don't, and even those rare occasions when I do, it usually isn't much more than a second glance and that's that. For me, it's made things like going out to eat or shopping much more enjoyable. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy shopping with J and/or M, but I'm just as comfortable shopping by myself; and even when I'm out with them I don't have to have one of them chaperone me like I used to which makes things better for them and me. Yeah, at times we may all be in the same store, or even the same section of the same store looking for not only ourselves, but also each other; but we are just as likely to all go our own ways at times.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm by no means advocating walking in somewhere and acting like you're royalty and making a scene. What I am advocating is walking into places and acting like you belong. Yes, it may not always go perfectly, or perhaps even well, but in my experience in the vast majority of my experiences have went well with this kind of attitude. Not only do people tend to *see what they expect to see* as I said above, but the majority of people tend to want to avoid conflict. As such I believe that by being confident and basically "making the first move" that it makes it far less likely to be mis-gendered or to have other issues when out and about. I'm not trying to say this works for everyone or that somebody might not have issues, but I do feel that it significantly minimizes those occurrences.
And beyond social interactions, being confident is something I believe helps each of us personally. Rather than picking at our own (real or perceived) imperfections, instead we can focus on the positives and I really do believe that's a good thing.
I'm going to wrap this up now, I've sort of gotten distracted and babbled a bit and probably haven't done this topic justice. But regardless of my shortcomings in this post, I really do believe that confidence is huge and is something we should all strive for.
- M
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