Kierkegaard's Lunch

I got misgendered today. Out of the blue, in a Zoom call, by someone who runs a business where I work.  I wasn’t expecting it, at all. I transitioned 16 years ago – a full medical, legal, social process. As I went through all that, I was misgendered, often, which was hard. But it’s very rare now. These days, I look the way I want to look, which, to the vast majority of people, is taken as looking like many other middle aged, cis women in middle class, white Britain. That’s partly because it feels instinctive and it makes me happy to present in the world this way, a choice I have personally made (and of course  can make, as I have the cultural privilege of being middle class and being white too), and partly – and I hold this knowledge with some pain – because I know that I don’t have the courage or the resilience to navigate the world whilst standing out and attracting attention from a growing number of cisgender people in Britain who may feel that it’s ok to insult or attack me; who m