“Check it Out”: A True Story by Jay David Lush

I am so excited to introduce our first guest writer on Miranda Muses: Jay David Lush. My friend, Jay, is a transgender man living in Newfoundland, Canada, and this is a story he’d like to share:

“Check it Out”, a true story by Jay David Lush

“Before I tell my story, it would be beneficial to explain a little bit about myself. I am a twenty-five-year-old trans man living in Newfoundland, Canada. In my own words, when I was born, the doctor’s said “It’s a girl!”, but I never agreed with that. I began taking testosterone to masculinize my physical appearance nearly three years ago, I had a total hysterectomy a year and a half ago, and in 5 weeks, I will be travelling to have top surgery which will remove my breast tissue and give me a more typically male chest. At some point in the future, I will undergo other procedures as well. I grew up in a very small town with around 300 people where everybody knew everybody, and bullying prevented me from truly being myself until after I left home. The story I’ll be telling today however, was after moving away from home, but long before I medically transitioned.

            It was the winter of 2016; I was just beginning to come out as a man to more people in my life. I was in the midst of buying a new wardrobe and finding who I really was. I moved away from home two years prior and being in a new environment solidified the things I had always felt inside. Having been away from home for some time empowered me to embrace my true self and begin showing him to the world. As an adult, I faced a mixed reaction to what I was doing. Some were vehemently against it, some were in full support, and some didn’t care or understand. It was much like my life before, but in a bigger place, if one person rejected me, it was easier to walk away and find support.

            The temperature was steadily growing colder, and snow was piling up on the sidewalks. I needed new boots since my old pair were starting to fall apart. I hopped from store to store, trying to find the best deal on waterproof boots that would keep me warm and withstand the brutal season. At my last stop, I finally found a pair. They were brown and black men’s boots, lined with soft, fluffy inserts. They were good for down to -30 °C. It took a bit of searching around, but these were a perfect fit. I walked up to the checkout, and the cashier directed me to another checkout.

I didn’t completely hear what she said, but I followed her until we got to the other checkout.  At first, it didn’t seem weird, a lot of stores have multiple checkouts, but when I looked above my head, I realised there was a sign above the checkout, that read: “women’s”. I frantically looked back at the checkout we just came from, and that one was labelled “men’s” to match. What on earth was happening? Time froze for a moment.

            I could feel my face go hot, and my ears were ringing. I wanted to leave immediately, but I needed the boots, and I didn’t have the guts to just walk out. I paid for the boots and left. I never returned to the store again. I was secretly a little bit creeped out that gendered checkouts existed in the first place, so much so that the fact that the cashier thought I was a woman didn’t get to me like it might have normally.

            At the time, I didn’t have a good understanding of how I likely looked to those around me. I thought that if I felt like a man, I wore men’s clothing, then anybody who did not immediately accept me was wrong. I was immature, and not fully aware that if somebody didn’t see me as a man it wasn’t an insult or deliberate hatred. At the time, I took things way too personally when it came to the way that people perceived me. I didn’t understand the difference between a stranger who didn’t know any better and someone with true hatred in their heart. I have learned since then that I cannot expect random people to know personal things about me such as whether I want to be referred to as male or female, and it has given me some peace on the matter. Still, at a time when a simple mistake felt like an intentional jab at me, I knew that this instance was different. Gendered checkouts weren’t normal, were they? I really wasn’t being dramatic this time, I wasn’t taking a normal thing personally. This was weird, and this was wrong.

  The interaction was over within less than 5 minutes, but it felt like forever. Even though this was 5 years ago, I still vividly remember it. A young, pre-testosterone trans man buys men’s boots and is brought to a women’s checkout? You can’t make that up. It still feels like I was living in a bizarre alternate universe. I’ve spent hours thinking about it and talking to others about it, wondering they would react if somebody braver than me had spoken up about it. I had never seen checkouts that were separated by gender like that before, I have never seen one again, and I hope that I never do.”

Jay David Lush, the author of this story and my personal friend.

A link to Jay’s Top Surgery Fund: https://gofund.me/51997c10

Jay David Lush.