Being Seen

I’ve been going out in a skirt a bit lately (after my first challenging experience), and it’s been pretty intense.

My first foray was in my short fairy skirt and leggings back to my old house. I recently moved, and I spent several days going back and forth between the two houses, grabbing the extra boxes of stuff that wouldn’t fit in the moving van during the few hours we had it. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been pretty worried about the neighbours for some reason. The old couple next to us referred to someone down the street as “a cripple, but a nice one”, so I didn’t have much hope from them. The couple across the road were Asian, and seemed pretty old-school, so I wasn’t expecting support from them either. The dude directly opposite seemed nice, but I didn’t really want to be seen by him either.

My counsellor finds it interesting that I have a paralytic fear of being spotted by the neighbours. I guess I’m scared of them talking about me, judging me, and that feels dangerous living next to them without an easy escape. One time I decided I could take the bin to the curb while wearing a skirt, and I got halfway across my garden before I realised the old couple next doors were chatting on their front lawn. I turned on the spot and sped back indoors, and I was acutely aware that my abandoned bin was an obvious sign that I didn’t want to encounter them on my way to the street. But I digress.

I figured it was still technically my house, even if most of my stuff was gone, so I was allowed to wear a skirt if I wanted to. I felt reasonably okay, shuttling boxes to the car, but my SUDS (Subjective Units of Distress Scale – basically how high anxiety is from 1-100) skyrocketed when my Asian neighbour across the street pulled into their driveway. I was holding a box and was halfway to my car – had he seen me? I called out weakly to Wren for help, flooded with terror and wanting to draw less attention to myself. I opened the car doors and stood between them, shaking slightly and wondering if he’d noticed the skirt. I was pretty stressed and miserable for the rest of the day, even though I knew logically that even if he had seen it it wouldn’t impact me in any way.

The second outing was with the same skirt and leggings to a nearby shopping centre. It was a busy weekend, and I trusted that even if people noticed that they just wouldn’t care. I know that I’ve seen some people wearing interesting things, or acting strangely, and I barely give them a passing glance before moving on to other thoughts. I think I was mostly right – nobody seemed to pay any attention to me, or if they did I walked past them quickly enough that it didn’t matter because I’d probably never encounter them again. At one point I became intensely self-conscious about my voice giving me away, so I stopped speaking for a while. I felt most nervous in the carpark, where I thought there was a higher likelihood of someone yelling at me or assaulting me. But we survived both journeys without more than a frown from an old lady (which could have been about anything).

And when we got home, we knocked on our neighbour’s door to introduce ourselves as the new kids on the block. Bless her heart, she didn’t even glance at my skirt or bring it up even once, talking to us about ordinary things in completely ordinary ways, like it was a total non-issue. It went so, so much better than I could have hoped for. I feel empowered to be able to go out to my bins without getting changed first, which is so nice.
Well, mostly. Our neighbours across the road seem to be mechanics of some sort, and they have a lot of people coming and going throughout the day, mostly masc types that seem to be really into cars. I’m a little worried they’ll be judgey, but… I don’t want to hide who I am for the convenience of others. With this move I feel like I’ve got a fresher start, and if I just come across as gender-non-conforming (GNC) from the start maybe it’ll be less of a deal later on.

My third trip was to the dojo to check something for Sensei K. I was wearing my slitted brown maxi skirt, and I didn’t want to get changed. With my longer hair I felt like I might pass at a glance, and even if I didn’t I was allowed to wear a skirt if I wanted to. (Honestly this thought was helped a lot by that client I mentioned who was really open about their own love of wearing skirts. Somehow genderqueer youth inspire me to be braver.) I parked down the road, walked past a bunch of busy cafes and dozens of cars that were stopped at the traffic light, and I strode with my head held high. At first I was nervous about how my leg would occasionally peak through the slit in my skirt, but eventually I realised that it never got high enough to show my underwear and I started enjoying the sensation. It was sexy, but not overtly so, and I wanted to own that.

Maybe writing about this was a mistake because my SUDS are up as I consider the fear I’ve already conquered. But after that first experience, I didn’t want to have such a huge panic-response again, and the classical method of conquering phobias is through desensitisation: doing something often enough that it’s no longer so distressing. And it has gotten less scary over time, which is good.

So today I’m going out in my pinafore. And everything’s going to be fine. The real estate people may as well know that I’m GNC, and I look great today so my local grocery store will probably go fine… God those SUDS are rising XD

I got this. Deep breaths.