I’m a cashier at a small supermarket with that serves a small area of diverse people, although our main clientele is generally older folk.
I’m male-to-female trans but very early in my journey. I keep my hair long and my beard shaved, I have adopted a neutral name, and I have been practicing keeping my voice in a higher register. Mask mandates have also been a godsend because my large mask covers up my stubble really well.
We all wear the same, loose-fitting uniforms made up of a thermal T-shirt, hard-wearing denims, steel-toed boots, and a baggy fleece. It can be hard to tell someone’s gender at a glance even if they present strongly one way or the other.
I’ve just finished scanning through a rather large shop for an older woman who’s spent most of the transaction fussing with her purse and the order of the items in her trolley. As I’m giving her the total and asking if she has a loyalty card, my voice slips back into a lower register briefly. The woman turns and squints at me through her glasses for a moment, muttering something before turning back around to fuss with her trolley again.
Me: “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Do you have a loyalty card with us?”
Customer: “No, I don’t… [unintelligible].”
Me: “I didn’t quite catch that last bit, sorry?”
Customer: “You know you’ll never be a man, right?”
I’m briefly stunned into silence.
Me: “Pardon?”
Customer: “You can wear baggy clothes and put on a deep voice, but you’ll never be a man. I don’t know why you [slur]s even try. It’s disgusting.”
After another pause to see if she’s being serious, I break and burst into tears laughing. Tapping the manager pager, I compose myself.
Me: “You know, that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, right?”
The customer blinked a few times, trying to figure out what I was on about.
Me: “I had no idea I passed that convincingly that someone would mistake me for a trans man.”
My manager rounded the corner and paused at the register behind me to listen in.
Customer: “Why are you laughing?”
Me: “This is the first time I’ve ever had someone be hateful toward me in person for being transgender. And you got it the wrong way round.”
The customer squints at me again, seeming unsure of what to say about this shocking turn of events.
I glance over my shoulder to see my manager leaning over the conveyer belt behind me and laughing as well.
Me: “[Manager], do you want to take this customer? I don’t serve bigots.”
Manager: “I’ll do you one better.”
He turns to the customer and smiles.
Manager: “Please leave the store; we are refusing you service.”
Realising she is out of options and having made a complete fool of herself, the customer splutters something incomprehensible and shuffles off.
Manager: “Want to take five and get all the laughing done in the staff room?”
Me: “Gladly. Then I’ll put away this unpaid shopping.”
My manager and I swapped places, and I wheeled the full trolley up to the back of the store, laughing all the way.
When some people reach a certain age, they lose their filter and don’t give a crap who it bothers, just like those that can be found in these 10 Stories About Awesome Older Customers Who Act As Young As They Feel!
