I thought I'd post this here because only someone who has struggled with their gender identity is going to really understand this.

I'm an old man (AMAB) now. But I've waged a life-long struggle with gender dysphoria. A couple of months ago I was at Target (with my wife) and as we were looking over some cleaning products a young woman (who as I recall) was with another young woman looked over in my direction and said: "I like your outfit." (I was just wearing a pair of cream-colored overalls and, as I recall, a plaid shirt. I also was carrying a blue satchel.) Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. So I was really taken aback & as I recall I don't think I said anything. Hopefully I at least nodded my head and smiled or something.

A couple of weeks later I was in the lobby of the office building my pdoc's offices are in heading for my appointment and another young woman came up to me and said: "I like your outfit." (Again I think I was wearing the same overalls, a similar shirt & was carrying the blue satchel.) This time I was at least able to smile and say: "Oh, thank you."

Then, yesterday, I was at a thrift store with my wife. And while she was checking out I was wandering around looking at this-&-that when one of the clerks passed me and said: "I like your Fossil bag." (I had swapped my blue satchel for a black Fossil bag. I'll leave out the details as to why I carry these. But it's mostly for practical reasons.) Again I smiled and said: "Oh, thank you."

On the one hand these encounters have been charming. But given the fact that I'm ostensibly an old man, albeit one who has waged a life-long gender-identity struggle, they've also felt mildly discomforting as though perhaps some small hint of my gender-related difficulties is leaking through the male image I try to portray to the world. Under any circumstances these 3 encounters have been interesting and I wanted to have the opportunity to share them with someone. So I decided to share them here. (My GID issues are DA / DT at home.) Thanks for reading.