When I was fifteen years old, I had both my first job – working as a cashier in a local supermarket – and my first acquaintance with a trans* coworker. "Tamara," who had worked there for years, had transitioned on the job, and many of the long-time employees and customers had previously known her as "Keith." She also had the unfortunate distinction of having transitioned later in life – when I met her, she was around her mid-to-late forties – and had thinning hair, a five 'o'clock shadow, and linebacker shoulders. To say that "passing" presented a challenge for her would have been a serious understatement. Even now, understanding of the trans* experience is limited at best; back in the late nineties when Tamara embarked on her journey it was almost a foreign concept to people, especially in my Central Jersey suburb. .
At least from what I can remember, my coworkers and I were actually pretty polite to Tamara (more so, in fact, than many of them were to another young cashier – a homely, big-boned, cisgender female who had, at some point, been christened with the charming nickname "Ogre Girl" but that's its own separate little tale of high-school-style bullying, and arguably – albeit, still pretty awful – a far better understood predicament than Tamara's experience), and some of the women who worked in the deli would even give Tamara makeup tips on occasion. But the whispers were still very present, and some of the customers' shocked gawking, snickers and sneers, and sometimes even blatant avoidance of her, i.e., joining a long line directly beside Tamara's clearly open register so that they wouldn't be forced to interact with her. This must have felt so unimaginably isolating.
Though I was among those who were polite and generally kind to her, at fifteen, I was not the trans* ally I am today, and I can't in any way claim to have championed on Tamara's behalf.
