After today’s session with my therapist, it came to my attention that I had not yet shared the story of The Hustler Who Fails At Gender.
So, there is a local man who is known to go down to the local university hangout, The Strip, and run a “gas money” hustle. Though I knew of him, I had never actually been hustled. Last Sunday, I went out to get dinner before newspaper staff meeting/my birthday party. As I’m crossing the street, he calls out to me. I stop, thinking he wants to know the time. As soon as he says, “Ma’am,” he catches himself, stops, and says “Sir.” Then he changes again, calling me “ma’am,” but then comments after that that no woman would have my haircut (which is, admittedly, at the moment very scruffy).
Eventually he gets close enough and begins his hustle. I keep trying to get out of it, because this time he wants me to go with him, which is a big red flag. Throughout the conversation, he keeps switching honorifics, to the point of flat-out insulting me. Finally, he asks me, “What are you, a boy or girl?” I say rather stiffly that I identify as male. After which he laughs at me. Laughs at me and uses the presumably proper pronoun once or twice before switching back to feminine honorifics.
At this point, I rather rudely got rid of him (in itself unusual, because I’m very bad at being rude and usually try to at least provide some cash, as possibly unethical/unhelpful as that is), because dammit, it’s my birthday and you’re insulting me while attempting to hustle me for cash.
I have the best adventures.
