Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Boxboro Daze

Last weekend, I attended a ham radio convention in Boxboro, Massachusetts. Continuing from where I left off in my previous post, after breakfast I returned to my room to freshen up, finish a cup of coffee and wait for the show to start at 9 AM.

I have attended the Hamvention in Ohio seven times as a woman, whereas Boxboro was the first "local" ham radio event I have attended as a woman. As a result, I was likely to meet more local hams in Boxboro than I meet in Ohio.

In the past, I was very active in ham radio on the local level as a man, so most of the locals know me as Stan, not Stana. So I was a little nervous about meeting up with folks who knew Stan and might react negatively to meeting Stana.

Saturday, I had numerous encounters with those folks and had no reaction, good or bad, discovering that Stan was now Stana. It was very weird and totally unexpected.

For example, I was in the flea market looking at used radio equipment when somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hi Stan." It was a fellow and his wife who I had not seen in over 35 years. They both worked with me at the headquarters of the national ham radio organization (ARRL) circa 1978. We chatted about old times and new times. My gender change did not come up in the conversation and did not phase them in the least.

That encounter was typical. It was as if I had always presented as a woman. Perhaps the word about Stana was out among some of the locals, so they were not surprised. Or gender change has become old hat – everyone knows one, so it is no big deal. In either case, I was relieved.

There is not much more to say about Boxboro except that the civilians I dealt with treated me like a lady. That included the hotel staff, the dealers in the showroom, the folks selling in the flea market and the various hams I encountered, who did not know me from Eve.

It was all good.




Source: MyHabit
Wearing Cashmere Addiction (Source: MyHabit)




Mariusz Ostrowski
Mariusz Ostrowski femulates on Polish television's Your Face Sounds Familiar.

4 comments:

  1. Ho hum. I guess what we have been aiming for...a non-reactive reaction...may finally be arriving. We still find many in the civilian population who are civil and do not want to be incorrect. We recently went to an outdoor wedding where the young couple (in their early thirties and having lived together for longer than most marriages last these days) were into some interesting hobbies. Many of the younger guests had interesting attire and most were heavily tattooed and pierced. They seemed to accept the older folks and we them.
    It does seem that in many ways, except certain political affiliations, that we are in more tolerant times.
    Pat

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  2. People don't really care, yes you might occasionally get someone who wants to make your life miserable but 99.99% of the people just go on with what they were doing.

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