Visual Signals

Bruce and I enjoyed a delicious meal at Richmond Station last night. We were celebrating St. Patrick's Day, the anniversary of one or the other of our weddings, and the third anniversary of the COVID lockdown announcement in Ontario.

Regarding the last in that list, the streets this year are much more lively than they were in 2020. 

It's been more than a year since Ontario lifted most COVID restrictions, but I still get a kick out of seeing people thronging around in happy crowds, as they were last night outside of McVeigh's Tavern. 

As much as I enjoy a more active city, I still feel sometimes like I've got a ways to go before I'm fully adept at coexisting with strangers.

For example.

Last Saturday, I was waiting in Union Station for some friends coming in from Belleville. We'd agreed to meet by the women's washroom. I was early and their train was late, and the power of suggestion made me need to use the washroom, which I did. 

Just as I exited, what looked to me very much like a man walked in. I said, “this is the women’s washroom.” I can’t be sure now what my tone was, but it wasn’t my intention to accuse. He could have just been mistaken.

I realized I was the one who was mistaken when the person said, in a clearly offended tone, “I am a woman.”

“OK” I said. I sat down on a nearby bench, and waited for my friends. 

The trans woman spotted me when she emerged from the washroom. She marched right up to me and loudly berated me for my rude behaviour and how I should know better than to talk to a trans woman that way. She started with the question “What’s your problem?” 

My feeling was she had more of a problem than I did, so I didn't respond. If I gave her no fuel for the fire she was looking to stoke, I hoped she would stop yelling at me and go away. 

This she eventually did. Then I sat there minding my own business, but smarting a bit, until my friends arrived.

I’m sorry for that person’s troubles. They have a lot of anger, and seem to have learned somewhere that you yell at strangers in public when things don’t work the way you want them to.

There’s small irony here that the trans woman was acting like a Karen.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Dog park dogwood, Allan Gardens