A Conversation at Work

(Athena crawls under the desk to plug in her computer)

(Anne, another nurse, walks by and playfully slaps her behind)

(Athena laughs)

Anne (a few minutes later): By the way, I'm sorry if I offended you before.

Athena (smiling): Oh, please! It takes a lot more than that to offend me.

(Joe, a wisecracking member of the clerical staff, strolls up to the nurses' station)

Joe (joking): Are you easily offended?

Athena (smiling): Uh, definitely not.

Joe (smiling): Me, neither. There's really only one thing that offends me.

Athena (grinning expectantly): And what's that, Joe?

Joe: That 'pregnant man'. That offends me.

Athena (smile fading): Why?

Joe (forcefully): Because she is not a man. And she never will be. (touches his own chest) I am a man. That thing is not a man. If you can have a baby, you're not a man.

(nurses' station has grown very quiet)

Athena (calmly): I guess I just don't think that someone's genitalia necessarily determines which gender they identify with. (lightly stressing the pronoun) He identifies as a man, feels like a man, regardless of what his original body may have looked like.

Joe (holds up his hands): Oh, don't get me wrong, I want people to live however they want to live. That's their choice.

Athena: Well, that's good. Because I've heard that he and his wife are very happy and that they're expecting a second baby.

Joe: (mumbles something indistinguishable, looks at another nurse, and changes the subject back to work)

Big, big sigh. There is so much more I would have wanted to say to him.

Like that just because his genitalia, sexual orientation, and sexual identity all match up doesn't mean that everyone's do.

Like that he definitely can't claim to support people "living however they want" if he's going to condemn someone for taking a brave, brave step and living happily as the gender that he feels befits him.

Like that he's an ignorant asshole, plain and simple.

Sigh.

As an aside... after the office Christmas party, pretty much all the nurses and doctors know about me and Aphrodite now (she actually hit it off great with Dr. H as well as with one of the female doctors who doesn't even like me very much, LOL!) Joe is one of the only people left at work who doesn't know... and I think I'm going to keep it that way for a while. Might serve as a good trump card to make him look like a fool if he starts spouting off like that again. :)