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Frogi
Community Member
2 posts
33 comments
94 upvotes
74 points
Hi! My name is Frogi, a person who lives on this earth with multiple disabilities.
I'm aroace and genderqueer, they/she pronouns.
I like chocolate, cats and a good YA fiction book.
<3
Frogi • upvoted 30 items 2 years ago
Subtle-Feminist-Power-Moves
This isn’t subtle, but I do it regularly. About 10 years ago, I was twenty-two years old and a freshly graduated college student in my very first office job, and my supervisor’s name was Rob. At the time, I was still identifying as a woman. Today I’m trans non-binary, and I know that back then when I was dressing really feminine, like aggressively feminine, it was because I was in denial and I was trying to assert my femininity when I knew deep down, it didn’t fit me. I’ve always been tall, like in the 5'9 range and height is not considered a very feminine trait. And so I was very insecure about my height. And that made it kind of difficult when Rob, very early on in my tenure at this place, came up to me and said ‘Hey, you need to start wearing heels to work’. I was wearing flats because guess what? I walk like a baby giraffe in heels. But I did, as he said, and I got a pair of heels. And at our next meeting, I walked in, toddled in wearing them, and Rob looked me up and Rob looked me down and Rob realized with horror, oh no, the office girl is his height. Almost exactly. Suddenly, I went from being the cute little feminine office girl to, I guess, a physical threat because I was his height. This was a miscalculation on Rob’s part, obviously, but it could not go unchallenged because then, from then on, every time I entered the room, he made sure I was sitting down and he was standing up. If he entered the room when I was standing, he would somehow get me to sit down, offer me a chair, whatever. If I came into his office to talk, he would make me sit down and then he would stand up and sit on the edge of his desk. So he was kind of looming over me. And it was really clear that he was intimidated by my physical presence and did not like the fact that I was that tall. But also he wants to look at the cute office girl in heels. And I thought this was f**king ridiculous. I’m uncomfortable in these shoes. You’re uncomfortable with me in these shoes. And yet here you are, making sure you’re always the dominant physical presence, this is exhausting. What’s wrong with you? I’m proud of twenty-two-year-old me for being able to recognize that something about the situation was wrong, because what twenty-two-year-old me did, I’m still proud of to this day. I marched myself down to the shoe store and I bought the tallest heels I could find that were still workplace appropriate. I mean, I’m talking like a pair of designer heels with a big old platform under the toe and a very tall stiletto heels. Totally workplace appropriate. But Jesus Christ, I was like six three. Rob did not like the fact that I was now even taller than him. Not one bit. So one day I’m at my desk adjusting my shoe and he sidles up, sees me doing it, and that’s his moment, he says ’You know you don’t have to wear those shoes anymore if you don’t want to. You can go back to flats. It’s fine. Just a suggestion, only if you want to. Did I go back to flats, though? Not on your life. The heels stayed, and now I’m actually pretty good at walking in them, thanks to Rob, despite coming out as non-binary, now I know most of the world looks at me and immediately thinks ‘Woman’. And you know what? That’s honestly on them. But what I carry with me from that experience to this day is when I know I’m going to walk into a room and be underestimated, I rock those heels. Suck it, Rob.
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Frogi • commented on 10 posts 2 years ago
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Frogi • commented on 12 posts 2 years ago
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Frogi • upvoted 20 items 2 years ago
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