Blazers Ablaze

Today was a seemingly alright day when it started, despite being the only day in two months that I had to get out of bed before 8am, I'd consider myself lucky for that. Puffy eyes are gone from the day before and in general my face looked much less swollen. So although it started out as a sleepy and lazy day, it was a good start nonetheless.

The problems all started when a friend and I had the conversation about collecting the blazers. She's a BCA scholar so she's worn the blazer before to collect the grant. The problem started, to be exact, when she mentioned that there were male and female blazers, a whole different set in fact. To be honest, I don't know why they made different blazers instead of just the same one in a variation of sizes. The difference in uniform is obvious. The guys' uniform was white shirt, black pants, standard navy blazer, maroon school tie. The girls' uniform was white shirt, black skirt/pants, and a ridiculous hotel butler blazer lookalike. So I knew there were gonna be problems. I could almost taste it.

When we got to the student development centre, the lady in charge immediately started taking out some blazers to try. "This is the ladies' blazer, it comes in S and M" she said. So she passed them to the two girls in the group. Then she took out some guys' blazers, and passed them to the other two guys in the group. Then she looked at me with the scrutinising look I know so well. Looking me up and down as though some kind of gender sign will suddenly rise from within or something. "you?" she asked. The whole time this was happening, our teacher was standing there watching us, by now she was watching me, so I had to bite my tongue and say 'ladies'. Ladies. Ladies. How can one word make someone feel so..vulnerable. I was secretly hoping they did only have it in sizes S and M so I could have an excuse to get a guys' blazer in my size. I tried the M size initially and it fit miserably, the sleeves were too short and the shoulders were and sleeves were way too tight. So I casually suggested just getting the guys' blazer in a smaller size instead since there was a guy in my group who was taller than me but had roughly the same shoulder width. "no, ladies can only wear the ladies' blazer, you cannot wear the male blazer." it hurt. And it hurt more when my teacher laughed at me, in good humour I suppose, but I don't know, it still hurt to be laughed at for being me. In the end I settled for the XL blazer.

A little while after, my teacher sounded, "so are we going to standardise between wearing pants or skirt?". I thought this was ridiculous since my school always emphasised individual expression and I don't see any reason that one would be more 'formal' or change the light on the team as compared to the other. When she asked us that, I could almost sense that she was trying to make a fool out of me to lighten the situation. "let's all wear skirts" she declared. I refused. She laughed at me, again. I stood there like an idiot saying no. Out of nowhere, my friend pipes in "yeah! I want to see (me) in a skirt!", and for a moment there, I was stunned. She knew about me, she was one of the few people I had told. And then my teacher piped, "yeah that's my reason too!". You think this is funny, woman? So what if your supposedly female student portrays as a male, who are you to joke about them? Just because you love to wear skin tight denim skirts with slits up to your ass crack doesn't mean everyone is comfortable in their skin. I've completely lost respect for you. It hurts that you treat me like some piece of joke you can use to try and make people laugh. It hurts, okay? Whenever you say stuff like "you all want to standardise wear high heels", you look at me freaking straight in the eye, and then burst out laughing. You think it's funny don't you? Try living a day in my shoes. Try living in a world where you can't look at your own body without breaking down, where people give you strange stares until you're so used to it, where people try to 'convince' you to be 'yourself' because it's okay you'll look good I promise, where people make a fool out of you just because you don't conform to their standards. Bitch.

When I went out with a friend the other time and the waiter called me sir, she said "did you hear what he called you?" and got really happy and excited for me. And when I went out with another friend two days ago and the waiter called me sir, she said "he called you sir!" and I replied with "yeah I know he forgot the 'handsome' but that's alright" and she burst out laughing and that was alright. I could deal with that. But friend, you know. And teacher, you don't know but couldn't you be a little more sensitive to your students? Yes my dear friend mixed me up in a jumble of 'he's and 'she's but that's no reason for you to laugh. At me. It's not funny. As if it isn't obvious enough that gender was a weak point for me. You chose to hit me right there didn't you, laugh about it in my face. You're treading on the line there woman. I'm that close to vanishing from the award ceremony and declaring 'fuck-it' on the presentation that you're making me do since you know I took over your job as a mentor the four days we were there because you were too busy being away. "I'm so happy this is the first time we won!" Bullshit woman, you didn't win anything. This close. Have fun presenting on behalf of my team.