(I couldn't find the liquid eyeliner myself and had to ask a store employee. She asked if there was any particular brand I wanted. "No," I said, just a eyelash hair too forcefully, "this isn't my usual area of expertise.")
-So I got up early the morning of Sunday the eleventh, shaved, applied the makeup in my _inexpert_-would-almost-be-too-charitable way (smear on foundation, haphazardly dab eyeliner on sides of face to make Trill spots, waveringly bring lipstick to lips), put on a bra and my foam breastforms under the cheapo uniform top, and used [my PADD](http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/galaxy-s7-features-and-specs/) to [summon a taxi](https://www.uber.com/) to Burlingame for the convention.
+So I got up early the morning of Sunday the eleventh, shaved, applied the makeup in my _inexpert_-would-almost-be-too-charitable way (smear on foundation, haphazardly dab eyeliner on sides of face to make Trill spots, waveringly bring lipstick to lips), put on a bra and my foam breastforms under the cheapo uniform top, and used [my PADD](http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/galaxy-s7-features-and-specs/) to [summon a taxi](https://www.uber.com/) to the convention.
I arrived way too early for check-in, and walked up the road (wearing my black jacket over my uniform top) to the Mariott, which, unlike the Hyatt, has an outpost of the raktajino hegemon, and ordered a breakfast sandwich and the [vanilla sweet-cream iced raktajino specialty medicinal](https://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/brewed-coffee/vanilla-sweet-cream-cold-brew). I gave my name as _Jadzia_, but the barista wrote _Jetsy_ on the cup. (Maybe my voice was a little shaky, but _maybe_ she needed to recalibrate her [universal translator](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/11/still-yet-another-idle-wish-for-a-future-star-trek-series/).)
"You're so cute," she said.
-I appreciated that. On the _whole_, however, I feel like I was less enthusiastically received as Jadzia that day than I had been as Pearl at San Francisco Comic-Con—providing what could be seen as a disconfirmatory data point against [my hypothesis that incompetent MtF crossdressing gets socially-rewarded more than same-sex cosplay](/2016/Sep/is-there-affirmative-action-for-incompetent-crossplay/) (cisplay??) at these sorts of events. There are too many uncontrolled variables to make a fair comparison—this was a different (I think better) costume, of a different character, in front of a different (notably smaller, possibly older?) crowd—but a darker, more specific hypothesis comes to mind.
+I appreciated that. On the _whole_, however, I feel like I was less enthusiastically received as Jadzia that day than I had been as Pearl at "Portland" Comic-Con—providing what could be seen as a disconfirmatory data point against [my hypothesis that incompetent MtF crossdressing gets socially-rewarded more than same-sex cosplay](/2016/Sep/is-there-affirmative-action-for-incompetent-crossplay/) (cisplay??) at these sorts of events. There are too many uncontrolled variables to make a fair comparison—this was a different (I think better) costume, of a different character, in front of a different (notably smaller, possibly older?) crowd—but a darker, more specific hypothesis comes to mind.
As Pearl at Comic-Con, no matter what catchphrases I shouted during photo ops, I _read_ as "unapologetic man-in-a-dress not pretending to be anything else," which is cool _faux_-subversive gender variance. (So brave! Man Pearl is best Pearl!) Whereas Starfleet uniforms are properly unisex: the only gender cues indicating that I was trying to be Jadzia Dax rather than a male Trill lieutenant were my breastforms, the lipstick (a much weaker cue), and the foundation hopefully hiding any residual beard-shadow (a weaker cue still). That put me out of the "man merely wearing _clothes_ reserved for the other sex" category and into "man ineffectually pretending to be a woman" territory.
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff