"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.