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We get read as a straight couple sometimes. She says it doesn’t bother her because it works in her favour. People leave her alone. She’s never really been street harassed because she doesn’t look like a girl, or a girl who dresses like a boy, or a boy who dresses like a girl. She looks like a boy. Boys don’t get bothered so much.

I tell her about being gay-bashed at my weirdo art school by the kids at the catholic school next door. The way “LESBIAN” (pronounced as if it had a hard “z”) was yelled in disgust like a slur. Being scared to walk by the groups of boys in uniform. They would throw 7-eleven slushies at us out the windows of their shitty Honda civics and yell “fuck you faggots” as they drove by. It was a regular lunch time occurrence. She was a shy track star in a small town. She says everyone left her alone. Thank goodness.

I tell her about being at straight night clubs in my 20’s for birthdays of college friends, and being harassed by gross drunk men because they saw my girlfriend kiss me. How they would get handsy or start surrounding us, leering and shouting. How I had to scream at security guards to do their job, or search out the solace of gay men or drag queens who would protect us from the fucking men who saw femme4femme girls and assumed that (like all the porn they’d seen) we were somehow for their pleasure. Even if Max is in aggressively straight spaces, she doesn’t look like someone you’d want to mess with. She doesn’t draw their attention. People don’t turn their heads when I kiss her on the street like they do if I’m kissing another long-haired femme babe. Even North of the city, at my cabin, I didn’t think twice about pulling Max close and nuzzling her when we stopped at the local diner. She was wearing flannel and a toque. Nobody batted an eye.

Sometimes people assume she’s trans. Or wants to be a boy. They’re wrong. There are a million ways to be a woman. Masculine diesel dyke babe is one of them. She’s not confused about that, but people make assumptions. It’s usually enthused allies who are trying to be supportive. Sometimes it’s other trans folks who are just trying to relate. The worst is when it’s strangers who assume they know her deepest desires better than she does. It’s hard to be polite through that kind of interaction.

My femininity (and the assumptions of motherhood) means I get to “pass” in a lot of situations. Which is a privilege. But her masculinity is a privilege too. She’s not afraid to walk to her car alone at night. People defer to her the way they do to men. All of the trades dudes she works with respect her, nobody jokes about her tits. It’s always eye-opening when we share stories about how differently we each move through the world.