(Gender, public space, law enforcement, and why my cats have a better Instagram presence than I do)
Most conversations about “personal branding” still assume that identity is something you perform. A curated aesthetic. A polished narrative. A set of signals designed to make you legible to others. A lifestyle you’re supposed to package and distribute.
But some of us never opted into that contract.
I’ve spent my entire life being misread by people who rely on gender performance as their primary sorting mechanism. If you don’t present the way they expect, they fill in the blanks with whatever story makes them most comfortable. And they’ll defend that story even when the facts contradict it.
What’s interesting is how different the world looks when you stop treating gender as unpaid labor. When you stop decorating yourself to be “readable.” When you stop performing a role you never auditioned for.
The people who matter don’t need the costume
The people who actually see you — colleagues, friends, the ones who pay attention — don’t need the performance. My stepdad Tony had an entire online WebTV community in the 90s who knew him for his humor, curiosity, and generosity. None of them knew he used a wheelchair. They knew him, not the packaging. They knew his mind, not his body. They knew his presence, not his performance.
That’s the version of personal branding I believe in: competence, clarity, curiosity, and contribution. Not aesthetics. Not performance. Not compliance.
Gender policing doesn’t stop at gender — it bleeds into public space and law enforcement
One of the things people don’t talk about enough is how gender nonconformity affects your experience with the law — not just police, but the informal “law” of public space: who gets to stand where, who gets shoved aside, who gets interrogated, who gets treated as out of place. Geography doesn’t protect you from gender policing. Visibility doesn’t protect you. Neighborhood doesn’t protect you. Compliance — or perceived compliance — is the only thing that protects you, and even that is conditional.
A few years ago, I was out with two friends — Matt and Matthew — standing at the corner of 18th & Castro waiting to cross the street. Possibly the gayest intersection in America. I was right behind them, wearing textile motorcycle pants, a very dirty hi‑viz jacket, and carrying my helmet in a messenger bag slung over my shoulder.
There was zero space between me and the Matts. And yet a man — shorter than me, dressed in a Marlon Brando leather jacket and studded cap — started physically shoving me, trying to wedge himself into a space that did not exist. He told me I was taking up too much space (we were standing there first, he approached me). Then he escalated into yelling misogynistic slurs at me and trying to haul me off the curb to stand behind my friends.
To my right was a utility pole. There was nowhere to go. The light changed. We started crossing. He kept shoving and yelling.
And then something remarkable happened: Three guys in plaid madras shorts, boat shoes, and long-sleeve button-downs — very 80s preppy — stopped, turned in unison, and the one in the middle pointed and said, loudly and incredulously:
“IS SOMEONE GETTING QUEER-BASHED IN THE GAYEST INTERSECTION IN AMERICA?”
They started jeering at him, calling out his behavior, and he bolted.
Obliviousness is its own kind of privilege
What still stands out to me about that day isn’t just the man who shoved me and called me misogynistic slurs. It’s that the two people I was with — Matt and Matthew — were completely oblivious to what was happening inches behind them.
Later, when we discussed this incident, their response was the same one I’ve heard my entire life: “You must’ve done something.”
These are married gay men. They know what it’s like to be targeted. They know what it’s like to be shoved, insulted, or threatened for existing. But they were still so insulated by their own gender legibility — two men who look like men, performing masculinity in a way that reads as “normal” — that they couldn’t see misogyny even when it was happening in physical contact range.
They didn’t see the dynamic. They didn’t see the gender policing. They didn’t see the entitlement. They didn’t see the hostility directed at me for being:
a woman not performing femininity
a motorcyclist in gear
taller than the man who targeted me
not visually “readable” to him
To them, it was just “some guy being weird.” To me, it was a pattern I’ve lived with for decades.
This is the part people don’t understand: If you’ve never been targeted for your gender presentation, you don’t see it happening to others — even when it’s happening right next to you.
And when you don’t see it, you default to the easiest narrative: “You must’ve done something.”
People protect their worldview before they protect each other.
I’m not feminine or masculine. I’m not a brand archetype. I’m not a curated persona.
I’m just a person who likes building things, learning things, and giving people space to help. I don’t need to be pretty or attractive to be valuable. Not believing I’m attractive doesn’t mean I have a self‑esteem issue. It means my self‑esteem isn’t built on appearance.
People seem to have lost the ability to laugh at themselves. There’s so much cultural investment in “pretty/attractive = good” that any deviation from that script gets treated like a crisis. For me, it’s simple: I don’t need to be attractive to be valuable. And frankly, it’s none of my business what you think about my appearance. Just don’t let me walk around with food on my face.
Even on Instagram — the platform built around image — I don’t curate a lifestyle or present a polished version of myself. I mostly share my cats’ lives: their routines, their personalities, the small moments that make me laugh. It’s not a brand. It’s not an aesthetic. It’s not a performance. It’s just the part of my world that’s fun to document.
I don’t share my life. I share their lives. They’re the ones with the curated feed.
The unpaid labor of gender
I’ve had people my whole life try to conscript me into gender performance. Strangers commenting on my face when I was ten. Teenagers in the 80s who couldn’t handle a girl who didn’t do big hair and heavy makeup. A boyfriend’s mother who kept trying to “fix” me with skirts and ruffles. People who assume that if I’m not performing femininity, something must be wrong.
My trans women friends don’t do that. They understand something the others don’t: gender expression is personal, not compulsory. They know what it costs to perform gender. They know what it costs not to. They know what it means to choose.
Work is where this matters most
And for the record: if you hire me, I will happily wear any corporate‑identity polo shirt you hand me. I’ll show up, do the work, collaborate, build, troubleshoot, lead, and deliver.
But you cannot pay me enough to dress “girly” and also expect me to feel comfortable. And if I don’t feel comfortable, I don’t do my best work.
My work is the value. Not the costume. Not the performance. Not the aesthetic. Just the work.
Ultimately it comes down to "my gender is nobody's business." I refuse the unpaid labor of gender. I’m opting out of the job description. I’m rejecting the idea that I owe anyone a performance. I’m rejecting the idea that branding requires a costume. I’m rejecting the idea that identity must be decorative.
I’m just a person. And that’s enough.
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