Mistaken Identity

By Sheila Gilhooly

When was the last time you encountered someone whose gender you couldn't identify?
The experience is disconcerting, maybe frightening.
That is gender shock.
These are stories from the life of a woman who is often mistaken for a man. Sheila Gilhooly writes of encounters in change rooms and washrooms, hospitals and police cars, with strangers and people in authority, who all make the same mistake. They think she is a man.
They experience gender shock. She has to deal with their reactions.
Gilhooly writes with a wry sense of self, and a combination of vulnerability and pride in her identity that leaves a lasting impression.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cayenne Editions
• Release date: Oct 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988088016

Sheila Gilhooly

Sheila Gilhooly is a 60ish lesbian who has lived in Vancouver (Canada) since 1981. She was part of the dyke exodus from Ottawa, where she was born and raised. She told the story of being locked up in the mental hospital for being queer in the classic lesbian art show and book Still Sane, produced in collaboration with sculptor Persimmon Blackbridge.

Book preview

Mistaken Identity

Sheila Gilhooly

Copyright 2012 by Sheila Gilhooly

published by Cayenne Editions at Smashwords

Smashwords License Statement

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Acknowledgements

As lesbian projects generally go, there are way more hands on the creation of this book than my own:

Kate Nonesuch, my brilliant editor, made my words become stories in such a respectful way.

Kate and Dorothy Elias between them, in their dyke-collaborative fashion, did the design; Dorothy took the photo.

barbara findlay made the book possible, because she taught me that the mistakes about my identity were not my mistakes.

Table of Contents

Solidarity

Flash and Dash

Teachable Moments

Coming Out

Testing

Sheila? Really?

Warded Off

Mom and Me

Can We Help You?

Just One of the Guys

Hey, Buddy—

Welfare

Mistaken Identity

Afterword by barbara findlay

About the Author

Solidarity

Once, Dorothy and I were on the ferry to Salt Spring Island. It was the weekend so the boat was pretty jam-packed with travellers. We were heading for the women’s washroom, very engrossed in conversation as we went.

As we turned into the washroom, suddenly a loud male voice bellowed, "Hey! I kept making my point to Dorothy, hearing the commotion sort of but not thinking it had anything to do with me, till the same angry, by now guttural, voice yelled, Get out from the women’s washroom!" Then I knew he was talking to me.

We turned to see a family, sitting with two kids on one pair of seats facing a woman on the aisle and the screaming man next to the window. He was struggling to get out of his seat. His wife was pulling on his arm trying to restrain him, and the two young teen children looked terrified and like they wished they were anywhere else.

I’m not a man. I tried speaking over his rage. The sound of my voice made him even madder and by this time he was on his feet and trying to lunge over the wife who had by now attempted to insert herself completely between him and the aisle. The daughter, about twelve or thirteen, was leaning forward helping her mom block him off. His face was really red and I’m sure they thought he was going to have a stroke right there on the ferry.

"You’re no woman! You’re no woman!" he kept saying as he tried to get past the wife and daughter.

By this time Dorothy was explaining in a calm, but assertive and raised above the din, voice that her friend was not a man and furthermore (and she really said furthermore) he was making a fool of himself and scaring his children. By this time, he had subsided back into his seat, pushed there and held there by his wife, still muttering.

With that we marched into the washroom like we were entitled, only to be met by the frightened stares of all the women and children clustered in solidarity around the sinks. Alerted by the commotion, they were waiting for the entrance of the interloper. And they weren’t disappointed I could tell. I felt like a cat among the pigeons. They looked at me literally wide-eyed and kind of drew themselves together against the big bad dyke. I tried to