THAT DAY

My friend Lily asks me to pick her up at the airport. She's still inside, at the gate, but says "Leave now. By the time you arrive I'll be at Terminal 2--Alaska Airlines." I'm skeptical--the airport's only five-ten minutes away. Take my time.

She's not there. Alaska's in the International Terminal, not Terminal 2. Try both. No. Try departures as well as arrivals, just in case she ignored the signs. No. Pull over in a big empty spot at International and prepare to really scan the benches--is she just sitting, too exhausted to notice me?

A guy on the curb, seeing his ride just behind me, doesn't motion that car into the spot just behind me--there's room for both, it's why I took the front one--if I took the back he couldn't squeeze in the front hole, but a crosswalk makes the back one easy to park in. Instead, his driver double-parks and a third driver takes the one behind me. Now I can't get out, and the arrival, rather than just getting in his car, comes over and screams at me, trapped.

And what he screams is bizarre. "You bitch!" I'm a tall, bony man with short hair; does he actually see me as female? Turn so he can see my face. He yells "Bitch! Plant a tree!"

Plant a tree?

Oh. My used car came with a couple of old bumperstickers--Sierra Club and Bernie Sanders. I voted for Bernie so I left them on. This guy is screaming at me about politics. Not road rage, right-wing hate! I'm grateful it's an airport; he seems ready to attack me, but he'd be crazy to do it on camera. But then he's already acting crazy...

At last his driver coaxes him in9to his ride and he leaves, still snarling at me. Over bumperstickers.

Go home rattled... and disgusted. No Lily, just a maniac.

THAT NIGHT

I'm a stallion from an equine civilization doing some undercover work on a majority-human world called Earth. I'll disguise myself as a mare. After all, how likely is it that the average human can tell my gender? They barely know horses, how would they even know what traits to look for? So I put on sunglasses and a purple sunhat with a flower on top and one of those horseblanket-skirts all the mares are wearing this year, a pink one fringed with little bells, and high heeled shoes. As femme as I can get.

I go and snoop around the San Francisco Airport in drag. Horse drag.

Through human eyes, it's absurd to think he could pass for a mare! He's not wearing a trenchcoat or a burqa, after all; his accessories don't hide that body. A big stallion with a glossy red-black coat and a big cock, clearly visible. You don't have to be a horse, or a human expert on horses, to tell he's male.

What the hell made him think so?

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Equine/human, sentient/not, fe/male: I'm reading Maggie Furey's Spirit of the Stone, set in a world whose leader is a centaur. One political enemy jokes nastily that the guy fucks (nonsentient) mares. The joker's a firedrake--a quadrupedal male but (like many reptiles) not obviously male. At least not to humans.
• Dark pelt: I wore a baggy black T-shirt; that's about all that screamer saw. Dream points out it'd be obvious I'm male if I were naked or wore a tee that fit. Suggests it wasn't just signage but clothing too.
• ACTION 1: In Trump's America, even the innocentest gender ambiguity can draw hostility. So tailor my shirts--taper them to fit close. Make my gender clear.
• ACTION 2: Check my voter registration and contribute to Emily's List--get these haters out of office. Heather Heyer's murder in Charlottesville was no fluke! That stranger screaming at me was an openly sexist thug itching for violence. I think only the airport security cameras kept him from smashing my window--and maybe my face--over a sticker, or an androgeny, he didn't like.

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