He burst onto the Orange Line at Downtown Crossing, just behind a man dressed as Santa Claus in a cream-colored suit jacket and a Looney Tunes tie.

"Hope you guys have all said your prayers tonight!" he shouted, storming to the end of the train and back, and I held my breath for a moment and waited to see if he was armed. I thought about what a great story my friend from toniamato's writing group who had come to see me read at TranScriptions and who had passed him on her way off the train, would have to tell from now on if she'd just missed being on the train where her friend was shot to death.

But he was just drunk and yelling. A man who had gotten on with him turned to me smirking and said, "You already missed the best part of the show." The shouting man came up to him and pulled out a fifth of whiskey, which the smirking man declined. He started hollering and yammering about how he'd just been asking a Hatian cabbie what time it was and how the guy had said to him, "Youse t'ink I'm less American'n you?" and how he shoulda stuck a knife in that motherfucker, and then punching the wall above a terrified passenger's head. He seemed like he was punching the memory of the cab driver, and the wall just happened to be in the way. No hard feelings.

He turned to me. I put my head down and tried to disappear behind the brim of my cap. "Ain't that right, miss?"

"Sure," I murmured, not looking up.

He paused for a the first time and it was like the whole world had gone quiet. "Miss, no hard feelin's, buttayoo a man or a girl?"

"Girl," I whispered. I wanted the train to pull into his station. I wanted the train to pull into my station. (But definitely not both of those things at once.) I breathed in and held it. I put my head down low, wishing I could disappear.

"Oh, awright, ya just... ya sound like a dude," he said -- no malice in his voice, just matter of fact. No hard feelings. Then, falling back into his groove, he turned and shouted to his captive audience, "But what the hell, right? What the hell, it's 2009! IT'S 2009, AN' I'M FEELIN' FINE!"

"Almost the end of 2009," the smirking man (who'd obviously had a few himself -- half the fun of being a drunk is still being able to condescend to worse drunks) said, obviously thrilled with the show.

"Tha's right! That's right!" the shouting man said. "Yeah, it's 2009 an' the end 'a days a' almost hee-ah..." And he turned to talk apocalypse to Santa Claus and didn't look my way again.

I'm not ashamed to be trans, and I don't regret that I am trans. Like crossing any nonsensical social taboo, it can be a pain in the tuchus, of course, but in a lot of ways I like being trans, and wouldn't necessarily choose to be cis if the option presented itself.

But I'm tired of having the very first thing -- and in many cases the only thing -- anyone knows about me be that I'm trans. Just once, I'd like the social benefits and the respect of passing for cis. Of being invisible. I just want to be treated as normal, even for a day.