“Are you her mom?”

My bf and I were out walking our dog this morning on what has been one of the first really beautiful spring days of the year. I wasn’t looking particularly femme (no makeup, patchy beard shadow from 1 laser session, only 2 months on HRT), but I was wearing leggings and an oversized fluffy hoodie.

At one point on our walk, a lady got off of a city bus and our dog started wagging her tail and getting really happy (she loves to greet people). The lady was really friendly and wanted to say hi to our dog, so we stopped and chatted for a few minutes.

“Just another dog lover, we’ll say hi and be on our way”, I think to myself.

She asks how old our dog is, my bf and I answer simultaneously, “she’s 6, but she still acts like a puppy”. Then she looks at me and asks, “and are you her mom?”, to which I answered without even thinking “yes, I am her mom!”, followed by the lady asking my bf “and you must be her dad?”, to which he said “yep! That’s me!”. She then asks if our dog is a “daddy’s girl” or a “mommy’s girl”, to which my bf and I both replied, “she’s definitely a mama’s girl!”. After that, we all wished each other a nice day, and we were on our way.

It was just a normal conversation with an absolute stranger that our dog happened to greet, but for me, it was everything. The first time I’ve ever been referred to as a woman by a perfect stranger, and it completely made my day. I beamed the entire way home.

I hope you all are experiencing trans joy, today and every day. I’m at the very beginning of my journey, and while there have been so many bad days, days like today give me hope that my best days are ahead of me ❤️