When I transitioned genders I found it difficult to compare my new experience of life with my old experience. I had traveled life as a white man, better educated than most, financially secure. I ran a non-profit, preached for large churches, was the editor-at-large of a magazine, the host and head writer of a television program.

When I came out as Paula, all that was gone, most of it within 24 hours. My new life looks nothing like my previous life, so trying to compare the two is like comparing apples and oranges. Still a nourishing life, but wildly dissimilar to the one I led before.

Which made flying a wonderful laboratory. I had been Executive Platinum with American Airlines as Paul and I’m still EP as Paula. Unlike the church and all of my jobs, American handled my transition with nothing more than a shrug and a request for a legal name change. Now I could compare apples with apples, life in seat 1D as Paul and life in 1D as Paula.

What I discovered was sobering. Apparently, Paul was brilliant, knowledgeable, a customer to be pampered. Paula was not. Surely by some fluke Paula accidentally earned Executive Platinum status one year, but it was an anomaly not worthy of anyone’s attention. Yes, it really was that bad.

I talked about it in my first TED Talk, and still do in most speeches on gender equity. I always have a raft of new stories, fresh from a recent trip. Coming through DFW (my least favorite airport in my least favorite state) in June, a 12-year-old gate agent with an attitude said, “Ma’am, why are you standing there?” I looked around to see who he was addressing and when I realized it was me I answered, “Um, I’m waiting to board.” He said, “Well, you can’t stand there.”

Now my hackles were up. “And why can’t I stand here at the Zones 1-4 line when I am, in fact, in Zone 1, sitting in 1D, and the sign behind you says we are boarding in five minutes?” He said, “Because I may need that space.” I said, “And I definitely need the space in the overhead above 1D, because there is nowhere else to place my bags, hence my desire to board as soon as Zone 1 is called.”

Mr. Twelve-Year-Old said, “Why are you concerned about that?” Now, agitation registering, I replied, “Because FA’s put their bags above 1D in this type of 321 because there is no closet up front. So, they use my space to stash their bags. Unless I want to fight against the crowd when it is time to leave the plane, struggling back several rows to get to my bag, I need to board at the beginning, which I am, in fact, waiting to do.”

Then I added, “I have 2.6 million actual in the air miles with your company. I have been flying in 1D since before you were born, and in the 40 years since your frequent flyer program was started, this is the first time I have ever been told to move from the boarding lane because you ‘might need the space.'” He said, “Ma’am, are you going to move or do I have to call someone.” Not wanting to get arrested and all, I stepped aside. The man standing behind me, waiting to board, moved up to take my space.  In exactly the same spot I had stood, he did not get so much as a glance from Mr. Twelve-Year-Old gate agent.

How would all that have played out had I still been Paul. It would have gone like this. Mr. Twelve-Year-Old gate agent would have looked up at me, then looked back down at his computer screen and continued his work. That is how it would have played out. He never would have started the altercation. I know because as Paul I was never asked to move aside, not once, ever.

These micro-aggressions happen about every third or fourth trip, on average. Most aren’t that egregious. Most of the time, like most women, I just let it go, because you only have so much energy. And worse, I am getting used to it, so I barely notice the micro-aggressions anymore.

I thought about writing the CEO of American. The last time I wrote about a problem, their Director of DEI called me, which was pretty cool. But that problem was transgender specific, and American is far more responsive to LGBTQ+ issues than they are to “run of the mill” gender inequity issues. Treating a trans person badly might give them bad press. Treating a woman badly is just life in a patriarchal world.

I’m on a flight to SFO as I write this post, and we’ve been waiting for almost two hours for maintenance to complete the write-up of the repairs they made so it can be recorded in the logbook. Two hours to write up a repair in the logbooks! That is the state of flying today. I did leave my seat at 1D and ask the A flight attendant if the crew might time out. It’s late in the day. Blessedly, she recognized I knew what I was talking about. Motioning to the cockpit she said, “Those guys have about an hour to spare. The FA’s have more.”

She is a seasoned flight attendant who started with USAir 35 years ago. We talked about how wonderful Edwin Colodny was as chair of USAir back in the day. Then we talked about the utter mystery of what takes so long when mechanics write-up their repairs after they’ve finished. Do they take a nap first? If you’re an airplane mechanic, please enlighten me.

The captain heard us talking and stepped out of the cockpit and said, “You’d think someone might follow them back to their desks to see what they are actually doing. It’s a mystery to us all. Both captain and flight attendant treated me exactly as they might have treated Paul. It was refreshing.

We got to SFO about 90 minutes late. I checked in at the hotel and yet again, had a check-in agent who did not mention my Titanium Elite status with Marriott. They mentioned it to Paul all the time, thanking me for my loyalty to Marriott. Apparently, Paula’s loyalty doesn’t matter.

Apples to apples, here’s what I know. Life is a lot easier for men than it is for women. And nobody, male, female, or non-binary, seems to understand the murky underworld of airliner logbook repair notes.

And so it goes.