Validation and Verification

As a software engineer, specializing in testing I spend my time performing validation and verification of other people's software and systems.


Last week I had a couple of incidents where I underwent validation and verification of my identity.

And yes, I've finally discovered all about jump breaks on Blogger.


Last Thursday I was at dance class. Now I know that C who runs the class knows about me being transsexual but I have no idea if any of the other ladies have figured it out. I'm not going to ask thought as I don't need to out myself to the class.

This week though I had a moment where I realised that at least one person is not aware of my status.

Apart from C, who was teaching, there were only two of us students there. We had a really fun session but towards the end got to discussing how different people feel when performing or watching dance.

Now I've performed burlesque in front of people and although I don't feel confident enough to remove lots of clothing at the moment, I'm not adverse to having men and women watch me as I dance. At some point in the future, post-surgery, I'm sure that I'll feel a lot more confident with revealing more of my body like a lot of the other performers I know do. Once I've reached the point where I think I'm good enough as a belly dancer then I'm sure that I'll have no problem with being watched perform by men or women.

My fellow student was happy to be seen dancing by women but not so by men.

At the point that she said that I felt that my identity as a woman had been validated.

Yes I'm a woman, a trans woman, and not a male but I'm still pre-surgery and so it would be easy enough for someone to feel self-conscious dancing with me. That she didn't made me realise that she didn't see me as anything other than a woman and that was fantastic.



The second incident occurred when I popped into the gym where my son and I are members.

He has, it seems, pulled a muscle in his back. This week he was told by one of the nurses or doctors and our GPs surgery that he should stop doing exercise for a few weeks and then re-introduce activities one at a time.

Working out when he can re-introduce activities we realised that he'd not be able to go swimming or to the gym for a little while so I decided that I'd suspend his membership for a couple of months while he recovered and then worked back up to swimming and the gym.

So into the gym I went. The area manager was there and because I didn't have my son's membership number and when I gave his name (first name of course which is not the one that they've go him under) couldn't find him we had to try and go through my membership.

As she was looking me up she called up the details of the bank account that our memberships come out of so that she could find his membership. As she looked at my details she said "your membership comes out of Mr W...'s account. I was surprised as I thought that when I updated my membership that they would have changed the account name. As the area manager was looking puzzled I told her that it was my account and that I'd changed. She accepted that and then carried on to find my son's membership, which was in my new name. Membership suspended and everything was sorted.

Now I know I didn't need to out myself to her, especially as there is already a note on my membership so that I don't get queried when I go in there with no make-up and looking a bit more masculine than I might like. Still I did it and the world didn't collapse. At some point I'm going to have to sort out and make sure that my bank account details have been corrected as well. Will add it to my list of things to do.