My time as a young butch woman of size faded into memory as I took on a more traditionally masculine appearance. No one thought I was fat anymore. I knew this when I stopped getting the fat look: that stare hovering between disgust and pity before the looker quickly turns their eyes away. Fat. It’s the look of someone writing you off.

My stature is nearly unchanged, aside from some minor weight loss after starting testosterone, when my body redistributed itself. Once my sex was recorded as male instead of female, combined with that minor weight loss, I slid under the scary red line on the BMI chart: cured of obesity.

Now that I look like a man to most people, strangers don’t give me a second glance. My barrel chest and broad shoulders aren’t a liability like they used to be; I am instantly forgiven the gentle slope of my stomach. To doctors, my physique is evidence that I am physically acclimating to being a man, that I never should have been assigned female at birth in the first place. For awhile, I was happy to accept this bonus without comment to offset the indignities of being a transgender person at a doctor's office.

Early this year, snapping off her rubber gloves after giving me an exam, another doctor told me, “I would never know that you weren’t a man, unless I...” I could sense she was about to make a joke, like, Unless I saw you without pants. She saw my grimace and changed course. “Unless, of course, I was looking at your chart.” Her laugh was shrill and nervous, and it rang in my ears.

I wanted to say something, but she still hadn’t written my prescription yet. So I laughed too, and decided to find a new doctor.

Near the end of my first appointment with yet another new health care provider a couple of months ago, she began to input information about my visit on a computer. The doctor forgot to record my weight and I told her. I wasn’t tempted to fudge the numbers because I knew she wouldn’t really care.

After pausing to write up my prescription and hand it to me, the doctor went back to tapping away at the keyboard, and asked me if I had any questions. I looked down at the slip of paper in my hand — I was home-free.

“What do you think about my weight?” My voice was calm and steady, though I was surprised to hear the words come out of my mouth.

In my everyday life, I choose to be out as transgender. I talk frankly about gender identity, in large part, because I see firsthand the benefits of being out: It makes more space in the world for people like me to acknowledge our differences, and it makes cisgender people better supporters through exposure. In coming out as trans and nonbinary, I do what I can to shun male and masculine privilege, to challenge assumptions about my gender identity and its relationship to my body. I do that everywhere else in my life except the doctor’s office, I realized.