I finally had my appointment with one of the best dermatologists in the country. He has a two-year waiting list and charges a fortune. He has a very expensive skincare brand that, in my opinion, is nothing short of miraculous. He's kind of a celebrity, at least in my eyes. No, I'm not going to say what his skincare brand is because I don't want to get accused of shilling.
I met him a couple of days ago and he told me that he sees relatively young patients routinely - for anti-aging purposes, not for acne which I luckily don't have - because it's important to take care of your skin and not wait until you're vetust (my term, not his). He was there in the room with two of his residents/assistants, and both of them were cis males.
We spent the first 20 minutes talking about my current skincare regimen which includes a lot of products. He was very impressed by my knowledge of human anatomy, biochemistry, and dermatology. He even asked me what my educational background was. Then, we had to discuss the medications I'm taking and he saw from the paperwork that I had filled out that I'm on 2 mg of estradiol valerate, taken sublingually. He asked me why I'm taking estrogen since I'm obviously too young to be menopausal, and so I told him that I am trans. At that point, he jokingly said that now everything clicked because I was too intelligent to be a real woman and that my intelligence had set his alarm bells off. His two residents nodded in agreement with him and they all cackled. But I could see on his face that he realized that he had blurted out something not politically correct, especially the adjective "real."
It was an awkward moment, but I swiftly redirected the conversation on skincare.
He is NOT the first man who tells me that my intelligence clocks me. It has happened at least 4 other times to the best of my recollection. And this is not a humble brag because I don't think I'm that smart. Similar things have also happened to a dear friend of mine who lives far away from me but with whom we chat weekly. She is extraordinarily intelligent, almost in a monstruous way. She works in forensics and she has uncanny intellectual abilities. Some of the several guys she has dated told her that her intelligence made them suspect she was trans because there's no chance in hell a "real woman" would be that intellectually gifted.
What should I have said or done?
