I am woman, hear me roar

Yesterday I wasn’t feeling well.  So, I headed off to my local coffeeshop since they have my favorite tea and sometimes soup.  I was in luck – the soup of the day sounded really good, chicken, rice something.  Thus, I sat down for a minute with my tea to wait for my take-out soup.  This young woman approached me.  “May I take a moment of your time to do a survey for my collage class?”  Uhm, who am I to say no to some poor college student going up to random strangers asking that?  “Okay.”  I reply.  “First question:  Are you transgender or …”  For the life of me I thought the second word she said was ‘cyborg’.  Sat for a moment, not sure where this survey was headed if this was the first question.  “I’m female?”  Was my reply.  “Oh, so you don’t know what that word is.  I’ll repeat it slowly.  Cisgender. “  Then she spelled if for me to make sure I got it right.  I felt like a two year old being taught ‘cat’ for the first time.  She then proceeded with the rest of her questions like that first one didn’t matter.  The second she was finished, I looked up the word on my phone.  Wow, not good.  Okay, I know it’s a brave new world out there with some institutions replacing he and she with ze.  But when did someone decide we can’t use male and female anymore?   Should I not be proud of who I am?  Proud that I am a smart woman, a strong woman, an independent woman?  A woman who has a lot of accomplishments, done a lot of good, gone above and beyond to help others.  I don’t want to be genderless.  I am supposedly part of the weaker sex and yet I have done great things.  Don’t take that away from me.   Sure, I’m probably reading too much into this because I haven’t been feeling well all week.  But even while sick, I’ve had to get everything done I normally do – you can’t keep a good woman in bed.  Come to think of it - I'm not sure I've ever really taken a sick day.  I always have too much on my plate...