I joined my ship on October 11th of 2024. I had last been aboard a cadet four years earlier. Now I was back as the new Third Mate. To say I was excited would have been an understatement. To say I also wasn’t nervous and a little scared would have been a lie.
When I was hired remotely over the phone, I had been told that the Captain and some of the crew were people I had sailed with when I was a cadet. My initial feeling was of relief. “Great! I know some people already!”. But then, as the date to fly out crept closer, I started to worry about who they last knew. They last knew me as [deadname]. Would they put the pieces together? Search my name on the internet and see the news articles? If they did, what would they think?
I’ve long held the belief that the best things in life are exciting and scary, so I tried not to put much stock in my scary dark voices. Nobody would try and push me overboard. Nobody would attack me with a pocketknife, so off I flew. I joined my ship at the very same dock I had signed off as a cadet. The same piece of land where I had changed my public name on Instagram to Sophie.
Signing onto a ship with my real name felt amazing. My real name. Displaying my Merchant Mariner Credential (MMC) on the bulkhead outside the Captain’s office made it feel so real. While I worked through the paperwork to change my legal name, on my two prior ships with Lindblad Expeditions and the University of Hawai’i, I either hid my MMC name page (left it folded) or requested to not display it. The official paperwork said [deadname] because it had to, but it wasn’t the name I was verbally referred to with. Both Captains did the best they could to ensure only they and the folks in the office who had to (HR, etc.) knew my deadname. But now… my name was there on bulkhead. I no longer had to worry about someone finding out my deadname. I could proudly display my MMC – years of hard work – on my ship.
To my fellow crew’s credit, when I joined my ship, nobody who knew me before deadnamed me. Four years is a long time with many crew coming and going, but it still felt good. The entire crew was as welcoming and as awesome as I recalled. That’s not to say everything has been champagne and roses. The most common experience I have on board is being misgendered, but honestly… it’s understandable.
My second day on board, walking back from whatever on the bow, the Captain replied to me on the radio and said, “Thank you sir.” Before I could say anything, he quickly corrected himself, “Sorry, ma’am.” I was in the middle of work mode, and it was over the radio (Ack! Everyone heard that!), so I probably responded with, “Roger,” and moved on with my day. To be honest, I don’t know exactly what I said. In moments like this it feels like my brain’s memory short-circuits, maybe as a defense mechanism.
Later that night when I was on watch and we had a moment, the Captain apologized and acknowledge it wasn’t easy making the change from he/him to she/her pronouns. When I was a cadet, I had sailed with him using he/him pronouns for four months. That night on watch, I explained how I had watched my family struggle with the exact same issue. I told him what I tell everyone who apologizes for misgendering me.
A simple short and quick apology is best (“Oh sorry, her watch.”) then move on. Continue to try and do better next time. I emphasize the trying to do better part. We will not be perfect all of the time. For me, it’s the intent that matters most. To misgender me and then not give a fuck? That’s not okay. To understandably mess up – I don’t remotely try and pass because I feel much better as a tomboy anyway (and let me tell you figuring that out was a process…) – it’s okay. Apologize, move on, and keep trying.
A well-intentioned mistake feels miles better than not caring in the first place.
There’s a few other common times for me to be misgendered aboard. When the galley staff say, “Yes sir,” after I order, they sometimes correct themselves. Sometimes they don’t. I don’t care. I shrugged as I wrote this. I get it. It’s 0720 and they are eighty-seven days into their hitch. I’m not awake either and I just want my eggs. Life continues. It especially happens when we get relief crew, but ABs side-step the issue by referring to me as my position with a, “Morning Mate,” avoiding the whole pronoun business.
I feel safe in saying that everyone I regularly work with knows my name and pronouns, so the situations I find most interesting are when people come on board from shore. Gaugers, dock PICs, inspections, agents, and whomever else will always misgender me the moment they step aboard, especially when I am bundled up for cold weather. They can only see basically part of my face and eyes, so who can blame them – certainly not me.
When I introduce myself with, “Hi I’m Sophie, one of the Third Mates!”, most, if not all, repeat my name back to me as a question, like it was totally unexpected and they weren't sure they heard me right. I then repeat my name, their body language says okay, they introduce themselves, then we get to the work at hand.
When I started sailing, I’d not share my name or ask theirs, preferring to hide in anonymity. It felt easier. It’s only during my most recent hitch (a year and a half into sailing with ATC, including vacations) that I’ve felt comfortable enough to introduce myself like that.
Rarely (I recall twice), they’ll catch onto my she/her pronouns based on my name. When they get my pronouns wrong I give an internal shrug and ignore it. Tomorrow I won’t see them and maybe I see them again in two weeks or more. I don’t care what they think about me. I don’t find caring worth the energy. I’m there to work and so are they.
The most shall I say, interesting, situations are when I’m doing cargo watch in the Cargo Control Room and the terminal person or gauger gets into a conversation with the Chief Mate that I just know they would not hold with a woman in the room. When that happens, I focus on work, loading or discharging oil and water and ignore them both. Sometimes I feel that it makes the Chief Mate uncomfortable, but I’ve never talked with them about it either. In those moments, I’m certainly not going to turn around and introduce myself.
Does it bother me? Absolutely. In the moment though, I’m working. There’s a time and a place for everything, and the Cargo Control Room in the middle of a cargo evolution is not it. I inevitably think about the situation when I am trying to go to sleep after watch, but thankfully working on a ship also makes me able to sleep. Or at least, sleep better then when at home.
Work being work has ultimately been the best part of every ship I’ve sailed with. Work is work and home is home. I’m sure I’ve worked with plenty of Republicans and Democrats, but the ocean does not care one bit. Our ship keeps us all safe.
Questions like, “Can you do your job and do it safely?”, are most important. Can you be trusted to start the fire pump, inert gas system, ballast and cargo pumps? Can you be trusted to stand your watch?
Whether you’re Mexican or Filipino, from Georgia, California, or Ghana, a man, woman, or anything else, every day we all wake up on the same ship. We all do our job and the ship keeps sailing.
Do the job, and do it right. After that, it shouldn’t matter who you are or how you identify.
