Today I was on my way home from a meeting, and I was starving. So, even though my bank balance hates me for it, I stopped off in a restaurant to grab some dinner.

"You look like you could be this person who used to come in here 2 to 3 years ago, 2 to 3 years.... older," said the waiter who cleared away my empty plate.

When he paused before "older" I was expecting him to say something like "fatter" as you could tell he was clearly searching for the most polite word.

Earlier on in this conversation he'd mentioned that this person was a HE.

I know I've got broad shoulders, but do I really look like I used to be a man?

I think he was just doing that thing that so many people do, assuming that there's only one wheelchair user in the world, and we're all the same person. Laurence Clark wrote an article about the phenomenon here. As you can see from that article, I'm not the first disabled person to be mistaken for someone of the opposite gender, because someone has paid attention to the wheelchair, but no other identifying facets of the person in question.

I know my boobs aren't very big, but they are there. This is why I like to wear T-shirts with writing across the chest to draw peoples attention to them.

Today was the second time in 5 days I've been mistaken for any old wheelchair user. On Thursday I was on my way to the Fresher's Fayre at uni, when a member of staff from one of the halls of residence came marching up to me.

"Did you get your stuff moved across alright?"

"I don't live on campus..."

"Oh."

I wonder if there's someone out there still struggling to move all their belongings from one hall to another, just waiting for someone to offer them some help...