When interacting with any new person or situation, there’s always a period of acclimatization, of jumping over mental hurdles. No situation is inherently uncomfortable; it always depends on how you view things. Watching someone die before you, for example, could seem horrific to an average citizen but normal to physicians in an emergency room.

In new situations, something can hold you back from reaching a state of comfort, or you can become progressively more relaxed.

This duality became explicit to me when some friends and I visited Asia SF last year, a trendy restaurant/bar in downtown San Francisco where the hosts and waitresses are transsexuals. I wanted to be relaxed, yet I was unable to do so for the longest time. Judging from body language, other guys were in similar straits.

Why is this the case? It could be a novel, perhaps unsettling, feeling to acknowledge someone as male who has female characteristics you find appealing.

What became apparent was the difference between tolerance and social comfort; how one reacts hypothetically versus in-person. In my case, I had always been a staunch supporter of LGBT rights, yet I found myself nervous in close, social interactions with my transsexual hosts at Asia SF. As an even starker example, I remember one night when my friend, after a drag party, went directly to a college bar. This place was the quintessential loud, rowdy, frat-boy kind of bar. In comes my friend, 6’4 in a red dress, shaved legs, dark makeup and a long, black wig. The bar suddenly hushed and guys couldn’t get out of the way fast enough.

True acceptance means possessing both tolerance and social comfort for a particular group of people. The social aspect of acceptance is just as crucial as tolerance. Social isolation is one of the most painful experiences in life — everyone knows the sting of feeling unwelcome.

Social acceptance has two components: the comfort of a person with him or herself and the comfort other people have with that person. The two are closely interlinked since one’s comfort level can often determine and influence other people’s and vice versa.

To be truly unbiased, we have to ensure that our side of the acceptance equation is complete. I suspect everyone has a bit of unconscious discomfort for one group of people or another. I don’t think, however, that moral judgment has to be passed for having that discomfort. But that’s not to say it’s condoned — as humans, it’s within our capacity to control our impulses. One has to recognize those hidden biases and actively root them out.

That is what I found myself doing at Asia SF. I became used to the physical presence of the gender illusionists, as our hosts were called. Generally, I just learned to enjoy myself in the situation, which Asia SF, with its playful atmosphere and performances, tries to promote. My friends and I laughed along with our hosts as they told us self-effacing jokes like, “My dad wanted a boy, my mom wanted a girl and, with me, they both won.”

We all agreed that our night at Asia SF was a transformative one. What felt really exhilarating is that we had expanded our comfort zones. And, it also gave us the freedom to do things we would have never attempted before — my friends and I threw a drag party later that year. Funny thing about going drag is that, for guys, you’ll receive dramatically more positive female attention dressed as a girl than as a guy. Who knew that social comfort had so many perks?

Got an experience of your own to share? Email zivs "at" stanford.edu.