No, my Sun-Times colleague, Violet Miller, and I are not the same person

The thing that finally broke me was when a reader thought it was my co-worker, Violet Miller, in the hot dog costume.

In my role as innovation editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, I’d worked with our marketing team for months to promote our Chicago Mini Crossword puzzle. I have no self-respect, so I happily volunteered to wear a hot dog costume and roast patrons while they tried to complete a giant crossword in under two minutes.

Violet is one of the smartest, bravest reporters I know. You might know her for her fearless coverage of immigration enforcement in Chicago neighborhoods and her frequent appearances on WTTW and in other media outlets.

She would never stoop to making a TikTok while wearing a hot dog costume.

We are very different heights. We have different voices. We do dramatically different jobs. We have very different interests. We live on opposite sides of the city.

But we are constantly — and I mean constantly — confused for each other. Sources have emailed her, thanking her for a column I wrote about being accosted on the bus. Editors whom I have trained multiple times have come up to me in the office thinking I was her. And I say this with love, but only one of us won the office cookie competition last year.

How many trans women do you know?

Many of my nonwhite friends and co-workers are intimately familiar with the cross-race effect. It’s a well-documented phenomenon: People tend to have a much easier time differentiating between faces within their own race or ethnic group.

But I’ve found it also applies to transgender people, and trans women in particular. Violet is not the only woman for whom I am frequently mistaken. This happens at church, on the street, at professional conferences — even the hair salon, where recently another customer insisted that we had talked for nearly an hour at a party I definitely did not go to.

The exact cause of the cross-race effect isn’t settled science, but I’ve noticed some trends in my personal life. I don’t think these mistakes come from a place of malice or transphobia. Frequently, people give me compliments that are meant for Violet and vice versa.

The common theme in my experience? Most people just don’t know any trans women.

In 2024, the Pew Research Center found only about 40% of American adults personally knew a trans person at all, much less a trans woman. That number has absolutely gone up substantially, but even so, most people who know a trans woman likely only know them in passing, from social media posts or depictions in TV and movies.

One of the reasons Violet and I are confused for each other so much is we’re in a very unique position. Even though I’m a longstanding member of the Trans Journalists Association and very active in the broader journalism industry, I can’t think of another major news outlet that employs two openly trans women as full-time staff journalists.

‘One of the good ones’

The handful of trans women I know who have found work in media are almost always freelancers. If they have a staff job, they’re the only trans woman there.

When I started transitioning, a mentor of mine who is a Black gay man told me that my co-workers may not accept me at first. But if I was good at my job, stuck to the fundamentals, was friendly and forgiving, I could maybe be “one of the good ones,” which is how he had survived multiple homophobic and racist workplaces.

Violet and I, as “good ones” at the Sun-Times, are frequently asked to review other people’s articles and columns based on our lived experience — something we’re usually happy to do. Sometimes, it’s apparent that contributors don’t even know one of the good ones.

One column that crossed my desk recently claimed that trans women can’t orgasm and trans girls are transitioning because they are autistic or sexually abused. I have a hard time believing the author would write that if she sat next to me at work every day.

Would the International Olympic Committee have banned trans women if they were friends with trans women who had experienced how much feminizing hormones reduce your muscle mass and aerobic capacity?

Would legislators in Kansas have revoked the driver’s licenses of about 1,799 trans people in the state overnight if they had personally known a trans woman who wouldn’t be able to drive?

Would the people who call trans women pedophiles and child molesters online do that if they knew us beyond screenshots of tweets and misleading Fox News articles?

Unfortunately, this column will probably not stop people from confusing Violet and me. People will not suddenly make friends with one of the “good ones” and change their perspective. After this publishes, I will get hit with the normal flood of emails calling me a groomer or worse.

I’m used to it at this point. My humble request — if you have to confuse me with another trans woman, can it be someone hot and rich? Maybe Hunter Schafer?

Ellery Jones is the innovation editor at the Sun-Times and WBEZ.