Being Misgendered

The most troubling part of this scenario is when we are out, presenting female, because of hate, contempt or ignorance we are purposely misgendered. The best approach is to avoid confrontation.  

However, I live another side of that scenario. Otherwise when I try to present male, I am many times recognized / accepted as female. Had my transition been more intentional this would be the best of a world I created.  

I have been reading a wonderful Fictionmania story about a protagonist that accepted a job that gradually became female centric, through dress and role. It is "From Supervisor to Secretary" by ColeComet. 

The descriptions have been electrifying, especially one where the character confronts the fact she is now being perceived female. My story closely parallels her writing. I hope the author does not mind that I have adapted this part of the story to my true life. Enjoy and I welcome your comments. 

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 Art Imitating Life or Life Imitating Art  

I could no longer pretend the misidentifications were rare.

They had started as isolated, almost comic errors. Someone would ask "what can I get you ladies" when a waitress would go to take my group's order. Walking on a crowded street hearing "excuse me, miss" as they tried to pass. A barista defaulting to "ma'am" while reading the name on the cup. A delivery driver glancing up from the package and asking a polite "is he's in?" 

Early on I answered quickly, sometimes with a short laugh to take the edge off. "It's Tom, actually." Or simply, "He." Most are embarrassed, apologized, and then move on. I always felt guilty for calling out a innocent and unintentional mistake.

The exchanges were awkward but manageable for me but sometimes made my accompting guests or kids uncomfortable. My daughter said to me once in frustration, “Just own it.”

As the obvious bras, the fitted blouses / sweaters and the makeup routines had become ordinary to me, the mistakes had thickened into a pattern. In department stores. In the supermarket queue. At the pharmacy. Questioned to the extent of once being challenged when called from the waiting room of my doctors office; "may I see your ID?"

The glance landed on the chest contour, shapely legs, the longer hair framing a softer face, the overall silhouette. Items of dress I describe on this blog as "Feminine Differentials". Yes, I am personally pleased that the language followed automatically: miss, ma'am, she, her. Sometimes it came with a small, polite smile. Sometimes it was purely transactional. Either way, it arrives with the calm certainty of someone reading an obvious visual fact.

Years ago, I corrected misgendering, especially when I was not overtly feminine. Then the frequency increase and I ask myself, “were the onlookers seeing something I was denying.”

After a while the cost-benefit calculations shifted. Correcting every instance meant repeatedly announcing a discrepancy between how I looked and how I was asking to be read. Letting it pass meant the moment ended in two seconds and both of us continued with our day. So I have stopped.

Not with a formal decision. Just a gradual extinction of the reflex. A "thanks, miss" from a shop assistant earned a nod. A "she was ahead of you" from someone in a queue earned silence. A "ma'am, your total" earned the card already extended. The words landed, registered, and slid past without the old flare of correction. In their place a quieter, stranger sensation settled: expectation. I began to anticipate the error before it happened.

When a stranger's eyes moved across me in public I could almost feel the linguistic slot they were about to drop me into. When the word arrived, it no longer surprised me. It simply confirmed the prediction. The rationalisation kept pace with the adaptation, the way it always did. The polite course was to stop making every public interaction into a small gender seminar. Lower the friction. Lower the stress. Accept their reality. 

The fact that I no longer flinched, no longer corrected, no longer even felt a strong impulse to correct, was simply efficiency.

The fact that the words had begun to feel ordinary rather than jarring was simply habituation. The fact that part of me had started to register a "miss" or "ma'am" as the expected soundtrack of moving through life.  

My thought: Was this not, what I wanted?

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Thank you ColdComet for helping me describe the wonderful world I find myself unintentionally living.