Misgendering - How do biological women handle it?

The first time I was misgendered, a barmaid grabbed me by the scruff of the neck to throw me out guide me towards the door, then said, "Sorry, pet, I thought you were a lad." Once she realised I was female, she let go. Now that's literal violence for you.

I have short hair and often wear trousers, especially at school, but I don't have a deep voice, and I don't think I have a prominent moustache. I am used to small children asking if I am a girl or a boy, which is fair enough because many of them come from cultures where women don't have short hair or wear trousers. Also, most of the other female staff are young, and tend to have long hair.

I have been addressed as a man in shops and don't think I hide my irritation very well in this instance.

Ha! I've been called "Sir" at school.

But then again, I've been called Mum and (latterly) Nan as well told me it was time to retire

@SteveZizzouDuggee

Sorry but omg, your name has me in stitches. Just imagining the Life Aquatic with Duggee.

The two times that stick out are when I was a teen, by being asked if I was cross dressing in a nightclub. I was wearing trousers.I took it as them saying I wasn’t attractive and it did upset me a little, but I was 16 or so, and grew out of it.
The last time I remember was when I was at work, where I had to wear a polo shirt. It was a delivery man just not looking. His face when he actually looked at me was priceless, but he didn’t apologise. I had waist length dark green hair, h cup boobs and was seven months pregnant. I laughed then, and laugh now.
The difference was intention - 16 year old me was being told I was unattractive, pregnant me was just being treated as man-as-default.
I suppose that’s the thing, isn’t it?

I've been misgendered many times. In RL generally from behind, because I'm tall and broad and generally wear fairly gender-neutral styles. In correspondence, because I have a non-European name. In group situations when women are significantly in the minority.

When the misgenderer realises their mistake, they are generally more bothered than I am. I have no desire to humiliate or upset someone over a genuine mistake. I don't mind that they made a mistake.

However, when the assumption is that I must be a man because of my manner of communication or my position, then I ensure that the misgenderer knows my sex. I may be mildly annoyed, but I don't come to any harm from it, nor doI seek vengeance or reparation.

Similarly, when I have been in a group situation as one of a few women among many men, I will stand up for my right to be recognised and acknowledged. But that doesn't mean getting upset because someone said "Guys!". It means ensuring that the group stops by the ladies' as well as by the gents', it means also being introduced by name and not omitted or just "and these are the girls".

Never been misgendered in real life and never likely to be as too obviously feminine looking.

But curiously have been misgendered several times online, because I have a tendency to argue stridently - even on MN, this has led other posters to claim that I must therefore be male!

The idea that I can't possibly be a woman because I can argue my point coherently and forcefully REALLY FUCKS ME OFF.

It's like people think there must be a 'feminine personality' and that if I'm not endlessly submissive and wet, I must be male! So bloody annoying. I've even had this in discussions online where I've discussed giving birth! It's just insane.

When I was in college a teacher told me I was lucky because with my face I could play male or female. I think he meant it as a compliment that I was androgynous. I was hurt at the time but I was an insecure teenager so I was allowed! I was also slightly confused as even then I had enormous boobs.

I've been mistake for a man numerous times online. Very rarely care - in most cases it's irrelevant. When I was little (in real life) I did care when my name was shortened to make a boy's name. I can't remember if that was because I thought people were thinking I was a boy or if I just felt they weren't seeing ME, complete with long hair etc. I think it was more the latter but too long ago to be sure.

I can't remember the last time it happened but I suppose I present quite femininly now as although I'm always in jeans tops are usually pretty, I have long hair and even if I'm in baggy clothes you can see me boobs shape quite easily. I think I wouldn't be bothered but you can never be sure until you are in that situation.

@BarkingDogsAloneAtHomeSucks

I do have a Nigella Lawson hour glass body shape.

Ah now you're just bragging 😂

@LoonvanBoon

This hasn't happened to me yet but I'm concerned that it's going to as I'm losing my hair in what appears to be a male pattern way, with recession from the front. It's pretty unusual for a woman although since this started happening I've noticed a couple of women with this kind of hair loss

It's quite common, and related to stress I think.

I've been mistaken for a man online but never irl. Honestly given that the mistakers usually were shocked I was a girl because I was assertively stating my views I was fairly proud I had confused them and felt good about confounding their expectations.

I have never been misgendered.

I was a young Mam and have been a SAHP for years.

I do have a Nigella Lawson hour glass body shape.

I don't do make-up and mostly wear jeans.

If I was misgendered I would look at the person in a confused way and then get on with my life.

When I have been misgendered it's always in the brief interactions as described by Betty - shop assistants in a queue might glance over and say "be with you in a minute, mate," and you see a double-take or moment of obvious embarrassment when you turn out to be a love/miss/pet/ducky/whatever rather than a 'mate'. At 5ft 8" with a 'masculine' hair cut they're just reading the briefest and most obvious cues, it has never happened yet in any situation where I'm moving or speaking, even when also wearing 'masculine' clothing.

For those who missed a page, the post other people are referring to isn’t my ‘pockets’ one, but one I made on page 2!

My drag success was in 2009 so first season of Drag Race era, a different world! I see from Instagram that ‘Bio Queens’ aren’t so unusual almost ten years on. Barrack the greater the artifice thing is interesting, and yes, I agree - the influence of theatrical drag make up filtering down to women’s everyday is something I will likely ponder on. I wonder how it might connect with male-fashion-designers creating clothing most suited to women who have less obvious secondary sex characteristics than average?

........

I think one of my main concerns re: transactivism as we witness it right now as it is asking women to purposefully ignore one of our ingrained risk assessment traits.
It’s asking us not to talk about these skills, and not to pass them onto our daughters. That’s massively problematic, not because Transwomen collectively are some awful threat, but because if the skills are encouraged to atrophy out of politeness, we are less safe from predators overall.

I don’t personally think there is any conflict at all between the on-first-glance-opposing positions of

1. some transpeople assert that they pass as their acquired gender all-day every-day.
2. some women assert that women can always tell.

Because most transpeople aren’t putting themselves into positions where women are made to feel particularly vulnerable, so women are happily only reading the top level cues, and that means that yes, transpeople are passing in the shopping mall and the library etc.

However, if they encounter a woman who has learned to pay very close attention to their internal instincts (due to abuse related PTSD, for instance) or if they are the only other person standing at a ladies toilet mirror, on the far end of an almost deserted station platform at midnight, they won’t pass in the same way, because the women will be risk assessing using a completely different set of cues.

SpareRibFem hadn’t thought of the age thing, now you bring it up though I bet you are correct!

When i’m misgendered (frequent enough), it’s because people haven’t looked properly at my face, but they automatically code me as male because I’m 6’ and muscular.

I just laugh.

I’ve also been mis-transed if that’s a thing. In gay bars- as a drag queen or transvestite. That I minded a bit more because i think there was an intent to put me down. “How long have you been cross dressing?” isn’t a very friendly question - and wouldn’t have been if I were male, either!

Either way I survived unscathed.

Great post Betty

One of the side effects of the instabrow culture of very heavy makeup with contouring and strobing and three layers of falsies is that, to my eye at least, women so heavily made up themselves are starting to resemble men in drag. You can tell they are female, and yet their makeup begins to take on the connotations of 'how men wear makeup'. What was once associated with only one sex simply takes on the mantle of the other one too.

The greater the artifice the further the distance from actual female it seems.

Barrack I buy sweatpants from the men's section because they have pockets and the women’s ones don’t!

—————-

I think this is stupid, women need pockets (especially now we all have smartphones) but it’s cheaper to make clothes without pockets so manufacturers will continue to do this unless women revolt en mass. As there are much bigger issues to campaign on at present, I simply buy men’s sweatpants. For now.

I absolutely love a frock, mind you, and have lots of ‘girly’ clothes (just rarely wear them at present). Most are vintage or second hand. On the rare occasion I buy new dresses or skirts, I only buy the ones with pockets.

I used to love Eddie Izzard’s ‘total clothing rights for men’ stance - I think it applies both ways, me wearing men-marketed clothes isn’t a virtuous act, they are simply more practical for me, because I BLOODY LOVE POCKETS.

Oh, weird anecdote. I once came third in a drag queen beauty contest, pretending to be male, a male dressed as caricature of a woman.

It was dark and people were drinking so I’m sure that helped, and I had to avoid speaking because I knew my voice would give me away. I also had to consciously try and take up more space (think ‘manspreading’ in a frock).

Afterwards I was questioned by two intrepid club goers as to my actual bio sex, and I of course told the truth. They thought it was funny and also that it was a shame because I would’ve ‘been a heckofacute gay boy’.

I think human beings read different ‘tells’ depending on the situation and their motivation. If you are in a happy, populated place you will just read the top level social cues, hair style, dress etc, and move on. This is why short haired women get misgendered by shop assistants etc. It’s a brief interaction in a busy environment, no need to assess beyond the very superficial.

If you are in a more vulnerable situation, you will look further, perhaps at body structure or gait, if you are downright terrified you will analyse everything, right down to impact of footsteps and body smell.

Sexual attraction is another motivator for reading beyond the top level cues, especially in an environment where gender is less conformed to than average.
Transwomen in a lesbian environment often stand out, for example because the social cues they’ve adopted to pass in everyday society are the same social cues that many lesbians have consciously rejected.

Women are generally better at reading bio sex than men, I suspect, because in general, our physiology makes us more vulnerable to violence.

I asked DH about this, he said that in his experience (now decades out of date) as a doorman, bike gang member and martial arts specialist, men are also constantly aware of the threat of violence, but they are used to a start point of mentally sorting which males are the biggest threat, including figuring your own place in the pecking order.

Women are more likely to start from ‘who here is male?’ because no matter how strong or big an individual woman is, our mammalian instincts read all males as threats.

lass it would be nice to find some common ground with you. But to do that there has to be a desire to understand another's intent.

If I say "I wear 'men's clothes' " I'm trying to convey "I wear clothes which I acknowledge are targeted towards men, but my choice as a female to wear them indicates that I refute the position that they belong in some proprietorial way to men"

In other words, I'm saying society claims these garments as men's territory but I refute that claim.

When you say "I don't wear men's clothes" I'm inferring that you support the claim that certain garments should remain firmly in male territory. Not for women.

Am I wrong?

Are you trying to convey that you also reject the idea that certain clothes ought to belong to each sex (but reject them yourself for personal reasons)?

I can't work out whether you want gendered dress codes reinforced or not.

I tried to dress my son in his older sister's grey school trousers. Completely generic straight leg cut uniform trousers with front crease.

He cut the grey belt loop buttons off. Turns out some girls had noticed the 1cm grey plastic buttons were not perfectly round, but were slightly flower shaped. They teased him.

There's nothing in 2018 that makes generic trousers the territory of either sex. They really are, as a concept, a unisex garment. Just trousers, for either sex.

But the mucking about with design details is how the unnecessary gendered message gets conveyed.

That's how an otherwise boring grey school uniform unisex garment gets gender-branded 'not for you, pal'. Stupid 1cm flower shaped grey buttons that mark it out as 'for girls only'.

It doesn't need to be that way.

This hasn't happened to me yet but I'm concerned that it's going to as I'm losing my hair in what appears to be a male pattern way, with recession from the front. It's pretty unusual for a woman although since this started happening I've noticed a couple of women with this kind of hair loss; and have found myself looking twice to see if they actually are women.

I already had quite a high forehead and have seen a couple of photos of me recently, where the wind has blown my hair back and exposed my hairline, and I honestly could be mistaken for a transwoman.

I think that's more likely than that I'd be mistaken for a non-trans man as I do generally wear 'female' clothes, jewellery, accessories etc. If I wore 'male' clothing I think I'd look like one of the Hairy Bikers, only smaller and without a beard.

It's actually really shocked me how my hairline receding by a cm or two (so far) has made such a major difference to my appearance. I look unfamiliar to myself and my face does look a lot more masculine.

I'm finding it all upsetting but I guess it's the hair loss and the 'not looking like myself' that bothers me more than the possibility of being mistaken for a man.

It's particularly upsetting as I'm also dealing with loads of health shit, specific autoimmune conditions that overwhelmingly affect women and not men. So I can't help thinking that if I'm going to lose my hair, it could at least be in a fucking 'female pattern' too.

Anyway - hair issues are not the main point of this thread, I know. But I would / will find it very upsetting to be 'misgendered' - and will probably 'wear hair' partly to avoid that happening. If I was misgendered purely because of the way I presented, in terms of clothing etc, but I felt secure about my appearance, I don't think it would bother me too much.

You must have been a very delicate teenager to have had your confidence knocked by that.

Nah, teenagers get their confidence knocked by many things. Even adults do sometimes, I don't find that particularly unbelievable. I remember as a teen someone pointed out how my arse was bigger than my mates, and the comment stuck with me for ages, to the point where I starved myself for a while. Yet my arse still did not shrink. As an adult I have realised that no matter how much weight I lose, the tits and arse remain. lovely.

deydodo oh! I’d forgotten about boy-children!

My son had long hair for years and years and was always being told what a pretty girl he was! I see it still happens to long haired boy children now, through my friends’ social media anecdotes.

My son no longer has long hair, although I suppose it’s still long-for-a-boy by many people’s standards (think 90s ‘curtains’) but he mostly wears a baseball cap over it anyway.

Nontheless, he is STILL sometimes mistaken for being a girl, despite being 18, 6ft 1 and so skinny it’s clear he has no female secondary sex characteristics. We usually put this down to him still being blonde (not many blonde males around by the post-puberty years) but he literally gives no shits about it anyway, probably because he has been raised not to consider being mistaken for a woman as an insult.

That said, I can see why it’s upsetting for some people to feel misgendered, especially when exploring their sense of self as a teenager etc, but it’s no big deal in our particular household thus far.