To be fed up with people misgendering DP (not trans)

[SarahAndQuack]

My partner is female, as am I, and we have a daughter who recently started school. DP has always had the odd person be confused about her gender, but when we got together there was a big surge in people assuming she was a man, and when DD was born, even more so. DD is nearly five now, and I still find people glance at DP and assume she's a man. I'm posting because one of the school mums - and DD goes to a tiny rural school so there are only a handful of us - has still not clocked that DP is a woman. I was at the school gate chatting and she asked about my husband, so I replied my partner's a woman, and she clearly didn't know what to say.

I find it frustrating because, if you actually bother to look at DP, you can see she's a woman. She always wears jeans or trousers (but women's jeans or trousers), and usually a shirt or a hoodie. Sometimes the shirts are from the menswear section, but the hoodies are generally Seasalt women's. Her hair is short, but so is mine, and no one ever mistakes me for a man. She wears unisex doc martens, but so do lots of women. She's all of 5'8 so not exactly a towering masculine height.

I am aware people misgender her mostly out of kneejerk, unconscious bias: they see one woman (me) and another person, and they automatically decide the other person must be a man. Or they see me and DD and decide the other person must be the dad.

But it's really starting to bother me, because DD is getting old enough to start wondering about what people say, and she is trying to understand what makes someone a man or a woman. She is getting a clear message that her mum is doing womanhood 'wrong', and that people don't think she is a woman, and she's started asking us why. I don't know what to say - and I don't know how to respond to people misgendering DP in a way that is still friendly, but does get across that it's not ok?

@WaterBottle123

OP, why are you a member of a church that doesn't accept who you are? Seems insane to me.

I think I covered this upthread, but I was brought up C of E, so it predates knowing I was gay - and because belief isn't a choice, I can't really change it by an act of will. All I could do would be to go and worship on my own, which isn't impossible, but would cut me off from the communal and sacramental aspects of the Church, which are important to me.

I do firmly believe the Church will move on the issue of gay marriage. And the church we currently worship at is accepting, which makes a big difference. DD usually does the altar service, and I think it's very good for her to see a man in a skirt doing the washing up in public, too.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59269916 Further to my earlier comment!

@BelleOfTheProvince

I could see DH pulling off this: www.seasaltcornwall.com/gypsophilia-top-organic-cotton-jersey?glCountry=GB&glCurrency=GBP&color=28361&lgw_code=11383-212610B014&utm_id=go_cmp-15176139075_adg-130187435420_ad-559312118287_pla-576433220781_dev-m_ext-_prd-212610B014_mca-11215303_sig-Cj0KCQiA4b2MBhD2ARIsAIrcB-SrWcA2Xm_zlwQvFeOrnKYY1ybEhquQUaiQW0HXmYahn0lgyoV3OFgaAlnpEALw_wcB&utm_source=google&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4b2MBhD2ARIsAIrcB-SrWcA2Xm_zlwQvFeOrnKYY1ybEhquQUaiQW0HXmYahn0lgyoV3OFgaAlnpEALw_wcB

But he has ridiculously masculine features and stubble.

I love it!

I do think it's really interesting how, if you are very stereotypically feminine, a 'masculine' item of clothing makes that show up more, and vice versa.

@RufustheBadgeringReindeer

Neutral clothes+ pony tail+ athletic figure and people read male

A minute ago it was short hair…now its a ponytail

So is it just height?

That was my own experience I was referring to. I had a ponytail (a low, scrubbly one) and a shirt designed for male staff(because male is the default)

It caused me to be misgendered because shirt+athletic figure+my long orangutan arms and hair pulled back gave people not paying attention that impression.

I don't know about the ops situation tbh as it sounds weird. Like everyone knows eachother but that's not typical of school pick up. But if people are only vaguely aware of you, then yes short hair can get you misgendered. If you are on someone's periphery they won't thibk about it too hard.

Ahhhh gotcha

Thanks for clarifying for me

What is a ‘male identity signal’?

I think it's like the batsignal.

That's how all these people who have special identities communicate them: e.g. carrying a portable searchlight with a picture of a vulva on to show you are a woman despite the beard.

@BelleOfTheProvince

What is a ‘male identity signal’? What ‘male identity signals’ can a woman give out while breastfeeding or giving birth?

I believe this is why the word chestfeeding is erasing breastfeeding.

I assume that in the incident mentioned that the waitress didn't see the baby.

Or, assumed trans identity because that's very much what is pushed at the moment.

I'm sure oh has a lovely figure. As someone who had an athletic figure before baby turned it into Michelin man, I can tell you that certain clothes on those of us who are thin, over 5'7 and not curvy do make us look more androgynous.
As I said previously, I was misgendered a lot as a teen. Neutral clothes+ pony tail+ athletic figure and people read male.

I didn't like it so I wore more fitted clothing. Others might choose to wear more neutral shapes but accept that people might get it wrong.

People are not mindreaders. They don't know if you dress like that as a identity thing, as a comfort thing, or any other motivation. But mainly these people are focused on their own kids, their own lives. I doubt they give it any thought.

Just saw this - it doesn't matter, but as it happens, she is curvy. She has broad shoulders but she has a narrow waist and big hips and breasts, so she's fairly stereotypically 'feminine'.

I don't think people need to be mindreaders, and I don't think anyone gets as far as thinking how she dresses - I think they literally glance at us as a family and put her in the 'man' box without even noticing what she's wearing or doing.

I've also been mistaken for a child when I worked in secondary and my mother's sister(thanks!)
My DH also once mistook me for my sister from behind and hasn't lived it down.

The point is people don't really look carefully a lot of the time. Some people also have face blindness, like myself, so even if you have met someone several times you can't recognise them well.

I have been called sir on several occasions, usually after a haircut and wearing jeans and sweatshirt, despite an impressive bosom and dangly earrings. I just laughed and recommended a visit to Specsavers.

I don't know about the ops situation tbh as it sounds weird. Like everyone knows eachother but that's not typical of school pick up.

I am new to school pick up, but I wonder if this is a village vs town/city thing? When I was a child all the mums (it was mums) knew each other because it was a tiny community. There are only about 40 families who use the school; that is not a lot of parents to get to know.

It sounds v annoying. Bloody heteronormativity!

Slight derail but you refer to marriage as a sacrament... I thought that in the Anglican church only baptism and Holy Communion are sacraments? Or was I misinformed in A level history

few school gate mums see you with your partner and so should somehow automatically know that.....she's a butch lesbian as opposed to a trans man

I wouldn't assume someone in gothy clothes though they were a vampire.

The people seriously suggesting these mums think DP thinks she's a chap because she wears pants, and are politely going along with it, live somewhere very different from me.

@JoanOgden

It sounds v annoying. Bloody heteronormativity!

Slight derail but you refer to marriage as a sacrament... I thought that in the Anglican church only baptism and Holy Communion are sacraments? Or was I misinformed in A level history

Ah, ok.

This is about varieties of Anglicanism. We don't all agree. I am what's called High Church, which means we're as close to Catholic as we can get in terms of ritual and theology around sacraments. We are mostly liberal in terms of political beliefs (so, women priests, gay marriage, etc. etc. There is a big movement towards creating inclusive liturgies in the Anglican High Church, which I love). Other Anglicans might be very close to Methodism and share a lot of Methodist approaches - so they might be horrified by us using incense or the old-fashioned wording of the liturgy, or cantors in church, but they will agree with us on gay marriage. And other Anglicans again will be Anglo-Catholic: they will be similar to us in terms of incense and fancy liturgy, but will disapprove of women priests and gay marriage.

It's literally a broad church.

It's very easy to do. I wasn't wearing my glasses the other day and misgendered a man driving a tractor. We have lots of female drivers round here so that's what we are used to. Saw a uniform and a pony tail as was paying more attention to the tractor than him.
I realised my mistake, corrected myself and said to toddler I wasn't wearing my glasses.

I hope said tractor rider didn't go home stewing.

Oh sounds like she has a lovely figure by the way. No orangutan hugs for you though, so it's swings and roundabouts.

Ah, thank you! I sing in an Anglican church choir so know quite a lot of this stuff, but hadn't picked up on the difference in approach to the sacraments. MN is very educational!

(I was actually best woman at a lesbian marriage blessing at a High Anglican church a few years ago - it was lovely, but from what you say I understand why this would not work for you.)

@JoanOgden

Ah, thank you! I sing in an Anglican church choir so know quite a lot of this stuff, but hadn't picked up on the difference in approach to the sacraments. MN is very educational!

(I was actually best woman at a lesbian marriage blessing at a High Anglican church a few years ago - it was lovely, but from what you say I understand why this would not work for you.)

Oh, that's so lovely!

It's a really fine point and I don't know if we're right, but we both feel the same about it. I think for me it also has to do with the fact that, when I was growing up, there was a really hot debate about marrying divorced couples, and there was this very snobby, much-expressed belief that 'they' should just 'be happy with a blessing'. It was so clearly understood as second-best. And it really bothered me! So if we did have a blessing, I wouldn't feel great about it. I would imagine that might be different for someone whose primary experience of church blessings was more positive.

I think the sacramental issue even varies within High Anglicanism, so it does get really complicated. And to complicate it more, my ex-husband was Russian Orthodox, and there, they have the doctrine that a marriage is not made in church, but is something that pre-exists in God's eyes, so the formal ceremony is only recognising what God and the couple already know. I love that idea, and it is comforting in terms of thinking about waiting until the Church catches up to God.

This will probably sound a bit dumb OP. But why don't you ask two or three people (who seem respectful and nice) who have misgendered her and ask them why they reckon they've done it?

It will not prevent it from happening again (due to all the reasons given upthread), but it may make it easier for you to accept it if you know the reason(s) behind it.

@mustlovegin

This will probably sound a bit dumb OP. But why don't you ask two or three people (who seem respectful and nice) who have misgendered her and ask them why they reckon they've done it?

It will not prevent it from happening again (due to all the reasons given upthread), but it may make it easier for you to accept it if you know the reason(s) behind it.

Good idea, but don't do it in oh hearing.

I have no desire to hear why I have been deemed mannish in my time and I doubt she does too.

@mustlovegin

This will probably sound a bit dumb OP. But why don't you ask two or three people (who seem respectful and nice) who have misgendered her and ask them why they reckon they've done it?

It will not prevent it from happening again (due to all the reasons given upthread), but it may make it easier for you to accept it if you know the reason(s) behind it.

The thing is, the people who misgender her don't usually get to know us. There's one woman who (bless her) really did misunderstand and I could ask her, but I really like her and it was ages ago, and I don't want to make her feel awkward.

Other that that, there's a woman in our church who did it for ages, and I did ask her, but she completely blanked the question - I think she didn't know how to reply.

DP once asked this woman we'd just met, in a jokey way, why she'd thought she was a man - she was really offended and angry.

And then there are people who know us well, who know DP is a woman, and I don't know if they'd even remember what their first impression was, because it'll have been superseded by their more recent knowledge. So it is quite hard to figure out.

@BelleOfTheProvince, I don't think she'd be bothered by it if it were polite. It's just, TBH, I don't think anyone is going to be able to say anything very useful?

It is a shame you aren't closer to Scotland, Episcopalian women can marry each other.
My dm got married to her wife at church.

“Oh, sorry, no, what I was asking was, do posters have a sense of why I might be saying she's not masculine? I mean, do people have a theory of why I'd want to do that?

Most of DP's clothes are from the womenswear section. She has a few t-shirts from H&M mens, and a couple of unisex hoodies. She does have more stereotypically butch stuff in her wardrobe, but she's not wearing formal jackets down the school gate, so it's not about those things.“

I think PPs are just trying to say in a tactful way that it seems very unlikely that midwives would mistake a woman in labour as being a man if she did not look like one (and same re the waitress/breastfeeding situation). No-one is suggesting that your DP is unattractive or should present differently, just that you may have a different perception of her based on knowing DP better.

Also, what if it’s something your DP can’t do anything about or doesn’t want to do anything about? Like you ask three people who all say
Something unchangeably physical like “it’s her jawline” or “it was the shoulders”, or something mannerism like “the walk” or “a (wo)manspreading aspect when she sits”. How will that information help other than give OP some unwanted knowledge she can pass on, or not, for her DP to then have to shrug off, or be self conscious about, but can’t change. I can’t think of many people who could deal with the burden of such feedback, and it puts the onus on DP to deal with it, when really the issue here is: how to talk to DD and manage her feelings around something that keeps happening.

Perhaps not.
If I were to analyse why I misgendered Mr tractor the other day, I would say it was because I had one eye on tractor mad toddler who likes to dash out and often see pony tailed women driving more often than men. He also was stationary, so I didn't see him move(the tractor was, but everyone looks the same driving one)

I know some people don't like it but the vast majority of short haired people are men and the vast majority of long haired people are female. That's just the way it is. There's nothing wrong with short hair on a woman or long hair on a man, but if you do either then people not paying attention will occasionally make an assumption.

@HTH1

“Oh, sorry, no, what I was asking was, do posters have a sense of why I might be saying she's not masculine? I mean, do people have a theory of why I'd want to do that?

Most of DP's clothes are from the womenswear section. She has a few t-shirts from H&M mens, and a couple of unisex hoodies. She does have more stereotypically butch stuff in her wardrobe, but she's not wearing formal jackets down the school gate, so it's not about those things.“

I think PPs are just trying to say in a tactful way that it seems very unlikely that midwives would mistake a woman in labour as being a man if she did not look like one (and same re the waitress/breastfeeding situation). No-one is suggesting that your DP is unattractive or should present differently, just that you may have a different perception of her based on knowing DP better.

Oh, no, sorry, I am still not making myself clear.

I am not asking you to interpret what people are saying to me.

I'm asking, what reason do people think I'd have for being in denial? Do they think butch women are really unattractive, so if I say DP doesn't look butch, it'd be because I want to deny she looks that way?

She clearly doesn't look like a man, or people would misgender her consistently, so it can't be that.