Not being "feminine" does not make me any less female

[orangeleavesinautumn]

I have no boobs, short hair, men's clothes, no make up, very little jewellery etc.

But I am 100% female.

So don't ask me my pronouns. You can see I am a woman

making a mistake isn't an issue

asking me my pronouns is the issue

No I'm with you op. Askimg pronouns just tells you that you don't fit stereotypes and they tbikyou are so emotional unstable and childish that if they get it wrong your gonna have a cow. And they think you are so narcissistic you are gonna hold everyone hostage with your " identity " fuck that shit.

Yanbu, op. It's rude and regressive. How did we get to a point where sex stereotyping based on appearance has somehow become more common, rather than doing away with those stereotypes?

I am with you OP.. it is deeply offensive. and by checking your pronouns, they are then imposing stereotypes upon you, implying that if you do not opt out of femaleness, you must therefore choose femaleness, along with the stereotypes and oppression.

Why should people offend everyone by asking their pronouns while attempting to avoid offending the very small minority of people who seek to strengthen stereotypes and impose them on everyone, making assumptions about people based on biology and not identifying with identity politics.

So @orangeleavesinautumn .. tell me - what do you say to them? I need a good response to have in my arsenal .

All of the responses who say. 'if you have short hair and dress in 'men's' clothes, no one will know', 'They’re probably trying not to offend you OP.', 'your 'look' is very much favoured by the they / them brigade. And god help us if we misgender them.' ..... the vast majority of people do not have a separate gender identity and for millions of years, people have been able to figure out, for the most part, which humans have 'she' pronouns and which have 'he'. Non binary and trans people will tell you soon enough, if you wait...

Please don't offend and harm the majority of us to save the feelings of a few, when there are other ways of figuring out the pronouns of those who choose ones that are different from their sex.

We should not choose a blanket approach because we might save a few people from a perceived harm, while at the same time, doing the same harm that we are seeking to prevent, to a much greater number of people.

From what the OP described, there isn't a genuine confusion whether she is male or female. That part is clear at least from her face and voice.

The probers know she is female, they are just telling her they don't consider her a woman based on her clothing.

I think this is where you’re over reacting.

I don’t believe they think you collude with a particular extreme political ideology.

I just think they are unsure of your sex and don’t want to offend you, so the politest way they can do this is to ask your pronouns which many companies do now anyway.

I worked with someone who was on a year’s placement as ‘sir’ because they thought she was a man (had a similar appearance to you) and had a unisex name. It was her first teaching job and she was too embarrassed to say anything.
If they’d found out her title/pronouns when they first met it would have saved a lot of embarrassment.

I would never ask someone what their pronoun is anyway no matter what they looked like. If I’m talking to them then they’re going to be addressed with either their first name or ‘you’. I’m not interested in anyone’s pronoun in their absence.

And here is a very clear example of how fucking backwards the gender woo shit is.

They shouldn't be calling us 'she' or 'he' anyway! There's no need to know.

But this has obviously happened on a few occasions which is why OP is so upset about it and it’s not common to go around asking people their pronouns unless they’ve started a new job or something.

The fact that it’s happening frequently tells me that people are probably just confused about her sex.

I promise you there is no confusion about my sex - I have a woman's voice, a woman's face, a woman's hips, a woman's hands and feet, a woman's fat distribution, I am totally female, I am simply not feminine.

I also commonly have offspring bobbing about calling me "mum"

No one is confused about my sex

You don't use pronouns "to" someone.

But why would anyone use he/him in relation to a woman?

See I didn’t check someone’s pronouns the other day. And then got hurriedly told it was ‘they’ when I said she. She was young, nice, didn’t want to offend her. Luckily while talking to her I can just use you.

It's like in the 80s when people thought my mother was a man because she had short hair and trousers and thought I was a boy for the same reason. I learned at a young age that people can be terribly stupid.

It shouldn't matter what sex we are (apart from obvious e.g. medical, reproductive and private spaces reasons). I think having a gender neutral pronoun instead of he and she was a better idea than this 'declare your gender' thing, but unfortunately it didn't catch on.

What on earth are 'Men's clothes'?

Yes - and as your response (and a PP My friend’s daughter is, calls herself they/them and I like her and want to address her the way she wants. ) demonstrate, when the person isn't there you don't need to use the incongruent 'they'.

I agree with you OP.

I genuinely don't mind occasionally getting called they (or even he) but "asking for my pronouns" implies all sorts of gender woo when I'm just a woman who doesn't give a shit about your gender stereotypes

Made worse that there's a very big overlap between the "neurodiversity is my identity" crowd (I'm autistic) and the "gender bollocks is my identity" crowd

clothes I bought in the men's section... but beyond that, unlikely to be clear.

Not skirts
wider shoes
more pockets,
cheaper
no baggy bit at the front where boobs would go if I had any

I don't really know what makes clothing "men's" - because all of that is perfectly suitable for a woman, isn't it

Basically, I don't wear much that is feminine, I would say - I do wear a bit sometimes

It seems to me that some people in society want to know whether you fancy/fuck men, women or anything goes.
To those people I will always say, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!!
I have short hair, a large set or norks, and am more at home in boots and skinnies. Not a girlie girl. But I am clearly a woman.
Can I ask a (daft) question? Do all employers conform to this bollocks these day?

Well you slipped up there a bit then, didn't you? 😉

They're not men's clothes, they're your clothes.

I'm guessing from your posts that people didn't have much trouble working out you were a woman and just using 'she' if they needed to refer to you in the third person 10 years ago.

Well it’s a bit more complicated than that. If I’m talking about someone who uses ‘they’ to someone else. Then I have to use they. Even tho I think they is nonsense. So the other day, I said ‘she’s really good at that’. Which was wrong according to the person I was talking to.

So then what do I do? I feel like a young adult who seems a bit vulnerable using ‘they’ is a very different situation from a grown man using she. I know it’s all part of the same thing but I do feel for the young person who is feeling confused and now wants to be they.

I agree. But as the recent Short Hair thread showed an awful lot of people seem to be of the mindset that short hair equals masculine and long hair equals feminine.

They want you to ask because otherwise you wouldn’t know how special and edgy and cool they are. 🙄