Accidentally misgendering

[ScoR20]

Out in a public place today, mistook a boy for a girl (maybe 5 years old, had long hair, clothes more girly than boy looking). The kid replied "I'm not a girl" clearly quite frustrated. I replied in the moment "oh, I'm sorry." I just wondered as a parent would you not do something about this, as clearly it's a regular occurrence for this child and it is getting to them/or should we all be changing to use only gender neutral labels and language going forward?

But only if you hold fast to outdated stereotypes does long hair = obvious female child. Given quite a number of boys have long hair and colours are not any indicator of sex, why not hedge your bets?

It is basically the same process society went through when we stopped referring to people as Miss or Mrs based on age - that was an assumption that became outdated.

Of course it is not a big deal if you make a mistake, but I think 'obviously female child' is partly in the eye of the beholder.

I don't think it really matters. I called one boy my DS played with a girl in error, he was covered in mud pretty much head to foot so it was hard to tell he was even fully a child but the long hair and pretty face made my guess. Eh so what. I apologised to him, I offered him an extra chair and stick for the fort going on, we see him around and he waves every time.

DS was mistaken for a girl as a baby quite a lot. I remember one man rather sniffily saying he was too pretty. Whatever, babies are basically unisex anyway. Hard to find a non pretty one in my opinion.

One of my DC, short hair, brutish build, lots of attitude, was regularly taken for a boy.

I never felt offended. I'm not sure she even noticed.

But only if you hold fast to outdated stereotypes does long hair = obvious female child. Given quite a number of boys have long hair and colours are not any indicator of sex, why not hedge your bets?

So we should NEVER EVER refer to a child we don't know as the sex we perceive them to be? Just in case we make a mistake? And even though we'll be right 99.9% of the time? I'm sorry, but I find that absolutely ludicrous.

Of course not- call them whatever you like, knock yourself out. No one is banning you.

I'd estimate in my child's reception class almost half of the boys have longish hair (i.e what would have been considered a girls haircut when i was a child). So if you stuck to long hair = girl here, there's a fairly decent chance you'd be wrong. If you don't care, that's fine. I bet the child doesn't get too worked up about it. But this thread was about a woman worrying about having "misgendered" a child and causing some kind of potential trauma - so some of us are just saying those stereotypes seem to have changed somewhat, and if you'd be mortified by calling a boy a girl or vice versa it might be worth bearing in mind

I guess like most things different people do things differently?

To me it has felt rude for about two decades to assume a young child is a girl or a boy, so I don't do it. I also try quite hard not to make other assumptions about people.

I suppose it depends on whether you care about the few who - to the eyes of strangers - are often perceived to be the opposite sex based on hair or clothes colour and find it upsetting. Like my son, who find it particularly upsetting because of his autism and when he is already overloaded it can be the thing that sends him into meltdown.

I've never known any child to be upset because a stranger referred to them in a sex-neutral manner.

I dont hold fast to sex stereotypes, people have mistook me for a man in the past.

People look female or male, most of the time, its nothing to do with what they're wearing but its very difficult to tell in children sometimes.

Its no biggie.

It's no biggie to you. I have also been mistaken for a man when I had a buzzcut for some years. It was no biggie to me either - I found it quite funny.

But it is a biggie for some children, like my son. Does that not matter? Is it more important for random adults to be able to say 'girl' or 'boy' instead of 'child' when they feel like it - and in our case this has never been necessary in the situation in which it has happened - than for children who ARE upset by it to not have it happen?

I think most of us have mistaken a child for the opposite sex before I know I have several times. Im very much a user of s/he his/hers but i have found myself last few years saying they if I’m not certain if boy/girl then I wait to hear what the parent calls them so I know