DD14 is regularly assumed to be trans/NB/a boy - any advice on how she can respond?

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She is tall with short hair and a low voice and only wears trousers / shorts etc plus has always liked stuff that people (even in 2024) seem more likely to associate with boys - football, techie stuff etc. She regularly gets assumed to be NB or a boy and, if she says she's a girl, is often then assumed to be a trans girl.

On the whole, she's not bothered if people assume she's a boy and won't bother correcting them but quite a few times people have looked surprised / affronted to find her in a girls loo (or other girl's/woman's space) and she finds this embarrassing. She's asked me what to say to people when this happens. She doesn't want to be confrontational or make anyone fell awkward because she thinks it's not coming from an unkind place i.e. people are either genuinely confused or just trying to not offend. So, any advice on a quick way of knocking this on the head and not turning it into 'a thing'? Thank you.

Yes I'm afraid this is where we are now. You can't be an androgynous looking girl anymore without people making assumptions. I hate it.

I hope your DD is ok OP because this was a factor in mine identifying as trans. She was young and vulnerable (and autistic) and people constantly calling her "he" contributed to the confusion.

The idea that to be a girl you have to have long hair and look girly makes me mad. I got called a boy occasionally as a kid but now its so much worse.

I’m guessing you don’t have many contacts who are currently in secondary schools. It’s a very different world compared to real life. I have 3dds and it’s a big thing, especially dd1’s year group. She’s year 11 and interestingly was in lockdown for year 7/8. I wonder if that impacted. It’s slightly less intense in dtds year 8 group but still there. It is not “cool” to use the pronouns “she/her” and they are all “they/them”. It gets very confusing. Dh was worried dd1 was going to Ethan‘s for a sleepover and was surprised I was so cool about it… Ethan (he/him) doesn’t have a penis. Dh now fine with the sleepover. Parenting teens right now is a new minefield of social media and gender ideology.

My friend used to get this around that age but it stopped as she matured. My son used to be mistaken for a girl sometimes when he had long hair and again it stopped as he matured.

It's not that uncommon but it is uncommon to be bothered by it. Tell your dd to just ignore it or if anyone says anything just correct them. It's no biggie. They made a mistake, I'm sure she's made mistakes in her life too.

WallaceinAnderland -- i think it's very common to be bothered by it! I am 6ft and was often called young man in my teens. I was shy and found it mortifying and as though i was less of a woman.

thankfully it sounds like OP's daughter isn't feeling this way, but it can still be awkward. Hope she gets more used to it soon OP and can feel confident. (it gradually happened less and less to me, and i minded much less as time went on too)

In toilets if directly approached or confronted I would perhaps go with the "oh don't worry, I'm female!" in a breezy tone.

In terms of asking pronouns, I think that's just because it sounds like people genuinely cannot tell her sex from what you say. And that's just seen as a more 'polite' way of asking than juer saying "hey are you are a girl or a boy?" I think people often feel embarrassed when they can't tell someone's sex. I would just respond telling them she's a girl and that's that, no need to specifically go along with the pronouns thing, particularly in situations where you say she's the only person being asked. That is just people asking what her sex is without wanting to seem rude I think.

I'm totally with you on it all btw OP just for avoidance of doubt! Completely not the same but my DD is only 6 and between age 3 and 5 she had a pixie cut. Obviously little kids all look the same so not possible to tell her sex but people always, always, always assumed boy and that was the even the case if she wore an entirely pink outfit or a dress or sparkly shoes etc. People would always assume 'boy in dress' rather than girl with short hair. Which I thought interesting.

Thanks for your responses - lots of very sensible ideas here. And no,I won't be suggesting she changes her appearance in any way!

@GatherlyGal yes, we were a bit worried about this for a bit because among her older sister's cohort so many were identifying as trans in year 8 and we thought there was a risk of her being caught up in it particularly because of the assumptions people were making.

@WallaceinAnderland I disagree about it being uncommon to be worried about it. Perhaps you know a particularly resilient set of teenagers but I think a lot of young people are quite vulnerable and self-conscious and I don't think she'd be at all unusual to be a bit embarrassed by repeated assumptions about her being someone she isn't or feeling she's being stared at for being in the wrong place.

This is the result of several years of trans ideology being pushed onto us all - many of us are hyper aware of the potential of finding unwanted males in female spaces. Many years ago when I was young, we all wore androgynous clothes and had short hair and no-one batted an eyelid - as it should be.

I can imagine how difficult this is for your DD - perhaps just saying ‘it’s ok, I’m female’ if anyone says anything? I’d avoid saying woman, that seems to cover anything men want it to sadly.

As a lifelong tomboy, and definitely female, I now say something like 'Been to Specsavers lately?' But your DD could just say she's a young woman?

@Albatrossing thank you yes, that's exactly it! She's sort of laughing it off because I think she feels she has to but also finding it a bit mortifying. Maybe partly because she's at an age when - no matter how much I wish that weren't still the case - girl's appearances still seem to be the focus of a stupendous amount of attention and how you look or are perceived to look feels important even if you're told it's not something you need to care about.

@WeightoftheWorld that is super helpful, thank you. And I agree that re the pronouns thing it probably is people just trying to be polite because they aren't sure.

I find smiling and saying 'morning' or something generally does the trick. When people get a good look at your face they can tell, and voice helps too - even if low for a girl, it will be high for a boy that age.

In the case of someone challenging in loos, she just says 'I'm a girl' - again with a cheery smile. Actually in loos this is going to be an absolute rarity because being in the women's loos shifts the base assumption to female until proved otherwise. Smile can make sex more obvious somehow - maybe shows up different aspects of your face? But it would also make me smile because I am happy people are looking out for women.

Direct pronouns question I'd suggest she just says 'I'm a girl'. Tells them what they want to know without playing along to the pronoun silliness.

I think that 'I'm female' is going to be more helpful than 'I'm a girl' or 'I'm a woman'.

Have to go offline now - appreciate people taking the time to post, thank you. And it's a good point re specifying she's female rather than a girl / woman

Men also change as they age. Even the butchest older women don't look the same as men the same age as them due to men having stubble.

The differences between male and female , facially , is less different between teens if boys are yet to start shaving.

Of course, people could be aware she is a girl and mistakenly think she is presenting as a boy . They either think they are doing the right thing by checking if she uses alternate pronouns , or they are being rude / after confrontation .

I think that 'I'm female' is going to be more helpful than 'I'm a girl' or 'I'm a woman'.
Oh, maybe. Or maybe for a couple of years around 2018 it was more helpful, before TW started claiming to be female too.

DS was mistaken for a girl regularly until he was around 14 and a half, and one of his friends was regularly mistaken for a boy. Both were challenged fairly often in toilets, and stuck to the unisex loos whenever they were available. They wore pronoun badges and just answered "I'm a boy/girl" when asked. Now that they are a bit older, mistakes are much less frequent. They were both confident in their identity and didn't generally upsetting when people made mistakes, but they also hung around in a group with plenty of LGBTQ+ where people had such less rigid expectations of gender presentation.

But the boys won't stay looking like this. They will bulk out and develop a very different shape to a female with an athletic build. They go through puberty a bit later, but eventually they'll all stop looking like teenage boys and start looking like men.

If she feels she must say something I was born female, I'm still female would leave them in no doubt at all. If she felt brave she could add the trans stuff is nonsense.

Gender and TQ+ are the problem though.

When I was a teenager, girls could have short hair / boys could wear ‘a bit of mascara’ and just be girls with short hair & boys with a bit of makeup. All this stupid business about gender means that now it’s taken as a signal that she’s a boy or he’s a girl.

I distinctly remember a small child walking behind me and saying, loudly, 'Mummy, why is that boy wearing a skirt' and his mother clearly dying as she could tell I was female. I had cropped hair and was quite lanky, no make up etc.

I think it's isual for teenagers to find this stuff embarrassing and uncomfortable to hear/deal with. Most things at 14 are awkward! It does get better though, my face shape is now clearly female. My 11 year old DD has cropped hair and wears baggy shorts and t-shirts and has people assuming she's a boy. She's shrugged it off so far (autism helps that) bit I bet it'll change as she gets to the teenage phase. This thread is useful for me!

My dd had this aged around 12 to 13 and it was very annoying. She just had short hair, one child said to her mum 'why is that boy wearing a skirt?' and the mum replied 'he's trans, he's just doing it for attention'! It's very hard when they want to dress as themselves and be freer to wear clothes (not anything controversial, just a top and jeans) and this is 'read' as being a boy when they are not.

It's a measure of how entrenched blue/pink type thinking is that people don't think women can have short hair- short hair was very common in the 80's and it in no way signified being a boy.

I don't have great advice on what to do, eventually my dd grew her hair long and it stopped happening.

My adult teen has a friend who wants to be seen as a boy. If someone didn't look properly she could pass as a younger boy, maybe 14. She looks nothing like the 17/18 year old lads though.

I agree that the world has taken a massive step back with stereotyping, TeenLifeMum. I was looking at some old photos from the 70s online a while ago, and it was hard to tell the boys from the girls - they all had mullet hairstyles, stripey tops with round necklines, shirts with long collars, baggy trousers; in short, one Bay City Roller fan looked pretty much like any other Bay City Roller fan, regardless of sex!
Then the princess/fairy/butterfly/pink thing hit, and we were back to the sugar and spice/puppy dogs' tails dichotomy again.

Your DD shouldn't have to do a damn thing, OP, to look stereotypically female, and I hope she continues to feel OK about just being herself.
Having a prepared response to being mistaken for a male is a good idea - mine is 'Would you like to have another go at that?'

I support her by saying she's doing a cracking job of expanding people's perceptions of how a female should look/dress and that's great.

The reality is in fact she's another female casualty of gender ideology.

10 years ago nobody would have considered a person who accessed female spaces would have been male regardless of appearance/dress unless they were obviously male.

A friend (lesbian and has an androgynous look) never used to have this issue but now encounters it on occasion.

It pisses her off but she just laughs and (depending on context) says not all females conform to sex stereotypes but I assure you I am 100% female or a far more bawdy response about inviting someone to check what's not between her legs 😂.

She said as soon as she opens her mouth it's obvious from the timbre of her voice that they clock she's a woman and the usual response is that they are embarrassed and apologise.

So I'd suggest to support her in having the confidence to not let it worry her, be proud of who she is and looks and maybe have a couple of stock responses (though I'd avoid my friends bawdy response for a teen!) so she's prepared and not fumbling what to say in the heat of the moment.

I used to get 'Mummy, is that a boy or a girl?' when working in the supermarket. Once 'Mummy, what's that?'. 'Mummy' looked mortified.

It was only small children who got it wrong 20+ years ago though.