Calling females with ambiguous appearance

[Brainworm]

TRAs are expressing increasing levels of concern for females whose presentation is ambiguous in relation to their sex. They often cite women with allopecia, cancer survivors and butch lesbians.

I thought it might be productive if we collate some ‘lived experiences’ so we can provide constructive advice to those concerned.

I am 5 feet 11. I have very broad shoulders and short hair, but not balding. I am also a cancer survivor (mastectomy) and live in ‘gender neutral’ clothes. No jewellery, no make up, always trousers, always flat shoes (trainers).

Pre menopause there were occasions when people did a double take, especially in winter when wrapped up - I was very hour-glassy (not willowy), so not androgynous in that sense. Once or twice, over 30 odd years I had people say things like - gosh, you’re tall, which I sensed was communicating some concern. As soon as I spoke, all concern was lost - probably due to 2 things. My voice is clearly female, and the nature of my response was pleasant.

Post meno, my waist has thickened. My fat distribution is still female indicating but less so, so I am less obviously female than before. However, I haven’t been questioned or challenged more. If I was, I have no doubt the same would apply once I responded as outlined above.

So, my advice to females who have androgynous, ambiguous or male appearances (I’m excluding those who take exogenous hormones with the intention to pass as male) is to accept, as fact, that your appearance is one that could lead people to question your sex. If this is upsetting, try and work on self acceptance - we are a lot more than our outward appearance. If someone questions your sex within the context of single sex provision, see this as them looking out for you, just as much as more feminine looking women. Rest assured that if you speak, this alone is likely to dispel their fears.

Anyone else have any tips to share? It would be great if the TRAs didn’t have to worry about this group and could instead focus on finding solutions for trans people.

When I was younger, there were lots of women with short hair and no- one thought anything of it. Now it seems that if you have or want short hair, it means you must be or want to be a man.

That piece of nonsense didn't come from gender-critical feminism.

I’m also 5’11 & broad shouldered. I get the occasional double take - especially if I’m bundled up in a big jacket on a cold day.

a) it’s momentary - as soon as anyone looks at me properly they realise I’m a woman & b) it’s fine. I’m perfectly happy to have other women check if I’m somewhere a man shouldn’t be. Very sensible of them & c) if it’s a man in a public place rather than a woman in a SSS I’ll occasionally get a witless comment drawing my attention to the fact that I’m quite tall, in case I hadn’t noticed.

None of it’s bothering me in the slightest. I like being tall, I like that women are watching out for one another, & life’s too short to worry about mannerless gormless blokes feeling that the universe needs them to run live commentary on every woman who crosses their path, because dickheads gonna dickhead.

So one story from the USA, one from Canada and one from 2022 - two and a half years before FWS.

Given that most trans women round here seem to present themselves as a fetishised/ stereotyped caricature of what a woman is, I'd be more convinced of your womanhood if you're more gender neutral/ masc looking.

I think you are allowed to have short hair if you are over retirement age; it's called something like "granny hair" and jeered at by younger people, but it's not actually forbidden or assumed to mean you must be male.

Didn't Jolyon's wife have 'an incident'?

ETA - It's worth looking at the horse section of MN for a familiar poster.

'Granny hair'? never heard that!
But you make a good point - even allowing for personal choice, i.e. that some women prefer long hair - there seems to be some kind of block on having - shock horror! short hair.🙄

If you look at old photos, it's difficult to tell the boys from the girls - similar clothes, similar haircuts, and the girls did not normally wear make-up. Gender stereotypes were not strongly enforced.

A backlash followed, cue all things sparkly and princessy and butterfly-y, and children were either 'real boys' boys' or 'real girly-girls', and now we have a situation where those re-asserted gender stereotypes are being used as evidence of a person's sex.

Definitions of 'what a woman looks like' used to be much broader, and it is relatively recently that having short hair, or not wearing make-up, or not wearing 'feminine' clothes have been problematised.

It's recent, it's not the way things used to be, it's not the way things have to be, and it's worth asking who benefitted from the re-imposition of the sugar and spice/rats and snails extremes?

Aside from trans people taking cross sex hormones from a young age, I’d say it’s exceptionally rare not to be able to tell a woman from a man - even when she is tall, broad and prefers to have short hair, trousers and flat shoes. It’s almost as if sex is not based on gender stereo types…

MarieDeGournay
If you look at old photos, it's difficult to tell the boys from the girls - similar clothes, similar haircuts, and the girls did not normally wear make-up. Gender stereotypes were not strongly enforced.

Two of my friends, at university in the early 1970s, could not easily be told apart by sex from behind when they walked down the street hand in hand (both had long hair rather than short but the result was the same: ambisexuality). Only when they spoke was which was male and which female immediately obvious.

One weekday in mid November in 1987, at about 5.30 in the evening, in a queue, a small child looked at me, turned to his father and asked 'is that a lady or a man?' His father was horrified and apologetic, clearly being able to see that despite the twilight gloom, short hair, donkey jacket, reflective Sam Browne belt, and flat shoes, I was indeed a lady.

Maybe the child had also seen the crossbar on my bike.

I thought it was hilarious. I'm a bit too short and benorked for it to be a regular occurrence.

The bald woman I sometimes meet when I'm out shopping is also obviously female.

Apparently Akua Reindorf (tall, slender, shaved head) was mis-sexed when 8 m pregnant and shopping for knitting needles in a department store. I believe she found it mildly amusing.

Let's face it, most women when misgendered are more likely to be amused than aghast, horrified, mortally offended or inclined to take the offender to law.

Hypersensitive males who are trying to live a lie on the other hand may well assert that they have been literally killed by this misgendering.

If you look at old photos, it's difficult to tell the boys from the girls - similar clothes, similar haircuts, and the girls did not normally wear make-up. Gender stereotypes were not strongly enforced.

Here's me at age 15 - a long, long time back - 1960s. The haircut wasn't unusual then. There were at least 2 other girls in my class with similar cuts (all girl's convent school).

They must also all be super worried about the small, slight, young, frail, clean-shaven, long-haired etc men being raped and murdered in the streets due to being mistaken for women. Mayhem.
I remember back in the 70s the worry amongst older and/or more conservative types was that you couldn’t tell the men from the women, which was clearly not true and was maybe an expression of anxiety about the changing world. I wonder if this obsession with “gender” is some kind of universal recurring lightning rod for anxiety.

There were quite a few short-haired rôle models for girls in the sixties and seventies. I seem to remember Twiggy as an example of a woman with short hair. And then there was Liza Minelli in Cabaret.... and of course Mia Farrow, and many scads of others. I don't remember anyone assuming any of them were dykes (to use the odious epithet men applied in those days).

When length of hair was still a marker for sex among older males, the people who got asked "are you a boy or a girl?" were likely to be men with long hair, like for instance the Rolling Stones.

It's almost as though we, as women, should be insulted if we are momentarily mistaken for male, and also embarrassed that we need to explain that, no, actually we are female. Like it's something to be ashamed of that we aren't men, just lowly women.

When most of us don't walk around all day thinking "do I look female enough today?" Now, who would that sound like? Hmmmm...

Marie, I'd never heard that either. Well, I have granny hair and I love it. No more fussing, no expensive cuts and dyes, no hair clogging the drain (mine's pretty close to a number 4 at the moment), just wash and go!

I sometimes look around when I'm in populated areas to see if there are any girls at all with short hair- never, nary a one, that I can tell. I wouldn't care if it were just the fashion, but I hate that there's this "moral imperative" underlying it all. Very glad I'm not a teenager today!

Love this, thanks.

@SomeGarlic never bothered me, I often found it funny. This is because I wasn't pretending to be a woman, I actually am one.

Exactly! I'm quite tall and at different points in my life have had varying levels of feminine presentation. It just doesn't affect me at all if other people are wrong because my sex isn't dependent on their perception of me.

Have a look at the next women's football tournament [that's rhetorical, I'm not forcing you to watch footie😄]and Spot the Short Haircut. More ponytails than a gymkhana.

The last big tournament, I counted about 4 or 5 short haircuts out of about 350 players.

Even allowing for fashion, personal preference, etc., that is an unlikely strike rate.

I wonder if there is a pressure, whether peer, sponsor or zeitgeist, on sportswomen to 'look feminine'.

edited to add that my granny told me that long hair was for little girls, you 'put your hair up' when you were an adult, and cutting your hair was a more recent equivalent.

You're absolutely unmistakably female in that photo, though, and it's not the pink jacket! What is it - something about your stance? Is it that men can't stand like that?

(Completely agree about the then vs now comparison re hair, clothes etc. It's really sad, to me, how sex stereotypes seem, in effect, to limit people's choices now.)

Long ago, when I was young and pretty and had my hair cut by a men's barber, I was misgendered at a toilet door by a Turkish lady in huge flowery trousers. I didn't fit into her experience of how women normally present themselves. It didn't bother me and I hope it didn't bother her.

Since menopause, I have been addressed as "sir" a few times, but only by men. It only bothers me in the sense that it's a sign I'm getting old.

I was often misgendered as a teenager, particularly when I had a flat-top 😜
I wasn’t bothered because I realised that I was the one not ‘conforming’ and they were making a reasonable judgement based on the societal conditions of the day. Sometimes I corrected them, sometimes I didn’t. A random bus driver or shop assistant making a mistake did not define me.

The only time I recall being embarrassed was when I was looking at underwear in M&S and an old lady insinuated I was some kind of pervert. Even then, I just walked away back to my mother and, whilst memorable, hasn’t had an impact.

The fact is that women in all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, fashion choices, etc. are welcome in women’s spaces. It’s the men who need to be educated to accept non-conforming men. It’s a men problem so stop imposing it on women.

I’m really sorry this happened to you Meadow, let alone at such a vulnerable time for you.

This was bigoted, homophobic bullying. In referring to you as ‘a duke’, you weren’t being mistake for a male. You were ‘read’ as being female and assumptions were being made about your sexuality due to the length of your hair.

I hope that you have recovered from the cancer, the treatment and the hideous experience.

THIS

This is the essential message for all those who are ‘oh so worried’ for the ‘cis women’ who will break in response to people wrongly accusing them of using female provision.

So long as those exploring the legitimacy of an individual using the provision isn’t abusive, the reverence isn’t something anyone should be unduly concerned about.