Asking both questions here. Please don’t be too political here, it’s a timeless issue and that’s the angle I’m asking from.
Especially in an age which no longer is lenient towards it (not that any era did; I’m sure the most ancient of knights did not wish to fall for it), it always surprises me how dogmatically people treat their intuition, as in there are people who will say “that’s definitely a guy” or “that’s definitely a girl” even though a trip down Google lane will show how easy it is to have “definitely a guy” vibes as a girl or “definitely a girl” vibes as a guy.
My voice over the phone is ambiguous and I was calling customer service for a sport company one day, and half-way through the call, they held their hand on the part of the phone they speak in (poorly, which is why I still heard them) to refer to the “ma’am” on the other side (me), and quick-thinking me imitated the old man from the demonic furby clip saying “I’m a sir”, to everyone’s laughter. I’m only humorous when it’s adequate to get the message across.
I’m not often misgendered by my looks, the last time that happened I was in school wearing pink and a teacher thought I was a girl. And I think I’ve only misgendered someone once for the same reason.
I thought to ask this seeing people really hammer into people about what gender a friend of mine must be even though it’s not the friend’s gender. Like, take this picture of the friend for example, what gender comes to your mind looking at that (you can count that as a side question and a “second opinion” question to an earlier one)? What made you say this with certainty?
I used to have very long hair and from this behind or beside people would call me ma’am and then when I turn to look at them they would correct themselves and say no I said man man.
But I’ve been incredibly fortunate, if I’ve ever Miss gendered anyone either the person I misgendered was kind enough to let it slide or didn’t make a big deal out of it.
It’s very much a nothing Burger in my life.
In person, the last time I was misgendered was in high school (25+ years ago), online (email mostly) as I have a first name that is typically considered female (however I know easily twice the number of males with the name that I do females) I get misgendered quite often.
As for misgendering someone, I have never intentionally misgendered anyone. In fact I just bumped into one of my customers who recently came out as in transition but his father was not accepting of it and had asked me to continue using his dead name. But now I know he is over 18, so I asked am which I he wanted me to use in public.
