For the last year and especially the last six months I’ve been more out and open with my presentation. I got my ears pierced (it took 3 tries for the left one!), usually have my nails painted, and have been letting what’s left of my hair grow out.
I dress as femme about 80% of the time, while presenting as male when necessary ex officio.
The other day I went to the grocery store in my sort of male/androgynous mode. I was wearing my HRC LOVE baseball cap, which several people have liked. It also covered the bald crown of my head. When I got to checkout, the lady working the register was apparently in training. She needed help from a couple senior people who were standing by to explain how to change the sale price on a bottle of milk. I’m not sure if she spotted my fingernails or the hair around my neck, but she addressed me as “ma’am”. The first time I wondered if she had said man? But she said it a few more times.
Since she was obviously a novice, I didn’t want to make her job any more difficult. So I inwardly smiled, let her finish the checkout and thanked her. But I walked back to my car with a big smile!
Comments
I'm a Large Person
When I ran road races I was in the Clydesdale division, which at that time was 180 pounds. Since I've retired I've been working out ninety minutes a day and am losing weight. I hope to get down to the 160 area.
Yet - being a big person -- I've often been misgendered -- despite never being en femme in public. One memorable time I remember hearing a six-year-old boy ask his mother if I was a man or a woman. They were visiting us at a party and had been swimming in our pool all day.
I have also been misgendered over the phone many, many times despite singing bass.
My boss told me, about fifty years ago, that when I drink I tend to sound like a woman.
Forty years ago, a psychologist put me through a battery of tests as part of becoming a corporate officer for a large midwestern insurance company. After two days of one-on-one probing, he asked, "Do people say you're moody?"
I admitted it had frequently happened.
He said, "That's because you're an introvert who projects an extrovert personality. When you have low energy it becomes difficult for you to maintain that guise and people interpret the change in you as being moody."
I was an excellent public speaker and won many national sales contests -- and apparently under it all -- an introvert.
We are who we are.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Compliments are Nice
Especially if the compliment is in the same frame of mindset one has been wishing or looking for all their life or even just a short time. An excellent meal and the cook is complimented on how tender the roast is. A meeting with friends and she or he is complimented on how nice they look.
I'm happy the "ma'am" complimented you as it was something you liked and made you smile. I've made a lot of blogs on this channel trying to encourage others to be themselves. I've tried to be very descriptive in my own actions hoping those who read my blogs understand there is a lot of extra caution one must take whether one is GG or presenting as female because that is what they want.
Don't live life regretting the things you didn't do nor the things you did do.
Hugs Gillian
Barb
Life is meant to be lived, not worn until it's worn out.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Go, Gillian!
So nice to get positive reinforcement from complete strangers!
— Emma