Author:
Sometimes it is funny to bring them up to speed if done right. Yesterday I was picking up goat panel from Atwoods, a farm and ranch store. Each panel is five feet wide, sixteen feet long of four inch by four inch welded, grade six rod. They sent one guy out to load it. Not happening so it was up to him and me. One had to be there to see the problem and understand. I'm five five, picking up my end of that panel meant I had to climb up on the pile, pick up my end, slide it off to the side, get down, help put it up on the flat bed, and do that all over before the next panel.
He kept calling me "sir" which was funny to me. I'm wearing a sleeveless denim blouse, really short denim mini skirt, work boots, big straw cowboy hat, dream catcher earrings, and of course red lipstick. The more I thought about it that day as I was pulling the paneling off the flatbed to build a corral I knew I had the perfect joke.
Today they sent three guys out to load panel for me..., and yes one of them kept calling me "sir". I'm dressed almost the same except today I have a baseball cap, long pony tail instead of a cowboy hat. We get loaded and I stopped them from wandering off.
"Guys, wait a minute, I have something to tell you."
They stopped and waited wondering what I had to say.
"Yesterday one of the gentlemen kept calling me sir. I swear he must have played hooky during sex education class, his parents never explained the birds and bees to him, or he never saw a naked female. I swear if he had called me sir one more time, I would have removed my blouse, pulled off my skirt and showed him something he obviously has never seen..., a naked female body."
I didn't make it about these gentlemen but the one the previous day, yet the message was there. I bet that story makes the rounds of "ALL" the help before it's finished.
One of the guys mumbled, "Yes ma'am, thank you." As they all turned and walked back into the store.
Could I? Would I? Yes I could but I really wouldn't I believe it is a message they will remember the rest of their lives. Not all females look like Homecoming Queen. I've seen some cowgirls and farm girls who could step off the glamor model runway even if they were wearing a toesack. I'm not one of them.
Be yourself, don't try and be someone else. If one feels the need to hand out education, do it softly, gently. Keep in mind there are a lot of GG who didn't get the Beauty Queen Package, we aren't in a competition unless one makes it thus.
I truly don't mind if someone calls me sir, or miss, or ma'am or hey you. The problem was these gentlemen keep doing it instead of a misunderstanding.
Hugs People, accept yourself for who you are.
Barb
Comments
Beauty
I am confused. There are a lot of far than beautiful women out there in the world but they don't get called sir.
Getting less than pretty is inevitable as one ages unless you get endless plastic surgery like some stars have, say like Dolly.
Having never met you I have no idea why you got mis-gendered, which is not at all nice.
Good on you to correct them but gender cues are many and varied and how one is dressed is just one element of many.
I am fortunate that even at 5'8" or so I still pass, even when I travelled to Asia at one time many long years ago.
And at that height I am considerably above average for an Asian woman.
I don't want this to devolve into a passability discussion.
How you want to project your true self is your damn business and if it means correcting folks that is fine but you can't deny that people are picking up on something that contradicts your dress presentation.
Too Much Exposure
Too many years, too many hard miles, too many years in the sun, and with too little covering the results were "sir" despite the attire. Almost any woman can hide a lot of sins under the right attire. Full cowgirl, dress or pants, yes it is always miss. Upper class with satin blouse, tight or extra full skirts, diamond earrings, necklace, it is miss. Females are the best Chameleons in the world. They are able to change persona almost instantly.
The picture on this site posted as me is really me taken almost twenty years earlier. I've aged a hundred years since then. That was the year I passed, "shelf life or expired date" and should have been recycled.
The gentlemen weren't being derogatory thus the funny response to their lack of education. I live in the middle of USA and love it. Very very few have met someone like me. I bet I'm the only TG in this one horse town. I've never met or heard of another in all the many years I've lived here. I've received a lot of nice compliments and am willing to talk about any subject. Nothing is off limits as the truth is way different than what they have read or heard.
Kimmie, have fun with life, try and not take it too seriously. I know God has a sense of humor, He made me. I share with those like me, hoping they find it helps to know someone like themselves.
Hugs Kimmie
Barbie Jean Lee
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Gender cues
Good for you, Barbie. The physical aspect of a person varies all over the spectrum from overwhelmingly masculine to overwhelmingly feminine in both males and females. To make that point, my mother, who is rather critical of the trans-spectrum, has repeatedly voiced some rather harsh suspicions that the wife of a former POTUS could be a male-to-female transsexual.
Since coming to Germany a few years back, I have found that society in general to be very open towards gender fluid or gender queer people. To the point that there are three legally recognized genders, known as male, female and diverse. And the way you get addressed in public depends in large part on the cues you give with the way you dress and present. Another factor is how much self-assurance you project in your presentation.
I have had conversations with complete strangers on the train, and at the end of the journey they asked me which pronouns to use. I was still somewhat insecure about general public interactions, and stated that I am OK with either option. Their response was, that based on my presentation they would go with the female pronouns. That experience showed me, that in general I just need to own my own inner identity and most strangers on the street will follow that lead.
Last year I made my first intercontinental trip since my social transition. Since I have not been able to start the legal transition yet, all my identification is still to my male identity. So for the first stage of the trip I opted for an androgynous (gender neutral) presentation. I got madam-ed by the airport staff in Frankfurt, and got called for a manual passport verification (likely because I was not used to the automated system) that resulted in a close comparison between my passport picture and my face.
For my next leg I was presenting decidedly on the female side of the spectrum when checking in at the Air Canada counter in Toronto. The agent handed me my boarding saying: “Here is your boarding pass, SIR.”
The return flight was operated by Lufthansa, where I got madam-ed throughout the whole experience from check-in to in-flight.
Overall my personal experience here in the industrial heartland of Germany has been very positive. Even casual interaction with small children in public just gets me smile from the respective parents.
So I say, do not worry about passing. Just own your inner identity, and present yourself with self-assurance: “Here I am. Hear me roar.”
Warm greetings from Germany,
Jessica
No clue
A lot of folks have no clue. They look at you and decide your gender without so much as a conscious thought. That decision is made somewhere in same area as where to put your foot while walking on a level floor.
I live in liberal Oregon... no not the town of Liberal Oregon, I mean the majority of the state is quite liberal. So I haven't had much in the way problems in interaction with people. I maintain that I'm testosterone poisoned. Strong jaw line, broad shoulders, narrow hips and large feet and hands. Generally, I dress pretty androgynous. Mostly to please my wife.
As a school bus driver, I dress in jeans and a polo shirt with sneakers. I do wear my hair pulled back at the sides and held up at the crown of my head with a small barrette. I look, in my opinion, very much on the masculine side of androgynous. One day while rinsing the grime off the bus near the road after my afternoon run, an older (about my age) gentleman pulled into the lot behind me needing directions to a business nearby. He approached from from behind, lower his passenger side window and called out to me.
"Excuse me young lady?"
Having only the way my hair was fixed as a feminine gender clue he decided I was a "young lady." I turned to him. (Mind you I'm not wearing so much as lipstick.) He asked it there was an auto upholstery shop near by. It was located about a half a mile farther down the road from where we were. I told him this with a raised voice with no effort to raise it from my usual base due to the fact he was about twenty feet from me on a busy highway. He actually flirted with me in idle conversation and never once gave a clue that he had rethought that I was a woman.
Go figure.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
///
never mind
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
Really got to wonder
Having seen you live and in person, there is no way any sane person would make that mistake. Hell, your bra was peeking out of your blouse at times (there's enough male in me to notice and appreciate such things) so it would be astonishing that such a booboo would occur two days in a row.
Or maybe fashion in Oklahoma has progressed to the point where men are wearing mini skirts?
It was probably more context.
You were doing something more expected of me, I suspect the bloke didn't take in what he was seeing, also voice is important so he may have been reacting to that. I have noticed many American trans women who still sound like men.
Angharad
A point worth noting
While quite obviously noting the mini-skirt and pigeonholing Barb as "male" the personell still appears to have been respectful.
Maybe Ricky is more correct than he thought?
I don't live in Oklahoma so I can't tell. However, the few comments I have got on my mini-skirts have all been positive. I did not wear one of those when voting in the EU parlament elections though. I wore a shortish tennis style lilac dress. Neither the inexperienced lady receiving my vote nor the more expert hijab wearing lady helping her raised an eyebrow.