Awkward Moment At Store Today

[Guest JAB]

April will be 7 years since I started Testosterone.. I have not been refered to as "she" since close to the start..with the exception of phone calls..

A person living on this property is the most opinionated jerk when it comes to LGBT issues.. and to be blunt he is quite the aggressive form of homophobe.. and he has come out and spent hours here in the past talking to me and so forth and he has never picked up on the fact I am FTM.. He refers to me as son and has a great respect for me as a man. Anyways I was at the store getting groceries and an older lady refered to me as she... I had not said a word at all outloud..and usually the adrogonous voice is more inclined to make people assume im homosexual instead of ftm or she or any of that even if i spoke and dont realize i spoke outloud.... and I know my appearance doesnt reflect female.. so I sum it up as just one of those weird things that happens and I keep going without letting it get to me too much or thinking twice about my level of sucess thus far with transition...

I did however find it really awkward... that for the first time in several years someone refered to me as she.. and even though I am secure with my level of sucess with transition and my degree of masculinity... i am finding myself trying to see it from her eyes to identify what gave it away.or if there was anything going on that could have gave it away... but in the end I am confident that it was just one of those weird things that happens.. hell I have mistaken bioguys for females... I know it happens..

maybe i am decieving myself by saying it doesnt really bother me... or maybe this is just a really sensitive time to have to deal with such a thing.. and therefore it is exagerated.. and by the end of the day I will be able to let it go... Heck I remember back in the days where i was kinda inbetween and refered to as female half the time and male the other half of the time... it never bothered me much..

I guess now in life with the things i struggle with I have just lost a lot of confidence... therefor when another person second guesses me, or my opinions or beliefs or whatever I am more inclined to feel they are more credible then I am and so I start to believe what they say, think, feel etc whether it is wrong or right..and then take steps to correct things as they feel it should be.

Kinda a dangerous place to be..

I know what I am... who I am.. I am not ashamed of being FTM... or schizophrenia... I am however ashamed of the events that take place and the feelings that result from both.. anyways I guess I just need to rebuild confidence so such simple things dont serve to lower confidence even more..

And Im sorry this is long and fulling of blabber.. I guess I'm just thinking outloud.. and this is the safest place I have to do it seeing as nobody I have contact with in real life knows about it.

[Guest Mr. Fox]

Dude, is she blind. You look more masculine than most guys I know.

[Guest JAB]

I have no idea what was going on with that situation really... I wish for 2 seconds I could see myself through her eyes lol..

I dunno... surely it is just One of those awkward things that happen sometimes.. if it happens again anytime soon maybe It will be worth looking into..

Maybe she was linked to this community in some way and that was her way of indirectly letting me know she knew what was going on.... who the heck knows.. All I know is the guy at the register gave her a funny look and said HE!... I didnt even have to say anything... not that I would have said anything anyways..

My mother always caught some pretty wacked looks when she refered to me as her daughter... In the end she was the one they believed was crazy.. lol and several people really believed she was. haha After a a few years and hundreds of scoldings I got because "You are a mirror image of your father" who she hates so much, youd think shed catch on some..

I let it go and didnt verbally encourage use of male pronouns with her because to be honest I enjoyed seeing her embarrassed when she realized what she had done and also realised people thought she had a few screws loose. Don't get me wrong I encouraged it for the first few years btu after that i figured she could face the consequences ... And I'd remind her that introducing me as her daughter and using female pronouns only served to make her look a little off not me..

Anyways... today was just one of those things.... something... cant be bothered having to disect every second of my time spent at the register and try and remember what i did how I did it or who was where etc... my mind has other things to tear apart.. figure out and solve.. that ones just not important.. I guess I was just in a mood and I let it get to me..I shouldnt have..

[Guest GoldenKirbichu]

This is just one of those creepy things. I still have times where I get ma'amed, usually over the phone, and it really bites... but I gotta remember that not everyone knows.

[Guest Michelle M]

The problem with old people is that eyesight is usually the first thing to go! She was probably going just off your voice alone, and her hearing aid was missing some of your masculine voice cues.

[Guest Just_Call_Me_Nick]

The problem with old people is that eyesight is usually the first thing to go! She was probably going just off your voice alone, and her hearing aid was missing some of your masculine voice cues.

I have to agree on this one...older people tend to make those mistakes...shoot I remember when I was a regular female and some old person called me sir...and visa versa now...they are old...their eye sight is not as good...they are just old and make some mistakes....I wouldn't beat yourself up over it really...

Nick~

[Guest Gabriel]

My voice and facial/body features are to the point where I don't get mistaken for being female due to them, however in thinking about the rare times when people do say the wrong thing I believe it is due to them not looking close enough as opposed to looking extremely close. No matter my amount of facial hair, I'm still on the shorter side height wise and I'm very thin, so I can see how a cashier might half glance at me and after helping hundreds of customers all day, their brain only register "Short person = Girl." It's not that my past is a scarlet letter for all to see, because if the lady/gentleman would look at my face or hear my voice they would know the truth. Not to diminish your feelings of being hurt...It's a blow to me when it happens too. What I try to do though is make them correct it and pick it up positively. I've been known to say in a restaurant for example when mistaken, "Actually that's Sir" and then reply to the apologetic response "Well, you can give me a discount and we'll call it even." I've found that when they realize they've screwed up it's generally more uncomfortable for them than for me, so I turn it around and make them laugh. My problem is my height and I understand that because of it (when I'm not wearing tall shoes) a side glance could make someone thing I'm not who I am. That's okay though, another reminder I've said when people comment about my height is that dynamite comes in small packages. Hang in there Buddy.

[Guest Drew]

My voice and facial/body features are to the point where I don't get mistaken for being female due to them, however in thinking about the rare times when people do say the wrong thing I believe it is due to them not looking close enough as opposed to looking extremely close. No matter my amount of facial hair, I'm still on the shorter side height wise and I'm very thin, so I can see how a cashier might half glance at me and after helping hundreds of customers all day, their brain only register "Short person = Girl." It's not that my past is a scarlet letter for all to see, because if the lady/gentleman would look at my face or hear my voice they would know the truth. Not to diminish your feelings of being hurt...It's a blow to me when it happens too. What I try to do though is make them correct it and pick it up positively. I've been known to say in a restaurant for example when mistaken, "Actually that's Sir" and then reply to the apologetic response "Well, you can give me a discount and we'll call it even." I've found that when they realize they've screwed up it's generally more uncomfortable for them than for me, so I turn it around and make them laugh. My problem is my height and I understand that because of it (when I'm not wearing tall shoes) a side glance could make someone thing I'm not who I am. That's okay though, another reminder I've said when people comment about my height is that dynamite comes in small packages. Hang in there Buddy.

i get that a bit also. i mean if someone were to see me from the front or talk to me it's painfully obvious that i'm a guy, but i'm also quite vertically challenged so sometimes from behind or from the side people will assume short person=girl. but really, don't beat yourself up about it. older people have trouble seeing and hearing.

Drew

[Guest Sakura_Stingray]

you know...this could happen not only from old people....i remember a few times i picked up the phone and answered...the person on the other line thought i was my cousin...my cousin at the time was in high school and she would always get calls from this guy...when i said i was her cousin jonathan he said "whoa dude you realy need to start drinking or els you will be stuck with a girl voice you freak" ever since then i stopped picking up phones...for that mattter i didnt speak for a whole week... so teeenaers can mistaken voices sometimes too...but thinking over it again maby he was just drunk...

[Guest JAB]

Ehh I know.. I think I have let that event go.. like i said had to be her... and I had not spoken out loud that i could remember.. so it wasnt a fluctaton in the voice..

If someone mistakes someone who looks like this as a girl... the problem is their own..lol...just a bad day to happen i guess and it rubbed me the wrong way.

[Guest Sakura_Stingray]

heh you look like my cousin;s ex b.f,,,,no offence but the bald head brings ou the mcho redneck look in guys

[Nick J]

*chokes on words* YOU?!?!?! cmon... are eye exams hard to go by in the US

seriously though, that sucks... im sorry

- nickj