Misgendered

A few weeks ago while working at the wine shop where I have a part-time job, a customer came in wanting several bottles of wine for a party she was having that evening. I introduced myself and began to assist her in her selection. After finding several bottles she indicated that she wanted me to call my boss, the shop owner, to talk with her, so I summoned her to the front of the store. The two of them talked about the purchase while I continued to bring other bottles as requested by the owner to fulfill the customer’s wishes. She purchased several bottles so we collected them into a box for easier transport. At this point the owner asked the customer if she could help her carry the box out to the store. The customer looked directly at me and said “I was going to have him help me.” My boss graciously said she would help her and they left the store. I felt demeaned, because I had told this customer my name, she had seen that in every way possible I present myself as the woman I am and despite this she chose to look me in the eye and refer to me as “him.” We call this “misgendering” and it happens all the time for transgender people.

Some people misgender me by accident. This happens most often on the phone because my voice does not present as quintessentially feminine, but when I introduce myself to the caller as Andrea, I do expect them to recognize that this is a female name and interact with me accordingly. Some people have known me for a long time and struggle to transition their pronoun usage. My own mother is in this category, though her support has been total and unconditional. I recognize that it is hard for her to make the switch after a lifetime of viewing me another way and I try to be patient with her, though I will now correct her when she does it in public settings. While it can be very uncomfortable and awkward, being misgendered by a friend or old acquaintance accidentally occasionally is tolerable because I know I can gently remind them and that they are trying to adjust their speech. My newer friends almost always get their terms correct.

However, some people, such as the customer in the store, deliberately choose to misgender me. I have had people who have looked me in the eye, heard my name, seen my id or my bank card and still choose to refer to me as “sir” or as “him.” This offends me, because it demonstrates a fundamental unwillingness to acknowledge my identity. It’s like saying that I don’t exist.

I do not make it hard for people to “read” me. I am a high femme transgender woman, meaning that I regularly dress and present myself in a way that is markedly feminine according to the norms of our culture. I have a female name. I am a woman and I expect to be acknowledged as such. This is not an unreasonable expectation. It shows respect to me as a person. The other evening I was out to eat with my mother and the waitress asked what she could get us ladies. This honors my identity. Thankfully in my town this type of treatment is more common, so it really stands out to me when someone misgenders me.

Too often I have remained silent when misgendered. I am learning to speak out, to defend my identity and correct those who deliberately refuse to acknowledge it. It does depend on the context, of course. For example, part of the frustration in the interaction at the wine shop that evening was that as a sales woman working with a customer I could not correct her blatant disregard for my identity because that would be bad customer service. I did say something to my boss later about it and she voiced her support for me and said to call her if such incidents should happen in the future. But in other contexts I need to stand up for myself and not let people deny my existence through their choice of words.

You may feel like this is much ado about nothing, that it doesn’t really matter. As a cisgender person you can say this, because you probably never get misgendered. Your identity is acknowledged daily in the way people interact with you. If you are a cisgender woman, that acknowledgement may come in unpleasant, unwanted ways, which is a different but real issue as well. If you are transgender, you almost certainly have been misgendered and understand exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not a small thing. It’s about having your identity acknowledged by others. When people address me as a woman, when they speak about me with the correct feminine pronouns, they indicate that they accept me as who I am. When they don’t, their words indicate that in their eyes I don’t exist.

If you are interacting with a transgender person and are not sure how to address them, I have a very simple suggestion:  Ask them. As I said, my presentation is very clear and people shouldn’t have any struggle with how to interact with me, but other transgender people are more fluid and it may be more difficult to know what they prefer. Ask them. That’s much better than treating them according to your perception of their identity and in the process denying their identity because you are uncertain or, worse, deliberately refuse to acknowledge that they don’t conform to your perspective on gender. Ask them. It’s really not that difficult, is it?