When to make them call you "he"

[JohnAlex]

When did you guys start making family/friends refer to you with male pronouns?

Because they won't start calling you "he" unless you make them.
It's like with my name.  Even though for a long time I knew what I wanted to change my name to, I felt like I couldn't ask people to call me by it until I had legally change my name.  And even then, I had to make them, because they didn't want to put forth the effort to call me something different.

And I feel the same way about male pronouns now.  Of course I wish people would call me by them, but I kinda feel like I can't ask them to do so until I get my gender marker changed or at least start HRT so that I actually sound like a guy.


So at what point in your transition did you guys start making family/friends refer to you with male pronouns?

[N.Chaos]

It varies, for me. For a long time, I was only insistent on it when I was in public, or if they were talking about me to someone else. I was always afraid of meeting a friend of a friend for the first time and them thinking I was a girl, and then seeing me and there being a huge mess of awkwardness.

The name wasn't any change, with friends at least. My close friends have always called me Nick, Nix or Nicky at least. Most of my family does the same, but I only started specifying why I hate my full name to them a few months ago.

[JohnAlex]

Thanksgiving break.  I came out to them in July, and they have not begun to try and switch over despite my request to do so.  I'm willing to let them get into it slowly, only periodically reminding them, but come break when I have to live with them again, I'm putting my foot down.   

And can I ask how well do you pass?  Are you on T yet?

I feel like I should just put my foot down too.  but I don't know when I should.

[Nygeel]

It all depends on how you feel and what would be safe. I've been out for many years and don't really enforce being called "he."

[sneakersjay]

I waited until I had changed my name and had started passing, and came out at work, which was approx the 3 month mark on T.


Jay

[jessman3]

for me personally, calling me by the right pronouns and name is about respect. its not about passing or acceptance. i dont care if i walk in a room wearing a tiara and heels, if i say my name is jesse then thats what i expect people to call me.

[JohnAlex]

I pass nearly 100% to strangers, but to my family I just look like me.  They've seen me presenting male since I was six.  No T.  Yet.  I tend to seek change only when I can't stand it anymore, so... not sure if that's good advice, but that's how I decide when to progress.

lol, yeah, that's pretty much how I do it too.   And even though I don't pass (once I talk), it's still really starting to annoy me.  and I'm wondering how long I can/should keep waiting.

[Jeh]

I was kind of lucky. My family still calls me my female name and 'she' though I've asked them to try to switch. That's not so lucky. But my friends switched to calling me 'he' by themselves. They asked flat out, "when do you want me to start calling you he?" And I wasn't sure, because I wanted to wait until I was passing first.

A few months ago, when I was just on the cusp of passing consistently, one of my friends texted me and said "oh by the way I'm calling you 'he' now." Before I'd even asked her to start calling me he. It was pretty cool.

And one of my other friends referred to me as 'he' in a facebook conversation with a mutual friend around the same time. Before I'd asked.

The rest of them were out of town for the summer because we're all university students, and when they came back to school in September they just called me 'he'.

I did have to ask them to call me by my male name at first, but that was a year ago and I wasn't passing then. My friends made the switch pretty well, my family, not so much.

[JohnAlex]

for me personally, calling me by the right pronouns and name is about respect. its not about passing or acceptance. i dont care if i walk in a room wearing a tiara and heels, if i say my name is jesse then thats what i expect people to call me.

I definitely agree about names.  But I feel like pronouns are different (maybe?). 
I definitely will make me call by the name I want which is also my new legal name.

but pronouns... I mean, if you think about what pronouns means.  Whether you call someone "he" or "she" is about how you see them.   I call all cats a "she" unless I've been corrected, because I just see cats as more feminine and dogs as more masculine.  of course I know that there does exist female dogs and male cats.  but the pronouns I choose to use on a person/animal is because of how I view them and judge them. 

And so I feel like people I know call me "she" because that's how they view me.  and how can I blame them when my voice is still so female?
Maybe I'm reading too much into.  I guess I just feel like I can't yet ask this of them.  that I think I should be in a place where I pass as male first, before I ask them.
But maybe I'm just coming up with excuses.

[wheat thins are delicious]

You can't make them do anything, you can't make anyone do anything.  You can ask them to do it, tell them it's out of respect, cry cause they won't, have anger, explain how it makes you feel and how it looks to others but it still won't make them do anything.  At least this has been my experience.  My mom will not call me he, she will not call me my preferred name.  But at least she calls me "child" in public.  We went to the bank today and she called me "she" continually but it didn't matter because the teller consistently called me "he" and Andrew.
There are some who support you so much that they will call you he/him/preferred name no matter how femme you look or sound.   

but the pronouns I choose to use on a person/animal is because of how I view them and judge them. 

And that is why people are using the pronouns/name they do for you, because you haven't corrected them.

And so I feel like people I know call me "she" because that's how they view me.  and how can I blame them when my voice is still so female?

Remember that there are cis men out there who look and/or have voices that sound what others would consider feminine, just as there are cis women out there who look and/or have voices that sound like what others would consider masculine.  It has nothing to do with maleness or femaleness. 

Maybe I'm reading too much into.  I guess I just feel like I can't yet ask this of them.  that I think I should be in a place where I pass as male first, before I ask them.

If you try to wait till you pass fully as male 100% before asking people to call you he/him/preferred name you may be waiting a year or more.  T is not magical and sometimes it takes a long time to work on some people.  It's taken me many many months to pass nearly 100% of the time and before I was passing a whole lot having those people that called me he/my preferred name helped make the hard time I was having because I wasn't passing a lot better.

But maybe I'm just coming up with excuses.

If you are, maybe it's out of fear of how others will react.

[Vincent E.S.]

In all the letters I wrote to people, I stated that I would  prefer to be called by a male name and with male pronouns. Pretty much all of my teachers started immediately. The only friend I had who hasn't left my school yet had known about me being trans for years, so as soon as I was out publicly, she started saying 'he' and my male name.
My mother kind of tried, but my dad didn't put in any effort at all. When I expressed some displeasure over his lack of effort, my mother said that I had to ask him to call me Vincent and 'he' so I did so. Since then, my mom always tries to refer to me correctly, but my dad forgets a lot.
Some kids at my school take great pride in being able to switch pronouns and names pretty quickly, so they'll correct some other students, but many of the kids still aren't aware yet and I'm not sure how to say "By the way, I'm actually a guy and my name is Vincent."

So, most of the people in my life respect me a lot, so they've tried to switch over, but for those who don't, I'm in the same boat as you. 
I'm pretty androgynous looking, so strangers will just go by whatever someone calls me.

[Kohitsu]

I've struggled with this issue with my family a lot. It took my dad time to call me by my legal name, but he eventually got it. But the pronouns are so much harder. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but... I suppose it's because I haven't been correcting him with pronouns as harshly as I did when he called me the wrong name. But at the same time I don't want to push him too hard. I want to be respected by being referred to as 'he', but is this asking too much of my family? 

[MaxAloysius]

Everyone in my life (except my Aunt, because she's a *****) changed over to calling me my new name the day I had it changed. I haven't enforced the pronouns yet, because like someone earlier said, I don't want to make them look foolish when I clearly don't pass. However, I've started passing consistently (while my mouth is closed) and I'm thinking soon I will make them change over.

While I've never asked people to call me 'he', I have put my foot down about female roles and 'pet' names. Woe betide anyone who calls me 'darling', 'woman' or 'missy', etc. And I won't stand by my bosses telling me I'm a 'good girl' either.

In the end though, it's all just down to what you personally can stand other's calling you day in and day out.

[tvc15]

Don't wait for T changes before you start telling people to call you "he". Sure, your family will see and notice the changes, but they'll still always see you differently than strangers do, that's just a fact of life. I don't mean they'll never see you as male, but they've known you your whole life and it takes a long time to break a habit that's been formed over the span of many years. Ask them to make the switch whenever you feel like you need to hear it, your personal appearance or voice be damned. People slipping up and saying "she" is sometimes genuinely just that--a slip of the tongue. They didn't necessarily say it because they were thinking of you as female. I've been on T since late June but everyone has been using male pronouns since the beginning of this year. Since then, I've had quite a few family members tell me they don't see me as female at all anymore, but they still accidentally "she" me once in a while, just from force of habit. So, the sooner they start saying "he," the longer they can get used to it, the less chance they'll have of slipping up once your appearance starts to reflect your true self.

[JohnAlex]

Everyone in my life (except my Aunt, because she's a *****) changed over to calling me my new name the day I had it changed. I haven't enforced the pronouns yet, because like someone earlier said, I don't want to make them look foolish when I clearly don't pass. However, I've started passing consistently (while my mouth is closed) and I'm thinking soon I will make them change over.

While I've never asked people to call me 'he', I have put my foot down about female roles and 'pet' names. Woe betide anyone who calls me 'darling', 'woman' or 'missy', etc. And I won't stand by my bosses telling me I'm a 'good girl' either.

In the end though, it's all just down to what you personally can stand other's calling you day in and day out.

This is exactly how I feel as well.  after I speak, everyone knows I'm a female. would it just cause awkward/embarrassment  if they tried to call me "he" when I don't pass?

[Arch]

Because they won't start calling you "he" unless you make them.

This wasn't much of an issue for me. My ex (who was then my partner) needed to be reminded, but I cut him a lot of slack. He tended to avoid using pronouns anyway. I wasn't in touch with my family, so I didn't have to suffer their incorrect pronouns. My friends rarely needed to be reminded, but I did have to harp on a few staff people at work.

I figured that when I was irritated enough to say something to the person, that was the right time to say it. Or perhaps it was just a little AFTER I should have said something, because if I'd said it earlier, there wouldn't have been an edge in my voice.

[Natkat]

its alittle diffrent for me,

about my name its unisex and I got 2 kinds of pronoucing of it, the one I call myself and my famely call me under is in male pronoucing so when I teel my name for the first time to people who dont know me they asume its a male name, and even in the unisex verision its still pretty unusual for a girl to be named in my country. I chanced my name at the age of 17 after starting on a new school and it where very simple since only very few knew me under my old name and my famely didnt really had a chance to try ignore my new name since teacher and students would get confussed if they pronouced me under my old name. which I had nothing in common with.

for the pronoucing parts its more difficult. and so far I wont wait to I pass or get my gender market chance, the last one becasue its very difficult and almost imposible where I live, and I must wait at least 7 years before I even could do it (because of alot of stupid laws)
I got many who respect it and call me, or at least try to call me he.
I accept a she if its where a mistake, my famely still call me she, but I have talked to them a couple of times and I think they give it a try.

for my famely they still goes with she, but I dont think it would be imposible for them to say he,
my mother had called me under he a few times and my dad try talking unisex by not saying either she or he if he can.
there excuse have been that they would get use to my new name first and its okay but now I kinda expect them to have got use to it so now Im trying to learn them to say he.
-
for friends its alittle diffrent, my friends call me he but the people im with but I wont really consider friends.
(classmates,teachers, and so on) are going by 50% he and 50% she.
I hate when they call me she and yet I am so bad at correcting them, which also make me turn alittle angry on myself,
I just get all quiet insteed where I normally tend to be talktive.

I think it helped the fact that on my schools I have told everyone I was trans and they should call me he,
even at the very accepting places you cant make everyone call you he, there will always be someone who for a reason or another wont do that, or who find it diffult, but you would make it more easy so you dont have to go to every single person telling them to call you he.

I think people who call me she because there unsure or because they cant get use to it, can learn it,
but I always have more faith in people who call me he, and I also lose trust in people if there all refusing to call me he . I mean why dose it even matter to them? the only diffrent is it makes me more happy.

I also get angry if other people call my friends by names or something they dont like, not even if its there original name and they still refuse to call the person by another nickname or something.

[Tomas]

One year ago I bought two prairie dogs as my pets. I named the girl Sandy and the boy Chappi. I was used to call Sandy - oh, my sweet little girl, my darling - and talk to Chappi - oh, you are such a big boy. After six months, as they were growing up, I found out that I mixed them up. In fact, Sandy was a boy and Chappi was a girl. It was very surprising for me and a little bit difficult that my sweet girl is a boy and my brawny boy is a girl. But I got used to it quickly. I know they were not transsexuals, it was just my mistake, but it is a little bit similar to what a family can feel when they must call their child with a new name and respect their real gender. Names are just words. Words are just letters. They mean nothing. At least they mean much less than the love of the parents to their children. So I think that parents, the whole family and friends should be able to respect the new name and the real gender of their beloved child/grandchild/friend. If they call you with the wrong name - try not to react

[Tomas]

Oh, I will add - I made them call me "he" when my voice began to lower. I think it was after the third or fourth shot.

[Kale]

I didn't "make" them, really. But as soon as I came out, they began to make the effort to refer to me as such. It's been over a year now, and they still slip up a lot, but hey, they're trying. Now that my name is changed (legally), they're trying to get used to calling me that as well. When they slip up, I'll give them a look, or just ignore them until they realize it and fix their mistake, but I haven't really had to "make" them. They did that on their own, I just give little reminders here and there when needed.