This is long, or, looks like it. Sorry.
Last year, throughout most of the time at my job, I "passed" pretty well. There were a few people who thought I was a girl, which, since I didn't come out to my managers and co-workers until a bit later in the year, (I got the job in May, came out in September.) was mostly brought on by them. That was okay though; my fault, I accepted it.
Sure, it bothered me, but whatever, right?
Anyway, I wound up working elsewhere as a dog bather/groomer in training for about two weeks (at the end of last month and beginning of this month) and at that place, even though my boss knew I was a guy, and referred to me as such, none of her clients (and I mean NONE of them) would consider me a guy. They would all refer to me as a female, no matter what my boss said.
This bothered me, a lot. Made me pretty ticked off, to be honest, but, I ignored it. I only see these people one time, just one, maybe two depending on if they are on a package. Now, I never brought this up, because of how little I saw each person, so it didn't matter.
Now, I got my old job back (as this one didn't work out for other reasons), and I've realized that it is as though I'm not a guy at all. Every single customer, new and old, think I'm a girl! I dress and act the exact same as I did before and it's as though I've just walked into the place wearing a dress (which, some guys wear dresses, but, you get the point).
I don't exactly look much like a girl at all (or I think I don't) so my only guess is that when they look at me, they think I'm a lesbian or something (which, there are a good bit working at the stores around where I live, and very few guys). This idea further backed by by the fact that people have called me a dyke before while I was working. They've called me a ->-bleeped-<-got before as well, (when people saw me as male, haha) this was before the job switching, but it happened multiple times.
So, I've been thinking about it a lot; I look/act/dress how I always have, and people are just... what? I don't get it, at all, and it's been really getting at me. I have anxiety, and while it has gotten better since I came out and started presenting fully as male, I do have anxiety attacks occasionally... well, they've been growing scarily frequent lately, because of this. It's also started to change my overall attitude at work, so while I'm usually polite and easygoing, I've been getting tense and, though I smile, I'm pretty sure it looks forced.
So, my problem ; I can't figure out why I'm being seen as a girl now, when just weeks ago, 90% of the people I encountered saw me as male. (Also, though not the main topic I've put up here, people just... everywhere are like this now, not just at work. It's like... no one believes I'm a man?)
