So today was the first day of our induction at college (for none UK people college here is where you learn vocational skills, like Engineering, Hair and Beauty, Childcare etc normally post-16) and I'm doing an Engineering Operations and Maintenance course so it's all male (there's three females loosely in the Engineering department but we'll never be in the same room after the induction period probably so I'm not counting them). I've been pretty worried because I've been enrolled as a female with female name etc because I'm not out, people know me, and I have no faith in the people I'd have to talk to about it. And also because I'm pretty worried what they'd be like if they found out about me being trans seeing as it's the roughest part of the area (four car windows got smashed on the grounds yesterday and a guy got started on this morning just for walking on his own and being smallish).
Anyway, my one friend from my old school who's also going has a habit of introducing me by saying, "Oh and this is [birthname], she's a lesbian/gay." I'm not too bothered as it gets it out there so they're not shocked and freaked out later when a he uses my birthname/a teacher does/they see it on my ID card, it's annoying but I can see the benefits. The interesting part was that one guy who'd been introduced to me as such kept calling me 'he' without even realising it, someone called him up on it once and he had no idea that he'd said it. I don't know whether it was because I was passing and it was confusing him, or whether it was because we'd had a good chat where I obviously seemed just like another guy on the way to Subway before he found out my name or anything, but there must of been something that was subconsciously telling him to use male pronouns for me 99% the time.
It'll probably wear off as more and more people know me and start calling me by female ones, unless they go with 'he' subconsciously as well, but I still found it an interesting thing to note seeing as he knew I was 'female' and used my birthname but still ended up using male pronouns, and didn't change the way he treated me at all after he found out.
