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getting used to pronouns.

Started by amber roskamp, August 07, 2014, 10:27:31 PM

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amber roskamp

Quote from: Lazarus Plus on August 17, 2014, 01:09:35 PM
Great topic. This is something I've been wondering about, how other people react... The few times in my life where I had a really really fit body and hair past my shoulder blades, I'd have my back to someone at work. I'd turn around and have people go "whoa I thought you were a girl do you have a sister" and I couldn't believe how good it made me feel. I'd been trying to be ok with being a guy for a long long time at that point. The feeling of validation from that, as opposed to any male form of address where I felt glum or nothing was shocking. Has anyone else had an experience like that?
yea i have definitely been told i look like a girl from behind, it also made feel awesome. being refered to as male is pretty disappointing to me though
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Felix

It took me awhile to get used to it, but like Hyacinth I've always had trouble (especially in childhood) mixing up even cispeople's pronouns. And I would get called "he" a lot before transition until I learned to pitch my voice higher and do all the other right girl cues, and I dressed boyish, so I had a lifetime of people using male pronouns at first glance and then profusely apologizing. Or people on the phone thinking I was a teenaged boy. So then in transition that kept happening for awhile, and then it reversed for awhile, where someone would say "she" and then apologize (though lol not as profusely), and it all just felt interchangeable. I didn't start getting used to hearing for-sure male pronouns until I had been consistently read as male for a long time.

Now I think I'm pretty used to it, but sometimes I falsely think I hear "she" in reference to me, sorta like how you think your phone is vibrating when it's not. Old habits die hard. It doesn't help that there are a few people in my life who are not accepting of my transition and won't stop misgendering me, but luckily those people are in the minority.

It's nice to take hearing the right pronouns for granted, but I hope I always remember to notice occasionally how good it makes me feel. :)
everybody's house is haunted
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Julia-Madrid

Quote from: Felix on August 20, 2014, 08:18:32 PM
Now I think I'm pretty used to it, but sometimes I falsely think I hear "she" in reference to me, sorta like how you think your phone is vibrating when it's not. Old habits die hard.

Yeah, the "mishearing" of things is a pain, isn't it?   Occasionally I'm not sure if people are calling me "señor" instead of "señora" or "chico" instead of "chica" (girl). 

And this past weekend I was with a Portuguese female friend who kept using the pronoun "we" in the masculine when making travel and dinner arrangements for us.  Well, it's a natural error - there is no feminine version in Portuguese, but eventually I was like "Aaaaaargh.  If you keep saying 'nosotros' they're going to think that one of us is male!"

However, FFS has pretty much fixed this (YAY!)  :D; if only the damn hair removal would work now!  :(
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