Strangers humoring me?

[ShadowCharms]

I started HRT about 13 months ago. I also started wearing women's clothing full time shortly after that. Fairly quickly, the number of people calling me "sir" dropped, and there was a long period where aside from the occasional "ma'am" or "miss", people mostly just awkwardly avoided using any prnouns with me. Then at about 6 months, the number of people calling me "ma'am" or less frequently, "miss" went up and up. Now, I don't remember the last time someone called me "sir" unless it was on the phone, and people call me "ma'am" very frequently.

I want to believe that this is happening because I'm passing, but doubts keep creeping into my mind. I dress very femininely, and I wear makeup every day. I often discount being gendered correctly as "people just being trans friendly and polite". My voice is still fairly deep, and if I'm on the phone, there's still a pretty good chance of me being called "sir". I'm especially baffled by cases where people use female pronouns with in person me after I talk, because I'm not that confident in my voice yet. What I'm wondering is: how often do people notice that someone is dressing as a woman, and just use female pronouns with them to make them feel better?

[amber roskamp]

I don't know where your from, but where I am from there really aren't people that will go out of there way to be trans friendly. if you are getting ma'am'd by strangers I would take as a really good sign that ur passing.

[ShadowCharms]

I'm from the Denver area of Colorado.

[mrs izzy]

I found its the continence factor.

People in general are to busy to climb up in your face so that we give they accept.

[amber roskamp]

I'm from the Denver area of Colorado.

I hear Denver is pretty trans friendly so maybe, but still doubtful if you are consistently getting called she w/ be called he on accident then u probably pass pretty well. I think most people will avoid pronouns if they don't know what gender you are.

[suzifrommd]

What I'm wondering is: how often do people notice that someone is dressing as a woman, and just use female pronouns with them to make them feel better?

From what I've heard from my non-passing friend, and from what I've noticed when my passability is at low ebb, most people do. Most respectful, polite, empathetic people see that they clearly want to be seen as a woman and wouldn't dream of offending us.

There are those that gender us male and then subconsciously use the wrong pronoun. I've had people do that and when corrected, don't even realize what they've said.

And then there are those who are hostile, disrespectful people who deliberately use the wrong pronoun. I have met maybe one or two of them in the past year. They seem to be quite rare in my area. Maybe other parts of the world they are more common.