my bosses are still trying to learn, my wife just doesn't speak to me in public because she won't refer to me properly cause she is still fighting for her husband and knows it's a losing battle. my bosses just refer to me by name as much as they can because they know how bitchy i am when someone "sirs" me. i didn't choose to be "out" i just had clueless employees and ones who make no effort at all. tbh, i have had two customers come in to the store and refer to me as Mickie. most customers and other people go by gender presentation, i have gaydar as i can stand behind my little counter and tell you who's gay, lesbian, and androgynous, i've been wrong once, no lie. since i get to see people's names, i either address them by that, or if i can't tell i listent to them talk, and i have heard some VERY masculine voiced women come in despite what people want to say, every woman doesn't have a golden sing song voice. and i have seen plenty of them with 5 o clock shadows too, but identify as women. i knew my one boss was gay before i ever met him, even tho he's quite open about it. i picked out an associate who is a lesbian and i've only had one real conversation with her, with trans people, it's not easy i'm sure especially with the guys(ftm) because it takes awhile for T to kick in and lower the voice, etc, etc, but once that happens it is hard for them to be addressed as anything but with masculine pronouns. mtf's must work on their voice, some of us worry about our heighth and shouldn't as most models are 6 foot or taller, Tyra makes it a point that none of her models be shorter than 5 foot 7. i'd never make it to the finals as i am only 5 foot 9, i'm lucky to be too short. plus i wouldn't want that job anyway..lol. i guess some people inadvertantly or quite rudely try and see which bathroom you use and see if there is any negative reaction to the ones in that bathroom. in my case last night the one customer i figured by now should know to refer to me properly but i'm not sure he knows, because he wasn't rude about it. for those of us that are out like in my situation to some i have to educate them because some people have no idea what the hell transgender and transsexual mean, so they need to be properly and politely educated, we choose to answer whatever questions we feel are appropriate to answer. to some of us, who have worked so hard to be stealth, changing jobs, moved to anoter state or even a country and still get called sir or maam when it should be the other way around, it is disheartening for some of us, especially for someone who has been post-op for say like ten years? tell us how you would feel if someone referred to you as the wrong gender? i can probably say that for someone who is androgynous it wouldn't bother them because they either identify with both or identify with neither, identify as both can lead into being bi-gendered as well. to me personally, i know i don't work on my voice that i didn't really need to, grow breasts, shave my legs, wear the clothing appropriate to my gender, use the ladies room, etc, etc. to be called sir. best bet if you are out and you can't tell how to refer to someone, if you can see a name tag, use their name. you can't see it, i never find it rude to ask someone their name if i feel it's necessary. that of course doesn't work with gender neutral names of course, with that i think we're all screwed. Mickie is the name given to me by my Grandma when i was little, it's why i kept it, but unfortunately it is also gender neutral, but i am woman and present as nothing less...
i hope this helps Del,
and welcome to the site,
Warrior Princess Mickie
