Trigger phrases

[kyle_lawrence]

I've never really gotten the super feminine nicknames, luckily.  My dad always called me his "little bug", or just Bug growing up.  I also heard a story for the first time tonight, about how I was a skunk for some school play thing in pre-school, so he called me stinker for a while after that, usually when I was being a brat.

I grew up working on horse farms, and doing all the heavy lifting (water buckets, bags of grain, hay bales, pushing wheelbarrows...) that goes along with it, so I've always been stronger than I look, and stubborn enough to let people know it.  Eventually all my employers have figured out that I'm easier to deal with if they just let me do the "mens jobs", like getting all the carts from the parking lot.

The holding the door for me thing is super obnoxious.

[Arch]

"Ladies" used to get me even before I knew that there were FTM transsexuals. Thank heaven I don't have to deal with that anymore.

[Espenoah]

I'm so happy I'm not the only one who gets angry at the door thing! Me and a guy friend of mine always have awkward moments where one of us holds the door open and neither of us go...and then he eventually gives up and walks on through. He knows that if he waited for me to go that neither of us would get inside. I'm too stubborn.

Strangely, I've never had a problem with the heavy lifting thing. Maybe it's because I look stronger than most guys. Actually, I'm usually the one asked to help move stuff.

[Arch]

Hunh. Now I'm remembering some things I would prefer to forget. Half a dozen trans people, both men and women, at a trans-aware gay-owned restaurant in the gay part of town. The gals have skirts, long hair, breasts. The guys have short hair, binders, pants. One guy has facial hair. The server calls us "ladies." Um, yeah.

[Devin87]

I also hate when people write off everything I do because they don't like one thing about me.  For instance, my mom is convinced that nothing I do will last and so nothing should be taken seriously because I was an atheist in high school, then I went back to Catholicism in college and now I'm Jewish a year out of college.  I thought it was because high school/college/young adulthood was a time of self-discovery, but it's appearently because I can't make up my mind and so nothing I do should be taken seriously and everything I care about should be made fun of, including my feelings on gender/sexuality.

[Jeatyn]

I also hate when people write off everything I do because they don't like one thing about me.  For instance, my mom is convinced that nothing I do will last and so nothing should be taken seriously because I was an atheist in high school, then I went back to Catholicism in college and now I'm Jewish a year out of college.  I thought it was because high school/college/young adulthood was a time of self-discovery, but it's appearently because I can't make up my mind and so nothing I do should be taken seriously and everything I care about should be made fun of, including my feelings on gender/sexuality.

I get this too, I feel your pain.

I move around a lot, and cannot stick to one college course/career because I change my mind half way through. Even Dr Curtis asked me why I thought I would stick to my decision of wanting to transition if I couldn't stick to anything else.

[Crow]

On another note, pretty much any recognition of my female body, or assertion that I am female in any way, offends me.  Of course, I hate the classic "Hey, ladies" I get when eating out with my mother.  Although sometimes my father and brother get that, too, as they have long hair... I remember once, we all went out for dinner and we were addressed as "ladies", and my mother goes, "Wow, I'm the only one they got right."   

That's pretty great. XD Your mom's reaction sounds like it was worth being mistaken for a lady.

[Greg]

Until very recently my mum had this thing where if I asked her to pass something to me she would say something along the lines of "Here you are Madame"

Example:
Me-"Can you pass the salt please"
Mum-"The salt, Madame"

I don't know if she had ambitions to be a French waiter but it badly pissed me off when she said it. And she would say this at least once a day until about a month ago when I flipped on her for saying it.

[Squirrel698]

My partner use to call me 'wifey' and 'pooky'.  Just to see how irritated I would get.  He use to think it was funny until he understood that it really was bothering me.  Thankfully he hasn't done that for a while.

These days being called ma'am, miss or any variation by customer service people drives me insane.  They can see how I am dress, and how my hair is cut and how I am presenting myself.  I really am going to start correcting them because enough is enough.  My partner says they will laugh at me but if they do that I'm getting the manager and lowering the boom.  I'm buying their damn food, they are going to treat me the way I want to be treated. 

[Vancha]

Oi, the horrible names we've had to put up with!

When I was younger, "pumpkin" was mine, courtesy of my dad.  I understand his feelings, of course, and I don't blame him at all.  I just don't particularly like his name choices.  In a way, though, it's sad to know that I've deprived so many people of the daughter/granddaughter/etcetera that they thought they had.

[Arch]

These days being called ma'am, miss or any variation by customer service people drives me insane.  They can see how I am dress, and how my hair is cut and how I am presenting myself.  I really am going to start correcting them because enough is enough.  My partner says they will laugh at me but if they do that I'm getting the manager and lowering the boom.  I'm buying their damn food, they are going to treat me the way I want to be treated.

I figure that if we're not "passing" and we're out in straight society, they just think we're very masculine-appearing women. In gay society, at least in my city, servers bend over backward to show that they recognize us as women. They apparently see many very butch lesbians who strongly identify as women...and the butches become very angry and even vocal when they are not recognized as women. I had a server once who was obviously SO PROUD that he read me and my companion as gals. My friend's wife was muttering under her breath, "Can't he tell that you're MEN?" Nope. As far as he was concerned, he was doing the right thing. I wasn't going to go into Trans 101 for this guy because I knew it was a matter of months before everyone read me as male anyway. (That's exactly what happened, and I still wonder what they're seeing that I don't see.)

I've heard that it's hardest for FTMs to be read as male in San Francisco. Can anyone attest to that?

[VampyreAri]

"Let me carry/lift/get that for you" drives me crazy. I can lift a lot more than most of the cisguys I encounter yet they want to be the ones lifting the heavy things? I don't think so. It usually results in me glaring and snatching whatever it is back. Doesn't matter how heavy it is. Must not look weak!
Also: 'for a young lady' makes me usually want to hit someone. Usually it's my gramps harassing me about 'that's not proper language for a young lady'. I just glare and mutter that I'm not a 'young lady'. But since he's a conservative old fool with anger issues and I'm not even thinking of being out to him anytime soon, I can't really say anything.
As for nicknames... 'Sweetie', 'angel', 'baby girl', 'girly girl', and 'honey' are all courtesy of my mum. It drives me absolutely up the wall. And when I reply with my usual 'not a girl, stop calling me that', I usually get a 'oh... right... baby... thing then'. Because obviously 'not a girl' is equal to 'thing' in her universe.
Sometimes she just uses 'kid' or 'kiddo' though. Much much better.

[kyril]

I've heard the same about San Francisco. But Seattle's been very easy on me despite the large gay community. I'm not sure if it's the gayness of the city that matters so much as the butchness of the lesbians in it.

[Squirrel698]

Well that's a disappointment about San Francisco.  I'm going there this October for a wedding and I was looking forward to being seen as myself while I was there. 

That sounds like that won't be the case.  Unless the T does some astounding things in the next couple of months. 

[kyril]

As in, not many extremely butch lesbians? I'm not very familiar with the lesbian scene anywhere, so I suppose I couldn't say. I can say that gay men in Seattle were one of the groups I passed the most among when pre-T.

Yep, I've had the same experience, it's really really easy to pass in the Seattle gay scene.

My guess is that in places with a lot of very butch lesbians, people become accustomed to looking more closely for signs of femaleness. That would account for the difference between SF and Seattle - Seattle also has a large gay community with a ton of lesbians, but very few particularly butch ones. I've met more trans guys than butches here.

[brainiac]

"You wouldn't get it, it's a guy thing."

As if caring about cars or talking about women like pieces of meat is a prerequisite to being male.

[Lachlann]

"You wouldn't get it, it's a guy thing."

As if caring about cars or talking about women like pieces of meat is a prerequisite to being male.

I hate that one.

[sneakersjay]

Ma'am.  (puke).

My brother called me that the other day.  It was inadvertent (he still slips) and we were talking about airports and me traveling hiding something under my clothes, and he took the tone of a TSA agent and said, "Ma'am, step aside, what is that under your shirt?"  And my brain was like WTF?  I'm not sure he even realized he said it.  (puke!!)


Jay

[Fenrir]

(Another intruder from the androgyne section here  )
The holding doors open thing... ewbhjkdsfjhb! >.< Coherent sentences cannot express how irritated that makes me! And the most irritating thing about it is that the people who do it believe they are super-virtuous for doing it, so you can't get too angry at them. Even if I ask them not to, at least for me, they'll reply with a cheery "Chivalry is not dead!" or some other such... 
Yeah, also, lately I know quite a few people that end a lot of their sentences with 'woman' and that, of all the appellations out there, gets to me the most. "You're crazy, woman!" or "Move your seat back, woman", just, why!? I'm so glad my parents never gave me cutesy nicknames though, I don't think I could stand that. In fact, my mother went through a long phase of addressing me as 'mister', which was pretty cool. My brother wasn't as keen on 'madam'. 
The strength thing gets to me too but seeing as I actually am fairly weak (trying to change that) I have to accept it.

[Arch]

"real guy." As in, "if you were a real guy" or "real guys do xyz" or even "if I were a real guy..."