Quote from: FriendsCallMeChris on October 22, 2014, 09:02:08 AM
I just found an app for my phone, Pitch Detector, which seems to work pretty well. Nice to know I'm in the ambiguous/male range but I still get ma'amed on the phone. Time to work on inflection/sentence structure, etc
Chris
Over the phone is more difficult because there are fewer social cues to tell the other person "male". In person, pre-T we have haircut, clothing, posture/body language, binding and packing to work with in addition to voice and speech patterns. Over the phone we have perhaps four things depending on the phone call. Voice, speech pattern, name (if it comes up during the course of the call), and nature of the call itself.
Factoring in all this crap, most people don't expect a young boy to be scheduling his own doctor's appointments, checking in with his bank, etc. so on the phone androgynous to young male range is more likely to get pegged as "female" than in person.
I don't know if people around here aren't trained to use sir and ma'am on the phone anymore, or if they're trained (jubilation!) to refrain from "guessing" if it's not clear, or what, but these days I don't get either on the phone unless the context has made it clear. Calling a doctor's office where they know me as Mr. ___, it's sir and Mr. ___. Calling elsewhere, it's no honorific.
