I am AMAB and genderqueer. I am on a journey towards widening my gender expression to include more feminine options - ideally I would prefer to wear skirts most of the time (except in the winter when it is far too cold!).  I have some safe places in my life where I can express myself freely but have been working towards opening this up to the rest of my life.

I live in a very liberal area of a liberal city in the north of the UK.  I have worn a skirt out in the local area a few times now - a black skirt; this is more discreet and also I think it is fairly likely I could be read as a white Muslim rather than as genderqueer.  I have not had any issues dressed this way so far.

Today the sun is out and I felt confident enough to push my boundaries so I wore a summer skirt out to get a juice.  Walking past some workmen on my road I noticed them stare and laugh and clearly talk about me (in an Eastern European dialect).  On my return the workmen were inside the building; as I walked past one shouted "@#$%&* English gay".

I am not sure where to go with this.  Originally I was convinced to wear a skirt out would mean getting threatened and physically assaulted as a matter of course - my previous experiences made me review this and I had began to see those beliefs as being inside my head and caused by internalised transphobia.  After today I am reviewing this, and not really sure of how physically safe I am to go out dressed as I choose.

Also I am not sure how to deal with the actual incident.  I am not scared of walking past those #$%@&s and actually am drawn to confronting them on their behaviour.  But I think this would probably put myself at physical risk.  I am seriously not good at fighting... There seems little point in reporting the incident to police or to the construction firm as I couldn't even pinpoint who said what and have no proof.  But just putting up with such verbal abuse on my own street doesn't seem like a winning option either.

It would be great to hear peoples feedback and ideas around this

Saint x

Mod edit: language please

One has to wonder what they find so personally confronting and why they feel the need to comment on it. But you are right, confronting them about it yourself might get you attacked so please be careful.

Presenting NB is stressful. People are wired to gender people as one of the binary genders and when there's ambiguity, it throws their circuits off. That's an unfortunate reality about humanity. Some will react nastily to this discomfort, some with interest, others with understanding, but pretty much everyone will find it uncomfortable unless they've put a lot of effort into reconditioning themselves.

A lot of people who adopt non-binary presentations find they need a remarkably thick skin and an understanding that they are going to be noticed, remarked upon, and possibly accosted.

If you are threatened, please be safe. If you do feel safe enough to speak to a stranger, consider doing it from a place of education about what it means to be non-binary.

So later on I had changed into my jeans and was heading to an appointment.  The guys (including the foreman) stopped talking and stared as I passed.  I slowed my pace to show I wasn't intimidated.  After I passed one of them wolf-whistled me.  When I felt I was a reasonable distance I stopped, turned, stared the nearest one in the eyes for 10 seconds or so and spat on the floor.  Perhaps not the most conservative response.  But I have come way to far to put up with being intimidated and harassed on my own street.

Perhaps this all sounds like really minor stuff compared to a lot of hassle and abuse some trans people have to deal with; for me I am not used to dealing with these kind of incidents.

Ms Grace; their behaviour certainly fits into the classic Freudian explanation of homophobia... I wonder if they see that themselves?

suzifrommd; yeah I can see that I am gonna need a thick skin if I am going to present as feminine/ non-binary as I prefer.  Confrontations like this take a hell of a lot of energy from me and I think realistically I am gonna have to learn to ignore them.  I understand that presenting as non-binary weirds a lot of people out; that is fine and I can totally accept if people stare or are confused.  But verbal abuse and sexual harassment are not okay (not that you said they were of course!)