Ok, so I've been going out more and more as myself lately. I pass really well visually, but I am definitially at the point of needing to work on my voice. But thats a hurdle I will eventually overcome (working on it). Anyways, I went to a freind of mines birthday party. I went dressed. I was really stressed about it because I was meeting alot of people for the first time tonight. I was super anxious about it, to the point where I had a mini panic attack before I left to the party. So I get there and everything is fine of course. Everyone is really nice. Before I got there it was, pretty evident everyone had been briefed I was trans. As I'm still early in transition and dont pass 100%, mostly because of my voice, my friends tend to "warn" people about me. But I am choosing to turn a blind eye to that for the moment. So, for the whole night everything is awsome and we are all having a good time. Then I am suddenly mis-gendered. Granted it was an obvious slip of the tongue. But none the less it was said. It was kind of awkward because when I first met her she was really nice. She said she wished she had my body, loved my outfit etc. ( I don't know if it was the obligatory, I am being nice to my new token trans friend nice or not.) But she was using all female pronouns the whole night except for that one slip. So I was kind of at a loss as to how to react. When she said it I dont think she or anyone else noticed, but I felt my face turn bright red and I felt really emberassed. Part of me wanted to correct her, but I didn't want to draw more attention to it. Part of me wanted to say wtf?!?! Part of me wanted to crawl into a big whole and hide.
  I'm just curious as to what other people would do in that situation. It just kind of hurt to feel accepted the whole night then to suddenly be made to feel like just a guy in a dress. Needless to say I had a difficult time the rest of the night. I tried my best to shake it off but its hard. I know I'm early in my transition and for where I'm at I should be happy with the way the night went, but I am having a hard time with it. Just makes me feel like the people I am coming to call friends all just really think I'm a guy in a dress and are just humoring my "fantasy". Anyways, I just had to vent a little I guess.

<3 Liv

Those things are going to happen, hopefully less frequently in the future.

You're still alive.  You still have your dignity.  And you are still progressing toward your goal!

Well Olivia, I don't think it necessarily means that they don't take you seriously. I'm guilty of misgendering a crapload of people on here. (In my brain.) It's not that I'm "humoring their fantasy", it's just that if they don't pass or if they're using a pre-transitioned picture, my brain gets confused, which is part of the reason as to why I don't use my real picture. (Though I misgender ftm's more for some reason, even if the mtf doesn't pass any better) I don't mean to make you feel bad, I don't even know what you look like lolz. I figure that for some people, a low voice is enough to confuse their English.

But maybe they didn't, and you just have to accept that not everyone is going to be on your side, and not everyone is going to understand. Try to see the bright side: that you can at least be treated with respect from strangers who know.

Olivia,

Totally don't worry about it. Just ignore and keep walking the walk. It was a slip and you are going to ge far worse than that

The first dinner party I went to as Cindy in full regalia, the people had been warned by the host. They were all very nice and polite. I passed as well as a bull in a herd of goats at the time.

I learned later that one of the guests was totally transphobic and loathed me, to a point that he told the host later that he never wanted to meet, see or talk to me again and to never invite him and I to the same event ever.  Funnily I never spoke to him at the party from what I recall. I did speak to his wife who was totally delightful and friendly.

So you don't win all the time. You just learn to be you and to enjoy yourself without worrying about the stuff that doesn't matter.

Cindy

Let me give you a piece of advice I learned from years of playing the piano: if you (or someone) makes a mistake (i.e. mis-genders you or mixes up your name), ignore it and move on. Never happened. What would you notice more: if a pianist stopped mid-song after making a mistake, or if they just continued playing like nothing happened? If you bring attention to being mis-gendered, you are basically asking for people to start scrutinizing your gender. My mom, when I first started going full-time, would say "sorry! I mean xxxx" or "I mean 'she' " when she mixed up my name or gender, but even she caught on to the idea that it is worse to bring attention to a mistake and stopped doing so.

I wouldn't take it personally if someone mis-genders you (unless they are doing it with obvious malicious intent). In our situation, it happens sometimes, so don't let it bring you down. You can always ask your friends in private not to identify you as transgender and to gender you as female. If they really are your friends, they should make an effort to respect that, but it may take longer for some people to use names and pronouns consistently and correctly.

Quote from: ~RoadToTrista~ on June 24, 2012, 02:09:07 AM
Well Olivia, I don't think it necessarily means that they don't take you seriously. I'm guilty of misgendering a crapload of people on here. (In my brain.) It's not that I'm "humoring their fantasy", it's just that if they don't pass or if they're using a pre-transitioned picture, my brain gets confused, which is part of the reason as to why I don't use my real picture. (Though I misgender ftm's more for some reason, even if the mtf doesn't pass any better) I don't mean to make you feel bad, I don't even know what you look like lolz. I figure that for some people, a low voice is enough to confuse their English.

But maybe they didn't, and you just have to accept that not everyone is going to be on your side, and not everyone is going to understand. Try to see the bright side: that you can at least be treated with respect from strangers who know.

I agree with Trista. Olivia, since you mentioned your voice, I'd say that's enough of a cue for someone to slip and use 'he'. As you know, much of gendering is automatic. Our brains are wired for male and female cues (we had to know who to copulate with to further the race back in the cave days  ).

I don't think this girl meant anything by it at all or necessarily thinks of you as male, especially since you weren't sure if she even noticed the slip. That said, I know how those wrong pronouns burn, especially when everything was going well. It can feel as if you've just been slapped, even if you know they didn't mean it or know any better. And suddenly you're reviewing everything that happened earlier and wondering if they've seen everything you said or did in the wrong context.

Hang in there. Don't over-analyze it. Everyone was nice and you had a good time. The person who made the slip was nice and used the correct pronouns most of the evening. The party was a success. Don't second guess people's thoughts or motivations. It's too much work. 

I understand how that feels. Many people I already knew before transition didn't initially use the correct pronoun 100% of the time.

They slipped far more than just once, and of course it made me unhappy. But then I tried to think of it from their point of view. I felt that they did that because they were so used to me being a guy that it is really difficult to change to using different pronouns at once.'

Eventually, though, they got used to using the right pronouns and now do it automatically.

It doesn't imply, though, that they really think of me as 100% the same as other girls...
After all, people may use the correct pronouns all the time out of respect, but still think of me as "a guy pretending to be a girl".
And even in the best scenario, anyone who knows me to be trans is only going to think of me as a special category of girl, instead of just any other normal girl.
But it would be so tiring to worry about what everyone I ever come across for the rest of my life really thinks of me.
So if the usage of pronouns isn't really necessarily that reflective of how someone thinks of me, then I feel I shouldn't feel too unhappy about wrong pronouns either...

The easiest thing to do is simply say, "She" if she used the wrong pronoun. People tend to immediately recognize their error, and will apologize.

With people I know better, I might say, "Wanna try that again?" But that's because I have a sense of humour, and so do they, and they don't take this as me being a jerk.

My advice, though: do NOT ignore it. Don't let the slip go. I think that people need to know when they slip up, particularly because it's REALLY hurtful for us. Moreover, I think that people just aren't trying as hard as they could.

Here are two interesting posts on the matter:

http://www.metamorpho-sis.com/blog/2012/06/5-being-on-autopilot.html
http://www.metamorpho-sis.com/blog/2012/06/8-confronting-those-who-misgender-me.html

Quote from: Olivia-Anne on June 24, 2012, 01:39:26 AM
Granted it was an obvious slip of the tongue.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

As long as someone doesn't consistently keep erring, which turns it into something else - you can't know for sure what's going on in someone else's head when something like that happens, and although there's a tendency to think the worst...  I would have focused on the rest of the evening where the tongue didn't slip. But then I'm not confrontational by nature and tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Quote from: Sephirah on June 24, 2012, 08:59:46 AM
To err is human; to forgive, divine.

As long as someone doesn't consistently keep erring, which turns it into something else - you can't know for sure what's going on in someone else's head when something like that happens, and although there's a tendency to think the worst...  I would have focused on the rest of the evening where the tongue didn't slip. But then I'm not confrontational by nature and tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.

I agree. From what you say, it sounds like she was quite careful, and I would focus on that. I wouldn't posit any ill will on her part; it was an honest slip. However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't correct her on it, in my opinion, anyway.

From what I've experienced being out and full-time, and still visibly trans, I haven't noticed a single time where someone messed up on purpose. YMMV, but I've been really happy with how accommodating everyone has been, even if they screwed up a lot in the beginning, and 3 months later they still do sometimes (this bugs me, actually).

In the end, I just let it slide. I didn't want to bring more attention to the issue. It was just difficult after it was said to focus on anything else and I shut down for a little bit. But I am still a work in progress and I still have a long way to go. But for the night as a whole it went fairly well. I had fun and I think everyone else did too. Just after the slip too, My friend got proposed too, soo had I said something I'm sure that it would have tainted the moment. I am choosing to look at it that I pass visually, its just my voice holding me back at the moment. So atleast I know where I stand on things. Honestly I had been being lazy on trying to get the voice down. But, to me this is my wakeup call to get myself together and to get my voice down. Thanks for all the replys.

<3 Liv

Quote from: Olivia-Anne on June 24, 2012, 03:01:42 PM
In the end, I just let it slide. I didn't want to bring more attention to the issue. It was just difficult after it was said to focus on anything else and I shut down for a little bit. But I am still a work in progress and I still have a long way to go. But for the night as a whole it went fairly well. I had fun and I think everyone else did too. Just after the slip too, My friend got proposed too, soo had I said something I'm sure that it would have tainted the moment. I am choosing to look at it that I pass visually, its just my voice holding me back at the moment. So at least I know where I stand on things. Honestly I had been being lazy on trying to get the voice down. But, to me this is my wakeup call to get myself together and to get my voice down. Thanks for all the replys.

<3 Liv

We are all works in progress, every single day of our lives.

The day I'm "complete" is the day they put me in the ground.

I remember two years into my transition in 2008, many people often claimed to be never to be able to tell in occasions they found out I was trans (mainly in LGBT settings), whether this was said out of politeness or was genuine, I could not ascertain with certainty, but it did buoy my confidence. However, I remember at one friend's party, somebody approached me and asked "are you a trans...vestite or transgender? I could tell straight away..." and it turned out she had issues about considering transition, etc. At the time, I was devastated, I wondered what had given me away, whether it was my body language, my adam's apple (this was pre-trachea shave) or whatever, and I remember going to a room and crying for about half an hour. I remember thinking that I had gone through all this heartache still to be perceived as a ->-bleeped-<-!

However, it made me think about WHY I was upset, and what the real basis was, and it was based on a lack of full acceptance of myself. I believe it is much more healthy to embrace the experience you have. That doesn't mean to say you have to be trans, out and proud, or consider yourself a different kind of woman, or anything like that, I realised I was still as female as any other woman if I wanted to be, but I had gone through this metamorphasis and experienced life as two genders, and it has shaped my gender and womanhood, and more than gender, I am simply me. Once I had come round to this way of thinking, it was irrelevant if people saw me as trans or cis, I was me, a woman, irrelevant of perception. Since then I only had one other experience, around three years ago, and since then, I haven't again, and while the majority of people may never know my past, there may always be somebody who could have somehow sensed it.

But whether they do or not, it is irrelevant to me now, as having confidence and acceptance of being unapologetically yourself projects on others and convinces them to treat you with respect, and see you for what you are. This is far more important than them knowing your biological history. In fact, I don't go shouting it from the rooftops but I have been open with some people close to me because it felt liberating for them to know my past and what I had been through, and why I am the way I am. Of course you may experience prejudice from people when they 'find out', but who wants to associate with such people anyway?

Liv,

Don't let them rent space in your head.  Mistakes happen.  Even other women get called "he" by mistake.

I only corrected one person and she got called on it by her boss.  She is a good friend now.

Just become a duck and let it roll off your back.  If it does happen all the time by one or two people, then correct them. Otherwise just go on with life.

Quote from: Olivia-Anne on June 24, 2012, 01:39:26 AM
Ok, so I've been going out more and more as myself lately. I pass really well visually, but I am definitially at the point of needing to work on my voice. But thats a hurdle I will eventually overcome (working on it). Anyways, I went to a freind of mines birthday party. I went dressed. I was really stressed about it because I was meeting alot of people for the first time tonight. I was super anxious about it, to the point where I had a mini panic attack before I left to the party. So I get there and everything is fine of course. Everyone is really nice. Before I got there it was, pretty evident everyone had been briefed I was trans. As I'm still early in transition and dont pass 100%, mostly because of my voice, my friends tend to "warn" people about me. But I am choosing to turn a blind eye to that for the moment. So, for the whole night everything is awsome and we are all having a good time. Then I am suddenly mis-gendered. Granted it was an obvious slip of the tongue. But none the less it was said. It was kind of awkward because when I first met her she was really nice. She said she wished she had my body, loved my outfit etc. ( I don't know if it was the obligatory, I am being nice to my new token trans friend nice or not.) But she was using all female pronouns the whole night except for that one slip. So I was kind of at a loss as to how to react. When she said it I dont think she or anyone else noticed, but I felt my face turn bright red and I felt really emberassed. Part of me wanted to correct her, but I didn't want to draw more attention to it. Part of me wanted to say wtf?!?! Part of me wanted to crawl into a big whole and hide.
  I'm just curious as to what other people would do in that situation. It just kind of hurt to feel accepted the whole night then to suddenly be made to feel like just a guy in a dress. Needless to say I had a difficult time the rest of the night. I tried my best to shake it off but its hard. I know I'm early in my transition and for where I'm at I should be happy with the way the night went, but I am having a hard time with it. Just makes me feel like the people I am coming to call friends all just really think I'm a guy in a dress and are just humoring my "fantasy". Anyways, I just had to vent a little I guess.

<3 Liv

You know whats kind of funny is this situation just happened to me this weekend. I was at a friends birthday party and she kept slipping pronouns. Of course during the time she really emphasize the pronoun she was totally gone on tequila so I guess it was played off. The thing is I understand how pronouns slip with my friends who use to know me as a boy. Its hard to "re-teach" the subconscious mind once it has learned something, but after a while I'm sure it will just be oh she's a girl. There are some people that may not think about using the other pronoun, for those you have to address it to them on the side. Usually if you tell your friends how you feel about it, they will try hard the next time. One important thing though is let them know if they mess up, don't correct it right away. That is just too noticeable. ... But anyways don't let it get to you too much, its part of transitioning. Not just with yourself, but with the people around you.

many hugs
Harley

A friend of mine pointed out to me that I am not the center of the world.  She didn't get her point across very well because at the time what she said was offensive to me.  But essentially what I came to realize later is that as a transitioning person we tend to become very self-aware, very focused on ourselves.  And as a part of that we tend to think that everything is about us.  We tend to take things personally.  We forget that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, we forget that sometimes people just say the wrong word because people are human and they make mistakes.

Recently I misgendered a non-trans person in conversation, completely by accident.  I remember when I was transitioning thinking, "My god, how could someone possibly misgender someone?"  But it is easy to do when pronouns aren't as important to you as they are to someone who has just started transitioning.  Honest.

The problem with people knowing you are trans is that people will get pronouns wrong.  I don't like being the trans woman in any conversation.  My greatest need was to experience female socialization and there is a difference.  As you get more experience passing as your true sex you will learn to discern the difference even in very subtle ways in casual conversation and if you are anything like me, when people talk to you like the trans person in the room it will begin to grate on your nerves.  I could only do the token trans thing for so long, some people dig it.  To each their own I guess.

We used to have a black retriever called Roxy.

Roxy lived to a ripe old age, but then, four or five years ago she died.

Very soon after Roxy died we got a chocolate retriever puppy called Bonnie.

So, four years have gone by. I see Bonnie every single day. And I still call her Roxy ALL the time.

Once a brain gets used to one idea ... or name ... or pronoun ... it's really, really difficult to adjust to another. So some of the time there may be no more significance (to the person speaking) if someone says 'he' when they should say 'she' than there is when I say 'Roxy' when I should say 'Bonnie.'

It happens. Especially with people who knew you pre-transition. The intent is the deciding factor for me. Was there any malice or ill-intent behind the "mistake"? If not, I tend to ignore it and move on, unless it becomes a repetitive issue.

I agree, it is an intent thing.  I remember there was someone who came into my life after I transitioned, I hadn't had FFS or BAS yet but I liked to think I looked female.  After she found out I had transitioned she told me, "I can't believe I was so stupid I actually thought you were a woman."  She repeated herself saying that sentence three times getting louder and angrier each time.  And after that she always referred to me with male pronouns.  She also talked about how great it was that she got to know me, how being around me helped her grow as a person and she was always touting herself as being very open-minded and accepting.  I had to put up with her for six years

So yeah... it is an intent thing but when someone never knew you before as your birth sex and they know you for a while as your true sex, but then they find out you transitioned and begin using the wrong pronouns and talk about how difficult it is to remember that you want to be referred to with female pronouns and when they work for a non-profit, have Buddhist paraphernalia and talk about how open-minded and accepting they are... it can be irritating.

Wow, Noey, wow. How true. Some people are just annoying.

About the topic at hand, Olivia: I would not say a thing, and here is why:
If it was a non-intentional slip, they will avoid it in the future. If, on the other hand, they are intrigued by the whole thing and they want to prove to be open-minded, but also point out that they "know", they will do it again and again; or, if they won't do it in front of you, they will certainly do it behind your back, which is even more irritating.

My two cents,
A