When I was a teenager, I had long hair and was very late to develop any facial hair so, with my somewhat ambiguous name, I was often misgendered. It didn't bother me -- I just thought it was kind of weird/funny that people "couldn't tell" (but it bothered my mother a _lot_!). My wife was also misgendered a lot as a teenager, because she has a name mostly used for boys, has worn T shirt & jeans all her life, and had short hair back then (and never wore makeup). She still gets a lot of mail addressed to "Mr." because of her first name. I've known transgender friends and colleagues for over thirty years, and my wife has known intersex friends for the same period of time, and transgender friends for over twenty years, so it's all been "normal" for us for a very long time. I find it so bizarre when I hear anyone talk about all this "gender stuff" as if it's all a recent change in society... I guess a lot of people just don't pay attention -- and then they don't like (perceived) change.
Exactly, it's new to them (but not to us), but they've been acting like the existence of trans folks is some brand new phenomenon. Unfortunately, this includes a bunch of writers & pundits & celebrities (some of whom I mentioned in the piece) who have an outsized voice in our culture on anything and everything related to trans people & issues.
When I was a teenager, I had long hair and was very late to develop any facial hair so, with my somewhat ambiguous name, I was often misgendered. It didn't bother me -- I just thought it was kind of weird/funny that people "couldn't tell" (but it bothered my mother a _lot_!). My wife was also misgendered a lot as a teenager, because she has a name mostly used for boys, has worn T shirt & jeans all her life, and had short hair back then (and never wore makeup). She still gets a lot of mail addressed to "Mr." because of her first name. I've known transgender friends and colleagues for over thirty years, and my wife has known intersex friends for the same period of time, and transgender friends for over twenty years, so it's all been "normal" for us for a very long time. I find it so bizarre when I hear anyone talk about all this "gender stuff" as if it's all a recent change in society... I guess a lot of people just don't pay attention -- and then they don't like (perceived) change.
Exactly, it's new to them (but not to us), but they've been acting like the existence of trans folks is some brand new phenomenon. Unfortunately, this includes a bunch of writers & pundits & celebrities (some of whom I mentioned in the piece) who have an outsized voice in our culture on anything and everything related to trans people & issues.