Breakfast this Morning as a Girl LOL

[jamie001]

My wife and I went to breakfast this morning at a nearby small restaurant. The weather was very hot and all of my skirts needed to be washed because we returned yesterday from a long vacation so I wound up wearing a pair of black Levis Jeans. At that restaurant I was constantly referred to as “ma’am” and us “two ladies” which I am fine with. Call me anything that you want as long as you treat me respectfully and provide good food. Here is the interesting part of the story:

I don’t wear makeup. I have a feminine hairstyle called a Pixie Cut and I was carrying a medium size women’s black purse and wearing women’s white Birkenstocks with fire engine red toenails and gold toe rings. It is interesting that even without the skirt, I am perceived as a women. Add the skirt, and I’m sure that there is no doubt.

I wonder if most of us here on the cafe are perceived as a girl when we are out and about in public. For a male, all yoou have to do is to add one feminine item, like a purse or nail polish and you are perceived as a girl. It’s very interesting to say the least.

Jamie

[JohnH]

I believe I am perceived to be a woman with my long hair and bust. I have had interesting encounters with restrooms while wearing male clothing. When I go to men's restrooms so attired I get strange looks. And while wearing men's business casual and standing outside a women's restroom while my wife was using the facility, some woman walked up to me and asked me if I was waiting to use the restroom.
Maybe that's why I don't get any strange looks when I wear dresses.
The interesting thing is I don't get any sort of reaction when I speak with my deep masculine voice.

John

[jamie001]

I believe that the human brain is wired to to catagorize what it sees and make a binary decision bazed upon existing data and stereotypes. For example:

1. A women wearing a men’s suit and shirt, short hair, men’s shoe style, no purse and a man’s large watch. The onlooker brain says “Must ba a woman”.

2. A man wearing a black purse, white women’s birkenstocks and fire engine red nails. The onlooker brain say "non-sequitur, must be a woman” or at least wants to be perceived as a woman.

So whenever you go out wearing a skirt, many people may be placing you in the “girl box” and you don’t even know it.

Jamie

[Jim]

I wonder if most of us here on the cafe are perceived as a girl when we are out and about in public.

Very rarely, when someone first sees me from in back. I've got a full beard. Then they apologize and I tell them they don't need to; being thought female is not an insult.

[Faldaguy]

I must disagree strongly. I wear skirts daily, have for years and wore them with some frequency before that -- I do not recall but one instance in the thousands of days and even more encounters that anyone mistook me for, or called me a woman. If it happened, I'd only wonder about their mental state, not my physical one.

[Spirou003]

I wonder if most of us here on the cafe are perceived as a girl when we are out and about in public.

When I was still going out in a skirt (at a time I had long hair), the same than Jim: only mistake was possible from back due to my beard/moustache. Now the hair is cut between 2mm and 2cm, making it less likely to happen: I don't remember having encountered any woman with such a short haircut but wearing a skirt/dress.

For a male, all yoou have to do is to add one feminine item, like a purse or nail polish and you are perceived as a girl. It’s very interesting to say the least.

When they're alone, below is what I think. Note that I mention only what I happened enough times to see (and notice) to have an opinion.

• Nails: barely seen unless the man exhibit them or I'm close from him. The rare cases I remember about, I did think something like "strange" or "girly" and that's it. (Nails add nothing from my point of view, out of disguisement purposes)
• Purse: unless it screams "I'm from the women aisle", I just see "something different" but may even not be able to figure out what is different.
• Heels: I wonder why wearing them, since they add nothing to the daily life (it complexifies the walk and any leg movement). Note that this feeling apply both to men and women, the only difference for women is that sometimes I may find it beautiful (hint: I'm not interrested by that part of someone's look).
• Shoes without heel: so long they're not "very flashy" I will not even see them, I don't look at that.
• Skirt: too rare to get a tendancy. The skirt alone never makes me think anything related to gender, except if it's very girly I will think the man to be effeminate.
• Top: at worse I find it ugly, but generally I just find it "weird/strange". At best, I will think "it's different" in a positive way. Same than skirt, if the top is very girly I may have the effeminate feeling.
• Long hair: a combination of nothing, lucky guy without baldness, jealousy (I'm already bald since my 25th) and when seen from back if I can't identify the person's sex I may hope to see a woman's beautiful face and be disappointed.
• Bra: I already have seen slim man obviously wearing bra (under their top) a few times, I always find it out of place.

Not any of the above item alone can make me think anything about gender, save from the bra. I'm not really what we can qualify as "open-minded" (despite what certain people say about me), so I think that except in certain conformist people's minds, just adding a few wisely chosen items will not make any man mistaken with a woman. Especially if there's a beard/moustache to clearly indicate "man" in case of doubt.

[Mouse]

I think it really depends on the human body you are looking at. There are some men with large chunky bodies where you would have to do a ton of work on them to make someone's first look assume female. There again there are some very pretty men where with certain haircuts you would have slim flat chested woman assuming gender neutral clothing. The reverse is true for women with a certain type of face and small chest, short haircut, can easily assume male.

So I think you have to take each human body's characteristics as your starting point. Then you can have a discussion as to what each item applied to that body, takes you male or female in look.

The problem in life, is that we have to make the male/female call in a split second, when we meet someone new and we can get easily get it wrong.

[Jim]

The problem in life, is that we have to make the male/female call in a split second, when we meet someone new and we can get easily get it wrong.

Do we have to? It's something I tend to do automatically but am trying to get over.

Most of the time, I think whether someone is male or female shouldn't affect how we interact with them just as it shouldn't affect what clothes they may wear. (Personally, I think it should make a difference if one is thinking of marriage--but I'm already happily married with a lifetime commitment and monogamous.)

[jamie001]

The problem in life, is that we have to make the male/female call in a split second, when we meet someone new and we can get easily get it wrong.

Do we have to? It's something I tend to do automatically but am trying to get over.

Most of the time, I think whether someone is male or female shouldn't affect how we interact with them just as it shouldn't affect what clothes they may wear. (Personally, I think it should make a difference if one is thinking of marriage--but I'm already happily married with a lifetime commitment and monogamous.)

Jim,

I 100 percent agree with you. There is no reason to determine the biological sex (gender is different and is the incorrect word to use) because it does not matter in any way. The only consideration is medical for example, regarding tests. You wouldn’t give a biological female a PSA test.People need to learn to stop the categorization based on biological sex which especially occurs because of the unnecessary use of ma’am and sir which also serve no purpose and need to go away.

[rode_kater]

I believe that the human brain is wired to to catagorize what it sees and make a binary decision bazed upon existing data and stereotypes. For example:

I think it will try, but it won't always work. There will always be the corner cases where it's not obvious. Adults are used to it, but small children will tend to stare in those situations.

This isn't a problem though. It's only a problem if you decide to make decisions based on that categorisation. If you look around and see someone where your classifier doesn't work straight away, that's OK. That person is not trying to offend you, or harm you in any way. That your classifier didn't work is not a problem.

There are people who get angry whenever they see something they don't understand. I think that comes down to them being very insecure.

[FranTastic444]

Personally, I think it should make a difference if one is thinking of marriage

Personally, I think that sex and gender combinations should play no part in limiting the ability for two people who happen to love each other in getting married. I feel particularly sorry for those who have a religious affiliation that explicitly defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

[denimini]

I wear mini skirts but would assume that I am never thought of as a girl. I guess my age, facial hair and hair on legs dispells any confusion.
If a person digresses from the stereotypes enough I am sure there is some ambiguity. I quite like coming across people who I am not sure of their sex or gender status as it rattles out any old fashioned dogmas lurking within me.

[Myopic Bookworm]

I wonder if most of us here on the cafe are perceived as a girl when we are out and about in public. For a male, all yoou have to do is to add one feminine item, like a purse or nail polish and you are perceived as a girl.

I think you must be blessed with ambiguous physiognomy.

I have occasionally been misgendered from behind, when wearing a kilt or a skirt with long hair. However, I think there are certain characteristics of face shape which tend to mark one as male even when presenting as feminine or ambiguous: this can be a problem for trans-women, who may seek facial feminization surgery as a result (I discovered this when a friend's trans daughter was crowdfunding her FFS). When I first grew a beard (at about 23), mainly from laziness in shaving, I did have the fleeting regret that it would make it impossible to pass as a girl, but to be honest, even at that age my facial shape would have made it difficult: no amount of wishing will make me look any more like David Bowie. I have only once heard passers-by actually wondering about my gender, when I was first experimenting with pushing the fashion gender boundaries (before venturing into skirts), and was out in a women's short jacket and knee-high boots, with long hair, hat, and sunglasses. When I was in the US, one of the neighbours admitted to having seen me in a kilt, and at first thought "what an ugly woman" (gee, thanks!), before realising what she was looking at. (Being a Scot, she really should have known better.)

Now, I am pretty sure I am perceived as a man in a skirt, or a man wearing nail polish, or a man with a handbag, or a man who seriously needs a haircut (that's by my wife!). I would be delighted if I could pass as a girl on occasion when I wanted to, even to a casual observer, but I don't think it has been remotely possible since I was about 15, and I have now been 50 for over a decade (!). I have toyed with trying a more feminine hair style, such as the pixie cut you mention, but I fear it would just create a kind of visual dissonance. And really my aim is not to make people question my gender, but to make them question the stereotyping of male appearance.

[greenboots]

Personally, I think it should make a difference if one is thinking of marriage

Personally, I think that sex and gender combinations should play no part in limiting the ability for two people who happen to love each other in getting married. I feel particularly sorry for those who have a religious affiliation that explicitly defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Fran: I think Jim’s comment was about how we choose a partner, rather than the moral or social correctness of same-sex marriage. As a heterosexual male, I would want to be sure that I was chatting up a woman and not a man. (of course, it is a moot point as I am happily married to the same woman for over 30 years)