I’m a cis woman, and presented as such for most of my life. Then I cut my hair short: and it made my more masculine features stand out. I have a pretty ambiguous body type in general and that, combined with mostly doing blue-collar work at the time, resulted in people assuming I was a young man maybe 40% of the time.
I didn’t mind this!! I even liked the assumption. It was fun, kinda charming. I’m a lesbian and it was nice to have conversations around the jobsite with cis guys about dating girls etc etc
Occasionally people would “find out” I was a woman, and the reaction was always apologetic? Which was a shame. I always emphasized that it was ok for people to stick with their initial impression of me. I don’t feel misgendered by she or him because gender is a social construct and at times when people refer to me with masculine pronouns, it’s because I’m occupying a social role associated with that. Which I enjoy. I like being the nice, helpful young man that people can rely on when I'm working security. I don't like being the odd one out in a group, and being perceived as the only woman in a space does exactly that.
Gender is entirely a social role to me, and so when asked my pronouns are she/him. I still identify as cis, and in an ideal world (FOR ME PERSONALLY), everyone would just stick with their gut reaction and not feel bad about or second-guess their initial perception of my binary gender. This is the experience I have in distinctly non-queer spaces and it's good! Just a "hey, don't worry. i can be a bloke lol" if it ever even comes up (it usually doesn't) and that's it.
Progressive spaces are built for the "average" queer person, and I think that's generally a good thing. I don't mind listing my pronouns when I enter a space even if I would much rather let people assume; because doing so normalizes and protects infinitely more vulnerable people than me. The problem arises when I give people a binary choice and they go AH! you are NONBINARY! when I have just made it abundantly clear the opposite is true.
I don't like they/them, it's the only set of pronouns that make me feel anything close to dysphoria. I don't mind them as a "stranger's pronoun" -- I think it's the generally polite way to refer to someone if you don't know them well enough to ask. That said, it's not neutral. It's at a point where I've had to become LESS queer when entering new queer spaces to avoid this kind of noncommittal treatment. I have a woman's name that I don't intend to change, so I've had to go back to being a "cis lesbian: she/her" because it's more comfortable for people who are so afraid to offend me by making a decision, that they choose the one option that is actually misgendering me. it sucks
