Early in covid I was working at a coffee shop and due to masking, it was difficult for people to get a read on my gender. I had long hair, a high or low voice depending on the day. I wasn't tall. I've got long eyelashes without needing to do anything to them. And so one customer from the next would gender me differently. At that job we had no employee bathroom so I would ask a friend in the morning how I read to settle on which bathroom to use to keep myself safer, but that day I really ought to have brought out two tip jars like "Am I A BOY or a GIRL?"
Sometimes I had facial hair and sometimes I didn't, and because of the mask, it didn't seem to be a factor in how I was read, because I guess not enough beard poked out.
A woman told her kid "tell the nice lady which snack you want" and the man behind her said "thank you, sir" when he paid. Had a woman call me bro and then a very straight older man hit on me and called me sweetheart. Not all gendered interactions were ideal but there was such whiplash having gay men talk to me like a gay man, dykes give me the nod, and then straight people of both assumed genders either thought I was one of them or their opposite.
I had never had such a fluid experience happening in real time, and it was SO unclear to most people that two of my coworkers were convinced I was trans, and I said that I was, but both were certain I was trans in "opposite" directions, so when one would call me "she" the other would defensively call me "he" and vice versa. It took me a while to realize that they didn't think some fluidity was involved but that the other was actually misgendering me and I was FIRMLY trans in one direction or another.
What a cool and bizarre but affirming experience! I wish this for so many people.
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