Gender Misidentification ( I Sucked )

[GreaseMonkey]

A few months back I was with my best bud celebrating his mom's birthday along with his sister, brother-in-law, and grand-nephew. We all met at a Souplantation restaurant in the sister's area.

We were all happily stuffing our faces, and I had removed my prescription eyeglasses while we were eating. This is something I often do as my eyesight really isn't that bad, and I don't like having to clean my lenses after getting any kind of sauce on them.

Halfway through I excused myself to head to the pizza / potato / brownie bar at the center of the place to grab a baked potato with all the fixin's, leaving my glasses behind at our table. One of the employees was busy working there, with their back turned. I asked the short, stocky, muscular, restaurant uniform-clad, hair-hidden-under-hat figure behind the counter "excuse me sir- where is the sour cream at?". That's where things got really awkward.

A twentysomething Latin female turns around looking perplexed and asks "did you just call me SIR???", and grabs her boobs for emphasis. I was so embarrassed I instantly lost my appetite. An old man standing a few feet away starts laughing his ass off. I apologize profusely and explain I wasn't wearing my glasses. Sounding slightly deflated, she just said "that's OK", and slowly turned back around to continue working. I silently grabbed my potato and slunk back to my table, avoiding eye contact with her every time I passed by. I was SO embarrassed and felt SO bad .

I wanted to apologize but felt it might be better just to drop it. I told my group what happened and they just said those things happen. Until she turned around I couldn't tell the difference. Poor gal.

When I told my co-workers what happened the next day, one teased me, saying I ruined that poor girl's week and if she kills herself it's my fault.

[Shyla]

1) Your coworkers aren't funny. 2) The restaurant worker did not have an appropriate response. She had her back turned. She could say I am a woman. But to grab her boobs? No. You apologized so you are did the right thing.

[Food Lady]

I agree with everything Shyla said.

[Gerrinson]

Yeah, you did nothing wrong, it happens. Particularly with the entirely honest 'I forgot my glasses' bit.

Now, were you my cousin who decided he was going to 'slap that hot chick's ass' at the bar only to have the 'hot chick' turn out to be a scruffy bearded biker dude with long flowing hair and tight jeans, then you would be in the wrong. Hilariously so, but definitely wrong.

[Crossbow]

"I'm sorry, ma'am. Perhaps if your boobs were where your ass is instead of your ass being where your mouth is, I would have been able to tell before saying anything."

Sounds to me like someone was either having a bad day or looking for a fight.

[MoonCat]

I once had a customer on the phone with a very gruff voice. I used the word "sir" a couple of times before I got to the question, "May I have your name, please?"

"Betty Davis"

Thinking the "man" was joking, referencing the actress Bette Davis, I said "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

Cue apologizing on my end. But hell, how was I supposed to know? Her name may have been similar to Bette Davis, but she sounded like Ernest Borgnine!

[evilhomer]

That coworker is a piece of shit. You did nothing wrong here, it was an honest mistake and that person totally over-reacted to it.

[2gigch1]

It is unfortunate that sometimes people look for offense when none was intended. Misunderstandings happen.

I don't see anything you did wrong worthy of castigation.

Personally I have taken to avoiding pronouns whenever not 100% sure in deference to new insight into the world of our transgender neighbors. Being misgendered is terribly painful to many people and I don't wish to add their discomfort, plus with the social lines being so blurred today I find a gender neutral approach is best.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

One of my friends and I used to work together at a mom and pop convenience store. He used to have long hair and kept it back in a pony tail. The owner's mom popped in and looked back and went "Wow! My son has TWO girls working at the same time?" (He tried to avoid this just because there were some rough people coming and going and he worried about us.)

My friend turned around. (He's been working there for years before me and they knew each other pretty well.) "Huh?"

Her: OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY!
Him: What happened?
Me: *in tears from laughter*

It happens. *shrug* You didn't do anything wrong, you simply made an incorrect assumption and then apologized when you were corrected. Honestly I was expecting a much worse story (expected there to be a transgender in there somewhere.)

[KellyHabersham]

Personally I have taken to avoiding pronouns whenever not 100% sure in deference to new insight into the world of our transgender neighbors. Being misgendered is terribly painful to many people and I don't wish to add their discomfort, plus with the social lines being so blurred today I find a gender neutral approach is best.

I would agree with this.....I remember in my apartment complex, there was a person whom I was never sure what gender to refer to them as. I want to say they were biologically a male (would often see them around dressed like a man), but I'd also see them wearing a blond wig and women's clothes, and I believe they went by "Penelope".

[GOInsanity]

I really wish the English language had a gender neutral pronoun. Because using "they" is confusing and "it" is insulting.

[Deserted]

I seem to recall seeing "hir" (and just to verify, H-I-R, not a typo) used as a written gender-neutral pronoun... but that comes from a section of society I do not know very much about, so I could be misunderstanding/misinterpreting.

[Kit-Ginevra]

Half of you on here I haven't a clue what sex you are....

[Ironclad Alibi]

Half of you on here I haven't a clue what sex you are....

Back in the old days you would have had a 50% chance of getting it right. These days that chance keeps getting smaller and smaller. Pretty soon everyone will have their own individual sex.

[Pixelated]

I once had a customer on the phone with a very gruff voice. I used the word "sir" a couple of times before I got to the question, "May I have your name, please?"

"Betty Davis"

Thinking the "man" was joking, referencing the actress Bette Davis, I said "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

Cue apologizing on my end. But hell, how was I supposed to know? Her name may have been similar to Bette Davis, but she sounded like Ernest Borgnine!

I'd ask if that customer was me, but my voice isn't quite THAT low! But seriously, it has not been unusual for me, throughout my adult life, to be mistaken for a male on the phone. It just happened today, in fact; somebody called to talk to Bossman and at one point said to me, "Oh! Are you 'Bossman'?"

I just said no, I wasn't, and took care of the phone call, and then hung up and told Coworker. She looked as if she wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed on my behalf, or angry on my behalf, or what, but I told her this is a not-at-all-uncommon occurrence and I might have to start talking (here I tried to imitate somebody on helium) "in a high squeaky little voice!" She started to laugh.

Seriously, this stuff happens. People need to either be able to laugh at it or shrug it off ... unless somebody is deliberately prodding them. Then they need to nail the person with a good right cross to the jaw.