Gender non-conforming women encounter consistent challenges and bias beyond recent legal rulings. One woman's experience reveals ongoing mistreatment since childhood, often leading to significant embarrassment and hostility. An incident during air travel highlighted intensified scrutiny based on appearance, leading to distress. The perceptions of biological femininity are excessively narrow, defining what a woman should look, sound, and dress like. Common inquiries about pronouns can feel dismissive, reducing personal identity to a statement or protest, rather than acknowledging individual authenticity and experience.
Being 5ft 8in, slim-ish, with short hair, an angular face, a deeper voice, and preferring loose clothing has led to regular mistaken identity and hostility.
I have long lived in a world where I expect to be mistaken for a man and feel on edge as a result, past incidents being deeply embarrassing.
The real issue is that in this country, we have an extremely reductive view of what even a biological woman should look like, sound like, and dress like.
I am regularly asked my pronouns, something I find just as insulting, as my way of being is no statement or protest; it is simply how I have always been.
Collection
[
|
...
]