Mannerisms, clothing and identity- anecdotal thoughts and stuff.

So I started to write a reply to this thread here: http://emptyclosets.com/forum/chit-chat/204966-females-women-girls-all-ages-maam-miss.html
and a realised I was starting to go rather off topic so I thought that my post I was going to write would make a nice thread here instead.

I don't get called miss or Ma'am. Everyone 'round where I live tends to just be called "duck" or "love". I sometimes get lady, which is rather odd for me- though I've noticed I only tend to get called "lady" when I wear more feminine clothing, such as a skirt or a dress- which I don't like wearing, but I do so to appease my mother. These days I tend to get called "lady" more often- but only recently has this started happening, so "young woman/lass/lady" are the ones I tend to get these days.

In my old friend group, I used to get called "lad/mate" a lot and I remember when I forgot my PE shorts once, and it was too hot to run in my usual school trousers- so I had to wear my school skirt. I was running to a Rounder's post and people were cheering me and this guy said "go on (my nickname)lad!" and they saw me wearing a skirt and this guy who was stood next to the other corrected him "That's not a lad, that's a lady!".shaking his head at the other.

I would also get comments like people saying I didn't "count" as a girl because I chose to wear school trousers instead of a skirt most of the time. As well as occasionally being referred to as a "he". There was a time when I was in English and this guy was guarding the door and only letting a few people in (me being one of them) and he turned around and made a comment about the fact there weren't "any girls" in the room. I made a fake coughing sound, and upon realising what he'd done, he apologised to me saying he'd forgotten about me being a girl. The way he said it didn't seem particularly malicious, more so like an honest mistake.

It did seem rather odd to me though- considering at the time I had a rather feminine "baby face" and long, dirty-blonde hair and a lanky un-athletic body (and still do), and the fact that I had nearly almost all female friends. My interests weren't particularly "masculine" either.

So it got me wondering, why were people treating me this way? And then I saw a few videos of myself that others had recorded (one for a school project, and a few others when I was just messing around with a couple of friends just filming whatever and usually deleting it or snap-chatting it) and it hit me. As well as the trousers, it was also the mannerisms- I hadn't really noticed before until I saw myself on camera, the way I sat, held myself, spoke- it wasn't particularly "feminine" as it were- and it shocked me to see that I was doing these things without even thinking or realising much.

Admittedly, I did wonder if I was Trans at one point. When I was little (before puberty) I used to run around shirtless outside in my garden. Just because I could really.

I identified as gender-fluid at one point, but that didn't seem right either.
I found that my body wasn't really the issue- I didn't want a male body, nor did I associate with male pronouns either. I like this feeling of being female- and I like being referred to with female pronouns. The issue was more so that I was jealous of what the guys had around me. I had started to fall into depression at that point with feelings of "If I'd be born a guy, then I'd be able to talk about girls and maybe I'd fit in somewhere- at least better than this, but at the same time I like having a female body and I can't see myself as a guy".

It was a confusing time. :/

These feelings started to go away when I found friends who were also in the LGBT community, and a more accepting environment. These days me and my friends often talk about crushes and dates and stuff freely, I know quite a few people who are "out" and it's treated as a rather non-issue here. That's not to say that there aren't homophobic idiots around, because there are but you get that anywhere so.
Anyone else been through something similar? What do you think of my experiences? Any thoughts in general?

 

Yeah, true. Language, it can be an odd thing really.

 

Yeah, I always found that when trying to learn German- I'd always get the "Der" "Die" and "Das" bit wrong. :eusa_doh: And don't get me started on French- we only did a bit of French at school but I was terrible at it. :eusa_doh: We also did Welsh at one point- but I don't think that had any gendered adjectives in so that was ok, I don't remember any of it though.

I've always found it weird how one letter in a word can completely change the word's meaning, plus a comma changing a sentence's meaning based on its placement. But yeah.. I digress. :icon_redf