General Discussion

I politely correct them.

<sub>@WestWindWalker

I'm glad to help!

And on the point of being misgendered in front of co-workers who correctly gender you;
From my experience, as long as your co-worker supports/accepts you, they'll either ignore it and not bring it up again to make it further awkward, or (if they're really awesome) make a hard "subtle" move like 'well my co-worker here Mr/Ms/Xe NAME' and make the client go "oh" OR ( again, if they're really awesome) correct the person who misgendered you outright.

It'll sort of even out and you'll figure it out and ease into it until you're in a position in your transition (either socially or physically) where you'll either begin to pass and it'll be less of a problem, or you'll learn how to work around it in a way that you're comfortable with.

And don't judge your coworkers right off the bat, too! You never actually know someone is on your side until something happens and they prove it one way or another.
I remember when I had just started, one of the other aides pulled my mentor/trainer aside and told her what was going on because she didn't understand why I was getting super stressed (when she was misgendering me and I couldn't bring myself to talk to her myself) and I thought that she was doing it to out me but she, instead, is one of the biggest supporters of me in the workspace I have. And another nurse, who I didn't think cared all that much ended up finding me on facebook and asking if I was okay one day because he noticed that I was in a frustrating spot with another co-worker and asked if he could help me deal with it at all and then sat said co-worker down and told her to shut up or nut up before he brought management down on her.

If you ever need to talk or vent or anything, don't be afraid to hit up my inbox, friend! <3</sub>

@Stoat

Haha, you really can't imagine just how relieving these words are :D
I've had the entire summer to slowly, yet surely, start stressing over what was ahead - and to imagine the most terrible scenarios :'D
I think my co-workers will be supportive given how everyone is a social worker - but you're right!
I should really thin of them better, nonetheless!
(I was worried what they might think of me, if they saw me fail at passing - and whenever i fail at passing, it feels like a huge loss / mistake / failure to me, personally. Thus I was afraid they'd raise their eyebrows, or silently shake their head - but... you're right.
I don't know them yet and who knows? They might turn out to become the most loyal and awesome allies ever!)

I'll try to approach them with such a positive imagine in mind : )
I've seen some of them once for the day where I had my job interview and while the two ladies I was talking to, mainly, did use the right pronouns, a different lady whom I was introduced to from afar, was misgendering me - I can't blame her, though.
And she didn't know better ^^"

That being said - I should probably go to bed given how it's 2am but I will absolutely keep your words in mind!
You ve helped me look at the future from a different angle! <3

I'll make sure to drop by in your inbox, as soon as I can overcome the initial shyness which comes with... hitting people up on private, for the first time haha!

I'm gonna come in here as a cis person to offer a bit of help, if that's ok? I guesss just to say that its ok, keep as calm as you can.

I think the biggest thing to remember is to stay as calm and rational as possible. Trust me, as someone who accidentally misgendered someone once, it helps SO MUCH when you remain calm and understanding, and explain nicely. If it's upsetting you too much, take a deep breath, close your eyes for a moment if you need to. Step back and talk to someone who knows what your situation is so they can explain if needed. Taking yourself out of a situation you've become uncomfortable with will help you learn how to deal with it in the future. You can step back, analyze how you should react to this, and keep that in heart if it happens again.

If you get someone who is intentionally misgendering you, and they happen to be a coworker, I would 100% report them for harassment if it keeps happening. That's them trying to hurt you, which isn't ok, and can get them fired, or at the very least, moved to a part of your workplace away from you.

Most people, from what I've seen, are very willing to learn. It can be really embarrassing for us to midgender someone, and we're usually very happy to fix it. 95% of the time, you shouldn't have to worry about correcting someone. Deep breath, a simple correction, and you should be on good terms! In general, just stay as positive as you can, and I'm sure things will go fine.

I don't really care since there aren't really any neutral pronouns in german anyways. Most people use She/her (in german), and it actually makes me a bit happy if someone uses male pronouns because that means i don't look that feminine!

While i don't care about the pronouns that much i tend to get upset if people tell me i should be proud of being a woman and that i shouldn't hide my chest, i really hate those people...Also the same people overusing feminine words in context with me just because they want me to get convinced that i' a girl i guess? It's mostly words like "girls-day" "princess" Pretty girl"

Like i said before i don't mind about the more masculine stuff since people use it rarely anyways.

I prefer They/them in english tho.

Honestly being mistaken for a girl doesn't bother me that much, when it does happen I usually ignore it or politely correct them. Most people from my experience are pretty chill with "oh actually I'm male" if you say that, they'll apologise and move on. Or female if you're a chick who gets mistaken for a dude.

I understand your anxiety but my philosophy is that life's too short to worry about such things. I don't know how helpful this is but either way, good luck!

I'm going to kind of sneak in here with DragonDraws and confirm what they've already said...Idk if you want to hear words from me, but coming from the other side of the spectrum, as a cis person and someone who has known trans, NB, agender, and genderfluid people, it is SO much easier to correct yourself and be respectful towards a persons preferred pronouns if they just calmly correct and don't make a big fuss for one mistake. I've accidentally misgendered people and felt horrible, but they were just "It's cool, I just prefer to be called by X pronouns!". I felt like less of a jerk and never slipped up again.

I don't want to sound pretentious here, I just want to offer a second point of view. It can be just as anxiety inducing for others when they find out they've messed up pronouns. People can beat themselves up and avoid you for the rest of their time knowing you if they feel they've embarrassed themselves and you and have hurt you. I've done something similar where I said something unintentional and later found out someone was affected by it. I felt so ashamed I could barely look them in the face because I felt I'd been a complete tool. So like others have said, unless the person is going out of their way to hurt you or make your life miserable, It might play more in your favour just to be calmer about it. Just from experience alone.

I do what I can to ignore it, myself. It generally happens at work, whether by clients or coworkers, it doesn't matter; neither are people I'm going to see outside of work, and if they are, they're considered friends instead.

Outside of work, friends know my preferred pronoun. If they accidentally use the wrong one, I gently correct them, even if I have to do it multiple times. If someone ELECTS to misuse my correct pronoun, they probably aren't friend material and I don't need someone like that in my life, anyway.

I'm biologically female and also identify as such, but I wear masculine/gender-neutral clothing almost exclusively because I prefer the look, and I keep my hair short and I guess maybe just have a kind of boyish look in general, so strangers are constantly misgendering me as male at first glance. It thankfully doesn't bother me at all, though. I just laugh, correct them if they haven't already corrected themselves, and reassure them that it's okay and they're not the first to make the mistake. ^^ Or I might just let it go and move along if it's someone I'm likely only going to interact with for a very short time and never meet again.

@DragonDraws

Thanks for your input - and no worry!
I certainly dont mind cis-people commenting here ^^
I now realized, i should have been a bit more specific in my initial post.
I understand that most people don't try to hurt me, when they misgender me.
What upsets me the most, though, is in bath rooms when people say "Wrong room?"
I assume they don't mean to be mean and really just think, that I mistakenly took the wrong door.
then again...cant they just assume, that I know very, very well where my bath room is?
Out in the public, in a non-gendered area, I get why people would might misgender me.
But bath-rooms? C'mon. I'm here for a reason. Dx



@Ketsui

Oh, yeah - I hate how German has no gender neutral pronouns :'D
I don't know if I'd use "They" for a person whose gender I can't correctly assume, when I d meet them in an english-speaking part of the world, because that too would maybe be rude // offensive to them, but... I love how english has the comfort of having gender-neutral pronouns.
...whereas german..? Eugh.