little light has a post up called search and seizure in which she writes about the general public’s propensity to gender us either male or female, and how they deal with androgyny. this type of behavior is something i’ve dealt with as well, especially during transition. even now, i deal with it every day. not that i’m androgynous in appearance - in person i am always gendered as female. it was especially a problem when i was younger and living as male. i grew a beard when i finally developed that ability specifically so that i’d be gendered male. people tend to get upset when they can’t gender others. or when they gender people incorrectly.

i work in a call center, and people can only use the gender cues they recieve over the phone when they force gender through the phone lines. specifically, they have my name and my voice with which to make their choice. for me, that can also cause problems. my name “nexy” is a rather obscure name, and therefore inherently androgynous. and my voice lies somewhere in that overlap area - on the lower edge of the “female” range and on the upper edge of the “male” range.

since people don’t tend to listen very closely on the phone, they’ll sometimes think my name is “nancy”, “lexy”, or “maxie”. when that happens, i am immediately gendered female. when they percieve my name is “nick” or “maxy”, i am gendered male. and i’ve noticed significant differences in how the call may play out, depending on how they gender me. or not, as sometimes they’ll actually hear my name as “nexy”, and then ask how to spell it. many guess “nexie” or “nexi”, which would gender me female. when i respond with the “nexy” spelling, that causes further questioning. using the name “terry” as an example, the “y” spelling is gendered male, while the “i” spelling is gendered female. same with “tony”; the “y” is male and the “i” is female.

my name will sometimes cause a bit of extra conversation, as it is unusual. and i can sense the line of questioning when it comes up as a search for additional gender cues. when the caller comments that the name is “pretty”, i know i’ve been gendered female. male names are never “pretty”. they are “cool” instead.

when my name is “unusual”, i know they are still having trouble gendering me. and that’s when they avoid pronouns all together. and in many cases, those calls will be a bit more difficult. the caller simply doesn’t know how to treat me. the simple truth - people, both male and female, treat people differently according to their gender*. or according to their sex, depending on who the person doing the treating is, and how they see sex and gender.

since i work at the bank, i am often called upon to explain how finance charges are calculated. sometimes, when the caller is having trouble gendering me, they will gender me male after i go through the mathematical explanation of finance charges. they accept my explanation, usually without question. when i am gendered female, they argue in many cases.

at a meeting last week, one of the new employees was asking about the best way to explain finance charges. our team manager suggested that one of the more seasoned employees review his mostly successful explanation. the new employee looked confused - her explanation was almost identical. i suggested that callers believed the seasoned employee’s explanation because he was male, and questioned the new employee’s explanation because she was female. and as someone who is experienced as both genders on the phone, i’m in a unique position to compare. the other women at the meeting applauded.

i am rarely asked my gender on the phone - perhaps once or twice a month. as little light observes, most people just assume. and some will make updates during the conversation, based on my behavior and knowledge. some will go back and forth more than once. little light also suggests that if people are unsure, “just ask”. i don’t think that’s going to work.

see, making judgements about people and treating them accordingly (read discriminating, oppressing, infantizing, and dismissing) based on their gender is as ingrained in society’s collective consciousness as the idea that anyone with even partial functional intellegence can tell the difference between a man and a woman. and if one can’t tell the difference, then either they are somehow defective, or the person under examination is. and no one likes to think of themselves as defective. which is why trans people are considered defective. it’s perceived that we are “confused” about our own gender, and thus, do not have even partial functional intellegence. and thus defective.

in the mainstream, gender is absolute, binary, and obvious. the ability to determine gender is absolute, binary, and obvious. and if an individual is none of these, then they are somehow defective.

*in this post, this is the first use of the word “gender” as a noun - up until here (i think), i’ve been using the term as a verb. when used as a noun, many people will use it as synonymous with “sex”. i believe this is very wrong, and causes many problems. and i believe people started to use the word “gender” instead of “sex”, because many people are very uptight about using the word “sex”. it’s unfortunate that the word “sex” means both our physical and biological state (as in reproductive ability) and the act of intercourse. that just further confuses and stigmatizes the term. in this post, since i’m talking about the way that the mainstream views sex and gender, i use the word gender as it is used to describe me by the mainstream. i admit and accept the problems inherent in this usage, but also believe that in this case, it’s somewhat more accurate.