I was at Bayfair mall, which is about ten miles from me. I hadn't been there enfemme before, and it was a mixed bag. I'd get read for 10 minutes, then I'd blend for 10, then I'd get read again. It was still a good night, though. Who knows? Maybe everyone was just admiring my hairstyle
Anyway--I was looking for a woman's holiday sweater, and Macy's had none that I wanted. So I wandered into Target, and couldn't find any at all. I went to the fitting room, and asked the woman who was monitoring the rooms. I specifically said I wanted a woman's sweater.
She smiled and said she'd call to see if there were any left. As she's waiting for the phone to ring, another clerk asks what she's doing.
"He wants to know about holiday sweaters, " she says.
Maybe she sees my face when she says this, because when she gets someone on the line, she says, "I have a guest here who's looking for holiday sweaters." That could be standard Target customer-relations talk, but at any rate, she made the switch to something neutral.
I never like to put people into a tight corner about what pronoun they're supposed to use. That's one reason I don't care to dress androgynously.
I too like to know what pronoun someone expects me to use, and I'm used to transgender people around me all the time. If I feel that way, I can only imagine what the clerk at Target might feel.
Still, I wish she would have played along with my act! I was full-femme, and I had all the cues going for me, especially since my hair was set in a woman-only wave. Some people that have an attitude about our dressing, will deliberately say "sir" to indicate that they're not fooled, no way. But I didn't sense that with her.
I don't see getting a "she" as meaning I've fooled someone. It's just that if I've got the visuals right, most people will react to what they see, and I get it automatically. I wasn't so upset with her personally--after all, she did make the situation better--but I wondered why she said that in the first place!?
It was part about the new hairdo that really got me. Here I've put a new piece into the puzzle, and I'm passing worse than before? Made me a little crazy.
I ended up thinking that even if we DO come up with a gender-neutral pronoun, it will still not be polite to use it! No one wants to hear the clerk say, "Zie wants a holiday sweater," even if that became the "accepted" way to say "he/she." None of us may like being just one gender all the time, but we don't want to become an "it," either.
So people are going to continue to have to make snap judgments about what pronoun the person in front of them wants to hear. Maybe there will be so many of us out there in the next ten years that it will become common knowledge! I can see it in Dear Abby: "When you meet a crossdresser in a public place, most people refer to her as "she." Yay!
OK, a small rant there. Anita will get down off "her" soapbox now.
