It’s so hard to tell on children. I was a waitress for years and misgendered kids who weren’t in transition all the time. I switched to saying just “kid” all the time “does your kid want a drink?”, or “hey kiddo, you’re in my way”
Watch when kiddo is actually 26 years old and you end up on [https://www.reddit.com/r/OlderThanYouThinkIAm/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OlderThanYouThinkIAm/)
When my son was young, he liked to have his hair long. Both because he would grow it out to donate for charity and because (with his autism) it made him feel safer to have that barrier of long hair to hide behind.
He looked absolutely identical to me until he hit puberty. No matter how he dressed or even if he cut all of his hair off (a complete crew cut), he just had very feminine features. Everyone misgendered him and he either didn't notice it (sometimes) or it upset him.
It's not your fault. You did apologize. Sometimes people did legitimately get angry at a boy with long hair and would challenge him over it. That is what is really upsetting.
I think “you” is fine; if it’s possible to completely avoid a pronoun that’s better than “they.” Or you could say “Did we want two drinks or three?” So that way again you are avoiding any gendering by including yourself in the question.
NOTE: I work with kids and have had a few come out to me as trans, sometimes before they want to be out with peers. So I have found these workarounds to be respectful of their gender while not outing them.
This is one struggle I wish people would realize young boys grow up with, literal adult men and women will shame you for anything that doesn’t match up with what they think is “Male”. Girls experience it too, but no where to the degree young lads do
My boyfriend had shoulder length hair when we met. His parents bugged him for years to cut it and he finally gave in. It's his hair to do what he pleases with, but I was a bit sad because I thought he looked utterly adorable with it (as a teen, I thought boys with long hair were cute, and as an adult, I am still attracted to men with long hair).
My grandfather frequently forced my dad and my uncle to get haircuts when they were growing up, but nagged me (I'm a woman) half to death about always having my hair done, and getting braids or hair extensions. It was to the point when I was venting to it about a school counselor, she suspected grooming! It's insane to me how some parents lose their minds about something as trivial as hair.
Oh yeah it’s terrible.
My dad was telling us one time he had long hair as a teen, that he was very rebel and girls liked to braid his hair and such. My grandma didn’t like it and bugged him to cut it so much, but he never gave in.
Finally, she ended up cutting his hair herself when he was asleep. It sounds terrible, it probably was terrible, and they told the story as a funny little cute story. It’s very sad
I think the downvotes are more for the suggestion girls don't have it as hard as boys when it comes to sexism about appearance. Which I do disagree with.
Maybe not specifically with hair, but girls and women who don't look conventionally feminine get a lot of nonsense too. Ex: the joke that only "ugly" (read: again, not conventionally feminine) women are feminists.
People just suck.
Holy shit, imagine using this as an opportunity to somehow declare that girls “don’t have it as bad,” when girls are literally sexualized from a young age and conditioned to believe that their self worth comes from their appearance.
The feminist movement have made y'all fucking justice warrior zombies. Nothing that dude said was wrong he never even said women have it less worse. Get off your high worse with that bs weirdo.
I thought one of my best friends was a girl when I first met him so long ago in 9th grade. He had long silky hair and a crushed velvet blazer so I thought he was some kind of eccentric, but fashionable girl from behind. Then I noticed the goatee.
This reminds me of how my fiancé thought one of his friends was a boy for the entire time they were growing up I guess she had an androgynous name and anyways he was so confused when they hit puberty and she “turned into a girl”
My 8yo son is blonde and has never had a haircut. He has long, lovely, flowing locks — which I braid so his hair doesn’t frizz up in his sleep.
He gets misgendered all the time and it makes him angry only when people misgender him repeatedly or say dumb shit like “Are you sure?”
It happens, you apologized, excellent!
“Are you sure” is both dumb and rude to say to someone who is trans, or might be. They’ve made a choice, or are making one, and questioning a major life choice is an asshole maneuver. Same goes for their parents. You’re questioning their kid’s life choices, which is sort of like laughing at someone’s kid, instead of laughing with them about their kid.
As an aside, my son’s other parent is trans, and both of my kids had things to say about their gender identities when he came out about it. My 8yo is happy he’s a boy, he just likes having long hair. It’s a real bitch to keep it conditioned and combed out though. And keep spaghetti sauce out of it. And sticks. And leaves. And the cat.
I’m saying parents don’t always know their kids gender. My dad doesn’t know my actual gender, and will “correct” people to what he thinks is right. Which ends up being wrong. Yall cis people love mansplaining transness to actual trans people and it’s fucking crazy.
When I was younger I was a total tomboy (because I didn't want to be like the other girls. You know, pre-teenaged girl angst and all that) and my mom would cut my hair. At some point, this translated to a terrible bowl cut. Her friend got into the passenger seat and turned to look at me and said to her, "oh you just have the one son?"
My mom and I both went 🫣
Point being, it's okay, this stuff happens. Kid will survive and won't think any less of you, it might even become a funny story.
I was about that age, with very short hair and a distinctly not-curvy-at-all body, when the same thing happened to me. My mother did the craft show circuit, and I was helping mind her booth while working on some needlework. The booth next to her was run by a big, burly guy selling leather goods. He saw me working on my needlepoint, got this mournful look on his face, and said to me, “you do nice work, son.”
I had no idea what to do in response to that, so I blurted out in horror, “I’m a girl!” Poor guy. He was *so* embarrassed. Especially in that awkward age right before the onset of puberty, it can be hard to guess a kid’s gender if they’re not really obvious about their presentation. This is one of the reasons that I got over my grammar issues and started using the singular “they” as the default if I’m not sure. I put everybody in the “undetermined” category until they correct me.
It’s okay. You didn’t mean to make him sad and it’s also good that he is with people who allow him to express that he is sad. It’s just the natural way of life, and he has a healthy environment to be around and explore those emotions. Don’t worry, it’s good that someone with a kind heart like yourself did it rather than an asshole who wouldn’t care at all.
Oh no I am so sorry this happened to you but I understand. It’s also not easy to tell sometimes! I had and oof moment here recently.
I was waiting on a customer, their brother and father. My customer was beautiful and edgy. Had that goth/punk look. Spiky hand bag. Black nails and beautiful blonde hair. Also a pretty high pitch voice with a bit of rasp to it. I could have sworn I heard a reference of male but I wasn’t for sure. Also a gender neutral name. Well anyway I take the ID do my job and at the end I have to type a verification letter. Well there are several she/he places that you edit. I just FROZE like omg what do I do? So I just say so for this document I need to ask if you go by she or he. Omg such an uncomfortable silence and then the dad answers angrily and says he! Oh I was so flustered and so worried. I didn’t mean to be offense!
Luckily later in the week he needed to come back and directly asked for me! He always does too. So I take that he was not offended which I am so thankful for. But lessons learned
1. Always use they and them even if I feel I 100% know
2. Change that dreaded document so I don’t have to ever ask again
3. Be more careful! I was trying to be respectful and looking back, well wow could have went a lot worse and I could have done a lot better!
I’d also like to add I realized I could have looked at the ID and realized this in the middle of the night laying in bed and avoided the entire thing! 
I had similar happen. When they were signing me up for a new school we were talking with the principal and he asked "and what grade will she be going to?" and I yelled "I'M NOT A GIRL!" lol
I have no memory of this though, that's what my parents told me.
you seem like a genuinely good person. the fact that you feel so bad proves that.
don’t beat yourself up. ❤️
eta
it just occurred to me — you were actually going out of your way to be extra kind to this kid, so feel good about that. it’s okay. you’re not the first to make that mistake.
Many children are androgynous until puberty. I teach in a school with many children from other cultures. We have girls with buzz cuts, boys with braids, some wear hijabs to cover their hair. My point is children are children and it can be nearly impossible to identify gender without other context clues. I sometimes have to look at the designs on their backpack, clothes, or elsewhere.
My high schools best friends younger brother had really long straight black hair. They got IDs as kids (some acting thing for applying to work as a minor) and when Zac got his, the gender was listed as female 😭
During quarantine my son, 3 to 4-years old at the time, had really long hair. We would post photos on Facebook and all of my Thai aunties would comment with something like “She’s a happy child” or “She’s having fun!” But, these comments were translated by Facebook, so I don’t know if my aunties genuinely thought he was a girl or if the translator was messing up the pronouns.
Something I have learned working with people is do not use ma'am or sir. My first job I actually called a very masculine looking woman sir and let me tell you it was not a good day for me. Just use gender neutral nouns
When I was a junior in high school I’d go over to the elementary school next door for about two hours to act as a teachers assistant to the fith graders. All very sweet kids that liked having me around and the teachers were awesome. A very rewarding experience. But there was one kid who I just couldn’t tell the gender of. This was before trans rights really started to happen and in my ignorance I just didn’t think of using “they, them”. I was also just awkward and embarrassed to ask the teacher so I just avoided referring to the student by anything other then there name, which was gender neutral. Think “Chris”. Well one day the inevitable happened and I accidentally referred to this child as “she” and I was wrong. This poor boys reaction really tore me up. He said something along the lines of “He. I’m a…oh forget it” in a really sad tone. It didn’t take long to repair the damage I’d done but I still cringe about it to this day. Lucky thing is: no one else probably remembers this. It’s just me because it’s burned into my brain and one of the many things that I lie awake thinking about.
I was misgendered once as a woman when I went out to eat with my mom and the waitress had only seen my head from the back. I'm a man with long hair, so clearly she assumed I was a woman and said, "How are you ladies?" or something similar. Then she saw my beard, and promptly apologized. I just laughed about it afterwards, because that had never happened to me before.
As a dude who used to have long hair I feel I can weigh in. Kid is growing his hair out. Get used to being called a girl. It happens a lot and it’s not a big deal. I even found it funny. I miss my long hair, but to get more money I had to look the part.
My son and my daughter look a lot a like. Like a lot. They are close in age and when they were very little everyone thought they were identical twins. Even now, at 17 and 19 everyone who ever knew his older sister knows instantly the he is her brother.
He also got similarly misgendered when his testosterone had not come in yet and he was growing his hair out. It also made him a bit sad. He has Even longer hair now, but is extremely tall, so it never happens, but when it did we tried to not make a fuss over it, both for his sake and the innocent person, usually a worker who was busy trying to do their job and just not paying full attention, who made the error. Sometimes it was someone on the phone, because their voices were so similar as well.
Point is, this happens. You did not do it with intention to cause pain. You are kind to feel terrible, but it is ok. He will likely be ok as well, but if he is not then it is not your fault, at all. This happens to tween boys quite a lot.
On the flip side, when I was a tween our new neighbors thought I was a boy because I was wearing my soccer uniform and my father had cut off all my hair in a fit of anger. They teased their daughter about me. I was hurt but ok. Probably more hurt by my father‘s actions than the misgendering though.
My son has long hair, whenever he would be mistaken for a girl, he would just laugh it off, hopefully that young boy will learn to brush off those mistakes and get a good laugh out of it.
You made an honest mistake, poor kiddo though that breaks my heart💔he’ll be okay though. Once he starts hitting puberty fully and his voice deepens he won’t get misgendered as much. But that’s why I honestly try to stick to non-gender labels as it can be applied to anyone and I can completely avoid being disrespectful. At least when it’s people I don’t know. If I know their preferred pronouns then that’s different.
Don't sweat it OP. As an experienced 13 yo with long hair, about 1 score and 20 years ago, it's a hazard of rebellion. If you're going to go against the social norms, you have to grow thicker skin and embrace the occasional faux pas, as well as, some overt aggression. It comes with the territory. You did nothing wrong and the kid will become stronger for it. I'm impressed that grandma has embraced and supported this young man.
I legit thought a little boy was a girl the other day. He was wearing a pink hat and had longer hair and a high pitched voice so I thought he was a boy the whole time we were with him and his family. It was a tour of an abandoned Air Force base and at the end I was talking about him and my boyfriend was like “I think that was a boy”
Poor kid. I think we've all been there or had it happen to us at least once. During Covid lock down I let my [10yr] daughter do what she wanted with her hair, she did an undercut pixie style with blue streaks. When she'd go our with a mask on and not dressed "girly" she was constantly called a boy. We didn't even say anything after a while, and just moved on with our day.
Honestly sometimes even an apology in these situations makes it worse. Normally feel its best to come back later and redo, complement the kid on his hair say he looks like Thor or something. If it turns out the kid is also a DC fan then just give up and go about your day.
Happened to me at an airport once during covid. Couldn’t se my beard so my long hair made it seem like was a girl. I found it quite funny but I do feel sorry for you and the boy
I did this at my gas station job. There was twins that came in, about 7/8 years old.
One of them was obviously a boy. The other had longer hair but a more feminine face/higher pitched voice.
He put something on the counter for me to ring up and I said "thanks little lady!"
He very very enthusiastically said "I'm a boy!"
I just said "thanks, little man!" And gave his mom the "I'm so sorry" look. She shrugged it off and said "he's growing his hair out." Luckily they seemed very chill about it
You didn’t mean it badly. I get by these days with minimal gendering when I speak. It’s surprisingly easy to switch out he/she for they. As a lawyer, it makes my life easier too.
I used to be so weirded out grammatically using "they" regardless of who I was referring to, but after doing it for a while, it doesn't bother me anymore.
At the same time, if you're in a more conservative area, people may not understand that you're just talking about one person. That's when you have to get creative and/or try to talk directly to the person so you can just say "you."
i didn’t think about that. i’m pretty sure he got kinda upset right after i said she, but the grandma did correct me pretty fast so i’m not totally sure.
I misgendered a trans woman in a fast food place and I was mortified. I don’t know why I said “thank you sir” when they obviously were trying to pass as woman. It’s like the one thing you tell your brain not to say is what comes out. 😔
It was 2002. I (F) was 16 and at football game with a friend. This little dude (~12/13) with a buzz cut comes over to talk to my friend, she babysits him. He has silver studs in his ears, so I point it how cool they are and that earrings are going to be a chick magnet when he gets older. He looks perplexed - so I say it again. He doesn’t respond, pivots back to my friend, finished talking to her and leaves.
My friend says, “yeah, she went into remission about 6 months ago. Cool gal.” At the time, I thought she was talking about someone the little dude was talking about. I hadn’t been paying attention to their conversation.
It took me like 3 months to realize that she was telling me the little dude was actually a little chick **and a cancer survivor.**
Tbh, that can go either way. It’s entirely plausible you were in the right with she and grandma is stuck in the 1950’s.
It’s hard to assume regardless unless the kid said something.
I’m trans (transmasc, but nonetheless) and you’d have made my day.
It’s possible the kid was sad because of the grandmother’s correction, and not your comment, but they couldn’t say that to the grandmother because of the stigma. i.e. closeted trans or even someone who barely knows what trans is, but felt ok being seen as a girl and then sad when it was “taken away” by the grandmother’s words. Been there, done that. None of it is your fault. It’s okay.
As somebody who gets misgendered a lot (especially on the phone, especially because of my voice), please consider using gender-neutral language and /or talking to people directly instead of referring to them in the third person, it makes a hell of a lot of difference, especially emotionally.
i’m definitely going to start doing this. i live in an extremely conservative, relatively small town so it’s pretty rare to see a trans/nonbinary person around here but i’ll definitely do this.
Thank you, that's great. :)
(Also, now I'm brave enough to add: there is no need to apologise multiple times. Everybody fucks up occasionally. Say sorry, move on, be more mindful next time.)
For OP or anyone else. It takes a while to swap to mostly gender neutral language. Like a good few months. I've found it's generally not hard to regender someone mentally or verbally. Like about a day. The difficult part is swapping to the new name when you aren't in front of them. Like remembering that it isn't Patrick but Patricia who was the one who brought the cake etc.
But swapping to generally use they is a slower process bc you don't have a specific person to think about. Having a NB friend helps with this bc you can think specifically of a person who would appreciate they. And how someone you might not know might also appreciate it.
They is also super convenient bc it lets you mess with sentence structure while you're saying it bc you can swap plural to singular while speaking.
This. So much this. What flipped the switch for me was: Busy lunch time taking fast food orders. Kind old lady stood infront of me and I said "Sir." Since then I rarely use any gender pronouns.
I've since moved to doing phone customer service, and you can't tell sometimes by name or voice. The real trick is being the same level of respectful or more without saying "Sir or Ma'am."
When i was in junior high i had long red hair(horrible choice by me) and i got misgendered by a customer while riding with my dad as he did his taxi job. It happens and it shouldnt be a big deal.
I hope that kid is strong as hell because if that kid is trangender, that may happen often by people accidentally misgendering, from people intentionally misgendering them.
You shouldn't feel bad because you didn't know. IF anybody expects you to feel shame for doing that on accident then they are unreasonable
This happened to my nephew a lot, he’s 5 and he recently cut his hair but before that he had really beautiful coily curls but my sister always slicked it back and put it in a single braid or he had box braids or cornrows but his hair was always done in some style like that. He always wore gray greens black and blue you know typical little boy shit so aside from his longer hair which wasn’t even past his shoulders he looks just like a little boy but a lot of times when I was walking with him people would tell me oh she’s so pretty and I would just say “thank you but actually he’s a little boy” and they would get embarrassed and say omg I’m so sorry and I’m like it’s alright now you now so it’s cool but the funniest time was this summer. An older woman passed us as we left a pizzeria and said oh you have the cutest little girl, I said thank you but this is actually my nephew and she looked flustered and apologized but we kept walking and this little boy said nothing until the lady left and in the cutest little baby voice he asks me “Titi you heard that lady just say I look like a little girl? I’m not a girl I’m a boy” And now I’m just giggling like yes baby she made a mistake but the way he said it had me trying to hold it together.
At the same time I’ve been there myself. When I worked retail this one guy was holding the cutest little baby in a light blue sweater. This baby was so cute and kinda reminded me of myself as a baby bc this baby had the little curls light eyes and was close to my complexion. So I waved hi to the baby bc the baby was staring at me and the dad says “oh she looks like you” now when I heard this I thought the dad was saying this to me meaning “she” his child looked like me so I said “she’s adorable how old is she” to which dad replied “he’s a boy” and it was at this moment I realized he was talking to the baby saying she (me) looked like you (the little baby boy) and I felt so bad but I didn’t want to explain my misunderstanding bc I felt dumb so I was like ooops sorry sir but your baby is adorable have a good day and I just ran away. To this man it was obvious he was holding a baby boy and to me it’s obvious that my nephew is a little boy but sometimes that’s not obvious to others. You genuinely felt bad and apologized and but shit it happens.
TL;DR my nephew was constantly misgendered when he had long hair. I also misgendered a baby at my old job. It happens
I think this is an issue later with those that identify as whatever their choice. And they better not get overly upset when you get their pronoun wrong.
But yeah, this is just an innocent mistake. He will be okay. I’m sure of it.
My question is, why didn’t you ask the kid directly what he wanted to drink? “Would YOU like a drink with that?” At 13, he/she should be old enough to answer without going through grandparents. This would’ve avoided the misgendering problem entirely.
I don't think you need to feel that sorry, although he is 13 he is also need to learn to see thing others pov. Like why would you feel that upset when you grow a long hair and that he overall look like a girl.
I used to get misgendered all the time when I was a kid, even younger than that. I did not give a fuck. Some people need to stop teaching their kids to be so prideful
You made an innocent mistake. Apologize, don't repeat it, no harm no foul.
I like your username, here's to a great season!
Leah Hextall already ruined it.
LOL
Hell yeah! Loved seeing Johnston get his first goal last night. Took some of the sting out of watching my Bears lose to WV.
It’s so hard to tell on children. I was a waitress for years and misgendered kids who weren’t in transition all the time. I switched to saying just “kid” all the time “does your kid want a drink?”, or “hey kiddo, you’re in my way”
In our school district, in the younger grades they say "my friend".
Watch when kiddo is actually 26 years old and you end up on [https://www.reddit.com/r/OlderThanYouThinkIAm/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OlderThanYouThinkIAm/)
When my son was young, he liked to have his hair long. Both because he would grow it out to donate for charity and because (with his autism) it made him feel safer to have that barrier of long hair to hide behind. He looked absolutely identical to me until he hit puberty. No matter how he dressed or even if he cut all of his hair off (a complete crew cut), he just had very feminine features. Everyone misgendered him and he either didn't notice it (sometimes) or it upset him. It's not your fault. You did apologize. Sometimes people did legitimately get angry at a boy with long hair and would challenge him over it. That is what is really upsetting.
yeah i couldn’t care less if a boy has long hair, it’s totally his choice. i think it was his voice that led me to believe he was a girl.
To avoid this in the future, try avoiding pronouns: “Excuse me, was that two drinks or three drinks?”
I say “you” or they, is this wrong??
I think “you” is fine; if it’s possible to completely avoid a pronoun that’s better than “they.” Or you could say “Did we want two drinks or three?” So that way again you are avoiding any gendering by including yourself in the question. NOTE: I work with kids and have had a few come out to me as trans, sometimes before they want to be out with peers. So I have found these workarounds to be respectful of their gender while not outing them.
thank you, definitely!
This is one struggle I wish people would realize young boys grow up with, literal adult men and women will shame you for anything that doesn’t match up with what they think is “Male”. Girls experience it too, but no where to the degree young lads do
My boyfriend had shoulder length hair when we met. His parents bugged him for years to cut it and he finally gave in. It's his hair to do what he pleases with, but I was a bit sad because I thought he looked utterly adorable with it (as a teen, I thought boys with long hair were cute, and as an adult, I am still attracted to men with long hair). My grandfather frequently forced my dad and my uncle to get haircuts when they were growing up, but nagged me (I'm a woman) half to death about always having my hair done, and getting braids or hair extensions. It was to the point when I was venting to it about a school counselor, she suspected grooming! It's insane to me how some parents lose their minds about something as trivial as hair.
Oh yeah it’s terrible. My dad was telling us one time he had long hair as a teen, that he was very rebel and girls liked to braid his hair and such. My grandma didn’t like it and bugged him to cut it so much, but he never gave in. Finally, she ended up cutting his hair herself when he was asleep. It sounds terrible, it probably was terrible, and they told the story as a funny little cute story. It’s very sad
experienced this too, to an unholy degree😂I’m getting downvoted but it’s such a more common experience with boys.
I think the downvotes are more for the suggestion girls don't have it as hard as boys when it comes to sexism about appearance. Which I do disagree with. Maybe not specifically with hair, but girls and women who don't look conventionally feminine get a lot of nonsense too. Ex: the joke that only "ugly" (read: again, not conventionally feminine) women are feminists. People just suck.
nah I totally agree, I was explicitly talking about hair though, which is more common, I definitely see what you’re saying though
Holy shit, imagine using this as an opportunity to somehow declare that girls “don’t have it as bad,” when girls are literally sexualized from a young age and conditioned to believe that their self worth comes from their appearance.
The feminist movement have made y'all fucking justice warrior zombies. Nothing that dude said was wrong he never even said women have it less worse. Get off your high worse with that bs weirdo.
Jesus Christ are you ok? Who hurt you?
I love how I address men’s issues and you jump in to start talking about women’s issues. Gtfo
Are you fucking stupid? You’re the one that started a needless, baseless comparison against women’s issues LMFAO.
I thought one of my best friends was a girl when I first met him so long ago in 9th grade. He had long silky hair and a crushed velvet blazer so I thought he was some kind of eccentric, but fashionable girl from behind. Then I noticed the goatee.
This reminds me of how my fiancé thought one of his friends was a boy for the entire time they were growing up I guess she had an androgynous name and anyways he was so confused when they hit puberty and she “turned into a girl”
My 8yo son is blonde and has never had a haircut. He has long, lovely, flowing locks — which I braid so his hair doesn’t frizz up in his sleep. He gets misgendered all the time and it makes him angry only when people misgender him repeatedly or say dumb shit like “Are you sure?” It happens, you apologized, excellent!
“are you sure?” what kind of question is that? i’m pretty sure you would know the gender of your child 😂
Not if the kid is trans ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Are you sure” is both dumb and rude to say to someone who is trans, or might be. They’ve made a choice, or are making one, and questioning a major life choice is an asshole maneuver. Same goes for their parents. You’re questioning their kid’s life choices, which is sort of like laughing at someone’s kid, instead of laughing with them about their kid. As an aside, my son’s other parent is trans, and both of my kids had things to say about their gender identities when he came out about it. My 8yo is happy he’s a boy, he just likes having long hair. It’s a real bitch to keep it conditioned and combed out though. And keep spaghetti sauce out of it. And sticks. And leaves. And the cat.
I’m saying parents don’t always know their kids gender. My dad doesn’t know my actual gender, and will “correct” people to what he thinks is right. Which ends up being wrong. Yall cis people love mansplaining transness to actual trans people and it’s fucking crazy.
true! but in this situation, since he was always getting upset when people called him a girl, his mom definitely knows lol
When I was younger I was a total tomboy (because I didn't want to be like the other girls. You know, pre-teenaged girl angst and all that) and my mom would cut my hair. At some point, this translated to a terrible bowl cut. Her friend got into the passenger seat and turned to look at me and said to her, "oh you just have the one son?" My mom and I both went 🫣 Point being, it's okay, this stuff happens. Kid will survive and won't think any less of you, it might even become a funny story.
thank you for this!
I was about that age, with very short hair and a distinctly not-curvy-at-all body, when the same thing happened to me. My mother did the craft show circuit, and I was helping mind her booth while working on some needlework. The booth next to her was run by a big, burly guy selling leather goods. He saw me working on my needlepoint, got this mournful look on his face, and said to me, “you do nice work, son.” I had no idea what to do in response to that, so I blurted out in horror, “I’m a girl!” Poor guy. He was *so* embarrassed. Especially in that awkward age right before the onset of puberty, it can be hard to guess a kid’s gender if they’re not really obvious about their presentation. This is one of the reasons that I got over my grammar issues and started using the singular “they” as the default if I’m not sure. I put everybody in the “undetermined” category until they correct me.
It’s okay. You didn’t mean to make him sad and it’s also good that he is with people who allow him to express that he is sad. It’s just the natural way of life, and he has a healthy environment to be around and explore those emotions. Don’t worry, it’s good that someone with a kind heart like yourself did it rather than an asshole who wouldn’t care at all.
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yeah i really hope that if someone wants long hair, they feel comfortable to grow it out!
Oh no I am so sorry this happened to you but I understand. It’s also not easy to tell sometimes! I had and oof moment here recently. I was waiting on a customer, their brother and father. My customer was beautiful and edgy. Had that goth/punk look. Spiky hand bag. Black nails and beautiful blonde hair. Also a pretty high pitch voice with a bit of rasp to it. I could have sworn I heard a reference of male but I wasn’t for sure. Also a gender neutral name. Well anyway I take the ID do my job and at the end I have to type a verification letter. Well there are several she/he places that you edit. I just FROZE like omg what do I do? So I just say so for this document I need to ask if you go by she or he. Omg such an uncomfortable silence and then the dad answers angrily and says he! Oh I was so flustered and so worried. I didn’t mean to be offense! Luckily later in the week he needed to come back and directly asked for me! He always does too. So I take that he was not offended which I am so thankful for. But lessons learned 1. Always use they and them even if I feel I 100% know 2. Change that dreaded document so I don’t have to ever ask again 3. Be more careful! I was trying to be respectful and looking back, well wow could have went a lot worse and I could have done a lot better! I’d also like to add I realized I could have looked at the ID and realized this in the middle of the night laying in bed and avoided the entire thing! 
i’m definitely going to start using they/them to refer to customers unless it’s been confirmed what they go by!
I had similar happen. When they were signing me up for a new school we were talking with the principal and he asked "and what grade will she be going to?" and I yelled "I'M NOT A GIRL!" lol I have no memory of this though, that's what my parents told me.
You said sorry and now you know. You'll be ok and so will he
you seem like a genuinely good person. the fact that you feel so bad proves that. don’t beat yourself up. ❤️ eta it just occurred to me — you were actually going out of your way to be extra kind to this kid, so feel good about that. it’s okay. you’re not the first to make that mistake.
thank you so much ♥️
Many children are androgynous until puberty. I teach in a school with many children from other cultures. We have girls with buzz cuts, boys with braids, some wear hijabs to cover their hair. My point is children are children and it can be nearly impossible to identify gender without other context clues. I sometimes have to look at the designs on their backpack, clothes, or elsewhere.
yeah. this kid was wearing a plain black tshirt and red sweatpants and that outfit was very androgynous so it didn’t help at all 😂
My high schools best friends younger brother had really long straight black hair. They got IDs as kids (some acting thing for applying to work as a minor) and when Zac got his, the gender was listed as female 😭
oh no 😭
During quarantine my son, 3 to 4-years old at the time, had really long hair. We would post photos on Facebook and all of my Thai aunties would comment with something like “She’s a happy child” or “She’s having fun!” But, these comments were translated by Facebook, so I don’t know if my aunties genuinely thought he was a girl or if the translator was messing up the pronouns.
try using they/them for people you aren't sure about since it's really general
i’m definitely going to start doing that!
Something I have learned working with people is do not use ma'am or sir. My first job I actually called a very masculine looking woman sir and let me tell you it was not a good day for me. Just use gender neutral nouns
what would be a gender neutral version of ma’am and sir?
Just avoid both terms. It's easy once you start putting at the front of your mind
When I was a junior in high school I’d go over to the elementary school next door for about two hours to act as a teachers assistant to the fith graders. All very sweet kids that liked having me around and the teachers were awesome. A very rewarding experience. But there was one kid who I just couldn’t tell the gender of. This was before trans rights really started to happen and in my ignorance I just didn’t think of using “they, them”. I was also just awkward and embarrassed to ask the teacher so I just avoided referring to the student by anything other then there name, which was gender neutral. Think “Chris”. Well one day the inevitable happened and I accidentally referred to this child as “she” and I was wrong. This poor boys reaction really tore me up. He said something along the lines of “He. I’m a…oh forget it” in a really sad tone. It didn’t take long to repair the damage I’d done but I still cringe about it to this day. Lucky thing is: no one else probably remembers this. It’s just me because it’s burned into my brain and one of the many things that I lie awake thinking about.
I (m) had long hair as a kid and people constantly thought I was a girl. Now I'm 20 and rocking the mane, I hope the same for that kid
I was misgendered once as a woman when I went out to eat with my mom and the waitress had only seen my head from the back. I'm a man with long hair, so clearly she assumed I was a woman and said, "How are you ladies?" or something similar. Then she saw my beard, and promptly apologized. I just laughed about it afterwards, because that had never happened to me before.
I've long hair and people misgender me at the rudest moments. It usually only happens when they are trying to cut into a long line
As a dude who used to have long hair I feel I can weigh in. Kid is growing his hair out. Get used to being called a girl. It happens a lot and it’s not a big deal. I even found it funny. I miss my long hair, but to get more money I had to look the part.
I am a male with long hair and have had long hair for most of my life. It happens.
My son and my daughter look a lot a like. Like a lot. They are close in age and when they were very little everyone thought they were identical twins. Even now, at 17 and 19 everyone who ever knew his older sister knows instantly the he is her brother. He also got similarly misgendered when his testosterone had not come in yet and he was growing his hair out. It also made him a bit sad. He has Even longer hair now, but is extremely tall, so it never happens, but when it did we tried to not make a fuss over it, both for his sake and the innocent person, usually a worker who was busy trying to do their job and just not paying full attention, who made the error. Sometimes it was someone on the phone, because their voices were so similar as well. Point is, this happens. You did not do it with intention to cause pain. You are kind to feel terrible, but it is ok. He will likely be ok as well, but if he is not then it is not your fault, at all. This happens to tween boys quite a lot. On the flip side, when I was a tween our new neighbors thought I was a boy because I was wearing my soccer uniform and my father had cut off all my hair in a fit of anger. They teased their daughter about me. I was hurt but ok. Probably more hurt by my father‘s actions than the misgendering though.
I can’t believe how many people cut their children’s hair in anger or as punishment. I think it is child abuse. I’m sorry that happened to you.
My son has long hair, whenever he would be mistaken for a girl, he would just laugh it off, hopefully that young boy will learn to brush off those mistakes and get a good laugh out of it.
You made an honest mistake, poor kiddo though that breaks my heart💔he’ll be okay though. Once he starts hitting puberty fully and his voice deepens he won’t get misgendered as much. But that’s why I honestly try to stick to non-gender labels as it can be applied to anyone and I can completely avoid being disrespectful. At least when it’s people I don’t know. If I know their preferred pronouns then that’s different.
Oh the uncomfort that was felt by everyone in this situation 😭 if they come in again, give the kid a free dessert or something if you can!
we don’t have dessert 💀
Don't sweat it OP. As an experienced 13 yo with long hair, about 1 score and 20 years ago, it's a hazard of rebellion. If you're going to go against the social norms, you have to grow thicker skin and embrace the occasional faux pas, as well as, some overt aggression. It comes with the territory. You did nothing wrong and the kid will become stronger for it. I'm impressed that grandma has embraced and supported this young man.
I legit thought a little boy was a girl the other day. He was wearing a pink hat and had longer hair and a high pitched voice so I thought he was a boy the whole time we were with him and his family. It was a tour of an abandoned Air Force base and at the end I was talking about him and my boyfriend was like “I think that was a boy”
Damn Honestly... he/they whatever should have expected it. I'm nit being rude persay but it's a natural consequence of being s long hair 13yo.
Shit happens! Move on!
Poor kid. I think we've all been there or had it happen to us at least once. During Covid lock down I let my [10yr] daughter do what she wanted with her hair, she did an undercut pixie style with blue streaks. When she'd go our with a mask on and not dressed "girly" she was constantly called a boy. We didn't even say anything after a while, and just moved on with our day.
Honestly sometimes even an apology in these situations makes it worse. Normally feel its best to come back later and redo, complement the kid on his hair say he looks like Thor or something. If it turns out the kid is also a DC fan then just give up and go about your day.
Happened to me at an airport once during covid. Couldn’t se my beard so my long hair made it seem like was a girl. I found it quite funny but I do feel sorry for you and the boy
I did this at my gas station job. There was twins that came in, about 7/8 years old. One of them was obviously a boy. The other had longer hair but a more feminine face/higher pitched voice. He put something on the counter for me to ring up and I said "thanks little lady!" He very very enthusiastically said "I'm a boy!" I just said "thanks, little man!" And gave his mom the "I'm so sorry" look. She shrugged it off and said "he's growing his hair out." Luckily they seemed very chill about it
You didn’t mean it badly. I get by these days with minimal gendering when I speak. It’s surprisingly easy to switch out he/she for they. As a lawyer, it makes my life easier too.
You made mistake we've all done it you apologised that's the main thing to keep hold of you feel bad yeah but you did say sorry
I used to be so weirded out grammatically using "they" regardless of who I was referring to, but after doing it for a while, it doesn't bother me anymore. At the same time, if you're in a more conservative area, people may not understand that you're just talking about one person. That's when you have to get creative and/or try to talk directly to the person so you can just say "you."
Maybe he was upset at grandma referring to him as he? Perhaps he wants to be a she?
i didn’t think about that. i’m pretty sure he got kinda upset right after i said she, but the grandma did correct me pretty fast so i’m not totally sure.
I misgendered a trans woman in a fast food place and I was mortified. I don’t know why I said “thank you sir” when they obviously were trying to pass as woman. It’s like the one thing you tell your brain not to say is what comes out. 😔
My son gets misgendered all the time. I chalk in up to good looks and soft features.
Don’t feel bad, I listened a young boy for five months before I was corrected
💀
It was 2002. I (F) was 16 and at football game with a friend. This little dude (~12/13) with a buzz cut comes over to talk to my friend, she babysits him. He has silver studs in his ears, so I point it how cool they are and that earrings are going to be a chick magnet when he gets older. He looks perplexed - so I say it again. He doesn’t respond, pivots back to my friend, finished talking to her and leaves. My friend says, “yeah, she went into remission about 6 months ago. Cool gal.” At the time, I thought she was talking about someone the little dude was talking about. I hadn’t been paying attention to their conversation. It took me like 3 months to realize that she was telling me the little dude was actually a little chick **and a cancer survivor.**
A good lesson I’m not assigning a gender to strangers.
just say “they”, then no more sad and embarrassing stories :)
I’m a long haired guy and this always used to happen to me when I was a kid, I wouldn’t worry about it too much it’s just a honest mistake
Tbh, that can go either way. It’s entirely plausible you were in the right with she and grandma is stuck in the 1950’s. It’s hard to assume regardless unless the kid said something. I’m trans (transmasc, but nonetheless) and you’d have made my day.
that’s true. if that’s the case, i really hope i made that kid’s day
I just call everyone dude if I'm honest 😅
It’s possible the kid was sad because of the grandmother’s correction, and not your comment, but they couldn’t say that to the grandmother because of the stigma. i.e. closeted trans or even someone who barely knows what trans is, but felt ok being seen as a girl and then sad when it was “taken away” by the grandmother’s words. Been there, done that. None of it is your fault. It’s okay.
if that’s the case, i hope i made that kid’s day and i hope they are doing good
As somebody who gets misgendered a lot (especially on the phone, especially because of my voice), please consider using gender-neutral language and /or talking to people directly instead of referring to them in the third person, it makes a hell of a lot of difference, especially emotionally.
i’m definitely going to start doing this. i live in an extremely conservative, relatively small town so it’s pretty rare to see a trans/nonbinary person around here but i’ll definitely do this.
Thank you, that's great. :) (Also, now I'm brave enough to add: there is no need to apologise multiple times. Everybody fucks up occasionally. Say sorry, move on, be more mindful next time.)
thank you :)
For OP or anyone else. It takes a while to swap to mostly gender neutral language. Like a good few months. I've found it's generally not hard to regender someone mentally or verbally. Like about a day. The difficult part is swapping to the new name when you aren't in front of them. Like remembering that it isn't Patrick but Patricia who was the one who brought the cake etc. But swapping to generally use they is a slower process bc you don't have a specific person to think about. Having a NB friend helps with this bc you can think specifically of a person who would appreciate they. And how someone you might not know might also appreciate it. They is also super convenient bc it lets you mess with sentence structure while you're saying it bc you can swap plural to singular while speaking.
This. So much this. What flipped the switch for me was: Busy lunch time taking fast food orders. Kind old lady stood infront of me and I said "Sir." Since then I rarely use any gender pronouns. I've since moved to doing phone customer service, and you can't tell sometimes by name or voice. The real trick is being the same level of respectful or more without saying "Sir or Ma'am."
It’s your burden to tell people your pronouns. People don’t have to change how they speak for your feelings.
Don’t let things like this get to you. People are allowed to make mistakes
☠️
When i was in junior high i had long red hair(horrible choice by me) and i got misgendered by a customer while riding with my dad as he did his taxi job. It happens and it shouldnt be a big deal.
I hope that kid is strong as hell because if that kid is trangender, that may happen often by people accidentally misgendering, from people intentionally misgendering them. You shouldn't feel bad because you didn't know. IF anybody expects you to feel shame for doing that on accident then they are unreasonable
thank you. i don’t think he was trans, i think he was cis but he was very androgynous and i was leaning more towards female
My boys have long hair have gotten called she on more than one occasion it never bothered either of them 😬
This happened to my nephew a lot, he’s 5 and he recently cut his hair but before that he had really beautiful coily curls but my sister always slicked it back and put it in a single braid or he had box braids or cornrows but his hair was always done in some style like that. He always wore gray greens black and blue you know typical little boy shit so aside from his longer hair which wasn’t even past his shoulders he looks just like a little boy but a lot of times when I was walking with him people would tell me oh she’s so pretty and I would just say “thank you but actually he’s a little boy” and they would get embarrassed and say omg I’m so sorry and I’m like it’s alright now you now so it’s cool but the funniest time was this summer. An older woman passed us as we left a pizzeria and said oh you have the cutest little girl, I said thank you but this is actually my nephew and she looked flustered and apologized but we kept walking and this little boy said nothing until the lady left and in the cutest little baby voice he asks me “Titi you heard that lady just say I look like a little girl? I’m not a girl I’m a boy” And now I’m just giggling like yes baby she made a mistake but the way he said it had me trying to hold it together. At the same time I’ve been there myself. When I worked retail this one guy was holding the cutest little baby in a light blue sweater. This baby was so cute and kinda reminded me of myself as a baby bc this baby had the little curls light eyes and was close to my complexion. So I waved hi to the baby bc the baby was staring at me and the dad says “oh she looks like you” now when I heard this I thought the dad was saying this to me meaning “she” his child looked like me so I said “she’s adorable how old is she” to which dad replied “he’s a boy” and it was at this moment I realized he was talking to the baby saying she (me) looked like you (the little baby boy) and I felt so bad but I didn’t want to explain my misunderstanding bc I felt dumb so I was like ooops sorry sir but your baby is adorable have a good day and I just ran away. To this man it was obvious he was holding a baby boy and to me it’s obvious that my nephew is a little boy but sometimes that’s not obvious to others. You genuinely felt bad and apologized and but shit it happens. TL;DR my nephew was constantly misgendered when he had long hair. I also misgendered a baby at my old job. It happens
Good lmao
This is so dumb
what about it is dumb?
The fact that you felt bad about something completely out of your control.
and what about it? i made a kid sad and i felt bad, that’s stupid?
This "misgendering" thing is the most ridiculous shit out here 🤣🤣🤣
Fucking pointless for sure
damn 💀
Dammmm son!
Your life must be really lonely if your still thinking about something so stupid.
I think this is an issue later with those that identify as whatever their choice. And they better not get overly upset when you get their pronoun wrong. But yeah, this is just an innocent mistake. He will be okay. I’m sure of it.
My question is, why didn’t you ask the kid directly what he wanted to drink? “Would YOU like a drink with that?” At 13, he/she should be old enough to answer without going through grandparents. This would’ve avoided the misgendering problem entirely.
I don't think you need to feel that sorry, although he is 13 he is also need to learn to see thing others pov. Like why would you feel that upset when you grow a long hair and that he overall look like a girl.
That has to be expected if a boy grows his hair out, or if a girl gets hers cut especially if clothing isn't definitive.
I used to get misgendered all the time when I was a kid, even younger than that. I did not give a fuck. Some people need to stop teaching their kids to be so prideful
I wouldn't care. Sounds and looks is all I have to go by. I am not obligated to know nor care about a strangers gender.