I have a friend who lives on the West coast of the US who refers to me as “buddy” a lot, and I don’t mention it, but it gives me the ick (she knew me pre-transition). I think she just uses it like a gender-neutral word for anyone (the way “dude” and “bro” ca be used sometimes), but I’m triggered, lol 😅
In public / with people who never knew me before transition, people will often refer to me and whoever I’m with (they’re usually women) as “ladies” (ironically my sister-in-law hates how often she is called “ladies” when she’s around me, lol).
On the phone or individually people often refer to me as “dear”. In the South, I got a lot more “sweetie”, “honey”, and even “sweet girl” and “good girl”.
What have your experiences been like (before, during, and after transition)?
yay, we’re ladies 👏 👏 👏
pre-transition I was mistaken for a girl from behind once and called “miss” by a customer (which caused mixed feelings for me)
but mostly pre-transition I had typical boy and man experiences: “he”, “sir”, “dude”, “bro”, etc.
post-transition it is more typical of a young woman, lots of “miss”
when I was visibly trans or people knew I was trans, I would get a lot of “they” (even though I don’t like being referred to as “they”, particularly when it indicates discomfort or uncertainty from a cis person), or people just not using gendered language for me (I think a lot of this is an attempt to be polite in the face of ambiguity about my gender - they don’t want to offend).
Ohh i just call all people who haven’t told me othereise “they” to avoid assumptions, even if their gender is ‘obvious’, I hadn’t considered people might not like that …
ah, to be clear I don’t think that’s what’s going on in my situation; though it is a good point that always using neutral “they” could cause some dysphoria for some people who actually care about being seen as their gender (like, if you did that to me now I may or may not start to feel insecure, like wondering if you clocked that I’m trans or if you’re just a liberal, etc.)
I’m talking about an average cis person who isn’t trying to be politically correct, who knows I identify as a woman and uses she/her pronouns, but who uses “they” anyway because I’m visibly trans.