are you a boy or a girl?

[vetobob9]

I was reading an article online this evening and it caused me to remember a few incidents in my teen years in which people would ask me whether I was "a boy or a girl"?
One incident in high school, a girl came up to me at my locker and asked "what are you?" I answered that I was white because I thought that might be what she meant. But she said she wanted to know if I was a boy or a girl. That was rather embarrassing just like all the other times I got asked that question.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

[TeaganNataliaAcheson]

when i was in 5th grade a girl asked me that. I had long hair and when i told her i was a boy, she told me she like the way my hair bounced when I walked and said I was pretty.

[Asako]

I may be drunk as shit but I can honestly say that has never happened to me. I know for two of my friends that my gender may be ambiguous at best since they've noticed that my legs are shaved and my hair is long as well as other things. They haven't asked anything yet but I can't help but wonder how much they suspect. They regard me as family and any time there is trouble, I am there to help them as they are there for me when things go wrong for me.

[Traci Elizabeth]

That happened to me all my childhood and I paid dearly for looking like a girl. I was meanly teased, bullied, abused, and once when I was a teen, I was violently rapped, beaten to unconsciousness and then some, and left for dead by the perpetrator/criminal. SO boys who look like girls DON'T have an easy life - trust me.

Now, of course it is a gift from God because I could not look more feminine than I am. My height, weight, small frame, hairless body and a full head of hair feminine features including facial made transition a non-issue for me.

[Zenith]

Ummmmm...yes...made going to an all boy Catholic High School a joy...:straightface:

[AllieSF]

Julie, so did I. 11 years of Catholic education, all good. Even with that experience, no confusion on anyone's part except maybe a neighbor before I became of age (i.e. old enough to attend kindergarten). That is when that wayward neighbor decided to cut my long blond curly locks because my Mom kept my hair long. I guess my neighbor made sure that I wouldn't confuse anyone.

[Zenith]

I had a pathological fear of haircuts... O_o

[noeleena]

Hi,

Well while it was not reinforced & i only had a Mother in my life , I knew what i was , both boy & girl & still am tho grown up a bit since then & more accepted as a female / woman & that has been reinforced to day. While talking with two women concerning my self what was said is im seen & accepted only as a woman.

...noeleena...

[Maddie]

When asked that question I have but 1 answer "YES" :)

[Melody Moore]

Seeing how I was born intersex I don't know which I felt more like a boy or a girl. Even though I wouldn't know about
my intersex condition until much later on in life, it was a question I started to ask myself a lot from about the age of 6.

I can't say for sure that I felt more like a girl because I had this conflict of having a male type body with boy bits. But
I believe what I did was that I had convinced myself I was a male then tried hard to accept myself as being a male. But
I can say for sure that I felt like an alien and stuck somewhere in between the two genders. So I was shy & repressed
as a child, however as a teenager that is when the real fun and games began. All my life I had been bullied then this was
made worse with teasing because I looked like a girl around the ages of 14-17. Guys use to whistle or even sometimes
grab my arse thinking I was a chick. The worst experiences of my life happened around the age of 17 when I was raped
twice after getting drunk with the wrong company who took advantage of me.

Here is one of the very few photos I have of myself as a young adult and in this photo I was aged 23 years of age, but
you can see how lean and youthful I was in my appearance. So I looked a lot younger for my age than I really was. But
the other thing about this photo was the way I wore my shirts tucked in, but left them blooming out around the sides to
hide my feminine shaped hips which I was really self conscience of. I also kept my hair short as well because of this. Even
though I didn't have facial hair, I attempted to grow a moustache to make myself appear more masculine. But the person
you see in this photo is NOT a regular male.

169120

[StephanieC]

Yes. I've been asked that twice, both by small children and both when I was in boy mode. Once was while going into a Crackerbarrel restaurant and once at a family/friends graduation party.

[vetobob9]

I was often bullied about it too. Regretfully I also had to deal with neglect due to my parents spending most days consuming alcohol at the local bars. Once in while I was subjected to physical abuse; once when my younger brother got out of the motel room (they were so busy spending money on booze they couldn't afford an apartment). My biological father yelled at me and kicked me around telling me I was supposed to make sure he didn't leave because 5 years of age is old enough to be by yourself and watch your younger siblings while parents drink it up. Another time he beat me up because my mother went to the bar to drink it up without him.
Because of their habit we were stuck in motels and had to move around constantly so I saw plenty of public schools. And at all of them it was the same: are you a boy or a girl, followed by being bullied and physically assaulted. One school official said, "That's what you get for having a girlish body type".
It was worse in the Mexican schools in Pico Rivera and in Norwalk because they were the least tolerant of all the groups I had come into contact with and that is where most of the assaults took place. In addition I was discriminated against for being white. Even the stores in Pico Rivera and El Monte refused to do business with me because of my skin color.
Did I mention that while in Norwalk, school officials made me take the role of a girl in one of their shows they put on, because I already looked like one.

[*Vanessa*]

ya that questions was asked a few times of me when I was younger. I choose not to remember the details thank-you..

[melissaK]

A bigger than me FTM once grabbed me in a headlock and knuckle rubbed my scalp mussing up my 2' long hair and proclaimed "Now, I could go for a guy like you." ;^)

I was a girl. They moved my desk in 3rd grade to end my girl friendships, they segregated me on the play ground and made me play football rather than hopscotch and jump rope. They did it again in 4th grade. They royally messed with my head. They musta told my Dad too because he brought home a football, a baseball, and a basketball and began playing some kinds ball with me after work every night, replete with a speech apologizing about how he hadn't been doing enough with me and he was sorry and he'd teach me how to be a guy. Hunting and fishing followed. I tried . . . oh how I tried. But I am still a girl. (Ok, a pretty old middle aged girl now).

@StepahineC: Kids'll speak the truth they see - their filters aren't developed yet.

hugs,
'lissa

[Melody Moore]

I also hated having to cut my hair, but I gave way to it because it made me look
more masculine & helped to ease the harassment as part of my repression process.

[Amber99]

Yeah I never got actually mistaken for a girl but i did get teased a lot about being "girly" for having long hair and stuff.

[Asako]

Given that my first post in this thread was when I was really, REALLY trashed...I won't count it since I couldn't even stay on topic!

I remember one time in high school that I did let my hair grow out. That was a major mistake on my part. By the third month or so, it was shoulder length and the flack I would catch got so bad that during lunch period, I stopped going to the lunch hall because I had a few close encounters that almost resulted in fights because I'd lose my temper every so often when I would get tired of being bullied over my hair. It got to the point that I just skipped lunch all together and would get a snack or two at the end of lunch when everyone was on their way to class. It wasn't until after my mom and dad started badgering me about getting it cut short, I finally gave in and begrudgingly got it cut short again. I kept it that way until I left school.

How sad to think of all the trouble and harassment I received because I had long hair in high school. It was all because I didn't fit what was "normal". Yet, from some of what I've read above...I was lucky.

[jennCD]

I don't remember specifically being asked the question, but I do remember being referred to as "Miss" when I was a pre-teen (long hair and chunkier-than-my-normal one year) by an the bagger guy at our local grocery store. I never corrected him. Mostly because I was extremely shy but maybe out of being a little uncomfortable about it since the cashier knew me as a boy and never corrected him either.

:)
jenn

[eileendover]

Way back in college, I had long hair (groovy man, can you dig it?) But it certainly fell within standard hippy guidelines - no attempt to appear girly at all. While at a restaurant with some buddies, a guy at the next table leans over and quietly says something to one of my friends. I ask him what the guy said, but he doesn't want to tell me. I insist. The guy asked him if I was a girl!

I think my minimal chin has always contributed to this, and back then, I desperately waited for facial hair to definitely look like a guy.

[tanyalynn51]

Yes, but never in a nice way, until I met my current therapist

[Mountain Girl]

Well, yesterday I finally got to spend some time as a woman in another place far from where I live ... so I get home, I'm taking a shower, I look down the front of my body expecting to see one thing but I see something else. One of those rare moments. I'm shut down most of the time. That's how I know I'm really a girl and not a boy. Mountain Girl.

[Traci Elizabeth]

well, yesterday i finally got to spend some time as a woman in another place far from where i live ... So i get home, i'm taking a shower, i look down the front of my body expecting to see one thing but i see something else. One of those rare moments. I'm shut down most of the time. That's how i know i'm really a girl and not a boy. Mountain girl.


what? ?

[KarenCDFL]

What a great/weird question!

Many years ago I was in the middle of an intimate moment with a woman and she made the comment that "I made love like a girl" I wanted to ask her if that was a good or a bad thing. I never did.

[Sophora]

yes many times. A lot of times when I was younger, I would be asked by salespeople. I also got the "you make love like a girl" many times in the last couple relationships I have had.

[Julia_in_Pa]

Because I had a really feminine face I was picked on until I became the bully and took care of it.


Julia

[Anna M]

Mountain Girl: Completely off-topic, but Emily Dickinson as your icon = Yaaay! I love her stuff!

[Ressie]

I had long blonde hair in my teens and 20s. I was also thin, rather short, with somewhat feminine features. I didn't try to look like a girl, but often got whistles from men when walking down the street. In my early 20s there was an older woman that made a remark that she wanted to put me in one of her dresses. There was another woman that was sure that I was gay because of my looks. But I don't recall anyone asking what my gender was.

I don't consider myself TS, but at age 17 I told my mom (with some emotion) that I wanted to be a girl.

[Debglam]

Never got read as a girl but had a pretty miserable childhood being feminine.

Funny how this thread went to hair. When I was in 2nd grade, I knew I wanted to be a girl. I got my parents to let me let my hair grow. It was about a couple inches past my shoulders when my parents finally understood why I wanted my hair long! Hauled my a** to the barber shop and cut it all off. No more playing with the girls either! Yup, that sure "cured" me!

[moondog]

It happened a lot when I started at a new school in first grade because I had long hair. After everybody knew who I was, small school in a small Maine town, it didn't happen anymore. Never really bullied over it, though. I only had one friend all through school. My mother says up until I was 5 she would have to hold me in the barber's chair because I would jump out. She said she always hated bringing me to get a hair cut because of how traumatizing it was for me.

When I'm thin and have my hair long I get mistaken for a girl. Last time it happened I was 38 years old.

[Sammy777]

people would ask me whether I was "a boy or a girl"?
Has anyone else had a similar experience?

I've had long hair ranging from shoulder length to my waist since I was 16/17-ish.

So while I was never asked that question to my face,
I'm sure that there were plenty of times my friends were asked it regarding me. :heehee:

I have been called a girl, miss, mam, young lady, lady, ect countless times.
And when with one or more girls called girls, ladies, ect

Past G/F's and I have been called Lesbians while engaging in public displays of affection. :devil:

So all of this has happened to me from 17 right up to the time I stopped being a guy :battingeyelashes:

[DebbieL]

That happened to me all my childhood and I paid dearly for looking like a girl. I was meanly teased, bullied, abused, and once when I was a teen, I was violently rapped, beaten to unconsciousness and then some, and left for dead by the perpetrator/criminal. SO boys who look like girls DON'T have an easy life - trust me.

I was born intersexed (no testes) - so they have been asking since I was born.

I've had people asking me that since I was about 2 years old. Even when I had a buzz cut, I didn't act like other boys, I didn't think like other boys, and preferred playing with girls. When I was 6 they told me I had to stop playing with girls and play with boys. The boys called me a sissy and threw rocks at me, trying to stone me. I got hit in the head and finally in the eye.

The pain and harassment continued until I was about 16 years old, when several of the gay football players came on to me. I wasn't interested so I fixed them up with some boys who were. But they stopped picking on me.

By the time I was 16, I was 6 foot tall, had a bass voice, had dark course facial hair, and was very upset that I would not be able to transition. I got suicidal, did a bunch of drugs and booze, and when I went into black-outs, my femme side came out. People liked her, except that she had a bad habit of shooting off her mouth in the wrong way, at the wrong time, to the wrong people. It was like "suicide by cop", but I did it with bikers, rednecks, jocks, and a few others.

Even today, at 56 years old, I still wish I could transition, but it's still not practical. It's like being sentenced to life in solitary confinement, with no chance of parole - just those brief moments of freedom when I can get out as Debbie.

I've grown my hair out several times, and often got teased for being a girl. I often got beat up, but I didn't find people who could support me until I was in my mid-30s, and by then, if I had transitioned, I would never have been able to see my children again - In Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1990-93, there were no legal protections, and my wife had found connections through a fundamentalist church who could get the right judge to permanently revoke my visitation.

I threw myself into serving others, doing what I could for others, and ended up successful as a male - but not terribly happy about it.

Even thinking about it makes me very tired. I wish I had been able to find a site like this when I was 20, or even 14.

[Inna]

until I was 12 I was constantly taken for a girl, as most had already pointed out, at that time all my effort was concentrated on proving that I am a boy, so such scenario was rather painfully annoying. I had paid the price. It is rather funny however still painful at times, that nature pulled such a cruel joke on me, when I did look like a girl I denied it profusely, then, with great effort, when I got to look like a real bloke she turned tables once again, and made life impossible once again.
I suppose the great lesson I had learned, and raised my lovely son embracing the truth as a basis for life, truth and nothing but. He now is a magnificent human being, with heart so pure and spirituality of a Buddhist monk, he is my greatest achievement in life and my pain was a necessary ingredient of the wisdom.

So.....thank you nature for all that pain, teaching me that the truth is the light and the essence of life.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ce9sbCl9nmM/TdPeSqhY-vI/AAAAAAAABWg/CSsjxKbrnVA/s800/Kids2b.jpg

[nikkijo]

until i grew my hair out and quit trying to be guy no.. but as i progress i get it ALOT

[Laurie Ann]

I was always confused for a girl until right before puberty the. It all came crashing down around me. I must have really looked like a girl when a trooper pulled my father over for exceeding the speed limit. It let him off with a warning if he promised to buy his pretty daughter a pretty dress. I was around 6-7 years old and I wished that would happen

[DeeDee1974]

No one ever blatantly came up to me and asked me if I was a boy or girl. Freshmen year of college my now best friend Jen suggested that she should put make up on me because she thought "you would make a pretty girl".

It was because of her that I gained the confidence to go out in public. I went to DePaul in Chicago which is close to boystown (our gay friendly neighborhood) and once she put my make up on, she got all giddy and convinced me to put on an outfit of hers and head out. She was the first person I came out to.

[gerdani8]

This has happened to me a few times. Once, while working in a loan office, a client asked, "Are you a man or a woman?" I looked up at her, smiled and said, "Yes". Then I did gave her a brief course in TG 101.

At my age, sometimes I have to concentrate to remember what I had for breakfast today, but I can remember things that happened 55+ years ago.

On Friday or Saturday nights, my parents and I would go shopping 'uptown'. We lived in a small town, about 6000 people then. While out and about, we would run into co-worker(s) of my Dad's from his job in the oil field. He'd introduce me as his youngest son. More than once I heard, "By Golly! He'd make an awful pretty little girl!" Of course, children didn't try and correct adults (this was in the 50s), but I wondered "Can't then see I'm a boy!"

Now, many years later, as I remember these events, I have to wonder, were these people seeing "something different" in me? Seems as tho they were as I've been living as a woman since August 1996. Amazing what memories we have sometimes...

Okay, now just what DID I have for breakfast this morning?

Gerri