Misgendered at Best Buy - but SA was very apologetic

[Ceera]

I am MtF, full time as a woman, and I am at a point in my transition where I rarely get misgendered any more. My appearance, demeanor, and even my voice say ‘female’ loudly enough to overcome most reservations others might have about my height, how wide my shoulders are, or other tells that may make them think of me as male. I am five foot ten and weigh about 220 pounds, but with my 40C breast forms and my hip pads, my figure is well within female norms, as is my facial structure. People often tell me what a beautiful woman I am.

Yesterday, I was out running several errands. It was a brisk day, but not quite cold enough to ensure I needed to wear a coat. I was dressed in a blue cap-sleeve blouse with a 3 inch wide lace hemline, a short blue skirt, grey insulated leggings, and grey/purple sneakers. My makeup was done in an understated daytime look, with crimson red lipstick, and my fingernails were femininely shaped, and also crimson red. My long wavy hair - past shoulder length, though I had not used a curling iron recently - plus my small black purse, bracelet, necklace with a small watch pendant, feminine sparkly stud earrings, and a butterfly hair clip all implied ‘female’. In short, I looked like most women would when out running errands, with some care to my appearance, but my hair and makeup were not dolled up like they might be for an evening of going out.

So, one of my stops was at Best Buy, to purchase a 24 inch or so monitor or TV to use in my bedroom, with a Blu Ray player That I already own. My intended budget was under one hundred dollars, US. I really was hoping for just an HDMI input monitor with built-in speakers, and no other features, as I had no intention of hooking it up to a TV antenna, or to cable TV, or to the Internet. The best I found for my purposes, while looking on my own, was either a stand-alone DVD player with screen (would play most of my movies that I have on DVD, but not the newer Blu Ray discs), or getting a small TV set and ignoring the TV tuner aspect.

A female SA asked if she could help, and I told her what I was seeking. She took me to the TV section and used her radio headset to ask a more knowledgable male SA - apparently a department head - to help me. (They all had radio sets in one ear.) As she called him over, she clearly said, “This lady is looking for...”, and used only female pronouns in referring to me.

The male SA was, to give him the benefit of the doubt, rather distracted by the radio chatter from his department. All of their SA’s were busy with customers, and several had more people waiting. Despite dealing with several of his associates radio calls at the same time, he politely guided me to the low end TV sets, and I picked one suitable to my needs. Then he said he could ring it up for me on my way out.

All good, so far... until, as we walked to his checkout counter, he said something like, “We’ll get you taken care of, buddy.” Okay, so I let that slide, as he might have used buddy in a generic way, as many people use dude. But as he started to ring up my sale, he asked, “And would you like a service contract with that, sir?”

I sighed, and replied, “First off, it’s Ma’am. I assure you I’m not smuggling cantaloupes here,” gesturing to my breasts. “Second, no, I don’t want the service contract, thank you.”

I think it was only then that he really looked at me, with his full attention. He was immediately apologetic. “Oh! I’m so sorry, Ma’am! I’m really not like that at all, Ma’am, I promise! I didn’t mean to...” I swear, he could not have been more flustered if he had misgendered an obviously cisgender woman.

I cut off his stammering apology with a smile, and said graciously, ”It’s all right. I would imagine most of your customers are male. You get stuck in a rut, using sir to address them.”

We finished the transaction with him unfailingly calling me Ma’am, and about every third sentence from him was more apologizing. I left feeling glad I had taken the high road and not taken offense at being misgendered. To be honest, his first misgendering almost cost him the sale. I certainly could have told him he had offended me and that I was taking my business elsewhere. But it had clearly not been his intent to offend me, and he corrected his behavior quite well once his error was pointed out.