A thing just happened to me that hasn’t happened in a while…

… a thing that I quite appreciate happens to me…

… a thing that is welcomingly jarring…

I was misgendered.

As a short man with long hair, this happens every so often. Someone (almost always a male, I hazard to say), approaches me from behind and thinks that I am a woman.

I have had long hair since I was in my early twenties and this happens just every few years.

Today, a waiter brought me my food and said something like "Here’s your food, Miss."

This caught me off-guard slightly and I hesitated.

Seeing my face, he said "I’m very sorry, sir."

To which I was able to smile and say "That’s absolutely okay."

Why do I say it is okay?

What I mean by "okay" is that I appreciate whenever that happens to me… not that it’s okay it happens… (I’m certainly not a fan of using the word Miss at all here!)…

I appreciate being misgendered because it always gives me a small glimmer… a reminder… of something that happens to many people… and some of my dearest friends… all the time.

People who maybe won’t get that immediate "I’m sorry" from the person who misgendered them.

Whenever this happens to me, I am able to take it with amusement… not least because, whenever the person sees my face they see I’m a very hairy cisgendered male with a beard.

But that little jarring moment when it first happens…

That momentary feeling of "This person doesn’t see me for who I am!"

I appreciate that reminder…

There are various reasons I probably won’t cut my hair anytime soon (for one thing, it’s been part of my "trademark image" for over 15 years)…

… but one reason, I now see, is this occasional, tiny reminder of an experience that many people have every day.

And that is easily avoided by just reminding ourselves that we don’t know anything about new people until they tell us about themselves.