What makes people gender you male or female?

Reddit discussion

I worked in a corporate job for five years and was never misgendered though I wore no makeup and had extremely short hair. I then spent nearly six years homeless and within a few months of going homeless, I began getting called "sir" by strangers from the back.

1. I slimmed down and was less busty.

2. I stopped wearing a bra because I was too poor to afford one.

3. My extremely feminine body language changed to be more gender neutral.

I have a serious medical condition and on one or two occasions, after years of being fat and ugly and ill, without dressing better or growing my hair longer or anything like that, I stopped being so invisible to men. There was a distinct uptick in men opening doors for me and smiling at me and making small talk. 

I was baffled and said something to my son who said "You smell different."

None of this offends me. I was read as extremely feminine girly girl in my youth and had a gal say to me once that she played baseball and couldn't imagine me doing sports because I was too feminine. 

Hello! As a kid, I did gymnastics and played stick ball -- poor person's baseball, where you use a stick as a bat -- in the streets with the neighbor kids and walked everywhere because I didn't drive.

I don't mind being more androgynous for safety reasons and it's an interesting completely innocent and unintentional observational social experiment.

If you are trans, take up a more girl girl sport if you are MtF or a more butch sport if you are FtM. Body language is a big part of how we get gendered and a girly walk is MOSTLY learned behavior. It's not "because girls have hips," no.

Female gymnasts walk similar to runway models but more dignified and less slutty. You will read as femme without reading quite so much as streetwalker.

You can search YouTube for videos on how to walk in heels which doesn't come naturally to ANYONE, how to walk the catwalk and gymnastics videos. Floor exercise and balance beam for women's gymnastics is what you want to watch.