Respond to “I Can’t Tell if You’re Male or Female” with These Two Words

Being told that one cannot tell if you’re a girl/woman or a boy/man is certainly not a universal experience. For those of us who do endure it more than once, or even regularly, it can bring up reactions and emotions including but not limited to:

• neutrality
• frustration
• disgust
• amusement
• shame
• confusion
• exasperation
• excitement

If you couldn’t tell, this isn’t an exhaustive list. There are countless ways to react when someone makes this ignorant statement, all depending on one’s gender identity, expression, the way they want to be perceived, and more.
It also depends on context — in certain situations and places, it can be downright dangerous to have someone question your gender. Other times, someone who may not fall into a binary gender category might be a bit pleased.

While I have had a range of reactions when faced with this unsolicited observation, one of the most flippant and jarring times happened to me while I was at a gas station. An attendant approached me and said, “I’m curious about something.” Oh, no. Here we go.

“Are you a man, or a woman? Because you sound like a man, but you look like a woman.”