Talked with my family today about calling me by my preferred pronouns. I have been wanting to ask them to call me by she/her as I’ve been passing as female now for five months without any mid-gendering! Yay!
A few times I found myself with my family at dinner, shopping and staying at the hotel and occasionally would be misgendered by my family that made me feel self conscious,
For example, when I was shopping with my grandmother she would constantly say ‘he’ and ‘him’, and one time at Albertsons, it got bad:
The cashier comments “You ladies find everything you were looking for?” as I replied
“Yes we most certainly did! Even more then expected!”
The cashier scanned our groceries and looked to my grandmother “Would you like any help out today?”
“No I have him to help me.”
The cashier glanced at me, tight lipped as a man waiting in line who seemed friendly at first glared at me as I just wanted to go.
For a few hours, I dwelled on all I’ve experienced as I thought ‘I can’t afford to take her shopping.’
I was cooking dinner and walked over to my grandmother as I said “I need to talk to you about something that might be hard to hear; but I liked it if you called me by my preferred pronouns. She...”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“I like you to please call me she or her when we are out. I am mostly passing now as female, I present myself accordingly and besides, I am legallly female now.”
I then explained my reasoning “Today shopping, the gentleman behind us just glared at me...judging me. I was highly uncomfortable!” “Even though nothing happened, one day you might identify me as being trans and someone messed up in the head might feel my existence is a threat to their ideology and end up shooting or stabbing me!”
“I am sorry.” she says as she nods her head “So you want to be called a woman...”
“Okay, though might take me awhile to get use to it.”
I nod, smiling. “I understand...I am still learning myself.”
When my mother and sister came home, I was wondering how to present this change to them (as before, I never required anyone to call me Mira or a woman...but with my transition tipping the scales towards feminine). Surprisingly, grandmother broke the news as I nodded, saying that I understand it will take time.
It is another major step in my transition!