Had a lovely dinner at a local restaurant where we managed to fit most of our meal in al fresco before the heavens opened while we were waiting for dessert and we had to move to a table undercover.
We’ve all been waiting for the weather bomb to arrive so we were lucky it held off so long. Talking about the meal afterwards, we agreed it was delicious and the service was excellent. Discussing our waiter, I said he was very good, which surprised my brother, who spent the entire meal thinking our waiter was a woman. We pondered this briefly, but then were able to shrug it off, say they were probably gender fluid, and it was no big deal. So freeing not to feel the need to categorise someone.
I remember when I was about six, going to school in England. There was a boy who waited for me every morning en route to ask me if I was a boy or a girl. Even now I have no idea what his motivation was. I told him I was a girl, I’m not sure if he thought he’d get a different answer if he asked often enough? It was probably because I had short messy hair and scruffy clothes instead of a pink frilly dress, long glossy curls, and shiny shoes, like some neighbour of the Dursleys on Privet Drive.
My daughter went through the same thing some decades later at our local intermediate school. Contributing factors included that she had an unflattering short haircut, the school uniform was the same for both sexes, she was known as “Sam”, and she was going through a brief ugly duckling phase. In the end she got kudos for being the unremarkable boy who was always surrounded by girls.