I spent this last weekend partying at a cabin, then came home and immediately had to do a 5:00am video shoot for work come Monday morning, so I had no energy to put into my appearance today at all; I have been a walking husk, just carrying this fresh-outta-bed disheveled look through my day lol.
Once my shoot was over, I decided to get myself some McDonald’s breakfast and went through the drive through. I made my order in my very deep voice, and was told, “ok, that will be $7.50 at the next window, sir.” That’s what I expected, because I have quite a manly voice as default, and I am not confident enough in my voice training to use it out in public.
However, I get up to the window to pay, the lady takes one look at me, and says “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, ma’am! Of course, ma’am!” That had never happened to me before, where somebody heard me speak, sees me and still decides I’m a woman. Getting misgendered did not bug me at all, since it was what I expected in my unglamorous presentation today, but hearing her be so sure that “ma’am” was the right word for me even in my husk state really just made my day.
I spent the next hour just saying “Wow, holy hell. Whoa. That’s crazy,” in joyful disbelief. Early shoot be damned, today kicks ass! I just needed to tell somebody lol
It’s nice to know that, at least for places with reasonably civil societies, it’s becoming more and more normal to key your pronoun and gendered speaking choices on modifiable cues like clothing, makeup, hair or appearance in general.
That said; lots of women sound pretty deep too. Maybe more are just openly nonbinary about their expression and have taken steps to deepen it; or it’s just how it’s always been and I’m too derpy to notice because I am recently learning that you don’t focus on someone’s vocal range as I’ve only been openly trans and in a civilized place for a few years total now.
At any rate it’s nice to know that even in a service setting they realize how cheap, easy and good for their reputation it is to just simply respect someone’s communicated preference by double-checking their appearance(s) first before locking in on a pronoun and possibly having to awkwardly correct…when possible.
At a drive through speaker it isn’t; so you were probably expecting them to drone on as if they didn’t bother to even take 2 seconds to see at the window what little, if any makeup you wore, or the color of your nail polish or quality of your self-grooming, regardless of it’s deteriorated state, to affirm that you actually were living as female.