That's a tough one because as customer service workers we're already in a position that is by definition unfair and unequal. And that customer is taking advantage of the fact that you are in a position where it is often unreasonable or unrealistic to fight back with any expectation of success. In other words, that customer is a coward and they're in a position where they can get away with it.

For customers at the DT speaker box who can't see you, it's understandable that they might misgender people since it happens all the time to everyone. But if they can clearly see you and they do it all the time they're most likely doing it on purpose. And I'm sorry you have to deal with that because that is a really shitty thing that happens way too often. But there are so many angles with which to view this. You could choose to see them as someone who feels threatened by you because you express yourself freely and maybe they are living a lie and are secretly jealous. You could see it as someone who has no control over their own life circumstances so they choose to take out their frustrations on other people who they know can't fight back. You could choose to see this as someone who has no friends and no support group and the only way they know how to communicate is to find weaknesses in other people and exploit them.scalate it. That's where you got them, because if they DO choose to make a situation out of it, as long as you played it right (calmly and innocently) then THEY look like the aggressor, and you look like the victim to everyone watching whether partners or other customers. I often use the room as my backup. This one time I yelled over to some teens who were leaving their trash all over a table, but I worded it like I was helping them not forget their drinks so that I look like the good guy. The cafe was full of other customers and a lot of them looked like mothers so I made sure to speak just loud enough for the others customer to glance up and hear the conversation and that put the teens on the spot and made them feel the societal pressure in the room. They came back and cleaned their table! lol.

For customers at the DT speaker box who can't see you, it's understandable that they might misgender people since it happens all the time to everyone. But if they can clearly see you and they do it all the time they're most likely doing it on purpose. And I'm sorry you have to deal with that because that is a really shitty thing that happens way too often. But there are so many angles with which to view this. You could choose to see them as someone who feels threatened by you because you express yourself freely and maybe they are living a lie and are secretly jealous. You could see it as someone who has no control over their own life circumstances so they choose to take out their frustrations on other people who they know can't fight back. You could choose to see this as someone who has no friends and no support group and the only way they know how to communicate is to find weaknesses in other people and exploit it.

Either way, the bottom line is that the negativity is with them and not with you. And I say that's an unsatisfying answer only because it's not a solution. It doesn't make the problem stop or go away. But it IS a lesson that took me YEARS to learn, and even though I still have to work on that myself, once I figured that out and allowed myself to actually understand and believe it my mental health improved drastically. I never realized before that every time I got frustrated on a personal level with customers behaving badly towards me, what I was really doing was taking their negativity and making it MY burden to carry. It's not easy to do at first, but you are allowed to just say to yourself "I will not be poisoned by their negativity today." If they're that way to you they're probably that way to a lot of people, which means they're creating an army of enemies that grows every day. Let them sink into the toxic pit they made for themselves.

That said, I don't know you, but I do hope you triumph over this. And I also hope that someone else in the comments is able to post more concrete actionable solutions than the more internal introspective stuff I posted here. lol. I'm sure people will. We're a pretty creative bunch here.

Hello! First: I'm sorry this is happening to you. Consider bringing up this issue with partners you work with frequently. If you're comfortable with it, you can suggest that they listen for customers misgendering you and step in to make a correction. Sometimes it can feel less confrontational if a third person interjects with "Oh! Ladysingtheblues is a she!" If the wrong gender is used after correction, refuse them service.

I deal with something similar (trans man). Voice training helped with DTO for me but honestly, a lot of my cis female coworkers get called sir. Even in the cafe sometimes. I request to be less customer facing whenever I'm getting constantly misgendered. I'm sorry you're dealing with this. People should be kinder. Talking to your SM if they're open to it can help as well.

Also trans woman here. I’m sorry you have to deal with this. If it’s over DTO it hurts but I just let it go because it’s *easier*. If it’s face to face I’ll casually and calmly correct them and if they escalate I’ll de-escalate and walk away to file an incident report. If you have to correct the same customer repeatedly because they do it intentionally I would also file an incident report.

If incident reports aren’t being acknowledged/handled by your SM, sending out emails to your DM and partner resources can help something happen. No one should have to deal with that at work.

On a personal transition related note, if you’re interested in voice coaching; often times local universities might have a speech clinic where they do sessions with speech pathologists for either free or reduced. That’s helped me with getting misgendered less on DTO, but as other people have said and I can confirm that sometimes even my cis female coworkers get the occasional sir.

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