How can it be?

How can it be that people still keep misgendering me so much, so often??? 

It’s gotten worse lately — or, at least, that’s how it feels to me. Probably it feels worse to me, on the one hand, because I’m feeling more and more masculine, more and more like a boy and therefore having people refer to me as “she” or “her” is more alienating than before, more alienating than ever; on the other hand, because having been sick and now trying not to get sick again has reduced my social life almost exclusively to interactions with strangers instead of with my friends & buddies who were so affirming of my boyish identity, not only using my chosen name & correct pronouns but also actually treating me like a boy. 

But how can it be that I still come across to strangers as a female or woman without a shadow of a doubt (on their part)??? 

My voice is deeper than months ago. When my speech therapist measured its pitch a few months ago, my voice was already in the non-binary range and even into the higher part of the male range, technically. 

I have always had a naturally angular, quite masculine face with a strong, squarish jaw. And although I don’t have proper facial hair, yet, the hairs above my upper lip have thickened to the point of being a fair, teenager-like, little mustache. 

My hairstyle is a particular undercut that is most often seen on (male) climbers and/or queer persons and/or boys/young men; and often in public places I wear a beanie anyway. 

Realizing, also thanks to suggestions from other non-binary/trans-masculine friends, that sometimes my clothing could give me away as a “female”, I finally went to get some men’s clothes yesterday and wore them today: very masculine (albeit not too baggy) clothes that over my binding bra completely hide any residuals of evident feminine body parts on me. 

And yet, despite all this, at the library this evening one employee referred to me as “she” when talking to her colleague about me — despite my men’s clothes, despite no “feminine body curves” showing, despite my big shoulders and narrow hips, despite my mask and beanie…

Is it the mask I wear — does it cover the most “masculine” parts or attributes of my face (square jaw, little mustache)? 

Or is it my voice, or the intonation of my sentences or the wording I use, that still give me away as a “non-male”? 

Is it the lack of an Adam’s apple? 

What is it? What the heck is it that still makes people automatically and undoubtedly take me as a female/woman and thus misgender me? 

It’s driving me nuts. I hate it. It frustrates me, makes me angry, infuriates me. But also, more and more, it makes me feel alienated and depressed. Alienated from the world that apparently sees me in a completely different way form how I see myself, a world at odds with me. And depressed because I feel unseen and misunderstood, over and over and over again. 

Now I really, fully understand why so many trans and non-binary people get so deeply, acutely depressed even to the point of not wanting to leave their house or be seen in public…