My friend once thinks that it's really important for everyone to have relationships during high school to learn how to behave in them (I don't agree with that, if someone doesn't want to have a relationship the only thing they're going learn from having one is probably just that they don't like it). But what if this in a way applies to friendships and by not having many now I'm missing on some "skills" that it'll be too late to learn later and I'll never be a good enough friend to have healthy relationships even if I meet people I fit in with?
But overall, this all surprisingly worries me much less than some time ago, maybe it just took time for some things and your advice to sink in. I haven't been much to school lately but now I started bringing things to read there, I decided that there's no point in trying not to look like a weird lonely book nerd when everybody already see me as that, I may as well embrace it.
I also wanted to talk about something more practical for once.
Since I got a short haircut about a year ago, people sometimes think I'm a boy. I don't mind that at all - I could be any other gender and look exactly the same and also in a way I like it, I'm not sure why, maybe it's the chance to be perceived without those many prejudices that come with being a women in this society or I just find it exciting to have more diversity in my life and enjoy the feeling of " rebelling" against society, if that makes sense. The problem is that for some unknown reason it started happening much more often lately and with that consequently come much more negative reactions - I was threatened with beating and rape and twice yelled at in just the past week by random people, and you can probably imagine that I can't handle these situations well. (After just this briefest taste of how terribly people can act I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must be for all trans or otherswise gender noncomforming people, my heart goes out to all of you!)
Also all of those incidents thankfully happened when I was alone but I don't know what might happen if someone assumes that I'm a boy when I'm with my family or other people, most would be probably fine but maybe not everyone.
So I was thinking if there might be something small I could change that would make others see me as a girl? I don't even wear clothes that would be read as inherently masculine anymore because it wasn't met with positive responses, but apparently no makeup and hoodies/sweaters still aren't enough.
On the one hand I don't want to add to the stereotype that women should look a certain way and be feminine enough but on the other hand I don't want to "passively claim" trans/nonbinary identity when I don't identify like that and am afraid that if some people assume I'm not a women and then find out otherwise they might be less likely to ask/assume that with other people, if that makes sense. I know that it's not like my appearance or actions have any impact on the society but I want to do what's right for my own conscience.
And also I would love to hear if you have any ideas what to tell people who keep apologising for misgendendering me, because just "it's okay, I don't mind at all" doesn't really work and many are really unreasonably troubled by it.