Assuming a Gender Identity

[Acrobat]

The other day my wife was trying on clothes at a department store fitting room, and she wanted my opinion.

The sales person had come up to me and said: “You are not allowed in here”, because men are not allowed in the fitting room.

Oddly the dept store chain has indicated that they don’t discriminate against people’s gender identities, that people are able to use the fitting rooms of the gender they identify as.

At the same time it seems terribly inappropriate for fitting room staff/etc. to ask a person what gender they identify as, whether I’m a cisgender male, non-binary, transgender, etc..

I should be able to enter which ever fitting room I want to, without being questioned, or having my gender assumed, and it seems to me that it’s discrimination otherwise.

The argument seems to primarily be one where you should be able to use the rest room/ fitting room/ changing room of the gender you identify with, when it seems to be that the argument should be for unisex, genderless rooms.

thoughts?

As a trans person, I am not offended by your question.  You've been sincere and polite, and you are just asking some questions about the finer points of new social rules that haven't been completely ironed out yet.   

One person said that it is not offensive to mistake someone's gender. I agree with them.

You do identify as a man and the clerk identified your gender correctly. So there wasn't anything about that which should have been offensive to you. You said that the store's rules are that a person can use the dressing room that they are most comfortable with. You were in the women's room, which wasn't the dressing room that you were most comfortable with. Yes, you could claim that you like to dress like a man but are more comfortable in the women's room, but that wouldn't be honest would it?  The clerk didn't ask you about your gender identity. They just assumed it by the way you present yourself, and they got it right. The assumption that you were not someone who likes to present yourself as a man, but is more comfortable in the women's room was a reasonable assumption.

I’d admit I was more offended by being kicked out of the dressing room, regardless of what gender I identify most closely with, than because I consider myself non-binary. I would have been equally annoyed by it, if I classified myself as cisgender.

Going forward I would use the non-binary card, to avoid rudely being kicked out of the fitting room, while helping my wife decide on what to buy.

I was more offended by the idea of someone considering my presence in the room to be threatening, or whatever negative associations being implied by my presence there, that they felt I should be kicked out, than anything else.

I understand that in some way I’m using privileges that the lgbtq community have fought hard for, for the benefit of my own conveniences, but I don’t see why the same privileges shouldn’t be extended to me.

I don’t think the argument that some women might be uncomfortable with someone that looks like me in the fitting room, anymore valid than when similar arguments are used by opponents of trans inclusive facilities.