Verbal Tasers

I'm looking forward to the day when people start automatically using the correct pronouns, titles and name for me rather than guessing and getting it wrong.

I've been kinda lucky recently. Living in the UK, which is generally a live-and-let-live society, I don't tend to get addressed with pronouns very often in public. I try my damndest to present as male but I don't pass well (due to my shrimpiness and my cute girly face, damnit) so people that I meet in everyday life can tell that there's something going on, even if they can't tell exactly what it is. So they just tend to serve me without addressing me directly with pronouns or as 'Madam', which is the perfect thing to do under the circumstances.

But that's not always the case. People do sometimes insist on using gender-specific titles and pronouns and every single time they do it 'zings' me like I've been shocked with a mini-taser.

• The other day I was in Boots (a British pharmacy chain) buying make-up for my very feminine elder daughter. I've been out of that particular market for so long that entire brands have been born & died since I last bought make-up for myself. So I asked one of the staff members to help me find the things on my daughter's list. She was brilliant and walked me round the shop like she was a personal shopper, but she then said "Your daughter is very lucky to have such a loving mother". Zing!
  Huh. Mother. Well, in all fairness I did fall pregnant with my babies, I gave birth to them naturally, I breastfed each of them for two years so I am definitely their parent, but do I feel like a 'mother'? No. 'Mother' is a word applied to women who have had (and/or are raising) children, and since I've never felt like a woman I don't feel that the term really fits. I'm not their 'father' either because they already have one of those, so I prefer the more neutral 'parent'.  
• Today at lunchtime I got 'madamed' by a chugger collecting on behalf of the British Red Cross. Zing! I corrected him and he apologised & wished me a good day, so that kinda defused the pain right there.
• This morning one of my colleagues greeted me by saying 'Hello Miss (Name)!'. Zing! She also tends to call me 'lovely lady'. Zing! She means well and it's just a term of endearment between colleagues who are fond of each other, but being addressed with feminine titles stings every single time.
• My kids still call me 'Mum' (which I have no plans to change) and refer to me as 'she'. Their 'she's are perfectly ok at the moment as I'm pre-everything and the habit is ingrained, but I do hope the 'she's will shrivel up naturally in time. Along with my ovaries, har har.