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[–]anxietyaccount8 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

To be fair, sometimes a man may look quite feminine or a woman may look masculine. So you can't always tell. But the majority of times, yeah...

[–]fuckupaddams 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Maybe in a picture, sometimes, but even with people like that it gets extremely obvious irl when they're talking, walking, moving around, laughing. I mean fuck we're pretty hard wired to be able to tell who's male and who's female.

[–]MarkTwainiac 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Also, people who claim that it's really hard to tell someone's sex without making them drop their drawers tend to operate on the mistaken assumption that sight and hearing are the only two senses that are involved in sussing out someone else's sex.

In fact, over many thousands of generations, we humans have evolved to be be highly attuned to and aware of our environment and other creatures in it - and female humans in particular have evolved to have a very sharp-honed ability to discern almost instantly other people's sex by quickly processing sensory input/data of all sorts, much of which is beyond or below our conscious awareness.

Obviously, smell is big factor, but a lot of the olfactory input we pick up on isn't something we can pin down definitely as a noticeable smell - it's pheromones that we don't detect consciously and would have a hard time putting into words.

And not to sound too woo woo and "out there," but humans - especially female ones - have evolved to very quickly pick up on the vibes, energy, electricity, emotional state, level of tension, creepiness (or lack thereof) and other intangible qualities that emanate from the people we encounter IRL. There's good reason we speak of having "gut reactions" and we say that some people and situations automatically make the hair on the backs of our necks stand up, give us goosebumps, or cause us to feel apprehensive, uneasy and on guard.

Finally, even if we focus only on what we can see, there are so many visual cues that tip us off to another person's sex other than the ones that TRAs think are the only ones that matter. Such as the size and shape of the hands and feet; the turn of the ankles, wrists and forearms; the shape of the hips, thighs, shoulders; the obvious, artificial look made by implanted sacs of gel or fluid in male chests; and the often totally inappropriate "super sexy" attire these guys wear in broad daylight when they in middle age or later decide to venture out in public in "girl mode" (to borrow Eddie Izzard's term).

Moreover, whereas TRAs think that everyone is fooled coz we all see just one or two features or details of of "transwomen's" appearance - such as hair/wig length; the "girly" tilt of their heads; their artificially plumped-up and colored lips; the perky fake globes bobbing on their chest; the pancake makeup and contouring - in fact we all take in and process the totality of other people's appearances and all the zillions of cues large and small emanating from how they look at the same time.

[–]persistentlywoman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I was in the self-identified queer community for a long time so I met lots of trans people and it's clockable. totally, absolutely clockable. maybe not from a distance or at a glance, but once you're up close and interacting it all clicks pretty quickly into place, especially when you notice the similarities between trans women or trans men, and the similarities between cis people. I can tell now pretty much straight off if someone has been taking hormones even if they're non binary identified and more ambiguously presenting. being in these communities has taught me to recognise all the subtle signs. there is so much subconscious processing going on. even if it takes people a while, eventually it clicks.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

TIL that women have a heightened sense of when something is "off". That's very interesting!

[–]Shesstealthy 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah that photo gives me a bit of a Joan Sutherland vibe jaw-wise. Some women are "mannish" to look at and that's ok.

Certainly the TIMs I have met have been mostly very easy to clock. There is one in my town though who I wouldn't were she not well known to be trans. As a result her height and deepish voice become giveaways... otherwise I'd just assume she was a big female.

[–]Destruction 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The voice always gives them away tho.

[–]SharpTomorrow 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's mostly the photo and the angle. If you saw that person in real nobody would get fooled even if that person didn't talk.