I will never physically 'grow up'

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I am really short.

To the extent where the 'well so and so is such and such height' stuff bothers me cos even those people are a lot taller than me. Numbers don't help because then I just get misgendered and told 'it doesn't matter because you're a woman'. 1 I'm a trans guy and 2 I don't believe that. I think after a certain age and with a certain shortness, it does affect women's self esteem too!

When I go out with parents, it is them who gets addressed.

I am 32 years of age.

If I go out with friends or family around my age, it is them who gets addressed.

Sometimes if I go out on my own, I get addressed. Sometimes I get ignored or assumed to be a child of the person in front of me.

I have tried every trick to 'look older'. They just make me feel uncomfortable. They have no affect. A four inch heel takes up most of my foot and really hurts. Same with makeup. Same with smart clothes It is just about my height...

I am fed up of it.

People think I am cute or a joke. Not a proper adult. They think it is hilarious when I tell them my age.

I want to decorate a house I live in alone and even now, people are addressing my stepdad rather than me when talking about paint samples...

I'm so fed up if it.

Just because you are average height and have to look down at someone does not mean the person you are looking down at is a child!

They might even be smarter than you... Might be older than you. You know little to nothing by looking at a 'teenager'.

You’ll reap the benefits of looking young when you get to be an older person....trust me.

People have been saying that since I was a teenager...

I only vaguely take it seriously because you're a short guy yourself. So you might know some of those benefits first hand and know they're not just 'pretty lady' and being patronised in a more sexual way...

Looking 13-15 isn't the same as looking 21.

And surely when you're old, looking short doesn't = looking young but looking shrunken... Something that happens in old age.

The issues are:
1 Being trans
2 Having a dad who's 5"6 and a mum who's 5"2
3 Not eating enough as a kid because of sensory sensitivity & verbal dyspraxia
4 Didn't realise this until my dad did one of those ancestry tests but being distantly Asian. Not Asian enough to LOOK Asian though or to CLAIM it as an ethnicity. Asian people tend to be shorter than white people and I think that gene got carried.

I was treated like a kid when I was in my 30s....trust me. I was never taken seriously....still am not, to a certain extent.

I’m 5 inches shorter than my brother and my late father.

As long as you don’t do stupid things like drink to excess or take drugs, you won’t end up shriveled at 60. I’m not shriveled at 60.

Worrying about this sort of thing tends to lead to a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.

People of Asian descent who were born in “western” countries tend not to be as short as Asians born in Asia. It’s not wholly genetic.

I think the ideal in this case would've been:

1 learn the measurements myself
2 take a trolley round so my lack of physicality doesn't get in the way - he was essentially there for lifting and carrying
3 do it all myself
4 dress up smarter

But then I might have been ignored entirely because people think the notion that I might be an adult is such a joke.

I am also fed up of my stepdad telling me what colours 'go well'. He has no actual sense of decor - when I said I wanted a green door he was prepared to use lurid green because he had some left over - and his eyes are less light sensitive than mine so he perceives colour differently anyway. It's my house.

I think another thing is: getting him to realise that time moves on. He is no longer 56 and I am no longer 9. I feel like he treats me like a child, especially in public, and he allows others to speak directly to him about my things rather than saying 'actually, it's KT67's house not mine why not ask him'.

Actually I think that's what annoys me.

People in my life who know my age doing absolutely nothing to inform the other person that I am an adult capable of my own decisions and it's inappropriate to talk about me and my things as if I am not there.

I spoke to him about it today and he agreed to butt out and just do lifting, carrying, driving. If these things weren't out of town, I could just walk there or take the bus.

I can see how years of that would be SO frustrating!

I feel like a lot of the 'you will like it when you're older' stuff is about 'you will look pretty when you're older'...

I don't want to look pretty or even handsome.

I want respect.

I will never get the same level of respect given to those my age. Even when I am old. Even if I look 21 when I'm 50 - who gives 21 yos as much respect as 50 year olds irl? It will only be when I am 70+ that I start reeping the rewards - cos I'll look about 50 and 50 yos tend to be respected more than old people.

And autistic life span/trans life span? Isn't actually that long. Maybe I'll live to 70+. But maybe I won't.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I'm better educated and more well read than people around me but they all think I am stupid when we meet because of my height. Or if they don't? I get comments like 'wow you know a lot, you must be a child prodigy!'

Buddy I'm a midget myself, I'm only 5 ft 9 so I'm no where near tall, so I know exactly what you're going through. However the difference between you and me is you choose to let being short impair you and hinder you. Are there challenges to being short? Absolutely. However what separates winners in life and losers isn't the cards they were dealt but how they manage to play their cards.

Many of the most successful and talented people of all time were midgets, so nothing to be ashamed of. And I mean some really big names in history weren't tall but shorter folks.

Winston Churchill was bullied as a kid for being short at 5' 8"
Bruce Lee was only 5' 7"
Fitness legend Jack Lalanne was only 5' 6"! !!
Danny DeVito I think is 4' 11"! !! !
Nick Vujicic is barely 3 ft!! !!
Donnie Yen is 5' 8"

Being short has its disadvantages and sure I too wish I was taller, but why waste time being upset over me not being taller at this current moment when I can focus on my gifts and abilities I do have and can better myself.

I'm short because im Palestinian of Jewish ancestry and Jews arent exactly the tallest folks either.

The Vietnamese were on average only 5' 3" yet they stood up to the French and drove them out of Indochina then proceeded to kick the much larger, physically imposing and mechanistically superior American's butts that left Uncle Sam embarrassed to this day.

The Vietnamese lacked the size and weaponry of their invaders but they overcame their weaknesses with heart and brave, something no amount of lack of height can ever take away.

Just goes to show that anything under 6" isn't respected.

Does someone as tall as 5"9 still get mistaken as/treated as a child?

I feel like if I was cis and could grow facial hair or if my face just had a little bit of definition - what other people hate and call wrinkles - I'd get treated as an adult. But I physically look like a child, even in the female equivalents of that which is heels and makeup (which make me feel dysphoric anyway) and the gender neutral versions of that - suits look like school uniforms.

Maybe I need T. I've heard that adult trans guys can grow on T & can most certainly get more muscle & facial hair.

I feel like I need to follow the Vietnamese example and be brave and tough in spite of height. Maybe even in spite of not laying down a physical blow. Just do the NT thing of looking them in the eye coupled with speaking loudly but clearly & not high pitched. Giving off a 'presence' of confidence & strength.

I felt stronger before they shut the gym cos I could gain muscle. Muscle made me look older or at least more in need of respect.

I’m a little under 5 foot 5.

Blatantly telling people to respect you won’t get you any respect.

It’s good that you’re asserting yourself, though. Make sure the people around you know you say what you mean, and mean what you say—without explicitly stating all that.

What I mean is - blatantly telling them I'm 32 and having them adjust accordingly.

Or just talking about life experience like 'when I was in uni 10 years ago'. That's not for shop people, that's for when I'm in a hobby group.

If someone I thought was a kid told me that, I would adjust my behaviour.

Heck if I think someone is a teenager and is acting maturely, I treat them with respect anyway. Unless they're in a gang, acting like an immature edge lord etc, they don't need patronising. They're almost adults.

I don't get the point of laughing at someone cos they're a different age to what you think they are.

If someone had grey hair and was in their 20s, I wouldn't laugh at them either.

I like the "When I was in Uni 10 years ago." That would help.

The reason why I say one shouldn't blatantly talk about "respect"---is because people here do it all the time, and it makes them look foolish.

Like a person who is throwing a temper tantrum saying "I'm grown! I'm grown!"

Please remember that I'm not talking about you in particular.

Yeah I don't do it except to say my age. I would never blatantly say 'I want respect' except somewhere like the Haven, talking to my mum or to a psychiatrist.

But deep down... that's what I want.

And being considered pretty isn't like that.

Heck I already get guys who hit on me and still think I'm a teenager and these guys are around my actual age (early 30s)... my history of CSA and just general hating of sleazebags makes me hate them.

In fact I'm so scared of the reverse snobbery stuff that I will only mention uni when I am in certain environments.

Down my CSC how I do it is bringing up old players and talking about remembering seeing them play.

In general, my comments will sometimes be things like obscure 90s pop culture references that only people who grew up in the 90s will remember.

Further, generations born after dietary shifts occurred in Japan and South Korea have substantially reduced differences in average heights between those countries and western countries, especially for AMAB people.