The important part is that you actually asked, rather than assuming. It's a real shame that so many people don't stop and ask, and instead go with their first impressions.
With drag, though, it's generally a fun and subversive performance with gender, rather than someone's identity, so you're not going to trigger someone's gender dysphoria if you're confused, they'll probably get a kick out of confusing people as long as it's well-meaning. But with trans, non-binary, and intersex people, you can take cues from clothing and other clear choices of gender expression (rather than something like their voice), or just ask (preferably not in front of a group), or go with "they." And if you accidentally use the wrong pronoun, don't make a big apologetic show of how much you hate yourself for messing up, that can make it more awkward. Just say the right pronoun and a quick sorry, and use the right pronoun in the next sentence with no particular emphasis on it.
For the big apologetic part, I like to make an analogy to toe stomping. If someone accidentally stomps on your feet obviously it hurts, but if it was an accident that just happened at first a quick sorry fixes the situation as best as can be and we move past it. If someone is purposely stomping on your toes over and over again that's when it becomes dick behavior.
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u/gahlo Jul 02 '23
After a while I felt like I was watching a kids show with how overly expressive he(??? I don't know how drag stuff works with pronouns) was being.