i... just misgendered one of my friends and i’ve never felt so horrible in my life. since we’re online friends, i’ve only seen their face and since they looked like a girl.. i thought they were a girl.. and.. i accidentally misgendered him. i feel like crying right now.

I’m not trans but some of my best friends are, so I can speak from what they’ve told me. Basically, if you mess up someone’s pronouns, what you’re supposed to do is apologize, correct yourself, and then move on. I know with ocd we often have a tendency to want to confess, or to apologize over and over, but that not only is harmful to you because it’s a compulsion, but it also makes the person you misgendered feel uncomfortable. I will often though, to avoid misgendering someone, practice using their pronouns by myself in private. Don’t let that become a compulsion though.

i cant breathe and i can’t stop shaking someone please

ugh i’ve never felt so horrible someone please

Exactly what Nikki said. My sibling transitioned a decade ago and we still slip up occasionally and misgender or use his dead name if we are talking about the past/childhood etc, even though we DO think of him as male. I've never known someone to be mortally offended by it, especially if you didn't know they were trans at all in the first place it's extremely understandable. We all just want respect and acceptance for our identities and you haven't disrespected that at all, you recognise and respect their identity now that you know about it and I'm sure they get that. Ambiguous gender presentation causes this situation all the time, every trans person knows that it can take people time to adjust to the change both in words and the mental image of them in your mind. You can survive feeling guilty until it just goes away again by itself (as it's supposed to), you don't need to dwell on or punish yourself for an innocent mistake. You also don't need to obsess and make yourself ill about being certain that you never do it again, either. We all slip up. It's fine to slip up. We can't get everything right all the time, and we can all survive it when we make a mistake. The only offensive thing would be doing it deliberately to hurt their feelings or out of 'disagreeing' about their identity.

it is fine u already know ur "mistake", u didn't know he was a boy.