~This happened in real life~

So today i was at the pool with my freind (ill call them bob for there privacy.) And the pool was a public pool. We where basically swimming from one end of a lane to the other while trying to catch up to the other person who gets a head start, Anyway after like 3 laps i was swimming along and bob caught me so we both swam to the end of the lane so we could start again. I yelled "Go!" and bob stared swimming away. When i started to swim (which was when Bob was like half way across the lane and out of hearing reach.) Then there where these two kids who where definitely spying on us, who looked like they where 8 to 10 years old. One of the kids says to me "Are you trying to catch her now?" where "Her" was referenceing my freind and i said "There a boy, and yes?" And i continued to swim forward. My freind bob uses He/Him pronouns, And is a biological male so i was i bit confused. And when i was a bit away from the kids, Then one of them said "Wow that Girl acts a lot like a boy." Where "Girl" Was Obviously referenceing ME. I use He/Him/They/Them pronouns AND Am a biological male. And the kids stereotipicly said that me and Bob where Females, And then i realised why. These kids where not trying to piss me off, They looked 8 and genuinely confused, But they thought thhat me and bob where Females because we both had long-ish hair. Which, After i came to the realization, DESTROYED me. It is sad that this generation of children are still using stereotipical judgements. I swam over to bob with a deep amount of sorrow and told him the story. Then Bob spend like 6 minutes muttering to himself, and after that He went up to the child and said "You have incorrectly and stereotipicly Addressed me and my associate with feminist pronouns when in fact We both Are biological males that use He/him Pronouns. And your reasons for doing so where morelly corrupt by modern societys Stereotypes. Which is a wrong accusation to make and has damaged both of our emotions and we would appreciate if you and your companion where to apologize to me and my associate at this current point in time." Bob stopped there and after a long thought out scripted sentence like that the kids said "what?" Like they had no idea about a single word bob just said. We then explained to them that they had used the wrong pronouns and set things right.

The main reason this story is depressing for me is that 9 year old kids STILL think that long hair = girl and Short hair = boy. And this is not the first time this has happened to me, I have been called a female for my long hair many many countless times. And my Female freind getting called a boy cos they had a "Sigma haircut." AND my genderfluid freind getting told by a 3 YEAR OLD that you cant be all the genders you must be a "boy or girl."
The main purpose of this blog is to express my anger and msybe get some supportive comments.

Bye!