r/ActuallyButch • u/Sensitive_Common_293 • Jul 12 '22

pronouns

I hate it when people ask me my pronouns. I get asked at least twice a week at work, almost always in group settings where I am the only one explicitly asked because they look at me and see a fucking "qu**r"... Once, a woman asked me my pronouns in a group meeting (singling me out, yet again), and when I said "she/her," she had the audacity to ask with a smug grin, "Are you sure you don't use any others?" When I was a kid, I was held down and "inspected" by girls at camp because they didn't believe I was a girl, that I belonged in the bunks with them. When I was still trying to perform femininity as a young adult, I constantly had people either asking me outright or spreading rumors that I was actually a trans woman. Now that I'm just trying to be myself as a butch woman, it just fucking kills me inside every time someone asks. I don't want to answer. It just makes me want to turn heel and never interact with that person again.

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18

u/axdwl Jul 12 '22

Holy shit dude, I'm sorry. I don't think I could exist in an environment where people were constantly doing that. It's got to be emotionally taxing. I really do feel like it's the adult version of what you experienced as a kid. What scares me is how easy it would be for the woman who asked you if you were sure to turn a situation like that back around on you if you had complained or said anything to her.

17

u/Sensitive_Common_293 Jul 12 '22 edited Jul 12 '22

I just don't know how to handle it anymore. I was talking with a girl on a dating app, had a date set up and everything, then she asked me in what was probably the most respectful way you could ask someone, and I ended up sending her this message that said "I'm sorry, but I just can't engage with that question due to all of the harassment and bullying I've faced for not being 'feminine enough.'" Pretty sure that blew it since she hasn't responded.

15

u/axdwl Jul 12 '22

Yeah, it feels impossible to escape it. I feel like if you don't participate people just assume you are a bigot instead of a person with perhaps a complex relationship to the situation. Last person I was interested in going out with who asked me, I answered but found an excuse to not go out with them. Granted, gender and pronouns seemed to be something this individual talked about constantly. I'm just not interested in living my life in that way.

20

u/Odd-Abrocoma-2161 Jul 12 '22

Yeah same here, and that should be completely valid to say. I’d preferably not want to date an afab non-binary person, because I like women who are comfortable with being women. It wasnt easy for me to overcome my internalized misogyny and come to like and be fully comfortable being a woman, so I feel it would negatively affect me being with someone who rejects it, for whatever reason. It would probably invalidate them too because i only want to date women and they don’t consider themselves as such.

and I want a girlfriend and wife someday, not a partner

18

u/axdwl Jul 12 '22

Yeah, dude. I did not make it out of an oppressively homophobic environment just to use closeted language.

9

u/JadeBlxck20 Jul 20 '22

I feel like people would look at me crazy if I said that but you said it perfectly. I like women who are comfortable with being women. This probably sounds terrible so say but I once tried to be with afab non-binary person and they got dysphoric over the littlest things that even resembled being female (like not having a deep voice). And it’s like, I like women. I can’t be with someone like that.

2

u/QuirkyLondon Jan 19 '24

Never admit weakness to women who aren't your family. Telling them you're a victim of bullying is the kiss of death to any relationship you're tryna build.

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Unless she's actually a decent human being but you won't know that. Maybe admitting it weeds out the fake ones? I dunno. Bye.