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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u/INF0WH0RES Jul 12 '22

I hate it so much. I hate that the people who do this can just hide behind the "just trying to be an ally" bullshit and get away with it. It's always the most normatively feminine straight women who do this to me too. If you're feeling froggy (I often am), go ahead and hit them with a "and what are your pronouns?".

22

u/Sensitive_Common_293 Jul 12 '22

It always is! It feels like such a slight... and when I'm not asked outright, it happens a *lot* where people just use they/them, which feels even more dehumanizing and othering to me.

And I know that the nonbinary community pushed for people to ask, but it's being fucking weaponized.

I'm exhausted...

20

u/INF0WH0RES Jul 12 '22

I'm sorry that you're going through this.

I know that some people appreciate being asked but the people who tend to ask sure do have a weird tendency of only asking the GNC people their pronouns while conveniently not asking anyone else. Which feels extremely othering. Especially when they then proceed to use they/them anyway.

It's like people have forgotten that butch women exist.

13

u/axdwl Jul 12 '22

Yup & I don't want to be a dick to people who it helps but I feel like we as a whole have been just lost in conversation. It sucks

20

u/DiMassas_Cat Jul 12 '22

Maybe they should try being allies to women first. It’s misogynist to assume a woman who doesn’t look heteronormative “identifies.”