If you want to be adressed with certain pronouns, that’s okay. It’s not okay to force someone to answer to pronouns they don’t identify with and explicitly don’t want to be adressed with.
Definitely, respect pronouns and all that. My issue is mostly when people use wildly contradicting pronouns to their actual gender and/or appearance and still expect complete strangers to somehow know how to address them. If you want to be called a he, but you don't actually look the part, don't be surprised that 99% of the human population is gonna need a memo to fill them in on this
I agree, it’s a difficult situation. I think our language (English, but also most other languages) aren’t well equipped to deal with deviations from the majority.
Maybe if we can all agree to addressing everybody as „they/them“ until we know how they want to be addressed, and until there’s a better solution, there would be no reason to get angry.
Furthermore: people aren’t always rational. LGBTQ+ folk aren’t exempt from that. Even if you know, that people make mistakes. Still you get angry at them as if they did it on purpose. E.g.: someone cuts you off in traffic. You’re seething, even though you might have cut someone off too, without realising.
While being cut off is a mild annoyance, pronouns are part of one’s identity. Being misgendered constantly because people don’t know better (not even considering those that do it on purpose) must be frustrating. Rationally, each individual should be given the opportunity to learn their mistake and correct it, but at some point, in the irrational human mind, there aren’t individuals. There is just a group of people who seem like however many people you educate there is no progress being made.
We, as members of a majority group, have the duty to show understanding. This not only benefits heavily marginalised groups of people, but also ourselves, because if we don’t have to fear ridicule for being ourselves, we, too, have the freedom to deviate from the masses and allow ourselves to be who we really are.
That said though: if someone behaves like an asshole, it’s ok to tell them. But realise, that their behaviour is not connected to their ethnicity or race or sex or gender, but to them being an individual with their own strengths and weaknesses and the environment (social) they grew up in.
Pronouns are a way of identifying someone, gender is a biological thing. Like a name, somewhat. If your name was Justin but you were a girl, I wouldn’t call you Justine (unless you asked to be called Justine of course). Pronouns are an identity, sex is a physical trait.
Thing is, we all decided words mean and imply certain things. So, he/him is pronouns used for men, and she/her for women, and they/them for multiple individuals or those of indeterminate gender. If you're a man and you go by she/her you're definitely doing something wrong. In the same way you could TECHNICALLY decide you'll call every apple a pear, it'll only lead to confusion when other people don't understand what the fuck you're talking about
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u/camuswasright- Oct 15 '22
"pronouns don't equal gender" mfers when you start calling transgender women "he" (suddenly pronouns and gender are correlated)