EmmaAintDead
Pro-Crime /// Anti-Peace
Okay folks. So, in another thread there was some pretty good and necessary discussion regarding pronouns, correct and incorrect use when referring to trans/non-binary people, how that impacts us, and the importance of using correct social markers when interacting with each other. Given how important this conversation is to have as well as the context of the original thread, I decided to go ahead and follow @EphemeralStick 's suggestion and dedicate a thread specifically to this, away from the dumpster fire of a thread it originated in.
To start, my pronouns are she/they, I'm trans non-binary, femme, and queer. I came out as trans in 2012, at which point I strictly used she/her pronouns. I came out as non-binary in 2018 and have since adopted they/them in addition to she/her. I've got a lot to say here, so bear with me, cause I'm going to address, explain, and try to extend something of an olive branch where things get heated. In the spirit of this being a discussion with good intent and a subject matter that ALL OF US benefit from being familiar with, I ask that cis people recognize up front that I'm not trying to be patronizing, dismissive, or ill-willed with my responses, but also that this conversation can veer to feeling dangerous to trans people VERY quickly and that trans people in this conversation, myself included, may take a tone that reflects this. Please try to be understanding of that. As well, fellow trans hobos, I'm not trying to put words in anybody's mouth. I understand that my own view and my own experiences are precisely that - mine. Not yours. But as well as you speak from a place of authority on this matter because YOU live this, so do I, and even we might not see eye to eye - I want yall to understand I'm not trying to invalidate or talk over anyone, even through the high potential for disagreement.
Further, I've done my best to strip the below of any thread-dependent context so anyone can join this without having to read 6 pages of very unfortunate posts.
So, let's get to it! I want to start off with this, from the original thread, which I feel set the tone for the original discussion. There is nuance beyond this that I feel is largely lost without a decent understanding of queer struggle:
Ultimately, what you do is up to you. Just realize, if what you do has an impact of those around you, then those around you will respond to that impact how they see fit. It's not an attack on your autonomy if someone you constantly misgender tells you to shut the fuck up, it's an attack on theirs that you voluntarily and without provocation see it fit to make them feel shitty.
Honestly, yeah. Knowing someone as one gender for most of their lives and then coming to terms with a completely new idea is REALLY difficult. Trust me, that's exactly what I had to experience when myself came out to myself. It's not just you who is trying. The person you are trying FOR is trying, too. And it's a lot of uncharted waters for everyone involved. That's why I put in so much effort to explaining where I'm coming from in this post, really. It's not something that just comes to fruition on its own for anyone on any side of this situation, and the difference between trying and succeeding and trying and failing is trying together. If we're going to be in this together, then a lot of this "but your voice is deep" shit just has to go. And I don't know what that means for you, but I do know what it means for the person you're referring to, and it means EVERYTHING. So yeah, it's not easy for cis people to just get it right. But the stakes arent as high for yall as they are for us. And trying and failing for you might mean having a few people mad at you. But trying and failing for us may mean violence against us from people who hate us and see us as an easy target because of a brief moment of vulnerability.
So, that was a lot. And I hope it is useful in continuing the discussion. Cause, damn folks, there's a lot of room to make this productive for everyone involved, and I believe in us.
To start, my pronouns are she/they, I'm trans non-binary, femme, and queer. I came out as trans in 2012, at which point I strictly used she/her pronouns. I came out as non-binary in 2018 and have since adopted they/them in addition to she/her. I've got a lot to say here, so bear with me, cause I'm going to address, explain, and try to extend something of an olive branch where things get heated. In the spirit of this being a discussion with good intent and a subject matter that ALL OF US benefit from being familiar with, I ask that cis people recognize up front that I'm not trying to be patronizing, dismissive, or ill-willed with my responses, but also that this conversation can veer to feeling dangerous to trans people VERY quickly and that trans people in this conversation, myself included, may take a tone that reflects this. Please try to be understanding of that. As well, fellow trans hobos, I'm not trying to put words in anybody's mouth. I understand that my own view and my own experiences are precisely that - mine. Not yours. But as well as you speak from a place of authority on this matter because YOU live this, so do I, and even we might not see eye to eye - I want yall to understand I'm not trying to invalidate or talk over anyone, even through the high potential for disagreement.
Further, I've done my best to strip the below of any thread-dependent context so anyone can join this without having to read 6 pages of very unfortunate posts.
So, let's get to it! I want to start off with this, from the original thread, which I feel set the tone for the original discussion. There is nuance beyond this that I feel is largely lost without a decent understanding of queer struggle:
This is true, but can contextually be a little more complicated. "They" as a default has been something queers have pushed for until such time "they" is rendered a societal standard for addressing people whose gender you are unsure of, as it's a default inclusive of both binary and nonbinary people. At the point where that's not the case, that is to say at the point you've been made aware that that person goes by he/him or she/her, "they" ceases to be the default and is intended to shift. In the event that someone has been using "they" for someone who has repeatedly corrected that her pronouns are she/her, the use of they becomes something that can and often does appear malicious. And, given the rest of the post I pulled this quote from, I'm safe to assume you are at least aware of situations where this has been the case. Cis people can and do lean on "they" as a way to acknowledge transness while not admitting the full scope and reality of gender identity. We see some of this in action in this next quote, intentionally or not.
It is hard. It's a cultural shift against the grain of what people have been conditioned to feel, think, and speak. And trying to get it right is a HUGE thing, and something people ought not to be discouraged from doing. Here's my main issue with this comment, though, is that it shifts the onus of speaking to a trans person with respect onto the trans person and doesn't keep it on the speaker. "It's hard because we've all been raised in a way that fundamentally doesn't accept this as the correct way to do things" is one thing, and something I very much agree with. "It's hard because some trans people don't look/sound trans enough" is another thing entirely, and that's what this conveys. In the queer world, we call this "passing politics." The long and short of it is, "passing" means one appears to the average person as the gender they ARE more often than not, and not "passing" means one appears as another gender than the one they are more often than not. And it's important to examine where that actually falls in your own views in relation to how you interact with queers, trans people, and nonbinary people. Does having a deep voice make a woman less of a woman? Does having tits make a man less of a man? Are you in a position to decide that's the case, and further, are you in a position where voicing that view is something positive to do? Because, as I see it, "It's hard for me to call this woman 'she' because of a deep voice" sounds like you understand that trans people 1.) exist, 2.) deserve to exist, and 3.) should be respected in existence, but that there is a benchmark they must hit before that person is deserving of the effort of committing pronouns to memory.
And I'm not about to call you a transphobe. Because, yeah, you realize it's frustrating to slip up. But I am ABSOLUTELY saying that I feel like the root of the difficulty you're having is deeply tangled in a basis of transphobia. In the same sense that a white person in the US may not be racially prejudiced personally, they still exist in a racist culture that de-facto benefits them over racial minorities, you may not have any personal prejudice against trans people BUT you are coming from a place that exists in a transphobic culture that de-facto benefits cis people. And I think that's worth reflecting on, examining, and discussing in a sincere way.
My feelings on this boil down fairly well to this: What two people say about a third person who isn't there is how they truly feel about that person. That third person's absence isn't an excuse to stop trying. If it's used as one, it seems less like the first two people are trying so much as they are performing a ritual for the third person to make themselves feel better about being nice to a trans person. If you were to be alone with someone who is very kind to women, but in confidence says some sexist shit, I would hope you'd be willing to say "hey, that's not right. That's not cool, and it doesn't matter that there are no women around, that kinda stuff is harmful."
Precisely this, actually. For those reading, I touched on a circumstance earlier wherein someone would NOT want to be called "they." If a trans man says "my pronouns are he/him" and someone repeatedly calls him "they," that's a subtle denial of their identity. What this tells us is, "I understand that you are trans and I do not respect you enough to address you as a man." And while this might not be anyone here's intent, it is the intent of SO MANY PEOPLE OUT THERE that it becomes hard for us to differentiate friend and foe. When people who genuinely care and are trying make the same mistake that people who actively wish harm on us intentionally use, it blurs the line for us a bit. And that's something the cis people here NEED to understand in this conversation. A slip up is a slip up. Prolonged misgendering is another thing entirely. And after a year of that? Yeah, the line is gonna be blurred.
This is a post I love very much because it very nearly hits the nail on the head in answering the question it is asking itself. Repeatedly calling a binary trans person "they" has this effect precisely. It's a pronoun that can even apply to inanimate objects. And that's how repeated misgendering makes trans people feel. Non-human. Like objects. If you are a woman, and someone consistently uses language to describe you that completely neglects that you're a woman, but instead paints a very un-gendered and neutral image of you... yeah, that's kinda the same as being stripped of a big part of your identity.
You have no duty in anything other than that to yourself. If you don't want to correctly gender someone, you don't have to. It makes you look like a huge asshole, and people are going to treat you like a huge asshole, but nobody is going to lock you up for misgendering someone. In that, nobody is policing anything. What's being said is, regardless of intent, words mean things, and specific contexts of words mean specific things to specific people. Gender performance is something that ideally would automatically solicit the response of correcting yourself in gendered language when referring to someone else. "This person is obviously highlighting these gendered aspects" ideally begets the follow-up of "so I suppose I should refer to them by those gender markers" and does not follow with "so I suppose they are policing my right to speech by forcing me to use words I don't want to use."
Ultimately, what you do is up to you. Just realize, if what you do has an impact of those around you, then those around you will respond to that impact how they see fit. It's not an attack on your autonomy if someone you constantly misgender tells you to shut the fuck up, it's an attack on theirs that you voluntarily and without provocation see it fit to make them feel shitty.
Honestly, yeah. Knowing someone as one gender for most of their lives and then coming to terms with a completely new idea is REALLY difficult. Trust me, that's exactly what I had to experience when myself came out to myself. It's not just you who is trying. The person you are trying FOR is trying, too. And it's a lot of uncharted waters for everyone involved. That's why I put in so much effort to explaining where I'm coming from in this post, really. It's not something that just comes to fruition on its own for anyone on any side of this situation, and the difference between trying and succeeding and trying and failing is trying together. If we're going to be in this together, then a lot of this "but your voice is deep" shit just has to go. And I don't know what that means for you, but I do know what it means for the person you're referring to, and it means EVERYTHING. So yeah, it's not easy for cis people to just get it right. But the stakes arent as high for yall as they are for us. And trying and failing for you might mean having a few people mad at you. But trying and failing for us may mean violence against us from people who hate us and see us as an easy target because of a brief moment of vulnerability.
And this matters. The fact that you know your loved ones appreciate the fact that you try is wonderful, and the fact that you acknowledge your respect is awesome. All I ask is that it doesn't end with "i'm trying" as an abstract, and that people really do examine what that means, and what changes can be made to ensure that trying actually makes a difference.
So, that was a lot. And I hope it is useful in continuing the discussion. Cause, damn folks, there's a lot of room to make this productive for everyone involved, and I believe in us.
