6d ago

The struggle is real

On the one hand I somewhat hate my old name and getting referred to as male, but on the other hand I would actually have to correct others to use my preferred name/pronouns.

Edit: Its not that im uncomfortable with she/her or that I have to fear of people having a negative reaction over it, but instead that I simply do not like to correct people so I do not "fulfill" the st ereotype of "the annoying trans person that constantly annoys you about pronouns". Is it completely irrational to think like that (especially since all of the people I interact with are very accepting)? Yes! Do I still feel that way? Also yes!

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If it makes you feel any better, sometimes it wouldn't make any difference anyway.
My wife in an e-mail to our kid's tutor: "[kid's name] uses they/them pronouns". The response: "OK, thanks, I'll make a note about pronouns in her file."
- If the tutor was being deliberately insensitive, that's awful. If the tutor was just being regular person stupid, it's pretty funny. People make mistakes all the time, and we don't really think about everything we say. Using the correct pronouns shouldn't be stressful as long as you're trying to treat people with respect and decency.
  Deliberately using the wrong pronouns is just bullying, though.
  
  Did the tutor continue misgendering regularly? They/them can be especially hard when you're not used to referring to people whose identity you know that way. If it happens often, though, yeah, the tutor's being a dick.
  
  tbh I have these kinds of interactions all the time and often the person doesn't even realize they made the mistake - I wouldn't necessarily assume the immediate mispronouning was intentional - in this context it seems more likely they were not thinking rather than trying to openly defy or bully.
  You have to remember, most people are not used to thinking about what pronouns they are using and it's a mostly unconscious / automatic process based on quick judgements about a person's gender. Even I find myself doing this when in trans spaces, when I'm taking my time speaking I can use the right pronouns, but when I get excited or otherwise start thinking and speaking too quickly, I fall back to those automatic and less conscious ways of using pronouns and end up mispronouning people. I do think practice helps incorporate pronoun awareness, over time it gets easier to use someone's pronouns and to not make mistakes for example.
  Not to say bullying isn't a possibility - it definitely happens, and I've had moments where it felt like my colleagues at work were intentionally referring to me with the wrong pronoun and then correcting themselves with a kind of smirk. That just has a particular feel, though - it feels intentional. Much harder to know from an email like this, though, whether it is defiance or a slip of the mind.
- 🤦‍♀️

This might be the wrong way to approach things but after I introduce myself with my pronouns to people I don't press them to use them.
All of my friends politely corrects each other and any other person who doesn't care won't bother.
I personally find this system I made useful as:
I can keep track of people that I can freely reciprocate trust and respect.
I know who to ignore and avoid. If they won't do something small as respect me with the simple usage of pronouns then they don't deserve any of my time.

I have tried telling people my pronouns, but the town I live in is stuck in the 90s where trans jokes are still "funny" and enby's are just confused. Only the small queer group I've joined has used my preference. I'm afraid to even try now with cheeto dust settling into every nook and cranny across the states.

I fuck up people's pronouns all the time and feel really bad about it. I promise it's not targeted. The thing is: I'm someone who fucks up when I speak all the time.
It's not hatred. I'm just kinda dumb.
- not sure if you're trans yourself, but in case this helps: as a trans person, when someone gets my pronouns wrong, it's more important to me to know they aren't doing it maliciously, so catching it and correcting yourself or just showing any kind of awareness or quick apology helps clarify in the situation that you aren't trying to be malicious or denying my gender.
  The intention matters more than the mistake is what I'm trying to say - the mistake itself is not a big deal when I'm visibly trans and I expect people to get it wrong, I just want to know if you're safe to be around or not, basically.
  Though I should say, once I was less visibly trans and cis-passing, a mispronouning can be devastating to me. Since it's rare, when it does happen, it makes me think I've done something terribly wrong with my gender presentation or the way I am speaking - it feels dehumanizing and totally disturbing now.
  But tbh, the mispronouning only happens now with people who knew me before I transitioned, and usually only when they have not spent much time around me since I transitioned. They mostly remember me as my pre-transition self. It's habituated for them to refer to me as he/him regardless of my presentation, and when they look at me they are used to seeing a man, so they don't see a woman but instead they notice all the markers of my maleness.
  Meanwhile, cis strangers who have no history seeing me as a man don't know to look for male markers, and what they see is a woman so they never notice the discrepancies and they never get the pronouns wrong.
  Not all trans people have the same experiences, though - some are more disturbed by mispronouning regardless, so it's important to understand the sensitivities or experiences of the individual. I just wanted to give you my perspective in case it helps.
- When you're making good faith efforts to use the right words, being conscientious, and just in general trying to be a good friend, that's more important than using the right words all the time. I mean, my mother sometimes calls me the name of her brother. And her other brother. Pretty much all of her brothers. Sometimes the brain misfires carrying words from the mind to the tongue and it's not really anyone's fault.
- It's typically easy to tell whether a person is being forgetful or hateful.
  
  The worst one I do is my sister's NB spouse. I knew them for decades before they realized they were NB and let us know, and I screw it up with them all the time. It's not because I don't support them. It's because I don't see anything different about them. They're still family and they make my sister and their son happy.
  We still nerd out over the same stuff and and our relationship hasn't really changed at all. So I slip and refer to them as "him." I think sometimes that my love for them and who they've always been has in a way blinded me to the outward change.

When I was an egg and was asked for my preferred pronouns, I usually got really uncomfortable - I never felt like I could ask for she/her pronouns (nothing about my gender presented as female, it didn't feel like she/her was appropriate), and all other options felt inaccurate or wrong (they/them being clunky and awkward and demanding too much energy from others to change the way they refer to me while not feeling affirming to me anyway, and the default he/him feeling like a lie or even an injustice).
So in my frustration I just started to say I don't have preferred pronouns - none of the options were great, and that's not my fault. Referring to me with pronouns is on others, basically - I didn't want to be involved in that game, people will he/him me but that's on them and I'm not going to tell people that's what I prefer.
The pronoun question was extremely uncomfortable for me, and I came to hate that question, really hate it - and to resent the culture and people who perpetuated forced pronoun circles (this was more common in liberal and leftist spaces I was in IRL, like DSA meetings). It felt coercive and like gender policing.
Of course that's not the only perspective on pronoun circles, I understand they exist to accommodate certain identities that benefit from having an opportunity to explicitly clarify preferred pronouns (e.g. imagine going by Spivak pronouns, how awkward to always have to introduce your pronouns in every conversation - having the default be that people politely ask pronouns first can be a way to take some of the burden off that individual, and make them feel respected and welcome rather than the default assumption that they're either he/him or she/her based on gender expression alone).
And once I transitioned, the annoyance of pronoun circles diminished, since now I feel my gender expression aligns with she/her and there is no more dissonance there, I can answer the question. But I still feel this pronoun circle practice can be problematic, esp. for trans people who are struggling (either closeted, or in denial, etc.). I have sympathy for people who, like me, struggle with being asked to explicitly affirm a gender that doesn't fit them at the start of every interaction or meeting.
- I vibe with that, thanks for explaining.
- omg this is so real. There would usually be other questions in those pronoun circles, so I'd just rush through my answers and not state my pronouns, hoping no one would call me out. Being an egg sucked.
  
  right!? I don't like complaining about pronoun circles too much because I understand they're important for some folks, but I wish zealous liberals were a little more sensitive in their application.
  Often times evading the pronoun question came across to people as transphobic and reactionary. I suspect this was also why so often in pronoun circles the facilitator clarified that an answer was required, which only made me (ironically usually the only trans person in the room) distressed and stigmatized.
  Just making the question a little more optional could help people who need to disclose identity and pronouns to do so, and people who don't mind identifying to do so, but still leave an escape hatch for the gender-distressed in the room 😅

I don't want to be perceived as pushy, or make other think trans people are obnoxious... Couldn't someone else correct them? That would feel better and more natural
- I have a friend who understands this incredibly well. Whenever I'm out with them, they'll intentionally use my pronouns in conversation with people. They won't be like, "mossy's pronouns are...", they'll just casually slip a few "she"s and "her"s in while making obvious they're referring to me.
- Want me to follow you around for that exact purpose? I'll need about 1/3 of a kg of Goldfish per hour.
- This is 100% me

Third hand bursting from my chest like a xenomorph, “yah but what if my truth does not exist with in the binary and my discomfort from correcting others comes from me not being entirely sure that my assertion of gender identity is accurate”
Fourth hand slapping me across the face “ and what if that feeling is just a result of externalized pressures insisting that I can not fit an idealized notion of the concept I claim to be, or perhaps my uncertainty in what others view that concept as, and if I am improperly conveying that concept I am feeling to them due to our difference in understanding•”
- Just use they/them, the convenient catch-all.

Telling people to use whatever and they only use 1 pronoun all the time :(

There are two types of people, those who will respect your pronouns, and those who won't. The people that will respect your pronouns will support you and be glad you said something. This category of people does not want to make you feel bad about yourself.
This is where it gets dicey, though. Well-meaning people can take it too far, make too much of a spectacle of something that should be very simple. They don't want to embarass you or exacerbate a socially awkward conversation, but by being too enthusiastic to be an ally, they can make it much worse.
The people who won't respect you are pieces of shit humans, and it would be easy to just write them off entirely. The problem is they might be coworkers or managers or clients or vendors. They might be in-laws or neighbors or friends of friends or distant relations. They might hate you. They might be violent towards you. And there are more of them now, and they have a lot of power right now.
So sharing your pronouns is a risk. It's always a risk. And that's another thing well-meaning allies can miss about the situation.
The best thing for all of it is honest communication and a bit of empathy. Understand that most people do support you, they just don't always know how to best achieve that. Understand that the people who misgender you aren't necessarily doing it on purpose, but the ones that are should be flagged as a potential problem.
I wish there was a better answer that worked in all situations. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, and sometimes that leap will be met with hostility.
But every time you do, you are creating the pathways for future generations. It's hard because nobody does it, and exposure is the best source of empathy. Take pride in being your authentic self, and stand up for you and for everyone like you who has or will faced the same decision. But also, don't be ashamed if you choose to remain silent. It's a scary world, and you don't owe anyone the chance to hurt you.

Can you tell people your name?
- I can, but Its still The same thing. You have to do it and its the same as I described in my edit.

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