![]() If someone has asked you to use their pronouns, it could be a matter of safety - whether it’s their sense of safety, or their physical autonomy and security. A transgender person could lose their housing, their job, or even their friends if their status as transgender is revealed. This could cause harm that we did not intend. We might also risk outing them as transgender to other people around us - folks who may not know they are trans, who may become aggressive or even violent if they realize this person is transgender. When someone feels invalidated or disrespected, they may not feel safe or comfortable in the space. When we misgender someone, we run the risk of threatening their personal sense of safety, as well as their physical safety. Your sense of safety is not important to me. Would you rather hurt someone? Or simply change the way you are speaking?ģ. I would rather hurt you repeatedly than change the way I speak about you.Įach time we misgender someone, we are inflicting harm. Since when are you the expert on other peoples’ lives? If she says she’s a woman, I would think she would know better than you do, just like she knows her favorite food is spaghetti, she’s a Buddhist, and her favorite color is teal.Ģ. And logically speaking, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. When you use the incorrect pronouns, though, you are saying that you are intimately more familiar with who they are than they are. You are not living their life, and therefore, could not possibly know their gender better than they could. The reality is, someone’s gender identity - how they relate to their bodies, and to the notions of femininity and masculinity - is only for that person to discover and declare. ![]() You are saying, “How could you possibly know your gender? Only I could know that, and you’re wrong.” When you make the decision to not respect someone’s pronouns, what you are ultimately saying is that their personal truth is something you are more knowledgeable about than them. I know you better than you know yourself. So what are you really saying when you’ve decided to continue using a pronoun that someone doesn’t identify with? Here are just a few things you could be suggesting when you use the incorrect pronouns:ġ. And when you choose not to use these pronouns, and instead opt for your own, you are not only invalidating someone’s identity, but you are also saying a plethora of harmful things that you likely never intended. When someone states their pronouns (he, she, ze, they, etc), they are asking for your respect. Some folks simply don’t understand what they are saying when they refuse to use someone’s stated gender pronouns. ![]() ![]() This is where I encountered the most turmoil. When I came out to friends, it felt like the world was crashing down all around me.Īnd by far, the worst part was the resistance I faced when asking others to stop saying “she.” Beyond coming out, we also ask others to change a very ingrained habit - to use different pronouns when speaking about us. It is often met with criticism, resistance, and invalidation. It can’t be emphasized enough: Coming out as transgender or any variation thereof is downright terrifying. ![]()
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