Stu wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:32 pm
I have said before that we do not have any ownership of the pronouns people use with regard to us; the choice of pronouns rests with the speaker and not the referent.
But that's true of all descriptive language.
You don't have ownership of whether I call you a twat, or not, but it would certainly be impolite for me to do so (and I am not calling you a twat, by the way). Women don't have ownership over whether or not I refer to them all as broads. Similarly, it would be impolite for me to call you a transvestite after you set the record straight and told me that you are not trying to present as a woman, but are only trying to have as much fashion freedom as women have. That doesn't change, when you are not in the room to hear me. If I call you a transvestite, then, I am still acknowledging that I don't respect you enough to accept that you know yourself better than I do. Not to mention that permitting myself this luxury increases the possibility that I will forget not to do it to your face, or that word won't spread
In light of that, I don't really see a difference with pronouns. Yes, it's difficult at first to adjust your language, but that gets easier with time. What doesn't get easier with time is being in a society where disrespect against your person is
institutionalized as it is for transgender individuals.
Stu wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:32 pm
Pronouns are not like names or titles, which are determined by the individual referred to; they are function words and a property of the language.
Well, I don't really agree with that, but let's say that's true. So what? Language changes to accommodate historical trends.
It used to be absolutely acceptable to refer to people with Down Syndrome as Mongoloid, or to refer to people with interracial ancestry as mulatto. It no longer is.
Stu wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:32 pm
I will use "he/him" if the person
presents as male and "she/her" if the person
presents as female - not that
presents is the determining factor. The pronouns
they and
them only apply if I am referring to two or more people, or a person referred to is absent and their sex is unknown and cannot be readily ascertained.
But what if you're mistaken? I know I have been. Indeed, people have even mistaken my gender, and I have never looked particularly feminine.
And, what if you're walking around in a skirt (or kilt), and some moron calls you "Miss," because you're wearing "women's clothes," and "only women and 'shemales'" do that. Would you take that as a sign of respect, or disrespect? Would you expect every man in this position to shrug it off, or would you expect a significant number of them to take offense? Would the original offender then be justified in continuing to refer to you in this manner, even after you've corrected him?
Furthermore, non-trans people have been evicted from bathrooms because other people mistook their sex-atypical features to be a sign that they were transgender.
So, what would you do to account for this, once somebody corrects you? Surely you wouldn't ask them to prove it to you. That would be impolite, and might even earn you a "f**k off." I'd wager it would be easier for you to say, "sorry," and be on your way, than to escalate things.
In my opinion, it's ok to mistakenly misgender a person. You should get a pass for that. But, any intentional misgendering is a sign of disrespect.
But, again, it is your right to refer to people however they want. Just don't expect others to be ok with it.