Why is misgendering a big deal?

Are we talking about misgendering or mid-sexing?

A person’s gender is whatever they want it to be, their sex is determined by biology.

I guess some people think/want pronouns to refer to gender (which is pretty complicated considering there are infinite genders) and others want them to refer to sex

Imagine yourself if people in work started calling you he and his etc. when referring to you.

Amazingly, there's plenty of gender nonconforming women who have this all the time, and who somehow manage to refrain from threatening suicide, or telling the other person they are a horrible bigot who deserves to be killed.

You don't seem to grasp that "misgendering" isn't a new thing, Hideandgo. Humans have been making snap assumptions, without hostile intent, about other humans since time began. It's only recently that a bunch of men have decided that it's The Worst Literal Violence Ever.

I don't think mentally healthy people, who are happy in their own skins, give a toss about random people 'misgendering' them.

Most transgender people are not mentally healthy. They are dealing with their psychological issues by constructing a narrative that they are 'really' the opposite sex. Their whole sense of who they are is thus based on a lie, and being 'misgendered' exposes that lie and is an attack on their whole self identity.

The current response to this seems to be to try to make the rest of society maintain the lie, rather than helping them, through counselling and psychotherapy, to true self acceptance.

There are also the autogynephiles - I think they know perfectly well what sex they are, but use complaints of 'misgendering' to get off on women being forced to join in their fetish.

I do get that it would be distressing to someone who truly believes they were born into the wrong body

BUT the only reason it's become so distressing appears to be because society has gone so far into erasing and morphing what it is that makes a woman a woman that the person genuinely feels they have a right to demand others conform to their own belief that they are a woman

If we had stuck with what it is that makes a woman a woman - you know - a vagina rather than a penis

All the feeling in the world wouldn't make transwomen personally feel disrespected/literally violently assaulted by those who hold this view if we hadn't gone so far with erasing what makes a woman a woman

I really don't mind transpeople. I don't mind how they live or what they believe and I sympathise it must be awful to feel you can't identify with the body you're born with - but it doesn't mean you can demand I share your beliefs to make you feel better. You're not doing that for me either.

I believe you were born in the right body. I'm utterly confused what it "feels like" to be a woman - the closest I can come as a bio female to knowing what it feels like to be a woman is being on the end of mysogany. I see you wearing "women's clothes, make up etc" ok that's cool with me... but am I not a woman because I don't? The only time I've ever felt I HAD to (not chosen to) wear stereotypical women's clothes and make up is when it's been expected of me by a mysogenistic society.

If someone can own up to the fact they're still a bio man while living how they perceive a woman to live without actually living in a way which is erasing my rights and identity as bio woman - go ahead. That's literally all I'm asking - to be a woman! Like we've fought to be since time began. Problem comes when you tell the world you know how to do that better than me and reduce my identity to a "cis" woman. Fuck off...

Because when a lie is as obvious as this one, the only way to sustain, protect, and propogate it is by fostering unquestioning compliance.

It is the destabilising effect that noncompliance has to the lie.

It isn't the pronouns in particular that are important to the issue, although they do have the helpful effect of altering the perception of the speaker and listener.

The important thing is to make people comply. It might just as easily be a dictat to curtsey.
What is important is compliance establishes a dominance and reinforces your submission. And submission in one seemingly insignificant act increases your likelihood to submit to increasingly disturbing demands.

I recommend Derren Brown's 'The Push' for a masterclass in how we can be groomed to obey others and submit using tiny acts of helpful compliance.

Let's just stop for a moment and think about this. I'll use the recent NUStrans conference as an example:

• The conference was held at a hotel. It was open to trans-people of all chosen genders.
• A significant part of radical trans-activism at the moment, is to "educate" people that just because someone looks like a natal man (or woman) and has male (or female) features, a male-sounding (or female) voice), male (or female) sex organs, this does not mean they are a man (or woman).
• Consequently there has been a significant rise in the number of trans-identified people who look, talk and behave like their natal sex but claim to be the opposite.
• There were multiple complaints of "mis-gendering" from the attendees, who were upset that hotel staff were addressing them according to what they thought the attendee's sex was.
• If you subscribe to radical TRA logic, this means that men can have breasts, women can have beards and adam's apples (using some common and visible biological features as illustrations).
• In view of this how are hotel staff supposed to know what pronouns to use? And that's before we get into those identifying as non-binary and who wish to be addressed as "ze".

Can you honestly not see how confusing this is for ordinary people who don't spend their lives following trans-activist policies and campaigns? Can you understand how intimidating it is to be a hotel receptionist on minimum wage, doing your job to pay your bills and being accused of "literal violence" because you addressed someone who looks like a bloke as "Sir"?

Let's just stop for a moment and think about this. I'll use the recent NUStrans conference as an example:

• The conference was held at a hotel. It was open to trans-people of all chosen genders.
• A significant part of radical trans-activism at the moment, is to "educate" people that just because someone looks like a natal man (or woman) and has male (or female) features, a male-sounding (or female) voice), male (or female) sex organs, this does not mean they are a man (or woman).
• Consequently there has been a significant rise in the number of trans-identified people who look, talk and behave like their natal sex but claim to be the opposite.
• There were multiple complaints of "mis-gendering" from the attendees, who were upset that hotel staff were addressing them according to what they thought the attendee's sex was.
• If you subscribe to radical TRA logic, this means that men can have breasts, women can have beards and adam's apples (using some common and visible biological features as illustrations).
• In view of this how are hotel staff supposed to know what pronouns to use? And that's before we get into those identifying as non-binary and who wish to be addressed as "ze".

Can you honestly not see how confusing this is for ordinary people who don't spend their lives following trans-activist policies and campaigns? Can you understand how intimidating it is to be a hotel receptionist on minimum wage, doing your job to pay your bills and being accused of "literal violence" because you addressed someone who looks like a bloke as "Sir"?

I have no doubt that it is difficult for people with gender dysphoria to be misgendered.

One of the interesting things I've noticed on here, is that the transwomen who have gender dysphoria become shocked at the way we speak.

It's not because they really believe they are women, though. They say they know they are male. It's that they have lived for such a long time with people affirming their views, And women talking, unpoliced, is a novel experience to them.

Despite feeling uncomfortable, they acknowledge that it is factually accurate and there is a very good reason why women are now saying it.

In my experience, the ones who threaten you, are those with AGP.

The anger at being defied is obvious. The crucial need to believe in their innate 'womanhood', rather than their male fetish is undeniable. Hence the rage when it is pointed out. And yes, narcissism is prevalent, according to the statistics.

It's not a big deal unless you are a narcissist who doesn't have any actual problems to be bothered about.

It's amazing how many perfectly ordinary people manage to go through life with strangers constantly mistaking quite pertinent details about them, and yet don't suffer extreme meltdowns as a result. But "not making a fuss about something trivial" doesn't seem to be on the to-do list of too many activists.

I guess you could look at it as if you had a friend who needed to lose a bit of weight. You might think that she really does for her own sake. It might be true. It might be in her best interests to do so.

You might even have a quiet word with her and suggest it tactfully.

What you would probably not do is every time you meet in front of others say here comes my big fat pig of a mate. She is really a fatso, isn't she? I've told her she needs to lose weight.

Not sure if it is the same thing.

If a woman kept her surname on marriage but someone insisted on calling them by their husbands name that would be seen as rude, nasty and probably mysoginistic. it would be seen as devaluing the woman sense of self.

Its not hugely dissimilar.

I get mis-sexed occasionally. I'm short, flat-chested, & have extemely short hair, due to diffuse & slowly worsening alopecia. (It looks even thinner if it's long, I tried it & I can currently manage a ponytail as thin as a pencil.) The mis-sexing doesn't bother me much. I was more bothered at having to go from Rapunzel length, thick hair, to a buzzcut in a couple of years, because of a medical condition, than people assuming I'm a boy... that's just funny, TBH. I am what I am, my ego isn't that fragile.

FortunateCookie do you know any trans people? The trans people I know don't see deliberate misgendering as either friendly or respectful.

There may be reasons why you might choose not to use someone's preferred pronouns. And some of them are very good reasons (I'm thinking of the recent assault case involving Tara W). But frankly I have little respect for Tara anyway.

Imagine yourself if people in work started calling you he and his etc. when referring to you. It would be upsetting.

I had this all my life. It is not 'literal violence' and i never said people should die or are scum for it.

Because it hurts people's feelings!

How you see yourself, whoever you are, is massively tied up in how other people see you. And who other people accept you to be.

How upsetting is it for someone to say in passing conversation ‘you’re not sporty’ when you always saw yourself as a sporty person. Maybe take pride in and work hard at your exercise regime etc. It’s quite a jolt. That’s an inconsequential example and not directly comparable but just try a little empathy. How others see us is a huge part of the affirmation of who we are.

Because it’s just common deceny maybe? Something that seems to be lacking amongst some posters here at times...

hideandgo I seriously wouldn't give a shit. I've been missexed a couple of times, all it took was a 'Nah, I'm a woman/female' and all was good.

The reason why 'misgendering' is such an inflated big deal is because they know that they are not the sex they think and say they are.

Hideandgo yes I can understand. In the same way that I find it upsetting to be told that having an abortion is "cis privilege", that trans-women have periods and when pointing out that this is biologically impossible being told this view is "transphobic" and that bleeding is only a "small part of having periods".

The overwhelming majority of people who complain about being "mis gendered" have male bodies and features. Is it really so unreasonable to refer to someone who looks and talks like a man, as a man?

I think it's pretty obvious really.
If you had gender dysphoria (not sure if that is the right word) and felt you were born in the wrong body, hated the parts that made you female or male and had spent your childhood fighting against being labelled as a gender or what society constructs as gender values because you didn't feel you were that gender I would imagine that after going through surgery and hormones to fit inline with how you felt then misgendering and relating you for no reason to a gender you hated identifying as and never felt like would be pretty upsetting.

I have a daughter with very short hair who is not trans but is often mistaken as a boy. It doesn't bother her much apart from being a bit annoying although she has said she's growing her hair long again so it stops.
She has a FTM friend who would find being identified as a girl really upsetting as they have spent their childhood hating who they were and finally feel 'right'