Why is misgendering a big deal?

[FortunateCookie]

Hope someone can help because I’m really trying to understand why not affirming someone’s identity is that big of a deal.
I understand that it’s polite to go along with whatever someone’s chosen gender identity is, but I can’t believe that it’s actually a big problem if you don’t?
Surely if your friends and family accept your identity, it doesn’t matter if someone at work doesn’t?
Would it really make someone suicidal?
Do any of the trans organisations say why it is so important?
I just don’t get it.

Either directly (as in "show us yer tits"

Do you really think that has never been said to a trans woman by men thinking they are just a woman?

Apropos of nothing, I have a two spirit friend. He is a man. He uses a male name and male pronouns. He actually turned down a trans award recently due to internal conflicts about cultural appropriation.
I am loving your attempts to colonize though, Rose. Fucking hilarious.

The law will then recognise that change, as a change of sex, without having to change the unalterable 'acquired at conception' aspect.

By the law, I assume you mean with a GRC. G as in Gender, whatever that is. You are then a transwoman.

Alternatively, I offer you a trans individual from a different indigenous background. Still a man. Uses a female name. Requests female pronouns. Works at a sex education service teaching that it is transphobic to refuse to sleep with trans people.
Both totally real and in my circle.
One follows his traditional culture. One, erm, has become rather fond of rose’s colonial model.

@rosesandflowers, actually you've called me an uneducated transphobe ( or at the very least, you certainly implied it), or had you forgotten?

I don't really care, but at least use a more accurate word. I don't fear transpeople, I just don't believe humans can change sex.

It is abusive, manipulative emotional blackmail. I have experienced an abusive partner trying to control my behaviour with suicide threats and I will not concede here.

I'm very sorry as to what you've endured and happy that you've managed to escape an abusive situation!

But - mentioning suicide in relation to transphobia isn't "blackmail." There's a correlation. Mentally ill trans people can be triggered by misgendering. Simple as. I'm sorry if that's upsetting for you, but it can happen.

In what way is sexual harassment not related to the possession of ovaries, vaginas and breasts? Either directly (as in "show us yer tits") or indirectly (don't employ them, they will only have babies) sexual harassment is by definition related to biological function.

A trans woman in a padded bra and fake breasts could also get asked that.
A trans woman taking hormones could also get asked that.
A trans woman they saw in passing on the street could also get asked that.

Remarks about other parts of the body such as bums and legs are also a thing, and generally they're happy to do this to someone who looks "a woman." They don't know she has a penis.

Thinking of someone as "lesser" in the work place is also usually because of appearance and pronouns too. The remark you made about babies is obviously specific to biology. But if a woman was trans and they didn't know, they'd still use it. And the original principle of disrespect is applied to trans women, whether they are open about this or not, if they are perceived as a woman.

Transmen? You mean TIW? They're women and I have no problem with them unless they try to enter spaces that are for men such as men's homeless shelters or if they try to compel people to lie and collude in their delusion.

Rose and flowers
No, I won't agree to change the language to mollify an anxious teenager.
What about an abusive victim that found it immensely triggering?
What if the person had been through conversion therapy?
What if they had a history of self harm or attempted suicide?

This is an argument meant to play on guilt and the desire to be kind. Yet when similar arguments are put forward to argue for the protection of single sex refuges, hospital wards etc trans people and those who “support” them have no problem at all telling women that they will just have to get over themselves.

It’s interesting whose feelings matter and whose are easily brushed aside.

Actually I was asking you.

You know nothing about me. And I was talking about her.

I assume you're a woman who feels as though she is a woman.

You would be mistaken.

I am an adult human female who knows she is an adult human female because I have ovaries, Fallopian tubes, a uterus, vagina, etc. I know I am female because I was born with a female reproductive system.

The English word for “adult human female” is woman.

Feelings and identity play no part in this. It simply is the objective material reality of my body.

I do not have a gender. Gender is society’s ideas about what is appropriate for men and what is appropriate for women. I do not have a gender identity. I do not have a feeling of myself as a woman or a man.

I do not identify with society’s view (which is what gender is) of women. Society’s view of women is oppressive and misogynistic.

The only thing my female reproductive system says about me is that I have a female reproductive system. It says nothing about who I am as a person. It says nothing about my identity.

I do not have an internal feeling of being a woman. I am person who inhabits a female body.

According to you, this makes me a corpse. Since i am a corpse who is able to type out replies on a message board, I must be a reanimated corpse; ergo, I am a zombie.

actually you've called me an uneducated transphobe ( or at the very least, you certainly implied it), or had you forgotten?

I didn't literally just write "you uneducated transphobe", did I?

If I was discussing ideals and it felt implied as you hold them, then I did say that that could very easily have happened.

But I've taken the point that that is probably counterproductive, so, apologies.

Is it now that I mention that TRAs actively encourage street harassment? That people yelling about tits is affirning and gives you a quick thrill? That boring old women should learn to appreciate being seen as sex objects? No?

This is an argument meant to play on guilt and the desire to be kind. Yet when similar arguments are put forward to argue for the protection of single sex refuges, hospital wards etc trans people and those who “support” them have no problem at all telling women that they will just have to get over themselves.

It’s interesting whose feelings matter and whose are easily brushed aside.

It's not really the desire to be "kind." I'd say the desire to be a decent human being. Which is probably why everybody's avoided answering it like it's the plague.

Any woman in a similar situation doesn't need to "get over" herself and I would never say so. I imagine it would be some form of a pathological phobia of men that it would be, in which case she needs some kind of therapeutic treatment.

"Like I said, I don't know anyone's gender identity better than they do. You do you. "

And yet there you were insisting that I, and others like me, must be cis and must accept that label to be used to describe us.

Is it now that I mention that TRAs actively encourage street harassment? That people yelling about tits is affirning and gives you a quick thrill? That boring old women should learn to appreciate being seen as sex objects? No?

Both cis and trans women have mentioned this and it's repulsive every time.

If people enjoy being catcalled it's their business. If they feel that they look good when it happens, if they find it sexually arousing, if they see it as part of being a woman and that is gratifying to them. Couldn't care less.

When they use their experiences of it to say that other women should stop complaining about it, its selfish and awful. Point blank. I hate this.

Why do I have to lie to protect someone's feelings? We truly are in an era of madness.
To me the pronouns refer to the sex of the person I'm talking about.
And as has been pointed out, self ID becomes meaningless when applied to situations like FGM, forced marriage and girl children being murdered BECAUSE OF THEIR SEX

It’s interesting whose feelings matter and whose are easily brushed aside.

Isn't it just? And who has a pathological condition that they need therapy for to come to terms with the demands of others who don't give a fuck about their feelings, and who doesn't.

And yet there you were insisting that I, and others like me, must be cis and must accept that label to be used to describe us.

Where?
This must be a miscommunication; I said cis is not offensive as a descriptor if you fit within the definition.

Sorry if it was confusing.

Who says anyone "fits within the description"? Most of us here reject that.

Roses, are you aware that among some TIM sexual harassment is a very welcome validation?

Celebrity TIM, Paris Lees, writes that being treated like a piece of meat" while on holiday was "awesome".

Don't be so patronising. You were applying your definition to anyone who isn't trans. That is wrong as has been explained to you. It's not a matter of "confusing".

If you want your handmaiden cookies that's up to you, but I am not a "cis woman". Males are not a subset of women. They are a subset of men.

Any woman in a similar situation doesn't need to "get over" herself and I would never say so. I imagine it would be some form of a pathological phobia of men that it would be, in which case she needs some kind of therapeutic treatment.

Wait, what?

Are saying that women who want single sex spaces, such as in hospital wards or refuges are pathological and in need of treatment?

That's exactly what she thinks. Yet heaven forbid we say that about trans identified people!