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.

"What makes you feel happy to be cis and not happy to be a woman?"

If someone called me a "white woman" that would simply be an adjective placed in front of the noun. Same with cis. It's not my favourite adjective but it isn't offensive as such.

Am I being dim, or does "someone whose gender = woman" work fine?

I don't have an internal gender according to all the definitions I've read, and externally, well, I'm in jeans, t-shirt and trainers most of the time, so agender by expression - but I'm female, and an adult, so the vast majority of the english speaking world would call me a woman. The vast majority of the english speaking world defines woman as 'adult, human, female' and not anything to do with gender (which they think is just a polite word for sex).

So no, that doesn't work.

And as to 'someone who could get a passport with "female" in it' - well DP could do that, he just has to go and have a chat with a friendly doctor - that's legal fiction, not a definition.

She as a GRC and despite telling people here and pointing out that her sex and gender are legally female, some posters carried on calling her male and he. It was done in the full knowledge of the hurt it was causing

It might have been done in the knowledge that should this person be listening or reading their feelings may have been hurt (they can always not listen/read). But I can state categorically, that wasn't the intention.

It's incredibly manipulative and deceitful to claim that women who can identify the sex class of men, are doing it in order to hurt some of their feelings.

It's a weak attempt to exploit the socialisation of women, that a lot of men have come to fully expect. And are shocked when it doesn't happen.

It's tedious. Stop doing it.

It's not my favourite adjective but it isn't offensive as such.

Is isn't your favourite but it makes you happy? Ok. Whatever.

Have you remembered where your partner was bleeding from prior to being referred to a psychotherapist yet?

I think you’d struggle to find a “Cisperson” on this thread, if you are so concerned about mis-gendering why do you persist in doing it to women?

I am a cis woman

How is referring to a woman as a woman, or any subset of it, misgendering them?

Gender doesn't actually exist. You seem incredibly confused.

Saying that something is a social construct so therefore it's non-existent is vast oversimplification and implausible when applied to everyday life.

"Time is a social construct. People can't be late."

"Money is a social construct. People can't be poor."

"Virginity is a social construct. People can't be sexually active."

Something being a social construct does not, and has never, equalled it being unable to impact life. It does not, and has never, equalled it being non existent in the way the world operates. It does not, and has never equalled people being unable to operate within and outside of it.

@TerfragetteCity

So now you know that you are hurting people when you misgender them, will you stop?

Pronouns are much more important linguistically than we realise. They are quick fire short cuts that carry all sorts of info to the brain, to pretend a he is a she is cognitive dissonance and nothing less.

A good watch

This is another intentional confusion - there's externally imposed societal expectations of gender: Girls have long hair, I should wear a dress to a wedding.

Then there's the internal self-perception of gender - ie. I'm a woman, even though I'm male.

The externally imposed gender is indeed a social construct like money, with massive effects, the internal perception is more like someone's experience of religion - not something that you can force other people to believe in.

GibbertyFlibbert

Do you really think that huge swathes of women are deliberately hurting huge swathes of other women and men? Intentionally, as a goal?

The only reason that women are now consistently making the distinctions between sex and gender, and men and women, is because of transactivism trying to blur the lines.

If sex segregation was fully supported by transactivism, none of this would matter.

"Time is a social construct. People can't be late."

Good example.

If someone told me that all their meetings were at 9am, but their 9am was my 6am, and they wanted me to be there, I'd tell them that actually, my working day starts at 9am as per the recognised time zone that we both lived in. I wouldn't be getting up at 5am just to avoid them getting upset that nobody was at their meetings.

"Money is a social construct. People can't be poor."

Good example.

If someone told me that I owed them £500 because their interpretation that there was 500 pence in each £, and I had originally borrowed £100, I would not be paying them £500 but the originally agreed £100, whether they thought that was virtual violence or not.

I don't have an internal gender according to all the definitions I've read

Well, that sounds like a you thing, not an everyone thing, doesn't it.

I'm a woman. I know I'm a woman. If I was in a sci-fi movie and my consciousness got implanted into a man's body, I'd still mentally be a woman. If my vagina got chopped off, or my chromosomes changed, or I had no body at all, I'd identify as a woman. I don't just have a particular set of genes. Psychologically, I am a woman.

This is surprisingly very applicable to some of my earlier statements; people applying their own experiences of gender to everyone else.

So now you know that you are hurting people when you misgender them, will you stop?

I don't misgender anyone, I either correct sex them or do not refer to their pronouns in any way. I am not holding up some alternate reality.

*I'm a woman. I know I'm a woman.

You were a cis woman a few minutes ago. Make your mind up.

How do you know you are a woman?

I don't know about Terfragette but I am going to start misgendering more I think as I now realise I have been way too polite in supporting delusions as I have never and will never believe that trans women are women they are men. I used to be of the let's be kind and polite school of thought but i realise now it is the slippery slope to further demands and erasure of actual women. And fuck off with the CIS.

It is a slippery slope.

"So now you know that you are hurting people when you misgender them, will you stop?

I don't misgender anyone, I either correct sex them or do not refer to their pronouns in any way. I am not holding up some alternate reality."

So if someone has a GRC and their sex is legally female you have no reasonable grounds to use anything other than male pronouns and to describe them as female. Agreed?

If someone told me that all their meetings were at 9am, but their 9am was my 6am, and they wanted me to be there, I'd tell them that actually, my working day starts at 9am as per the recognised time zone that we both lived in. I wouldn't be getting up at 5am just to avoid them getting upset that nobody was at their meetings.

So we've come to the thick of it, have we? You recognise fully that trans people can be trans despite gender being a social construct.

However, you think that someone else's gender is like a time zone. Something you can Google. Something that both of you have the same experience of.

And, as such, because of course it is your experience of gender that is something everybody obviously experiences, they can't be trans. So you don't care if you're "hurting their feelings" - despite knowing it can progress much further than hurt feelings.

We've walked around in a circle to my original point. You're applying your experience of a complex and personal thing to everyone, taking that as fact and then using your "facts" to hurt people. While insisting that they can't.

Well, that sounds like a you thing, not an everyone thing, doesn't it.

It sounds like a thing with almost everyone I've ever spoken to.

I'm not saying that other people can't have genders - I'm saying that I (and many, many other people, and the dictionary) define woman as 'adult, human, female'

I'm saying that I am a woman, the vast, vast majority of people identify me as a woman, yet, according to your rules, you're saying I'm not one, because I don't have a gender.

I'm saying that my children don't seem to have genders, my partner doesn't think he has a gender, neither do my sisters. Laverne Cox apparently does.

Does that mean that only Laverne Cox is a woman out of all of us? That there's no difference between my sister and I, and my partner and male children?

That's patent nonsense. The entire world would recognise me and my sisters as female, and my partner and sons as male, and there's nothing wrong, or weird, or unexpected about that.

So if someone has a GRC and their sex is legally female you have no reasonable grounds to use anything other than male pronouns and to describe them as female. Agreed?

What?

They will never be female will they?

That would be perhaps because you are a woman ? Rather than identity bollocks ? Understanding the reality of one’s sex ?

You were a cis woman a few minutes ago. Make your mind up.

How do you know you are a woman?

Sweet Jesus.
I am a woman. I have a vagina, the sex organ typically associated with my gender. As such, "cis" can be used as a prwnodifier to communicate this when relevant.

For all you and @RaininSummer's and many others' talk of "erasure of women", can't you see that you are forcing your selfish and harmful mindset over the experiences and thoughts of other women? Not even trans women, which you might expect based on your views, but cis women?