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.

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.

People can Trans all the way to kingdom come as far as I am concerned.

But they cannot become something they are not.

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.

We have walked nowhere. You are still in a confused tizzy unable to work out whether left is indeed right and what time dinner should be.

*sorry. I typed "premodifier" and my phone autocorrected it to gibberish.

Sir Elton John has just spoken out against homophobia on social media. I wonder what he would make of the transphobia on this thread?

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.

What? Are you on glue? What is a prwnodifier?

The vagina is the sex organ associated with your sex.

Sir Elton John has just spoken out against homophobia on social media. I wonder what he would make of the transphobia on this thread?

Who cares what he thinks? Why bring up Elton fucking John?

I am a woman. I have a vagina, the sex organ typically associated with my gender

I don't have a gender, I do have a vagina - can I be just 'woman' then - since I'm neither trans nor cis?

You’ve got it all backwards roseandflowers. It’s you chaps who insist that women are one homogeneous mass identity. We’re the ones who point out that this is bollocks and the only thing all women have in common is our female bodies and the treatment were subject to because of our female bodies.

*we’re

I'm a bit in the middle on this one. I suppose that it seems polite to use people's preferred pronouns. But I don't buy the 'transwomen are women' ideology.

My only other contribution would be that I get regularly misnamed/deadnamed by my mother She and my father - now dead - have never accepted that I legally changed my first name over thirty years ago.

So from that I see that other people's refusal to accept one's chosen identity can cause real distress.

For all you and @RaininSummer's and many others' talk of "erasure of women"

It wasn't us talking about erasure of women, it was the delightful Shon Faye.

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?

I am not forcing anything on anyone, let alone other women who are well able to speak for themselves. I literally don't care what trans women think, as they are men! I care about women and girls and their rights.

A phobia is a fear of something
Transphobia = fear of trans people
I see nothing on this thread that suggests any fear of trans people, just a basic assertion of people’s rights NOT to indulge other people’s fantasies.
I defend the right if trans people to live as they choose but if they have a penis they are a Man and nothing anyone calls you can change that

We have walked nowhere. You are still in a confused tizzy unable to work out whether left is indeed right and what time dinner should be.

You can say what you like, but what happened was this:

1. I used time as an example to convey that something bring a social construct doesn't make it less impactful or integral to modern life.
2. You took said example further and likened gender to a time zone - specifically in the context of one person thinking it was a different time to you.
3. As such, you essentially confirmed that you think of other people's genders as time zones in respect of your comparative knowledge; that you may know as much as them despite it being impossible for you to.
4. You have therefore supported my original point that, the vast majority of the time, it's the belief that your experience is the same as everyone's, and as such you know as much about a trans persons gender as they do.

Hard to say as someone who has never experienced being misgendered and is unlikely to be. I have a couple of friends who have been accidentally and I think it was a bit humiliating.

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.

But that happens all the time! It's a natural mistake to make mainly by my DCs school. I could really care.

*couldn't.

@rosesandflowers, what a load of claptrap!

2 spirit?? Well, it made me laugh, if nothing else.

There are only 2 SEXES, and there are some people born with chromosomal mutations, which we refer to as intersex, but there are still only 2 SEXES. Humans are binary, we are all either male or female.

Gender, and all the rest, is man-made crap, and a load of rubbish. No one fits fully into the gender stereotypes of their biological sex, so everyone could be considered nonbinary.

The things people seem to be referring to as gender nowadays, are simply aspects of their personality, which are unique to all of us, and should not be taken into account when making laws.

You are aware how much hurt you cause by saying this. People end up needing medical attention. Do you really not care about people?

Gibbertyflibbert, I am aware that some people, like your partner, believe they have an innate 'gender identity', and that they were 'born in the wrong body', and are 'really' the opposite sex. I think their beliefs are a load of unscientific bollocks, the same way I think the core beliefs of all organised religions are a load of bollocks.

I don't go round mosques and churches shouting 'God doesn't exist', and I wouldn't go up to a random transwoman and say 'You're a bloke'.

But if people started coming into my workplace demanding I start praying, I'd tell them where to go. And when transwomen start invading women only spaces and demanding I call them women, I will tell them that they are men, and don't belong there.

That may be very hurtful. I don't care.

What? Are you on glue? What is a prwnodifier?
Just look at my post underneath the original one

I literally don't care what trans women think, as they are men! I care about women and girls and their rights.

I'm a cis woman. Do you care what I think about this issue, and the many other cis women that agree with me?

Or, if it really breaks your heart to see "cis woman", I'm a woman whose not trans.

Evidence suggests that you don't.

1) I used time as an example to convey that something bring a social construct doesn't make it less impactful or integral to modern life.
2) You took said example further and likened gender to a time zone - specifically in the context of one person thinking it was a different time to you.
3) As such, you essentially confirmed that you think of other people's genders as time zones in respect of your comparative knowledge; that you may know as much as them despite it being impossible for you to.
4) You have therefore supported my original point that, the vast majority of the time, it's the belief that your experience is the same as everyone's, and as such you know as much about a trans persons gender as they do.

You have forgotten that GMT doesn't change daily to cover 71 time zones and forcing everyone to change their watches depending on who they are talking to.

www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10930654/Facebooks-71-gender-options-come-to-UK-users.html

Well, it made me laugh, if nothing else.

I was actually kind of hoping someone would mock the term "two-spirit". It showcases how vastly uneducated a lot of transphobes are. Inevitably, if I mention it in a discussion, someone will mock it. I was quite surprised it hadn't happened yet.

It's a modern translation to describe one of the original genders of ancient Native Americans. Two genders has always been a ridiculously simple construct and so the Native Americans had more - 7, I believe, though I might be wrong. Unlike most ancient societies, which almost always had terms for genderfluidity, they were held in great esteem and seen as very special by the Native American people.

So you're not just ignorant about modern identities - but of history and other culture! Good going.

A thing is a thing that identifies as a thing.

A thing is a thing that has 'thing' on a thing.

A thing is a thing that calls itself thing.

This is the essence of TRA 'arguments' laid bare.

Of course I can't respect such nonsense. I'd need the mythical ladybrain to swallow this circular crap.

No one is saying that roseandflowers, apart from you. Gender identity is invisible, gender expression isn't.

Your contorted, painful and frequently incoherent posts are symptomatic of the problem. To have to use so much word salad to sooth a few thousand people with a mental health condition is a major imposition. All of your patronising posts simply make this clearer and clearer.

I'm a cis woman. Do you care what I think about this issue, and the many other cis women that agree with me?

How do you feel about Shon Faye wanting you to 'enjoy your erasure'?

As they mean you too.

Thought experiment. Tomorrow we pass a law erasing all references to sex. No more men and women. No more male and female. Just people. I predict that the ones who deliberately mis-gender and mis-sex women with a trans history would be the first to object. Definitely double standards at work.