Common courtesy, a non-malicious question from a transgender person

[WhiteFlagHeldAloft]

Hello,

I wanted to ask a question that perhaps some of you may have an answer for. This is not intended to be malicious in any way, or to incite a flame war.

I am another person among many who identifies as transgender. My chromosomes are XY, I lived out my childhood and adolescence as a boy and began taking estrogen and testosterone suppressors at age 18. I identify as a woman and ask that others respect me in that identity. I am in a relationship with a woman who identifies as a lesbian, she was born and has lived her entire life as a woman.

I feel the need to clarify who I am before asking my question as the answer to this question is very relevant to me. I rarely leave me and my partners home, and without fail avoid any kind of sex-segregated environment as much as I can. I work from home, so don't have to do much there. I am not a part of any activism. I am not a vocal member of any kind of community, and avoid social media like a plague ridden rat. I have only ever engaged in sexual contact with my present partner, and for fear that I would not be accepted by her I was never the one to initiate such contact. I understand and uphold consent as a universal necessity, particularly as I have experienced sexual violence myself as an adult.

Alright, that's me. There's a lot more to me than that, but for the purposes of the topic at hand I feel its relevant to state the above.

Why is it okay to not be respectful of my wishes with regards to my identity and how am I spoken to? Why is a simple request regarding language when talking to me such an unreasonable demand? Is it not a common courtesy to be respectful towards someone who is being respectful of you? Whenever I mention that I am transgender and was not born a woman, a lot of gender critical people i encounter immediately start referring to me as a man even when they had been referring to me as a woman before. Over the years and pre pandemic I used to occasionally frequent LGBT spaces and still frequent some private LGBT groups online.

I'm not claiming anything about my biology or genetics or trying to argue that ive somehow changed my genetic makeup. I'm upfront about who I am. I have no recourse in situations where someone just decides to remind me in every sentence of how I was born. It might seem stupid, trivial, ludicrous even that it hurts me but it does. I am very aware of how I was born. I am very aware that I am different. I hate everything about how I was born. To be reminded of that constantly, sometimes even aggressively is mentally and emotionally exhausting. I don't understand why, its not as though its so hard to refer to me respectfully. You don't even have to agree with me, you can think I'm crazy or insane or delusional or whatever else. But at the end of the day its still a slight change in how you speak to me. Benign, and inconsequential to you maybe but to me it isn't.

Theres so much hatred in this discussion I feel like its become so polarized to that point that the lives of unrelated individual people are being dragged through the mud for no reason. I don't want to change your opinions on my identity or convince you of anything. I dont want to hurt anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. I just want to be allowed to exist and engage with other people who will respect me. That's all.

So, to reiterate, why is it okay to just outright not afford me common courtesy? Why is it encouraged, even endorsed, by many gender critical people to not give me that respect? I havent done anything to gender critical people. Im not even involved in any kind of activism or social media. I've been dragged into this unwillingly. I just want to live my life and feel free to frequent LGBT spaces where I won't be harassed by virtue of my very existence and nothing at all to do with the content of my character.

I wonder what OP's thoughts are on the many replies so far?

I’m GC, but wouldn’t dream of being discourteous to you OP. Being GC isn’t about being ‘phobic’ or needlessly spiteful, it’s about our core belief that sex is immutable and that language that suggests otherwise forces us to participate in a belief system that contradicts this. I use preferred pronouns because I am a polite person, although if truth be told, I would prefer not to, and try to refer to transgender people as their name (their chosen name of course), or ‘they’.

There’s some good analogies on here regarding religion.

The huge majority of GC people are happy to use preferred pronouns. The waters have been muddied somewhat by both extreme trans activists who take absolutely ridiculous positions, the those at the very extreme GC end who deliberately go out of their way to antagonise and upset trans people.

Before all this, women and trans people
all lived very happily alongside one another and I think for the most part they still do (except on social media)

Most people on both sides of this are, like you, fairly moderate in their views on this and don’t really want to deliberately upset anyone.

I consider myself to be GC but I’d also happily use your pronouns and whatever name you choose (unless you decide to commit a sex offence, then I think it would be relevant to refer to your sex)

I would treat you with courtesy and good manners. I would refer to you by name because that is polite and you are not the cat’s mother.

I prefer not to use misleading pronouns if possible, as Barracker pointed out so eloquently many moons ago, pronouns can be used to lower necessary safeguards.

I treat everyone with courtesy and respect. I don't share your beliefs just as I don't share religious beliefs with some people
Pronouns are not used when addressing a person and I would use whatever name I was asked. I wouldn't call a male person she but I would avoid pronoun
I don't believe you are in a lesbian relationship and find the claim offensive and homophobic
I expect respect to go both ways. I want women's rights to group as a single sex to be upheld. If I request a female HCP I expect a female. I do not believe males should be in certain female spaces
If difference had been accepted we wouldn't be in this position now

I guess this will be a plop and run

I would happily refer to you using your chosen pronouns; it doesn't mean I have to believe it.

I wish you no harm and would not be disrespectful to you.

When I had a miscarriage I was looked after by a female nurse in the hospital. If this nurse had been a man, or a transwoman, I would not have felt comfortable or respected. We cannot be forced to "respect" people in order to make them feel better at our own expense.

It's not just about how YOU feel. This goes much, much further than which pronouns are used.

OP, assuming this is a genuine post, you sound like a lovely person and for my part I'd be happy to have you among my circle of friends. I have no issue talking about you as "she" or using the name you have chosen for yourself. Where I would draw a line is in respecting you, not as a person or as a transwoman, but "as a woman", and that's not about you as an individual, but because it immediately affects how I define myself as an individual. I was born as a woman, I had no choice about it, it's shit in many ways, but I've always chosen to tackle it head-on and expand the ways in which its possible to live as a woman. Talking to other women, or men, I've always felt utterly alienated by all discourse about some innate nature of womanhood, nurturing, harmony shmarmony. It makes my skin crawl, and I've never really been able to understand other women identifying with it. You asking me to accept you "as a woman" does something similar because it automatically means changing the definition for all of us. But I refuse to define myself as somebody with a pink ladybrain or a gendered soul. That's exactly the sort of neurosexist nonsense that not long ago would have, and in fact WAS, being used to keep people of my sex out of universities altogether. My being able to go on to earn a PhD from one of the number three top schools worldwide in my field has depended directly on jettisoned this type of thinking (and its immensely saddening that my alma mater, of all places, has in recent years been re-emerging as a hotbed of it). I wish you well; I am happy to treat you with friendliness and courtesy as an individual, but this specific thing you are asking for goes far beyond you as an individual. In a nutshell, I am not prepared to change how I think about myself in order to accommodate how you would like me to think about you.

Nobody should treat you with a lack of courtesy because of how you choose to live your life and I would of course respect your pronouns.
However, I will not be forced to state my pronouns if I don’t want to and I will not agree that it is possible to change sex.
The vast majority of Feminists are not your enemies, if you want to be mad at anyone be mad at the men who use the self ID loophole to access vulnerable women and abuse people’s kindness

@RepentBirthingPersonFucker

I guess this will be a plop and run

Looks that way, yet we are often accused of not listening or responding to the 'other' side.

We've engaged, answered questions, asked questions and the OP, tumbleweed.

I would refer to you as ‘she’ because I wouldn’t want a fight.

However, normally when I call someone a woman I am not referring to gender identity, I am referring to chromosomes. You would be a trans woman in my head, not a woman-you have a different ‘faith’ to me, and I’ll respect that. But don’t make me suggest that being a woman can ever be a feeling in a man’s head, because I find that offensive.

[quote EverNapping]@theonlylivingboyinnewcross Many of the threads I have seen on here are people wanting to refuse to use an individual's preferred pronouns...[/quote]
Sometimes i struggle to be able to use somebodies preferred pronouns. If they are disrespectful/offensive/aggressive to women. So yes, I have seen this BUT only in the context of specific individuals not trans people in general.

For the vast majority of trans people? I would have no problem with using their preferred pronouns.

My issue is with trans right activists. Not trans people. Personally think the aggressive, no debate, angry cancel culture is really unhelpful for trans people.

I’m going to start with the disclaimer that I rarely comment on the feminism boards and don’t consider myself to be very well educated on these issues. From what I do know though, I lean heavily towards being GC.

So, as a random woman, I am willing to be polite enough to refer to you with the pronouns you want when I’m with you, but it wouldn’t feel entirely comfortable. If were chatting about meeting you afterwards (in a nice normal way) I would have to refer to you as a trans woman rather than just a woman because it would honestly feel like I was lying otherwise.

While I’m happy to give the common courtesy you want and can rightly expect, along with good manners and respect, I don’t want to share female spaces with you unless you have had penis removing surgery. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t if being male is so awful to you. Knowing that you probably do use female spaces makes me automatically uncomfortable and resentful, and that’s probably where the little change of tone in some people comes from.

If you are using areas designated for the opposite sex, and taking you at face value assuming that you do genuinely want to understand something, you can’t expect to say things like this and be believed.

I havent done anything to gender critical people. Im not even involved in any kind of activism or social media. I've been dragged into this unwillingly.

You are doing something negative to other people by intruding on them, and presumably you are doing that willingly.

Asking about my pronouns feels like this…

There’s a moment of “miraculous magic” in the Roman Catholic Mass called Transubstantiation. It refers to the moment when the wafer (delivered in cellophane packets from the wafer factory) becomes the actual flesh of Christ. Except it still looks like a wafer.

At one point in history, members of the congregation had a choice about what to do at the moment of transubstantiation; they could cover their faces with their open hands, or they could bow their heads.

If asked of me, the pronoun question is like asking an atheist what their preferred gesture is at the moment of transubstantiation.

My answer would be “Oh, I don’t go to Mass; I think it’s all bollocks. But what do you do?”

I would address you by your chosen name, & I would be careful not to use male pronouns if you told me they upset you.

I can't use female pronouns to refer to a male person - the cognitive dissonance twists my melon, frankly - so we would probably both find it aided communication if I avoided sexed/gendered pronouns altogether.

Luckily, the 2nd person pronouns are neutral/common, so it wouldn't arise that much.

We would just have to agree not to worry about how either of us was referring to the other in the 3rd person, then we'd be fine.

I will treat you with courtesy and use the pronouns you prefer whilst I don't believe you are a woman, I respect that you can dress and call yourself as you please (I just don't understand why that makes you a woman), but I will not stand for you being able to use female only spaces. There needs to be an understanding that sex is not binary, that you are a threat with your penis and as an oppressed group biological women need segregated spaces in certain circumstances.

@WhiteFlagHeldAloft

Hello,

I wanted to ask a question that perhaps some of you may have an answer for. This is not intended to be malicious in any way, or to incite a flame war.

I am another person among many who identifies as transgender. My chromosomes are XY, I lived out my childhood and adolescence as a boy and began taking estrogen and testosterone suppressors at age 18. I identify as a woman and ask that others respect me in that identity. I am in a relationship with a woman who identifies as a lesbian, she was born and has lived her entire life as a woman.

I feel the need to clarify who I am before asking my question as the answer to this question is very relevant to me. I rarely leave me and my partners home, and without fail avoid any kind of sex-segregated environment as much as I can. I work from home, so don't have to do much there. I am not a part of any activism. I am not a vocal member of any kind of community, and avoid social media like a plague ridden rat. I have only ever engaged in sexual contact with my present partner, and for fear that I would not be accepted by her I was never the one to initiate such contact. I understand and uphold consent as a universal necessity, particularly as I have experienced sexual violence myself as an adult.

Alright, that's me. There's a lot more to me than that, but for the purposes of the topic at hand I feel its relevant to state the above.

Why is it okay to not be respectful of my wishes with regards to my identity and how am I spoken to? Why is a simple request regarding language when talking to me such an unreasonable demand? Is it not a common courtesy to be respectful towards someone who is being respectful of you? Whenever I mention that I am transgender and was not born a woman, a lot of gender critical people i encounter immediately start referring to me as a man even when they had been referring to me as a woman before. Over the years and pre pandemic I used to occasionally frequent LGBT spaces and still frequent some private LGBT groups online.

I'm not claiming anything about my biology or genetics or trying to argue that ive somehow changed my genetic makeup. I'm upfront about who I am. I have no recourse in situations where someone just decides to remind me in every sentence of how I was born. It might seem stupid, trivial, ludicrous even that it hurts me but it does. I am very aware of how I was born. I am very aware that I am different. I hate everything about how I was born. To be reminded of that constantly, sometimes even aggressively is mentally and emotionally exhausting. I don't understand why, its not as though its so hard to refer to me respectfully. You don't even have to agree with me, you can think I'm crazy or insane or delusional or whatever else. But at the end of the day its still a slight change in how you speak to me. Benign, and inconsequential to you maybe but to me it isn't.

Theres so much hatred in this discussion I feel like its become so polarized to that point that the lives of unrelated individual people are being dragged through the mud for no reason. I don't want to change your opinions on my identity or convince you of anything. I dont want to hurt anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. I just want to be allowed to exist and engage with other people who will respect me. That's all.

So, to reiterate, why is it okay to just outright not afford me common courtesy? Why is it encouraged, even endorsed, by many gender critical people to not give me that respect? I havent done anything to gender critical people. Im not even involved in any kind of activism or social media. I've been dragged into this unwillingly. I just want to live my life and feel free to frequent LGBT spaces where I won't be harassed by virtue of my very existence and nothing at all to do with the content of my character.

"I rarely leave me and my partners home ... and avoid social media like a plague ridden rat."

"Whenever I mention that I am transgender and was not born a woman, a lot of gender critical people i encounter immediately start referring to me as a man even when they had been referring to me as a woman before."

Given that you rarely leave home and avoid social media, I am at a loss as to where you meet people, never mind gender critical people, never mind gender critical people who immediately start referring to you as a man even when they had been referring to you as a woman before.

How often has this happened to you? And what age are you now?

I find the pronouns thing a bit odd - I wouldn't need to use pronouns if I was speaking to you, surely .If I was speaking about you to a third party and you were present, I would use your name - to refer to you as 'she' (or any other pronoun) would be a bit rude if you were standing next to me.
I hope I treat everyone I meet with courtesy. That does not mean I have to believe that transwomen are actually women. I probably wouldn't, however, say that to you, same as I wouldn't argue the existence of god with a christian (unless, of course, someone was trying to force me into an acceptance of something that is purely a belief).

I think it is important that activists dial down on the importance of pronouns. In my experience, most people will use the pronouns they are asked to use out of politeness but there should be no consequences for not doing so (other than thinking "that's a bit rude!") Nobody has the right never to feel insulted! I have a mtf student who wants me to use she - and I do. But sometimes I forget! This person has changed NOTHING about their appearance and I have hundreds of students. I resent the implication that if I get it wrong I am a bigot or trying to make a point - quite simply this person's gender identity is not foremost in my mind!

Secondly, I have noticed a new tendency for some males to expect that I should call them "she" because they are wearung makeup because for them, not conforming to gender = transgender. Sorry, but for those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s a man wearing makeup is just a man wearing makeup, why do I have to "read" him as female? I find this rather regressive.

Long first ‘I’m oh so reasonable’ first post - check

Doesn’t engage or return - check

I’m not playing

@zurala

I've thought about this a lot, and the reason I have such a problems with using preferred pronouns is because you're asking me to collude in a damaging lie, to pretend I believe in your religion when I but only don't but I believe your ideology is harmful to women and our rights. So I simply can't go along with what you want because of the wider issues. It's like asking me to agree with an anorexic that they are fat. It's not true, and it's harmful.

I agree with this.

@HermioneWeasley

If I were interact with you 8 would use your chosen name and pronoun as a courtesy, and respect your identity as a trans woman. I would not call you a woman or a lesbian, because those words means things and (in the words of Allison Bailey) are taken.

Yes.

I think if you afford people respect, you will generally get respect back. If you are one of the people who wants to destroy womens rights then it would be surprising for you to expect respect back for that. However, as you say you are not, then there isnt a problem on either side.

I identify as a woman and ask that others respect me in that identity.

Being a woman is not an “identity” so no, I do not respect your claim. Ten years ago, in ignorance I would have done so happily. Now, no.

Theres so much hatred in this discussion I feel like its become so polarized to that point that the lives of unrelated individual people are being dragged through the mud for no reason. I don't want to change your opinions on my identity or convince you of anything. I dont want to hurt anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. I just want to be allowed to exist and engage with other people who will respect me. That's all

Where is the "hatred"? I haven't seen any on MN
I really don't think anyone is denying your right to exist. But when you say that you don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable or convince anyone of anything surely you can see that demanding that people refer to you as a woman is doing exactly that?