Misgendering does not rule

unlawfulbooger@lemmy.blahaj.zone to 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone – 599 points –
lemmy.blahaj.zone
68

Even with a trans person does something shitty, such as Blair White, Caitlyn Jenner or Ezra Miller, it's not a free pass to misgender them. The only effect of that is the trans people in your life know you aren't the ally you claim to be. You aren't misgendering your friends because you are polite. It's absolutely not okay, keep criticizing crappy trans folk, but when you intentionally misgender then you attack all of us.

There is a literal nazi who chose the name Augustus Invictus and I will call him that as I wish for him the absolute worst. He is on trial so hopefully he gets the worst.

I know some.of those names but have no idea what these people have done. Could you explain?

Sure. I chose those three because they are probably the biggest names that trans people might feel comfortable misgendering.

Ezra Miller is an actor who played the superhero The Flash in the last few movies, they are also non-binary and use they/them prounouns. There is a lot of details on wikipedia but the TL:DR Ezra started a relationship with an underage fan (Ezra was 23, she was 12) and this led to kidnapping claims by her parents and a restraining order. They are a real piece of shit IMO.

BLaire White is a right wing youtuber who regularly posts things like this. She also has said repeatedly that "trans women aren't real women, just trans women", suffice to say she is generally disliked by the broader trans community.

Caitlyn Jenner does and says similar things, but with a much bigger microphone. She has been a vocal supporter of Trump and generally the openly transphobic MAGA movement. She ran for governor of California and during her failed campaign, said she would ban trans kids from competing in sports. Currently, she is a Fox News correspondent and regularly appears just saying the most awful things. Much like Blaire, Caitlyin is not well liked by the trans community.

Huh so that's how I learn that there was a flash movie

Strictly speaking about the content of the movie and not my opinion of the lead actor.

The Flash movie is.... odd. A big time travel alter dimensional mess. Fun enough if you sorta turn your brain off, wonderful visual effects just don't think too hard on any particular plot point.

Ezra is trans?

I can't say if they identify with that term, just that Ezra is nonbinary. However "trans" is an umbrella term encompassing lots of different identities, such as transgender, transexual, intersex, non-binary etc.

So Ezra was included because I thought they would be the most widely known shitty person that has a gender identify still worthy of respect.

I see. Didn’t know that either. I just don’t keep up with the joneses I guess.

Also applies to misogyny in general. You can call out terfs (or just regular anti trans conservative women) for being bigoted shit faces without resorting to gendered attacks.

Exactly!

Any person regardless of their sexuality or gender can be an asshole.

As long as you don't target them for their identity, you can call them out for their assholeshness.

I only deadname twitter, am I chill?

I think deadnaming the corporate entity Twitter is fine as long as a certain CEO continues to deadname his living breathing daughter.

Ooh, this is a great template, can be applied to all variety of bigotry, which people feel is ok as long as it's aimed at other bigots, ignoring the fact that all they're doing is putting more bigotry out in to the world, and telling marginalised people around them that they aren't safe.

can be applied to any shitty behaviour tbh. Too many people think that once someone is shitty to them, they have free reign to also be shitty as a payback. They think they gave the asshole a piece of their own medicine, but actually they started rolling in the mud with them

Hard disagree.

Calling an asshole an asshole has no oppressive or marginalising power. It is a direct consequence of someone's behaviour, and has no impact on anyone but the asshole being called an asshole. Take it a step further and switch "asshole" to "Nazi" then go read about the paradox of tolerance and the social contract theory that resolves it.

Misgendering on the other hand (just like using sexist, racist, ableist and so on language) reinforces the existing structures of marginalising and oppressive powers, and has a deep and harmful impact not on the, for example, transphobe you're misgendering, but on trans people you're supposedly attacking the transphobe to defend.

This outrageous comparison between someone shitty being called shitty, and a transphobe being misgendered, is exactly the kind of bullshit bigots and other bullies twist to make themselves the victims and whine about being oppressed when they are the ones oppressing others.

Don't buy in to it, and definitely don't play along, unless you want to enable them.

nowhere did i say that calling an asshole an asshole is bad. What i did say that acting like an asshole towards the asshole is bad, as it lowers you to the same level as them, and additionally reinforces the asshole's behaviour & continues the cycle of assholery

Yeah, it's going pretty damn hard. There's so many different things it fits on, like all the different kinds of bodyshaming (e.g. fat shaming, calling something "small dick energy", talking about Trump's small hands).

I often ask people who deadname (bad) trans people if they also deadname Stalin. Oh, the mental gymnastics I often see...

what do you mean by deadname stalin?

People will accuse you of condoning a trans person's shitty actions if you gender them correctly, then turn around and use the proper pronouns for literal dictators

yeah it's depressing seeing people decide that it's okay to do asshole things if it is towards asshole people, I understand that you want to be a jerk back but it makes me feel like we lost the progress we just made towards not doing the asshole thing

At least the issue for me isn't the being an asshole to an asshole it's the throwing other people under the bus while being an asshole to the asshole.

I've seen right-wingers try to weaponize misgendering as some walk on eggshells type of thing. But it really isn't. Just apologize if you do misgender someone and make sure to use their correct pronouns.

Exactly how I felt about those pictures of Andrew Tate in swim trunks with seamingly no budgie to smuggle. Him being shitty to trans, doesn't make it OK to mock him for maybe being trans. Makes us no better.

Yes, but actually no. Using deadnames of companies is much more acceptable than for people.

Despite what the Supreme Court will tell you, corporations aren't actually people, so you don't have to worry about dead naming them.

Deadnaming is not necessarily misgendering. Sometime people have deadnames for reasons other than gender.

The one exception should be teachers who refuse to stop misgendering a student, and then only done by the other students.

Meanwhile Alfred will be going around misgendering people because he does not give a crap about Batman's rule.

Ugh but it’s so EASY to upset anti-trans people who are so invested in hurting others by using this tactic, and they deserrrrrve it so much

Looks at Caitlyn Jenner We recognize your status as woman, but you are now on this council. Do not take a seat.

I will however misgender cispeople who are openly bigoted, as a "Uno Reverse Card" on their "Transvestigation" nonsense...

Wait I just realized that term is a pun on "Transvestite" and Transvestism has literally nothing to be with being trans... If I were to wear a woman's clothing I'm not wearing the opposite gender's clothing for kicks, because I AM a woman, god damn it htese mother fuckers.

Also it's okay to deadname a corporation, or Jesse Mcree, or Dr. Robotnik. Probably shouldn't deadname Mr. Satan, the name Hercule is on fucking life support and that's probably for the best.... But don't be that dick who says they're boycotting DBZ because Vegeta deadnames Goku by calling him "Kakarot"

I have sadly seen that argument before...

Wait what the fuck am I talking about anymore?

Wait what the fuck am I talking about anymore?

I... don't know. But please don't misgender cis people. It just makes it harder to convince them that misgendering is wrong if you also do it. The trans community is more vulnerable to misgendering than the bigots, so if we start doing it to people we don't like, then it becomes some sort of schoolyard insult revenge term where we as trans folk lose.

No I specifically mean misgendering transphobes, not random cispeople.

I understand. Please don't do that for the reasons I stated above. Purposely misgendering transphobes only encourages them to purposely misgender us.

Lots of transphobic cis people are agender eggs who don't care about being misgendered because they can't be. If you teach them what being misgendered feels like, they might decide it didn't feel bad for them, so it must not feel bad for out trans people either. That's teaching the wrong lesson.

But its still funny how violently some people react to something that they do to other people every day(double standards)

Which people to which people? You're imagining things if you think queer people deliberately misgender cis people on the regular.

I got really misunderstood. Im saying the same cishet toxic males who misgendender trans people, hate being misgendered because it attacks their fragile perception of themselves.

Perhaps it's fun to turn it back on them, but by doing so you're making it acceptable. Next time they misgender someone they'll say "but libs do it to me".

No im not saying you should do it, i agree with the post but they are huge hypocrits(transphobes)

I mean, there's misgendering and misgnedering, isn't there?

Accidentally calling a woman a man on the internet coz u didn't know is not a big deal.

It can be something liberals use for their witch hunts.

not knowing someone's pronouns & assuming wrong =/= misgendering

knowing someone's pronouns and intentionally using the wrong ones = misgendering

Also, fighting years of muscle memory =/= misgendering.

I might have misgendered an old friend of mine shortly after they started transitioning, but they knew it was a mistake and didn't seem to care.

My mother uses that excuse though, same excuse she uses to call me my old name, and to say that I'm a man. Horrible old witch. I know it's an excuse because she doesn't bother correcting herself, she keeps going and is insistent that I'm actually a man and that it can't be changed.

I think once or twice in the first couple of months of transitioning that started about four years ago and we're still talking and helping each other indicates that there's no hard feelings. It's also not like I'm neutral on the subject otherwise. The people in this friend group know that I'm an ally on this subject. They also know I can even flub names when I get tired.

You know your mother doesn't respect you. My friends know I respect them.

That sounds extremely frustrating. I hope you have other people around to support you.

I'm very glad that being non binary didn't bring the pronoun changes to me (yet) otherwise it would be a nightmare getting my family to use them.

Yeah I don't talk to that old witch anymore. I have friends who are supportive. Sometimes a little too supportive though, like telling me my voice sounds fine or passes when it clearly doesn't pass. I'm glad they're nice but passing or not passing isn't about me feeling better about myself, it's about not being clocked by bigots who might be transphobic to me or hurt me.

Yeah absolutely this. I've seen too often in trans spaces when these sorts of accidents aren't given any leeway or grace. We're all human though, and it bothers me when folks are put down when there was zero malicious intent.

My mum deadnamed me more recently, despite me being out for almost eight years now. But she called me my older brother's name first, then deadname, then Norah. She was mortified, and apologised profusely. How could I hold any ill will against her for that?

Lmfao. I'd never thought of that as an extra issue for trans people. My mom can go through her siblings, then my sister and I before getting my brother's name right.

What is it with mothers accidentally using the wrong names? It's not like most mothers nowadays have 5 children who all look nearly the same.

It's probably best to mention it was an accident with people you're not as close with.

Accidentally calling a woman a man on the internet coz u didn’t know is not a big deal.

Calling people men by default is sexist.

Not advocating witch hunts but it's a bit weird to call someone a man if you don't know them. I see people on Tumblr a lot call trans women "man" and "dude" and then go "how was I supposed to know??" when corrected. Why make up genders for them in the first place?