5 ms·
It's special treatment rather than common courtesy. I don't get to choose the pronouns that other people refer to me by, and neither does anyone else I know. I
by yepguy 8y ago
It's special treatment rather than common courtesy. I don't get to choose the pronouns that other people refer to me by, and neither does anyone else I know. I would only be offended by someone misgendering me if it were clearly meant as an insult.
If someone sincerely believes that people cannot choose their own gender, then it's not very clear to me that misgendering a trans person is disrespectful, rather than an honest indication of differing views on a single social issue.
- CocaKoala 8y ago> I don't get to choose the pronouns that other people refer to me by, and neither does anyone else I know. Why not? People do similar things all the time. If I introduced my friend Richard to you and he said "Please, call me Rich", would you say "Sorry buddy, no can do; Richard is your name, and that's what I have to call you"? Why are pronouns so special compared to names?
- yepguy 8y agoI didn't choose my own name or nickname either, but I take your point that some people do. I guess I would say that pronouns are primarily syntactic constructs while proper nouns are not.
- CocaKoala 8y agoWhen I was younger, I had fairly long hair. I've always been kind of a scrawny person with a fairly neutral face, so if you didn't look closely it was pretty easy to mistake me for a girl. If somebody mistook me for a girl and referred to me as "she" or "her", I would correct them. Are you saying that I didn't have the right to do that, because a pronoun is a syntactic construct?
- yepguy 8y agoNo I'm not saying that, not sure why you made that leap.
- CocaKoala 8y agoWell, you said that people don't get to choose the pronouns that other people refer to them by, and the reason that people can do this with names but not pronouns is because pronouns are a syntactic construct. Thus, when people misgendered me as a child because they mistook me for a girl, it seems to follow that you're asserting that I shouldn't have corrected them because a pronoun is a syntactic construct and I don't get to choose what pronoun they use to refer to me by, regardless of how I personally identify. I can correct them if they mispronounce my name, but not if they mistake me for a girl. If that's not what you're saying, then I guess I don't understand your position.
- yepguy 8y agoI was just spitballing, I'm not committing to any hard and fast rule here. Someone referred to you with the wrong gender because they mistook you for a girl, and probably appreciated the correction. This is way different than the transgender case in that no deep-seated & conflicting beliefs came into play. Language is deep-seated, syntax more than names. Beliefs about gender are also obviously deep-seated. I would say that I'm undecided on transgender issues, so mostly my position is that you shouldn't assume that skepticism is equivalent to bigotry.
- CocaKoala 8y ago> This is way different than the transgender case in that no deep-seated & conflicting beliefs came into play. What deep-seated and conflicting beliefs come into play here? This doesn't need to be about transgender issues, that's just where it comes up a lot (for obvious reasons). If I get to say that I want people to use masculine pronouns and correct people when they refer to me as "her" or "she", that seems reasonable to me. And it sounds like it seems reasonable to you too. That seems like a solid case for saying "people should get to choose their pronouns". I choose masculine ones. Somebody else might make a different choice, but it doesn't become "special treatment" just because they're making a different choice.
- 8y ago