I was literally just talking to a friend about this last night. I used to live in a super conservative small town where almost everyone was elderly, it was like basically a glorified retirement community. People would take one look at me, see my really long hair, and gender me correctly. But now I live in a progressive college town and even with my hair and painted nails and shit people still misgender me. It is so painful to get gendered correctly less 15 months on HRT compared to pre-HRT
I actually go into panic mode every time I see somebody that looks queer here and I have to use their pronoun in an upcoming sentence lmao
Just stick with gender neutral until either they correct you or someone who knows them drops the correct ones for you.
No one will complain about they/them for a bit until you're told.
Or just constantly switch between all of them in each sentence and really throw everyone off. Cover all your bases
No one will complain about they/them for a bit
Counterpoint: Insecure cis men
Also I don't want to make trans people feel bad for knowing I've obviously clocked them as trans but they don't pass/look androgynous when they may not want to so I have to use they
But yea, I always just end up using they and hope nobody gets hurt
There are ways to do it without being overt, like saying "they're pretty cool" or "they seem nice" or whatever. It's easier when taking to someone else though, but using pronouns is always something you do with other people anyways.
Counterpoint: Insecure cis men
Counter-Counterpoint: who cares?
I get that, but you can always walk that back easier there and not feel like you're actually hurting someone. Plus anyone who is hyper masculine and cis, will usually be obvious enough that you don't have to use non-binary pronouns.
They are one of the most aggressively gender presenting groups around.
Yeah, I agree with what he said. She's got a really good point about switching it up; they really seem to know what * shit, I've run out of pronouns * ...
Gotta go!
Honestly hard for me to even figure out how I want to present because of stuff like this. Do I like to present broadly masc for its own sake, or to signal to other lesbians? Do I like to add a bunch of fem signifiers because I like the contrast or so cis people will at least hesitate before he/himming me? I'm genuinely not sure.
Also it's weird, due to autism I dress basically androgynously with shapeless clothes like 90% of the time, and by accident I became a scary genderfucker forcing people to guess my pronouns. I get they/them'd somewhat frequently irl, by straight people, which is funny
This makes me think of an old /tttt/ brainworm. Brainworms at 5am.
I can remember clear as day, some trip on there complaining that once normies knew about the tr*** nobody would be able to pass anymore bexause everyone would know 'the signs' or whatever. I internalised this as a genuine fear for the wellbeing of trans people as a teenager.
This is like the reverse of that I guess? Everyone's so progressive that nobody can pass anymore?
Hexbear is my post-/tttt/ therapy group
it's too early here as well to be trying to talk but i certainly hope things here are way better than /tttt/, and if any posts ever remind you of it in a bad way let us know
