[otde]

The sibling comment actually does a pretty good job articulating why we as trans people (surprise! I’m one of them) receive the reactions we do. It’s a fundamental disgust at the concept of a trans person existing, full stop. In an ideal world for these people, we simply would not exist. We challenge their expectations by asking to be addressed in a way that goes against their ideas of what gender, at its core, means to them. It’s a belief that the world works in a specific and rigid way, and that respecting the way another person chooses to be addressed is “feeding into a delusion.” This also feeds into a larger bit of discourse around trans kids that is tinged with the usual “think of the children” moral panics that show up whenever a kid is some flavor of LGBTQ+. It does not make for a great time on the internet (or on Hacker News, specifically).

[ok_dad]

Thanks, I appreciate that explanation, I never understood moral panic or things of that nature. To me, a persons sex is pretty arbitrary, something that shouldn’t affect how we look at the person inside that body.

[pdimitar]

> We challenge their expectations by asking to be addressed in a way that goes against their ideas of what gender, at its core, means to them.

Nope, you're asking for a special treatment in an environment where 99.9% of people don't care how you want to be called. Not because they hate you -- it's because they're not there to fight for your rights.

My name has at least 12 different ways to be pronounced in my country -- most of them in a semi-mocking manner, too -- and at one point I simply stopped caring even if I didn't like being called as some people do. Felt like pissing against the wind and I figured I'm not going to waste my time arguing with people whose only goal is to tease. They give up literally seconds later when ignored.

I feel that some trans people are just barking up the wrong tree at the wrong time. in a normal social setting -- say, in a restaurant, or a cafe in the park -- people are there to socialize or network. Not to fight the good fight against trans people being harmed.

Of course I'm not even touching on the psychopaths who would pursue and physically harm you. I'm addressing the problem of people bringing the issues that are close to their hearts in a social setting where people don't care and are looking negatively at the idea of forcing that discussion right there and then.

And I feel that point of view is very often missed by people who feel they have to fight for various social justice causes.

[UncleMeat]

The "special treatment" includes:

1. Antidiscrimination policies preventing trans people from being evicted from their home, fired, etc, for being trans.

2. The elimination of policies that prevent or seriously limit access to medical treatment recommended by professional physicians.

3. Basic politeness from peers and colleagues, who should use a trans person's preferred pronouns and name.

None of these things are achieved. Federal antidiscrimination laws have not been passed. States like Texas consider medical treatment to be child abuse. And people regularly deliberately misgender trans people in school and at the workplace.

[pdimitar]

> The "special treatment" includes:

Sure, I never said a-holes don't exist. Sadly they do. My main point is that most common folk is tolerant (even supportive) but that the LGBT group makes enemies out of the common people by blaming them for their plight. And that they go overboard by demanding unreasonable things: like "call me ze/zir".

Also maybe the fact that having LGBT lessons in school is a tad too much. Most kids are impressionable and these "lessons" might have the exactly opposite effect: turn kids into LGBT people before they even discovered themselves sexually.

These are what makes regular folk people hate LGBT (or only trans in particular).

Statistically however, most people are indifferent and wouldn't care one bit. The sad reality however is that many straight folks and girls feel like the trans people are asking for too much. A broken public debate, which is extremely sad -- I'll immediately agree with that.

[UncleMeat]

> Most kids are impressionable and these "lessons" might have the exactly opposite effect: turn kids into LGBT people before they even discovered themselves sexually.

People have been peddling this for ages. Surely there'd be some respected research to back it up. First it was "talking about gay people will turn your kids gay." Now it is "talking about trans people will turn your kids trans." It is just the satanic panic for frightened parents. Equally as stupid as "Mortal Kombat will turn your kids into killers." So let me be very clear. Refusing to speak about the existence of LGBT people in school because of an unsubstantiated belief that it will trick children into not being cishet is a problem. Asking for extremely basic recognition in ordinary life is not an "unreasonable thing."

[pdimitar]

Or maybe the LGBT people need to cite proper research before bringing these classes to school? You know, with a proper process and peer reviews and all the good stuff.

Nobody should get a free pass to put any new classes to school before they prove a benefit.

The burden of proof should fall to them, not on me who's skeptical.

[Ekaros]

Or maybe the messaging shown currently indicates that what they would teach is that being cis-het is a problem. Or being white. Or being male. And you should die if you are some combination or at least all of you should be killed.

[UncleMeat]

So let's see it. Middle school curricula that says that straight, cis, white, males should be killed. Because what I see here is an incredible overreaction used to justify actual public policy that harms transgender people by denying them access to medical care.

[otde]

> Nope, you're asking for a special treatment in an environment where 99.9% of people don't care how you want to be called. Not because they hate you -- it's because they're not there to fight for your rights.

You are framing this as "special treatment" precisely because of your ideas of what gender means to you. Honestly, I empathize hard with what you describe as "pissing into the wind." I'm misgendered on a daily basis -- if I spent every ounce of energy I had correcting people, I'd end each day exhausted. More often than not, I don't push back, usually because it's a service worker who's forced to be deferential as part of their job ("sir"/"ma'am"/etc). I don't begrudge that kind of attempt at politeness. Even outside that, it's never a huge deal in isolation, but it adds up, because I have to do a little bit of mental calculus each time: is this person going to make a whole thing about it or go "my bad" and move on? do I have the energy to bring it up? are they trying to be rude or is it an honest mistake? etc. In professional and personal circles, I'm generally more likely to correct people, because I'm signalling a way to be polite to me, and I've been polite to them, and it's how we establish mutual respect, not "special treatment."

Usually, when people get frustrated at misgendering, it's because a person is ignoring really obvious tells about how a person wants to be addressed (clothing, etc.) in favor of their own personal philosophy about what being "right" means. In the exact same way, for example, you might feel frustrated if someone intentionally decided to use a semi-mocking pronunciation of your name. In both cases, it signals that a person has decided to be cruel to you for petty and unknowable reasons.

I guess my big takeaway is that you deserve as much dignity and respect in the way people pronounce your name as I do for my pronouns, and I hope you can find some understanding/empathy in the parallels between our experiences.

[pdimitar]

Sorry that this is long, hope you are in the mood for reading. :)

But I also sympathize with you a lot and want to give you finer details of where I stand.

> are they trying to be rude or is it an honest mistake?

Obviously I can't generalize but I've been around several types of LGBT people a good amount of times in my life (trans included) and yes, almost always it's an honest mistake. Almost all of us are brought up with a rather binary definition of sexes / genders in mind and any rebellion against that is bound to fail... or at least will need decades, if not centuries, to eventually succeed.

What is my central point boils down to: don't take misgendering personally -- unless it's a crowd of killers chasing you down an alley with knives and bats of course, or people who tell you in the face they'll sabotage an effort of yours because of what you are.

These are the villains. These are the people we as a society must push back against. Everyone else are just people that are there to do an activity with you and to them misgendering is a non-issue.

That's not a malicious behavior and it saddens me when I see trans people furiously arguing that it is (not saying that you do; I've met such however, and I've seen them on Twitter as well). People (a) do an honest mistake and (b) people wouldn't care to correct it even if you told them so you might as well just shrug it off most of the time because the reverse would be a huge drain of time and energy (as I think we both agree).

A fact that a good amount of LGBT people I spoke with find strange: people usually don't are about you at all ("you" being any random person out there, not just LGBT). But start arguing for your cause -- especially when nobody actually brought it up -- and people are likely to side against you. Again, not because they hate you, but because they feel an issue is brought into light out of the blue and especially because the arguers usually try very hard to paint everybody else around them as villains.

Unsurprisingly, people don't react well to that. But that's sadly a much bigger issue that goes well beyond LGBT rights; in many public discourses there are the people that will say "if you don't speak up at all about issue X then you are a part of the problem" which is, of course, where any constructive dialogue falls apart with little hope of it getting back on track. :(

> In professional and personal circles, I'm generally more likely to correct people, because I'm signalling a way to be polite to me, and I've been polite to them, and it's how we establish mutual respect, not "special treatment."

Some boundaries need to be put and respected from both sides. If somebody told me "address me as ze/zir" (random Tumblr example) then I will laugh and I will not feel bad about it. To me that's requiring special treatment, bordering to spoiled entitlement even. On the other side of the argument, if you e.g. have physical manly features but prefer a female pronoun -- I can very easily respect that and remember to do it. Those are my boundaries as a fairly regular hetero guy. Please understand that I don't mean to offend; all my responses are only aimed at informing you how the regular folk feels and thinks about LGBT people. Maybe that can help you and make your life better. I hope.

> In the exact same way, for example, you might feel frustrated if someone intentionally decided to use a semi-mocking pronunciation of your name. In both cases, it signals that a person has decided to be cruel to you for petty and unknowable reasons.

Oh, absolutely. I just figured I'll start ignoring it and my demeanor and way of treating these people (usually cold and professional tone, completely ignoring the joke they were trying to make and quickly getting to the matter at hand that I have to discuss with them) put them right back in their place. To me it boiled down to energy expenditure vs. potential reward; I figured the reward is not worth the time and energy so if somebody tries to be disrespectful by using the mocking pronunciations of my name, I just start being laser-focused on whatever I am there to do with that person. I've made friends that way, paradoxically. Later these people told me "I respect a guy who ignores an obvious trolling attempt and puts things back where they should be". We the people can function in such counter-intuitive ways, for the better or worse.

> I guess my big takeaway is that you deserve as much dignity and respect in the way people pronounce your name as I do for my pronouns, and I hope you can find some understanding/empathy in the parallels between our experiences.

I hope you appreciate my being honest -- I completely agree with some understanding and empathy, yes, but as mentioned above, there are boundaries beyond which the common folk will strongly disagree with you and will even start targeting you. Not ideal, I know. :(

I personally wouldn't target anyone (and I never had) but I too have my boundaries about what I'd respect and what I wouldn't.

A constructive dialogue only happens when both sides are well-represented e.g. many people feel that trans people demand too much. However, the same regular folk will not only tolerate but will also ACTIVELY SUPPORT AND DEFEND YOU if they feel you don't go overboard and are just trying to go about your life without stopping anybody else from doing the same.

In conclusion, I sincerely hope that you understand that my main goal is to provide you with the path of the least resistance into wider acceptance by everyone else. Just telling you how a normal hetero guy feels about LGBT rights. Too often this group of people shoots themselves in the foot by making villains out of the regular people that would never attack them in any way. And these same people can be your dear friends and fight for your rights.

In conclusion, I believe the LGBT group really needs to learn how to make friends. My observation from talking to a lot of people is that most folk out there is tolerant and even supportive.