[xaa]

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite the asshole you think I am.

If someone asked me to call them by a certain pronoun or salutation (names are different as they are completely arbitrary), I would do it, out of respect for them. But let's be clear about what's being asked: I am being asked to lie -- to misrepresent reality -- to that person, and possibly to other people for that person. That's a (small) favor being asked, and it is somewhat irritating to be asked a favor with the sort of sense of moral entitlement found in your last paragraph (especially when the favor being asked is a violation of my own morals).

Also, unfortunately, we don't have the right to define our own linguistic identities. I know it isn't fair, but this extends far beyond gender. I don't become "rich", "President", "Filipino", "Doctor", or "intelligent" just by willing it or even by asking other people to call me those adjectives. They are fuzzy categories, some people don't clearly fall inside or outside of them, but they do have non-arbitrary (i.e., outside your mind) meanings.

[Cushman]

You know what? I'd also be pretty pissed off if I worked hard to be considered an American and you insisted on calling me Filipino because you happen to know where my parents are from. I would be pretty sore if you acted like not doing that was a special favor you were doing me, by "lying" to people about my ethnicity, and not just being a decent human being.

It would sound like you value my expressed wishes for how I am represented less than you value showing off to strangers some secret you think you know about what's between my legs or in my blood that frankly is none of your business, let alone theirs.

I'm not really sorry if that feels like an imposition on your morals, because if it does then your morals kind of blow.

[CWuestefeld]

I get a little annoyed when people say that I'm German. I mean, despite my ancestry, I was born in America, and I've never even been to Europe. And I'm a little annoyed other times when people refer to "native Americans" as if I'm not one of those.

Those are little annoyances. I don't believe that the speaker is trying to disrespect me -- certainly not intentionally -- and I take it with a grain of salt.

In other words: this seems like making much to-do over very little.

[orakle]

If you are an American citizen then you are American. A more apt example is someone living in Philippines wanting to be called American even though they are not a citizen.

Someone living in Philippines who has no citizenship to America says "i am American", you would look at them and say "no you are not". No matter how much they wanted it to be true the facts do not support it.

[DanBC]

You appear to think that sex and gender is a simple, binary, option defined by XX or XY chromosomes.