like they wanted you to guess at what their gender is, and if you got it wrong, you’re a bigot.
FWIW, for anyone else who has these sorts of thoughts, most people trans/nonbinary people I’ve met don’t tend to get particularly hung up on it if you guess wrong.
They live in the same world you do, they own mirrors, they know how they look, and in a lot of cases they probably spend a whole lot more time agonizing over how they look than anyone else because they’re worrying about whether or not they can pass.
Just take your best guess and if they or someone else corrects you, just apologize and try to do better. You’re probably gonna fuck up, you have a lifetime of indoctrination in the gender binary to unlearn. It happens. I have a friend who’s been dating a nonbinary person for years and occasionally still messes up and uses the wrong pronouns, it happens. The femboy wearing a skirt probably isn’t gonna be offended no matter what pronouns you use for them. The butch lesbian with a buzz cut has probably already been mistaken for a guy 7 times today, it’s nothing new. Trans and non-binary people have probably spent most of their life using pronouns they don’t like, and sure they’d prefer you use the right ones, but it’s nothing new to them.
If you’re unsure when you meet someone and they don’t broach the subject off the bat, go ahead and spell out your own pronouns so they can feel safe to do the same.
Or just stick to they/them. It’s a little awkward sometimes, it takes some getting used to, but the only people I’ve ever seen get offended by it are bigots who I don’t mind offending anyway.
Sure, there’s some subset of the community that gets really huffy about it, and those people are just garden variety assholes who happen to be trans/nonbinary. They’re basically the same as the cis Karen type who for some reason gets a stick up her ass about not wanting to be called “ma’am,” or the guy who insists on correcting you that it’s “Doctor such-and-such” if you dare to refer to him as “mister.” It doesn’t mean you should go ahead and ignore their preference, but don’t put too much stock in their opinions either.
FWIW, for anyone else who has these sorts of thoughts, most people trans/nonbinary people I’ve met don’t tend to get particularly hung up on it if you guess wrong.
They live in the same world you do, they own mirrors, they know how they look, and in a lot of cases they probably spend a whole lot more time agonizing over how they look than anyone else because they’re worrying about whether or not they can pass.
Just take your best guess and if they or someone else corrects you, just apologize and try to do better. You’re probably gonna fuck up, you have a lifetime of indoctrination in the gender binary to unlearn. It happens. I have a friend who’s been dating a nonbinary person for years and occasionally still messes up and uses the wrong pronouns, it happens. The femboy wearing a skirt probably isn’t gonna be offended no matter what pronouns you use for them. The butch lesbian with a buzz cut has probably already been mistaken for a guy 7 times today, it’s nothing new. Trans and non-binary people have probably spent most of their life using pronouns they don’t like, and sure they’d prefer you use the right ones, but it’s nothing new to them.
If you’re unsure when you meet someone and they don’t broach the subject off the bat, go ahead and spell out your own pronouns so they can feel safe to do the same.
Or just stick to they/them. It’s a little awkward sometimes, it takes some getting used to, but the only people I’ve ever seen get offended by it are bigots who I don’t mind offending anyway.
Sure, there’s some subset of the community that gets really huffy about it, and those people are just garden variety assholes who happen to be trans/nonbinary. They’re basically the same as the cis Karen type who for some reason gets a stick up her ass about not wanting to be called “ma’am,” or the guy who insists on correcting you that it’s “Doctor such-and-such” if you dare to refer to him as “mister.” It doesn’t mean you should go ahead and ignore their preference, but don’t put too much stock in their opinions either.