Your Feelings about Pronouns DO NOT Matter

Let me clarify….

I always used to judge aggression. Even when it was found amongst my own trans community. When a person was aggressive in their response about being misgendered, I would judge. I would think to myself, “Can they just be cool? Can they chill out? They’re making all of ‘us’ look bad by having no patience, no understanding.”

At the time I was just a baby trans, newly out to select friends and family, and fully lacking any confidence in myself. I was accepting crumbs of validation and thinking it was a meal.

My feelings have since changed, my confidence has grown, and now I must restate:

For all the cis-gender people in the back,

“Your feelings about pronouns DO NOT ****ing matter!”

It does not matter if gender-expansive pronouns are new to you. It does not matter if you don’t ‘believe’ in them. It does not matter if using they/them pronouns is ‘clunky’ in writing. It does not matter if it is hard or uncomfortable to learn someone's pronouns. It does not matter if using a person’s correct pronouns makes you embarrassed. It does not matter if you’ve always “known” them as a different gender. It doesn’t matter if you are grieving. And it. Does. Not. Matter. if you are sorry you messed up.

Correct yourself. Throw your embarrassment down the toilet, and flush. Carry your “sorry’s” out back to the dumpster and getridofthem.

If someone in your family, workplace, classroom, friends group tells you their pronouns and they are different from what you assumed they were, practice. Bring them up in conversation more than you need to, find a buddy to help correct mess-ups. Talk about them until using their correct pronouns becomes second nature.

Further, when you inevitably mess up their pronouns in front of them, because after all, you are human and a habit (aka. cis-hetero-normativity) is hard to break….

Do Not: Pretend it did not happen, assume no one noticed, stop midsentence and lose all train of thought, or apologize. Apologizing only forces your trans friend to do even more emotional labor than they already have to.

If you misgender a person, simply correct yourself. And if someone corrects you for misgendering them, say “thank you.” We all need reminders.

And then…. move on.

And for all my trans-siblings out there, you deserve better.