IrishArcher Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 Hey, I have a quick question for anyone who uses they/them pronouns: does it feel different/worse to be misgendered as your AGAB than as any other gender with which you don't identify? Or is it the same level of discomfort either way? Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted October 5, 2019 Share Posted October 5, 2019 For me it feels as weird being called 'she' as it would if someone called me 'he'. However I'm not someone who gets upset about they way people gender me (especially in meat life) because I do have a very huge chest, long hair etc. I'm clearly someone who was born in a female body, and while my clothes generally more resemble a homeless person's attire than anything particularly feminine or masculine, I don't make an active effort to try to appear to be someone who feels 'they/them' inside. But yeah, 'she' alway makes me feel weird, like someone didn't understand something intrinsic about me (even though they probably had no way of knowing!). 'he' would feel just as alien, though it would also be funny because they'd have to be super drunk to assume someone with boobs as big as mine was born in the body of a male, haha. Link to post Share on other sites
anisotrophic Posted October 5, 2019 Share Posted October 5, 2019 It feels worse to be gendered with my AGAB. I feel trapped, frustrated by it. But also I'm essentially never given the other one, so it's not really a fair comparison. I only recently started hormonal transition so I just see how it goes. Link to post Share on other sites
IrishArcher Posted October 5, 2019 Author Share Posted October 5, 2019 Thanks for the responses. I definitely understand what you're saying, @anisotrophic. Since nobody ever thinks to use he/him pronouns on me, I wouldn't feel annoyed by them even though I don't identify as male in any way. I think I'd have to actively try to pass myself as male in order to get that response, and at that point it would make me feel good to know that I'd succeeded in fooling people, essentially - it wouldn't bother me because I would still be in complete control of how other people saw me. Link to post Share on other sites
Captain_Tass Posted October 5, 2019 Share Posted October 5, 2019 8 hours ago, IrishArcher said: Hey, I have a quick question for anyone who uses they/them pronouns: does it feel different/worse to be misgendered as your AGAB than as any other gender with which you don't identify? Or is it the same level of discomfort either way? Well, my mother tongue which is also the language of the country I live in is gendered, so I keep getting (mis)gendered by other people in my everyday life. Sometimes people slip up and refer to me with he/him pronouns, and it feels quite nice actually! As I have no gender and am more than happy with being seen as a mixture of both (I use both they/them and ze/hir), and I don't get to hear he/him pronouns in reference to me often, they're welcomed. Now, when I refer to myself, it's either in English, which is not my mother tongue, or in my mother tongue but avoid gendered words altogether. This is really tough, and if bring referred to the closest thing we have to a gender neutral pronoun here wasn't seen as dehumanising (the pronoun is the equivalent of it/its) I'd definitely go for it. Many nonbinary people from my country have adopted it/its, others go for a mixture of the binary pronouns and others go for the pronouns traditionally used to refer to people of their AGAB for convenience. Link to post Share on other sites
iff Posted October 5, 2019 Share Posted October 5, 2019 7 hours ago, Pan Ficto. (on hiatus?) said: For me it feels as weird being called 'she' as it would if someone called me 'he'. However I'm not someone who gets upset about they way people gender me (especially in meat life) because I do have a very huge chest, long hair etc. I'm clearly someone who was born in a female body, and while my clothes generally more resemble a homeless person's attire than anything particularly feminine or masculine, I don't make an active effort to try to appear to be someone who feels 'they/them' inside. But yeah, 'she' alway makes me feel weird, like someone didn't understand something intrinsic about me (even though they probably had no way of knowing!). 'he' would feel just as alien, though it would also be funny because they'd have to be super drunk to assume someone with boobs as big as mine was born in the body of a male, haha. This is a really good post and I have similar feeling. For me, I have a beard (to cover bad scarring from when I had a collision with a cow on the road last year) so my beard is to hide the scars. Link to post Share on other sites
Janus the Fox Posted October 5, 2019 Share Posted October 5, 2019 The same either way, I like to be called she, more than he. They feels roughly just as (dis)-comforting. Link to post Share on other sites
PoeciMeta Posted October 6, 2019 Share Posted October 6, 2019 The difference for me is between being systematically misgendered (as my AGAB) because I couldn't pass as anything else, and being misgendered differently by different people because they can't tell and can't agree between themselves. I would be very glad if I was misgendered with the other binary gender as often as I am with my AGAB. Thus, the former feels nice. Not right in the slightest, but nice, in a ''aha, AGAB successfully hidden!" way. I think I wouldn't mind being referred to as any gender as long as it isn't always the same gender and the person is aware that it isn't accurate, or at least knows they don't know. This never happens though, so my AGAB still hurts way more. Link to post Share on other sites
AnxiouslyAsexual Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 For me, I've been misgendered with he/him and that was a time I kinda felt proud. As for she/her, I'm lucky enough to not be super uncomfortable with she/her but I get a little burst of happiness when someone uses they/them for me. Link to post Share on other sites
kiaroskuro Posted October 13, 2019 Share Posted October 13, 2019 I'm not sure if I'm even allowed to reply here as I don't use they/them pronouns in my native language (What would be the alternative? 'It' is indeed a bit ... dehumanizing. And I don't care about other newly introduced neutral pronouns). But I have to say that people who 'misgender' me as the gender which is not my AGAB seem super uncomfortable upon realising their 'mistake', whereas their 'mistake' usually doesn't make me uncomfortable at all. Link to post Share on other sites
Larkaloke Posted October 14, 2019 Share Posted October 14, 2019 Generally it feels worse to me to be gendered as female, mostly because that's what I've been dealing with for my whole life, and it's more common. I've also always been particularly uncomfortable with being treated like people tend to treat people they assume are female (assumed hobbies, likes/dislikes, ways of acting), so people are at least less likely to make other bad assumptions about me if they think I'm male. I do get uncomfortable either way, though. If it's going to happen, I prefer that it alternates, because at least then I feel like people are in general just guessing, which is better than having a strong assumption that's incorrect. I don't believe I'd mind any other neutral set of pronouns, even if they're not my preference, but this hasn't come up. Link to post Share on other sites
ElasticPlanet Posted October 15, 2019 Share Posted October 15, 2019 On 10/4/2019 at 11:42 PM, IrishArcher said: does it feel different/worse to be misgendered as your AGAB than as any other gender with which you don't identify? At face value, both are just as bad... but in practice, being misgendered as my assigned gender happens All The Time so I'm getting sick of it, whereas the opposite has only ever happened twice as far as I can remember. Link to post Share on other sites
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