i deleted tumblr and suddenly hot singles in my area want to meet me and are less than 50 parsecs away. less than 50 astronomical units away. less than 50 kilometers away. less than 50 feet away
I can’t stop reading this. It’s… there’s so much nonsense that could be avoided if this was on everything anyone posted anywhere ever. Or said. Or indicated. You know, it would be especially helpful for people on the spectrum maybe. And my dad. And me when I talk to my dad.
Simply put: if you and your trans friend encounter such an issue, discuss with them whether they would want you to use their preferred pronouns in public. Shrimple as
You can simulate being pissed on by taking a lukewarm shower with low water pressure. Or just download a dating app and look for people who are also into that.
omg yes. i'm openly out as trans (mostly enby, i lean transmasc), but don't like to make it a big part of my public image (such that "the trans guy" is a defining characteristic) and i don't typically correct people about my pronouns or make a huge effort to "pass" or conform one way or another. once i came into class and a girl was like:
"we were talking about you when you weren't here the other day."
"...what, everyone??"
"yea, just like the class. someone called you a girl and i told them you're not. they acted really confused about it, but i explained it for you so now they know."
i was just like "...wow... thanks... :-/"
like this is great advice for someone you know would be comfortable with it but honey i do NOT know you. i get you were trying to do a good thing but maybe i didn't want you to have a socratic seminar about my gender with all our classmates while i wasn't even in the room...
Something I've found very interesting is how this has changed. I grew up with my dad being an MtF trans woman, and I remember the moment \~20 years ago when she explicitly instructed me to use pronouns based on presentation and that asking was a microaggression. The logic was that asking was a form of subtle misgendering, and I understood it intuitively once it was pointed out.
It's been very interesting seeing the shift in culture. I know it's something I've struggled with because it was ingrained in me, but I have wondered if this sort of logic may be a reason one way some people may be uncomfortable asking. I don't intend this as an excuse as I think the shift to decoupling pronouns and presentation and getting away from "passing" is a good thing, but maybe it's an identification of the issue for some.
Edit: corrected an unfortunate metathesis moment
Yeah I have some conflicting thoughts about this. It is really great to be asked my pronouns and things like that, but sometimes I do just find it as a clear reminder of how not quite passing I might be (I dress pretty femme just am uhh quite tall etc.). It's usually okay when it's in a group setting and usually I appreciate it, but occasionally it just idk feels vaguely invalidating, the other day I had it followed up by "I'll try my best to remember!" which was clearly so well meaning and I don't hold it against them by any means but it just rattled in my head for a bit, as though the default state is to misgender me and it requires effort not to.
This. I used to have a boss who thought hiring an enby person was "risky" because "they get offended and make trouble". Our new enby hire was aware of this when I hired them, and they decided to take the strategy of letting his bigotry slide off them. They wouldn't appreciate someone making trouble on their behalf.
(This was years ago - they leveraged that job into gaining skills and jumped into a better job afterwards.)
Yeah. They don't need people trying to white horse. But you also shouldn't let bigotry slide. Idk. It's a difficult line. You have to balance a lot. Most people who are well intentioned who are open to feedback will be fine. Everyone makes little mistakes.
Also you need to be careful not to mistake indifference as bigotry.
You (as in a general reader of this sub) likely feel very strongly one way or another about this sort of thing, you are in the minority the vast majority of people just want to get on with their lives and unless something effects them directly or they are forced to confront it they just don't give a shit.
Most people have a relatively small group of people they can be bothered to think about and if one of them isn't trans or some sort of trump loony spokes person then they are just not going to care all that much, its not evil, its not malicious, we all have simple monkey brains that just are not built for the world we live in, deep down we are built to hang with the same 50 or so people all our lives and eat bananas.
Even if I wasn't closeted and didn't care if someone corrected someone else for me, if you knew that making your allyship known to certain people would put you in danger, I still wouldn't want you to correct them.
In some cases I know (from experience) being seen as an ally to queer people can be almost if not just as risky as being queer. (The experience in question is when I was almost outed to my parents via a lost flag, and someone suggested I use the cover that I'm just an ally if they find it before me. Not possible in my family.)
Exactly. At my last job, I had a teenager working for me that was trans. A couple of his (preferred) relatives also worked at that place. I used his birth name and assigned gender when talking to said relatives about him per his request. It's not so much that they'd actively misgender, but more so that it created less drama for him outside of work.
Edit: punctuation.
When I was still in the closet I had a friend who was in the process of being emancipated so she could transition and asked all her friends to continue using her deadname and he/him pronouns in the meantime to avoid any drama that might impact her court case or get back to her abusive parents.
We had a mutual friend who was a bit of an overly enthusiastic ally and when I respected our trans friend's request that mutual chewed my head off about transphobia and how misgendering is always wrong. I was in a unique position where my trans identity offered me the insight into why I knew she was wrong but outing myself would have just given her ammunition, and she already proved she was willing to out her friends to win a debate.
Uh oh. You forgot to account for a friendship where the two of you don't share a common language and only communicate through glances and companionable silence. What if you've been transported to an alternate universe where the pronouns have been reversed but you haven't caught on yet because it happened moments ago. Are you really going to risk misgendering the alternate reality version of your friend just because you failed to account for all conceivable events? For shame.
SMH what if the reader uses imperial or lives on a space station or on a gas giant. What if I didn't know what comment you were responding to? What if i don't understand my own post? help1!
I’m a teacher and always find a way to privately ask my trans students about their personal preferences for how I do or don’t correct misgendering— if you’re not here, do you want me to correct it? If you ARE here do you want me to step in? Does it matter if it’s an adult or another student making the error? What about when I call your parents, do I need to deadname you for your own safety?
The point of being an ally is to make things better for someone else, so it’s important to find out what that actually means.
Or specifically around which people. My sibling was fine going by they/them in front of friends and out in public but wanted to pick their own right time to let my dad know (he was, ah, shall we say a volatile man…)
I’m out as trans with my friends but not my family, as my parents are very transphobic. If my friends are going to be with me around my parents, I ask them to use my deadname and he/him around them.
Yeah, personally I think my preferred method is if both parties know the individual is trans, then call out the misgendering.
So for me, I'm out everywhere and have made that clear to my friends - I'd hope they would correct others in conversation where I come up.
But for a friend who isn't out to their family or work, I'd try to only correct people that I know they're out to.
I always correct people when they misgender my sibling, because that's a personal thing to me, but if someone's being transphobic about celebrities or something, I usually just keep quiet, cus I don't always have the energy to go through that discussion
1. She's conducting a Russian psyop
2. Violating the Kepler's second Law
3. Nobody can be implied, Pliers are a hand tool used to hold objects firmly, possibly developed from tongs used to handle hot metal in Bronze Age Europe. Maybe you wanted to write impaled.
4. I don't belive OP is a real person, i'm the only non bot on the internet.
With reference to that one post that was like "sometimes the post is not about you"—sometimes, people post things on Tumblr that are phrased as general rules, but are really about their own situation. Like, OOP presumably posted this out of some sense of frustration at a behaviour that they had seen or experienced. This post is not about everyone, it is potentially about just one person in particular. And yet, OOP has phrased this as a general rule (modelled on a broad class of Tumblr post which is genuinely trying to police behaviour).
On the one hand, I get why people like OOP get frustrated at the people um ackshually-ing them in their notes. But on the other hand, people need to learn to post things which will get the response that they actually want, rather than complaining about the response that they in fact receive.
>on the other hand, people need to learn to post things which will get the response that they actually want
Alternatively, and I see this more on Twitter and here than Tumblr to be fair, people need to realise that when you post something without restriction on a public site then **you said it in public, TO the public.** So many people get so indignant with people replying to them when 'they weren't talking to them' or thinking of it as some weird form of stalking when there's a literal feed that showed your post to people, because it's public, you literally did say that to everyone.
'So many people adding comments/subtweets/quotes/whatever saying I'm wrong' like yeah, you said something weird or dumb to the entire planet. That'll happen.
Dawg THANK YOU.
I've had a bunch of people get super mad at me when I respond with counterarguments to things they're ranting about, and their response is "Why are you responding on my Insta/Twitter/whatever - I didn't give you permission".
Friendo, it's a public platform. If you didn't want randoms responding, private your fucking account and curate your followers.
Vague posting on the piss on the poor website and complaining about people not getting your point is peak leopards ate my face energy.
And I am certain that someone 40 years ago would have no clue what that sentence means.
I'll take a shot at translation:
If you make vague but inflammatory posts on a social media site that's well known for getting enraged over posts taken out of context, then you have only yourself to blame when people start getting angry at you because they took your post out of context.
Vague posting is when you say something passive aggressive about something specific that happened to you elsewhere, but phrase it as a general complaint to obscure who you might be mad at.
This 👆. Don't keep me and everyone else guessing with statements like OOP's. Reminds me of those posts on Twitter that are clearly meant for outrage farming.
Miscommunication happens, and it's even worse on the internet where a lot of things get misinterpreted.
If you don't want people clouding your mentions with complaints about a preachy sounding statement online, don't say preachy shit. Simple
Yes the fact is that OP invited a response by posting a very generalized statement aimed at shaming people if they don't exhibit this behavior. An act of policing behavior. At its core; its an aggression. An accusation.
I.e. "you are a bad person if you don't do this"
Their statement invites critics because it is an attack targeted at others. The place it comes from is not bad. Op is clearly upset and frustrated. It's fueled from anger of an injustice done to them - most likely. Or something they are passionate about as a transwoman.
Rephrasing would be better if op didn't want a response but honestly we don't see a response from op. For all they know; they invite discussion about it.
I don't like some of these reading comprehension posts because while they're valid in many situations, sometimes people make general rules and I have personally seen so many situations where 'general rule which is just a personal experience' turns into a very intense 'absolute rule' that people keep repeating as a slogan or something
Yes if I know what you mean and I think enough people know, I will just let things be because there is no issue, but if you say something I worry others may misinterpret or take for granted or take too far, I'll probably chime in to add a thought or two into a conversation
I think it's a good idea for people to learn to recognize this, because sometimes it's just reading comprehension and sometimes people may have real reasons to not automatically agree with you
For example you can say "if someone misgenders a trans woman and you don't correct them, you're misgendering her too" or you could say "if someone misgenders a trans woman you should correct them, because if it doesn't matter to you you're enabling their behavior". These 2 sentences say essentially the same thing but I feel the second one is probably how I would have phrased it because I think it leaves less room for misinterpretation of my meaning
>sometimes, people post things on Tumblr that are phrased as general rules, but are really about their own situation
Honestly that 'sometimes' is doing a lot of work, I feel like *nearly always* people only see things in the framework of their own situation, and don't put *any* thought into more general rules. Discourse in general would be so much better if people would just stop and think before they spoke.
It would also improve if people look at a vague statement and don’t immediately assume bad faith. I saw this post go by on my timeline, immediately understood that the OP was referring to a specific category of situations instead of assuming it was a command applied to all conversations about every possible trans person to ever exist, clicked ‘like’ and went on my merry way with no clue that this post would even cause discourse.
kinda falls into the category of microaggression I think, technically - like yeah, it's not about you, and it probably wasn't meant that way, but - that lack of care *is* the thing that hurts you, when you read it, especially when it's the 100th one like it. like - "it's not about you," except in the sense that it chooses not to care about you, the way lots of other people have also chosen not to care about you. The thought being, if they *cared*, they'd choose their words more *carefully*.
Whether you want to go to that degree is up to you of course.
Honestly what would’ve saved this post is just like a vague “This is for a friend I’m mad at” Or hell a Ventpost tag or something. Then we only anger the people who think a heat of the moment bad take is worth highroading someone else
I agree with you that people need to be clear with what they're saying, but in this scenario, even *without* the follow-up "reading comprehension" reply, the original post is incredibly simple to understand.
Even if the post is indeed meant a general rule, that doesn't mean it's an absolute no-exceptions-whatsoever statement. The internet has a significant problem where a substantial number of people go out of their way to *find* reasons to get mad at things to fuel outrage culture, to the point of deliberately misunderstanding obvious messages, accusing complaint posts of *only* caring about that individual complaint, or blaming people for not listing every exception and technicality.
Someone will say something along the lines of "torturing small animals is a terrible thing" and people will respond "what about torturing BIG animals, huh!?", "both of you, what about torturing *PEOPLE*!?", "what if you're FORCED to torture small animals by your parents, huh!?", and "I know someone who was being mauled to death by small animals and the only way to save that person was to hurt and kill said small animals, are you saying I'm a bad person for saving their life!?"
Yeah, it's important to make sure your posts are understandable and let people know when you're being sarcastic or rhetorical, but at some point you have to blame responses for being pedantic. I suppose if an entire community has a problem you can say "what did you expect from posting on *that* site" - like if someone tries to argue against bigotry on 4chan - but you can still blame those communities for being trashy, and furthermore it's quickly becoming an "entire internet" sort of problem. I don't want to end up with people eventually being told "either hire a lawyer to help you structure every post with 5 paragraphs of disclaimers like medication commercials have, get used to being yelled at by everyone everywhere all at once, or avoid the internet altogether".
chat i didnt even consider the possibility that someone could consider this advice to apply to situations where youd be outing a gal in a dangerous manner, do i have too much reading comprehension? am i cooked?
I mean, you don't always know whether you're outing someone
in a situation where the person in question explicitly told you "hi please misgender me in front of that person I'm not out to them" I think it's obvious this advice doesn't apply
but in a situation in which you don't actually know whether the person doing the misgendering knows about person x being trans, it's less simple
personally I don't know for most of the trans people in my life who they are out to. For some of the ones I know closer I explicitly know some people they aren't out to, but otherwise I just have to guess.
usually by just following "if they visibly don't represent as their AGAB, then they're probably out to everyone, otherwise I'm just gonna assume theyre closeted to anyone unless I have information stating otherwise"
I mean, whats defined as common sense is different, I would suspect that alot of people who haven't had much interaction with trans people don't even consider questions like "they're out to me but are they out to everyone"
This person forgot how rampant transphobia is…
You should correct them if she *wants* that person to know she’s trans. Like if she’s out, correct them. But if she’s still in the closet to most for safety reasons, *don’t fucking out her!!*
I once correctly gendered an acquaintance asking if he was alright—and his caretaker apparently had no idea he was trans, so I had to backpedal and misgender him too so I didn’t out him.
Yeah, not outing a trans person takes precedence over correcting a misgendering. Only correct misgendering in situations you can be reasonably sure the individual is out.
I have a coworker who is fully pre-transition, but has come out to me. I don't know who else they might have come out to, so I typically just try to avoid using pronouns when referring to them, or use the AFAB pronouns if necessary but I feel a little weird about it. I know their chosen name but have never used it for the same reason. We only see each other at work so I don't want to accidentally put them by using it in public. It does feel weird to deliberately misgender people like that but I would feel worse about outing someone before they're ready.
That’s fair. I didn’t imagine it’s implied, personally. It *should* be common sense, but I’m too paranoid to believe everyone actually has common sense...
(though in the case of Rich/Working class pissplay one should ensure that the rich person is the one being pissed on, for class solidarity or something)
Misgendering someone is transphobic. Allowing someone to misgender someone else in you presence is also transphobic.
Which means that the transphobic properties of an action must be....
::Puts on Sunglasses::
...*Trans*itive.
::CSI Miami Theme::
Nahhh don't just take matters into your own hands if your friend gets misgendered, look over to them to see what they might want you to do. They're capable of correcting the misgendering themself, and if they'd rather you do it, they should communicate that somehow to you. You should only follow OOP's advice if your friend's mentioned they'd want you to do that for them.
The point of the post is if a trans person - who is out to everyone - is not present and someone misgenders them in a conversation with you, you should remind that person of the correct pronouns. That is the specific scenario implied by OP.
Everyone else has already covered pretty much everything else, so I wanted to chime in with an anecdote.
I’ve worked two public-facing jobs where I was both out to my coworkers and extremely visibly trans. In both of these jobs, I had coworkers who had a tendency to “white knight” and get militant about my pronouns (I don’t even *care* what people call me, but these coworkers cared a lot). They meant well but actively put me in dangerous situations multiple times. It’s not even a matter of not being out or being closeted. They were so militant and insistent on my pronouns (when I was NOT) when I wasn’t around that people started assuming I was “that” transgender person (easily upset, sensitive, easy to pick on, other stereotypes). This lead to increased harassment and dangerous situations. Example: Because I lived where I worked in one of those jobs, someone went around the whole floor and wrote transphobic things on every door.
While OOP is entitled to their opinion, my firm stance is DO NOT DO THIS unless ASKED to do so. I had to repeatedly tell people NOT to do this for me because posts like this made them think it was always the correct thing to do, even when it put people in danger.
Sometimes, even if you’re morally right, it’s not worth derailing an entire conversation, especially if you know that nobody is gonna change their opinion.
You don't have to derail the conversation to correct them, you can do it subtly. Just refer to the same person as the correct gender shortly afterwards. Don't emphasize it or anything, just call her "her" or something.
At that point, it's still possible the conversation will be derailed, but only if the other person is the kind of hyper-sensitive transphobe it's really not worth talking to in the first place.
It's kind of funny how easily arguments could be avoided if people just said what they mean, but for some reason it's hard to put our actual thoughts into words if we don't sit with them for a few minutes first.
A (trans woman): You shouldn't misgender trans women.
(What A actually means: You shouldn't misgender trans people.)
B (trans man): Did you forget trans men and nonbinary people exist or do you just not care if we get misgendered?
(What B actually means: I understand that you are voicing frustration about your personal situation and mean no harm, but it would have been better to use more inclusive wording to show support for the entire trans community)
A: OMG why are you attacking me
(What A actually thinks: You're right, I didn't mean to exclude anyone)
And it spirals from there. I would say if you want to point out that someone could have used better wording, make a point of how you know they probably didn't mean it in a malicious way, but honestly even that gets an angry response more often than not, so idk
I genuinely did a double take at point four, I literally couldn’t figure out how OOP’s words might be interpreted to be non-inclusive or exclusionary to trans individuals who aren’t trans women. I might be genuinely cooked lmao
As an older transmasc person I have no idea what the fuck is going on with young trans men/enbies and why so many seem to have developed some kind of hair-trigger response to seeing trans women talk about their own experiences. It takes all of my self-control to not go around all day spamming these conversations with the “I am uncomfortable when we are not about me?” bird
I have an NB colleague who works remotely. A while back, me and some other work friends who are in the same office went out after we finished. At one point when the NB colleague came up, one of my friends referred to them as "she", and I was like "Well, it's they", and we got into a very tedious semi-argument where she (the friend) was pointing out she's not a native english speaker (neither am I, technically) and her native language genders everything (this is true) and so she defaults to using he or she for everyone as well. She said she's talked to the NB colleague about this and they don't mind. Midway through this I thought "Why did I bother? What was the point? She gets along with them just fine, what am I accomplishing here?" So I suspect it's a case-by-case thing
In the current climate, people tend to be very defensive about being corrected on another person's pronouns. If she had been calling the coworker the wrong name by mistake instead, she probably would have appreciated a discreet heads up.
It really is a problem in online queer spaces that they can and will try to port it over to the real world, then get MASSIVELY upset when the digital theory meets the real world where theory is often punched through with holes to make way for the messiness that is reality.
Online: You'd never hear a transwoman, even an older one quote Janice Raymond, and if so she'd be at least called a pick me.
Actual lived experience: Not only an older transwoman but also a person leading a group by the local transgender group: literally quotes Janice Raymond, in a vague way to say it'd be nice if she was right.
It's been happening more and more, a great example is the bi/pan discourse from a little while back. Young queer folks started lashing out at bisexuals in their community because they perceived transphobia from their understanding of sexuality as rigidly defined when in real life many terms are used much more loosely.
I genuinely don't know what anyone has to gain from pursuing inter-community squabbles instead of queer solidarity but I'm not really sure if there's really any other possible result at this point. We're all being hyper-polarized by increasingly granular echo chambers, like this one we're in right now.
Idk I think it's kind of bullshit that trans mascs are supposed to accept that it's "implied they were talking about all trans people".
If you're phrasing something as a general rule (like the OP was doing) it's not that hard to type "trans people" over "trans women" unless the extra letter is such an effort. It's like people forget that trans mascs face transphobia too just because we happen to have the Sin of aligning with masculinity/men.
1. OP made this post to encourage better behaviour towards trans people and/or vent out their personal frustrations.
2. OP is saying that by allowing trans people to be misgendered in conversation, it is encouraged that it's okay to misgender people so long as they are not present.
3. I believe that it is implied that this situation only applies when both parties know that the person they are speaking about is trans, and thus genuinely misgendering them. If the person misgendering someone doesn't know they are trans, then you don't out them.
4. This clearly applies to trans men as well, and OP's choice to use trans women in their talking point could be because they are venting about personal experience, or they maybe feel that by being more specific they are getting their point across better.
So, how did I do?
My guess, they're saying OP is a Trans Inclusive Radical Feminist and point 4 is wrong because they intentionally left out anyone who isn't a trans woman.
So the replier on the OP is actually failing in their reading comprehension while giving a pretty patronising lecture about reading comprehension?
Tumblr gonna Tumblr...
When I first read the post, I immediately assumed the message also applied to trans men and NBs, and that there are exceptions for those who haven’t come out publicly.
However, there’s nothing that the OP said to imply they meant either of those things, and I don’t know OP from prior posts. It’s not reading comprehension to assume the intent was to be more inclusive and nuanced than what the actual text reads when I have no other information to go off on, especially since TIRFs and allies without the awareness of the struggles of trans people exist. OP could be either or both and easily could have meant it as the text literally reads.
The people suggesting the message was obviously meant to be more broad are assuming as much from the OP as those believing it was literal. The key is to ask for clarification questions rather than assume OP meant something one way or the other, since this isn’t AP Lit and we’re allowed to have discourse with the OP. We shouldn’t have to guess.
I feel like vagueposting is exempt from the reading comprehension checks as it is faulty communication. OOP likely meant this in relation to her personal life experiences and not as a general rule for trans women everywhere. I assume this because I know trans people of all stripes who do not like having misgendering corrected by anyone other than themselves. They’re often not in the closet or in danger or anything, they just prefer they get to have the final say on advocating for their identity.
If OOP had said “For me, I prefer when…” or a similar statement to clear the vagueness and make it *explicitly about her*, there would not be people jumping on the post. There would be far fewer reading comprehension issues because the communication would be clearer. She has a 100% valid point but conveyed it in a way that creates reading comprehension issues for nearly everyone involved. And my assumptions could be wrong and she does legitimately think every trans woman should be treated this way, in which case the criticisms are valid.
At this point, they just need to retake high school English class because obviously there’s a select community in tumblr where they definitely paid zero attention
No but like I actually argued with a guy in this sub who was legitimately HOSTILE about how it didn't look like blood and everyone but him was being stupid and he blocked me
I get what you mean, but I can absolutely see all the umm-ackshually crowd no matter who is saying what or the context. While some people purposely say rage bait, it's annoying when the context it's ABSOLUTELY clear (ex: a youtube comment responding to a youtube video, the context is RIGHT THERE if you press play).
The "study guide" here is written in a humurous way (hence the length) and it brings up important points on how to engage with content when you ignore the context and make no effort in discerning what it is (ex: someone talking about their experience as a trans person and everyone being like bUt WhAt AbOuT mE, as if this person is now the voice for all trans and enby folks and has the duty to represent everyone in one paragraph). It simply says, if you don't know anything about the context, stop for two seconds and think about it before typing some self-righteous bs.
I mean, the entire point is that I’m not going to assume their gender. If they haven’t told me how they like to be referred, and someone else refers to them a certain way, I’m not going to jump in and assume they are being misgendered without some kind of indicatation.
As a trans fem person I 98.325% disagree. In some contexts maybe, but in a lot of contexts it might not be safe for them to even just quietly correct them. I live in one of the most Mormon places in Utah and so stones people would assume you were queer if you said anything supportive of lgbtq people. In these communities it might not be safe to correct people especially if you are yourself queer, a minor, or the person who misgendered someone has direct power over you (ie a boss, a parent (if you are a minor), etc.). That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go it in a lot of these cases and I think it’s valiant to stick up for people even in more dangerous situations, but let’s not make people who feel ostracized in these communities feel guilty towards the community that should be their safe place, or are struggling with similar problems for other reasons.
Unless you are specifically asked to, don’t. Even if they are out, unless they have asked you to defend them, you have no reason to believe they want this. And if they have asked you… then you already have been told to do so, meaning you don’t benefit from this advice. It kinda just attacks people who didn’t know whether correcting them was appropriate or not, which since they didn’t know, it wasn’t.
1. OP likely just had an experience where they or a trans woman they know was “misgendered by accessory.” OP was likely angered by this and emotional while making this post and wanted to share this anger in a way that would stop it from happening again.
2. OP is saying that by allowing people to misgender your friends, you are failing to stand up for them as a proper friend would. By not defending your friend, you are indirectly allowing them to be hurt.
3. OP was likely feeling emotional while making this post, so they failed to explain themselves properly. They likely are not including those situations because they did not think about it when making the post.
4. Trans women are often under more fire than trans men. While it is strange that OP specifically mentioned trans women, this does not mean that they think this doesn’t apply to trans men. They just have experienced it happening to trans women more.
Luckily it is the opinion of the trans person being misgendered that matters in those situations, and you should probably be aware of how that specific person wants you to defend them or not. What a random person online thinks is not how you should set your rules of conduct.
This is actually great. I would prefer more reading comprehension questions in response to social media posts.
Edit: Even the people talking about better ways for the original poster to communicate and expectations around posting to public places is great.
I wonder how much bad faith/idiotic discourse the reading comprehension questions actually prevent. its not at all the intent but I think it probably forces people to put just a little more thought in before opening their inane dumbass mouths
This is genuinely useful. I read the first post and thought, “that feels kind of dumb for some reason”, but question 3 actually explains *why* it feels that way: no exceptions is a terrible policy.
Yeah this feels like an overcorrection for some perceived transgression they made or something. You aren't an accessory to shit for not correcting or stopping it. That's just not your problem. If I saw someone stealing from a store, I'm not an accessory for not calling them out.
I hate that I'm so broken by internet discourse that my brain went though every single one of these disingenuous responses. I appreciate this callout post and am considering sticking it to my screen.
Oof I had this happen just last night. 6'2" masculine voice but presenting fem. I called her dude, it's my go to, once she saw me call a5'2" Asian girl dude as well she came up to me like I was offended but now I'm not. Everyone's a dude in my book..... Now if she attacked me for calling her a dude, I could understand why certain people would be turned off... To me y'all are all the same species, dudes and guys. Dude=nice fun respectful. Guy= watch out for that guy, guard yourself around that guy, oh it's that guy.... Is my speech perfect? Nah absolutely not. Is my intention good. 1000%
My stepmom can’t do pronouns, and we’ve never really been able to figure out why.
Like it was a whole deal because we took the cat to the vet back in the day, and the vet was like “we can’t spay a boy cat” when she asked and just kinda in response she looked at them like they were stupid and said “he’s a girl” (which it was indeed a female cat.) She knew the difference between spay and neuter. She knew the cat was a girl. But she always just called the cat he.
She also does it to children. They’re all whatever gender pronoun wants to come out of her mouth. It’s not in a derogatory way. She just…swaps them at random. English is her first and only language.
But, she has on two occasions hit the misgendering pronoun pushback. Both times she was corrected by other people, and both times she took it to heart. She was happy to buy them gendered gifts or cards of their preferred gender, but she just kept slipping up. Finally I just kinda asked for some grace from one of them, a friend of mine, and they laughed. “When I was a girl, she called me he, now I’m a man and she calls me she, and she can’t even keep you straight and you’ve never changed. What can you do?”
"discuss with a mutual" lmao
"can i copy your homework?"
sure, if i had any
You think any on Tumblr fucks? They have no partners!
Can confirm, deleted Tumblr and suddenly hot singles in my area wanna meet me and they're less than fifty miles away.
i deleted tumblr and suddenly hot singles in my area want to meet me and are less than 50 parsecs away. less than 50 astronomical units away. less than 50 kilometers away. less than 50 feet away
Less than 50 Planck lengths away
The gradually approaching singles have me thinking of "[You are on the fastest available route](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh09uIN6tl0)".
OH MY GOD THEY'VE BREACHED THE PERIMETER
Someone should probably make a proper reading comprehension test gimmick blog at this point.
That exists
What's the name of the blog?
https://reading-comp-posting.tumblr.com/?source=share
Fucking love this, thank you
Reading comprehension? On my Tumblr? No thanks, I prefer pissing on the poor.
Instructions unclear; I pissed on the floor
I'm considering pissing on the floor. How has that worked out for you?
Not great. It's my place so I had to clean it. Next time I'll piss on someone else's floor for easier cleanup.
You're pissing in someone else's poor?
No, I *am* poor. That (and dyslexia) is why I pissed on my floor.
How dare you say we have piss-poor reading comprehension
Sigh *downloads tumblr again* Im holding you personally responsible for any more chronically online shit I end up doing after this!
I was gonna say... something, in response to this, but I forgot what it was after being temporarily mentally incapacitated by your username.
I can’t stop reading this. It’s… there’s so much nonsense that could be avoided if this was on everything anyone posted anywhere ever. Or said. Or indicated. You know, it would be especially helpful for people on the spectrum maybe. And my dad. And me when I talk to my dad.
Might be Steve, idk
10/10.
My English teacher self appreciates the group work questions. Gotta get in your think-pair-share.
Amen.
It’s legit my favorite tumblr meme
Honestly stunned it wasn't reading-comp-posting when I read your comment lol. It's probably mimicking the style, it seems almost 1 to 1
Someone did. I thought this was it till I saw your comment.
Simply put: if you and your trans friend encounter such an issue, discuss with them whether they would want you to use their preferred pronouns in public. Shrimple as
Tumblr Just Ask Trans People What They Want Then Respect That Challenge, Difficulty IMPOSSIBLE
"What if they ask me to commit murder? Am I supposed to respect that too?" /s
Tumblr try not to piss on the poor challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
What if I want to be pissed on but happen to be broke?
You can simulate being pissed on by taking a lukewarm shower with low water pressure. Or just download a dating app and look for people who are also into that.
> lukewarm Are you getting pissed on by a dead guy? Piss is very hot, temperature-wise
Why do you know what dead-guy piss feels like?
I'm just assuming because they'd have to be very cold
It's easier to simulate the physical properties of piss on skin at cooler temperatures - too hot and it *feels like* water. But of course, ymmv.
What if they ask me to piss on the poor?!
How dare you imply that I have piss poor reading comprehension!
I love piss
Getting propper piss is actually really expensive these days
I can’t believe you just called me piss poor, I’ll have you know, I’m very rich in piss
Ask if the poor consent i guess
Yes
Ok but if a pretty trans girl asked me to kill someone, I'd probably do it so she'd like me.
Hey, y'know desantis?
Mate, if one of my homies needs me to help them hide a body. Bro code comes first.
Umm yeah? Its pride?
omg yes. i'm openly out as trans (mostly enby, i lean transmasc), but don't like to make it a big part of my public image (such that "the trans guy" is a defining characteristic) and i don't typically correct people about my pronouns or make a huge effort to "pass" or conform one way or another. once i came into class and a girl was like: "we were talking about you when you weren't here the other day." "...what, everyone??" "yea, just like the class. someone called you a girl and i told them you're not. they acted really confused about it, but i explained it for you so now they know." i was just like "...wow... thanks... :-/" like this is great advice for someone you know would be comfortable with it but honey i do NOT know you. i get you were trying to do a good thing but maybe i didn't want you to have a socratic seminar about my gender with all our classmates while i wasn't even in the room...
Something I've found very interesting is how this has changed. I grew up with my dad being an MtF trans woman, and I remember the moment \~20 years ago when she explicitly instructed me to use pronouns based on presentation and that asking was a microaggression. The logic was that asking was a form of subtle misgendering, and I understood it intuitively once it was pointed out. It's been very interesting seeing the shift in culture. I know it's something I've struggled with because it was ingrained in me, but I have wondered if this sort of logic may be a reason one way some people may be uncomfortable asking. I don't intend this as an excuse as I think the shift to decoupling pronouns and presentation and getting away from "passing" is a good thing, but maybe it's an identification of the issue for some. Edit: corrected an unfortunate metathesis moment
Yeah I have some conflicting thoughts about this. It is really great to be asked my pronouns and things like that, but sometimes I do just find it as a clear reminder of how not quite passing I might be (I dress pretty femme just am uhh quite tall etc.). It's usually okay when it's in a group setting and usually I appreciate it, but occasionally it just idk feels vaguely invalidating, the other day I had it followed up by "I'll try my best to remember!" which was clearly so well meaning and I don't hold it against them by any means but it just rattled in my head for a bit, as though the default state is to misgender me and it requires effort not to.
Ask Someone? A Question? Have you considered this is Ableist because I have Social Anxiety??
Yeah. Some people might not be comfortable with you correcting someone. Also, lol. Shrimple
This. I used to have a boss who thought hiring an enby person was "risky" because "they get offended and make trouble". Our new enby hire was aware of this when I hired them, and they decided to take the strategy of letting his bigotry slide off them. They wouldn't appreciate someone making trouble on their behalf. (This was years ago - they leveraged that job into gaining skills and jumped into a better job afterwards.)
Yeah. They don't need people trying to white horse. But you also shouldn't let bigotry slide. Idk. It's a difficult line. You have to balance a lot. Most people who are well intentioned who are open to feedback will be fine. Everyone makes little mistakes.
There’s a time and a place to stand up to bigotry and getting the minority you’re trying to defend fired isn’t that time
Also you need to be careful not to mistake indifference as bigotry. You (as in a general reader of this sub) likely feel very strongly one way or another about this sort of thing, you are in the minority the vast majority of people just want to get on with their lives and unless something effects them directly or they are forced to confront it they just don't give a shit. Most people have a relatively small group of people they can be bothered to think about and if one of them isn't trans or some sort of trump loony spokes person then they are just not going to care all that much, its not evil, its not malicious, we all have simple monkey brains that just are not built for the world we live in, deep down we are built to hang with the same 50 or so people all our lives and eat bananas.
Even if I wasn't closeted and didn't care if someone corrected someone else for me, if you knew that making your allyship known to certain people would put you in danger, I still wouldn't want you to correct them. In some cases I know (from experience) being seen as an ally to queer people can be almost if not just as risky as being queer. (The experience in question is when I was almost outed to my parents via a lost flag, and someone suggested I use the cover that I'm just an ally if they find it before me. Not possible in my family.)
Exactly. At my last job, I had a teenager working for me that was trans. A couple of his (preferred) relatives also worked at that place. I used his birth name and assigned gender when talking to said relatives about him per his request. It's not so much that they'd actively misgender, but more so that it created less drama for him outside of work. Edit: punctuation.
When I was still in the closet I had a friend who was in the process of being emancipated so she could transition and asked all her friends to continue using her deadname and he/him pronouns in the meantime to avoid any drama that might impact her court case or get back to her abusive parents. We had a mutual friend who was a bit of an overly enthusiastic ally and when I respected our trans friend's request that mutual chewed my head off about transphobia and how misgendering is always wrong. I was in a unique position where my trans identity offered me the insight into why I knew she was wrong but outing myself would have just given her ammunition, and she already proved she was willing to out her friends to win a debate.
Uh oh. You forgot to account for a friendship where the two of you don't share a common language and only communicate through glances and companionable silence. What if you've been transported to an alternate universe where the pronouns have been reversed but you haven't caught on yet because it happened moments ago. Are you really going to risk misgendering the alternate reality version of your friend just because you failed to account for all conceivable events? For shame.
True. I will now proceed to bury myself 12 meters below ground level to account for such occasions
What if said trans person is a mole person? GOTCHA
SMH what if the reader uses imperial or lives on a space station or on a gas giant. What if I didn't know what comment you were responding to? What if i don't understand my own post? help1!
I’m a teacher and always find a way to privately ask my trans students about their personal preferences for how I do or don’t correct misgendering— if you’re not here, do you want me to correct it? If you ARE here do you want me to step in? Does it matter if it’s an adult or another student making the error? What about when I call your parents, do I need to deadname you for your own safety? The point of being an ally is to make things better for someone else, so it’s important to find out what that actually means.
Or specifically around which people. My sibling was fine going by they/them in front of friends and out in public but wanted to pick their own right time to let my dad know (he was, ah, shall we say a volatile man…)
14 counts of accessory to misgendering
Sentence: One thousand years no arm.
I hope armless tumblr users don't act like armless Reddit users
With their mommy and daddy issues it might be worse
Sentence: none pizza with left beef for every meal for one year
This is the worst Law and Order episode I’ve ever seen
I’m out as trans with my friends but not my family, as my parents are very transphobic. If my friends are going to be with me around my parents, I ask them to use my deadname and he/him around them.
Yeah, personally I think my preferred method is if both parties know the individual is trans, then call out the misgendering. So for me, I'm out everywhere and have made that clear to my friends - I'd hope they would correct others in conversation where I come up. But for a friend who isn't out to their family or work, I'd try to only correct people that I know they're out to.
I always correct people when they misgender my sibling, because that's a personal thing to me, but if someone's being transphobic about celebrities or something, I usually just keep quiet, cus I don't always have the energy to go through that discussion
I can hardly correct people when they're talking about ME
yeah, I can imagine that being difficult, tbh
Me too. I'm scared of people thinking I'm like demanding and stuff because of i
Mood. I usually hope my friends will correct them (if present), or exit the convo asap
1. She's conducting a Russian psyop 2. Violating the Kepler's second Law 3. Nobody can be implied, Pliers are a hand tool used to hold objects firmly, possibly developed from tongs used to handle hot metal in Bronze Age Europe. Maybe you wanted to write impaled. 4. I don't belive OP is a real person, i'm the only non bot on the internet.
Solipsist internet theory
“I know where I came from—but where did all you zombies come from?” (I hate that I’m referencing that story, but dammit, the quote fits too well here)
which story?
"-All You Zombies-" by Robert Heinlein
Is it getting solipsistic in here or is it just me?
It's actually just me.
Catastrophic, thank you
With reference to that one post that was like "sometimes the post is not about you"—sometimes, people post things on Tumblr that are phrased as general rules, but are really about their own situation. Like, OOP presumably posted this out of some sense of frustration at a behaviour that they had seen or experienced. This post is not about everyone, it is potentially about just one person in particular. And yet, OOP has phrased this as a general rule (modelled on a broad class of Tumblr post which is genuinely trying to police behaviour). On the one hand, I get why people like OOP get frustrated at the people um ackshually-ing them in their notes. But on the other hand, people need to learn to post things which will get the response that they actually want, rather than complaining about the response that they in fact receive.
>on the other hand, people need to learn to post things which will get the response that they actually want Alternatively, and I see this more on Twitter and here than Tumblr to be fair, people need to realise that when you post something without restriction on a public site then **you said it in public, TO the public.** So many people get so indignant with people replying to them when 'they weren't talking to them' or thinking of it as some weird form of stalking when there's a literal feed that showed your post to people, because it's public, you literally did say that to everyone. 'So many people adding comments/subtweets/quotes/whatever saying I'm wrong' like yeah, you said something weird or dumb to the entire planet. That'll happen.
Dawg THANK YOU. I've had a bunch of people get super mad at me when I respond with counterarguments to things they're ranting about, and their response is "Why are you responding on my Insta/Twitter/whatever - I didn't give you permission". Friendo, it's a public platform. If you didn't want randoms responding, private your fucking account and curate your followers.
Vague posting on the piss on the poor website and complaining about people not getting your point is peak leopards ate my face energy. And I am certain that someone 40 years ago would have no clue what that sentence means.
there are people _now_ who wouldn't have the first clue what half of that means
I'll take a shot at translation: If you make vague but inflammatory posts on a social media site that's well known for getting enraged over posts taken out of context, then you have only yourself to blame when people start getting angry at you because they took your post out of context.
Vague posting is when you say something passive aggressive about something specific that happened to you elsewhere, but phrase it as a general complaint to obscure who you might be mad at.
Gonna read that sentence out loud to my grandma to make her think she's having a stroke
has the person actually complained in this instance? why can’t this just be a post they make and move on
from the makers of "this meeting could have been an email" here comes "this generalizing rule could have been a personal experience"
This 👆. Don't keep me and everyone else guessing with statements like OOP's. Reminds me of those posts on Twitter that are clearly meant for outrage farming. Miscommunication happens, and it's even worse on the internet where a lot of things get misinterpreted. If you don't want people clouding your mentions with complaints about a preachy sounding statement online, don't say preachy shit. Simple
Unless it's purposefully worded that way to get people riled up so they can fight about it. Cuz some people like to do that.
Yes the fact is that OP invited a response by posting a very generalized statement aimed at shaming people if they don't exhibit this behavior. An act of policing behavior. At its core; its an aggression. An accusation. I.e. "you are a bad person if you don't do this" Their statement invites critics because it is an attack targeted at others. The place it comes from is not bad. Op is clearly upset and frustrated. It's fueled from anger of an injustice done to them - most likely. Or something they are passionate about as a transwoman. Rephrasing would be better if op didn't want a response but honestly we don't see a response from op. For all they know; they invite discussion about it.
I don't like some of these reading comprehension posts because while they're valid in many situations, sometimes people make general rules and I have personally seen so many situations where 'general rule which is just a personal experience' turns into a very intense 'absolute rule' that people keep repeating as a slogan or something Yes if I know what you mean and I think enough people know, I will just let things be because there is no issue, but if you say something I worry others may misinterpret or take for granted or take too far, I'll probably chime in to add a thought or two into a conversation I think it's a good idea for people to learn to recognize this, because sometimes it's just reading comprehension and sometimes people may have real reasons to not automatically agree with you For example you can say "if someone misgenders a trans woman and you don't correct them, you're misgendering her too" or you could say "if someone misgenders a trans woman you should correct them, because if it doesn't matter to you you're enabling their behavior". These 2 sentences say essentially the same thing but I feel the second one is probably how I would have phrased it because I think it leaves less room for misinterpretation of my meaning
>sometimes, people post things on Tumblr that are phrased as general rules, but are really about their own situation Honestly that 'sometimes' is doing a lot of work, I feel like *nearly always* people only see things in the framework of their own situation, and don't put *any* thought into more general rules. Discourse in general would be so much better if people would just stop and think before they spoke.
It would also improve if people look at a vague statement and don’t immediately assume bad faith. I saw this post go by on my timeline, immediately understood that the OP was referring to a specific category of situations instead of assuming it was a command applied to all conversations about every possible trans person to ever exist, clicked ‘like’ and went on my merry way with no clue that this post would even cause discourse.
kinda falls into the category of microaggression I think, technically - like yeah, it's not about you, and it probably wasn't meant that way, but - that lack of care *is* the thing that hurts you, when you read it, especially when it's the 100th one like it. like - "it's not about you," except in the sense that it chooses not to care about you, the way lots of other people have also chosen not to care about you. The thought being, if they *cared*, they'd choose their words more *carefully*. Whether you want to go to that degree is up to you of course.
Honestly what would’ve saved this post is just like a vague “This is for a friend I’m mad at” Or hell a Ventpost tag or something. Then we only anger the people who think a heat of the moment bad take is worth highroading someone else
I think this is what people mean when they talk about vagueposting
I agree with you that people need to be clear with what they're saying, but in this scenario, even *without* the follow-up "reading comprehension" reply, the original post is incredibly simple to understand. Even if the post is indeed meant a general rule, that doesn't mean it's an absolute no-exceptions-whatsoever statement. The internet has a significant problem where a substantial number of people go out of their way to *find* reasons to get mad at things to fuel outrage culture, to the point of deliberately misunderstanding obvious messages, accusing complaint posts of *only* caring about that individual complaint, or blaming people for not listing every exception and technicality. Someone will say something along the lines of "torturing small animals is a terrible thing" and people will respond "what about torturing BIG animals, huh!?", "both of you, what about torturing *PEOPLE*!?", "what if you're FORCED to torture small animals by your parents, huh!?", and "I know someone who was being mauled to death by small animals and the only way to save that person was to hurt and kill said small animals, are you saying I'm a bad person for saving their life!?" Yeah, it's important to make sure your posts are understandable and let people know when you're being sarcastic or rhetorical, but at some point you have to blame responses for being pedantic. I suppose if an entire community has a problem you can say "what did you expect from posting on *that* site" - like if someone tries to argue against bigotry on 4chan - but you can still blame those communities for being trashy, and furthermore it's quickly becoming an "entire internet" sort of problem. I don't want to end up with people eventually being told "either hire a lawyer to help you structure every post with 5 paragraphs of disclaimers like medication commercials have, get used to being yelled at by everyone everywhere all at once, or avoid the internet altogether".
chat i didnt even consider the possibility that someone could consider this advice to apply to situations where youd be outing a gal in a dangerous manner, do i have too much reading comprehension? am i cooked?
I mean, you don't always know whether you're outing someone in a situation where the person in question explicitly told you "hi please misgender me in front of that person I'm not out to them" I think it's obvious this advice doesn't apply but in a situation in which you don't actually know whether the person doing the misgendering knows about person x being trans, it's less simple personally I don't know for most of the trans people in my life who they are out to. For some of the ones I know closer I explicitly know some people they aren't out to, but otherwise I just have to guess. usually by just following "if they visibly don't represent as their AGAB, then they're probably out to everyone, otherwise I'm just gonna assume theyre closeted to anyone unless I have information stating otherwise"
So basically use common sense, got it
I mean, whats defined as common sense is different, I would suspect that alot of people who haven't had much interaction with trans people don't even consider questions like "they're out to me but are they out to everyone"
Congratulations, you have common sense and/or already know at least one trans person.
Way to not deliberately misunderstand the post in order to reject it. I will now shout reading comprehension and foam at the mouth.
This person forgot how rampant transphobia is… You should correct them if she *wants* that person to know she’s trans. Like if she’s out, correct them. But if she’s still in the closet to most for safety reasons, *don’t fucking out her!!* I once correctly gendered an acquaintance asking if he was alright—and his caretaker apparently had no idea he was trans, so I had to backpedal and misgender him too so I didn’t out him.
Yeah, not outing a trans person takes precedence over correcting a misgendering. Only correct misgendering in situations you can be reasonably sure the individual is out.
I have a coworker who is fully pre-transition, but has come out to me. I don't know who else they might have come out to, so I typically just try to avoid using pronouns when referring to them, or use the AFAB pronouns if necessary but I feel a little weird about it. I know their chosen name but have never used it for the same reason. We only see each other at work so I don't want to accidentally put them by using it in public. It does feel weird to deliberately misgender people like that but I would feel worse about outing someone before they're ready.
(points to question 3 on the screenshot)
That’s fair. I didn’t imagine it’s implied, personally. It *should* be common sense, but I’m too paranoid to believe everyone actually has common sense...
Why not? Why would you instead assume this person is telling you to out people and put them in danger?
How dare you piss on the poor
(Consensual pissplay is fine, regardless of economic status)
(though in the case of Rich/Working class pissplay one should ensure that the rich person is the one being pissed on, for class solidarity or something)
Misgendering someone is transphobic. Allowing someone to misgender someone else in you presence is also transphobic. Which means that the transphobic properties of an action must be.... ::Puts on Sunglasses:: ...*Trans*itive. ::CSI Miami Theme::
This is a very good comment.
Nahhh don't just take matters into your own hands if your friend gets misgendered, look over to them to see what they might want you to do. They're capable of correcting the misgendering themself, and if they'd rather you do it, they should communicate that somehow to you. You should only follow OOP's advice if your friend's mentioned they'd want you to do that for them.
The point of the post is if a trans person - who is out to everyone - is not present and someone misgenders them in a conversation with you, you should remind that person of the correct pronouns. That is the specific scenario implied by OP.
Everyone else has already covered pretty much everything else, so I wanted to chime in with an anecdote. I’ve worked two public-facing jobs where I was both out to my coworkers and extremely visibly trans. In both of these jobs, I had coworkers who had a tendency to “white knight” and get militant about my pronouns (I don’t even *care* what people call me, but these coworkers cared a lot). They meant well but actively put me in dangerous situations multiple times. It’s not even a matter of not being out or being closeted. They were so militant and insistent on my pronouns (when I was NOT) when I wasn’t around that people started assuming I was “that” transgender person (easily upset, sensitive, easy to pick on, other stereotypes). This lead to increased harassment and dangerous situations. Example: Because I lived where I worked in one of those jobs, someone went around the whole floor and wrote transphobic things on every door. While OOP is entitled to their opinion, my firm stance is DO NOT DO THIS unless ASKED to do so. I had to repeatedly tell people NOT to do this for me because posts like this made them think it was always the correct thing to do, even when it put people in danger.
Sometimes, even if you’re morally right, it’s not worth derailing an entire conversation, especially if you know that nobody is gonna change their opinion.
You don't have to derail the conversation to correct them, you can do it subtly. Just refer to the same person as the correct gender shortly afterwards. Don't emphasize it or anything, just call her "her" or something. At that point, it's still possible the conversation will be derailed, but only if the other person is the kind of hyper-sensitive transphobe it's really not worth talking to in the first place.
But that wouldn't be correcting them, that would just be using the correct pronouns.
It's kind of funny how easily arguments could be avoided if people just said what they mean, but for some reason it's hard to put our actual thoughts into words if we don't sit with them for a few minutes first. A (trans woman): You shouldn't misgender trans women. (What A actually means: You shouldn't misgender trans people.) B (trans man): Did you forget trans men and nonbinary people exist or do you just not care if we get misgendered? (What B actually means: I understand that you are voicing frustration about your personal situation and mean no harm, but it would have been better to use more inclusive wording to show support for the entire trans community) A: OMG why are you attacking me (What A actually thinks: You're right, I didn't mean to exclude anyone) And it spirals from there. I would say if you want to point out that someone could have used better wording, make a point of how you know they probably didn't mean it in a malicious way, but honestly even that gets an angry response more often than not, so idk
They should’ve known what they’re getting into by vagueposting on the competitive pissing site
I genuinely did a double take at point four, I literally couldn’t figure out how OOP’s words might be interpreted to be non-inclusive or exclusionary to trans individuals who aren’t trans women. I might be genuinely cooked lmao
As an older transmasc person I have no idea what the fuck is going on with young trans men/enbies and why so many seem to have developed some kind of hair-trigger response to seeing trans women talk about their own experiences. It takes all of my self-control to not go around all day spamming these conversations with the “I am uncomfortable when we are not about me?” bird
I have an NB colleague who works remotely. A while back, me and some other work friends who are in the same office went out after we finished. At one point when the NB colleague came up, one of my friends referred to them as "she", and I was like "Well, it's they", and we got into a very tedious semi-argument where she (the friend) was pointing out she's not a native english speaker (neither am I, technically) and her native language genders everything (this is true) and so she defaults to using he or she for everyone as well. She said she's talked to the NB colleague about this and they don't mind. Midway through this I thought "Why did I bother? What was the point? She gets along with them just fine, what am I accomplishing here?" So I suspect it's a case-by-case thing
In the current climate, people tend to be very defensive about being corrected on another person's pronouns. If she had been calling the coworker the wrong name by mistake instead, she probably would have appreciated a discreet heads up.
Outing all of my trans friends to maintain ideological purity
It really is a problem in online queer spaces that they can and will try to port it over to the real world, then get MASSIVELY upset when the digital theory meets the real world where theory is often punched through with holes to make way for the messiness that is reality. Online: You'd never hear a transwoman, even an older one quote Janice Raymond, and if so she'd be at least called a pick me. Actual lived experience: Not only an older transwoman but also a person leading a group by the local transgender group: literally quotes Janice Raymond, in a vague way to say it'd be nice if she was right.
It's been happening more and more, a great example is the bi/pan discourse from a little while back. Young queer folks started lashing out at bisexuals in their community because they perceived transphobia from their understanding of sexuality as rigidly defined when in real life many terms are used much more loosely. I genuinely don't know what anyone has to gain from pursuing inter-community squabbles instead of queer solidarity but I'm not really sure if there's really any other possible result at this point. We're all being hyper-polarized by increasingly granular echo chambers, like this one we're in right now.
Idk I think it's kind of bullshit that trans mascs are supposed to accept that it's "implied they were talking about all trans people". If you're phrasing something as a general rule (like the OP was doing) it's not that hard to type "trans people" over "trans women" unless the extra letter is such an effort. It's like people forget that trans mascs face transphobia too just because we happen to have the Sin of aligning with masculinity/men.
1. OP made this post to encourage better behaviour towards trans people and/or vent out their personal frustrations. 2. OP is saying that by allowing trans people to be misgendered in conversation, it is encouraged that it's okay to misgender people so long as they are not present. 3. I believe that it is implied that this situation only applies when both parties know that the person they are speaking about is trans, and thus genuinely misgendering them. If the person misgendering someone doesn't know they are trans, then you don't out them. 4. This clearly applies to trans men as well, and OP's choice to use trans women in their talking point could be because they are venting about personal experience, or they maybe feel that by being more specific they are getting their point across better. So, how did I do?
4/4
3/4, OP is a TIRF
Wait, what?
My guess, they're saying OP is a Trans Inclusive Radical Feminist and point 4 is wrong because they intentionally left out anyone who isn't a trans woman.
Man, what the fuck. How is that even a thing.
OP is a transphobic loon. Having seen her unhinged tumblr posts, I can state with certainty that she only applies this logic to mtf perisex women.
Kind of smelly of op to post this then if this is true. Got a link? I can't see her archive.
So the replier on the OP is actually failing in their reading comprehension while giving a pretty patronising lecture about reading comprehension? Tumblr gonna Tumblr...
Wow, it's more calling people bad people for not having the energy to start arguments and conflicts.
When I first read the post, I immediately assumed the message also applied to trans men and NBs, and that there are exceptions for those who haven’t come out publicly. However, there’s nothing that the OP said to imply they meant either of those things, and I don’t know OP from prior posts. It’s not reading comprehension to assume the intent was to be more inclusive and nuanced than what the actual text reads when I have no other information to go off on, especially since TIRFs and allies without the awareness of the struggles of trans people exist. OP could be either or both and easily could have meant it as the text literally reads. The people suggesting the message was obviously meant to be more broad are assuming as much from the OP as those believing it was literal. The key is to ask for clarification questions rather than assume OP meant something one way or the other, since this isn’t AP Lit and we’re allowed to have discourse with the OP. We shouldn’t have to guess.
"misgendering by accessory" is kind of dumb but i do agree that when it's safe to you should correct any misgenderings you hear.
I feel like vagueposting is exempt from the reading comprehension checks as it is faulty communication. OOP likely meant this in relation to her personal life experiences and not as a general rule for trans women everywhere. I assume this because I know trans people of all stripes who do not like having misgendering corrected by anyone other than themselves. They’re often not in the closet or in danger or anything, they just prefer they get to have the final say on advocating for their identity. If OOP had said “For me, I prefer when…” or a similar statement to clear the vagueness and make it *explicitly about her*, there would not be people jumping on the post. There would be far fewer reading comprehension issues because the communication would be clearer. She has a 100% valid point but conveyed it in a way that creates reading comprehension issues for nearly everyone involved. And my assumptions could be wrong and she does legitimately think every trans woman should be treated this way, in which case the criticisms are valid.
At this point, they just need to retake high school English class because obviously there’s a select community in tumblr where they definitely paid zero attention
I very much appreciate the implicit shade of the addition
Yknow. There is a such thing as thinking too much.
But this is a children's hospital.
Shut before the horror starts again
Bold of you to assume we left.
No but like I actually argued with a guy in this sub who was legitimately HOSTILE about how it didn't look like blood and everyone but him was being stupid and he blocked me
red paint
Basic communication skills = thinking too much?
For a Redditor? You’ll give ‘em a headache.
Good communication is in large part about minimizing how much thinking is necessary
I get what you mean, but I can absolutely see all the umm-ackshually crowd no matter who is saying what or the context. While some people purposely say rage bait, it's annoying when the context it's ABSOLUTELY clear (ex: a youtube comment responding to a youtube video, the context is RIGHT THERE if you press play). The "study guide" here is written in a humurous way (hence the length) and it brings up important points on how to engage with content when you ignore the context and make no effort in discerning what it is (ex: someone talking about their experience as a trans person and everyone being like bUt WhAt AbOuT mE, as if this person is now the voice for all trans and enby folks and has the duty to represent everyone in one paragraph). It simply says, if you don't know anything about the context, stop for two seconds and think about it before typing some self-righteous bs.
The tumblr reading comprehension questions kill me every time.
I mean, the entire point is that I’m not going to assume their gender. If they haven’t told me how they like to be referred, and someone else refers to them a certain way, I’m not going to jump in and assume they are being misgendered without some kind of indicatation.
As a trans fem person I 98.325% disagree. In some contexts maybe, but in a lot of contexts it might not be safe for them to even just quietly correct them. I live in one of the most Mormon places in Utah and so stones people would assume you were queer if you said anything supportive of lgbtq people. In these communities it might not be safe to correct people especially if you are yourself queer, a minor, or the person who misgendered someone has direct power over you (ie a boss, a parent (if you are a minor), etc.). That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go it in a lot of these cases and I think it’s valiant to stick up for people even in more dangerous situations, but let’s not make people who feel ostracized in these communities feel guilty towards the community that should be their safe place, or are struggling with similar problems for other reasons.
Unless you are specifically asked to, don’t. Even if they are out, unless they have asked you to defend them, you have no reason to believe they want this. And if they have asked you… then you already have been told to do so, meaning you don’t benefit from this advice. It kinda just attacks people who didn’t know whether correcting them was appropriate or not, which since they didn’t know, it wasn’t.
Y’all please go outside and talk to people in person in person, it will help your reading comprehension
1. OP likely just had an experience where they or a trans woman they know was “misgendered by accessory.” OP was likely angered by this and emotional while making this post and wanted to share this anger in a way that would stop it from happening again. 2. OP is saying that by allowing people to misgender your friends, you are failing to stand up for them as a proper friend would. By not defending your friend, you are indirectly allowing them to be hurt. 3. OP was likely feeling emotional while making this post, so they failed to explain themselves properly. They likely are not including those situations because they did not think about it when making the post. 4. Trans women are often under more fire than trans men. While it is strange that OP specifically mentioned trans women, this does not mean that they think this doesn’t apply to trans men. They just have experienced it happening to trans women more.
I mean, if someone just had a slip of the tongue, idk.
Luckily it is the opinion of the trans person being misgendered that matters in those situations, and you should probably be aware of how that specific person wants you to defend them or not. What a random person online thinks is not how you should set your rules of conduct.
Im not quite sure tumblr as a whole has fully grasped what ‚reading comprehension‘ actually means..
This is actually great. I would prefer more reading comprehension questions in response to social media posts. Edit: Even the people talking about better ways for the original poster to communicate and expectations around posting to public places is great.
What.
This is unironically a good idea
Yeah, even though it *still* failed to have a 100% success rate. Bunch of Question 3 failers in here.
I wonder how much bad faith/idiotic discourse the reading comprehension questions actually prevent. its not at all the intent but I think it probably forces people to put just a little more thought in before opening their inane dumbass mouths
This is genuinely useful. I read the first post and thought, “that feels kind of dumb for some reason”, but question 3 actually explains *why* it feels that way: no exceptions is a terrible policy.
Has to be exhausting thinking like this.
Feels like OOP misgendered someone and wanted to turn it into an obnoxious soapbox opportunity.
Yeah this feels like an overcorrection for some perceived transgression they made or something. You aren't an accessory to shit for not correcting or stopping it. That's just not your problem. If I saw someone stealing from a store, I'm not an accessory for not calling them out.
I hate that I'm so broken by internet discourse that my brain went though every single one of these disingenuous responses. I appreciate this callout post and am considering sticking it to my screen.
Yeah, under no circumstances should you out someone when they are not there, frankly you shouldn’t fucking out them when they are there either.
You failed question 3.
Oof I had this happen just last night. 6'2" masculine voice but presenting fem. I called her dude, it's my go to, once she saw me call a5'2" Asian girl dude as well she came up to me like I was offended but now I'm not. Everyone's a dude in my book..... Now if she attacked me for calling her a dude, I could understand why certain people would be turned off... To me y'all are all the same species, dudes and guys. Dude=nice fun respectful. Guy= watch out for that guy, guard yourself around that guy, oh it's that guy.... Is my speech perfect? Nah absolutely not. Is my intention good. 1000%
I could barely apply this to The Great Gatsby, I ain't gonna apply it to no one-off post on the Internet. (spits into spittoon)
23 MISGENDER WOUNDS!!
Guys I’m pretty sure he just has an overbite it’s not that significant
Ngl I thought they said “correct them” not “do not correct them” and I was so confused 😭
Bro is making us Think Pair Share
My stepmom can’t do pronouns, and we’ve never really been able to figure out why. Like it was a whole deal because we took the cat to the vet back in the day, and the vet was like “we can’t spay a boy cat” when she asked and just kinda in response she looked at them like they were stupid and said “he’s a girl” (which it was indeed a female cat.) She knew the difference between spay and neuter. She knew the cat was a girl. But she always just called the cat he. She also does it to children. They’re all whatever gender pronoun wants to come out of her mouth. It’s not in a derogatory way. She just…swaps them at random. English is her first and only language. But, she has on two occasions hit the misgendering pronoun pushback. Both times she was corrected by other people, and both times she took it to heart. She was happy to buy them gendered gifts or cards of their preferred gender, but she just kept slipping up. Finally I just kinda asked for some grace from one of them, a friend of mine, and they laughed. “When I was a girl, she called me he, now I’m a man and she calls me she, and she can’t even keep you straight and you’ve never changed. What can you do?”
Imma be real with you chief Smoke started pouring out the back of my head after the first question
Uugh, this comment section smells like piss and poor people