Why?? Why the fuck are people trying to justify misgendering trans women? I just saw a video on Lilly Tino (not linking to it, I don’t want to support that human piece of shit who made it) and people kept misgendering her in the video and also saying that she deserves to be misgendered because she “doesn’t put enough effort to look like a woman” or that “she makes trans women look bad” and that means they think she doesn’t deserve to be addressed by her preferred pronouns. What the actual fuck? I never really liked Lilly Tino’s content, it seems cringey and I don’t like TikTok anyway but seriously what the fuck? Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s made super uncomfy by this casually accepted or even morally accepted transphobia. Like by this stupid logic I’m not valid because I’m a tomboy, because I didn’t shave off my mustache, because passing isn’t of the utmost importance to me.
Also I think this outrage is stupid because it’s trying to stigmatize us for speaking out about being misgendered simply for not passing. Like what the fuck? Misgendering is extremely disrespectful and when people do it on purpose why shouldn’t I yell at them “what can I get you ma’am” speaks “oh, sorry sir” that’s intentional misgendering, and I will absolutely yell at someone who does this to me, because if I don’t they’ll just keep doing it.
I don’t know what Lilly Tino did to create such drama and I don’t care, this reeks of the same garbage transphobic rhetoric I’ve heard all my life (and unfortunately participated in before I knew better) and it’s disgusting. Fuck all the people engaging in it and misgendering this person, or encouraging misgendering as a form of punishment. I’m sorry but I’m just really pissed about all this and I know a lot of this is just ranting.
I mean, I’m completely down to misgendering or dehumanizing transphobes who do it first.
But that kind of situation aside, and cases where people do it without malicious intent (you example can also be because they think they misgendered you at first and are now trying wrongly trying to correct themselves) because they just genuinely guessed wrong aside, it’s almost always transphobia.
Now there is one other case that is a bit special: Intentional misgendering of people independent of their trans status: This can for example happen in pep talk in sports, if a couch refers to the members of the boy’s team as “girls” or when someone ironically refers to a group of men as “ladies”. This is not generally speaking transphobic, but it can be potentially be sexist.
To give an example: At the start of my previous job (before covid and before I transitioned), I was talking with my boss about alcohol and that I prefer cocktails. Apparently the same holds for her boyfriend and she refered to us as “the girls” over this. Nowadays when I tell that story, I like to joke that “if [her boyfriend] wants to have a private conversation with me, I’m definitely available for that”.