only another butch would understand

[Jet]

Originally Posted by Cyclopea

I know exactly how you feel as a butch when your gender is not respected. Male pronouns make me cringe. But I don't intend to live with it, and I don't think you should live with wrong pronouns either. We just need to keep correcting people. I also concur that one would hope that the queer community would be most conscious of diversity- we don't expect to be invalidated in our own community. We just need to keep educating people. Most of them probably mean well...
As for a girlfriend or partner that tries to inflict hurt through intentional disrespect- that's just nasty and I'm sorry that happened to you.

I live in the deep south where pronouns are a part of respect, Every sentence begins with ..."Miss..." I can't change things—not even one person at a time; this is about tradition—hundreds of years, tradition. I think what pains me the most, is that I have danced around this issue for the better part of my life. I wanted to leave the midwest (which is nothing short of a tight perm) and come to an international city, thinking it would embrace diversity; it doesn't, it's just as provincial as LA; people were not "gender-ID" sensitive or versed there either.

Some things...

If I were to date again (which isn't plausible for me) I would do certain things, like make reservations and tell the restaurant that I want my wait staff to be gender-ID sensitive, and that protocol with me is to use masculine pronouns. Just an example of changing things in certain settings or situations.

But...

what really blows my mind is how discriminating folks are in our own community. My personal take is that I don't question people on who they are. It's not for me to understand, it's for me to respect another person, period.

I was "dis-invited" to 4th of July this year outing by a gay man who couldn't deal with the pronoun thing and didn't want me around because his sister and mother were going to be there. He was afraid I would embarrass them. I wasn't even given a chance to say that I would have been gracious towards them.

I'm done y'all. I live for myself—I don't get in anyone's way. I say very little.

Y'all have a wonderful holiday.