azurelunatic | Some notes to the cisgendered

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Some notes to the cisgendered

I have observed some oopses in more than one place relatively recently.

Rather than yell about individual lapses, which would probably be counterproductive and generally more woe than I signed up for, some ettiquette tips when dealing with communities where gender is complicated! Particular attention to gender-neutral stuff in this edition. These may not be the most universal, but in a community with a lot of genderqueer or gender-neutral folks, it helps to not default to binary gender.

Pronouns are complicated but important. You may be used to looking at a person and being able to tell what the right ones are, but that does not always work in this community. If you suspect you will not remember it if told once, consider making a note in your address book, or preparing to apologize for your poor memory for pronouns.

If you don't know someone's correct pronouns, gender-neutral is generally more polite than guessing. Either way, people will be upset, but in a less whole-day-ruining kind of way.

If someone who goes by gender-neutral pronouns in general shares what parts/the gender assigned to them at birth, continue using their gender-neutral pronouns, in both public and private, thereafter. If the person you're talking to in private doesn't know or shouldn't know, that would be bad. At best it's dreadfully tacky.

Keeping track of who has what information about whose gender identity (say, the trans* guy who is out to his friends, goes gender-neutral online, and totally in the closet to the transphobic parents he's financially dependent on) is a terrifying social juggling act. It gets slightly easier with practice, but still nerve-wracking.

Using the correct pronouns in your own thoughts (if you can manage it) helps prevent embarrassing slip-ups.

Getting other people's genders wrong in a binary-biased or birth gender assignment essentialist fashion to someone whose gender is complicated is a sign to them that you cannot be trusted to get these things right, even if your intentions are good.

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Gender makes life so complicated. It's actually funny - when I read this post, I was also reading a Reddit thread about gender neutrality and its affect on careers.

Social constructs are annoying. They make me worry about offending people.

Probably better to worry about oppressing people than offending people... I don't think pointing out the difference is nitpicking. One is ultimately self-centered ("oh no, if I offend that person, they'll think I'm not a good person, and I don't want anyone thinking I'm not a good person") and the other is empathetic ("I don't want to hurt people").

That's true. I think I'm the last person who would be oppressing people, however. And it's less about whether or not I want them to think I am a good person vs. I want them to know that I respect them.

Most people who think they're the last person to oppress people probably aren't? Since I don't know you, I'll use an example that's about me: I'm white. I oppress people of color by having unearned advantages that would probably go to somebody else in a just world, but that I get despite being not as good/talented/hard-working because I'm perceived as white. Taking something that somebody else should have is pretty much the definition of oppression. While I can't do much about this *directly*, what acknowledging it means for me is to listen to people of color and believe them when they talk about their experiences, and also to not take undue credit for my accomplishments and acknowledge that I've had an easier time because I'm white.

While I'm not cis, it's likewise for people who are...

I personally tend to draw the distinction as being between offense "oh, *so* sorry I was queer in your general direction, Great-Uncle Bigot!" and hurtfulness "Oh, damn, I did not realize that was your toe! I'm very sorry!"

My thoughts about the term "oppression" to describe actions taken by people who are not in a place of power over an oppressed group or individual are complex and not fully formed, but I have no qualms about "hurtful".

In this particular case, the fucked-up and oppressive gender shenanigans are hurting people, and I would compare using the wrong pronoun (even accidentally) for someone whose gender goes against current norms to jostling a healing wound. Say I have just had an ingrown toenail operated on, and someone steps on my foot. Ultimately I do care whether they stepped on my foot on purpose, as that may make the difference between whether we hug each other two minutes from now or whether I deck them/avoid them thereafter, but the immediate concern is GET OFF MY DAMN FOOT. Someone without a wound in the same place might also be hurt (stepping on a toe can be painful and cause damage in some cases) and people should in general avoid stepping on each other's toes. But when someone says "Hi, I've got an ingrown toenail, please be careful," it's generally a good plan to take extra care with that thing.

When conversations about the current best practices in avoiding hurting [insert oppressed group of the moment] happen, a lot of times I observe well-meaning folk not of that group saying things like "but I was never told that ___ was offensive" or "when my workplace got the lecture on behaving appropriately to ___, we were taught something entirely different".

I have a couple thoughts on that.

* They were never told in the past that ___ was offensive; they're jolly well being told now.
* Standards change over the years; the acceptable terms are always changing, particularly when the (previously) acceptable terms have had a decade or so to get beaten pointy and poked into people by schoolyard bullies.
* Anything that's been around long enough to filter up into a workplace briefing on acceptable behavior in a professional environment is old enough to potentially be out of date or rapidly headed that direction.
* If the person saying "Uh, what you just said is massively inappropriate these days" or similar is a member of the group in question, please don't make it necessary for them to repeat themselves and add "As a member of the group in question, I'm telling you..."

Then there's the thing about getting consensus/having one person speak for all members of the group, but unless that person is entirely cut off from the community of their peers, they're likely to have a "well, I'm not personally hurt but I know enough people who would be to say that you'd better not say what you just said in public" perspective.

Edited 2012-12-27 20:27 (UTC)

I agree with pretty much all of this, yeah. I find that some people who are trying to be allies (but perhaps not trying very hard) seem to want to be given a checklist of things they can do to guarantee they'll never experience discomfort as a result of being called out. In addition to the problems with that which you've pointed out, there's also how it's just fundamentally disrespectful to individuals to demand that they enter into a contract -- of sorts -- of the form, "I agree that if you do A, B, and C, I waive the right to be upset about anything else you do." Normally people treat each other as individuals and recognize that different people feel different ways about things, and that there's no single rule for how to interact smoothly. The checklist-seeking behavior seems to be denying people in [marginalized group of the moment] that basic respect.

... that is a really good point, and I kinda wish this was on a blog post or something somewhere so that I could put into my 101 links folder. Cause... yeah. That happens LOTS and trying to put it into words is, well, I think your comment is the first time I have seen it summed up quite this well :)

I will add either finding such a post or writing it to my to-do list :-)

You may be used to looking at a person and being able to tell what the right ones are, but that does not always work

I still think it's true omitting the last three words, like so.

Indeed so.

It may help people to think of gender pronouns as a matter of identity declaration, like names/nicknames.

You may not know whether Roberto goes by Rob, Bob, Robby, Bob-o, or Bertie when you first meet. You may not always remember, if you mostly see his name on legal documents and rarely talk in person. But if you accidentally call him Rob when all his friends call him Bobby, he'll correct you, and you'll apologize, and you both move on.

You wouldn't think of insisting, "No, your name is ROB; everyone knows that Robert abbreviates to Rob, not Bobby."

If he said to call him Ro-ero ("just drop all the consonants after the first one, thanks"), you might blink in confusion, might even say "I've never heard it done that way before," but (if you're remotely a polite person) you're not going to argue that that can't possibly be what he's called.

We are not Google+. We don't require that names--or gender identities--pass some kind of verification before using them as requested.

(And if you can't remember his name, you don't just call him Ronnie or Ben or whatever comes to mind. You ask, or you put a question mark in your voice after the name you think might be right.)

This.

You wouldn't think of insisting, "No, your name is ROB; everyone knows that Robert abbreviates to Rob, not Bobby."

You'd think so, right? *sigh* The IRefuseToUseYourPronouns problem seems to be closely related to or possibly an instance of the larger class of the IRefuseToCallYouByTheNameYouDeclare problem.

This. This is the best way to put that that I ever saw.

Excellent.

(Although if your chosen nickname is gender-neutral and/or doesn't match your perceived gender, you will get this crap. Sigh.)

Mama uses the -y ending for her short-name of choice, rather than the -ie that some people expect. And lo, there is that crap. :\

I know that I am trying my level best to use pronouns in a considerate manner, but thank you for the reminder not to step on people's toes and offer hugs if you would like them.

This may sound a little weird, but using gender neutral language is also a big deal in majority female environments. It's a lot more welcoming to other women to treat gender as largely neutral, and if a male identified person participates, the gender neutral pronouns don't assume they're female (which a lot of men find offensive even if they realize how sexist the reaction is). I find a lot of other women want the option to decide whether or not they're "out" as a woman in a given community, even if it's majority female.

It's harder to make gender neutral language stick in majority male environments. A lot of men assume it's flattering to be thought male, and get upset at the notion that it isn't. Still, neutral language helps cut down on the assumption that everyone has to be male. I think a lot of men have trouble with the idea that gender is something they might prefer to keep neutral or optional.

Assumption of male as default in work IRC meant that I eventually had to come out in there.

In general, coming out is awkward at best.

I don't think I would have entirely considered it an actual coming-out if there were no gendered assumptions on my being in there.

I don't usually find coming out as female to be horrifically awkward. But I've had to come out a lot, and practice makes perfect. My (male) partner frequently prefers female characters in games, so he sometimes has to come out as male. Again, not horrifically awkward.

The point where it gets *really* bad is when I have to come out as female, he has to come out as male *and* we have to come out as straight. Lesbian couple misconception gets ok treatment. Pair of male friends gets ok treatment. Straight couple with our level of gender weird seems to really mess with the average gamer's head. It's by far the worst of our set of shared coming out speeches.

The other really awful coming out speech is the one my sister and I share for gaming. Some gamers just can't cope with the concept of sisters liking to game together.

Hah. Omg. I have so been there. Only add that we are polyamorous, I am pansexual, and my partner is genderqueer and male-bodied (this is an issue on voice chats) and is trying to figure out pronouns on top of that...

FORTUNATELY the guild that we run currently is full of incredibly awesome social justice aware people whose response to my partner coming out GQ was "Okay, awesome, what pronouns do you prefer?", but in the past? Yeah I still remember getting on Teamspeak in my first guild to hear: "WAIT VERA'S A GIRL? AND MARRIED? AND AND AND?" (It was amusing, since I was kinda known in guild for being really vocal about periods and sexist shit, but apparently this one guy managed to miss all of those eleventy billion conversations. And no, it was definitely not a case of not assuming gender identity based on anatomy.)

My partner isn't terribly gender queer. He's male, with an obviously male voice. His main character is female. He gets male pronouns, she gets female ones. I mean, obviously she lives in his head, so he's a bit genderqueer, but it's not a huge complicated Thing. There's not a huge shortage of gamer guys like that.

I think a lot more of the freakout comes from me. While I'm female and I present as female, I'm pretty loudmouthed and assertive, so if someone is thinking one of us is male, I'm the one they expect to be male. At this point I basically refuse to do voice chat with people who freak about my gender. And thankfully, I play on a Deaf friendly server, so not talking in voice chat is not a big deal. Words cannot express how much I adore Deaf group leads for making my gaming experience less gender hostile. Multi-lingual is good too, since the server has several large Spanish and Portuguese speaking guilds.

Oh goodness, yes. I've had several people over the years comment that I'm one of the most masculine women they have met. Which is a little funny in that my partner, prior to coming out genderqueer, got similar comments in the reverse direction, to the point that a friend asked me if he was trans and just shy about coming out. (Which was... kinda not okay but...)

For the last several years I have pretty much exclusively been a member of women-led guilds (at least two run by queer lady couples!), so there have been less assumptions on that score. But gods yes, if my partner and I run anything and happen to mention we're married they assume I'm male and he's female. Back in 2006, when we were leveling characters together, I very distinctly remember a group (this being long before "shut up and kill things" became common) that refused to believe that I, the warlock, was the chick and he, the healing pally, was the guy. (Their attitude seemed to be much more "guys don't heal!" than "chicks don't dps!", which... yeah...)

I have also been pretty lucky on the voice chat score, as while I don't mind, I can't always do it (migraines, auditory processing issues, just plain overstim...), and I've had some great guilds that have worked with me not being able to be on voice chat. Which is especially surprising when you consider that I have mained as a tank for the past 4yrs.

*snerk*

I'm a truly horrific healer. Terribad. My tanks last night were gleeful that I actually remembered to cast heals for them. Mostly, I DPS and look like I know what I'm doing because I can follow a main assist and I pay attention to directions. (note this does not mean I follow directions... I will freelance if something is badly mucked up) And yeah, there's definitely an assumption that chicks heal, and I think that plays into things some for me.

My partner is a fairly decent healer. He's also a pretty good tank. These two traits are not entirely unrelated. My sister is a really good tank, and also a pretty good healer. Tanking and healing are very similar jobs and a lot of tanks who get no training on healing will be far better than I am on heals.

IRL, my gender presentation is really obviously female. Not skirts and lipstick super femme, but not someone who gets mistaken for male ever. The three foot long hair may have a bit to do with that. My in game presentation isn't radically different... the only real difference is the assumption that chicks don't game.

My experience with transgender and/or genderqueer people is that asking which pronouns they prefer is polite and appreciated. (I am also TG, so maybe I'm less likely to ask a cis-gendered person what pronouns they prefer.)

This is something that will undoubtedly vary from person to person, but I doubt anyone would be offended by being asked, except for the rare, sensitive cis-male who is overly invested in being perceived as male. (I have only rarely seen this kind of interaction, and even then it wasn't as bad as one might expect.)

In groups, I absolutely agree that neutral gendered language is helpful. Having been the only female midshipman in my Navy ROTC unit made me painfully aware of every time they said, "gentlemen", "sirs", or any variation thereof. Including "midshipman". I've gotten very good at saying "people" instead of "guys" and other such terms. I even do it when referring to my traditionally gendered friends and lovers, just out of habit. There are worse habits to have, I'd say.

It's wrong to ask when you already know the answer and asking a pronoun is a way to out someone as trans, or call attention to their transness, if you know (or think) they're trans and the entire group doesn't.

Not saying you yourself would do this, but it is a thing that happens, and then indignant cis people get all like "but I thought I should always ask pronouns!"

I guess I most often ask people in environments where there are several or more genderqueer and/or trans folk already there. It hasn't been in a situation where the person would be outed.

If cis people are at a trans/GQ event, I would probably advise them to try listening for cues from other people and then just ask politely if they want to use pronouns. Asking for and using a name works pretty well in lieu of pronouns, though.

Yeah, it can be a fun experiment to see how long you can keep a conversation going without using pronouns. (Not recommended when you *do* know someone's pronoun but just don't want to use it -- again, that's not really aimed at you so much as any lurkers who might not know :-)

Thank you for this.

We're generally pretty good at not slipping up, ourselves and if we do we immediately apologize. But curiosity here. What're your feelings on asking politely for someone's pronoun?

I mean, for us, we'd prefer that people use gender-neutral pronouns for us if they're talking about us as a singlet, meaning singular they in this case. And we don't mind if people ask us what pronouns to use, but we know some people do mind. So, we just wanted your opinions.

Asking politely is a reasonable choice, I think. Definitely better than getting it very wrong.

see http://azurelunatic.dreamwidth.org/6981272.html?thread=13623960#cmt13623960 for my answer.

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Some notes to the cisgendered

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