as small as a world and as large as alone

10:16am September 1, 2014

imnotevilimjustwrittenthatway:

madeofpatterns:

Loud vocal anger is *not* a valid response to someone who has a neurological problem with pronouns being unable to use the correct ones consistently.

It is not ok to punish someone for being disabled.

Uh, sorry, no?

If someone can’t use either my name or the correct pronouns (there are multiple ones I’d accept) then yeah, I’m gonna be mad if they ever refer to me in a misgendering way. I don’t really care if some random internet stranger has declared my anger at being misgendered by anyone, for any reason, to be invalid.

And maybe that’s one of those situations where it’s not really any one person’s fault or responsibility to change but that they just need to avoid one another, but still, I’m not gonna shut up about or put up with being hurt just because someone ‘can’t help it’. 

I could see how two people would just have to avoid each other.  But “We’d better avoid each other” is different than “I’m going to verbally berate you for something you have no conceivable control over.”

I actually went a long time before telling anyone my preferred pronouns, because I have so many friends who have pronoun problems and I didn’t want them to believe I’d blow up at them for using the wrong ones, the way I know they’d seen happen to others.

(FWIW mine are, in order of preference:  sie/hir, ze/zer/zem, xe/xyr/xem, they/their/them, and anything else.  Strong, strong preference for the first ones, though, and moderately strong preference for the next two sets.)

Problem is, I know people who are not capable of any pronouns but the usual types, because they have trouble with neologisms, and may even have trouble getting the right pronouns in regular situations with cis people.  Pronoun trouble is actually (or has been, on and off) part of the *actual diagnostic criteria* for autism, so it’s a huge deal for some autistic people to get *any* pronouns right.  I often get pronouns wrong, although I try to default to singular ‘they’ when I don’t know, because it seems the one least likely to cause offense.  But even then, I can mean to write they and have literally any other pronoun come out, including ones that aren’t even third person.

So that’s why I don’t support blowing up at people over pronouns.  I can see why, if pronouns are a huge issue for both parties in different ways, the two would have to just avoid each other.  But I still can’t see treating someone like they’re deliberately misgendering you when they’re clearly not, is going to help anyone in any way.  Like yes, it still hurts regardless of why they’re doing it, but the why part matters a good deal in terms of whether they’re being abusive or just verbally clumsy.

So that’s why I try to first off give people a sort of 'sliding scale’ of pronouns in order of preference (even though I do find some pronouns every bit as upsetting as any other person would), and then, if I know they’re autistic or have another cognitive disability, cut them some slack.  Like my best friend in the entire world is not able to use neologism pronouns whatsoever, so any pronoun she uses is going to misgender me, and I can’t exactly break up the closest friendship I’ve ever had just because she’s autistic.  Especially when the only reason I can handle certain pronouns is I was exposed to them at a younger age than she was.  (And like me, she’s genderless, but unlike me, she doesn’t really have a preferred pronoun.  For whatever reason I strongly, strongly prefer sie/hir over anything else, and even ze and xe feel weird in comparison, and all the regular pronouns feel really bad.)

At any rate, the misgendering that makes me angry is the kind done on purpose.  I have trouble getting angry at people with a condition where pronoun problems have been diagnostic for it since it was first identified in the 1940s.  I get far more pissed off at people who try to talk me into believing that as a genderless AFAB person I am actually “transmasculine” or something.  Which seems to be considered somehow an okay thing to assert in this community, whereas flubbing pronouns by accident because of a neurological condition seems to be one of the ultimate sins and considered on par with flubbing pronouns on purpose or because you don’t care enough.

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