genders, misgenders, miss genders
Feb. 18th, 2014 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutSo I got to thinking today on my walk home from the bus stop. Some of this was prompted by the new Facebook gender options and how I am too lazy to go and change mine. Some of this by other stuff. Some of it by the Street Sheet guy in front of Arizmendi saying to me, "have a nice day, miss."
I was thinking about how I would have been just as happy with a "have a nice day, sir."
And also that I was not unhappy with "miss."
I was thinking about how apologetic people get when they misgender someone (say, a baby -- or me), as if it were the worst thing in the world to do. the worst. the absolute worst.
And then I thought about pronouns. And how I don't really give a fuck.
This is where I make sure to say that I am speaking only for myself, here. But really. I don't give a fuck. As far as I'm concerned, you can't really misgender me and you don't need to apologize if you change your mind about how you read me on second glance.
I reserve the right to be amused at how this goes against the grain of commonly accepted practice in my community. But fuck it.
In a lot of ways, I think that if you think of gender as a conversation, say, an exchange, as a message, an epiphenomenon of verbal and nonverbal communication, a two-or-more-way street, however you would like to slice it -- then my gender these days is "I'm not talking to you right now." (Echoes of "Mom, I wasn't actually talking to you, I was talking to my sister.")
And I'm OK with that.
I was thinking about how I would have been just as happy with a "have a nice day, sir."
And also that I was not unhappy with "miss."
I was thinking about how apologetic people get when they misgender someone (say, a baby -- or me), as if it were the worst thing in the world to do. the worst. the absolute worst.
And then I thought about pronouns. And how I don't really give a fuck.
This is where I make sure to say that I am speaking only for myself, here. But really. I don't give a fuck. As far as I'm concerned, you can't really misgender me and you don't need to apologize if you change your mind about how you read me on second glance.
I reserve the right to be amused at how this goes against the grain of commonly accepted practice in my community. But fuck it.
In a lot of ways, I think that if you think of gender as a conversation, say, an exchange, as a message, an epiphenomenon of verbal and nonverbal communication, a two-or-more-way street, however you would like to slice it -- then my gender these days is "I'm not talking to you right now." (Echoes of "Mom, I wasn't actually talking to you, I was talking to my sister.")
And I'm OK with that.
