There is something that almost every single trans* person can agree on; misgendering sucks.
It absolutely, positively, completely and utterly sucks.  Nothing ruins a mood like someone assuming your gender and having it be wrong.  It’s one thing to assume someone is one gender or another, but it’s a whole new ball game when you know you’re one gender with every particle of your being and it’s so hard to escape the assumption that you’re another.

After I became more involved in the queer community, I’ve found that simply thinking about misgendering confused me.  I don’t understand how people can just say a pronoun and hope it’s right.  No matter how a person presents, I’m always hesitant to use a gender-specific pronoun, no matter how blatantly feminine or masculine they appear, until they tell me flat out which pronoun they prefer.  It’s almost become a pet peeve of mine when people use gendered pronouns, especially female pronouns.  Being someone who used to be incredibly feminine and presented as female for many years, I have come to despise that particular pronoun, as well as the usage of the word “ladies” or “girls” or “chicks” or really most feminine words.  This is something I’ve noticed over the past year.  It really bothers me when people use a gender to get the attention of a person or a group of people.  Did you know that in the French language, if there is only one male in a group of females then every pronoun the use to address the group is masculine?  Yeah, that’s something that really bothered me about French class.

Okay, let’s get back on topic.

There are days when a stranger using the right pronoun (male) can make my whole day ten times better, and then there are days when someone I know personally uses the wrong pronoun (female) and doesn’t correct themself can ruin my day completely.  I hate how strong this all effects me, because it effects me a lot.  I was interning at an antique store the other day.  I wore a bow tie and a men’s button-up shirt and I had told the employees there that I was male and they used the right pronouns maybe twice and didn’t correct themselves when they used the wrong ones, even around customers, which made me angry.

What upsets me is that people don’t understand how much misgendering affects others.  It’s not just a slip up that one can get over, it’s a build up of an entire week’s worth of hearing the wrong pronoun or word or compliment sent one’s way that sometimes it boils over and it’s too much to handle.  People don’t realise the impact misgendering has on a trans* individual.

My point?  Please be respectful, be mindful of what you say and please, please, please take it seriously.  It’s not a joke.  It’s not something that we’re going to grow out of and laugh about later.  This is serious and it’s real and it hurts.