It can be gendered. I use “guys” all the time when talking informally to mixed groups. Lots of people do this. “Come on, guys!”
Lots of people use “bro” or “dude” in an ungendered way. I might use “sis” when I know I’m talking to a woman, but “bro” can go both ways on the interweb. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, between commenters who know they are addressing women. It’s just what people do now to be cute and funny.
I might also describe someone as a “dude”. As in “There’s a scary dude standing outside!” I’m hinting at a person’s gender unnecessarily with this sentence, but is that bad?
I agree that “ladies and gentlemen” is best avoided (plenty of women don’t like being called “lady” because that has a certain connotation to it). But there are other expressions that I am not ready to prune from my lexicon. Not right now at least.
The message vulnerable teenagers and young adults are getting is that if grandma keeps misgendering you or your third grade teacher just deadnamed you or the person in the convenience store called you miss/sir feeling suicidal is a reasonable reaction. Rational adults aren’t doing these kids any favors if they don’t challenge this. Part of maturing into a functional adult is realizing everybody won’t agree with you.
It really is crazy isn’t it? For all the talk of #metoo and consent, it all flies out of the window the second a transgender person enters the equation.
You’re much more optimistic about this than I am. I don’t think these viewpoints can be described as minority or fringe when they’ve got the ACLU backing them and when they’re able to get “woman” replaced with “people with cervixes” in health info pamphlets.
For the record, my point wasn’t that people make the choice to be trans or feel that they were born in the wrong body, the choice that they make is to transition.
Not all transgender people transition. Anyone who does transition should be prepared to deal with the ramifications of that decision…even when it means using a curtained off area in the locker room of their choosen gender.
But how is that opinion wrong? Every time the specter of suicide is raised in the context of trans, it is often in association with a social demand. Whether this is intentional or not, it does create the impression that suicide is the natural consequence to not getting that demand met.
I just googled “trans sports suicide” and this was one of the top hits. The headline says it all.
I just came back from a long walk, and I was thinking about the inclusive language thing.
If I had a nonbinary associate (who was “out”, of course), I believe that I am sensitive enough to watch my words. While talking to this person, I can see myself being very deliberate with my diction, substituting “they” and "them for “he” and “her”. I probably would keep myself from saying stuff like “man” (“man, this yogurt is delicious!”) and “guys” (“HEY, YOU GUYS!”). I probably would not describe people by gender/sex (“I saw a woman get hit by a bus today”). I would just say “person” or “individual”. I would do this to be kind, but I would also do it to avoid social ramifications–since I don’t like being corrected or reprimanded.
But I can’t see myself speaking like this by default, especially if no one else is. Which means that if my nonbinary associate is ever within earshot of a conversation I’m having with other associates, they will know that I don’t treat them–the nonbinary associate–like I do everyone else. My language would other people would likely be fluent and relaxed. My language around the nonbinary associate would be stilted and formal, which would likely result in me not feeling all that comfortable around them. I would likely worry about saying the wrong thing and triggering dysphoria (or a call from HR). When people link language with suicide, that’s where my mind goes. “I’m gonna kill this person if I say ‘dude’.”
And this fear is why I don’t think people are necessarily bad to have a preference for cis partners. Folks in general don’t want to be in relationships with people who are so sensitive that the smallest microaggression might land them in the hospital. I don’t think the vast majority of trans folks are that sensitive, but when people justify inclusive language on the basis of suicide prevention, that is what they are messaging. They are saying trans/nonbinary people are not emotionally stable enough to handle the words you have been using your entire life–including the words you use in reference to your own biological reality. It’s not helpful to trans rights at all.
At least it was only a student newspaper. Still pretty unethical to use threats of suicide to try to persuade other people to give up their rights. And I agree with @Berththefan that it sends a bad message to young trans people about the importance of external validation vs being happy with yourself.
I’m glad you feel better now. Or at least hoping you do. And I think you’re right about accepting yourself being the most important thing. Other people can help by being sensitive and considerate, but being different will always be hard. Your story reminded me of when I started secondary school and didn’t know anyone, and the other kids were asking me who I ‘fancied’, which at the age of 11 was no one. When I said this they just pressed me harder. A few years later when asked the same question I answered with the handsomest boy in the class, which had the advantage of making me seem more normal, and also avoiding attempts to set me up with someone since I obviously had no chance.
That suicide rate is pretty similar to the one found in the below study of transgender people. Suicide dropped in trans women over time, but not for trans men, which is surprising since these were people studied during/after treatment. Trans women were more likely to commit suicide overall, unlike the general population where men are more likely to commit suicide than women. It’s interesting that similarly to the studies in teens, the male:female ratios in trans people match biological sex rather than gender identity.
That’s a lot to expect even from a run of the mill teenager not dealing with gender identity issues. People don’t generally come to the realization that happiness comes from within until well into adulthood. Some never realize it at all.
That said, most don’t resort to serious considerations of suicide, nor using that to emotionally manipulate others. It seems to me that feeling like you were born in the wrong body comes with a large mental health component which is almost certainly exacerbated by feeling like society isn’t structured to accommodate people like you. That’s a tough hand of cards to play for the rest of your life and knowing that the deck is stacked against you. It’s tempting to want to “cheat” and want to change the rules in your favor.
nobody is saying that feeling suicidal is a reasonable reaction to being “misgendered by your grandma” as you seem to claim. What they point out is that when people – like yourself – trivialize the person’s entire identity and self-view because it doesn’t fit their preconceived notions; and this is done by the majority of society, day in and day out; that is a very tough life to live, and yes, one that takes a toll on the mental health of the person living through it.
Also, the implication that all trans people fall outside the category of “rational adults” is pretty sickening.
Hey, that’s where it starts. Interacting with a particular person you care about.
Fwiw, I had a lot of trouble with the singular “they” for a specific, known person, and I still tend to use someone’s name rather than “they”, although I’m getting better about not getting confused when others use they. “I ran into Dana today. They were…” (my mind immediately went to “who was Dana with?” which wasn’t the point. I’m getting better.)
I don’t think there’s a problem saying “man, this yogurt is delicious”. I’m not sure that ever meant, “you, the man over there, I think this yogurt is delicious” and that’s certainly not what it has meant for the last couple of decades.
I hear “hey, peeps”, “I’m having some folks over for supper” and “are y’all ready to leave” in places where you might use “guys”.
I probably still say “I saw a woman hit by a bus today”, although I might say “I saw someone hit by a bus today”. In either case, my next comment would probably be about their condition and/or my emotional response, and not about gender, and I don’t think the casual gendering of a stranger would be a big deal. Most people are more sensitive to casual misgendering of THEM than of random strangers.
And I once participated in a Facebook discussion about what to call out if a stranger dropped their wallet, and you wanted to get their attention to give it back. One of the very gender-sensitive nonbinary people in the discussion favored “Sir!” (or “Ma’am!”, your best guess, followed by the other if that didn’t work) because “hey you!” is less likely to work, and returning the wallet is more important than avoiding the small risk of misgendering a stranger.
In real life, I don’t think these things are all that hard.
True. But isn’t that the view adults should be promoting to them? It feels so blackmaily to bring up suicide in that way. It’s used a lot to persuade parents to support their child transitioning, even when the parents don’t believe it’s in their best interest exactly because of the large mental health component.
I do know one nonbinary person who plays the “suicide” card a lot. They have a lot of mental health issues, and it’s definitely not just about being non-binary. This person is a transition failure, too, fwiw. They were born with a woman’s body and had a great deal of body disphoria. They transitioned surgically and chemically to male, and it didn’t solve their disphoria. They transitioned socially to non-binary, and eventually got a partner to pay for them to have laser removal of all the facial and body hair they grew while on testosterone. That partner broke up with them after being worn out by constant threats of “if I don’t get my way I may become so depressed I will kill myself”. He was very slow to break up with them, and I kept rooting for him to actually get this toxic person out of his life.
Maybe they learned to play the suicide card from the trans literature? I couldn’t say. But that’s one of probably twenty trans/nb people I interact with at the same level I interacted with that person. (They were the partner of a friend, not really someone I was personally close to.) And… you know, I had a cis boyfriend many years ago who also played that card. It’s not as if that’s something unique to the trans community.
The following should not be interpreted as me saying mental health is some sort of hoax. There are real people with real mental health issues and they deserve to be taken seriously and receive treatment like any other health issue. (Insert tangent about the failure of American healthcare system and need for UHC.)
I think western society is often described as having a mental health crisis. I’m not a mental health professional but I’m skeptical enough to ask how much of that crisis is being manufactured by irresponsible enabling by various social policies and interest groups, including misguided trans advocacy.
What is the likelihood that a parent would tell you they felt blackmailed by their own child?
If a parent believes their kid is a suicide risk if they don’t transition, then of course they will give their unconditional support to them transitioning. If I were the parent of a tween who just told me they feel gender dysphoric, articles like this would compel me to see puberty blockers as insurance against my kid offing themselves.
For the two sets of parents who have talked with me about their child’s transition, the likelihood is about 90% for the first, and 70% for the second, because the second parents like to sugar-coat stuff. I don’t think they would word it as “I feel blackmailed”, I think they would word it as “I’m worried about my child’s emotional stability” or something.
Actually, up the percent for the second set of parents – they DID talk to me about their fears of the possible suicide of their other child, who is somewhat autistic, somewhat ADHD, and somewhat depressive. And they feel guilty because they think the drugs they encouraged him to take for ADHD aggravated his depression. Their trans-son is the emotionally strong, healthy child.
And, having a normal, healthy, parental relationship with him, they are trying to use male pronouns for him, often slipping up by mistake, and he’s okay with that. In fact, he originally told them they were grandfathered into using female pronouns, because he understood it would be hard for them to change. But them he noticed that his friends thought his parents were assholes for doing that, and he didn’t want his friends to judge his parents badly, so he asked them to switch.
