Being misgendered, it happens, too often, and it hurts…

I get it, and I expect most gender divergent people do too. It’s a change, it’s different, people make mistakes, get it wrong and stumble. That’s all a given. But what’s not a given is continuing to make those same stuff ups, missteps mistakes and stumbles for now and into eternity.

In case you’re not clear I’m referring to misgendering and deadnaming. Two things that are often done, sometimes mistakenly and sometimes with deliberate obstinance. The thing is for those of us on the receiving end of it, it is really quite a difficult thing to manage. It hurts. A lot.

Of course, in my view, intent matters, and when you know, really know that the intent was not their it does seem to hurt a little less, but still it hurts. Sometimes the stumbling over it and recovery effort just amplifies the issue.

I get it people knew me as if I was another gender for 40 plus years, people knew me by another name, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. It doesn’t make me shrink inside any less, it doesn’t matter that the intent was good, it bloody hurts, a lot.

Adapting to change can be hard. Sure. Especially for those that know us well, have known us for a long time and are going through their very own journey of working out what all this actually means for them too.

There are plenty of people we trans* humans deal with that do this with negative intent, with an actual aim of hurting and othering us. Of deliberately causing us hurt and distress, and to openly question our right to exist. I’m not really talking about them here though. Their actions are simply bigotry and hate, and that’s not what I am trying to get at here.

I’m getting at kids, friends, family, relatives and so on. Sometimes when it happens, it’s suddenly all about how hard it is for them. And yes I get it. Yes it’s hard. But here’s a little thing, it’s not as fucking hard as being on the recieving end of it.

Yes, mistakes happen. This is absolutely unquestionable, it can be like those times when as a parent you go through the list of your own kids names before getting to the right one. But that’s not how the experience is on the receiving end. On the receiving end it’s like, well, it fucking hurts, it impacts on how I percieve myself how I am as I continue through the day.

There are many times this happens, many times, when I don’t show offence, I don’t make an issue it, I don’t say I am hurt. But know this, it hurts every single time.

Coming to the point of transitioning as an older person was a process of understanding and learning just how deeply I had repressed my own true self deeply behind a veneer of pretense that was living life as the gender assigned to me at my birth and strongly enforced in my family of origin. Every reminder of the years living that lie, repressing that truth is a reminder of pain, a reminder of a time in the past where an authentic lived experience was not there.

When a person fucks up and misgenderes me it is like a floodgate of painful experience re-experienced in an instant of time. It really hurts. It feels like having an act of violence inflicted upon you.

As a trans woman, coming out in their 40’s having children in the mix, it’s becomes a very complicated negotiation of how things are, what people will call you and so on and so forth. So when something seemingly small like the right pronouns are not used, it feels like a really big thing.

For me personally, I have three children, two adult and one primary aged, I have two former wives who are these childrens mothers. It is a complicated landscape to negotiate. To them I have always, until a year or so ago, been the father, the dad. Even though I never truly felt that way, and I feel I did a really shit job of that role, that’s what their experience is. All of them continue to call me dad.

I don’t particularly like this, and one of my former partners strongly encourages this, which kind of makes it hard. But at this point it is what it is.

The reality for me though is pain and hurt every time they say the word dad, it’s mixed of course with the deep love and affection I have for them, but it hurts, it’s like a hot knife stabbing into my heart. I know they don’t mean that to be the case but that’s what it is for me.

And it’s more than that too, there’s also the very real and regular situation of being outed in public spaces by that one word. Sometimes that very real pain and hurt, far too often, it places me in the situation of being unsure of my physical safety, it puts me in the place of having to choose whether it is safe to maintain my place in that space or not.

When I hear, but it’s hard. When I hear, but I still think of you as.., when I hear, I am doing my best, at one level sure, I get it. But on another level, if you care about me, if you care about the trans people in your life, you need to do better. You need to do better not just for you but for, well everything connected with you and that person.

Sure it’s hard, lots of things in life are hard, but we do them. Algebra is darn hard for some, so that’s not actually a reason for getting it wrong.

Getting pronouns right, no matter how hard, is the respectful and caring thing to do. Not misgendering a person is the respectful and right thing to do.

When it comes down to it, referring to someone in the manner in which they ask to be referred to is a part of treating another human person with dignity and respect.

I am quite convinced that at heart it is a matter of will, of choosing to do it because you respect, love and care for that person, for people in general. Sure it can be hard, you most likely will have mistakes and pitfalls, and when you do, it’s a matter of apologising, moving on and determining to do better.

Let’s do better people, all of us. Let’s do better at treating each other with the dignity and respect that we would want to be treated with. It’s as they say the outworking of the golden rule.

Mistakes happen, yes they hurt, but making them about you hurts even more.

Let’s all do better together.