Lewis LuminosSep 23, 2023
Faith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   

If you're a cis person and you want to support the trans person in your life, just use their name and the correct pronouns and gender. Like, do it a lot. Especially when you're both around other people. Set the example. Correct people when they misgender and Deadname.

Seriously. It means a lot. More than you can know.

I have one coworker who always starts DMs in our work messenger with m'lady or similar. It's kinda cringe but it's so sweet. I LOVE it!

The airport parking shuttle driver somehow ma'am'd me like a dozen times between the airport and our car. Made my day. (Of course, that would NOT have made my day if it was "sir" or if I was transmasc.)

One of my favorite text messages I've ever received was my brother telling me how happy it made him to tell some guy in an airport bar that his sister has a PhD in math. Not that he likes my PhD but that he enjoyed calling me his sister.

Seriously. It means a lot.

People properly gendering you can make a trans person's day. It can also make the difference between a really awkward social situation and one that's survivable. It can make a crappy day better.

Sep 21, 2023 at 12:50amWeb
Show threadYour Cool Uncle ItzySep 21, 2023
@faithisleaping A friend of mine starts every conversation with my name, and it's so nice.
Show threadRyan  Sep 21, 2023

@faithisleaping This! I've been out at work for 9 months now, and two of my coworker friends will always start a message to me with "Hey girl!" or some variation.

Also, our team lead uses "ladies" when referring to the three of us when he needs to chat with us.

Show threadMichael GurskiSep 21, 2023
@faithisleaping I left for other reasons, but the day my entire team at my last job *immediately* responded in unison on a Teams call to a combined misgendering and dead-naming of a coworker, and he wasn't even on the call, was the day I knew I worked with good people.
Show threadNina [NaK-System]Sep 21, 2023

@faithisleaping
I have gotten so used to being gendered correctly that I barely notice sometimes. But other times someone paying for their petrol, telling the cashier: "My car is the one behind that ladies car.", and I get a stupidly wide grin as I'm walking to my car.

It feels so good, for ppl just casually referring to me as a woman.

Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Sep 21, 2023

@nina These days, I mostly get no gender. Like, the cashier or whoever will ma'am the lady in front of me but not me. They don't give me a "sir", they just skip the honorific entirely. It always makes me wonder just a bit. Logically I know it's fine and that they don't ma'am everyone they see as a woman—maybe it's an age thing and they don't think I'm old enough for a ma'am?—but it does make me wonder.

But when someone ma'am's me as much as that shuttle driver did today... makes me so happy! 🥰🫠

Show threadNina [NaK-System]Sep 21, 2023

@faithisleaping where I live, in those surface interactions, there isn't much gendering. Even though my native language is pretty gendered, and we have endless arguments about degendering language, and the far right pushing the idea that the left will force everyone to use degendered language.

But I'm mostly on the English part of the Internet. So I was wondering why others reported they got gendered in these interactions, but I never did, until I realized that it's a language difference.

The language games NTs play are just so fucking weird sometimes.

Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Sep 21, 2023
@nina I live in the southern US where gendered honorifics are just part of the culture. I live in the city and a liberal one at that so it's not quite as common here. Get out into the country, though, and it's ma'am this and sir that.
Show threadNina [NaK-System]Sep 21, 2023

@faithisleaping
I know it's quite common in the US.
In German, at least in the region I live, it's not really common.

The problem is, I don't think in words. I often don't even remember what language I read something in. So it took a bit to realize that what I was expecting, due to what other people reported as their experience, just wasn't going to happen here. Because we rarely gender people when talking directly to them, only when talking about them.

Hence the example where someone else talks about me.

Show threadNina [NaK-System]Sep 21, 2023
@faithisleaping
At least the southern US has one of the most inclusive second person pronouns: ›y'all‹ and ›all y'all‹
;)
Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Sep 21, 2023
@nina Yes! Even though I didn't grow up here, I love "y'all" and I use it liberally. 😍 It's such a useful word. The rest of the English speaking world really should adopt it.
Show threadNina [NaK-System]Sep 21, 2023

@faithisleaping
I like to mix and match those aspects of language that I find useful.
It can really confuse ppl trying to figure out where I'm from by how I talk / write. Even my accent seems to shift when I move somewhere, while keeping some aspects of accents I used to have.

Yes, I do this in English and German.

Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Sep 21, 2023

@nina Gotta keep 'em guessing! 😂

Out of curiosity, since y'all like playing with language so much, do your different personas (sorry if that's the wrong term) have different languages they prefer? I don't know much about plurality and I like to learn. 🤓

Show threadNina [NaK-System]Sep 21, 2023

@faithisleaping
Internally we don't use language, but communicate with pure thought structures that have pointers to concepts.
For us it feels like the part that speaks is a background process that converts certain types of those thought structures into spoken or written laguage.

We play a lot more with peoples perceptions than with language itself. We love giving answers people never expected.

Once, while in the psych ward (voluntarily), I asked to see the results of the drug test they did when I arrived. So this nurse finds it in my file, and sees it's positive, points at the result a stronly positive finding, asking accusingly:
"What is this?"
"Says so right next to the number, it's the result for Amphetamines." I told her, and that clearly wasn't what she expected. She then asked me:
"So where did you get those Amphetamines from then?"
I just started grinning telling her:
"This past week, from the nurse here, on the late shift."
She definitely did not expect that, but I showed her the Amphetamines in my list of meds I take, and then says:
"Oh, that's why those are in the safe."

I love those kinds of situations, where people ask weird questions that aren't really meant as purely just the question. Even when I know what's implied, I love ignoring that, and just answering the question asked. It can really confuse people if you ignore any subtext and just answer the questions they ask.

Show threadRobin Syl 🌸 Sep 21, 2023
@faithisleaping omg "m'lady" is pretty great, I wanna be called that someday
Show threadTattie (old account)Sep 21, 2023
@robinsyl no problem m'lady ❤️
@faithisleaping
Show threadLewis LuminosSep 23, 2023
@faithisleaping I transitioned the other way, and the first time a stranger called me "Sir" was awesome. It was a guy serving me at a bar, and I was so excited I bounced happily away and forgot to take my drink!
Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Sep 23, 2023
@lewisluminos 😁 That's a great story! I hope you were successfully reunited with your drink!
Show threadLewis LuminosSep 26, 2023
@faithisleaping I was! I realised when I returned to my table and went back to collect it.
Show threadProkofyDec 13, 2023

@faithisleaping I personally cringe when people do this "You're a good man, Charlie Brown!" stuff to me. I don't feel they need to do that. It's "nice to have" but I don't want to keep cringing with all the "Yes, good sir!" stuff in group chat. It doesn't mean a lot to me. I feel bad for them in fact.

If your brother begins to do that, great, that's different. I'd really rather start there and work out.

But I totally get that most people have to END there, not START there. Sadly.