Mastodawn

One of the main lessons I have learned, both from Black feminists and as a long time public-facing Black writer, is that this is a battle I do not want to fight on their ground.

Toni Morrison said this very well in her A Huminist's View speech. She was talking about the social battle, but I have found that this applies to the individual battle as well.

What does fighting on their ground mean? It means responding. It means reacting. If someone misgenders you and then tries to justify it IN ANY WAY, then you are already on their ground. Because they have already decided they know who you are.

If you respond to their questions, their justifications, you are reacting.

They will ask you what you were born as, they will ask you what your mother called you, they will ask you what your driver's license says. What they are doing is forcing you to prove your own validity.

But here's the truth, like Morrison said: There will always be one more thing.

Because the goal is not to ensure your validity, the goal is to ensure you are invalid.

This is not an honest fight. They will keep going until they find some proof that you are a lie. But here's the thing… if you are talking about this, they already believe you are a lie. Nothing will shake that. This is their ground.

Here's a slightly richer take on reacting, something you see in Democratic discourse all the time.

Responding activates their frame.

Here's the thing, if someone says anything about you, and you argue back about whether that thing is true, then you have validated the truth of their argument simply by responding.

The moment this man calls me "he," he activated the frame he wanted activated. From that moment on, any argument with him happens in the framing of "I am assumed to be a man and must prove otherwise."

If I say anything to counter this, then what I am doing is validating the need that it is an argument he was entitled to make.

Black folk know this strategy well because it is used against us all the time. A good bit of Morrison's speech was dedicated to that. When I was publishing news outlets on race, people would attack me regularly demanding justification, but whatever I say is never good enough.

Because they don't want me to be valid, the point is making sure I know I am INvalid.

So, don't respond. Don't react.

You see, they are trying to frame the issue as them having the RIGHT to misgender you. That's their baseline. You reacting to that validates their right to demand proof from you.

But you don't have to.

Because the argument is not "am I a woman who deserves to be called she." That's what they want it to be, but that's not what the argument is.

The argument is "do you respect me as a person?"

So, here's how I think about that.

Am I due the same respect that anyone else is due? As a scientist, as a woman, as a person?

That is the frame.

That is THE ONLY frame that I will engage with. I will not respond to anything they say. I will not talk about changing my name, I will not talk about changing my records, or my hormone levels, or ANYTHING. Because none of that matters. None. All of that is smokescreen.

See, here's the thing, if someone decides to suddenly start calling a woman "he" or a man "she," then they have already decided that person is not due the same respect as anyone else.

That is the frame.