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.

So, going into this discussion, I have one singular goal: Open the frame of whether I am due the same respect as anyone else.

See, that's a VERY DANGEROUS frame for them, and why they want to avoid it. That's why they go straight into invalidating you. Because once the frame of my humanity is activated, they have two choices: 1) Apologize profusely and admit their own wrong, or 2) Admit that I am not due the same respect as anyone else.

That's it. They cannot win that argument.

They will try to, but every attempt will be to reactivate the frame that you are invalid, because that's an argument they can win. All of society is on their side. Don't activate it.

josh g.Mar 8

@FinalGirl This is really powerful, thank you for sharing your thoughts. This is especially helpful for me as an ally with trans folks close to me and as someone who tends to get argumentative easily.

I have a question; answer if it's life-giving, just fav this and move on if you don't have the spoons for it, or whatever.

You mentioned not responding; would the reframe then be something you do "to their face", eg. asking why they're being disrespectful? Or more of a non-verbal, let your actions speak to their disrespect going forward?

@joshg That's situation specific. In my case, I went to my manager and explained the situation (to cover my own Black ass) and that I wanted to address it personally and not involve his manager (who's a white dude I can't read) or HR.

Then I sent an email saying basically in that meeting you kept referring to a "he" and I eventually realized that you were referring to me. I don't know why that would be and I very much hope I misheard that.

And that's it. Not what I'm due, not a plea for respect, just "I heard this, and that better not be true."

And I have a weekly meeting with him. So the next meeting I'm gonna say "What was that about?" And if he comes at me with ANYTHING other than an apology, then I'm immediately going to say "Am I due the same level of respect as any other woman in this office, yes or no?"

And I'm not going to engage with anything other than that question. Nothing. The only other thing I will engage with is to ask how many other women has he referred to as a man and what are their names. That's it.