I know helping cis people understand trans issues is thankless work and that I don’t owe it to anybody, but I do want to help people understand. A lot of resources say that misgendering causes mental harm. Which it absolutely does. But that’s hard to process and vague and doesn’t really encapsulate the feeling well. So I came up with a metaphor that I think explains the feeling well. Of course I’m just one confused enby and not everyone will think the same, but it does offer a new perspective.
Being misgendered is the mental equivalent of someone stepping on your toes. On accident, it’s easy enough to forgive someone and it gets weird if they over apologize, but if they do it on purpose that’s not just mean, it’s also stupidly petty and mean. It happens once it doesn’t hurt much, but over and over again, it starts to build up. And like if somebody you love dancing with you and keeps stepping on your toes, you grin and bear it even though it really starts to hurt because you love them, the same is true if people you’re close to struggle to adjust to your new pronouns. And just like when you’re toes get stepped on frequently they tend to get sore and take time to heal. And when they’re sore and people keep stomping on them constantly, and then someone mistakenly steps on them, it’s understandable, though unfair, that you would lash out. And constantly, day after day, year after year, people stepping on your toes every few minutes you start to lose the ability to heal. Your bones might break and your nail beds might bleed and walking becomes painful and they don’t have time to heal. That’s what misgendering does. It isn’t one instance so much as the constant everyday grind of it. And that’s why chill cis people can laugh it off so easily. It happens so infrequently that the pain is easy to laugh off. And why some people get so very defensive. After all, if you recently broke your leg, any pain in your foot is going to associated with that, so even a minor hurt, like stepping on your toes, is going to be felt more strongly. And if you have unrelated trauma in regard to your gender, misgendering hurts worse.
