I’m pretty lucky, normally. I live in a pretty liberal area, people are fairly accepting, and the people who aren’t usually aren’t assholes about it. So I’ve never really come into contact, at least day-to-day, with people who are assholes about other people’s gender or sexuality.
I, Seti, am a gender-fluid (primarily agender), born female, who is romantically interested in female or non-binary people (romantically interested in those who are the same gender or similar gender as myself), and who is asexual.
Tonight, I had my first encounter with someone who purposely misgendered me and threw homophobic slurs.
Alright, I’m normally pretty chill about this stuff. And I was chill. I didn’t respond to the homophobic slurs, and with the misgendering I said “I understand your viewpoint, but I wish we could trade minds, lives, and bodies for a day so that you could understand mine.”
There's a certain amount of dysphoria, you know, in people who aren't entirely comfortable with their born gender (which will be referred to as their sex from here on). I, with just a mild dissatisfaction, feel just a bit uncomfortable with people saying I "am" female, or pointing out female sex organs. I mean, obviously I have them, but it helps if people don't point them out or tell me that I have them. If that makes sense. But I know, and I understand, that other people feel downright wrong in their bodies, and it makes them sick to even acknowledge those organs.
If you possess that dysphoria, it's pretty... unsettling, to say the least, to hear someone tell you that it's not right to identify differently as your sex, and you're not who you think you are... In the case of tonight, I was told directly to my face that I'm "not human" because of it, and "retarded", et cetera. (I streamed on twitch.tv/anoveir, just after, and the chat is shown, look there if you are interested in seeing the direct quotes.)
It... It's kinda off-putting. I'm not (though I know some people would be) 'triggered' necessarily, and I'm definitely not going to harm myself because of it (I have a history of that sort of thing), because it was just some stupid person on the internet, but it definitely makes me wrong-footed. There's nothing I can say that will convince him that I do, indeed, know myself, and I do, indeed, identify differently than my sex.
And none of this is addressing the homophobic slurs. But that really was mild compared to what he was saying, so I am not even going to bother spending precious time talking about it more than I already have.
Dear readers, if you know someone who identifies differently than their sex, or is romantically or sexually interested in someone of the same sex (including bi people- I hear they get a lot of undeserved hate! Some of my good friends are bi, including my girlfriend!), then please. Think for a minute- there's so much confusion in their minds considering that stuff- they've heard all their lives, seen on the internet, that they are wrong, or not human, and worse. Even if you don't agree with it, take a minute to appreciate them. Go up to them, hug them if they don't mind, tell them that they are a wonderful person, a beautiful soul, just like everyone is, regardless of identity.
So the moral of this post isn't that I have been misgendered. It's not even just that people who identify differently than their sex are beautiful and brave and wonderful. It's that we're all, everyone, regardless of their sex, gender, romantic/sexual/platonic interests- EVERYONE is a beautiful soul, and a wonderful person.
(Wow that sounded really cheesy. But I'm in the kind of mood that I want someone to say this to me, so I'm going to say it to you.)
Here's hoping your night was better than mine!
-Seti