Stop Using They/Them Pronouns to Misgender Trans People

And here's why!

i just took this picture in my office and it is making me laugh

Recently, I was on a show with an all-trans lineup. Afterward, a fellow comic approached me, introduced themself, and complimented my set. The opening words of my set are "I'm transmasculine; I use he/him pronouns" (I promise there's a joke that follows, but I won't reproduce it here to keep some mystery as well as my integrity alive). The comedian asked to follow me on Instagram, so I pulled up my page on their phone, where it also says in my bio that my pronouns are he/him. They clicked follow, then complimented me again, saying, "I was like who is this?! They're so funny!"I see the irony, but it's not an accident that I'm using an example wherein someone was being very kind as they misgendered me. I appreciate their kindness, I really do, but I don't appreciate being misgendered, and I'd have thought this gender-nonconforming person would know better. 

I am misgendered with they/them pronouns all the time, so I have to assume ignorance over malice, and that's good, because ignorance has an easier fix. I feel both bored and frustrated while I write this, because this subject is not interesting, or intellectually fun to explore, but rather a means to an end. I want this to stop happening, and I hope this goes without saying, but I don't mean just to me. I want this to stop happening to all people who are misgendered with they/them pronouns.

So let's break it down. 

First off, they/them pronouns are not, as a rule, gender neutral. If you are speaking of a theoretical person of indeterminate gender, they/them pronouns are neutral. If you are referring to a stranger whose pronouns you do not know and cannot guess based upon context clues, they/them pronouns are temporarily neutral until you do know their pronouns. 

Second, it's important to understand how they/them pronouns have functioned historically (and currently) to degender, misgender, and dehumanize marginalized individuals. In the present day, they/them are the go-to pronouns that TERFs use to misgender binary trans people. For instance, a TERF will refer to a trans woman who uses she/her pronouns as "they" in order to soften the blow of misgendering, such that others may be less likely to call out her bigotry. It's basically like saying, "Okay, I won't go so far as to gender you as a man, but I certainly don't see you as a woman, think that you are a woman, or respect your right to self-determination." Regardless of intention, this is the messaging that comes across when you misgender a binary trans person with they/them pronouns. It's an insidious dig that lets us know that you do not see us as the gender that we are — that you view our gender identity as a costume or delusion, and that you might play along, but only up to a point. 

I once had a boss who would frequently misgender me, then "correct" themself by saying my name, but never my actual pronouns. It was maddening. If you do shit like this to people, please just know that they notice! Your words impact people, so if you don't want to cause harm, you have to try a little harder. 

It's not just trans people who are misgendered with they/them pronouns. Fat people, Black cis women, physically and/or intellectually disabled people also endure having their gender stripped from them in an act of interpellation that aims to dehumanize, wherein "they" may be seen as more akin to "it" as opposed to "he" or "she" as in the case of binary trans folks. 

During an interview promoting her 2017 memoir Hunger, Roxane Gay, a fat cis Black woman, remarked on white people's tendency to misgender her with they/them or he/him pronouns. Her theory, which I buy fully, was that her fatness and Blackness precluded her from womanhood in a white supremacist framework. Black people, she said, never misgendered her. "They know what I am." It is a powerful thing to see yourself reflected accurately in how others' perceive you. It's important and it matters, as much as we might wish this wasn't so.  

Hopefully, we have established that if you know someone's pronouns, you should use those pronouns to refer to them, and not any others that may occur to you as apt. But what if you don't know someone's pronouns? Well, it's generally not that hard to find out, but I'll go ahead and give my take on the matter: Guess. Don't you guess cis people's pronouns all the time? And "they" may very well end up being your best guest, but it should not be your default guess simply because you have identified a person as trans. 

I don't think we should be guessing people's pronouns based upon what we assume their assigned gender at birth to be, but I think it's a perfectly fair and good practice to guess someone's pronouns based upon how they are choosing to present. Here, the word "choosing" is key. If you wouldn't they/them a high femme trans woman who has had facial feminization surgery or by the chance of genetics simply has more "traditionally" (cis) feminine features and generally "passes" well, then why should you they/them a trans woman whose genetics/current physical state are such that she doesn't pass well? No, seriously — why would you assume that someone is non-binary because of their bone structure? 

It's obvious when people they/them me, they are doing so because they are clocking me as a trans man. Before medical transition, I dressed exactly the same way (in mens clothes), and exclusively got she/her, so what's being read into has nothing to do with what's on my body, but rather my body itself. 

I don't think my gender is particularly illegible, and I say this because I am exclusively read as a man by strangers every day and have been for over a year. So who is misgendering me? Liberal and leftist-identified people, overwhelmingly cis, who sort of know me or are meeting me for the first time. Essentially, people who know enough about HRT or transness to be able to clock me. 

Now, I totally understand that there are non-binary people whose gender presentation begets misgendering, and that guessing pronouns is not a system that serves them well, but to that conundrum I would say: We are already operating in a system where we guess people's pronouns, so let's at least add an addendum where we don't guess "they" by default when we have identified a person as trans. Also, if you're so fucking confused, ask! Ask the person, or better yet, ask a mutual friend. Or check their social media. Or say to yourself, "This person is wearing all men's clothes and has a man's name; I'm going to guess he/him, and if I'm wrong, he will correct me."  Again, "they" is not the absence of gender, and it is not gender neutral.    

Then, if you're up for it, try to change not only your language, but also your thinking. If you want to have trans people in your life, you owe it to them and to your relationship to see and understand them as they are. Just as androgyny is not requisite to a non-binary identity, chosen binary pronouns do not need to be earned. So let's think and learn and deconstruct, so that we might all be surrounded by people who know what we are. 

Love,

Damien