Yes, You’re Misgendering Me, and You Know It
By: Max Micallef
Tags: LGBTQ, Gender Identity, Education, Transgender, Sexuality

Explaining The Problem Specifically

As I’m sure you now see the connection between my title, subtitle, and the event that occurred, it’s still important that I break this down from the structural level. I’m a Public Policy Coordinator with a New York State chapter of GLSEN, so teaching and promoting Queer education is of utmost importance to me.

I can count the ways individually of why what she did was incorrect, but here’s a summary:

Sex isn’t Gender

First, she assumed my gender. Though my sex assigned at birth was male, and my gender expression that day may have been more masculine leaning, that does not mean my gender is solely a man or that I am somehow not a woman.

Only in the factually incorrect, heteronormative bubble is masculinity and femininity assumed to be a trait that’s synonymous with being a man or a woman. Additionally, being male or female is not to be assumed the same as being a man or a woman; nonbinary people are not even acknowledged in this already false reality.

Gender identity, gender expression, sex assigned at birth, and sexual orientation are each different entities that exist separately, yet all hold connections.

See GLSEN’s Gender Terminology Guide and TSER’s Gender Unicorn graphic for further info. Please feel free to share these resources around.

Invading Personal Space

This incident only occurred because someone felt the need not only to assume my gender but push that assumption onto someone within an interaction that had nothing to do with them. Not only that, but she pushed this assumption before I even had a chance to reply to the post office worker.

I’m a grown person. Even if the post office employee calling me “ma’am” challenged this women’s sense of what gender is, if she waited for a second more to see that I wouldn’t have reacted negatively to “ma’am” at all and wouldn’t have corrected her, then she would have seen that, no, I am not a cisgender man. Again, I’m a grown person. Even if the post office employee misgendered me, give me a chance to respond about my own identity… which isn’t yours.

Hypothetically, let’s say that the post office worker, after being corrected continued to publicly misgender me. That’s when you go ahead and step in and support me as an ally. Which by the way, besides the post office employee, no one waiting in line came to my support against this bigotry.

The Main Takeaway

Intention. Is. Everything. No, the post office customer was not incorrect. I do go by He/Him/His pronouns. However, her intention was to discredit my identity as a marginalized person, and what she did was wholeheartedly mean, cruel, and wrong. Additionally, her claim was scientifically false. For reference, when this occurs systematically on a larger scale, it’s widely considered a human rights violation.

It’s ok to temporarily not be up to date on a particular subject matter. It’s not ok to go into defense — even attack mode — instead of letting yourself be vulnerable and educating yourself. If someone corrects you for making an innocent mistake, you aren’t being demonized. Just learn to do better. This is not a hierarchical situation. Please see below.

IMAGE: Medium — Awaken: Kay Martinez

To Wrap Up…

Gender and sexuality are fluid topics; disrespect and violence towards these come in many forms. As calling a Bisexual person a queer slur is just as bad as calling a Gay person the same queer slur, misgendering someone like me who’s Genderqueer and holds an expansive pronoun set is just as wrong as when you misgender a Transgender and/or Gender Nonbinary person who prefers to go by one pronoun set.

Regardless of the situation, if your actions or words are coming from a place of fear (the ego), you can be assured that your intention is not conducive to a welcoming, inclusive, and understanding environment. Try your best to reframe Queer issues from an “othered” topic to one that you can be excited about learning more about.

One of the main characteristics of white supremacy is perfectionism, and as the LGBTQ+ community is an intersectional one, I believe queerphobic behavior holds this unfortunate quality as well. Let yourself be the imperfect human being that you are because you will continue to learn about the intricacies of life as a whole until the day you die.

For my fellow Queer people reading this, especially those involved in a Queer-centered field, please take care of yourself. As I’ve said in multiple articles, our world can seem like an extremely devastating place right now, but please try your best to make sure you are in a stable place and feel true pride in who you are.

Thank you for listening… I mean reading.