> This is the reality.

It's really not, as far as I've seen? At least not in the spaces where I'm active.

If you came into work with me and started to call me George, and refused to call me Daniel, yeah, you might face consequences at work for that. If it became a really serious problem, you might get fired, partially just out of the confusion of why this was such a big issue for you. I'm a little more tolerant of stuff like this, I'm not sure I care if people use the wrong name for me, but I don't advise going around and trying it, you're probably going to run into issues. And I have definitely met adults and professors who would openly reprimand someone for using their wrong title.

But you're not going to get thrown into jail for using someone's pronouns incorrectly, and you're certainly not going to get cancelled because you messed up one time. To the extent you are followed around by aggressive activists who are berating you for small errors, you can safely ignore them, society as a whole and the trans community as a whole doesn't think that way.

That's not to say that purity spirals and cancellation isn't a thing, it's not to say that people don't get overzealous about stuff. And certainly, Twitter is gonna Twitter. But Twitter represents maybe 20% of the population. I think you're going a little overboard with this characterization.

BUT... let's assume for a second that you're right. Let's assume that you are facing stigmatization for using the wrong pronouns, let's assume that enforcement is out of control and people are just getting canceled left and right for simple mistakes. We'll assume for the rest of this comment that literally everything you've said is accurate.

> I don't understand how people are so upset about people disliking it when others respond coercively, threaten legal action, cause job loss, or enact excommunication from society (if you're a celebrity) when somebody demands that you call them something unconventional in the grander scheme of societal norms.

What you are describing is the reality that trans people have faced for generations. Come out, get fired. Come out, get disowned by your family. Get shunned by society. Have politicians call you a menace, get told that you're dangerous to have around kids. Get evicted from properties, get used as a talking point. Have entire books written about how there's something wrong with your brain, that there's something wrong with you. Get attacked in prisons, get constantly accused everywhere you go that you are a fraud. Forget about having your online life ruined, have your regular life ruined. Get harassed as you're walking down the street, get thrown out of your church. Get told that you're a symptom of a decaying society.

Do you understand why some members of that group might end up having a short fuse about being misgendered? Do you understand why they might start to get worried about transphobia, why they might start to read into incorrect pronoun usage, or get a little bit paranoid sometimes?

What percentage of the US was openly disappointed that the Supreme Court ruled that sex discrimination laws applied to LGBTQ+ people? Look around you at the laws states are passing right now. Transphobia in the US is alive and well, and its agenda is actively being pursued today.

That is why this stuff dominates people's minds. Because the trans community understands better than almost anyone else in this country what it actually means to be cancelled by society, and they recognize a vocal group of Americans who are not just refusing to use pronouns, but that are trying to demonize them and erase them from society.

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Now, you are not obligated to pay attention to militant, bad faith, or unreasonable activists. Those people are a minority, you don't need to feel bad about ignoring them. And no reasonable trans person is going to get mad at you for accidentally messing up a pronoun.

You are also not legally obligated to use anyone's pronouns. You might get fired or disinvited from some social groups, but if that's a big fear then you can vote to repeal fire-at-will laws. I can't control what a company does or who people associate with, I can't override someone else's freedom of association. In any case, you should not be losing sleep over whether you're going to get arrested for misgendering someone.

But it is utterly disingenuous to argue that there's a completely new, novel plague of cancellations over trans people. That plague always existed, and in the past it was even worse. It just affected different people than you.

The biggest difference we're actually seeing today is that more of society is realizing that refusing to accommodate trans people even in extremely trivial matters is kind of a jerk move. What we are seeing as cisgender people when we watch someone get cancelled is a very tiny portion of what many trans people have been living with throughout the majority of American history.

So if the backlash people have against anti-trans rhetoric really is terrifying, or you really do feel that people are on a hair-trigger to cancel each other, then pass some equal rights legislation and maybe everyone will be less on edge. On the same thread that people are openly complaining that trans women are "erasing the identity of biological women", at the same time that states are literally banning affirmative care for kids, you have to understand why some trans people and activists are a little bit reserved and prickly about this stuff at the moment.