OutCasting Overtime; The importance of pronouns to trans people

This is OutCasting Overtime from OutCasting Media, producer of public radio's LGBTQ youth programs. Hi, I'm Andrew, a youth participant in OutCasting's main studio in Westchester County, New York. On this edition, OutCaster Amalee talks about the importance of pronouns, particularly when referring to a trans person. [Amalee] This is an open letter to anyone who has a trans person in their life, matter how distant. That means all of you. To start, here's a thought experiment. I'm going to ask a relatively simple question. Take a moment to answer the question in your head and think about your answer. Alright? The question is what is your gender?" Here's my response to that: "male, female, doesn't matter, you're not." Feels pretty bad, doesn't it? Probably not too bad though, considering I'm a stranger on the radio instead of a relative or a loved one. But what if I were a relative or a loved one? You tell me what gender you are and I laugh it off and say "no you're not." How's that feel?

Getting validation from others is something most of us need to be happy. If you're straight or cisgender you probably don't usually thing about this in the context of gender but you've almost certainly experienced invalidation in some other aspect of your life. Gender is a very important aspect of most people's identity. Imagine how bad it must feel to have somebody invalidate it. This is the core of the pronouns issue. Pronouns are words used to refer to and describe people and are inherently gendered. He/him, she/her. So when transgender people transition, their pronouns usually change. Someone you've known as he is now she and that can be confusing, but it's important to respect these new pronouns as they allow trans and non binary people to not feel invalidated. When somebody is misgendered it's hurtful. This isn't just for transit or nonbinary people. It would be just as disrespectful to address a cisgender male using female pronouns or vice versa. Most people wouldn't want to misgender a cis-person because it would be considered disrespectful, so why not

extend this basic human decency to trans people. This is not to say that everyone who has ever misgendered somebody lacks this basic human decency. Misgendering is often a mistake and that's fine. It's ok to get things wrong, as long as you make an attempt to get it right and not demean or belittle others. Getting pronouns right can sometimes be difficult. When someone you've known your whole life by certain name and set of pronouns asks you to use different ones for them, it can be weird and difficult to do, especially when a person's body doesn't match what you might expect for their identified gender. When people make a mistake about pronouns, they often make a big scene in correcting themselves. As a trans person I'm not a fan of this. Obviously I can't speak for everyone but literally all trans people that I have met dislike this kind of experience and for good reason. It feels alienating and draws a necessary attention to something that shouldn't even be seen as an issue. If you mess up somebody's pronouns, I would suggest quickly and calmly correcting yourself in the moment, then perhaps privately apologizing later. Mistakes happen and that's alright, just correct yourself. But there are some people who just can't be bothered to put in the effort to

correct themselves. I've experienced this with people and it's not pleasant. If someone isn't interested in using the tiny amount of mental energy to do something as simple as using correct pronouns, there's probably not much can be said to convince them. But if this is you, please do consider how bad it feels to be invalidated by others and whether you want those around you to feel the same way. Finally, there are people who intentionally misgender trans people. For some of them it's a political statement, for others it is an attempt to antagonize that particular person, but at the end of the day this is just deliberately causing distress to another person. Even if you do not personally agree with the concept of being transgender that doesn't justify going out of your way to hurt others. When all is said and done, there's nothing that can be done to force someone to use desired pronouns and honestly I think it's for the best that everyone has the freedom to express themselves to others however like. As a person who identifies in a way that many don't like, it would be hypocritical of me to say otherwise. This is not an appeal to society to make it illegal to misgender anyone or something, but rather an appeal

to those who simply don't understand why pronouns matter. It's just basic human decency to use the correct pronouns. Nobody is forcing anyone to be decent human being, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be one. [Andrew] Thanks for listening to OutCasting Overtime, a feature from OutCasting, public radio's LGBTQ youth program. OutCasting Overtime is a production of Media for the Public Good, a nonprofit independent producer based in New York. Our executive producer is Marc Sophos. Visit us at outcastingmedia.org to get information about OutCasting, watch OutCasting videos, access our social media links, and listen to OutCasting and OutCasting Overtime. Thanks, and thanks for listening.