a series of imaginary scenarios

[fishy 1,757]

Imagine this: you’re talking about me, a very hot topic, in gen chat. You type, “oh yeah, fishy is the actual fucking coolest! She’s awesome and I’ve never encountered anyone so great.”

 

You send the message.

 

Someone corrects you a moment later, reminding you that this cool motherfucker uses they/them pronouns, not she/her pronouns. What do you do?

 

Your first option is to be a dick. This option sucks. Here’s what that option looks like:

 

“Whatever”
“I don’t care”
“lol but fishy is only one person! ha ha ha ha”
“It doesn’t really matter, you know who I’m talking about”

 

Saying those things makes you look like a jerk. Don’t do those things. Those things are hurtful because you’re effectively saying “you don’t mean enough to me to be respectful.”

 

Your second option is to not be a dick. This option is great. We love that option. Here’s what that option looks like:

 

Editing the message to use the correct word

And then, maybe after that:  
Reacting nicely to the message calling it out
“Ah shit my bad”
“Oh sorry fishy”
“Thanks for the reminder”

The best analogy I can think of is when you use the wrong name for someone. Here’s another imaginary scenario:

 

You’re sitting around a table with your friends, maybe having some lunch or something, and you’re like “oh yeah Daniel and I went hiking last weekend.” your friend Timmy, who you went hiking with last weekend, looks at you and is like “you mean me?”

 

You know what you’re not going to say? “Whatever.” “I don’t care.” “Your name doesn’t matter, I get to choose your name based on how you look or sound.” “Names don’t matter.”

 

It sounds silly, right? You’d just say, “oh haha yeah my bad”

 

 

Being wrong can feel awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. I can’t speak for everyone, but I am quite understanding of people using the wrong words. Society has trained us so that when you hear a voice like mine, your brain goes THAT IS A WOMAN. I understand that, and I try to be very forgiving. For some people, you may have never met someone who identifies like me or my non-binary comrades, and it’s a really weird concept to process.

 

Most of the people on this site don’t at all intend to be hurtful or harmful with their words in that way. Some of you do, and, disrespectfully, fuck you, but the rest of you are just uncomfy when you’re wrong. Making mistakes can make you feel so silly, and I know that because I make mistakes all the time.

 

We hear a lot of things like, “respect people’s pronouns!” and, like, yeah, do that… but we don’t hear a lot of discourse about what that looks like. Respecting people is about more than getting right on the first try every time.

 

tl;dr: Being disrespectful of pronoun preferences is a dick move. Fix the error and move on.