theraptorwhomurderedlove:

Why someone may have their preferred pronouns listed on their tumblr:

• Because they don’t want people to misgender them
• Because they want people to respect their identity
• Because there may be other pronouns that trigger the fuck out of them and they want people to not use those
• Because, seeing how misgendering happens left and right, knowing what a person’s preferred pronouns are is something that is worth knowing as to not erase and invalidate people

What some people think having your preferred pronouns listed means:

• That a person is pretentious
• That a person is a “special snowflake”
• That a person is ‘being picky’
• That a person is purposefully trying to make the lives of others more difficult
• That a person is any number of negative things

What you’re probably being if you hold the opinions in column two:

• A jackass
• No, seriously. You’re very much likely being a jackass.
• Cissexist
• Binarist

What you need to understand:

• It’s not about you
• It’s not about making your life more difficult
• It’s not about policing everything that you say
• It is about not erasing other people
• It is about not invalidating the identities of others
• It is about respecting the identities of others and treating others how they deserve to be treated

What you need to stop doing:

• Attacking and degrading people for having preferred pronouns
• Attacking and degrading people when they tell you that you’ve used the wrong pronouns
• Purposefully using the wrong pronouns for a person, even after they’ve told you that they aren’t comfortable being referred to as such

One last thing that you need to understand:

• There’s a good chance that, at some point, you will use the wrong pronouns for someone. If this happens, don’t switch to douchebag-mode. Apologize (and meaning it would be good, too). Understand. And make efforts to not do the same thing in the future. 

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