Yeah, calling a straight person gay as a joke/bit is not even remotely comparable to deliberately misgendering a trans person, and it’s kinda crass and disgusting to pretend it is. Screams to me that you don’t actually know any trans people, or at least no closely enough to understand how devastating such a comment can be to them.
Straight people, with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay. Being forced by society to express themselves as gay, even though it made them feel awful. They didn’t spend potentially decades feeling unwelcome in their own skin. They don’t spend hours upon hours worrying that society won’t accept than as “a real straight”. They don’t spend days worrying about the hate crime, discrimination and legal persecution they are susceptible to if they don’t look straight enough. Triggering that level of trauma isn’t the same as making someone slightly uncomfortable because they found out they unknowingly didn’t express their outward sexuality as strongly as they felt. It isn’t remotely, on any level, comparable, and that is an objective truth.
I am also notably not defending calling straight people gay. I’m just pointing out that deliberately misgendering a trans person is on a completely different plane of shitty behaviours. Not every shitty behaviour is automatically equally shitty.
Classic straight people. You’re just completely unwilling accept that some mildly crappy behaviour towards you isn’t universally described as the worst behaviour ever. I bet you people also think that calling a white person a cracker is exactly the same as calling a black person the N-Word.
with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay
Except just about every guy who has ever been bullied. While the bullies usually don’t actually believe that, it certainly explains why straight men get defensive about someone thinking that they’re gay. Plus it’s just inconvenient if you’re trying to find a girlfriend.
I also like how I gave an entire paragraph of the hardships of that trans people face day in and day out, prior to coming out they have to listen to even their closest friends and loved ones seeing them as the wrong gender every day, in every interaction, in every conversation, and you literally just picked out the very first sentence, ignored everything else, and went “Um akshually straight people get this occasionally too, in very different context and with very different conotations, so equatingthem is fine”
You can’t seriously think that some bullies insulting you by calling you gay, whilst clearly and evidently and outwardly just using is a generic insult, rather than actually meaning it, is even in the same universe as a trans person being forced to express the wrong gender identity for several decades.
IMO, it’s a difference in severity, not in kind. It’s a fairly regular thing for bullying victims to kill themselves or get seriously injured or killed by their bullies. Go a couple of decades back and out homosexuals, especially men, were exactly where trans people are now. Remember how the Republicans handled AIDS, or how male homosexual acts were literally illegal in many western countries until like the 90s or early 00s?
Bottomline is, don’t say your “friend” is a different sexuality or gender than you know they are, just as a test.
IMO, it’s a difference in severity, not in kind. It’s a fairly regular thing for bullying victims to kill themselves or get seriously injured or killed by their bullies.
That true, and it’s awful, but it’s not BECAUSE they were called specifically gay, at least in the majority of cases. Switching “gay” for any other generic insult/slur wouldn’t make the bullying less bad or impactful in the vast majority of cases, whereas for a trans person there is virtually always a massive, massive
difference between just being genericly insulted/harassed and it being specifically misgendered/targeted at their gender identity. So IMO, it also very much is a difference in kind.
Go a couple of decades back and out homosexuals, especially men, were exactly where trans people are now. Remember how the Republicans handled AIDS, or how male homosexual acts were literally illegal in many western countries until like the 90s or early 00s?
We’re not IN the 90s or 00s anymore. Trans people are facing this level of persecution and discrimination today. It’s also not comparable, because it is much easier to keep gayness a secret Vs keeping transness a secret. That isn’t supposed to make light of the suffering of gay people in 80s to 00s, just pointing out that gayness isn’t necessary an outward expressing. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Being trans is directly, intrinsically and inseparably linked with your outward expression.
Bottomline is, don’t say your “friend” is a different sexuality or gender than you know they are, just as a test.
Yes. A point that I have literally made explicitly several times already, and yet everyone here is pretending as though I said it’s perfectly fine, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it to do pull this shit. The only point I’ve made is that, as sucky and shitty as it is to call a straight person gay, it’s demeaning and insulting to the struggles of trans people to equate it to being deliberately misgendered.
A fact that you can literally survey in this comment section where there’s tons of straight men commenting that they wouldn’t be upset/insulted by such a statement, and merely point out the inaccuracy, and I’m willing to bet every penny I own, that the amount of open trans people who would react comparably mildly to being misgendered is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the men commenting here that it wouldn’t really upset them that much.
Oppression olympics never gets anyone anywhere. The people who were bullying and persecuting gay men 20-30 years ago are often literally the same ones who are bullying and persecuting trans people right now.
It’s not “oppression Olympics” to point out that it’s insulting to equate a minor dick move towards straight people with the ongoing systemic persecution of trans people.
Most notably and importantly because straight people AREN’T oppressed. There is no large scale legal systemic discrimination or oppression of straight people, anywhere on earth. Individual dick heads being asses is not the same as large scale, systemic and legal persecution.
Here’s a question for you: Rape “jokes” are never acceptable. But, would you consider making rape “jokes” towards a woman who was never victimised the same level of shitty behaviour as making a rape “joke” towards a woman who you know is a rape survivor. And how would you react if someone was arguing that those two situations are totally comparable and equally bad.
If your answers to those questions are “of course not” and “outraged”, congratulations, you agree with my point.
Yeah, calling a straight person gay as a joke/bit is not even remotely comparable to deliberately misgendering a trans person, and it’s kinda crass and disgusting to pretend it is. Screams to me that you don’t actually know any trans people, or at least no closely enough to understand how devastating such a comment can be to them.
Straight people, with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay. Being forced by society to express themselves as gay, even though it made them feel awful. They didn’t spend potentially decades feeling unwelcome in their own skin. They don’t spend hours upon hours worrying that society won’t accept than as “a real straight”. They don’t spend days worrying about the hate crime, discrimination and legal persecution they are susceptible to if they don’t look straight enough. Triggering that level of trauma isn’t the same as making someone slightly uncomfortable because they found out they unknowingly didn’t express their outward sexuality as strongly as they felt. It isn’t remotely, on any level, comparable, and that is an objective truth.
I am also notably not defending calling straight people gay. I’m just pointing out that deliberately misgendering a trans person is on a completely different plane of shitty behaviours. Not every shitty behaviour is automatically equally shitty.
Classic straight people. You’re just completely unwilling accept that some mildly crappy behaviour towards you isn’t universally described as the worst behaviour ever. I bet you people also think that calling a white person a cracker is exactly the same as calling a black person the N-Word.
Except just about every guy who has ever been bullied. While the bullies usually don’t actually believe that, it certainly explains why straight men get defensive about someone thinking that they’re gay. Plus it’s just inconvenient if you’re trying to find a girlfriend.
I also like how I gave an entire paragraph of the hardships of that trans people face day in and day out, prior to coming out they have to listen to even their closest friends and loved ones seeing them as the wrong gender every day, in every interaction, in every conversation, and you literally just picked out the very first sentence, ignored everything else, and went “Um akshually straight people get this occasionally too, in very different context and with very different conotations, so equatingthem is fine”
You can’t seriously think that some bullies insulting you by calling you gay, whilst clearly and evidently and outwardly just using is a generic insult, rather than actually meaning it, is even in the same universe as a trans person being forced to express the wrong gender identity for several decades.
IMO, it’s a difference in severity, not in kind. It’s a fairly regular thing for bullying victims to kill themselves or get seriously injured or killed by their bullies. Go a couple of decades back and out homosexuals, especially men, were exactly where trans people are now. Remember how the Republicans handled AIDS, or how male homosexual acts were literally illegal in many western countries until like the 90s or early 00s?
Bottomline is, don’t say your “friend” is a different sexuality or gender than you know they are, just as a test.
That true, and it’s awful, but it’s not BECAUSE they were called specifically gay, at least in the majority of cases. Switching “gay” for any other generic insult/slur wouldn’t make the bullying less bad or impactful in the vast majority of cases, whereas for a trans person there is virtually always a massive, massive difference between just being genericly insulted/harassed and it being specifically misgendered/targeted at their gender identity. So IMO, it also very much is a difference in kind.
We’re not IN the 90s or 00s anymore. Trans people are facing this level of persecution and discrimination today. It’s also not comparable, because it is much easier to keep gayness a secret Vs keeping transness a secret. That isn’t supposed to make light of the suffering of gay people in 80s to 00s, just pointing out that gayness isn’t necessary an outward expressing. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Being trans is directly, intrinsically and inseparably linked with your outward expression.
Yes. A point that I have literally made explicitly several times already, and yet everyone here is pretending as though I said it’s perfectly fine, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it to do pull this shit. The only point I’ve made is that, as sucky and shitty as it is to call a straight person gay, it’s demeaning and insulting to the struggles of trans people to equate it to being deliberately misgendered.
A fact that you can literally survey in this comment section where there’s tons of straight men commenting that they wouldn’t be upset/insulted by such a statement, and merely point out the inaccuracy, and I’m willing to bet every penny I own, that the amount of open trans people who would react comparably mildly to being misgendered is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the men commenting here that it wouldn’t really upset them that much.
Oppression olympics never gets anyone anywhere. The people who were bullying and persecuting gay men 20-30 years ago are often literally the same ones who are bullying and persecuting trans people right now.
It’s not “oppression Olympics” to point out that it’s insulting to equate a minor dick move towards straight people with the ongoing systemic persecution of trans people.
Most notably and importantly because straight people AREN’T oppressed. There is no large scale legal systemic discrimination or oppression of straight people, anywhere on earth. Individual dick heads being asses is not the same as large scale, systemic and legal persecution.
Here’s a question for you: Rape “jokes” are never acceptable. But, would you consider making rape “jokes” towards a woman who was never victimised the same level of shitty behaviour as making a rape “joke” towards a woman who you know is a rape survivor. And how would you react if someone was arguing that those two situations are totally comparable and equally bad.
If your answers to those questions are “of course not” and “outraged”, congratulations, you agree with my point.