Teacher suspended for referring to a transgender pupil as a girl rather than a boy in class

[BrickInTheHead]

[QUOTE=Killajax;52889962]The idea of someone getting critically offended by someone using an [i]incorrect[/i] pronoun to a point where you have to go complain to the authorities about it is still baffling to me.

If they were the aforementioned gender at one point then what's the big deal? They've been correctly referred to as that gender before, haven't they?[/QUOTE]

please go speak face to face with an actual trans person about this. don't just try to brush it off, don't just watch dumb political videos about it, go talk to someone and understand on an individual level, because otherwise you will never really, fully understand. If you only have this conversation in the adversarial format of the internet from an entrenched place, you'll never get it. It's real.

[Xenoyia]

I go to an art college, I'm in the LGBT community and there are a few trans students I know and work with daily. Not related to this specific case (but misgendering in general), but it feels like this whole misgendering thing is blown way out of proportion. It might not be immediately apparent that you're identifying as another gender, it might be hard to remember what every student identifies as or you could just be blanketing by saying 'guys' to refer to a group of people of all genders (which I tend to do).

Transgenderism is real, I know how the gender spectrum works and how it's not just simple biology. Hell, even the FTM guy in our class is referred to by teachers mostly by his male name and male pronouns. Sometimes, he is referred to as a female with his original name. That's not a crime, it's a simple mistake and if he can remind them it doesn't usually happen again, but if it does he doesn't care.

In this specific case, the guy is an asshole because he's obviously being pushed by his religious beliefs and can't bring himself to accept someone as transgender. He deserves to lose his job because beliefs shouldn't even be involved in a position like this. But in some other cases I've seen, it's literally just "you called me a guy accidentally so I'm calling the police".

I'm interested in debating what makes misgendering criminal/bad enough to lose your job on here. Pls note I'm not attacking transgenderism/anyone, just genuinely curious what everyone thinks about this.

[Camdude90]

i'm in a discord server with like 20 trans people and i'm pretty sure i've misgendered every single one of them by this point

this idea that if you slip up and do it once you'll instantly get sent straight to jail is absolutely ridiculous and it's just really obvious people who say this kind of stuff have never actually met or talked to a trans person

i find it very easy to tell when someone does it by accident or is doing it maliciously, and if it's obvious to me it's probably even more obvious to trans people

you've got literally fuck all to worry about unless you're doing it on purpose, then you can get fucked

[thatswordguy]

If anyone is scared of being jailed or ostracized for slipping up in front of trans people or is in fear of cis people being singled out, I urge you to consider befriending or at least getting to know trans people. Prejudice towards or fear of certain people stems from unfamiliarity, and hateful people thrive on that sort of thing. Hateful people get their success through the uninformed. They'll sell you the idea that transgendered people are weak, or ultra sensitive, or a threat to our society. They'll show you videos and blogs by people who have mental illnesses or tempers or grew up with hatred themselves and tell you that's the threat that we're facing. As long as they can get you to be wary of trans people then you won't want to be associated with them.

That allows the bigots and terrorists of the world to get what they want: the people's apathy. It's hardly different from what happens with racism and nationalism. It's the same tactics, but a different target. You normalize prejudice or hatred and people will speak in support of or ignore it.

[Sgman91]

[QUOTE=ThatSwordGuy;52892818]If anyone is scared of being jailed or ostracized for slipping up in front of trans people or is in fear of cis people being singled out, I urge you to consider befriending or at least getting to know trans people.[/QUOTE]

Just throwing this out there: that isn't a reality for most people. I live in an extremely populated area that leans far left, and I've only met three trans people in my entire life, and that includes going to a public university of ~20k people. They were all fleeting acquaintances and not really people who I could have gotten to know.

I can only imagine that people in less populated areas have essentially zero chance to meet, and especially get to know, a trans person.