“Political Correctness”

neonxxninja:


Nobody would dream of asking a cis-presenting person about their genitals in public, nor would questions be raised about personal medical history. It is deemed rude to imply that a masculine-spectrum presenting person is acting a certain way because of fluctuations in bodily functions, yet it’s fine to dismiss the behavior of a feminine-presenting person as “that time of the month.” 

When a cis-presenting person introduces themselves, they’re called by the pronouns which correspond to their appearance. They don’t have to argue about it. MAAB presenting people are called “he”, FAAB presenting people are called “she”.  They don’t have to justify the appropriateness of their words or the existence of their gender identity. People accept that this Susan person should be called “she” (provided she looks the part) and the world moves on. 

Basic respect and courtesy for fellow human beings of normalized characteristics is codified as “politeness” in our society. It’s a way to get along. We are social creatures, and we have certain rules which govern social interaction. Fine and dandy so far, right?

For some reason, basic respect and courtesy for people who do not have normalized characteristics is called “political correctness”, as though I’m gaining some sort of kudos points, as though I’m only doing it because somebody might be watching.

It’s politeness not to misgender my cis-brother, but political correctness to refrain from misgendering me? How does that make any sense at all?

When I go out of my way, and use terms like “MAAB” and “masculine-presenting” to avoid misgendering people, I am in fact demonstrating basic fucking respect for the identities of others. Political correctness has nothing to do with it. Politics has nothing to do with it. 

A short list of definitions for terms which were used in this post

cis-presenting: presenting as if your assigned sex at birth matches your appearance. I. E. presenting as binary and identifiable as trans*

masculine-presenting: presenting as male or wearing things which are codified as male things

feminine-presenting: presenting as female or wearing things which are codified as female things

MAAB: male assigned at birth

FAAB: female assigned at birth

(Source: lovemeunlovely)

This was posted 10 months ago. It has 18 notes.
  1. killinnocentsandwiches reblogged this from lovemeunlovely
  2. ftmmisandrist reblogged this from lovemeunlovely and added:
    I couldn’t have written it better.
  3. pixyled reblogged this from lovemeunlovely
  4. agender-unicorn reblogged this from lovemeunlovely
  5. transdrescher reblogged this from lovemeunlovely
  6. lovemeunlovely posted this