> We are writing here as as a mix of queer, nonwhite, non-American, bicultural, trans people, and we share Saguy and Williams’ political bent. We firmly understand that the impacts of gender are felt unequally, in light of both our lived experience and our research in sociology, gender, technology, and linguistics. Transgender and gender-nonconforming (abbreviated below as trans/GNC) people, particularly transfeminine people of color, are disproportionately and in some ways uniquely victimized by the rigid and specific ways that Western society views, constructs and penalizes nonheteronormative and noncisnormative gender performances and identities.
> Fundamentally, a move toward gender-neutral pronouns ignores the important work that gendered pronouns perform in everyday life. For many trans/GNC people, gender is an important part of their identity and actively avoiding the act of gendering manifests as another form of violence—a violence that trans/GNC people have been fighting against throughout the long history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and two-spirit (LGBTQIA2S) experience.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/actually-we-shou...
> For many trans/GNC people, gender is an important part of their identity
Acknowledged.
> and actively avoiding the act of gendering manifests as another form of violence
...wait, no, absolutely not.
Not having others proactively acknowledge what you feel is an important part of your identity is not “violence”. It’s human life.
It’s completely fine to just opt out of participating in this social game of gender, sex, and identity, no matter how strongly some may feel about it and how ingrained it’s become into their identities. The struggle is real but at some point, society accommodating for the anxiety of an individual becomes counter-productive.
I invite you to take a moment and think about whether your view of “TRAs” is based on a realistic picture of the world or not. Every group has extremists with weird ideas. Some conservatives think gay people are agents of satan. Some liberals don’t see the value in free speech and want the state to run everything. It’s easy to find extreme outliers and then demonize a much broader group using them. Is your view of “TRAs” characterized by outliers or by the action of the average pro-trans person?
My view of “TRAs” is based on what I see in media. The main issue I have with them is that they seem to really want to bring back traditional gender roles, after all the effort to get rid of them. A boy likes playing with dolls? He's actually a girl! Let's cut off “her” penis and put “her” on puberty blockers!