Heya guys (or girls)! I've just got a quick question of preference/opinion for you. At our student house, our actual landlord lives in the UK, but our managers are two effectively soccer moms that do all the on-site stuff needed. Our landlord usually comes down to Canada once/twice a year to look at this and his couple other properties. When he came down in the winter, I met him for the first time. Now, he looks like a man, sounds neither masculine nor feminine, and our landlords kept referring to him as a woman (through pronoun use). It's kind of an awkward topic for a relative stranger who I'm only seeing a couple times in my life, so I figured it wasn't worth asking the potentially rude question of "are you a man or a woman?". Turns out he's coming down this week to come visit, which means I'll likely be here when he shows up again. Now, I'm referring to him as a he in this thread because his name (on our lease, and what our managers call him) is a male name. But I'm not sure if I should use female pronouns, because just in case I'm mistaken, I don't want to be offensive. The question I'm getting at is... if you were/are transgendered and presumably pre-op (or not planning on getting a sex change), would you rather be referred to with a gender-neutral pronoun or your given name? I know it's probably not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I guess my awareness of the sensitivity of this issue is heightened since being on EC Thanks guys (and girls)!
Bah! Well, I'm certainly not planning on calling him (or her) transgender(ed) at any point in the near future, so at least I'm safe there :lol: (in all seriousness though, no offense meant v_v)
My advice is to use his chosen male name & male pronouns, if he's using a male name on legal documents, chances are he identfies as male. You can always ask what he prefers right at the start & explain why you are confused (due to the two caretakers using female pronouns) & asking him what he prefers. If you ask at the beginning of meeting & explain your confusion & why your asking, I imagine it would be much less offensive as opposed to truggling thru conversations & then asking later. I know that, for me, if someone asks right after meeting me, it means they have enough respect for me to want to be correct in how they address me. Just my outlook on the sitch tho & how I prefer things to go down...
Like kiersten, I think asking is a sign of respect, and I wish more people would do it. I don't think many trans* people would think it's rude if you inquired about their preferred pronouns. As I said, I would just ask, but if you really don't want to... just use the person's legal name. You can tell when people avoid using gendered speech because they can't figure out what you are, and it's a bit awkward, in my opinion.
When you talk to him, won't you be using the pronoun YOU? It's non-gender specific. If you're talking about hin when he's not there, you could just use his name or follow the lead of the soccer moms - do they refer to tim as HE or SHE?
Well, last time he came by, they pretty much just showed him around and all he did was say things rather quietly under his breath; he almost ignored our existence (though I'm sure we weren't going out of our way to say hi either). So it's more a case of I'll likely be speaking to him through the moms, if that makes any sense. Or talking with them afterwards as to not get in their way while they're doing whatever it is they need to do. They referred to him as a "she", which is what threw us all for a loop, because it was so nonchalant. If he is transgender and it is that much of a non-issue, that's awesome, but it definitely wasn't expected. But thanks guys. I might not even be around when they're here tomorrow, but I'll try and politely ask then instead. I guess it makes sense that they'd know what they'd like; I was just trying to avoid being unintentionally rude.
Given that the "moms" are better acquainted with their boss than you are, I actually think you should probably accept that your perception was erroneous, and the person is female. There are a lot of butches out there that are both biologically female and identify as female, but still get mistaken for men all the time because they are very masculine. And lots of them use masculine names. I think that this is the most likely, because of the use of pronouns by the soccer moms. I don't think it's likely that they are getting it wrong--it's their employer we're talking about, after all. And I doubt that we're talking about a MTF transgender person either, although I suppose that's possible. But a transgender person who is out usually will present in their true gender. If you get involved in a significant amount of conversation, you might mention the very masculine gender presentation, and just say you want to make sure that you are using the preferred pronouns. Otherwise, just accept that the soccer moms probably know more than you do.
Maybe I missed it, but why can't you ask the Soccer Moms? I mean, all you have to do is point out that you want to be polite, and I'm pretty sure they'd give you more of a back story of what is going on. To touch off of what Ianthe wrote, I think it is also worth pointing out that your landlord might be a biological male, identify as a male, but be gay and use feminine pronouns instead. Some gay men who identify as gender fluid/androgynous (and therefore not transgender) use feminine pronouns. Although, I'd think it would generally be more obvious. Sometimes things like this can get confusing. I suggest speaking to the Soccer Moms, and they might fill you in on whats going down.
Point is, if you are confused about how to call that person, others before you have been confused too. Your landlord is used to be called she and is used to be called he and will probably brush it off if you're wrong without making a big deal out of it. However, if that person presents themselves as more masculine, worse case scenario is you call her He and she is flattered because she willingly went for that look (nobody forced her to look manly). Most likely it's a transman that the soccer moms are used to call She because they knew him before transition. In that case, you should call him he. I believe that all transsexual people want/wish to be called by the pronouns they aim for (transition to).
There's no real reason I suppose. I guess I've never really dealt with gender identity issues in real life before, so it's awkward territory for me no matter who I ask. I figured if there was a way I could avoid bringing it up and just take a "safe" route I'd go with that.
Like a lot of people have said ... just ask the landlord what their perferred pronoun is. I like it when people as me, as long as they are polite about it.
