Important Question about Trans

If the person is MtF, then you should use female pronouns. And if the person is FtM, then it's male pronouns.

Transsexuals are people who act as the complete opposite of their birth gender, while transgender is an umbrella term for anyone who does not identify as their birth gender.

 

Basically if you are worried about pronouns ASK THE PERSON. The last thing you want to do is try and be respectful and still guess wrong!

 

While it's true that asking the person is better than being the millionth person to "sir" me in a day, if you see for instance someone you know is male-to-female transgendered, and they are being called "ma'am" by everyone, it's far better to say "ma'am" yourself then ask them what pronouns they want. Doing the latter could not only "out" the person against their will, it could also take someone that felt like they were presenting themselves as a reasonably attractive member of their target sex successfully, and make them feel absolutely awful. Also, being asked what pronouns to use, itself, can become just as exhausting as the wrong pronoun.

I'm not contradicting the above post. When in doubt absolutely ask, preferably in private one-on-one. It does feel good to be asked sometimes, because I know that the person asking will get it right reliably. But it's a double-edged sword, because I also know I can't rely on that person's judgement when I'm trying to figure out how to get people in general to stop calling me "sir".

In general though, if someone is a man or woman now, even if they used to be something else in the past, it really is a safe assumption that you can treat them like a man or woman. So "she" for male-to-female and "he" for female-to-male. It makes my day whenever I get "ma'am"ed by anyone and I don't have to ask.

And all this counts for non-binary people. This is why you're encouraged to ask people to begin with, not all of us are male or female so you're guaranteed to get it wrong with some people if you guess. With non-binary people, singular "they" is your best bet. In other words, "My friend and I went to the movies and they paid for their own popcorn".

It's also really individual. We're all people. And we all come into all this nonsense from the outside. We all start out terrified straight people with a secret that we're ashamed of. We figure out different things about ourselves, and how other trans people deal with things, and we all put together a plan that works for us. We all know what will fit into that plan with our closest friends and the people that transition with us, and what just won't. Being trans forces you to figure out what your boundaries and deal breakers are real fast. And one of the biggies for a lot of us, whether we like it or not, is those little reminders of our past and our circumstances and all the things that are preventing us from leading meaningful lives like all the people around us, called pronouns. It sucks that the word "sir" makes me feel the way it does, but I have learned to deal with it. Just the same, I will always prefer people and places where I can avoid it.

So keep that in mind; any answer any of us gives you is not universal. Everyone has had to figure all this crap out for themselves, and every one of us comes up with a slightly different answer.

 

Yes, I should have made that clear. " When in doubt absolutely ask, preferably in private one-on-one. " Absolutely that.

I was thinking more in terms of that fact that, for example, I present female, but people always call me 'sir' for some reason, so in that instance you could ask if you saw me getting increasingly pissed off at people!

 

Yeah I know exactly what you mean, that really sucks so bad when people do that to me. Hey thanks OP for asking this question too