Constant misgendering (just venting)

Sorry to hear you're going through all this. It's tough enough dealing with misgendering in the English language. I can't imagine how it'd feel in the Spanish language. *hugs* Anything I can do to help?

 

I feel you. I've been learning Spanish for two and French for five years and they're really gendered languages, I'm kind of glad that I wasn't aware of being transgender at that time. My mother language is German and although it's not as bad as e.g. Spanish it annoys me and I find it too gendered too. I feel like it's just been in the last 10 years or something that everyone started using the female endings of the words much more. When I was a kid I think it wasn't even bad to refer to a female with a 'male' word because that 'male' word was more neutral back then and now it's male and has another ending for females. I always referred to me with the 'male' words back then (also because they're shorter, when referring to a female you have to put an extra ending to the 'male' word) and nobody ever said something. But then everyone started using female words, which I don't care about, but when they used them while talking about me I always was like "wtf why don't you just use the shorter (and for me kind of neutral) word?!". It's still hard for me to understand it although it makes sense of course that females normally want to be referred to with the 'female' words. But I just kept referring to myself with the 'male' words when necessary. Normally I try my best to avoid words that aren't gender neutral but when I have to use one I use the 'male' word. I'm not out and at the beginning everyone was like "Did you mean *female version of the word I used*?" but I just ignored it and continued and now nobody cares or at least no one says something anymore. But it's so annoying to hear other people use 'female' words for me, I wish they would just stop. It isn't even that hard to not use gendered words but it almost feels like they always try to use as many of these words as somehow possible :bang:

Maybe that's one of the reasons I really like English. It's so neutral and it relieves me when I can write in English. And there are neutral pronouns. All things I'll never have in German I guess.

So uh ... I don't think that this helped you but I just wanted to say I understand you so well. I hope it someday gets better.

 

I have the exact same problem, hebrew is also highly gendered and eventhough I am out to my family their general lack of acceptance just makes it so hard to gender myself correctly around them. It makes it so hard to talk to anyone really because of the constant misgendering. I feels so ashamed with myslf whenever I misgender myself and it is becoming harder the further I move forward with transitioning. There is also the frustrating truth that people will misgender me more often once I present as a woman fulltime.

I guess the upside is that we also get more positve feedback and it is easier to reinforce our gender identity if we can refer to ourselves as women or men. You don't really need to explain to others about the proper use of pronouns if you can just refer to yourself as a girl or boy! Today I for the first time gendered myself correctly to my father and while it was hard it also felt like a step forward!

I think the best way to cope it to find people that you feel comfortable enough to use the proper pronouns and when you are feeling disphoric talk to them and it will make you feel better! A therapist us a good choice but also LGBT groups and the like work or just friends that you trust.

Anyway, thanks for exopressing something that so many of us must be going through and you are definitely not alone. (*hug*)

Hugs,

(&&&)

Yael

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. French is my first language, so I know how much gendered adjectives and words suck.

However, I've found a way to speak neutrally in it without creating new words. You probably know that in gendered languages, it's the word that's gendered, not the object. So, if you have to gender ''I/Je/Yo'' female, don't use it. (I know, this sounds impossible xD). For exemple, instead of saying ''I'm nice'', I'll say ''I'm a nice person''. This way, I know that it's accorded with ''person'' instead of ''I'', thus I'm not misgendering myself.

Ex: Soy simpatico/a. -> Soy una persona simpatica.
Ex: Je suis gentil(le). -> Je suis quelqu'un de gentil./ Je suis une personne gentille.

I haven't really experimented it much in Spanish since I started learning it when I was close to transition, but I'm pretty sure it can work itself out in that language, too This won't make people not misgender you, but at least , you'll be true to yourself.

Hope this helps, and hang in there *hugs*