Misgender

I love words.  Their substance conjured out of nothingness.  Their power and scary magic.  The orgasmic joy of new words.  This fortnight, my new word’s been misgender.  

Misgender.

A prefix applied to various parts of speech to mean ill, mistaken, wrong, wrongly, incorrectly or simply negated

+

the state of being male or female, specifically referencing social or cultural differences, not biological ones.

A word with its DNA on its sleeve.  You know what it means immediately. 

Misgender.  Mis-gender?

Getting clocked, in other words.  Read.  Seen for what someone said you were, rather than what you are.

When El Punko first transitioned and was misgendered, he’d give a vicious stare and say, ‘I’m not a girl!’  As if being called a girl is an insult.  Well, it is in this culture, even if you are a girl, but if a man's mistaken for a woman, it’s not his fault.  It’s your fault for being so stupid. 

Now the Bit-ler, when referred to as ‘that man,’ looks at her colleagues who wait to see her reaction; they smile when she smiles.  If a woman is mistaken for male, it’s her fault for falling below the bar of what’s female.  It might embarrass you that you’ve called it to her attention, but really, if she’d get herself some bigger tits and spend more time painting her face and has she never heard of diets and body wear?  Geez-o-man, a little plastic surgery goes a long way.

Lil Miss Gender.  Ms Gender. 

When the Bit-ler tells me she’s been misgendered, the bra burner inside me rises up, furious that the most successful way to be a woman, regardless of anything else about you or what your sexual preference may be, is to fit inside a skin that’s attractive to men.  Which has always been a major brain fuck to me, that what is masculine decides what is feminine.  

Then I think, well, you aren’t biologically female.  You’re trans and how special is that?  Knock the boundaries off gender and be yourself.  BE yourself.  Be misgendered all over God’s green earth.

El Punko told me early in the game that he was sick of being so fucking special.  People just want to get on with life and not be singled out, for the most part.  Unless you’re a narcissist, I suppose.

So then the Pollyanna in me says, isn’t it great that trans-women broaden society’s concept of what is female?  By becoming more visible, they allow for greater variations on femininity.  In essence, allow women to take back what it means to be feminine.

Mizzy Gennuh.  Mzzgnnndrrrrrrrrr

But in actuality, that’s a load of meaningless bullshit to someone who’s been outside the gender gates their entire life.  

Misgender.  The new word that dashes hopes and aspirations, exiles, ostracises, shouts inadequacies from the rooftops with the utterance of a few simple words.  Misgender.