Correct pronouns stamp

This wall of words below is for those who wonder what is the big fuss with the "correct pronouns" for anyway. Because I am continuously getting the impression that a lot of people cannot understand the importance of pronouns for a lot of other people. It's okay - nobody can ever really understand everyone else, especially for things which are completely foreign to themselves. So, to help with that last bit, I will try to explain why the pronoun thing is important to some people, e.g. transgenders, though not only, and it's even so damn important that they often make such a "fuss" over of it. Myself included in the "fussing" bit, by the way, so I will explain it from the standpoint of a person to whom they are indeed, important.

Also, this is NOT a cause for a fight, I will try to explain things in a civilized, patient manner. All I want is a little understanding.

As a general rule, people have their "default" pronouns attached to them since as early as birth (or with the modern technologies nowadays, actually even way before that). And when I say default this is exactly what those pronouns are in the minds both of the people around you and yourself. It's what you get every day, under any circumstances, all the time, it's also what you expect to get even if you don't think about it. Indeed, most people are so used to their default pronouns that they never give them a thought really. That's because to most people the default pronouns are okay. They fit, they suit you, they feel comfortable and fine, so even if they are the default (unlike personalized stuff), they are perfectly fine by you. To others however, their default pronouns are not fine, not even close. The reason for that is gender dysphoria.
Now, I've heard all manner of opinions about transgenderism and gender dysphoria these days. I am not going to argue on whether this is a legit thing and why. The simple fact that you cannot deny is that there are people out there who do not feel okay with their own bodies and/or social role, gender-wise, and it is namely this feeling that is called gender dysphoria - one of its side effects being also the dysphoric feeling linked to how people address you or refer to you in a conversation. The way people address / refer to you is an expression and manifestation of the gender that is assigned to you by society, whether you like it or not. I say whether you like it or not because by default nobody asks your opinion on what gender you would like to be assigned to. It is not a problem to most people - because they don't experience gender dysphoria. However, to those who do, it IS a problem, and a big one, because it provokes very real negative emotional response in you, which can in many people be strong and very deep, as well. People like this actually begin to hate the pronouns assigned to them by default based on their assigned gender, because of this negative emotion. The whole pronoun thing is strictly dysphoric and has to do with the impact of these words on the inner world, emotions and mentality of these people - people like me. To most of you the pronouns don't really matter much because you were always okay with yours anyway. You are able to not give it a thought because you are fine with it. If you weren't, then trust me, you would be giving it a lot of thought, every single day. You never really experienced the feeling of being consistently, constantly, unconditionally addressed with a pronoun which you actually hate. When you are like me, you hate it not because you're putting up an image, making up a sexuality, on a whim, vogue or whatever else comes to mind. You hate it because it isn't right to you, because it is a manifestation of the gender you DO NOT identify as and like this it feels very very wrong, because being addressed with this pronoun that feels so awfully off to yourself, provokes a whole range of negative emotions in you, even pain, like it can actually hurt, and this happens every single time somebody uses it on you. I am assuming now, you don't like it when people's words make you experience negative emotions of any kind for any reason, do you? You certainly don't like it when something they said hurts. This is what pronouns do, it hurts because it feels like they stuff you into the abstract borders of the gender that you never felt yourself to be part, because it feels they discard your entire personality.
It may sound as an exaggeration, but this is how many people like me experience this, for real. Whoever you are, you are not entitled to discard the feelings of other people and how they experience things individually. You have no right whatsoever to deny that other people experience such an emotion just because you never did - or for any other reason for that matter. Therefore, this is not a matter of what you think of transgenderism or even dysphoria itself. No. It's something much simpler - it is a feeling which certain people experience. As such, it is terminally simple - no matter what you think, believe or stand for, these people will keep experiencing it. It doesn't matter what is your position on their personality and state - this is NOT an ideological matter; if you keep addressing them with the pronouns they feel are wrong for them, they will keep experiencing these negative emotions and nothing you can possibly do or say to them is going to change that. Give that a thought. Do you really want to make other people feel bad because of you just as you speak, in normal, everyday life, just because you cannot understand them? Do you feel that it's right? What does it cost to you really to change the pronouns you use for them? Hardly anything. What does it cost to them if you don't - well, this you'll never know because you've never felt the pain of dysphoria. But regardless of the cause, the emotional pain is something quite universal. You get to choose whether you will cause it to others needlessly, without them having earned it in any way - or not. This choice should be fairly simple, should it not?

To anyone who might still be shaking their heads in disbelief for the "next genderism nonsense out there".... you have no idea what it's like. Pronouns seem like something totally insignificant, do they? Then let me tell you that my brain has been reworking my speech on the go to remove all gendered pronouns, verbs, proverbs, pronouns and adjectives (my native languages is bloody gendered all over the place) when referring to myself and substitute it with gender-neutral phrases and words instead. In Every. Single. Conversation. That I have had. Every. Single. Day. Of my life. Since I was, say, 8. No. It's totally not a big deal.

Case closed.


Fave the stamp if you use it.

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*** Today at lunch I randomly overheard a conversation in the canteen downstairs between some ladies, one of whom apparently is going to have a young soon.
The rest were telling her how she is lucky that the soon-to-be child is a girl because boys are such a mess when they are growing, always making trouble.
This is what I'm talking about. The child is not even born yet. And they already assume its future behavior and personality based on whether it has a pinky-sized growth between the legs or not. Based ONLY on that.