draayder:
I saw the term “malgendering”, which is only recognizing someone’s gender identity when it can be used to hurt them, and that’s such a nice succinct way to describe both massive institutional issues (a trans women who is arrested for public indecency when taking off her top and then sent to a men’s prison, mandatory military service countries that require both trans women and trans men to serve, a trans man being denied ovarian cancer care because that’s “for women”) and the smaller scale social interactions of “well since you’re a man now I can hit you” and “don’t like random dick pics? too bad. welcome to womanhood” and the godawful usage of theyfab
there’s also the more subtle, manipulative forms. if someone uses any pronouns and you want to paint them as dangerous and a threat, stick with “he”. if you want to make him seem irrational and whiny instead, call her a Karen. if you disagree on transfem issues, he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. if you disagree on transmasc issues, she should mind her own business. you see?
if you have a good gender and a bad gender this will always be an issue. kill gender essentialism alongside bioessentialism
You say “hey the term ‘theyfab’ seems really overtly cruel, constructed in a similar way to 'shemale’” and people will start assuming your AGAB to work out if you’re the type of nonbinary who’s allowed to have an opinion on this, or if you’re the type of nonbinary who can be dismissed out of hand.
And when your problem with 'theyfab’ is sticking nonbinary folks with their AGAB as a way to dismiss their opinions, it’s not like you can just out your own AGAB to win the argument, it’s an own-goal either way.
A very frustrating true story.