Preferred Gender Pronouns

To be honest, I had no idea how many transgender folks I encounter on a day to day basis by just walking around NYC until I, and sometimes with my friends, started looking. My intention was not to disrespect or "call out" trans folks. I became a good friend with a female to male post-op guy (heretoafter referred to as Michael, which is not his real name). To be completely frank, I did not know Michael's biological sex until he disclosed that information. Before then, I had no problem referring to him with male pronouns.

Not many people have heard of the phase, "preferred gender pronouns," or understand its importance. When a person likes to be called a she despite her biological sex, you better refer to that person as a she. Transgender folks go great lengths to change what they were given to what they are comfortable with, in spite of cancer risks, social stigma, and the time required for make-up, tucking, hair, and breasts. Let's think of it using an analogy; if an obese man loses a considerable amount of weight by running, exercising, and refusing himself the pleasures of food, how would such a person feel if someone was to call him fat after he got in shape? Transgender operations and hormone injections are hundreds of times more challenging than weight-loss and has a number of risks associated with them. To be called a she (f to m) or a he (m to f), is to say that their efforts were in vain.

Recently, I had a couple of slip-ups of calling Michael a "she." After finding out about Michael's biological sex, I started seeing him more and more as a girl. Somehow, the old image of him being "him" started to fade. I needed to remind myself that he is a "he" every time I think of him. It's a mind-twist! I think the question is, why does it matter what his biological sex is? I interact with Michael on a friendly basis. Why does it matter if he carries a male genitalia or a female genitalia? Michael is still the same, but what I know about him changes how I perceive him.

Gender

When I first read/heard that gender is just a label, I never really processed it. The first thing that popped up in my head is the infamous painting done by Rene Magritte, The Treachery of Images. In Magritte's painting, the image of a pipe is not a pipe. The painting of a pipe only represents a pipe. Magritte tries to emphasize the difference between a word and what it represents and the existence of a disparity between the the representation and the object itself. When we say the word male and female, we do not necessary think of the genitalia, but what a female should behave, wear, appear (on the outside), and be treated; likewise for male. Gender carries with it a set of social norms that "defines" the sex: a set of social criteria.

But what does that mean? How does it translate to the real world? It's often easy to understand the meaning of an idea, in this case, Magritte's personal and subjective understanding of labels and representations. But how disconnected is gender from sex?

As a social experiment and the need for male attention (sigh, long story), I posted two ads on craigslist as a gay guy and a cross-dresser. The responses I got were surprising in that the demeanors and vernacular used were completely different. Overall, the responses received for the cross-dresser post were generally nicer, friendlier, and more "gentleman-like" than the one line responses for the gay post, "I want you to suck my big dick." Note, both groups know I am biologically male. Let's, for the moment, assume that the female sex is higher up in the hierarchy of sexual relations than their opposites (due to the risk of becoming pregnant); females tend to be treated better in sexual relations than their male counterparts. The friendlier responses from the cross-dresser post were the result of my female gender, despite my biological male sex.