Read the piece only now, to my shame. Yeah, I am guilty of getting pronouns wrong with a friend who's transitioned. I have two problems about that - when I talk about the past, I tend to use the gender that was manifest then. I didn't know for a long time that he was thinking of transitioning. Then I correct myself, but the harm is already done. And to start with, it was simply a matter of association: a strong association. It's becoming more and more natural for me to refer to him as a male, but in the beginning, it was really hard. He moved away and then transitioned, so the afterimage I was left with was at odds with the new identity. The fact that I saw him in a short video he posted made it a lot easier: I had another image to refer to in my mind.
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Date: 2010-07-02 07:11 am (UTC)Yeah, I am guilty of getting pronouns wrong with a friend who's transitioned. I have two problems about that - when I talk about the past, I tend to use the gender that was manifest then. I didn't know for a long time that he was thinking of transitioning. Then I correct myself, but the harm is already done. And to start with, it was simply a matter of association: a strong association.
It's becoming more and more natural for me to refer to him as a male, but in the beginning, it was really hard. He moved away and then transitioned, so the afterimage I was left with was at odds with the new identity. The fact that I saw him in a short video he posted made it a lot easier: I had another image to refer to in my mind.