I've spoken on this before

[tsaiko]

One of the few things I dislike about the internet is havign to guess people's genders. The English language has three pronouns: he, she, and it. Since in my mind "it" is used for objects and is not appropriate for people, I'm stuck using "he" or "she."*

I don't use the gender other people call a person. I don't even use the gender that person might anatomically be in real life. I use the gender they refer to themselves by. If they want to be a "he" on the internet, then in my mind they are a "he." However until refers to them as "he" or "she", I have to mentally assign them a gender in my head.

I only hope that I'd be better at this if I knew these people IRL, because so far I am batting zero.

I've been wrong seven times. Seven! Statistically speaking I should be right at least half of the time since I only have two genders to pick from, but no. Murphy's Law of Statistics is alive and well.

It's really easy for me to change my gender associations for some people when I find out. I kind of go "Oops" and mentally remind myself to change pronouns. Other times it's like a battle with my brain. I assigned them to the wrong gender and now my subconcious refuses to admit that it was wrong. "No, they have to be male because I said so!"

ARGH.

There's one person I know through the internet (and so help me, if they ask I will die of embarrassment and I still don't know whether I will lie or tell the truth about it) that after nearly four years I still accidentally call them by the wrong gender when talking about them. I know what gender they are. I've had it confirmed by other people what gender they are. They do not refer to themselves by a pronoun and so my mind refuses to completely make the switch.

I even wish I suffered from the "Well if they're in fandom they must be female" syndrome. I don't. And I'd simply say "Oh hey, I think this person is male. They must be female!" except I did that once and wound up still being wrong. They were fucking male and my first instincts were correct for once.

This post brought to you by the fact that I was wrong about someone's gender again.

* Yes, I know about the "hir" and "se" pronouns but because of the context in which I was introduced to them, I think of them as a combination of the genders and not as gender neutral. They're hermaphraditic to me and I can't just use them unless the person is equal parts of both genders.

Comments

[starparty.livejournal.com]

*wince* yeah I hate that. I've been wrong a couple of times and I still feel bad. I did a "hello ladies (and gentlemen?) greeting on a comm I'm on and managed to get one of the members grumpy because while I'd though they were female they were male physically and depending on waht day it was who know what they were mentally XD

While I'm pretty sure you know, but I seem to have girly bits. *checks* Yup. Girly bits.

[reeology.livejournal.com]

I do that all the time. Even more embarrassing, people used to call me the wrong gender, even in real life. Of course, it didn't bother me most of the time, so I don't think you have to worry about offending anyone. At least, not with me.

[setzerg.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I do that all the time. There's even one person I'm still not sure about, so I alternate the pronoun I use to refer to him each time I mention her in conversation.

[mashiroikaze.livejournal.com]

Okay, now I have to ask...what gender did you think I was before you knew (if you know)? Don't worry - I won't be hurt or embarassed. I don't get hurt by that sort of thing anymore - I find it all terribly amusing. I think it has something to do with a certain night a few years back when my mom was trying to call for me and called me by (almost) all the male names in the family and then starting in on the female names before actually getting my name right.

And for me, hir/se is for transgender people who aren't really one gender or the other - intersex, almost. That may not be correct, but that's how my mind associates those pronouns.

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

You were male mostly because for a while I had you confused with another guy in the Digimon fandom that I met in real life. Once I got it straightened out you were not who I thought you were, I just kept associating male. ^_^;;

[mashiroikaze.livejournal.com]

Is that why you friended me? All this time I thought it was for my charming personality and witty reparte...

And now I feel like a letdown. *sighs* I'll go commit seppuku in my other eye now...

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

Well, no, I friended you because you friended me and then I read your LJ and thought "Hey! This is interesting and funny."

[mashiroikaze.livejournal.com]

Wait...but I friended you because you friended me....

Dangit...how do I always end up inside of a Grandfather paradox?!

[mashiroikaze.livejournal.com]

Addendum: Ah well - end result is the same. Grandfather paradox or not, I found a cool person to talk to on LJ.

And violated at least one law of temporal mechanics to boot! Woot!

Well, it could be worse

[lighthawk.livejournal.com]

You could introdue a friend of yours to your mom by the name you know them on the internet and not their real name.

But you would never do that. :)

Re: Well, it could be worse

[feuervogel]

Heheh. Then again, I don't introduce my net friends to my mom. Except kirinn, but that's cause I married him.

I did just make an icon that doesn't leave my gender status in question... though I think I'm going to get kirinn to take a better picture of me in the corset and change it up.

Re: Well, it could be worse

[setzerg.livejournal.com]

I actually almost did that with one of my _local_ friends before I caught myself.

Re: Well, it could be worse

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

I actually did do that to LH. I caught myself but there was a moment of confusion where my mouth wanted to say "Lighthawk" and my brain was screaming "That's not his actual name!"

Re: Well, it could be worse

[skyknyt.livejournal.com]

Wait, is this a faux pas?!

skye

Re: Well, it could be worse

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

Hehehehehe. It is if you don't want your mom to think your any weirder than she already does. XD

Re: Well, it could be worse

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

It was just that once! I recovered in time! She barely noticed!

Re: Well, it could be worse

[lighthawk.livejournal.com]

If you think that I'm going to let you live that down, you have another thing coming. :P

[skyknyt.livejournal.com]

Oh man I know this problem.

Leader of a raiding group in WOW I'm in has a female hunter. We use TeamSpeak (basically a VoIP solution), and he's a dude.

I always swap pronouns when talking about her. Him! SHIT.

skye

[velithya]

YES I FEEL YOUR PAIN. I refer to female characters as "she" when talking with other people, although I'll generally use "he" on /1 because the majority of players are guys. A couple of my (male) mates have female characters and refers to them as "she" in the "I want to get her to 60 to do MC" etc. Hello don't confuse me anymore okay >.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

This is why I don't think Teamspeak is a good idea. Give it a few years though and it will surely be able to translate between voices on the fly. I already have sound software that can transpose songs by quite a bit, so it shouldn't be technically impossible once the demand is there.

[del-chan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, on WoW, everyone is assumed male until proven otherwise. And then they just call you "girlie".

[velithya]

I tend to use "they".

ps. did you ping me as girl or guy? :D

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

I think initially I thought you were male, but switched opinions after reading a post or two. It's been so long though I can't really remember.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

On LJ, icons don't always help either...

[ouri.livejournal.com]

No, no they don't. X D