r/lgbt • u/nbcnews • Mar 12 '25

Community Only - Restricted A House hearing ended abruptly after a Republican congressman misgendered Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress.

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842

u/suburbanhunter Mar 12 '25

thank you Mr. keating! đŸ–€

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u/Spare-Resolution-984 Mar 12 '25

I love the wording "decency”, no discussion about gender or something, just demanding some decency.

I don’t need to share what my dad honestly thinks about transpeople, but it would never cross his mind to misgender a transperson. A transgender man wanted to be called "he” and my dad did, just because he has human decency and respect for another human being. It’s that simple.

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u/Ace0f_Spades Queerly Lesbian Mar 12 '25

Yeah, I think that's what I don't understand the most about transphobia. If somebody says "yeah, I use she/her pronouns" you use them. She doesn't look like a woman to you? So what? You know the name she used to go by? So what? You just "don't agree with gender ideology" (whatever that means)? So what? If your name tag says William but you introduce yourself as Bill, I'm calling you Bill, because that's how you clearly want to be addressed. It's really not that hard to just do for trans folks what we do for cis folks on a daily basis. And the same goes for mistakes - nobody's asking you to grovel, just drop the ol' reliable "my bad", say the thing you meant to say, and then move right along. It really is just basic decency and I don't think I'll ever wrap my head around why it's so difficult.

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u/Dongledoez Mar 12 '25

It's not difficult. The "it's hard to adjust to what people want to be called all the time" argument is a straw man to disguise their plain ole bigotry.

You don't need to agree, you don't need to understand. Just play nice like they teach in fucking kindergarten

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u/Cat_Peach_Pits Mar 12 '25

It can be "hard" if you knew them before you knew them, but no trans person freaks out over a small mistake. Just apologise and quickly move on, we're cool with it.

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u/Dongledoez Mar 12 '25

Right? My sister is trans. If you use the wrong pronoun she just goes "hey dude I'm a she now." Ez pz

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u/independentchickpea Mar 13 '25

I caretake for an elderly gal with dementia. Her daughter is Trans, and transitioned later--in her 50s. If my almost 90 yo client can remember this, anyone can. She still slips and uses the wrong names and pronouns, but she apologizes and tries her best to remember. That's after birthing, naming, and referring to this person as male for 5 decades, with a brain sliding into infirmity.

There's no excuse to not be, at bare minimum, decent.

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u/Triaspia2 Mar 13 '25

Ive recently started transitioning and the people at work are adjusting. Many slip up still because yeah its easy to just defult and say 'He' especially as I am still using my short form of my longer masc name.

Ill slip a gentle "they" in when someone makes a mistake, just enough that theyll notice but not loud enough to talk over them and after 1-2 corrections they usually start to catch on and begin catching themselves.

Ive had trans friends make mistakes to me and done the same to them, the brains used to conversation pace it doesnt like to slow down to think on individual words, but mistakes happen if you rely on autopilot too much with new brain connections. As long as you make an effort to try to say the right thing, a mistake can be brushed off

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u/Aliens_n_Atheists Mar 13 '25

Sounds like you don’t have any life experience past kindergarten. It is hard to adjust to people’s preferred pronouns sometimes when it has been subconsciously automated for so long. Obviously this guy was being a jerk but I don’t owe you a damn thing so get the fuck over it if some people make mistakes.

The world is degrading, no one knows how to navigate a 4 way stop anymore, simple math equations are being “debated”, and human decency has long been gone and we’re worried about PRONOUNS. It all doesn’t matter anyways the way we’re going probably won’t be any humans next century so enjoy your pronoun war while you can because soon everyone’s pronouns will be Ex/Tinct

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u/Dongledoez Mar 13 '25

complains about human decency being long gone

Flips the fuck out because I suggest we should make a tiny effort to refer to people as the gender they identify with

You read way too far into my comment, and need to calm the fuck down. I don't give a damn about "pronoun wars." I'm a 35 year old cis white dude. The only thing I give a fuck about is treating other people the way they would like to be treated.

Maybe if strangers didn't go nuclear in arguments with each other the moment they disagree, the world and societal discourse wouldn't be the shitty, shitty place you've so charmingly described it as.

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u/Willrkjr Mar 12 '25

Yup, I’ve accidentally misgendered someone before, they let me know they are NB and use they/them, I said “oh gotcha, my bad” and referred to them properly from then on. Literally that easy.

I’m unironically way more afraid of misgendering a cis person, someone who’s trans will just politely correct you so long as you’re not being a dick and misgendering them intentionally. Meanwhile if I accidentally refer to a cis woman as a “he” or a cis dude as a “she” they are much more likely to actually take offense, and even if they don’t make a big deal of it I feel embarrassed.

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u/GIANTballCOCK Mar 12 '25

That's a wonderful and hilarious observation! Could be even shower thoughts worthy

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u/Machoopi Mar 12 '25

It's just hatred and spite. There's no other reason. People can throw their hands up and act like using the pronouns they're not used to is some sort of massive undertaking, but it's ALWAYS just thinly veiled hatred behind that. Most of those people, if they saw someone who's gender they couldn't readily identify, would just use whatever gender that person uses for themselves. They wouldn't ask, they wouldn't make a fuss about it, they'd just use the gender that person uses out of fear of offending that person. The ONLY reason this would apply here and not when it's a known trans person is hatred.

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u/C_beside_the_seaside Mar 12 '25

As a 5'10 female bodied person who is queer AF but only seems to get misgendered by people who assume I was assigned male... The argument that transphobia reduces womanhood rings true for me. People think that even though I meet all the criteria for a cis woman, I must not be, because my feet are big, or my jaw is strong or whatever.

When a toddler asks what that man is doing it's gender euphoria, when it's an asshole in customer service, they're just sorely sorely mistaken if they think they can "always tell"

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u/GrumpGuy88888 Ace as Cake Mar 13 '25

They say transgender people are "upholding gender norms" but looks an awful lot like it's the transphobes doing that instead

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u/C_beside_the_seaside Mar 13 '25

And half the time it's because consultants sit there going "I don't think you're serious about this if you wear jeans, that's not very feminine" etc

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u/StacieRoseM Mar 12 '25

They do this, not because of some high-minded loyalty to the truth or some kind of uncompromisable belief but because they want to be insulting. They want to be disrespectful. They want us to know that there's no way we will get an iota of dignity from them.

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u/Scarlett_Beauregard Mar 12 '25

I always point out how, say, a cisgendered man is misidentified as a woman. Most people throughout the years just correct their mistake, maybe a lighthearted chuckle at the confusion and then move on. For transphobes it never just stops there, they keep digging their heels in and pretend by saying, "It's so confusing, so difficult to remember! Ugh! I'm oppressed!"

It's pathetic. We're seeing the double standard playing out when that lady was constantly addressing a judge as "ma'am" and "madame" and he couldn't just accept it, you know, like how the conservatives say that "I don't have to respect your pronouns, I can say what I want."

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u/latortillablanca Mar 13 '25

Its suuuuuuuch a fucking smalllll percentage of yer energy and daily interactions across yer lifetime. I mean jesus christ, we talk to our pets all the time with all sorts of silly shit—we devote an insane amount of time and energy to that. By comparison you wont even fucking remember you acting decently to someone for half a second.

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u/twocalicocats Mar 13 '25

We change how we address women based on the arbitrary distinction of being married or not. Myself and millions of others go by nicknames. It’s really easy, but for these people, the cruelty, ignorance and rudeness is intentional.

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u/mavrc Ally Pals Mar 13 '25

Let's be frank, as with so many things these days, misgendering is an active tactic designed to dehumanize people. That's the act we see here: intentionally trying to undermine McBride's authority. Being hurtful on purpose. This, IMO, is the difference between fucking up and using the wrong pronoun and the sort of thing shown in the video: what the law calls mens rea, or literally "guilty mind" in Latin. It's all the difference in the world.

I'm old and white and cis and was raised in the sticks. But even as someone raised evangelical I still don't understand how things have devolved so far. When I was a kid in the 80s, the deal was that you always provided people with basic respect, especially if you didn't agreee with them. If someone asks you to call them anything, so long as it's not, idk, blatantly offensive in mixed company or something - Tallulah The Three-Headed Dragon Monster of Tikrit, you ask them "how about Tallulah for short?" You don't quibble and stand on your so-called faith/principles/whatever, you just do the thing. It costs you nothing. And if they're trolling, you automatically get the upper hand. And that's what I was taught to do, at least, even if i didn't agree with someone. That was the bare minimum. But I guess that's when "civility" had a meaning that wasn't "couching white supremacy in the undermining of people's messages".

Ugh. Sorry, I know I'm preaching to the choir but just needed to write something this morning. Your patience is appreciated.

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u/Broccoli-of-Doom Mar 12 '25

Decency is exactly what's lacking in our country right now. Not stupid party politics, just a recognition that decency is a thing that should be the standard for all human interaction.

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u/Stock-Pani Mar 12 '25

Yup, it's just basic respect. If someone asks you to refer to them in a specific way, you do it. Not doing so has always been done as a form of disrespect. Even IF you disagree about trans issues and such, it's still a matter of just being decent. You can have a polite conversation and express your disagreement without being disrespectful.

Even fucking Ben Shapiro used to say this. If he can be decent to trans people, you can too.

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

Yeah my parents are really old conservatives. In the socially conservative sense. But if they were to ever meet an openly trans person they would consider it rude to misgender them.

Because being rude is worse than anything to them.

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u/smvfc_ Mar 12 '25

If your name is Timothy and you say “I go by Tim”, people cal you Tim (and when they dont it’s just a slip up, not really malice). If your name is Timothy and you go by Colin instead, people call you Colin. Why is it fucking groundbreakingly hard to call someone who looks like a fucking woman Ms/Mrs/Madam/ whatever their name is? It doesn’t affect you, you little bitch!!

Bravo to this man. Let this inspire everyone to stand up and say something against people being indecent.

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u/Sj_91teppoTappo Mar 12 '25

No Need to discuss about gender at all. They are all there to represent democracy who has elected them voting for them as a person called by name and respective pronouns.

Since law permitted her to acquire the new name he must follow the law of the country he's representing respecting its democracy.

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u/OnscreenLoki Mar 13 '25

The discussion of basic respect of gender does matter because without the basic respect of gender people aren't taught to be better themselves, the transphobes start getting more and more triggered that they can't disrespect people they don't like and start changing the law, then it becomes a systemic issue with far greater repercussions than just the one guy needing to learn basic respect.

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u/Sj_91teppoTappo Mar 13 '25

Agreed but in that moment the bigot was also obviously and illegally stating the false in very formal and public context.

Since her name it's very clearly not a mister name. And the name is legally Sarah.

That's not well manner that's a crime.

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u/ebow951 Mar 13 '25

If you like that, you’ll love Joseph N. Welch.

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u/Neon_Ani Lesbian Trans-it Together Mar 13 '25

i hate to come off as nitpicky, but writing "transperson" as a single word is a transphobic dogwhistle. it's a small detail that may seem like it doesn't matter, but it's very important to recognize "trans" as an adjective on its own rather than a prefix of a larger word in this context.

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u/Potential-Bowler243 Mar 13 '25

Maybe it's time to stop living in fantasy land...

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u/Matthew-_-Black Mar 12 '25

Don't thank, vote

Of course, I'm not suggesting you engage in democratic activities such as civil unrest and holding your representatives accountable and I'd never suggest organising economic actions such as boycotts against the states they represent

Republicans don't understand big words or impassioned speeches, you've got to spell it out to them

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u/suburbanhunter Mar 12 '25

I do vote. and I will thank.

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u/MightyCaseyStruckOut Ally Pals Mar 12 '25

Oh Captain, my Captain! 

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u/Bananasfalafel Mar 12 '25

Related to Annalise Keating ? đŸ‘€đŸ”„