Misuse of words, or Did she really out him?

[karmyn75.livejournal.com]

As we all know, LKH has a strange way with words and misusing them in amusing ways. There's the infamous lose/loose, the new air/err, and my new favorite, the overuse and abuse of 'homophobe'.
I'm the first to admit I have no sort of gaydar at all. I mean, even after I saw a photo of a friend in a newspaper story about the university glbt club I still wasn't sure he was gay. Now he's in the middle of a sex change.
Anyway, it seems to me that LKH is misusing the word homophobe. When Richard is uncomfortable at seeing JC naked, Anita says he's homophobic. Maybe he just doesn't like seeing other men naked all the time. Nothing homophobic about that. The use of the word homophobe heavily implies that JC is totally and completely gay. Of course the readers know he and the other men are, but LKH has been denying this all along. Now she outs him.

Comments

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Depends on the trans person, really. Me, I'm female to male, so if I'm referred to as 'he', I get a giant buzz out of it. :D But I'm pre-transition, and not everyone knows (though I dress male full time), so I'm fine with female pronouns. Though I know some people who deliberately use female pronouns in order to piss me off, in which case said people need a kick in the head.

Though personally, I'm pretty laid back, so roll with the punches. Other trans people get hung up on it for various reasons. I have to say that if an MtF was dressed as a guy, she shouldn't get offended by being referred to as 'he' by the general public, because that's what she's presenting. Though again, people who do know she's MtF and use male pronouns to be offensive and annoying need a kick in the head.

I call everyone dude, too. It's unisex in my vocabulary. :D

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, asking is the best course of action - at least that way it cuts out any ambiguity. It can get pretty confusing for even trans people as to what other trans people want to be called. There are some who ID as trans but are fine with their biological pronouns, others hate their bio pronouns. I even knew one trans person who was more generqueer and insisted on people using he and she in alternate order, often in the same sentence. That one kind of went down like a lead balloon, because there are limits.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. You can see why people drew the line at that point. XD

The whole thing can boggle me, too. There's a whole thing about 3rd gender/non-gendered pronouns, too. Zie and Zir is quite popular in the trans world. It's okay if people can stick to it, but can get really confusing for people who have no clue about it. Not so bad when the person is laid back like me and doesn't mind outsiders using gendered pronouns, but gets really annoying when people get screechy about how they must use Zie and Zir and society must conform to their non-gendered way of life.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I'm sympathetic to the cause, but realistically it's not going to happen. Society would have to re-educate itself, and I'm just not sure that's possible at the moment, if at all. Hell, a lot of people haven't even heard of transsexualism, let alone third genders. We're talking about a society that thinks men in drag is shocking, much less men who want a sex change. Not to mention the fact that there are people out there who can't even spell gendered pronouns properly. Throw in a third set, their brains would break.

Sometimes I think it would be better to be an amoeba.

I like the idea of being a ball of electricity or something. I could still surf the net then. :D

[windiain.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of envious at their ability to apply makeup so well - I was hopeless at it as a teenager, and I was presenting as female back then. O_o

[jycaegima.livejournal.com]

Oddly, he looked exactly like one of my dance instructors in that movie. I kept wanting to call him Deanna.

/digression

[rinkori.livejournal.com]

There's always the singular "they," which is my default pronoun for people whose gender I don't know or who identify as genderless.

Yeah, the etiquette is a little complicated, isn't it? Haha.

Really it's not so much whether you slip up and use the wrong pronoun as whether you correct yourself afterward. My partner is much more likely to forgive a wayward "she" if it's immediately corrected than if the pronoun-slipper-upper just blithely continues on.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

I prefer 'they', to be honest. It's far less confusing, because it's already established in the english language anyway. Most people can work out what you mean, too.

And yes, the correction does at least show that the person is making an effort, which is really appreciated.