General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Today I learned that many people posting here are transphobic. [View all]noamnety
(20,234 posts)All of us, including myself, have been the culprit in committing an occasional offensive faux pas out of ignorance at one point or another. It stings when we get called out. I did once in a Katrina blog post, where I referred to the evacuees as "refugees." I had no idea when I typed it that it was offensive or why. Now I know.
Going back to delete your post was appropriate. A comment (and I don't know whether you did this or not) to the effect of "I'm sorry, I'm reading and absorbing what you are saying here and why it's offensive, but I honestly meant no harm" is appropriate.
Acting like you are the victim or that other people are out of line for being angry when people won't acknowledge their gender, getting defensive, and in effect saying that people are overreacting (tossing out hyperboles like "crime against humanity" is not appropriate. Anytime there is a power/privilege dynamic (white/black, straight/gay, etc), I believe the burden is on the group with the most privilege to make the greater effort to listen to members of the group with the least privilege, and put their own egos aside while doing it.
It sounds like you got called out once for a comment on using inappropriate pronouns. I truly believe - and I suspect you would agree - that any pain you suffered as a result of that callout is negligible compared to the pain transgender people deal with over and over and over again, when people refer to them deliberately with the wrong pronoun, as s/he, or worse yet, "it" - which I actually saw on DU once today. Understand that for you, the issue is simply saving face. For them, it's having their entire identity invalidated. You are not an oppressed person here, in other words, and if you inadvertently contributed to someone else's oppression, apologize, learn from it, suck it up and move on.