I have seen two diaries on here today about the same story. The Alabama Pastor and Mayor that committed suicide. Both diaries did something that irked me. The Mayor dressed up online claiming online to be a “Transitioning Transgender Curvy Girl”. Now the full story on how the identified is not known but both diaries made the same mistake.
The immediately jumped to referring to the Pastor/Mayor with male pronouns.
Yes the pastor claimed that their online identity was a “role they played”… I know so many trans women that claimed that for years when they lived in deep red cities, counties, and states. Yes the pastor posted trans erotica online… a lot of trans women do that. Hell I am a trans woman and before I came out in college, I wrote trans stories that involved loving girlfriends helping their closeted significant others come out. They didn’t really dip into erotica that often because I’m demisexual, but I wrote stories. Hell lots of my friends who are trans have done before or have onlyfans because its a good way to both feel good about themselves and make money.
But people added their own context.
They weren’t out so they must be male they thought.
They wrote erotica and made or posted porn you immediately assume it must be because they viewed trans women as whores.
Without knowing the stories in full you add these biases yourselves, and its gross, and telling.
When somebody who may be trans dies and you don’t know their gender identity, do not use your first assumption, use gender neutral pronouns. Because if you don’t, you may be committing bigotry.
Edit: I recently learned that the person in question did some unsavory things… but even if they did misgendering someone just because they did something unsavory does not make it right, its essentially saying that the gender identity only counts if they are good people.