In walks 9-year-old Rose, chubby little legs skipping along the path that leads into the classroom. She takes a seat in her assigned spot at the back of the room.
As she sits there trying to see the board that features math equations that are far too difficult for her; a piece of paper lands on her desk. She looks in the direction it flew from and sees it was from her best friend, Carly. Her chubby little fingers pry open the note and inside it reads “Do you see Scott today?? He’s soooo cute, I might ask him to be my boyfriend at recess.”
Rose sits there and rereads the note over and over trying to understand what Carly sees in Scott. She then thinks to herself how much easier life would be as a boy; how she could be seen as cute to the other girls in the class. How she could maybe be seen as boyfriend material.
And there we go…. my first experience with gender envy… and most definitely not my last. I grew up in a very controlling religion, where I was taught girls must never wear boys' clothes and boys must never wear girls' clothes. I was taught only men and women can be together and marry. I was taught that a man claiming to be a woman was a creep and a woman claiming to be a man was an attention seeker.
So try to imagine my mind as a child trying to push down the thoughts of wishing to be a boy. Imagine me as a child trying to push down the thoughts of finding Princess Leia in “Star Wars: Return of The Jedi” REALLY attractive.
Growing up, I never felt right; I always felt like I was in the wrong life. Even at those points in my life when my family’s religion had me in their grip, I still experienced gender envy. At age 13 I would still sit in my room, thinking to myself that if I were a boy then I could get a girlfriend a lot faster because plus-sized boys were more acceptable.
And now at age 19, I question myself every single day of my life. I constantly go through a gender identity crisis. I constantly question who I actually am, because overall it was a society that created pronouns…. society was the big decider on what a female was and what a male was. But what if I hate being confined to one box, one gender? What if at heart I truly don’t feel like either….?
All of those thoughts and feelings are very real and I experience them daily. And there are millions of people in the world who also experience those thoughts and feelings.
So I would like to pull your attention to the importance of pronouns. Some people are still unsure of what pronouns they’re comfortable with. So some people might experiment and test out different pronouns. This is completely fine, I myself am currently testing out different pronouns to see what makes me comfortable.
But no matter what someone’s pronouns are, it’s important as a human being to respect those pronouns. Don’t be one of those assholes who just says “You look like a girl so I’m going to call you one." Doing that can cause SO much harm to someone. Misgendering someone and using the wrong pronouns can cause so much pain for that person…. but using the correct pronouns doesn’t hurt you in any way. It doesn’t cause you pain or suffering at all to use their preferred pronouns. So why would you still go out of your way to use the wrong pronouns? It’s ridiculous.
To tie this all up…. I just want to say...
Hi, my name is Rose I’m 19 years old and my pronouns are She/They… I’m still figuring it out, but I ask you kindly to respect my choices and use the correct pronouns when you address me.
Because as the famous musician Harry Styles says…..You gotta Treat People With Kindness.