Hello everyone, I was in one of my classes today and we were taking a survey about relationships. A few of the questions referred to the partner as "they," and I overheard two guys behind me joking about it. I eventually had enough, turned around and said "they/them can be used as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun." And of course one of the guys looked at me and said "but there's only two genders!" and burst out laughing. High-schoolers :icon_roll How would you respond to that?
I would probably ignore them as you usually can't educate small minded people. Or address the issue with your teacher and get them to bring it up.
Well...it depends on the situation. In the medical field, there "technically" are two genders. So, I sometimes say that and then add "however, that's a physical thing - there are other aspects" and then go on to say how there are multiple facets of gender.
I'd just sit there and try to ignore them and/or try to look like I wasn't bothered by it so as not to encourage them further. (I say "try" 'cause it's really so sooo hard to stay quiet in these situations... you wanna be helpful so you wanna speak up but you don't wanna start something or make unnecessary stress either so it's hard...) On the inside I'd be kinda shook, kinda hurt, kinda sad and kinda angry but trying not be a jerk about them in my head so ehhhh not really a situation I ever wanna find myself in, lol, but unfortunately I have been in a similar one already so damn. Sorry you had to experience that, people can sure be hurtful sometimes. But, what can ya do, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I would kindly ask for evidence. Because evidence of there being only two, or evidence of there being more than two, would be nice.
Ignore them. I had to sit between a couple guys talking across me about how gender is whatever you've got "down there," trans* people have a mental disorder, etc. I died (more) inside. (I am out to very few people) It was so hard not to correct them on the mental disorder part: yes, we technically have a disorder, but it's a RESULT of being trans*, being trans* is not itself a mental disorder. People are idiots. Please make sure you know what you're talking about before you try to say something. *rant over*
Same tbh. I've only told one of my close friends that I'm agender and he was pretty respectful about it but have no idea how to tell my crush about it since he's um not very understanding about trans people and just others that aren't cis in general. I mean he's very respectful and would try to understand about it but he just doesn't get the idea of what it means to be trans so I honestly can't even imagine how he'd feel about agender let alone libragender *sighs*
Quite frankly, I wouldn't respond, because I don't understand the gender spectrum enough to really come up with a good response to that. I mean, I personally understand male and female, and I understand that there are, of course, transgender people, but I don't understand enough about everyone that falls in between or outside of those "known" genders to come up with an educated response. I know some people are agender or bi-gender or whatever, and in the end, people are what they are no matter what gender they classify themselves as and they're still valid. Just because I don't understand it does not mean those genders (or lack thereof) aren't valid, and just because someone else, in this case the OP's classmates, doesn't understand it either, doesn't give them the right to be dicks about it.