So I’m a phlebotomist.
And sometimes, I work at a site that is directly adjacent to an endocrinologist.
Which means I see and take blood from a lot of folks that are trans, or nonbinary, or gender nonconforming.
Do you have any fucking idea how easy it is, in customer-service speak, to respect someone’s gender?
I mean, I’ve had super awkward situations where I have to say things like ‘I’m sorry, that name isn’t coming up in our system. Is there another name…“
And without fail they provide their deadname and I plug it in and I say ‘Ok, that came up, do you want me to fix that in our system?” And they say ‘Yes’ and then I ADD IT AS A SYNOMYMOUS NAME. Same as I would for someone recently married or divorced. The end.
I have never experienced a situation in which I have felt motivated to ask someone’s pronouns.
I have had situations in which I have thought to myself ‘I have no idea if this person is ‘sir’ or ‘ma'am’ and instead have gone ‘Next patient please?’ or ‘I can help who’s next’ or ‘I can help you now’
while looking directly at them.
I have had situations where I’ve gone ‘I’m like 90% certain that I’ve been given a record with this person’s deadname because this name does not match at all the gender presentation of the person I’m looking at’
And I say ‘Ok, can you spell your last name for me? Ok, spell your first name? And your date of birth?’
and then I quietly write ‘preferred name [the name they just spelled] on the top of thier record.
And if this is not hard for me, as a person working in medicine who has to make certain that the person I’m talking to is the same person on the medical record that I’m looking up, how much easier must it be for, say, a barista who doesn’t give half a fuck who you are? I’ve BEEN a barista in the past.
If a Barista is asking your pronouns, that person is an asshole.
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