General Discussion

To get very specific, I'm talking about faculty and administrators who berated and demeaned people - in my presence - not for being bigoted or insensitive but for accidentally using the wrong term. To the point where I - an openly gay person - had to reassure my coworkers who consider themselves allies of LGBTQ people that I welcome and support their efforts at inclusion and education and that I disagreed with the presenter. That's how bad it was and it went on for years.

As a lesbian I am familiar with condescension and bigotry. Well-intentioned accidental misuse of a person's preferred identification is not a sign of bigotry and not something to be publicly shamed. We know the difference between somebody like MTG deliberately dead-naming somebody and an ally's unintentional mistake. At least most of us do.

But some people are so wounded they can't stop themselves from lashing out.