I Am So Tired Of Being Referred To With They/them Pronouns. Being A Deaf Gender Nonconforming Wheelchair

I am so tired of being referred to with they/them pronouns. being a Deaf gender nonconforming wheelchair user my existence in public is constantly scrutinized and picked apart. I am an object of curiosity and concern. I am a target for harassment, both deliberate and not.

being Deaf people see me and feel afraid. they see my hands moving and their mind is filled with terror. terror that I might try to speak to them and they wouldn't know what to do or say. terror that I might be speaking about them. terror that I'm not safe to be in public without a hearing person to watch over me. they see me as my signing first and a person second. I am an action before I am a human being.

being a wheelchair user people see me and feel afraid. afraid for my safety without an ablebodied person to guide me. afraid that they might mess up and say something offensive. and yet they feel morbid curiosity. they ask me if my butt hurts from sitting so long and they ask me how I use the bathroom if I can't walk. they ask me prying questions about my medical history and act offended when I'd rather not divulge. they see me as a wheelchair first and a person second. I am an object before I am a human being.

being gender nonconforming people see me and feel confused. they don't know what to label me as and don't know how to refer to me. they can't figure out whether I'm a man or woman and I don't want them to. they ponder my gender and my gender expression and my guesses at it and my sexuality. they wonder if I'm gay or just an odd looking woman. some of them have made it a game to guess "what" I am. I am a source of confusion before I am a human being.

being an action, an object, and a source of confusion people don't see me. they can't peel past the layers on the outside to reach my humanity so I remain something to twist around in their head. I am too much for anyone unlike me to handle. no one is exempt, not gender nonconforming hearing people, not Deaf pedestrians, not gender conforming wheelchair users.

because I have so many different very visible statuses applied to me no one knows how to label me and so they strip me of all of them choosing to focus on none since they can't comprehend all. they find comfort in they. they doesn't acknowledge my existence outside of my signing, they doesn't acknowledge my existence outside of my wheelchair, and they doesn't acknowledge my gender. I am constantly degendered, having my very deliberate expression erased in favor of labeling me as nothing. they doesn't require fitting someone like me into my worldview because it is neutral, it is nothing.

I am stripped of my gendered experiences as someone who was a woman and who is a trans intersex nonbinary man. I have my experiences defined out of existence because they do not align with hearing people's experiences or pedestrian's experiences. because my experiences of gender are so heavily influenced by my identity as a Deaf wheelchair user I have my experiences ignored and spoken over. I am stripped of my gender identity in the way people describe me. if I'm described as a man at all I am described as a wheelchair user and a Deaf person before people ever describe my gender.

it's misuse of a perfectly acceptable pronoun to enforce hearing, pedestrian, gender conforming society's norms. people do not use they/them for me because they think that I use they/them pronouns, they use they/them for me because they do not want to acknowledge who I am. many of the people who insist on using they/them for me are well aware that I use exclusively he/him pronouns but they don't care because in their head they see me as signing or a wheelchair and are confused about why a man would look like me. they think I am wrong about my own identity and think that because they are hearing, or a pedestrian, or gender conforming, that they get to assign the "correct" pronouns for someone like me.

I am so tired of being referred to with they/them pronouns

-> this post is about physical disability and Deafness. do not derail.