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Earnest question -- sorry if this is offensive or something everyone already knows -- but shouldn't you treat transwomen and ciswomen the same?
You are not wrong. But trans folks can be a lot more sensitive around language use sometimes. Misgendering ranges anywhere from annoying to hurtful to being an actual verbal attack. So their skin is often less thick for gendered language.
is using gender-neutral masculine terms like "guys" misgendering?
As a general rule, don't use language someone asks you not to use.
Even better, rather than thinking about specific actions, just try to treat everyone with genuine respect. If you commit a faux pas, learn from it, chuckle at yourself, and move on. 😊
It can be. Depends on the person
It can be depending on the person. My general advice is to just use gender neutral terms like "folk" or something.
It's like in a romance language. If it's mixed genders, then no, but if it's only women, then yes. If I'm in a mixed group of friends, "You guys" is totally fine, but if I'm solely with my transfem friends and someone says "You guys" to us, it feels tone deaf at best and like pretty blatant misgendering at worst.
I get this when we're at restaurants sometimes and it's pretty clear when the waitstaff are being rude. Table of all cis women next to us? "Can I get you girls anything else?" Our table of transwomen clearly presenting femme? "Can I get you guys anything else?" kinda sucks.
Unironically, "Y'all" has become a significant part of my vernacular when talking to groups of people, but especially around my queer peeps because it covers every possible option, including those outside the gender binary.
Yes. If I know or suspect that a certain word can potentially hurt a cis-woman I know due to her unique history, I won't use it around her, either.
I mean, mostly, yeah. The issue is, while most people will say dude is gender neutral, it really depends on the person.
I'm trans, I have two friends who call friends dude. One is a woman who I have known for like 5 years and will call everyone and everything dude. When she says it I don't feel weird about it.
I have another friend who says dude is gender neutral and I've known them for about the same amount of time. However, I have never heard them call a woman dude. They say they do, but I our mostly female friend group, I think I've only ever heard it towards me.
That's really the issue. People will say it's gender neutral but not use it neutrally, and believe me, trans people notice it. Anecdotally, this is how my trans friends view it as well, but take my experience with a grain of salt.
Yes but this is more like not telling 911 survivors plane jokes or rape survivors rape jokes
Trans- and cis women are both women, but that doesn't mean they are the same in every way, no?