This is one of many things I find so fascinating about this issue. Why do you feel so comfortable telling me what I do and don't feel represented by, or with informing me that I'm cis, yet equally comfortable telling me that I can't know anything about your experience?
No. I don’t feel represented by the label “man.” I know that when some people hear that word they imagine all kinds of things that have nothing to do with me. I know some people like to throw around terms like “man-spreading” and “man-splaining” and “toxic masculinity” to reinforce their assumptions that I must be some entitled, misogynistic caveman. The key point is, I don’t care.
Accepting a label is as least as much about how much you care about labels as it is about your sense of identity. If somebody makes a bunch of assumptions about me because I'm a man, just as if they make a bunch of assumptions about me because I'm black, the problem is theirs.
I could expend what seems to be an enormous amount of energy trying to force people to refer to me in specific ways that are tailor made for me, or I can be myself and let people figure our what that is. I can stop trying so hard to control people's perception of me with labels and let my actions speak for themselves. If I meet somebody who is incapable of seeing beyond their prejudices about my skin or my sex or anything else, I'm fine not being friends with that person.
I can't control how I see you. Thousands of years of evolution put that firmly out of my control. And, of course, what "seeing you as a woman" even means will vary wildly from person to person. But I try my best to see everybody as an individual and react to them based on their actions and attitudes.
You're right, society makes that difficult. But I'd argue that far more difficult is convincing people that a new pronoun turns you into something else. What happens when society applies its stereotypes to that new pronoun? As has already happened in some cases. Stereotypes can't be avoided, only transcended. And, at least for me, a large part of that is to stop worrying about labels.
p.s. No problem about the length (though I appreciate you being considerate about it. I once received a reply that was over 2000 words long😅). I really am interested in learning about different perspectives even if I don't completely agree with them. So I’m glad you expressed your thoughts fully.
