sexistentialisms:

I’m
honestly really uncomfortable with all the pressure put on service
industry workers by people in queer circles to use gender neutral
language when interfacing with customers. Like, using gendered terms of
respect (sir, ma’am, etc.) is a part of our job; we’re expected to use
language that indicates our class position, and gendered terms of
respect (including their plurals, ladies, gentleman, etc.) is part of
how it is expected that we do that. If we don’t do that, we come across
as rude, we don’t receive as many tips, we risk losing a customer
interaction, in which the customer has all the power over us
economically, not only by not tipping, but by bringing complaints to our
managers and undermining our job security. This is the shit people
don’t get about working in service. I can’t just walk into your desk job
(provided it’s not a service desk job such as customer service, etc.)
and start complaining to your boss about your performance and get you
fired. And you’re not expected to treat every asshat who walks in with
absolute servility and deference.

Yes, getting misgendered
sucks, but the reason this is even an issue, the reason that service
industry workers are such a visible target of anti-misgendering
activism, is because people feel entitled to demand anything from us no
matter what, because that’s how the customer-server dynamic works. I’m
not saying that you EVER don’t have the right to demand to be gendered
properly. I’m not talking about individual efforts to get your gender
respected. I’m talking about these campaigns of card handouts explaining
gender theory to baristas, I’m talking about these posts going around
on the internet loudly telling services workers they need to educate
themselves, and lamenting the fact that everyone at McDonalds and
Starbucks hasn’t gone through college level safe space training
programs…

Like, I’m one of those college-educated safe space
training program coordinators. I’m also a trans woman. And I myself have
been witness to the coercive nature of gender dynamics in the workplace
in all sorts of ways. YES there are workarounds, yes they are
substitutes, but they’re often awkward, hard to get used to, hard to
implement, and often are received poorly by our customers. It’s a lot of
fucking work to do all that, to be constantly thinking about that ON
TOP OF all the other shit we have to think about when interacting with
customers (do you know just how difficult it is to memorize an entire
menu? Especially for someone with multiple learning disabilities such as
myself)?

I once got lectured in my store by an English
professor from a very prestigious DC university because I called them
“sir”. They told me they’re trying to be a professor outside the
classroom (where they teach queer lit theory) as well, and teach service
workers the proper way to address strangers when they don’t know their
pronouns. They told me, “it’s important to ask people their pronouns and
not assume! For example, I go by ‘they’, and you go buy…” I
responded, I go by ‘she’. He smiled in the most condescending way (this
whole lecture was condescending as fuck) and told me, “See?” Like, wow,
not only are you condescending and telling me shit that I’ve literally
been trained to educate people about, you’re also actively distancing me
from my womanhood now by basically saying “See? No one could have ever
guessed that you go by she! You don’t look anything like a she!” Fuck
off.

As a trans woman in the service industry, I PROMISE you I
get misgendered by my customers a THOUSAND times more than I ever
misgender them. Being misgendered by a trans person isn’t any less
shitty, but it IS less shitty than being misgendered all. fucking. day.
Like, believe me, I do my absolute and 100% best to avoid misgendering
my customers. I really do. But here’s the bottom line: The reason people
feel so entitled to these campaigns criticizing service workers, the
reasons you feel entitled to demand this respect from us (which is
respect that is yours to demand, in any situation, of course) more
readily than you are of say, your doctor, or your neighbors, is because
of the nature of service work. It’s because you see yourself as our
boss-by-proxy.

I see more posts going around about the need to
educate service workers than I do about the need to educate doctors
about trans issues. And that’s fucked up, weird, and it says something
about people’s expectations from others based on class position and
profession.