Why is the onus on everyone else? Generally speaking, I believe that if something is making someone upset/hurt, it's on them to let the other person know that. Without deep, intimate knowledge of the other person (and honestly, even with that level of relationship), it's hard to know when something that is ok to you is completely offensive to the other person.

And just for emphasis, this is my belief in general - not just in the context of misgendering trans peeps. I feel like it's not fair to stay mad at someone for crossing a line they didn't even know existed. I've applied this mentality to my marriage, and it's honestly done wonders for improving my relationship with my husband and has opened up so much room for honest communication and building respect/trust in each other.

[–] EndlessApollo@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

There's nothing wrong with genuinely using dude in a non gendered way, it's nice and considerate to ask transfem people about it (a lot of us won't speak up about small stuff like that, it's not worth the trouble correcting that kind of stuff a lot of the time) but yea it wouldn't be reasonable to get mad at that kind of stuff immediately. I was giving the other guy shit for being a sarcastic asshole about it, but yea it's just a nice thing to do, not necessary but definitely nice if you know someone is transfem