Why Your Pronoun Isn’t a Free Pass for Power Plays

What happens when a trans woman misgendered at a restaurant goes ballistic and makes the waiter stand in front of her for two hours? It happened, and social media exploded.

Source: Facebook

I chimed in on Facebook because it occurred in my country, the Philippines — a third-world country where implicit power dynamics between the haves and have-nots are always present.

I am gay. I have friends who are transgender. I was among the first to identify the American serviceman who killed Jennifer Laude, a trans woman.

I did it because I knew it would be easy for the American serviceman to escape justice. He was sentenced to jail, but our government made a deal with the US government to extradite him back to the US.

I will fight alongside my trans brothers and sisters but not when they weaponize their gender identity as a form of power play, which happened here.

The trans woman was misgendered by a waiter who called her “sir.” She corrected the waiter, who apologized, but it wasn’t enough.

She made him stand in front of her for all to see for two hours until a good Samaritan, who also happened to be gay, intervened.

The Good Samaritan posted it on Facebook, and it exploded, garnering 56K shares. On X, the conversation continues, sadly with many transphobic comments.

My post about the issue highlighted the power play.

The trans woman, who used to be in showbiz and a radio host, and likely belongs to the middle class, got away with her actions because she “threatened” the employees that she personally knows the restaurant owner.

Claiming she took the encounter as an opportunity to educate the young waiter is a show of entitlement.

This wouldn’t happen if the young man didn’t feel the trans woman had more economic power than he did.

In a country where the young waiter might earn $10 a day, the last thing he needs is public humiliation.

If not for the post exploding on Facebook, the trans woman wouldn’t have issued an apology.

Her apology shows she is in a privileged place. While being misgendered must hurt, she should realize that many Filipinos face their own battles in life — poverty is prevalent, and gender pronouns are an alien concept.

To be candid, it is a first-world issue.

I get it, to be misgendered in public must hurt, but we all have crosses to bear, to that waiter maybe it is about the world being unfair to the poor.

So, being a bitch to someone who works for minimum wage only serves your ego. — My post on FB.

Final words

Source: FB

The restaurant owner stood by their employees, yet no word has come from the waiter, who is on leave and likely not getting paid — all because he became part of an incident that was unnecessary and uncalled for.

As for the trans woman, the incident was a humble pie to swallow. Even her statement is full of privilege. In the Philippines, we don’t say “humble pie”; we say “Patawad,” which means sorry.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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