P

P — The P in the long-form acronym LGBTQIAAP is for PANSEXUAL.

see also: LGBT+

PACKER, PACKING — Wearing objects to simulate a penis.

Packing includes everything from stuffing underwear with a sock to wearing a realistic prosthetic penis. Trans people may pack to relieve dysphoria; anyone might pack to genderfuck. Packers should be considered an aspect of trans healthcare when they’re used to alleviate dysphoria.

Some (but not all) packers are made of body-safe materials which can be used for sex.

see also: STP; TRANS; TRANS HEALTHCARE

PAN — Short for PANSEXUAL.

PANGENDER — Someone who has more than one gender; sometimes, all genders. Pangender falls under the broader labels of “transgender” and “non-binary.”

see also: TRANSGENDER; NON-BINARY

PANSEXUAL — Attraction to multiple genders. Attraction to all genders. Attraction to people regardless of gender. An alternative term to “bisexual.”

Pansexual as a term is criticized for its biphobia and transphobia, in the implicit suggestion that bisexual doesn’t encompass trans people and the misunderstanding that bisexual means attraction to the “same and opposite” genders. Both bisexual and pansexual can include attraction to trans, and non-binary, people.

In most cases, pansexual and bisexual essentially mean the same thing; but people will choose different labels to define their experience based on cultural connotations and personal preference. Other words which describe attraction to multiple genders include “omnisexual” and “polysexual,” which likewise have their own subcultures and connotations.

see also: BISEXUAL; BIPHOBIA

PANSY — Pejorative meaning an effeminate man.

Pansy is used as an insult, along the lines of queer, nancy, and sissy. Its use highlights the connection between gender non-conformity and (assumed) sexuality.

see also: EFFEMINATE; GAY; NANCY; MASCULINITY

PARAPHILIA — Pathologized sexual desire.

Paraphilias are often very common desires, practiced consensually, but they are still framed as “abnormal” or “dysfunctional.”

The DSM-5 labels the desire to be an attractive woman as a paraphilia: “autogynophilia.” This pathologizes trans women, but not cis women who have the same (very common) fantasy. There is also no inverse “androgynophilia” for trans men. This is very telling of the psychiatric community’s transmisogyny and willful misunderstanding of trans issues. Also telling is that trans women are pathologized with a paraphilia, but pedophiles aren’t.

see also: AUTOGYNEPHILIA; TRANSMISOGYNY

PASS, PASSING — To be correctly perceived as your gender; to be perceived as cis; or to be perceived as straight. Passing has connotations of success.

Cisnormativity demands that trans people try our best to pass, because transness is a shameful error to be erased. Radical queers think we should place less emphasis on passing, and more on allowing all trans people access to basic needs (safety, housing, employment, healthcare) which are currently only afforded to trans people who pass.

At the same time, there’s no shame in trying to pass—being trans is already difficult and passing eases that difficulty, not only on a systemic level but often on a personal level too. Passing can mitigate dysphoria. You shouldn’t feel guilty for trying to pass, so long as your politics don’t dictate that passing should be required for trans people to be valid. Transness is valid whether or not it is interested in passing.

Passing is about seeking external validation for your gender, or your performance of gender/sexuality. One manifestation of this is trans people seeking sexual interest from monosexual cis people: a trans man might think, “If he’s gay and only interested in men, and he’s interested in me, then he really sees me as a man.” But we should gently interrogate this mode of thinking, because cis approval will not magically make dysphoria disappear, nor should it be inherently more validating than approval from other trans people, or ourselves. It’s also tempting to dismiss bisexuals in this regard because we can’t be sure they’re seeing us as we want to be seen, but we should believe them if they say they’re attracted to us as our gender.

see also: PASSING PRIVILEGE; STEALTH

PASSING PRIVILEGE — The absence of discrimination and violence afforded to people who “pass” as straight and/or cisgender.

Passing privilege is, I contend, not actually a privilege, because the absence of violence is conditional on hiding your queerness. This is erasure, which is a different kind of violence. Genuine privilege is not conditional. However, we can recognize that there is a (multi-axis) scale of violence, where passing/erasure tends to be less painful than not passing.

see also: ERASURE; ASSIMILATION; PASSING

PATRIARCHY — A social system of gendered norms and expectations, in which men have relative power over everyone else.

Patriarchy, like all systems of power, is produced and reproduced through both individual behavior and institutions, including non-tangible institutions of social norms (patriarchy itself is a social institution).

Patriarchy is intertwined with capitalism and white supremacy, to privilege rich white men over poor men and men of color. There is not a single axis of power in our society—a rich white woman has systemic power over a working-class Black man, because she is likely to be seen as more “respectable” than he is. Patriarchy and misogyny are also bolstered by transphobia and queerphobia, ableism, fat phobia, and other systems of oppression which delineate the boundaries of “acceptable” gender, to create subjects which are either respectable or deviant.

Patriarchy hurts men too, with its gendered expectations. Hegemonic masculinity is toxic masculinity. Men assimilate into toxic masculinity for survival, because the punishment for deviation from prescribed gender norms is very high. Women are afforded more gender deviance (e.g., wearing trousers) than men (who are not, for example, allowed to wear skirts) because patriarchy is deeply misogynistic, and therefore it’s permissible for women to behave “like men.” However, for a man to behave “like a woman” is an incomprehensible denial not only of social expectation but also of his privilege. How could he stoop to the lower status of femininity? It’s scandalous.

see also: MISOGYNY; CISNORMATIVITY; GENDER; OPPRESSION; RESPECTABILITY; ASSIMILATION

PEP — Post-Exposure Prophylaxis, an HIV prevention drug taken after possible exposure to the virus.

PEP is likened to the “morning after” pill but for HIV. It’s not to be confused with Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP).

PEP is a 28-day course of two pills a day, and when taken correctly it is very effective at preventing HIV infection.

PEP is only designed to be used in emergency situations—within 72 hours of exposure to HIV (the sooner the better). Emergency situations might include potentially being exposed to HIV during sex, sexual assault, or sharing needles for intravenous drug use. It is not a substitute for safer sex practices, like condom use or PrEP.

PEP has uncomfortable side effects such as nausea and headaches, but it is safe to take.

PEP is an important medical development in queer health activism, like all HIV-related treatments. Thirty years after the AIDS crisis began, and we’re finally not just left to die anymore.

see also: PrEP; SAFER SEX; HIV/AIDS

PERVERT — One whose sexuality is morally bankrupt.

There is a strong connection between sexual deviance and queerness; in cisheteronormative society, queerness simply is sexual deviance.

see also: DEVIANT; NONCE; QUEER CODING

PHARMASEXUAL — A term for transgender or transsexual, which refers endearingly to the use of hormone replacement therapy. An alternative term is “testojunkie” (a person who takes testosterone).

see also: TRANSSEXUAL

-PHOBIA (suffix) — Fear of.

The -phobia suffix is used to describe systemic oppressions and individual bigotries, such as homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, biphobia, and lesbophobia. The connection between “fear” and bigotry is in the perceived threat of difference to the status quo.

Its utility is mainly in its common usage; but -phobia unhelpfully conflates clinical phobias with bigotry.

see also: -MISMIA

PINK — The color pink is associated with queerness, femininity, and effeminacy.

During the Third Reich, the Nazis criminalized queerness. In the concentration camps, queer prisoners were marked with a pink triangle. This symbol has since been reclaimed by queer activists, and featured prominently in AIDS activism in the 1980s and 1990s.

Pink and black are the colors for queer anarchism.

Pink was the “boy’s” color until the 1930s, and blue the “girl’s” color. Now pink is the girl’s color, illustrative of the shifting meaning of colors and fashions and gender throughout time.

see also: PINKWASH; RAINBOW FLAG; FASCISM; QUEER ANARCHISM

PINKWASH, PINKWASHING — Using the language or ideals of gay rights and queer liberation as justification for, or obfuscation of, capitalism or imperialism.

Pinkwashing primarily refers to shifting the narrative of gay rights away from queer liberation, and toward assimilation into capitalism and imperialism. An example of this is taking the protest out of Pride: the 2017 London Pride was led not by a queer organization, but by Barclays bank, and the marketing for the parade literally focused on straight people.

The particular manifestations of pinkwashing which justify racist colonialism through the rhetoric of “gay rights” are called “homonationalism” or “transmilitarism.”

Pinkwashing takes its name from “greenwashing,” the tactic of making capitalism and corporations more appealing through tokenistic environmental concessions which do nothing to significantly address the role of big business and the profit motive in polluting the Earth, unsustainably and wastefully burning through natural resources, and contributing to climate change and immense human suffering.

see also: HOMONATIONALISM; TRANSMILITARISM; CAPITALISM

PIV — Acronym for “Penis In Vagina,” referring to the sex act.

In our cisheteronormative society, PIV sex is regarded as the only form of “real” sex or intercourse, and all other sex acts are “foreplay” or “perverse.” PIV is extremely phallocentric and has the implicit goal of male ejaculation, with little or no emphasis on the woman’s pleasure (of course, it is taken as granted that the man has a penis and the woman has a vagina and they are both cis and straight).

Of course, there are innumerable other sex acts, which are all just as legitimate and potentially pleasurable as PIV.

see also: SEX (v.); HETERONORMATIVITY; SCISSORING

PLATONIC — A relationship or attraction without sex or romance.

Platonic relationships could be described as friendship or kinship, and may have high levels of intimacy and strong bonds. Platonic relationships are no less legitimate or significant than romantic and sexual relationships.

see also: QUEERPLATONIC; AROMANTIC

POLARI — A gay slang language, spoken in 19th- and 20th-century Britain.

Polari is a form of cant slang, which is slang used by a particular group with the intention of excluding and misleading people outside the group. This was a survival strategy for queer people in a time when queerness was criminalized.

Polari’s roots are disputed, and possibly date back to the 16th century. It is a mixture of Romani, Italian, Yiddish, London slang, back slang, rhyming slang, and thieves’ cant. Polari was spoken by circus performers, merchant navy sailors, professional wrestlers, and sex workers. It became a part of gay subculture because many gay men worked in theater or in the merchant navy; it was further developed by queers to hide their queerness from a homophobic, hostile public and undercover police.

Polari declined in use in the 1960s, when a popular radio program called Round the Horn made much of the secret language public knowledge; and when homosexuality was decriminalized in 1967.

Many Polari words have entered mainstream slang; for example, “naff,” “trade,” “mince,” “cottaging,” “camp,” “butch,” “slap,” and “ogle.”

see also: GAY CULTURE

POLICE (n.) — An institution which uses force in the name of maintaining public order and upholding the rule of law.

The police as an institution was created to protect property and wealth and manage crowd control; now their role also includes “social welfare.” Modern police are increasingly militarized.

In Polari, a gay slang dialect in 19th- and 20th-century Britain, there are multiple words for police—“charpering omi,” “Lilly Law,” “sharpy,” among others—which goes to show how often queers were talking about the cops. Police would raid queer spaces (e.g., bars, clubs) to enforce anti-cross-dressing and anti-queer laws.

Police still disproportionately target and harass queers, especially racialized queers, poor queers, and queers who are trans women or perceived to be trans women.

In recognition that police, and the larger state surveillance-police-prison system does not do justice for queers (or most people), many queers have turned to alternative, community-based methods of justice for conflict resolution.

see also: POLICE (v.); POLARI; TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE

POLICE (v.) — To control with violence, oppression, and gatekeeping. To maintain the boundaries of a border (tangible or abstract).

Policing is a tactic used to deny marginalized groups access to material resources as well as discourses, and it’s a problem both within and outwith queer communities. Feminism has been—and continues to be—policed to exclude women of color, disabled women, poor women, lesbians and women who love women, and now trans women. Trans healthcare is policed so only respectable trans people are allowed access, denying access to the most vulnerable. Queer spaces are often policed to explicitly exclude ace and aro people and opposite-gender couples (or couples who are assumed to be opposite-gender); and they largely implicitly exclude disabled people, poor people, older people, and people of color.

see also: TONE POLICING; VIOLENCE; OPPRESSION; ASSIMILATION; POLICE (n.)

POLITICAL LESBIAN, POLITICAL WOMAN — Someone who identifies themselves as a lesbian or a woman for the purposes of political organizing, but has a different (possibly more complicated) relationship to their gender or sexuality in their daily, private life.

The “political woman” or “political lesbian” is an attempt at reconciling strategically reductive politics and complex personal lives.

The political lesbian is a feminist who thinks heterosexuality undermines her feminism. The political lesbian might not be attracted to women, or exclusively to women, but she wills herself to abandon men in an attempt to undermine patriarchy in every aspect of her life. The blame for patriarchy then falls not with men, but with women who “enable” it by simply trying to live livable lives. This tends to also be “TERFy,” ironically, because you would think that political lesbians would welcome trans women into womanhood as even greater examples of eradicating maleness than cis lesbians—lesbian trans women abandon not only the men in their lives, but their lives as men! But to moralize desire and gender identity, even in defense of trans lesbians, is a mistake.

The political woman is someone who will identify as a woman for “political purposes,” such as organizing and protesting, but they might have a different identity in their private life. It’s useful to unify under a single term (e.g., “woman”) but it’s not ideal to erase and reduce our varied experiences of patriarchy into a single monolith, especially when the people most likely to experience gendered violence won’t fall easily into that category (e.g., assigned male at birth non-binary femmes). “A woman for political purposes” is also alienating to people who experience violence “as women” but are not women (e.g., non-passing trans men). If your feminism doesn’t adequately account for trans people, you’re doing it wrong.

See also: FEMINISM

POLYSEXUAL — Sexual attraction to multiple genders.

This is an alternative label to “bisexual,” which essentially describes the same thing. People choose different labels for themselves based on their cultural connotations, and their personal preferences.

see also: BISEXUAL; OMNISEXUAL; MONOSEXUAL; BIPHOBIA

PONCE — A British pejorative for a posh, effeminate gay man.

Ponce was historically used to refer to a pimp, again making a connection between queerness and perversion, which further entrenches marginalization.

Ponce has connotations of Southern England: a scathing critique of the arrogant, limp-wristed, insufficiently masculine wealthy upper classes which never get their hands dirty.

see also: NANCY; PANSY; GAY; SEX WORK; CASTRO CLONE

POSITIVE — HIV positive, often written as “HIV-positive.”

see also: POZ

POZ — HIV positive, or HIV-positive.

Poz is a word around which people living with HIV/AIDS can foster community support and solidarity, and combat stigma around being HIV-positive.

see also: HIV; AIDS; SOLIDARITY

PRE-OP, POST-OP — The status of a trans person’s medical history regarding gender-specific surgeries.

There are numerous surgeries a trans person might undergo in relation to their gender. There is no single operation, despite what people euphemistically suggest when they ask if you’ve “fully transitioned.” It’s generally inappropriate to ask a trans person about their surgical status. Medical history is deeply vulnerable, especially for anyone with dysphoria.

No surgical status invalidates a person’s gender. Lots of trans people don’t get any medical intervention for their genders at all.

see also: NON-OP; TRANS HEALTHCARE; GENDER REASSIGNMENT SURGERY; DYSPHORIA

PrEP — Acronym for “Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis,” a drug used to prevent HIV infection. Not to be confused with PEP (“Post-Exposure Prophylaxis”), a drug taken after exposure to HIV.

PrEP is the generic name for the drug Truvada, which contains tenofovir and emtricitabine, which are also used for treating HIV.

The availability of PrEP is a massive victory in HIV/AIDS activism. It has been available in the US since 2012, and in the UK since late 2016. HIV transmission rates have remained relatively stable for years, and widespread access to PrEP for people most at risk of getting HIV could drastically reduce transmission rates.

“High-risk” or “at-risk” groups are demographics which are statistically more likely to contract HIV. This is not because these groups are negligent with their sexual health, but because they face barriers to accessing sexual healthcare and information due to homophobia, whorephobia, and stigma surrounding drug use. High-risk groups include: men who have sex with men (MSM), and the other people they have sex with; trans people; African communities in the UK; intravenous drug users; and sex workers.

PrEP is over 90% effective at reducing risk for HIV through sexual contact when taken daily (figures vary, but “over 90%” is often cited); the protection PrEP offers is comparable to condom usage. For intravenous drug users, PrEP reduces the risk of HIV transmission by more than 70%. PrEP is one tool for HIV prevention which can be used in tandem with others like condoms, depending on your circumstances and risk.

PrEP can be taken daily, or, 24 hours before and 48 hours after having unprotected sex, a method called “event-based dosing.” Event-based dosing works reliably for people having unprotected anal sex, but not for people having unprotected receptive vaginal sex.

There is slut-shaming in the gay community about taking PrEP. On some apps, like Grindr, you can add your HIV and PrEP status to your profile.

Access to PrEP is still limited in the US to people who can afford it, or whose insurance covers it; the same is true for people in Northern Ireland and Canada, where it is not publicly funded. At the time of writing, PrEP is being trialed through public healthcare in Australia and Wales, and in England it is limited to a trial of 10,000; to buy PrEP privately in England costs £400 a month. It is widely available through the NHS in Scotland. PrEP is currently not widely available across Europe—according to a PrEP summit in Amsterdam in February 2018, this is largely due to the ignorance of politicians, healthcare workers, and potential users about how it could benefit them.

The argument against making PrEP widely available to anyone who would benefit from it is cost—there are no medical reasons why it shouldn’t be made accessible; and, as usual, the cost of a preventative drug like PrEP is far lower than the cost of treating HIV.

PrEP does not protect against other sexually transmitted infections, or pregnancy. PrEP shouldn’t be taken by people who are HIV-positive, and does not benefit people who are never exposed to the virus (e.g., people who always use condoms with new partners); and people who are monogamous with an HIV-positive partner who is undetectable, or an HIV-negative partner. PrEP has some side effects like nausea and headaches, but for most people these subside after a month of daily dosing. There are no known long-term side effects, but people taking PrEP should get their kidney function tested regularly, as well as regularly testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

see also: PEP; HIV; AIDS; UNDETECTABLE; BAREBACK; SAFER SEX

PRIDE, PRIDE PARADE — A movement to celebrate queer culture and combat stigma around queerness. An annual parade to this end, and to commemorate the Stonewall riots and other moments of queer resistance.

The first Pride celebration was in 1970, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots on the weekend of 28 June 1969, a spontaneous uprising of gay and trans people at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village New York City in response to homophobic policing.

The first UK Gay Pride Parade was in London in 1972, with fewer than 1,000 people marching from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park, and it was very much a protest. The marchers were met with heavy policing and public condemnation.

Pride is (in many places) no longer treated like a protest, an expression of solidarity with ongoing queer liberation struggles, or a commemoration of past protests; it is treated like a street party. This pinkwashing is particularly insulting when police, government departments, and corporations who directly contribute to queer suffering are allowed to march in so-called “Pride” celebrations.

see also: STONEWALL RIOTS; PINKWASHING; RAINBOW FLAG

PRIVILEGE — Systemic advantages and rights given on the basis of an aspect of identity. The lack of systemic oppression.

Privileged identities include: whiteness, cisness, heterosexuality, maleness, wealthy and middle- and upper-class people, abled and neurotypical people, citizens, and thin people.

Privileged identities are unmarked, “default,” hegemonic, normalized. Minority groups and groups oppressed by systems are scrutinized, while the privileged group is not. Privileged groups are not always the majority, but they do hold the majority of literal capital and cultural capital. Having a privileged identity does not mean that you don’t have difficulties in your life; but it does mean that you are not being systemically oppressed on the basis of that identity.

Our identities are not discrete; most people have both privileged and oppressed identities, which intersect. It is generally not useful to try to quantify how oppressed someone is, because that creates a false hierarchy and flattens out the nuances of our complex lives and experiences.

see also: OPPRESSION; VIOLENCE; ERASURE; INTERSECTIONALITY

PROBLEMATIC — A catch-all word to denote something bad, oppressive, wrong, and disagreeable.

Problematic is euphemistically used to gloss over specific wrongdoings or bad behavior.

Problematic is a product of call-out culture and purity politics, which tend to not have much nuance. We are all problematic and have learning to do, and a culture of ostracizing people for saying something incorrect is toxic. However, call-outs are often appropriate, and sometimes the only recourse that marginalized people have to highlight either a pattern of harm caused by an individual, or a systemic iteration of oppression. An alternative to call-outs are call-ins, which invite the problematic person to self-criticize (“selfcrit”) and learn from their mistakes; but call-ins also require lots of effort and patience, usually from the people directly harmed by the original problematic behavior, and the expectation that they politely educate problematic people is unreasonable.

see also: TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE

PROJECT 10 — The first organized effort to provide support to LGBT+ youth in the US.

Project 10 was based started in Los Angeles, named after the widely circulated statistic that 10% of men are “exclusively homosexual.” There are known chapters in California and Canada. The facilitators discussed issues of drug and alcohol use, safer sex, and mental wellbeing with the aim of supporting LGBT+ youth.

see also: GAY–STRAIGHT ALLIANCE; SAFER SPACE

PRONOUNS — A word used in place of a noun which has already been referred to, or is implied.

Traditional	She won	We like her	Her smile beams	That’s hers	She loves herself
	He won	We like him	His smile beams	That’s his	He loves himself
	They won	We like them	Their smile beams	That’s theirs	They love themselves They love themself
	It won	We like it	Its smile beams	That’s its	It loves itself
Spivak	Ey won	We like em	Eir smile beams	That’s eirs	Ey loves emself
Neopronouns	Ze won	We like zir We like hir	Zir smile beams Hir smile beams	That’s zirs That’s hirs	Ze loves zirself Ze loves hirself
	Zie won	We like zir We like hir	Zir smile beams Hir smile beams	That’s zirs That’s hirs	Zie loves zirself Zie loves hirself
	Xe won	We like xe We like xyr	Xyr smile beams Xer smile beams	That’s xyrs That’s xers	Xe loves xemself
	Ne won	We like nem	Nir smile beams	That’s nirs	Ne loves nemself
	Ve won	We like ver	Vis smile beams	That’s vis	Ve loves verself

Pronouns are not “preferred,” they are mandatory. Saying “preferred pronouns” implies that they are an alternative to a “real” set of pronouns.

Pronouns do not necessarily correlate to gender. Just because someone uses “she/her” pronouns does not mean she is a woman; she could be agender, for example. We should endeavor to divorce pronouns from gender, just like we should divorce body parts and clothes and jobs from gender.

In English, the most commonly used pronouns are gendered; but there are many gender neutral alternatives.

People are given pronouns when they are born to “match” their assigned sex at birth. Some people change their pronouns, and some don’t. Some people use different pronouns in different contexts; for example, at work versus at home, or online, or amongst people who are more familiar with non-traditional pronouns. Some people will indicate that they use a mix of pronouns (e.g., she/they). This could mean they are happy with either she or they; or it can mean they deliberately switch between multiple pronouns. Some people don’t mind at all what pronouns are used to describe them.

The above is true of cis queers as well as trans people. Queer people have swapped pronouns for themselves, their partners, and people in their social group since queerness has been pathologized and criminalized. We still see this in queer communities where some men are “she” and some women are “he.” This practice both cloaks queerness and makes it invisible to hostile straight people, and builds a shared subcultural language around gender bending. While it’s a subversive practice, it can also reify patriarchal condescension when queer men dismissively refer to each other, or to adult women, as “girl.”

Changing pronouns is a common part of transitioning for trans people. Many trans people feel hesitation in changing their pronouns because we feel like we’re asking a lot of people to change the language they use to describe us, especially if we’re using pronouns other than he/him or she/her. It takes some time to get used to it, but changing the pronouns you use for someone is a small and important gesture in showing them respect and support; failing to use the right pronouns is misgendering, which is painful.

That said, misgendering someone accidentally is not an unforgivable act, just a mistake that should be corrected and avoided; you don’t need to make a big deal out of it, just apologize and move on. The difficulty that you feel in changing what pronouns you use for someone is nowhere near the difficulties they’re feeling in managing everyone’s fragility about their pronouns.

Ask people what their pronouns are—not just people who are trans, or who you suspect are trans. There is a lot of hesitation for cis people to ask about pronouns because it’s seen as rude, but this is rooted entirely in the cisnormative idea that we’re expected to correctly guess people’s gender based on their appearance, and if we can’t, it’s a failure on the part of that person to adequately signify their gender. Asking about pronouns isn’t rude; it invites people to tell you how they want to be referred to. The simplest way to ask is to offer your own pronouns when you introduce yourself: “Hi, I’m Morgan and my pronouns are he/him. And you are?” You can also pay attention to where people have already indicated their pronouns, on online profiles, email signatures, and by how their friends refer to them.

Practice using people’s pronouns when they’re not around. Getting people’s pronouns right is important and shows a basic level of respect and decency, but it is not the only thing required of you to be avoid being transphobic. The heavy emphasis on pronouns makes trans people look like we’re fussy and nit-picking about language, and “too fragile” to handle something as “inconsequential” as words. But I don’t care if you’re getting my pronouns right while detaining me, and I don’t care if you get my pronouns wrong while interrupting the street harassment I get for wearing a dress. The liberal focus on inclusive language obscures the daily material kinds of violence trans people face.

see also: GENDER NEUTRAL LANGUAGE; MISGENDER; THEY/THEM; SPIVAK; THON; XE; ZE; IT; INCLUSION THEATER

PUSSY — Slang for vagina. It is also a derogatory word meaning feminine, effeminate, or weak.

Pussy is also used by some people to describe their anus, because it affirms their gender in a reclamation of their body and the ways they have sex.

Pussy was a term of endearment for girls and women, and effeminate men, in use since at least the 1580s. “Puss” has been in recorded use for “cat” since 1520s (but this use is probably older than records show). Since c.1600 it applied to girls and women as having the negative qualities of a cat, but by the 1800s it was used affectionately.

see also: MISOGYNY; PATRIARCHY; BOY PUSSY