Seriously, stop gendering your pet

You may think it is of little importance when you gender your pet, but such a seemingly casual decision to flout all modern gender science could have far reaching consequences. Let's go beyond the obvious "why would you do such a thing to an important member of your family?" -- and fully explore the conversation, including its potential societal impacts.

First, let's be clear on something. Pets cannot speak for themselves. They cannot tell you that they are being misgendered. It’s important not to make assumptions about what gender your animal is based off of its sex, which is another thing entirely from its gender.

As science has shown us in recent years, sex and gender are separate things and in no way intertwined. The sex of your pet is irrelevant. The only time you need to concern yourself with the sex of your pet is when you spay or neuter it. (And this begs the question of whether or not we can ethically perform operations on our pets without their consent at all.)

Animals have diverse genders just like humans -- just as readily as they enjoy their diverse sexualities. There are in fact gay animals, trans animals, queer animals, and even animals capable of changing their sex altogether all willy-nilly-like just because they can and they are f a b u l o u s.

If you disagree with these basic and scientifically founded presuppositions, know that you are standing against the right side of history. Know that you are flouting common decency just to "own" the "queers." You belong in a gaybashing movie set in some hick town in the 1950s.

The New York Times: Can Animals Be Gay? (Yes)

Wikipedia: List of animals displaying homosexual behavior

So if you love and care for your pet (and we trust you do!), it is important not to misgender them. Try to give them a gender-neutral name instead and calling them gender neutral pronouns like they and them. Gender researchers have painstakingly put together a humongous list of gender neutral pet names for you to choose from!

You may be thinking, “why is this important? This is just an animal?” -- in which case I may be thinking you are a bit dull.

This is all important because typically pets are more important to their owners than just “animals.” This is all important because animals are acutely aware of their environment -- even more so than humans!

Also, it’s an important way to practice getting rid of gender norms all together.

Because gender is a spectrum. We need to get used to using gender neutral terms so that we never make incorrect assumptions about a person or animal ever again. Stop gendering your pet because it’s not fair to the animal, which is in your care and which trusts you 100% to do what's in their best interest. If you can't commit to such a small act granting such an outsized benefit, why did you take an animal into your care to begin with?

Gender neutraling your pet also an excellent way of preparing yourself to view the world differently (and more fabulously). Just because you see someone who looks stereotypically male or female doesn’t mean that they are. Everyone is somewhere in between male and female (remember: spectrum) or perhaps even something else altogether, so it’s really important to not make assumptions about the people and animals you come across.

One little word change to improve the world a hundred-fold. Now that's a golden rule we can all strive for.

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  1. 7 months ago
    Matt

    This is the most fricking crazy shit ive ever heard in my life besides "chest-feeding"...misgendering your pet...OH MY GOD what world do we live in??????

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    People at work kept demanding I play along with this. They wanted me to make pronouns, list my sexual identity, etc... put stuff in email signatures, so on. I told them I am not transgender and don't want to participate in gender stuff, I didn't even go to college to learn about it. All the work people got mad and were acting like I was committing an offense for not doing all this gender stuff. It was like harassment and I fear they were trying to get me to say something that they could use to fire me. So I asked if I could bring someone to help me explain. I brought a friend in a suit, told them he was my lawyer, and then he asked what questions about my sexual identity and sexuality needed to answered as a condition of employment, and the legal rationale. They got real scared and dropped all of it. For a while they were angry still though and would purposely 'misgender' me, because I hadn't told them and they couldn't know, but I just ignored it and it eventually stopped.

    So that is how you beat the constant push to worry about gender and identity, demand it to be legally private. Thank you for reading my blog.

  3. 2 years ago
    Lizbo

    How do you react when someone deadnames your pet? I can't constantly be telling people off, it gets so exhausting. And I have to keep things cordial with my parents until I get my living situation fixed again.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I don't really think most cats or dogs or rabbits really have the cognitive ability to think through gender identity and make a decision one way or the other, so I'll still be calling my next dog Arthur. And my dogs after that Barnabas, Cholmondeley, and Uncle Johnny, in that order.

  5. 2 years ago
    Cat Mom

    Anyone else's cat have gender euphoria after a fresh shot of hormones?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Wow, she looks so happy. I work with runaway cats and I wish more cat parents affirmed their pets feelings like you

    • 2 years ago
      Awwwww

      This. This is EXACTLY why we promote the fixing of trans pets. This cat is experiencing the bliss of finally being the gender they identify with.

    • 2 years ago
      mangnag

      For a even bigger dose of euphoria try her on something like lean, coke, ecstasy any drug will do! Just mix it in with her hormones

  6. 2 years ago
    Husky dog wife

    Old as frick article but didn't we already have much more important issues in 2017 than people giving their hecking doggerinos gendered names and using he or she while talking about them?

  7. 2 years ago
    Starting to suspect my goldfish is genderfluid.

    A little background on me. I was raised in a right-wing extremist environment surrounded by Joe Rogan podcasts, Linkin Park and other ultra-macho stuff, where people called things they didn't like "gay".

    In college I learned about social constructs and realized how much Western "science" is just just racism, misogyny, transphobia hidden using numbers and trickery. I'm trying to decolonize and dewhiten everything in my life.

    That brings me to my goldfish. I don't have definitive proof they're trans but I've noticed a LOT to suggest they aren't an every day cismale fish. They show no interest in the female goldfish in the tank but will swim very close (I think on purpose) to their male tankmate, even "nuzzling" on occasion. That alone doesn't mean they're trans (they could just be gay) but they also swim very softly and I've sat marveling at how eager they are to show their playful feminine side in the water compared to the other male fish, who tends to charge through the water headfirst like its angry and toxic and showing off it's "male-ness" for the female who is very preppy and submissive to the toxicity (much to my chagrin).

    My main question is wow do I cut my fish's balls off. I don't have much money and I'm afraid of the potential that the local veteraniarian, who is a white guy, is into Qanon & will try to give them ivermectim or accuse me of being insane which people have been doing to me my entire life until I found normal people on Wauf.com.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      DONT give your fish ivermecting, it's literally horse dewormer and won't help your fish with covid. Make sure to open the lid of the fish tank regularly so there is enough air exchange. You could also cut a whole at the top and sew a mask over it. Stay safe <3

  8. 2 years ago
    Australian shepherd appreciator

    Im pretty sure my wife (canine) is all woman. Trust me, i checked.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Hello what? does this mean??

      • 2 years ago
        Sneed Feedly

        Love is love. :^)

  9. 2 years ago
    chuck

    the sign is a subtle joke

  10. 2 years ago
    Be decent to one another

    This articulates what I've been thinking about for so long. Thank you for that.

    Why make a cause out of misgendering when the animal that depends on you could be respected with just a simple word change?

  11. 2 years ago
    Mart

    This is so important. Love!

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