Misgendered by a commissioner on DA? Yep... happened to me. Right after I gave them permission to use my work for them as a base for another drawing of theirs.

I know it's a common mistake to make, but I've practically plastered my profile over there with references to non-binary and "My pronouns are they-them-theirs! ^u^" stamps, have had stuff like that there for multiple years... so it feels like more than a common mistake to me at this point. It feels more like this person is just one of those so adamant on forced binary gender bs that they refuse to even offer an extra letter in the pronouns of someone who's literally just performed a service for them, and gave them extra liberties on top of that.

I try not to be public when I correct people, on the very likely chance that it's a common mistake, but being "she'd" still REALLY hurts me emotionally, sets off my anxiety like a bitch, makes me doubt myself so damn much... being "he'd" does a lesser version and I've started to learn to laugh that off (probably a bad thing in the long run--trying to "tough out" gender dysphoria is a bad idea and never works), but at least culturally most people behave as if "he/him/his" is a default so it's most definitely not malicious when I find it happening. Unless you cover yourself in pink (and don't parade a ton of femboy paraphernalia in tandem) most people automatically assume you're a guy if they're unaware of non-binary genders. It doesn't hurt like being called a she.

I started acting out against my birth gender assignment pretty much as soon as I could talk and understand what all the coded words, behaviors, and clothing meant. It's not as if I've only recently discovered this--just only in the past five years learned the word that meant it. I've been refusing dresses and dolls, blatantly declaring I'm a "not-a-girl" since age five or six. I know what I feel about my own identity.

I live in a rural area in the south where most people still know me as "Julia". What hurts is I love the name "Julia"--but I HATE what it causes people to assume, just because it's a name traditionally given to women. It's why I chose Spider as my real name--the Spider is frequently misunderstood, and is an alert, active creature. A creature that creates things for myriad purposes and is often given the role of Storyteller in many cultures. Spider has no gender associations--in English it's just a word (though on those asinine baby-naming websites, "Spider" and its various permutations are now designated a boys' name... le sigh). I chose it SPECIFICALLY because I felt most people would not be able to assume the person who owned that name would be either man or woman. Unlike Taylors and Kims (where they are gender-nuetral names, but nowadays lots of people think of them as either way), Spider is something all its own separated from the BS we often have to wade through in order to just be mildly respected. Spider is a name chosen for how it relates to its owners' personality and ambitions, not for how it relates to coersively-assigned conceptions of the owners' gender.

Don't even argue the genitals and chromosomes business--genitals aren't necessary for 99% of normal social interactions so they matter zero to how someone respects your preferred pronouns, and chromosomes are even less important. I'm talking pure social interaction--if someone meets me, I expect them to refer to me as "they/them/their", to correct themselves quickly and without an overreaction if they slip up, and to calmly and briefly apologize if they do it unknowing and are corrected by myself (which certainly happens and I forgive everyone that's done that instantly ^^). I don't expect better treatment--I just ask that maybe people keep an open mind to new ideas and make the same effort to recognize me as they would anyone of a binary gender.

YES, to some degree I am asking people to learn--no, you don't have to look up encyclopedias of gender research terminology or know what any of the newfangled words mean, but I at least expect people to learn to use a common English pronoun (in my case, one people already know about and use on a daily basis) and to not throw slurs at me... well, I consider intentionally using the wrong pronoun to be a passive-aggressive type of slur anyways, so basically all I ask is respect.

The reason I'm putting this here is because... I have to put it somewhere. And on reviewing what I know of this person's political leanings... I find it unlikely that they'll find it in themselves to respect me out of simple respect, against their inner beliefs, so I'm no longer going to do further business with them. I could try to explain the situation but... honestly I really don't feel like getting into an argument with someone so diametrically opposed to me.