.
You, right?
Well, not always. We’ve had a number of whacko cases here where someone else tells people what religion they are – and then punishes them when they don’t agree, by taking their children away or incarcerating them.
And today I read the sad story of a Malaysian woman married to a British man only to be told she has to return home and reapply for a UK visa from here. And The Star newspaper here has made a point of calling the woman “he” throughout the article, even though she is not male in her own eyes.
Her husband doesn’t think of her as male.
She doesn’t think of herself as male.
They why does The Star persist in referring to her as male?
Can’t we just agree that the person concerned knows best?
I wish Fatine Bahari Young all the best in her efforts to live with her husband in the UK. Here, of course, she’d end up in jail for daring to do so.
And I so wish we had a little more understanding from The Star.
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there are quite a few occasions where you don't decide who you are. For example I once had a contact who everybody decide must be Asian, because she looked Asian, never mind that she was a third generation Australian from the very, very first Chinese immigrants. She didn't speak Chinese. She had never been to China. She had no relatives there she was in contact with. Yet people 'assumed' because she looked Chinese, she must be an immigrant. And then they wondered why she got angry when they voiced their assumptions.
And very annoying it must be, too. In fact I also suffer from this.
It is assumed by default that I am a tourist in Malaysia. I am inevitably asked how long I am staying…by Malaysians who haven't even been alive for as long as I have been staying here!
Trouble is when people make assumptions they are rarely prepared to change their minds.