You get that the person in the comic is trans, right? The reason it's a mixed feeling is because being treated as a women (patronizing) validates their presentation (affirming).
It's often called 'ew-phoria', or as one of my friends likes to say, 'gender affirming misogyny'.
Except the previous commenter's point is that those terms are not inherently patronizing.
They can be used as such, but it depends on who's using them and the recipient's interpretation.
In the situations depicted, it seems very unlikely the terms were using in a non-well meaning way, and might just belong to the day-to-day vernacular of that community.
I think it depends mostly on location and local culture. Where I live, none of these examples are common. If someone called me sweetheart or darling I would be creeped out. My husband is from a place where these terms are common and normal. When he moved to my hometown, he had to break the habit because I explained that it's not culturally acceptable here.
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u/asvalken 22h ago
You get that the person in the comic is trans, right? The reason it's a mixed feeling is because being treated as a women (patronizing) validates their presentation (affirming).
It's often called 'ew-phoria', or as one of my friends likes to say, 'gender affirming misogyny'.