it's really the kind of person that puts a compulsively stubborn need to always be technically correct that suffers the social consequences. and this is a person who, really, should probably get used to that if that's the philosophy they're living their life by.
anyway, you're allowed to be a jerk if you want to. people are allowed to judge you for it. but you have to own it too, you don't get to weasel your way out of being judged by being technically correct, just makes you seem like more of a jerk.
Yeah, when people attempt to 'rules lawyer' out of something we all more or less agree is rude behavior, it usually falls apart when normal assumed caveats get brought back in.
'Violence is wrong.'
Oh yeah, what about defensive war or a bear attack?
'Black lives matter.'
Oh yeah, well all lives matter.
'Don't be rude.'
Oh yeah, what about speaking out against child marriages?
I for one haven't argued that politeness is always controlling. There can in fact be utility in being rude. Pushback can help stop the normalizing of very dangerous and harmful things, like child marriage or anthropogenic global warming denial or racism or a host of other things. There are
of course cost/benefit factors that can swing the level of justification one way or the other.
For pronoun use, setting aside my continued point that insisting on what you think regardless of what the subject says is more likely to impact cisgender people, one of the stumbling blocks for people is that while it is one of the absolute minimum ways to be humane to transgender people it is the first one that can be framed as requiring an action from people who oppose trans rights. 'Don't lynch them' (extreme example is extreme for illustration and not demonization like some demons will claim) is asking people to
just not do something. Using the pronouns the person says are theirs is asking someone to actually act; when you speak say this word not that one.
Now with that issue the cost/benefit really isn't even remotely close. Being transgender is, as far as all the best current evidence shows, a valid lived condition. It is part of natural human variation like being left handed or homosexual or an introvert. Comparisons to things that
aren't like that just don't apply to attempted 'rules lawyering' into 'being rude is justified'. Even those with 'concerns' aren't really losing anything by using the correct pronouns. They can still make arguments against transgender people in bathrooms or sports or government or schools or public life. Those are usually pretty stupid and rude on their own merits, but as many anti-trans advocates have told the really virulent transphobes, being obstinate about pronouns just doesn't help those at all.
People can try to pretend they're 'technically' justified to oppose taking what the subject says about their pronouns into account even if it might seem rude, but like with a person who insists my nephew isn't 'technically' my nephew, they're wrong even if they're right.
