> You're telling me if a short, bald, overweight guy with a beard likes to be referred to as a tall, thin blonde woman with lustrous hair - "we" immediately stop seeing his height, his lack of hair, his girth and his beard? I don't know who that "we" is but that'd require some major training in delusion, Mr. O'Brien.
That's straw-man and snark across the board.
If that short person wants to be called "she" and to stop pointing out she's bald, those are reasonable asks.
I'm cross-eyed when I don't wear my glasses. Do you insist on pointing that out to my face repeatedly even when I ask you not to? Do you insist on gossiping about it to other people in a way that I would consider derogatory if I heard? Do you insist on a shortened version of my name that I don't like? If so, I think you're being a jerk. Ditto if you refuse to comply with requests from other people that I consider reasonable.
> Do you insist on pointing that out to my face repeatedly
If it's not relevant, then of course there's no point of pointing that out. But if we are talking about a task that requires visual acuity, and I point out that you seem to have an issue in that department, then you may feel bad, but that doesn't change the facts. And if the task does require knowing that, then your feeling bad does not overcome that. For example, if you need glasses to drive safely, then your driver license should say that, and if you feel bad about it, then you'd feel bad and the license still should say it.
If you are short, and feel bad about it, I wouldn't point it out each five minutes "repeatedly". There's no reason to do that. But if you come to join a basketball team, claiming you are actually gigantic - I'll tell you "dude, sorry, but you're short", and if you feel bad about it, then you feel bad. It's between you and your therapist.
It so happens that humans are sexually dimorphic species, and thus the notion of this is relevant in human cultures (in different ways for different cultures, of course). Thus if a bearded guy claims he's a woman, I may ignore it when it's irrelevant, but if it becomes relevant, I'll tell him "dude, sorry, but you're a dude".
> Do you insist on a shortened version of my name that I don't like?
Names are rarely carrying any meaning, they are generally arbitrary, so there's no reason to prefer one to another, unless it's done for nefarious purposes (like identity theft or tax evasion). So I see no reasonable cause to prefer one version of the name to another.
> Ditto if you refuse to comply with requests from other people that I consider reasonable.c
Note that I am a jerk if I refuse requests that you consider reasonable. Somehow your personal opinion of what reasonable becomes the law of the world, and my personal opinion of what's reasonable doesn't even enter the picture. Funny how it works?
> But if you come to join a basketball team, claiming you are actually gigantic
Bad example. Basketball skills can be judged independent of height.
If I'm 5 feet tall, very fast, and can regularly score baskets from across the court, then I think the team will want me. Might even nickname me "Giant".
While if I'm 8' tall and can barely move, then they will not want me on the team.
> It so happens that humans are sexually dimorphic species
You omitted "for the most part". Even leaving aside questions of culture (including cultures with more than two genders), there are hermaphrodites.
> if a bearded guy claims he's a woman
Who decided "guy" in your example?
What if a bearded woman claims she's a woman?
> so there's no reason to prefer one to another
If you really believe that, then you don't seem to have much experience with names. Certainly not enough for others to assign much weight to your comment.
There's a long history of people changing their names, for any number of reasons, and not wanting to be referred to by their old name.
Or, consider when a Chinese person picks an English name to use, instead of making English speakers use their name.
I know a Beverly who used his middle name, because "Beverly" is usually associated with women, while his parents named him after a male ancestor named Beverly. ("It was at one time a common masculine given name, but is now almost exclusively a feminine name due to the popularity of a 1904 novel, Beverly of Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_(name) ).
Names are very cultural and context dependent. You might refer to me as "Stinky" when talking about our time together in school, "Smitty" when in the bowling league, and "Judge Smith" when in my courtroom.
That's straw-man and snark across the board.
If that short person wants to be called "she" and to stop pointing out she's bald, those are reasonable asks.
I'm cross-eyed when I don't wear my glasses. Do you insist on pointing that out to my face repeatedly even when I ask you not to? Do you insist on gossiping about it to other people in a way that I would consider derogatory if I heard? Do you insist on a shortened version of my name that I don't like? If so, I think you're being a jerk. Ditto if you refuse to comply with requests from other people that I consider reasonable.