A bunch of cities held Pride Parades yesterday including mine. I've never been huge on activism (largely due to social issues) but always supported the LGBTQ community. As some of you know I'm a huge advocate of meetup.com and made some friends there that invited me to go to the parade with them and a giant group they were going with.

Awesome. Sounds fun and LGBTQ people for some reason have always have been more accepting of me than other groups so I was really pumped to go. I met up with the people I know and eventually we joined the bigger group they told me about.

This is where the problem started. In the group there was a person that refers to themselves (have no idea still if I'm using this right) as Rachel (not actual name but think traditionally female name). Rachel was formerly a man (dk if they had sex change but have breasts - big ones - now and definitely taking some sort of hormone to change the voice). Rachel wore a skirt, had stockings on, heels, and a tank top. Sorry for all the details but want you to see where I'm coming from.

The group wanted to start a chant but needed someone to lead it. I suggested maybe SHE (Rachel) should lead as she was the most out spoken.

That's where I fucked up. I said SHE. Boy did I fuck up. Rachel said something like "wow are you fucking serious?"

Me the social retard thinking she did want to lead, "Oh sorry it was just a suggestion because I thought..." dude I don't know part of the bigger group cuts me.."Holy shit is this guy for real? Out of all the places you do this shit here?"

I'm fucking panicking and mumble apologizing but just getting pummeled by words and anger and eventually a person from my meetup group just suggested I leave. Rachel during this time started saying "I can't, I just can't and walked away and a bunch of people followed her.

Later I text the group trying to find out what happened and the person who suggested I leave was the only one to reply. She said Rachel is non-binary and her pronouns are them, they, their. I get confused so I ask, but I thought they said they were trans and apparently you can be both? But me asking for clarification about the trans thing really seemed to rub her on the wrong way said "wow, you still don't get it."

One thing is right. Yeah I still don't get it. This is all so knew to me and I am honestly trying to learn. I never intended to offend and I wouldn't on purpose. This is truly a learning process for me and as someone who already has issues socially and saying the right thing, it makes 100x harder.

I really liked this group and wish I didn't go yesterday so all of this could have been avoided. I been reading a lot about it since last night and most people suggest you just ask everyone their pronoun before you talk to them. Seriously? I already feel awkward talking to people and I for some reason I feel like that is a really awkward question to just ask strangers before I even know anything about them. But I get it, that's my problem.

Still, I never meant to offend. The anger from has me so confused and I'm just so upset about it all. Just another reason for me to never talk to people.

EDIT:

Thank you to most of the people that had kind things to say.

I didn't write this post to discuss pronouns or the LGBTQ community. I am someone who has trouble socializing and I don't make friends easily. I had a really bad experience yesterday where I once again failed socially due to not interpreting social cues correctly and it really upset me. I don't have people IRL to share this with that's why I post here like always when I'm having issues. This post like many other posts here was just me venting about failing at trying to get out my FA curse.

LGBTQ community have been some of the most welcoming people to me and I mention that in my OP. I made an honest mistake and am trying to be better. It makes me sad that a supposedly fellow fa u/flashstorm decided to link my thread to a hostile sub just to bash me more for not understanding.

This is a place where I come because I can share my anxiety and failures with like minded people who understand. If I am not welcome in that community than I will stay out. But I will not be bullied out of here.

Also I've attached screenshots because now people in the hostile sub are trying to say my experience never happened. Fuck you. YOU are the bullies.

http://imgur.com/a/8dvim

https://www.reddit.com/r/ForeverAlone/comments/6jmbox/i_used_a_wrong_pronoun_and_now_will_probably_lose/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3659478&forum_id=2#33650798)

ISIS take the wheel

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3659478&forum_id=2#33650825)

if he had just turned around and said "hey, maybe THEY should lead the chant" he would've had to weirdly point at "her" or something to indicate he was even talking about someone specific.

just asinine. so asinine it might even be false flag flame

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3659478&forum_id=2#33650848)

I find the plural hilarious because it's also accurate in the sense that they have multiple personalities running around in their heads

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3659478&forum_id=2#33650874)

but the downside is that other people will also think that u're nuts bc u're referring to a group of people when there's just one person standing there

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3659478&forum_id=2#33650925)

*genderqueer goes to bathroom*

*waiter comes and asks for drink orders*

"I'll have a Shiner and they'll have a water"

"Oh, so there are more coming than just the two of you?"

"No, they'll have one water"

"I don't understand. They're going to share a water?"

"No THEY will have a water"

"Oooookayyyyy..."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3659478&forum_id=2#33650951)

If you had paid attention, you would've seen your genderqueer friend go into the men's room, indicating that HE had a male identity today.

Even though he wasn't around when you used the wrong pronoun, I'll be sure to let him know what you did.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3659478&forum_id=2#33651370)