So let's look at someone who has a gender identity that does not match their physical gender. I see it bandied about that gender-normative people have an unearned advantage in society; I'd return that transgender people have an earned disadvantage. Who you are inside, your real identity, is very different from your public, perceived identity. If you decide to display a public identity that is far from the expected norm in a culture you should expect that there will be some cultural backlash.
So you're saying that if I don't want to suffer verbal abuse, I should do something that makes me feel shitty anyway? Dressing/acting like a guy makes me feel like absolute shit. Every time someone refers to me as male, I want to die. If you still think it's my fault for getting called a tranny and a faggot then fuck you. Seriously.
I'm sorry for seeming overly angry at this, but it's something I've had do deal with ever since I came out, and I'm sick of it. I don't
want to look out of the ordinary. I don't want people to look at me and say "yep I can totally tell she's trans." But dressing girly and wearing makeup make me feel better. You can't tell me it's my fault when the alternative is wanting to jump in front of a fucking bus every minute of every day.
It shouldnt f-ing matter how you look, what gender or race you are or whatever. But it also angers me that we live in a society where "Im being offended" are the magic words for entire websites to grind to a crushing halt, to adress this percentage of people who couldnt handle a joke. And any argument you start is instantly shot down by people hiding behind their morale-crusade to make everyone aware of their own personal problems.
I never want "entire websites to grind to a halt", all I want is for people to take a moment to acknowledge that something was offensive and that they fucked up. I've seen people use the word tranny simply because they thought it was the preferred term, and when they were told it wasn't, they politely acknowledged their mistake, and never used the word again. That's all I ask. If you do or say something offensive and get called out on it, you should politely apologize, and never do or say that thing that was offensive. That's not to say that the offended party couldn't do with some lessons in politeness, either.
Ideally, I would suggest legal action. If someone's really that committed to degrading you, press them with charges. Is pretty cut and dry that if someone is hurting more than your feelings, you have laws for that.
Unfortunately, the law doesn't really apply to verbal abuse. Death threats are one thing, but if someone is verbally abusing you without threatening violence against you, the law won't do shit. Someone telling you you should kill yourself doesn't mean shit unless you actually do it, in which case they get charged with something relatively minor or something, and that's only if the suicide attempt is successful. Even then, they pretty much have to say the exact words "go kill yourself", and if you don't have physical evidence, it's pretty hard to prove. So most of the time, legal action isn't an option. It's not like elementary school where you could just tell a teacher that someone was bullying you and have something done about it. (Which was still pretty unreliable at best, by the way)
He misunderstood the topic the op was talking about, and came over to complain. Why should the op have to apologize in that situation? I would just clear the thing up, explain the actual topic was a game, not dwarfism, and then the situation should be resolved. Ideally the other guy should've stood up and apologized for just assuming things without actually knowing what the topic and talk was about.
Ideally, this is how the situation should have played out:
OP: Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't using that word as a pejorative, I was simply referring to a fantasy setting. I'm sorry if that word upset you.
Offended man: Oh, I'm sorry I took your words out of context, I will not bother you any further. Good day to you.