Dear Prudence,
For the past several years, I have rented a nice apartment that I have grown very attached to. My landlord “Matt” is, as far as landlords go, a seemingly decent enough guy. Despite my general distrust of landlords, we have developed a fairly cordial relationship. The issue is how Matt refers to my neighbor, “Julie.” She and her live-in partner mostly keep to themselves, and we haven’t interacted much beyond a couple friendly hellos and some small talk. So while I can’t say for sure how they identify or what their preferred pronouns are, I’m pretty certain they are a trans lesbian couple. But when my landlord mentions Julie, he will generally misgender her, saying “he” or “him.” (I am a cis woman, FWIW.)
The first time this happened I stopped myself from correcting him because 1. I didn’t want to blow it up and create a problem for Julie out of thin air, 2. Matt is an older man from a different culture, and I charitably thought it was possible that he had just gotten confused, 3. I was too flummoxed by what to say that I honestly couldn’t react quickly enough. But recently he referred to her and said something like “he, she, whatever” while making a bit of a snide face—a pretty unmistakable show of transphobia and disrespect. I corrected him by saying “She!” with a polite smile, but did not say go any further because I was in the middle of negotiating a new lease with him and trying to remain diplomatic.
Now that that’s concluded and I’ve determined that I will be staying here another few years, I would like to say something polite but firm to “Matt” if it comes up again—but I do seem to have a lifelong habit of trying to do the right thing and having it backfire. The last thing I want is to worsen any tension between my landlord and two nice people who are honestly just minding their own business. Yet at the same time, just standing there and not speaking up completely goes against my values and instincts. So—do I just bite my tongue, which makes me feel like I’m complicit in Matt’s prejudice? Or do I say something to him—and if so, what? He really does seem to like me, so I think there’s a chance he would listen.
—When Is It My Business