Everyone has assumptions. Assumptions arise from patterns and the noticing of patterns is completely natural. It is a natural instinct.

We recognize patterns and create assumptions or else we would spend countless extra amounts of energy trying to redo or relearn the same thing over and over again.

For example, every time I open a refrigerator door, I expect to see a refrigerator with food inside and stuff. All I am physically doing is opening a door. It could be any door. But I assume that it is a refrigerator door. All doors that look a certain way, feel a certain way, I can just tell that those are refrigerator doors. That comes with experience. If I go into a friend’s house and am hungry, I know where the fridge is so I can get food. I don’t have to check every door to see which one is the door to the fridge because I assume which door it is.

If I was a kid and didn’t have that experience to pick up on the pattern of what a refrigerator door feels like and didn’t have the assumption that certain doors are refrigerator doors, every time I’d go into a new house, I’d have to open every single door in order to find the fridge, unless the fridge had the label “refrigerator” written on it, which it never does. Therefore having the knowledge and assuming that what I believe to be a fridge door is a fridge door is advantageous to me. These type of assumptions save me time and effort.

Unfortunately, some assumptions can be harmful. Assuming gender can be harmful. Assuming race can be harmful. But in some ways assuming these things, even if they are harmful, might not be our fault.

In kindergarten, I remember lining up in a line to go to the boys bathroom. And I remember the girls lining up in a line to go to the girls bathroom. Back then, all I knew was that girls have long hair and like pink and princesses while boys have short hair and like blue and trucks.

These assumptions can be harmful in the nature that they are not always true and can invalidate other people’s identity. Now I know that boys can have long hair and like pink and princesses and girls can have short hair and like blue and trucks too.

But back in kindergarten, I simply noticed the pattern I saw, as all people do, and associated girls with long hair and pink and boys with short hair and blue. This association led to an assumption as I learned the pronouns him and her. I referred to long hair people as her and short hair people as him. This is what I was implicitly taught from childhood and it was easy; it was simple. I didn’t have to think and question and ponder with my little 5 year old mind if I should call someone him or her. I just looked at the hair and the clothes and made my verdict based on assumptions.

As a 5 year old kid, surely it is hard to fault me for these assumptions.

Now, though, I understand that such assumptions can be harmful. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, the assumptions are true, but sometimes they are not, and in the case that they aren’t people can be hurt.

But in the course of my life, from blindly following these assumptions and now realizing that they can be a problem, there must have been a point in time in which the realization came to me and I was educated that the assumption can be harmful.

This is the point in time at which before that point, I would assume gender based on hair and clothes, and after that point, I would be more cognizant of the existence of different genders and gender fluidity and stuff like that. For simplicity, I’ll refer to this as a single point but I think that being educated on matters like this is a long and slow process involving the breaking of assumptions and the acquisition of knowledge that doesn’t come instantly.

A bunch of ethical questions arise from looking at this point. I will call this point “Point A”

Before Point A, I believe that I am less at fault if at all for these types of assumptions. If these assumptions are harmful, how would I know? How can I fix a problem I don’t know exists? How can a 5 year old even comprehend a problem like this?

These are all reasons why I believe that before Point A, the fault does not rest with me and if it does, very little of it does in the case that I assume someone’s gender and hurt them as a result.

Now, in the event that they tell me that they are a different gender, and I still resort to my previous assumption, I am in the wrong and I am at fault because in this case, I am past Point A.

Being past Point A and harming someone with a gender assumption makes the fault rest with me. There can be slack cut considering the fact that Point A is actually a long process of understanding that I haven’t achieved but still, the fault is mine.

If someone doesn’t know that they are offending you or hurting you, is it still their fault for offending you or hurting you?

An example is if Terry and Jane have been friends for a long time. Terry has always called Jane a “her.” Jane has always called Terry a “him.” One day Jane comes up to Terry and says that they are non-binary and goes by “they/them” pronouns. Jane feels hurt by Terry always calling them a “her.”