In California, misgendering someone is considered a felony and can be locked up for a year whereas spreading a deadly disease on purpose only punishes someone for 6 months...This SJW state is a disease and I'm a liberal.

Obvious choice. This physically and mentally endangers people. The other could be an honest mistake.

Pronouns are just words, while HIV is much more serious. Among the many awful things that happen in this life, being misgendered is the least of my worries. As my aunt once said, don't sweat the small stuff.

There is no contest here. If someone mistook me for a female (which has happened a few times) I wouldn't give it a second thought. But if I made love to someone and they knowingly gave me any form of STD then I would definitely want justice. Letting something like that go could kill a lot of people!

As much as I agree that knowingly spreading HIV is a significant, serious crime and health care issue, it is worth clarifying that the 'misgendering' law is seemingly about "willfully and repeatedly" misgendering someone particularly in a health care context. So the legislation targets people, particularly those in power-imbalanced contexts like health care, who are specifically deliberately misgendering people in their care as a form of abuse/harassment. If I accidentally call you a "he" instead of a "she", I'm not going to jail. But if I deliberately and repeatedly misgender you as a form of abuse, you could take legal action against me. The law is not targeting mistakes/accidents.

^ Exactly my thought lol !!!!

I still accidentally call my one friend "she" when referring to this person. It is not a crime. It isn't like I do it on purpose, but what comes automatically, and I only did it twice and apologized for it, but it isn't anything like spreading an incurable disease. Not even close.

I think I understand their reason to make it a felony because there are instances where people intentionally and repeatedly misgender someone to bully them and bullying like that can hurt someone's sense of identity too much. It can be very problematic for people who are suicidal and other sensitive instances similar to this. Bullying in any form should be discouraged as much as possible. Generally speaking, I personally take everything lightly, but it’s not just about me. There are people who experience things differently and have different reactions to this. To exemplify this, let's assume a guy who has less facial hair and more feminine like physique. He has a lot of insecurities about it and this thinking is constantly weighing him down and lowering his self-esteem. If his classmates keep calling him a girl to mock him everyday, it’s possible that this guy may snap. I know it's not a very convincing example, but you got the point. The same can be applied to other genders situations.
For people who are transgender, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming, coming into their authentic gender can be an important and affirming step in life.
Sometimes, people continue to refer to a person who is transgender, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming using terms related to how they identified before transition. Misgendering can have negative consequences for a transgender person’s self-confidence and overall mental health. So, yeah, I know pronouns are just words, but that isn’t the point here. It's not completely negligible either. Law is not targeting accidents. So, anyway, about my stance, spreading HIV is obviously more serious and harmful crime compared to misgendering. No doubt about that. We are all on the same page here.