It seems the way that some TIMs respond to 'misgendering' reflects male socialisation. I was thinking about how seriously men are taught to take gender performance and outward shows of 'respect' for that performance. When boys are growing up, there are displays of competitiveness that get wrapped up in their developing masculine identity. Competitiveness isn't a bad thing in itself, but when someone bases their self-worth on how good they are at an activity that society sees as gendered, then you're going to run into trouble.

To a boy, being good at football/programming/debating/collecting are not just pleasurable in themselves, but grounds on which they're taught they need to prove something - their masculinity. Although this masculinity is seen as intrinsic to boys, it's also something which they're constantly called upon to prove, or else they become almost as lowly as a girl in the gender caste system.

This is why the taunt of, 'you do x like a girl' is seen as a personal insult: girls aren't socialised to see their activities as matters of identity. Girls are socialised with the expectation that they must 'comply' to certain standards of femininity, or risk the consequences.

Telling a woman that she 'cleans like a man' isn't seen as an assault on her identity; instead it's a comment on her competence at performing a task that patriarchy has assigned to her sex caste. She's punished for not pretending/trying hard enough in the submissive role, not for failing to prove her femininity. There's a difference which I'm trying to articulate. So, regarding TIMs - they have that uptightness about gender roles that I recognise in men, but is absent from women. This is why TIMs take pronouns seriously, when to most women they don't even register on their list of things that make up their lived experiences as females. When asked the question, 'how would YOU like it if someone called you he/him/sir?' many women sort of shrug it off; they would be a little irritated at most. Men get why TIMs are uptight about these things because they're also uptight about them, due to their shared socialisation.

TIMs are trying to 'prove' that they have transitioned to a new gender role, and the way they often behave reflects the way that boys behave in order to prove that they're boys. Using the wrong pronouns is seen as starting a fight with them, 'dissing them'. That's how it appears to me, anyway. Has anyone ever seen a TIF get as uptight as many TIMs do about misgendering? I'm sure it happens, which means my theory might need tweaking a bit. Possibly some TIFs copy this obvious facet of male behaviour in their attempt to transition?