how to understand and respond to "you're denying my existence" (narcissistic injury)

Harry the Owl's is the most accurate. Which may result in another friendly call from Humberside's finest.

"David Thomas is trolling us from his lower sixth creative writing class."

''Does your gender eddy? I imagine not!'' is my most favourite ever tweet.

The replies on twitter are cracking.

Yes I like the umbiloscope/narcissogram comment lots. The quote from David, not so much 🙄

I just came across this on the Telegraph 'journey to womanhood' twitter and thought some of you might enjoy it

I think it’s wonderful that David managed to tear himself away from his umbiliscope for long enough to provide us with this narcissogram

mobile.twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1111968879012659200

Maybe you identify as six foot one, but I'm five foot ten and you are an inch shorter than me. I'm not going to deny my reality to bolster your identity.

That example is just one of exaggeration for effect. You wouldn't need to deny their identity in that situation, as the reality would be plain to see. Whatever height they imagined they would like to be would be irrelevant. They would still be an inch shorter than you. For them to insist otherwise would be a sign of mental impairment, or psychopathy.

Dating sites might be a good one?

Maybe you identify as six foot one, but I'm five foot ten and you are an inch shorter than me. I'm not going to deny my reality to bolster your identity.

In what other capacity would a 'trans' identify be considered acceptable? White people having a black identity and cultural preferences is one thing, but as for saying you are actually black? I know one women did that once - and all hell let loose......

How about identifying as someone much younger. Presenting your 65 year old retired self at an interview for 18-20 year olds applying for a college course. "Feeling" much younger than your years, and maybe even looking much younger than you years is one thing.....

I know you say you are a Christian/Jew/whatever, but I don't consider you one."

I'm not sure about that parallel. You can accept their professed Christianity, but you don't have to accept Christianity yourself.

Being a Christian is not a material reality, it is an article of faith. Being trans is not a material reality; it is an article of faith. Many people lose their faith or convert to another practice or religion; and many trans people dis-identify at some point in their lives. You cannot, however, dis-identify from a material reality.

Women telling stalkers "No, you're not my boyfriend." Or telling self-identified Nice Guys that they don't consider them nice?

Nobody is trying to deny your existence. I am not trying to deny your exist. you clearly exist. I can see you. Your feelings about yourself, though, do not constitute reality for anyone else except for yourself. You are a man who thinks he is a woman.

I don’t believe you can reason with such a person. The idea that we must bend our minds to their will is non-negotiable.

True! You simply cannot reason with a narcissist. They will only listen to nor hear that which validates their self image. The narcissistic ego is an incredibly fragile and brittle one - and its roots lie in essential insecurity; in a wound. It is utterly pointless to try. Everything will be deflected and ramped up to hysterical proportions.

I always think that if you imagine the "female" persona as some kind of alien that took over the original body in some kind of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" move then "you're trying to deny my existence" makes perfect sense.

The female persona only exists to the extent that both the original host and everyone around them is willing to pretend it exists. So when you don't play pretend, then you're literally murdering it. And it's always going to keep needing more - once it's completely consumed the original man who conceived it, then it's going to keep demanding more and more validation from those around him, consuming them too in its quest to stay alive. (There's something very interesting in their too about womb envy - the "female" persona has been conceived, gestated in secret and eventually launched into the world by a man on his own.)

I am fully aware that the "invasion of the body snatchers" metaphor is not kind but I find it very useful as a way of understanding weird over the top AGP rhetoric. I'd like to find a less mean way of achieving empathy!

Narcissus fell in love with the beautiful reflection of himself.

With Narcissus, he was a bit of a looker so it at least makes sense

I think Mamello is spot on with this:

I think the problem is that people feel they can control their identity. But identity is a negotiated thing. It's how we see ourselves and also how others see us. If we assume that everyone else sees us as we see ourselves then we will be eternally disappointed. We have to negotiate and come to some sort of common understanding of how we are seen. That, to me, is why feminism is so important. It is about renenegotiating our identities with an often hostile other.

The whole trans ideology is about putting ‘gender’ back inside the individual, to see it as an innate quality, without any social aspect at all, thus undoing pretty much all of second wave feminisms work to show how gender is a vast set of social expectations people are socialised into, and subjected to, by an outside social word.

The concept of ‘identity’ and identity politics was initially about analysing how raced and gendered aspects ofthe social world placed people in groups with particular needs and challenges.

Some of bell hooks work in the 1990’s about black people in the US and the civil rights movement very clearly established the importance of focussing on black identitities, but didn’t stray into the shitshow we are living through now, where allidentities are conceptualised as cut loose from the social world and social power dynamics.

And any observation that power dynamics haven’t changed at all; that this keeps prioritising white affluent men, same as it always were, is just mean and phobic.

" The only way to respond to you're denying my existence is to say

No, I can see you - you are standing right in front of me"

That is pretty much it. "I am not denying your existence. You exist. I deny you are female/a woman." Or when they say you are dehumanizing them (another common hyperbole driven statement by these mentally ill people) "I do not deny you are human, I deny you are female/a woman."

This won't work with them, of course, but observers might catch on.

"you're denying my existence"

''No, I am establishing my boundaries''.

existence

noun
mass noun

1. The fact or state of living or having objective reality.

So, yeah. Maybe I am denying your objective reality.

It is my right to specify how I should be imagined, or how I should not be imagined. I am not a man. I am vulnerable, and suggestions that I am a man can cut to my heart.

I've seen other similar statements. A wish to control how others, particularly strangers, perceive them. If their internal view of themselves is not reflected - correctly - in how others see them, that internal view clashes with reality and ceases to exist because that person can no longer believe it unhindered.

But Clare's statement above basically states 'hello stranger, I wish to control your mind and perceptions, and you will co operate with this because here are my reasons why you must prioritise me and meet my needs. Please now enter a co dependent relationship with me.'

Not ok and not healthy in any way. Clare needs to work through this need to force others to meet Clare's needs with a good mental health professional. Not least that Clare does not give a damn about whether the other person in the transaction Clare has co opted them for has any vulnerabilities themselves: Clare is the recipient of care in this script, with no arguments allowed. And as has been proved many times, even when 'allies' (loathe that word) run around in circles enabling this by pouring on the validation - really not a healthy or behaviourally appropriate relationship for adults to have - they will still accidentally at some point fail to exactly meet Clare's needs and Clare will then feel entitled to pour Clare's injured feelings and behaviour all over them to punish them for it.

This is bloody awful behaviour. That's it. That's all.

It was MN that taught me to say no to co dependency years ago, or to walk on eggshells, or to enable or even accept others treating me in ways that intrude on my boundaries.

I'm not denying anyone's existence, just choosing not to share their religion.

Afaik religious people don't claim you're denying their existence if you say you don't believe in god, or that you don't accept that their belief in something unprovable gives them any special status.

Isn't it partly a feature of autogynephila and partly the Greek myth about Narcissus?

The AGP is so much in love with the fantastical woman within, that he is hurt and will do anything to protect her from mockery or denial. I've seen AGPs compare it to a man standing by a wife who has been insulted.

Narcissus fell in love with the beautiful reflection of himself. When he couldn't have the object of his desire, he killed himself.

I also think that transpeople try to give the impression that they face a form of ethnic cleansing and will become like The Disappeared in south american countries. Hence the references to fascists and nazis.

There's not much that you can say to the AGP/NARC directly. It would enrage them to be directed to the appropriate page on the NHS website

www.nhs.uk/conditions/personality-disorder/

I really do not believe you can argue with the ones so far gone that they think you are saying transwomen do not actually exist and that. Its just such a bullshit argument. Who on earth doesn't think transwomen exist at all?! Its nonsense. We can see them for gods sake, and the fact that we argue that they are male, surely says we acknowledge they exist, just deny they are female.

I'm not denying anyone's existence, just choosing not to share their religion.

This.

The only way to respond to you're denying my existence is to say

No, I can see you - you are standing right in front of me. You definitely exist, don't be silly.

Surely?

(When they say existence they mean their delusion.)