Friend wants to be known as 'they'

[namechangeindiana]

I know there's a lot of discussion about this going on at the moment, but I read the threads and don't understand a lot of the terminology. I haven't done a huge amount of reading about it, but I know that I feel uncomfortable with it and don't really 'get' it.

I keep forgetting and calling my friend 'she' or 'her'. This then ends in a minor heated discussion and me trying to defend the fact that it takes time for me to change the language I am used to using. I try, I really do. We have been friends for 24 years.

Has 'they/them' always been a thing? Am I completely awful for thinking it's strange and not being entirely comfortable with it?

Sorry if I sound naive or am posting something that has been done a million times. I've not thought about it much until now. Willing to learn and hear other people's views...

Preparing to be flamed...

@Linning I have really enjoyed reading your posts, which touch on the heart of the lived experiences of transpeople - the discrimination and the abuse that they suffer, which is an inconvenient truth for many people on this thread.

It seems that many do not accept that studies on this issue can actually be defined as 'studies', which is ironic considering their ususal positions on identity ...a female is always a female and a male is always a male, but I reserve the right to say a study is not always a study if it doesn't suit me.

TalkingtoLangClegintheDark The lack of logic in your posts is astounding

It really isn’t. You are seriously lacking logic. Your logic is that we have to give equal consideration to the possibility that the OP’s friend now identifies as non-binary, as is common nowadays, AND the possibility that the OP’s friend:

• Has an incredibly rare DSD, ovotesticular disorder with an estimated incidence of 1 in 20,000 (it can’t be any of the other DSDs because they are all female or male, not a combination of both)
• Has only just found out about it despite being an adult for a very long time
• Has decided, as a way of keeping it secret from the OP, despite being friends for 24 years, that changing to a different pronoun is the best way to go, because as we all know, keeping medical problems secret is best done by dropping hints and maintaining an air of mystery about it

On top of this batshit logic, you’ve banged on about your batshit logic for page after page after page despite everyone pointing out how batshit it is. You’re determined to bring intersex into a discussion about gender non-binary even though the two things aren’t remotely related and as such, you’re interphobic.

Just stop. For the love of god, make it stop.

Why should I stop? Nobody has told me why the OP's friend could not be intersex - it's not that rare, 1 in 2000 individuals have a sex that is not clear at birth, there are many varieties of it, and why should those individuals not ask to be called 'they' if they feel it reflects their biolgical reality?

There is nothing inherent in the OP that makes this a thread about transgender issues - so why do you keep banging on about it and bringing transgender issues into an intersex issue?

When you don't know an individual's situation why are you making assumptions about it?

I’ve just told you why. It’s not 1 in 2000 because it would have been diagnosed years ago. How on earth could an adult woman be one of the 1 in 2000 that have ambiguous genitalia at birth and only just be finding out about it decades later? And DSDs are either male or female not something in between. I’ve explained that the odds are not equal between your batshit theory and what is most likely. It’s not a 50:50 split between them.

You’re just goady. And interphobic. You know nothing about the conditions.

You really can't take anyone seriously when they use made up stats and call lucid and coherent posters illogical.

@RedToothBrush

Gender identity is essentially a person’s emotional and psychological sense of who they are - and whilst you might not ‘get it’, pandering, as so many of you term it, to protecting your friend’s emotional and psychological well-being is something I would have thought any half decent friend would do. And if not, well then the people who need your support and can’t count on it are better off without you anyway.

You do not have a single individual identity though. This is the problem.

Your identity is multifaceted and is relational as well as individual. When you try and change your individual identity it is not happening in isolation.

It's is relational to others who have a stake in it, because it also affects their identity.

This results in the problem that, you can only change identity with consensus or by force.

It is not about others being 'unsupportive' in many cases. This trope needs to be dissected and challenged. It places blame on someone often unfairly for not immediately and suddenly readjusting their own identity to match the expectations of another. Psychologically this is an impossible ask if you have formed a close relational identity with someone based on certain known factors. Removing those foundations can be destructive to others in a family unit or close friendship.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_formation

This destroys families in multiple ways. The wife who now has to merely passively accept she is a lesbian. Children who have to cope with their parental security disrupted now having to call Dad, Mum. Siblings who are overlooked or have their histories erased and their place in the family as eldest and only son is now younger brother of two boys. A close friend who has been close to their 'second sister' since they were babies. This isn't small stuff. This reconstructs your understanding and perception of the world.

Is isn't just being nice and respecting pronouns. They 'aren't the same person they've always been' because they are literally asking you to treat them differently to before.

The failure to recognise this, and address it is a massive part of the problem if relationship breakdown. The emotional workload this requires is enormous.

This is a really worrying position to take about identity - that other people have a stake in your identity and because it might impact their sense of self and understanding and perception of the world you should supress your own expression of who you are.

This rationale has been used throughout history to control family members to fit expectations and not bring shame to a family. It has been used to silence gay people from coming out - 'Think what you are doing to your mother and I - what will our friends and my colleagues think when they hear I am the father of a gay son?'

It is not this rationale that is at work during honour killings? - the expectation that young unmarried girls adhere and conform to their expected identities within the family -to be virginal, pure, chaste, obedient, submissive. When that youg girl steps outside of her expected identity within her family unit she is told 'Think what you have done to US - we are now the relatives of an impure girl'.

Relational identity is really problematic.

I wish you could bookmark MN posts. To still refer to a visibly female friend using the pronouns in use for that person for decades is like those that murder women in “honour killings”.

Imagine being an actual intersex person and reading this thread, and also being continually dragged into this debate. Some posters on here are really embarrassing themselves.

Using a pronoun someone does not like is not like murder.

They is always a plural so unless people are conjoined twins before separation "they" will always be wrong for one person (and no I am not going to self identify as quads today so that I can work, deal with children, do cleaning and lie in the garden although it would be rather nice to have 3 other mes!)

[quote suggestionsplease1]@Linning I have really enjoyed reading your posts, which touch on the heart of the lived experiences of transpeople - the discrimination and the abuse that they suffer, which is an inconvenient truth for many people on this thread.

It seems that many do not accept that studies on this issue can actually be defined as 'studies', which is ironic considering their ususal positions on identity ...a female is always a female and a male is always a male, but I reserve the right to say a study is not always a study if it doesn't suit me.[/quote]
Thank you, honestly this thread is absolutely horrid (in good Mumsnet fashion), you are the one person on this thread, maintaining a bit of my faith in humanity through your posts.

What I find the most funny is women who say “you can always tell” which sex is who. I assume those ladies haven’t met many transwomen in their lives because while some are visible plenty are not visibly trans, plenty of women look way more femme passing than me (and I am femme) and I would have absolutely zero clue if they didn’t actually tell me (and I date women so I like to think I am fairly good at observing and knowing women’s bodies) I also have a transmale colleagues who I absolutely had NO clue was trans (he is more masculine than most cis-male I know) someone mentioned his transition in passing and I was absolutely floored. There is absolutely NO way anyone could know he was born female if they weren’t made aware.

So by their own admission plenty of Mumsnetters would use the wrong pronouns for sex but right pronouns for their gender because they are SO bloody keen to stereotype men and women and reduce them to stuff they believe «ONLY» people born with specific genitalia have, that they would be too smug to realize they are actually failing at complying with their own belief of not using she/he for transgender individuals but their sex-based pronouns.

What makes me sad is that straight women who are so actively anti-trans are weaponizing lesbians to try and make their point by using an extremely small subgroup of lesbians who do not approve of trans women but are absolutely not representative of the lesbian community at large as their mascot, to try and make points that absolutely hurt both the LGBTQ+ and the lesbian community in ways those people don’t even realize under the pretense of protecting lesbians. It’s frankly disgusting and while lesbians should be free to voice their opinions as lesbians within the community (regardless of their views), I don’t think straight women should in any way, ever, speak on behalf of lesbians.

As a lesbian woman most of the rights and freedom I experience right now within my sexuality are thanks to trans women, specifically trans women of color, so implying that trans folks are out there to oppress people when men and white, Christian folks have been doing it for centuries and the only people who ACTUALLY fought for LGBT rights and the end of that type of oppression first and foremost were trans people and other queer individuals themselves is laughable at best, trans people were at the FOREFRONT of the liberation of gay people and fights against homophobia, yet they are the one who benefit from it all the least. Not only that but by presenting as female and not the stereotypical male in a world that obviously despise both trans individuals and feminity in men, they are also relinquishing most of their male privileges. So who is oppressing who in this story?

I have the utmost respect for transwomen and transmen and I wish more people read about them and their history and the things they have done and accomplished for people like me and others instead of fixating on the things that haven’t really happened yet but people fear might happen if we start embracing trans women.

I find it sad personally, especially the way most people on these type of threads chose to express their opinion, often with a very unnecessary violence and clear form of disgust for transwomen as a group that they just would never tolerate to hear said or implied about other women. Transwomen are individuals with their own feelings, thoughts and beliefs they aren’t a group with one shared brain and one shared agenda and I wish people stopped acting like that’s the case and as if they know what ALL transwomen are like because it’s both impossible and extremely reductive.

Saying that male people commit almost all sex crime is not “stereotyping “ ffs. It is a fact. A fact that all this waffling on about “femmes” and that we “can’t tell who is trans” doesn’t alter.
I couldn’t care less what someone else wants to wear (although the word “femme” makes my teeth itch) , but I very much care that male people are not allowed into any spaces that my teenage daughters, myself, or my elderly female relations would ordinarily expect to be for female people only.

Anyone who thinks It is fine letting AN ADULT MALE WITH A PENIS in with my tiny 13 year old daughter while she changes for swimming has a screw loose, or a deeply suspect agenda.

No decent male person would want to use female space, because he would know that women find it frightening and intimidating. So the ones that do, are the ones we really need to worry about.

@Linning that was a really thoughtful post and it is good read a different perspective. There are no doubt some anti-trans people on MN. That is the horrible world we live in. But overwhelmingly, women/posters on here are desperately anxious about the eradication of sex as a biological truth and the legal and social protections that brings. I think a vanishingly small number would in any way wish to see transpeople discriminated against - I know I cannot bear the thought of that. But the TRAs wish to destroy biological women (ie half the world's population) as a category, and to deny biological women the right to their own identities, in order to facilitate the chosen identities of a very small percentage of people (who need protections in their own right, just not necessarily the same ones as bio women). Trans people have every right to live in that identity, by all means, but not at the expensive of, for example, sex-segregation where it is needed for safety and privacy reasons. The TRA ideology is reductive, and it is highly regressive.

I'm on the other side of the debate from you and it is enormously stressful, depressing and frankly scary. I was awake until 2am this morning thinking things over as my SIL, normally a hard-line feminist, has just posted a video on her Facebook in favour of self-ID and I wanted to cry. I consider self-ID to be radically un-feminist. I won't say anything to my sister in law in this instance because I want to maintain family relationships, but I will never, ever stop fighting for the retention of my identity as a woman (and not a cis-woman!) and the hard-won rights and freedoms that affords me.

I'm finding the trans debate (I'm being kind calling it a debate - you have provided a thought provoking post but in most instances questioning the trans narrative is immediately shouted down as being a TERF) utterly draining, and I'm switching off MN from my life for the foreseeable and focusing on raising my children to be proud of their biological bodies, to live as they wish without conforming to any gender stereotypes and to love and care for others.

If you are interested in reading about the gender critical side of things and why we might think the way we do, I've learned lots of TransgenderTrend, FairPlayforWoman, and LGB Alliance. All far more eloquent than me.

Relational identity is really problematic.

Yep it is.

However it's not something ANYONE can escape either. It exists and it's real and unfortunately no one wants to admit it or deal with because it rather fucks up the 'most vulnerable in the entire world' narrative which is used to gain political sympathy and social power.

That's my entire bloody point.

Why should anyone be made to feel guilty for struggling with someone else's identity if its having a detrimental effect on them? What do you think shouting 'bigot' at people achieves for people in emotional turmoil and having breakdowns? The assumption here is that the actions and response of family is malicious and vindictive rather than a normal response to the building blocks and foundations of your own identity being fucked up because of how identity is linked to others.

There was an article published by the Beaumont society in the mid 1990s about wives of men who came out as trans women. It highlighted how many had mental breakdowns as a result. This was in the mid 90s, before this started to accelerate and become much more common place.

Since then there has been zero research into the psychological impact on family members 'because bigot'. There bloody well should be. This isn't helpful for anyone. It does not help anyone going through this as a family or close friend or as trans.

We know all about the dodgy suicide surveys for trans people yet there isn't anything at all on those around them.

'Be kind' is aimed at holding others at the mercy of those identifying as trans - because their individual identity and their right to express it, trumps how anyone else around them is feeling. It's all about validating the trans person with fuck all support for those around them about how they deal with it and how it affects their identity.

I'm sorry but do fuck off with the emotional blackmail. That is ENTIRELY the issue and you've just highlighted it.

No it's not OK to compel anyone to put up with emotional abuse because 'be kind' or because 'family love is unconditional'. This claptrap keeps women and kids traps in toxic family environments to the detriment of their own mental (and sometimes physical) well being.

We MUST recognise there are two sides to this coin. Sometimes it's better for all concerned to go their own separate ways rather than being fucked up by other people's baggage.

Trans should not be framed as the emotional work that must be carried solely by women and children and that is how it is framed.

@SirVixofVixHall

Saying that male people commit almost all sex crime is not “stereotyping “ ffs. It is a fact. A fact that all this waffling on about “femmes” and that we “can’t tell who is trans” doesn’t alter. I couldn’t care less what someone else wants to wear (although the word “femme” makes my teeth itch) , but I very much care that male people are not allowed into any spaces that my teenage daughters, myself, or my elderly female relations would ordinarily expect to be for female people only.

Anyone who thinks It is fine letting AN ADULT MALE WITH A PENIS in with my tiny 13 year old daughter while she changes for swimming has a screw loose, or a deeply suspect agenda.

No decent male person would want to use female space, because he would know that women find it frightening and intimidating. So the ones that do, are the ones we really need to worry about.

Who said stating facts about men/rape was stereotyping?

The fact that most rapes are committed by men does NOT mean that every men will rape, otherwise you would be stopping your husband from interacting with your daughter, and in fact plenty of data’s have shown that rape, specifically on children are mostly done by relatives rather than strangers, so TECHNICALLY, if rape is the biggest concern, any man who is already actively around your child and deemed safe by you (including your husband) is likely a much bigger risk than a transwoman nor a random man.

I don’t think anybody even implied that your child should change in front of a man or anyone she doesn’t feel comfortable with (if anyone did I did not see it).

NOT every woman find it intimidating or frightening, I have been raped and assaulted by men, similar age to your daughter (not by a stranger nor a transwoman) and I don’t feel myself frightened when entering a mixed bathroom or sharing a bathroom with a guy, in fact I favor the male bathroom when the queue to the women’s is too long, so don’t speak for all women when really you are only talking about your own experience and the experience of women who feel like you. If you are frightened and intimidated, and that’s fair, speak in first tense and state that that’s how you would feel, which is fine. I find blanket statements about “women” and any other group quite annoying on top of being severely reductive actually. Can we stop acting like we are a mass of the same and instead embrace the fact that we are individuals with different thoughts process, opinions, feelings and values?

I think most ofus can usually tell. I see the police in Herts. decided not to mention a man dressed as a woman was someone they were after recently (which did not help identify the suspect particularly as I think the person did indeed look like a man in woman's clothing) but the police thought there might be a discrimination issue if they did not give out that information which seems a bit pointless to me. The man (or woman - i am not sure if he had had a full sex change in law yet) was a potential sex attacker.

On the whole I think English law is pretty good - if someone wants to change gender by law then they can go through the full process. That is a fair compromise which I think we are probably going to leave as it is.

Most women do not want mixed lavatory facilities with men so I don't think that cause is worth trans people espousing as it is not likely to change.

We have words to identify things. I was a tom boy (a girl who didn't wear skirts except for school) and these days I don't wear things like make up or am bothered about appearance - that of course does not mean I am not a woman. However labels do help generally in life - without nouns where would we be?

Linning "As a lesbian woman most of the rights and freedom I experience right now within my sexuality are thanks to trans women, specifically trans women of color,"

Are you talking about the oft repeated trope that Marsha Johnson started Stonewall? Johnson wasn't there and didn't identify as trans in any event.

Storme DeLarverie, a black lesbian, started Stonewall. It's surprising (and a bit sad) that as a fellow black lesbian you didn't know that.

@NameChangeIndiana when I slip up with pronouns, which I still do but not deliberately, I apologise and explain that it's like the number 5 becoming taboo and getting a different name. My brain sees the number 5 and because it's always been linked to the word five, I say "five". It takes a little while to retrain your brain, but it's possible. Ask them to be patient with you.

Rapists don’t come with a great big I AM A RAPIST sticker on their forehead.
Of course namalt. Yawn.
We separate the sexes to protect the safety and dignity of women and girls. Precisely because there is no way of knowing which men will commit crimes against women and children until after the crime has been committed.
Who benefits from blurring the boundaries ? Who benefits from putting adult males in with young girls ?

[quote AwakeNotWoke]@Linning that was a really thoughtful post and it is good read a different perspective. There are no doubt some anti-trans people on MN. That is the horrible world we live in. But overwhelmingly, women/posters on here are desperately anxious about the eradication of sex as a biological truth and the legal and social protections that brings. I think a vanishingly small number would in any way wish to see transpeople discriminated against - I know I cannot bear the thought of that. But the TRAs wish to destroy biological women (ie half the world's population) as a category, and to deny biological women the right to their own identities, in order to facilitate the chosen identities of a very small percentage of people (who need protections in their own right, just not necessarily the same ones as bio women). Trans people have every right to live in that identity, by all means, but not at the expensive of, for example, sex-segregation where it is needed for safety and privacy reasons. The TRA ideology is reductive, and it is highly regressive.

I'm on the other side of the debate from you and it is enormously stressful, depressing and frankly scary. I was awake until 2am this morning thinking things over as my SIL, normally a hard-line feminist, has just posted a video on her Facebook in favour of self-ID and I wanted to cry. I consider self-ID to be radically un-feminist. I won't say anything to my sister in law in this instance because I want to maintain family relationships, but I will never, ever stop fighting for the retention of my identity as a woman (and not a cis-woman!) and the hard-won rights and freedoms that affords me.

I'm finding the trans debate (I'm being kind calling it a debate - you have provided a thought provoking post but in most instances questioning the trans narrative is immediately shouted down as being a TERF) utterly draining, and I'm switching off MN from my life for the foreseeable and focusing on raising my children to be proud of their biological bodies, to live as they wish without conforming to any gender stereotypes and to love and care for others.

If you are interested in reading about the gender critical side of things and why we might think the way we do, I've learned lots of TransgenderTrend, FairPlayforWoman, and LGB Alliance. All far more eloquent than me.[/quote]
Thank you for your words and measured response.

I do get your side of the argument, like I have said in previous posts, I support my friends but I do not necessarily support everything the TRA’s agenda stands for (though I will say again, that a lot of trans folks have been hijacked by those people and do not stand for a lot of those measures either, extremist groups often tend to have the louder voices and medias don’t always help).

I am a lesbian and obviously there is definitely a debate about being gay and accepting transwomen as women and what it means in concrete terms etc... I do agree with you that, a lot of trans activist resort to the word TERF so much that it’s already gotten old. I have definitely been called a TERF and that’s definitely problematic (not that I was called TERF but that a discussion doesn’t always seem plausible).

I always try to encourage trans people to have conversation with people like you, because I do believe there is some sense in being scared of the changes trans activists seem to want and what it would mean for women and whether or not it would be possible to grant them the freedom they need without infringing on women’s right and freedom as well. That’s why I think (moderate) trans people and (cis) women sitting together to talk about those topics and concerns and potential solution is VITAL, a lot of trans individuals do not really know or hear the concerns because a lot of women also resort to nasty vocabulary and calling them rapist so any good point is automatically ignored I think a much more moderate debate where one could ask “ hey, I would love for you to feel comfortable within your own skin and body, but I am concerned about a few things, including how to keep equity in sports and women spaces safe for women with trauma” without resorting on insult on either side would be nice.

I think if those concerns were brought up in this way to trans people they would actually want to ponder on it and work with women on maintaining healthy boundaries for both.

Self-ID is a hard one because I agree with you for the most part but I do feel people should be able to self-refer with any pronoun they wish and start presenting as a woman/man, I do not think they should be able to change paperwork etc... without having been assessed and done work that show they are just following a trend or trying to abuse that potential loophole.

I think fear and concerns are normal and healthy and understandable, I do not understand every aspect of non-binary (and would tend to agree with you about it not being much different than saying one doesn’t fit stereotypes) but because I am not non-binary, I do not wish to dismiss their experience. It’s not because I haven’t experienced something that it isn’t real, I suppose.

Looks like you are planning on installing great values into your kids. That’s great!

Please don’t use the word cis. The word women is quite enough all on its own.

I think the gross part is denying the existence of actual humans because they are inconvenient to the argument you want to make.

Well yes it would be, if that was what was happening

Everyone is non binary when it comes to gender norms.

I think it’s funny that people are saying it’s egocentric for a person to ask to be referred to as they / them without apparently recognising any egocentricity in their own belief that their views on a person’s identity are so important that they should take precedence over anything else.

Quite.

Self-ID is a hard one because I agree with you for the most part but I do feel people should be able to self-refer with any pronoun they wish and start presenting as a woman/man
So, instant access to women's changing rooms, prisons, toilets, and other single sex spaces, you mean?
Or how exactly do you define "presenting" as a woman/man?