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...

Ok so we are now up to page 37!
Back at 14:04 ddl1 posted after an assertion, never supported, about how transpeople had gained rights for lesbians.
“To be honest, some of these comments remind me of the attitudes that were common with regard to homosexuality in the past”
Then
“and homosexuality was only decriminalized in the 1960s in the UK”
That was definitely about males. Female homosexuality isn’t male. And I think was never illegal?

“To be honest, some of these comments remind me of the attitudes that were common with regard to homosexuality in the past”

This statement often crops up and I don't get it at all. Accepting that some people are homosexual and letting them live in peace, and have full rights and legal protection from harassment, is about exactly that, acceptance

Accepting transgender theory is the opposite of acceptance. It's about colluding with people to reinforce their view that everything about them is wrong and should be changed. I can't understand why anyone can look at someone else, particularly a young person, and think that it's kind to collude with this. Shouldn't we be telling people that they are fine just as they are? That not confirming to gender stereotypes doesn't mean they are the wrong sex, it means that they don't fit neatly in a box, but that's ok because despite what popular culture might imply, hardly anyone fits neatly in a box.

@CecilyP

What rights do you feel I have as a lesbian that are specific to me being a lesbian

You actually mentioned one yourself; fertility treatment/IVF!

Well yes it would be hard to do IVF on a gay man now would it? It has nothing to do with me being a lesbian but all to do with me having the right body parts to be able to access IVF 🤦🏽‍♀️ Straight women have access to IVF too so not sure how IVF is specific to being a lesbian for you and not just something that is accessible to women in general?

Again, I am waiting to hear what rights I have access to as a lesbian that straight women don’t also have access to and that are separated from rights that also benefit other gay folks.

It’s not “lesbian rights” if it’s something all women could have access to irrelevant of sexuality nor if that’s something gay males also benefit from.

I’ll wait.

Linning I'm still waiting to hear what a Karen is?

I'll wait.

I'm still waiting for a justification why I should prioritise someone else's worldview over my own.

I'll wait.

It’s not “lesbian rights” if it’s something all women could have access to irrelevant of sexuality nor if that’s something gay males also benefit from.

Surprisingly you appear to have missed the "intersectionality" class in your feminism studies. An original example from Crenshaw's work is that tokenistic affirmative action programmes to combat racism and sexism tended to benefit black men and white women, while black women fell through the gaps at the intersection where racism meets sexism.

Like other feminist women of color, Crenshaw observed that mainstream feminism had become dominated by and catered most to the experiences of white women, while traditional civil rights groups privileged the leadership and experiences of black or other men of color. This state of affairs pushed women of color to the margins.

www.aaup.org/article/what-intersectionality-and-why-it-important#.Xu-p3uR4WEc

I'd argue the same occurs with other axes of oppression, such as sex and sexual orientation. So lesbians are less privileged than gay men in some ways. Many lesbians on this site have said how little their voices count in the LGBT community which they feel is dominated by male perspectives, and those of "queer" straight and bisexual people. I'm not sure why you find that such a strange concept.

I would honestly drop the friendship.

You're never going to be able to disengage enough from reality to view your friend as some sort of genderless blob. All that will happen is that you'll constantly have to police your own speech, lest you slip up and reveal this awful fact. But of course you will one day, because you can't give the topic the level of obsessive attention your friend does. It's easy to use singular "they" in a conversation when you don't know the gender of the person you're speaking about. It's much harder to go back and edit your own thoughts and speech when you know full well which pronoun you should be using. This is what your friend is asking you to do. It's an exhausting sort of self-brainwashing, and it sounds like you're already struggling with it.

Your friend is also a narcissist, so I hate to say it, but the friendship's doomed anyway. Spare yourself the lectures and self-flagellation and get out now.

*CecilyP
What rights do you feel I have as a lesbian that are specific to me being a lesbian

You actually mentioned one yourself; fertility treatment/IVF!

Well yes it would be hard to do IVF on a gay man now would it? It has nothing to do with me being a lesbian but all to do with me having the right body parts to be able to access IVF 🤦🏽‍♀️ Straight women have access to IVF too so not sure how IVF is specific to being a lesbian for you and not just something that is accessible to women in general?

Again, I am waiting to hear what rights I have access to as a lesbian that straight women don’t also have access to and that are separated from rights that also benefit other gay folks.

It’s not “lesbian rights” if it’s something all women could have access to irrelevant of sexuality nor if that’s something gay males also benefit from.

You implied upthread that lesbians did not have rights to fertility treatment when you wrote;

The liberation of lesbians along with the liberation of other queer people came through the abolition of discriminatory laws and the acquisition of rights (to get married, to have access to fertility treatments etc...), those changes were in part due to Transwomen

If you had rights to fertility treatment all along, the same as straight women, why even mention it as changes achieved in part due to transwomen?

Were they in 1969? And how many of them are/were in high position of power (ideally in politics)?

Indeed they were. Going by StonewallUK definition of terms.
There were a significant number of male cross dressers in positions of power in politics at the time. I should think you would have known that.

Watching with intetest. So instead of saying , 'she is with me'. I say 'they is with me'. Totally baffled tbh

@CecilyP

The liberation of lesbians along with the liberation of other queer people came through the abolition of discriminatory laws and the acquisition of rights (to get married, to have access to fertility treatments etc...), those changes were in part due to Transwomen,

Would you be able to provide more detail of how transwomen helped bring those specific rights about?

It is quite simply not true. Transgender advocates complained constantly for years that Gays and Lesbians were too focused on same sex marriage rights when they should be lobbying for transgender rights to access free drugs and surgery on demand. It is better to try to rewrite history after the ones who made it die off.

This thread is a rabbit hole of intolerance.

Your friend has asked you to recognise part of their identity that they are coming to terms with. You will mess up, just say sorry and keep practising. That doesn’t automatically make them a ‘nightmare’, ‘narcissistic’, ‘Hugh maintenance’ or any of the other things they have been called by people who have only read a few sentences about them.

They have been your friend for decades, they want your support, they feel safe to vent frustration if you slip up, it is stressful when you deal with the reactions you have seen on this thread day in day out.

If your friend came to you and said, I’ve decided to change my name. I have escaped an abusive relationship and don’t want the person to find me.’ You would trip up, but you would respect that. In fact if you mate changed their name to another female name for whatever reason you would just get used to it. They aren’t changing their name, just pronoun. Is that really so offensive?

Olivia Purdie is medically delaying puberty because the 11-year-old doesn't want to develop the body of a woman

This is incredibly damaging. We have no choice but to grow up. Life is about growing up and growing old and ultimately dying. The wise among us know this and help our children on their journey to adulthood.

Of course many girls don't want to become women. I sobbed the day my period started. I had a sense of having to be someone I wasn't. I was horrified. I just wasn't ready to be a woman (at 12). And I certainly wasn't ready to be groped, leered at or any of the other stuff that comes to all girls as they become women.

But this is what life is. Why aren't we tackling the leerers and the gropers instead of lying to girls and telling them they can avoid being women.

I watched a few snippets from "Geordie Shore" on Netflix.
Many of the people use "us" instead of "me" - "She isn't talking to us"; "He was kissing us".
It was difficult for me to get the hang of what they were saying, and surely the point of speaking is so that others may understand.
Thank goodness they weren't saying, "They were dancing with us" to mean "he was dancing with me".

The OP was talking about an ADULT friend.

They aren’t changing their name, just pronoun. Is that really so offensive?

Adults who want to be “they” are part of an ideology that tells children they can be “they” too. I find that offensive.

If your friend came to you and said, I’ve decided to change my name. I have escaped an abusive relationship and don’t want the person to find me

Not the same thing at all. This is about pronouns which are learnt in childhood. It's about making people walk on eggshells and punishing them. It's about power.

It's the same 'be kind' manipulation tactics being repeated over and over again. If someone is so sensitive that pronouns can trigger them or threaten their identity, then surely pandering to it isn't the answer.

It really isn’t about ‘you’. Their motivation isn’t to make you feel you are walking on eggshells. It is about someone they love accepting them as they want to be accepted.

And it would be nice if “be kind” actually meant “be kind” but what it actually means is “don’t look too closely” and “don’t scrutinise our ideology”. And it works. There is someone on this thread who had no idea that non-binary children are being medicated for life for choosing “they”.

“Be kind, just be accepting, just trust us that children going on puberty blockers is a good thing, look over there, nothing to see, don’t be mean about it, don’t ask questions you bigot.”

‘Accepting then as they want to be accepted’

Sounds so benign except it requires you to deny the facts, the evidence of your own eyes and your own moral framework around truth.

I want you to accept me as thin. OK? I’m not and we all know it but why are you denying me my truth ? Bigot.

@Caplin

It really isn’t about ‘you’. Their motivation isn’t to make you feel you are walking on eggshells. It is about someone they love accepting them as they want to be accepted.

See, I just don't agree with that. My behaviour is about me. Always about me, once it's within the law. I refuse to be guilted by the "be kind" slogan into doing things I instinctively feel I shouldn't. This is one of them. It would be kind to me to accept this. To acceot me as I want to be accepted. But I won't hold my breath.

Accept, even... All the acceptance seems to go one direction only. Demands come in the other.

Anyway, it is a pronoun, not the end of civilisation. Either your friend and their feelings matter to you, or you are so wedded to pronouns that even vague change threatens your sense of self worth and you would rather bin a friendship of over 20 years because you feel punished by them asking for them to respect their wishes.

Surely it should be 'It'. 'They' is plural!

Either your friend and their feelings matter to you
Just as I said. One way only