Angry with my non binary brother- how to help SIL

[Angrywithmybrother]

I’m a long time lurker on these boards but feel confounded by this recent situation in my own life. I’m thinking just typing it will help.

My brother (in his 40s) came out as non-binary last year. He was quite tearful when he told me as he thinks I’m a TERF and probably thought I’d react badly. I didn’t say much - “I can see why you would want to go move away from narrow gender constructs” or something like that. My parents didn’t say much either apparently. I don’t think they understand the issues.

I saw my SIL recently at a family event and got chatting to her. She basically said that she is devastated by the whole thing. Apparently my brother just announced it to her and their friends at the same time. He has started to go to work and social events ‘as a woman’ now. Dressed in a stereotypical female way. He has also started to repeatedly correct their children’s use of pronouns towards him, even though they don’t understand. If my SIL questions it he calls her a transphobe and a bigot. She said she is at breaking point.

I’m just wondering if anyone has had any luck talking to someone about this and getting them to see both sides. I feel like my brother has been radicalised.

Deepest sympathies Red your explanations of how this impacts on a family gave me a whole lot of new insights a long time ago when I was waking up to more and more of this.

No other similar situation requires others to sacrifice themselves in this way, to put their own needs, feelings and even their own history and their right to their own story aside.

This kind of behaviour towards previously loved ones much more resembles a family being torn apart by addiction or alcoholism than it resembles a gay family member.

I think that's probably a better analogy. I call it like throwing a grenade into a family and expecting everyone to carry on like normal. It's never going to happen. It's such a huge thing in terms of psychological impact.

Identity formation is multi level - it's individual and it's collective.

It's not a surprise that the rise of transgenderism has come at the height of neo-liberalism which pushes the idea of the individual before the collective (and it's also interesting that it's been led by the most neo-liberal countries). Community identities are also fundamentally changing with the rise of the internet. Local communities had identity which was shared by people who were vastly different in age and politics and wider beliefs. Online communities have a much greater fragmentation and isolated singular identity with no need to accommodate 'other' within it. They are therefore much more narrow in scope and deviation within the narrow group much more limited and less tolerant.

Multi level identity formation is probably particularly relevant with children involved from this perspective. Both online and within a family unit.

Children look to their family for security and stability. When a parent then says I'm no longer your dad, I'm your mum it affects their relational development - more akin to a parent leaving (through divorce) or dying. The person and the relationship they knew is completely changed. Yes they may still feel loved but the relationship is different and that affects emotional security. It also will impact on trust and it will impact on the way they relate to other children. Worst still if the children are being asked to validate an adult ahead of their own confusion and feelings. Their well being should be central not secondary to an adult's hurty feelz.

Because becoming trans isn't a neutral act. If a sibling comes out as gay it's not affecting the relationship. If a parent who was in a long term marriage came out as gay and the marriage broke down as a result, that's fundamentally different to being single and childless and coming out as gay. And even that isn't putting this emotional weight of validation on top of the kids.

No one is really looking at this. When we talk about identity we look at individual identity and these very narrow political identities which are polarised and uncompromising. That's a break from the past and conservativism (small c). That's why you are getting the religious right and older wave feminism sitting along side each other because of the new wave of limited understanding of identity which does not have the capacity to consider difference because the power of the individual is all that matters.

It's narcissist with no regard to different groups or impact on others. Hence the pattern of abuse and coercive control and authoritarism that's following it around.

It's a massive shift in power dynamics within the family and that matters massively.

Great reply Red.

Similar happens to parents of teens with ROGD, part of my husband’s personal identity was single-dad-of-daughter and my stepdaughter’s coming out as ‘trans’ and subsequent rewriting of her childhood to fit her new man-persona, along with rejecting her carefully chosen name loaded with familial connections (that was gender neutral anyway) has completely fucked him up and I doubt our marriage will survive it.

And when it’s the other way around, an adult imposing this rejection of the shared family history into their children? It’s unconscionable.

So true. The 'it's like being gay' mantra is just used as a tool to shut down conversations. To be fair, some posters using it don't consciously use but in that way, they've just not thought it through in any depth.

I hope your SIL finds the strength to tell this self absorbed, narcissistic arsehole to fuck off and leaves with the kids.

Just adding these to the thread for lurkers/future googlers:

Website by a woman whose father transitioned when she was 9 (while her mother was seriously ill)

https://childrenoftransitioners.org/

website by MN’s very own TinselAngel, featuring stories from women whose husbands have transitioned

https://www.transwidowsvoices.org/

Collection of stories and articles from
parents whose children have come out as trans

https://pitt.substack.com/

(it’s not a paywall, just click through the subscribe bit)

So true. The 'it's like being gay' mantra is just used as a tool to shut down conversations. To be fair, some posters using it don't consciously use but in that way, they've just not thought it through in any depth.

It's the laziness of sentiment that's frustrating. It's the emotional blackmail it contains that's unforgivable.

If you are too lazy to think it through don't impose it on others by trying to force it by coercive thought processes.

There are no excuses.

My post was auto deleted for using a banned word that describes a something that is very popular with some people or a particular set of words or behaviour. Time mumsnet looked at its censorship again - because this makes less sympathetic to your brother's distress and more inclined to say you should cut him off completely.

Pfft. That poor woman doesn't deserve to be treated like this.

This thread is so interesting. It's fascinating to see women coming to say how dreadful it is for the man involved, how painful and upsetting and how much he needs to be cossetted and protected from the consequences of his own actions by the people he's decided to hurt the most. Glosswitch is, for me, one of the clearest people on this issue, and she wrote once that you can always tell who is a woman by the direction in which kindness is supposed to flow. This man has thrown a grenade into his family and he's the only one that so many posters are showing any interest in or concern for.

It's quite an astonishing study into how this movement makes even misogyny more corrosive and pervasive.

"You are no longer equals because you have to 'be kind' whilst they are given a free pass to be a twat to everyone"

EXACTLY.

What I am sure about is the person’s gender identity needs to be respected and accommodated.

@DancingTortoise I'd prioritise accommodating the wife and children who have had this foisted on them. I'd be very wary indeed of pressuring them to 'accommodate' their husband/father's abrupt controlling behaviour, demanding they switch pronouns and unquestioningly accept this change. As @Maryslargelamb says, this is such staggeringly cliched male pattern controlling/dominating behaviour. It's just that recently women have refused to let men walk all over them so they are finding new ways to enable it with society's backing. If I stick on a dress I can make my wife and children say I am a woman when they know I am a man... Take a look at the scene in Taming of the Shrew when Petruchio bullies Kate into saying the moon is the sun. Shakespeare is shit hot on the methods men use to bully and control women and this scene is pretty much what men expect of their families when they decide they are women.

I don't doubt some people are trans. But I do doubt that the vast numbers of men delighting in the control and shame and legitimised hatred of women (and children) are all genuine. I think they have spotted a loophole that gives them back the right to dictate family life/be the centre of attention. Women's rights are very fragile and very new in the long course of history. Don't be so hasty to indulgence every male whim, however wokely it's presented to you @DancingTortoise If you are a biological woman, that's not in your interest.

And when it’s the other way around, an adult imposing this rejection of the shared family history into their children? It’s unconscionable.

Yes I’ve seen bouts of both these situations in my family.

Teenager coming out as trans, cheered on by one parent. The “diagnosis “ deliberately kept from the other parent (by spouse and child) for a year (how the marriage survived I do not know).

Younger sibling of trans child now with debilitating depression, again cheered on by same parent. I was told, when commenting on the general mental health hygiene I’ve been trained in for keeping troubled undergrads at least vaguely on track (regular sleep, exercise and sou olé activities such as walking the dog which take the young person out of their heads) that “oh, X is way beyond that”.

X is 15 and has watched their whole childhood narrative be radically changed, with absolutely no say in that narrative. No wonder there’s a depressive reaction.

Same parent (thank god an in-law not my blood relative) publicly corrected and admonished my demented parent - who incidentally had provided substantial childcare of “trans “ child for years) - when my parent referred to this child by their birth name and sex.

Im not so angry with my young relative although their use of hormones and surgery makes me weep. But my in-law’s affirmation has damaged the second child and treated my demented parent with a gobsmacking lack of respect.

But you know, anything to virtue signal on Instagram during Pride.

I really feel for my younger relative - their whole childhood narrative has been forcibly changed. As has mine - my family has been radically altered and I am compelled to submit if I want to keep seeing my sibling. I’m a grown up and can make my peace with my polite hypocrisy over what I really think about my in-law, but my younger relative has no such defensive armour.

Someone coming out as gay doesn’t require their family to deny reality, nor rewrite other people’s identity. Gay marriage doesn’t require heterosexuals to not name their marriage as marriage, nor never mention their heterosexuality. Yet women are being censored silenced and erased for simply using words such as “woman,” “mother,” or “breast feeding.”

The point is that OP can do nothing about this.

Even if it is like being gay, and I can see some correllation, there's no excuse for gay people to come out in this way either I remember years ago watching an episode of Oprah or some other daytime chat show where a man had come out as gay and was beside himself with fury at his wife's reaction. He wanted all the compassion in the room for the torment he'd experienced at living such a lie for twenty years. No one said, 'where's your compassion for her? Have you no compassion for having inflicted on her for twenty years a life of sexual denial, of being made to feel repulsive every time she tried to instigate sex, of being denied the family she so longed for, of being gaslight and controlled and used as a beard against her knowledge.' This was decades before trans issues became mainstream. I remember feeling absolute fury on behalf of the woman and longed to be in the studio audience to be able to say: the issue here is not that you are gay, it's that you are a selfish piece of controlling, narcissistic shit.

There is IMO nothing wrong with being trans. If you're trans, you're trans. That's who you are. Live and let live. But when you start demanding your own children stop calling you daddy, when you don't bother telling your wife, when you arse on about pronouns and literal violence, when you dress like a Barbie but do none of the wife work, when you show utter contempt for women, then expect to be flagged as a tosser. That's for being a tosser. Not for being trans.

Following on from my "I'm still the same person post" above, I remember thinking at the time (though I didn't articulate this to the TW I was speaking to - though now I certainly would) that this was a quite insidious form of theft.

In claiming their gender identity, they had stolen the self identity of their wife and children.

The children were not allowed any more to identify as having a mother and father.

The wife was not allowed to identify as being her children's only mother, nor as a heterosexual woman.

All their life experiences were stolen from them to be replaced not only with a new current narrative, but that narrative was also expected to be retrospective.

Imagine being unable to talk about when your father took you to the beach 2 years ago for example? Or when you and your husband went to a certain restaurant to celebrate a birthday?

Every single memory is expected to be filtered and purged of that persons lived reality. Can people not see how exhausting that would be and the damage that must inflict especially on children as they are developing their own sense of self?

The foundation of their understanding of their lives and themselves is ripped away with no consideration of the consequences and the lesson learned is that their existence is centred around the validation of others.

It's why I get cross when people talk about pronouns not being a big thing and we should be polite.

Societal approval of pronoun validation is the weapon that allows people like the OP's brother to impose that demand from his children and wife - the implications of which are far, far more significant to them than the annoyance in a work meeting of checking everyone's pronouns before anybody can actually get some work done.

o
longed for, of being gaslight and as a screwed up floated controlled and used as a beard against her knowledge.'

Shades of Philip Schofield? I remember thinking exactly this when he came out. But then I’m not neutral. I had a boyfriend once who I think was a screed up closeted gay man in deep denial. Appalling behaviour in my experience.

My parents divorced when I was in my early 20s and my mum insisted we had not been a happy family. I felt what I would now describe as gaslighted, I remembered being happy so was being told my memory was wrong.
I imagine this is very common among divorced parents but this bloke is doing this on steroids.

I think society was much better off when a man having a mid-life crisis just went out and bought a motorbike and leathers to feel young again. At least you could sell the motorbike on to the next one when it was over.

Being trans or non-binary really is a world away from this example of a man buying a motorbike and leathers, then getting bored of it and selling them on.

Absolutely!

Coming out as trans is far more damaging to the family unit than a frivolous hobby.

Usually far more expensive too.

Is it though?
In the same way that teen anorexia and self harming have been replaced by "I was born the the wrong body" and the only solution is surgery, isn't a middle aged man buying a bike just the old solution to to a mid life crisis that's been replaced by new solution of deciding he's non binary?
Both have the same root cause, the mid life crisis, just the way to deal with it has changed, the motorbike got replaced by fancying yourself in a dress and AGP. Both are attention seeking, focus soley on the man's view of himself, and the family bears the brunt of the fallout.
I would argue that they are not a world away from each other but symptoms of the same issue, just the new symptom is more modern and en vogue.

I’ve been struck by how many midlife transitioning males seem to be inspired to transition as a maladaptive response to the onset of balding.

Which I would imagine is quite similar to the more traditional midlife crisis behaviour (you can’t see a bald head under motorcycle helmet).

I’m just catching up after work and so many good posts on this thread articulating the upheaval and impact on everyone, not just the trans person. One of Jordan Peterson’s recent interviews with Miriam Grosan referred to parents having PTSD except it’s not P, it’s still going on. That trauma is not acknowledged at the moment in public discourse.