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.

It’s him, the brother, who’s the problem.

To make it clear, I have minimal respect for men who abuse their wives and prioritise their own whims above their family’s needs, as OP’s brother is doing.

I have some sympathy if he is suffering a mental-health crisis. But not enough to say his wife and children should suck it up.

How?

How what?

Good points, Naunet!

Apparently my brother just announced it to her and their friends at the same time

What a colossal dickhead. It shows how little he thinks of her to do that, to treat her like she's just another friend. He's either really strange or he holds her in contempt, maybe both. Jesus. My sympathies.

This non-binary announcement is clearly the beginning of transitioning into a woman, but he's started it off with non-binary thinking he'll start with that as a soft beginning.

The poster suggested the SIL will be able to discover whether she and her children are in physical danger based on what she discovers if she searches his devices/online accounts. My question is what the rationale behind that is. And for that matter, why should it be assumed anyone is in physical danger from this person? The OP has said nothing to suggest that.

The DB has just sprung a huge change on his wife, in a semi-public setting, without prior warning. She can no longer assume with any confidence that she knows what he is thinking. She can no longer trust that his future behaviour will be reasonable. She can no longer trust him, full stop. She is now married to and sharing her home with a de facto stranger who is already calling her transphobic and a bigot.

If I suddenly and against my will found myself in a flat share with a male stranger who called me those things, I'd fear for my physical safety. terfisaslur.com and plenty of other online resources show the kinds of threats that entitled males will issue against women who don't comply with TWAW.

I can well understand the marital relationship being under strain, but as for this alleged threat to her physical safety… do you think you might be getting carried away here? I’ve not seen any suggestion by the OP of violence or violent threats being involved. Your assumption seems to be that the person’s gender identity by itself makes them violent and dangerous. That is an assumption based on very flimsy evidence really.

No one has asserted that SIL is in physical danger. We are concerned that she might be, given that she is sharing a house with a de facto stranger who is willing to call her bigoted for disagreeing with him and is physically stronger than she is on account of being male.

Your assumption seems to be that the person’s gender identity by itself makes them violent and dangerous.

That's a very creative misreading of what I've said. Do you actually read what people write? There are plenty of self-described "cis men" who have threatened violence against women who don't toe the TWAW line. The set of "entitled men" includes these “bearded woke blokes" as well as transitioning males who stomp all over their wives feelings. The problem isn't DB's gender identity, it's his very typically male abuser tactics. He dropped his new non-binary identity on his wife in a group setting, a silencing move on his part to stop her from reacting with distress to the news and a show of dominance over her, by forcing her to suppress her feelings. I wonder how many of his friends are "bearded woke blokes" whose presence would serve to intimidate SIL into swallowing her reaction to having that bomb droppes on her? Having broken this news to her so badly, he is now calling her bigoted, which is another silencing tactic and show of dominance. These are very typically male abuse tactics, and we know from experience that abusers escalate.

If he wasn't an abuser, he would have told her in private, on a Saturday morning so that she had the weekend to process it before having to face work again, and his side of the conversation would have contained words to the effect of "I understand completely if you want a divorce".

Let's state this in a different way.

What evidence DO we have?

The husband has clearly behaved in a way which shows utter contempt for his wife. He in no way respects her.

He IS indulging in emotional abuse - the coming out in the way he did, constitutes that. She is distressed.
He IS indulging in an attempt to coercively control her - the verbal abuse he is giving her when she questions anything and his insistence on correct pronouns by her and his children with anything else being 'punished' by his anger and more verbal abuse for saying things he doesn't like.
He IS behaving in a way likely to be causing extreme distress and psychological harm to his children who are at a crucial period in their life with identity formation and learning to understand boundaries. He is using them as a tool for his own identity validation without thought to how it affects their wellbeing.

The question has to become, how does this progress? And what harms are already being done? Will it stay the same or is there a danger it will escalate.

The lack of underlying respect is the problem in this regard. And any woman in this position should prepare for the worst to protect herself and her children from further harm. Note the key word in that previous sentence. He is demonstrating he doesn't have any regards for their wellbeing.

The question then becomes what evidence is there that the wife and children are safe from him if he is demonstrating a lack of regards to their wellbeing?

Yes, maybe you can hope that this doesn't pan out for the worst in a prepare for the worst hope for the best scenario. But the current balance of evidence doesn't bode well for the SIL.

The crucial point is he IS potentially domestically abusing her ALREADY. Legal definitions of domestic abuse do not include the need for physical violence to be present. Whether the SIL (and the OP) are ready to fully recognise this is another matter, but his behaviour in demanding the 'correct' response from her and his children and disallowed them their own emotional responses and questions in order to validate his own feelings is an attempt to coercively control.

Some of his actions already may be starting to add up to a case where he is behaving in an unlawful manner due to his coerciveness.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-intimate-or-family-relationship#:~:text=Section%2076%20SCA%202015%20provides,and%20B%20are%20personally%20connected
This link has a list of actions that someone coercively controlling someone else may indulge in. Some of the things he has already done, are on that list.

This is why suggestions that the OP should stay well out of it, get to me. If her brother was punching her SIL, the responses on this thread would be different. Emotional abuse isn't properly recognised.

I do think that as time passes, the pattern of coercive control handed out to trans widows and their children will eventually become recognised. But I fear we are some way from that.

In the meantime it's worth reading the experiences of transwidows, the striking similarities in stories and the descriptions in how it impacted on them and their children AND to make sure anyone you know in a similar situation is fully versed and aware of what constitutes coercive control and they are encouraged to take steps inline with that where appropriate.

All of that ^^

Run that past the Women's Aid risk index and this poor woman is going to score quite highly. Ffs do not skirt round everything that is known about domestic abuse and its patterns to protect women just because the perpetrator is trans. It makes absolutely no difference how a male person identifies in terms of the needs of the female. None. At all.

Extreme, BDSM porn?

Go read the relationships board - your eyes will pop out if your head!

No one is saying this, you are making assumptions that are not implied by the writer - it’s not the ‘gender identity’ that matters (most of us don’t even believe in gender identity as a concept anyway) it’s the behaviour that is a red flag.

Let's flip what Tortoise said.

Your assumption seems to be that the person’s gender identity by itself makes them harmless, despite the harms the OP has already described. That is an assumption based on very flimsy evidence really.

What is your evidence that DB is harmless, Tortoise?

Why should his wife have to accept the man she married now dresses as a woman and tells off the children when they say 'he' or perhaps 'dad'? He's not a woman and can never be one and thus needs mental help, not acquiescence from everyone. His wife should leave him and take her children.

I think she means accept the brother and support him and his family.
I'd advise SIL to get her children out before confusion and bullying by this horrible man destroys them all.