jkap

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Anonymous User asked:

My nephew is transitioning and has picked a new name. My sister (his mum) is very supportive but is still clearly struggling to get the pronouns and name right. Do you have any advice on how to help?

this is absolutely more Serious then the sort of ask i usually get and realistically i haven't had to deal with this in nearly a decade (wild, time flies).

in my experience it can actually just Take A Bit. the parent being well-meaning and supportive absolutely helps, and also makes it easier (although this is VERY dependent on other factors that you/your nephew will know better than i possibly could) to have a frank conversation of "i know it's hard, i believe you that you're trying, but it still hurts to have you get it wrong this often and i need to reiterate how important it is to me that you keep making the effort." hit 'em with the old "i'm not mad, i'm disappointed." again, very very dependent on how the parent actually is. worked for me but ymmv.

good luck, congrats to your nephew. you can tell him that the ceo of some bug-themed social media platform thinks he's doing great.


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in reply to @jkap's post:

From my experience, my parents were supportive, but very very bad at this as well. And they only shaped up their act when I came out to my 97 year old trump voting grandma and she immediately never misgendered or misnamed me ever again.

I heard my dad going "Am I the bad guy for not even trying?" and they basically never misgendered me again. Shame is an EXTREMELY good motivator lol

Suggestions from my experience:

  1. Encourage his mom to practice talking about him with the correct name and pronouns when he isn’t present, either with another person or just to herself. Doing this will help to solidify the association between her conception of him as a person and his new name/pronouns—she needs to reframe his identity in her mind. If she only tries when he’s physically present, it will take a lot longer to be consistent because she’s approaching it as a situational behavioral adjustment (i.e., “I have to talk like this in front of my son or I’ll upset him”)
  2. He needs a vocal advocate that is someone his mom trusts, who can encourage, pressure, or call her out as appropriate. My brother did this for me with my parents, and things really started to turn around when he told them, “You will get your shit together immediately or you will not have a daughter anymore because she won’t stick around for this. If you love and value her, you need to start acting like it.”

Not that anyone has asked for more advice, buuuuut: personally before I came out but was struggling with my friends' new names and pronouns who had come out, I got the advice that probably by default a lot of us are doing "find and replace" every time we talk about someone who has transitioned. Think of thing to say, then check, then correct, then open mouth. A lot of effort!

The tip I got was outside of conversation, literally think about how the person is no longer their assigned gender. e.g. they are literally not a woman, they are literally not a daughter, they are literally not a sister, aunt, granddaughter, whatever. They are non binary, they are a sibling a child, etc. Or a son, an uncle, a grandson, a brother, or whatever else someone is transitioning to.

That explanation/approach really helped my brain be faster at not messing up ppl's names and pronouns in my life. Best of luck to the asker and the kid and the mom and everyone - y'all sound like you're good to each other!