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Former legal guardian not respecting my pronoun/ gender request


SithAzathoth WinterDragon

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SithAzathoth WinterDragon

I've been hiding my transness or should I say gender for far too long.  I'm Maverique and maybe genderfluid since I also am Neutrois.

I'm extremely repulsed by feminine pronouns and all of the aspects of feminine classifications and have been since middle school in the early 2000s but hid it for far too long and now came out and telling others to stop calling me feminine pronouns. 

I recently went to my mother who's not related to me , she took me in and my sister in 1996 and became our legal guardian in 1998 and it ended in 2007 or 8, I've asked her multiple times to stop calling me she/her and daughter . She still calls me all of them and is now saying shut up, get over it and "accept it or I'll call you an it"  stop sending your site shit and more. she claims that she is supportive and loving, I've turned around and said if she did she would call me they/them and he/him as I have asked, however she will not since she's christian and an extrem phobic against anyone in the LGBT+ community . She will not listen to my request, at this point i have no idea what to do, i want to email her school psychologist where she works and see what he can do, or change her behavior towards me. What can I do, who should I go to..... to make her begin respecting my request? 

I do apologize if this is not where this belongs.

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You can't make her do anything.

 

That being said, parental pronoun confusion is pretty normal, but she's being a dick about it, so you're by no means required to show her any sort of respect back.

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Be disrespectful right back. Start calling her "he" or "it". Say if she's going to continue using your wrong gender, so will you. And be showy about it. 

 

Or cut her off. Cut her out of your life saying that she couldn't respect you, so she doesn't deserve your love or respect. Anyone being a direct jerkwad about it deserves to be cut out of your life. 

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I’m not expecting much from my parents. Everything I’ve heard is that it takes time, almost always. I’m invited to thanksgiving and they’re still talking to me: great.

 

45 minutes ago, SithGrinch said:

Cut her out of your life saying that she couldn't respect you, so she doesn't deserve your love or respect.

I don’t think this is a good idea, tbh. Estrangement *might* be unavoidable, but it’s something to generally try to avoid. My mom was shitty at me and I paid to have a shitty therapist, but at the very least I told her: “look, I’m trying to make this work. That’s why we’re in a therapist office”.

 

And no my parents are not going to change pronouns anytime soon. I’m planning to shave the nascent ‘stache tomorrow. Just sucking it up while I’m around them.

 

To some extent parental lack of respect for gender stuff is routine and estrangement over it is a potential lifetime consequence that’s hopefully avoidable.

 

@Sithmaster WinterDragon my recommendation would be to not try to change your mother, but don’t hide what you are. Hold your ground without picking a fight, and give it time. She might never change, but every story of parents coming around seems to involve “time”, so... start with that. Try to be patient, I think. You can always give up later.

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3 minutes ago, anisotrophic said:

I don’t think this is a good idea, tbh. Estrangement *might* be unavoidable, but it’s something to generally try to avoid. My mom was shitty at me and I paid to have a shitty therapist, but at the very least I told her: “look, I’m trying to make this work. That’s why we’re in a therapist office”.

I disagree. I think you should cut shitty people out of your life. Who cares if they were your guardian, if you share blood, if you grew up together? 

Yes, try to make things better, but if they're unwilling to try, fuck 'em. Cut the poison out instead of letting it slowly bring you stress and misery.

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SithAzathoth WinterDragon

I have sent her the Gender masterlist 3 times now.  I can only hope she reads it, as of the last 30 hours I sent it to her while I was at Seatac heading back home. On top of a screen shot of deadgendering and not doing it. 4 years ago I came out to her as a sex/romantic repulsed asexual, she seems to accept my asexuality and so just 3 months ago I said to her I'm not going by feminine pronouns or wanting anything associated with being female including the pronouns and clothing.  I have not told her I plan on seeing about getting top surgery which I may get for free in my local area and hospital. 

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Do not contact the school psychologist where she works.  That's mean, and is not going to make anything better.  

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SithAzathoth WinterDragon
6 hours ago, Philip027 said:

You can't make her do anything.

 

That being said, parental pronoun confusion is pretty normal, but she's being a dick about it, so you're by no means required to show her any sort of respect back.

The amount of times I've had brought up if you truly love and support me,  then prove it by calling me they/them ! Then resending the Gendermaster list, she plays victim and tells me to stop. I recently said if she wants me to get along with her,  she must read the link and read the how tos and the masterlist.

She recently made the excuse "it's not gender" and "I'm not used to it yet" 

Quite frankly I have lost respect and will bring someone else in to this soon to have her questioned, or to explain why she's not respecting me and my wishes.

 

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Three months isn’t very long. IMHO you keep hammering someone with stuff like this — especially on this timescale — you’re likely to come off as faddish. “Bringing someone in” is likely to come off as disrespectful and aggressive (if it appears to be trying to shame someone, which certainly sounds like your intent).

 

The person egging you on towards estrangement is cis and as far as I know hasn’t seriously struggled with potential estrangement over queer issues. I have. I’ve been out with my gender identity (professionally as well) for nearly two years, and I wasn’t taken seriously by my parents / family until I started HRT. Once I was taken seriously, it’s been a lot of criticism and discomfort. It sucks, it’s going to keep sucking, I’m sticking it out to be who I am.

 

My advice is that a lifetime is a long one, relatives aren’t like friends. They almost always need time. Estrangement happens, but it shouldn’t be a goal: which implies backing off, giving time, and not trying to shame or berate someone into respecting you. My advice is to respect yourself and don’t worry about parental respect, don’t back down from who you are, don’t pick fights.

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“Bringing someone in” is likely to come off as disrespectful and aggressive

I mean, "accept it or I'll call you an it" pretty much already crossed that particular line.  That's not something a well-meaning parent who's just tripping up over calling their kid something new after years of thinking of them as something else would say; that's just downright maliciousness that imo doesn't deserve any "respect", especially coming from a parent to their own kid.

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19 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

"accept it or I'll call you an it" pretty much already crossed that particular line

It looks to me like it’s been crossed by both parties. One person losing their temper (especially if they’re feeling provoked by being repeatedly sent “corrections”) isn’t a justification for the other doing it too.

 

Part of growing up is learning that the “grown ups” aren’t always going to be more mature than you.

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I feel like comments like that go far beyond "losing one's temper" and don't necessarily deserve being excused just because grown-ups are gonna grown-up, but ehh.

 

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It looks to me like it’s been crossed by both parties.

How, exactly?  Where has the OP expressed anything as vile as the mother's comment?

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Calligraphette_Coe

Someone once said "Be grateful for luck, but don't count on it." I knew the chances of this be accepted by my parents was nil because of religious reasons and their cognitive dissonance, so after one of my medical meltdowns permanently took the transition card off the table, I reasoned that one has to pick their battles wisely, and this was one I would never win. At best, it would be a Pyrrhic Victory. I was estranged from them anyway, and other than offering the occasional olive branch like mastering an entire CD of religious songs I played and recorded for them on a Yamaha synthesizer, that estrangement continued for most of their lives. At the end of their lives we had a bit of reconciliation and I think we departed on relatively benign terms. I think they got the general idea when I never provided them with any grandchildren-- I left that up to my other 7 sibs.

 

YMMV, but I always found it was a far, far better thing one does to walk around the stones put in one's path than to nurse a stubbed toe by trying to be the Irresistable Force trying to kick the Immovable Object. Be sad about it, but after a requisite amount of time, go Cosmic Shrug and walk around the Stone to your own Piper, not someone else's.

 

 

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I agree with what others have said that you can't really make her do anything. If this is a recent developement then she probably will still need a lot of time to process it, especially if she's coming from a traditional and biggoted mindset. And maybe in the future she'll see things in a different way and respect your gender, but maybe she never will. It really sucks but there's no way of knowing and there's nothing you can do to force her to change if she really just doesn't want to. 

 

I also don't think that involving someone else in the way you mentioned would be a good idea. Like it would be one thing to talk to another family member or mutual who supports you and for them to have a chat with her about all that, but it's another thing to try to get someone to force her to accept you. No one can do that. Maybe going to a personal/family psychologist and all three of you having a coversation could help (but I had a bad experience with that so I wouldn't recommend it if she's that closed off to the idea of seeing things from any other point of view than her own.)

 

I came out to my family four years ago and it's only been in like the last week that my parents finally agreed to call me by my name and pronouns, and that only happened because of some extreme circumstances that made them see me differently and have a change of heart.

 

So with this situation about having unsupporting parents who say they love you and accept you but don't show it through their actions because they don't respect you... I'd say that yeah you just have to give them time and hang in there, if you want to continue having a relationship with them. If you don't care that much, or you can't deal with her behavior towards you, then there's also the option of cutting ties. But again if this is a relatively recent change I think just giving her more time and space is the best thing to do.

 

You can't force anyone to respect you and all you can do is just keep being yourself, keep having those conversations with her trying to express your feelings but without trying to push things on her. It's like.. educate her and explain things to her, but let her come to her conclusions and decisions and yeah if she really cares about how you feel then (from my own personal experience and what I've seen in other people's stories) she'll get there eventually. 

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