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unsupportive mom?

Discussion in 'Family, Friends, and Relationships' started by bluesey, Jul 8, 2015.

  1. bluesey

    Regular Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
    USA
    Gender:
    Male (trans*)
    so this is kind of a long story, but i'll try to relay the situation as best as i can.

    a few months ago (in may, to be exact) i came out to my mom as nonbinary and told her about my chosen name and pronouns, and, in short, it was a disaster. i was crying and she was crying and she thought i chose this because of my time on tumblr and the fact that my best friend, who i met on tumblr, is also nonbinary and she said that she knew i wouldn't but that i should stop talking to zir (my friend's pronouns are ze/zir). in fact, the very first thing she said to me when i told her my chosen name, which is blue, was "doesn't that mean sad?" honestly just thinking about this conversation is making me cringe. she was really disrespectful about my identity because she said i'd always been fine with identifying as female before and she said that she had never noticed me not being comfortable with my given gender (as if she would know!!!). she asked me if i didn't "feel like a girl," then what did it mean to feel like a girl? basically cisnormativity has made my mom equate feminine things (i.e. dresses, makeup, etc.) with feeling feminine, which is fine for some people, like trans women, but she doesn't get that clothing and makeup and things like that aren't gendered. i tried to explain to her that gender is fluid just like sexuality (my mom realized a few years back that she's bi not straight, so i figured she'd understand this) but she rejected the notion. after all these awful things she said, at the end she asked me if calling me by my given name would make me more comfortable/confident. i told her that it would, and she said that she would try then. but then she said that it would be confusing if she just started calling me by another name if i wasn't out to my brothers, and i grudgingly agreed that she was right, so to this day she has never called me by my chosen name or pronouns and every time she calls me by my given name or calls me her daughter, i feel like screaming inside, because she knows and she still does this. finally, my mom ended the conversation by saying that she still loved me no matter what but it was going to take her some time to get used to the idea.

    anyway, so after that awful experience, the issue was completely ignored. i was too afraid to bring it up in case she reacted like before, and my mom didn't say anything about it for a long time, so basically i gave up. a little while back, my mom came in my room and said that she had thought more about it and realized that her reaction when i came out to her was awful and she was mainly just shocked and then she hugged me and said that she thought it was "cool" that i "don't put myself in a box." which is a very my-mom thing to say, but i was grateful that at least she seemed to accept me a little more.

    but the other day, when she was driving me home from work, she asked me if being called my given name bothered me. i explained that it did, and she asked if it bothered me so much, then why didn't i just tell everyone to call me blue? gOd her ignorance makes me so angry! it's not that easy! telling people to call me a completely different name would have to be after i came out to them, and i am definitely not ready for that at all yet!!! i told her that i wasn't ready for it, but i told her that my friends call me my given name in public and around people i know (for safety reasons) and they call me blue in private or over text messages. she said "isn't that confusing for them to call you different names?" by this point i was getting pissed off so i told her that yes, it can be confusing for them, but they respect it because they respect me and what i'm comfortable with.

    after that great talk, i was still angry for the rest of the night, so i made a post on my tumblr about it. the next day, my mom said to me out of the blue, "you know, if you were more open with me instead of telling your tumblr 'friends' [in finger quotes -- she doesn't consider my tumblr friends real friends] then maybe we could have a better relationship. but instead you tell your friends, because obviously they care more about you than i do." i asked her what she was talking about, and she said she read my post. (side note: my mom used to have a tumblr, which made me really paranoid that she'd see my private posts, especially about things i was closeted about, like gender, mainly, but previously sexuality. but she hadn't gone on tumblr in months bc she says everyone on there "loves to be sad" etc. etc. so i wasn't worried about making a personal post on my private blog. but she secretly read my post and then made a passive aggressive comment about it to me! and she was angry at me!)

    ^ that was yesterday. i don't know whether i should confront my mom about everything and tell her how she doesn't support/respect my identity, so why is she angry that i talk to my friends, who do understand and respect me, and that her reading my private post in secret was way out of line, and explain how her misgendering me makes me feel, but i'm also terrified that she'll have a reaction like she did when i first came out to her. if any of you could give me any advice or feedback, that would help a lot. i'm frustrated and upset that my mom won't try to understand me or respect my identity, but i also don't want her to say rude, mean things like she did the first time. my mom loves to say that she's open-minded and is a huge supporter of lgbtq+ rights, but clearly she's not as supportive as she likes to think, especially for nonbinary people (she never uses the right pronouns for my tumblr friend i mentioned earlier). please help if you can, or if you have anything supportive to say, that would also help a lot. sorry this post is so long, and i'm really grateful if anybody read this whole thing.
     
  2. fastforward

    fastforward Guest

    I'm so sorry about what you're going through. As slow as it may be, I think your mom is very slowly getting better. She apologized to you and admitted that she was wrong. During the time you thought she was ignoring the topic, maybe she really was thinking more about it. But still, ignorance still remains. It's likely to be a journey. And the journey with your identity and your relationship with your mom seems to be on a halt right now. I think you should probably let all your feelings out to your mom if you want the journey to continue. I feel that since you already came out to her and talked to her about it, you have no other option but to fight the uphill battle, as hard as it may be. If you don't, coming out wouldn't have really been worth it. Don't feel rushed to tell her your feelings though. Make sure you're ready. I don't think the reaction will be like the first one because you coming out probably came with a lot of initial shock. I hope everything turns out all right!