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Transphobic mother

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by SkyColours38, Dec 15, 2014.

  1. SkyColours38

    Full Member

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    Location:
    Oxford, UK/Putney VT, USA
    So over the past few months I've been realising that I'm more transmasculine than genderqueer, as I previously thought I was. It's been mostly fine until now, because my university has great queer and feminist scenes where I've found acceptance. However, now I'm home for the holidays and I'm quickly realising that my mother is very transphobic and will not stop making hurtful comments at me. She coerced me into outing myself last week, and since then has been generally awful, e.g.:

    – equating being trans with having an eating disorder in that they're both 'based on tragically false self-perception'
    – also equating gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapy with self-harm
    – calling the LQBTQ+ community a cult
    – bizarrely also calling my uni feminist society a cult (this is weird because she identifies as a feminist)
    – forcing me to read articles by an anti-trans doctor (not quite a TERF but close)
    – outing me to my dad against my express wishes
    – demanding that I reveal the medical history of an intersex and trans friend of mine
    – insisting that my sexuality negates my gender somehow...
    – complaining that my 'dressing like a man' will scare away the straight men. Oh boo-hoo.
    and the most absurd one:
    – comparing transness to Gulf War Syndrome, and even more ridiculously, to running away to Syria to join the Islamic State (???) :bang:

    I mean seriously, you couldn't make this stuff up, she's just that desperate to deny my identity.
    Plus she makes passive-aggressive comments and tries to make me feel guilty for 'hurting her feelings' every time she talks to me.

    Anyway, I've already asked one trans friend for advice/resources on how to deal with this, and they gave me some great links, but I thought I'd ask a wider pool of people just in case any of you have more specific ideas on how to deal with this sort of stuff in conversation. Sometimes I just need to shut her down when I don't have the emotional energy to argue, and I don't have anywhere else I can go at the moment if it gets too much, so I need to conserve what energy I have until next term starts (in the second week of January). At least her arguments are often so far-fetched that they're really funny! *singing 'Always look on the bright side of life!' :eusa_whis*

    Thanks for reading!
     
  2. jay777

    Regular Member

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    Gender:
    Female (trans*)
    Sexual Orientation:
    Lesbian