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Transphobic cousin/housemate/lifelong best friend... I don't know how to feel

Discussion in 'General Support and Advice' started by Thingymajing, Jun 8, 2015.

  1. Thingymajing

    Regular Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Ozland
    Trigger warning: trans* non-believer, binarist, unisex toilet debate, all that shallow-minded depressing crap =_=

    Urgh, so I just had a really tense conversation with my housemate/family member/best friend since childhood - and she "doesn't believe in being an 'it'" ("it" rather than "they" because "they" is "too confusing". And also the whole "I don't want unisex toilets because "they'll take my toilet space" when they have to make space for unisex toilets, even though it doesn't work like that, plus "I don't want to have to go to the toilet next to a person with a penis" even though you aren't forced to use unisex toilets... And the whole time she was acting like trans people are obvious, like you can't have "normal"-looking men with vaginas or "normal"-looking women with penises... I tried explaining that nobody is taking anything away from her, just adding stuff so people can use the bathroom comfortably in public without feeling threatened, dysphoric, put into a box, or deciding they'd rather hold it than have to choose.

    She's known two trangender people in her life, both sisters, afab, went through an "it" stage, followed by a "boy" stage, followed by "I'm a woman now because I'm dating a man and now I want my vagina and want babies" < all her words in quotes. I don't know the older sister, but the younger sister was an attention-seeker and she did go over and above just asking for acceptance and pronouns - but that's nothing to do with the validity of the agender identity or her gender identity, she was just an attention-seeker on top of whatever gender she felt. She now identifies as a woman again, so this housemate of mine thinks it was all a fad/fake/special-snowflake attention-seeking stunt and that's really not okay because I have an agender friend which I love to bits, and a male to female transgender friend which I'll be damned if I question her identity as valid, since it doesn't bloomin' hurt me what gender she identifies as.

    This family member/housemate of mine doesn't believe in gender theory, is happy conforming to a female gender social role because she has lady parts (she said so, I'm just rewording it for context) and said the whole conversation was a "waste of time" and a "moot point" because I have my "opinion" and she has hers. My opinion. Because it's an opinion to think that gender is a purely psychological experience, not tied to the state of your body. And it's her opinion to think that transgender individuals of any presentation, gender, or lack of gender are potential rapists or threats to herself and are scheming to steal her toilet space and don't deserve to choose a toilet based on gender identity or even presentation - that all that matters is what's in your pants

    I really don't know how to feel about this. She is my best friend, I live with her and will do so for a couple years. We've known each other our whole lives, we're family, we've been through (and are going through) depression and anxiety together and have always been there to support each other... but she just invalidated an entire group of humanity... an entire set of identities... took my values and... threw them in my face. I'm genderblind, pansexual, transhuman, trans-gender (as in, I hope for a day where gender identity is as easily accepted by strangers as favourite colours). I'm an animal-lover, an environmentalist, an egalitarian and I don't discriminate based on any differences. When I encounter someone who's values are against my own, I usually disengage and avoid that person. If I can't, I avoid the topic and only interact with the person in a way that won't bring up the topic. But I live with this person, and my agender friend is one of my best friends - I'm one of their daughter's godparents for heck's sake! That's not something I can or want to avoid, at all, ever. I live, breathe, dream LGBTQIPetc. How do I deal with living with someone so closed-minded? Someone I'm so close to?

    I'm afab, known as female, like to think I'm more on the masculine side or at least androgynous, sometimes femme, gender questioning. I used to get social dysphoria for being perceived as female, and sex dysphoria during sex. At the moment I don't feel anything because I don't have sex and don't socialise, nor leave the house terribly often, as I just moved here after a bad break-up and don't have any local friends.

    I'm sorry this post is such a mess, I really hope reading it didn't tick you off, though if you got this far it's probably not as bad as I thought... I just, gender is a thing and why can't people get that? People I live with, especially?

    I just don't know how to deal with it in the future, with her, for the sake of my beloved friends and trans people everywhere. Any advice would be mega great!

    I didn't know where to post this but I figured here would do, unless it's the wrong place, then I didn't mean to step on any toes <3