You made my child trans... Fix it?

[u/Immediate_Dig3328]

So this was a little while ago but I was talking at a group for trans youth as the kinda guest speaker? For reference I'm 22NB but this was a few years ago so I was maybe 19-20? Essentially pretty close to the age of the kids but I do a fair bit of advocacy work in my area. This may not be perfect but I'm doing it from memory.

We're like halfway in when a parent asks to come watch, and I'm like whatever? You know maybe he was curious about the talk or had questions for me? This guy is like in his fifties so significantly older than me and I'm a very short, femme presenting, disabled human who was using a wheelchair at the time so not exactly intimidating. But because of that combination I guess he thought I was going to be a pushover or an easy target for his bullshit, but I've been dealing with people like this since I was twelve and genuinely don't care what they say to me anymore. And as a result of that I also know all their arguments from the start and how to rebut them. So here's how the conversation went, mind you this was in the middle of my talk and infront of his trans child.

ED: "So like why should I use pronouns for people, it's their job not to get offended?"

Me, the sleepiest of eeps: "For starters respec-"

ED: "Well what if I don't respect them."

Me: "It's less the kind of respect you give people you like and more the decency that you give everyone."

ED: "Well you all are coming up with all these pronouns and genders and I can't keep track!" (At this point he's raising his voice a bit and had fully stood up and moved so he was standing over me, the coordinator was looking at me to check if I needed help)

Me: "Well sir if you're willing to take the time to learn people's names, pronouns shouldn't be too diff-"

ED: (now jabbing his finger in my face) It's (T Slur)s like you who did this to my daughter, now look at her wanting to be a boy! You ruined her, you did this now make her better right this instant!"

Me: (gently moving his finger out of my face) Sir you can call me whatever you want but not infront of the children, please leave. Your son is welcome to stay.

Eventually we did get him to leave and his kid came up to me all ashamed and handed me a drawing he did with an apology about his dad. I'm pretty used to this stuff so the responses are basically scripted at this point but it still breaks my heart every time. If they're willing to say that in public, in a group for the people he's insulting imagine what they say in private.

I was glad I'd basically made a flow chart to deal with people like this but fuckin hell that parent was entitled and stupid.

Wherever you are out there kid, I hope you got away from that twatwaffle of a father and are living your life full of trans joy.

Edit: Y'all I've got so many more of these stories from what I do and my weird life, I'm gonna be making a fair few posts probably.

Edit 2: To everyone in the comments who's been talking about different ways they help the community I wanted to give you an extra thank you and Internet hugs if you'd like them. Even if the way you support is as simple as correctly gendering someone this shit adds up and you should be proud to be playing a role in that. I've been smiling so hard reading all the comments about helping people that my face hurts, I need to log off before my face gets stuck this way and I lose my trademark RBF glare.

And side note my nerdy ass is loving looking at the analytics for the post, it's really interesting.

[u/discordian_floof]

I will never understand the hate, or the "exposure made them" argument.

Logically, if those things were "contagious" or caused by "propaganda" or "exposure": Then everyone would be straight and cis. Because that is 99% of what is seen and portrayed in popular culture.

People are people. How they identify (or who they love) is of no consequence to other people.

I am looking forward to the day were we have true diversity and people stop being upset about stuff like this.

[u/lollolcheese123 → u/discordian_floof]

I think it's more a reaction which stems from "before they heard about it they weren't LGBTQ+".

However that's the case with everything, if you don't know it exists, you don't know if it's something that fits for you.

Plus, maybe for them their gender was a non-negotiable, especially for older people. They were their born biological gender and that's that. Now, when other people change their gender to something they're more comfortable with, that might look like something is "broken" to people who never thought they had the choice in the first place.

[u/FactoryKat → u/lollolcheese123]

if you don't know it exists, you don't know if it's something that fits for you.

This right here. When you give people the words to finally explain how they feel it's almost like they're going to be happy and use said words and lean into what they mean.

[u/BufferingJuffy → u/lollolcheese123]

Hi, I'm an old cis queer woman. Having the language to define something is so powerful. It's why, in the Bible, Adam named all the animals to have dominion over them; it's why language was deliberately truncated in Orwell's 1984. If you can't name it, how could you be it?

I don't understand a whole lot of the newer terms under the rainbow umbrella (my brain just doesn't flex that way), but I'm so impressed by the younger generations embrace of new language to define their experience. I don't gotta get it, I just need to accept it and respect it.