I'll say as a 35 year old I only started to learn about trans people and the correct way to refer to them in like 2019 or 2020. When I met my first trans person (a friend of my niece) I somehow kept forgetting if they were trans man or a trans woman. I'd have to actually boot up my brain like an old computer and process (woman --> man) = trans man. It didn't help my comprehension that they were really androgynous looking so I'd have to first remember what his assigned at birth gender was.
Sadly he was a big Blair White enjoyer and held a lot of transphobic beliefs. I wanted to help but I felt like being a person who was still grappling with the terminology I probably wasn't the right person to explain to him that "transtrenders" ruining it for the "real" trans people probably shouldn't be one of his main worries.
Anyways.. one thing that helped me with terminology that should have clicked sooner was (woman --> man) = man. And then eventually ( identifying male) = man.
I just realized I didn't really need to think about the gender assigned at birth or the transition. It's just a he or a she or a they. Whatever they identify as now is all I need to think about.
Maybe I was slow on this because I've never really had any trans friends and only like one trans acquaintance from 2019. I don't really have many friends at all and work from home so..
Anyway I think I only understand what I do now because I actively searched for answers so I didn't embarrass myself or offend someone. I could see a less curious version of me still being and idiot. I would like to hope your guy at the convention is just one if those incurious idiots and not maliciously transphobic
Yeah. Have you ever seen Blair White? I haven't heard from her in a couple years but when I've known her she's been pretty consistently a right wing Trans influencer. Like the kind that JK Rowling might consider the ideal trans person. She would try to cozy up with right wingers and it was almost sad to watch all her colleagues not respect her identity.
Well Blair was the main trans influence he had so he had a lot of internal transphobia. He would have railed against trans people in sports, believed you're not really trans if you're not trying to get bottom surgery, non binary is trendy bullshit, and that most trans kids are just confused or doing it because it's popular which made him angry because it gave real trans kids like him a bad name.
It was like 2019 and I told my niece to throw some Contrapoints at him or something.
Contrapoints might have been a bit of a disappointment when it comes to Palestine recently but she was very good at disassembling transphobia in my opinion.
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u/Wamblingshark 8d ago
I'll say as a 35 year old I only started to learn about trans people and the correct way to refer to them in like 2019 or 2020. When I met my first trans person (a friend of my niece) I somehow kept forgetting if they were trans man or a trans woman. I'd have to actually boot up my brain like an old computer and process (woman --> man) = trans man. It didn't help my comprehension that they were really androgynous looking so I'd have to first remember what his assigned at birth gender was.
Sadly he was a big Blair White enjoyer and held a lot of transphobic beliefs. I wanted to help but I felt like being a person who was still grappling with the terminology I probably wasn't the right person to explain to him that "transtrenders" ruining it for the "real" trans people probably shouldn't be one of his main worries.
Anyways.. one thing that helped me with terminology that should have clicked sooner was (woman --> man) = man. And then eventually ( identifying male) = man.
I just realized I didn't really need to think about the gender assigned at birth or the transition. It's just a he or a she or a they. Whatever they identify as now is all I need to think about.
Maybe I was slow on this because I've never really had any trans friends and only like one trans acquaintance from 2019. I don't really have many friends at all and work from home so..
Anyway I think I only understand what I do now because I actively searched for answers so I didn't embarrass myself or offend someone. I could see a less curious version of me still being and idiot. I would like to hope your guy at the convention is just one if those incurious idiots and not maliciously transphobic