There are some elderly people near me in this restaurant and two of them started talking about their trans nephew really affectionately… maybe there is good in this world……
One of the old women was joking about how she “just can’t figure out what he’s gonna do next!” because her nephew is “so energetic.” The man she’s with was talking about how confident he is on testosterone compared to how “depressed and introverted” he was before “getting on the stuff.” I love this so much. Shout out to supportive old people.
The older guy accidentally misgendered the nephew once but immediately corrected himself, and later said “he’s really a bright young man!” while bragging. Peace and love on planet earth. <3
“The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I’m not a trannie or a fag so I don’t care, just give ‘em the medicine they need.”
“This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility.”
One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.
I think this is something young people in particular are confused about. My dad has always had a slightly off color sense of humor, he always feels the need to privately ask me “boy turned girl or girl turned boy?” if I mention a friend and stress said friend’s pronouns, and yet when we had repair work done in the house and the worker was listening to a podcast discussing the evils of transgender people and how to cleanse society, he went out of his way to contact the owner of the business to discuss his disappointment with that worker’s conduct and stress the negative effect that could have had if there had been trans kids in our home.
Our allies will never be perfect. They will never use the perfect language or have the perfect politics. But we have to appreciate those allies and meet them where they are, especially if they are willing to learn.
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