Nah, this is super common and well known in trans communities. We get pushed out of tons of spaces just for existing. Lots of dating apps and stuff will just ban you and give wrong reasons or lies, and even if you get the ban reversed, it just happens again, but that time it’ll be perma for avoiding bans or using alternate accounts or something wild.
The blind hate by people is real. People think we complain a lot, and we kind’ve do, but almost always for good reason. Being treated shitty by stupid people everywhere sucks. It’s more than just frustrating, it’s actively oppressive and life changing in constant negative ways. It’s literally the opposite of privilege. Like just imagine having not just low, but negative luck in an RPG.
My dad once said to me “just tone it down” when trying to be supportive of my transition. Like… What the actual f does that even mean? I’m not super fem in public, I just want to mind my own business, for the most part, and be me and hang out with friends and drink coffee and bubble tea and try to get my mind off the burning down of my country. I responded to my dad “what? You want me to tone down being a woman?” And he couldn’t really respond to that because I’m pretty sure he thinks being trans is like waving flags and being a rainbow covered, makeup wearing transvestite queer man in drag. Which is… Deeply, deeply disheartening and frustrating. And before you think “oh just explain to him”, I have, repeatedly - he’s a moderate maga, the moderate flaming-ignoramus type that says he only cares about the economy and is totally unaware, or even belligerently defensive of his social unawareness and privileges of being a middle class, white, decent looking, tall, physically able, boomer cishet man.
Anyway, non-foss social media and stuff are all fucked up, and the vast majority of people are also too ignorant or dumb and stubborn to consider that which is anything past their immediate purview. We just don’t talk about it since we’re also told to shut up by most people. I guess that’s just part of being an oppressed minority (internally screaming).
For sure, and I hate to even bring up what is all to similar to “tone it down”. You shouldn’t have to be afraid, but reality sucks sometime.
I actually have a kid going through it right now. I can never understand what they’re going through but hope they understand my compassion and love for them. Where I sometimes come across as less supportive is no parent wants their kid to go through life in “hard mode”; it’s not that kind of game.
I suppose you could even draw an analogy for career choice. I’m proud of their choice to be an educator and know they have the qualities to be outstanding, to be inspirational in peoples lives. But this is also going through life in “hard mode”. While it would be a disservice to push them toward software engineering like I did or to choose a career based on money, money is important for how you can live your life. You do need it, and I wish they chose a field that payed enough to live at least as well as I can afford to
Pragmatism and idealism are almost always opposites. But also, what you might see as them being idealistic, might be their only option, pragmatically, or outright a sense of duty to society.
The world is also changing, and while career is likely a choice, gender and a sense of self is not. So I’m not sure exactly what you meant, but I feel the need to point that out. Because if you mean what I hope you don’t, it shows a level of ignorance and lack of empathy of other people’s experiences and perspectives that is harmful. And no parent wants to be harmful to their child, right? Unless that parent is stubborn and controlling and thinks their way is the best or only way. Remember your humility, remember your place, remember your existence as just one person with a responsibility and trying to give your best to your child. Part of that responsibility is giving advice, but giving bad advice or non-updated advice can be extremely harmful and a waste of others’ energy and can cost you entire relationships. I don’t talk to my dad very much for this very reason, as his experience of the world and how it works for him (and therefore everyone else) are set, and seem to be in stone, and a significant source of judgement.
Part of compassion for another is to actually do the work to understand what they’re going through. Just hoping you do and accepting you don’t, isn’t good enough. I’m really sorry to say. That’s “thoughts and prayers” level bullshit. It sounds like they’re going through life on hard mode and could really use someone in their corner who really understands their problems, not a parent who peaches and expects appreciation in return. In this new world, ignorant love isn’t enough, that’s just lazy, entitled, disrespectful, manipulative, and effectively cold.
And for the record, yes I’m absolutely projecting from my own experiences, but I do also know many other trans/queer people and how the dynamic between them and their parents work, constantly study and examine psychology and philosophy, and entirely believe that any kid with a more privileged parent needs maximal support of that parent. And unless your kid has already given up entirely on you (and probably so even then), you hold a lot more power than you may ever know, to be either used for support or disappointment.
And going off your statements of “i wish they could thrive like I have” and “but they’re going at it on hard mode”, I suspect you may have more that you could give to alleviate that hard mode. Maybe don’t think of it as a mode, but rather just who they are and the inherent difficulties of their existence in the world?
I don’t know you or your situation, especially from a single comment response. So I do also want to point out that this isn’t that personal, and is very much my general stance. But at least take it as a genuine perspective of a trans person in her 30s, with middlingly supportive, conservative parents, who wishes they could be more receptive. Because I’m tired of playing life on hard mode with my four year degree in software engineering, a two year degree in audio production, a journeyman level trade, management experience, and unable to even try to get a job anymore because I’m too burnt out.
Nah, this is super common and well known in trans communities. We get pushed out of tons of spaces just for existing. Lots of dating apps and stuff will just ban you and give wrong reasons or lies, and even if you get the ban reversed, it just happens again, but that time it’ll be perma for avoiding bans or using alternate accounts or something wild.
The blind hate by people is real. People think we complain a lot, and we kind’ve do, but almost always for good reason. Being treated shitty by stupid people everywhere sucks. It’s more than just frustrating, it’s actively oppressive and life changing in constant negative ways. It’s literally the opposite of privilege. Like just imagine having not just low, but negative luck in an RPG.
My dad once said to me “just tone it down” when trying to be supportive of my transition. Like… What the actual f does that even mean? I’m not super fem in public, I just want to mind my own business, for the most part, and be me and hang out with friends and drink coffee and bubble tea and try to get my mind off the burning down of my country. I responded to my dad “what? You want me to tone down being a woman?” And he couldn’t really respond to that because I’m pretty sure he thinks being trans is like waving flags and being a rainbow covered, makeup wearing transvestite queer man in drag. Which is… Deeply, deeply disheartening and frustrating. And before you think “oh just explain to him”, I have, repeatedly - he’s a moderate maga, the moderate flaming-ignoramus type that says he only cares about the economy and is totally unaware, or even belligerently defensive of his social unawareness and privileges of being a middle class, white, decent looking, tall, physically able, boomer cishet man.
Anyway, non-foss social media and stuff are all fucked up, and the vast majority of people are also too ignorant or dumb and stubborn to consider that which is anything past their immediate purview. We just don’t talk about it since we’re also told to shut up by most people. I guess that’s just part of being an oppressed minority (internally screaming).
For sure, and I hate to even bring up what is all to similar to “tone it down”. You shouldn’t have to be afraid, but reality sucks sometime.
I actually have a kid going through it right now. I can never understand what they’re going through but hope they understand my compassion and love for them. Where I sometimes come across as less supportive is no parent wants their kid to go through life in “hard mode”; it’s not that kind of game.
I suppose you could even draw an analogy for career choice. I’m proud of their choice to be an educator and know they have the qualities to be outstanding, to be inspirational in peoples lives. But this is also going through life in “hard mode”. While it would be a disservice to push them toward software engineering like I did or to choose a career based on money, money is important for how you can live your life. You do need it, and I wish they chose a field that payed enough to live at least as well as I can afford to
Pragmatism and idealism are almost always opposites. But also, what you might see as them being idealistic, might be their only option, pragmatically, or outright a sense of duty to society.
The world is also changing, and while career is likely a choice, gender and a sense of self is not. So I’m not sure exactly what you meant, but I feel the need to point that out. Because if you mean what I hope you don’t, it shows a level of ignorance and lack of empathy of other people’s experiences and perspectives that is harmful. And no parent wants to be harmful to their child, right? Unless that parent is stubborn and controlling and thinks their way is the best or only way. Remember your humility, remember your place, remember your existence as just one person with a responsibility and trying to give your best to your child. Part of that responsibility is giving advice, but giving bad advice or non-updated advice can be extremely harmful and a waste of others’ energy and can cost you entire relationships. I don’t talk to my dad very much for this very reason, as his experience of the world and how it works for him (and therefore everyone else) are set, and seem to be in stone, and a significant source of judgement.
Part of compassion for another is to actually do the work to understand what they’re going through. Just hoping you do and accepting you don’t, isn’t good enough. I’m really sorry to say. That’s “thoughts and prayers” level bullshit. It sounds like they’re going through life on hard mode and could really use someone in their corner who really understands their problems, not a parent who peaches and expects appreciation in return. In this new world, ignorant love isn’t enough, that’s just lazy, entitled, disrespectful, manipulative, and effectively cold.
And for the record, yes I’m absolutely projecting from my own experiences, but I do also know many other trans/queer people and how the dynamic between them and their parents work, constantly study and examine psychology and philosophy, and entirely believe that any kid with a more privileged parent needs maximal support of that parent. And unless your kid has already given up entirely on you (and probably so even then), you hold a lot more power than you may ever know, to be either used for support or disappointment.
And going off your statements of “i wish they could thrive like I have” and “but they’re going at it on hard mode”, I suspect you may have more that you could give to alleviate that hard mode. Maybe don’t think of it as a mode, but rather just who they are and the inherent difficulties of their existence in the world?
I don’t know you or your situation, especially from a single comment response. So I do also want to point out that this isn’t that personal, and is very much my general stance. But at least take it as a genuine perspective of a trans person in her 30s, with middlingly supportive, conservative parents, who wishes they could be more receptive. Because I’m tired of playing life on hard mode with my four year degree in software engineering, a two year degree in audio production, a journeyman level trade, management experience, and unable to even try to get a job anymore because I’m too burnt out.