(no subject)
Dec. 2nd, 2019 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_crowI accidentally outed Aerin over Thanksgiving dinner while they were not there, haing taken their sibling and headed to see my mother/their grandmother, and getting bonus!Uncle, Aunt and cousin while they were at it. I sent a deeply apologetic email much later that night, apolgizing ahead of time, and got back a nice note that said basically no - I wish you could go ahead of me and do that ll the time, coming out is a f*cking drag. So I did say the right things there, and I was relieved.
so I feel like I am gradually getting a feel for what is and is not polite to talk about other people - Aerin said it over the phone to Al, and I felt like Of Course, why did it take that long for THAT to clarify? Aerin said stuff about how to talk to someone is public because it is a part of their public face, part of what they display to the world and basically how to use their interface better. Things to not talk about are all body things - T, and surgery, and packing and weight and things they might or might not be doing in the bedroom - those are all private things and are not necessary for rando strangers or well meaning family to know, no matter HOW much they want to know (cough*Sally*cough) and Sally is mildly worried and deeply curious and unsure what happens next and can sort of see Aerin turning into someone else, or shaping themselves into a new form, and trying to think about how much it matters to her, Sally, and i think honestly not realizing how much it matters to them, Aerin,
Alice seems so much simpler, but I think that is because it is just -decided- and then she lets us know? I dunno. I don't think what is actually going on in her head is simpler, but it looks simpler because there is less angst over labels. I amkind of dimly deeply grateful to be able to keep the same pronouns for her that I've used on her since birth, Maybe it will be easier when she has less breast? maybe she'll want to be someone else later. Which will be fine too.
In retrospect, I should have pushed back harder on "so what, if it is a phase?" at Tgiving dinner, because I am still feeling my way around this. But honestly, we treat so many phases dismissively and we just shouldn't - phases are what we use to get from one state to another, and should be respected as preferences, shouldn't they? You're a pony girl, for a while. You do gymnastics, and it forms you, and then you get to stop. you play one sport, and then another, and finally find the one that REALLY CLICKS. If someone you work with has a preference, do you not honor it? Ruthanne and her Mrs. vs Ms fight, and her problem was that they would not honor her preference, at a fundamental level. Ten years earlier, they would have enforced her choice even on people who would have preferred Ms. Who is in the wrong here? hint - it is not any of the teachers who have a choice that is not on the menu - it the the people who made the menu so narrow that they are certain to piss off someone, and WHY???
Honestly one of, like, three things FB has done right (EVAR) is offer 45 different choices for gender, and the people that most pissed off? were the people who were solidly M or F and couldn't understand why anyone would want something else. Mostly conservative. I mean hell, if someone wants to identify as park bench, why the fuck not? but it isn't up to me, it is up to them, what they want to do about naming themselves, and what they want to do about telling anyone.
so I feel like I am gradually getting a feel for what is and is not polite to talk about other people - Aerin said it over the phone to Al, and I felt like Of Course, why did it take that long for THAT to clarify? Aerin said stuff about how to talk to someone is public because it is a part of their public face, part of what they display to the world and basically how to use their interface better. Things to not talk about are all body things - T, and surgery, and packing and weight and things they might or might not be doing in the bedroom - those are all private things and are not necessary for rando strangers or well meaning family to know, no matter HOW much they want to know (cough*Sally*cough) and Sally is mildly worried and deeply curious and unsure what happens next and can sort of see Aerin turning into someone else, or shaping themselves into a new form, and trying to think about how much it matters to her, Sally, and i think honestly not realizing how much it matters to them, Aerin,
Alice seems so much simpler, but I think that is because it is just -decided- and then she lets us know? I dunno. I don't think what is actually going on in her head is simpler, but it looks simpler because there is less angst over labels. I am
In retrospect, I should have pushed back harder on "so what, if it is a phase?" at Tgiving dinner, because I am still feeling my way around this. But honestly, we treat so many phases dismissively and we just shouldn't - phases are what we use to get from one state to another, and should be respected as preferences, shouldn't they? You're a pony girl, for a while. You do gymnastics, and it forms you, and then you get to stop. you play one sport, and then another, and finally find the one that REALLY CLICKS. If someone you work with has a preference, do you not honor it? Ruthanne and her Mrs. vs Ms fight, and her problem was that they would not honor her preference, at a fundamental level. Ten years earlier, they would have enforced her choice even on people who would have preferred Ms. Who is in the wrong here? hint - it is not any of the teachers who have a choice that is not on the menu - it the the people who made the menu so narrow that they are certain to piss off someone, and WHY???
Honestly one of, like, three things FB has done right (EVAR) is offer 45 different choices for gender, and the people that most pissed off? were the people who were solidly M or F and couldn't understand why anyone would want something else. Mostly conservative. I mean hell, if someone wants to identify as park bench, why the fuck not? but it isn't up to me, it is up to them, what they want to do about naming themselves, and what they want to do about telling anyone.