For anyone who isn’t sure, AFAB stands for Assigned Female At Birth. I am AFAB and two of my children are AFAB. I’m going to talk here about one of them. I am going to share positives and understanding. It may sound as though I am setting myself up as some sort of paragon of perfection, but I am so far away from that. I get things wrong. I sometimes realise and sometimes I don’t. This is a positive post, so I am sharing something that my eldest and I feel went right.
At the weekend, my enby and I were having one of those wide ranging chats that covers so much. Amongst the whole state of the world topics, it covered the hatefulness of people who use their position to push transphobia and the small satisfactions of when some things go badly for them. That led to a much more personal conversation.
They had been having a few days where their gender dysphoria had been biting hard. They shared things that they were doing to manage – they are amazing in how they face those feelings and push them.
Unsurprisingly, that led to a longer conversation about perception and it was during that conversation that I had a realisation.
My eldest is non binary and they came out to me six years ago. I am ashamed to say that I still sometimes fuck up their pronouns when I am tired. I get word finding problems when I am tired. I also fuck up names and other nouns and regularly call whichever of my children that I am talking to by sibling names. It’s not an excuse. I hate my word finding difficulties and even more so when it is their pronouns that I fuck up.
I was deep into apologising. They stopped me and explained why, although they would prefer I didn’t fuck up, it doesn’t hurt when I do it.
Some of this comes down to intent. They know about my tired talk. They have had the pleasure of me saying things like, “Please get the doodah from the whatsit,” when I can’t word find. But, more than that, they state that they know that I absolutely accept them as trans. And I do.
Some people do not respect any part of it, refuse to learn and do not use the correct pronouns. Some people use the correct pronouns but do not learn and understand. My enby says that they become very aware of the level of engagement and whether the pronoun use is politeness without understanding, or whether it is more.
Everyone is clearly in a wide ranging scale in their understanding and education about all of this. One of the wonderful things about now, is that we have the language choices to explain things more fully. One of the changes is that 24 years ago, I didn’t have the language of AFAB. However, I did know that my child did not fully fit in the female gender category. I often tried to explain to others, especially when they were trying to push them to be more girl. I said that they weren’t a ‘girly-girl’. When asked, I would try to explain that they were my ‘(name redacted)’ and that their development was theirs alone and always included meeting and understanding them where they were at that point rather than trying to shape, form and control them. I know that my professional experience gave me a confidence and knowledge that others wouldn’t have found easy to access it the time. My enby is also neurodiverse. I can’t imagine how hard their life would have been if I hadn’t understood.
Always considering them utterly as the individual that they are means that names have changed, misfitting pronouns have been discarded and things have developed but they are still utterly my unconditionally loved, supported and understood offspring. They are not someone who has discarded their gender and has chosen a new one. They are non-binary and have a body that presents them with the challenge of the gender dysphoria triggering of a menstrual cycle. The medical professionals need to know that they are AFAB so that they understand their body, but for the rest of the world, that is a small and unneeded detail. I don’t have a child who transitioned from female to non-binary. I have a child who has always been intrinsically trans and had to wait to have the language to make their declared gender match their truth.
My hope is that other people will develop the understanding that being trans isn’t about thoughts and choices. The choices are about whether to suppress or express what you truly are. I want people to understand that this is more than words and skin deep.
I hope I express this correctly as I know the above is important and I don’t want to say something wrong.
I think what you said here is interesting… “ The medical professionals need to know that they are AFAB so that they understand their body, but for the rest of the world, that is a small and unneeded detail.”
I see a lot of people get upset if you don’t publicly acknowledge they are trans, afab, non binary, black, disabled, etc. And if they want it recognized I will absolutely respect that and try to remember. I will admit to being old-fashioned, out of date, and uneducated on many terms and pronouns. Also, most of the time I couldn’t tell you who falls under any of those labels….
Why? Because to me it’s an unneeded detail unless it’s something they want me to recognize. What I mean is it plays no part whatsoever in why I follow them, are friends with them, etc. So other than to be respectful of their identity and how they want me and others to communicate with them, it makes no difference to me what label they fall under. I’ve followed you for years and had exchanges with you on twitter and had no clue you were AFAB. And it changes nothing…other than I think it’s great, it’s part of your story and who you are. I don’t see you any different than before and I just see you as a person….a person who seems nice and interesting of whom I gladly associate with.
I am out of date honestly since to me it doesn’t matter about gender, sex, race, nationality and I’ve always seen people as just that…people. So I have to get updated and educate myself better which I’ve made it a goal too. I’ll be honest though that I get completely lost in all the different labels. 🤦🏻♀️ And my short-term memory sucks so bad people tell me “call me x” and I will forget. It’s not something I can help and I hate it. I try to remember. It’s honestly not because I don’t respect who they are or don’t care. I just really struggle with it. Not making excuses I promise. I am trying to do better. But in the end to me…I will always see just “that nice person I like talking too” not that black person or AFAB person.
Sorry this was long-winded and I hope I expressed this coherently so no misunderstanding. I know there is a lot of (justified) hurt and anger going around.
Sending you warm wishes always