Category: Uncategorized

mykidsgay:

7 Ways To Support Someone Who’s Changing Their Name & Pronouns

By Jamey Hampton

So, recently you’ve found out some big news about somebody you care about. Maybe they came out to you as transgender and/or non-binary, maybe they’ve told you that they’re changing their name and/or that they’d like to be referred to by a different set of pronouns. Maybe—hopefully!—you want to be supportive of them but you’re worried you’re going to mess up (which is an understandable fear)!

Coming out is hard and the fact that they came out to you is a big deal! You should be proud of them for taking this big step and being honest with you about who they are. Changing the way you think about someone is a process, and you will mess up at some point! However, if you really love and respect this person, you will keep trying, and eventually it will become second nature to you.

As someone who has changed my own name and pronouns, here are some things that I feel are important to keep in mind as you’re getting used to this change.

1. Use the new, correct name and pronouns all the time—even when they’re not there to hear you, even when you’re just thinking about them in your head. This is because the end goal of this process shouldn’t be to retrain yourself to call them a certain thing, it should be to think of them in a certain way. By coming out to you and asking you to use their new name and pronouns, your loved one has shared with you something very real about who they really are. You should be trying to retrain your brain to know them by this name, because it’s their real name—much realer than the one they were being forced to use before.

2. Correct yourself when you get it wrong, even if they don’t say anything. It might be tempting to hope that it just slipped through the cracks and they didn’t notice your mistake. But trust me, they noticed. Being called by the wrong name or pronouns is jarring and painful, but sometimes it’s hard to stand up for yourself and say something.

3. Don’t over-apologize when you mess up! Apologize once, correct yourself, and move on. Apologizing over and over just brings more attention to it than they probably want, and going on and on about how bad you feel for getting it wrong puts pressure on them to comfort you, when this should really be about them and how they feel.

4. Correct other people too! Like I said, it can be very hard to muster the courage to correct people, especially over and over, so having allies in my life who are willing to do that work for me is a godsend. This is a really simple way to take on a little sliver of your loved one’s burden while they’re transitioning. Even a very simple reminder like, “Please don’t forget, Jamey uses they/them pronouns!” can be super helpful and take a lot of pressure off.

5. Be sensitive not to “out” them to people they’re not out to! (This is a caveat to #1 and #4, by the way, because you have to ask them if they’re comfortable with you using their new name and pronouns in front of others.) Coming out is a nerve-racking experience and it’s common not to come out to everyone in your life at once. Outing someone before they’re ready is a terrible, stressful, and sometimes dangerous position to put someone in. Ask who they’re comfortable being out to and be very careful to respect that.

6. Be patient if they change their mind on what they want to be called. It’s really tough to figure out what name and pronouns fit you best and feel the most comfortable without “trying them on” and seeing how it feels when other people use them. Experimentation is an important part of that! If someone changes their name a few times in a row trying to find something that fits, or changes their pronouns but then changes them back, that’s just a natural part of that experimentation.

7. Remember that they’re going through something very personal. Their transition is all about them and what makes them comfortable—not about you and what you think is best. If you don’t think their new name fits them, or if you don’t think the singular they is grammatically correct, or if you think trying to remember their new name and pronouns is too hard… those are all thoughts you should keep to yourself!

Again, coming out is really tough! If your loved one has gathered the strength to come out to you, trust that this is important to them. They know best about what they need to be called to be comfortable and happy. Do your best to put their needs first when it comes to this change and before long, hearing their old name and pronouns will sound almost as wrong to you as it does to them!

***

Click through to read about our brilliant contributors!

alilovesgirls:

theonlylivingboyinnewyork:

pokemontrainerpav:

theonlylivingboyinnewyork:

Being in a room with straight people talking about straight things is so exhausting.

What the hell are ‘straight things’?

Marriages and mortgages and families and opposite sex attraction talk and talking about sex openly without being made to feel like you are making people uncomfortable and hearing straight people talk about how hard dating is for them and hearing straight people talk about how they are such victims and their lives are shit when what this really means is they aren’t married at age 22 and sexist crap that drives me crazy like traditional weddings and how great religion is and how the world is so lovely and kind and great because people don’t know what it’s like to be a minority and how straight people are like “this person is so lovely” when you know they are homophobic or listening to straight people say things are “gay” or talk about people who dress unconventionally (ie. men who wear dresses) as being weird or doing impressions of gay people or asking “why don’t you have a boyfriend?” judgementally as if it is just that easy or getting annoyed at you when you complain about how hard your life is because it’s easy for them cause they are straight and wouldn’t know the first thing about it or having to come out to people all the time cause they just assume you’re straight and getting weird looks like “tmi” or “you don’t look gay” or “I don’t care what you do in the bedroom” or having to hear straight people talk about really cute straight couples or really great romantic films or books about straight people or just watching people live super conventional lives and do really sexist old fashioned things just because no one is brave enough to question or think about anything… and worst of all knowing that if you were to say or talk about anything gay everyone would get uncomfortable and not join in on the conversation and wish you had said nothing… and then people will be like “you hardly said anything”, “you’re so quiet”, “you don’t talk much”, “are you shy”, “you’re boring”.

No bitch I’m gay and I don’t relate to nor am I really interested in any of the shit that you have been yelling to my face for the last hour.

THIS. OH MY GOD THIS.

Don’t forget the incessant talk about having kids that completely brushes off/invalidates the positions of a) not wanting kids or b) having kids by other means, ie. adoption, surrogacy, fostering, sperm/egg donation, polyparent families, etc. Anything outside the hetero norm of naturally conceived straight sex is seen as being lesser, not valid, not real. Bonus points of suck if the straights say this in the presence of or directly to the children themselves.

transgirlpinup:

starlingsongs:

starlingsongs:

When trans women are mocked and made into jokes in the media, I get very upset, and I am often told “Kay, you can’t go through life getting offended every time someone makes a joke.” And I sputter and object but they don’t hear me. So I want to be clear for once, about why the jokes make me angry.

I learned to hate myself for being transgender before I knew I was transgender. I laughed at the jokes in stand up comedy routines, and prime time sitcoms, and animated comedy shows, and in the movies, and in books, and in games, laughing at trans women for existing, about “men in dresses”, about people who “got their dicks chopped off”, and I learned to think that was worthy of ridicule.

And then a day came when I felt a pang of envy at what my female classmates were wearing and I repressed it, and felt guilty, and a day where I felt incomplete because I had no breasts and I repressed it and I felt disgusting
And a day when I realized the only images of romance that made me feel anything showed two women together and I repressed it and I felt like a monster
And a day when I realized I felt sick when I looked at myself in the mirror after every shower before work and couldn’t bear to look at my own face, and I hated myself.
And then there came a day when I hated myself so much, and I thought I could never understand why, and so I just wanted it all to end. And it was just a miracle that I swerved my car back into my lane in time.

And all of it started with a joke that I heard on TV, and then kept hearing from all the voices from the ether, over and over and over, worming an idea into my mind before I was old enough to realize I was absorbing it, the idea that a man in a dress is funny, and that changing your body parts makes you a freak, and that women who have penises instead of vaginas are liars and hurt men. And they’re still making these jokes. And somewhere out there right now, just like all those years ago, there is a little girl in a t-shirt and cargo shorts with buzzed off hair watching the TV, hearing that joke and absorbing it without knowing it, who will someday have to pry herself apart to tear it out of her head, just like I did.

That is, if she doesn’t kill herself first.

I know this is a really heavy post but if you read it and you appreciated it, I’d appreciate it in return if you reblogged it. This is really important to me and I want people to read it and understand it. Thank you.

1,000,000x this. Read it. Then read it again.

I know it’s about racism, but it applies just as well here:

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

Click here to support Help Emma Pocock and Ruth Faraday pay Dougall’s vet bill

kath-ballantyne:

iamshadow21:

iamshadow21:

kath-ballantyne:

Hey, after losing one of our dogs last September our other pup got in to some really dark chocolate this Saturday and we had to get him to the vets and it’s totally cleaned us out money wise. Any tiny amount helps, or share if you can. We’re offering knitted hats or gloves or handspun yarn to any donations over $50.

Thanks everyone.

We’ve started this because after Pip’s end-of-life treatment in September and the family of three stray cats microchipping, desexing and registration from March to July last year, we’re looking at our third major vet expense in under twelve months. Anything will help, and if you can’t donate, please signal boost.

Reblogging to say thank you SO MUCH to those who have donated so far, you have no idea how much it means to us. There were actual tears earlier when I saw people had helped out, both by giving money and by signal boosting. Dougall is home and is doing well. His bloods were great, and apart from being super anxious, exhausted and hoarse from barking for his whole hospital stay, he’s fine. Right now, he’s sleeping it all off in our bed (a very special treat) with Emma.

Dougall is doing better today. I was able to transfer the money from PayPal to my account so we can pay back the loan part of the vet bill. This is huge. Thank you all so much.
We’d still love to be able to replenish the savings enough that I could get the brakes fixed on the car and get a hair cut. My hair is starting to get too long for me to be able wash without my shoulders sublaxing and I’m not well enough to cut it myself right now.
So if you could share the fundraiser we’d be grateful.

We are super close to meeting our goal! You’re all incredible. You have no idea how important to me it is that we’ll be able to pay my mother back virtually straight away. Dougall is more like his regular self today. Still a little quiet and wanting to stay close, but relaxed enough that he’s sleeping back in his bed and doesn’t freak out if we leave the room. Still getting lots of hugs and treats, though. 🙂
Please share, if you haven’t already, and help us get to the goal!

Click here to support Help Emma Pocock and Ruth Faraday pay Dougall’s vet bill

Tiling is happening! The floor is done. You can see the deep blue/purple colour around the edges of the rug. Walls are cream with a mosaic glass border. I love them. All the large format tiles are matt, not gloss. The mosaic tiles are shiny with a rainbow/oil slick patina. Oh, and the new window is in, now, too! No more full length window that opens onto the deck…