Please don’t be offended if I happened to use the wrong terms/phrases in this question,
My 22 year old niece/nephew was born a biological female. During high school they decided they identified more as a male and transitioned (without surgery) into that image, Their first name is a gender neutral name, lets call them “Shawn”. A few mistakes and lack of understanding by some family members happened at that time but no issues (that I know of) in the last few years, and as of recent holidays/family get togethers they appeared in all aspects to be a male.
In a few weeks my daughter is getting married. A month ago a bridal shower was held for my daughter. My SIL questioned my wife why Shawn wasn’t invited. My wife replied that she didn’t do the invite list so she didn’t know why but guessed that since he identified as a male and this was more of a female event, the thought never crossed the shower hostess’ mind. My SIL then told my wife that now Shawn identifies as gender fluid and at the time of the shower they identified more as a female and should have been invited. The only thing my wife could really do was apologize on behalf of the hostess’ and claim they didn’t (and they didn’t) know.
Now the bridal party is planning the bachelor/bachelorette parties. Small families on both side so invitations go out to the first cousins. The guys are going to a minor league baseball game (admission prepaid by the groom’s family) reserving the “party deck” and hang out at the ball game for the afternoon. The following weekend the ladies are going to a “wine school” at a local winery for the afternoon, admission paid for by us, the bride’s parents. I know this is a sexist attitude (men’s event/women’s event) but if one of the females wanted to go to the ball game instead of the winery it probably would not be an issue or vise versa.
In calling around to get final numbers my daughter asked Shawn (now being gender fluid) if they were going to the ball game or the winery. Shawn said they didn’t know what they would feel like those particular days so sign them up for both and depending how they feel may go to both. My daughter said they needed to pick one or the other as nobody else is getting to go to 2 parties. Shawn said they couldn’t make a decision and would do neither.
Then my SIL called and got on my daughter’s case about how her true homophobic colors came out and that they may chose not to come to the wedding as the family is not being inclusive to Shawn by not allowing Shawn to be who they are. Frankly, my daughter has enough stress from the wedding planning right now without dealing with this.
So, is my daughter in the wrong? The tickets for both event are not the cheapest and I agree that Shawn needs to pick one event, neither event, but shouldn’t expect to go to both just because of their gender identity at the moment.
The simple way to handle things like this is to not identify events as “male events” or “female events” at all, and just let people choose. And if the events have a ticket price, then it’s not at all unreasonable to tell everyone to choose one.
If an individual guest wants to decide for themself “I want to go to this one, because that’s the female event, and I’m female”, then that’s their business. Likewise, if they decide “I want to go to the baseball game because I’m a baseball fan”, or however else they choose. And if they’re sports-fan-fluid or wine-fluid (neither of which has anything at all to do with gender identity), then they need to get over that and just choose one in advance, because the people planning things need to know how many tickets to get.
Agreed. Pick one event or the other, gender doesn’t matter. What could be more inclusive than that? Seems to me Shawn is trying to have their cake and eat it too. I support people’s right to choose their gender (including no gender) 100%, but I don’t think that extends to someone getting expensive tickets to 2 separate events so they can pick one (or both) on the day.
I agree, but it sounds like that ship has sailed and there’s not much the bride and family can do about it at this point.
IMO, the OP’s daughter did nothing wrong. I might be inclined to give Shawn a pass if they’re young enough to be clueless about the practicalities of event planning and unaware that their mother was going to get involved, but the mother is definitely engaging in full-on bullying and emotional blackmail, and if she ends up boycotting the wedding, good riddance.
The “simple” option is for everyone to get rid of gendered events completely? I don’t really think that’s true.
The simple way to handle it is exactly as the daughter did - tell people that they can come to the event that they feel more comfortable with based on the way they identify.
If your daughter wanted to bend even further over backwards, and if there was any time between the deadline for choosing event 1 vs. choosing event 2, she could have said “If you want event 1 you can opt in no later than date 1; if you don’t want event 1 and do want event 2, you can opt in to event 2 no later than date 2. If you choose event 1, event 2 will not be available to you. The tickets are too expensive to buy one that won’t be used. And it’s not fair to the other guests to pay for you to go to both, which no-one else has been invited to do. If you want to go to both events, you can pay for the less expensive one yourself.”
Well, the only wedding I’ve ever planned dodged that bullet by not having gendered events. This made sense, as the friend groups were not defined along gender lines.
Anyway, my guess is the offended relative is young, and has not considered the cost of buying them tickets to both. But their mother is certainly in the wrong for lobbying for two invites.
Too bad your daughter is in the middle of this, but this, too, shall pass.
Yes, in the situation where the betrothed have friend groups that don’t follow gender lines, that makes sense, and is the simplest solution.
But what I objected to was the idea that the simplest solution is for everyone, even people whose friend groups are more traditional or who just want to plan things traditionally this time for some other reasons, to change the way that the vast majority of people do things. That, in fact, seems much less simple than simply accommodating people who don’t fit the standard dichotomy in a kind and caring way (for example, by letting them pick the event that they feel aligns more closely with their identification, or not making a big deal about it if someone chooses not to attend).
I have one friend around my age (late forties) who is gender fluid, and, like in the OP, one day they feel like a boy and the next they might feel like a girl. My friend wants to get rid of gendered language and doesn’t even want children to be gendered until they’re old enough to decide for themselves. I don’t think that’s realistic as most of us are pretty comfortable with gender and even events for people of different genders.
I think it’s great the OP is willing to accommodate the gender fluid individual by giving them the choice of which event they wish to attend. It is unreasonable for anyone to expect an invitation to both events because they might not know what gender they feel like that day. Theoretically speaking they might miss both days if they’re not feeling like the correct gender that day.
The thing is, if your circle of friends is all strongly traditional, you can still end up with all of the males going to one event and all of the females going to another. That’s still possible. So, yes, it is simpler than having gendered events.
It sounds a bit like Shawn might still have still done the same thing in the case that a traditionally-gendered circle of friends just naturally gravitated to one or the other of the activities, and might still expect to be able to make a choice on the day.
Your daughter isn’t wrong, and the mother is being a troublemaker. It’s not fair to everyone else that one person gets a ticket to both events and chooses on the day if they want to go to one, the other, or neither.
She could have got around it perhaps by suggesting she paid for one event and Shawn bought a ticket to the other one. That way Shawn would still have the choice on the day, and the daughter has only bought one event ticket.
I don’t understand why the mother is involved. Your daughter seems to have been totally reasonable.
I mean, to me it sounds a bit performative. Not being sure what gender makes the most sense on a given day is a reasonable position, but in that case, you just show up male to the female event you booked for, or vice versa, and everyone welcomes you anyway.
My guess is that this person has been traumatized to the point that they are unhealthily demanding that everyone prove their tolerance over and over, and mom is buying in.
Thinking it over - is it typical for people to invite the other sides’ relatives who they aren’t close with to something like the bachelor/ette party?
My party was mostly friends while my wife’s was mostly family. She invited her female cousins, her sisters, and a couple friends.
I certainly didn’t invite any of my wife’s male cousins to mine, even though they did come to the wedding. The only person who I knew through my wife that I felt any sort of obligation to invite was my sister-in-law’s boyfriend, and that was because we were decently familiar ourselves.
If my wife had a relative in this situation when we were getting married, they could attend my wife’s bachelorette party or not, depending on how they felt; but that wouldn’t mean they’d be invited to mine.
Clearly that’s not the OP’s daughter’s situation, which makes me wonder which is more typical of American weddings.
Ok, but your circle of friends may not be strongly traditional, and yet, you may still choose to have your wedding’s peripheral parties be gendered. Most people do end up choosing to do so, and having them all change that wouldn’t be simpler.
Look, there are plenty of areas in life where having something be ‘gendered’ is absolutely inappropriate. Jobs, for example, or who a business is willing to serve, or educational opportunities. If your boss is considering gender when it comes to promotions, that’s definitely inappropriate.
On the other hand, if people want to go by gender when it comes to something personal and trivial like their bachelor/ette party, I think that’s fine.
If someone chooses not to stick to traditional norms, I think we should accept that, too. Whether it’s a guy inviting his close female friend to an otherwise traditional bachelor party, or a couple choosing to eschew genders entirely and say “the groom is going bowling, the bride is going hiking, here’s the RSVP link, pick one”, or anything in between, I think it would be shitty of us to tsk-tsk them for violating prior norms.
And likewise, if someone DOES stick to tradition, especially if they are so willing to accommodate potential guests who DON’T fit the traditional mold (and 'let us know which event you want to go to ahead of time’s is a VERY reasonable accomodations), then I think it is just as shitty for us to tsk-tsk them for not eschewing gender entirely.
I see no “tsk-tsking” in the comments. I see people responding to the OP’s question and suggesting ways the problem could be managed. Then, having affirmed the OP’s position, I see people playing with the scenario, as we do in IMHO.