There are five of us. The first four were born within three and eights months, a boy, a girl, a girl and then me (boy). Then a gap of five years and our younger brother.
Our family contains far more of it’s share of issues so I’m not going to get into all of that.
“C” was odd among us oddballs. Our family didn’t do well socially at school or church because of the dysfunctionality, so looking back it’s hard to tell if things were different about C because of C’s gender dysphoria, autism, just the dysfunctionality of our family or what.
C was never feminine. I’ve never seen C in make up. C had long hair, but kept it braided. C’s clothes were generic girl’s clothes and not anything frilly.
C had many relationships with males, but got into a long-term relationship with a woman. They have been together for somewhere around 30 years now.
My mother has never really accepted C’s relationship although she was been fairly tolerant considering how strongly she feels about LGBT issues. I haven’t discussed this with her yet, but I cannot see how she would be supportive at all.
It’s strange. Suddenly I don’t know what pronouns to use! I’ve avoided them so far while writing this, but I’ve got to find out more before I can explain this to my kids. Only my daughter met C, but that was before she was two, so Beta-chan doesn’t remember C.
I’m trying to be very supportive. The extended family is mostly devoted Mormons, so there can’t be a lot of support there.
I imagine it must be strange to have something like this shift with your brother, like waking up to find that something fundamental in the world has shifted. Not that it is wrong now, but you must re-orient yourself. I find that I am happy for him. It must be hard to live a forbidden life for so long. I am glad that he is able now to reach a new accommodation with his world, and that you are able to support him.
I literally just found this out this morning. So I’m dealing with this in real time, just trying to understand. I’ve heard stories about people who have had family members go through this, but this is a first time for me.
My views concerning LGBTQ individuals and issues has radically changed over the years, having grown up stanch LDS and having been taught that these people were sinners. I don’t think I really internalized it, so I wasn’t shocked at all when C identified as a lesbian for those years, rather than just good friends.
Over the last couple of years, the threads on this board have helped me better understand transgender issues. I hope that I’m in a better place to be supportive because of it. I was able to not ask really stupid questions in my response as well, so I want to thank people on the board for that.
I’ll have no problems actually using whatever pronouns C wants. I haven’t actually asked yet. It’s just so new my mind has a hard time processing it. I hope that this is just the initial reaction and that I’ll quickly get used to it.
It’s just such a surprise because I catch myself typing “her” and “she” and then rewriting it. I suppose that my mind will just get used to substituting “brother” for “sister,” “he” for “she,” and “his” or “him” for “her.”
Sorry for the blog here! I just noticed something unusual. My mind has this weird reaction to using male pronouns, but only in English. When I was talking to my wife in Japanese and thinking about it afterwards in that language (which I often do), there isn’t the tiniest bit of hesitation.
I’m pretty good in Japanese, “business fluent” is a term often used, having lived there for 25 years and speaking it for 37, so it feel quite natural. However, there is something different about how my brain in processing things. In Japanese, the switch is seemingly seamless while the English brain is struggling a bit to catch up.
I did send an email asking about pronouns and what B would like me to tell the kids.
I didn’t particularly ask for advice, but if people would like to share their experiences and any advice that would be great.
Maybe the difference is because your English-speaking chunk of brain grew up with C being your sister and is canalized into using feminine pronouns for that person; the Japanese-speaking part of your brain doesn’t have that from-childhood definition wired in?
You talk about the birth order of your family, but then never tell us which one C is. It’s fine if it’s not relevant, but I assume you meant us to know since you brought it up?
I hope C’s partner already knew. Because I’ve seen relationships break up over this. It’s the ultimate “it’s not you, it’s me,” not being attracted to your gender.
Anyways, it’s a pretty good sign he told you. I presume he knows you won’t think less of him or anything.
The OP’s former sister now identifies as a man; the surgery question is irrelevant as surgery isn’t required to respect their wishes and is no one else’s business.
I went through something similar a few years back when one of my niblings came out as transgender. There definitely is a period in which it takes time to re-order your thoughts, even if you want and are trying to be supportive. I noticed a difference in thinking vs. talking, I had no problem with thinking the new pronouns, but when it came to saying things out loud, I kept stumbling over them. Brains iz weird. Give it some time, and take a deep breath before saying things, and hope for the best.
The personal details are no one else’s business. But it’s clear that TokyoBayer wants some input on their feelings and concerns, which is our business, in so far as we are in a position to help.
:smack: I got the initial email wrong. Subsequent email exchanges clarified that C identifies and intersex now and not as either male or female. Ooops. That’s a really embarrassing assumption to an unclear email. Apparently C identified as a male as a child but does not now.
So, C is C. My sibling prefer neither male nor female pronouns, and C’s partner has made up some specifically: Ce (instead of he or she), and Ces (instead of him or her). I don’t expect posters here to keep track of that so use whatever pronouns you want.
Talking to my children (almost 9 and 7) was really easy. Some people feel like both male and female. Aunt Carol is not C, no “aunt” or “uncle” needed. They had a couple of questions and that was it. Isn’t life simple when you are young?
Shhhhh. It’s our little secret, but CairoCarol, Siam Sam, Johnny L.A. and others have places in their names where they used to live but no longer do.
This is a first time to be mistaken for a baker, though.
Yeah, it’s weird. Once you get to a certain degree of fluency, you don’t normally spot differences in processing information. I’ve had many conversations with Japanese people who are fluent in English and for the life of me, I can’t remember if the conversation was in English or Japanese. [/hijack]
Yeah, I was going to go into a more detailed explanation, but stopped. C is the third child (hence “C”). We’re only 13 months apart, and were quite close. We played together extensively as young children I wasn’t particularly strongly “masculine” as a boy and did not play sports or with the neighborhood boys.
I won’t share much more about C’s childhood. It’s not my story to tell. I wanted to share about my reactions.
I never even stopped to think about what word you might use instead of Aunt and Uncle. I guess not having any label, but it would be nice if there was a word for the relationship besides “paternal sibling.”
Glad the kids got it! They are good like that.
Also, out of curiosity, how are those pronouns pronounced? Oh, and am I correct in assuming it’s easier to be gender neutral in Japanese? (I remember some mistranslations in games because the translators didn’t know the gender of the character, and thus used the wrong pronoun.)
Parents can really influence the children’s reactions. The world is so big and so different that if parents or teachers tell the children something is normal, then it usually is just normal.
C’s actual initial is different so the pronouns are different. “C” is just a pseudo name for this board. You can pronounce the pronouns however you want.
In Japanese, for children, gender is actually more difficult although for adults it’s easier. For adults, the honorific さん “san” means either Mr., Mrs. or Ms. This is where translators would have to guess.
For children, an ending ちゃん “chan” is used for girls and small boys, where 君 “kun” is used for boys. The transition is often about 4 or 5.
