(Content Note: frank discussion of non-violent transphobia.)

My partner Buster started using they/them pronouns around the same time I started this blog. We’d long-since come to terms with both of us being some flavor of trans. But we didn’t feel the need to explore more specific language for ourselves until sometime in 2017.

Buster is only out as trans to some of their friends and coworkers. It’s laborious enough being openly pansexual. Straight people with good intentions still tend to ask them weird questions or make uncomfortable comments. Straight people without good intentions (like Buster’s coworker who thinks LGBT people and dinosaurs are made up by atheists) made having our wedding photos in their cubicle an act of sheer perseverance. A pronoun pin would cause more chaos and conniption than visibility or validation, so Buster’s chosen to keep that part of themself selectively private.

Last year, Buster and I moved into the city. Closer to my mother.

My mom’s come a long way on understanding trans folks. When Caitlyn Jenner came out in 2015, my mom took it personally. (Apparently being on a Wheaties box makes your identity public property.) We spent weeks having shouted arguments about trans people and language. My mother would often get frustrated and cry about how “unfair” it was that she “wasn’t allowed” to talk about someone “like how I know them.”

It was a no-brainer to keep our genders in the closet.

By 2019, my mom had grown. When a manager wouldn’t stop misgendering a new coworker, my mom took the manager aside and made it clear his ignorance wasn’t acceptable. “I don’t care what you think you know about her, she’s a woman, and you’re going to respect her.” She politely corrected the manager on every pronoun “slip-up” until he finally got the point.

But despite my mom’s personal growth, Buster and I hadn’t shared our own gender identities with her. It’s hard to forget her angry, tearful refusals to stop using transphobic slurs, even if that’s language she’d never use today. Furthermore, it took her years to accept Buster and I’s relationship. That struggle is over 15 years in the past now, but rejection leaves scars. Old ignorances leave scars. She was able to learn and grow, but we paid her admission price.

But we were about to see her way more often than a lunch visit every other month. And scars aside, being misgendered by loved ones, or by people in your day to day life, erodes your sense of self.

After talking it over with Buster, I decided to sit my mom down and explain that Buster had been (selectively) out and using they/them pronouns for years. “They didn’t want to “confuse” you before by coming out, because being seen as ‘confusing’ or ‘too complicated’ by other people is very uncomfortable,” I explained. “People treat you like a math problem instead of a human being. So it was safer and easier to not talk about it.

“But they’re not a math problem, and they’re not a woman. Neither am I, honestly.

“I’m comfortable with any pronouns, but Buster’s are ‘they’ and ‘them.’ As in ‘they want to watch Star Wars, it’s their favorite franchise.’ From now on I’m going to use their pronouns around you, just like I have in private, and with friends. You can take your time getting used to it, because Buster is okay with it being a learning process. But if you have questions, you’ll need to ask me. They’re not comfortable being in a teaching role for this.”

The conversation went so much better than I anticipated. I did my best to use patient but precise language, so there wouldn’t be room for kneejerk confusion or debate. But more importantly, my mom was immediately receptive in a way she’s never been before.

So much about her and the world around her has changed. Gay marriage is so normalized that straight people forget it was a decades-long battle with causalities. Trans people are no longer an abstract concept, they’re her coworkers and characters in her favorite tv shows. She doesn’t question the validity these things anymore. In fact, she pushes back against people who do.

She was quick to use Buster’s pronouns. Clumsy, but quick. I would help her practice them when Buster wasn’t around, letting her work through the stop-and-think-about-it phase. That struggle can be painful for trans people to watch. Every pause and slip-up can make a trans person wonder, does the speaker actually see me for who I am, or are they just indulging me? Is there something about my appearance or behavior that “makes” them perceive me the wrong way? If I change myself more, will they stop hurting me?

Over a year later, my mother uses the correct pronouns 99.9% of the time. She’ll occasionally trip up when she’s talking about some past event, or if we’re discussing something she still instinctively views as “female” (like menstrual cycles.) We’re working on it. But she always accepts correction with a “whoops, sorry, they” and quickly moves on. Last week, she started to tell me a joke, only to stop mid-sentence and dramatically sigh, “Oh, nevermind. The pun was going to be that you’re in love with a woman, but that’s not true.”

I understand (and agree) that not misgendering someone is the bare minimum. But I’ve heard this woman say some very nasty, bigoted things in the past. Hearing her use the same voice to honor my partner is a relief. It feels like a reward after years of thankless educating and persistent (and sometimes undeserved) love.

When a previously transphobic loved one does “the bare minimum,” I hear years of my own self-defense echoed back to me, my stubborn resolve to make sure they aren’t hurting anyone with thoughtless words. When my mom does “the bare minimum,” I hear her capacity to change in a world that reinforced the worst of her, that discouraged her from growing. I hear her willingness to listen to me – eventually.

The bare minimum is hard-won. So I’ll treasure the victory of Buster being respected by their mother-in-law. Because so few people give trans people the peace of being unquestioned.

Here’s hoping telling her I’m starting testosterone next year goes just as well.

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