Disposable friendships…

We were friends for twenty years. Twenty years of birthdays, dinners, movies, outings, laughter, and games. And we stopped being friends over an internet meme.

We’d been friends for six years. Our kids played together, we went out for lunches, we could chat for hours. And we stopped being friends because I suggested a dog trainer before abandoning her dog.

We’d been friends for three years. Just online friends, as people say, but we messaged regularly and often. The last I heard was a message “I’m going to take my medication” then a notice that I could not respond to her conversation. She blocked me, so I heard, because I reminded her in some way of her ex. I have no idea how. The day before she’d told me I was like a sister to her. There was no warning.

I was chatting with a friend of mine a few days ago and she commented on how much friendships seem to break these days. I had to agree. My parents have friends that go back for 50/60 years. My longest friendship, one in which we actually talk more than once a year, is now fifteen.

Somehow we’ve reached a point in our society where friends have to agree about everything. And, while I agree that some lines that are deal breakers, some are just plain ridiculous. I had a friend block me once because I prefer door to door delivery over big box mail services. I refuse to believe this is a hard line ethical issue.

At some point we need to give in on the minor issues. We might not agree with religious beliefs or eating habits. We might not approve of all parenting styles. But as long as no one’s getting hurt, is that the hill we want to die on?

And, as much as I love the internet, I have to wonder how much of the disposable nature of friendship is because of the ease of online communication. You can delete someone from your life without ever seeing the hurt on their face. It’s a lot easier than saying “I don’t want to be friends with you” and dealing with the aftermath. Every friendship of mine that’s ended has been through social media. Cold, clean, swift, and remorseless.

I went through my block list a few days ago and unblocked about thirty people, none of whom I know, all of whom had irritated me on Facebook at some point. Chances are I’ll never even see them again. The next step is unblocking the two people I do know. I have no idea if I’ll see them online or not, we don’t (as far as I know) have mutual friends. But it’s a start.

I don’t have any answers but, what I do know, is life’s too short to end friendships over trivial matters. Friendship is too important for that.

P and Emma sharing a quiet conversation.

Cisgender…

When I was little I thought that words were carefully thought up and voted on by a group of old white men, all seated along a table. They’d weigh each word ponderously before voting. Then we could finally use it. It wasn’t until I was older that I realised our language evolves, taking words from other languages and sometimes creating words as needed.

As gay people became more positively talked about, a new word evolved to explain people who aren’t gay. Straight. People have no noticeable problem with being called this. Then transgender people became more positively talked about and a new word evolved to explain people who aren’t trans. That word is “cisgender”, using the Latin prefix meaning “on this side of”. And people lost their freaking minds.

For some reason people seem to think cisgender is an insult, some nasty slur being tossed at them, instead of a simple description. The same people who have no problem being called white, straight, their nationality, their religion, male/female etc suddenly don’t want or like labels when it comes to cisgender. Hell, someone named Olivia even wrote a “poem” about her hatred of the word.

Cisgender.
This is your term for me.
Your stereotype, your aggression
When you have been called it all
Fag queer whatever.

Well now i speak

I am not gay.
I am not bi.
I am not a man.
Or unsure.
I am not your words.
I am not “cisgender”.

I am a woman.
I love a man.
But that doesnt matter.
Because my name is Olivia.

~blogged by aliceoblivious~

I’ve come up with two theories for why so many people dislike the word so much. The first theory is that, unlike straight, which has positive connotations (such as straight as an arrow), cis sounds too similar to sissy, leading people to think of “crybabies” or “whiners”, even if it’s more unconscious than conscious.

The second theory is that some people dislike transgender people so much, they don’t want a word labelling them that has anything to do with trans people, even if it does mean the exact opposite.

Or maybe it’s a mixture of the two.

Whatever the reason, the word cisgender is not a slur. The only time it becomes a slur is when it’s transformed to cishit and, in that case, I don’t want to know what you said, and chances are you probably deserved it.

But cisgender is fine.

Thank you Dad…

Thank you for horsey rides and piggy back rides
Thank you for around the world kisses
Thanks for teaching me how to ride a bike and to stand and pedal
Thank you for family bike rides
Thank you for sharing chips with malt vinegar
Thank you for letting me ride in the truck with you to the Motorola picnic
Thank you for teaching me how to skate. I might skate like a hockey player but I skate.
Thanks for our cat Spotty
Thank you for toboggan rides
Thank you for scratchy kisses
Thank you for swinging with us, even if the swing broke once (darn cheap swing)
Thank you for letting us put barrettes in your hair, you looked so pretty at the gas station
Thanks for walking with us on Hallowe’en
Thank you for the camping trips
Thank you for explaining glaciers and why bedrock has scratches in it
Thank you for campfires
Thank you for barbecue dinners
Thank you for your motor-sickle song
Thank you for nights watching tv in the bunny hole
Thank you for taking us to work with you
Thank you for teaching me how to dance
Thank you for listening
Thank you for teaching my kids how to ride a bike
Thank you for being there for us
I love you Dad

Happy Father’s Day

An open letter by Kait…

Trigger warnings;

Mention/quotes of homophobic/transphobic comments, mention/quotes of emotional abuse, general fuckery, bullshit, and douchebaggery

An open letter to my father;

I am writing this, not for you, but for every parent like you. I honestly hope you leave us alone, including not reading Mom’s blog anymore, but I know you won’t, so I might as well address this to you.

This week, you showed your true colours, not just to us, but to everyone who saw your birthday post on Emma’s Facebook wall. You planned a month in advance, a post in which you intentionally dead-named and misgendered her, and tried to disguise it as a loving birthday wish. When you planned it, you told me you wanted to start a fight, you said you hoped it would make Mom angry enough to confront you, or at least get some of her friends commenting at you.

I guess you got your wish.

You used every chance you could to antagonize people further, and when you couldn’t find a legitimate way to escalate the fight, you would make things up out of thin air. By the time everything was said and done, you had lost both of your daughters. We both blocked you, and I wrote you off as a lost cause.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, you called Emma yesterday, claiming you wanted to comment your apology on the thread, and asking to be unblocked. Emma hadn’t totally written you off yet, so she unblocked you, without demanding a private apology first. You then claimed that there was nowhere to comment, and when she asked how you would apologize, you told her that you had gotten what you needed, by copying the beginning bits of the conversation to prove to somebody that you “tried” to apologize. That was when Emma wrote you off as a lost cause, too.

We all hoped that after the things you said publicly, this would be the end of the contact you would have with us (especially with Emma), but of course, that was not the case.

The messages you sent her today went way over the top. You sent multiple messages to her, just to tell her that you don’t think LGBT people are people, you think they should all be killed painfully, you want to watch the aforementioned killings, and that not only is she not your kid until she “realizes” she isn’t trans, but that you want your DNA back, because “it kills me u soiling my last name u freak”.

I don’t know at what point you became such a disgusting, pathetic, excuse of a person, or maybe you’ve always been like this, but just hid it better, either way; I hope that one day someone says those kinds of things about you. I’ll say one right now; I am ashamed to share a last name with you.

So, here are some questions, not just for you, but for every parent who feels the way you do;

Why does it matter to you so much that your child should be a boy, instead of a girl? If she was born with a vagina, would you have run out of the hospital room, screaming that she wasn’t yours unless she grew a penis?

How does it hurt you when she wears dresses, instead of jeans? Do her dresses turn into weird fabric snakes, and strangle you?

What’s the difference if she carries a purse, instead of a backpack?

How is it so offensive to you that she paints her nails?

Why does the fact that your daughter has a penis, mean that you love her any less?

Emma is my sister, and I will always stand with her. She drives me all the way up the wall, back down again, and around the whole bloody room, but she is still my sister. Changing her name, pronouns, and wardrobe, didn’t change who she is, or how much I love her. It sure changed who you were though.

To every homophobic, and/or transphobic parent out there;

If you wouldn’t say it to your newborn, don’t say it to your grown child.

If who your kid is, loves, or wants to be, could offend you so much that you’d stop loving them, don’t have children.

And if it’s too late, and you already have kids, do them a favour and walk out quietly, to leave them with the family members that actually deserve to interact with them.

Sincerely,

Kaitlyn

Proud big sister of a transgender, lesbian, little sister

Fiasco update…

Emma got a phone call from her Dad today asking her to unblock him so he could apologise. Both Kait and I wondered why he’d need to be unblocked for an apology but Emma’s more trusting and did so.

A short while later, Emma received a Facebook message saying he couldn’t post, he didn’t have a box to post in. So Emma asked how he was going to apologise. He’d already had a chance to apologise verbally but hadn’t. He’d texted her too and could have apologised then and didn’t. This is the response she got…

… and with that he promptly unfriended her.

So we’re done with Dad. Kait’s blocked him every which way til Sunday and Emma has to wait another 48 hours before she can block him on Facebook. Meanwhile I’m simply speechless at the casual blatancy of his indifference to Emma. Hopefully it’ll be a cold day in hell before we hear from him again.

The near birthday fiasco…

I’d say it started yesterday but it really started just over a month ago when my ex-husband had his birthday. Ever since we separated he’s insisted he wants no birthday celebration at all. No calls… no cards… no presents. He doesn’t want to remember he’s ageing, leave him alone. Then, after the date, he’s mad because no one remembered his birthday. General cognition and cause and effect are not his strong suits.

This time he decided to get back at Emma for not calling. Never mind Emma never calls anyone. Never mind she’s having problems with her phone. Never mind she doesn’t keep track of dates. He was mad and he was retaliating. So he called Kait and told her he was going to deliberately misgender “Colin” in a birthday Facebook wish to get back at her. A) because that’s what loving and kind Fathers do and B) because there was no way posting his ignorance on Facebook could blow back at him…

Emma knew just what to say

The first thing that confused James was absolutely no one wanted to here his side on why he’s misgendering his own child. So he explained anyway…

Then my friend Robin told him to step on a Lego and he literally took that to be a death threat…

And my friend ran with the Lego death threat. Because we all know how deadly a block of lego is when you step on it…

It’s funny in some ways but this is a grown man, Emma’s father, on her Facebook page the night before her birthday. And here is when he really started showing his true colours. First by using gay as an insult, then his above comment about not supporting “lgbt crap”, and finally by deciding Robin must be trans and referring to her as “it” and that “trans freak”. Along with this…

Kait finally had enough of him, after being on the brink for months, and blocked him…

… and her post whooshed right over his head

Then it just got plain pathetic…

My ex and I talked a lot about being parents, when we were young and engaged, and how we wanted to raise our kids. He wanted to be a hands on Dad, something he hadn’t much experience with (as much as he loved his father). It’s like he set out to do the exact opposite.

I almost never mention my ex-husband on the blog and this thread is exactly why. He’s a living train wreck of a man, a person who lives solely to tear down other people.

Today is Emma’s birthday. She played Undertale before school while I watched then we went out for dinner with her Nana (mmm… potato curry), and now she’s heading out to Value Village to look for computer parts and/or a phone… as happy as can be. Then she’s having birthday pudding, since she decided it was too hot for cake. There was no mention of her Dad, he’s a non-existent part of her life and, sadly, that’s how it should be with him.

Emma with her new purse and sucker

It’s all you…

Someone close to us recently said that I’m forcing Colin to be trans. That it’s all my idea and he’s just going along with it. First, I don’t think the person realised how much that hurt Emma. Second, how does that even work?

Does he think I went up to Emma one day and said, “You’re a girl” and Emma simply went along with it? This kid might as well have her picture beside stubborn in the dictionary. She doesn’t roll over and accept anything. She’s also the sort of person who, if you say the sky is blue, will not only check but might just argue that how do we really know it’s blue. It could be purple and we’re simply mislabelling it. She doesn’t simply take anything as fact.

How the conversation is expected to go by transphobes:

Me: You’re really a girl
Emma: Well you’re my Mom, you know best
*pulls on dress*

How it would go in reality:

Me: You’re really a girl
Emma: Have you lost your *bleeping* mind?
*goes back to video game*

Maybe he was thinking of something more subtle? Did he think I put subliminal message tapes under her pillow at night? A crooning whisper of “you’re a girl… you’re a girl…” Or maybe hypnosis. Although, quite frankly, if hypnosis worked I’d be running a mantra of “clean your room… put away your running shoes… dishes go in the sink…”. Gender would be at the bottom of the list.

Or possibly mind controlling drugs.

*checks cupboard*
*finds no name acetaminophen*

I mean theoretically it’s mind controlling. It controls your mind into thinking you don’t hurt. But somehow I doubt it could control someone into changing genders. Let alone hold her down and force her to wear women’s shirts.

In reality the truth is simple. Emma questioned her gender for a few years and finally realised she’s a trans female. I simply came along for the ride and to support her. Hopefully this person will realise it soon and support her too.