Hi, transmasc teen here. I have had a past with the social worker at my high school refusing to use the correct name and pronouns because I have to come out to my family if I do so. I don’t wanna have to come out to my family, because even the most supportive members are anti-Testosterone. I am pro-Testosterone. They also say I will always have boobs and a vagina even if I get the surgeries because that’s how I was born, and that I’m just a confused girl, when I know in my heart I am Anthony the sure and secure guy.
I haven’t had a session with her in a while, so I don’t know if she will use Anthony and he/him in private, but she won’t let other teachers know that’s what I would like to be called and calls me my birth name and uses she/her pronouns, but “feels bad”. IDK if this is some law or what. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and say maybe she just can’t lose her job.
It could be a legal thing. Like they have to use what’s on your birth certificate. I’ve heard of that.
Still, it’s rude. I’ve worked jobs where they’ve told me to use pronouns assigned at birth. I ignored them, come whatever may. Decency and kindness come first. Respect follows if it’s matched, but even without respect, kindness costs nothing. You don’t have to like someone to be decent. You just have to be a decent person.
Technically a trans man/transmasc person will always have the XX genes, and there are a few other “technically” statements as well, but it’s also quite rude to reduce a person to primary and secondary sex characteristics, especially family. I know people AFAB have girl parts, but if they’re in my family, that’s not something I want to think about. At all. So that’s a bit weird.
I could talk about what makes a guy a guy, but honestly, it differs from person to person. Once we start making rules like that, it actually excludes a lot of AMABs, but we don’t really talk about that. I think it’s more impactful on the AFAB side. Like women being defined by motherhood, or sexuality related things. It’s just a mess, and IMO a bit of decency gets over a bunch of those pitfalls. So like, it’s weird, in a sense, to say that a guy is still a guy even if he has “boobs and a vagina,” but by the same logic, if we say that defines a woman, we exclude people who have had a mastectomy. My grandmother did — she beat breast cancer. One hell of a lady. Killed by a drunk driver coming up on 20 years ago. So ironic. But no one would say she was less of a woman because she had to have her breasts removed. So I will not go down that line of thinking.
And dude… we’re all a bit confused. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong.