Wed, 28 Jul 2021 02:30:19 GMT

So, over the course of the past weekend, my sister let Mom and Dad know that her husband is using they/them pronouns these days. (And I got to check that they still like "husband", rather than "spouse".) So that's cool and I don't have to keep worrying about outing them accidentally by using their pronouns in front of my parents.

It also means that Mom took me aside this evening to ask me questions about nonbinary people and they/them pronouns because my parents are cool but don't exactly hang out in queer spaces and aren't up on some things. It was a good conversation and I think she went away with a better understanding of some stuff. And also, during the conversation, she said, "Are we talking about you the right way?"

Which is...more perceptive than I expected. I mean, my relationship to gender has always been weird and it's not like Mom hasn't been aware of that, but I didn't expect her to come right out and ask. It was weirdly nice to be asked - to know that I had been seen.

Anyway. I told her that I tend to think of my gender as "I would prefer not to"* and that she/her pronouns are fine. It was a good talk.

*"Agender" is probably a better word and allows me to joke that I got the whole "a-" set (agender aromantic asexual) but I didn't really want to have the "let's talk about granular nonbinary identities" conversation as well. Anyway, gender is dumb and I only think of myself as gendered as a result of other people perceiving me as having one, so why not spend my time thinking about other things instead?

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