Wife here. It’s one thing to have an identity I don’t understand. I’ve met plenty of people that have identities I don’t understand, but I still respect them.
This person doesn’t just have an identity I don’t understand, they have specifically stated in the recent past that for them part of their identity is they like to be dehumanized. And they think that by changing their pronouns that gives them the right to constantly declare “I’m trans” and be an authority an all things trans-related. If your desire is to be treated as a freak, that’s fine. I think you should have every right to live that life, but it’s unfair to call our struggle the same. I don’t want people to see me as trans, I don’t even want them to see me as a woman. I want to be seen as a PERSON, and that is the complete antithesis of how this person views their identity.
Not only that, to say there is nothing feminine about this person is an understatement. Their entire personality is male privilege personified. They interrupt people, talk over people, and can’t seem to listen when anyone else is talking. They recently told a story of them vocally threatening to beat someone up at a bar. Literally every single other friend that has met them describes them as obnoxious and rude.
Having said all that, I was willing to try and make peace with all that. But this person will not stop pissing me off. I never said they can’t say F-bomb, but a little tactfulness would go a long way. They just say everything with such impunity, and never see a problem with saying whatever they want. They claim they can drops f-bombs whenever they want because they used to get called that as a kid. Well, I grew up with just a few black people in my life and that was enough to get called the n-word repeatedly by my peers. That doesn’t give me the right to use that word.
If this person is just a slowly hatching egg, then I would like to help this person on their journey, because I am uniquely qualified to help someone with this kind of struggle. I fucking hate gatekeeping of any kind, but I’m not trying to control this person’s identity. I can’t shake the feeling that this person is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That instead of working on themselves, they’ve adopted the identity of trans so that no one questions their abrasive personality.
Hearing them refer to a transwoman as a drag queen is just the last straw for me. They then accused her of being “too much” which stings a lot even if it is about a fictional character. I’ve had a lifetime of people telling me to “tone it down” and I would never expect anyone that actually has a clue of what my life is like to say something so ignorant.
I’m either going to have to confront them or cut them out of our life, and I’m not looking forward to either option.