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Well, I'd hoped it would never come for me...
Last night my girlfriend, I and a mutual friend got into a discussion about nonbinary people. I put forward my position, basically that it's a fashion statement for people who want to feel different and special. My girlfriend has a couple of friends (I've only met one of them once) who prefer 'they' pronouns. Both are men, dress and act like men, although one has changed his name to a rather ironic noun (equivalent to someone renaming himself 'Drama', although not exactly that.
Anyway, now she's not happy. I attempted to compromise by agreeing to use they/them in their presence, but not when speaking to my girlfriend. Apparently this isn't sufficient. She feels it's akin to using racial slurs to refer to someone when they're out of earshot, even if you don't use slurs to their face.
I can't really see any third way beyond conceding or sticking to my guns. It's frustrating, because she is very much not the intolerant idpol type. Indeed her political beliefs are broadly conservative. Apparently not for this topic.
Once again, you cannot reason someone out of something they did not reason themselves into.
She's a woman, and what you are saying affects her social circle, her status, and her feelings of belonging. She didn't reason herself into her position, she's trying to influence you socially and emotionally about it "My other political beliefs are just politics, but this is being a good person.", and you're not going to reason her about it.
Unfortunately, you're in a tough spot. She's not in the rational frame of mind, she's seeing this in terms of relationships. It's not about the nail. You're screwed either way. Unfortunately, you're now into monkey-brain social games.
If you stand your ground, your principles against her feelings, she is going to feel ostracized from the group, and feel like you are low status for taking a low-status (in her group) viewpoint. She will lose respect for you, as you're an outcast with a low-status opinion. If you compromise, she will see you as a weak male who doesn't stand his ground. From the monkey point of view, neither is good.
The least worst path is probably for you to stand your ground in private, but tell her that out of generosity, you are willing to indulge her in public. Even if you succeed, expect this to happen again. You're in conflict with her group, and in her monkey brain, she wants the leader of the group, not an outcast from the group or a supplicant to the group.
I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.
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The moderately charitable interpretation is that she feels that you have said, about her friends, without knowing them very well, that they are transparently shallow in important (to them) areas of their lives. And, by extension, that she has poor taste in friends. Depending on how important the friends have been to her, and how seriously she takes them, that could hurt a lot. It doesn't do much to assuage these hurt feelings to say that you will be base level polite the one time this might come up. You said you've so far met one, once. How often do you actually use pronouns for a person to their face? While also still thinking she has poor taste in friends, and that her friends are pretentious and shallow(one possible interpretation).
Something that she might like, and that wouldn't necessarily be a lie on your part, would be to assume an attitude of curiosity about her interpretation of her friends' actions. Why does she think they identify as nonbinary? Why is she friends with them? What does she like about them? Does she really think it likely that the two of you might have children who turn out trans or nonbinary, unexpectedly, and should be fully supported in that? That would be more cause for concern than that she wants to defend her friends.
There are people I like (nay, respect! Admire!) who are into astrology. I'm not completely sure why. My best guess is that astrology is a way to talk about personality and life event things that are otherwise harder to talk about, the way I tend to use personality systems. But, also, it seems like it might be interesting to have a respectful, curiosity rather than incrimination based discussion about it, as a thing I know very little about. But if my husband said that they liked it for some distasteful reason that implied they were bad people, I would be angry about that.
I like your advice overall, but I don't know how I could ask this particular question without making the other person feel like it's an attack.
Yes, that was phrased poorly. I meant something more like how they became friends, a story.
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I don't see the big deal. Clearly you are both adults that have been presumably been involved for a while and yet she is still your 'girlfriend'. If you were anything but a current-year-feminist you would go from 'woman I am courting' to 'fiancée' to 'wife'.
She would be too busy making friends with soon-to-be mothers or mothers to entertain they/them and this would not even come up. As far as language policing goes, you would be having arguments over which racial slurs are acceptable to say in front of your offspring.
What is it to you?
Ancestors cry just the same.
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Stick to your guns. There is no value to conceding. Because if you must concede for her to continue to love you, she doesn't love you.
There was a popular meme that ran around on twitter (I think from this guy for a while that ran something like: If she's still a feminist, you're not the guy. That matches my experience. When a woman is really into you, she is not going to care about your politics. The most progressive women in the world will make every excuse for you, if you get her juices flowing. For that matter, I can't imagine divorcing my wife over politics short of something so insane as to be absurd.
Therefore conceding is pointless. If you must concede to retain the relationship, the relationship has no value, because she isn't really that into you. Find someone who is. If she is into you, stick to your guns and she'll get over it. Simple as.
FWIW: Personally I'm closer to your compromise position in general life to begin with. If someone asks me to use different pronouns, I do, I find it polite (though despite moving in prog circles I've never been asked to use any outlandish ones). I've never actually had anyone police my use of pronouns irl, even given the occasional slip-up. But I can't imagine my wife policing my pronoun usage in our private conversations, largely because when we talk that kind of thing gets slid over in our sheer frenetic effort to empty our brains to each other at the end of every day. If she policed how I talked that way, I wouldn't like that.
I broadly agree, but I think "if she's still a feminist, you're not the guy" is too strong. My wife had a long enough history of outspoken feminism when I met her that it would have been ridiculous for her to pretend not to be one. But I also never pretended to agree with something I didn't. It worked out fine and she eventually became a stay-at-home-mom.
Most political convos start with her thoughtlessly repeating some slogan, and if I can't reframe the convo immediately, usually instead of saying she's wrong or being dismissive, I ask what it means concretely, as Gaashk suggested above. This usually makes her mildly upset and embarrassed when she notices she hasn't thought about it much at all, and so she's learned to not to do that as much. But in terms of day-to-day life or child-rearing decisions, even though politically we're worlds apart, we usually almost entirely agree on the concrete steps to be taken.
On the few times when something completely beyond the pale (from her point of view) has come up ("you really believe ___!?"), I tell her she needs to talk to me respectfully even if she disagrees, as I am doing to her, even though from my point of view, she's equally misled.
I used to have a trad girlfriend who said something like "if a man is taking a love interest's political opinions seriously in the first place, he's doing it wrong."
In my mind the phrase applies purely to the man himself, not to politics or the world at large. Tbh I'm suspicious of intelligent anti feminist women in the same way I'm suspicious of feminist men, they either lack self respect or they're trying to sell me something.
But if a woman is a feminist TO YOU, in the sense of treating you poorly because of your beliefs or making a big todo about things in your relationship, you're not the guy.
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The twitter post (tweet?) is in this article:
https://extradeadjcb.substack.com/p/10-you-can-save-her
The tweet:
https://twitter.com/extradeadjcb/status/1432558778541559808
Alternatively, the tweet:
Thanks Bro! Did me a real solid.
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I'm mildly miffed that nobody has ever asked me to use non-natal pronouns in person (I had the misfortune to wander into some rather queer discord servers online).
Makes me feel like I'm missing out, not that I really want that particular brainworm in my local memeplex.
Well, I have misgendered someone, in a bleakly funny example where I called a cancer patient "sir" because I'd been too lazy to look at the name on the file, and in that case, she was utterly bald, wrinkled like a prune, and just about as androgynous as a human can get from being on the verge of dying from every cancer anyone can care to name. Hopefully she was too deaf to notice, or chalked it down to acute sleep deprivation.
Are 'they' pronouns and nonbinary folks not common in India? It's just about everywhere in the U.S. at this point. I've been in a similar position.
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Yep, these are your choices. You can elect to compromise your integrity about something that you apparently have a strong epistemic stance on or you can choose to piss your girlfriend off. The easiest thing would probably be to just avoid these people and avoid all discussion of them, minimizing your need to resolve whatever cognitive dissonance you feel from playing along with something you think is ridiculous or pissing your girlfriend off of over something fairly trivial. In general, my advice is that avoiding these people is good general practice regardless of whether you have some pointless disagreement with your girlfriend since they're going to be magnets for pointless (but fashionable!) political disagreements and low-level antagonism.
Didn’t I tell you to take a covid test instead of blowing a friendship? I don’t understand the integrity instincts of the people on this board. I don’t know if it’s the same people, but on the one hand it seems that if they get an email at work telling them to give their pronouns, wear a rainbow shirt and post a blm flag, they won’t even say anything, and act like they’re living under stalin, while they appear ready to destroy all non-pecuniary relationships over some incredibly puny stuff.
They wouldn’t be caught dead protesting or sending a letter to a congressman, or getting into local politics to oppose some policy they abhor (the elites will do what they want anyway, democracy is a sham the state will destroy me like the truckers and blablabla) , but when their gf wants them to use a pronoun twice in their life, they really draw the line and will fight till the bitter end.
You did! I took your advice and you were correct. I still think that the position basically wound up being "compromise your integrity for the sake of friendship or don't". My choice was to compromise my integrity and I think it was the right now.
For what it's worth, I would adhere to a much, much more stringent standard of integrity when it comes to work. That quite literally comes from a place of privilege though - I can refuse something at work and replace a workplace quite easily, but replacing friends is pretty hard. In stark contrast, other people might place great value on their work or just feel like they aren't in a financial position to make a choice.
One additional asymmetry is that shutting up about something and leaving it be is easier than actively participating in something that you have a strong feeling against.
I think it’s important to just vocalize your opposition, perhaps more important than actively opposing. Protests are not effective because they harm a policy or regime, but because it lets other people know they oppose it. They already did, but now they know. Wrong policies thrive when the line is blurred between followers and supporters. They only remain in place if most people are assumed to be supporters, not followers. I think it’s completely counterproductive to act as a quiet supporter in public and turn into la resistance with the people you care about.
But again, maybe it's different people saying those things. Plus I’m really burnt out on the /r/relationships /r/AITA standard “dump him!” takes. Maybe we need less dumping, just people staying together, staying friends, not sacrificing another relationship on the altar of politics for some internet shrews.
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Do not marry this woman.
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I'm not sure it is inconsequential. Moreso if there's any plans for children and one would like a partner who could help guard against their kids getting sucked into this zeitgeist and not compromise with beligerent forces.
I wonder if the last decade of "Who cares, like it really matters, this doesn't affect anything" line IRT LGBTQ issues has led us to this fractious and confused state, where it's been revealed that of course it's consequntial, and in ways big and small affects sports, schools, prisons, women's spaces, law, dating dynamics, corporate duties and expectations, etc. And while that boulder was probably coming any way, I think its mass and power could have been shrunk a bit if more people in their various personal relationships were adamant in calling it as nonsense, and not treating their brain as a private refuge to keep hidden from others in order not to rock the boat.
IME many women I know are very receptive to LGBTQ framings - their husbands and BFs less so. But the men just kinda shut up about it. I know some very Trumpy anti-woke ex-mil guys who allow their wives to take their children to BLM protests and Pride painting sessions, and all they do is grimace and bite their tongue "as long as she's happy". This is simultaneously wholesome and admirable, and also infuriating. Infuriating because this feels too similar to the larger societal pattern of rolling over on LGBTQ issues because somebody (usually a woman or a minority) might be made uncomfortable, with predictably negative consequences.
He can weigh his own scales after this event. I don't think he should take any advice here going one way or another too close to heart. On some level it seems silly to consider breaking up over (ugh) politics, and I'll assume everything else about their relationship is going swimmingly, more or less. Then again, she's basically accused him of having bigoted opinions, and that's awfully close to being a bigot proper. I'd be wondering if there's anything else touching this topic that might prompt this reaction. This is either a trifle or the tip of an iceberg, and you won't know which without more time running into it.
The only other conflict in our relationship is that she doesn't like one of my hobbies (I'm into partner dancing, and she gets jealous of me dancing with other women). Politics has certainly never been an issue.
Her response was telling though. She seemed to see this belief as different from other kinds of belief. My other political beliefs are just politics, but this is being a good person. Kind of a textbook example of why I dislike identity politics, it makes everything personal.
Incidentally, she did bring up our future kids. She asked me how I would respond if one of our children came out as non-binary. I answered that I would expect nonbinary identity labels to have fallen out of fashion by the time our kids are teenagers (edit: apparently the term already peaked a couple of years ago)
I think I'm probably going to just not bring it up and hope that she forgets about it. I barely know one of the guys in question, and I've never met the other. If she presses the matter, I'll probably just concede and then avoid talking about them.
Noooooo :(
I feel for you man. We are in surprisingly similar situations, hah. Although my girlfriend loves partner dancing thank god.
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Understandable, and a fair enough play. Despite my last post, I'd probably do the same.
One does lament, though.
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I think one of the worst recent developments is the extent to which we’ve made our personal lives hostage to our political beliefs. Who cares, just call him they. This isn’t lying or submitting to an evil authority, it’s a minuscule, inconsequential compromise to get along, after you’ve made your position clear. Save your spine for someone you don't care about.
What if it's your own kids though? When it comes to your girlfriend or wife it really does matter. That woman is going to determine how your kids grow up and see themselves.
I'm really surprised at the line you're taking in this thread.
I guess if he is literally at the conceiving phase he should push back. But realistically he isn’t and should cross that bridge when he gets to it. People believe a lot of dumb shit. You can’t draw a million red lines based on problems that might appear 15 years down the line (assuming you have not convinced her or pushed back at any point before that) and expect a normal romantic and social life.
So obviously you need a perfect specimen with entirely correct opinions on everything or your hypothetical kid’s lives will be ruined. Think of the children.
I don’t know why the internet social advice is always so manichean and unrealistic. It’s like the limited information forces a binary answer, and since the information is usually bad or else they wouldn’t have asked, there’s only one possible answer.
edit: maybe it's all status signaling, like those tinder profiles that go 'you need to be able handle me at my worst, make 16 million dollars a year, be 8 feet tall, etc'. I get it, you got options.
Hey you make some good points. People aren’t perfect and we shouldn’t try to make them be.
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Who's 'us' in that statement? Me or her? Or both?
Both. She deserves most of the blame for pressing, but I don't think your intransigence benefits society . A break-up over this would only increase the political homogenity of couplings and friendships. Even if we completely ignore any personal benefits from your continuing relationship, I think it's more important to maintain an open society than to crush the they-them aspirations of the trans in private conversations with your gf.
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