I came out to my mom in may and until 2.5 weeks ago everything was fine. I had another session with my therapist and before that I told her how my feelings regarding my gender identity intensified and that I seriously started considering DIY HRT (not in that words because she doesn’t know what that means, but that was the point). After that she started to swing really hard in both directions when talking to me about my gender identity. She is doing her best to help me (it’s not very successful because she doesn’t understand what being trans means) but sometimes she tells me how people from LGBT community do really bad stuff. To be fair, in our country there were some situations where someone from from the community who would do something in public they really shouldn’t do, but that’s really small number of people. I told her that only some people are like that and most don’t do things like that but she just tells me that it’s actually opposite. Today she entered my room just to show me how some crossdressers “made fun” of the Last supper (she found it offensive because she is a Christian) and to tell me how bad it is and that that’s what I want to get into. Worst part is that I already told her the first time that I don’t want to participate in public LGBT events and that I just want to live my own life, but she continues to do stuff like this. To me it feels like she sees things like things and is scared that I will be part of that while ingoring what I already told her. And I don’t like the way she talks about that. I’d like to give her some resources so she could learn something about trans people but I couldn’t find anything good on my native language (she doesn’t know any other language). If I just told her that wouldn’t be enough. At this point I’m not sure is she truly accepting or not. What should I do?

    • dandelion
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      4 months ago

      I suspect most people will just get defensive when confronted with clear logical gaps in their reasoning. Sometimes you can approach it carefully, using a Socratic method where you primarily ask questions and the questions gently guide the person to clarify their position (allowing them to realize their own logical gaps). Even then, I think it takes a lot of skill to navigate that without making someone defensive. I certainly wouldn’t suggest she do this with her mother, considering she is financially dependent on her mom and that relationship is not between two independent adults.

      Maybe once she is independent and is on a level field with her mom and the risk is lower it could work to try to show how the reasoning doesn’t work, but I still don’t think that is the most effective way to change her mind. (As much as we like to think, most of us aren’t all that rational, and rational arguments rarely change our minds.)