Liberal parent misgenders me constantly but insists she’s supportive
So I’m 26, transmasculine. I’ve been out for 14 years. I sometimes wear makeup and dress in feminine clothes, and I haven’t had top surgery. I’ve been on T for 3 years now and a lot of my physical appearance has changed.
My mother had a little bit of a hard time learning my name and pronouns when I first came out back in 2010, and it took her several months to get good at it. Back then I used to dress exclusively masculinely and wore a binder every day. When I turned 18 I started to explore fashion and makeup, I grew my hair out a bit, and explored my sense of style and expression. I also ended up in an abusive relationship with a cis bisexual man who began dating me as a man, and then over the course of two years forced me to go back into the closet. I never stopped using my name (not my deadname, my real name) and I never went by she/her pronouns, but everyone in my life started misgendering me and basically never stopped, including my mother.
Now I’ve been out of that relationship for 4-5 years, and I’ve been going by he/him for this whole time. I’ve begun taking testosterone and made a huge effort to get my family to gender me correctly, explaining that I was being abused and never wanted to be seen or treated like a woman. That I was being controlled and wouldn’t have chosen this for myself. I’ve tried to explain that my desire to wear feminine clothes is just a fashion choice and that I am a man, and I’ve been clear about how I want to be referred to. I’ve stopped dressing femininely around my mother because she absolutely will not gender me correctly anymore. She has always been liberal and claims to be an ally, she loves gay people, she loves trans people, she claims to never misgender me. I told her, you have to practice to get it right and she swears up and down that she never misgenders me when I’m not around, only when she sees me. She claims that she tries and she almost never messes up. She says I don’t pass and that’s why she can’t see me as a man, even though she got it right for years back when I was a teenager and pre-T. I’ve stopped responding to her calls and requests to come over, and started taking space from her. Just yesterday we saw each other and I was wearing a suit, with a huge HE/HIM pronoun pin, was binding, and had visible facial hair (which she commented on). When she got to a part of the conversation where she was going to say my pronouns, she threw her hands up in the air and said “ugh!! Which one even is it??” and I just wordlessly gestured to my massive pronoun pin in the middle of my chest. I was stunned. I said calmly “mom. You know I use he/him pronouns. I have used these for most of my life. Nothing has changed.” And she got so defensive saying she rarely gets it wrong and it’s just so hard to see me as a guy because of my breasts and hair and appearance etc etc etc. honestly sometimes she just strikes me as completely delusional. Idk how she can say to my face that she doesn’t misgender me. My brother has started to tell me it makes HIM uncomfortable to hear her do this so often. Last year at Christmas she misgendered me literally over a dozen times, and every single time my brother, my roommate, my girlfriend, and my brother’s girlfriend all chimed in at once to say “HIM” and to correct her immediately. It was honestly kinda funny how ridiculous she looked. My father (they are divorced) doesn’t even misgender me if I’m wearing a full face of makeup and a dress with visible cleavage. My brother hasn’t misgendered me since like 2011. Sometimes I wonder if she has dementia or something because she seems so out of touch. She also deadnames me constantly. Nothing I do seems to have any effect on her. I even heard her correct her husband once when he used he/him for me. She was like, “excuse me!! They/them!!” It was fucking bonkers to hear. Also she doesn’t use they/them for me (not my pronouns) she uses she/her for me (also not my pronouns). It was so performative and so out of pocket. I feel like she’s gaslighting me or herself or something. She knows I’m on T, she knows this affects me. She knows how bad it hurts. She apologizes and insists she’s so supportive and isn’t she such a great parent to have for a trans kid. And then she never makes any change. I feel like I’m going nuts whenever I see her. Wtf do I do? She’s in her mid sixties and I want to have a relationship with her because she’s older. This wouldn’t be nearly as confusing for me if she hadn’t gendered me correctly and used my proper name for like 4-6 years when I was a teen. She also used to be public school teacher and I dread to think of her doing this to other people’s kids.