Here’s the thing. If a friend, coworker, or loved one comes out as transgender and you are supportive to neutral about it, your relationship with them will actually likely not change much. They’re still the same idiot you knew before, just with a different gender now. But if you reject them, your relationship is strained or over now. Forever.
My relationship with most people in my life didn’t change much when I came out. If they were normal about it. If they weren’t, being around them stopped being pleasant and I started distancing myself from them almost involuntarily. Because when someone is suddenly awful to be around it’s genuinely difficult to maintain a relationship with them. Even if you want to.
Another person coming out as trans will usually have a very small impact on your life. Much smaller than you think it will. If you’re normal about it.
If a person refuses to accept you, they’ve made the calculations and have decided that a small inconvenience in learning new pronouns is more important than their entire relationship with you. Because even as a trans person, when a person in my life comes out as trans my relationship with them has never changed much. Whether you understand someone’s choice to transition or not, you’re not the one being most affected by this. No matter what your relationship is to the person. The person who is transitioning is always the one going through the most because of this situation. Using their name correctly is the least you can do to not make things actively worse for them.
