prismatic-bell:sonneillonv:rocknlobster:twunkmccree:brotoro:svpermodeling:Every mother with trans ch
prismatic-bell:sonneillonv:rocknlobster:twunkmccree:brotoro:svpermodeling:Every mother with trans children should take Cher as an example.ok i love her but lets not give brownie points because she called him her son. thats like. minimum requirement for a decent human being.Ok, you know what? No. Brownie points to Cher. She publicly announced her love and acceptance of her SON and yeah some people would call that “the minimum requirement” of decency, but as someone whose mother gushes about her acceptance in private and sometimes uses gender neutral terms for me (not the male ones I prefer) but aggressively misgenders me in public to keep things from being “awkward”, cher’s public acknowledgement and expression of her love and acceptance for her son is a big deal.Yes this SHOULD BE the bare minimum of parental decency, but right now it’s not and I’m glad to see Chaz and Cher showing the world that this is the way things are supposed to be.What is up with the idea that we shouldn’t acknowledge when people do something good/nice/etc. because “everyone should be doing that anyway”? It is BY acknowledging the things we see as good that we tell others how we see the world and enforce what we consider proper behavior. There is literally never a time when it doesn’t make sense to acknowledge something positive. And acknowledging something positive does NOT make some sort of blanket statement about the person like they can do no wrong either. We can acknowledge a positive, and also criticize a negative; there is no zero-sum game here.Reinforcing good behavior is just as important, in fact more important, than criticizing bad behavior when it comes to making a change. This is true of training pets, children, and cis people.Also of note: a little history on Chaz Bono and his mom.Back when Chaz was still presenting as his AGAB, he came out as a lesbian. This was in….I’m gonna say 1990? 1991? I don’t remember exactly. A point in time where that was Really A Terrible Fucking Thing, is the point here.Cher freaked right the fuck out.And her fan base basically went “you’re a gay icon and you’re out here doing this? For fucking shame, Cher.”And it kind of took her aback, and she shut up, and when we heard her talk about it again it was “yeah it was hard to accept but…” which is considered gross now but was pretty astonishing in a world where Ellen DeGeneres couldn’t yet come out of the closet.Skip ahead to the early 2010s, when Chaz went “so, um. Actually? Not a lesbian. I’m a straight man.” Again: at this point, mainstream trans activism wasn’t a thing. This was as wild a thing to do as when he came out as a lesbian.AND CHER SHUT RIGHT THE FUCK UP.The first time she said anything about it at all was like six months later, and it was something along the lines of “well I’ve been using ‘she’ for over 40 years so sometimes I forget but I’ve really been working on it because it makes my son happy to know he’s my son.” And to the best of my knowledge, she’s only ever had a single public slip-up, and it was at a point where she was using Chaz’s deadname in a story about his childhood. Someone told her that’s not a good thing to do AND SHE NEVER DID IT AGAIN.Cher isn’t just out here doing the right thing. Cher is out here LEARNING the right thing. You think she spent those six months sulking? You don’t know Cher very well. I’d bet a nickel she spent those six months finding accessible options (yes, Cher is disabled, surprise) for every GLAAD publication she could get her hands on.She is a gold standard of activism. “I fucked up once, it was a learning experience, I’m going to not do that again and show how to not do that.” Give credit where it’s due. -- source link