I want to be a better friend.

[Glou]

Hello everyone.

I am new here, and i created this account because I need some help from you.
I am a cis girl, so I hope you won't mind me being on this forum. I just need an opinion from more knowledgeable and experienced people than me.

There is this friend I had not seen for a year or so. We had lost contact, met by chance in town and decided to have a drink a few days ago.
I knew them as a boy, with a boy name, and a body that would commonly be seen as masculine. Now (or maybe before too, but they had not come to term with this yet), they identify as a girl most of the time, and sometimes as a boy too. I understood they were genderfluid.
Now, I already knew about non binary identities before, I read about it, and I have several friends and family members who are part of the lgbt community, so of course this is not "new" to me (even if this is really not very known or talked about in my country), but they are the first friend I know, and I am a bit confused.

Of course, I try as much as possible to use the right pronouns. And believe me, this is a bit difficult because there is no neutral Pronouns in French, and everything is gendered (adjectives... Etc) so I need to be very careful. I believe it will get easier with time, I am really trying, I know this is very important.

My problem is that I don't know how to stop seeing them as "boy" in my head. It may seem stupid to many of you, but I think it would be much easier if I had just met them. The fact that I have known them for a long time before as a boy is difficult to "forget" or "relearn".
I feel as if I am not respecting them as much as I should because I still think about them as a boy.

I want to be able to think About "her" and not "him" when they identify as a girl. I think it's important for them, it would be for me if I had to deal with this.

I also know that I behave differently with boys and girls, not consciously of course, but still. I know this is the result of a very binary society, and probably because I am a cis girl myself, but this doesn't justify it.

I am sorry for my English, and also I hope you'll forgive me if I didn't use be right terms or pronouns. I decided to use "they" since they are sometimes male and sometimes female. They told me it would be easier in English too.

If one of you has some advice to give me, I would be very grateful. I hope my post was alright...

Have a lovely day/night (depending on the place where you live), and thanks for reading me.

Glou

[Keda]

I'm also cis, but I've been through that process you describe of seeing someone come out and trying to rejig my thinking about them, so hopefully my experiences can help you a bit.

In terms of pronouns, the easiest solution is to ask your friend what they prefer - English also didn't used to have a gender neutral singular pronoun until folks started using "they" to fill that gap (a long bloody time ago, incidentally, it's not a new phenomenon), so it's entirely possible that French-speaking trans and non-binary folk have come up with some inventive solutions in their own language too. And if not, even if the pronouns your friend has settled on don't entirely satisfy them, you'll still be being entirely respectful by using those pronouns until your friend comes up with something that's more comfortable for them.

In my experience, switching your thinking from "boy" (or "girl") to something else really just takes time. We develop mental habits around how we think of people, and the way to change those habits is really the same as it is for other habits - do something different, repeatedly, and correct yourself when you accidentally slip back into the old habit. It does make you feel awful and wonder if you're truly accepting the person's identity when you misgender someone, even if it's only in your head, but you kind of have to cut yourself some slack and accept that you can't rewire your brain overnight.

It sounds like you're being really caring and respectful of your friend, and you're evidently being proactive in terms of looking for ways of thinking and behaving that will make them feel safe and comfortable around you, so really, I think you just need to keep doing what you're already doing!

[Mo]

One thing that can help in terms of adjusting the name or pronouns you use in conversation for someone, is to step up your inner monologue about your friend. When you think about them, take the time to OVER-think and have some extra narration. "I'm going to go see Karen today. She's going to meet me at her house. I'm happy to see her because she, Karen, is my friend." and so on. It might feel silly at first but it does wonders in terms of really locking in those language changes. I'm trans and have a lot of trans friends and have just gotten in the habit of practicing name/pronoun changes as often as possible and it really does help.

Another suggestion - even if you do find it hard and make mistakes in conversation, please don't tell your friend that. It can be really upsetting and frustrating for people to hear that, and it can set up a situation where someone feels like they need to apologize for making things difficult. If you mess up, just say "oops, I meant [x]" and go on with the conversation.