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(There was an outburst of "Nonbinary people are valid!" exclamations in my part of the Fediverse - probably in response to jerks being enbyphobic - so I figured I'd contribute. Turned out what I had to say was this.)
- Listen to us as we try to explain our gender to you.
- Be okay with our genders changing.
- Be okay with still not wholly getting it.
- (Be okay with us still not wholly getting it.)
- ...but respect our expertise on our lives and our needs.
- Singular-they is a great default, but listen to what we tell you and try to learn the pronouns we use.
- Be okay with multiple sets of pronouns. Our genders can be large and contain multitudes.
- Be okay with unfamiliar and novel pronouns. Finding our genders in words can be really hard.
- If you mess up, apologize, move on, and try to do better. Making the mistake is not as big a deal as refusing to acknowledge it or refusing to try to change.
- Beating yourself up isn't an apology, though. People feel really awkward when they have to comfort someone who just hurt them, and it's kind of unfair. Support in, vent out: say your apology to the enby and save your feelings to talk out with another friend or write in your journal or something like that.
- Speaking of venting: let us vent about dysphoria and stuff. Someone might be a glorious androgynous mystery, a cute thrift-store demilady, a sharp-dressed genderfluid dude, or whatever, but however much they're killing it with their presentation, it doesn't take away their struggles.
- (These last three go for binary trans people too.)
- (And an aside on compliments: specific positivity is a fantastic tool and frequently very welcome ... but if we're busy venting something when you feel like bringing out the affirmations, let us speak our pain, first. Complements rarely have an expiry date.) (And acknowledge and validate our struggles, if you can; it helps.)
