boyfriendchosethisurl

[boyfriendchosethisurl]

submitter here. a couple of things

for people telling me to talk to my boyfriend: i have. i brushed over the conversation we had in the initial ask, but i did ask him about what he thought. we had a pretty lengthy talk. again, my vague wording is causing confusion because at some points i said he doesn’t mind them and sometimes i said he likes them. i’m going to let him write this next part to explain for himself

👋 hiii Boyfriend! here. i like the pet names a lot !! i sort of like… the reason i dont normally like them is because im too used to people using them very genderedly (?? is that a word). in hs i tried a lot harder to pass but even when i did i had so many people say im pretty “like a girl” that even when people just call me pretty now i hear the comparison to girls in my head. ive also had too many ppl call me pretty and cute in a demeaning way. So thts my own internalized issue but i just Don’t like it. but i love op a whole lot and i know he doesnt mean it like that, and i actually really like it from him!! its nice to let myself be complimented in ways and called things i wouldnt be able to let myself be called otherwise i think id be pretty upset if they stopped honestly. we are all good ^-^

i was very ready to drop the issue as soon as we had this talk. i told Z we had this talk. she has continued to dig her heels in

i had to think a little on the reason this has continued to bother me, and yeah i feel like the reason is because Z keeps insisting im being transphobic, im seriously worried she’s right and ive internalized some stuff. the whole point of internalized transphobia is you don’t realize you’re doing it, right? Z’s argument at this point is that whether or not me and my boyfriend know it, im fetishizing him, and that makes me dangerous. on some level i feel like she has more authority to make this argument because she’s trans and im not. and because she’s told other people this too she’s not the only one giving me the side eye

i guess the issue here is less that i’m worried i’m making him uncomfortable, and more that im worried i’m unconsciously being transphobic because that’s what Z keeps insisting. if internalized transphobia led me here i want to be able to reflect on it but it’s hard to discern if that’s what’s happening, and the trans people i know (Z and my boyfriend) are telling me different things. im not trying to ignore him by submitting this, i want to see if a larger crowd of trans people think im being unintentionally transphobic or not

for people saying my boyfriend should talk to Z: he has, he’s been in contact with her throughout all of this. it’s only me she’s avoiding, and he’s tried to explain that he likes the pet names to her and she’s continued to insist that he’s just being too passive or he doesn’t realize what’s happening. though me and him have talked and we both agree he definitely hasn’t put his foot down as hard as he should. he and Z’s relationship is sort of built on her looking out for him, which i guess makes it hard for him, in general, to disagree with her outright.

also, someone asked if i call him other pet names besides ones like these: i do! the most common petname i use for him is just “babe”, that’s pretty much our default. i dont use these ones super often unless we’re alone or being intimate, i just accidentally let it slip in front of Z this one time because i was drunk as hell

(also me and him talked briefly about the pregnancy thing and sort of tossed it around. he says he’s not outright against the idea and he does want kids one day, no matter what method is used, but we didn’t discuss it too much since we definitely aren’t planning to have kids anytime soon. specifics are a conversation for future us)

so. i think the two of are going to stage, like… an intervention? or something? we’re discussing how to get her into a conversation with both of us since she’s avoiding me. fingers crossed

@am-i-the-asshole-official

aita for calling my boyfriend babygirl

let me clarify upfront: my boyfriend has never expressed discomfort with this, and says he likes it, so it’s potentially a non-issue, but it’s still bugging me. this has been ongoing for a little over a month and i feel like i’m going nuts. forgive me if any of the language i use here isn’t correct, i don’t know how else to get the ideas across - feel free to correct me if i could be saying things more inclusively. sorry that this is rambly also. small nsfw warning (nothing too explicit)

i (22m) have been dating my boyfriend (19ftm) for a little over a year. i’m cis and he is trans. admittedly i’m not like… the most well versed in trans issues but i love him more than life itself so i really try to be respectful of him. he was bullied pretty severely in highschool, not just for being trans but his gender identity was no small part of it, and even though he’s not super dysphoric day to day he’s definitely got some boundaries about it. there are certain compliments he likes and some that upset him (he doesn’t enjoy being called pretty or cute, typically) and he’ll snap at people for referring to him with feminine names or titles like “sis” “girl” etc even if it’s done jokingly.

the thing is he’s rarely, if ever, done that with me? i call him pretty and cute all the time (because he is) and he’s always been fine with it. admittedly the first time i did it i didn’t know it was something that usually bugged him, but he’s never said anything to me about it. everytime i have he’s seemed happy. he’s very outspoken, i pretty firmly believe if it was a problem he’d say something about it - again, he has no issues being firm about this boundary with any of his other friends and family. i was doing this before we started dating, so after we started dating it sort of bled into pet names

again, it was never something i asked him about expressly, but at some point i started calling him, like… princess, babygirl, etc. i only ever do this in private, when its just us or when i’m pretty sure only he can hear me, for a few reasons. my boyfriend doesn’t really pass (entirely his choice. he doesn’t bind his chest and he doesn’t want any gender affirming surgeries or hrt - again, he’s not super dysphoric day to day, he only gets upset when it’s commented on and he can bounce back from it pretty quickly) and again, it seems like it’s always made him happy. at the risk of tmi, it especially seems to make him happy in the bedroom, which is another reason i avoid dropping these pet names in front of anyone else. it’s private and i don’t think it’s anyone else’s business.

so. to put this mildly. we went to a house party together recently and i got super smashed. it was a pretty big party so we were sticking by each other, and when you’re drunk and your partner is there… well, yeah. i was admittedly being pretty handsy. he didn’t tell me to knock it off or anything, he was reciprocating. at some point he started talking to his best friend from highschool (19mtf, i’ll call her Z) so i reigned myself in but i was definitely still drunk and horny and being clingy. i don’t know Z all that well - she and my boyfriend are very close but she can be pretty harsh, and i appreciate all she does for him so i like her, but we never talk unless he’s there. i’ve had maybe one one-on-one conversation with this woman ever.

they’re talking. i’m also there. i’m not trying to rush him but i definitely want to get home. the conversation lulls and i take the chance to ask my boyfriend if he wants to leave soon, and because i am aforementionedly drunk and horny i drop one of those earlier pet names. before he can respond to me, Z snaps at me. she says not to call him that and that i was being a creep - this alarms me and was kind of frustrating since i wasn’t even talking to her, and i recognize i’m not in a headspace to argue? with her? so i just tell my boyfriend to come find me when he wants to leave and i wander outside. he finds me about 5-10 minutes later and we head home.

it doesn’t get brought up again that night but a day or so later i text Z to ask her what she meant by me being a creep, because it was bugging me. she says that it’s obvious i’m fetishizing my boyfriend’s gender identity, that the fact i call him those things brings up major red flags, etc. i tell her that my boyfriend doesn’t have an issue with it. she says it doesn’t matter and asks me why i want to call him those names in the first place, and posits that maybe i don’t actually want to be dating a boy - that i just like the idea of dating a boy and actually want to be with a woman. i’m gay, so this is VERY out of pocket to me. i tell her my boyfriend is not a woman and end the conversation there, but it DOES stick with me. so, very belatedly, i ask my boyfriend what he thinks of all this. i adore him so much and i hate hate hate the idea i could’ve been treating him like that, even unintentionally. he says the pet names never bothered him and he’s never felt like that, and that he’s fine with me specifically doing it because he trusts me and knows i don’t see him as a girl.

so, whatever. she has a problem but me and my boyfriend don’t. i try to move on, but the next time i see her she asks if i’ve apologized/reflected at all. i tell her no, because my boyfriend said i have nothing to apologize for and it seems like a non-issue. she is now avoiding me, refuses to be in the same room as me, and will declare to anyone who asks that she doesn’t want to be near someone who fetishizes trans people and she doesn’t feel safe around me. my boyfriend tries to talk to her but she insists i need to apologize at the bare minimum, but to who? even if i did apologize to my boyfriend i wouldn’t mean it and he wouldn’t want it. Z is his long-time best friend, i can’t exactly go the rest of our relationship just avoiding her. so i have no damn idea where to go from here.

on some level, i worry she’s right? i honestly don’t know why i started calling him those things. i think it started as a joke but i just kept doing it when i noticed he seemed to like it. in hindsight that was maybe shitty of me, but i trust him to tell me when something i do is making him uncomfortable. it’s not like i can do that over, but if he ever told me to stop i would. it’s definitely true that if you saw my boyfriend on the street you’d probably assume he’s a woman, but i’ve never been attracted to anyone who actually identifies as a woman before. i’ve only ever liked men, and no matter what he looks like he is a man. this whole situation did make me think about how i think about him, and i’ve realized that, like… i want to have kids with him one day, and ideally i’d like him to carry them. ideally, but id never make him. if he decided tomorrow that he wanted to medically transition and go the whole nine yards i’d support him. he��s my whole world, i just want him to be happy. but does the fact i want him to carry children prove her right?

i’m just. confused. i feel like i’m running myself in circles. Z knew him in highschool so she was there when bullying over his gender was at his worse, so i get why she’s protective. she’s also trans herself so she undoubtedly understands this stuff better than me. but i’ve heard it’s normal for trans people to have complicated relationships with gender, so it’s normal to be okay with gendered language from some people and not others (like only letting close friends use certain pronouns for you). i figure it’s like that, but it’s not my gender so… i don’t know. should i just stop calling him those pet names altogether, even though i know at this point he enjoys them, to be safe? am i an asshole for calling him those things in the first place / would i be an asshole if i kept doing it?

What are these acronyms?