I am a 40-year-old woman who came out when I was 16. When I was 17, I met M and we dated for 8 years. M was a horrible human being—emotionally and occasionally physically abusive, lots of gaslighting, controlled my friends, my finances, my calls to my family, etc. It was a significant part of my life but it was also long ago. We now live very far away from each other (I think) and we don’t have friends in common. However, M still sends me the occasional (creepy) email, wishing me a happy birthday or giving me updates on people I don’t really recall. I don't respond.

Then, a few years back, I got an email saying that M was now "Mike."

I think it’s super important to use the pronoun people want you to use for them. But Mike wasn’t Mike when he was in my life. He was someone I was very close to who I thought of as a woman. Changing his pronoun when describing him feels like I’m changing my identity—my first real long-term relationship was with a woman, or at least that’s what I thought during those years. So Mike has a new pronoun that he’d like me to use but I don’t have any desire to use it. Mike caused a lot of damage in my life—does he get to fuck up (or complicate) my identity too?

It’s not like the subject of Mike comes up daily or even weekly. When it does, I skirt around the topic and/or feel like a liar. If I use “she,” I feel like I’m lying to others; “he” makes me feel like I’m lying to or about myself; and stopping to explain everything derails conversations because people want to discuss that, rather than whatever point I was attempting to make. And it’s not like I’m being a great trans ally when a conversation gets sidelined by something like, “Hi, random coworker whose only trans point of reference is Caitlyn Jenner, my ex is trans, and he’s a psychopath!”

Any advice?

Mike's Hard Lemonade

Block Mike's number, block Mike's email address, block Mike on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Periscope, Kik, FuckStick, WhatsApp, CumDump, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.

And stop talking about Mike — there's no reason to discuss him up with random coworkers, casual acquaintances, or friends you've made in the fifteen years since you dumped the bastard. If you absolutely, positively must discuss him with someone you aren't intimate with, i.e. someone who has no need to know about your relationship history and the abuse you suffered in the past, you can be a good ally to your abusive transgender ex other trans people by carefully using nouns and descriptors in place of your asshole ex's preferred pronouns. Instead of saying, "I met him when I was still a teenager," you say, "I met the abusive piece of shit when I was still a teenager." Instead of saying, "It took me eight long years to get away from him," you say, "It took me eight long years to get away from that asshole psychopath."

What I'm gonna say next will get me crucified on Twitter, MHL, but I've learned not to read my @s, so here we go...

If using male pronouns when referring to your ex is gonna complicate your life — really complicate it — if the "trans" part is likely to get dropped during a game of interoffice telephone, if the qualifier about your ex having identified as a woman the entire time you were together is likely to get dropped during that same game of telephone, and if either of those drops could lead coworkers or casual acquaintances to assume something about you that isn't true, i.e. that you're into dudes and therefore gettable by dudes, and if that erroneous assumption could result in your having to deflect awkward and/or unpleasant advances from confused males (cis and trans) who don't actually have a chance with you because you're not into dudes at all, or if it would traumatize you to have your status as a Gold Star Lesbian questioned or induce some sort of orientational dysphoria...

I don't see the non-theoretical harm in you — and you only — misgendering Mike on the hopefully rare occasions when he comes up. You don't live near him, no one you know knows him, and the misgendering is unlikely to get back to him. The adage "no harm, no foul" would seem to apply here. (The adage would not apply, however, if people in your orbit know Mike to be trans; you referring to Mike by improper pronouns would offend good people and potentially be taken as license by bad people to do the same to other trans men and women.)

But it would be simpler, easier, and ally-ier if you sidestepped the issue by not speaking to anyone about your asshole ex ever again.