AITA for respecting my friend's preferences over his trans parent's?
My (18NB) friend's (18M) parent recently came out as trans to my friend, and he shared that with me. He says his parent, until recently known as his dad, has come out to him as binary trans and wants to be seen as a woman. My friend doesn't feel comfortable with that, though, and calls them his 'mod' (rather than mum or dad) and uses gender neutral terms for them. He has also asked me to use the same terms but I'm worried I'm not properly respecting his parent by not using she/her and the like. AITA for prioritising my friend's comfort over his parent's?
YTA - Your friend is not the one who gets to decide his parent's pronouns. Whether or not "mod" is acceptable is her call, too. Your friend may still need to process this new info, but that doesn't make his pressuring you to misgender her any less transphobic.
His behavior is no different than a parent misgendering a child who comes out as trans.
Why is his parent any less worthy of having her pronouns and identity respected than anyone else? It really doesn't matter whether your friend is "comfortable" with it, it's not his to decide. You are, honestly, being a bit of an asshole because as you said, you're not respecting his parent's pronouns simply because your friend doesn't like it.
A child has a lot of leeway towards what they can do regarding their parents because he did not choose to be born to them, but they chose the child to be born to them.
The parents are kind of imposed on the child and need to be able to live with whatever the child grows up like. Usually, if you cannot stand some feature of a person, you can restrict your life to stay away from them. But you can't really do that with your parents. Or well, you can, but it's the parents responsibility to find a way to reach out after that to reconnect. And that's also what parents do indeed do.
If I was in the situation of that parent, I'd be okay with whatever phrasing my child would use of me. I would probably express my wish, but ultimately it's the child's decision how they want to deal with their parents "shit" and it's the parents' responsibility to respect that.
I've chosen to have my children and I've brought them up. If there's something wrong with them, then I'm who is to blame.
The child should talk with their parent about this. I believe the parent will be okay with the child's wish, because that's what love does. And nothing is as strong as a parent's love to their child.
Because of the power dynamics of your friend being their child, that friend is not an asshole. And you are, in this context, an extension of your friend.