so this one girl, i’ll call her ella (19f) is transphobic, homophobic
she lashes out a lot, exaggerates things, and cannot read social cues. however, she has autism and adhd and is mentally much younger.
she also gets mad when i call a trans man “he” and she says “SHE’S A GIRL EVEN THO SHE LOOKS LIKE A MAN LOL”
she says she got her views from her parents and refuses to change because “it’s the way i am”. for someone who was mentally 19, I’d cut contact, but she’s mentally a lot younger.
While I know it’s not exactly the same situation, bear with me. There’s a leadership book called What got you here won’t get you there by Marshall Goldsmith.
It’s focus on C suite people, their habits, and how their personality affects their career aspects, etc.
The reason I bring it up is because in pointing out characteristic flaws the author talks about how people say, well this is who I am, or I’m just bringing my whole self to work as reasoning for behaving the way they do. Then the author goes on to say how this is an excuse for the unwilling behavior to change as people don’t want to change who they are as a person, but rebuts with “is changing this one aspect of how you behave going to drastically change you as a person?”
While I acknowledge that this person is young, I would say that pointing out that not saying anything is an option. She doesn’t need to change who she is, just how she behaves and respecting others costs nothing. Additionally, if she is not willing to look at how her behavior hurts others then she is unwilling to mature. Being neurodivergent is not a justified excuse to be mean towards others. While it may be harder for her to understand, explaining that her words hurt people emotionally and asking her why she thinks hurting others is okay could be a good starting point.
It goes back to the old saying, if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything.