Well, three of them are construction workers, and one is a kid misusing a tool, is what you want me to say. If you want an example of what I'm talking about, though - three are white, and one is black. Three are facing left, and one is facing right. Three have their arms up, and one had their arms down. All of those are valid answers to your question. This is why definitions, agreeing on them, and sticking to them, are important.

There, you got my response, now go engage with my argument, instead of deflecting.

So do you not consider hunting for food productive? What about sporting purposes?

There's a very real reason I'm digging in on this. You can't just arbitrarily say a certain thing isn't what it clearly is, because it suits your purposes. A gun is still a tool, even if it's quite regularly misused. You lose nothing by classifying it as a tool, and by seeking to reclassify it as something else, you open the door to a host of legal fuckery.

Further, we regulate tools all the time, so it's not like saying it's a tool means we can't, or shouldn't, regulate firearms. Just look at cars. Definitely tools, and regulated to high hell. It's important to be specific, though, if we're proposing to regulate things. If you're not specific, you end up with dumb things like certain kinds of nail guns being regulated as firearms.

I'm not some crazy gun nut. I think there should absolutely be some more regulations on guns. I think they should make sense, though, and to do that you have to define your terms rigidly.

Okay now we're getting somewhere. What definition of tool do you propose we use, that includes claw peen hammers and other "obvious" tools, but excludes firearms?

Do I, though? I'm pretty sure I read it right.

Task =\= murder

Ironic that the first thing you jump to in defense of your previous point is a definition argument.

Hilarious that that argument is, again,flat out wrong.

something hard or unpleasant that has to be done

Mate, he's right. First definition. "A handheld device used to aid in performing a task." Any gun falls into that definition. But sure, get hung up on asking them to define every word in their statements, that's a good way to not have to actually engage with the concept.

I mean, industry after industry is going on strike over shit like this. Pretty sure that's the opposite of abiding.

Just use your ass to climb, problem solved.

Oh, we all understand perfectly well. We can no longer abide.

The only hesitation I'd give with this advice is, it may be better to wait on pronouns until they're more fully out. It sounds like they have family they are NOT ready to know, and... Well, you can brush off one or two misgenderings without much suspicion, but eventually it could leak some information they don't want out yet.

I had a friend in a similar situation, out to close people, but not out to their family or strangers. We decided it'd be best to keep using he/him, old name, etc. for convenience and safety, until they finally fully came out last year. The only difference from my perspective has been to delay those habits for a bit. No situation is the same, though, and the parent would be beat served talking to the kid.

Sounds like you're doing alright. I'd say keep doing as you're doing. Don't change anything unless asked - make this whole thing seem completely normal. Just be attentive and listen to your child. You probably won't understand, at least not fully, a lot of what they're going through. No matter how hard you try, unless you experience it yourself, it's pretty much impossible, like seeing a new color. Be open to that fact, that things are quite simply fundamentally different from their perspective.

Be a safe space. It sounds like you already are. Keep doing that. No matter the situation the two of you are involved in, your priority is their livelihood. Safety, autonomy, backup, whatever they need in order to provide that.

They were comfortable enough with you to tell you, and ahead of two others who might have a similar "right" to know. Your response was to provide the support you immediately could, and seek assistance otherwise. Keep doing what you're doing, bud.

... I hope one day I have a trans kid. I always wanted to be transparent.

This feels like a bit of an overreaction. There's no identifying information, this is a small corner of the Internet, and they're here looking for advice on how to be better able to support the kid.

I'd say if I was the kid and I ran across this post, if anything it'd make me feel like my parent is taking a ton of effort to understand and support me.