On mis-gendering trans women

 I get so confused having 2 trans women in my family. 

It's called being mommy brained, you know. My ex's mother, when my ex was small (formerly he), called all of her 4 sons "Nor-Frank-Al-Bruce, whatever your name is." That was all 4 of their names. 

It's not so easy to correct conditioned reflexes that have passed into the subconscious. 

I find myself hesitating whenever I say the word "he," even when it's a cis male. I have to stop and think and say to myself "wait, it's ok to call him, 'he.' He doesn't mind. He might even prefer it." 

Personally, when asked what my preferred pronoun is, I refuse to commit. I espouse no 3rd person pronouns, so long as I'm addressed with respect. 3rd person pronouns are for other people.  Let them say whatever.

Similarly, I'm having trouble using the Maya software that I am trying to get comfortable with, because there's a lot of pinky work in the left hand. You have to use shift, control, alt, and sometimes shift plus control. Then, on Mac, it's sort of confusing whether command or option is going to be the alt key, because it's not always the same. Also, on Mac, normally control click is the same as right click; but not in Maya. Maya does not recognize control click as being the same as a right mouse button click. I'm constantly pressing the wrong thing with that uncooperative pinky and having uncontrolled things appear on the screen that I don't even know what they are. I find that my left pinky has a mind of its own. That's very similar to what happens when I use the wrong pronoun.

I had something similar happen when I was taking dancing classes a few years ago. I could hear what the instructor said. I understood what instructor said. I knew that I wasn't doing what the instructor said. But my body wasn't cooperating. It wasn't willing to do what I wanted to do.  Some of us have neurological limitations.