Recently I have been struggling a little trying to accept and prepare for the consequences of coming out and exposing this very sensitive part of myself to the world. With the increase in hate crimes and anti-trans sentiment it is a very scary idea.
This was made even worse by a comment I found on Reddit today:
People ask why I bailed on transitioning. It’s not fun having your entire right to exist as a human being used as a political tool. It’s exhausting. I don’t want to have to spend my life justifying who I am to people who frankly don’t give a shit either way. They just want to hate me. 15 years ago nobody gave a toss which toilet I used in public. Today I’ll get spat on while waiting for a bus because I dared wear a dress. Not once in my life in this country till about 5 or 6 year ago did I ever feel scared for my safety for being who I am. I may be miserable now, but at least nobody is spitting on me anymore.
So I’d love to hear other’s perspectives on what they’ve actually experienced and how they have dealt with it. I am sorry for raising such a painful topic but hopefully it can help people.
Nobody can hurt me more than I can. Choosing to suffer so they don’t hurt me isn’t living. I accepted violence may Befall me and that it may cost me my life to transition before I started. It was part of the wisdom of the time back then
So yeah they can spit on me. Maybe they’ll even try to kill me. But I’m not the one hurting me so long as I’m transitioning, they carry the weight of their actions. I will force them to hurt me themselves. And I will be a person who forces your soul to ache when you hurt her. And throughout all this I still meet bigots. But I have spit to spare too.
So I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not trans, so I can’t speak to that specifically. And if that perspective is what’s important to you, feel free to ignore.
But the main thing to remember is that they are not hating you because you are trans.
They hate you because they are hateful people, and will use whatever justification they can to avoid treating everyone well.
First it was black people, then Latin people, then gay people, etc.
They will always pick a group, big enough for them to be aware of but small enough they feel can be bullied without consequence.
And unfortunately right now, trans people are that group. But looking at the above list should also give you hope, because they tried to dehumanize all of those groups, and they lost every. Single. Time.
So just remember that ultimately if your not hurting anyone, then you are not doing anything wrong, and feel free to tell anyone that tells you otherwise to go fuck themselves. For being trans, or anything else.
Remember MLK’s quote, that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
I was at rock bottom when I came out. I figured that if it was life or death then fuck it, I’m going out how I feel I should. That was 4 years ago. I feel like the misgendering stopped at around the 3 to 3.5 year mark and that was the worst thing to happen. Keep in mind I live in a very liberal area and get hypervigilant when traveling to conservative areas.
Honestly it is scary, but it depends on where you are. I boymoded for a really long time and eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to be myself and I said to myself “screw it, so what if I die” and so far people have been a lot nicer to me than expected. However, I am quite hypervigilant and I make sure to look out for and avoid people I think will give me trouble.
I have had far more positive interactions than negative ones. In 10 years, I’ve never been physically assaulted or directly insulted or threatened in public. While transphobia is pernicious in society, it doesn’t often present explosively. Far more people are uninformed or misinformed rather than actively hostile.
