Unpopular opinion: If I say "being trans is like [explains bad thing about my experience]" and non-trans people say stuff like, "Here's a way that's similar for (fat people, disabled people, women, et cetera)" I really appreciate that, because it's sympathy and solidarity.

I know the common take is "your experience is nothing like mine, stop making it about you." But people connect sympathetically by interrogating and relating their own experiences. I like when they do that, even if I feel the experiences are distinctly different.

I also think the discourse often kneejerk discourages some important comparisons.

When cis women tell me of their experiences being "clocked," it's not identical to what I experience. But the shame of being publicly misgendered is extremely real and the commonality is huge.

I don't think those commonalities are going to change the world or anything. But I've certainly been able to shift over some cis perspectives that were bordering on TERF ideology by letting them relate their bad experiences to mine for better understanding.

A lot of TERF rhetoric is really easy to grab onto for people who don't know any better. I personally think it's much better to let cis people relate to us through flawed comparisons than it is to let them fall to other, more harmful commonalities.

And frankly, as a trans person, it's sometimes hard to balance very real frustrations and reactions to harm with the already pervasive public perception that we're full of "male rage" and this close to exploding into violence and abuse. Making our pain relatable is GOOD for that.

Caveat: Obviously some people do it to diminish your pain. "Well, I experience X, which I deal with, so you dealing with Y isn't such a big deal."

Fuck those people. Fortunately they're fairly obvious when they pull that shit.

Thinking as a teacher, I'm looking at some methods like Montessori and Suzuki method teaching. It's extremely effective to teach people by helping them to find a relatable point of context. If they can put themselves in your position, they instantly click and relate.

You can SAY "this is what I deal with," and it's a new, foreign concept to a person. But if they can transplant their life experiences, it turns your simple statement into an entire practicum. They think of ALL the times the thing hurt them. Which is powerful.

I know it's a controversial piece, but IMO, this comes back very well to Mark Fisher's Exiting The Vampire Castle essay. The systems of oppression want to do everything they can to isolate us and alienate us from collective action and solidarity. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/

I've seen how it hurts cis women when they're called tr***y. Is it the same pain I feel? No. But I would MUCH rather those women invest that rage fighting alongside me than arguing about the individual differences.