Read on Twitter
cis people usually don’t get it, but “you just have to educate people, they’ll come around to respecting you!” is really not helpful. this is gonna be a thread about that.
first of all, yes there are people who are simply uneducated & try to learn, who become respectful when they understand. and many trans people are trying to educate them. if you don’t see us doing that, you’re looking away. don’t pretend we don’t put in the work.
half of my tweets are dealing with transphobic misconceptions. I usually don’t sugarcoat things to make them more cis-palatable, but as a marginalised person dealing with social & legal oppressions, I don’t think that’s my job either. if you think that’s yours, go for it.
what many cis people aren’t able to, but trans people are pretty much trained to do, is spotting “concern trolling”—a transphobe has a “question” or “concern” but it’s obvious they just want to spread transphobic misinformation. that’s the kind of thing we can’t educate away.
(some trans people on the other hand aren’t good at spotting this at all and waste lots of time trying to educate people who are clearly unwilling to change their mind. you can’t blame them if they decide it’s not worth it next time someone has a question)
then there are cis people with genuine questions, but who are incredibly rude while asking these. it takes immense patience to answer them as a trans person while being actively disrespected. many of us don’t have this patience because we face this kind of behaviour EVERY DAY.
and sometimes cis people could just google things, you know? sometimes they come into unrelated conversations with an “educate me!” expecting trans people to drop their things immediately to answer a very basic question that google could answer easily. it’s dehumanising.
fact is, trans people weren’t born into this world to be the selfless educators of ignorant, rude cis people who don’t care for our boundaries. we often do it anyway because our survival is dependent on cis people becoming less transphobic. and that’s stressful.
getting educated on trans topics can be interesting for cis people. educating them on the other hand is often stressful for trans people, it can be retraumatising. we’re exposed to transphobia while doing that, and cis people are often only willing to learn up to a certain point.
we do put in the work, we do educate, but some cis people aren’t willing to learn & we can tell. some trans people are too exhausted from all the transphobia we face. and sometimes we just don’t wanna be teachers, we wanna live our lives in peace.
so that’s where you as a cis ally can help. you are not victim to transphobia. when you educate, it’s not personal. you can have patience. and most importantly, cis people will often believe you MUCH more than they believe us. use your cis privilege.
