A common theme of transphobia is how transphobes will constantly deny the rights of trans people to speak about our stories, to talk about what our stories mean in a world where cisgender narratives dominate and are the norm. They seek to take away our vocabulary and imagery.

If you go into the Netflix thread about The Matrix, you'll see that happening a lot. The idea of The Matrix being a story about trans identity and that trans people can be courageous and sometimes incredibly badass scares transphobic people, because they want to see us as weak...

that we're so weak and inconsequential we should never have such heroic representation in stories. So they'll deny and lie about things, they'll cast aspersions upon the transitions stories of the Wachowskis, that the Wachowskis are lying about the movies, about their own selves.

It's painful to go and see that. It's painful to see such anger at the idea that trans people have lives and stories and that our stories could be meaningful and entertaining to cis people, but only if it's never actually discussed openly or spoken about. So cis people deride

the idea, they deride the Wachowskis, they say a trans lens is invalid or doesn't even exist, they want to delete the idea of transness from the film, from the lives of the storytellers, from the world itself...

Much like Agent Smith tries to enforce the identity of Mr Anderson upon Neo through intimidation and violence.

If that itself isn't essentially the story of being trans in this world, I don't know what the fuck is.

That scene of Agent Smith and the 2 other agents in the interview room with Neo is so essentially trans, the feel of the culture policing identity, imposing it upon by flopping a thick folder onto a table and saying the culture knows you better than you know your own self...

that you're a threat to the culture if you seek out other trans people, that people like Morpheus and you are criminals for simply for being trans, that you must conform to the name you were given at birth so the culture can feel comfortable, safe, and reassured in is bland

everyday routines. Being trans disrupts that so Agent Smith gives the intimidation speech to Neo and when Neo doesn't just meekly submit, they shut Neo's mouth and implant a bug into Neo.

Fucking terrifying scene that about the way culture polices trans identity.