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When we first find queer community - especially trans community, I think - the freedom we experience to be able to talk about our lived experiences, our fears, our victories, and to express ourselves more fully and authentically is exciting and intoxicating. It ends our hiding.
So much of what we had spent our whole lives repressing out of shame or ignorance comes out into the open at last, and we discover that we are actually pretty normal. We're not the only ones! How wonderful it is to feel free to talk about what was once unspeakable taboo.
At last, we learn the words to talk about our bodies, our attractions, our journeys to get to self-acceptance, & we're given space to say them! And so we start talking. We start opening. Blooming, even! The unburdening is so great and so relieving, & it feels right to be so free.
So we exercise our newfound freedom in community. All of us at once. Everywhere. All the time. Transness and queerness begins to radiate from us. It's every word on our lips & every thought in our heads, expressed outwardly in tweets & instagram posts & video chats.
We begin to lose sight of the differences between repression & privacy, self-expression & consideration for others, education & too much information, visibility & violations. Our freedom can start to become restrictive & oppressive to others. Too big, too loud, too much.
Three years into transition, having taken advantage many times of freedom & expression, I've gotten to the point of feeling boxed in by queer community. It's nearly impossible to spend time in trans community without hearing about bodies, mental health issues, trauma, & so on.
The freedom to talk about anything becomes a cage that we trap ourselves & others in when we can think of nothing else to talk about. We end up surrounding ourselves with people we love, but who also routinely trigger our dysphoria, reignite our trauma, or violate our boundaries.
We can hardly hope to be in trans community anymore without experiencing non-consensual flirting, overt sexualization, objectification of white, cis-passing trans people, mental health & trauma triggers under the auspices of support, etc. It's a trick of unregulated freedom:
What feels validating to some feels violating to others.
Maybe this is your experience, too. The novelty of too much openness may have worn thin, & we may find ourselves wanting to escape from community as we have experienced it up to this point. It's become traumatic.
Maybe this is your experience, too. The novelty of too much openness may have worn thin, & we may find ourselves wanting to escape from community as we have experienced it up to this point. It's become traumatic.
I suppose it's growing pains of an ever-shifting dynamic - new people come, old ones move on - but perhaps due in large part to the inherent trauma of 2020 itself, our timelines have become an endless stream of people existing in their trauma for an audience in real-time.
It's really hard to watch.
I never want to restrict anyone's freedom. May we all experience that first wondrous taste of it.
Balance is important, too.
I'm looking for a new sense of balance in my life.
I hope we'll all find what we need.
I love you.
I never want to restrict anyone's freedom. May we all experience that first wondrous taste of it.
Balance is important, too.
I'm looking for a new sense of balance in my life.
I hope we'll all find what we need.
I love you.
