Read on Twitter
It's trans awareness week and yet the bulk of my feed is talking about a recent book that was published, suggesting that part of the Trans Agenda is recruiting ~vulnerable~ young girls and convincing them to get surgery and start hormones.
This is absolutely The Problem.
This is absolutely The Problem.
The Problem is that many cisgender allies show up with more fire when a transphobic person publishes a book or an article than you do for the trans folks out here writing, publishing, advocating, and otherwise doing meaningful, powerful work.
And I'm not saying your outrage isn't justified. But the scales are constantly tilted away from trans voices, which inadvertently gives more power to oppositional, outright offensive voices who don't deserve the boost or platform.
If we're going to talk about this book, let's talk about this book, then. We already know that children are not being "pumped with hormones" or surgically operated on. They are on waitlists, waiting for blockers to PAUSE puberty until they can make an informed decision.
But they don't care about the truth, & they capitalize on the outrage to suggest that we are vicious, cruel, angry, unhinged. When cis people add to that noise, it drowns out the voices of actual trans people who are speaking a different kind of truth — their humanity, simply.
So I'm going to speak to my humanity.
There is a deep, psychic toll when I see this image of a young child with a gaping black hole on the cover of this book. Because that child is supposed to represent my younger self. It is supposed to sow FEAR and disbelief of my child self.
There is a deep, psychic toll when I see this image of a young child with a gaping black hole on the cover of this book. Because that child is supposed to represent my younger self. It is supposed to sow FEAR and disbelief of my child self.
To suggest that as a child, I was fundamentally missing something, that I carry a deep void, that I am an object and a lacking one at that, is traumatic.
And that's the raw, simple truth of books and thought campaigns like this: they try to silence OUR stories and replace them.
And that's the raw, simple truth of books and thought campaigns like this: they try to silence OUR stories and replace them.
Cis allies are letting that happen when they focus on the book and the false narrative it's constructing, instead of prioritizing the stories of trans people who have to grapple with the trauma of being depicted this way, each and every day.
My family tried to dissuade me from surgery, as AN ADULT, as if my chest belonged to them, belonged to society, was owed as a debt for how I was born instead of my body, my autonomy, my decision.
They saw a loss when I saw it as my life, with everything still to gain.
They saw a loss when I saw it as my life, with everything still to gain.
There are people who look at stories like mine, though, as a desperate act of self-mutilation. As being robbed of my "womanhood." As being betrayed by a patriarchal system that dangled safety over my head like a carrot, if I rejected my birth assignment and "destroyed" my body.
I am not safe now, though. I am not safe, and that is the problem. People who rob me of the ability to tell my own story render me unsafe. They render me a victim when the only time I've felt truly victimized is by those who cannot and will not accept me as I truly am.
I am not safe when there are people who are hellbent on erasing my experience with lies and distortions, capitalizing on outrage to further bury a very simple truth: my transition is when my life began, and those who would deny me my autonomy are trying to end it.
It's a deliberate tactic to obscure my existence. My existence is inconvenient for people who claim I am a self-hating woman that was duped by the Transgender Agenda.
Inconvenient, because I am the antithesis of what they claim.
Inconvenient, because I am the antithesis of what they claim.
I have a degree in women's studies. I was a member of Women in Learning & Leadership, the American Association of University Women, and my thesis project was on digital media as a vehicle for queer feminism.
I SUBMERGED myself in woman-centric feminism. And I am still who I am.
I SUBMERGED myself in woman-centric feminism. And I am still who I am.
I delayed my transition for nearly a decade for all the reasons they said. I needed to be "certain." I thought, surely this is my struggle to accept my femininity! Surely I am being subdued by the patriarchy, seeing masculinity as an escape route. Surely I am mistaken.
I went to therapy to sort myself out and I went to Take Back The Night every year and I never missed a single meeting of our local feminist reading circle.
And still, after years of doing this, I arrived at the same conclusion.
And still, after years of doing this, I arrived at the same conclusion.
If there were such a thing, I would've overdosed on feminism and ~pu$$y power~. And yet here we are. Here we are.
Yet still, there are cis women who would say of me, "SHE simply hasn't accepted herself. SHE was deceived by patriarchy and the Trans Agenda."
Yet still, there are cis women who would say of me, "SHE simply hasn't accepted herself. SHE was deceived by patriarchy and the Trans Agenda."
They want to bury stories like mine because of the sheer inconvenience of it. They want you to believe that we are still children, with black holes for wombs, robbed of something essential that we can never get back.
The only thing I was robbed of was years of my life, which I could've been living authentically. Years of my life, in which my mental health was in shambles, and my body was ravaged by an eating disorder that developed largely in response to gender dysphoria.
I don't doubt that there are folks who begin to transition, only to find it isn't right for them. But you would only believe that this is a tragedy if you believed that transgender bodies are "ruined" and "mutilated," while cis bodies are "correct" and "healthy."
You can depict my child self as harboring a black hole in his belly. But I will always see him — and ANY trans kid — as the most courageous kid in the world. Because it takes guts, really and truly, to be who you are in a world that doesn't want you to exist.
I was never wrong. I was never lacking. I was never missing anything.
All I needed was the unconditional love and support of those around me — which is something that was lacking within THEM — so that I could be who I was, who I am, who I was meant to be.
All I needed was the unconditional love and support of those around me — which is something that was lacking within THEM — so that I could be who I was, who I am, who I was meant to be.
If there are cis people who continue to misconstrue the stories of people like me, they'll have to try harder. I'm still here. I'm still a living contradiction to everything you wish could be true. I'm still living, period — something I can only conclude that you resent.
And if there are cis allies who continue to expend their precious energy on shouting down transphobic people, without realizing that their shouting is actually drowning out the voices of trans people, too, they'll need to reevaluate who they're showing up in service of.
