Sometimes when I engage directly with transphobes, I can't help but think of exactly how they must process me and if they genuinely believe that there's some alternative version of myself that I don't publicly share with the world.

It's interesting to me how a lot of tranpshobes assume/believe that my gender is a complicated performance that is put on, as opposed to just simply me being me.

I often think "what solutions do you have" when people try their best to describe me as a man and argue that I am not a woman. What would their ideal world look like? Would it include me? I'm inclined to say it wouldn't and that's the point.

To me, my mind goes to some form of gender assimilation. Mostly because, for me, without trying, I am only used to people processing/seeing me as a woman/girl. So I imagine if their ideal world would simply be me assimilating closer to what they imagine men doing/being.

I find transphobia to be really fascinating because while they will continue to argue against the "phobia" part of it, it's hard to reconcile the reality of my life with their reactions and not immediately process it as fear.

Fear because I live a fairly boring life, but that life is so intrinsically threatening to people who are complete strangers to me that they will devote a lot of time into trying to say that my mere existence is oppressive to them. Without me doing anything, just simply existing.

And by boring I mean, I mean, if I internalized transphobic messaging more when I was younger, I would be shocked to see someone living life as I do now. I would imagine more strife and struggle and pain, but that doesn't exist in my life.

Is their solution for transgender people to make their lives less livable? Would they enjoy seeing me forced to assimilate into manhood while they enjoy the freedom of being whoever they say they are?

I think what I struggle with is that trans realities are so frequently seen as debatable. I transitioned a very long time ago and no one can ever say they've known me as a man in this world, because that has never been my reality.

There's no amount of calling me a man online that will ever shift that central truth of mine. I have no concept of what it means to be a man in this world.

So when transphobes say i'm a man, I'm confused by what they mean. I know what they're trying to say. They're trying to point at my biology and say it defines me, but this often seems to be the same exact issue "gender critical" folks have so this seems like an odd thing to say.

It seems easy to me to say that there are differences between women who are trans and women who aren't. That seems like a truism to me, but it feels quite untrue, to then say instead of being trans women, we're just men. What does that mean?

Of course I know there isn't really an answer and that they don't really have solutions, I'm just fascinated by it all. I can't say I've ever really in a tangible way felt unwelcomed in women's spaces.

I also don't WANT to be in spaces where I'm unwelcomed- which tend to be men's spaces, pretty universally.

I dunno, these are just thoughts. lol. I'm curious what your theories are.