turn-of-the-century sighborg
-
(this is rebloggable, and I’d appreciate it if you would)
I really wanted to write this today. I wanted to be extremely frank about how the dynamic of transmisogyny undergirds so much of gay and trans spaces.I want to explore how trans women are gated from community and forming social relationships, and ultimately gated from having a full sense of personhood.
Transmisogyny is a system of abuse that aims to fully decentralize a trans woman’s sense of self and personhood. A trans woman exists in a space where they’re simultaneously fetishized and repulsive. We’re oddly glorified in gay and trans spaces, yet are also the first to blame whenever something goes wrong. The point of creating a person to be as paradoxical as trans women is to make them impossible, and therefore intangible. It is to make them like Frankenstein’s monster. It’s to make them unbelievable and vilified for being so incomprehensible. Yet, much like Frankenstein’s monster, we want to be understood and to be loved. We describe our experiences, but are denied and called liars. We are viewed with medical and social intrigue, only to be shortly discounted as unimportant and, again, impossible.
To be a trans woman is to experience an alienation so extreme that it is an entire world apart from what is often projected out there as the “trans experience” by people who aren’t trans women.
Some out there recognize this superficially, where they’ll say “yeah it’s trans women who get a lot of shit in the community and the world!” And really, we gotta dig deeper than that. When the impossibility of a trans woman is internalized by others, we are seen not as a full person, but as an object. That’s when trans women are raped, abused, get the shit kicked out of’em, and die.
This extremely vulnerable state trans women exist in becomes the catalyst where we seek community, where we’re desperate for people to be with, to be loved and cared for, or even just seen. Demagogues in community recognize this, and will quickly bring her to their side, introduce them to people, and get her involved. It’s likely overwhelming for her. She’s probably touch starved. She’s afraid to touch people because she’s internalized that she’s inherently predatory. She probably hasn’t been shown much kindness in her life. Her social skills might be fettered by the years of cruelty and uncertainty.
Yet suddenly she sees herself as possible. She begins to gain her sense of self. She’s more confident, more willing to put herself out there, she has fun. She goes out, she dances, she’s having the time of her life. But… then she stands up for herself. To the wrong person.
That’s not… what she was brought into this community for. That’s not convenient. That’s not compliant. Suddenly she’s so possible that it’s infuriating. The demagogue realizes they can’t keep her around now. She won’t let herself be a token. They can no longer use her in the sense of “I’m not a transmisogynist, I hang out with this tranny!” How, then, does the demagogue maintain their social position? Hearsay and rumors and gossip.
“She’s just kind of problematic,” and then never specifying what she did. Never talking to her about it. It’s not about her learning, it’s about grooming people’s social peripheries.
“I know I shouldn’t say it, but she is male socialized.”
“She’s kinda manly.”
“She’s not all that femme, so what does she know?”
“She hasn’t unpacked her toxic masculinity.”
“She’s creepy.”
This is to package her as damaging to community. She’s more easily disposable now. It’s to isolate her. Cut her off from community and the relationships she formed. People invite her out less. She’s not asked to help organize. She’s forced to be a homebody. It’s a slow and painful severing from community.
She’s all alone again. She’s so lonely, she gets depressed. It becomes harder for her to manage her symptoms. She’s messing up a little at work, which she shortly finds out is enough to get her fired. She can’t crowdfund for rent because no one will share the post, because her support system is gone. She starts to wonder if it’s worth going on. It’s winter, and she’s terrified of being homeless (again).
She opts out of living.
Or, we play the part they want. We agree to be their token. We’re quiet and agreeable. We say ‘yes’ often. We shrink ourselves. We starve ourselves. We diminish our sense of self for the “sake of the community.” We learn as we go along that we don’t matter to them. We know it but continue on. We hear our friends espouse politics and theory that are predicated on our annihilation. Or more simply, we hear them espouse generally harmful transmisogyny. We rationalize that we’re only sacrificing a little bit of our dignity so we can maintain that support system. And slowly we lose our sense of self. We exist for others. We become the compliant object they want us to be. At least we’ve got a support system, right?
The process is the same regardless. We either disappear from the world entirely through death, or we sacrifice our dignity and sense of self and aren’t really even people anymore. In both cases, we are no longer a fully-formed person with agency. We exist at the whim of others.
I often wonder, whenever I enter into a community, which poor trans woman am I replacing? Who was here before me? Why am I being let in so quickly? What was the girl before like? Did they kick her out (yet)? Does she have friends? Do the people here care about her? How soon will it be until I’m no longer convenient? When will people stop talking to me?
And so I sit in that caution and vigilance, because I’ve been here before. I am one of the people who’s let herself sacrifice a bit of her dignity to maintain social relationships. I will admit that full-stop. I’ve started doing it ever since the trans lesbians who lived in my state all moved. The reason they moved? “Minnesota has an enormous transmisogyny problem. The ‘radical’ queer community hates trans women so much.”
I know this. I continue on. I quietly prioritize other trans women whenever I see them. I praise them when they do well. I congratulate them on accomplishments. I show up for them. I see them. I help them. I love them. They will always be my priority.
I have no answers for you, except the hope that you show up in ways that matter for trans women. Nobody should ever have to go through this.
(via loxbian)
-
(via jabbertune)
-
(via artwolf)
-
-
oh god this is too much of a mood
(via soiamstanding-bye)
-
-
-
(via limeswithorange)
-
People always gloss over how mentally damaging it can be to work in retail. I fucking hate that whenever I say “I could never work in retail again” someone has to reply “You snowflake millennials can’t take a starter job because you have to INTERACT with other people” No. Fuck you. I’ve worked as a planetarium host. I’ve worked as a public speaker. I’ve worked as a tutor and as a student teacher. I can work with people. I can work with crowds. Retail was fucking different. Retail was being treated as a subhuman. Retail was being treated so poorly that you have anxiety attacks before work. Having to work retail was a factor in my last suicide attempt. If I hear you say one fucking word about retail workers playing the victim I will personally break every bone in your body. Fuck You.
The holidays are coming up. Retail workers are going to be spiraling into a nightmare beyond human comprehension. If you’ve worked retail, you know this. If you haven’t, be aware of it. Please be kind to every retail worker you come across. Please be patient and understanding. It is misery out there.
(via oldgayauntfreddie)
-
me, in september when the leaves started changing and the weather was a little cooler: seasonal depression WHOM??????? i am healthy and HAPPY and i LOVE fall! pumpkin spice lattes yas! what was i THINKING? i’m remembering it as worse than it was in years past!!
me, 8 days into november when its freezing and getting dark at 5pm: ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. oh oh oh OH. oh ya………
(via limeswithorange)
-
I’m a slut for sitting in comfortable silence while both of us do our own thing and occasionally show each other something dumb on our computers like that’s the good shit my dude.
(via jabbertune)
-
-
[Painting of Death as a spectral nanny taking a child and infant away from their bereaved family. A detail shows the family’s house number is 1918.]
I never realized this until seeing the detail, but this painting is most likely about the flu pandemic.
it’s really interesting seeing death portrayed as a woman
Especially a a nurturer rather than a destroyer
(via oldgayauntfreddie)
-
I’m the founder of the “I suck at keeping the conversation going, but I really like talking to you” club
(via soiamstanding-bye)
-
uswe:
A werewolf film written by a woman wouldn’t be as interesting because they know how unrealistic it is to be caught by surprise by something that happens regularly every damn month.
#run right into queue#no no no no no the exact opposite#by this standard a werewolf film written by a woman would be much more interesting because it would be more /varied/#some werewolves who are prepared not only for their own shift but also for those of six of their closest packmates#some werewolves who wake up already covered in fur and look at their ruined clothes and think ‘oh /shit/ that was yesterday’#some werewolves who can’t be assed to figure out what day it is and therefore have an alert set in their phone#so that once a month they wake up not to a blinking ‘wake up’ message but to ‘wake up and Be Prepared’ and dramatic hyena music#(and then inevitably lose/break/forget to charge their phone the day before and spend hours humming uncomfortably#before suddenly remembering at the least convenient moment possible and rushing off stripping as they go)#not to mention the one werewolf who only transforms one night a month and then has to refrain from gloating#while they help their one packmate who’s been shifted for an entire goddamned week and has started dreaming of murder (via @ereborne)
And then there’s that werewolf who goes three full moons without transforming, then transforms one night during a waxing crescent moon.
Now I’m imagining some on the werewolf form of the pill and having to regularly keep up their schedule and one werewolf telling another that they used to have such irregular changes but the pill now makes things so much easier and the other werewolves being like oh man I should talk to my doctor about this.
All i imagined is some poor fucker that’s like “you think you have it bad. I got my first change at 9 and change sporadically every 4 months or so. For 2 weeks. Sometimes it happens randomly so i just gave up.”
#for days before the change you’re extra growly and constantly want to go for walkies
Why. Is this not a thing already. Why.
Wake up pissed and agitated with a headache and slam some aspirin with no real thought to the matter because it must just be a shit day. Halfway through the day they just “…oh shit that explains so much fuck fuck fuck”
Switch to a new kind of transformation control and spend the next three months awkwardly half wolfed-out
(via fatcr0w)
