Being a trans* person and wondering what your life would have been like if you had been born cisgender.
I’ve been having to avoid that line of thinking this semester because otherwise I’ll break down crying.
being trans is a phase
in the same way being a painter is a phase
you start doodling in the margins of your writing and then you realize you need a bigger canvas
that doesn’t mean you aren’t a writer anymore
it does mean developing new expressive techniques and aesthetic…
supreme queen gender troubles
forever heavy appreciation for majestic and her honest & raw gender troubles.
I am not sure if I have run out of energy to care or my patience has grown, but I don’t care as much when people say things like,
“I’ll have an easier time calling you Oliver when you grow a beard.”
“You have to get a penis before I see you as a man.”
“I’ve seen you as [birth name] for twenty years, it will take me awhile.”
etc.
It takes conscious effort. Yes, it’s frustrating, yes, maybe you hate it but you need to respect my identity or we’re not going to be friends.
It takes hard work for me to be able to dine with you and be misgendered all the time. It takes hard work for me to be able to be polite with you when you avoid using any name with me at all. You lose a lot of trust with me when you refer to me as a girl, then as a gender-neutral thing,and refuse to correct yourself.
I know that in order for you to get used to me, Oliver the man, I need to spend time with you. I don’t know how to teach you otherwise.
Sure is fucking frustrating though.
click through or click here to buy one of these gender justice prints from the awesome Talcott to support ICATH (Informed Consent for Access to Trans Health). Each print is 18x12” and SO AWESOME. Proceeds will offset training costs as well as advocacy and therapy session fees for those who demonstrate need. More info at www.icath.org.
Talcott says, “This print: “I’m Not Trapped in Anything But Your Strange Sense of Binary.” refers to the compulsive feminizing or masculinizing that non-binary and/or genderqueer, gender different people often face. When I’m not being incessantly Sir-Ma’am-ed, I’m expected to present the narrative that I am “trapped in the wrong body, etc”…While for some people this experience is true and valid, for others there is a much more fluid and non-binary gender experience.”
Please reblog and snatch one up, if you’re so inclined!
keep this going!
want want want i heart talcott!
Of all the pretentious, wanksy, radicool queer, gender theorist, politically advanced, post modernist words I think I hate ‘identify’ the most.
Generally, because its used as a psuedo intellectual bit of jargon which is designed to exclude people outside of particular scenes…
oh my god. I’ve never thought about this before. it’s so true. holy fuck.
This paper studies the use of alcohol between different American genders such as Hispanic and Cuban.
