I often feel guilty when hard things happen to me, as if I should somehow be *good enough* to be happy or healthy, but as a trans woman, the dominant message that I get from people around me and in society is that I am *bad* and deserve to suffer/be punished

talking to other trans women helps me realize that my experiences are a collective one: that other trans women face the same kinds of violence, hardships, and barriers that I do, regardless of their "goodness"

because I talk publicly about my encounters with transphobia and I often indicate when I'm struggling, I think it's easy to write off my experiences as a personal failing or "performing victimhood" because most folks underestimate the degree of prejudice that trans woman face

of course, there are "happy" and "healthy" trans women but usually they have supportive partners, secure jobs, independent wealth, or an accepting family: they also often don't do public advocacy work and tend to keep their lives small and centered around spaces that are safe

the weird part about my life and work is that I'm often required to enter unsafe spaces, take risks in public, and travel/leave my home frequently, all of which often puts me in greater danger of violence

because I don't have family or a partner, I also have to go on dates, make new friends, rely on strangers for help, etc which all increase degrees of risk and exposure to the potential for violence

my point with all of this is that we often treat transphobia and transmisogyny as flat/static forces of social oppression that are the same everywhere and across different contexts but the reality is that your postion in life often changes these forces in complex ways

yes, we talk about varied impacts of transphobia and transmisogyny along points of identity, but we rarely talk about family and relationship status, class, and social spaces as equally constructive forces

the question of who is a good trans woman and who is a bad trans woman is a constructed one, not just by transphobia and transmisogyny, but by the relational and social spaces that we live inside.

more clearly, who has the privilege to be "good" and who must be "bad" in order to survive?

goodness, for trans women, being constructed as being inspirational, uplifting, positive, educational, polite, self sacrificing, and passive, and badness, for trans women, being constructed as being negative, depressing, angry, hurt, not productive, disruptive, aggressive.

I think about this question all the time because I have to constantly self monitor in every interpersonal and public interaction to make sure that I stay enough on the "good" side to avoid death/violence (public shaming, loss of relation, etc)