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I'm having this massive *duh* moment right now.
When I first started becoming popular with the GC crowd, a lot of trans people tried to sway me away from it. They called me bootlicker, quisling, TERF, truscum, and more. Some of the more compassionate ones tried to warn me.
When I first started becoming popular with the GC crowd, a lot of trans people tried to sway me away from it. They called me bootlicker, quisling, TERF, truscum, and more. Some of the more compassionate ones tried to warn me.
"They'll turn on you eventually", they said. I didn't think so. At the time, I was still wet behind the ears and confident that I could good faith my way into solving the problems. I didn't see prejudice, I saw legitimate concerns and people frustrated by their inability to speak
I realized that they needed a voice, someone who could stand up and speak The Truth, and on whom the accusations of transphobia would sound utterly absurd.
After all, I am trans.
After all, I was defending Reality.
But looking back, it turns out I was joining a cult.
After all, I am trans.
After all, I was defending Reality.
But looking back, it turns out I was joining a cult.
It's suddenly clear to me that I was, in fact, bootlicking. I just couldn't see it because it wasn't GC boots I found so tasty.
It was an entire lifetime of internalized homophobia and transphobia. I was driven to justify my existence to facsimiles of my family.
It was an entire lifetime of internalized homophobia and transphobia. I was driven to justify my existence to facsimiles of my family.
It wasn't just that, though. It's not as if I didn't, and don't, genuinely care about women's rights. In fact I cared very much and still do. But there are many perspectives on women's rights, and I chose to defend the one that most closely mimicked the values of The Cult.
It was, on some level, a subconscious attempt at putting myself through another unorthodox round of conversion therapy. I wanted to agree with their views on trans people, because if I could then it might be possible to redefine myself by them. I wanted to fix my transness.
Earlier, reading a long, cathartically ranty blog post linked by @surfacingwater, I began to realize a rather pesky truth I've been trying to hide beneath an attractive labyrinth of nuance:
I have never truly accepted that I'm LGBT.
I have never truly accepted that I'm LGBT.
Alongside my love affair with GC ideas, I was also busy exploring Blanchardism. If GC ideology represented my mother's perspective (I was a small child when she became the first to tell me, bitterly, that trans women were mutilated men), then Blanchardism represented my father.
It was cold observation, and required unflinching reflection. It was a new echo of so many moments in which my father grabbed my jaw and forced me to look him in the eye, admit I wasn't telling him the truth, and open my soul to him or else Hell.
GC ideology wanted me to believe that trans women are all just mutilated men, and fuck our pain, our effort. Especially if you're one of those fetishists
Blanchard was kinder but no less firm: it's cool you are who you are, he said. Just admit that you're a perverted fetishist.
Blanchard was kinder but no less firm: it's cool you are who you are, he said. Just admit that you're a perverted fetishist.
It's easy to see why this eventually created a mental health crisis.
But while I was in it, being torn three ways, it made it possible for me to entertain the notion that I was actually Cis. It let me gaslight myself into believing I could actually be a straight man.
But while I was in it, being torn three ways, it made it possible for me to entertain the notion that I was actually Cis. It let me gaslight myself into believing I could actually be a straight man.
But I was never a straight man. I was always a queer. In high school, people identified me as a "faggot" and it didn't matter how much I protested. They bullied me just the same.
And I knew on some level they were right. I knew I was different. I knew it showed.
And I knew on some level they were right. I knew I was different. I knew it showed.
So I worked to fix it. I spent years learning unnatural body language. I learned to pass for straight, most of the time, anyway.
"Why do you look like you're posing all the time?" People would ask. "I'm not!!!" I would snap, while double-checking that I wasn't sitting wrong.
"Why do you look like you're posing all the time?" People would ask. "I'm not!!!" I would snap, while double-checking that I wasn't sitting wrong.
I've tried to hash this out a thousand times, invalidate it over and over but the truth is that I'm a really feminine human. I was a feminine kid, a really, really scared one.
I wanted to be anything other than who and what I was.
I wanted to be anything other than who and what I was.
But reading that long post was like a reflection of everything I spent my entire life trying to avoid. I wanted to be liked, because if people like you they don't abuse you, and in my world abuse was the default.
So much so I couldn't understand why trans people fought back.
So much so I couldn't understand why trans people fought back.
It was, and has always been, a desperate attempt to generate an illusion of control.
But we can't control it. And I can't stop existing as myself any more than anyone else can. I *am* everything I was ever afraid I'd be: Trans, Homosexual, Fetishist, Irrational.
But we can't control it. And I can't stop existing as myself any more than anyone else can. I *am* everything I was ever afraid I'd be: Trans, Homosexual, Fetishist, Irrational.
And I finally just realized that I don't need to justify my fucking existence.
I don't need to tell you the contents of my soul, father. They're mine. I can keep them, I can love them, and if society hates me for them that's on them.
It's not me, society, it's you.
I don't need to tell you the contents of my soul, father. They're mine. I can keep them, I can love them, and if society hates me for them that's on them.
It's not me, society, it's you.
And with this I finally understand what I should have figured out long ago:
Justification isn't possible.
We have a right to exist. We have a right to exist exactly as we are, without needing to justify it, without needing to prove our value.
Justification isn't possible.
We have a right to exist. We have a right to exist exactly as we are, without needing to justify it, without needing to prove our value.
And all these people bitching about "biology" can fuck right the fuck off, because this *is* my biology and it's not a joke.
Most importantly, our suffering isn't about you. That's the whole GC problem: they're actually narcissistic enough to believe we're about them.
Most importantly, our suffering isn't about you. That's the whole GC problem: they're actually narcissistic enough to believe we're about them.
As for Blanchard, maybe he's right, maybe he's not. Maybe he's sometimes right, maybe not. Maybe he was then and isn't now. I don't know.
The truth is I don't care. I don't see how on earth it matters. What matters is how we treat people. What matters is how we treat ourselves.
The truth is I don't care. I don't see how on earth it matters. What matters is how we treat people. What matters is how we treat ourselves.
And no one is going to give us a space. We spend our childhoods rejected by boys and kicked across the yard by men loudly wondering why we don't hurry up and stand.
Then these supposed women's rights groups accuse us of trying to infiltrate as if they're the center of our world.
Then these supposed women's rights groups accuse us of trying to infiltrate as if they're the center of our world.
And god forbid anyone come out as an enby: all of society will join in on the mockery.
Sections of society shuffle us around endlessly like hotels that have only just happened to fill up, sorry. Try the next one, they'll take you.
Sections of society shuffle us around endlessly like hotels that have only just happened to fill up, sorry. Try the next one, they'll take you.
So we have to fight for rights. We have to. Because being nice won't work. Being nice just means you get to be privy to 1001 conversations about how horrible people like you are. Every word indirectly slicing your self-esteem to ribbons. But at least they aren't calling you a man
The fight isn't about what we always were. It's about creating a new way to look at the world that includes us as normal. It's about preventing further abuse. It's about solving the problem for future generations.
That's what rights activism is about.
That's why it matters.
That's what rights activism is about.
That's why it matters.
And to all the actual TERFs out there bitching about how "the mask has fallen" and how I'm "showing my true colors":
It's cause for celebration, no?
It's cause for celebration, no?
