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This is amazing. I guess now I get to muse over the concept of assimilationism. 
https://twitter.com/CritFacts/status/1252458322453843970
https://twitter.com/CritFacts/status/1252458322453843970
Okay, so I'm a lot better at thinking via type than in my mind, and I'm gonna just explore this idea for a moment. I think it's important.
Because this thing called me out on some very deep points, and it dovetails with a conversation I was having with someone earlier.
Because this thing called me out on some very deep points, and it dovetails with a conversation I was having with someone earlier.
This person asked me how I see myself, split from everything else. I couldn't answer the question, and I've begun to really notice that I do this thing a lot where I dodge questions whose answers I'm afraid to admit to myself by dropping into defensive relativity.
So they asked me if I see myself as a woman, just me, personally, and that derailed the whole conversation for me, because to simply answer it yes or no would require me to pick a side in my own mind, and that, frankly, terrifies me.
Even now, I can't answer it.
Even now, I can't answer it.
And that's kind of odd, if I really look at it. After all, I've been on hormones for 2.5 years, I'm post orchi, and I literally moved across the country in the hope that I'd be able to access transition stuff I'm afraid to ask for help for.
So why?
So why?
And there's only one answer that arises when I ask it:
1) Because if I were say what I feel, what I always felt, then the world will know me for what I truly am: delusional. And everything else horrible they didn't realize they were telling me since I was young.
1) Because if I were say what I feel, what I always felt, then the world will know me for what I truly am: delusional. And everything else horrible they didn't realize they were telling me since I was young.
That's it. That's the barrier.
It's a defense mechanism from years of abuse that makes me feel that my experience of the world is invalid unless the rest of the world is telling me i'm okay. That my experience is less valid than anyone else's.
It's a defense mechanism from years of abuse that makes me feel that my experience of the world is invalid unless the rest of the world is telling me i'm okay. That my experience is less valid than anyone else's.
As a lot of people know, I was raised in an actual cult until I was 14. There were about 150 people on the planet that we were sure hadn't been infected by demons. We were taught to see ourselves as more or less that last bastion of righteousness on the planet.
I was raised in this, with a sense of hell so real that some days the floor felt thin, as if at any moment the doors would open and I'd be swallowed whole into everlasting, ultimate torture.
It infected my nightmares. My every waking moment. Compared to it, life seemed good.
It infected my nightmares. My every waking moment. Compared to it, life seemed good.
But life at the time was not good. It was crammed with daily abuse and tyrannical control measures. At thirteen I was required to ask to use the bathroom and more often than not, I was timed. If my father couldn't figure out work for me, he'd leave me in the corner.
Sometimes he'd come up from behind and whack me because I wasn't standing like a man, which meant standing equally on both feet with them apart, because otherwise it made my hip stick out.
My father, who was the second most important person in the cult, the one people went to for advice, told me continually that I was "the worst child in the church."
It was a fact, as he saw it, because no amount of "discipline" could make me conform. But I tried.
It was a fact, as he saw it, because no amount of "discipline" could make me conform. But I tried.
I really, REALLY tried. I'd spend hours trying to understand his emotions, his mind, his motivations. Anything to keep myself from being kicked across the yard again, or waiting hours on his bed for him to come home and take off his belt.
Assimilation was the only safety.
Assimilation was the only safety.
More than anything in the world, I wanted to be *safe*. To feel safe, and loved.
And to me, being different has always meant the opposite. It's not that I didn't know what I was, it's that if I ever admitted it, the floor would open up.
Or, recently: the TERFs would descend.
And to me, being different has always meant the opposite. It's not that I didn't know what I was, it's that if I ever admitted it, the floor would open up.
Or, recently: the TERFs would descend.
And honestly, with my kind of life, my fear of the TERFs was a whole lot greater than fear of not fitting in with my peers. My peers never liked me much anyway, but at least they didn't abuse me at anywhere near the same level.
Working through this, I'm realizing something
Working through this, I'm realizing something
People like to accuse me of having internalized transphobia. Maybe I did, but that's over now. What I have internalized cisphobia to a very large extent, and I'm not certain how to break through that. To just tell them all "Fuck your eyes. I am what I am."
Because honestly there's never been a time that I can recall that i wasn't trying to convince myself I was okay with my body or interests. Trying to find a way around the fact that the truth of me is that I'm not rational at all, that I'm mystic, emotional, feminine.
But i do see myself as a woman. Before that, I saw myself as a girl. I was terrified for the longest time that I'd be found out. I lied about my favorite colors, about why I liked things, and compromised on my taste. I just survived. Day after day, year after year.
I just lived through it each day because there was nothing I could do, step after step, it was a choice between endless internal pain, constantly double-checking my every movement to keep passing as straight; and my fear of having everyone that loved me reject me forever.
But I'm not alone in that.
That's basically all of us, isn't it? And none of this shit has any bearing on rationality because the rational world isn't there to explain us. It's their rational, not ours. It's their experience, not ours.
That's basically all of us, isn't it? And none of this shit has any bearing on rationality because the rational world isn't there to explain us. It's their rational, not ours. It's their experience, not ours.
Their inability to conceptualize our experiences doesn't make our experiences less valid.
Their mocking tone doesn't make their words true.
What it makes us, I think, is a mirror.
Their mocking tone doesn't make their words true.
What it makes us, I think, is a mirror.
We don't need their understanding. We don't need to assimilate. We can take pride in who and what we are, embrace the mirror of what we are and let their own prejudices bounce off of them.
They don't see us, but what they do see shows us who they are.
They don't see us, but what they do see shows us who they are.
So anyway I'm not going to end up being all aggro about it because that's just not me. But I am going to give this more thought, and moving forward, try to extricate my perspective further from how fucking scared I am of the world.
By the way, I'm not trying to sob story. I'm not trying to get sympathy. I don't need hugs or anything. This shit is decades ago and I'm just trying to understand the roots of my thinking patterns for analysis.
Will probably delete most of this later because I'm worried its too much.
