Let trans people be beautiful.

Let us be beautiful as who we are, not as an imitation or anomaly of you and your body https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="💜" title="Violettes Herz" aria-label="Emoji: Violettes Herz">

P.S. I actually lost Instagram followers for this. Sorry you all feel so threatened by a trans woman reclaiming her sexuality https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🌸" title="Kirschblüte" aria-label="Emoji: Kirschblüte">

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDb_bbHHCr_/?igshid=e5m05h2rhokb">https://www.instagram.com/p/CDb_bbH...

As a trans person I’m told I can only be desirable by strictly adhering to stereotypical binary expectations of beauty (because androgndy is only desirable when it’s performed as a choice).

…or I can allow myself to be fetishised as sexy for my body being “exotic” and different

Those have been my options.

Assimilate into a tight little heteronormative box, or release control of my sexuality and let my humanity be stripped away

The last few years I‘ve been growing my confidence as I try to find my own beauty and sexuality. On my terms. Through my gaze

I’ve had photos stolen and taken out of context, and felt the anxiety of wanting to fit in with cis women who were born differently to me.

I’m done with that.

I’m proud of being trans, proud of being me.

It’s still a struggle, I’m not going to pretend it’s not, but I insist to myself and the world that I, and all other trans people, are beautiful and desirable and important.

Regardless of how we fit or don’t fit into those two little boxes.

This selfie is an example of me playfully celebrating and finding my own beauty as a queer person, as a woman, and especially as a trans person.

I did it for me. Nobody else. I did my makeup, I chose this pose, and I took the photo.

Not everybody will find me beautiful, obviously I’m not saying they should

But the option to exist as beautiful not despite being trans, and not specifically because of it, but just as a person?

That’s a possibility I want people to consider, for me and for all trans people https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🌈" title="Regenbogen" aria-label="Emoji: Regenbogen">