One of the things I dislike in trans fem discourse that thankfully doesn't come up frequently these days are trans fems who passed as cis rather successfully trying to explain the pre-transition experiences trans women go through while not even being aware of what life was like

for so many of us. I don't think most trans women or trans fems lived a pre-transition life in which we were seen as cishet boys or men and never suffered any kind of misogyny, transmisogyny, or homophobia. Nor did all of us live a pre-transition life in which we thought we were

cis boys or men, instead feeling like we had to pretend and be miserable and even those of us who never even knew how to pretend in the first place. I don't know how to explain that my life measurably improved on every axis after I transitioned. Sexual harassment and sexism in

general totally happened to me but the thing is they didn't *start* because I transitioned. They *started* when I was in the first or second grade because everyone could see I wasn't a cishet boy. I had to plan and vary my route to and from school every day well into high school

because if I was too predictable or guessed wrong I would get harassed or assaulted. Unfortunately there's all too much discourse that says experiences like mine simply don't happen.

On one occasion I recall, another trans woman decided to explain to me at length what my childhood was really like, and her version of it had nothing to do with what I survived. And this thread is not about anything recent, thankfully. I was just forcefully reminded because

someone linked a thing from a few years ago from someone who seemingly never encountered any kind of gender-based violence prior to transition and universalized that to all trans women, and that stirred some feelings up.