153
I'm a woman (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by tanisnikana@lemmy.world to c/mtf

Despite how a lady at the bookstore “struggled with” my pronouns and bounced off “he” several times before settling on “they” cause apparently she couldn’t bring herself to say “she.”

Shit’s hard out there.

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[-] DrivebyHaiku@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Now extrapolating from our conversation I will make a few leaps. It seems to be that in many ways medical transition for you was revelatory. It makes sense you want to evangelize it. I imagine though it is also something that you've had to self advocate a lot for to pursue - which can be traumatic. Defending your choices to friends, family members and medical professionals to the bar demanded is stressful and there is strain that can impact you long term.

However that fight can twist you out of true. When you see someone who isn't conforming to that model that you had to advocate so hard for maybe it's a little threatening? Maybe to you it has to be unhealthy to do what I am doing because that strain of self advocacy has boxed you into a position where everything you've done doesn't seem valid if it wasn't nessisary. So when I come along with a different situation where I am existing alright without the things you've had to defend as nessisary for your continued success it comes across as a challenge to that hypothesis. Hence why you keep probing for fault with my situation

Maybe you aren't looking at my situation as simply a thing I am doing, you are looking at it as an arguement against the validity of what you are doing

Thing is - and I say this with emphasis - none of the choices I have personally made or the reasons behind them have anything to do with yours. My situation being stable and reasonably healthy doesn't invalidate any of your choices. If you believe what you did is nessisary - it was. It doesn't have to be universally nessisary.

Better yet : who said your transition needs to be necessary to be worthwhile? I certainly didn't. If it was just what you wanted with all your heart - that's enough. You should be able.

There's also this valorizing of my endurance I am picking up on which I think may have been from my statement about how one handles different types of pain. I think you may have taken it as some type of "I'm a fucking bad ass and can endure" sort of sentiment...but that's really not it. What was intended was this -enduring something is handled differently when you are adequately rewarded for your trouble. Yes my experience sucks but I have but when that happens I have adequate reasons to remind myself why exactly why I am doing this. Would I endure this if I were not nigh constantly rewarded for my efforts? No... It's not bravery or self perceived strength that I should hold out because I can or some kind of deep seated transphobia. I don't believe that sacrificing for love is some noble thing. It's literally just the offsets have been simply judged worth the cost. The Mennonite woman is doing what she does out of an assertion that she is stronger and more moral than other people who have made different choices. That's, pardon the language, self aggrandizing bull shit.

The reaction some have trying to convince me of what I am doing as being wrong in some way is something I encounter specifically with binary trans folk who have been through the ringer or who are insecure to the point where I am pretty sure what they are doing is a trauma response. However just because it's a potential trauma response doesn't mean it is cool. Think of it this way - In trying to stess test my transition choices by finding fault this way binary trans people are doing what cis people did to them just in reverse - The requesting or coercing of trans people to defend their transition choices. Enbies are sometimes looked at as the weak flank of the arguements that trans people make to society for the right to accommodation. These forms of Enbyphobia aren't often discussed because it's acknowledged that these issues come from pressure from outside the community. A united front pushing things as a nessesity is what gets traction with cis people. Edge cases, nuanced situations and people who do not neatly fit into that narrative sometimes become targets because we are inconvenient so we get hit on multiple flanks having to justify our choices to binary trans people and cis people. It's that shared experience more than anything that keeps me solidly identifying as non-binary rather than binary trans. It's also a personal declaration that I need not conform to anybody else's views of masculinity and acknowledging/accepting rather than rejecting this space I occupy as a possible end goal.

this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
153 points (100.0% liked)

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