I am not One of the Good Trans.
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I am not One of the Good Trans. I have always said this.
What I mean is: I reject the framing that picks and chooses "acceptable" #trans people, and rejects and invalidates others.
1/@Tattie I remember the TS/TV divide of the eighties/nineties. I was one of the "good ones". It was all illegal so the two circles did overlap a bit for safety. On the TS side we had to meet very invasive criteria and we certainly had to avoid giving off a TV vibe. Sexuality had to be completely repressed. Full SRS was a legal requirement. The process took me away from any sense of authenticity and probably put another scoop of trauma in my head.
The TS/TV archetypes did so much damage. I am sorry you were misdirected onto such a long and painful journey.
I agree that people's private explorations shouldn't be used to attack anyone, even if they happen to be married to a reprehensible MAGA.
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And there are closeted trans people out there in conservative-fascist circles, who are pretty much indistinguishable in everyday life from the worst sort of misogynist cis white dudes— just like I once made myself indistinguishable from a shy geeky bearded dude. (And acted as one.)
And they for sure are so definitely Not One of the Good Trans that they make me look like One of the Good Trans.
And yet we are all trans.
Fin/@Tattie *ponders*
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Similarly, trans Reddit thinks that trans people are some way, and trans Bluesky thinks that trans people are some way, and trans Fedi thinks that trans people are some way, but these are illusions.
I tell you, there are trans people out there who have never hugged a Blåhaj and don't even like trains.
25/@Tattie TBF i had no idea about the blåhaj thing until i joined mastodon, but have had at least SOME idea i was trans since like 1998.
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Similarly, trans Reddit thinks that trans people are some way, and trans Bluesky thinks that trans people are some way, and trans Fedi thinks that trans people are some way, but these are illusions.
I tell you, there are trans people out there who have never hugged a Blåhaj and don't even like trains.
25/ -
@Tattie TBF i had no idea about the blåhaj thing until i joined mastodon, but have had at least SOME idea i was trans since like 1998.
@peachfiend a decade before Blåhaj was even produced!
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I am not One of the Good Trans. I have always said this.
What I mean is: I reject the framing that picks and chooses "acceptable" #trans people, and rejects and invalidates others.
1/@Tattie Tattie, what an amazing thread. Some of those parts must have been very personal, thanks for sharing!
Another example of a trans person existing in a conservative space: me as a child. It was years after leaving my conservative church and becoming ever more leftist and progressive before I even found out trans people existed and (gasp) I was one!
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@faithisleaping @Tattie HOW CAN THEY NOT LIKE TRAINS?????
@introvertcatto @faithisleaping @Tattie It just comes naturally to some of us. I'm even autistic, just to rub salt into the wound
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The truth is that N, and of course Caitlyn Jenner, are the tip of the iceberg of objectionable trans people. Because, as I said, social change is not evenly distributed, there are a fuckload of closeted conservative trans people out there.
If we somehow ended transphobia tomorrow, we would find that the community of trans individuals have overnight become substantially more racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, classist, fatphobic, etc etc etc
21/@Tattie As I periodically sum it up offline: a key part of "understanding" trans people is understanding the part where we're people.
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@Tattie Tattie, what an amazing thread. Some of those parts must have been very personal, thanks for sharing!
Another example of a trans person existing in a conservative space: me as a child. It was years after leaving my conservative church and becoming ever more leftist and progressive before I even found out trans people existed and (gasp) I was one!
@Tattie Had you asked me as a child/young adult"would you rather be a girl/woman" I probably wouldn't have dared to say yes, but it never popped into my head because it just didn't register as a possibility. Basically everything after LG in LGBT+ was a cultural blind spot. And yet looking back I now do recognize some of my bad feelings back then were gender dysphoria. But at the time I either felt shame or I brushed it aside as normal. It just never came to that conscious "I am a girl" thought.
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Similarly, trans Reddit thinks that trans people are some way, and trans Bluesky thinks that trans people are some way, and trans Fedi thinks that trans people are some way, but these are illusions.
I tell you, there are trans people out there who have never hugged a Blåhaj and don't even like trains.
25/@Tattie
This last made me laugh, and you've made me think. Thank you. -
@ada I hear you.
I love my trans self now, and I wouldn't choose to be different. But only because that would feel like undoing myself. Replacing myself.
But before I knew what I was? I wouldn't have volunteered to be trans. I would've chosen an easy(er) life.
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We are all shamed into staying within narrow confines of what is socially acceptable for our assigned gender. We narrow our possibilities, split ourselves into the part that we can be and the part that is forbidden. And then we create an inner gatekeeper whose job it is to keep us from the forbidden parts of ourselves. To police us before society can even catch us out.
And if you're that sort of person, you then project this inner judgment externally. Onto, perhaps, your children. Or your classmates. Or the people who work for you. Or sex workers. Or your wife.
14/@Tattie Ironically (if that's the right word), my conception of ideal femininity has always been firmly rooted in the idea of rebelling against conventional social expectations of femininity -- and my attraction to it was never about clothing, because I liked it better when girls wore neutral-to-masc clothing. That's what I found attractive and what I secretly wished I looked like.
(FWIW: the obstacle for me was that I had been taught that gender was entirely socialized, therefore the idea of wanting to be a different gender was a logical contradiction and also probably indicative of secretly being a rapist or something.)
(And anecdata, in case it's useful: I never went through a Nazi phase; was always a feminist. I never even went through the more common phase of trying extra-hard to perform masculinity -- I always hated it, knew I hated it, and saw nothing wrong with that.)
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@Tattie Blasphemy! All hail Blåhaj!
@faithisleaping @Tattie Reason I have imposter syndrome number #507: I've never even seen a Blåhaj in real life. I don't even know how to say it!
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I am not One of the Good Trans. I have always said this.
What I mean is: I reject the framing that picks and chooses "acceptable" #trans people, and rejects and invalidates others.
1/@Tattie get eviller
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Being transgender is two things. On one hand it's a social construct, a shared terminology and set of narratives. And on the other it's an inviolate fact of how we are born.
Why am I so sure of the second? Well, because even in the most progressive community, who would actually choose to be transgender? I know I wouldn't've. I'm proud now to be trans, but it would've been a hell of an easier journey to be cis.
5/@Tattie rare take maybe but i Did choose this life, this way of being, seeing that it was absolutely an option not to, to try to conform or assimilate, and felt rather that it's safer in the front, and that the overton window needed torn a new one, in whatever terms I might've had at the time for similar sentiment
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