Existing While Invalidated

even our own neighborhood can feel scary when transphobia is everywhere

I am not resilient.

This is just a fact. Some may think I am because I talk about the hard things about being a trans woman often and because in tandem with those hard things I am still alive. But being alive and experiencing hard things does not equate to resilience.

Julie Lalonde has an entire book on the idea of resilience so you can read her far more eloquent words on this idea for a greater understanding of how the application of resilience to survival is just kind of not a great idea. But for me, even singular, individually targeted transphobic interactions can leave me reeling. It does not take pile-ons, it does not take large groups of people taunting me.

It is tough to describe because as a trans person, it is impossible to ignore what might be called baseline transphobia on any day. If you spend time on social media for any period of time (I do for my job) you are going to see it on some level. If you interact with people you aren’t intimately familiar with on a daily basis, you are likely to experience microaggressions every day. You are starting each day with the baseline of SOME transphobia.

So when people, be they kids, grownups, strangers, people in my neighborhood, doctors, security people, anyone, offers up a particularly specific and targeted round of transphobia at me (in person feels way more unsafe and scary), I am not resilient. I do not fight back. I go inside of myself and stay there. And it takes quite a while to come out of there. It impacts relationships, it impacts parenting, it impacts how I work.

I refuse to make passing be my goal as a human. I don’t want my experience as a trans person to be dictated by how quickly I can make others believe I am not a trans person. I want decisions around my transition to be made because they are best for me, not because others will be more comfortable around me.

I will not lie though, the more these incidents happen, the harder it is to not want to blend into safety. When it is kids or teenagers who yell at you, it is even harder to imagine a future where people might be ok with giving me space to just exist.

It's just kind of shitty. There's nothing here I ask anyone to do other than to be aware. Maybe if you're raising kids, be sure you're raising them to understand the importance of letting other people explore their individuality in safety. I actually love kids having the confidence of yelling at adults, I think it’s incredibly powerful to not feel the need to give in to everything an adult says. But still, these moments of transphobia are hard.

Thank you to everyone who is mindful of their language in all spaces and who continue to learn when they are told something they have said has hurt someone. I know I have hurt people with my language and I hope I can continue to grow.