White cis male here. Some realtalk: Outside of your job and what I hope to be your general sense of decency and honesty and fairness to fellow human beings, you give me no extra benefit whatsoever. And yet here you are with a list of narrowly tailored instructions: how we should speak to trans people, how we should conduct ourselves and police each other, what sort of art and music we should support with our money and time… all in the name of allowing people like you to break a long established, biologically-driven cultural norm with absolute openness, freedom and comfort.
I believe you are entitled to live your life the way you see fit and to be happy and I will defend your right to do so to a great extent. But when you attain a brashness, a sense of entitlement, a lack of gratefulness, and you start pettily correcting millions of cis people who are risking relationships with family, friends, spouses, and even their personal safety, all to fight for you the best way they know how, all without you even bothering to thank them, you cross a line.
In older eras you would have no voice or platform whatsoever, and you do not understand this properly at all. You and millions of other people do not understand that we aren’t obligated to use our so-called privilege in any way that benefits you whatsoever, and it is only our cis white male sense of fairness and justice that gives you the freedom to talk level with us and apparently down to us. Go to Japan or Africa or Russia and say what you are saying in public. It is genuinely only the weakness and meekness of modern white cis men that brings your voice to the American narrative at all.
Older generations of white immigrants did not cater to this narrative because either they personally knew what it was like or damn well taught their children what it had been like. Younger generations of white Americans will not cater to this narrative because of articles just like this.
It is foolish and somewhat oblivious to think that, were the tables reversed, we would get the same platform in return from you or anyone. This was understood even a decade ago by the trans community, feminists, and all other minority groups. The younger generation has taken a giant leap of faith and are suspended in midair as we speak.
I personally do not think it is fair or good for a trans veteran out there fighting for us and protecting us to up and lose a job out of nowhere simply for being trans. But that threat does not harm me specifically at all. It harms you specifically. And when you start to assume folks like me will help you for nothing in return, and then you imply you are not satisfied with the type of help you are receiving… you give people very little incentive to attempt.
The takeaway is I would never say this bullshit to anyone who’d stuck their neck out for me. It’s spoiled behavior point blank.
