Trans People Are Not A Circus Act

BFoundAPen
Sep 6, 2018 · 4 min read

“Ladies (and men that like men). You just got back from the club with a fine Latino date. He is telling you everything you want to hear. He is the perfect gentleman and tonight you want to let him hit. He gets naked and you see this. Wyd and why?” — A transphobic twitter post of a stolen transman’s nude

Note: I took the N–word out of the quote and used ‘men’ as a substitute.

I’m mindlessly scrolling through Twitter when my heart drops to the floor of my stomach.

My eyes lock onto a seemingly confident transman that has taken a nude photo of himself. I read through the hypothetical scenario as a knot forms in my stomach. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Later I find out that this young man is Chella Man, a 19 year old deaf, gender-queer artist.

The girl that posted the tweet stole his picture off of his own Twitter without his permission. She not only re–posted it, but added it to her own transphobic thoughts. Then she encouraged others to join in on her transphobic discussion. She labeled Chella as Latino when he is actually Asian American.

To my surprise, countless individuals jumped to this Chella’s defense. A little bubble of warmth exploded in my chest after reading a handful of comments calling her out for her transphobia.

Transgender individuals are not objects to be sexualized and shown off for your personal entertainment.

Chella is human just like you and me. If he ever sees that post, it might hurt his feelings. It might discourage him from ever posting a picture of himself again. It might conjure a horrible bout of dysphoria. It could bring a cloud of depression over him. As transgender individuals fight tooth and nail to be comfortable in our own bodies, something as humiliating as this could destroy months or even years of our progress. I felt a hurtful pang of embarrassment myself. Anger seeped under my skin. How dare someone feel like it’s okay to do something like that to someone? How dare she use his own body against him and then invite a crowd of people to join her?

Cyber bullying has no age limit.

While this transman might never see what she posted, other transgender individuals will. I did. It already has tons of comments. Kids and teenagers can be victims of cyber bullying while in school. LGBTQ individuals can be the victims of cyber bullying on various social media platforms, from hateful comments to full blown posts targeting specific individuals or a group of people.

Transgender individuals have to wake up every day knowing they were born in the wrong body. We look in the mirror and sometimes wish we hadn’t. We put on painful things like binders or tucking underwear just to feel more like ourselves. We agonize over how others might perceive us. We have to fight to get therapists and doctors to understand how we feel and agree to help us on our journey to live as our true selves. We have to find the patience to live with the slow results of hormone replacement therapy. Some changes take years to surface. Transgender individuals fight every day of their lives.

The level of ignorance in this post baffles me. What if the tables were turned and someone snatched a nude photo of her and built a shallow, hypothetical question about her around it and then invited others to carry a discussion? Would she still think it was okay?

What about you?

Take a moment and put yourself in this young man’s position. Imagine how you would feel if someone you didn’t know grabbed a revealing picture of you and posted it on the internet under a hypothetical question. All of a sudden there are all kinds of people giving opinions on you and your body. They’re talking about what they would do to you — to your body.

Does it make you uncomfortable knowing you have no control over this post of you? You can report it, ask others to report it, and even ask the person that posted it to take it down. However, that may or may not be successful. Also, once something is posted on the internet, there is no way to “completely” take it down. Screenshots that can be taken and pictures can be saved on cloud accounts.

Unfortunately, this post is one of many.

I’m honestly baffled. I’m confused and frustrated, and I know I’m not the only person that feels this way. We don’t ask for much. We ask to be treated equally and be able to live and love in peace. We ask to be able to live in our truth without being outcast or persecuted.
When does it end?

Screenshot of the actual tweet

(I won’t show the whole nude photo)

Screenshots of some comments


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Brian — The Man Behind The Pen

Recently, a man used my name as if it were a weapon. I am who I am, and this is my journey.

BFoundAPen

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"My pen isn't afraid to speak the truth" - Marsha Ambrosius | Wanna buy me a coffee? https://ko-fi.com/bfoundapen

Brian — The Man Behind The Pen

Recently, a man used my name as if it were a weapon. I am who I am, and this is my journey.

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