I Don’t Have to Play Nice with Your Transphobic Essay
Don’t tell trans women to smile
To quote Malcolm X :
People involved in a revolution don’t become part of the system; they destroy the system…
After Dave Chappell and Ricky Gervais found an audience with their transphobic jokes, punching down on trans women became the latest fad. The concern trolls are coming out of the woodwork. Want to boost your bottom line on Medium? Are you interested in adding to your followers? Write an article linking to anti-trans rhetoric. Just google “the threat to women from trans women” and carefully select the websites that fit your narrative.
Everyone is welcome to step out of their lane and judge the lives of trans women. You don’t have to know anything about trans women or their lives. You don’t have to know anything or care to know anything about women’s rights or women’s lives. You don’t have to be lesbian or gay. All that is required is a pearl-clutching fear of the existence of transgender women. After all, every trans woman is a potential predator because of… genetics.
And the irony of this attack on trans women’s lives is that it takes no courage to do this. It is a genuinely cowardly act. Joining the crowd that wants to propagate fear is so easy. Embracing accusations of wrongdoing and hate is easy. These “concerns” come primarily from men who safely sit in the patriarchy and cast judgment on me and my community.
For trans women, defending yourself and your community against nameless, faceless, anonymous trolls is much more difficult. This is my real name and picture on these pages; this is my life I am defending. Don’t call your links to phobic websites and Twitter feeds “facts” and please do not tell me you want to foster a healthy debate.
Go ahead: Ignore the hundreds of women swimmers who support Lia Thomas. And only listen to the three intolerant women swimmers who protested against her. Before she transitioned, To quote her Wikipedia entry: “Thomas recorded the top university men’s team times in the 500 free, 1000 free, and 1650 free.” Her record is here. She fell to 65th rank because of hormones. Let’s not deny the overall record.
Go ahead: “prove” your case that trans women have overreached by pointing to the existence of the LGB alliance and not listening to all the folks that have said, “No LGB without the T.” Non- LGBT folks staff the alliance. All of us: LGB and T fight against expected gender roles.
Go ahead: Claim that transgender women are forcing lesbians to have sex with them and ignore the responses and truth behind this claim.
Go ahead: Claim transgender women are making women unsafe in bathrooms and changing rooms. Hundreds of trans women use these facilities safely every day. The only incident that can be cited is the Wi spa in Los Angeles, the perpetrator, Darren Merager, is a known sex offender and up until the incident, identified as male. The current legal protections do not stop sex offenders from exposing themselves to girls and boys.
Go ahead: Claim that trans women are a threat to the women in prison when the reality of being trans in prison is much more complex and sad for the trans prisoners than any other portion of the prison population.
We are not groomers. I believe the state has no right to legislate morality, or parental responsibility. It is up to a parent and healthcare professional to determine what is best for any minor who questions their gender identity.
And the beauty of all this hate slung at trans women: if I respond, I am told that I am an angry unhinged bitch. It’s the internet version of telling a woman to “Smile.” How dare I defend myself and my community? How dare I speak up? I should be flattered that I am treated like any other woman who challenges what a man says.
When I speak up, I am accused of being part of the woke mob of angry transgender activists who are “silencing” those claiming to speak the truth to power.
This is a revolution. A gender revolution.
Who is resisting change here? Transgender women or the male patriarchy that is frightened by those of us willing to challenge the system? I ask you: Who is holding on to the system? And who is destroying the system? Who wants to keep their hands on the reins? Who is pretty damned happy with the way things are?
Let’s get real for a second: Transgender women are vastly outnumbered in power, voice, and resources by those who want to silence us. We certainly are not in power by any means. We are .6% of the population. If we were in charge, the whole gatekeeping, financially draining, resource exhausting process we have to go to convince the medical establishment we are who say we are would have been abolished a long time ago.
Why should I respond nicely to your transphobia? I am tired of being punched down. Why do I have to justify my existence to every troll on the Internet? What do I win by “playing nice?” In the end, your followers and those who clap for you want to feel good about their transphobia. They want to think that their hate is justified. Anything I say to counteract your narrative is dismissed. You are presenting a one-sided narrative that tells a story. You want to sell clicks and make money. I get it.
This narrative that these essays present as the “truth” of transgender women’s lives is far from the actual truth of most of my life and the lives of my transgender sisters. I live a peaceful, quiet, rather timid life. I have friends and family that care about me. I have a great lesbian friend; that I would never ask to have sex with me. I have coworkers who know that I am a woman. I have more than a handful of women friends who are both cis and trans. We share our hopes and dreams, laugh and cry together, like…ordinary women.
I use the women’s restroom at work and in public spaces. I am cautious about it; I know it’s a privilege. It is easy to attack me for being there. In the end, we live very mundane lives. I live joyously. In person, I strive to be that joyous, kind, and sweet representative of the trans community.
Here’s the truth of these academic exercises that express concern about trans women: Ultimately it does not make women any safer. At the same time, it does make trans women less safe. When you demonize trans women, you remove their humanity and they experience all the prejudice that accompanies such dehumanization.
In the end, for me, the trolls have won. I have stopped using my Twitter feed. I rarely interact on Facebook. I was hoping Medium would be the thoughtful refuge from the hate squads and the concern-trolling. Last year I would have worried so much about these people and what they think of me as a representative of the trans community. Now, I am tired of it. How often do I have to beg that my humanity be recognized? Having to plead to be treated like a person is bullshit.
You can say “welcome to being a woman” haha. If this truly is what women go through, then we have a serious problem that demands a revolution.
I am definitely relating a lot more to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King these days, if you get my analogy.
In the end, being thoughtful gets you nowhere; being conciliatory doesn’t work — the heck with them. I am not going to smile. I am not going to pretend that you are playing nice, while you bash me over the head.
