On coexistence and acceptance...

Incredibly fiery hot take:

We should stop trying to fit into cis society.

Because let's face it...there is not a single thing we will ever do that will be 'good enough.'

Cis society is overwhelmingly white, heterosexual, and anodyne. It's bog standard boring and it is oppressive as fuck. So why aspire to it? Why try to cut off our angles and curves to fit into the pace that we're allowed? Coexist with? Sure. We should coexist, but more importantly, they should coexist with us. They need to make the effort. You do not ask the injured worker to bear a heavy load...

...well, i guess capitalism does ask that.

But we're the margin here. We should expect...no, demand...that they come to us. That they accept us. We shouldn't have to conform, to pass, in order to deserve respect. And yes, I know that comes from a position of privilege. And yes, I am being utopian, because we know how we're seen in this world. But that doesn't mean we should accept it, mould ourselves to it, become it in order to...

In order to...

Listen. i don't want to /survive/.

I want to live.

If we look at the past...

Once upon a time, gay people were accused of being perverts and rapists and child abusers. Now it's us. If we make an effort to look femme or masc, we're appropriating, if we don't we're blokes in dresses or tomboys. If a trans woman dates another woman we're straight because we have penises, if we date a guy we should have just stayed gay, as if gender and orientation are inextricably, sub-atomically bound. If we have surgery we're mutilating ourselves, if we don't we're blokes in dresses. The goalposts are not only movable, they are always moving.

And it's intentional.

They don't want us to succeed. They don't want to accept us as us. They want to deny, state that you can't identify as a gender, accuse us of that.

I don't identify as a woman.

I am one.

So we have a few choices.

1) we can continue to try and...sell out, I guess. try to be inoffensive. try to fit in. Try to keep our heads down. Try to not be too loud. Try to strealth. And I get it, it's safe, and I don't blame the choice.

I think it's bollocks tho. because we fight for our realness...and now we're willing to forego parts of it just to eek out an existence.

And I'm done eeking.

I don't have to be rich...but I have to live.

Option 2 is to try and effect change...and I think it's noble, and I think we have to try but i don't think it's going to work alone. Because it comes back to those moving goal posts. There will always be bathroom bills and TERFs screaming on the floor of parliament...military bans and documentation gatekeeping.

We can, and should, and must fight those. It's essential.

But it's not enough.

Not in my not at all humble opinion.

We need to be loud, those of us who can. We need to be ourselves without apology. We need to raise our heads up, lift each other up, build our own Jerusalem so to speak. We need to celebrate our culture and force society to come to us...not the other way round. We shouldn't feel we have to conform. Because society at large will ensure we don't...despite your celebs like Caitlyn Jenner and India Willoughby...both of whom receive far more press and attention than the worthy Janet Mock or Laverne Cox or so many others...

...and Janet and Laverne have done amazing things for us. They are serious role models for me.

But we need more from every part of our culture. We need trans women and men from all over sharing their stories, their cultures, their experiences. We need to show the full gamut...from the bottom to the top. And we...those of us who can...need to use our voices to amplify those without voices or platforms...not speak for them, but speak with them, amplify them, let them be heard. Because their voices and lives matter. And we cannot allow the discourse to be dominated by a Caitlin Jenner, who presents a single vanilla soy latte and uggs version of living while trans.

My experiences differ wildly. as do those of every member of my family.

We can be the melting pot...lifting up every voice, celebrating the differences that make us so amazing.

And not boring.

And not anodyne.

And again, I know I speak from a safer, privileged position. I'm white and I have a roof over my head and a car to drive. And I have food twice a day and a family who doesn't actively hate me and partners who love me. so it's >safe< for me to say the things i say. And despite this safety, I get death threats. I've been doxxed. I'm not immune even if my place is more secure in many ways. But I refuse to just survive. I literally refuse. That's my line in the sand, that's the hill on which I die.

I want every person in this community to have even the little bit I have...and so much more. and I want and need to do my part to help it happen.

Forex:

Society says we shouldn't have our medical treatment covered by their insurance dollars. But when we crowd fund, we're lazy for not doing it ourselves.

You see now?

Everything is never enough.

So.

Nothing for us without us. From each of us as we can, to each of us as we need. We build a community that lifts up the least of us, gives them chances, makes them better, and by extension all of us. We fight like hell for our rights. And we make them come to us. Because we're all fucking worth it.

And so...in the words of one of the most brilliant men ever to walk this earth...