Blood Taster

the first time i was stealth and came out to a cis woman she spent a bunch of time talking about her transmasc friends and then after that looked at me and asked "what did you gain from your transition?". because, to her, gender wasnt something you experienced internally but rather something inflicted upon you by patriarchy. she understood trans men because she viewed the process as attempting to both be shielded from misogyny and to gain male privilege. she didnt understand trans women because she didnt understand what we would gain by transitioning. in her mind, trans women previously had male privilege and were thus shielded from the worst of misogyny and other effects of our gendered society. to transition would be to lose that shield. and she knew i experienced misogyny because we were in a class together and the instructor (a man) treated both me and her in the same dismissive, misogynistic ways. which didn't confuse her in the moment, but only after i came out as trans to her.

as one of my earliest tumblr hate anons said, "why would you give up being a man? id hate myself too much". like. it's wild. it's the trans guy at trans support group back in the 2010s who spent a ton of time talking about how he found trans women attractive but hated dick and didnt know how to resolve this apparent contradiction in his attraction. he would later call me - out of the blue - and simply continue to talk about this topic to me while my input did not matter. it's the person I knew who never transitioned out of fear and the belief that remaining visibly male would protect her from a hateful world and that every trans woman who did transition was making a mistake and should keep their heads down and stay out of trouble. it's other trans women not seeing me as a person but rather a "transition goal" when i was in my 20s, inadvertently objectifying me and putting me in a separate category from themselves. it's the drunk man who came up to me and my friend on the street at midnight and asked me if i was a man or a woman. if i had been alone i dont know if i wouldve been so lucky as to just hear him say "hmm..youre a woman because of your lips," before he walked away. it's the catcalling. it's the way men touch me without permission. it's men offhandedly joking about dating me (in the way that men do with friends who are women, where you can tell dating is actually what they want) despite knowing im a lesbian. though it would still be gross otherwise too. it's a cis woman former coworker not believing me when i tell her i havent had whatever cosmetic surgery she claimed id had. it's the way men talk down to me. it's the job interview i had where the guy was so happy to be interviewing a woman for the electronics job that he mentioned that the bathroom was really dirty. the implication being that my job would be expanded to housekeeper as well. it's the cis woman i first mentioned at the beginning saying "even you experienced misogyny!" as if it was surprising to her. even me, huh? it's almost like im a woman.