Three things have happened in my local trans community in the past month:
A transmasc drag queen made a call-out post about how a newly-out local trans woman is a sexual predator. (The sexual offence was that, 6 years ago, before she came out, she was at a drag show with the drag queen (who was her friend at the time) and joked that the drag queen's makeup looked a bit like semen.) The trans woman spiralled, got drunk, got hit by a car, and is currently in hospital.
A newly-out trans woman and a trans man met at a local trans support group. They decided to meet up again at a local pub. She apparently asked questions about his transition that he considered invasive, and in a voice that was too loud and risked outing him to other people in the venue. She now faces being banned from the support group.
The only trans woman who volunteers to run that support group is being kicked off the team by the trans man who is in charge of it. The reason is that she once told the guy in charge to "stop talking" when he was giving her several instructions at once, and also that a different transmasc volunteer has said they find her "creepy" and don't want to be alone with her.
All three trans women are autistic, isolated, and don't have much practice with irl socialising. Maybe they're a little bit loud, maybe a little bit abrasive, maybe they misjudge the appropriateness of sexual comment to a friend at a drag show, maybe they're too keen to make a new friend that they get excitable and speak too loud and ask too many questions, maybe they get overstimulated by being told too many instructions and need you to stop for a second to give them space.
Maybe their behaviour that you consider weird and unsettling is actually a trauma response to a childhood and adolescence of isolation and bullying.
And you know what the funny thing is? I have been sexually harassed at a drag show by the drag queen in (1), who was performing and making sexual jokes about various people in the audience. I have been in a public place with the trans man in (2) while he asked me loud invasive questions about my HRT regimen and about child abuse I suffered. And I have been misgendered and deadnamed repeatedly by the trans man in (3).
And do you know what I did about any of these things? Nothing, beyond saying "Hey, I'd appreciate if you don't do that next time 👍 No hard feelings 🙂". Because, not only am I aware that people make mistakes, and I consider trans men and transmascs a vulnerable demographic and it would be a totally unjust overreaction from me to attempt to socially isolate them for these offences.
But also, I don't have the social power to do anything about these things anyway, even if I wanted to. My normal response to experiencing even serious abuse at a queer event is to simply stop attending it, isolating myself, and perhaps telling a few close friends about it. Because I already know that my complaints will not be taken seriously.
Trans women are being isolated irl every day for behaviours that other demographics can do with impunity. They are not given any grace, any benefit of the doubt, any second chances, and complaints about even the smallest offence will be taken seriously and escalated. And they will not be able to fight back, because a trans woman who fights back is just confirming all the bigoted assumptions that the wider world already has about her.
snowghoul
blakekathryn
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
