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it's a bias. it's a thing society has wired into their brains, and they don't have enough exposure-based repetition to meaningfully undo the years of societal conditioning. chances are, even you feel this way about yourself and others, despite how hard you try not to.

and that's not me saying you should stop trying; you should still keep up that effort. it's better than nothing, and maybe it'll culminate in something bigger than all of us.

but there is a certain solemn reality check many of us have. & I think many trans people who realize they will likely never pass have this moment of recognition as well. and not from dysphoria-induced brain worms pre/early-hrt, but from being years on various interventions & coming to a point of acceptance about the reality of the cards you've been dealt & finding a way of living happily in spite of that

I just find that there are many many trans people, especially binary trans people, who can't wrap their head around anything except a very "toxic positivity" version of being trans & our experiences. at some level, most nonbinary people eventually recognize that how we view ourselves is not likely to ever be fully reflected by others.

we persist onwards, regardless. we still live our lives because we have to. and it is that coming to face with our own mortality of sorts that I think causes many of the rifts in the trans community. it's a type of maturity that not everyone gets to, even many nonbinary people, but for those of us who do and are able to integrate that and accept that we should still keep trying anyways... idk, you look at discourse a lot differently.

being gendered correctly by strangers isn't as dire to me because that dysphoria has been so thoroughly exhausted that I've had to make a conscious decision to stop paying attention to it for my own mental health's sake, because there's literally nothing I can do to change that. that doesn't mean I don't care. it means I've taken a realistic look at the situation and decided to focus on what I can tangibly impact instead. because I'd be dead if I didn't do that.

I think many of the heavily mocked "femme presenting nonbinary theyfabs who don't take hrt and look and act like a cis woman" out there are in a similar position. I don't think these people don't care. I think it's that they know nobody will change no matter what they do & they've reached a point of acceptance with it, so they see little point in doing anything about it.

it's a place of apathy & source of heartache for more people than I think some people ridiculing them realize. that's why they react so strongly to people basically bullying them online.

because most of those people are just trying to exist in a way that they find fun or aesthetically pleasing, because they realize that there's nothing else they can do. so they distract themselves with makeup and clothes and "girly" things that appeal to their eyes because they are small happinesses that society only genders because cisheteromasculinity prides itself on being devoid of beauty and joy more often than not, and if you're stuck in a prison of biology's making you might as well choose the presentation that lets you paint your nails and look at pretty things and pretty colors with less overt pushback (i.e. fitting the status quo, not necessarily that femininity isn't routinely degraded, it just receives less immediate threats to your safety to do the things society expects of you).

it is a strategic choice that they do not even want to be making in the first place, because it inherently relies on their misgendering.

...but it's what makes the most sense to a lot of people. that's why it's so common. and when you ridicule that, you poke and prod at all of those wounds that you're unaware even exist, because you assume they don't exist.

meanwhile they may have faced more suffering and agony at this positionality than you have. but it's an invisible suffering. so it's easy to poke fun at. you don't live in their head, though. you make assumptions upon assumptions about people, failing to recognize that sometimes there's no "good" solution & you've just gotta do what you can to survive in the least miserable way you possibly can, and that being in that position itself (inside a society that you know will probably never accept anything even close to you, at least not in your lifetime) is a type of trauma that changes you on a fundamental level. it fucks with your head. that's why these people act this way.

i wrote this while working in a program for new writers. on wednesdays, two of the teachers would be contractually obligated to read our writing aloud to the group of 300+ teens. i had never read my work in public before. i had something like 6k poems and was panicking about it. none of them are good enough. sometimes the train is howling. it is hard, actually, sometimes, even as an adult.

and then i thought - what is one thing i wish i could tell all of them. each of these 300 kids. what did i need to hear, at 16?

i wanted to tell them about the day you wake up, and the sun feels warm finally. i wanted to tell them about carving a life out of soapstone, your hands turning bloody. i wanted to tell them that sometimes yes - it actually does feel easy. i wanted to tell them about weddings and cookie dough and long road trips. about albums of new music and old friends laughing and the sound of snow falling.

you will learn the pattern of the train. you will learn to close your eyes when you hear the engine rumbling. you will learn to let yourself have the grey days in their lily-soft numbness. sometimes it will feel like life is wet paint, and god has smeared your canvas across a sewer grate. sometimes it will be so boring it isn’t even pronounceable - the tenacious, soundless blankness. survival isn’t just ugly nights and wild mornings. it is also the steady, unimportant moments. it is just driving with your seatbelt on. it is calling a friend on the way home. it is burying your face into the fur of your dog.

when i had finished reading this poem aloud, the auditorium was silent for a solid minute. someone stood up to take a picture of where it had been projected onto a screen, and then three more people followed the action, and then - like a bad internet story, people remembered they were supposed to be clapping. kids came up to me after it - thank you for writing that. i think i hear a train coming.

i would write this differently now, i think, but it has been 7 years. i still live by the tracks. i also haven’t picked up a blade in over 10 years. the scars are still there, but these days i only pick up scissors to cut my hair. i know why you can’t tell your mom about it. i know how the numbness slips over everything, a restless horrible cotton. i know how when you dropped the dish, you weren’t crying about the broken glass. i know about feeling like all the roads have closed their exits, that you aren’t supposed to still-be-here - and yet.

i am still here, and still yours, and i haven’t forgotten. what i’m saying is if any hope is calling to you - i know it’s hard, but you have to listen. i’m saying keep driving, but slow down the car. sit down in the shower, i’m not judging you. we can stay in the dark with the good hot water and do nothing but stare. notice the stab wound. make it through another tuesday.

i know what it is like to miss yourself. do what you need to. come home to me. i am writing to you, my past self, from the future. i’ll be waiting for you.

Love for you is often a verb.

I take the shirt that makes me feel strong and powerful and is cut in a way that I explicitly enjoy and features artwork I adore. I fold it neatly, or not, it is clean, that is the thing. Fresh for another day when I need it.

Love for myself is often a verb.

I swear quietly under my breath as I step into the rainstorm with trash bag deliveries and recycling offerings and I am soaking wet a step out the door but this will help keep the air smelling nice and the bugs and things away.

Love for the home is often a verb.

I clean and prep and mend and sort and do not sort but mean to sort and will do a little better next time and maybe I do and maybe I do not.

There is always tomorrow.

If there is tomorrow I will clean and prep and mend and sort as I can. Today’s tasks close and dissolve when today closes and dissolves and tomorrow’s tasks bloom as tomorrow blooms. There is a today, there is a tomorrow.