Whatâs funny,if it werenât so bleak,is how much of the trans community is obsessed with ânot being clocked.â Like, just that obsession alone screams self-hatred and crushed self-esteem. If your whole identity hinges on not being seen as what you actually are, what does that say about how you see yourself?
Then thereâs the other side of the coin: people getting upset because they are being read as cis, which causes an identity crisis in its own right. Itâs like, is the goal to be seen as the gender you say you are, or is it to be recognized as trans and affirmed?
Nobody can seem to agree. And thatâs the irony: when your entire movementâs baseline becomes altering your body to visually conform to a specific ideal Thatâs capitalism. Thatâs buying your way into palatability. Itâs not liberation, itâs assimilation with extra surgery.
If any trans people want to talk to me, the evil witchy TERF you all love to hate....like genuinely, I have a question. Why is it so bad to be seen as trans? Whereâs the pride in it? Whereâs the âtrans is beautifulâ energy when the overwhelming obsession is about not being clocked, not being recognized, not standing out? Shouldnât that say something about how deeply the self-hatred runs, how much itâs rooted in shame rather than liberation?
Because from where I stand, thereâs nothing wrong with saying, âYeah, I was born female, but I feel more comfortable presenting masculine.â Thatâs honest. Thatâs even admirable. But the second someone says âI feel more comfortable as a man,â it becomes a contest of how convincing you can be, how much you can disappear into the cis mold. And the wildest part? Some of you then complain when you do pass when your own community starts treating you like a cis person and suddenly you feel erased again. So what is it? What is the goal?
If the foundation of your identity is changing your body until the world sees you differently, then letâs be honest: thatâs not a rebellion. Thatâs capitalism. Thatâs body modification as validation, not liberation. And if âbeing seen as transâ feels like a failure to you, then maybe donât come for women who are just saying, âHey, Iâm proud of what I am.â
Something else I donât understand is the visceral hatred some trans people have toward their past selves. The way they recoil from old photos, old names, old bodies, as if that version of them was something filthy, something to erase. Like⊠that was you. Why do you hate them? Why is your instinct disgust instead of compassion? When I look at photos of myself from before, when I was angry, depressed, lost, I donât want to delete her. I think, âDamn, she went through hell and survived. Iâm proud of her.â
Thatâs still my story. I donât need to obliterate her to become myself. So it makes me wonder: if your identity is built on rejecting your own history, how solid can it really be?
And even when you say your past self would think you look cool now, stronger, freer, more âyouâ why are you still so mean to them? Why do you talk about them like they were a mistake, something to scrub out of existence? If theyâd look at you with awe, shouldnât you look back with kindness? That girl or boy or in-between version carried you here. They endured the pain, the confusion, the violence of growing up in a body you were told was wrong. They werenât weak for surviving. They were brave. So why treat them like a ghost youâre ashamed of?
Even the whole âdeadnamingâ concept itâs always struck me as strange.
Like⊠why do you talk about your past self like theyâre dead? Like they were some cursed creature you buried behind a new haircut and a few surgeries. If someoneâs being a jerk and using your old name to mock or undermine you thatâs one thing. Thatâs disrespect. But most of the time it feels like the panic isnât just about other people. Itâs about you not wanting to remember. Itâs like saying, âDonât mention that name, donât show me those photos, donât remind me of that body, Iâve erased them.â
You canât grow if youâre always running from the roots. Healing doesnât mean forgetting.
Oh well food for thought, I gusse.