this is what being online does to your brain
this is what happens when you make suffering a cornerstone of your self-image. on the same wavelength as people who jump down the throats of depressed people giving advice to other depressed people on how not to be 100% miserable constantly because “we cant all be neurotypical KAREN”
something something if we always define transgenderism by how much we’ve suffered, the community will never be able to envision and work for a future that involves joy and acceptance.
i see this post going around a lot and i just want to like. add my two cents as a trans adult who transitioned as a child medically years ago. I agree with the above points, but need to just mention that being a person who medically transitioned as a child and was supported by their parents doesnt mean that transition was easy and free of suffering either. Transition doesnt need to have pain in it, but transitioning as a child is a very painful experience. I knew peers who were kicked out of their schools, forced to move across the country, had the support of one parent but not the other and had to deal with a divorce as a result to even be able to legally access care at all, and nearly every one of my medical providers have told me they recieve daily threats for doing what they do. Trans children are one of the biggest targets of harassment and abuse in this community. Saying that trans kids have it easy doesnt just show a disturbing view of transness having a requirement of suffering- it shows a complete denial of the suffering of trans children. I personally had it much easier than many of my friends, but having that experience makes me feirce and insistant that people know the shit that kids in our community have to go through on a daily basis.
i transitioned (socially, not medically) as a teen. i only felt safe to do it at a time when i literally basically cut nearly all interactions with my previous environment and started fresh in a new one. most people who knew me before i transitioned do not know that i am trans, because i have not talked to them since transing my gender. i hated and dreaded every single time i had to come out/tell someone my new name and pronouns, even though 99% of those were positive interactions.
i have a different experience from someone who didn’t even realize they were trans until they were an adult, or from someone who knew but never came out to their family, or from someone who did medically transition young.
but for all of these different transition journeys, we are still all transgender. every single trans person, regardless of how well we pass, has the experience of being trans. of being treated as a gender other than our own for at least some of our life, and of asserting ourselves as ourselves.
