I just got back from a queer poetry meetup that I haven't been to in a long time. Last time I went I was using they/them, very early in medical transition, and androgyny-moding. This time I wasn't doing any of those things, and the way I was treated was so much worse that I was genuinely surprised.
This meetup is majority transmasc with a handful of cis queers. I've been several times in the past and never seen another transfem there, but I thought I'd give it another go just in case. And I've written several poems since I last went too.
The way it normally works is that you go round the circle a few times reading poems you've written or brought with you. This time the organiser (she/they) mysteriously skipped over me twice, but never skipped anyone else. Sometimes I was on the verge of reading my poem when they gestured to the person who should've come after me to speak.
She wants to organise a letter-writing campaign to our local political representative about transphobia. The only problem: they got our representative mixed up with the neighbouring district's, and when I corrected her about that she became really sulky. (Side note, but the way the transfem/non-transfem dynamic easily maps onto the woman/man dynamic is so striking at times lol.)
At the end they told a joke about how Caitlyn Jenner can't be buried at sea because she has too much plastic in her face so she'll float. Haha, isn't it funny that a trans woman has cosmetic surgery... No no, you don't understand, it's funny because she's a bad person, if you got cosmetic surgery it wouldn't be funny...
Idk, I previously felt like I haven't noticed much change in the way I am treated irl as my transition has gone on, but maybe it took going back to an event after a long break to notice the change 🤷
