It hurts when you misgender me.

Trigger warning: dysphoria, misgendering, descriptors of fatness

Okay, "duh." But I need to rant. More than rant, I need to educate. I need to write this in the hopes that at least one cisgender person will read it and come to understand why trans people get so upset when they are misgendered, why we're not always as patient as we should be with your adjustment period. It's not because we're selfish or inconsiderate - at least, not for all of us. Sometimes it's just because it hurts.

I have dysphoria. Every day I look at my body and remember that it's not the way it's "supposed" to be. My hips are too big, my belly too round, my face too soft, my voice too high. I look at my physical traits and I see "female," and have to remember that everyone else is looking at me and seeing "female," too. I also have to deal with the feeling that certain of my body parts do not belong on my body. Have you ever hated some part of your body so badly that you wanted to tear, cut, burn it off? Imagine what it's like not only to feel like it doesn't belong on your body, but to know that anyone who sees that part will start to make assumptions about you that completely contradict your own identity. Someone who is fat knows a little about this - the torturous sensation of walking into a restaurant and feeling like you've gained a hundred pounds as soon as everyone looks at you, or instantly losing your appetite as soon as someone sees you eat (even though you're still hungry). Now add to that the pressure of everyone who sees that part of your body assuming that you prefer certain colors, certain clothes, certain sex partners. The misery of being forced to obey a set of rules because of that body part when that body part doesn't even belong to you in the first place.

In my case, compound that with the pain of being unable to remember what your life was like before that body part was there, so that even your dreams and imagination are tainted with the feeling of that alien thing (or things) living on your body.

I am in the closet. The people I know in meatspace who know my true gender can be counted on three-fifths of one hand. Every day someone calls me "she," addresses me by my girl name, and/or refers to me as a girl. I don't feel like a she or a girl, I don't consider anything I am or do to be female, and yet people keep referring to me this way. I don't know if there's any way that I can explain to a cis person what this feel like, because cis people aren't usually as acutely aware of their feelings of gendered-ness, and have never been in a position to understand what it feels like to be thought of as a different gender. I will try to explain what it is like, and it should be fun because you get to use your imagination.

Imagine that you woke up one day in what seems to be an alternate Earth. It's not very different - in fact, it's so close to your own that you didn't realize there was anything wrong, at first. You live in your own house, the people around you are your own family, and all of your friends and co-workers and teachers and everything else are exactly the way you remember them.

The only thing different is you. You first noticed it when you looked in the mirror. The reflection is sort of familiar - at least, xe looks like xe could be a family member of yours. But it's shorter than you remember. A little bigger in the shoulders, longer in the face. The nose is much too small, your breasts (if you have them) are a cup size bigger than they should be. Or your penis is a half-inch bigger in diameter. And you're clearly wearing a different clothing size.

To go with this slightly-familiar-yet-somehow-alien body, everyone you know keeps trying to tell you that you're a different person. They call you Tracy or Jackie. They keep asking you about hobbies that you're supposedly into and have never liked. Your closet is full of clothes in styles that you hate and when you ask for new ones they take you out to buy more of the same and when you tell them you want something different they look at you like an alien, and you just feel like the person they say you are is the alien.

Does it make you crazy? Every time one of your family members addresses you as Tracy, do you die a little inside? Do you learn how to build model trains or play the saxophone, even if you hate it, because that's what everyone expects of you? As time goes on, and you learn to play the role that everyone says you fit, do you start to question yourself and wonder if you're really the person you think you were? Sometimes, when you're not feeling the dissonance too hard, you think maybe you really are Tracy and your other identity is a fancy you cooked up one day. Then your aunt buys you one of Tracy's shirts for Christmas and can't understand why you recoil from it like it's a snake. You tell one of your friends what has happened, and xe is sympathetic but convinced that you've always been Tracy and you're just going through a phase of discomfort as you try to figure out your identity. Xe may even ask you, "But how do you know you're not Tracy? You never acted like someone else before." You can't convince xem that you're not "figuring out" anything - this is who you are, you're just the only one who's realized it.

The worst part is when you are surrounded by people who are talking to you and about you almost non-stop for hours. Be it family gatherings, work, wherever. None of them know who you really are, because you don't know anyone who would believe you. They go blathering on about you like they know everything about you and every time they make a comment about something you did or something you like you cringe because they're completely wrong and you can't correct them without showing yourself as a freak. Sometimes you feel like the identity that they've assigned to you is more real than the one you remember - but at those times, you don't feel more like Tracy, you just feel like nothing. Like you don't exist at all and you're nothing but a ghost forced to act out a fabricated life.

Many people don't realize it, but a person's feeling of gender is a fundamental part of their personality, like their taste in clothes and hobbies. The feeling of gender that cis people have matches the gender that has been assigned to them, which makes the fact that they do feel gendered less obvious. However, the signs are there. Many cis men and women, when asked, will tell you that they love belonging to their gender (though they may not understand exactly why). They may become fond of their sex characteristics, to the point where women treat their breasts almost as a set of secondary lifeforms (a man may have a similar relationship with his penis). Some men will lovingly grow and craft beards to express their masculinity, while some women view the act of plucking facial hairs to be an expression of their womanhood and would not shave if they had half a beard. (Full confession: my aunt feels this way.) Moving into the transgender umbrella, there are a variety of butch women who are nonetheless very proud of their womanhood, and crossdressing men who are nonetheless secure in their masculinity, indicating without doubt that the feeling of gender is innate even when the rules are bent. The end result of this is that someone calling me "she" is as devaluing of my identity as someone calling you Tracy or Jackie.

Now, I'm not making the claim that people who misgender me on accident are really disrespecting my identity. I understand that people make mistakes. But let me explain the following:

At any time, unless I am alone or in a space consisting of nothing but people who acknowledge my gender perfectly, I am living in almost constant discomfort. The space between the times when I am actively being misgendered is usually occupied with wondering when the next incident is going to happen. It's painful, like spending my life walking between bees' nests; I can stay as far away from them as possible but in the end I know that I must keep moving and that, when I do, I'm liable to be stung at least every few minutes and as soon as the last one stops aching another one is liable to hit. And each of these instances chips away at my feeling of self - because it is very hard to maintain that feeling when no one in your life is reinforcing it. Take away the activities and rituals that I use in my daily life to remind me of who I really am, and I may forget entirely (in fact, that is how Nic was born.)

I wouldn't liken an accidental misgendering to a bee sting. More like a friendly slap on the shoulder that you didn't realize was a little too hard. I can usually shake those off. But when I've been misgendered steadily for days and my skin is sore from stings, the pain is much more acute - and even more if I wasn't expecting it from you. The end result is that sometimes I may lash out unreasonably.

I'm not saying that's right or that I don't owe you an apology if it happens, but maybe now you understand a little better why it might happen. Thank you for listening.

Fuck you, Vampire Diaries writers.

Y'know, I was enjoying this show. Aside from the racism and the characters constantly throwing their heterosexuality in my face, I was liking it. I liked Caroline. She's a great representative of blonde characters. I liked Damon. He's a great representative of the sexy, even if I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

Then one of your writers is like, "You guys are gonna love this! We're gonna introduce a gay character!"

And I'm like, "Wheeee!"

So I wait for episodes upon episodes to meet this gay character, and it turns out it's Rose. Well, apparently she's bi, or she's only straight for Damon, or she was horny and desperate (and hey, I can't blame her), but that's really not the point.

The point is, in the same episode that Rose comes out, she suffers a fatal werewolf bite. Then she dies in the next episode.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

I should just point out that I've only just now found out about this because I was avoiding watching the show because I KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

Fuck you all. You are truly a collective of ass-bigots and I will not be watching your show any further. Except in ways that will prevent you from getting any money from it, when I'm feeling masochistic. And when I do I won't talk about it, unless you manage to do something that pisses me off even worse (read: go after trans people).

I could've sworn...

For a minute there I was in an alternate universe where everything was peachy and random cis celebrities were acknowledging I existed and life was good. Then I listened to the song again, and I could've sworn that when I listened to it the first time trans people had their own stanza, but there they are tacked on the end of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual, and she doesn't say anything at all about asexual or pansexual folk.

Then I learn about everything else Lady Gaga has done.

Fuck you, Universe. FUCK YOU. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS. And fuck you, Lady Gaga, for doing this shit and then making yourself out to be an ally to the point where I was fooled. You made me feel loved, you made me feel wanted, and then this pops up. I am SO not taking this shit.

Thank you, Lady Gaga.

I'm not normally one to thank people for stating the obvious. Not being a bigot is everyone's moral duty. But you're in a special position. You're a pop idol. Everyone is watching you and critiquing you and looking for another excuse to call you a dirty, degenerate whore.

In a situation like that, you didn't have to come out in support of me. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. But you did. You sang a few words that are considered so revolutionary, so shocking, and yet completely unnecessary by the cisgender masses. Words that I look for every day of my life and every day walk away from another commentary on GLBT persons, another discussion of gender theory or crossdressing, disappointed because once again the commenters have completely forgotten that I exist, much less that I have a place at the table of humanity.

It was just a few words. Just a few words that I constantly look for and can never find. A few words that can beat back the pain, the shame, the erasure, and for one blissful moment remind me that I am OK, and even if it never gets any better it doesn't matter because I'm a human being and I deserve to be here as much as anyone else.

I don't know why you said them, and I don't care. They were the sweetest words I've heard in a long time.

So thank you for saying them. Thank you for sending that tiny flash of sunlight into my life.

I am very, very angry today.

In my state, we have a sizeable Latin@ population. Mostly descendants of Mexicans. A lot of these Mexican-descended people are lower-class - you can tell, because they make up between ten and twenty percent of the local population but until the economy crashed they made up a sizeable population of the people shopping at Wal-Mart (yet were almost never seen at Costco or Fred Meyer).

The other day, while my mother and I were shopping for groceries, I stopped to look at a stand of Valentine's Day cards (or Singles Shaming Day cards, whichever you like). I discovered that all of the cards that depicted humans were showing peach-skinned people (to no surprise on my part). I pointed this out to my dear white mother, who immediately informed me that (to paraphrase) "they probably get the cards in from somewhere else where they don't have that population; I doubt they have any control over what they get in."

Later, my sister remarked that if I asked the store employees (again, to paraphrase), "they'd probably tell you that they have the cards with animals for the non-whites."

I've been thinking about this today, and I'm still mad.

• I'm mad because my low-class, brown, yet straight neighbors - be they Mexican-descended or any "other" race, can't afford to shop at a store that actually cares enough about them to represent them in the merchandise.
• I'm mad because that's exactly what the damn store employee would say.
• I'm mad because if I want to get a card for me and my hypothetical significant other, I have to fully transition (whatever the hell that means - T, chest surgery, phallo) and spend the rest of my life with a white woman; any other possibility rules me out of the group. And if I didn't toe the line in relationship terms, and complained about the lack of cards representing us, someone would point me to the animal cards. And it's the same way for most people in queer relationships, regardless of their skin color. For the same reason that they won't make cards with brown people for my non-peach, but straight neighbors - THEY ARE BIGOTS.
• I'm mad because, when I shop for cards, I can expect any card that shows a man dominating a woman to be "funny" in a "yuk-yuk, he's in charge, all right" way and any card that shows a woman dominating a man to be "funny" in a "yeah, my wife walks ALL over me, too - why can't she do everything I want?" way. NEVER MIND the lack of same-sex and/or brown people cards depicting this, much less in a positive light.
• I'm mad because anyone in a committed relationship with more than one person, even if they are peach-skinned and heteronormative, can give up on finding ANY card representing them, even if they're white. Even if they're rich. Not even the animals. Heck, if they tried to get a custom job done they would risk gross-out reactions, bigotry, and potential threat to their physical selves.
  
• I'm mad because if I complain about this to someone who doesn't have any problems finding people like them on greeting cards, I can expect to be answered with "Well, I can't find people who look just like me, either," (i.e., HAVE THEIR EXACT FACE) or "So just don't get one with people on it," or (class privilege a-comin') "So just make a custom card with your faces on it. That would be romantic." LIKE AS IF I OWN A PRINTER.
• But I'm mainly mad because my straight brown neighbors who shop at Wal-Mart are a VISIBLE DEMOGRAPHIC, and a not insignificant one, and Wal-Mart puts out its merchandise like they don't even exist. My non-heteronormativity (and that of my neighbors of all colors)... well, I know that they actively hate it around here. And yeah, that pisses me off, but the failure to acknowledge brownness, specifically, feels like they don't even care. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU NOT CARE. Owait. Because white people all around you keep telling you how demanding those brown folks are and how ignoring them is the best way to deal with racism. Yup yup.
• The cards depicting fat people aren't exactly charitable, either. We're either slobs or we've somehow "fallen apart."
  

GUYS.

I have a friend, a woman incidentally, who is always finding gray smudges in her house. On the walls, on the refrigerator, in the food. It's no mystery how they get there - her husband works with vehicles and he's always coming home with filthy hands because he's something of a slob.

Nothing weird there. Nope, nope, nope.

But my friend is ALL the time bitching about these "black" smears. Hubby comes home, his hands are "black." Touches the cheese with dirty hands, the cheese is "black." Smears gray stuff on the front door, the door is "black."

This kind of microaggressive behavior falls into a pretty gray area. Even a lot of black people are hesitant to say whether this is really problematic, because it's so commonplace and nobody really thinks that black skin = dirty, do they? (At least, not anymore... not most of them, anyway.)

I'm going to stick my white foot out here and say YES, this is problematic. YES, calling something "black" when it is dirty will breed racial prejudice. For exactly the same reason that calling something "gay" or "retarded" when it is wrong, meaningless, or just plain unliked breeds prejudice. Calling something "dark" when it is, in fact, morbid or morally wrong breeds prejudice - how can we associate darkness with things we are afraid of and not become afraid of things that are dark?

If my white audience isn't convinced, picture this - a small, black child listening to my friend, or any other human adult in earshot, exclaiming "This is black! It's disgusting!" Remembering what my life was like as a fat child, I can guess how xe would feel. Unclean. Unwanted. A burning urge to jump in the bathtub and scrub xis blackness away so that xe could be clean and white and right. The idea of putting a child through that kind of identity trauma is nearly enough to give me flashbacks to my own.

It's not harmless, it's not meaningless, and the kid sure as heck isn't going to figure out that when you said it you didn't mean "black-black." So please, for the sake of a child's innocence and self-worth, KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF.

Dear Christopher: No, Posting Anonymously Damn Well Does Not Excuse You From Backlash.

I didn't see this until recently because I don't check Friendly Atheist often, and when I decided to catch up, I found an extremely tragic story of a man who killed himself because the trauma he had experienced as a child was too much for him to live with.

TW for above link: post contains discussion of molestation, lifelong trauma, and suicide.

And THIS post contains some of that, plus one of the most disgusting concern trolls I have ever had the displeasure of encountering.

Most of the comments on the thread ranged from sympathetic to outright "he had every right to kill himself" - pretty good stuff. But one commenter, "Christopher," who obviously has never had to experience this kind of daily torture, just couldn't contain himself:

I’ve re-read Bill’s suicide letter several times over the last day or so and several things bother me about it.

I sometimes have a strong internal reaction to stories of child sexual abuse but I don’t usually express my opinion out loud because I know it will seem like a harsh one. But with the relative anonymity of an internet forum, I figured it might be safe to express these feelings without any repercussions.

Every time I read Bill’s letter I get the impression of someone who is writing about their fantasy of what depression is like. He uses words like “darkness” and “evil inside me” that are hard for me to take seriously. He might as well be talking about demonic possession.

And then we have this suicide letter of epic proportions. Strangely, for all of its verbiage, it does not include many details. No one is named, situations are not described. In fact, the majority of information that we get is in regards to his internal states and feelings. The letter is so long and so unproductive that it seems very indulgent and it reads like a list of excuses.

And then there is this whopper:
“There’s no point in identifying who molested me, so I’m just going to leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.”

What a horrible rationalization. There is EVERY point in identifying his molester. Do you think Bill would have kept quiet if the molester had abused his best friend, stole money or murdered his parents? Of course not. But since he was sexually abused, he gives the abuser a pass!! What would Bill say to other children who were molested after him? “Sorry I was so ashamed that I didn’t report this to the police so the monster got to you too.” Our lives are not totally our own and we have responsibilities to our fellow human beings. Since there is no god to bring this molester to justice, it is up to humans to catch him. It has always been this way. But now, there will never be justice. And the same monster that destroyed his life will destroy others. Maybe even today? If Bill had named his abuser then maybe other victims still living would come forward. There is a weird disconnect when it comes to sexual abuse victims, as if once they are abused, we give them a pass and they have no responsibility to protect their fellow humans.

So from my armchair perspective, I can’t help but think Bill was a gay man, who could never become comfortable with his own sexuality, and used past tragic events as an excuse to shipwreck his life and hurt others with his emotional immaturity. Yes, I know diagnosis via an internet forum is about as worthless as a three dollar bill.

I too have struggled with depression throughout my life. I am a gay man who came out to his religious parents over 15 years ago when our culture was much less accepting of homosexuals. That first Christmas was rough when they told me to stay away. But they eventually came around and my relationship with my Mom is closer than ever (although my relationship with Dad is rocky due to other reasons). My partner is accepted in our family without reservation. I lived through the rough times of these relationships and now my homosexuality is hardly a factor in my life at all.

Instead of feeling sorry for Bill, I wonder if it wouldn’t be more productive (and helpful to other depressed people) to point at him as an example of a mistake to be avoided rather than making yet another internet martyr. I wish we, as a culture, could approach suicide and depression without relying on these exceptional cases. To be fair, I am not sure how that can be accomplished.

How many things are wrong with this post? Let me count the ways:

I sometimes have a strong internal reaction to stories of child sexual abuse but I don’t usually express my opinion out loud because I know it will seem like a harsh one. But with the relative anonymity of an internet forum, I figured it might be safe to express these feelings without any repercussions.

Hey, it's the Internet! I can say whatever I want without getting into trouble for it! The excuse of douchebags everywhere who haven't yet gotten the message that repeated criticism of their viewpoint means there's something wrong with it.

Every time I read Bill’s letter I get the impression of someone who is writing about their fantasy of what depression is like. He uses words like “darkness” and “evil inside me” that are hard for me to take seriously. He might as well be talking about demonic possession.

Because EVERYONE interprets the world using exactly the same language. Basically Christopher is saying that he has a hard time believing Bill Zeller's motives for killing himself because he used fantastic-sounding/imaginative language.

Guess what? Sometimes when I talk about MY mental problems, I say I "turn into another person." I bet that's really hard to take seriously because I might as well be talking about shapeshifting. It's also true.

And then there is this whopper:
“There’s no point in identifying who molested me, so I’m just going to leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.”

What a horrible rationalization. There is EVERY point in identifying his molester. Do you think Bill would have kept quiet if the molester had abused his best friend, stole money or murdered his parents? Of course not. But since he was sexually abused, he gives the abuser a pass!! What would Bill say to other children who were molested after him? “Sorry I was so ashamed that I didn’t report this to the police so the monster got to you too.” Our lives are not totally our own and we have responsibilities to our fellow human beings. Since there is no god to bring this molester to justice, it is up to humans to catch him. It has always been this way. But now, there will never be justice. And the same monster that destroyed his life will destroy others. Maybe even today? If Bill had named his abuser then maybe other victims still living would come forward. There is a weird disconnect when it comes to sexual abuse victims, as if once they are abused, we give them a pass and they have no responsibility to protect their fellow humans.

Hear that, everyone? When the first thing in your life that you can remember is repeated, painful sexual abuse, and these memories haunt the rest of your life, taint every relationship you have, and make it next to impossible to feel happiness, your first responsibility is to put your abuser in jail. Good to see that dear old Christopher, at least, has his priorities straight.

For that matter, Mr. Zeller never gave the reason why there was no point to naming his abuser. Maybe his abuser was dead or so old as to be incapacitated. Maybe he had a whole family of abusive Catholics who would do nothing but protest his innocence and accuse Zeller of lying. Just because he didn't state the reason doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or isn't valid.

So from my armchair perspective, I can’t help but think Bill was a gay man, who could never become comfortable with his own sexuality, and used past tragic events as an excuse to shipwreck his life and hurt others with his emotional immaturity.

Shucks, Christopher, you figured him out. Oh, wait, you didn't. What you did was sit there and create an imaginary scenario to explain to yourself why the deceased was having experiences that you have difficulty understanding. It couldn't be because his life is different from yours; it must be because it was made up. That's basically what he's saying.

Yes, I know diagnosis via an internet forum is about as worthless as a three dollar bill.

Might have mentioned that before you shared your completely worthless Internet diagnosis.

I too have struggled with depression throughout my life. I am a gay man who came out to his religious parents over 15 years ago when our culture was much less accepting of homosexuals. That first Christmas was rough when they told me to stay away. But they eventually came around and my relationship with my Mom is closer than ever (although my relationship with Dad is rocky due to other reasons). My partner is accepted in our family without reservation. I lived through the rough times of these relationships and now my homosexuality is hardly a factor in my life at all.

GUH.

WHAT.

The only thing I can figure out after getting this information is that Christopher is a deluded bigot who would rather believe that someone would lie in his suicide note than comprehend the idea that this man's suffering could possibly be real. Instead, he reads his own struggles into Zeller's life, then judges him according to his own successes and concludes that he is "emotionally immature" and "us(ing) past tragic events as an excuse to shipwreck his life."

This is the most disgusting case of victim-blaming I have ever seen. This reminds me of straight parents who are convinced that gay kids could be straight if they just tried harder. Non-depressed people who think that people who suffer from depression just need to cheer up. I could hope that Christopher would have enough experience with these oppressions to figure out that this disgusting display of victim-blaming is completely full of shit, but apparently he still thinks that any problem he has not personally experienced isn't real.

Finally we have this gem:

Instead of feeling sorry for Bill, I wonder if it wouldn’t be more productive (and helpful to other depressed people) to point at him as an example of a mistake to be avoided rather than making yet another internet martyr. I wish we, as a culture, could approach suicide and depression without relying on these exceptional cases. To be fair, I am not sure how that can be accomplished.

Instead of expressing sympathy for the horrendous amount of pain that would drive an individual to take his own life, we should turn him into a case study. We should ignore his pain and, instead, try and figure out how to use his suffering for others' gain. And the use of the words "internet martyr" is disgusting. I don't see anyone saying that Bill Zeller is a hero for killing himself. The fact that a few people have stood up for his right to take his own life does not bequeath him with the title of martyrdom.

Christopher, STFU and GTFO. Relative anonymity over the Internet does not give you the right to be an asshole.

So, It's Black History Month.

The one time of year when talking about black folks' suffering in "the mainstream" doesn't make you PC or oversensitive or whatevs. And, according to Renee of Womanist Musings, white people spend loads of time talking about the bad stuff we used to do to black people and isn't it nice that we don't have to do that anymore.

At the risk of making it all about white folks, aren't we a bunch of douchebags. (I use "we" in the loose sense, not the literal sense, though I have plenty of douchyness to account for.)

At the same time, I feel like I can't pass up this opportunity to bring awareness to a form of history that is often forgotten (or believed not to exist), inasmuch as the alternative for me is to erase it even further. So here are a few things to get white brains going in a less self-absorbed direction:

Womanist Musings: Why I Am Skipping Black History Month
Womanist Musings: Black History Month
Womanist Musings: Cotton Picking Day
Womanist Musings: Black History Month For Sale
Womanist Musings: Jim Crow Renaissance This Is Celebration?

Blaque Ink: Black Adversity: The Opposite Of White Privilege
Womanist Musings: For Rent: Whites Only
This one's so about white people: Love Isn't Enough: How to Be An Anti-Racist Ally
TransGriot: What You Don't See Is As Important As What You Do See
TransGriot: 'Reverse Racism' Are White Racist Words
TransGriot: Renee's Rule

These are a few posts that share some of the basic concepts of racism as it exists today - equally as important as black history. And remember, social justice isn't just for one month. It's an all-year thing. So read these posts, then bookmark the sites for later and keep on reading. I may not look like it because I prefer not to blog about race issues (being racially privileged, I'm not exactly qualified to comment) but I spend a good chunk of my off-time doing just that.