Oh, yes, Pokémon Black & White is racist.

(I went back and forth on this one for a while, trying to figure out whether to do it or not... I need to call this stuff out, but do we really need another white guy talking about racism? Etc. But it's got to be done, and since I'm a pretty big Pokémon player at the moment, I may as well do it.)

There were a lot of jokes going around when Pokémon Black Version and White Version were first announced. In America, the term "black and white" is practically synonymous with the race divide (as well as a particular damaging way of viewing the world, but that never got brought up), and a lot of people would going around saying things like "Black and White is racist!"

It was ridiculous and untrue. The names "Black and White" have very little to do with the race makeup of the game, and much more to do with the concepts of Yin and Yang, nature versus technology, and general color schemeyness. Still, I admit when I heard the title I had a sinking feeling that this was going to be awkward... and boy, was I right.

It started when it was announced that Pokémon Black and White would be the first game to feature a black gym leader: Aloe (Lenora in America), the "Natural-Born Mama." I cringed as soon as I saw that, and her character design was no better: a wide-hipped woman with a big cloth hairband and an enormous apron draped over her front. Apparently the character designer thought it would be a good idea to design the first black woman in the games after a mammy.

And it doesn't get better. The next black character to be introduced is Iris, another gym leader. She, at least, does not appear to be based on a racist stereotype (though I could be wrong). And despite being a young girl, she is the most powerful Gym Leader that the player faces in White Version.

But...

In the anime, Iris is depicted as a "wild child." She roams around the wilderness and swings on vines to get from place to place. To compound how savage/untamed this character is, she lets her Pokémon live in her hair. This isn't the first time a game designer has done this - a recent Final Fantasy title featured a black man who raises chocobos and has a chick who lives in his hair. It seems to be popular opinion in Japan that natural black folks' hair is no better than an animal's nest. This isn't cute. It's disgusting. Equally as disgusting is their choice to play on the "untamed animal" stereotype for the character.

In the Black version of the game, Iris doesn't show up for very long, so you'd think they wouldn't have time to mess up... aside from the GLARINGLY OBVIOUS problem of "she spends most of the story arc babysitting a white/Asian girl whose Pokémon has been stolen." Yep, when poor Bianca is just too fragile to handle things on her own, Iris steps in to hold her hand through the ordeal. Which is not positive. It is racist.

Also, Iris is only available to fight as a gym leader in White Version. In Black Version, the final gym leader is Drayden... a white guy. Ho-hum.

The third black character is Marshal, a member of the Elite Four and the only black man in the Unova league. The first time I saw this guy, I got a pretty good of impression of him - he didn't seem to draw directly from a specific stereotype. Now, I'm not entirely sure. He uses Fighting-type Pokémon, and is depicted as a large, beefy brawler, which is par for the course with Fighting-type users, but it's also a common feature of black men in white entertainment - the thug or the soldier or prizefighter or whathaveyou. (I will point out that there is a lot of difference between a prizefighter or a soldier and a member of the Elite Four and master of martial arts. Namely, honor. But it feels suspicious to me anyway. Put this one down as a "maybe.")

Discussing this issue with a friend the other day, she and I agreed that the best way to start diversifying a game is in the non-League NPC's - the guys who just sit around towns and routes waiting to be fought. See, you can add in some Gym Leaders and the like and that's great, but unless they're also being represented in the general population, they become an exception, even an import, and are made foreign as a result.

Nintendo made some efforts in this regard. Firstly, the male backpacker sprite was given black-race-hair (although the character himself has fair skin, meaning he's probably mixed race, which is fine too.) And they added two black trainer types to the game: Dancers and Football Players.

Yes. The mind boggles.

Clerks? White or Asian. Fishermen? White or Asian. Female backpackers? White or Asian. EVERY CHARACTER TYPE WHO ISN'T A DANCER OR A FOOTBALL PLAYER? White or Asian.

They didn't even make any black cops.

In case I really need to point it out, this is another stereotype put into action: the idea of black physical prowess. Black men in Pokémon Black and White consist of excellent dancers, athletes, and one martial artist, period.

Oh, and Lenora and Iris are the only two black women in the game.

Now, I would be remiss if I said there weren't some good points as well. They're just not at the forefront of my mind, usually, because HOLY COW IS THIS GAME RACIST.

Mainly it centers around Lenora, because I've only seen a little bit of Iris and I'm not far enough in the game yet to see what Marshal is like. So we'll see what they did with her.

Firstly, in the American release (and in response to criticism from black Pokémon fans and allies), Lenora's description is changed from "Natural-Born Mama" to "The Archaeologist with a Backbone." And this makes many kinds of sense, since Lenora is, in fact, an archaeologist. Which brings me to my next point: aside from her design, Lenora is one kick-ass character. She's the lead archaeologist in Nacrene City. She has a significant participating role in a storyline that you have to play through in Nacrene before you can leave the city. She owns the museum. She's smart and in a position of power (as a Gym Leader.) And she is happily married to one of the researchers who works at the same museum (a white/Asian guy, of course, but she IS in a happy, monogamous relationship.)

In other words, she's one of the few black female characters I have ever seen that I feel like black children could be exposed to without the kick-in-the-teeth that accompanies so many portrayals. Now, I could be wrong - there could be something I've missed, and of course there's still the nasty role of explaining the "mammy" clothes, which could be more harmful than I'm giving it credit for. (Which makes me wonder how many white parents aren't explaining to their white kids what Lenora's outfit means. But then we're getting into "teaching tool" territory, and that's a subject for another post.)

Also, for once none of the black characters are criminals.

A final point: so far, I've limited this discussion to how the game treats two recognized races: black and white/Asian. And aside from the black/white mixed-race backpackers and an ambiguously tan male Psychic (who might be mixed race of any kind, Latino Mexican, indigenous North American Filipino, southern Japanese, or anything else you can think of) these are the only two racial groups depicted in the game. Meanwhile, the myriad of other races that comprise the visual and cultural makeup of the United States (and particularly New York, on which the Unova region is based) continue to be erased.

(By the way, I refer to the majority race in Black and White as white/Asian because the way these characters are typically seen is largely dependent on where the game has been released - the average Japanese player is going to see them as Japanese, whereas the average European-descended player is going to see them as European-descended, and the artists went to absolutely no effort to make a distinction between the two. Also because the region is based on an American location rather than Japan, so there's no way of telling which the artists intended.)

Routine Christian Fapping

...and if THAT doesn't scare you away from this post, I don't know what will.

Renee at Womanist Musings made a post about Anne Rice's abandonment of the Christian institution. She has this to say about it:

It bothers me to know that fundamentalism has made such a mess of Christianity that progressive people are leaving it in droves. Without the voice of the progressives, it leaves religion, an important cultural space, for those that would advocate intolerance towards others. I came across this story on a gay blog where the author was celebrating and I could not help but think of the cruelty of this action. A loss of faith is deeply a sad thing and is not something to be celebrated no matter how hateful various Christian churches have been. It is a sign of resignation, of giving up what is most dear because of the criminal actions of others and not because of the actions of God. Anne Rice losing her belief is not a victory, in fact it is a loss.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

It is no exaggeration to say that I was in tears by the end of reading this paragraph. How dare she. HOW DARE SHE.

I am an atheist. I used to be a Christian. I gave up my faith because the people who advocated it were operating on lies. I don't mean culty brainwashing lies like "I am the only one who can get you to Heaven" (although they had their own mode of this) or "only people who fast on the seventeenth day of September will be saved." I mean big lies, like "Jesus is the prophesied Messiah of the Tanach."

I won't deny that Christianity was a horrible experience for me. Brainwashing, sexism, and every kind of bullshit under the sun haunted me day and night. I was convinced because of my parents that I could drop dead at any time, really, and the only reason I didn't was because God had decided to give me one more hour/day/whatever. Okay, it sucked.

But that's not why this post pisses me off.

A loss of faith is deeply a sad thing and is not something to be celebrated no matter how hateful various Christian churches have been. It is a sign of resignation, of giving up what is most dear because of the criminal actions of others and not because of the actions of God.

Most dear?

This viewpoint reeks so badly of brainwashing that I could vomit. Most dear. Get that? The most dear thing to Renee is being a Christian. Not her family. Not civil rights. A guy who was last heard from in a two-thousand-year-old book is the most important thing in her life.

Maybe I'm overreacting, maybe there's something about this viewpoint that is NOT irredeemably fucked up. But I have to know, what about the flipside? What about those of us that DON'T believe in a god? Well, we must be the most sad, destitute people on the planet without that ultra-important sky man in our lives. Of course most Christians wouldn't call us "sad and destitute." They'd probably say something like "missing out on something important and they don't realize it. But the fact is that, with this statement, Renee is contributing to the incredibly misconceived and hurtful idea that atheists are missing out on something vital just because they don't believe in a cosmic power.

Way to go, lady.

The fun continues in the comments.

..it is PEOPLE who have corrupted the message of love and peace and charity that is in and throughout the Bible, turning it into a tool for propaganda devoid of the love that is so essential to Christ's mission and message.

Oh, my gosh! She is so right! It is people like Moses (who ordered the execution of men who had sex with other men and married rape victims, as well as the exile of men who accidentally saw their mothers-in-law naked and other fun stuff) and Paul (who commanded women to do whatever the fuck their husbands wanted and ALSO had a few choice words for teh gheyz) who corrupt the TRUE meaning of Christianity, which is peace and love and huuuuuggggz.

HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS.

There's also a common overtone, alluded to in this thread, of "atheists are all rich, white, intellectual snobs." Reminding me for the FIFTY BAJILLIONTH TIME that I DO NOT FUCKING EXIST. There are no working-class atheists. There are no atheists whose abandonment of Christianity happened not because they think it's "stupid," but because their abuse at the hands of Christians unlocked their minds to the truth, which is that the WHOLE FUCKING BIBLE is full of abuse and abuse advocacy. There is NO chance that the POOR, INNOCENT BIBLE is actually full of hideous, hateful things that are damn well deserving of rejection. No chance that the Good News is peppered with a helluva lot of bad news. You get the fucking picture.

People, Christians, if you want atheists to stop arguing against Christianity, THEN FUCKING FIX IT. I don't care how you do it. Even if you just come right out and say "the bad parts are total shit so we're going to ignore them," I don't care. Just stop hiding behind the pretense of being the only GOOD Christians. When your fellow Christians - stop calling them fundamentalists and start OWNING UP to the fact that they are members of your religion - when they start spouting hateful shit, START CALLING THEM OUT ON IT. I know a lot of people already do this - usually in the same blog post or article in which they decry those persons as "rightwing nutjobs" or whine about the "corrupt organization."

Guys. CHRISTIANITY IS FUCKING ORGANIZATION. It ain't this "personal walk with Jesus" shit that you're all blabbering about nowadays. You all keep whining about Christianity being "corrupted" into this religion of hate; you're no different than the fundamentalists complaining that humanity has been "corrupted" into a state of horrible sinfulness. In the words of Tim Wise: No, fool. That's how it's SUPPOSED to work.

You could make an argument that Christianity in the way that Yeshua originally delivered it was not meant to be used this way. And you'd actually have a point. But if you go that route, you have to take it all the way. Denounce every single inch of the fucking Bible that isn't about Yeshua. Nothing said by any of his followers (especially not that Paul asshole) can be part of the conversation. And remember, those first four books of the "New" Testament say surprisingly little about Yeshua being the promised Messiah through whom you must pray and be baptized, so you have to throw that out too. I realize he did that whole "he who accepts me accepts Him who sent me" thing, but you'd be surprised how easily that can be read to mean "everything I say is relevant to how this shit is supposed to work; I'm not keeping any secrets from you folks." Oh, and you'd better be checking to see how much of the stories were forged decades after the fact, because those aren't part of the original message either. Though if you're looking for a shortcut, I recommend the Jefferson Bible.

Christians, yo: they have a lot of good intentions and very little knowledge of what they're actually dealing with.

I will, however, throw this in from the comments:

What I find problematic is that when people discuss the hate of American Christianity, they're really talking about white Christians and their version of Christianity. As a black Christian, I experience God/dess quite differently, I guess. While on the whole, black Christians are just as conservative as white Christians, it appears we prize an ethic of social justice over and above forcing God in the public sphere. For example, I'm pretty sure I just read yesterday that while the majority of black Christians view abortion as immoral, given the opportunity, we would keep it legal.

That's cool. I'm for that. But I'm NOT behind anyone - white or black or whatever - pretending that the shit in the Bible is fake, or distorted, or whatever... because if you really think that you haven't really been studying the book you so diligently worship.

Renee of Womanist Musings on Chris Brown

TRIGGER WARNING: discusses domestic violence (non-explicit)

When I saw the headline "Chris Brown refers to beating of Rihanna as 'mishap'," I knew this wasn't going to be pretty. And Renee of Womanist Musings explains exactly why.

Abusers like Brown don't just hit one time and then change their ways. Abuse become a pattern, a way of life, and the fact that he was raised watching domestic violencem means that he has already identified the oppressor rather than the victim. The pattern of abuse is very hard to break and even men that receive counseling often end up re abusing. While there is no guarantee that Brown will hit another woman, there is also no guarantee he won't. We need to remember that most often, domestic abuse goes on for year and in some cases ends in death.

...

He then went on to complain about those who stopped associating with him in the wake of his violent actions against Rihanna. He finishes by referring to the battering of Rihanna as "mishap." If he cannot even acknowledge what he did, how is anyone to believe that he feels responsible for his actions and wants to genuinely make amends. There have stars like Rick Sanchez and even my beloved Queen Latifah who have suggested that the public should consider his youth, or that enough time has passed for us to move on. This comes down to the fact that even talented, beautiful, class privileged women like Rihanna are disposable. Violence against women is an issue that society tends to pay lip service to and this is why men like Brown can freely refer to instances of outright violence as a "mishap."

A-MEN. Let me reiterate: anyone who can look back at BEATING ANOTHER HUMAN BEING and call it a "mishap" has not learned their lesson. And I just want to add: the recipient doesn't have to be a woman. The same kind of language has been used by parents who have beaten their children (who often add "I just got too mad and lost control!" as if that was an acceptable excuse. Ho-hum, ageism), white men beating black men, cis men murdering trans women. The only thing that matters is that the victim has less privilege than his or her attacker, because when THAT factor comes into play suddenly it was a horrible mistake and he didn't mean it and he really, REALLY shouldn't be punished that hard because HOW COULD HE HELP IT?

You know if Rihanna was a white man - or even a white woman, possibly - it wouldn't have played out this way. And his behavior should not be going unchecked in this instance, either. The enemy is right in front of you. Let's treat him like the criminal he is.

My body is not selfish.

One thing that I face as both a fat person and a trans person is the accusation that I am "selfish."

Being fat, I am selfish because I allegedly consume more food than thinner people (FEAR my 2000-calorie-a-day diet.) Being trans, I am selfish because I allegedly would like other people to pay for my "cosmetic" surgeries. (This is what I am accused of if I want my surgery covered by my medical insurance, as are my trans brothers and sisters in any country where this kind of thing applies.)

I'm not going to be nice: That's bullshit. I'm not selfish.

Firstly, yes. Okay. I eat more than a thin person of my height. Not because I'm a glutton; my fat body is not a living testament to my greed, contrary to what the assholes say. Because I have more body mass and I need more calories to sustain it. We're not talking huge quantities more. We're talking a few hundred more per day, or the equivalent of a single Famous Star burger at Carl's Jr.

Secondly, I get why you think transsexual surgeries are cosmetic. Because they're not "life-saving," right? Just like going to the doctor and getting a cast for your leg isn't life-saving (c'mon, it'll eventually heal on its own). Just like taking medication for your chronic pain isn't life-saving. Surgery to correct a serious birth defect is sometimes life-saving, but sometimes not. Laser eye surgery? Puh-lease.

I ain't saying that being trans is like having a broken leg or chronic pain or even a medically accepted birth defect. I AM saying that living in a body that doesn't fit my identity has a very real, detrimental effect to my well-being. I am saying that for me, having breasts, and for other trans people, vaginas or penises or whathaveyou, is traumatic on a daily basis, and it ain't because I'm too fucking sensitive, it's because I have to actually look at/touch my body periodically to maintain my hygiene and health.

Okey?

Being fat doesn't make me selfish, either. Even if you account that being fat causes me to eat more. Nobody slams bodybuilders for their 6000-calorie-a-day diets (that's 3x my daily consumption, FYI) - in fact, they frequently get praised for their dedication to their bodies. Plus their bodies are bigger than non-bodybuilders, so they take up more space and require bigger clothes. In fact, any body operating on testosterone is going to be naturally bigger and have a faster metabolism than a comparable estrogen-fueled body. Oh my god, men are selfish! We must put them on estrogen treatments IMMEDIATELY to reduce their food consumption so that there will be more food available for the poor, starving wimminz!

RIGHT.

You get what I'm saying? It's not okay to say I'm selfish for needing more seating space that a thinner person could be using. It's not okay to say I'm selfish for eating more food.

But when it comes down to it, it's not my greed you're really against, is it? It's my nonconformity. It's my being fat or trans that really bugs at you and gets stuck in your craw. Otherwise there'd be a lot more hate (and I ain't saying there isn't hate, just that there's less of it) against people who get benign tumors removed and people who "bulk up" to unrealistic proportions for movie roles.

Quote of the Day

A comment on the Womanist Musings post "There Are More Sites Of Oppression Than Gender":

I'm a WOC, and when I look at gender in movies,I don;t get to neatly parse out where gender ends or race begins. Cos they exist simultaneoulsy. Cos yknow, WOC EXIST.

Intersectionality. It's a tough one. It's easy to get it into our heads that we can break down the ways that we are oppressed into easy-to-categorize boxes, but you can't. Just like I couldn't leave a comment (on a post about class privilege) about my class disadvantages without mentioning all of the non-class factors (religious beliefs, education, gender identity, etc.) that have a very real impact on how desperately I need the money for my own safety as well as how much money I will have to spend for it.

Intersectionality means that we are more than the sum of our parts. A black woman is not just black + woman; she is a unique individual that suffers a unique set of stigmas and stereotypes. For instance, she may be expected to erase her race from her hair for the sake of beauty - something that neither white women nor black men are expected to do. Likewise, a trans gay man is not just gay + man + trans. People may assume of him, if he has a vagina, that he wants to be the "bottom" in a sexual relationship. This isn't something that happens to cis gay men OR to trans straight men (though it happens frequently to trans and cis women).

Intersectionality is one of the hardest facets of oppression to learn, because you can't just learn the rules for each category of oppressed persons and then stack them up like Dominos to figure out what each person is suffering from. Which I think is the point - an identity isn't just a list of labels. It's a melting pot that uses all of the ingredients put into it to create a person, and a set of stigmas for that person, that will taste similar in some ways to those who share ingredients but also has a taste of its own.

That may or may not make any sense.

I do not understand this "two spirit" thing.

Please hear me out.

We began reading the writing of Native American two-spirit people with no other intent than to educate the self. The main one - we'll call him William - understands the importance of learning about the experiences of TLGB people who are not white, because how else could he be an effective ally? Even to himself, how can he protect himself if he cannot protect his brothers and sisters and brother-sisters and sister-brothers?

So we read with an open mind, and we do not understand.

This page outlines the basics of a two-spirit movement (you might call it Two-Spirit 101.) William would call it the Two-Spirit Movement, but it would be impractical and ridiculous to assume that every Two-Spirit person everywhere is united with all the others. But it explains the basics. The self grasps these. They are parts of a different culture, but they fit into the tapestry of human experience.

This is a post from one two-spirit person about something that happened in her day-to-day life. (William offers his apologies if he left out part of the pronoun.) We understand the need to talk about these things with someone like ourselves; no one else ever truly understands. It's not a hard concept to grasp.

But we've heard that a two-spirit person will often refer to themselves in the plural. As if they are truly two persons, male and female.

And we wonder if there really are two persons.

William is willing to believe this is so. It's his writing you've read on this blog. He is the social activist, the humanist. His fingers write this post. He refers to himself in the third person this time because Nicolas is speaking.

Nicolas does not understand this at all. Nicolas is furious that someone would try to appropriate the identity of someone who has two persons within them in this manner. Do you know what it's like for him? He's not even his own person. William is trapped in a life that does not fit his gender. Nicolas is trapped in a life that has no room for him. Most days he is completely silenced because there's nothing being done that needs his attention. Every day it's William this and William that. He sits there quietly, so quietly that it makes the self wonder if he even exists. He's less than half a person. And yet he is a person. He's a person with thoughts of his own and a will of his own and every day he takes backseat to someone who just happened to claim this life first and wastes it every day playing video games and doing crap that has a snowball's chance in Hell of taking their life anywhere. So I want to know - me, Nicolas, the other man in William's head who never comes out because it might UPSET PEOPLE if they knew there were more than one of us in here - I want to know if you know what that's like. Duality ain't nearly as fun as you kids seem to think it is.

I won't apologize for that.

But William would like to remind you that he doesn't know what it's like for you, and he's not going to assume that it's not the way you say it is. He's a good kid. Sees the best in people for as long as he can. So when he gets the opportunity he'll ask someone. I will. Because the only way to understand is to educate myself, the lesson I've learned time and time again.

And please remember that Nicolas is in here, too. He may not say much, but it hurts him to be ignored. It hurts him that I (William) would rather stay safe than admit to the world that he exists. That's not what he wants. It's not what either of us want, and since we are the same person I feel his pain almost as acutely as he does. But William can put it away after a while. I get to be the one out most of the time, so I can forget what it's like to be shut away. Nicolas never forgets, and the next time I hear from him he will remind me. I'm scared of Nicolas, scared of losing control of my life, but Nicolas is scared of only one thing in the world and that's being forgotten.

That's what it's like for this person to have two spirits (if that's what you call them). Maybe someday I'll introduce the third, but he doesn't feel like coming out right now.

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.