Hey, I have a question to ask. though I dunno if it's okay to, since you've said you don't feel comfortable being asked about internalised transphobia...
Please lmk if this kind of thing bothers you still, or is triggering or offensive, as I don't want to hurt you with my question...
Anyway. I wonder, how do you deal with transphobic hate from people who hate he/him lesbians and/or transmasculine lesbians. People who feel like they're intruders in the lesbian community (whether they are direct about these thoughts or not), due to their intimate connection with masculinity.
I had this experience recently, and honestly it seriously hurts; but other than that (and maybe most importantly), I truly don't feel like I belong here. Idk like, how do you deal with that.
I don't have like, a femme or a butch/stud to validate my identity so, any suggestions outside of that would be very nice 😅
if you have them 😅, that is.
I also don't have many friends, and the queer community in my country is still small, and learning each other (for some ppl ig) under the constraints of a homophobic govt, so you can imagine how hard it would be to find anyone that's accepting of... confusing genders...
Even the studs in my community, who I hang out with, I can't say for sure they fully get it... cuz they're just like most ppl, with narrow views of everything especially gender and roles, even queer gender. Everyone is learning at their own pace, I guess (I think), so I should and I have given them that grace of like. Ofc you don't get it, I didn't and in few cases don't get it too; but like. Still hurts I guess.
I feel very alone and like I don't belong there in the community, nevertheless... 🥲
It was a 'femme' that said the transphobic thing which made it hurt more; her voice was filled with so much vitriol as I listened to her speak, which made it hurt worse; and it felt like I did something to hurt her just by identifying this way, even if she wasn't speaking to/about me directly, and doesn't even know me. And no one saw what she said as wrong, or called her out except this one other person who was repeatedly shut down, so idk.
If you have any advice I'd gladly take it; okay bye 🤝🏾
So, this is really hard. It is the eternal queer question - what do I do when someone else decides that I shouldn’t exist? As you can imagine, based on the eons of queer history that has been built around grappling with this question, there is not an easy answer. There is certainly not an easy answer that a random butch online can provide to you when our forebears couldn’t find an easy answer either after hundreds and thousands of years of living like this.
The thing that I have been doing a lot of recently is training myself to look to me first and foremost when I start to wonder if I belong, if I’m real, if I should exist. Because you can ask lots of people outside of yourself and you’re gonna get lots of different answers, some of which you might not like, that might hurt you. But the truth is - and forgive me for the cliche - nobody else can tell you what you are. Nobody else can make you feel real or like you belong.
I think I’m a pretty good case study on this. During my time as Cody, by and large I have been extremely lucky in how my audience has treated me. My gender has been validated, my identity has been respected, my pronouns have been used generously and correctly. When I have bemoaned my dysphoria publicly, I have experienced an outpouring of support reassuring me that I am actually perceived in exactly the way I want to be perceived.
And you know what? It hasn’t been enough. Not because my followers aren’t enough, not because I haven’t felt or recognized or been grateful for the love and support and validation I’ve received. But because if I am not my central source for validation, if I can’t believe that I am what I say I am, then no amount of other people telling me I’m valid is going to stick. My opinion is truly the only one that matters.
So this is not me telling you not to be hurt by outside criticism. It’s not telling you not to get triggered or dysphoric when people misgender and misunderstand you. Being in community is human - we are pack animals, and the desire to be accepted by our pack mates is inherent and instinctual, and you can’t expect yourself not to desire that. But what I am telling you is that the only thing you can really control is how you feel about you, so I think that is where you should aim your energy and your efforts.
Becoming your own best ally is the best thing you can do for yourself. Whatever that looks like to you. It can be internal affirmations, it can be mirror work, it can be writing things down about yourself in a journal that you love that are masculine and queer aspects. It takes a lot of practice, and it really has to become a daily habit. Especially in this day and age, where external noise and validation seems like all that matters, where blending into the crowd feels like safety, it will probably be a practice for you to get to a place where your opinion is the one that matters most to you. But I promise you that you won’t feel safe and you won’t feel real until you become your own point of reference for your sense of safety and reality.
You are real because you are. You are queer because you are. You belong in the queer community because you do. You exist this way because it is how you are meant to exist, and the queer community would not be the same without you, and without me, and without people like us. You don’t need to wait for someone else to tell you this. You need to be the one saying it to yourself, over and over again, until you believe it, until a thousand voices saying otherwise couldn’t drown out the sound of your own.
And that, to me, is true queerness. It is the declaration that I exist, I am real, and I will continue to exist in spite of anyone who tells me I don’t or that I shouldn’t. There’s a defiance in being queer, a refusal to not exist. And if that defiance is against other queer people who don’t understand you, so be it. There will always be those who will fight for you. You said it yourself - someone spoke up against that femme, someone knew she was wrong and said so. Those people will always exist. You could be one of them. But you have to learn how to be that for yourself first. Everything else will follow.
