you know i think i’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to “but what if a cis woman is traumatized by men/male presenting people/whatever?” irt safe spaces is this: if you can’t be in the same room with someone you assume to be male or a man without feeling triggered, it probably means you have a lot more solo therapy and healing to do before relying on group therapy or other communal healing.
because how do you decide who gets to stay and who gets kicked out based on a cis woman’s trauma response? is it based on appearance? should intersex women with facial hair not be allowed because beards are triggering? should butches and studs not be allowed because masculinity is triggering? should talk broad shouldered trans women who don’t want to voice train not be allowed because low voices are triggering? is it based on identity? should a pre transition trans man who came out two days ago not be allowed because he’s a man? is a nonbinary person with a full beard and deep voice allowed because they are not a man?
because if you base your entire set of rules for who’s not allowed in the safe space on what makes cis women uncomfortable or triggers them, you’ve just made that space unsafe for trans people. and you need to decide if you’re ready to own that.
guys this is the faggot tranny blog why is this a hot take.
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Y'all last night I realized that being physically hot for extended periods of time is literally a trigger, in that it cues me to remember and be emotionally braced for some fairly traumatic shit that happened when I was hot like that last... which means everything is worse and more stressful while it's happening.
If the only thing to do about it is to cease being hot, I have real bad news for my brain about "global warming" and "living in Minnesota (where there hasn't been as much investment in nuclear level AC)". Like, shit, at least you can ask dudes to clear out of your spaces without invoking King Canute quite that clearly. It's not any more reasonable, but it's marginally less absurd!
No, the thing you do about triggers is you learn to account for them and you practice learning to defang them. That means you gate your own exposure to triggers to minimize the odds of getting blindsided, but you also deliberately spend time around your triggers un-learning the association between them and the scar of your stress. Because asking half the world to avoid you for the rest of time is intrusive and unreasonable, just like asking the world to stop changing climate because that's really inconvenient for me is unreasonable.
It sucks, but that's life! Being aware is only the first step to healing, baby. The rest is like PT: long, shitty, and requiring both a good spotter and a lot of crappy effort to get anywhere with it.
It is 100% possible and So worth it to work on your triggers btw. Especially when it's something super common and normalised in society. You deserve not to feel upset and alienated by something that should be a neutral fact of life. Trauma often makes you feel helpless and powerless, but this is absolutely within your power to work on, and improvement is very much possible. You deserve that peace of mind, not only the shaky temporary relief of avoidance, but the true calm of knowing something can't hurt you anymore.
At some point, once the trauma is in the past, and you don't need to protect yourself in the same way, holding onto strong negative feelings about triggers is doing nothing but harm you (and often others around you).
It is hard, and it does involve some feelings that really suck to experience, but they pass, and you realise you are still okay. Your body learns to brace itself a little less harshly next time. And eventually, most days, you won't even worry about it. You realise you didn't have to carry that burden anymore, and the world feels less hostile and more open.
