there is a weirdness to how I can escape particular kinds of threats through removing body parts. I can’t be threatened with forced pregnancy now because I removed my uterus. If I get my breasts and nipples removed my torso will no longer be legally obscene. The ability to change the body brings into stark focus how policed the body is. I think that is a large part of why reactionaries prioritize opposing transition so fiercely— changing one’s body and watching the legal system contort itself to apply new laws to the same person makes obvious the violence necessary to maintain the political structure they want people to believe is “natural” and “innate.” People undergoing sex change are almost walking symbols of how much effort, how many resources, how much violence (threats and punishment) everyone must collectively expend in maintaining the pericis patriarchal order. Transition suggests the possibility to everyone that patriarchy is deeply artificial and not as difficult to undermine and dismantle as one might imagine. Not an immutable force of nature but a delicate system constantly needing to be collectively maintained by a global majority of people in order to prevent collapse. Trans people by virtue of existing provoke cis people to realize they themselves might benefit from refusing to participate in this maintenance. Might it be easier and more freeing to not police bodies? Might the world be more just if we all refuse to revoke the bodily autonomy of others along axes of political power? These realizations threaten the hold of naturalized patriarchal ideologies and so trans people are relentlessly targeted for extermination.
