i think one of my spiciest takes is that i think cis people should be cis on purpose and not because it’s the “default”
ok hear me out before you go into the notes, i have reasons.
the main idea is that i think EVERYONE should explore and interrogate their gender identity and what their gender truly means to them. because 1) i don’t think any harm will ever come from wanting to understand yourself and your existence on a deeper level and 2) if everyone, including cis people, explored their gender it would be more generally accepted. thus, trans people or people questioning their transness wouldn’t be as othered when they start questioning and exploring their gender.
because here’s the deal. every trans person i know can tell you what their gender means. they can tell you what it means to be a man or a woman or neither or both or some other nebulous concept. they can describe it to you and explain it to you. they can tell you what their manhood or womanhood or neitherhood means to them, what it represents, how they knew that’s who they were.
every trans person i know (including myself) can articulate what their gender is in more words than “well i’m *insert gender* because i’m *insert gender*” (yes i know i’m always saying i can’t be bothered with gender but i do actually have a lot of feelings and words on my own)
i’ve talked to a lot of cis people about gender and they just simply can’t explain to me what womanhood or manhood is to them. so often it’s “well i’m a man cuz i’m a man. i look like a man i act like a man etc etc.” but what does a man look like? what does a man act like? and it’s usually people who consider themselves trans allies saying these things!
people should explore their gender. they should understand it more deeply. i don’t say “explore your gender” as a way to try and force anyone into a realization of transness, i say it because i want people to understand their gender. whether that be cis or trans or whatever.
to understand yourself more deeply is to understand your place in the world more accurately. learning more about who you are, and why you are, and how you are never hurts in the long run.
so yeah. be cis on purpose, be cis because you know deeply that you are cis, because you understand what that means to you.
and be trans on purpose. use the labels you like deliberately. dress in the way that brings you euphoria and mitigates dysphoria because you deserve that.
simply be on purpose. walk through life with deliberate steps, with solidified intent. because without doing so, how can we find our purpose on this earth and in this life?
