#they power

[tiktaalic]

They power

[alex-marie1324]

so apparently yesterday was nonbinary visiblity day??? and I didn’t even know !!! but anyway !!!!! im nonbinary! very proud and loud :o and this shirt is cute as FUCK

[moonmillie]

i really listen “power is power” already 232131 times send help

[tranz-ing]

Looking like a man and not being a man is often really lonely. I would never trade the changes that hormones and surgery have given me: I am so happy with what I look like, that I can recognize myself now, and that I almost never dissociate anymore. I feel like my dysphoria has been lifted in so many crucial ways. That was the goal from the start, and I have reached it. My life feels livable now, which is such a new concept to my brain that it is taking a lot of time to fully come to terms with it, to be honest. Passing has made my life much easier in so many ways. I don’t have to fight as much to feel safe. I can slip by through many social interactions unscathed. My body feels like it’s being inhabited. I can use my passing to my advantage and to help other people. This is an enormous privilege.

At the same time though, I find myself in a lot of social situations wishing that people knew I am trans and not socializing with me as though I am male. (Because that’s what I am. I am not male, I am trans. I am queer. These are the words that feel good and liberating and comfortable.) Of course, when people do know you’re trans that often shifts the way they treat you, for the worst. I have witnessed the change in attitude towards me when cis men find out. Suddenly, they start talking down to me and over me and ignoring me the way they do women - they way men did to me before I passed as male. But there are those people (usually other queer and trans people) that seem like once they find out (if they didn’t know before) their perception and understanding of me changes for the better; they start to consider me in a more warm and thoughtful light. They let their guard down with me and give me the benefit of the queer doubt, so to speak. Honestly, I’m not sure how good this is, because I could be a horrible misogynist for all they know. Just because I’m trans doesn’t make me a good or better version of manhood or masculinity. Not identifying with manhood does not make me, somehow, less of a misogynist. But that I suppose is a whole other post, because despite that, it does make me feel good when people (especially women and other queer folk) warm up to me once they know I’m trans.

So lately, I feel like I am stuck in this strange tug of war where on one side I want people to know, so that they don’t just write me off as another dude and they open themselves to the complexity and queerness and beauty of who I am ... and on the other side, I don’t want people to know because I am scared of being attacked, or interrogated, or even politely questioned but in the wrong place (like my workplace.) I guess I have reached a point where I am in control, to a certain extent, over who knows and who doesn’t. There are ways that I can choose to reveal my gender to people when I want to, and there are ways that I can choose to hide it when I want to. And that in itself is a privilege, even though it is difficult to balance and sometimes consumes my thoughts.

So I bought this shirt (from The Phluid Project.) And as soon as I put it on I was scared to wear it. Firstly, because I quickly realized that from far away I might look like I’m wearing a White Power shirt and I don’t want to create that kind of fear when I’m out in the world. Secondly, because this shirt outs me, and in doing so makes me feel like there is a target on my back. These feelings of wanting to hide and slip by and literally pass through life are relatively new. I remember the person I was before I had the option of passing. I didn’t really have a choice when it came to looking like a ‘butch’ or a ‘dyke’. My dysphoria dictated what clothes felt comfortable and what didn’t, and even in so-called feminine attire, people didn’t buy it. I couldn’t hide myself, just being me out in the world was enough to out me; I didn’t need a t-shirt, or a button, or a patch. I remember the person I used to be before I passed. When I was in high school, I was told by the principal that she didn’t want me putting a target on my back by starting the GSA. I went out the next day and found a denim jacket that happened to have a literal target on the back of it, and proceeded to wear it for the rest of the year. Because she didn’t understand that I already had a target on my back without even trying, so why not make it official? If I’m a dyke, I’m going to be the biggest dyke you’ve ever seen and there’s nothing you can do about it. That person that I was had guts and a cynicism that I’m not sure I have anymore. And that makes me feel like a coward. Now that I have the option to hide, I choose this option a lot. Because I am scared and also because I am tired. Being so radically out there is exhausting. I am trying to tell myself that this is okay, that it is about how I use my new privilege to protect others that really matters. But there is a part of me that still wants to be seen for the genderqueerdo that I am.

So I bought this shirt. And I will wear it when I want to, and I will worry about it all day long probably, and I will put a button down over it to obscure the words, and I will change out of it in certain spaces and I will be hyper aware of every single person who looks at it, and I will fear confrontation and even curious questions. And I will keep wearing it. Because the truth is that I am still that queer person that refuses to squash themselves, but my relationship to what that looks like - how I embody that - has changed. I am figuring it out in a whole new way. And that is okay.