What’s funny,if it weren’t so bleak,is how much of the trans community is obsessed with “not being clocked.” Like, just that obsession alone screams self-hatred and crushed self-esteem. If your whole identity hinges on not being seen as what you actually are, what does that say about how you see yourself?
Then there’s the other side of the coin: people getting upset because they are being read as cis, which causes an identity crisis in its own right. It’s like, is the goal to be seen as the gender you say you are, or is it to be recognized as trans and affirmed?
Nobody can seem to agree. And that’s the irony: when your entire movement’s baseline becomes altering your body to visually conform to a specific ideal That’s capitalism. That’s buying your way into palatability. It’s not liberation, it’s assimilation with extra surgery.
If any trans people want to talk to me, the evil witchy TERF you all love to hate....like genuinely, I have a question. Why is it so bad to be seen as trans? Where’s the pride in it? Where’s the “trans is beautiful” energy when the overwhelming obsession is about not being clocked, not being recognized, not standing out? Shouldn’t that say something about how deeply the self-hatred runs, how much it’s rooted in shame rather than liberation?
Because from where I stand, there’s nothing wrong with saying, “Yeah, I was born female, but I feel more comfortable presenting masculine.” That’s honest. That’s even admirable. But the second someone says “I feel more comfortable as a man,” it becomes a contest of how convincing you can be, how much you can disappear into the cis mold. And the wildest part? Some of you then complain when you do pass when your own community starts treating you like a cis person and suddenly you feel erased again. So what is it? What is the goal?
If the foundation of your identity is changing your body until the world sees you differently, then let’s be honest: that’s not a rebellion. That’s capitalism. That’s body modification as validation, not liberation. And if “being seen as trans” feels like a failure to you, then maybe don’t come for women who are just saying, “Hey, I’m proud of what I am.”
Something else I don’t understand is the visceral hatred some trans people have toward their past selves. The way they recoil from old photos, old names, old bodies, as if that version of them was something filthy, something to erase. Like… that was you. Why do you hate them? Why is your instinct disgust instead of compassion? When I look at photos of myself from before, when I was angry, depressed, lost, I don’t want to delete her. I think, “Damn, she went through hell and survived. I’m proud of her.”
That’s still my story. I don’t need to obliterate her to become myself. So it makes me wonder: if your identity is built on rejecting your own history, how solid can it really be?
And even when you say your past self would think you look cool now, stronger, freer, more “you” why are you still so mean to them? Why do you talk about them like they were a mistake, something to scrub out of existence? If they’d look at you with awe, shouldn’t you look back with kindness? That girl or boy or in-between version carried you here. They endured the pain, the confusion, the violence of growing up in a body you were told was wrong. They weren’t weak for surviving. They were brave. So why treat them like a ghost you’re ashamed of?
Even the whole “deadnaming” concept it’s always struck me as strange.
Like… why do you talk about your past self like they’re dead? Like they were some cursed creature you buried behind a new haircut and a few surgeries. If someone’s being a jerk and using your old name to mock or undermine you that’s one thing. That’s disrespect. But most of the time it feels like the panic isn’t just about other people. It’s about you not wanting to remember. It’s like saying, “Don’t mention that name, don’t show me those photos, don’t remind me of that body, I’ve erased them.”
You can’t grow if you’re always running from the roots. Healing doesn’t mean forgetting.
Oh well food for thought, I gusse.