I am a trans woman. i'm in the closet I can't get out (2023)

NOTE: Wow, I wrote this piece anonymously and privately and had no intention of anyone else actually reading it. It was a way for me to vent my frustration without taking any risks. I didn't tweet that out; I didn't post or share this. Someone found it and circulated it, and that's perfectly fine, but what you're reading is essentially a journal entry.

If you are trans and closed off, or suspect you might be, DO NOT treat my decisions as advice - they are based on my circumstances. Find and talk to other trans women and soak up their experiences as well. Transitioning is helping many, many people and living in hiding can be a lot more damaging. Let this be just one of many narratives you absorb.

Resentment about “The only real trans woman is an out-trans woman”.

Here are some parts of the story. It's not everything, but it's more privacy than I've ever wanted to sacrifice.

I am six years old.

I wake up from a dream that I'm a girl, my heart is racing, I'm getting sick. I'm not sick with disgust; I'm sick with shame. It's not the first time I've had this dream, although it's one of my earliest memories. What I feel (although I won't be able to access the metaphor until years later) is like I've accidentally projected my most intimate browsing history in front of a classroom via a malicious HDMI adapter. I feel like I got caught somehow - like everyone in the world watched my dream while I was sleeping last night. But I want to dream it again. I'm six years old and I believe in God so I'm praying to dream it again, which of course I do.

correlation, meet causality. No weird stuff, you two.

I am seven years old.

At school we read a chapter book about a boy who turns into a girl. My heart is pounding until I feel it in my teeth and it feels like everyone is staring at me. Of course they aren't. Back at home I stare at the cover which shows a boy looking in a mirror to see a girl looking back and I cry.

I hear from a terribly singing cricket that if you wish on a star it will come true. Almost every night I sneak out of bed and stare out the window wishing for every star I can see just to cover my base. As a magical thinker, I tell myself that if I wish it out loud a thousand times, I'll wake up with long hair in cute pajamas with a different name - and maybe freckles. One thousand is such a mighty number to me that the cosmic committees - listening at night for desperate whispered wishes - could not possibly overlook me.i wish i was a girl, I keep telling myself (honestly demonstrating an impressive understanding of the past subjunctive). Soon I'll be singing it to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell. I laugh out loud at this, and it feels like there are two of me sitting awake in my bed—me in cuffed baseball pajamas and me in the blue nightie I covet on Wendy Darling.

I am aware that the Singing Cricket film is not the Wendy Darling film. Don't be pedantic; I am seven years old.

I am eight years old.

My favorite people are (and will always be) girls - my teachers, my mother's friends, my classmates. I don't like playing with boys. Boys are generally stupidandYou have boogers in your nose. A sinister ring finger performs a sex exam in my nostril. When I play computer games privately, I choose a female character. If it feels safe, I'll put in a female name. I like Kimberly because Kimberly is the pink Power Ranger.

When I ask to stay with my friends I'm told I can't. Boys are not allowed. My friend Caitie's mom is arguing with my mom on the phone about this. I realize that my mother is not on my side.

Later, my mother tells me that Caity's mother is divorced, has a tattoo, and sleeps on a waterbed, the relevance of which doesn't seem clear. I think Caity's mom is cool.

I am nine years old.

I love everything my sister loves, but I won't admit it. I know that she and her friends will make fun of me. I know my parents will reprimand and correct me. I'm learning the rules and I'm learning that boys liking girls things is a very important issue. I'm learning that adults respond to my interest in makeup the same way they do to my interest in matches and lighters.

As if by being who I am I might burn down something very important to her. Something that makes their life more convenient and easier.

I'm jealous of my sister's clothes. One day, home alone after school, I sneak into her room and put on her Tinkerbell Halloween costume. I pull the elastic straps over my shoulders, then the tights down my legs. It fits. My heart feels like the fist of someone trapped under a frozen lake, banging against the surface from below. How could something feel so wonderful and so miserable at the same time? I don't feel like I've lifted a weight - I feel like I put one weight down and picked up another. I run to my room and hide the costume under my mattress. Later I bring it back to my sister's bedroom.

This isn't the last time I'll do this. There's no last time I'll do this.

I am 10 years old

I watch TV every day after school. I'm drawn to sci-fi and supernatural fiction shows. In these shows are villains who can inhabit other bodies or shapeshift. There are machines that exchange people's brains. Even the more realistic shows have weirdosCrazy FridayScenarios where brother and sister fool around and spend a day learning how tough each other's lives are. I'm having trouble understanding why brother doesn't get on his knees and give thanks to the god who shakes his head.

Spoilers: their lives, it turns out, are equally tough for a variety of reasons! Which is a solace and a relief to writers who have almost had to contemplate a non-egalitarian existence mediated by chaos, patriarchy, and contradiction rather than magic, consistency, and narrative resolution.

I am 11 years old.

I'm in a hotel room watching Maury Povich. A number of beautiful women enter the stage and we are asked to guess which are "real" and which are "transsexual". I don't know these words. I don't even fully understand what "gay" is, although I pretend to be. I'm guessing that "trans" is related to "gay," but that doesn't bother me. Instead, I feel a surge of hope as the hotel's coffeemaker gurgles a scathing burp. How much does it cost to sit in the chair and let her flip the switch? will it hurt I do not care. Every pain will be worth it.

I am twelve years old.

I'm watching a VHS tape in health class that was played by an unknowing substitute teacher who pulled one out of the stack. It's a human interest documentary from the '90s, taped to television. It's about people they call transsexuals, and it espouses the easily digestible, binary birth-in-the-wrong-body narrative that will remain popular for another decade. The characters in the documentary are not the beautiful, smiling Hawaiian women on Maury Povich. You are tired. Alt. Midwest. The documentary explains about vaginoplasty. The reporter uses terms like "the surgeon tries" and "dilator" and "salvage." Like “hormones” and “osteoporosis”. I fear needles; I'm afraid of pills; I fear scalpels; I'm afraid of hospitals. The reporter speaks of a "long road to recovery". I realize there is no chair and no switch. I also realize that I don't fully understand pain. The weary Midwestern wives and husbands have grown their hair out and are wearing dresses. You seem happy.

For the rest of my life, two days is the longest I can go without thinking about it. I read stories about strong, adventurous girls late into the night so I don't have to think about how my body looks under the covers.

I'm 13 years old.

The internet has arrived and I've learned with some relief that, at least for now, there is a condition called Gender Identity Disorder. I don't know that in the next ten years there will be culture wars over what's best to call me - or that they will take place on this very internet, which I only go to to print out pictures of my parents' girls, comfortably assuming that I have a crush.

I create a fake (?) username on AOL Instant Messenger and tell my school friends that I'm my own girlfriend, Jennifer, from a few towns. I use this screen name more often than my own. Jennifer does everything I do and everything I'm not allowed to do.

I'm developing an eating disorder.

I'm 14 years old.

When I help my father build things, he calls me strong. I feel like I'm gaining something and losing something at the same time.

I'm 15 years old.

I'm moving to the east coast, a state that is both south and not, and am going to an all boys boarding school on a scholarship. I hate the idea of ​​having to spend all my time with other guys. Boys are immature. Boys are hypersexual. Boys are violent.

I shower in the middle of the night when the shared bathrooms are empty. I've been harassed more than once for this. My penis is being ripped. A football player's finger searches between my clenched buttocks as he asks if I'm gay and that's why I'm afraid to shower with everyone. These aren't my people.

I'm 16 years old.

Some of these are my people. I meet guys who like to read what I like to read. I meet guys who also have terrible secrets. I meet guys who agree that being a boy sucks, even though they don't seem to mean it like I do. We're not proud to be boys, but we have fun together. We throw rocks in ponds and have sixteen year old discussions about time travel. We steal condoms from the supermarket. Sometimes we get beat up. We watch Fight Club and we beat each other with layers of socks on our hands like boxing gloves. Then we scratch each other's stomachs – including the football players. We sneak into each other's rooms late at night to tell stories. We downloadHinterhofigansEpisodes on LimeWire as a bit, but they end up hosting weekly viewings out of genuine appreciation. We lie about our sexual experiences, but we listen intently to each other's lies as if they might hold traces of the truth, like veins of sexy quartz. Some of the guys are straight, some are gay - I kiss a few of each. I know I don't love boys like I love girls, but I love them anyway. I wonder what that means - if the fact that I prefer girls is evidence of my childhood.

One of the Korean boys is circumcised at sixteen because the girl who invites him to the Sadie Hawkins dance makes fun of his uncircumcised penis.

I am 17 years old.

Girls start to think that I'm a cute boy. I'm starting to think I'm an ugly girl.

I am 18 years old.

Laura Jane Grace comes out. She tells Rolling Stone of a childhood where she "prayed to God, 'Dear God, please, when I wake up I want a woman's body.'" Other times she tried the devil: 'I promise to spend it Rest of my life as a serial killer if you turn me into a woman.'”

i'm in college I learn that some people ask to be called with different pronouns. I see how that feels in my head. It doesn't make much of a difference. I still want to sit in that chair and flip that switch. Pronouns are the least of my worries.

I attend a women's college. I am surrounded by new women and we immediately feel comfortable with each other. I attend a lecture. The announcer yells, "Who's going to be a woman?" and a slew of cis women replies, "Anyone who wants to be!" The sentiment is nice, but when I think about the years I've spent looking out the window in Staring at the stars suddenly makes me feel uncomfortable.

Later on in this journey, I chat with my new friends about femininity. They are articulate and intelligent women. I'm grateful to be near her. Until one of them angrily tells me that I'm not supposed to talk about itfemininitybecause I'm a straight cis boy. It's not my place and it's not my territory. I should shut up and listen. are these my people

I don't correct them. I never correct anyone.

I was told that there is something special—something unspeakable – about female friendship. I was told that I could not understand or experience this. You said everyone is a woman who wants to be - is that true? What does that say about my friendships with girls?

I'm starting to think what I could be if my girlishness didn't count just because it wasn't openly admitted. I think of my boyhood - of my childhood and adolescence - of how my experiences with boys differed from what I was taught. I'm changing my major and spending a year writing about male femininity that isn't gay, from late 1880s aesthetics to vaudeville radio stars. Finally, as a love/hate letter to coming-of-age movies of the 80's, 90's, and early 00's, I'm writing my thesis on the friendship and sexuality of American men and their portrayal in television and film. One feedback reads, "I'm so sick of guys writing about boys."

I remember being told not to talk about femininity. I wonder what someone like me can talk about.

One of the boarding school boys who started showering with me late one night, who told me through clenched teeth that he was too thin and too fat, throws himself in front of a train.

I am 19 years old.

I'm in a gender studies class. I'm still confused that the subject I've been fixated on, reading about, and studying obsessively since the beginning of my life is now something my friends want to take classes on.

I've been told that masculinity exists in contrast to femininity and that it is clearly toxic. I think of the cruel male "mentors" I've been assigned my entire life, I think of the soccer player's wandering ankle, and hundreds and hundreds of other things.

I also think of the kind, dedicated male mentors who found me. And I think of the guys I stayed up late telling stories with. And the boys I've kissed. And guys who supported me. And guys I supported. And hundreds and hundreds of other things. And I think of myself

In the classroom, I shyly and cautiously disagree. And I know what it looks like.

My professor rolls her eyes. The rest of the class are cis women. There is disgusted laughter. The good qualities I speak of are actualFemininity,explain several.

I say that I would like to state that self-sacrifice and kindness arefemaleappreciates thatmenborrowing is like claiming they areJewishappreciates thatBuddhistsRent.

One of the students tells me that I cannot be objectivemasculinitybecause I'm a straight cis male and that I should shut up and listen. are these my people

I don't correct them. I never correct anyone.

It's interesting to see where people insist that proximity to a topic informs you and where they insist it biases them. It's interesting that they think it's their job.

I am submitting a term paper on the medicalization and pathologization of trans identities, particularly in relation to the development of laws and benefits. I like this topic because it's difficult. It is a practical problem that requires a distinction between "should" and "is". There are two sides and there are important factors on both. Being open-minded means accepting liminality.

Liminality is a word I use a lot.

I am 20 years old.

AhaHedwig and the bad customsfor the first time. At the end of the film, Hedwig is naked and bareheaded and wet - an androgynous with a body that is neither male nor female. Hedwig's male sidekick Yitzhak, played by beautiful, edgy Miriam Shor with prosthetic facial hair, is given a free wig and dress. She does her best to look like a man starved of his femininity and finally granted relief. I can't pretend she's a man but I cry every time I see it.

This is also the year I start attending drag shows, both on campus and around town. They're not... exactly right, but they're closer. I think about how much better makeup makes me feel — and how much makeup makes me feel worse.

I can't pretend like so many women do that Beyoncé's hymns to beauty, flawlessness and Waking Up Like This are about meorTo me.

which is ok I don not need you.

Laura Jane Grace releases "Transgender Dysphoria Blues," and it makes my chest swell as only a lonely voice of solidarity can. My cis friends always eye me when I play it and remind me: "It's not just a banger - it's a song with a message.“

I'm becoming an ardent fan of Eddie Izzard, who describes himself as a "male lesbian". While many accuse him of internalized trans misogyny -- he's afraid to call himself trans -- I at least admire his rejection of the constant attempts to squeeze his identity into a universal taxonomy that others have chosen. I admire his focus. I admire his courage when he wears clothes on stage. I respect his position when television forces him into a suit. I admire his willingness to be something confusing. I don't think we're the same, but I think we both came to the same conclusion.

Some nights, always alone, I go out in scraped makeup and women's clothes with an ID I found in a lost wallet. I never feel more manly than on those nights.

It is dark. I wear tights because of the hair on my legs. I go to bars alone and drink. A lot of what happens is what you would expect. If you don't pass by, especially in this town, your head will hit a brick wall somewhere on the street. So if you do that, you're a woman alone in a bar. I have no rosy ideas about what public life as a woman - trans or cis - entails.

The dominance of the narrative born in the wrong body is waning. Gender fluidity is gaining popularity. Agender and non-binary identities are explored and categorized on Tumblr. I feel dull in the face of all these beautiful jean jackets and bow-tied loners with dyed undercuts because, even after all this time, the boring binaristic false-body narrative of the 1990s is the one that suits me best. I've always known it. It's the first thing I remember.

In my twenties, I finally told someone—a longtime friend and trans woman—of my lifelong struggle with what is now known as gender dysphoria. I wonder what it will be called in five years. My friend's story is different from mine — she didn't even consider being trans until her teens and never felt like she was born in the wrong body — but it feels good to know that someone she understands, at least in part, about all of this.

I am 21 years old

Misandry humor peaks and it oozes awayCissexism. Cascade the upbeat tweets from cis women about how women are more beautiful than men — how graceful the female body is, how useful the male one is. How amazing boobs are. How bad the boys' taste in clothes is. How emotionally incompetent they are. How they are too weak to cope with childbirth and periods. Mustaches are the scourge of the internet. They are disgusted with "father bodies". SCUM rhetoric is revived with inconsistent irony. Meme gospel says penises are just crappy clits.

I don't know where I stand on this. I don't know my place in it. are these my people

Do I really think a wig and a pronoun will change how they feel deep down? About my body? About my chromosomes? About my "socialization"? I don't I want but I don't.

They can believe deep in their feelings, who is smart & strong & reasonable and who is stupid & weak & dangerous are under their control, controlled exaggerated and confident and carried out, well investigated. If they saw me naked and wigless and wet, wouldn't I succumb to their weird opinions about penises? On halter beards? On masculinity? Who has the right to speak about femininity? You will read this and say "No!" to yourself.

In the '90s it was cis womenuncomfortable with an animated paperclip because it "looked manly".“.

(Video) Jerry Springer Official - Sorry, I'm A Man!

On the internet, where I used to ask Jeeves "what's wrong with me," I'm now getting into onea lot ofof arguments about gender. I've always been disgusted by my body hair, but I've never been able to shave it. Even if I could shave my legbrows without raising the eyebrows, it comes back with a distinctly masculine power. I mention to a cis-feminist friend that I don't think it's cool to use "neckbeard" as a pejorative. I say I find it hypocritical. I say I know some wonderful, delicate, thoughtful people with halter beards. I also know some people who are very conscious of their hair on the back of their necks and can't do much about it. I wonder if there are ways to criticize people for their character without challenging the hairs that come out of them. She says I'm mansplaining. She says I'm not all-men-ing. She also says I couldn't possibly understand the beauty standards imposed on women. As if I hadn't been hunched over a toilet for years and felt miserable that even if I was skinny enough, I wasn't girl enough.

Of course she couldn't know my story, but my story didn't make true what I said.

I tell her, after useless, stressful stretches of diagonal argument, that the body hair conundrum has so many dimensions. If you're cis and don't shave your legs, some people think you're a gross feminist, and others think you're a feminist feminist. You are privileged to experiment with your body hair because otherwise your status and identity is secured in a way that trans women are not.

Of course she had no way of knowing how many times I cried after puberty when my leg hair started to feel helpless because I couldn't even shave it.

But my story isn't what made true what I said.

They can scold you, but they won't force you into the wrong bathroom. It won't bring down the trembling house of cards you've built to make people forget what they think you are. You are safe where others are not.

If you're trans and don't shave your legs, that's taken as proof to everyone - even allies in your dark, unadaptable subconscious - that you're not a real woman. Sometimes even alone.

She is angry. She tells me I'm a straight cis man and to shut up and listen. What she's really angry about is being contradicted by someone who, according to their Facebook profile, ranks lower than her on the Discourse Approval Chart.

One person's privilege is very often oneexplanationwhy their beliefs are skewed, when in fact their beliefs are skewed, which they usually are in some way. But it is notproveof shitty beliefs. They tend to come out by being... fucked up. If a person tells this cis girl that they take for granted a privilege that trans women don't have, then why is it that cis girl's instinct to search that person's identity to see if she can discredit them and not have to think about hers? Point? Don't answer that. We already know.

Another time I joke about an author who I don't think is a great author. I have been told not to joke about this author because she is an author with many female fans - her work is coded as a female interest. I've been told that I just don't respect her because her work is feminine and that I probably adore Bukowski and Kerouac. They don't know that I grew up with this author.I've been told I don't understand what it's like to grow up embarrassed about my interests because they're female.

I want to scream

I want to puke up the Lisa Frank stickers I peeled off my desk in second grade and ate in a panic to cover up the evidence.

On Facebook, the girl who told me about my childhood - how I never had to be ashamed of my identity - uploaded a photo of herself as a little girl, dressed as Tinkerbell, standing next to her smiling parents.

My hair is falling out because of my eating disorder. I think of the horror of going bald - a permanent loss of vitality. I think about how it would destroy the feeble androgyny that is my only comfort in this body. I think of my grandmother who had cancer and what it did to her. And I hear my proudly misandristic-identifying cis girlfriends making fun of bald men as if it were a defect or a choice of the men themselves. Bald men make her think of television pedophiles. Bald men remind her of unbridled authors and desperate improvisers. I see men on the train losing their hair, their youth, their potential, and I sympathize with them. It's not funny. It's a dysmorphic nightmarefor each.I don't mention that I find the jokes unnecessary and insensitive. I know what the girls will say.

But I know I'm not straight or cis or a boy. I'm not that simple. I'm a girl who's been through a lot of shit and grown in symbiosis with her boy suit. But what I do know is thisMy point is my damn point.I have at allwantconvince someone to only listen to me when the rules tell them to see me as a girl?

Do I have to come out to be treated like a person worth hearing? Lest my cis classmates laugh at someone who's been reckoning with the boundaries and dimensions of masculinity and femininity in a way they never had to? In the life I've been living for all these years, do I need her permission to speak?

I really do not know it.

I am 22 years old

A student in my performance art class hangs an empty mirror frame in the center of the room and has everyone pair up on themes and reflections. A classmate perfectly duplicates my actions with almost no lag. I look in the mirror and see her face and freckles - I wave my hand and see painted nails. I get severe dizziness and have to leave the classroom. I cry big, trembling sobs in the men's room and come back twenty minutes later. The lesson is over.

I am 23 years old

This is what I look like: a boy. A boy who's inherited a little more body hair than he can fend off, even where he's allowed to. A boy that many cis women look at and say, "You look like you like Mac DeMarco, haha." (I do.) "I bet you read Jonathan Franzen." (I don't.) " I bet you like Breaking Bad." (It was pretty good.) "I bet you're a self-proclaimed male feminist ally, but you don't read female writers." (Fuck the hell.)

These women have explained to me with self-righteous anger, with self-satisfied haughtiness, what a trans woman is.

Part of me wants them to go through my books — wants them to see where the raised, blurry dots are, which pages in which books are wrinkled with tears that go back over a decade.

Most of me don't want them near my books or anything else of mine.

I'm twenty four years old and I don't know what to do.I wholeheartedly subscribe to the theory of intersectional feminism. I need it - we all need it. But do I want to join social circles that don't have me until I reveal my most private experiences? Is that going to put me on permanent probation or tell me to shut up until I expose dissociation and dysmorphia and dysphoria every year?

Do I have to be inspected and dissected by the people who laughed at me to get my ID?

I'm twenty-six years old now and - this may freak you out - I can't get out. And I'm not changing.Here are the simple reasons:

Because the transition has social and financial implications that I cannot afford emotionally or financially.I don't want to be treated like I have brittle bones by well-intentioned cis friends. I don't want to be told I'm "so pretty" when I hate my reflection. It doesn't make me feel any better. It makes me feel worse and it's almost impossible to get cis people to turn it off. And I'm uncomfortable enough with the hateful judgment I get for stepping into town alone to pose as a woman.

There are monumental pros and cons to being trans and out, and in some cases, like mine, the scales are balanced. I choose to experience my dysphoria privately and without relief, to absorb the discomfort of tender cis people so I can glide more smoothly through the world on a frothy trail of secrets and lies. (I'm being rude and disingenuous here. I'm just afraid that's how you imagine it.) Gays and trans people have been doing this for centuries. There are times when I feel the climate isn't right for me to be Out 'n About. But I'm excited and happy for tomorrow's trans kids. Even jealous of her. Maybe one day there will be a chair and a switch.

Because it turns out transition isn't the answer for everyone — to suggest otherwise is narrow-minded and prohibitive.Because for some trans women, femininity can feel asymptomatic—the closer you get, the more you feel like you'll never make it. I realize it's not an inspirational message, but it's a harsh truth:Some people cope better with dysphoria than others. If you fight it, it will fight back. I am pharmacophobic and have been diagnosed with OCD. I can barely take NyQuil and a whirl can send my blood pressure skyrocketing. I'm not strong enough for this fight. I'm not well prepared for the transition.

The best thing I can do for myself is, as much as I can, to separate my identity from my appearance and to mindfully focus on other things. It's not impossible! Look at those Dust Bowl people - they were just trying to drive across the country in a box! "Gender?" they would say, "I hardly know him!"

I adore Laura Jane Grace but I never wanted to be a punk rocker. I don't want to be a conversation starter or an oddball, and I would be to so many people in this world. All I wanted to be was Wendy Darling. I wanted to be an average girl with an average girl time. I will never again be able to let my friends do their hair at sleepovers. I will never go back and wear a prom dress. I will never have had a girlhood. I've had years to try and live at peace with this loss, and I often succeed. We are humans. None of this is fair. Things are being taken away from so many of us.

I read the #eggmode articles. This one in particular is very goodand presents a valuable and kind-hearted perspective. I've seen trans women use "egg" as a playful deprecation for a time in their lives when they were still developing their presentation and ideologies — sharing awkward pre-transition photos and shaming their past shelves for questionable aesthetic choices. While it's self-inflicted, it strikes me as deeply ruthless, but how these people deal with their own story is their business. However, when it is aimed at other people to diminish their position or their authority in relation to their own identity, it reflects a precept and complacency I never expected from the trans community.

Imagine, dear reader, a cis woman calmly saying:

"I wish I looked like that, but I can't and I can't. It sucks and I feel really awful thinking about it. That's why I focus on my writing - I prefer making things. Investing and building in things that aren't my body helps me cope with the physical issues I've been burdened with against my will.”

She doesn't sound like she needs any advice on how makeup can actually solve her core problem, does she? She seems like she's fine. I'm her and I'm trans. That's all.

I appreciate the encouragement I receive from trans friends, but I dismiss the implication that the transition is my destiny. My brain is my brain - my body is my body. They don't mix and I've chosen to focus my energy on coming to terms with that and focusing on other things rather than trying to transform my body. I'm not here to take that position with other trans people or to stop anyone from following the path that they feel is best for them. I admire and applaud every single brave, resilient person who can do both.

Well - here are the complicated reasons, most of which I didn't realize until I wrote the simple ones:

I hate that the only effective answer I can give to "boys suck" is "well I'm not a boy".I feel like I'm selling the boy in baseball pajamas who sat on the bed with me as I tried to figure out which one I should be, and the boys I met and loved in my boy suit - who believed They were talking to a boy. I feel like I'm burning up the story of the naked body lying on the floor of my shower. The body that went to prom in a boxy tuxedo and coveted the dresses.

Because I'm not a boy, but I had a childhood.I was and am made to live as a boy and I can't cancel the perspective I've been given and go along with it when it comes time to piss off one of these clueless fuckers by calling them a fuckboi , and then tell him his anger proves he's a fuckboi, or to humiliate one with an OKCupid screenshot for merging the clumsy with the menacing so we can snag these Solidarity favorites. It sucks. It has metastasized.

More than a few trans women have told me privately that they are uncomfortable with these things, but afraid that talking about them will make cis women like them less and trust them less. “I'm playing,” one of them told me, “because in the queer community, the only people who defend cisboys are cisboys.I don't want to give up finally being read as a girl.“

Another says "I do the misandry stuff because it's an easy way to earn queer cred points, but when I think about it, it makes me uncomfortable.“

Others: "It's a coping habit I'm not proud of. If I agree that girls drool, it makes me feel more like a girl.”

Have you noticed that when a product is unnecessarily gendered, the gender blame shifts? That a pink ballpoint pen was made “for women” (and that's true, of course) the work of idiotically cynical marketers trying insultingly to emulate what they imagine women want? But when they make yogurt “for men” it suddenly becomes about how hilarious and fragile masculinity is – how men can't eat yogurt if their poor Widdle Bwains can't be sure it won't make them gay? #MasculinitySoFragile is aimed at men, not marketers, with smug malice.

This widely shared conclusion is the result of isolated discussions.What I'm NOT saying is, "Open the floodgates, let the fucking male trolls in!" I know the trolls - they've been trying to be my friends, they've been trying to sneak into feminist spaces with no desire to learn or listen .I understand not trusting men who speak out loud and constantly on women's issues and refuse to accept when they are wrong. I do not encourage anyone to trust blindly.I appeal to the speakers: remember that this isolation has repercussions and try to mitigate them,if your priority is really finding the truth amidst a pile of hidden patriarchal lies.Check if maybe you're saying and reproducing things mainly because it sounds good and feels good and no one is challenging you.

These are not only discursive problemsuseFor a "covert" trans woman, these are apparently only discursive problemsvisibleto a “covert” trans woman forced to wear multiple perspectives like Bactrian bumps.

Because I'm interested in complicating your definition of masculinity and childhood.I was born into this shitty city, manhood, the remnants of outdated ideals and misplaced machismo and oppression, and there they aregood peoplestayed there. You are not responsible. You didn't build it. And I don't feel alright if I just undress and say, "Fuck y'all - bootstrap your way out or die out, I was never one of you." I want to make it a better, healthier place — not spend all my time talking about how crappy it is and how everyone who chooses to live there deserves it. And for me that means looking at them with charity, even if they make it difficult.

Of course, that charity extends to the many, many cis women I know who are well meaning and supportive and yet fall into the habits I've described. Most of the nicest and strongest people in my life, my dearest friends, are women - many of them cis women. If you've gotten this far and just feel like I should spend more time acknowledging cis women's struggles and frustrations to soften my criticism, you know I spend most of my time doing it. I could write a hundred articles about how men and masculinity have hurt me and the women I love, but you could throw one stone on the internet and hit three of them. This piece is about what I'm not allowed to say.

Andit is no small thingthat the words “not all men” are inextricably linked to male fragility and tearfulness.It makes it awfully easy to isolate the (largely cis)female perspective on what men are.To begin a statement with these words—“Not all people”—is to give reason to anyone who wants to laugh at the rest. But here's the truth: Not all men are what you think they are.Manndoesn't mean what you think it means. To generalize harshly and broadly but to imply “you know which ones I mean” is an intellectual and rhetorical laziness that must not happen anywhere else in these communities. Because we cannot choose who our words and behavior affect, we have an obligation to choose them carefully.

Because I've been reduced to my looks by cisfeminists so many times - the way I present myself for my own good - that I feel a fucking Stockholm Syndrome attachment to the wrong gender and to this dual identity.My dysmorphia is as intertwined with my identity as anything else. I've lived with this for decades as a girl pretending to be a boy. And the closer I get to something I've wanted all my life, the more it feels like I'm interfering in the aesthetic politics of a group of people who reject me because of the associations with my body - a body , which I ultimately can not , change a lot. These people will only feel comfortable if I water down those associations with feminine signifiers.

As if maybe just by being what I am - a girly brain in a boy-looking body and boy-looking clothes - I could burn down something very important to her. Something that makes their life more convenient and easier.

I can't switch for myself, although I wish I could. Nothing I could do would alleviate my old problems more than create new ones. And mecertainlywill not pass for them to properly sort into their system what a woman looks like.

Because I couldn't decide what I am. I'll be thoroughly damned if anyone else does it.

(Video) Why I must come out | Geena Rocero

PLEASE cis allies, recognize that girls like this are among you and are trying to ally with you about how much men suck. They call themselves feminists and comment "yas!!!" on the neon vagina-centric art they reposted to Facebook.

Now what you want to say is "Not all cis women," which is fine! Remember that feeling when you hear "Not All Men" too.