since getting physically attacked last month i have been feeling exhausted. gender non-conformity - especially for transfeminine people of color like me - means constant harassment, surveillance, violence, fear. there is no *before* and *after,* we do not transition into safety, we do not pass into white cisgender norms and binaries. bullying doesn't stop when we grow up. precarity doesn't stop. we are constantly the most visible & constantly made to feel the most abject. we carry the shame & negation of cis people & increasingly binary trans people. & with tonight being the premiere of #TheTransList on @hbo i am full of conflicted feelings because on my way to seeing the film back in june i was pushed & shoved & people took photos of me & laughed. but people at the screening kept telling me "congratulations," & i felt that dangerous thing we do femmes where we take appearance as actuality & visibility as victory & we do not ask to see the scars & we do not offer help. during the panel discussion after i told the audience that cis people are comfortable putting gender non-conforming people on screens & runways & stages, but the minute we come off them we are in danger. i told them cis people looking at trans people is not progress, it is the status quo. i asked them to not just watch us be "resilient," but to fight for us so we don't have to be. after people came up to me & still called me "articulate" and "resilient" so it hurt because i am often looked at & rarely listened to, just like it hurt waiting 45 minutes to catch a cab after because no one would stop for me. it hurt because you want GNC people to be visible but you do not want to ensure that we are safe when we are. it hurts because you expect us to fabulous away the pain, to selfie our way into confidence, to muster the courage to overcome instead of divesting in the ideologies and institutions that make our existence so impossible. so i offer the film tonight not in triumph, but in exhaustion. i use the stage (& now the screen) to demand that you let us live beyond it. yes this film is exciting but my favorite people in the world know how to turn a good party into an even better protest x