the current moment only regards trans women & femmes insomuch as we LOOK, not SPEAK! cis women reproduce the very same tactics of sexism & misogny they experience from cis men, on us! we are reduced to aesthetic props, inspiration porn, metaphor & parable...exhibited as both the delight and the crisis, the problem and the solution of gender. when we do speak our minds we are punished for it: we are disappeared, disparaged, disinvited. we are dismissed as “emotional,” “selfish,” “bitchy,” “vain.” when we challenge the mainstream (cis, white, hetero) feminist imagination, we are ridiculed, demonized, reprimanded. “how dare you bite the hand that feeds?” the expectation is that we should be grateful for being noticed...as if that is all we are worth: tokenization, condescension, objectification. why do we keep calling cis people looking at trans women & femmes progress? why do we remain silent at the double standards and discrepancies between cis women & trans femmes? i want you to think about this — seriously — the entire “debate” (as if our lives are a matter of public opinion) around trans issues is fundamentally rooted in our appearance! how misogynist is that? how insidiously sexist is that? we have no range — intellectually, politically, economically — beyond our appearance! to make this more explicit: there are days that i do not want to wear makeup or a dress because i do not want to get chased down, spat on, assaulted. but i know if i don’t i won’t be taken seriously. so i do...and i am still not taken seriously. this is the double edged sword of trans femme life today: be visible and still be invisible.
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