Its just so exhausting and upsetting.
excerpt from a conversation from yesterday (CW transphobia)
Transphobe 1: its too tall!
Transphobe 2: what is?
Transphobe 1 gestures at me
Transphobe 1: that thing
The conversation continued with additional transphobia.
And like i get it okay, im not a person, not even a human, but can we just skip the whole conversation? Or is the whole dehumanization and inflicting pain thing the enjoyable part?
I guess a positive is that it shows who the fake and fairweather allies are, like i was surrounded by people i thought were allies but no one said a damn thing. It was transphobe 2 that actually called out his friend cause ‘you just cant say that stuff anymore’ 🙄. Transphobe 1 proceeded to try and defend his actions by claiming he was using gender neutral language cause he didnt know how to gender me. Like, no motherfucker you fucking werent! Gender neutral language isnt dehumanizing language! Now i get to go organize an event with these same “allies” who said nothing. I demand that you shoot me now, so i dont have to do this.
Im not sure why im so upset about this. Its not that bad, really just par for the course. Not like he was beating me or anything. And allies should be assumed to be false unless otherwise proven. Its just so tiring. So damn exhausting.
Thanks for listening to me
When I met someone with it pronouns, I had a similar reactor initially. It felt weird for the reason you said, like I was lowering it to an object. On further reflection, I think the part of the reason I felt like that was inherently insulting was because I (and most of us) grew up in a consumer economy inundated with the idea that individual objects are unspecial, replacable, and unworthy of respect or sentimentality. I’ve since grown more love and respect for my objects, and for the thought and labor that went into their creation.