Literal Garbage

DON'T read this pointless transphobia rant (or do, I don't care)

(((ToastyBaconBits so here's the story?)))

so my mom has a garage sale each summer. we have a lot of old shit and our house and that's how we get rid of it. 

so she had the garage sale today and, since I had work, I couldn't be there. 

I go home on my break and she starts telling me about the garage sale. 

she tells me there was "what I thought was a girl in a dress, with long hair pulled into a ponytail and everything, then she turned around and it was a boy in a dress."

then she says, "it's a good thing I didn't call him she or anything! I don't know what you call them when they're like that."

and this was the catalyst for my inevitable emotional collapse. I was sobbing the whole way back to work, I left early so I could get away from my mom but ended up having a fucking meltdown. it's a good thing I left early so I could have time to regain my composure..

the thing that made me start crying was that, as I was ranting to myself about this, the thought occurred to me that my family will never love me as their son. Of everything, that's what broke me. The knowing that, because of my gender, I'll never be good enough for them. Because they want me to be a woman, but I'm a man instead. Because they want to see me in a wedding gown, but they probably won't even be there to see my tux. Because they want me to bear children, but instead I'll be taking testosterone and (maybe) growing a beard. ((I'd look dumb as shit with a beard but I also kinda want one? Just a short scruffy one though-)

but yeah. transphobia, folks. and even if that person in the dress weren't trans, even if they were just an AMAB person who was presenting as feminine, or they were gender-fluid or genderqueer or anywhere on the trans* spectrum, you don't talk about someone the way my mother talked about this person.

It absolutely disgusted me. and I think she knew it. And I think that's why she told the story. She also said they had a tiny dog, and my mom knows I love tiny dogs, so that could also be her reasoning. BUT. it fucks me up hearing her talk like that. But that's always how she talks about trans* people. 'Boys in dresses,' 'girls who think they're boys,' 'a man who had surgery to be a woman,' 'using fake names.'

So what do you call a person like them? You call them fucking human, first of all, and don't speak in such a negative and inconsiderate way about them. Next, you politely ask how they identify. If you don't know what someone's gender identity is, you ask their pronouns or ask how they identify. Or you just use they/them pronouns unless they specify! When I meet/see new people, I try my damndest to refer to them with they/them pronouns if I have no clear clarification as to their gender. It's just fucking respect. You don't assume you know that person.

It just pisses me off to see such clear disrespect. And to know that it could just as easily be directed at me. That, indirectly, it is being directed at me. This is why I don't feel safe in my own home. This is the woman who, after she found my binder as she snooped through my room, started lifting my shirt before we left the house to make sure I wasn't binding. This is the woman who, even seeing I was wearing a normal sports bra, groped my breasts and said "they just look so flat." Like, thanks mom, that's the whole fucking point. This is the woman who says trans women using the proper restroom is "no different than those men who set up cameras in women's locker rooms." This is the woman who told me at fourteen that I was going to hell for being attracted to girls, and that the Devil was trying to sway me. This is the woman who has made me feel wrong and unnatural for something I cannot change about myself, and that I did not choose to be. This is the woman who has tried to keep me from having the friendships I need because 'people like that will try to change you.' So I stopped telling her about my friends. She didn't want me to have fellow queer friends, so I just didn't talk about my life anymore. And you know what? My friends have NEVER EVER tried to change me, not one time. I've never had a friend try to make me do or be something I'm uncomfortable with. But you know who has tried to change me, any chance they've gotten? My parents.

Are you angry yet? 

She and I had this conversation eight hours ago and I'm still enraged. I've been to work and it didn't calm me down any. I'm still an emotional wreck but only internally now. 

So. People wonder why I don't just stand up to my parents. Why I don't say "this is me, get over it." I have my reasons. I don't think my fears are unfounded. Others have said they are. But I genuinely fear my parents. I genuinely fear coming out to them. But I'm not living my whole life as the person they want me to be. Eventually, I'm going to have to grow a pair and start doing shit for me instead of trying to please them. 

But not yet.

For now, I'm still just scared.

For now, I'm fighting tooth and nail to get out, while they're fighting tooth and nail to keep me here with them. 

For now, I'm still a coward.

Don't say I look like Chicken Little. Even though I do, and I act like him too.

But anyway, there's my pointless rant. Hope you're as angry as I am.