The definition of overwhelming?
Trying on swimsuits all by my lonesome.
That in and of itself deserves a larger post sometime soon, but I also wanted to mention before it slips my mind that I was at the Target my roommate brought up a while back. I saw a woman who I would, indeed, read as trans . And although I hated myself the second I did it, my first reaction was thinking, “Oh, that’s who my roommate meant.” I hated myself for thinking that because I don’t want others to think that way about myself. And, as a larger issue, because I still have a lot of internalized transphobia.
When I started writing this post, my first draft included “I saw a woman who I would, indeed, read as trans (although very pretty)” (italics are what was removed). I subconciously or unconciously felt I needed to soften my reading of her by calling attention to the positive aspects of her appearance, as if being read as trans was inherently a negative. That reading her as trans was the same as saying “Oh, no, you can hardly see the stain,” because the point is you can see the stain and everyone knows the stain is bad.
I don’t know how to get out of this mindset. I would love any thoughts or suggestions, becuase I think it’s ultimately a very self-destructive place to be.
And I’m not even sure where I want to be when thinking about gender. Should I have simply taken in her appearance as part of her and and not leapt to ‘trans’? Should I have still acknowledged that she appeared to be trans but not placed a value judgement on that? Should I not be trying to assign gender to people I see in the first place? I don’t know. All of those mindsets also seem to have some problem associated with them.
Thoughts?
Themocracy
It’s a difficult thing to deal with, I’ve found myself thinking the same kind of things. My own response has been to just try to see how the person is presenting themselves as the cue for how they wish me to think about them and to try not to link that to thoughts I might have about how I feel about that or in relationship to me or about gender directly. I don’t think one can stop making some kind of judegment on how other people look in the wider sense but I do want to not have that colonised by my own internalised transphobia. That’s bad for them and definitely bad for me. I’m doubting this makes sense outside my head but it’s all I have right now!
I think that does make sense – to react to another’s presentation without judgment, and without trying to internalize your perception of them. And I definitely agree on the importance of trying to cut off (or, at the very least, acknowledge and move beyond) my own transphobia.
All easier said than done though. Although I’m sure you know that as well as I. =)