The Future Freaks Me Out

Super-intense advanced ballet class tomorrow for the first time in about four years.

Praying type, pray for me.

Non-praying type, drink for me.

Non-drinking type, give me a mental high-five.

kiriamaya: “Thank you, OP.

(Not that there’s anything wrong with having mental illnesses, or with being vain. The problem arises when people use these things to dismiss us.)”

Oh gosh, thank you for pointing that out. That may have been a little insensitive of me. I suffer from anxiety so I definitely don’t want to ever imply that mental illness is a bad thing. However, I think it’s pretty obvious when someone snarkily refers to trans* people as having a mental illness that they obviously think it’s a bad thing, which pisses me off. It’s also just… incorrect.

Pallas-Athena: ”I agree…some what. But is this against not only cis people but also people who don’t want to be identified? This is why I don’t like the term cis, I already have enough gender issues. All my life I’ve wanted to be a boy, I’ve thought about becoming fully trans* and thought about getting a sex change through out my life and have been in different stages of it through out too. The only problem is I also like being a girl and always have. So now I can’t be both or neither? I have to pick one? I’m cis scum for preferring to be a girl this year? It seems to me this is very much like how bisexuals aren’t really accepted by either community. That the have to be hetro or gay depending on who they are dating at the time, or they are selfish, or how they are going through a ‘phase’ if the settle down with an opposite-sex partner after a string of same-sex ones. I think the term cis might be harmful in the long run because it doesn’t promote gender flexibly or neutrality and if you aren’t trans* you’re automatically cis and you aren’t personally in control of what your are labeled. I don’t want my sexuality labeled and I don’t want my gender to be either, and I don’t think it’s healthy to let others control that aspect of you.”

I hope my post didn’t come off as saying that I believe that you’re either trans or cis. Actually, that’s why I have an issue with things like “Dear Non-Cis People,” because that implies that you’re either cis or you aren’t. I’m not sure if you personally identify as gender-queer but it seems like you’re generally non-binary and have experience gender dysphoria, and I hope you know that that’s okay and that not too many people have made you feel pressure to “choose.” Personally, I don’t think the term “cis” promotes a false dichotomy if you really know what it means. “Cis” comes from the latin word for “on this side of,” which really helps to visualize gender as a spectrum rather than a binary. It’s like how public pools have a shallow and a deep end but they don’t just cave in at the middle point, they slope gradually down.

The general tone of what I wrote was meant to be directed at cis people including myself, because even I need to check my attitude a lot of the time, to stop treating all “non-cis people” like they’re the same and that all of their issues are the same, and to stop promoting the idea that you’re either cis or you aren’t. Anyway, sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable with the post; everyone has different opinions about these things and as a cis woman I can only say so much because I’m guilty a lot of false dichotomizing too, but I just wanted to get some things off my chest.

Dear Cis people,

We need to stop this.

(Yes, “we,” not “you.” I am one of you and I can’t pretend not to be).

You know why cis people are called cis scum? You know why said scum is supposed to die? And you know why every single one of us is guilty by association?

Because shit like “dearnoncispeople” exists. Because there are cis people out there who whine and cry about having “cis” as an identifier because they don’t like being identified. Because when us cis people feel the discomfort of hearing examples of cissexism pointed out to us, we don’t think it applies to us.

The thing is, we may want to say that just because we remember someone’s desired pronouns correctly or we go out of our way to say “trans women are real women!” that we are some sort of revolutionary. We’re not. I am not. You know what that’s called? That’s called being a decent fucking human being.

And the problem is, for people like me who feel compelled to say “we’re not all like that” (and trust me, I’ve learned to stop fucking going to that excuse), we’re really over-simplifying. Cis people are not simply divided into two groups (people who openly hate trans* people and people who don’t). It’s a lot more complicated than that. There are people who recognize a trans* person’s right to exist but still go on saying that they have “mental illnesses,” that the desire for surgery or hormone treatment is “vanity,” and 

A little while ago I came under some fire for identifying myself as “not scum” and at first I felt attacked. Then I opened my fucking ears and realized that what they were saying is true. We can’t just go around patting ourselves on the back for being begrudgingly tolerant.

You - and I - need to start here: instead of trying to just say that we’re “not all like that,” we all need to apologize for what we have done and let happen. And even then, we can’t just say something like “I’m sorry for what other cis people have done.”

And then we need to make it better.

Sincerely,

Bree