transmisogyny lives in the double standard. the things they say about us they would never get away with saying about cis women. the things cis women believe about us they would never believe about cis women. telling non-binary people that we do not exist is a form of sexism. dismissing the forms of discrimination we experience is a form of misogyny. mocking the way we look is a form of patriarchy. at a fundamental level gender variant people are still having to fight for the right to exist in a world that requires us to be binary in order for us to be real/legitimate/worthy. how are we going to be believed for the violence we experience if at a fundamental level they don’t even believe that we are real? i am heartbroken not only for being tormented every day on the basis of my appearance, but also by people not believing it is happening. or rather: people believing it & being okay that it happens. they tell me that people don’t harass me because of my gender but because i have “bad style.” they go out of their way to suggest that it is my fault that i look like this (why would anyone want to look like this?) that because i look like this i am asking for it. the double standard. that what makes me the most sad: that i can say almost every where i go in the world i am afraid of being bashed for looking like myself. and for us to go on as if nothing were wrong. business as usual. the unremarkable tragedy of living when you are marked for dying. if you believed that gender non-conforming people were legitimate this would not be okay. the constant mockery we face would not be okay. this administration gutting protections against us would not be okay. scapegoating us for your anxieties, projecting on us would not be okay. how do you survive being the visible invisible? how do you live when you know that the world would rather you dead? you find & make your kin. you mourn the dead & fight like hell for the living. you refuse to go do quietly. you wail like the wind is yours. because maybe it is. you have always been that which they do not see. but feel.
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