stereotype I am trying to get to: trans women try to shirk their male privilege before transitioning, disappear into themselves, and then can never really get back out to become assertive, present, feminist women.
And this is why everybody thinks we’re weird.
Which is a loaded statement, right? Totally unfair and fucked up and that’s why it’s a stereotype I’m making up, but there’s a grain of truth there. I don’t think I’ve ever met a trans woman in the process of transition who was comfortable taking up, like, any goddam space at all, you know? You have to actively look at the women around you, if you’re lucky enough to be close to any women, to figure out that women take up tons of space, however much they want, all the time—they just tend to do it differently than men.
Although not always, and I am definitely not going to pick apart the ways they’re different. And there are men who take up space in a way that reads as female gender-normative, and there are women who take up space in ways that read as male gender-normative. Duh, whatever. All I’m trying to tell you is why it’s fucked that there is a stereotype of trans women being all manly.
3. When we are rejected from the Johns Hopkins transgender program and not allowed bottom surgery, we all dig a well inside our filthy suburban houses, pierce our nipples, put cissexual women in the well for weeks at a time, and then skin them.
Actually, this one’s true. We also all have eighties tattoos and poofy little dogs. The trans community officially put out a fatwa on Thomas Harris when The Silence of the Lambs came out, because we’d been able to keep that little tendency under wraps until he told everybody. Not to appropriate cultures.
4. Maybe there is another one. I don’t know. We are all good at computers, we are all frustratingly shy, we’re all murderers. I’ll let you know if I think of any more.
She’s got to be at work in a couple minutes so she checks her email one last time, gets her ID back and goes to the bookstore. She’s going to be on time.
16.
She gets to work clear-headed, but she’s starting to feel tired already. She’s excited that she’s resolved to break up with Steph. It’s like her head has been plugged up for so long that she didn’t even realize it was plugged up, and then she coughed really hard, or wasabi went up her nose, and suddenly she could hear. She kind of wants to call Steph right now but it’s a dumb idea.
She’s chaining up her bike when Kieran inevitably apparates.
I killed my father, he says in the dead-eyed monotone that means he’s doing Kathy Acker.
Yes sure whatever fine sure whatever, Maria says back. She doesn’t even feel like brushing him off.
What up yo, he asks.
I’m breaking up with Steph, she says, before she realizes she’s saying it. Oops.
Dude, he says. He stops bouncing.
Maria’s not sure what to say.
Um, she says.
Dude, we were fucking with you, he says. I didn’t fuck your girlfriend.
What.
Steph was pissed at you, he says, because she says whenever she tries to talk to you... aah, fuck, he says. He starts bouncing again. Dude, you need to talk to your girlfriend, this is not my conversation to have with you. Fucking shit, breaking up with her. Call your girlfriend.
It’s nine AM though. Maria’s been up for a bunch of hours, she’s had what, four epiphanies and two breakfasts, and she’s got to go into work. She can’t call Steph for at least an hour, an hour and a half. Kieran has bounced off and she’s left wondering what the fuck she is doing. Is she still breaking up with Steph? She didn’t decide to break up with Steph because Steph fucked Kieran. She realized she needed to be single for entirely different reasons. But that soaring feeling of release she had two hours ago, it’s gone. Now it’s a scraping feeling. Gross.
She punches her punch card and goes inside. Nods to the managers near the doors. Finds herself helping an old man
And this is why everybody thinks we’re weird.
Which is a loaded statement, right? Totally unfair and fucked up and that’s why it’s a stereotype I’m making up, but there’s a grain of truth there. I don’t think I’ve ever met a trans woman in the process of transition who was comfortable taking up, like, any goddam space at all, you know? You have to actively look at the women around you, if you’re lucky enough to be close to any women, to figure out that women take up tons of space, however much they want, all the time—they just tend to do it differently than men.
Although not always, and I am definitely not going to pick apart the ways they’re different. And there are men who take up space in a way that reads as female gender-normative, and there are women who take up space in ways that read as male gender-normative. Duh, whatever. All I’m trying to tell you is why it’s fucked that there is a stereotype of trans women being all manly.
3. When we are rejected from the Johns Hopkins transgender program and not allowed bottom surgery, we all dig a well inside our filthy suburban houses, pierce our nipples, put cissexual women in the well for weeks at a time, and then skin them.
Actually, this one’s true. We also all have eighties tattoos and poofy little dogs. The trans community officially put out a fatwa on Thomas Harris when The Silence of the Lambs came out, because we’d been able to keep that little tendency under wraps until he told everybody. Not to appropriate cultures.
4. Maybe there is another one. I don’t know. We are all good at computers, we are all frustratingly shy, we’re all murderers. I’ll let you know if I think of any more.
She’s got to be at work in a couple minutes so she checks her email one last time, gets her ID back and goes to the bookstore. She’s going to be on time.
16.
She gets to work clear-headed, but she’s starting to feel tired already. She’s excited that she’s resolved to break up with Steph. It’s like her head has been plugged up for so long that she didn’t even realize it was plugged up, and then she coughed really hard, or wasabi went up her nose, and suddenly she could hear. She kind of wants to call Steph right now but it’s a dumb idea.
She’s chaining up her bike when Kieran inevitably apparates.
I killed my father, he says in the dead-eyed monotone that means he’s doing Kathy Acker.
Yes sure whatever fine sure whatever, Maria says back. She doesn’t even feel like brushing him off.
What up yo, he asks.
I’m breaking up with Steph, she says, before she realizes she’s saying it. Oops.
Dude, he says. He stops bouncing.
Maria’s not sure what to say.
Um, she says.
Dude, we were fucking with you, he says. I didn’t fuck your girlfriend.
What.
Steph was pissed at you, he says, because she says whenever she tries to talk to you... aah, fuck, he says. He starts bouncing again. Dude, you need to talk to your girlfriend, this is not my conversation to have with you. Fucking shit, breaking up with her. Call your girlfriend.
It’s nine AM though. Maria’s been up for a bunch of hours, she’s had what, four epiphanies and two breakfasts, and she’s got to go into work. She can’t call Steph for at least an hour, an hour and a half. Kieran has bounced off and she’s left wondering what the fuck she is doing. Is she still breaking up with Steph? She didn’t decide to break up with Steph because Steph fucked Kieran. She realized she needed to be single for entirely different reasons. But that soaring feeling of release she had two hours ago, it’s gone. Now it’s a scraping feeling. Gross.
She punches her punch card and goes inside. Nods to the managers near the doors. Finds herself helping an old man
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