𝓝𝓪𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓮 𝓦𝔂𝓷𝓷  💎

The reason misgendering feels so horrible is that, in that moment, the person misgendering you is effectively barring you from being your gender, at least socially. That's the reason it feels oppressive. You're literally being deprived of something important to you.

People who refuse to accept trans people for what they are, or what they're becoming, simultaneously attack us for not conforming ("you still have obvious male features") and for conforming ("you're just perpetuating gender stereotypes").

Throughout this thread I've referred to my transition as an effort to seem "like a woman" to other people. So, what does "like a woman" mean? People who haven't thought this through will look at me and say "he thinks long hair and makeup makes him a woman!"

No. Hair, makeup, surgery, voice training, mannerisms—each of these is only a small part of a general effort to change how I'm perceived, how I'm treated by others, how I interact with others.

It's the net effect of these things—my acquired social position as a woman—that makes it philosophically sound to call me a woman. The minutiae of how I achieve that end are not particularly relevant.

What it means to seem "like a woman" to the collective perception is, of course, in some sense to resemble a prototype—stereotype if you insist. But women are all individuals, and no one conforms perfectly.

The goal of my transition is merely to conform *enough* to elicit that mysterious "seems like a woman" perception. The "trans people think gender is stereotypes" argument ignores that most trans people are much less conforming than most cis people, and are attacked for that too.

Now, let's circle this back around to the politics of FFS before I spend the rest of my life writing this thread.