All this just stirs up a complex array of feelings in me. I'm a transgender woman who had facial feminization surgery in an effort to reduce/eliminate facial features that are not unlike the very characteristics these men believe will change their lives.
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Testosterone had done a REAL NUMBER on my face, and while some trans women get really great results from FFS, my results have left something to be desired. I'm still misgendered all the time, stuff like that.
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Which is not at all to say that I regret having FFS. I don't. I can see myself in the mirror a little more clearly now than I could before. It's reduced my feelings of dysphoria a bit, if not nearly as much as I once hoped it would.
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And the truth is that I sometimes get depressed, or even bitter, about my appearance, and the fact that I'm still seen the way I am in the world. But not because I think all the pieces in my life would magically fall into place if I looked different.
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No, it's more like this: Right now, some part of me is ALWAYS on guard against the next misgendering, the next insult, the next reminder that everywhere I go, all the time, people see and process the fact that I'm trans, and that this gets factored into their perception of me.
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And if I could just figure out how to make this voice go away, or be quiet most of the time, if I could move in the world with a little more confidence, a little less fear, inhabit my body a little more fully and without shame, then how I interact with others would be different.
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But I also know that women, cis and trans, are constantly self-conscious about their appearance, their "flaws," and so on, because our culture constantly tells women that their appearance is paramount. So many women, to greater or lesser degrees, experience some measure of this.
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And yes, physical appearance does matter. It does effect how we're perceived and treated. Sometimes it does effect the opportunities that are available to us, in our personal lives, in our professional lives. It's silly to pretend otherwise.
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And so some part of me wants to reach out to these men with some measure of empathy, to say "Look, I'm sorry you're hurting. I'm hurting too. Lots of people, cis and trans, women, men and nonbinary folks, are hurting...
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...Let's look at the cultural issues that are actually at work here, what they say to you as men, what they say to us as women, let's have a conversation about this that comes from a place of empathy, that understands that being alone, that not finding love is hard."
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But so much damage has already been done. The way these men feel that they are owed something specific by specific other people, the cold, transactional view of it all, the way the whole incel worldview dehumanizes women rather than recoginizing THEIR desires and inner lives.
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I don't even know where I'm going with all of this. I just get so frustrated. I feel like a humanizing empathy is essential here, but also like the soil has been scorched and I don't know how to plant the seeds and cultivate a more human conversation in these men's lives. /FIN
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