• kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      i feel like its generally the case. the longer youve been on hrt the more likely you are to be hard left. mostly because the longer the time youve been acting on being trans, the longer society has had to discriminate against you in some egregious way.

      • SimulatedLiberalism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        2 years ago

        the longer youve been on hrt the more likely you are to be hard left. mostly because the longer the time youve been acting on being trans, the longer society has had to discriminate against you in some egregious way.

        I can’t agree with this at all, as an ethnic minority I have seen way too many reactionaries among those who have been oppressed their entire lives.

        Being a minority and having direct experience of discrimination do increase one’s revolutionary potential, but class also plays a substantial role (I’d argue an even larger one just from personal experience) as well as the ideological superstructures being imposed upon us.

        Ultimately there are a lot of collaborationists across every segment of minorities, both within the imperial core and in the global south.

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        2 years ago

        i feel like its generally the case. the longer youve been on hrt the more likely you are to be hard left. mostly because the longer the time youve been acting on being trans, the longer society has had to discriminate against you in some egregious way.

        In my experience this depends on stealth vs not-stealth. The stealth people wanting to blend and capable of it tend to deradicalise because they can fit into existing society, those that can not tend to hyper-radicalise because they need society to change for them.

        • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          2 years ago

          maybe. i pass and i gotta tell you im never forgetting how people treated me in vulnerable moments knifecat

          also there are plenty of times where im forced to out myself, particularly when dealing with insurance and medical, and i pretty much always get a sour and many times visceral reception because people feel ‘tricked’. i had a nurse very unprofessionally yell ‘WHAT’ at the top of her lungs when i was explaining i was trans and my basic medical history

          • Tastysnack [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            2 years ago

            I’m in a similar place currently, kinda, maybe, not really, i dunno.

            I’ve had trans friends literally project their self hatred onto me because they resent that I “pass” (like i fucking do) and tell me bogus shit like I can’t get oestrogen because of x and y which lead me to sob to my doctor in a place of genuine suicidal intent because of what I’d been led to believe.

            Lmao turns out it was bollocks what they said and here I am a year later happy af.

            Problem is i’m still riddled with a lot of the misogynistic self hatred that my ex friend filled my head with like this feature is too masculine etc. I know she was wrong and why its all wrong but a year of shit like that and comments like “well you’re lucky your short unlike the rest of us” has made me feel super isolated and kinda low Key assimilatey when I’m around cis people.

            Like I’m loud and proud and always ready to defend my community but if I’m genuinely passing I can’t help but enjoy it and soak it up like its validating the broken part of my self confidence issues or something.

            I dunno, I still hear her voice in my head when I hate my reflection because I hyper focus on the things she did and its so hard so when I do pass I do stealth it and really enjoy it.

            Does that make me a bad trans person?

            Either way i wouldn’t ever defend assimilators and resent the idea that I would be one but at the same time I enjoy not having to be trans and that leaves me feeling kinda guilty.

            • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              2 years ago

              cat-trans yeah people fucking with you over whether you pass or not sucks. i had a family member claim i dont even though i havent been misgendered by randoms in like 8 years. pretty sure they were just being a spiteful asshole, they couldnt point out why

            • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              2 years ago

              When people keep telling you that you pass, you most likely do, and you’re most likely hella cute as well, because people conflate high passing and being conventionally attractive a lot. And some people, including a lot of trans women, just can’t handle that. Our society teaches women to constantly monitor each others beauty and put each other down both when we’re not pretty enough and too pretty, we’re forced to constantly square the circle, to navigate this ridiculously narrow corridor between supposedly being an unsightly mess and supposedly being a shallow skank. And like most of mysogyny, that gets amplified further when you’re trans. I keep hearing stories like yours and they’re always from really beautiful trans girls who are resented for looking conventionally hotter or more cis-like than the person putting them down. Like, i just met this super cute trans girl and took her to a local meetup because she was afraid to go alone after some other trans woman had trash talked her for not doing enough about her voice at another get-together years ago - not only is that a horrible demand in general, voice work is hard and not everybody has the talent or the ressources or the time or the lack of voice dysphoria to pull through with it, no, she actually has a lovely voice, low-pitched but very smooth and feminine, a voice i could listen to all evening. But that other woman saw her and probably felt threatened and had to lash out. I had to think of that when you wrote about your ex.

              And no, you’re absolutely not a bad trans person for stealthing once in a while. It’s a scary time we live in, and while it’s important that we’re visible and outspoken and let people know we’re actual human beings they know and not just some abstract “gender ideology”, it’s hard to be visible 24/7. When you put yourself out there most of the time, and when you reflect the way you do when you do that, and give people the opportunity to learn, that’s more than enough. From each according to their abilities also goes for activism, and there’s no shame in not wanting to be in the trenches permanently. Our survival and continued existence in itself constitutes a revolutionary act. Reaction wants us dead and being alive as a trans person and living your best life in itself defies the necropolitics of today’s fossil capitalism. Being able to take a break from the struggle is a form of privilege, as is being able to transition at all, or having enough money to pay out of pocket for surgeries, or living in a place with easier access to public trans health care, or being educated and able to articulate your existence in a convincing way, or being binary trans, or having had a supportive home and being able to accept yourself in ways other people can’t because their parents didn’t give them the love they would’ve deserved, or being a white trans person, or living in an area that makes it easier to access queer networks, but none of these are things you shouldn’t use as tools for your survival if you’re lucky enough to have them at your disposal. Cisfascism wants all of us dead, and we have a right to fight bacvk against it with anything we have at our hands, we should just be aware of and mindful towards people who don’t share some of our privilege instead of throwing them under the bus like the actual assimilationists do.

      • Tastysnack [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        2 years ago

        I hope you are correct but my doomer side can’t ignore the sheer amount of dickheads I’ve met and felt they were a lost cause which I try not to do as that feels scummy.

        I think I’m just in my sad tankie phase when it comes to class consciousness and my own communities politics atm irl (anyway) transshork-sad

        • Harrison [He/Him]@ttrpg.network
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          2 years ago

          The sad tankie phase is completely avoidable. Most of the ones you encounter online lack praxis. Active socialist practice in your community is inherently rewarding.

          Class consciousness might not exist in our local communities in the way we would want to see it, but it is there.

        • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          2 years ago

          gotta remember that generally people tune out of trans spaces the longer theyve been on hrt. so a lot of trans communities are new transitioners and the long-transitioned and few ‘moms, dads, and vague parental figures’ that guide them to resources and pool the knowledge.

            • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              2 years ago

              still young, id say 4-5ish years on is when most people begin to radicalize a lot. though most are some sort of socialist anyways, they just become more serious about it

              • Tastysnack [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                2 years ago

                rosa-salute

                I think for me what I found difficult was that you could tell who was progressive/leftist/social justice advocate pre transition and who offers it lip service post transition when it benefits their specific personal needs but defends the status quo still and I found myself unable to tolerate the second group.

                As someone who would be categorised as the first group (I hope) I tried to educate and engage but after getting dogpilled by lib rage, ostracised for being a tankie, seeing the shittest takes time and time again and watching these people destroying groups that would benefit trans people irl I grew exhausted and left.

                I think I mentioned it in one of my first comments on here which is why after seeing that same energy in blahaj.zone i came here.

                That feeling of frustration and powerlessness even around your own peeps just feels so isolating.

                • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  2 years ago

                  yeah i remember one time where a girl came in and thanked me a lot, saying i changed her life by helping her with her meds and stuff and gave me a big hug. and then some time later she flew into a fit of rage and said she’d never come back to the lgbt center after learning i was a communist, and she never did. i was very bewildered at that. i did go out of the way and even got her an uber to her first HRT appointment and helped her schedule it, which is no big deal for me but i know its a big deal for a lot of people who are anxious to start HRT. she claims she was a socialist. sometimes wonder what shes up to 🤔 strange what propaganda can cook up in people’s heads.