appropriately-inappropriate: samriedel:This is what I was wearing when he told me I was a man. Thi

appropriately-inappropriate: samriedel: This is what I was wearing when he told me I was a man. This afternoon, I showered (whatever, I’m a writer, we wake up late), shaved my face (like I do every day to avoid as much shadow as possible) and picked out an outfit: today, the leopard-print wrap dress I got at a clothing swap, over a black shirt and tights. I applied my new liquid foundation to my face, thanking my lucky stars I could sort of afford it, since it’s better than my previous hand-me-down powder for adherence and covering the shadow that’s still there after I shave. (Someday I’ll afford electrolysis or laser treatments.) I paid extra attention to my upper lip and chin. Then, the fun part: applying earth tone eyeshadow from my well-worn palette, then eyeliner (I like to use a flame trick I learned to make pencil look liquid, even though I have liquid too; it makes cateyes look extra cool, especially with the leopard print), then mascara. I threw on a little lipstick and dabbed the color on my cheeks to use as blush. Looking in the mirror, I smiled: there’s my girl. The whole process took about an hour and fifteen minutes from start to finish. I made sure I looked as close to “cis woman” as possible; after all, today I was to go on camera for The Mary Sue, filming an upcoming video about Wonder Woman. Nothing but perfection would suffice. I’d already gotten a few transmisogynistic remarks on my videos through social media in the past–hopefully passing better this time would keep them to a minimum. When I walked out the door, I was met with an unexpected obstacle: the contractors renovating my building–one of whom I recognized from previous conversations, and the time he fixed my doorknob a week or two ago–had covered the stairs with glue for rubber covers, preventing me from exiting until it dried. Desperate to get to work moderately on time, I threw my bag to the one I knew and began shimmying down the banister feet-first. “Don’t look up my dress,” I chided, with a smile that reflected none of my terror. I managed to get to the bottom with a minor assist from the contractor I didn’t know. As I collected my bag, one of my new neighbors appeared from whence I’d just came, and stepped on the tacky glue. “NO!” screamed both the contractors in unison, and my neighbor stepped back, frightened. He’d messed up their work. “Can you wait ten minutes until it dries?” they asked, as they had asked of me. His answer was the same as mine: “Uh, no, I gotta go.”  Then, without warning, the contractor whom I knew spoke: “Can you climb down like he did?” I would have frozen, but I was late and already in motion–so, casting off the layer of ice which gripped my skin, I tartly replied “I’m not a boy, thank you” and left as my neighbor queried “What, like I’m Spider-Man?” (Answer: yeah, basically.) The last thing I heard was the contractor’s mildly surprised “oh.” As I walked to the train, I was livid. All of my work crafting my face and body into something pretty and feminine had been for precisely nothing. I couldn’t even interact with one person before being casually misgendered, even at my most womanly. This man had seen me in skirts, dresses, and full makeup on numerous occasions, but for some reason–take your pick: my deeper-than-”normal” voice; my Adam’s apple; my still-discernible shadow; my cock, if he looked up my dress after all–he’d determined that I was not a woman to him, and should not be addressed as such, my visible effort to the contrary. To my trans siblings reading this: it will never be enough for them, these cisgender men and women who tell lies to our face about their tolerance. No matter how well we pass for cis, no matter how many sacrifices we make, no matter how much time we spend obsessing over our presentation–it will never, ever be enough. We will never be granted the right to be respected inherently, on sight. Not without a fight. And we must be prepared to pick that fight, every single day, regardless of what it takes from us, takes from our quiet, our dignity. Because each time, the alternative is to die a little inside, until one day we wake up and we are dead. To my cis allies: Now, I hope, you see what it is to be misgendered. To my cis enemies: We are coming. photo credit: Alec Bernal. Please do not reshare without credit. Check out the male entitlement in this. “This is what I was wearing” is the slogan for women to point out what they were wearing when they were //raped//–you know, the sort of violence that happens to one in four women, the sort that changes your life and, if you’re very unlucky, your fundamental brain chemistry. And you stole that slogan to refer to when someone pointed out reality? Get fucked, asshole. a transwoman being misgendered is a greater violence than a cis woman being sexually harrassed, assaulted or raped, don’t you know? grossly insensitive appropriation, check. conflating stereotypes of femininity with womanhood, check. threat at the end (that will almost certainly be activated in reality against the “cisgender women” only or primarily), check. -- source link

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