Cis Allyship

Cis Allyship Trans Life

NO ESCAPE

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Today I want to talk about something that was difficult for me to deal with, especially early on in transition. Let’s talk  NO ESCAPE (from reminders that I’m trans).

Now listen, do not get the wrong idea. I do not wish that I were cis. I do not wish that I wasn’t trans. I really and truly do love being trans, and what it’s meant for my life and my understanding of who I am in every facet of my life.

But there’s so much more to me than just my transness. It’s one (very big and important) part of who I am, but it’s not all there is. I’m a writer, a wife, a mom, a nerd, a gamer, a director, a fitness nut, a budding roller derby player, and on and on.

And yet I can’t escape reminders that I’m trans and othered by society. An example of this is how I simply cannot escape my deadname. Over five years in and I still can’t get away from it, though it’s not nearly as bad as it was early on.

I’m not talking about people calling me by my deadname necessarily (though, hey, please never do that), but it’s the name itself that I cannot escape, and probably never will. One way this particularly hurt early on is that before I was able to legally change my name, all the medication I was prescribed was under my deadname. And this included my HRT.

And it’s a special kind of hell to have the meds that are hopefully going to help change your body in ways that make you feel better (and for me, it absolutely did)… be the thing itself that reminds you of all the pain and anguish that made you want to take it in the first place.

Back before injections, when I was on estrogen pills (which I had to switch off of because they stopped working for me entirely, see TRANSITION SETBACKS), every time I opened the bottle, every single day, there was my deadname. Punching me in the face.

Seeing my deadname on the label was a big blinking neon sign that said hey! You’re a transgender lady!

But that was far from the only source of this particular annoyance. I get junk mail and spam calls for my deadname, even now, five years in! I donated to a Democratic election campaign once, long before I transitioned, and now they won’t stop texting me and begging for money (asking a trans woman for cash, lol, lmao even), and seemingly have no system in place to check if a person’s name has changed.

So Dems are just out here routinely deadnaming me on the regular. Doesn’t endear me to them (nor does most of them completely capitulating on whether trans people deserve equal rights AHEM).

It’s not like I can tell the spammers to change my name on all their records.

What’s worse is that part of it is almost self-inflicted. Yes, my email address is for my new, real name… but I have over a decade of saved emails in my old account. Forwarding all of those over is something I don’t have time for.

And even if I did, whenever I might need to refer to one again, there’s the old email address with my deadname in the “to” field and there’s the person who sent the email addressing me by my deadname. There’s literally nothing that can be done about that.

Worse, if you knew me before I came out, you are likely aware my deadname was exactly the same as a very famous actor. See NAMES AND PRONOUNS for more.

Any time he’s in the news, guess what? So’s my deadname. Anytime he makes a new movie, or I watch one of his movies… there’s my deadname again. It will chase me for the rest of my life. There’s no escaping it.

I don’t like it, I didn’t like being called it, I’d hate being called that now (just don’t!), but it’s actually almost worse how every time it also brings along with it a hey! You’re a transgender lady! blaring on a bullhorn.

And of course I’m reminded every time Republicans want to legislate us out of existence, and every time I have to wonder if it’s safe for me to use the women’s bathroom when I’m out in the world (see CIS PRIVILEGE for more on that). I can’t just exist for even a day without constant reminders of my transness.

There’s something you can do about this, though, and I’m going to explain with a dream I had.

So before writing one of these essays, I know the topic I want to talk about and my hyperphantasia brain’s turning it all over for days (learn more about that in TRANS TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAMES).

So while I was planning this essay, thinking about it, my brain decided to put on a show. A very Progesterone Dream Theater-flavored show (P is part of my HRT, and it’s known for inducing absolutely wild dreams, read about a bunch of them I’ve had in ASK TILLY ANYTHING, part 5).

 I didn’t even think this dream was related at first, but now I’m pretty sure it is.

I couldn’t tell you where I was, it was one of those everywhere-yet-nowhere spaces that only exist in dreams. But I had water splashes all over my body. Not water droplets, but the splashes. Like you know when a water droplet hits something and then splashes upward?

That. But all over, and they were frozen in time. Not icy, just stopped. All of them, right as they splashed, so it almost looked like they were emanating outward from my skin. I don’t know how or why, but those later turned to weird leaf-like plants in the same shape.

I couldn’t get rid of them, and they made me feel terrible. But then my wife Susan and all my friends were there (not gonna list you all, but trust that if we’re friends, I’m pretty sure I saw you there), and each one of them pulled one of the leaf-things off my body.

And finally they were all gone, and I was just myself. And I felt so… free.

I was baffled by this at first, but here’s my interpretation and how it relates to this essay. I think this dream was about my GENDER DYSPHORIA, that much at least seems clear.

It manifested in the dream as these splashes that became leaf-things, weird stuff growing out of my body that made me feel terrible because they weren’t me. I think they were probably a stand-in for the facial hair and BODY HAIR that so plague me.

But all of you who care about me were there to help me get through that dysphoria, so I could just be myself. 

Earlier, I said there was something you could do about this though, and here it is.

You start by striving to not be the cause of the splashes or leaf-things, and by seeing me and affirming me as who I am. A perfect example of this was a really beautiful moment that happened when I went to get my first-ever covid vaccine, back when we were all still mostly in lockdown.

We received our shots through Kaiser, who was both our insurance and healthcare provider, at a very organized facility that got us in and out in no time at all. We had to fill out a short form first, with our account numbers and if we were possibly allergic to any of the ingredients in the vaccine, all that stuff.

As this was before I’d been able to legally change my name, that meant my deadname had to go on this sheet. Even then I had long hair and a pink mask and (some small) boobs and a purse. But the legal name is the legal name.

The thing about Kaiser is they have your medical record accessible to all medical professionals who treat you. And there was a nurse there who was taking everyone’s account numbers from their forms, and going into their medical records to add in the vaccination.

And then he’s bringing the little proof of vaccination cards to everyone that they used to give out at the beginning, the ones you’d see everyone posting a photo with. Only I didn’t post a photo of mine… because my deadname was on it, so no thank you. But this guy… goodness.

He comes over with the card, but he stops. He doesn’t seem to know what to say. He kneels down so we’re eye to eye (I was sitting in a chair for the 15 minute period where they made you wait to be sure you don’t have a rare, immediate bad reaction).

He doesn’t show me the card. He finally talks, but quietly, so no one else will hear. “I saw in your record you go by Tilly.” I smile, but I’m double-masked so who knows if he’s aware. “Is ‘Tilly’ on your driver’s license?” 

I tell him no, not yet, sadly. Then he finally reveals the card with my deadname on it. “Is this okay? I don’t think I can change it, but I wanted to be sure you were okay with it.”

Now look, I was about to cry then and I’m about to cry just writing about it now, from this one simple act of kindness. The vaccination record had to have a legal name on it, I get it. It’s not his fault, it was covid’s fault I hadn’t been able to get it changed yet.

He could have just put my deadname on it and dropped it in my lap and moved on with his day. Worse, he could have come over and asked out loud if that deadname was me because I did not, even then, look like the gender of the people who generally have that name.

But he didn’t. He knew there was probably nothing he could do about it, but he checked just to be sure. And he didn’t say it loudly, or even want to show it to me, because he knew it might hurt me. 

And he felt bad about having to give me something that I need to have but doesn’t have my real name on it.

He just ripped a handful of those dream leafy-things right off my arm. I was seen as myself, and understood. And even though my deadname was a reminder, again, that I’m a trans woman, and not just a woman, or even just a human, this guy made me feel like I could just exist as me. He negated that entirely.

So I thanked him and waited the rest of my fifteen minutes, and then he told me I could go and I thanked him again. And I left feeling like myself, like a person who happens to be trans (and that’s great!), but not some beacon of transness first and foremost, if that makes sense.

Being trans (which again, I love) is just one aspect of who I am. But it’s not all I am. I am a wife, and I love being a wife. But it’s not all I am. I’m a mom, and I love being a mom. But it’s not all I am. I’m a writer, and I love being a writer. But it’s not all I am. All of these things are just one aspect of a full human being.

I don’t think straight cis men ever think about their gender. They don’t have to. The world is set up to affirm that’s who they are at every step (because they’re the ones who set it up that way). I’ve talked about that too many times to even list them all… but GENDERED CHILDHOODS and TRANS TRAUMA 2: SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING are good places to start. As is my book, Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix.

Cis white men don’t get reminded a dozen times a day how they’re cisgender. They just go about their life and don’t really think about it. And I would so, so love to just go about my life and not have to think about how I’m transgender, every second of every single day.

So hey, maybe try to be like the amazing nurse who made my life better with a simple, easy kindness. Rip some of those weird damned dream splashy leafy things off my arm, willya? 

They’re creepy as heck, and believe it or not, you can help make it better.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship

STOP STARING AT US (trans people are human beings)

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week’s topic is one I should never have needed to write, yet here we are. This keeps being a problem so we’re gonna talk about it. Cis friends, please pay attention to STOP STARING AT US (trans people are human beings)

Hi cis friends! Y’know how in these essays I link to other relevant, related essays for more info? That’s gonna happen a LOT in this one. And they’re all for YOU. It’s homework! Please do the reading.

To start with, I want you to know staring actually happens to trans people.

A social media post I made that reads: Got gawked at by THREE different people on today’s run. Yes, I am trans, you need not stare at me to confirm it. We exist and we’re humans too, stop being so fucking rude. (flat mouth emoji)

It really, truly happens.

A social media post I made that reads: “The Uncomfortable Cis” is a great band name and also what I call the people who continue to stare at me in public

It isn’t some imagined slight.

A social media post I made that reads: Running errands this morning and FOUR different people gawked at me. One guy in a suit jacket and diamond stud earrings went so far as to lock his bulging eyes with mine, turn, and keep staring while he ~walked backward.~ I just want to buy groceries! Could. You. Please. Not??

It’s sadly not even something that is rare.

A social media post I made that reads: reminder that if you see somebody and can’t discern their gender it’s none of your damned business, don’t stare at them like a carnival sideshow. This message brought to you by the cis dude who just stared at me like I’m a carnival sideshow, mouth hanging open and everything (unhappy side-eye emoji)

And, frankly, it’s gotten beyond tiresome. And happens even at entertainment industry events full of other screenwriters.

A social media post I made that reads: hey cis friends, c’mere a sec. Did you know that the appropriate response to seeing a trans person in public, say… at a mixer for a guild you’re both members of, is not to do a double take and stare like their presence is an affront to you? Ok thanks good talk.

There was one time Costco where this old man locked on me with his eyes, featuring a facial expression of bewilderment with just a soupçon of disgust, and stared so hard that he turned around to KEEP STARING AT ME BEHIND HIM as he walked on.

So I stared right back. It’s not every day I see blatant displays of assholery, after all. Though actually it is, sadly, because certain figures in current events have made some people think it’s perfectly fine to treat people this way if they’re different from you.

It’s so prevalent, you see it even in THE TRANS ALLEGORY OF THE BARBIE MOVIE.

You see it in THE TRANS ALLEGORY OF SILO SEASON ONE.

You even see in my favorite book in the universe, WRATH GODDESS SING, which is a beautiful, incredible, trans novel by author Maya Deane.

I think a lot of cis people maybe don’t understand the big deal. I want to clarify that stuff like this mostly rolls right off my back. I might have a “why does the world have to be like this” vibe about it for five minutes or so, but it’s not going to ruin my day.

But that’s certainly not true for all trans or non-binary people. Part of the reason it doesn’t bother me much is I have an amazingly accepting home life. I live in a state that respects me, with laws that reflect that. I didn’t lose anyone at ALL from my life when I came out.

You can read more about that in the trans tuesday on MY PRIVILEGE (TIME AND MONEY).

And I talked more about my own privilege in the trans tuesday on THE ONLY TRANS PERSON YOU KNOW.

Spare a moment to remember how often trans people, especially trans women, especially trans women of color, are victims of violence due to the crime of existing. Think of the trans people in states with laws that are openly hostile toward them. For more on that see the trans tuesday on TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY.

Think of the trans people in dangerous or downright violent home environments. Think of the trans people who’ve lost their jobs or homes after coming out. Think of the trans people for whom ALL of the above apply. And for more on that, see the trans tuesdays on THE 2022 US TRANS SURVEY REPORT EARLY INSIGHTS.

And on top of all that we have societal transphobia, and on top of that we have multiple TRANS MICROAGGRESSIONS, often on a daily basis.

Now think about adding cis people staring at us, like we’re some curiosity to be gawked at, on top of all that other stuff, and how that might feel. I just… look, I don’t get it.

WHY would you do this? Oh, you can’t figure out my gender at first glance? Well SO WHAT? What business is it of yours what gender someone else is? Go about your life and stop making us feel like shit. This is, invariably, tied up in MISGENDERING AND PASSING.

Because we shouldn’t HAVE to pass, I don’t even WANT TO, but if I did I sure wouldn’t get stared at like a freak by so many cis people I encounter.

The part that gets me is the sheer LENGTHS we often go to just to make cis people comfortable. It’s going to vary for every trans person how much, if any, of what we do is to make cis people feel better, so this is a reminder that I’m speaking personally here.

I’ve talked about how much REAL CIS ACCEPTANCE can help us feel like who we are.

I’ve talked about CIS PRIVILEGE how much we need YOU to put this bathroom ban bullshit to rest.

I’ve talked about all the time and money I put into trying to make my body feel like it’s mine, at least part of which is also about getting YOU to recognize me as the gender I am (again, see the previously linked trans tuesday on the topic).

I’ve talked about how YOUR BAD REPRESENTATION of us can be so harmful and damaging.

I’ve talked about how YOUR GOOD REPRESENTATION of us can mean so much more than you might ever realize.

I’ve talked about how the TERFs among YOU are waging war against us based on nothing but misguided fear.

I’ve talked about TRANS POLITICS and how important it is that YOU vote for the CIS PEOPLE who will make laws that respect us as our literal lives are on the line.

I’ve talked about the extreme lengths I go to in order to get rid of the BODY HAIR that plagues me, at least part of which is to get YOU to recognize me as the gender I am.

I’ve talked about how THE FALSE DICHOTOMY in society that YOU set up can be so damaging to ALL of us.

I’ve talked about HEAVILY GENDERED CLOTHES AND TRANS PEOPLE, and having to replace my entire wardrobe, at least part of which is to get YOU to recognize me as the gender I am.

I’ve talked about TRANS KIDS AND THE INTAKE EXAM and having to convince YOU that I am who I say I am, and how trans kids need YOU to protect them.

I’ve talked in TRANS SPORTS about how YOU have to ~allow~ us to compete as ourselves in sports.

I’ve talked about TRANS REPRESENTATION IN MEDIA 2023 and how YOU have to ~allow~ us to exist in our popular media.

I’ve talked about TRANS ROLES AND STORIES and how YOU have to ~allow~ us to portray ourselves in media, and ~allow~ us to tell our own stories.

I’ve talked about how important it is that YOU understand how important TRANS RIGHTS are.

I’ve talked, AGAIN, in TRANS RIGHTS 2 (aka 35 fucks) HOW IMPORTANT IT IS THAT YOU UNDERSTAND WE DESERVE EQUAL RIGHTS.

I’ve talked in TRANS VOICES about the monumental efforts I put into voice therapy, at least part of which is to get YOU to recognize me as the gender I am.

I’ve talked about the hoops YOU make us jump through to LEGALLY CHANGE OUR NAME AND GENDER so we can exist as who we really are.

I’ve talked about TUCKING AND BINDING, and that the main reason I do it is to get YOU to recognize me as the gender I am, and to keep myself safe from YOU.

I talked in BOYMODE/GIRLMODE about how we often have to hide ourselves so that YOU won’t know we’re trans and will leave us alone, and how I did it to keep myself safe from YOU.

Okay, that was… a LOT. And I’m not sure until looking at it all written out like that I realized the sheer magnitude of the ways cis people impact nearly every facet of trans life. 

Are you getting the picture? Yes yes, “not all cis people,” of course. And yet the fact remains WE DO MOUNTAINS OF WORK for ALL of YOU, just to try to make YOU feel okay enough to agree to let us be who we are and live our lives in peace.

Let’s go back to the top of the essay, and my social media posts about people staring at me. It happens all the time. Everywhere.

It happened yet another time at Costco. A lady in front of Susan and me in line was just soooooooo fascinated by my existence. Apparently. Susan stared at her right back, and I think she’d have thrown hands if the lady didn’t cut it out. Again, cis folks, that is PROACTIVE ALLYSHIP, aka being an accomplice.

Early on in transition, I’d even wear an EXTRA pair of running shorts under my running shorts, because… I don’t think running and tucking would be a good combo. I was worried YOU might see crotch junk under my shorts, so I bought an extra pair of tight spandex to flatten the area out. And had to wear boy underwear to do it. You can read more about the joy of being able to stop that in the trans tuesday on TRANS FREEDOM (and underwear).

And. I’d. Still. Get. Stared. At. Like. A. Sideshow.

On my runs, an old man I used to often see out for a walk, for years, saw my nail polish one day and turned to stare as I went by, having never paid attention to me before.

A woman tying her small child’s shoe in the front yard looked up at me as I went by. I waved. She stopped moving entirely, just stared at me the entire time I ran past her house.

One time I saw another lady running. Aha, I will do the runner-solidarity wave. Look at us, out here running! Surely she would just wave! Or nod! Or ignore me! She turned to stare. While she kept running down the street. In the opposite direction. With her eyes on ME.

So when I think about alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll I do just to get YOU to not stare at me, to not misgender me, to not deadname me, and this kind of stuff still happens… well it’s not great, friends. And it could be really damaging to people in much worse situations than me.

Don’t do it. JUST DON’T. Our gender doesn’t matter to you or your life one iota. If you see a cis person doing this, be an accomplice! CALL THEM OUT ON IT and tell them to knock it the hell off.

We can’t make our world more accepting without YOU, cis folks. You’re the bulk of society, and we trans people aren’t out here making things worse for ourselves.

I have to believe society can change, because the alternative is far too depressing.

Please be the true accomplice you want to be. Be the accomplice we NEED you to be.

Hopefully you’ve realized by now that we can’t do it without you.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship Trans 101

TRANS PANIC

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today’s topic wasn’t one I ever thought I’d do, because I thought it was something everyone was aware of. Turns out: no. Every time it comes up people are surprised and horrified. So let me tell you about TRANS PANIC.

I wish this were something cute like every time I wanted pizza but my favorite pizza place was closed and it upset me. Even “I don’t know if I’ll be able to refill my HRT,” while actually a serious issue, would be a much less sinister description.

Because trans panic, you see, is a (valid and accepted) legal defense people can use in cases of murder, manslaughter, and assault. It generally goes thusly: I thought she was a cis woman but we went to have sex and I saw a penis and I snapped.

Or “this person flirted with me and I found out they were trans and so I panicked and killed them.” You know, normal, healthy stuff.

In the VAST MAJORITY of the United States, this is LEGAL. It is an accepted reason you can use to defend your actions in a court of law.

It’s akin to GAY PANIC, which you’ve probably correctly surmised is the exact same thing but only for gay folks. Also still legal in many places!

So cisgender straight folks out there, stop for a second and think about what that means. Think about how it would make you feel, not just in and of itself, but as LAW supported by the GOVERNMENT.

“I was flirting with this nice lady but I found out she was cisgender so I snapped and killed her. You can’t blame me for that!” And the all-transgender government says, huh, yeah, MAKES SENSE.

How does that make you feel? Do you want to curl up into a ball and hide? Almost like maybe that’s the intent? How about that.

Liiiiiike do you understand the world we’re living in here? Can you imagine what it’s like to be so hated by cisgender people, who control everything and make all the laws, that they say it’s fine if people kill us because the very nature of our existence so upset them?

Let’s get one thing straight: the law is wrong and fucking awful. But if you think transphobes are going to stick to only using it in “sexual situations,” I think our last president has an “infrastructure week” to sell you.

It’s a short hop from “sexual situations” to “flirting” to “she looked at me wrong.” Our entire history shows you the way shit like that has been warped and weaponized against minority populations. To think this time is any different is ludicrous.

There’s a case where a cis man was flirting with women he didn’t know were trans. His friends mocked him for not knowing, and when he later flirted (or maybe just talked?) with another woman he found out was trans… he killed her. Just up and ended her life.

That guy CONFESSED and it still took TWO YEARS to even charge him. He took a plea down to manslaughter, the jury did not consider it a hate crime (?!?) and he was sentenced to twelve whole years. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

The New York Times has an account of this story that’s brutal. I’m not going to link to it because the description of what this disgusting piece of shit man inflicted upon Islan Nettles is… beyond awful. Nobody needs that dropped into their lap without warning.

Note there was no sex! Likely not even any actual flirting (which to be clear would in no way excuse it or make it less awful). It was a brief exchange on a street, and a cis man decided it was time for a trans woman to die. And this was a valid defense in 2015 New York.

Sit with that for a fucking moment.

My beloved California was the first state to ever ban this absolute nonsense, and it still didn’t even happen until TWO THOUSAND FUCKING FOURTEEN.

Which seems unconscionable, yet pales in comparison to all the places in this country where trans panic is STILL ALLOWED as a legal defense. Again, it’s the vast majority of the country.

I’m terrified to travel to any of the states that haven’t banned the trans panic defense. But you know what’s worse? TRANS PEOPLE LIVE IN THOSE STATES. And I’m so, so scared for them and their safety. I’m angry. I’m fucking repulsed. How can anyone justify this?

CONTACT YOUR REPS AND DEMAND THEY BAN IT. ONLY CIS PEOPLE CAN MAKE THIS CHANGE HAPPEN.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship Trans Life

NO ESCAPE 2: SOME ESCAPE (due to cis allyship)

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today was going to be a one year retrospective, but something happened that I really want to talk about, so I’m pushing that to next week. So what’s on deck for today? NO ESCAPE 2: SOME ESCAPE aka CIS ALLYSHIP.

As a primer, have a look at my original NO ESCAPE essay, about how my deadname and reminders that I’m trans are things I can never get away from:

And just as evidence about how difficult some of this is, I’m in the middle of having a background check done, and I got stuck on the very first page of the form. Because it says to put my legal name… which is Tilly.

But I also have to check a box that says “this is the name that appears on my government issued ID”… which it is not, yet, and who knows when the process will finally get to that point, since covid has slowed everything to a crawl. For more on that see LEGAL NAME AND GENDER MARKER CHANGE.

I contact customer support about the problem, and they advise me to… put my legal last name on the form. But my last name hasn’t changed, they just assumed because I guess that changes most often due to marriage?

So I have to tell them no, it’s my first name that’s changed, and they ask the old name, and now I’m discussing being trans with a stranger and I’d really rather not have to do that, but I’m forced into it and hey that’s kind of bad.

And now I have to put my deadname on this form, which doesn’t match the name of the person the form was sent to, and it’s just a whole thing. And even better, they want to know my sex. WHICH HAS LEGALLY BEEN CHANGED.

But not on my ID yet. And it, y’know, makes me feel not great to have to put that name on things, much less see it again. Or have to sign it in a signature. It’s super awful, actually. It makes me want to curl into a ball and hide but also scream in anger at the top of my lungs.

And this hit me in a much bigger way just yesterday. I had to go in for a colonoscopy, which may seem totally out of left field but gimme a sec, it’ll make sense. I’m fine, don’t worry, there’s just family history so they’ve been checking early.

Since the procedure was scheduled, I’ve been… increasingly worried and anxious about it, to the point where it was all I could think about. And it’s not just because the prep for it is absolutely awful (it is), or that I hate going under anesthesia (I do).

It’s because I’m still in the middle of getting new documents with my legal name/gender change reflected. And so all of that info hasn’t been changed with our health insurance and doctors. And the thought of being deadnamed and misgendered throughout was too much to deal with.

EVEN THOUGH they’re the ones providing my transgender care (HRT and voice therapy) and it’s right in my file that I’m trans, I STILL get deadnamed and misgendered by people who don’t bother to look at all the info (or worse, don’t care).

I briefly consider going boymode, just to not have to deal with all this, but the thought of boymoding again makes me want to shrivel, so I rule it out pretty quickly. Check out the trans tuesday on BOYMODE/GIRLMODE if you need more info.

But then they had a cancellation so called me to see if I could come in early, and I guess they’re not aware of what their own department is doing because two different people called me, and one used my real name and one used my deadname.

Which of course filled me with even more dread. So I get there and check in, and they print the little ID bracelet thing you get when you go in for procedures, and… it just has DEADNAME MCGEE in big bold print. Not even the “Tilly” in quotes. Super.

And then they immediately call me in, and I hadn’t even taken off my necklace or wedding ring etc yet. So I’m handing all this stuff to Susan when it hits me they… CALLED OUT DEADNAME MCGEE.

Nice and loud for everyone in the waiting room to hear, and then they see me walking up. When I tell you my heart was already in my feet, well… more like under them. It was crushed. And then I have to make a decision.

Do I correct this lady? Is there a point? Am I even going to see her again during this procedure? Will she tell anyone else? What if she’s a bigot? What if she doesn’t care? What if she’s hostile about it?

And then I have to do that with EVERY person I interact with during the procedure? Do you have any idea how much mental and emotional energy that many possible awful confrontations in a row would take? I wanted to run and hide.

So I just said nothing. She has my chart, which says DEADNAME MCGEE “Tilly” Bridges. It says I’m trans. I have… boobs? And everything about me is visually coded female, other than the physical traits I can’t change (thanks to the fuckin’ male puberty I never asked for).

She takes me to the little alcove where the rolly bed is and tells me to change and put the gown on, pulls the curtain closed and leaves. Great. So I change, and I’m laying there in the bed being miserable. And then a guy comes in to ask me a bunch of questions.

Routine stuff, like when I last ate, did I drink all the prep stuff, etc. He pops his head in, sees me and says “hi ma’am!” What a relief! (I still think we should get away from gendered honorifics, tho). But then he looks at my chart.

And says, “Sorry. Sir.” No. NO DAMN IT. FUCK. Now I’m extra pissed. Do I want to get into it with THIS guy? And then the exact same situation comes up:

Do I correct this guy? Is there a point? Am I even going to see him again during this procedure? Will he tell anyone else? What if he’s a bigot? What if he doesn’t care? What if he’s hostile about it?

So I stew in silence and answer his questions. He runs down my list of medications to ask if I’m still taking them. A slight hesitation when he gets to my HRT, which is very clearly estrogen. Then he asks and I confirm and he doesn’t seem to know what to call me.

Never once did he ASK. Never once did he say “I see you go by ‘Tilly,” would you like me to call you that?” Nope, it was “SIR” and “DEADNAME MCGEE” all the way through, until he saw my chart and got confused.

Never mind I’m a living, breathing person sitting two feet away from him who could confirm if he’d bothered to ask. Fine, whatever. While he’s doing this, a lady comes in to put in my IV. She calls me nothing and uses no honorifics, and none of it was weird or impolite.

That is literally always an option, people! Another dude comes in to put a blood pressure cuff on, and some electrodes on my chest to monitor heart rate and such. Two go up high, no big deal. One has to go lower. He pulls out the gown…

Hey. Boobs. Another bit of confused hesitation. What should he do? He apologizes (?) and then attaches the thingy and off he goes.

It’s possible they only put DEADNAME MCGEE on whatever this guy saw before he came in, so not necessarily his fault, but… LOOK MAN I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU.

Now I’m just there waiting for my turn to go into the procedure room. It’s quiet, but only in the way these places are. So I listen and watch, because I’m a writer and that’s what I do.

And I hear them talking to other patients, one person is VERY upset they can’t have alcohol the rest of the day after the procedure, phones are ringing, beds are being wheeled around. And then I see First Confused Dude and IV Lady looking at their whiteboards of patients.

And I can’t hear all of what they’re saying because another bed wheels by, but they’re pointing at the bottom of the board, which is me. Just as the clanking of the bed fades from earshot, IV lady says “just use ‘Constellations’. Thank goodness for the mask.”

This is where I tell you my mask has constellations on it (yay science, I love you).

So here is a point where two people are just SO confused by a trans person, and rather than talk to me like a human or just use the preferred name listed right in my file, they decide to refer to me by what’s on my mask.

Which is both good and bad. Good because it means no more misgendering or deadnaming, but bad because I’m not a fucking object. I’m a person with feelings that you’ve been pretty good at stomping all over.

So now I’m just feeling extra awful and dehumanized. And I’m getting really mad, and all of this is on top of my anxiety about the actual procedure itself, and I just don’t know what to do. Like if I DO get into it with these people…

What if they’re part of the team doing the actual procedure? Do I have to worry about them providing me less care than I deserve because they’re mad at me? Or because it turns out they’re actual bigots and not just The Uncomfortable Cis?

I don’t reach a decision before they take me into the procedure room, which is unfriendly and cold and sterile in the way those rooms are, which doesn’t help my mood any. There are a few people prepping things, and the anesthesiologist at his own little station.

He talks to me a bit, seems friendly enough and doesn’t deadname or misgender me. Doesn’t really call me anything. I’ll take it. Small victories. In the corner of the room, working on a computer and her phone at the same time, is a lady.

Hard to tell with masks, but she’s probably late 20s or so. As they’re prepping me, she comes over and introduces herself as the gastroenterologist who will be performing the procedure. And she… she calls me Tilly. The FIRST one to do so.

She’s kind and friendly and reassures me all will be fine, and as they administer the anesthesia, someone asks her a question about me and says “him.” The doctor uses “she” in reply. As I drift out of consciousness I am… so glad this doctor is there.

The anesthesia wears off a little before the procedure is over, a first for me (and, uh… that’s an interesting… let’s call it “sensation”). I hear the doctor say “She’s all clear, good for another five years.”

And when I tell you hearing the “she” from her was just as important to me as hearing everything looked fine and I don’t have to do this again for a long time? That’s not hyperbole.

They wheel me to recovery to let the rest of the anesthesia wear off, but I’m completely awake and alert already (which means, uh, for past procedures I was perhaps given WAY too much anesthesia, because they took me all day to recover from).

That doesn’t help me be less anxious about having to go under, as you might imagine! But here’s the turn. After the procedure:

NOBODY misgendered me. NOBODY deadnamed me. As they checked my vitals and prepped me to leave and called Susan to be sure she was there to drive me home (no driving after anesthesia, natch), ALL of them got it right.

Because that doctor, apparently, straightened out everyone who needed to be straightened out. And when I tell you that makes her an angel, I mean it.

She didn’t put it on me to have to tell people they were fucking things up and have me risk that confrontation. She didn’t stand for it, and she got them to stop. THIS IS CIS ALLYSHIP.

She took what had been a pretty awful experience and turned it around, into something that ended up feeling positive and affirming. And all it took was for her to just treat me with the respect we should all show each other.

She turned NO ESCAPE into… SOME ESCAPE, ACTUALLY! And I love her for it.

What’s more, she got things changed in the system somehow. You get these follow-up printouts afterward, with notes on what to expect after, what your vitals were, etc. This stuff always said DEADNAME MCGEE “Tilly” Bridges. But now…

My legal name HAS changed, but they don’t have the documents yet. Yet this doctor went out of her way to do what she could to help. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go send her a thousand thank you emails.

Please, cis folks: be the allies we need.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com


ADDENDUM:

UPDATE: the doctor wrote me back. 💜💜💜

Cis Allyship Trans 101

TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Others have spoken on this topic better than I can, but I’m a white trans lady so I have the privilege of more people listening to me. I honestly can’t believe it needs to be said, it’s such a no-brainer. Yet here we are talking TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY.

If you’re somehow unfamiliar, intersectionality is just what it sounds like… it’s the INTERSECTION of multiple vectors of marginalization that people experience due to biases and discrimination in our society.

I’m part of a marginalized community. I am a trans woman. By now you’ve certainly realized how othered, demonized, and hated we are by society for the “crime” of not wanting to have to pretend to be someone we’re not (and have the entire medical establishment backing us up on).

I do not presently face any other marginalizations, though I have previously. For a long time we were very poor, and class is absolutely one vector of intersectionality. Our society punishes people in poverty for the “crime” of not having much (or any) money.

It’s important to note, however, that I never faced these two marginalizations at the same time. Once I transitioned to live as my true self, we’ve thankfully been financially okay.

But that is definitely not the case for a whole lot of trans people, who also often face poverty due to losing homes and jobs after coming out, and being unable to find new ones. About THIRTY PERCENT OF TRANS PEOPLE ARE IN EXTREME POVERTY.

But that number jumps up to THIRTY-SIX PERCENT for Black trans people. Why is that? Well you’d better know by now all the marginalization, state violence, discrimination, and racism Black people in this country face on a daily basis.

So Black trans people are dealing with all the ways society harms them for being Black, while also dealing with all the ways society harms them for being trans. And over a THIRD of them also experience all the ways society harms them for being poor.

And they may face other marginalizations as well. They could be disabled, or a senior, or a disabled senior. Are you starting to get it? THIS IS INTERSECTIONALITY. For every vector of marginalization a person faces, their life is remarkably more difficult.

This is part of why I started Trans Tuesdays, because as a financially okay white trans woman who didn’t lose a home or family or job or friends, I face SO MANY LESS BARRIERS than almost all other trans people. That is my PRIVILEGE.

If you’d like more info on the very concept of privilege in society, and how cis people have so much more of it than trans people, there’s a Trans Tuesday on CIS PRIVILEGE.

If you’d like more info on MY privilege and how I try to use it for good, there’s a Trans Tuesday on PRIVILEGE (TIME AND MONEY).

If you’d like more info on how my privilege gives me a responsibility to help those who are less privileged, see the trans tuesday on THE ONLY TRANS PERSON YOU KNOW.

It’s known that there’s a racism problem in the white trans women community, and while I find that terribly awful and dismaying, I also can’t say I’m entirely surprised. Because a whole lot of white people, cis and trans alike, have a racism problem.

I’ve been calling it out every time I see it, but I keep getting told “we have to fight for trans rights,” and “I have a black friend so I can’t be racist,” and “now is not the time,” over and over again. Imagine telling someone they have to WAIT to get their rights until you get yours. YIKES.

That’s been going on for centuries, from getting the vote for EVERY citizen of the United States seemingly one group of people at a time while others are made to wait, on through everything else.

There’s a real “I got mine” attitude of people willing to throw everyone else under the bus for their own gain. But in doing so you weaken your own position, because oppression always comes back around (as in the recent loss of a national right to abortion care).

I keep saying trans people are human beings (which is true!), but that means that just like the rest of humanity we are not immune to flaws or bigotry (cough cough Caitlyn Jenner cough cough).

A lot of this (recently, anyway) was sparked by the murder of Brianna Ghey. And I shouldn’t have to say this, but yes it was awful, and horrific, and my heart breaks for her. But it also breaks for every trans woman who’s a victim of violence.

But she wasn’t the first, and she wasn’t even the first in 2023. Just this year there was Zachee Imanitwitaho and Jasmine “Star” Mack, and Destiny Howard, and sadly probably more I’m not aware of. Did you see the same kind of response from the trans community over their deaths?

Have you even heard their names before? Did you know that all three of them were Black trans women? Why aren’t they deserving of the outpouring of love and support as Brianna? That was rhetorical, because of course they are. But they didn’t get it, did they?

What’s worse, the Black community created movements (with accompanying hashtags) specifically for the violence Black women face at the hands of police: Say Her Name and Rest in Power.

These were appropriated by a whole lot of white trans women for Brianna, and that’s a problem. Now listen, the internet and social media is vast. Movements take off and we don’t always know where or how or why they originated. Nobody is saying you have to know everything.

But when you use those movements as they were not intended, and Black people politely ask you not to use them and explain their origin and meaning, the correct response is: “I’m so sorry, I had no idea. I’ll stop using them.” THE END.

There are so many words in the English language, we can (and should) have our own just for the violence trans women face. I suggest Tell Her Truth, and Rest in Pride is also a good one (though applicable to the entire queer community and not trans women specifically).

What you DON’T do is make excuses for why you can keep using them. What you DON’T do is parrot racist dog whistles that the only Black people complaining are “agitators.” What you DON’T do is say “but the words fit so I will use it anyway” and ignore the harm you’re doing.

The way you support marginalized communities is BY LISTENING TO THE PEOPLE FROM THAT COMMUNITY.

You do not make them justify what they’re telling you as if it’s only okay if it meets your approval. You do not make them do the labor of educating you on their movements as if they’re personally obligated to be your teacher. YOU ARE ON THE INTERNET. Be an ally and educate yourself.

All of those things, ALL OF THEM, are what we trans people keep asking, BEGGING cis people to do for us. Because nothing nothing NOTHING will get better for us until they do.

So how do you not see that nothing nothing NOTHING will get better for Black people until white people will do the same for them?

How can you be okay with visiting the same kind of bigotry, of appropriation, of violence upon another marginalized community when you’ve experienced it yourself and know how awful it is?

How can you not WANT to fight for EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING to be treated truly equally by society? HOW?? I legit do not understand it. We can and SHOULD and NEED TO focus on more than one thing at a time.

IF YOUR FIGHT IS NOT INTERSECTIONAL, YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE FIGHT.

You are, in fact, aiding our oppressors.

So let’s think about all the vectors of discrimination and marginalization people might face in our society. I may be missing some! This is not intended to be comprehensive, just illustrative of the many different ways society discriminates against people.

Vectors of marginalization:

Race
Class
Gender
Transness
Age
Disability
Incarceration
Religion
Language
Weight

I’m sure there’s more! And if you don’t believe in some of them… listen, just go out to lunch with people experiencing some of these marginalizations and see how differently they’re treated.

We once went to lunch with friends, a cis white couple from Italy. Basically the most privileged people in society, but their English wasn’t great yet (which is fine!). But the discrimination they faced in just trying to order their food was… eye-opening. And disgusting.

And I’m not saying that’s the same level as what trans people or Black people or disabled people experience, but it’s definitely another vector of discrimination.

Now look at that list and realize a whole lot of people experience multiples of those marginalizations. Some people might experience ALL OF THEM AT ONCE.

And of course life isn’t difficult for people BECAUSE they belong to those categories, but because of the way SOCIETY TREATS YOU when you’re in those categories.

So what you’re saying when you refuse to listen to people from a marginalized community is, on the surface, that their needs aren’t as important as yours (whether you experience any marginalization or not).

But FURTHER-

There are people who SHARE YOUR MARGINALIZATION who you are telling that their experiences don’t matter/aren’t as important as yours.

So to use the movement and hashtag example, a trans person saying “I’m going to use Say Her Name” anyway, is telling every Black person that you don’t care if you hurt them, and you’re telling every Black trans person that they’re not welcome in the trans community.

PLEASE SEE THE HARM THAT YOU ARE DOING, not just to people who are different from you (which should be enough on its own!), but to people who are also LIKE you.

There’s no such thing as “waiting your turn.” We’re not free until ALL of us are free, because if one group gains liberation while others still suffer… first of all, that’s a gigantic problem on its own, but if that’s not enough for you remember that no bigotry exists in a vacuum.

Nobody is just one type of bigot. Scratch a transphobe and find a racist. ALL BIGOTRY is connected, because at its root it’s all about fear and hatred of anyone who doesn’t conform to the false binaries of society established by rich able-bodied cisgender heterosexual white men.

So if we don’t fight for EVERYONE experiencing oppression (and morality requires that we do), eventually the oppression will come right back around to us again… as we just saw with the hard fought abortion rights just being overturned!

If you can’t do it for others, at least do it for the selfish reason of protecting YOURSELF.

How do you learn these things? How do you find out what life is life for people from different communities, people who experience different marginalizations than you? Well my friends, you follow them. You read what they have to say. You LISTEN.

I follow lots of trans people. I follow a lot of Black people, Latinx people, Asian people. I follow disabled people. I follow Muslims and Hindus and atheists and Jewish people. I follow people from every income level and of multiple genders and ages.

AND I LISTEN.

And you wouldn’t believe how much I learn. And that, hopefully, makes me a better ally to them. I WANT to be a better ally to them. I NEED to be. I need to be an accomplice in their liberation, just like we NEED cis people to be accomplices in trans liberation.

One of the people I’ve followed and learned so much from is Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. I’m not Jewish or cis like she is. But she’s taught me SO much… and not just about Jewish people and their faith, but also about life.

And she has a great saying, “liberation is a group project.” It applies everywhere.

Be the ally and accomplice for others that we need them to be for us. #TellHerTruth

NONE OF US WITHOUT ALL OF US.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship Trans 101 Trans Life

TERFs

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today’s topic is the last thing I want to be talking about today, especially given last week’s thread about how a show I loved made me feel dehumanized. But given the news this is the only thing on my mind, so buckle up for: TERFs.

I didn’t plan to talk about this now, and haven’t prepared anything for it yet. In fact, I’ve spent the last day defending my right to exist as a transgender woman in the face of bigots, which is probably why I can’t think about anything else right now.

All of which is to say this is going to be messy. It was going to be messy under the best of conditions with lots of prep, so be prepared. I know I’m going to forget stuff, and possibly not be as articulate as I could be. I ask that you bear with me.

Also there will be several links in this thread. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the time to read them. If you truly want to learn and understand, they will be invaluable to you.

Before I get into it, I do want to point out this is two weeks in a row I’ve felt compelled to speak on a topic I hadn’t planned on at the time, due to events in the world. So maybe take note of how it’s like we trans folks are almost constantly under assault.

Let’s start with the definition of TERF, which TERFs will tell you is a slur rather than an empirical descriptor. Them being upset about it is akin to racists being upset they get called racist rather than their actual racist actions and beliefs.

TERF stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. They’re people who believe trans people are not who we say we are. This is chiefly expressed as discrimination/oppression of trans women, but it affects trans men and non-binary people too.

They’d like to rebrand themselves as “gender critical”, but I don’t like giving bigots the benefit of rebranding to something softer than what they are.

We let anti-choice people rebrand to “pro-life,” despite their lack of support for contraception or adoption, or any kind of effort to abolish the death penalty… all of which you’d stridently support if you were actually “pro-life.”

Letting them control the narrative there has done a lot of real harm, I think, and I don’t intend to let TERFs do that.

If you don’t probe any deeper than the surface, it seems as if TERFs have a legitimate concern. They purport to be about preserving all the hard-won gains women have fought for over the years (well-deserved, very hard fought for gains).

And they feel by letting trans women into those gains, to enjoy those same rights, they’re losing something they worked so hard for. Because we’re not women and didn’t earn it.

The problem is the entire thing crumbles under the very briefest examination. I’m going to do some of that here, but again, I didn’t plan to do this now so this is going to be totally off the cuff.

But even so, you’ll see how the entire thing falls apart.

In order for their entire argument to make sense, you have to believe that gender and biological sex are inseparable. They’re not, and even biological sex isn’t binary, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Gender is a social construct. We made it up. Animals don’t have gender. They can be male or female, or many variations of intersexed, meaning they are born with/without different reproductive organs (SPOILER this happens in humans too).

That doesn’t mean gender isn’t real. Money is also a societal construct. It’s real, but only has value because we all agree that it does. If we stopped and society broke down, it would just be… paper and metal.

So in TERF ideology, if you’re born with a penis you’re a man, and if you’re born with a vagina/uterus you’re a woman. End of story. It’s this outlook that causes them to see (and perpetuate) the trope of trans women just being “men in dresses invading women’s spaces”.

And they thus see trans men as “confused lesbians” (which doesn’t even address trans men who are attracted to… men! Or are asexual!), and generally think non-binary people are just confused about everything, rather than trusting they know themselves better than anyone else.

And this is where that line of thinking breaks down entirely: what about a woman who has a hysterectomy? Is she no longer a woman? What about a man who loses his penis in a car accident? Is he no longer a man?

What about people born without secondary sex characteristics? It happens. Are they no longer men and women? (they of course are whoever they say they are)

To reduce women and men to nothing more than their reproductive organs is the EXACT thing our misogynistic society does that feminism is about fighting against. They’re betraying their own purported ideals in the name of bigotry (does that sound familiar? Read on.)

Science is not on their side. If biology is all that determines gender, wouldn’t that negate the existence of gay people? Yet they exist, and most of them cisgender. And the TERFs have no problem with them. (there are even gay animals! look it up.)

Even outside of reducing human beings to nothing more than their biology, it’s not like biology is binary! This is a short thread by a biology professor explaining that in an easy to understand way:
https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1207834357639139328

For a more thorough examination, I highly recommend this one from a biologist/endocrinologist that gets further into the actual science. It’s long but well worth your time. SCIENCE!
https://twitter.com/ScienceVet2/status/1035246030500061184

I’m not going to repeat all of those threads here, but I’m going to say that science doesn’t care if you believe in it or not, it’s the empirical truth no matter what… until we learn more and revise our understanding to fit the actual data!

That’s how we learned there’s more than just “male” and “female” in the range of human life in the first place. And that’s JUST biological sex, we’re not even talking about gender here. This is just in refute of their “but science says men and women only!” asinine argument.

Here’s another great (single tweet!) post debunking a key tenet of TERF belief, that trans women can’t know what it’s like to be women. That argument, again, falls apart under the barest scrutiny.
https://twitter.com/mckinleaf/status/1269407126109040641

And if having actual science not on their side isn’t enough to stop them, if betraying their ideals and supporting misogyny via pre-defined gender roles based on biology isn’t enough to stop them, what’s motivating them?

GLAD YOU ASKED.

It’s fear, anger, and all the other things rolled up inside a little bigotry burrito (empirically the grossest burrito, except maybe any with cilantro!). And that can be hard to believe, especially for TERFs themselves (some of whom I’m sure have never considered some of this).

All you have to do to really understand them is… watch them. There’s that “when people show you who they are, believe them” quote that is like a mantra of mine. So look at what they do…

They’ve partnered with right-wing conservative groups (some of the very same ones who campaign against women’s reproductive rights!) to enact anti-trans legislation. They’ve done things to actively harm the LGBTQ+ community.

NOTHING they do is about lifting up and protecting women, it’s all done with intent to harm and oppress trans people. Have some receipts. This is a long but, so far as I can tell, very good article allllll about it:
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical

Their argument breaks down further when you stop to ask… how do you plan to police trans people to keep them out of certain places?

There are cisgender women who are six feet tall, with broad shoulders and strong jawlines. There are cisgender men who are short and lithe with soft, rounded faces. How can you tell? WHO gets to decide? And why is it chiefly white cis women wanting to make that call? Hmm.

Where does it end? Are all tall women not allowed in women’s spaces because TERFs fear they’re “men in dresses”? What about women going through menopause who can no longer reproduce? Or women with hair on their legs?

Not only is it wrong, it doesn’t even make any sense and wouldn’t even be possible. It’s all about upholding a very cis white male view of what a woman should be.

Does every bathroom get a guard outside who gets to decide who people are based on their APPEARANCE? That’s as reductive (maybe even moreso!) than saying people amount to nothing more than their genitalia.

So when a certain billionaire author who’s repeatedly demonstrated (and then doubled-down on) her transphobia announces a new book in which a cisgender man dresses as a woman in order to assault women…

She’s using her mega-platform to push a propagandic talking point meant to scare cisgender people into thinking of trans women as predators and not women. Even worse is that we’re most often the VICTIMS of violence, especially trans women of color.

Has a cis man ever dressed as a woman in order to assault someone? Maybe. Has anyone ever committed voter fraud? Sure. Is the latter an actual problem in this country? In every investigation done, the SCIENCE reported, says no.

It happens so infrequently so as to not be an actual issue. And when it does happen, it’s almost always perpetrated… by the very people railing against it.

So do a google search for cis men dressing as women to sexually assault a woman (despite all evidence showing that women are most often assaulted by people they already know) and not strangers in a public bathroom. Did you find some? Did you find ANY?

Now do a google search for trans women who’ve been assaulted or killed (almost exclusively by cisgender men), and get back to me in five years when you’ve read all the results.

Here’s a good article about how “men in dresses sexually assaulting women” basically never happens:
https://time.com/4314896/transgender-bathroom-bill-male-predators-argument/

One of these things is an actual problem, one of them is propaganda used to stoke fears in support of upholding the misogynistic status quo and oppression of women and “the other”.

It’s all wrapped up in sexism and racism and every other ill society foists upon us, because we ARE a society and you can’t examine any one of these things without touching on all the others.

Trans men are men. Cis men are men. Trans women are women. Cis women are women. Non-binary people or gender-fluid or demiboys or intersex people or androgynous folks or anyone else IS WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE.

To be a TERF is to promote bigotry, plain and simple. Cis people just want to live their lives as themselves in peace. GUESS WHAT EVERY NON-CISGENDER PERSON ALSO WANTS?

Unfortunately we have to ask the cis folks to give that to us, because they’re the ones causing the problem. So fucking have some compassion and do. Please.

And if you’re cis and this angers you, stand up to this bigotry and let us know you’ve got our backs. We need you.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship

THE ONLY TRANS PERSON YOU KNOW

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re talking about something I suspect every trans person has to deal with in at least some aspect of their lives: being THE ONLY TRANS PERSON YOU KNOW.

I’ve talked many times about the size of the transgender population in terms of percentages, but everyone’s new to these at some point so it’s worth mentioning again. Because it’s incredibly relevant to this discussion.

Reports vary based on where you get your information, but some estimates put the transgender population (counting everyone who is not cisgender) at around 5% of the population.

But based on that article, those are self-reporting trans people. And there are trans people who are not out publicly as trans, for whatever reason, and they’re unlikely to tell someone on a survey that they’re trans and out themselves.

Also, with the extreme onslaught of legislation against trans rights, even trans people who are out might not want to give their information to a survey that’s collecting data on us. It’s fairly self-explanatory how dangerous that could be for a population under attack.

But I want to point out that even if both of those things weren’t the case, even if every trans person COULD be out and had no (justified) fears about giving their information to companies or the government…

It still simply could NOT POSSIBLY account for all the trans people in this country. It CAN’T. Because not every trans person knows they’re trans, and until they figure it out everyone (themselves included) might think they’re cisgender. I was one of those myself!

Every trans person discovers their transness on their own timeline, and it depends on a wide variety of factors including home life, friends and family, societal pressure, religious pressure, economic pressure, and a whole lot more.

So keep in mind that whatever the true number is, the percentage of the population that we make up is unquestionably larger than any reported numbers.

In fact, until we get to a freely open and accepting society where it doesn’t take unending courage and bravery for EVERY trans person to come out… we’re never going to know, are we?

But what we CAN take away is that, even with our percentage of the population being larger than reported, we’re still a pretty small part of it.

I’ve talked many times about how we’re SUCH a small part of the population that we can’t affect political change on our own, which is why we need our cis allies to stand up for us, loudly and publicly. And to realize that with every vote they cast, our rights are on the line.

See the trans tuesday on TRANS POLITICS for more on that, because since one major political party has made stripping trans rights a major part of their platform (even though it universally loses them elections!), this is going to hold true in EVERY election.

My point is that, being such a small part of the population, for a LOT OF US we end up being the only trans person someone knows. Often the only trans person MANY people know. We’re “the trans friend,” and that can lead to a whole host of weirdness.

I’ve had old friends from high school that I’ve not talked to since graduation come out of the woodwork to say “oh hey I saw you were trans and X person just came out as trans in my life and what should I do to support them?”

I’ve had people who’ve literally never interacted with a trans person in their entire life walk on eggshells around me like I’m some kind of delicate political problem just waiting to explode on them for saying something wrong.

Every time there’s a trans person in the news, or a story about horrible trans legislation, or a transphobic op-ed, or a trans-related Kickstarter, or a show with a trans person in one episode, I get DMs and emails about it.

I’m… well, I’m very white, so I don’t know if people from other marginalized communities have to deal with this.

And I want to be clear I’m not mad at the people who do this, and I’m often actually touched that they thought of me. But getting “look at this horrible transphobic article” or “is this as transphobic as I think it is?” all the time from lots of people is very unpleasant!

I DO want to know about trans Kickstarters and if a show has a trans character, but you also don’t need to ping me every single time something related to trans people pops up, you know?

I’ve had people I don’t even know reach out to me, as the only trans person they know online, and ask me all kinds of personal questions in an effort to better understand trans people in general, or a trans person in their life.

And this isn’t something any trans person should have to deal with. It’s hard enough just trying to exist and survive in this world, thanks to so many bigots in our government (and in our fellow citizens). We just want to be left alone to live our lives.

BUT again I’m not mad that any of these people asked me these things, in fact I actually feel an obligation to answer and help as best I can. It’s the very reason I started trans tuesdays in the first place. See the trans tuesday on WHY I DO TRANS TUESDAYS.

For lack of a better term, I feel OBLIGATED to provide any and all help and knowledge I can. Because I’m privileged in so many ways that so many trans people, especially trans women, aren’t.

I do this for other trans people, and for the cis people in their lives. For cis people who have no trans people in their lives but who want to learn, to understand, and hopefully to help. And thus trans tuesdays, and a podcast, and a Matrix trans allegory book.

And so it feels to NOT provide that assistance, to NOT be that sounding board or source of transgender information, is doing a disservice to the trans people in those cis people’s lives.

And I’d rather these folks came to me than bother the trans people in their lives with these questions, because honestly you just have no idea how often it happens. It’s all the time. It never stops.

Which is another reason I do trans tuesdays… so that when someone asks me something I’ve covered, I can just point them to certain essays and not have to repeat myself ten thousand times. As a reminder, they’re all at tillystranstuesdays.com!

And again, I am happy to do it. If you’re someone who’s asked me stuff like this in the past, please don’t feel bad about it. I’m glad you did, and I hope I helped.

But I also can’t deny that no trans person should HAVE to do this. It gets to the point where it feels like I’m justifying our existence to cis people over and over again, even though nobody has yet actually asked me to justify that.

Other than the cis gatekeepers of my trans-related healthcare, anyway. See the trans tuesday on TRANS KIDS AND THE INTAKE EXAM.

I’m not sure if this is something that’s ever occurred to a lot of cis folks, though. Remember, if a trans person in your life is the only trans person you know, they are likely also the only trans person a LOT of people in their life know.

So realize that your burning questions and curiosity can add to a chorus that can make us feel a little like a carnival sideshow. We’re people, not curiosities to be gawked at.

BUT! It’s okay… nay! IT IS GOOD, in fact, that you want to understand us and know more about us. Just please please realize not every trans person is, wants to be, or can be your one stop transgender info shop (or shoppe, if you’re in the UK, I don’t discriminate).

I’m more privileged than a lot of trans people, and I try to use that every day to make things better for my less privileged trans siblings. These essays, answering your emails and DMs and questions, providing resources, are all part of that.

But please also realize you are… on the internet. And there is a wealth of info out there. And yes some of it is conflicting, and some of it is wrong and harmful. But that’s true of any information you’re trying to find out here in our smoldering digital wasteland, right?

I’m not going to do a thread on critical thinking and how to verify the sources you’re getting your info from, that’s your job as part of being an intelligent, well-informed citizen. But I WILL say if a news source has zero trans reporters on staff, you maybe shouldn’t trust ‘em on trans issues.

Just remember that you have a wealth of information at your fingertips, and to please use that before you go to the only trans person you know and pepper them with questions they’ve probably gotten ten thousand times before.

All of my trans tuesdays are archived at tillystranstuesdays.com, there’s well over a hundred of them and they’re all FREE. And there are many other resources out there, provided by trans people, where you can learn so much.

Please understand the effect that can have on someone. These aren’t even questions about our hobbies or career, but queries about the very identity of who we are. Please please please see us, and treat us, as human beings first and foremost.

Use the resources available to you on the internet. Read and share and link to my essays. Contact ME before you contact the only trans person you know, because I’ve decided to put myself in this position due to my privilege, and they likely did not. I CHOSE to do this.

And above all, as in all things, please lead with compassion… the same compassion you’d want shown to you.

You deserve to be treated with kindness. And so do we.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship Trans 101 Trans Life

THE FALSE DICHOTOMY

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re talking about something that permeates ALL of our society in all kinds of ways you probably never realized. It’s also part of what took me far too long to untangle in figuring out I was transgender, and that’s: THE FALSE DICHOTOMY.

So what is a false dichotomy? Well a dichotomy is any two things presented as opposites (left and right, up and down). A FALSE dichotomy is a situation where those two options are presented as the ONLY options, or as being mutually exclusive, when that’s not remotely the truth.

It’s like going to your favorite Mexican restaurant and your friend telling you they only have tacos and burritos, maybe because that’s all they like or all they’ve ever tried. But the actual menu has enchiladas and quesadillas and tamales and tostadas and more.

That is, of course, a pretty benign (if culinarily cruel!) example. And this may seem obvious to a lot of you, and it is to me now, but our society LOVES false dichotomies.

Because it’s shorthand, it provides for quick reference, and everything is much easier for you to think about if there’s only two options. But also because our entire society is predicated on the notion of the false cis binary matrix. There is A or Z and nothing in between.

You can see in my thread on TERFs that even biological sex isn’t remotely confined to only two options. Not by a long shot. There’s a lot of great science linked in that thread, so definitely have a look if you missed it.

But today’s post isn’t about sex or gender, at least not on the surface. I’m a woman, so some might see that as part of a binary choice, but I’m a TRANS woman which is certainly not the same as a cis woman. Thus I am outside the cisgender binary matrix of society.

The earliest I can remember society’s preference for false dichotomies happened pretty young, when I was in grade school. And if any place is about trying to put every kid into some neat little box, that’s sadly a lot of our public schools.

So let’s just get it out there: I’m a nerd. I am a giant, shining, sparkling, unrepentant nerd (you may have noticed!). From the first time I understood what science fiction was, I was in IN. LOVE.

I spent my time wrapped in Star Trek and Star Wars and every bit of sci-fi I could find. Fantasy, too. I was DEEP into Dungeons & Dragons and a lot of other tabletop role-playing games (and still am!) and even as a KID, invented my own ttrgps on multiple occasions.

I went to two different high schools, and at the first I was on the competitive chess team and I was pretty damned good. I even have Unbelievable Chess Tournament Stories (I told you I was a nerd). At my second high school, I was on the Academic Team.

THE ACADEMIC TEAM. The very name reeks of nerdiness, damn. If you’re unfamiliar with that, it’s basically schools playing Jeopardy against each other. I was never good enough to make it to the main team rotation, my memory wasn’t good or fast enough, but I loved it anyway.

I love video games and comic books (long before they reached the mainstream cultural saturation they have today) and board games, and if there was anything kids thought of as nerdy, I was probably a big fan.

Now that I’ve painted you a stunning picture of the depth of my geekitude, I’m gonna throw a whole bucket of paint all over it, because: I also loved sports. A LOT. Especially baseball.

Not just in the nerdy aspect, either, which baseball admittedly lends itself to with all of its entirely ludicrous and deep statistical tracking… which is maybe the only part of baseball that hardly interests me. Beyond batting average and ERA, sorry, I just. Don’t. Care.

But the sport itself I LOVED. I played it every summer as a kid in little league and couldn’t wait for it to start up every year. I honestly can’t remember if I was very good or not. I remember a couple amazing plays I made, those stuck with me, but that doesn’t tell you much.

I also played soccer, and this one I know I was pretty good at. I played tennis and volleyball (I LOVED volleyball, maybe the sport I was the best at) and I was on the track and cross country teams.

I was SO DISMAYED to find out my first high school, which was HUGE… did not have a volleyball team. Or rather, they did. FOR GIRLS. But not for boys. That definitely didn’t help my pining to be a girl, by the way! 👀

My second high school had a boy’s volleyball team, I think? I can’t remember now. Because by then I was already giving up on sports, and I’ll tell you why.

I was never, EVER a jock. The jocks never thought I was, and they were all basically jerks so I never wanted to be one anyway. They knew I was into nerdy stuff, because I never hid it, and they made me suffer for it.

So in my first high school, freshman year, I went to baseball tryouts! I was SO EXCITED. I was number 66, we had to have it on our shirts somehow, and I ruined a perfectly good shirt by drawing the number on it in sharpie all fancy-like.

I’d never really been attached to any numbers like a lot of other athletes were, but now maybe I would be! This was MY number! The one that got me into high school baseball and then maybe college baseball and who knows maybe I’d be good enough to go pro someday!

The day of the tryouts came… and it rained. No big deal, they’d just shift it to another day, right? No. Again, the school was HUGE. I don’t know if it was logistical or the baseball program was just run by dickheads, but they went ahead with it… INDOOR.

They moved it into the huge gymnasium. We did stretches and got warmed up, and then… what? What the hell were they going to do? We were in a gym! You can’t play baseball in a high school gym, even a pretty big one.

Well, they lined us up and… hit us some ground balls, and judged us on how well we fielded them.

Now I don’t know about you, but I played baseball on dirt and grass. I was… a kid. I’d never played on an artificial surface before, much less A HARD WOODEN FLOOR THAT NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD EVER PLAY BASEBALL ON (yes, I’m still sensitive about it. apparently.)

So the coach hit the ball, and… I missed it. Entirely. Wasn’t even close. Because I had NO IDEA how a baseball would bounce off a polished wooden floor, and it went a way I didn’t expect.

That was it! Failed that test, off you went. Done. That was my ENTIRE tryout for the team. There were probably hundreds of kids there, I know they had to cut the field down somehow, but COME ON.

To say I was heartbroken is an understatement. The jocks all laughed. They somehow did fine! How? What dark magic did they use to get their ground balls to bounce right toward them while mine skewed left at a 75 degree angle?

Maybe I wasn’t actually good enough to make the team, and that’d be fine, but I never even got to find out. Everyone said it was because I was a nerd and just not cut out for sports… despite my love for them and having played baseball all my life.

And the awful sickening thing is I BELIEVED THEM. Because it wasn’t just the jocks telling me that, was it? SOCIETY says you’re a jock or a nerd (or maybe just someone who’s neither), but nobody is BOTH. That’s not how it works.

I was WELL into adulthood before I got fed up and re-embraced my love of sports right alongside my nerdiness. That happened long before I figured out I was trans, yet it feels like it was a big part of it.

Because I had to get to a point where I believed society was wrong and could go screw itself, and I was going to like whatever I liked. Relatedly, there’s no such thing as a “guilty pleasure.” Don’t believe that crap. Like what you like. Who cares what anyone else thinks!

Unless your guilty pleasure is, like… bigotry or murder. In that case, no, maybe don’t embrace those.

But once you notice false dichotomies, you begin seeing them everywhere. Men are muscular, women are soft! Except no, men can be soft and women can be muscular. I’M a muscular woman! I’ve always dug ladies with muscles, but society isn’t often kind to them, is it?

For more on that, see the Trans Tuesday on BODY HACKING and all the ways every human does it, and how for me a big part of that was using exercise to reshape my body.

So I bucked the trend there, too. I do the same with my taste in music! Well wait, you can like “real” rock or you can like “fluffy” pop, not both right? Nah, screw that.

I like Journey, The Rolling Stones, Guns ‘n Roses, Fall Out Boy, All Time Low. I LOVE Muse and The Pretty Reckless and AC/DC. But I also like Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Carly Rae Jepsen. I LOVE Ariana Grande and The Chicks…

In thinking about it, I’ve wondered if this is also why my favorite artists are P!nk and Queen… because both can ROCK THE HELL OUT, and both can go light and poppy, and both often experiment with all kinds of styles in between.

They defy convention. They won’t be put into neat little boxes. That speaks to me a lot. P!nk specifically, as a woman, has had to deal with a music industry that tried to change her, that didn’t understand her.

She had an extended moment in her recent Beautiful Trauma tour, a video package during an extensive costume change, that covered her talking to her young daughter about this and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

The first time I saw that bit, in 2018, it was like a jolt that shook me awake. I think it was that concert, and possibly that exact moment, where I first truly felt everything would be okay if I transitioned. There’s a Trans Tuesday all about that coming up.

P!nk’s and Queen’s songs and voices speak to me most, but I don’t think I can discount how important it is to see part of myself reflected in the ways they value their own creative expression, and the way they will be whoever the hell they want to be.

All of this is to say you can like sports AND sci-fi. You can like rock AND pop. You can like buff ladies and soft bois and every type of human in between. You can like leather AND lace. Hot AND cold. Indoors AND outdoors. The sky AND the sea.

Don’t buy into the false dichotomy, it’s all bullshit. Don’t let society tell you who you are or what you can or cannot like.

Be YOU, whoever that might be. Even if that means casting off every single label society has saddled you with, INCLUDING THE GENDER YOU WERE ASSIGNED AT BIRTH.

Rock on, friends. 🤘


Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

me with long curly brown hair and curly bangs, with a pink bow in my hair, in dark eyeliner and light pink lipstick, wearing pink-framed cat-eye glasses and a blue off-the-shoulder top… and I’m throwin’ up the horns!

Cis Allyship Trans 101 Trans Life

THE CONSTANT FIGHT

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today we’re talking about one very small, very specific part of our society that speaks to the larger way trans people are treated (or more to the point, are often entirely ignored) by society: FLYING. But it’s also about: THE CONSTANT FIGHT.

I think most folks are familiar with the “security theater” we have at airports in the United States, and the way things have gone way off the rails since September 11, 2001. But what you probably don’t know is how much WORSE it got for trans people.

When you’re going through security at an airport now, one of two things happens. You can go through the scanner, or you can get a security pat down. Sometimes you get both. So what’s the issue?

First let me say there are BIG ethical concerns with the scanners, they’re discriminatory in a lot of ways against some ethnicities and cultures, and if you’re not familiar with that please do some research. But today I’m just talking about it in relation to us trans people.

Did you know those TSA scanners have different options the operator must select when scanning someone? Yep. MALE or FEMALE.

So let’s use me as an example. I am a trans woman on HRT who has not had gender confirmation surgery. I present as female. My ID says female. So if I’m going through the scanner, let’s say the operator indicates FEMALE.

It scans me, and registers an anomaly at my crotch. Not only am I now possibly out to all the TSA agents present (which brings its own dangers), they have to resolve the situation. Two options: pat me down, or flip the switch and indicate to scan MALE.

This misgenders me and hurts to even type out, but play out the situation. It scans me, and it registers my bra and breasts as an anomaly. The only option left: pat down.

So now a stranger is going to manhandle my breasts to be sure I’m not smuggling weapons in my bra and be sure that they’re “really” breasts, or a stranger is going to manhandle my crotch to see what’s down there. Or maybe both.

Either way, again, you’re suddenly out as trans to (or registered as trans by) all the TSA employees present, and everyone else in line who are now wondering what the hold up is.

Knowing the awful violence trans women face, you maybe see extra dangers here. You maybe also see the potential for sexual assault. We have to go through all of this because we want to fly somewhere. The nerve of us.

And it’s even worse than that. Here’s a story about a trans girl who was ordered to a STRIP SEARCH when trying to pass through security. She even told them she was trans, but it didn’t make a bit of difference.
https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2021/09/city-rdu-tsa-transgender-strip-search-lawsuit

“detected an anomaly on her groin”

We are not anomalies, we’re human beings.

“They wanted her to take down her pants and underwear for visual inspection.”

NO ONE should have to do that, especially not a kid.

“(she) has continued to experience symptoms of emotional distress including anxiety, shortness of breath, uncontrollable shaking and nausea when reminded of the incident.”

Yeah, it’s fucking traumatic.

“It’s only a binary option. It’s based basically on the operator’s assumption based on a person’s appearance.”

Do you see how this even hurts CIS PEOPLE?

Are you a cis lady with broad shoulders? Or a strong jawline? Maybe they’ll just hit that male button. Are you a cis man with a rounded face? Or are you shorter with narrower shoulders? Maybe they’ll hit that female button.

A stranger just gets to take one glance at you and decide if you’re “male or female enough.” Does that not completely enrage you? The gender binary, THE FALSE DICHOTOMY, hurts cis people too.

“Trans men and trans women and nonbinary people often get flagged because they don’t meet the societally defined definitions of what male and female bodies should look like.”

Neither do a lot of cis people. Why, it’s almost as if those definitions are part of the problem!

“The stereotypical definition of what should or shouldn’t be on a male or female body is problematic, and it doesn’t reflect the reality of real bodies in society.”

Corrrrrrrrrrrrrrrect.

“Nearly one in five transgender travelers have reported being harassed or disrespected by airport security screeners or other airport workers, according to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey.”

Not even just flagged as an “anomaly,” but HARASSED OR DISRESPECTED.

“It just felt very invasive because I was a child, and he was an adult, and I didn’t really feel like I had the choice to advocate for not wanting to be touched inappropriately.” How is it okay to do this to anyone? Especially children?? WHY IS IT OKAY?

Ah, but there’s a way around it, I hear some dense and defensive cis people shout. The TSA Pre-check. Uh huh, sure. But that costs $85.

And uh… do you know how much transitioning costs? And how trans people often lose employment when coming out? see the trans tuesday on PRIVILEGE (time and money).

So one of the smallest minority groups, who often experience money problems due to the way our society is set up… a lot of them aren’t going to be able to afford that. Too bad! Just announce yourself to strangers and let them touch you.

Can I get a Roy Kent “FUCCCCCK” please?

There’s no easy way out of this for trans people, not until the TSA fixes it. But it’s been a problem for like, what, fifteen years or so? More? They still haven’t done anything about it.

Can you imagine how horrible this situation is? I have tons of places I’d love to visit someday… people I’d love to see. Oh but wait, in a lot of places it’s okay to say you panicked at finding out I was trans and it made you kill me. see the trans tuesday on TRANS PANIC.

And if I want to go, I have to pay money I may not have or accept that I’m going to be misgendered, humiliated, have my genitals discussed in public and possibly groped… or worse.

I could go boymode, sure… but the scanner would likely still flag my breasts as an anomaly, and I’d have to emotionally wound myself just to do it. Nobody should have to pretend to be someone else to ride on a fucking airplane! See the trans tuesday on BOYMODE/GIRLMODE.

Now remember what a small, specific part of our society this is… and realize this TSA bullshit is a symptom of the larger issue that society doesn’t treat us like we exist. At all. There are bathroom problems… see the trans tuesday on CIS PRIVILEGE.

The media cis people make normally excludes us, but when it DOES include us we’re usually the butt of the joke or a victim of violence… see the trans tuesday on BED REPRESENTATION.

We have our stories ripped from us and told by people who don’t even understand us. see the trans tuesday on TRANS ROLES AND STORIES.

We’re under assault by people who refuse to accept us as who we are. see the trans tuesday on TERFs.

In many cases we can’t even transition without the explicit permission of cis people. See the trans tuesday on TRANS KIDS AND THE INTAKE EXAM.

We’re excluded from things because of who we are, even though SCIENCE IS ON OUR SIDE. see the trans tuesday on TRANS SPORTS.

We have to keep fighting for the same things all cis people have. see the trans tuesday on TRANS RIGHTS.

Over and over and over again. See the trans tuesday on TRANS RIGHTS 2 aka HELP US aka 35 FUCKS.

We have to be uncomfortable, or in pain, just to fit in with cis society. see the trans tuesday on TUCKING AND BINDING.

The things we DO get to make, by, for, and about us… we’re told we cannot have, and that they’re not ours. See the trans tuesday on THIS IS NOT FOR YOU 2 (let trans people have things).

We can’t even get healthcare right. Be it related to our gender… see the trans tuesday on COMPLETE TRANS HEALTHCARE (or lack thereof).

Or not. see the trans tuesday on NO ESCAPE 2 aka SOME ESCAPE (due to cis allyship).

Do you see? DO YOU SEE?? WE NEED YOU TO HELP. see the trans tuesday on TRANS POLITICS.

Every facet of our society fights us everywhere we turn, it never ends, and we can’t change it on our own.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship Trans 101

CIS IS NOT A SLUR

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re talking about something that’s become a hot-button topic… for no good reason. It’s simply whiny bigots getting mad that the world isn’t the way they want it to be. Cis folks, your friends and family need to see this: CIS IS NOT A SLUR.

If you’ve somehow missed the chaotic nonsense surrounding this, it has to do with some notable bigots (I’m not mentioning their names to keep their bigoted supporters from flooding my mentions, but you know who they are) crying that “cis” is offensive to them.

Like, I can’t even believe that I have to explain this, but whaddayagonnado. If you’d like more info on exactly what happened, this Rolling Stone article has a pretty good rundown.

What’s interesting is that article uncovered evidence of the feelings of poor bigots being hurt by these three letters going back to 2014. This isn’t a new phenomenon, but with the drastic uptick in transphobia and terf-iness going on right now, it’s come back around.

If you need more info on TERFs, literally some of the worst people in the world, here’s the Trans Tuesday on them.

I know exactly why this uproar over letters 3, 9, and 19 of the english alphabet have hit such a nerve, but before I tell you why that is, let’s talk about what cis actually means.

“Cis” and “trans” are both Latin prefixes that have existed for as long as the language has, which means they’re some 2700 years old. They were not initially created in relation to gender, but in relation to EVERYTHING.

“Cis” means “on this side of” and “trans” means “across, on the other side of, or beyond.” That’s IT. It’s absolutely that simple. If we call something “transatlantic,” you know that means ACROSS or ON THE OTHER SIDE of or BEYOND the Atlantic Ocean.

And “cisatlantic” would mean ON THIS SIDE of the Atlantic Ocean. Literally that’s it! That’s all it is! This has been the definition of these prefixes for THOUSANDS OF YEARS.

When you apply these to gender, “cisgender” means “on the side of the gender you were assigned at birth” and “transgender” means “across, on the other side of, or beyond the gender you were assigned at birth.” Again, THAT IS IT. THAT IS ALL THEY MEAN.

Cis and trans are actually also used a lot in chemistry, to note whether atoms or compounds are on the same or opposing sides of a molecule. They’re actually super handy words that simply TELL YOU WHERE THINGS ARE IN RELATION TO EACH OTHER.

So how did these get applied to gender? Well… LET DANA DEFOSSE WHO COINED THE TERM “CISGENDER” IN 1994 tell you! She wrote an article about it for Huffington Post!

Here are some choice quotes: “I was struggling because there did not seem to be a way to describe people who were not transgender without inescapably couching them in normalcy and making transgender identity automatically the ‘other.’”

“I never believed that adding the word to the lexicon caused problems ― it only revealed them. Whatever the fate of the word, I feel compelled to speak out against the idea that it is hateful.”

“It saddens me to hear that people feel harmed by the word cisgender. Is the creation of the word to blame? No. Cisgender is just a straw man. It is easier to attack a word than to address the reasons people feel intimidated by discussions of gender identity.”

“The word is a threat because it linguistically separates biological sex from socially constructed categories of “woman” and “man.” That gender is a social construction undermines heteronormativity, critical to defending patriarchal sex roles and procreation.”

“It is not surprising that those who have garnered dominance and privilege from traditional gender roles feel threatened and compelled to lash out. These ideas are not new. But the word cisgender repackages them in a way that is more potent and visceral.”

And right there she gets at the heart of the matter and the reason for all of this. These transphobic bigots ARE MAD THEY DON’T GET TO THINK OF THEMSELVES AS THE DEFAULT HUMAN ANYMORE.

Annnnnd did you know this isn’t new? It’s right out of the bigot playbook. They did it when the word “straight” was applied to people who aren’t queer! As gay people felt safer to come out (albeit only a little more than before) decades ago, we needed a way to differentiate sexualities.

“Queer” used to be an ACTUAL slur, I’ll remind you, used by cisgender straight people to apply to ANYONE who wasn’t like them in a derogatory way. The LGBTQIA2S+ community reclaimed it and made it our own, but that is what an actual slur is.

Cis isn’t a slur, it’s an accurate descriptor, just like trans is. The only people who THINK it’s a slur are the ones who see and use trans as a slur. They think “trans” otherizes us, BECAUSE THAT IS HOW *THEY* USE IT.

And so to them, us using “cis” otherizes THEM in their minds. And if there is one thing the majority of white cishet people cannot stand, it is to feel even SLIGHTLY like the entire world is not set up for (and revolves around) them.

This is why many of the same people don’t even like being called “white” and see that as derogatory, too. THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE AND SHOULD BE THE DEFAULT HUMAN, and A N Y T H I N G contrary to that sets them off.

But listen to me right now:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DEFAULT HUMAN.

Our society and media suuuuuuuuuuuuure treats cishet white men like they’re exactly that, but they’re not. They’re not even the majority type of human on the planet! But in many countries, and certainly here in the US, they’re the ones with the most money and power.

White is not the default. Cis is not the default. Man is not the default. Straight is not the default. Non-disabled is not the default. Thin is not the default. THERE. IS. NO. DEFAULT. HUMAN.

There are, sadly, people who think “straight white male” is a slur. AGAIN, simply because they don’t want to have to even THINK about THEIR SPECIFIC IDENTITY NOT BEING “DEFAULT.”

As an avid and lifelong Trekkie, it saddens me to tell you even William Shatner has fallen victim to this (though by all accounts of the people who worked with him, he’s apparently never been a great dude).

A tweet from William Shatner from August 8, 2020, that reads: “No, ‘straight cis white man’ is the slur. That’s how it’s used most commonly in harassment. The fact they want to further call me ‘rich’ if that is a point of jealousy; let it be that. No putting straight white cis:

Imagine… imagine being SO INCREDIBLY PRIVILEGED that ACCURATE DESCRIPTORS of who you are feel offensive to you, as if you should simply get to be a human while eeeeveryone else has to have modifying descriptors based on how they’re not you.

SCREW THAT NOISE.

Our language is constantly growing and evolving, and it’s becoming MORE descriptive as we learn more about humanity and what it means to be human. And that’s a good thing.

The only people who disagree are bigots, and their opinions don’t mean anything anyway.


Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com