Thread by @jemmaisOKeh

6 months of stealth dating & i gotta say it's nice to not get "good for you/i rlly like your make-up/well look at you/yass sis" messages from cis women & non-men & to experience ppl just being fucking normal to you & not treating you like an abjection/pity fetish or easy sex. its

https://twitter.com/jemmaisOKeh/status/1288599877937586176

also nice to avoid dates w ppl who are "gender curious" ie ppl who clearly want to take you out just to project a lot onto & extract a lot from your transness ("so like when did you know...yeah I wore pants once too & 🤯...wow you're so brave") (a kind of chaser?)...buuuuut

idk how girls do this long-term (i understand w men the potential for (some) safety). i imagine cuz heterosexuality is already rooted in gender antagonism it's not hard to date men w the expectation that you'll never possess shared experiences of gender or being in the world, but

w women & non-men, i find it v difficult to not engage these parts of myself, probably cuz a lot of being gay, but also what i want out of a relationship is actually some parity in those experiences which are important to me a source of joy & honestly most of all humor i forget

that looooots of ppl just do not understand the humor cultivated amongst trans women of color (idk why i didn't realize this before?!!). also esp cis ppl don't usually think or have much interesting to say abt gender but oddly become obsessed w it when talking to a trans person?!