Thread by @reclaimingtrans

A lot of liberals and leftists would rather believe that trans people, and trans women in particular, are hysterical and irrational when we describe what we deal with and what anti-trans activists actually want than examine their own transphobia and transmisogyny.

If you don’t trust trans people's ability to accurately perceive and name reality, name what our problems are, name how we're being harmed, guess what? You don’t see us as equals. Yeah, it's as bad as we say it is. We're smart enough to see what we're up against.

I hung out with anti-trans activists and other transphobic people for years. You think how some of them talk in public is bad, you should hear what they say when they're the only ones present. Everything trans people say about them is true. They're working for our elimination.

Not that you actually need that kind of access to see what a lot of them are really up to. Many aren't shy at all about saying what they think and want. There's so much evidence for people to find that it's hard to gather and organize it all into something easy to consume.

It's wild coming out of organized transphobia & realizing just how few people are trying to understand and combat it. Mostly trans people doing that work because we have to. A lot of cis people have no idea how bad it is & don't seem to care much because they're transphobic too.

When I was detrans and talking negatively about transition in a way many cis people found compelling, I got to see just how many people were waiting for "proof" that their transphobia was justified. That was one of my main roles as a detrans person, validating transphobia.

It wasn't just transphobic feminists who were happy to use my detrans story as "evidence" to back up their transphobia, it was a lot of liberals and leftists, some radical queers even. So many "trans allies" really do think trans people "go too far" if you ask them in private.

Being "nice" to trans people isn't the same as respecting us. Is it "nice" to treat us one way to our faces and then talk about how "extreme" and "delusional" we are when we're out of the room? Lot of liberals and leftists with trans friends are like that. So "supportive"!

Sad truth is a lot of people care more about not thinking of themselves as biased/bigoted than actually treating us as capable human beings, worthy of respect. Because that means going against how society currently functions. Takes actual work to resist transphobia/transmisogyny.

Many cis people aren't ready to face that they see anti-trans activists as having "reasonable concerns" because they themselves are also transphobic. They think people should be "nice" to trans people but they don't trust us to understand our own reality, what we really need, etc

Why on earth should I consider a person an "ally" if they don't trust me enough to know who's a danger to me, what causes me suffering, what I need to be happy as a trans person and so on? It's weird feeling like I have to prove to some "allies" that I was really in a hate group.

It's really weird coming out from the ideological detrans community and feeling like I have to prove that some "liberal" journalists have reported on detransition in a way that totally obscures how ideological and transphobic that community is.

But a lot of cis people have a much easier time believing that transitioning is a trend and that "too many people are transitioning" than that ideological detrans groups are recruiting self-hating trans people and promoting conversion therapy. It's so easy to see people's biases.

Society is so transphobic that a lot of transphobia just seems like "common sense" to people and people think it's ok to condescend to trans people and act like we're out of our heads as long as they're "polite" about it. And then they wonder why we're so angry.

Trans rage at this state of affairs is reasonable. It's something we need if we're going to survive and actually create a society worthy of our participation. And we will survive as we always have and we will create what we need. Call me "crazy" all you want, I'm still here.