One thing that transphobes have in common is that they are certain that they can define another's experience for them, and they're so insistent on this that a refusal to define someone else is taken as a *failure* to define them.
For instance, on the recent Dr. Phil segment of infamy, a nonbinary person was asked to define a woman, to which they replied that they couldn't define the experience of womanhood for everyone, as it is unique. This was treated as a *failure* to define what a woman is by TERFs.
And this reveals a lot about the underlying tenets of their philosophy. It has no room for individual experience or self-determination. Rather, it enforces that all identifiers must be impressed on someone by outside forces, rather than defined by the individual.
And this is where it comes down, as it always does, to the issue of autonomy and self determination. Trans people's self determination is incredibly threatening to a group that is so deeply invested in external validation to the point of external definition.
So much of the derision and mockery of trans people is mockery of self determination, and this is why. Transphobes are so deeply entrenched in the belief that external validation is truth that they interpret anything else as failure rather than a different way of being.
Self determination is not a failure of external validation - it is a rejection of it. Making the conscious choice to determine yourself rather than accept the circumstances dictated to you is radical self love in its purest form.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
