Thread by @TillyBridges

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today we’re going to talk cis people who are unwitting participants in trans oppression, we’re going to talk about Neo’s jacket, and we’re going to choose to fight for ourselves in THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF MATRIX RESURRECTIONS, part 5!

I know I say this a lot, but please first read the previous threads on Resurrections, as well as the threads on The Matrix, Reloaded, and Revolutions if you haven’t already. They all build on each other and have context you absolutely need.

https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1475194703544864769

Diving in right where we previously dived out!

39:32 - Look at the city lights. Doubt is everywhere, along our recurring path of fear. The truth is present, but in short supply and hard to find.

Neo’s on the edge (literally), remembering his self-actualization, remembering what his heart (as the Oracle) told him, remembering his subconscious/dreams showing him the way, remembering that connection and love of self he once knew and longs for again.

And he remembers his hope for a better future that society wouldn’t let happen, and how it cost him everything. Jude tries to reach him, but Neo rejects the call. He’s done listening to the lies. He’s done with people stealing trans voices, stealing HIS voice.

He watches the pigeon fly away, longing for that feeling again. Look at all of these shots around him as he prepares to try to fly. There’s yellow and blue everywhere, but the red is hard to find or missing altogether. You can’t find that euphoria without living your TRUTH first.

41:15 - His heart pulls him back from the ledge. He’s not ready yet, and say it with me now… THE HEART ALWAYS KNOWS, and will tell you when you’re ready. He doesn’t yet believe.

Because he hasn’t yet made the choice to retransition (taking the red pill), and gotten to the point where he can feel that gender euphoria after being self-actualized.

Bugs tells him how she was inspired by him, enough to realize her own truth. This is a callback to Reloaded/Revolutions, where we saw The Kid who was able to self-actualize just by seeing Neo out there, self-actualized and happy to be himself.

And now she, the heart, is here for him, to help him along his path. And she tells him Jude is not on his side, which he’d already been waking up to, and tells him about bots… agents of the system skinned as “normal people.”

EVERY person is a potential agent of the system when they learn you’re trans, even if they’re not aware of it, due to the way the system is designed and the transphobia it bakes into every person about us being “unnatural” or “wrong” or “predators” or “freaks" or "anomalies."

We talked a bit about this in the first movie, in the scene with the security guards in the lobby, how in not choosing to help us you are actively hurting us, as you uphold the status quo that oppresses us. This is stating it much more plainly:

Everyone out there who is not actively helping us is part of the system that’s hurting us, even if they’re not aware of it, and “you never know who to trust.” They will reveal themselves all too quickly when they learn you’re trans.

Again, trans people often and regularly lose spouses, family, friends, jobs, housing, all for simply saying “hey I’m not the gender you thought/said I was.”

43:05 - Bugs has the white rabbit tattoo now. Neo’s doubts in his heart about society’s lies, that he bought into, are the path that will lead him back to Wonderland. It’s not too late, no matter your age or where you are. IT’S NEVER TOO LATE to self-actualize.

43:43 - The train is full of blues, reds, yellows. Neo’s fears and doubts are still everywhere, they’re not going to go away. But now they’re mixed with much more truth, as he’s on the right path. Despite our doubts and fears, we press on.

44:21 - And now they’re in a theater, with a set calling back to Neo’s first meeting with his subconscious, aka he’s afraid this isn’t real, maybe he only thinks it is. Note the yellow lights everywhere.

44:30 - But now Morpheus is. In. RED. The subconscious is the truth, and Neo’s again realizing that. Or starting to.

45:00 - Morpheus offers the red pill again. “Time to fly.” Transition is the way back to gender euphoria. The subconscious knows it, Neo just has to accept it.

46:03 - Bugs tells him that society was able to alter his self-image, and that’s just some super-text for you, because that’s exactly what they did by making him go along with pretending to be a cis man!

46:45 - Morpheus tells Neo it took so long to get to this point, the brink of re-self-actualization, because Neo (his true self) didn’t want to be found. Which is why he hid his subconscious away in the Modal.

46:50 - Morpheus: “Maybe there’s no foundation to the rumors that you disappeared because you were working with the machines from the beginning.”

Transphobes LOVE to point to the incredibly tiny portion of people who detransition as “proof” that we shouldn’t be allowed to transition in the first place, as “proof” that life-saving trans care should be kept from trans kids.

Trans people are maybe 2% of the overall population, and some reports estimate around 8% of us detransition at some point for a variety of reasons (note that doesn’t mean the detransition stuck).

Also note that’s 8% of 2%, so we’re talking an INCREDIBLY SMALL PORTION of the population. Listen, trans people are human. We make mistakes too. Sometimes someone ISN'T trans, and transition was a mistake. Sometimes they ARE trans and detransitioning was the mistake.

Some people transition, and then detransition because the constant fight and the loss of everything and everyone they loved is too great a burden to bear.

And some people who detransition realize that was a mistake and RETRANSITION. But what Neo’s subconscious is worried about here is that by detransitioning, he gave ammunition to the TERFs, and people thought he was anti-trans. But Bugs, his heart, knows that’s not true.

47:24 - Doubt’s been washing over Neo’s face, but he reaches for the red pill anyway. Ready or not, he’s pushing forward. And you soon see he can enter the mirror, and it’s causing ripples.

The Analyst pulls out a last ditch effort to convince Neo he’s cis, but Bugs, the heart, pulls Neo back. Cis white men storm the theater. Stop. Do not transition. You are not trans. Conform. Be like us. Or die.

They escape to the train, but the cis people there, unwitting, do society’s bidding and try to stop them. Even though they are not white men, they’re still cis, and they’re upholding the power structure of white cis men at the top without even knowing that’s what they’re doing.

This is why the group of game execs and developers we talked about in part 3 was so diverse. Yes cis white men established the cis binary matrix to benefit them, but so many people who are not them buy into those lies, that status quo, without even knowing it.

They hurt us without realizing that’s what they’re doing. They take our voices without realizing that’s what they’ve done, and the harm it causes. All because they believe the lies the cis binary matrix has told them their whole life.

So here on the train, like the guards in the lobby in the first movie, like ALL the cops and guards and agents through every Matrix movie: they gotta go.

You’re with us or you’re against us, there’s no middle ground as not being on our side means you uphold our oppression by default. Trans liberation is HUMAN liberation, it helps cis people too.

50:42 - To get through the tiny mirror, the window to his real world, Neo needs PERSPECTIVE. Needs to see the tiny opening that’s his way out for the window to the real world that it actually is.

51:05 - He’s bathed in red. Just like the first time he transitioned, this is the truth. He’s in it now, and is being reborn as his true self. AGAIN.

51:12 - We see the truth, his body has been modified in ways not natural to who he really is. In the surface sci-fi story, this is the machine ports, which still represent the wrong puberty he was forced to go through, making unalterable changes to his body that he never wanted.

51:40 - Trinity, his self-actualization, is so close. SO CLOSE. But still just out of reach.

52:11 - This time, instead of being cast off and literally flushed away by society, he’s met by… Cybebe and Octacles. Synthients. Machines who’ve gained their independence by waking up to the truth and making decisions for themselves.

Even if you were raised as part of the machinery of cis matrix society, even if you unwillingly participated in the oppression of trans people before, you can still wake up. You can choose to change. You can be our allies. IT’S NEVER TOO LATE.

52:56 - As Neo’s flown away, Trinity’s eyes open, her hand reaches for him. She’s waiting for you, Neo. You can be her again. You just have to do the work to get there.

53:30 - Neo can again see the truth of the matrix, and how it powers all of our cis binary society.

54:20 - And it’s his heart, here with the truth, the doubt gone but still full of fear, who welcomes him home. “Home,” aka the only body you ever felt at home in.

54:28 - Neo wakes up, again. His hair is different, the denial beard is gone, his clothes are different. Transition has begun. Again.

55:52 - Neo’s put back into the construct, for a talk with Morpheus, now in blue. Neo still has doubts about what his subconscious is saying, but the truth is there and in ample supply.

Their talk here is about how the appropriation/erasure of trans voices (very specifically the Wachowskis from the original movies, but also in general) doesn’t mean that we didn’t say what we said, or that saying it wasn’t important. Those who needed the message still heard it.

Morpheus mentions how Neo forced him to become an amalgamation of his true self and Smith, aka Neo walled up the truth in his subconscious and forced himself to work for, uphold, the cis binary matrix. And no trans person can do that if internalized transphobia hasn’t creeped in.

Neo’s having trouble withdrawing from the simulacra he forced himself back into, which is why he’s still struggling, still seeing his subconscious with doubtful eyes. But the subconscious knows what he needs, because of course it does. That’s its whole reason for existing.

56:54 - Morpheus takes them to a sparring room, as in the first movie, and he instantly TURNS RED. He’s again going to teach Neo the way to survive and move through the matrix as his true self. Morpheus: “Could be this is the first day of the rest of your life.” And there it is.

But Neo’s going to have to fight for it, and he’s so tired of fighting. He doesn’t want to fight for survival every day of his life (spoiler: no trans people do), and he chose not to hate. But there’s no other way. This is the society cis people created, that we’re born into.

57:42 - Neo’s jacket has shortened. What do you think THAT means? Here’s why I’ve been telling you to keep an eye on it.

Remember that in Reloaded and Revolutions, Neo’s jacket had a skirt in place of a dress that they couldn’t put him in, in which he would fly/dress-go-spinny to represent his gender euphoria?

And that was confirmed when we saw the Merovingian ALSO in a floor-length skirted jacket when he’d accepted (a distorted and skewed) version of his truth that he was trans?

YOU CAN TRACK NEO’S RE-TRANSITION JOURNEY THROUGHOUT RESURRECTIONS BY WATCHING HIS JACKET.

We saw it start short, the furthest away from the skirt/full transition. As he reawakened to his truth, it got longer! As his fears grow, it shortens again! Hmm I wonder what he’s going to have to do to get the full skirt back…

Despite now knowing Morpheus speaks the truth, his shorter jacket shows you he’s further from his actualized self than he was when talking to Trinity.

She was right there, so close, but he couldn’t embrace her. And now, even though he’s started down the right path, she feels further away than ever. So close, and yet so far.

Neo really gets his ass beat. Morpheus: “They taught you good.” Taught him how not to resist, how not to stand up for his true self, how not to fight back. He’s got to learn it all again.

Morpheus: “Made you believe their world was all you deserve. But some part of you knew that was a lie.” (his heart, Bugs!) “Some part of you remembered what was real.” (his subconscious, Morpheus!)

Neo finally blocks a punch! But then tries to tell Morpheus he doesn’t know him. LOL. Oh, Neo. We can’t fool or lie to our subconscious. Ever. It’s just not possible. And as proof, Neo starts. Fighting. Back.

Morpheus: “I know you, because I know the only thing that still matters to you. I know it’s why you’re here, why you’re fighting, and why you’ll never give up.” (Trinity, his self-actualization!)

59:30 - And of course Morpheus is right. The truth is still inside Neo, and it’s starting to come out.

59:50 - Morpheus: “You gotta fight for your goddamn life if you want to see Trinity again.” Because to live in a simulacra is, again, a walking death. It’s not living. To be Trinity again IS the only way for him to live, the only way to a real life.

1:00:05 - With his subconscious pushing and pushing him to “fight for her,” Neo lets out a primal scream, he’s found the light, and he’s focused it, and all his rage, desire, fear, and doubt into a force to be reckoned with. There’s no stopping him now.

When everyone who’s not explicitly with you is against you… no matter how tired you are you HAVE to fight to exist, as you’ve been left with no other choice. But that’s hard to accept, so next time… we’re going to have a little heart to heart.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.