Mastodawn

One of the ways I know transphobes have never actually known a trans person in real life is that they think we make lots of demands on others, insist on taking up space, and don’t care about inconveniencing others. Like, anyone who has known or cared about a trans person knows it is like pulling teeth to get them to reach out or allow others in for support. Almost all of us are all carrying the trauma of having internalized the message that asking to exist as ourselves is such an imposition on others we have been afraid to do it most of our lives.

Like, is there a single trans person on the fedi who has not said at least once that they feel like a burden if they express any of their needs or desires, much less even ask others to use the correct pronouns for them?

Meanwhile, most transphobes think that it’s discrimination against them for other people to exist.

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Non Blob

May 6, 2025

@JoscelynTransient wow, I am seen and called out. Thank you for reminding me to try to take up space

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Warden May 6, 2025

@JoscelynTransient It's way too much like pulling teeth. This, 100%.

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Lisa Melton May 7, 2025

@JoscelynTransient This. 💯

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Jocelynephiliac

May 7, 2025

@JoscelynTransient I imagine this falls into the same space as men thinking women talk all the time.

They think we take up tons of space because they're so used to having all the space to themselves.

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Amy Worrall May 7, 2025

@JoscelynTransient as soon as it’s someone you know, peoples eyes get opened.

A friend’s mother once said to my friend, in response to hearing about some of the latest transphobic uk legislation, “But that wouldn’t apply to Amy surely?”. She’s not a transphobe, she just hadn’t made the link between “media portrayals of some ‘other’” and “real person who I know, who has no agenda other than living her life in peace”.

But yes, things done to hypothetical trans scapegoat do apply to Amy.

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Agnieszka R. Turczyńska May 7, 2025

@amyworrall @JoscelynTransient
> as soon as it’s someone you know, peoples eyes get opened.
Or not. There are two people I used to know for some time (15 years, or so). Well, "used to" is for a reason, and the reason is their transphobia.

Maybe if there won't be living over 1000km from me, if we have seen each other more frequently than once per two years with one person, or three times per year with another, maybe then they would change their way of thinking. Or maybe not.

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Magnus Ahltorp May 7, 2025

@JoscelynTransient The problem is, the transphobe will tell you it’s not trans persons they’re against, in fact they love trans persons, it’s that they are insisting on “being trans” that’s the problem.

Like “I do not hate homosexuals, I hate homosexuality”, which was written to me on Mastodon *today*.

Just because they meet trans persons that don’t take up space won’t dispel their convictions that trans persons insist on taking up space.

I’m so sorry.

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Jennifer Kayla | Theogrin 🦊May 7, 2025

@ahltorp @JoscelynTransient

Perhaps pointedly, that we're taking up their space. See, this is important. All the space in the world belongs to the abled, cishet majority. It's theirs by right. So one image of two men kissing, or an image of a person who's visibly GNC, and gasp -- we're stealing from them!

See also each and every supremacist group under the sun...

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moon77 May 7, 2025

@JoscelynTransient 🙏🌈

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Mystery Babylon

May 7, 2025

@JoscelynTransient Exactly!

And even the loud and proud trans and nonbinary people, that every transphobe wants to hold up as some blue-haired, be-pronouned oppressor, has probably only become loud after literal YEARS of going without basic human rights and considerations.

We should be damn glad they finally snapped and started taking up space.