#I'll add this in a reblog if this ramble somehow gains traction but I doubt it's formal enough that many people are gonna want to put it on

[sootonthecarpet]

transphobic microaggressions suck shit cause transphobia is one of the ones where the bad reaction is usually fragility so like.... if someone who's otherwise super nice says "so it's a he?" to my dad abt me while trying to be sure they have the right marker down or whatever the fuck, sure that's gonna ruin my next few hours, but if I push at it at all that's not rly gonna do anything except ruin THEIR next few hours too. and while objectively that should be totally acceptable to me cause it's on them to treat trans ppl like they would anyone else and I have a right to stick up for myself, usually it doesn't play out that way and I just end up feeling bad and unproductive. (esp with women--guys let themselves just get mad more often n say dumber stuff in response, and that's harder to take seriously or be hurt by, lol) at best I feel guilty for getting upset at an honest mistake (doesn't help that two or three times I've assumed someone knows I'm trans when they don't and thought they did something shitty when they were just treating me like everyone else--a few times over six years of my life isn't a lot but it's ENOUGH to give me serious fucking pause when it's something that's so hard to talk about and such a touchy subject for most cis ppl) and at worst [insert anecdote abt the cis teacher who told the dean I was bullying her]. cis ppl have enough power in situations like this that they're always going to have the upper hand, and they get to fall back on hurt feelings, good intentions, and a baseless conviction that they can't under any circumstances be bigoted. and past bad experiences are enough to scare me down from correcting even little shit with ppl I know respect me, if they do it repeatedly enough despite gentle corrections it just wears me down and I give up. then I feel bad for the next poor motherfucker who comes along. I try hard to never let myself be the trans person in the 'well I know another trans person who doesn't get upset by this, so you shouldn't mind it' situation, cause there was a girl at my last school a year before I attended who was trans and was less comfortable sticking up for herself than I was so there was clear strong judgement from the dean towards me for wanting basic student rights that even in 2013-2014 were making headlines and becoming public school policy. Since I'm strong enough and safe enough to take some heat, I always want to be the person who makes it a little easier for the next unlucky fuck to meet whoever I'm talking to. but for a lot of people, there's really no grey area between being someone's pushover pet whos too 'nice' (AFRAID) to correct u, and being the mean angry transgender who jumps down your throat for no reason. so even if I'm with a complete stranger and they make what amounts to a slip of the tongue, it just feels like there are maybe 20 different ways it could go down if I speak up and only one of em ends with 'hm ur right, I'll be more thoughtful!' cis ppl always have the potential to to fall back on hurt feelings that are gonna overshadow mine, and most of the time they do themselves and all other cis ppl a disservice by taking advantage of that privilege to, even if I'm too firecracker to be shut down by it, at any rate punish me and make me feel like shit for trying to politely stick up for myself over something that's 9/10 times a '''mild''' thing. and when u factor in knowing that if u upset this person, which u usually will, they're gonna be that much more sensitive when the next trans person comes along and there's as good a chance as any that that person will be way less privileged than I am and in a lot more genuine danger.... unless I meet explicit vitriol, I basically make my choices by what's going to do the least to make things harder for the next trans person who meets this person, but that means that unless I meet a vanishingly rare Genuinely Chill Ally, I ALWAYS leave feeling like I made the wrong choice.