#and was just appalled at the strangers' comments on the picture. how hateful ppl were and using all these slurs i'd never heard of

[la0hu]

man i just remembered the first time i learned in depth about transgender ppl was when in 7th grade we were asked to choose a "controversial topic" to practice writing a persuasive essay about, and i chose something i genuinely had zero opinion and prior knowledge about, which was about transgender athletes being tested for hormone levels and being allowed to compete in general. and i remember doing all this really intense research and it just seemed abundantly obvious to me that even the lines between the apparent two sexes weren't even readily provable, and on top of that, there was no evidence of a "biological advantage" being due to sex or gender, because cisgender athletes routinely had different hormone levels compared to the average person (duh). i remember the opinion pieces and news articles being vaguely biased and noting that, but the moment i actually dug into medical research and historical records and like, firsthand resources, i had to draw my own conclusion that being transgender or intersex was 1) difficult to define (and most of the time it seemed like the ppl demanding the testing didn't care about the big difference between the two), 2) intrusive to define, and 3) didn't even actually impact performance at all anyway.

and i was a straight A student and a bit of teacher's pet, and i hadn't gotten anything lower than a 90% on any major assignment my entire academic life at that point, and i got a B- on that paper. and i remember being absolutely dumbfounded and confused, bc i knew it was one of my better efforts. i had the chance to do a "revision" and submit for a higher grade, so i doubled down on my research and hammered in every single point, and i still barely got a B+ in the end, and i remember seething with anger because i knew i was RIGHT. like undoubtedly, this was a "controversial" topic but i had done all the due diligence and uncovered the incontrovertible truth at the bottom of it. literally one of the most significant moments in my life where i realized this was how the real world played the game of human rights through just sheer refusal