#holy crap the post got over 10000 notes when did that happen

[bigendering]

Trans-specific stores? So you don't think trans people are normal men and women? Pretty transphobic...

I’m 99.99% this is a troll which means I shouldn’t answer it, but I love talking about this post and now I have an excuse. Feel free to ignore my overly long ramble below.

So firstly I’m transgender. *pokes hole in metaphorical balloon representing your argument*. I made that post because it’s what I, a transgender person, wanted. And for me at least, no, I’m not a normal man or woman. I’m actually nonbinary so that wouldn’t be the case regardless but I’m transmasculine so I have a lot in common with trans men. Such as trying to find menswear. Which for me is impossible. I’m 5′3″, which is smaller than the average cis woman/trans man who didn’t take testosterone early enough in the US, but not by a ton. But it’s way smaller than the average cis man, which means that stores literally don’t carry clothing I’m looking for in my size. I have to shop in the boy’s section, which doesn’t always have the right clothes, particularly when it comes to formal wear. And since I’m not a whole lot smaller than the average trans man who didn’t take testosterone during puberty, which is most of them, a lot of trans men have the same struggle. So we would all benefit from a store like this, which sells clothing that makes you look like a guy that actually fit us. Lots of trans women have the same struggle, but with everything reversed. There are also things like chest binders, which aren’t found in normal stores, which would be nice to try on before buying. And you can’t exactly walk into a normal store and say “I need help with makeup so I look like I was on different hormones during puberty.” People don’t have that kind of expertise.

Secondly, notice that the post never says who can go into the store. Cis people are absolutely welcome too. *pokes another hole in metaphorical balloon*. There are small cis guys and tall cis women who have trouble finding clothes too, and would also benefit. There are cis gender nonconforming people who would like to wear clothes traditionally reserved for the other binary gender. There are cis people who aren’t gender nonconforming, at least openly, who would like to try clothes traditionally reserved for the other binary gender. And having a store that doesn’t judge you for doing that is amazing both for trans people and all the groups I just named. It’s also nice for gender nonconforming people and nonbinary people to be able to wear whatever clothes they want without signs (and people) screaming “this is for This gender, which means it’s Not For You”.

Thirdly, I want this store because these products are in demand in a relatively small section of the population, so a lot of stores don’t carry them. That’s why a lot of stores don’t carry them. That’s why specialty stores exist. Ones that specifically sell containers, or specifically sell tailored dresses, or specifically sell yarn. They sell a wider range of a specific product to a specific audience. That’s what this store does. It carries all the things, and has the accepting atmosphere, that other stores don’t. So it’s not so much about walling off trans people and making them shop in that store, but about providing them a place to shop where literally no alternatives existed in the first place. *squashes balloon flat*. Sure, every store having all this stuff (minus the library, that would be weird) would be so much better. It’s a halfway solution in a cissexist world, but it’s a nice halfway solution. It’s full of resources to help trans people find a community irl. It’s full of resources to help cis people learn to be better allies.

So yeah. How is that transphobic