TW for transphobia and slurs
I'm a trans woman. I live in a very conservative area in Appalachia. Because of that,
I prefer to go stealth. I don't wear any pride pins, I don't tell people I'm on HRT, I don't say anything. Outside of my incredibly supportive family and my close friends, nobody knows that I'm a trans woman. To everybody else, I'm just a woman. Maybe they see me as an ugly woman, a pretty woman, a fat woman, a stupid woman, a smart woman, a beautiful woman, or a loud woman, but they do not see me as a trans woman.
People tell me sometimes that I should be proud of who I am, that I should be proud of the journey I went through. I tell those people that I'd rather keep my pride on the inside, though they are free to wear it on their sleeve with my wholehearted support. It's an underwhelming answer, but it's easier than the real one.
Sometimes, those people hear my response and get angry for whatever reason. They tell me that I'm a transmedicalist, that I've internalized my transphobia and yanked the ladder up from behind me, that I've turned on my own brothers, sisters, and siblings. To that, I would ask them to place themselves in my shoes for just a moment while I give them the real answer.
In high school,
I tried being proud. I tried being a beacon of safety and kindness and acceptance. I'd tell people my real name, my pronouns, how I identify, all of that. I got harassed and mocked endlessly. I gave up. I instead opted for survival, trying to just quietly exist alongside my peers. That got me yelled at. That got me shoved away and told to go elsewhere. I remember one instance, where our bus monitor was introducing assigned seats due to some of the younger kids on our bus acting unruly in the front. The driver told one of the boys around my age, a little bit younger than me, that he had to sit next to me.
He looked at me with fire in his eyes and then back at the monitor.
"Here? You want me to sit here?"
He laughed that quiet, ironic laugh that people do when they're filled with so much vitriol that it bubbles out in a hateful smile.
"I'm not sitting next to this fucking tranny. You can't make me sit with a fag like him."
The bus monitor tried to talk back. She didn't even get a word out.
"No, I already told you. I won't sit next to a troon. Fucking stupid, making me sit with a tranny."
I sat next to that boy for four weeks, before I got cycled to sit next to another boy who acted the exact same way. Then another boy. The worst ones would ask me questions and giggle with their friends, whether I'd answer them or try ignoring them. The good ones just turned away from me to talk to their friends the whole ride home. Soon enough, the school year was over, with only three more to go.
That's what my pride got me.
But you can feel free to show just how proud you are in whatever manner you want. I mean it, I'm not being sarcastic. I will support you with every bone in my body to be proud. Because while my pride was being beaten out of me, they just watched.
I'm not a transmed. I'm not transphobic. I'm not proud.
I'm just afraid of boys with loud voices.