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It’s too late to stop me.

#ThingsYouCantUnsay #trans #transition

I already did it.

I’m beyond their checkpoints.

They can still kill me. They can still cage me. They can still martyr me. And I haven’t reach the end of my journey.

But they can’t stop me from self-actualizing.

They, here a pronoun in its multiple and nameless form, affirming no one. The agents of the patriarchy. Everyday people, when they act from the internalized patriarchal norms they’ve been inundated with. They, who declare me to be their enemy. They, whom I reluctantly accept as my enemies.

I’m a binary woman, and I walked heedlessly into a backscatter x-ray machine today, physically transformed by the banality and wonder of hormones, the magic and sparkle of fashion, and the skill and compassion of a trans surgeon. I no longer fear that my body will be misunderstood as a different gender.

I am a woman, though. I certainly fear that my body will be violated by patriarchy, as all people ought to fear.

Backscatter x-rays are a crystalized shard of patriarchal violence. They enforce rigid gendered forms and violate the bodily autonomy of everyone who walks through them. Whatever veils and rules may ostensibly protect the privacy of the victims, the core function of those machines is to classify everyone into acceptable or suspect body shapes.

I happen to be affirmed by my body being a shape that is, coincidentally, on the approved list of shapes. I’m grateful to fate for this privilege, but my outrage for others simmers. This is not how we should live.

And so I stride, at first slowly, as my suture-lines knit together, careful not to pop a stitch, and in time with stronger steps, through the airport security checkpoint and its representation as the last gate of my medical transition and towards clearings, small points of higher ground, places to shine. I’m a walking demonstration of the possible, and I want people to know it.

I’m not looking for the tallest places around - I don’t want to pit myself against that amount of attention. I try to have a realistic understanding of my limits, and I want my fire to last. The longer I burn, the more people can see me and learn from me.

But I do plan to burn. I’ll not run and hide; I will burn my brightest here, in the culture I was raised in. It is here I’ll stand, confident that my life can mean something if I live out loud, with pride and self-esteem.

1/2 (please boost both if you boost)