Image description: 4 panel comic titled If Trans People Said the Things Cis People Tell Them.
Panel one has an androgynous individual talking to a woman. The androgynous individual, "To me, you are 100% a girl, you know?" The woman has a look of confusion and disgust and responds with, "Wow, thanks."
Panel two has the same androgynous individual speaking with a man. The androgynous individual is saying, "It's so incredibly you look just like an actual boy!" The man is rubbing the back of his head in nervous confusion and says, "Yeah, I... am one?"
Panel three has the androgynous individual speaking with someone of ambiguous gender. The androgynous individual says, "I would never have guessed you were cis! Congratulations!" The other person is looking at them with an expression of confusion and concern.
Panel four has the androgynous individual speaking to a man. The androgynous individual says, "I think you are so brave for being who you are." The man is frowning at them.
The comic is credited to @assignedmale on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr and SophieLabelledraws on YouTube. Their merch is at assignedmale.etsy.com and Pateron is at patreon.com/sophielabelle
I care little what cis society thinks of me and my appearance when they see me. I care a great deal about being visible to the gender diverse community though.
Yet when I speak to cis people and tell them I'm trans, they assume that I'm trying to keep my identity on the down low, and that I'm trying to look like them. And the gender diverse community often doesn't even see me out in the wild, so the baby trans folk, the closeted folk, the folk who benefit from seeing other trans folk out there living their lives on their own terms, they see one less trans person.
And that adds up over time. I feel it like a slap to the face every time another trans person looks right past me without that moment of shared recognition.
Never thought of it like that. I've just been headstrong focused on being accepted by cis women. The only people that I've been with have been neurodivergent people or other trans people.
I hear about other people that transition in their teen years being fully accepted by cis women and it has me feeling like some "other" which I absolutely despise and has been my biggest, ultimate fear.
I spent the early years of my transition chasing that. And I got to the point where I guess I could have it if I wanted, but those goals pre-dated my involvement in the queer community, and before I knew how important it would be to me.
And it wasn't until I found that barrier between me and easy connection with my community that I realised just how much I valued it.
In my mind, I had thought that passing would let me control my own narrative in a way that I couldn't when I didn't pass. But it doesn't. I still don't have control over my narrative, and now, the narrative that people put on me is one that assumes I'm either cis or that I want to be cis, and I have to spend effort undoing that.
And of course, not everyone feels the same way about the queer community as I do. For some people, acceptance and ease of movement in cis society is more important to them. The issue for me though was, that I didn't really know what was important to me, and made a lot of choices before I had the chance to really understand what I really value