I had an issue with my employers over the last week, it’s why I’ve been quiet, I wanted to have some time to process things. I won’t discuss what happened but it did lead me to go back and read some earlier posts, and to re-frame myself a bit.
My standards for how people treat me are pretty low.
Given an upset that makes you question the people you work for gave me an opportunity to rethink how supportive they’ve really been.
I guess I was so desperate for any acceptance that I was willing to take “willing to accept you” as support. Support is a different beast. Support requires a degree of sacrifice, not any particularly grand sacrifice, but you might not be 100% at ease and comfortable the entire time.
I had taken the bare hint of acceptance and called it support. The constant misgendering, didn’t worry about it they’re trying. Refusal to use my preferred name, I’m sure they’ll get there someday. I was excusing all of their terrible behaviour because they hadn’t used hateful language. In some way I guess I was the frog in the pot. I didn’t notice the danger I had put myself into and was going to boil to death.
When we accept bad treatment, we forward the idea that trans people are worth treating poorly. I’ve seen that idea before and I know what it was saying. It’s incredibly hard to live up to that. It means loudly and passionately defending your own right to exist, something that is unfortunately timely given what’s going on in the United States.
It’s as hard for cis people to understand us as it is for us to understand them. I don’t mean like they’re some sort of foreign entity, but I don’t really know what it’s like to not have to figure out what gender means, and it fits together, and what i can only assume is a comfort from knowing everything is all good. The big difference is that trans people know who has the power,
So I’m going to raise my standards, I’m going to accept less poor treatment. I’m going to push back more. I never wanted to be loud about it, but the voices around me are deafening and I deserve to be heard as well.
Confessions of a Trans Professional 