Like no shit, I'm going to make my one safe place look nice.

  • AcidSmiley [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    It's honestly frightening how much combined privilege you have to scrape together so that it overrides the marginalization from queerness at least most of the time in some situations. Like, i'm infinitely better off than a trans woman of color, hearing accounts from them is as if they're lving in a different country than me, but all my whiteness and all my other privileges that ease my situation, such as living in continental Europe, or my slowly increasing relative passing privilege and the educational privilege of being able to convincingly argue my case and the ableist privilege of being stable enough to have the amount of self confidence i enjoy, that means jack shit when push comes to shove. I could pretend that things are ok, that i get most costs of my transition covered by health insurance, that i can transition in the first place, that i can mostly enjoy the ability to move freely in public while being visibly trans at least at a second or third close glance, but i would be lying to myself. The fact that i am probably a hundred times less likely than a black trans woman to get beaten up does not mean i am safe, it just means i am not as absurdly marginalized as BIPoC trans people or as vilified as more visible trans people or in a much more comfortable legal situation than trans refugees. Doesn't change that i am still legally facing forms of state-endorsed discrimination no other group does, i am still at a massively increased risk of unemployment and homelessness, i am still subjected to humiliating gatekeeping procedures, i am still a major target in far right hate campaigns and any form of public exposure i encounter means i am at risk of being faced with forms of hate crimes most people do not even recognize as such.