Just had a whole ass (relatively civil) argument with my coworker about trans politics (and trans kids specifically). Had to do a lot of educating and explaining, but I love and am experienced in live debate, so I was having fun and doing well, maybe changed his mind on a few things if I was lucky. At the end of our shift, I drop a final point and refer to trans people as "us" (including myself) and my coworker gets the reddest, most br*tish, face you've ever seen, hahaha. One of the most fun things about being stealth is that you can just carpet bomb the preconseved notions people have about you and about trans people at any time, and I always love to take that opportunity (when I feel safe to do so); I'm lucky enough to have that choice, so I feel an obligation to be visiblely trans when I can and represent us, you know?

something that frustrates me as being absent from the discourse around trans people, and kids in particular, is that their accusations, completely untrue in the case of trans kids, are true about another group of kids - intersex ones. and i very rarely hear anyone talking about this. there are kids being subjected to unconsensual surgeries and hormones, and we need to do something about that. the experiences of trans and intersex people with the medical establishment can seem opposite but they both come down to the same basic problem; that it is medicine trying to colonise gender and force our bodies to conform to their fucked up ideas of what they should be. we owe it to each other and to the children to fight together.

i'm eternally frustrated by how the rightwing, the fash, the terfs, wholesale lift the experiences of intersex children, use it as a weapon against the trans community, and then if they mention intersex kids at all - which they rarely do - it is simply to say that it's fine because it's correcting a mistake when it is done to us. and the best response the trans community seems to come up with is "no we don't do that actually". i think calling out their hypocrisy, forcing them to actually answer to what they've done in terms of misusing the suffering of intersex people, and being consistent with our own beliefs by including intersex liberation in our struggle in a meaningful way, would be a far better way to counter the narrative surrounding trans kids than what we're doing at the moment.

Just got a text from my father and I read it while I was still working and it kinda fucked me up, I was struggling a bit to do the last bit of tutoring for the day.

Context is I had said I could probably meet up for lunch Sunday if I'm not collapsed on my bed due to work. Since I have a 12 hour outdoor work day on Saturday and this week is also just long in general. And he knows that. Oh and during our call Sunday my mother yelled at me over his phone again and tried to gaslight me about how she had told me that she wants me homeless when I brought it up. So this is coming right after that. Fun.

"OK, Sunday, choose the place and stop whining, you know that there is still a place for you here and that your life would be easier if you were ready to wait a few more years for your transition."

Just. I know it's not the absolute worst thing I've gotten from either of them about it. But it just hurts so much more deeply for some reason. I want to just get into bed and curl up to cry but I need to shower and eat first since I only just got off work so I'm gonna have to zombie through that for an hour or some such before I can let this emotionally settle and that sounds fucking awful right now.

Oh and he has literally never once called me by my name. He compromised by saying he would switch to my old nickname which I was fine with, only to then immediately stop using it and go back to my deadname.