“I’m not into trans”

[artist cred: Sophie Labelle who’s paid stuff can be found here: https://www.serioustransvibes.com/ . Sorry! I couldn’t find the actual source for this comic in her Tumblr archive and didn’t want to link back to one of those anti-trans meme sites!

description: a comic of a white cis man looking defensive sitting in bed with a white trans woman looking done with this. The caption for the comic says, “why didn’t you tell me you were trans before we slept together multiple times? I mean, don’t take it personally, but I’m not into trans women…” and “huh yes, you were very much into me, you’re just very transphobic.” and with a caption under the entire comic that says, “geez…”

 

I like to do text base role play. It’s one of my major coping mechanisms for life. I’ve been doing it since I was 14 and have likely written thousands of pages worth of stories and smut over the decade and a half since I began. I’ve spent now more than half of my life engaging in this medium.

I roleplay because I get to be people I’m not. I get to do things I can’t have. Namely, I get to pretend that I’m worthy of romance and sex. I can pretend that someone desires me enough to want to touch my body. To build a life with me. To do the things I so desperately dream of but can’t have.

A few hours ago, I asked one of my RP partners if I could play a trans woman with a vag like myself. His response to my vulnerable request to be me was to say that, “I’m not into trans”.

The Spectre of Trans Women of Colour

[image from https://depositphotos.com/12854762/stock-photo-diffuse-woman-body-silhouette-behind.html

Description: a faded, black feminine silouette standing with hands up pressing up against the screen. This silouette is against what looks like a white screen or background, like it’s some kind of barrier between the presumably woman and the viewer.]

This piece is in response to a moment that occurred the other week (I wrote part of this, cooled off, came back to it, and finished it). I was at a really cool talk on trans necropolitics. But as I looked around the room, I noticed I was the only trans woman in the room listening to a lecture by a trans man of colour interviewed by an tenured white trans man professor. (Both of whose work I appreciate).

Hearing about brutally murdered trans women of colour and being in the room where no one else was a trans woman of colour was so distressing for me that I ran out of the room.

After reflecting on my reaction, I realized it was rash for me to leave, but at the same time, I’d like to stand with my choice even if it wasn’t the nicest thing I’ve ever done. By me leaving a talk as a trans woman of colour, it begs a few questions. Where are the other trans women and trans femme folks? Where were the white trans women when there were white trans men present? Why aren’t there any trans women of colour in the room when they’re the focus of the talk? Why does it feel so uncomfortable when I speak about trans women of colour when I’m white passing?

The talk was haunted by the spectre of trans women of colour.