Every time a #trans girl awakens safely from gender affirming surgery, a TERF gets hives. #Boost this please, so I can screenshot it for my friend!

Looking down on the electrolysis table is weird. Like, seriously, that’s not what I’m supposed to have between my legs.

I wish trans people sucked #ThingsYouCantUnsay I wish trans people sucked. I wish that when you thought about trans people, the default reaction was, “they’re so basic. There’s nothing interesting about them.” I wish we generally lived boring lives, wake up, do our part for the community we live in, care for our families, maybe do a bit of work, make a really boring dinner, bed early. I wish you knew so many trans people that when someone new came out as trans, your spouse turned to you with a bored expression and asked if they should order your usual coming-out gift for trans people. In the same way as you have a signature baby-shower gift. I wish trans people were not, generally, some of the most interesting, vibrant, resourceful, creative, determined, self-aware, clear-eyed, insightful, caring, and kind people you know. I wish we didn’t have to be all those things to have a chance to survive. I wish that accepting ourselves and coming out was not a gauntlet that leaves all but a random fraction of the most amazing of us to die, our truths snuffed out unacknowledged. I wish we didn’t need to be the best of the best, just to make it far enough to see the light through a crack in the closet door. Goddess, I wish trans people sucked.

Hi cis people! It’s Trans Day Of Visibility, or TDOV for short, and today, I’d like my words to be visible. Please read these short essays: This one is about how to be an ally:

Chaosfem

Willow, Venus Pirate 🏳️‍⚧️ (@Willow@chaosfem.tw)

Lift your eye from the palantir - you will not defeat Sauron. #ThingsYouCantUnsay Do not speak to me of how you can do nothing to turn the ship o...

This one is about the trans experience:

Chaosfem

Willow, Venus Pirate 🏳️‍⚧️ (@Willow@chaosfem.tw)

When I Tell You I’m Trans #ThingsYouCantUnsay When I tell you I’m #trans, I’m not telling you about the history of my body - my body is as ...

This one is about the importance of letting trans people tell our own stories in our own words:

Chaosfem

Willow, Venus Pirate 🏳️‍⚧️ (@Willow@chaosfem.tw)

Why I Write #ThingsYouCantUnsay I write because I’m #trans, and every trans voice matters. I doubt that I have novel things to say; I nod to th...

Please boost them. Please write short posts linking here and to other trans people’s writings, encouraging your friends to read what we have to say. Sharing the words of trans people is how you help us be seen. It’s how you help stop the genocide against us. Please help, while we are still here to appreciate it. Please remember, more trans people will be born. They’ll be your children and grandchildren. They’ll learn our history. And they’ll learn what you did or didn’t do, when we needed you. Love, Willow #Trans #TDOV #TransDayOfVisibility #Boost

Between all the relationship growing and relationship healing and stuff, I’ve forgotten to take care of me. My intestines are flaring. My joints hurt. My muscles feel like wet noodles. I haven’t sat quietly with myself in too long.

I Treat My Brain More And More Like An Unreliable Adjutant Once, I thought I needed a logical, rational answer for everything. I often couldn’t find one, so I went along with what I was being pressed to agree with. Once, I thought I remembered things. I could remember story plots, so I figured I remembered most important moments in my life. Once, I thought I was a brain, riding in a body that I controlled. The body was there to move me around; sometimes it needed maintenance, and indicator lights turned on. Advil made most of them turn off. Others I used as reading lights. I was wrong. I’m a body full of feelings. My body offers mercy. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. She remembers my traumas, and holds them for me. She tells me when I need to fear. She knows I’ve forgotten much, and she tells me when it’s time to act and when it’s time to rest. She doesn’t have all the answers, but she knows when I find questions that will lead me there. She knows my brain is not to be trusted. But it’s part of her. It’s part of me. I’ve learned to listen to what it has recorded, but feel for the ragged edges where things are missing. I’ve learned to listen with detachment to its opinions. My body exists. When I am quiet inside, she can feel the way.

Some days, I like being a writer for the resistance, some days I just wanna be a pretty girl with empty head, no thoughts.

Why I Write I write because I’m #trans, and every trans voice matters. I doubt that I have novel things to say; I nod to the socialists, I repeat my trans siblings, I retread the ground feminists have walked, I find markers left by people of color, and I know I’m not alone. I do not seek to break new ground. I seek to hold ground, ground that was taken from us. To hold space and memory. To leave behind a record of who I was, of what I knew, of why I fought, of how I loved, and of the lies I was told, so that those who come after me will know they are not alone. I won’t bore you by making the point that not all voices matter, that cis voices who babble platitudes offer nothing to liberation and allies who push us aside to speak for us do so without regard for the cliffs they shove us over. I’ll trust you learned from Black voices. I know I’m still trying to learn from them. But fascists know trans voices matter. The patriarchy knows; capitalists and racists know. They know what a threat self-actualization is. It’s how I’ve come to understand the importance of valuing any trans voice that speaks, and why it’s important to add my voice. Our stories are brilliant spotlights shined into the darkness of the lies used to keep our siblings from knowing themselves. Each time we speak, it is a spell of curse-breaking. Our lives are resistance. Our stories are beacons lit by crystallized memories of our lives. I write because let’s face it, even better than ruining a transphobe’s day with my joy is ruining many of their days with records of my joy. And I write so that when I’m dead, trans people will know what I had to do to be myself. I cannot tell them how to be themselves. But perhaps I can show them what I did, and why.