I was at a new meeting yesterday, which was really awesome and filled with some really cool people, and then one person shared that they had used a lot somewhere “where all the transsexual prostitutes hang out.”

Uhm. Ok.

I didn’t say anything, because meetings don’t really work on a system of direct response, and I had already shared but: given that I am a transgender former sex worker, I thought it was reasonable to make my opinion on such a statement known on here, and maybe IRL to her, as politely as I can, next week or whenever if I see her again.

We do not exist to be watermarks of your “terrible life” by the very notion that you must have been fucked if you would associate with us. The dehumanisation and othering that is required for you to make that statement is what makes me scared just walking around. Because people just walking on the same street as me - let alone entering the same bathroom - will often assume that means they are now “affiliated” with me and therefore my existence says something about their identity. They might decide to talk in a self-help group about how they were near someone like me (and rest assured that the cissexist hegemony that permeates pretty much every society in the world will mean that everyone will go “wow, that must have been awful”) or maybe they’ll just stamp on my throat until I stop moving.

Either way, I am forced to deal with the consequences of the words you say, and the circumstances that led to you saying them, whether I want to or not. And, trust me, I don’t want.