(I want to preface this by stating that my “peak trans moment” will probably sound very petty, but it is what it is.)

When I first signed up for okcupid, like the good libfem I was I was very open to the idea of potentially dating a trans woman, and would look at their profiles and interact with trans women like I would with any other woman whose profile I came across. I noticed that these trans women, however, were very obviously inexperienced in the realm of what sorts of poses/pictures/outfits/make-up were “flattering” for a person, and because of this for some inexplicable reason I felt resentment toward them. Although it was unfortunate, I had internalized at a very young age that my primary purpose and value as a human being was to look attractive or be perceived as attractive to men - and as such, I had painstakingly spent a large portion of my life caring about and trying to control my appearance, learning “rules” like “women shouldn’t have wrinkly foreheads in photos”, or “you should try to pose so that your stomach looks as thin as possible” or “you shouldn’t take a picture with your face at that angle, because it makes your face look fat.” I hated these rules, but they were a part of me - a part of most, if not all, women I knew. All of the women I knew at the time, like me, had this sort of internal dialogue constantly running in the background of their minds while in public… “have my bangs fallen out of place? do my thighs look large flattened out like this? do my arms look too fat? is my zit showing through? should I eat this, or should I avoid it because it’ll make me gain weight?”

And yeah, the fact that these trans women clearly never had to learn these rules - never had to live them for years and years and years on end, never had to spend large portions of their life focusing on or hating themselves because of how well they conformed to what “women are suppose to look like” - it kind of annoyed me.

So, fool-heartedly, I posted this grievance in a personal post on tumblr and as can be expected - I started getting a lovely series of violent threats. At this point, I had already spoken with and planned to meet up with a trans woman for a date, and several things this person said/did just further reinforced my confusion about trans women in general… the biggest red flag being that this person kept pressuring me into conversations about (and later, just pressuring me into having) sex in the exact same way that straight men had with me in the past… the more I got to know this person, the more it felt like there was nothing “woman” about them (to me, and I was just comparing this person to all of the women I knew at the time and all of the men I had had experiences with at the time). This person tried to present themselves as more emotional/more quick to cry than most men I knew, and they were not averse to wearing “women’s clothing”/eyeliner but other than that… personality-wise, I could not distinguish them from the men I knew.

In my confusion, I searched and searched for anyone else who felt that something was a bit off with the transgender movement/ideology… at first, to be honest, mostly for emotional support/validation, because by even questioning/resenting trans women for not being socialized as “cis” women, I had become the target of a lot of hatred… but yeah. Eventually I found this place. Glad to know I’m not alone.