Letter to a ‘cisgender’ (*your feeling of personal identity and gender is the same as birth sex)

original aquí.. en català https://directa.cat/carta-a-un-cisgenere/

The author addresses the ‘cisgenders’ (most people) to denounce that we judge trans people, mistreat them, exclude them or kill them and that we ‘always know what is right’. At the same time, , also in the way identities are lived.

illustration by / Roser Pineda

from La Directa by Ixeya Quesada @ ixacq99 Member of @ColorsdePonent translation by thefreeonline

This article is part of the series of opinion and analysis collaborations that ‘La Directa’ paper makes available to various spaces and social groups /

Eight in the morning. I look closely at the pills I slowly pulled out of the box. Seven tablets. Seven pills that in a few minutes, when I finish breakfast, I will take with the help of a glass of water. I think about how many people in this city take as many pills in the early hours of the morning as I do. Surely, at least my age, not many.

I do not have any chronic illness – although some retrograde sectors of society insist on saying I do – nor does my physical health depend strictly on these pills. I’m not a grandmother either ―in fact, I find I’m still quite young; I’m only 21 years old.

I am a trans person, and every morning I do what is supposed to be expected of me: take hormones, hoping that my physical characteristics will gradually become more and more like that of a cis person. Yes, take hormones. Taking hormones because it seems like our legitimacy as trans people grows exponentially depending on how long we’ve been taking them or, if we’re too young, how eager we are to do so.

I did not dare to openly announce to everyone that I was a trans person until I decided that I would ask for information about the hormonal process in the Catalan Health Care Service for trans people (also called Trànsit).

Until then, I didn’t look forward to it. And not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t feel legitimized enough to do so. How was I going to get out of the closet, how was I going to vindicate myself as a woman, if I didn’t intend to immediately begin a whole process of physical, mental, and social change that would radically alter almost every aspect of my life?

How could I have thought of doing such a thing? It would have been quite a sacrilege!

I would have shaken the social foundations of all those cis people around me. I would have put them in a compromise, I would have forced them to treat me differently ―with respect―, I would have altered their perception of me, I would have made them question all their gender prejudices, they would rethink the way how they see and identify the people they know and a whole host of assumptions that ultimately people tend to make about others.

What boldness mine would have had if I had done such a thing! It was hard enough for them, poor things, to respect me when I told them I wanted to start a hormonal process; imagine what they would have thought if I had told them I still didn’t want to take anything!

It is better not to disturb the placid “gender comfort” in which cis people live, often for their own safety, both physical and mental.

There is a time in this journey when we wonder why we are going through this whole process. For us? For others? To be able to live with a certain tranquility?

Frequently, the most successful answer is a mixture. It is clear that trans people, like everyone else, do not live apart from the material conditions around us, the socialization that is imposed on us or the privileges that we have or lose.

But, you know what? I’m a little tired of it. Tired of you judging us. Tired of you deciding for us, of showing that you know what suits us more or less, of telling us that we are wrong.

That you exclude us from spaces, that you advocate what we can and cannot be, that you treat us as sick, as sexual objects, as objects of study. That you mistreat us, that you assault us, that you kill us.

Tired of not understanding that we are people, that our experiences with gender are just as legitimate and valid as yours, that we are perfectly capable of seeing and deciding what we need.

Maybe it’s time to start accepting that you have no “gender authority” over us. That, even if it seems like a lie, we don’t owe you anything. We don’t want – or can’t – organize our lives based on what you find acceptable or unacceptable, what you tolerate or are uncomfortable with, what you like or prefer to avoid.

Maybe it’s time we were respected: that you respect our pronouns, our identities, and our experiences. That you understand that your attitudes and your cisnormative assumptions affect us day after day, condition us and undermine our health; and that it may be time for you to work a little harder to respect and let us be taken into account.

We are tired of facing your cisnormativity in absolutely every area of ​​our lives. We are exhausted from having to continually seek your approval — which often depends on our passing through , and having to endure, all the pressure that most of the time it entails to socialize with you.

This is why we often feel more secure in relating to other trans people: we establish bonds of support and friendship between us — and even sex-affective relationships — because it is much easier for us to understand how we feel and we know first hand everything we go through in our day to day lives.

I am writing these lines, then, to remind you that we are here and that we exist. We are diverse, like you, and we live our identities in different ways — again, like you.

Absolutely everyone grows up and is educated under the influence of this patriarchal and capitalist system that instills in us a whole series of “values”, gender stereotypes and canons from which it is obviously difficult to escape.

Nevertheless, it is also undeniable that today we have the necessary social and political tools to rethink the way we have been socialized.

It is time to free ourselves from all the patriarchal baggage we carry. You no longer have an excuse. Keep us in mind, because you tend to make us invisible. Listen to us, because you will learn something.

Respect us, because our lives are at stake.

original aquí.. en català https://directa.cat/carta-a-un-cisgenere/