I have feelings about this, hopefully my venting can explain why this expectation pisses people off. Explaining this shit can be exhausting and just existing as someone who’s trans leads to deeply probing questions both about trans people at large and also you specifically. Depending on context, they can be harmless or even supportive in intent. But too often they lead to more icky questioning, disparaging remarks, threats, abandonment, and… so on. Even in harmless cases it’s fucking traumatic. I do have some cis friends who ask me completely appropriate questions, but I trust them because they’re respectful of my boundaries. Most aren’t.
yes, taking the time to level with people, educate, etc is a good ideal, but speaking from experience it’s not something everyone can be expected to do right off the bat. The consequences of attempting to do so and receiving abuse in return can be too close to deep psychological wounds that require time to heal.
do consider there’s less of us in general too. and explaining parts of the trans experience take walls of text like this one lol. In an ocean of bullshit, we can only do so much to bail ourselves out. We need help, or at the least, we need some baseline levels of empathy and respect from the people we’re trying to educate. Or at the absolute least try not to blame us when we’re grumpy or skittish about it.
I have feelings about this, hopefully my venting can explain why this expectation pisses people off. Explaining this shit can be exhausting and just existing as someone who’s trans leads to deeply probing questions both about trans people at large and also you specifically. Depending on context, they can be harmless or even supportive in intent. But too often they lead to more icky questioning, disparaging remarks, threats, abandonment, and… so on. Even in harmless cases it’s fucking traumatic. I do have some cis friends who ask me completely appropriate questions, but I trust them because they’re respectful of my boundaries. Most aren’t.
yes, taking the time to level with people, educate, etc is a good ideal, but speaking from experience it’s not something everyone can be expected to do right off the bat. The consequences of attempting to do so and receiving abuse in return can be too close to deep psychological wounds that require time to heal.
do consider there’s less of us in general too. and explaining parts of the trans experience take walls of text like this one lol. In an ocean of bullshit, we can only do so much to bail ourselves out. We need help, or at the least, we need some baseline levels of empathy and respect from the people we’re trying to educate. Or at the absolute least try not to blame us when we’re grumpy or skittish about it.