I am not yours to claim.

http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=3310
http://takingsteps.blogspot.com/2006/09/on-cartography-and-dissection.html

(Two blogs that inspired me to write this. Also some of the same ideas come from there.)

Cis people make the rules.

Cis people decide what definitions we use to call ourselves. Take for example the metaphor of someone being "trapped in the wrong body" that metaphor was used in order for us to explain to our cis brothers and sisters in a way that THEY would understand. I'm equally guilty of using this when I first came out to my dad and my friends. The problem is that that metaphor makes it seem like there is something fundamentally wrong with our bodies and/or that it is someone else's completely. While it maybe true that for a lot of transwomyn and transmen that their bodies don't fit who they, that does not mean that they are "wrong" in anyway. We change them in order to feel more comfortable with who we are, we are not FIXING them, changing them yes, but that isn't the same thing as fixing them. The definitions that cis society puts on our bodies are wrong.

Cisgender individuals decide from the very beginning who we are in terms of gender. We come out of the womb and the doctors declare "Its a boy" or "Its a girl" depending on what we have between our legs. From then on we are expected to act like what cis society has determined for us. For a young girl who is trans (ie a transwoman) she is given to the boys and they are told "do with her what you will/make a MAN out of this/do what you have to do, its only natural if she screams." Any cis girl put in that situation people would freak out and want to throw the bastard in prison, but when the child is trans, that is what is to be expected and even the right thing to do.

Trans people have no agency to combat this. A lot of the time that little girl has no support, even from family, and so she faces these horrors alone with no one to help her. Even if the girl is lucky enough to have supportive parents and families, she still faces a world that may not respect that. A school refuses her access to the girls bathroom, because the cisgirls freak out and they never take into consideration that if that little girl walks into the boys bathroom dressed as she wants to be that she risks getting harassed and even beaten up by the boys in there. Our voices are never taken into consideration about anything.

We are the monsters of society and like any good monster, we aren't the main point of the story, but just a plot point. We are the thing that a "real" person, i.e. a cisgender person, discovers like and an explorer "discovering" some new country. Well, I've go news for ya, I was already here. I am not yours to discover and I am not yours to claim. You have no right to treat me as if I am some knew found discovery because I am not. I was already here damnit! And this is my life, my world, my reality and you have no right to make claims on it!

We are the monsters that stand between the heroes and heroines and glory. No one ever thinks to stop and ask the monster in stories how they were feeling or why they are doing the things that they do, to do so would be taboo. Maybe the monster would was put into a situation in society where they had to do what they did to survive, but no, no one cares about that. Maybe the monster was that way because society treated them so badly that they felt like they had no other choice. Or maybe, just maybe, that supposed monster wasn't actually a monster, but just a misunderstood being who happened to be different. No one stops to ask that question, its only afterwards that that people realize that.

Feminists have often said in defense of Roe V Wade that the government should keep their laws off their bodies. In that same light I think its time for cisgender people keep their labels, their claims, their ideas, OFF our bodies. We are not yours to claim and how about instead of labeling us you have a discussion with us about who we are and how we identify? Take all your cisnormative/ciscentric assumptions and throw them out the window, because you know what? I'm not the one who is wrong your assumptions and labels are.

Until this happens, I will be the thing that goes bump in the night for a lot of people. I will be the angry transwoman who is often called a bitch. I will wear that label with fucking pride because I am not the one in the wrong here. Cause when society backs you into a corner, you have two options either crumble and let society beat you or come out fighting and right now to quote Julia Serano "I'm just desperate enough to come out fighting!"