Disconnect

Disconnect

TW: transphobia, bathroom stress, dysphoria, mental illness, mentions of slurs, homophobia, offensive jokes, mentions of anxiety

I hear a lot about trans people in the circles I'm in online. Generally in a positive way, because I try to block/scream at whoever is rude.

But...

I feel disconnected. 

"We have to fight for trans bathroom rights," feels like something I'd be viewing as an ally. Even though I'm not.

I don't think so, anyway. I see all of this and think 'yeah, that's a thing.' Even though I know it should feel deeply personal, I just get angry on behalf of other people. 

I'm just here. I'm just a person and I'm just watching. A lot of the time I feel like my mind is either a little bit too big or too small for my body. I don't know if my antidepressants or stimulants are either too high or too low. Maybe. Or it could also be dysphoria. 

Dysphoria I'm aware of usually expresses itself with a tingling or pressure in my ribs. It's an explicit feeling of wrongness. It doesn't usually cause me major anxiety attacks. It's just... there. A lot of things are just there.

I'm just here. And maybe just is the wrong word because I'm also strong and smart and creative. But at the same time, I will always be just me.

I'm lucky enough that my school's got a bathroom for whoever. It's not labeled or anything. But there's also only one and I get that there's more traffic in the gendered ones but I'm tired of having to make that trek every time I just need to pee.

And I'm going to this place with a bunch of classmates and apparently there's something cool in the girl's bathroom. And I don't know how to say I just can't go in there. Especially when they were just wondering if they could go into the guy's one to see if there was something there too.

But that would be weird, right.

This feeling is 'just' finding this really cool old poster for a comic and seeing the q slur all of a sudden.

And not in a reclaiming way, which I don't feel completely chill with but at least there's a point. It's just there. It's 'just' a bathroom. 'Just' a joke. And if I live my life in the 'just' heres, then what am I? Because it's never just anything.

Nothing is ever as easy as it looks. It's so easy to look at me and say I'm fine. But I'm not. This isn't fine. Nobody should ever act like any of this is okay. 

Maybe bathroom rights are something to fight for. I'm sure plenty of binary trans kids desperately need to be allowed into the correct bathroom and they DO. Nobody's disputing that. But allowing trans people into the right bathroom isn't the solution. It's temporary. Everything is temporary. The entire idea of a boy and girl restroom is bullshit.

And I don't mean create a third bathroom for "transgenders," because that's just ridiculous and the equivalent of saying binary transpeople aren't really their gender. So if you misinterpret this as that, then fuck you.

The entire idea of two bathrooms is bullshit but that only happened because the idea of two genders that were oh so different. Which isn't true. There's no such thing as being "not like other girls" because by virtue of stating that, you've become exactly like everyone else.

Tear the fucking bathroom signs down.

Tear the fucking binary system down.

Because sometimes small changes don't work. Sometimes being only liberal enough for the 'normal' quote, end quote, people to respect us isn't enough.

The disconnect I feel is because I know how people SHOULD act. I'm not your girl. I'm not anyone's girl. And because I think you like me doesn't mean I have to like you back. Because I'm disconnected from all of this and maybe just absentmindedly tearing everything down is even better.

And I don't even know if there's a point to this-- to any of it. There's a lot of "but" and "and" and "because." 

I don't know who I am but I know one thing.

I'm pissed. I'm tired. No, I'm FUCKING EXHAUSTED. Because it's not funny to laugh at someone in the middle of an anxiety attack and because it's not funny to poke me until I have one. I'm more than just some joke.

What do you want me to say? That I'm okay with gay jokes that border on bullshit yet also have the same "hah it's okay gay people are chill" disclaimers. If I fucking scream the way I want to, I'm overreacting. If I don't say something, I'm telling people it's okay.

So what? So what?! I just act like I'm not there and I disconnect. I run away and hide in the shadow of myself.

I'm not okay with accidentally scrolling down into the comments of a YouTube video while looking for more and seeing "ew, the gay people."

Yes, I know. Don't read the comments. Which is bullshit, victim blaming, and takes responsibility off of YouTube for not just putting in a fucking MODERATION SYSTEM.

It's. Not. That. Hard.

Freedom of speech has limits. You can't grab a microphone and shove a public speaker off the stage, then expect people to listen to you.

If that happens, you're probably an asshole with no respect for listening.

With all this in reality, is it really a surprise I'd rather live in my head? I'd rather pretend to be a character who has the ability to talk circles around assholes in real life. They. Aren't. Real. I can write well enough, but the moment I try to yell, I get too pissed or too sad or both. So I just don't speak.

Head!Me can spend many hours taking down assholes and talking them into supporting their opinions. But I'm not them.

So I'll just keep rambling on about stupid, stupid, garbage.

That was a metaphor.

For assholes. They're the garbage.

Mod Dove