Personal Essay
Dearest Kind Cis Ally
If I say something really obnoxious about cis people to you…
Note: This is not inspired by any interaction in particular. I just wanted to share, in case this ever comes up.
If I ever say something really obnoxious about cis people to you, please take this as a compliment, even if I seem rather feisty.
If I was upset with you personally, or felt that you were a lousy ally, I promise I wouldn’t be interacting with you here. I probably would avoid you as much as possible, wherever we were.
Widespread fame has not yet allowed me to earn a living wage on this website, though any day now, I just know it’s going to happen. That said, I am officially a professional writer, elected by the great people of the Medium to be an author worth paying to read. This means that I’m a professional of sorts, so I try to use decorum, even when venting.
I’m a professional venter.
What is a professional venter, you ask? This is a complainer who provides a noble service, one worthy of payment and respect. I say things that I know I’m not alone in feeling. I say them so that someone else reads my complaint and thinks, “That’s exactly what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t quite put it into words yet!”
I complain to help other complainers complain more effectively.
I complain to help other complainers complain more effectively.
When I read your post, I felt safe to whine a little about cis people.
I felt so safe that I believed that other trans people who follow me might see your post and feel safe relating to my complaint in the comments section and perhaps complaining themselves.
It’s not that our lives are terrible. At least, I hope that’s not the case. It’s that there are certain things we’ve all experienced that we don’t feel quite heard about.
You, wonderful cis ally, have written something so kind that we believe you might hear us, see us, and agree that cis people can be pretty difficult to deal with sometimes.
If I didn’t believe you were kind and safe, I wouldn’t draw attention to your post, encouraging trans people to pay you by sharing their experiences with you.
Perhaps you have done the very thing I’ve complained about, and I don’t know it.
It happens. We’re all human. We make mistakes. I certainly make mistakes as frequently as possible in order to learn efficiently.
I freely grant you permission not to confess right now that you’ve been that exact cis person I’m talking about.
Perhaps sit with the realization that whatever you did would have felt a bit crumby for me, if I had known you had done this. If it would feel icky for me, it might feel kind of lousy for someone else, too.
If you get to a point where you understand how that could happen, and have decided you’re going to stop doing the crumby thing, please feel free to respond to my complaint by saying, “I can see how that would stink like an unrefrigerated trout left by someone in your ceiling vent for six months. I hate that that happened to you. Thanks for sharing! I will formally register your complaint with the Cis Council. We will review your submission and get back to you with a list of improvements that we intend to enact going forward.”
“I can see how that would stink like an unrefrigerated trout left by someone in your ceiling vent for six months. I hate that that happened to you. Thanks for sharing! I will formally register your complaint with the Cis Council.”
These, Dear Ally, are the sorts of supportive words that no book will ever tell you to say to my people, but they would mean the world to me to hear.
Also, I will appreciate your acknowledgment that there was a secret Cis Council that we’ve never been invited to, and you never told us about it despite calling yourself our ally.
I knew it! How dare you! I feel deceived!
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