**** YOU!! Five Love Letters to Five Hateful People
Their sun will most definitely not come out tomorrow.
Welcome to Dear Cisters, the column that’s more like Dear Abby than the Savage Lovecast. I’m your host Stephenie Magister, transgender writer/nerd/editor for award-winning and best-selling books.
Today, I just want to offer a big **** YOU to anyone who self-soothes their feelings of confusion and discomfort by harming queer people. Now before you get out your pitchfork, this includes all of us who do all sorts of things thinking we’re helping queer people (no, really!!), only to ignore the true and harmful impact of those actions.
Here are five love letters to five hateful people.
1. What if I just hate how men look in dresses?
DEAR CISTERS,
What if you have zero issue with men wearing traditionally women’s clothing but don’t find that it’s flattering or attractive on them?
Nobody actually goes, “Wow that dude looks smoking hot in a dress” (as far as I can tell). It is as if the magazines and media expect that everyone should be praised for any choice regardless of the aesthetic appeal.
2. What’s the big deal about calling them trans women?
DEAR CISTERS,
I really don’t care about any of this. It has nothing to do with me. It doesn’t affect me. It doesn’t affect anyone I know. Nevertheless, I want to give my opinion on whether transwomen are women.
3. Why did a trans person block me when I just wanted to discuss their rights and safety?
Trans people will need to continue living without equal rights. It isn’t fair to ask anyone else to have less just so that we can all be equal.
4. How do I get past whether my kid can stop being trans?
They say life would be easier for ME, but what they really mean is life would be easier for THEM. Life is so hard for THEM because I’m trans. Life is so hard for THEM because of something *I* didn’t get a choice in, either. Life is so hard for THEM simply because I exist.
5. Why do trans people get upset about the wrong things?
I am glad I do not allow someone to upset me with their views merely because they are rich and famous. Or, and I know this is a bad word now, especially whether they are a man.
BEFORE YOU GO TO THE COMMENTS!!!!!!
Here’s a second lovely collection of letters devoted to JK Rowling stans.
I’m not sure if you even care about acknowledging the harmful impact JK Rowling’s actions have toward people with trans experiences (if you’re reading this sentence, you now know they do), but even if you don’t!
I mention it because that article also includes a bunch of likely responses and boundaries you’ll probably receive. Well, if you’re among JK Rowling and Ben Shapiro stans. Or people who love love love to JAQ off in public. I’m not here for those kinds of conversations.
These boundaries are not an invitation for you to figure out how to provoke me or even politely invite me into the discussion you might want to have.
Boundaries, after all, are not what we beg for from our abusers until they decide we’re worthy. They are a gift that needs no one’s permission but our own.
It’s not that this life owes us anything. It’s that we owe it to ourselves.
THE END (DAMN GIRL, THAT’S DARK)
Hi, it’s Stephenie!
Believe it or not, I do this for a living.
If any of my content brings you a moment of comfort, hope, and confidence, consider all these different ways to practice Good Patronage.
FREE PATRONAGE: Hold that CLAP button until you’ve given as many claps as you can (the max is 50 per person). Subscribe to me and your other favorite authors. Click that Newsletter icon so you get notified every time I publish something new (I hope you like a lot of content muahahahahahahahaha).
PAID PATRONAGE: If you sign up for a subscription at Medium and/or Audible, you help support me providing more content like this.
