Transphobia is not

An account of how hatred hides in plain sight

Transphobia is not necessarily hate speech. It doesn’t come handily packaged in a hateful wrapping of insults or epithets. It’s not a single word, an obvious slur, an illicit quote.

It’s hearing the wrong pronouns as you walk away from a conversation.

It’s the end of the meeting, and the salutation, “Thanks, ladies,” when you’re not one.

It’s the recitation of all the transpeople who have come before you, a list of their deadnames spoken aloud, their former pronouns, how they presented, how it was “so obvious” (chuckle, smile).

Transphobia is not always obvious exclusion. Its repercussions are not overt to the casual observer, so easily dismissed with the internal reminder that, “I’m blowing this out of proportion,” or, “I’m just feeling sensitive.”

It’s the careless glance your way when the subject is women in the workplace because, well, they know you understand. (And you do.)

It’s the innate binary grouping of bodies in social spaces where you face literal cold shoulders.

And it is always minimized when the other person reminds you, “Oh, you know what I mean.”

Transphobia isn’t always visible graffiti or spitting on Pride parade attendees. It doesn’t always come on a spray-painted banner calling you a child groomer or pedophile.

It is othering.

It is the removal of little opportunities at work, like not being chosen to train the intern or not being invited to present in the staff meeting.

It’s being the token, the poster-person, the obvious reason why no one around you could possibly be transphobic since they hired you / work with you / read your email / stood in the elevator beside you.

Transphobia wears a nice sweater. Sometimes it buys you coffee so you can “catch up.”

And if they asks you about your plans for another surgery, or how things are going with those hormones, it’s only because deep down they care or they’re curious, and they’re never ever objectifying you. (Duh.)

In that one text, the one that said, “you go, girl,” it was just a slip-up. She knows better. But this is an adjustment. It takes time, after all.

Transphobia does not use its name out loud, because it knows it is “a bad thing.”

And after all, you were a loud tenant that one time, and this isn’t the sort of building for that type of behavior.

You job performance, however, has been lacking, as noted in this letter going into your employee file.

This is about who you are, not about how you identify. We’re not “that kind” of organization.

I did not think that transphobia would come for me.

I gave it every excuse it needed to take up residence. I blamed myself. I laughed off the evidence. It’s amazing how simple it is to find fault within myself and my actions when the gas lights flicker in the hall.

And now, after all this time, I can look back and see the trail of footprints it has left on the floor, where it got in, where I failed to call it out when I saw it (because I knew, I knew even then when I blamed myself, I knew).

You see that? How I still slip back into shame?

Because that’s what transphobia does best. It makes you the crazy one. It makes you the one who is overreacting. You are the one seeing things.

Transphobia doesn’t come exclusively from cisgender, heterosexual, non-queer folks.

Transphobia is hiding in between the L and the G and curled around the B and even inside the T and next to the Q and adjacent to the I and embedded in the A, and there is no math symbol at the end that erases its presence.

I never knew it was inside my heart, but I battle with it when I look in the mirror and say those things to myself that no one should ever hear. They’re cruel and hateful and impossible to unhear, and I cannot pretend them away.

And neither can you.

Transphobia might be sitting beside you. Maybe its at your table. Maybe it signs your name. Maybe it speaks with your voice.

Look.

Look it in the face and see it for what it is and what it is not.

And if your shame makes you feel fragile about what you have done to me, to my brothers, to my sisters, to my siblings, to my family, to the network of transgender people in this world we share, then imagine how fragile it feels to believe you are the crazy one for all the places transphobia has snuck in.

Imagine being told that it is not because you are transgender.

Because transphobia is not what you think.

Your trans friend,

Robin