When i first read that passage, i seriously wondered if somebody had reformatted a Halimede tweet. I don’t want to dunk on Serrano too much here, i’ve taken a lot of good input out of her works, but this is one of her takes that has aged poorly. Like, seriously, i am so fed up with that view of being trans. The one that always, always without fail, centers suffering and pain and misery, that can only frame our joy and our thriving in contrast to the damage that has been inflicted on us, the one that can never let the past rest.
I am not like this. And it’s beginning to become a problem.
You see, i like being in community with other trans people. I’m at home there, i’ve made friends there, found lovers there. It’s where i belong. As long as i stay within my own bubble. As soon as i step out of it, i immediately get bombarded with unsolicited trauma dumps, dysphoriaposts out of a 4chan hellhole and a trainload full of internalized transphobia. Everything is a trigger for me. I cannot safely navigate most trans spaces anymore because the people there just drag me down. I logged in yesterday after a long hiatus and looked into the trans megathread and the first thing i had to do was block a user for her unspoilered loathing of the trans existence. I don’t know how to handle this anymore. I used to be the kind of woman who writes big effortposts about self acceptance and how to figure yourself out and how to begin navigating systems of medical gatekeeping, but the further i go along in my own transition, the further i am removed from making these early experiences myself, the less i have it in me to unpack all that needs to be unpacked when baby trans yell their pain into the void.
And that’s eating at me. It makes me feel guilt, it makes me feel like a failure to my community. My second puberty feels as if i get to sit at the table with the pretty, cool and popular girls, giving fashion advice to the prom queen while i’m leaving the most vulnerable trans people out in the rain, the ones that would need my experience and my encouragement the most. But when i try to be there for them, i harm myself. I can’t say it otherwise, it is burning me out to expose myself to that kind of pain. It feels as if i’m walking backwards into a darkness i have escaped from. How do i deal with this? Do i retreat to my wonderland of privileged, happy women and girlthings or is there a way to move beyond the triggers and face the misery of others without becoming miserable myself? Because that’s what i would need if i wanted to keep helping my siblings.
Yeah, my own experience has been pretty much the same. After about a year on HRT I hit a point where I realized I’d actually hit the point where I was ok and it all stopped being this big scary painful thing that was all ahead and I was left with just normalcy while at the same time getting burned out by the constant trauma and drama of support-focused trans spaces, and nearly a decade on from there I’ve just progressively retreated further into more stable groups where everyone is mostly fine and away from the sort of chaotic drama of some trans spaces.
And I feel guilty about that too, even though I know that I couldn’t be of much help anymore because my perspective now is so profoundly alien to what a new transitioner faces and feels, and all the memories of those early years of fear and dysphoria and pain have faded away to the point that I can’t even draw on that experience for perspective anymore. Maybe that’s the sort of thing that just has to be left to people who are neck deep in it for one reason or another, either the more put-together people who are still early on and going through it themselves, or the long-term activists and professionals who stick around and remain experts instead of letting the knowledge fade with time.
The rest of can’t have an obligation to fill a role we can no longer fill. I was once on top of the most up-to-date transition resources and a font of information on all related topics for anyone who needed it, but I’ve since forgotten most of it and haven’t kept up with anything newer; I once thought I could bear the weight of everyone else’s trauma on my shoulders and be a beacon of optimism and conviction to support them, but I’ve long since burned out and hit the point where my mind shuts down and goes blank when confronted with someone who’s suffering. I feel guilty about that, I’ll probably always feel guilty about that, but what can I even do? Other people can do the job better and I know from experience that I just can’t endure it myself, so I’ve just moved on. We have a right to get on with our lives.