Being trans when it comes to politics is like when you’re a kid and all the adults are talking about you above your head and you can’t chime in because you’re too small even though they’re getting everything wrong

Written October 2022

Notes: I wrote this while at a weekend-long event, in which I felt very out of place and different due to being the only trans person there, despite the fact that people weren't purposefully othering me

I have a pin I got from an Etsy shop that reads “TRANS PEOPLE CAN'T BE DEBATED OUT OF EXISTENCE” (the shop is called Raz Nasty, I highly recommend that you go support his art!) And I've been thinking about it a lot.
Over the past years, we've seen an uprising in debate and discussion over the mere existence of trans people. British media has been front-paged as the main offenders of this, and it's really a problem in many nations– though especially the US and Britain. I live in the US and am constantly frustrated while I helplessly watch these politicians and news anchors and “experts” absolutely pummel their strawman of what a trans person is, what a trans person looks like, what a trans person thinks– without ever actually consulting a real-life transgender living breathing human person. They don't see us as worthy of having a voice in the conversation, to them we're just a weird little dog that the family is trying to decide if they want to keep– and oftentimes they decide that they would rather kill the dog for being a dog.
Maybe that's a bad metaphor.
Nonetheless, my point is just that being trans is exhausting. Being constantly misunderstood and misrepresented and persecuted and fearful is extremely tiring. To say the least.

That's not really what this rant was meant to be about, though. As difficult as the trans experience in general can be, I really just wanna talk about my personal experiences right now.

To me, there's something about the pressure; when I realized that everyone in that room must think of me only as “the trans kid”, I almost thought I would be sick with the weight of it. I can imagine it clearly, being in their shoes as they speak politely to me, trying hard to decipher a way to think of me as simple and normal. A way to shrink me down and not have to think too hard about the whole thing. And I almost wish there was a way to do so, I wish I could be reduced to nothing but an awkward-boy character, flat and one-dimensional, simple and easy to understand.
But, I'm not. I'm fully-realized, half-baked, I'm an awkward-boy with thousands of complexities, I'm a person too big for my body.
They've known me since birth, baptized wholly and unknowingly into the church of my forgiving parents, and I'm wanted there my full life. I'm still their child. Too big for my body.

They want to treat me well,
They want me to be treated well,
But I'm never heard. How should they know what I need?