With the current level of hatred and politics being forced on anyone that is trans, my wife and I feel very under siege.
I’m a transgender man, so I fly under the radar, but my wife is a gorgeous 6’2″ and visibly trans. She’s 51, but looks 20 years younger than that. She can’t pass or hide being transgender, nor does she really want to. She’s happy with herself, and that really should be all that matters.
Yet, at IKEA last Saturday, my wife used the bathroom, and some boomer aged Karen sidled up to my wife at the sinks, and literally stared at my wife’s crotch until boomer Karen realized my wife was paused in her hand washing and staring right back at her.
In the car, some dude in a truck was staring at her boobs, and kept moving his truck forward to star at her with his jaw wide open.
On the way home from work today, she stopped by her favorite pot shop. There is a gender nonconforming clerk there that has great clothing and nail polish. I don’t know if the clerk is a transgender woman or just gender nonconforming. We politely smile and focus on business because you know how it is.
My wife was being rung up out by the clerk, when some dude holding a toddler entered the pot shop and literally stared at my wife.
He turned to the employee, got flustered, and asked “Is there another staff on duty?!” when the employee helping my wife said yes, he said, “Send him out to my car!” and aggressively stalked off.
An employee went out, talked to him, and he left. His car had one of those racist dog-whistle Gadsden Flags on it. Here’s an article on its shifting meaning these days.
I guess bringing a toddler to a pot shop is okay, you know, as long as none of us trans folks are in there.
It’s just so insane. My wife can literally go nowhere without these things happening now, and we live in Western Washington! Bluer than blue politically, and filled with a lot of generally fantastic people.
The people attacking transgender people also appear to be the kind of people that “aren’t racist”, heavy on the quotation marks, and have issues with gender rolls and probably women. The Venn diagram seems to skew into a circle on those topics.
I have always maintained that these folks have some sort of hopped up in-group out-group psychology, and genuinely like attacking others that are not a part of their in-group. It’s a hobby, a pastime, and they just don’t care. If it wasn’t us, it would be someone else. They are an attack looking for a target.
It’s just a little scary that right now me and my loved ones are that target.
Garden Rat 