It seems like we are always coming out. When we first came out most of us thought that once we were out that we were out but we eventually realize that it is never ending.
And then when we do integrate into society that creates its own problems.
I get a lot of flack because I wear a tee, jeans, and sneakers and no makeup.
But when you look around the supermarket or the mall how many women do you see in heels and a dress?
I want to assimilate and not stand out but that is what happens when you are dressed to the “nines” people look at you because think they wounder why you are dressed that way. Also it is damn uncomfortable to be in heels and pantyhose all day, when I have to go to the Legislative Office Building for a meeting I dress in business clothes, slacks and blouse with low heel pumps and I can’t wait to get back into jeans and sneakers.
What it all boils down to is I don’t care what they think, I don’t care if I assimilate what I really care about is how they treat me.
Why I Shouldn’t Have To Come Out Again (And Again) In 2020My thoughts are that you have to come out on a need-to-know basis, there are less reasons to come out if you’re lesbian or gay but if you are trans we come out a lot more times and we have a paper trail to prove it. When you check your credit report we have a AKA with our deadname. When we go for a job interview we have to worry if former employers or schools have updated their record. When lesbian or gay use the phone they don’t have to “out” themselves.
Refinery29
By Rosie Mulford
2 January 2020
Coming out. It’s one of the most nerve-wracking experiences any member of the LGBTQ+ community will go through, and it’s a big deal - people toy with when and how for days, months or even years. But, unfortunately, no-one gets to come out just once. And honestly? It. Never. Stops. Not only is it tedious, but it’s downright frustrating. No, I don’t have a boyfriend. No, I don’t mean a girl who’s a friend. No, I will not discuss how lesbians have sex. And repeat, for eternity.
Everyone in the queer community experiences it (side note: I’m talking about sexuality here, not gender, which is a whole other kettle of fish that I don’t have the life experience to comment on); the somewhat innocent questions, the probing inquiries into sex lives and the inevitable, “so when did you come out?”. Well, when I was 15, but also three seconds ago to you, last week at the doctor’s, three months ago when I started a new job and on average, a couple of times a week since I was 15.
But why? Why should we have to either put up with a barrage of questions into the intricacies of our big queer lives or feel awkward about brushing off these questions when we just really don’t feel like talking about it? Some people don’t mind coming out of a million closets; some people are loud and proud, some people think it’s nobody’s business, and some of us are just sick of having to comfort straight people through the process of discovering we’re gay.
And then when we do integrate into society that creates its own problems.
The Assimilationist, or: On the unexpected cost of passing as a trans womanBingo!
The trouble with finding my true self in the beauty aisles.
Vox
By Emily Todd VanDerWerff
February 19, 2020
[…]
The best way to describe an assimilationist is to describe myself, so here’s what I’m wearing right now, on a chilly California day at the start of the year: My hair (on which I use somewhat expensive lightening shampoo to coax it toward a dirty blonde) hangs just past my chin. On my nose sit round-framed blue glasses ($500). I’m wearing a full face of makeup (my first visit to Sephora ran me $250, good fucking God), and I have on a pink sweater, a gray undershirt, black tights, and a ruffled black skirt (around $120, all told, mostly from Target). Cap this off with some dark purple running shoes ($75) and you’ve got the whole look.
That’s precisely the point of the assimilationist claim: As trans people, we’re supposed to complicate the gender binary, not uphold it. By trying my damnedest not to stand out but to blend in — to tilt whatever little equation you run in your head when you see me away from “man” and toward “woman” — I’m propagating a system that hurts both trans people and women disproportionately, via everything from broad, systemic violence to the relatively minor sin of the pink tax.
I get a lot of flack because I wear a tee, jeans, and sneakers and no makeup.
But when you look around the supermarket or the mall how many women do you see in heels and a dress?
I want to assimilate and not stand out but that is what happens when you are dressed to the “nines” people look at you because think they wounder why you are dressed that way. Also it is damn uncomfortable to be in heels and pantyhose all day, when I have to go to the Legislative Office Building for a meeting I dress in business clothes, slacks and blouse with low heel pumps and I can’t wait to get back into jeans and sneakers.
What it all boils down to is I don’t care what they think, I don’t care if I assimilate what I really care about is how they treat me.
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