The Silence of Our Friends
Transition was medical trauma for me, and it was medical trauma for a lot of people that I have become friends with.
Listening to other people's positive experiences with transition feels similar to listening to someone who is currently dating someone who once abused you.
You want to believe that it could be different for them. You want to be happy that the people you care about seem to be enjoying themselves.
But you also feel like you have a duty to warn them. And you can't, really, because the abuse you endured was between you and that person, and everyone else is brushing you off because, well, they seem like such a nice person, no one else is complaining, and look how happy they are!
So instead, you get to sound like an intolerant asshole who won't just leave things be, while society gaslights you into believing the abuse you endured was your own fault and your friends accuse you of being radicalized.
And you get to hold your breath and just wait to find out if those people are going to be hurt in the same way you were.
I could never have predicted how many "friends" would brush me off when talking about what is objectively the worst thing that has ever happened to me. And I desperately tried to temper my anger and grief over literally having lost body parts and the natural functions of a woman that I should still have so that I could sound as reasonable as possible.
How many trauma survivors are expected to calm all of their emotions and be logical in order to be taken seriously?
This is fucked.
If the scale of this medical scandal ever comes to light the way I think it will, I will never forget who gave me the space to try and understand where I was coming from and who called me a transphobic bitch.
Never.