When Trans Joy Incites Cis Rage

We must nurture love within ourselves and our community

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I first encountered cis people who were angry about the existence of trans people (particularly trans women) on Tumblr. When I was active on the platform back in around 2009 — 2012, I was profoundly closeted but also outwardly supportive of Trans Rights. I was in college, and trans people and their struggles were introduced to me for the first time, outside of the lens of shock shows like Jerry Springer and Maury that heavily featured largely fabricated storylines of trans women tricking cisgender, heterosexual men. My understanding of transness, practically overnight, went from “My wife is a man!” narratives to, “Oh fuck, trans people are actual people.” Of course, I hadn’t come to terms with my own transness yet because I had only just met trans people in real life to whom I could directly relate my experience.

So it was early college, I was serving on the LGBT Student Association’s board as Vice President, and, for the first time, I had trans friends who I loved and wanted to see happy. And, worth mentioning, is that Tumblr discourse was an active part of my daily life. Naturally, I commented and posted frequently on how transphobic feminism was antithetical to feminist intersectionalism as I was beginning to understand it. This tendency got me featured on the pages of…