Julia Serano - Tumblr Posts
I don’t know about anyone else, but I, as a trans woman, do not know what it is to be a man. I know what it’s like to be surrounded by men, to be picked apart by them, to have masculinity enforced on me and to have my femininity degraded. I know what it’s like to be targeted for punishment, physically and sexually, for my femininity, for a girlhood the boys and men could see in me, to be queerbashed, to have my head slammed into hard surfaces, to have my genitals fondled, to be injured in all kinds of small and repetitive ways with things like pens, compasses, and so on.
I know what it’s like to be assumed to be a man, and to be abused because I am not. I know what it’s like to be separated from my female friends as a young child because my status as a ‘boy’ meant that I needed to be placed with the other boys, the ones who degraded me and hurt me. I know what it’s like to be beaten and burned. I know what it’s like to have teachers make an example of me because I cannot conform. I know what it’s like to be made afraid of being around other people, because people means abuse.
But I don’t know what it is to be a man. Even after everything they tried, I wasn’t one.