I am deeply perturbed by like, the idea that transness as a category is predicated on the oppression inherent in the cisheteropatriarchy and that transness would not "exist" in an "ideal world" because if transness was seen as a part of the natural variations of humanity, it would simply go unacknowledged because the only reason it's acknowledged is because we're seen as separate from cis men and women (going with a binary framing here because the initial idea doesn't acknowledge nonbinary genders, imo.)? Wow, fuck that was a run-on sentence. But yeah, anyway I just... I cannot quite put into words why that makes me feel so deeply upset and uncomfortable.

For whatever reason, my brain has tied this idea to two other avenues of thought/discussion that I've run into that bother me:

1) That I was "always" a boy and had simply been "misled" by society into believing that I was a girl.
2) That we must ensure that trans youth have access to HRT because then they'll "pass" better and no one will realize they're trans.

Is it because the ideas are assimilationist? The idea that if oppression didn't exist trans wouldn't even be acknowledged because it would be "no different" than just being a man or a woman (even though, inherently, being a man born with a uterus means you will have had different experiences than a cis man and vice versa). That we were all really our "true" gender from the moment we were born and therefore, it's wrong to mistreat us because we "can't help it" and that visibly trans bodies are the problem and not a society that treats "abnormal" bodies horrendously???

I think that may well be the crux of the thing. That feels like the thread binding these three thoughts together in my mind. That they all posit a world wherein the things that make me different/"abnormal" someday will not exist or that they shouldn't exist. That my traits, as a man born with a uterus and a vagina, shouldn't be acknowledged and that I am No Different from Any Cis Man -- which is hella assimilationist and entirely goes against the queer mindset -- I am different and not only is that okay and valid, it is good and beautiful and fuck you if you think I should hide that. That my existence, as a man who once was a girl, was not actually my existence and that gender is an immutable category of the soul rather than body (so it still falls into gender/sex as an immmutable category/binary just relying on a metaphysical or psychological definition rather than a "biological" one -- that one does not "change gender" but rather, always has been and always will be one thing.)... And that my existence, as a man with a vagina and breasts -- who wants only to have smaller breasts and enjoys having a curvy body and feels comfortable in it, should be prevented and that bodies like mine should not exist.

That in an ideal world, I wouldn't be the way that I am. I would be seen as "just a man" no modifiers, that I would have "always" been a man and that my body would be indistinguishable at a glance from a cis man's. That once again, in an ideal world, I would not exist.

Which explains why the third idea feels so similar to anti-fatness: that rather than fix a society where fat people are treated like shit and not accomodated, we should prevent children from becoming fat so that they won't be bullied. The individual solution to a systemic problem... That an ideal society, rather than accepting the variability of humanity and accomodating all body shapes and sizes, would contain only bodies that fit into a certain box. That an ideal world contains only ideal bodies. That each individual has the body that is deemed Correct instead of society coming to understand that there is no such thing as the "correct" body.

Okay. I think I figured it out. I think that's what it is. It's a frustration of people trying to erase me and the ways that I am "different" from what is "expected".

And like, I know with the second one, it is likely people misunderstanding what I am trying to say, but the effect is the same -- and I think it's probably a lot like how people raised Christian absolutely absorb Christian ways of viewing and interacting with the world and that even when they become Atheists or Pagans or convert to other religions, they frequently maintain those ways of interfacing with the world around them... Like how there are wiccans who will still look at the world with the saint/sinner dichotomy and the idea that there is some sort of eternal punishment for wrong-doing/reward for moral behavior but translate it into "white magic" and "black magic" and three-fold rule. People have absorbed the idea that gender is immutable. That you are born as specific gender and that is what you are -- but instead of applying it to the body like mainstream cisheteropatriarchy, they apply it to something that is intangible... Which allows them to 'accept' trans people changing their bodies because their body "doesn't match" what they really were all along... It's not tackling or dismantling the original mindset that gender/sex is immutable and unchangeable, no matter what. It's just moving the goalposts by which that is judged away from "these are your genitals, this is your gender, this has always been and will always be your gender" to "this is what you feel, this is your gender, this has always been and will always be your gender".

If I'm to be generous with the third, the people saying it likely don't realize this is a possible interpretation and that they're seeing the body/mind incongruence of gender issues as being the only source of issues for trans youth and that if we got rid of the barriers then all trans youth would be able to "fully" transition and then wouldn't be "clockable" as trans and thus, wouldn't face transphobia...But this is an incredibly individualized look at it (i.e., we can stop interpersonal transphobia by making sure that trans people look "correct" for their gender) that ignores that there are trans individuals who would have no interest in being "indistinguishable" from cis people and would actually do nothing to address interpersonal transphobia levied at those individuals. Pushing for all trans people to have perfectly cis passing bodies doesn't actually help all trans people and certainly wouldn't actually destroy systemic transphobia because it focuses on making sure that trans bodies aren't identifiable.

The first one... I don't...I'm not sure how to actually deconstruct it because I cannot understand how, in an ideal world, transness "wouldn't exist" at all. As if somehow, in an ideal world with no transphobia, people would all intuit from birth what the Right Gender is for them, that they wouldn't have any shared experiences with being born into the body of a man with a vagina as opposed to a man with a penis, that there would be no one who realizes at a Later Age that they are trans and that transness would be binary and that there would be no one who lies betwixt or beyond man and woman.

Or they just... have a very medicalist view of being trans and don't actually understand that no, cost and safety aren't the only reasons a trans man might choose to keep his vagina and not have a dick. Here I am, trying to figure out all this shit and in reality, they've mostly interacted with transmeds, it would seem.

Still, I guess it's worth it for helping me figure out why those other two things make me so deeply uncomfortable and upset.