you don’t have to be pretty to matter

bitterpunktrash:

But like, there’s something to be said here in the implicit connection between ‘prettiness’ and ‘passability’ that works its way even into cis people’s (esp cis women’s) ally behavior with trans women.

Like, whenever I get read and yelled at by dudes, it is almost always because the person was checking me out, clocked me, and got mad. Like, most of the threats of transphobic violence I’ve faced is due to having been seen as attractive, and ‘tricking’ the dude.

But when cis women try to be reassuring to me, both when they are present and when I talk about it later, it is almost always done with the refrain ‘you are beautiful’ or another appeal to my physical attractiveness. Beyond the fact that that’s basically the same perspective on trans women that objectified us generally, it doesn’t really get at the point.

I know I’m attractive to people, because men keep on street harassing me. I don’t need reassurance there. And really, it’s precisely because I’m ‘beautiful’ in a conventional sense that I am dealing with the difficulty that these cis women allies are comforting me from.

So for cis women, they think a dude clocking me and calling me an abomination or a tranny is upsetting to me because it’s him calling me ugly (because not passing=ugliness) and that I’m upset about being seen as ugly. But really, it’s because he doesn’t see that I’m a human, or is misgendering me and not respecting my autonomy or humanity. Which is a huge difference that can’t be papered over with ‘you’re so pretty’.