Dear Cis People

Read the rules before submitting please!

'Dear Cis People' is a place for trans people to send an anonymous message to the cis population as a whole. It is meant to be a means of opening a communication line from people who are often silenced, either inadvertently or otherwise. Submit whatever you want, but while honest anger will come through, a small amount of discretion for certain things has been given to the admin. Control has been handed over to Amy, an LGBT activist and trans woman. All messages are anonymous.

Rules:

I can only do so much. I am my own editor. Posts go up when they go up, I will try to update several times a day.

If I screw something up, if something goes up that violates these rules, or if these rules need to be edited, send me a message. I'll try and be as accommodating as I can without invalidating other's anger.

I can appreciate that there are a lot of questions about where you fit, what the trans community thinks is appropriate, etc. Please ask your questions at the Ask a Trans* Woman, or at Ask a Trans Guy blogs. This is a space for venting. Thanks for understanding! (I'll still answer if you write me here but try to write on AATW please!)

I will not censor any content. This is a place to vent. This has restrictions, however: racism will not get posted. Apologizing for anger and invalidating others will not be posted. Throwing your brothers, sisters, and other siblings under the bus will not be posted.

Names won't be posted. Every post will be anonymous.

The format of Dear Cis People is somewhat limited. To limit characters to what I can reasonably post without messing up the format too much, it is ask only, please do not spread messages across two asks.

I will not post death threats or threats of inflicting pain/torture.

I will not post rape threats.

This is about trans issues. If your post is about non-trans stuff I'm not going to post it.

starlingsongs:

starlingsongs:
Of all the things I keep trying to tell cis people, “don’t presume your child’s gender” is the one that they consistently, deliberately refuse to understand and it is so deeply telling.
You cannot truly understand the transgender experience, and cannot count yourself an ally, until you accept that the trauma of being transgender is not inherent, it is a product of being coerced into thinking that you had absolutely no choice but to be the gender you were assigned.
Not “born with”, not “biologically”, the gender you were assigned.
The problem is assignment. The problem is doctors and parents believing it is their place to dictate their child’s gender, starting before they can even conceptualize what a gender is, let alone have the mental development necessary to object to what they’re given. This defines a child’s entire life, cuts short countless possibilities. It etches itself into the fabric of our developing minds and it is a ticking psychological time bomb for those children who are given a gender assignment that they cannot or do not wish to live with. This culture of dictated identity must end if transgender people are ever to be regarding as whole and equal members of society.
yes you can reblog this

Moderator wanted.

Requirements:

An hour a week to dedicate to the queue we’ll be starting.
A thick skin, we get a fair amount of hate.
An ability to distinguish between trolling and genuine questions.
An ability to write well.

If you want to be a moderator, send me a well thought out response to this question (At least 300 words, but under 400 words, if it’s 401 don’t bother submitting it, this is my baby and I take this very seriously):

Why is it/isn’t it transphobic if a cis woman doesn’t want to date trans women?

bringmacback:

This is my dear friend Kane and their daughter Mackenzie. Mackenzie is 13 and awesome. She’s a talented manga artist, a self-proclaimed “quirky geek”, reads years above grade level, and wants to rescue abandoned pitbulls when she grows up. Kane is a graduate student, an environmental justice advocate, genderqueer, and grew up working class in a tiny Midwest town. Whenever they’re together, Kane and Mackenzie love to hike, kayak, work on crafts projects, read, read, read, talk about everything, and share an inexplicable fondness for tie-dye. Mackenzie calls Kane “Dad” and patiently explains the use of “they” as a gender-neutral pronoun to friends and family.

All of this, despite the fact that in 2006 a court decided someone who “doesn’t even know what gender they are” wasn’t fit to parent a child — and removed then 5yo Mackenzie from the only parent she’d ever known, awarding guardianship to disapproving elderly conservative Christian relatives who have done as little as possible to support Kane and Mackenzie’s reunification. Kane’s struggle to regain custody has been ongoing for nearly 8 years now, with many twists and turns and hopes and disappointments along the way.

The aging ex-military couple assigned as Mackenzie’s guardians have strong opinions about “appropriate parents.” Often, they have failed to honor agreed-upon visitations and sometimes actively sabotaged Kane’s efforts to communicate with their daughter. They routinely criticize, mock, and misgender Mackenzie’s dad to her face — a major source of stress for a sensitive young person who loves her parent and deeply respects their life choices. They have been known to throw away clothing and gifts from Kane, forbid Mackenzie from befriending other children with queer parents, and heavily police Mackenzie’s own gender expression for fear of her “turning out like her mother[sic].”

Nevertheless, Kane and Mackenzie have managed to maintain a close, loving, respectful, and supportive relationship through the years. Meanwhile, by working numerous jobs and acquiring scholarships, grants, and loans, Kane has put themself through graduate school and made a stable, supportive, loving home for their daughter. Now that Mackenzie is 13 and has more say about where she wants to live, and given increasingly concerning information about her current living situation, Mackenzie and Kane have decided it’s time to push for full custody.

The hope is that bigoted attitudes in the state will have shifted over the past near-decade, but regaining custody will still be a difficult battle. They need to raise a minimum of $5000 to cover legal fees and relocation costs before they can move forward. They are very close to reaching their first milestone of $2000, which will allow them to retain the lawyer who has agreed to take the case.
But they need more help to get Mackenzie home. If there’s anything you can offer to help bring this incredible family back together, it would mean a great deal. No donation is too small to make a difference. You can send donations to Kane directly via Paypal at atransdad@gmail.com or contact this blog privately for the link to the family’s GoFundMe page. (For the sake of Mackenzie’s privacy, we decided not to share that link on Tumblr, since it uses her legal name.)

If you can signalboost this post to your friends, that’s a great help, too. Thank you!

ETA: For those who have expressed concern, here’s some more info about donation options and our effort to keep the Tumblr side of things pseudonymous. Thank you so much for all your support. ♥

Dear Cis People:

whenever I try to explain that gender is forced upon people at birth, stop saying it’s “given, not forced”. I didn’t want to be ‘given’ a gender at birth. I didn’t want to be raised as a certain gender. I was /forced/ to wear clothing of my assigned gender, and /forced/ to behave and act as my assigned gender. But the only reason I didn’t see this as force at the time is because I didn’t know any better. This is all I had been taught. Stop normalising gender assignment.