Default

if we remove ourselves and our emotions from the world and survey it as if we are objective, it is clear that a majority of humans are cisgender. why, then, does it hurt to be told that cis is the default?

a majority should not imply a default. the existence of a default creates inequity and systems of oppression.

I live my life every day knowing that almost everyone who sees me thinks I'm something I'm not and I can't do anything about it.

and I am overly sensitive in isolated incidents. and if I am overly sensitive in isolated incidents, it is because these incidents are never isolated for me. I am constantly at war with the ways in which I am perceived by others, and not caring is not an option because I have chosen a profession where the ways in which I am seen by others is crucial to my success. so yes, it does hurt more than it should when someone I've just met genders me "woman," because to me that is symptomatic of society's inability to accept me. and if society doesn't accept me, then does it matter whether I continue to create art? if I'm going to be unhappy no matter what, why not stop pretending otherwise?

I turn the pain inward. I tell myself it's my job to educate them, because otherwise they will keep hurting my trans siblings. otherwise nothing will change. I am tired of being expected to be the agent of change. I am tired of everything being taken from me until I no longer know who I am because I've given all of me away. I am tired of cis people telling me that this is how the world is, and while they don't agree with it, it's important to recognize. I am not given a choice whether I recognize it. I confront cisnormativity every day.

I am perpetually terrified that I'm presenting "too feminine" and that's the reason why I'm not seen as my gender. then, when I try to present more masculine, nothing changes. if the issue is not with me, then why do I continue to accept the burden of fixing it? because even the most well-meaning cis people repeatedly prove to me that they don't understand, no matter how many different ways I try to explain.

all of this is the issue, and I have no solution, because if I had a solution, I wouldn't be crying at 12:50 at night. I wouldn't be trying to bend words to say what I mean when what I mean is that I'm hurt, and it's never going to go away.

I don't need to be reminded that cis is the default. I live in the shadow of your default.

ContraPoints said, "Maybe the most important things in life can't be logically proved." I don't have to keep proving myself with your logic. I don't have to explain myself. my feelings are impossible to justify and that does not make them any less valid.