Q
michellesgapingwound-deactivate asked:
Hey Carolyn, trans woman here, having trouble dealing with hate in the world, hate from my family (clouded in "good intentions"), hate from a couple of friends (clouded in "good intentions") and stuff you probably know too much about. You are a person who lives with this crap too I guess, looking at what you do and how the gaming community sucks when it comes to women, and women like us. How do you deal with it? It is currently driving me mad.
A
Hi,
I’m really sorry for what you’re going through.
I have to say that I actually feel like I’ve been very lucky in this regard. I had friends who struggled to understand, but they always came around pretty quickly. (It does hurt a lot if one of them slips up and misgenders me, which still happens once in a while.) But with regard to the crap I often get on the Internet, well, because I’ve always felt accepted and welcomed by my colleagues at work, and because that stuff is words on a screen (which aren’t harmless by any stretch, but are less immediately dangerous and much easier to ignore than someone giving me crap on the street or the subway or wherever), it’s a lot easier to dismiss such comments as coming from a place of ignorance and fear. I just don’t feel the need to put much value on them or to seriously engage with them, most of the time. They don’t threaten my sense of who I am. But I think that that’s a very different situation from dealing with issues with one’s friends and family. All I can say is that I really hope that you do have a person or people who see you and love you for who you are, that you can take comfort and strength in that, and if you’re getting hate from people you have considered friends, well, maybe give them a chance to come around, but don’t feel like you need to keep them in your life because of whatever past you’ve shared with them. At a certain point, if people aren’t going to love you for who you are, then it’s okay to cut them out of your life and move on.
I really wish you the best in dealing with all of this. I know it’s not easy.
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