Resentment I
Sometimes when trans people interact with straight and cis people through work or social activities, resentments build against us. Usually, the resentment takes the form as rejection of some sort. It leaves the trans person bewildered, pained, and feeling alone. After all, there’s just so much of people like us many straights can take. So we think.
Sometimes reasons for the rejection are given. One trans woman was ejected from a creative writing group because she was told she did not follow the rules. Yet, when inquiry into what those rules were the list was amorphous, and shifting. Designed more to satisfy the ego of the coordinator than anything else.
Another never had her emails answered for the church group she attended. Still a third elected to leave her Thursday coffee klatch because the gaggle of women could never agree on a new day and time, all the while hearing from another woman how she looked forward to continuing on with their regular coffees. As the third woman told me this story she finished with an exasperated, “Bullshit?”
But there is something else going on when ties with straight people are severed. It’s resentment. For these people it’s a distasteful realization that the trans person in front of them has elected, or chosen, to live their life deliberately. To not be born along by the tide of society. To be the person they have in mind for themselves, not what family, or the local culture thought they should be. Centered on this it is no wonder many resent the trans person for having the courage to walk their own path through life.
A friend who is a non transitioning trans woman (yes, they do exist) has a unique view of the world. Being out to only a few trusted people she moves in the spaces between the straight, cis world and the trans, able to interact easily with both. She described once a co-worker who encountered a person who was non-binary in their appearance. Their mannerisms were neither entirely definable as male or female. Her co-worker felt anger at the thought that he was being deliberately deceived. The co-worker related how he felt he was being made to look stupid. “I felt deliberately confused. And therefore, felt I was being made to look stupid.” The co-worker said.
The same co-worker later confessed that he had no difficulty tolerating Gays and Lesbians. When asked about trans people the co-worker said it was a tolerance too far. That trans people look too different. “With Gays I don’t have to look at it.” He reportedly said. For trans people, by implication, he is forced to ‘see’ us. It is our visibility that bothers him.
Why it should be is for a very simple reason. There is something about his own life that is less than fulfilling. When confronted with a person who opts to live their life deliberately, striving for congruity and happiness, he resents them. A resentment that is centered around someone choosing happiness over conformity.
Copywrite ©2022 Veronica Zerrer
