A pornography/documentary (yes, that’s a thing, apparently) about a trans man, directed and narrated by a cis woman, that manages to be incredibly fetishistic, cissexist, and heteronormative (e.g. “she was always attracted to girls so she felt she had to become a man, and now he’s the best of both worlds”), followed by a class discussion by well-intentioned but incredibly ill-informed cis students, led by a cis feminist professor.

And then I was stuck in the incredibly uncomfortable position of choosing between being the one person piping up to argue every offensive thing I hear, or keeping quiet and not drawing too much attention to myself.

Me being me, of course, I did end up piping up, but I couldn’t address literally everything and the whole discussion was just a clusterfuck of badness.

Pretty sure that very few people in that class are aware there’s a trans individual in their midst.

I’m not going to go into any details on the film or the discussion that followed, except to say that I felt like that trans man in the video, and myself by extension, were being studied under a microscope like an object. Like we were interesting theories to pick apart, and not people. It was one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever felt.

And this is why, though there are many cis individuals who I trust (including but not limited to my family, my cis housemates, my cis friends both online and off, and a few select professors), I do not and will not ever trust the abstract, collective “cis people.”

Also, if anyone ever tells you to watch the film Linda/Les and Annie—just run the fuck away, because it is awful.

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