I realized something today, when I was ruminating about being called “t****y” for the first time yesterday.<\/p>\n
Maybe this is something everyone else already figured out. I suspect it’s generally applicable to all marginalization.<\/p>\n
Here it is: A central tragedy of marginalization is that you have to accept that sometimes you’ll be forced into a position of accepting the unacceptable.<\/p>\n
While it shouldn’t be your responsibility, you’re forced to face a set of choices and choose the least terrible among them.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the least-terrible choice available to you will be to tolerate something you find odious and ridiculous to have to tolerate.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the only solace is to remember that by picking the best decision you’re not letting your oppression decide your destiny.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the choice that feels like fighting is the choice that makes you worse off.<\/p>\n
I suppose it’s a bit like a tactical retreat in that way; tolerate the incursion to fight another day on another field.<\/p>\n
Today, dealing with the program where I was called “t****y,” I am retreating and tolerating the poor response from staff.<\/p>\n
I don’t like the decision, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the least-terrible decision available.<\/p>\n
It’s not a fair outcome. It’s not a just outcome. But it’s the outcome that’s best for me, notwithstanding the injustice and unfairness.<\/p>\n
Life as a trans person: learning to accept the unacceptable because the alternative is worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I realized something today, when I was ruminating about being called “t****y” for the first time yesterday. Maybe this is something everyone else already figured out. I suspect it’s generally applicable to all marginalization. Here it is: A central tragedy of marginalization is that you have to accept that sometimes you’ll be forced into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5pI5m-8t","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}