(no subject)

[shaker_e]

Going to just freestyle for a moment here. The question I've been asked to write about is why it is challenging for transgender students to afford and approach college. But the answer isn't really that difficult, right? It's "cis people". That's it, right?? Trans people are pushed to the margins in everything, in *everything*, so it doesn't defy reason to see that effects education as well. Trans people have a harder time getting jobs, particularly jobs that pay well. Trans people have higher rates of homelessness, mental illness, suicide risk. Because at every turn, we have to be afraid – afraid for our stability or even afraid for our lives. Without job security, even affording bare necessities is difficult, and things like schooling become a luxury at best, a dangerous risk or impossible at worst. And in a nation where transphobic bigotry seems to be becoming not only acceptable but *trendy*, it seems almost disingenuous to ask the question of why trans people aren’t going out for class.

I don’t know. I’m not out, offline. Maybe I’m not staying in my place. But while I’m usually “only” perceived as gay, going out publicly still often feels fraught with danger, and I am over six and a half feet tall – that has never made me safe from violence! It simply means people who want to fight bring a few friends with them. And I know for a fact that I only tasted a tiny portion of what out trans folks have been enduring, barely a taste. It’s a tragedy because most of the trans people I know are as smart as a whip, incredible artists or musicians, just these absolutely brilliant shining minds – and they live paycheck to paycheck, or couch surf, barely surviving. It’s a crime. It’s a crime! They deserve so much more than this.

I don’t know what else to say. It makes me furious.

Comments

[caffeinatedotter]

Taken together with your last post's "we insist you out yourself as publicly as possible to answer this question", whoof