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A review by vagaybond
The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff
1.0
TW: This review has the vitriol of an angry trans person who has been through entirely Too Much (which I name, without details) to have the patience for a stint like this.
I haven't read this. The fact that reviewers and fans are deadnaming and misgendering and treating trans people like our lives revolve around some kind of Before Persona and After Persona, instead of real individual people, tells me enough. It breaks every aspect of basic etiquette to completely erase who someone has fought to be recognized as. I only came out in 2011 and I still
The profound disrespect for dead trans people (regardless of how our deaths come to be) is reprehensible.
I can only hope, to divine forces, that when I am dead, authors don't taint my memory this way. To alter societal perceptions of people like me, by having the gall to publish a book about me and make killer bank, movie deals off that exploitation. I feel simultaneously furious and the resignation of hope, knowing that when I die: ignorant people may still write cissexist bastardizations of everything I have grown up on the salted grounds of. I am alive now, and I have the opportunity to speak, with it carried in my heart the dead ones I have known, to make sure people do better, knowing that they can. I would not be so ferocious if I did not feel conviction that people can do better. I would not keep going at all if I did not have faith that my words will land with someone out there.
The movie's existence was a disgrace to trans representation and the book is to blame for it. I will never forgive cis people for allowing so many people's first perception of who we are to be so, so far from the truth. This is misguided at best and fatal at worst, and I know its worst all too well and personally.
Mind you, a lot of my feelings about this were mixed up with Boys Don't Cry. These things were all the trans media we had for a while. It just goes to show that bad representation is not a step forward. It's not even a standstill. It's just bad.
I haven't read this. The fact that reviewers and fans are deadnaming and misgendering and treating trans people like our lives revolve around some kind of Before Persona and After Persona, instead of real individual people, tells me enough. It breaks every aspect of basic etiquette to completely erase who someone has fought to be recognized as. I only came out in 2011 and I still
Spoiler
lost family, friends, any semblance of health. I was homeless thrice over, and to this date, I have been raped, attempted suicide, and my ex-girlfriend (a trans woman) died of suicide this past May. My story is not a lonely one, I am no outlier. So many trans people fight to the death to live and be recognized as we are. And it fills me with molten, infernal, vitriol to live in a society where we are expected to die for it, and even then, that isn't enough.The profound disrespect for dead trans people (regardless of how our deaths come to be) is reprehensible.
I can only hope, to divine forces, that when I am dead, authors don't taint my memory this way. To alter societal perceptions of people like me, by having the gall to publish a book about me and make killer bank, movie deals off that exploitation. I feel simultaneously furious and the resignation of hope, knowing that when I die: ignorant people may still write cissexist bastardizations of everything I have grown up on the salted grounds of. I am alive now, and I have the opportunity to speak, with it carried in my heart the dead ones I have known, to make sure people do better, knowing that they can. I would not be so ferocious if I did not feel conviction that people can do better. I would not keep going at all if I did not have faith that my words will land with someone out there.
The movie's existence was a disgrace to trans representation and the book is to blame for it. I will never forgive cis people for allowing so many people's first perception of who we are to be so, so far from the truth. This is misguided at best and fatal at worst, and I know its worst all too well and personally.
Mind you, a lot of my feelings about this were mixed up with Boys Don't Cry. These things were all the trans media we had for a while. It just goes to show that bad representation is not a step forward. It's not even a standstill. It's just bad.