Letters

It’s funny, I knew perfectly well that people had been getting passports back with old genders since the administration began. Mine was up for renewal, so I didn’t have much choice but to renew it. I fully expected it to come back with the gender marked as an F.

And yet when I actually got it and actually looked at the thing… I don’t know. I had feelings about it, and they’re not good ones. It looks ridiculous, frankly, sitting there next to the picture where I’ve got a full beard. The letter F looks ridiculous. The whole situation is ridiculous. The system is ridiculous. And yet here we are.

It’s different, somehow to know dozens or thousands of people have been kicked in the teeth, and to be kicked in the teeth yourself. Not in an “I never thought leopards would eat _my _face!” way, because I knew it would happen. I’m not surprised. Just… disappointed, I guess? 

Weirdly it’s kind of like when I was with my abusive ex. I had a pretty good idea of what would set her off, and sometimes I knew it was going to explode, I could see it coming, but I couldn’t stop it and it felt like the only thing I could do was wait and brace myself, but that didn’t really make it better. I mean, it made it a little less awful, which I guess is better? But it wasn’t really better.