/soy/ - Soyjaks

The weight of it never really lifts. You wake up, and before you've even had coffee, there it is—scrolling past another thread debating whether you deserve to exist in public spaces. Someone's aunt shared another article. A politician is on TV reducing your entire being to a talking point. The cruelty isn't always loud; sometimes it's wrapped in concern-trolling, in "just asking questions," in people who claim they're protecting someone but really they're just attacking you.
It accumulates. Each individual comment might seem small—a misgendering here, a "joke" there, an eye roll, a legislative hearing where strangers discuss your body like it's community property. You tell yourself you can handle it. You've developed thick skin. You know who you are. But thick skin still has nerve endings, and this constant drip of dehumanization finds its way through.
The exhaustion is molecular. It's not just about being hurt; it's about the energy it takes to constantly justify your existence. To explain, again, the same basic facts. To watch people who've never experienced your life speak with absolute confidence about what you need, who you are, what you're doing to society. The mental load of deciding: Do I correct this? Do I educate? Do I let it go? Do I have the strength today?
And then there's the hypervigilance. You're reading every room, calculating safety, preparing responses to hypothetical attacks. Your bathroom trips require strategy. Your medical appointments require bracing for condescension or ignorance. Even your joys are tinged with the awareness that someone, somewhere, is furious that you're happy.
The isolation cuts deepest. Not just from the people who openly hate you, but from the ones who say they support you yet go quiet when it matters. The friends who change the subject. The family members who say they love you but won't speak up at Thanksgiving. The coworkers who are neutral on your humanity. You realize you're fighting battles they don't even see, carrying weights they'll never feel.
Some days you're angry—good, righteous, fuel-for-action angry. Other days you're just tired. Tired of being strong. Tired of being brave. Tired of being a teaching moment, a controversy, a debate topic. You just want to exist without it being a radical act.
The worst part? It makes you doubt yourself in moments you hate admitting. Not about who you are—you know that. But you catch yourself thinking: Is it worth it? Why is this so hard? The cruelty makes you forget that the difficulty isn't inherent to being trans. The difficulty is being trans in a world that won't stop grinding you down.
You're not broken for feeling crushed by this. You're having a human response to sustained inhumanity. The exposure to transphobia isn't just unpleasant—it's corrosive, it's traumatic, it's death by a thousand cuts that people keep telling you aren't deep enough to matter.