I’ve been having bigoted thoughts about trans people

I’m just going to get this off my chest. I pretty much like most people I interact with in person but I have trouble getting along with trans people. It’s not that I think they’re “faking”, that I don’t respect their gender identity, sexuality, what have you. I have absolutely zero issue calling anyone what they prefer to be called and treating people how they’d prefer to be treated.

But goddamn so many of the ones I met are difficult.

It can be little things, like getting extremely offended if someone slips up and calls you by the wrong pronoun. Like I understand why that would be so bothersome. But man almost every trans person I know will burn bridges over ANYTHING. I know a trans person in my friend group who cut everyone off because we “supported fascism” because one person said they didn’t participate in their country’s (not america ftr) election, and we didn’t call them out on it. When we told them to lighten up a bit they said we were “disregarding her right to exist”. I don’t even think the country in question had trans rights as a significant issue.

Ok but that’s just one anecdote obviously. I’ve also worked (been the manager of) two trans people, both of whom quit in their first week, one because we wouldn’t allow her to go on smoke breaks every 15 minutes and because we would actually make her do stuff that wasn’t sitting on her phone, and the other because the pride stuff we got for the month of June didn’t include the trans flag (although we actually did get makeup that did, this was at a pharmacy that also sold makeup, beauty supplies, etc). I wouldn’t have believed that was the reason if she didn’t write a long email stating as much and put it on the company bulletin, accusing us of being exclusionary (she was also upset that we deadnamed her by having to put down the name on her social security card for her bank account, so I guess the flag stuff was icing on the cake).

Then there’s my sister, who isn’t trans herself but has dated two trans women, both of whom cheated on her, one with an older married couple (yes, couple. Like a poly thing). The other attempted to groom her into a relationship with someone over twice her age as their own poly relationship but had no intention of letting her stay with them in the apartment (that was paid for with disability and by the younger ones parents, just for the record). The whole thing was ridiculous and she’s still seeing this person off and on, which is obviously against our parents wishes. This person also suffers from weird delusions, including thinking I was hitting on them when I came over for Christmas and made eye contact with her once and asked her about her job, and she then told my mother about it. You know, because I was trying to be nice, apparently I’m hitting on you. She also parades around in bizarre skin tight outfits and will lose her shit crying over nothing almost daily, and I basically try to avoid her at all costs now.

All this is to say that I’ve had almost no experiences with trans people that weren’t, for lack of a better word, extremely obviously mentally ill. And now when I see trans people in general, as much as I want to be nice and an ally etc etc, part of me wonders what could be going on inside of their head, because I’m constantly anticipating some level of volatility. Like every trans person I see I’m walking on egg shells, not because I’m afraid that I’ll misgender them but because I’m just expecting some level of insanity lying below the surface, and that’s not something I can deal with. When I see people calling trans people “mentally ill” I can’t even bring myself to disagree, not because I’m opposed to transitioning or have socially conservative values but because I have never met one that wasn’t.