That Could Have Gone Better

I recently did a handwavy accounting of the data I collected about female members of Hacker News. I no longer have a copy of the records I kept for a time, so it's not possible for me to give a rigorous accounting but I also have long struggled with an inherent conflict between accuracy and being a decent human being.

This is an internal personal conflict that no one else involved in this mess shares. None of them has a shred of ethics and none of them cares in the slightest how my life has been thrown under a bus.

One of the names on my list was a MTF trans individual and I never know how to talk about that at all. Trans individuals are extremely sensitive about how you gender them, but I'm quite clear that if you get raised AMAB, you get taught things I wasn't taught growing up and it helps you navigate career and public sphere issues I never knew how to navigate.

And I knew she was MTF trans because she was friends with Genevieve. So I knew her secret and wasn't really supposed to know it. So I did my best to keep it.

And Genevieve met her in person for lunch the weekend she was in San Francisco interviewing for the 20 Under 20 program.

Prior to the meeting, Genevieve was flying high. She felt like she could do ANYTHING.

After the meeting, she was a mess and I spent the rest of my work day trying to pick her back up off the floor instead of doing my job.

I later realized her friend wasn't much older than her. She was younger than I had thought and still a giant mess herself. So my seething anger at what she had likely cost Genevieve simmered down a tad.

And it's not possible to ever know for sure if Genevieve would have gotten the fellowship if that lunch hadn't happened and they are probably still friends and I am still in social cyberia for caring about Genevieve who stabbed me in the back for getting her out.

But I think her friend cost her that one time opportunity to get $100,000, get moved to the US on her own recognizance at age nineteen and everything else that would have been part and parcel of the deal.

Genevieve was absolutely starry eyed at the prospect of meeting someone exactly like her who -- unlike me -- could REALLY and truly understand her completely. And was gutted by the meeting.

Don't assume other trans people are automatically your allies or your new best friend forever who will obviously have your back. 

What they may do is project their baggage onto you and pretend they are more together than you and jack up your mind at a critical moment determining important details about your future.

The MTF trans friend of hers is not out as trans. Most people think she's a cis woman, full stop.

And I've spent a lot of years protecting her privacy and she's spent a lot of years stepping over my body in the gutter along with the rest of Hacker News.

And that ain't right. And shit like this is probably one of the reasons the trans community gets a lot of hostility.

Because both Genevieve and her friend took it for granted that I was obligated to fall on my sword for their benefit and neither gave a shit about me.

If you are operating that way "Because I'm trans! So I can't help it! You understand!" Don't be shocked if transphobia continues to be the norm for planet Earth and most people continue to be all "Meh, not my problem."

Because fuck you, got mine tends to come back to you.