That’s actually really gross and an erasure of trans people from history. There are a lot of cases now and throughout history of trans people unable to come out but have personal records or accounts from those close to them detailing how they felt about themselves. Saying we shouldn’t suggest anyone who was never out was trans isn’t just taking an unbiased stance, trans people are deliberately and systemically pressured from not coming out and there’s cases of trans people who were out who have their identities erased postmortem. So contributing to that feels at best like giving up ground to people who want us dead and erased.
It’s a different story if we do that firsthand accounts that more definitively indicate how that self identified, but from what I know about Kurt Cobain, he was just very eggy and queer coded. It’s entirely possible Kurt was trans, but the reason we can’t know for sure is because he never found out, not because his identity was erased.
Something that should be made very clear when talking about dead people who never found out, is that you can’t “find out” for them. Self-discovery is something that can only happen from the self. It can’t happen when someone dies.
So if they didn’t before they died and they never told anyone, you can’t assume they did because you can’t actually know, and it’s equally likely you are misgendering them.
That’s actually really gross and an erasure of trans people from history. There are a lot of cases now and throughout history of trans people unable to come out but have personal records or accounts from those close to them detailing how they felt about themselves. Saying we shouldn’t suggest anyone who was never out was trans isn’t just taking an unbiased stance, trans people are deliberately and systemically pressured from not coming out and there’s cases of trans people who were out who have their identities erased postmortem. So contributing to that feels at best like giving up ground to people who want us dead and erased.
It’s a different story if we do that firsthand accounts that more definitively indicate how that self identified, but from what I know about Kurt Cobain, he was just very eggy and queer coded. It’s entirely possible Kurt was trans, but the reason we can’t know for sure is because he never found out, not because his identity was erased.
Something that should be made very clear when talking about dead people who never found out, is that you can’t “find out” for them. Self-discovery is something that can only happen from the self. It can’t happen when someone dies. So if they didn’t before they died and they never told anyone, you can’t assume they did because you can’t actually know, and it’s equally likely you are misgendering them.
CC: @SectoidLexi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Exactly!
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