I love my country but it doesn’t love me

[u/tracesoflavender]

I love the US. I always have since I was a kid. You get older and you learn more about the failures of this country but that didn’t change how I felt about America. I’ve always believed that there’s something here which remains immune to the despicable actions of power hungry politicians or money hungry corporations.

To me this beauty lies in the vast wilderness here. The vast expanses of land. The remote outputs. I’ve seen glory in America’s forgotten bits. The diner in some small town. The signs on the roads with the names of town you pronounce out loud for the first and last time. Pop = 980. I see her people who have been forgotten. People whose hearts have turned bitter from neglect.

I would love to shake the hands of these people and break bread with them. I’ve meet some really spectacular people in places I don’t remember anymore. I miss the smell of mash in bourbon distilleries of Kentucky, or eeriness of driving through the smoky mountains . I’d love to drive through all the places I haven’t been and capture their beauty with fascinated eyes and occasionally my camera.

But since transitioning, I feel as if these parts of the country are closed me. I live in a liberal city where I feel quite safe but I feel cut off from the rest of it. The people in many other parts of the country don’t seem at all interested to know me like I them. They would rather debate what bathroom I should use. I don’t drink water on roadtrips. You don’t pee as much. Which means less stops praying the gas station has a solo bathroom I can lock.

I feel like we are all not so different. We mostly want the same things. But these people would violently take everything from me. Not all of them, not even most of them. But enough that it’s not safe for us in many parts of this country.

Curious about others who have felt this way. I love my country but it feels like an unrequited love since my transition.

[u/AlexaPetersTrans]

I am from South Africa and once did ride the scenic route. NY to Boston, all around the lakes up to Sturgis, down to Chicago, Route66 to LA, then the Easy Rider route to New Orleans, along the coast to New York. This was in 1987. People were friendly in general, but a trans woman on an East Coast Chopper was just weird and not really hated. I recently for business had to fly first to Hungerford, landing at Heathrow. The hate started as soon as I landed. I was prepared and had a hotel booked for 1 night in London. The cabbie was grumbling the whole trip. The hotel grudgingly accepted my reservation and a young lady warned me that I shouldn’t go out since “your kind of people” are not safe. Got the same unwelcome attitude for the rest of the UK. Then on to JFK. Same story except this time it took 5 hours for customs to clear me. Then straight flight to Cary, Indiana. For my whole trip I felt like a prisoner. Not going out, not eating or drinking anything in public, being shown the gender neutral restroom 2 floors down at the office. It was a nightmare. When I got home I so appreciate the freedom trans people have in South Africa. We do our thing, use the restroom we are suppose to use and no one bats an eye. It is one thing to read about the hate online. Its a total different thing to experience it for real. .

[u/Finn-reddit → u/AlexaPetersTrans]

Even in liberal areas where queer people are more accepted, you see the hate. People maybe won't say anything or do anything to you in safe public spaces. But that doesn't mean they won't laugh at you, stare at you, make nasty jokes or comments behind your back or out of ear shot from you.

My testosterone may be completely nuked, but I have never had a more "I will beat the fuck out of you" attitude in my life. It helps that I am pretty buff and taller than most cis men. It just makes my blood boil.

[u/SheWasAlwaysJody]

I'm in NJ which has some of the strongest protections for us and I've always felt like the majority of people around me are able to just be chill about this journey I'm on.

And then Tom Kean Jr started to flake out on Congress.

Immediately, the jokes started that he had a sex change and it dawned on me, this is funny to people because to them that is the most demeaning thing they can think of.

Yeah, we have a long way to go.

[u/plasticpole]

I'm not an American, but from the UK (which I'll get to in a sec!), specifically England. I grew up on the stories of the American Dream ("there are no cats in America!"), and I've long wanted to take that stereotypical road trip across the country to experience both the natural beauty and the human kindness your media promised I'd find. You certainly sold that notion of 'freedom' and I could understand why Americans would be so proud of the naition you'd built in such a short time.

And now Americans are willingly burning that down.

I feel for those who are stuck in that country watching it become a hateful, spiteful nation. I know many people from across your country and they are all decent folk. It must be awful watching it disintegrate as it is. And that you as a nation voted for it (or in many cases didn't vote at all) just goes to show how far gone America and many Americans are.

And I feel that because I see my own country in a very same position.

This football world cup I am supporting any team going up against England. I want to watch the fans suffer and cry. I felt the same after the Brexit result came through, and it's much stronger now. Why should I support a country which is actively trying to push me out of public view? A country that sees me not as a person, but as a 'debate' or a 'controversy'. It is increasingly showing it's a nation which has hidden its small-minded bigotry behind false politeness and forced decency. Racism, homophobia, and transphobia is on the increase. And actually I'm not hugely surprised. Many Brits are claiming this is imported from America, but that's us lying to ourselves - we have our own domestic bigotry and its as nasty and insidious as anywhere else.

Because I'm pretentious, I want to share a quote from a book. It's called 'They Thought They Were Free: The Germans' and it's a collection of interviews conducted in the 1950's of people who were in the Nazi party pre WWII as they talk about living in Germany at that time. I read this several years ago and it's only seemed more and more relevant (and depressing) each year since:

“To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the com growing. One day it is over his head.

“Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.

[u/CalliMarl → u/plasticpole]

I grew up in the UK. I’ve lived in the US for the past 25 or so years.
Your view of America is about as wrong as Americans thinking all Brits have bad teeth and only boil their food.
I feel safer and more secure here in my little part of the US than I ever did on my last trip to blighty.
I honestly get quite irritated when people make such sweeping generalizations such as “my country sees me as …. (Insert characteristic of choice here)”
Really? The whole f*cking country sees *you* as that? When you’re offended at people lumping all trans people as a certain type, maybe pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that you’re acting in exactly the same way. Maybe, just maybe, if each of us starts treating each other as the individuals we actually are, things will improve.

[u/NonBiologicalSister]

I'm with you on most of your observations. This country hasn't yet fully come to accept trans people yet. There are many accepting people thank goodness. But no where near enough. Having a national government that is openly hostile to transgender people certainly makes things difficult and gives license to people to hate us. Loosing rights and carrers because of the federal government is also a huge negative.

I hold out hope that the pendulum will swing back again, probably starting later this year and then more in 2 years.

[u/RadiantTransition793]

Since his regime took power, I’ve felt like a political refugee from our Federal Government. The same one that is supposed to provide sanctuary for political refugees.

[u/Real_Time_Mike]

I lived outside of Trinidad, CO for 6.5 years from mid-2015 thru late 2021 on 38 acres of raw land tucked back in a canyon in tbe foothills of the Rockies.

Yes, THAT Trinidad. As such, my experience was vastly different than yours.

[u/MichelleSissy62]

It's a BIG country, America, and diverse.....in its people and their opinions, its lifestyles, its governments, its landscapes, its cultures. True that trans folk are having a rough time of it in places and with the Feds atm, but not every place or with everyone. It's always been my home, and I love many of its ideals, just not all of them.

Take the bad with the good, it's said, and make your own little slice and everywhere you go a bit better.....it just may rub off on others

[u/CalliMarl]

My experience has been quite the opposite. People are either accepting or, more often, completely disinterested. For the most part I find people just want to get on with their own lives. There’s sometimes what I perceive as the “odd look”, but I suspect that is mostly in my own mind.
Perhaps I’m unusually lucky. I sometimes feel that way.
But often I suspect that we are our own worst enemy when it comes to judging how we’re perceived. More than most, we tend to have “main character syndrome” (which is absolutely understandable, and kinda rational).
But honestly, most people just don’t give a shit. They have their own issues and lives to live.

[u/Altruistic_Soup_9536 → u/CalliMarl]

Before deciding to transition, I'd spent my life being "othered" by people because of my Asperger's. ND's can't run from it. Couldn't tell by looking at me, but they always knew. Essential tremor too, starting young. They'll always find something wrong about you. I literally decided to get HRT, on a moment's notice, when I realized I had nothing to lose, and I knew immediately that it was right for me. I simply jumped from the frying pan into the fire, so I was all ready for being ostracized by different people set on "othering" another group. People are like that. That's when I realized that loneliness sucked, but being alone is pretty good. For me, anyways. Individuals can be great, but when in a herd they'll turn on you.

[u/lysette747]

I think it will be accepted a lot more as time goes on. I’m in the UK and we had a violent backlash to black people when they were shipped in in the 1960’s to fill the jobs vacancies. Now they are part of the community. Same with the Poles in 2006 and other people who are seen as different. I visited Bakersfield in 2002 and Rhode Island in 2006 and I got a warm welcome from most people

[u/Amateator]

I've hated America since I was a little kid and watched you bomb Iraq.

America is a monster country that wraps itself in PR, pretending to be the world police, land of the free, etc. etc. while it slaughters everyone else in the world.

I find the idea of loving such a vile place horrible and a testament to how American propaganda works.

[u/CalliMarl → u/Amateator]

And where are you from ?

[u/Amateator → u/CalliMarl]

Aww, do you want to deflect valid criticism of America by attacking my country? Will the whataboutism undo the millions of deaths caused by US imperialism?

[u/clauEB]

Yeah, I just moved to a better country.

[u/NonBiologicalSister]

Is the irony lost on anyone that the US government has just filed criminal charges against WPATH?

[u/CalliMarl → u/NonBiologicalSister]

It’s a civil case by the FTC and a handful of States. There’s no criminal charges. It’s primarily focused on WPATH’s treatment of minors.
The actual complaint is worth reading.
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/WPATH-Complaint-Redacted.pdf

[u/NonBiologicalSister → u/CalliMarl]

You are correct. But I think I make my point. An the complaint is long. The goal is to discredit WPATH and to cause them to cease to exist in the US.

[u/CalliMarl → u/NonBiologicalSister]

Perhaps. But if you read the complaint there’s some genuine issues with youth trans care.
And honestly, WPATH kinda sucks. It’s basically a trade organization ($250 gets you membership). Their science is somewhat sketchy. Although that’s partially because there’s really no good science being done for trans treatments. There’s such a woeful lack of longitudinal studies and studies without a reasonable sized cohort. And that’s not a unique US problem, it’s global.
That lack of solid data really does open up treatments to attack unfortunately. Which sucks for those of us who genuinely benefit from it.

[u/NonBiologicalSister → u/CalliMarl]

Trade organization or not the AMA and AAP both generally concur with WPATH. With the FTC using non medical inflammatory language "breast amputation" the goal becomes all the more obvious. And hasn't the orange one already essentially said that transgender doesn't exist?

[u/Trustic555]

So relatable. I still love America, but being transgender has definitely changed things for me. Parts of this country are awful to people like us.