# Trans issues: Following stereotypes

For the longest time, even for me as a trans person, it was very unclear as to why I felt like I needed to follow gender stereotypes. I can only imagine what cis people are thinking about this and how confused they must be, but one thing I can say for certain: It is **not** to reinforce gender stereotypes.
I will be talking on my own perspective as a trans woman, however I'm not surprised if (In fact I'm pretty sure) this applies to numerous other trans people and other genders aswell.

There are _so many_ transphobic people who think like _"just saying you're a woman doesn't make you a woman"_ or simply _"x doesn't make you a woman"_. Then we start wondering to ourselves, _what does_? Because as ridiculous as it sounds even if **one** person thinks we're not the gender we want, it really breaks us. As is with every negative comment in history, the one negative comment amidst the 100 positive comments, it will shine out, and it will make you feel really **REALLY** bad. This is the case with the one transphobic comment, but it really makes us want to pass to even them too, because otherwise that thought will stay lingering.

This is where stereotypes come into play. We don't always have the luxury of asking them what makes us women, so we start thinking it through stereotypes. Does wearing makeup make us women? Fuck it, I'll wear it just to be sure. Does wearing dresses? Fuck it, I'll wear those too just to be sure. This is why we feel obligated to do these things. Some people do them because they like them too, and that's fine, but sometimes those stereotypes also feed into our opinions and "make us like dresses, because girls like dresses" etc. In some cases that's not true, but in some cases, like mine, I might for example like wearing skirts, because someone once told me once _"why aren't you wearing skirts if you're a girl?"_

So this is why. Not to reinforce gender stereotypes, but to pass for even those who would never see us pass. Thanks for reading.