I've taken some time with this, not to get it right and not even to choose my words wisely. I took my time because I was ashamed of how I handled a subject that I absolutely should have handled better. After all, I'm a trans woman, if I can't understand another trans person, then what the hell am I even doing? But this is the insidious nature of the patriarchy. It's not some vague thing which only pops up when women discuss the abuse of men. It is ever-present and it colors every single aspect of our lives. It isn't because it's so popular or effective as a cultural center stone, only that it has been enforced for so long that we only see the world from it's perspective. This is why you look at women as subservient to men, expect them to be delicate and girlish, to fit a standard set by the patriarchy.
I am not immune to the effects of a system in place centuries before I was born. It's not an excuse, it's an explanation for why it takes effort to override our societal programming. I felt stupid, talking on the podcast about trans representation and the child in this movie unable to refer to her as "her" despite her insistence that she is a girl. This is how I was dismissed at age 5, and I just perpetuated it on our own podcast. I needed proof. I needed her identity proven to me. I said that.
There is no proof for someone's identity, there is only acceptance of that identity, whether they are cisgender or transgender, our identities are independent of our bodies and they are beyond the scrutiny of others. I'm angry at myself for letting myself take umbrage in the shadow of cis supremacist ideologies, it's so easy to take shelter rather than to just say the words.
Ludovic is a girl, she is who she is. It's not an idle fantasy, though she fantasizes in a world that allows her to just exist. I'm sorry I didn't do a better job of making that clear during our podcast episode.
