this reminds me of a story. a friend who who underwent HRT and surgical transition early in life with support of her parents. she started dating someone in her mid 20s. he was kind, patient, and gentle to her for the first months of their relationship. then the topic of kids came up. she was upfront with him. “we’d have to adopt. i’m trans” and it was like a lightswitch turned in him. he screamed at her for tricking him and stormed out sticking her with the restaraunt bill. by all of the things that supposedly matter in society, she had done everything right. she was conventionally attractive by femme standards, her physical appearance was so in alignment with femme standards in fact that this secret chud hadn’t even realized she was trans. but still, the moment she couldn’t perform the full societal standard for what it means to be femme presenting, she was met with threats of physical violence, abandoned, and left to fulfill a responsibility that it had been pre-agreed on he would cover.

and i ask you: who tricked who? the trans woman who in 2013 didn’t want to bring up her transness until she knew she was safe, or the man who said he was an ally up until the moment someone he said he loved turned out to require even basic allyship