I’m writing this in response to some discussions I’ve observed on Twitter between cis and trans women, most of them feminists. I want to write honestly about my own feelings because there is some disjuncture between what I feel and what I actually want to feel. This is an odd post to write because I’m terrified of upsetting people who’ve experienced far greater difficulties than me, plus it’s hardly as though the world is crying out for my personal views on cis and trans identities. On top of that, I don’t want it to be felt that I’m having a moan or comparing forms of discrimination. All the same, I feel like a fraud if I’m sitting there tweeting “fuck off Julie Burchill” and not being totally honest about the gaps in my understanding. In some ways I feel it’s even more cissexist to work on the assumption that a substitute for understanding is silence; I can’t help feeling that buried within this is an even greater assumption of cis superiority.  (more…)