B is for  “But you don’t look…”  #atozchallenge 

[image description: brown background with a stamp of the A to Z challenge in the background. Writing on the top reads “A to Z participant (2017) then there is a large capital letter ‘B’ in the middle. Below the ‘B’ it reads “blogging from A to Z” below that it reads “http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/ end of image description.]

“But you don’t look…

* trans

* Autistic

* Mentally ill

* Psychotic

* Like you’ve been sectioned

* Gay

I have heard all these, said directly to me. In fact I’ve also had “but you can’t be autistic, as I think you don’t look autistic, I know someone who is autistic and they are different to you. So I don’t think you’re autistic”

You know what all these things I’ve been told I don’t look, don’t have a certain ‘look’

There is no one way that trans people, or autistic people, or mentally ill people etc look, because we are all individuals.
People so often have a stereotyped view of how we look or act, but that’s completely not how individuals work. We all look and act differently.

So the reason I don’t ‘look’ any of these things is because us as groups don’t have a look, we are different. All individuals. All our own selfs. So I look like me, a non-binary trans man, gay, asexual spectrum, autistic, mentally ill person. Those things don’t affect how I look.

Saying “but you don’t look…” actually erases so much of my identity and my life, that it is as if you don’t wish to see or associate with those parts of me.

Well guess what all those things (and more) are all part of who I am and I don’t wish for parts of me to be erased.