why is calling out transphobia so effing hard?

Hey team,

Been a while. I've gone through a move, am living in a new city, and have a new job, all in the past several months since my last post. I'm a nurse now at an HIV clinic in NYC, which has been a great shift for me in a lot of different ways. But more on that later.

I was just a guest on a TV show (I'll probably post a clip or a link or something when it goes up), but, it was a little bit horrible. The show is a sex-positive sex advice show; they do a really good job of keeping things positive, being non-judgemental, etc etc. The format is that the two hosts (a married couple) sit in bed and answer questions on email, phone, and video email, and generally they're pretty good with stuff.

Except the trans. I was planted in the audience, and they staged bringing me down into the bed with them, presumably for an interview and asking questions. It could have gone really well if the guy of the couple hadn't totally flipped his shit--a couple minutes after I climbed into bed with him, he jumped out. And, for some reason, instead of being a badass and calling him on his shit (the line "This is what transphobia looks like definitely crossed my mind), I tried to play coy and e friendly and get him to come back.

Which didn't work. Of course it didn't work. It doesn't work in real life, and doesn't work on TV. Which brings me to my question--why is it so hard to name when it's going on? I have this specific visceral reaction that I have when transphobic bullshit is going on. Sometimes, I can recognize that and call it out, but this time, it took me a couple minutes to realize why the host had gotten out of bed, what he was trying to do, and how inappropriate it was. Which is hard set of emotions to handle when there's four cameras pointed your way.

Ugh. Whine whine whine. We've all experienced transphobia, whether or not we're trans. Any sort of gender bending counts--what have your experiences been? What's worked for you? Why is it so fucking hard to deal with when it's happening?