#Gender-fluid Catholic

[sephirajo]

LOL my trans son and I were talking to my mami on the phone just now about him going over there this weekend, and he just found out one of his cousins changed his name and is now gender-fluid.  My kiddo was like, “I’m sorry, Grandma, I infected him!”

And Mami, in a straight and serious tone said, “Oh don’t worry honey, I think it was the DnD.”

We about died laughing.

[mel-rhodes-place]

ZELENSKY IS PANICKING, PUTIN IS WATCHING

(Mark Stone, Sky News, Tuesday Morning (12/12/2023) “Zelensky in Washington as time runs out to push Congress for more aid (Independent, 12/12/2003) – Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar spent decades studying Israel’s psyche. He is staking his life on what he learned. “Sinwar is holding hostage 138 Israelis, including soldiers, betting he can force the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners and…

[eternal-echoes]

“Online groups comprised of tens of thousands of individuals who have halted their transition or begun to transition back to their sex are sounding the alarm through social media, testimonial videos, and online discussion forums.(45) They're reminding young people that if gender is so fluid, it's quite likely that individuals who wrestle with gender dysphoria, especially in their teens and twenties, could later identify as their biological sex and regret making unalterable physical changes. Detransitioners are also filing lawsuits against their former practitioners and are campaigning for future generations to receive a more balanced solution than the empty promises they had been given. In a survey of one hundred individuals who had medically or surgically transitioned, one of the most common reasons they offered for why they chose this path was, "I thought transitioning was my only option to feel better."(46) Detransitioners know that a better way exists, and many of them concur with Dr. Patrick Lappert, who remarked that this experiment "will likely be the greatest medical disaster of the last hundred years."(47)

-Jason Evert, Male, Female, or Other: A Catholic Guide to Understanding Gender

—

Work cited:

45) Cf. https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/; https://www.detransvoices.org/resource-directory/websites-blogs-by-detransitioners-desisters/; Detransitioners Anonymous (DetransitionersAnonymous@protonmail.com); Pique Resilience Project (www.piqueresproject.com); Post Trans (https://post-trans.com/); Sex Change Regret (www.sexchangeregret.com).

46) L. Littman, Individuals Treated for Gender Dysphoria with Medical and/or Surgical Transition Who Subsequently Detransitioned: A Survey of 100 Detransitioners," Archives of Sexual Behavior 50 (2021), 3359.

47) As quoted in Maria Keffler, Desist, Detrans & Detox (Arlington, VA: Advocates Protecting Children, 2021).

—

For more recommended resources on gender dysphoria, click here.

[the-official-goose-god]

out of pure curiosity

reblog for science or something like that

@100percent-shell-oil @france-unofficial @bisexual-navy @definitely-waste-management @amissingstarlet

@communist-usa-real4 @the-real-catholic-church @the-principality-of-sealand @thee0ne-thats-bored @marylandaccountx3

[mallloryrowinski]

You're a transphobe!!! You should be embarrassed

Okay this is getting old now. I know you probably won’t read this reply as you’re clearly refusing to educate yourself on what I stand for, but I wanna have this on my blog regardless so here we go.

I’m a radical feminist, and I’m gender critical. Being gender critical means recognizing that gender is a social construct made to keep women, as a class, oppressed on the basis of their sex, and uphold the patriarchy. The sex you’re born with is a fixed set of characteristics and is immutable (this is a fact. Sex is binary, not fluid. before you try to pull the intersex card, @/not-your-intersex-pawn here on Tumblr has posts that will explain this to you in much greater detail than I can, like their response here).

Now, your sex doesn’t say anything about you! It doesn’t mean a single thing, it just recognizes which set of biological characteristics you were born with. It doesn’t indicate your personality, hobbies, likes and dislikes, whatever. You are a whole person and your sex is just your sex. Women are and have been historically oppressed on the basis of their sex. Not because they identified as anything connected to the female sphere, they were forced into this sphere of subordination and yada yada (gender roles!) on the basis of them being born female. 

Gender, on the other hand, is an identity. Even the gendies themselves have lost the plot a little in my opinion as everything regarding gender now is just so… vague? But basically gender is an identity. Some say it’s innate, some say it isn’t. Most agree that you can change your gender, or at least “reclaim” it, if you believe it’s innate and that you were "born in the wrong body". You can claim any gender, actually, and define it however you please. 

Calling me “cis” would be incorrect not because I’m not a woman, but because I’m not part of the gender craze, meaning that’s an ideology I don’t subscribe to altogether. I don’t believe in it. There’s no such thing as gender. I’m just a woman, neither cis nor trans. 

There’s also an additional note that I would like to make here: as long as we as a society recognize gender, we’re gonna have people either conforming to it or resisting it, or claiming a different gender identity. This is basically the same as “as long as catholicism exists, we’re gonna have catholics, atheists, and people either converting to catholicism or abandoning it”. This does not refer to the group of people who go through physical sex dysphoria. This group may choose to access what you would call “gender-affirming care”, which isn’t gender-affirming for them, because they do not have a problem with their gender to begin with, and most of the time don’t even recognize gender as important/real. Their voices have been unfortunately silenced by the “new wave” of TRAs over the past 5 to 10 or so years, and I do not wish to speak on their behalf, you can do your own research on this, or listen to amazing people such as @/buct-reidentified here on Tumblr. 

If you disagree with me and do believe that gender is an important part of oneself - I don’t have a problem with that! You’re entitled to your own opinions just like I am to my own. If you read all this and still think I’m transphobic, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do to help you. 

The reason I don’t include trans women in my feminism isn’t because I don’t respect their identity. But their identity is irrelevant when it comes to a movement focusing on the liberation from sex based oppression. What matters is their sex, whether you like it or not, because women are oppressed on the basis of their sex. You can identify as a trans woman but I genuinely hope that you’ll see how being a trans woman is different than being born with a female body. These two will face radically different experiences and challenges, each unique to that group. 

I do believe that trans people, of any kind, do need their own protections, safe spaces, etc. because they clearly are discriminated against and no one should be able to attack or discriminate against anyone because they don’t agree with their identity/the way they present themselves/whatever. 

I do support the preservation of same-sex spaces for women, but this isn’t rooted in fear of trans women but in protecting women from predatory men who exploit gender theory to gain access to these spaces and harm women. I’m sure we can both agree that these cases have happened and I’m not fear-mongering. This is not because all trans women are predators. This has happened and continues to happen because when you give predators and abusers a chance to be predatory and abusive with little to no repercussion by hiding behind an ideology like the gender one, they are typically eager to take it. Women have a right to their same-sex spaces because of the sex-based oppression they’ve faced throughout centuries. Taking these away or reforming places that are specifically sex-exclusive into inclusive ones is not fair to women and results in a zero-sum game. 

So basically, if you identify as a trans man and want me to accommodate you by using he/him pronouns, I have no problem with that. The same goes for they/them or she/her. I’m happy to respect and use your preferred pronouns because I respect you as a person. However, this doesn’t change my understanding of your biological sex. I simply recognize that you identify as trans, which is part of who you are, and I respect that. You believe in gender and I don’t, that’s okay. If you take it to the “I should be able to access sex-exclusive spaces because I identify as trans”, I would politely explain to you why I disagree with that and what options I believe we should make available instead. 

There a ton of points I haven't touched but that are related to this topic, but this is the basics.

[hoardingpuffin]

Every time I see some idiot proclaim "Jim Henson wouldn't have wanted this" under queer-positive, anti-racist or otherwise anti-bigotry posts by Sesame Street, Muppets or related fan accounts, I gotta laugh.

Like, do y'all know who Jim Henson even WAS?! He was, by the gods, no perfect person, but do y'all honestly think he'd be on your side as you spew hatred against minorities? The man that had a TV series created with the literal goal to teach equality and social systems and that'd help stop wars?!

Actually, let me bring up other Muppet Performers while I am at it, who'd likewise not support y'alls crap: Dave Goelz, famously basing his characters on himself at least in part, playing the very gender-expression-flexible Gonzo and supporting the queercoding of Boober in "The Glow". Bill Baretta, performing Pepe the King Prawn who canonically has described sexuality as fluid. Richard Hunt, who performed Scooter, Mudwell the Mudbunny and many more, a gay puppeteer. Frank Oz, performer of Fozzy Bear, Animal, Bert, Miss Piggy and more, 1st Gen. Immigrant from a Jewish-Catholic mixed family. Kevin Clash, a Black man who made his own career as a puppeteer since he was a teenager. I could go on and on. Aymee Garcia. Peter Linz. Frank Meschkuleit. John Tartaglia.

Your bigotry has no place on Sesame Street, nor with any Muppet media. It never has. From the start, Jim Henson, his fellow creatives, and the people who carry on his work have promoted kindness, education, creativity and equality.

If you think any of them would agree with your bigotry, you have not been paying attention.

[enbycrip]

I was discussing with a mate what actively makes a piece of media Queer as opposed to just featuring same-gender attraction.

I am a big fan of Queer being a verb as well as an adjective.

I wouldn’t call Romeo and Juliet queer because while it’s transgressive within the frame of the narrative, it’s *not* transgressive within the wider cultural framing? A young hetero couple from different sides of a conflict being married was so incredibly acceptable that it was a long-established practice for establishing peace - to the extent that the Friar even mentions that within the text as part of his reason for facilitating the marriage outside the strict norms of parental consent and acceptance?

Plus the whole framing of choice-led marriage as a force for societal harmony was such an influential trope at that particular period, particularly within Elizabethan England’s newly Protestant culture? Virginity was no longer prized the way it had been in a more Catholic culture, nor was the remote idealisation of courtly love. Instead you get a young different-gender couple who choose *married love*. In the context this was written, this was almost the *opposite* of Queer.

I’d say that, for a text to be Queer, it needs to not only transgress both norms internal and external to the text, but also flip those norms in a way that actively invites the reader to reconsider those norms in a new light? It’s why I’d call so many of Shakespeare’s comedies queer in a way Romeo and Juliet isn’t, because, even though everything goes hetero at the end to fit theatrical conventions about comedies ending with a marriage, they are this space where gender becomes fluid and playful, and *that’s* what you walk away with the impression of from the play? The hetero endings are so enforced it’s kind of deliberately ridiculous?

It’s why I feel Queerness includes readings and depictions of disability that aren’t any of the standard boxes that it is so often shoved into in media. If a disabled character isn’t “inspiring”, or “pitiable”; if they’re not artificially helpless, or completely unaffected by their disability, and, more than anything, if *they* are the centre of the text, with genuine agency, and the text is about *them*, not about their effect on abled characters, that definitely queers a text to me.

And *more* so if it centres their desires and their desirability as a character. Not that they can’t be asexual; asexuality is *very* queer, but if they are not *artificially* desexualised, as disabled characters so often are.

[aziraphales-library]

Hello and thank you so much for your work! Recently I was on kick for het!human!azicrowley and have read a lot of ones where Aziraphale is a women and Crowley a man (or, in one memorable occasion, genderfluid person). But I want to look at the other side! So maybe you have some recs for women!Crowley/man!Aziraphale? Preferable longish fics, especially great if it's hystorical au (any era will be great), and also I would absolutely love if fic plays with Crowley having reputation of some kind of fallen women (good play of words huh!), absolutely not suitable for respectable man as Aziraphale, but it's optional. Crowley also doesen't need to be strictly women, but preferable woman passing for outsiders for mist part!

Hi! We have a #female crowley tag you can check out. Here are some longer human aus, in a few of which Crowley is a woman and a couple where Crowley is genderfluid...

A Collar For Christmas by Quefish (E)

Aziraphale is a farmer in a small village in the country and his life is everything he ever wanted. But a bank snafu sends him into the city where he meets bank manager Toni Crowley. Is he willing to give everything up for a woman he just met?

Seeing You Home by TawnyOwl95 (E)

It’s time for a new start. And just how many of those has Crowley had since she found herself pregnant at seventeen? This time it will be different though. This time she has a job, and a house and she doesn’t need another boyfriend. Especially not one who lives right next door. Aziraphale Angel’s new start is proving tougher than he ever imagined. Eighteen months out of the Catholic Church and he’s still finding it hard to let go of certain beliefs about himself. And his new neighbour is determined to test every one of them.

Incorporation by Ack_Emma (E)

Best friends from rival wool merchant families, Antoinetta Crowley and Aziraphale Fell are shocked when their parents arrange a surprise marriage between them. But this new arrangement is a chance to be on their own side and to be left alone for a bit. Their lifelong friendship is solid, what could go wrong? As it turns out, plenty. Times are changing, and married life is harder than it looks when you're a pair of young, ineffable dorks.

More Than by NaroMoreau (E)

Crowley would like to spend another year without marrying, especially when thrust-forced to pick a husband. She refuses to cave in on a matter of principles. She refuses to cave in specifically on a matter of not wanting to be married to Lucien Morningstar. But she might need a hand to break free from such a burden. And who knows? She might even find something else along the way.

The Sometimes Wife by AgentStannerShipper (E)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that older brothers are the worst. As the youngest of three children, Parson Aziraphale Fell has been given an ultimatum: find a wife, or lose the family's support. The only problem? Aziraphale has never looked at a woman that way in his life. His attention has instead been captured by the family gardener, a beautiful young man who holds Aziraphale's heart in his hands. But when a mysterious newcomer arrives in the village, Aziraphale finds himself falling - quite unexpectedly - for her as well. Aziraphale knows he will have to choose. After all, it's not as if he can have both...can he?

Brave to Stay, Brave to Leave by ChristocentricQueer (M)

“Great, a pastor. Why does he have to be so bloody cute?” Crowley mumbled under his breath. A Human AU where Crowley and Aziraphale are both in their late fifties. Crowley is gender fluid and bisexual (He/Him and She/Her). Aziraphale is a transman and gay (He/Him). Crowley is a botanist who is agnostic. Aziraphale is a Protestant pastor in a fictional denomination. They live in Tadfield, a medium sized town in the United States. Slow build with a happy ending.

- Mod D

[azuls-spare-contracts]

Do you have lgbt headcannons for the characters?

Yes I actually do have some! Now I don't hc all the cast as lgbt but I am not against or apposed to hcs that say otherwise but I do have some and here they are, also i will mention seuality hcs for everyone but i'm not against people who hc otherwise and i'm very fluid on my hcs but theres are ones i follow like 90% of the time in my content and even hc (also no one is homophobic)

Riddle: i personally Head cannon riddle as Transfem and i think riddle is into girls and is a sapphic, i just feel like riddle is into women and would like to date a girl overall.

Trey: i feel like trey is either bisexual or just acroace i don't think of him too much but h just gives me these vibes

Cater: Bisexual as this is kinda just a cannon fact at this point, i also actually hc cater as transmasc but its a hc i don't mind but i can also see cater as just a demi-boy

Ace: aroace i don't think ace is down to date

Deuce: he's either straight or forever questioning

Leona: straight most likely i don’t think he’d be into men but who knows with him

Jack: probably straight but i like the pan jack hc

Ruggie: demi-romantic demi-sexual and probably just anyone who has money but he's probably pan or Achillean i don't really think he'd date fr unless its for money. (i actually like the nonbinary ruggie hc too or the demi-boy one)

Azul: Bisexual just with strong catholic guilt and also he's in denial about it

Jade: Pansexual and just likes to admire beauty also is demi-romantic and demi-sexual

Floyd: Gay man just not stable enough to date to be fair but still is atttracted to men

Kalim: he's probably aroace or straight but either way knowing royals he probably already has a fiancé who he's like best friends with

Jamil: i hc jamil as transmasc and most people in nrc think he's either gay or aroace but no jamil in my hc is straight he's just a really big hater, he probably does get upset if people ask if he's gay (ace and floyd ask him on purpose to see him get upset)

Vil: i think vil is into girls i hv vil as just into women (also i don't mind any gender hcs for vil as to me vil is just vil and hcs are hcs for a reason as they aren't yk cannon and its just peoples opinions)

Epel: probably straight and was maybe once homophobic thinking it was cool, it was not, he's probably questioned once as well and theres a chance he'd get upset if you asked him a lot like questioning his sexuality.

Rook: he's attracted to beauty so just pan (despite most of them being men) so omni just prefers men

Idia: a bisexual mf who is the type so say he's never into men or just aroace. Idia and azul are like cut from the same cloth and both in denial about being into men, just idia's isn't over religious reasons

Malleus: pansexual he probably just looks more for a persons character as well as demi-sexual and demi-romantic he wants to make sure the person has a deep connection with him and fully understands him and that he understands them

Silver: pansexual i feel like he likes people more for how they treat him and others mainly animals rather than looks or gender, he's also demi-romantic and demi-sexual he needs that deep connection in order to yk fall in love really

Sebek: doesn't have time for relationships and is aroace in my hc

Lilia: Bisexual its cannon and i also don't think lilia cares about gender anymore at this rate so he could just be genderqueer in my book Neige: straight i think neige is straight as he does hint at it Che’nya: sapphic, gender non-conforming as i just think this fits but also i don't mind the nonbinary pansexual che'nya hc.

Najma: straight just barely into guys, like she doesn't have much attraction but theres still attraction to men Crowley: straight Trein: straight Sam: too busy on that grind Crewel: gay, or he's like that one sciene teacher who acts hella gay and then one day drops that "oh my wife" bomb or the "oh my daughter/son" bombshell and it shocks the entire class. Vargas: bisexual i have no idea just the vibe Rollo: disaster bisexual catholic guilt Fellow: aroace just swindles rich women/ straight Skully: Queer or just Gay extra: my oc: she's probably just straight or is omni Pretty much these are all my hcs but as i said sometimes i do say stuff that can go against my hcs but honestly that very rare but overall i follow these hcs for my content or like my hcs and posts 90% of the time but there could be a day where i kinda post stuff that doesn't follow these usually but overall these are what i hc but i don't mind other peoples hcs i just personally like these!!, i hope you liked this post and i hope it was satisfactory enough of an answer!!! i hope you all have a nice day!

[starbounddragon]

I am 6 years old and my family tries to call me Lexi.

They tell me it's a nickname

It is uncomfortable in a way I don't have words for

Like the Easter dress my mother always made me wear

There is an ache in my whole body I cannot explain

I ask them not to call me that

It's years before they listen

I am 8 and my best friend is a boy

I play sports and read books and detest Barbies

I am branded "tomboy"

It fits like wearing my dad's oversized baseball mitt

Roomy, not uncomfortable, but not right

I am told I should be more ladylike

I am 10 sitting with the other girls from my class

They ask why I never wear the uniform skirt

I tell them I just prefer to wear the pants.

I do not explain how I begged my mother not to buy any skirts.

I do not explain the panic I felt when I tried it in on at the uniform store.

I just prefer pants.

I am 12 and my best friend switches schools

The same girls ask if I miss him

They ask if we're dating.

My face grows hot and I forget how to speak

Before I can deny it another girl scoffs

She says my shoulders are too broad

She says I am not a pretty girl

She means it as an insult

Why am I relieved when she says I'm not a girl

13 and I have a new best friend

A girl this time

It feels different in a way I don't have words for

She doesn't go to my school

For the first time I beg my parents for a cell phone

I text her every day

The school year starts and I have my first health class

I go to a Catholic school

The two "teachers", a youth pastor and the ccd coordinator, tell my class to hate the sin, love the sinner

One of them says she loves her brother but he's going to hell for his "gay lifestyle".

To their merit, my classmates are outraged.

Their uncle, oldest brother, cousin, is gay.

They protest on behalf of their loved ones.

The teacher does not change her stance.

I am ashamed.

I am afraid.

I am silent.

I am 14 and I hold a door open for a stranger and his kid

The man tell his son to "say thank you sir"

I feel like a fish on dry land

I feel my broad shoulders

I feel like wearing a uniform skirt

I feel tomboy

I feel Lexi

He's gone before I correct him

How do I run from this

15 and I only wear blouses and push up bras

I only wear my hair down

I can't bring myself to wear a skirt

My highschool is Christian not Catholic

Chapel every Wednesday reminds us girls to honor our husbands

Health on Fridays says babies are God's plan

There is no path more fulfilling than joyful motherhood

I tell my teacher I do not want to be a mother

She assures me she didn't either at 15

Her husband changed her mind at 20

The rage I feel is familiar

So is the grief

This is the year I learn the term asexual

This is the year I learn I am not aromantic

This is the year I become two people

My family and school friends are all conservative

We do group activities

We talk about their lives

I keep them at arms length

They don't ask

They don't notice

They don't want to know

My summer camp friends are all queer

I tell them everything

My girl best friend is one of them

She's pansexual

I realize I'm in love with her

I also realize I can't have a girlfriend

Not like this

Not as two people

I'm not ready

We're 16 and she tells me she's gender fluid

She tells me her pronouns are she/they

I didn't realize a person could be that

I wish I could be they too.

They call me Lex.

It doesn't hurt.

At 20 I learn the term agender and it feels like finding something I didn't know I was looking for.

I'm still two people but not as much anymore.

25 is the first time I say it out loud to other people

Friends from college who are also they/them

And for the first time since 15 I feel like a whole person.

[vlaserbeam]

Using dating apps as someone who’s transfem aligned is… tricky.

Like, it can feel like everyone is a landmine that could go off for one reason or another. I haven’t transitioned yet, just put on my profile that I plan to.

A gay man matches with me, cool! But I have to think, would he actually view me as a woman if I transitioned? Would transition make him break up with me, or would he stay because he views me as an exception, somehow fitting his attraction as a gay man despite being a woman? (Sexuality is fluid so that could absolutely be the case. But it can be uncomfy needing to count on that!)

A straight, Christian man matches with me. On one hand, cool, someone who would (hopefully) respect my gender identity! On the other hand, a huge amount of Christians are transphobic, and chances are he wouldn’t actually care for a longer term connection because of that. So I’m made to wonder, would he actually respect me, or is he just a chaser looking for a hookup? (Not all Christians are like that, but it can be uncomfy needing to count on that!) (and also just as someone who was made to be raised catholic i don’t want to go back to anyone like that ill be frank)

I see plenty of bi people on the app. Cool! People who would hopefully be comfortable with my identity sexually no matter where I go! But many of them are cis, can I be sure that they’d respect me having a queer gender identity, or would they be hostile to me being a trans person despite their own queerness? (Not all cis people are, but it can be uncomfy needing to count on that!)

It really is stuff like this that just makes me really get T4T. It can be really discouraging looking at a dating pool and needing to consider which of them would hate you on principle, or would leave you once you begin to be yourself.

Of course, there’e plenty that would be just fine, but taking that risk with each one can really set you up to be hurt, in more ways than one. Oftentimes, the only ones you can truly be comfortable with are other trans people, because you know they’re far more likely to understand, relate to, and respect your identity and struggles.

[nv-may-die]

Not new to nsft tumblr, just a new account!

Im Mae, I use he/they pronouns. I’m pre-transition (pre-t and top surgery). I’m not exclusively t4t. My gender and sexuality is pretty fluid, I’m always comfortable with he/him so I just use that as a baseline.

My DMs/asks are open <3 be weird and gross

Into:

- biting/scratching/blood

- denial

- overstim

- knifeplay

- breeding

- corruption (especially with catholic connotations/imagery god I’m a faggot for that)

- CNC

Not into:

- ageplay/ddlg/underage

- incest

[bandofchimeras]

Buckle up cuz this is a longpost about Jewish conversion & transsexual identity.

A friend joked, "why do all the bad Catholic girls become good Jewish boys?" when I told them of my conversion.

which sure, it's a bit funny how common it is to find Jewish convert trans men.

but for me the joke formula is a bit off. I consider myself a Good (read: prudish, rule enforcing, obsessively observant) Catholic girl to a bad (read: indolent, irreverent, skeptical, punk ass) Jewish boy.

I had to ask myself, what does it mean to enter a religious tradition and outright declare oneself "bad"? Why do I even want to be part of the Jewish people?

Well it has to do with autonomy & reactivity.

Catholicism was forced upon my natural psyche, much like girlhood. I was assigned Catholic and Girl at birth.

To cope, aside from moments of lapse and rebellion that would explode out now and again, I strove to be "good," to exactingly follow this assignment, perfectly study all its rules and craft the perfect image of what was desired of me to wear as a mask over my realer, neglected and deeply wounded self.

Breaking free of both those constraints in rapid order, there was no going back. I would never again be a Catholic, bad or otherwise, or a girl, feminist or otherwise. Yet in my heart of course, I will always be a Catholic girl with the attendant moods and desires and shapes of understanding that it required me to take.

Now, in conversion and in transition - there is a choice. I could remain nonbinary, fluid, in constant flux, agnostic, ungrounded, dynamic and in conversation with the questions of the world. For a time I thought yes this is who I really am. Not seeing, of course, this is who we all are at our core. Living in that non-identity and infinite identity at once for a time spiritually reconnected my soul back to its own shapelessness and shape shifting power.

But there comes a time when life requires you make some commitments. This is not to say nonbinary or gender fluid people must pick a side. Some folks need to carve out something different entirely. But while my soul remains genderfluid, pagan and animist, I felt the need for communal identity and a structure to build myself on in the world. What aligned most was ftm transexuality, and Judaism, both strains of music I'd been hearing since early childhood, hints and leads all along the way.

See it's that, the formless mischievous spirit within me takes on the shape of a Jewish boy reconnecting with his Slavic roots.

But! In having so much a choice in this (not really, but it was a choice to follow the path that called my name), means it is my Identity. And while Judaism comes with a large set of rules, guidelines, practices and a huge long tradition of scholarship to draw on, and while I did hear jokes about and feel concerned about the similarity of Jewish and Catholic guilt ....none of that has been much of a problem. I'm a very bad and rules avoidant little punk. I tried for a minute to be a "good" man and it fucking failed, fell flat on my face and in the end had to laugh at my attempts. I'm kind of a slut, a fag and a sleazebag. I do what I want, no matter how I try, and that's that. Judaism, I hoped would be a forcefield of community to help me hold onto morality and find a light of belonging in the darkness.

Post October 7th, it has become exceedingly clear that no, it will not be the institutions of Judaism that light this candle, but the weirdos, the queers, the witches and outcasts and converts in conflict. Judaism, as a spiritual /shape/ has a home for us in the corners even though the solidified institutions are entrenched in Zionism. It breaks my heart to pieces but I feel lucky to have seen it before formally converting. It's the storytellers that means the most to my heart, the subaltern keepers of memory. The survivors.

So I revel in being a bad Jew before I am finished becoming one, embracing the role of black sheep before even entering the fold, and will not fight against it.

Similarly, allowing my masculinity to be odd, offbeat and expressive - I did get beat down into a kind of cishet conformity for survival for awhile, and I'm not talking about feminizing my expression, but just being a weird fucking guy who violates male social contracts by existing as myself.

There's a freedom in renouncing desire for recognition, validation and asserting oneself (with humility!) in a tradition while still embracing it. Like hah! You can't get rid of me, I'm the pest assigned by G-d to question your assumptions unto my own exclusion, or relate freely to G-d, look them in the eyes while praying. I have an attitude and I'm not good, and don't care to be. Nothing has illustrated this more beautifully than the graphic novel The Rabbi's Cat. In which the figure of the dog and the cat play out as different orientations towards Hashem and Judaism itself.

There is room for all of us. If you don't think so, okay. We will keep making room for ourselves anyhow.

Meow meow.

[eternal-echoes]

“Those who promote the notion that "gender-affirmative" therapy is the only ethical pathway for treatment often make this claim based on the premise that gender is innate and unchanging. Yet at the same time, they strive to defend the narrative that gender is fluid. In the words of Kate Bornstein, "Gender fluidity is the ability to freely and knowingly become one or many of a limitless number of genders, for any length of time or rate of change."(39) Or, as Julia Serano explained, "[The majority of the transgender people I know understand that our experiential gender is potentially fluid and often changes over time as we accumulate new experiences."(40) Therefore, if one's internal sense of gender identity isn't always fixed, why would it not be possible for therapists to assist clients to realign their identity with their sex?

Many psychologists have found counseling effective in this regard. This is not about dismissing the intensity and reality of one's dysphoric feelings. Rather, it involves taking a deeper look at the challenges being faced by the individual who is experiencing such feelings. Psychiatrist Susan Bradley noted that many who transition and reflect with regret upon their decision often say, "I wish somebody had understood me from a psychological point of view and didn't just take at face value that I thought this was the answer to how I was feeling."(41) Or, as Dr. Deborah Soh asks, "If a gender dysphoric person is not experiencing a mental health disorder, why do they need to transition to feel better?"(42)

Counseling has been proven to help individuals who experience gender dysphoria, in some cases to experience greater alignment to their biological sex.(43) It can involve therapy for coexisting psychological issues, parental counseling, talk therapy, and other forms of counseling. In a follow-up study by Dr. Kenneth Zucker and colleagues, of the twenty-five young women who had been treated by psychological interventions, gender dysphoria persisted in only three of the patients.(44)”

-Jason Evert, Male, Female, or Other: A Catholic Guide to Understanding Gender

—

Work cited:

39) Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us (New York: Routledge, 1994), 52.

40) Serano, Whipping Girl, 226.

41) Soh, The End of Gender, 169.

42) Soh, The End of Gender, 152.

43) Cf. K. Zucker et al., "A Developmental, Biopsychosocial Model for the Treatment of Children with Gender Identity Disorder," Journal of Homosexuality 59 (2012), 369-397; L. Lothstein et al., "Expressive Psychotherapy with Gender Dysphoric Patients," Archives of General Psychiatry 38:8 (August 1981), 924-929; J. Kronberg et al., "Treatment of Transsexualism in Adolescence," Journal of Adolescence 4.2 (1981), 177-185.

44) Cf. Kelley D. Drummond et al., "A Follow-Up Study of Girls with Gender Identity Disorder," Developmental Psychology 44, no. 1 (2008): 34-45.

—

For more recommended resources on gender dysphoria, click here.

[connyscomics]

Rain by Jocelyn C. DiDomenick 😺

Trans rep: 10/10

General enjoyment: 9/10

Age rating: 10+

Okay so I finally finished this one and... OHMYGODIMINLOVE. Rain is a webcomic with over 40 chapters (7 print volumes I think) and is seriously one of the best comics I've ever read. I could go on an on about all of the things I love about this one, but for yall's sanity as well as my own, I'm just going to talk about a couple things. Oh and a quick plot description: The comic follows a trans girl named rain as she attends a religious high school and meets other queer people. A lot of stuff happens in the many chapters of this comic, and it variously touches on pretty much everything that one might encounter as a young queer person, both positive and negative.

Okay, so the first highlight for me is the main character herself. I really like her character and as a young trans person navigating being transfem in high school I really connected with a lot of her story. In particular I appreciated the representation of a character who is mostly cis-passing BUT has to go to great lengths to make this happen (at least from the not-so-supportive people in her life). I feel like with trans rep you either get like people who have an uncharacteristically easy time passing or you have people who are portrayed as like a grotesque caricature of trans people (not to say that non-passing trans women are gross or that passing is needs the goal for everyone, but the visual of the like hyper-masculine figure with messy makeup and a dress isn't usually benign). Anyways, Rain is a great main character.

Another character I want to talk about is Ky/Kylie, they are genderfluid and in my opinion done really well. I honestly related to their character a lot because even though I'm technically not genderfluid, I have very fluid desires as far as presenting. I Ky/Kylie starts out not really understanding their own identity and just being like "idk I'm a girl but sometimes I dress up like a guy" and then as the story progresses becomes more confident in their identity as a genderfluid person. The story also considers the struggles of dating for genderfluid people, with a love interest liking them more for one gender identity than another but eventually growing to understand that he can't pick and choose which gender identity he wants Ky/Kylie to have at any moment.

I should probably wrap this up before I start going into every character I love. In general, what makes this story so great is that there is a character for pretty much anyone to connect with (yes, even cishet allies), and all of the characters are done pretty well. I do have a couple minor considerations though. First, the author changed a lot as a person while writing this (I mean she started writing in 2010 and finished literally this year) so the beginning of the comic is definitely a bit outdated with some of its narratives. Though, I think it ends up working out because it generally reads as the characters learning and developing as people, which is something that comics don't always show because of a fear of saying things that are now seen as insensitive. The only other thing is that there are kind a disproportionate number of queer people in Rains community, which at times feels a bit unrealistic given that shes literally at a catholic school, but honestly I can't complain that much cause all of the characters are so much fun!!! Sorry for the extra long review yall, I just had so much to say about this one! 😺

[2dieavirgin]

Opinions on chase having a fucked up relationship with gender due to the Catholic guilt and not changing the body god have you. Like sure he’s not unhappy but he’s certainly not HAPPY. Gets very stressed about not being able to achieve androgyny because it doesn’t fit Gods image he has in his head. Chase having a very fluid idea of gender but refusing to accept it

had to let this marinate. but im obsessed with every trans chase take that comes my way. i definitely think he has some issues regarding both body image and catholicism and etc.

i also always read too much into this but him deciding to get rid of his long hair After he divorced cameron was.. a choice, definitely. like hm. i mean lets not think too much about it but something happened here i think. shedding off murder guilt or re-establishing post-separation masculinity i dont know