#I don't just think 'they're trans' I think 'pretty sure they started T RECENTLY'

[monsterlets]

hi I don't really know who to ask about this but I have to get it off my chest and I've seen you talking about voice stuff so I just started T and I've been looking forward to my voice changing but. I keep seeing tiktoks that say even when your voice drops the tone will always be "like a woman." am I stuck sounding like this but lower forever?

again it's okay if you don't have an answer I just at least need to get my thoughts out

short answer: no

long answer: oh boy those tiktoks. they have an element of truth in them but they're deeply misleading. for a lot of reasons. yeah no you picked a good person to ask, I have Things To Say about this

I'm taking my usual approach of "this is inherently fine but if it will make you less dysphoric or safer here's how to change it"

things that are true in those videos: there are general patterns of "tone" (not a technical term in this context, but we all know what it's getting at so I'll keep using it) that people generally perceive as masculine or feminine. trans men often retain a more "feminine" tone after their voice drops

I genuinely think that the people making those videos think they're making people aware of a safety hazard, but this is not the insta-clock that they think it is. unless someone is actively looking for it, or has met a lot of people who've taken T, they're not gonna make the connection. if they don't have another reason to think you're trans your average ignorant person is gonna be like "is he gay?"

the second thing they get wrong is they act like it's purely biological. it isn't. it's extremely malleable

so you produce a sound wave when air passes through your vocal folds, and that has a certain pitch. the main thing we're talking about here is how that sound wave changes on its way out of your mouth. everything the air hits -- your tongue, your teeth, etc. -- will change the tone of the sound you finally produce. and this is partly based on physiology and partly based on habit --

physiology - cis men on average have larger vocal tracts than cis women. this means the air has bigger targets to hit and that will influence the tone of the sound. T changes this somewhat, btw

habit - you know what the biggest target the air hits is? your tongue. you know what has a ridiculously wide range of motion? your tongue. hold it a bit higher and a bit farther back and you've just made it a bigger target

you can actively try to do that if you want to (takes trial and error, if you go to far with it you just end up making a different speech sound entirely) but there's something I haven't mentioned about the habit thing. you are used to supporting a higher voice. higher pitches take more space in the mouth to fully support. I've known a lot of people who, after their voice changes even out and they get used to them, just kinda subconsciously fall into the new habits I just mentioned. maybe they end up somewhere in between maybe they end up sounding indistinguishable from cis men. there's an awkward period like there is for cis teenage boys

[autisticwriterblog]

Welcome to: gender thoughts and worrying with Riley

Putting this under a cut because it's all about gender dysphoria, my thoughts about potentially starting HRT, transphobia and misgendering, and also some pretty TMI details.

Okay, so I've been comfortable describing myself as a transmasc person, or a NB trans man. Something very man-adjacent. And I'm happy with he/they pronouns (although I wish my family would use he/him more often - but that sounds ungrateful because I'm so glad they all got used to they/them, even my grandparents). Basically, I'm comfortable in my gender. But I sometimes wonder if I want my body to be different.

Top surgery was, without exaggeration, one of the best things that ever happened to me. I'm so much happier in myself, I can actually look at myself shirtless now, and I love touching my scars and seeing my flat chest under my shirts. I love everything about it.

But it sometimes doesn't feel like enough. I worry that everyone still views me as a girl who just cut her tits off. I met my aunt's boyfriend and within five minutes, he was talking to my aunt and said, "I was just asking Riley what sort of video games she likes." And I was sitting there in my clothes from the men's department and my buzz cut hair and my pretty androgynous appearance (I've naturally got a deeper voice for someone AFAB, I'm not that short and I have big feet, and I have a bit of very dark facial hair on my upper lip that the women in my family all pluck or bleach because they're self conscious about it, but I like it) and as I said above, my flat fucking chest under my POTF T-shirt. And yet he she/her'd me and it infuriated me. I clearly can't pass well enough to fool even someone who never met me before I came out.

(Side note: I really don't like the guy. He's a conspiracy theorist weirdo and he misgendered my aunt's god-son (not actually their relationship but it's easier to explain this way) multiple times and it was so fucking awkward. He kept asking about this couple's 'daughter' and I said "X and Y don't have a daughter" and he still kept doing it. Fucking prick.)

Anyway, this whole thing got me thinking about T again. I've always said I don't want it because you can't pick and choose what it'll give you. And for example, whilst I'd love my voice to be deeper and facial hair sounds pretty rad, I'm really not sure about the going through puberty all over again thing and there's a chance I'd lose my hair and I don't want that, and I'm 50/50 on if bottom growth would be an improvement or not. So, yeah, I always ruled it out.

But... I want to pass. I want to be read androgynous or masc, not just a butch woman. And I really think some parts of T would help. And who knows? Maybe I would like bottom growth? Who fucking knows. I'm already dysphoric about my genitals, so even though I mentioned worrying about that above, I'm not sure bottom growth could make things worse for me down there. I'm also a bit concerned about libido increase, but it's actually already been up recently since I got my first crush and I'm learning to deal with it. Plus, I did experience some of that during puberty and I survived.

Oh, and the hysterectomy thing is very likely to fall through because my doctor is fatphobic, so I'm kinda fucked about my painful periods for ages. But for a lot of people, T weakens or even stops their periods. And I keep thinking about how if that happened to me, it'd possibly solve my period dysphoria problem without having to pay £8000 for private surgery (because the NHS would never do it), assuming that my doctor would even do it even though he said he didn't have a fucking weight limit when I fucking paid £200 for a consultation. But I'm getting off topic.

Plus, I'm an impulsive person who changes his mind really easily, so my anxiety is being bitch and making me think "what if I regret it?!" even though that almost never happens and it's a fucking TERF talking point in my country. I don't even know what I'm trying to say anymore.

But the biggest part is... I live with my parents and I need help with a lot of things bc autism (I can't drive or go anywhere on my own and I need help with phone calls and all sorts of shit that mean I'm never going to be independent), so if they had a problem with me taking T for whatever reason, I'd be fucked. They've always been supportive and say that they'll help me with whatever as long as it makes me happy... but what if me taking hormones would be a step too far for them? My dad still hasn't seen me shirtless and I worry it's because he still thinks I'm a girl. So he might freak out. Or maybe my mum would and that would hurt even more because she's the person I love most in the world and I wouldn't want her to hate me.

I just get scared of everything. And I want to be happy and I wonder sometimes if hormones would help. Or if even bringing up the topic with my family would make everything fall apart.

[giggly-squiggily]

haiii!! little life update then some suna headcanons cuz i feel like it ^^ i had my first sleepover last night and it was so so fun, with my best friend and her 2 best friends ive talked to but had never met before. they were so welcoming n nice, they're the best <3

i've recently been gaining a small audience on tiktok for my art! feels super good to be appreciated by the art community :)

i'm also finding my style more! trying to accept that it's ok to not only have one style, and, as a nonbinary/trans masculine, that long hair too can be masculine. (desperately want to grow my hair out but so scared to be seen as more girly😣)

nowwww for suna!! i feel like he'd have like a little cousin or smth that's really quiet and he'd be super close w them. they have the type of relationship where it takes 30 mins to warm up at family gatherings n stuff but he loves them so dearly (this may be possibly reflecting off of myself and my wishes for an older role model to be friends w but never had ((i'm the oldest cousin)) so don't mind me🙈) and i feel like they'd do art and stuff together or go skating. he'd be the type to welcome them into his home if they're going through sum at their home. 😋

that's all!! i hope all is going well for you! don't know about you but i'm kinda excited for the colder weather to start, i love baggy clothes so it's pretty nice to curl up in a big ass t shirt and blanket n watch anime or play video games for a while.

Friend!!! :D I'm beyond happy to hear from you! :D That's freaking awesome you had your first sleepover! I'm glad you had a great time, and you met some really lovely people too!

Ahhh yeah!!! Look at you go on Tiktok! :D I'm glad you're getting appreciated by the community, and I'm thrilled to bits your art is being recognized! Keep on drawing and having fun!

That's really cool you're finding your style too! Having more than one style is totally valid, as is having long hair while identifying as non-binary/trans masc. Your choice on how to wear your hair or present yourself doesn't invalidate your identity. You are you, and you're amazing, worthy and enough. Anyone who says otherwise can go sit in syrup! Let the bees get them :3

OOOH THOSE SUNA HEADCANONS! That's so sweet- him being the family member his more reserved family member is close to! He's so chill and comforting; not necessarily doting on them but the one who sends funny videos to them at the most wild of hours. Like you said, he'd take them out for skating or mall trips- offer them a place to stay if things get messy. I like to think when he goes to college they still stay in touch; face timing every week and making plans to meet during breaks. He's just such a good guy!

Oh friend I am THRIVING in this chill! Sure, my fingers are frozen, and it's terrible to wash my hair in this weather (My hot water broke ToT As is life) but I love baggy hoodies and socks- hot drinks and my pets all cuddled up in bed with me (even if they take up the entire bed). The chilled out vibes of just curling up with our favorite game or show is just perfection! I hope you're doing alright friend!

Thanks for sharing friend! This made me smile like crazy reading it! I hope you have an amazing day!

[ksfoxwald]

2022 in Books

My reading stats for this year are so weird because I started reading a lot of children's chapter books and graphic novels. According to Storygraph I've read 292 books this year, and I know I didn't include everything.

Since it's hard to really compare all the things I've read, I've made 3 different top ten lists based on the sorts of things I read this year.

Top Five Books 1. The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor 2. Gryphon Ranger: Crossline Plains by Roz Gibson 3. Flames of Hope by Tui T. Sutherland 4. I Hope We Choose Love by Kai Cheng Thom 5. By the Silver Wind by Jess Owen

Top Graphic Novels 1. Magical Boy by The Kao 2. Dog Man by Dav Pilkey 3. Wingbearer by Marjorie M. Liu 4. Manu! by Kelly Fernandez 5. Space Story by Fiona Ostby

Top Chapter Books Series 1. The Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin 2. Animorphs by KA Applegate 3. Horse Country by Yamile Saied Mendez 4. Unicorn Academy by Julie Sykes 5. Secrets of Droon by Tony Abbott

Additional commentary below the Read More, but I'm not the author of any of these books and I don't owe you a Real Summary.

Top Five Books 1. The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor -I'm not usually into spooky stuff, but I am into platonic ride-or-die friendships between people who are convinced they're monsters 2. Gryphon Ranger: Crossline Plains by Roz Gibson -The past couple years have been a revelation in discovery that actually a lot of people feel that gryphons are the best mythical creature and that Redwall was great but Adult talking animals with swords is even better. It seems it is my fate to become a furry. 3. Flames of Hope by Tui T. Sutherland -I still do love dragons, and this was a very satisfying season finale for Wings of Fire. Tui has done several variations on subverting the Chosen One and it's a unique and interesting take each time. 4. I Hope We Choose Love by Kai Cheng Thom -Everything that is wrong with Internet Queer Culture and how to fix it. Well, sort of. It's a good read for recentering oneself, I think. 5. By the Silver Wind by Jess Owen -Speaking of gryphons, I'm not sure how long it took me to finish this series, but I am slowly working my way through the canon of Gryphon fantasy.

Top Graphic Novels 1. Magical Boy by The Kao -A trans boy finds out that he's inherited his mother's magical girl powers - including her outfit! A loving parody of the magical girl genre that also expresses how frustrating it is for queer and trans folks. 2. Dog Man by Dav Pilkey -Come for the poop jokes, stay for the generational trauma and moral philosophy. Dav Pilkey is a genius and I will die on this hill. 3. Wingbearer by Marjorie M. Liu -No this one isn't about gryphons, they just show up briefly. It's just so pretty... 4. Manu! by Kelly Fernandez -What if a magical school was a girl's Catholic school? And one of the kids may or may not be a demon, but is definitely an adorable chaos queerling? 5. Space Story by Fiona Ostby -three timelines - one of a woman on a space station waiting for her family, one of her wife and child building a ship to join her, and one of how the two of them met. Slow and sweet and hopeful in the face of a bleak future and a really good use of multiple timelines.

Top Chapter Books Series 1. The Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin -I would have hated these as a tween, but as an adult they're bomb. I'm only like 20 in but they're a masterclass in character development and episodic storytelling. 2. Animorphs by KA Applegate -I never actually finished the series as a kid, and was hoping to do so this year, but that will probably take until January. Anyway it's way more intense than I remember. 3. Horse Country by Yamile Saied Mendez -Just another horse girl series, but this one stars girls of color who are flawed and interesting characters. 4. Unicorn Academy by Julie Sykes -It's trash. Absolute trash. Girls in a boarding school who get paired with a unicorn and need to unlock their magical talent with Power of Friendship while going on somewhat contrived G-rated adventures. Absolute garbage writing and worldbuilding. But it's my kind of trash and I fucking love it. 5. Secrets of Droon by Tony Abbott -Another masterclass in episodic storytelling, and how to balance standalone adventures with longform plot. Early volumes are a bit twee but the stakes get raised as the series goes on. I want to co-author this but with kids of color exploring a fantasyland that is less colonialist.

[riseofthecommonwoodpile]

"i don't think fracturing communities into ever-smaller microlabels, implying vastly different community needs, and enforcing rigid distinctions between them is really as helpful as you think it is."

I will have to disagree with you here. This is one of the main point exclusionists use and it doesn't sound right. You're not one of them I'm pretty sure, so it's probably a misunderstanding.

Microlabels are not "fracturing" communities. They're giving voice and space to people who don't feel like they fit in the mainstream. That's the whole reason why Queer as a community exists, why MOGAI is a thing, too (that's also the reason why "queer is a slur" is a thing, because it's too broad and fits too much individuality and self-expression, and "mogai is cringe" is a thing, because of its micro identities feel like a threat, it's too freaky and abnormal and not like the palatable LGBTs).

There's more to people than being Lesbian, Gay, Bi or Trans. Some people don't like being the + in the LGBT+ and they have all the right to come up with their own terms, words and labels, create their own spaces and have their own rigid definitions. LGBT people have rigid definitions too, that's why microlabels exist.

We can be strong as a community even if we have individual needs, and strengthening individuals so they can find what works better for them, strengthen communities. It can work from the top to bottom, of course, the community influencing individuals. And it can also work from the bottom to top, where individuals influence the community. One thing doesn't negate the other, or invalidate them. Trying to gatekeep or exclude people does it.

Ok, I wasn't gonna respond to this, but I guess that I'm going to, because I like to put way too much effort into things that I should really just let go.

To start, I don't understand what you mean by "exclusionist" here. Excluding...who, exactly? The exclusionary, gatekeeping people you are speaking of and throwing me in with (which, although you say i'm probably "not one of them", the rest of the ask certainly implicates me of being), what are they gatekeeping? It seems like you're saying they're keeping people who don't explicitly identify as one of the Big Four letters (L, G, B, or T) out of the queer community, which is. idk. a kinda wild claim? Who precisely is being pushed out of the community by me saying "hey it's kinda weird when some pan people claim that bi people don't like nb people"?

If you're talking about a group of gatekeepers who don't think, say, people who use MOGAI terms should be part of the same LGBT community, yeah, those people sure do sound shitty. Never met one literally anywhere but online though. I've been an out trans lesbian for 12 years, lived in Illinois, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Washington, and Colorado during that time, and have that entire time only really socialized in LGBT / queer or queer-adjacent spaces, and I can genuinely say I have *never* met a person who, if you said you identified as pan, would try to stop you from being in that space. Again, I'm sure those people do exist, and if you encountered them IRL, that fucking blows and you shouldn't have been treated that way, I'm sorry. But that's such a wildly specific and small group of people that you are placing a huge amount of importance and blame upon.

In a similar "let's please talk about the real world" sentiment, saying that MOGAI labels are rejected by people because they are seen as "too freaky and abnormal and not like the palatable LGBTs"...holy fucking shit. I cannot leave the house without being stared at, and that's actually just been getting *worse* as the conservative attacks on trans people (and especially trans women) ramp up. Like half of the states in the US are being inundated with laws attempting or succeeding at criminalizing aspects of trans-ness. The overturn of Roe recently just opened the door to the reinstatement of anti-sodomy laws in 20-fucking-22, and multiple elected officials have already said they would support or enforce such laws. The idea that a gay trans woman is more socially palatable than a demisexual person is like, completely untethered from reality, I apologize, there's no nicer way to say it.

People 100% do have the right to come up with their own terms! I have no problem at all with that, absolutely none. Having a word to describe yourself is good, and I support all of them having a home in the whatever-you-want-to-call-this community. The issue with micro-labelling in the way I am speaking of it is that it can cause people to fall so far down the rabbit hole of specificity that they become atomized instead of seeing themselves as part of a larger movement, a larger history. And, not to assume, but the way you are speaking of categories like LGBT as having "rigid definitions" completely backs up this claim, because that is wildly, wildly, *wildly* ahistorical. The incredibly rigid definitions you think they have are recent, and have coincided with an increased desire to make those identities marketable in terms of politics, culture, and consumption. They have been made rigid in order to enable them to be sold back to you.

"Lesbian means you are a woman who is only sexually and romantically attracted to other women" is an invention of the last 20 years, if that. For a long time it was a term to refer to any women who had any intimate relationship with other women, to any degree. it's why, if you listen to any older dykes, i've never seen them phased by ideas like "bi lesbians", "he/him lesbians", etc. etc., because the term was purposefully open-ended. It spoke of an axis of one's romantic or sexual life, but it didn't close it off. It was supposed to be a beginning, a breaking through of the walls of straight society, not a new set of walls.

And it was the same with the other terms as well, with gay just in the last 100 years meaning everything from crossdressers to only men who are penetrated to only men who romantically like other men to men who like both men and women to men who just like men and a million variations in between and beyond. Trans has mutated so many times because its definition is inherently contextually defined against the current mainstream treatment of gender in society, which is constantly and forever changing. The "T" today we say means transgender, and we say it means specifically anyone who identifies as a gender other than the gender they were assigned at birth. But what if we went back in time? What if we mean "transsexual", or "transvestite"? Do we mean pre-op, post-op, non-op, non-passing, passing, man, woman, other, some, all, none? What about drag kings and queens, what about effeminate gay men, what about butch dykes who go by Daddy? These definitions are not rigid. You've been tricked by their mainstreaming into thinking they are. You are being sold something, and you'd do well to stop buying it.

Ultimately, this is the criticism I started with. Rigid definitions and the creation of ever-more-individualized microlabels, yes, may help someone understand what they are feeling, when those words can be so hard to find. But it can also isolate them. Let us bring in the bi / pan distinction once more. What is gained by either bi or pan people from harsh lines, harsh distinctions, rigid definitions, separate spaces? Any differences they may or may not have, aren't all of their lives made richer by having other people in them? Not a single one of them has had the same experiences as the other, and the point is not to try and match one's exact neurological state in that moment as close as possible to someone else's. The point is to get support, to learn, to receive and give care. If we are talking about community, communities are for that support, are for care, are for helping and advocating with others, for group action. If we want to have an actual community and not just one that snipes at each other constantly, we should be creating a bigger tent, not a tent city defined by ever-ongoing mitotic individuation.

There's no way for me to say this nicely, so I apologize, but this ask reads really intensely like someone who is a.) very unfamiliar with queer history and the history of these labels (or the modern ways in which they are used), and b.) is Very Online. You seem like you mean well, and you do care about making sure everyone is heard, and that's exactly the right attitude. Use any label you want, use it however you want- if it works for you, then that is ultimately why it's there, and why it matters. But do not use those labels as ways to define yourself only in opposition against other labels you (hopefully) care about. Ultimately, if we want to bring it back to my original post that inspired any of this, the reason I really dislike when people say that pan is a more inclusive label (by which they mean it literally includes more people under its umbrella of attraction) than bi is that it gives one group an identity at the expense of the other. This is what I mean by fracturing communities, and this is the exact thing I dislike about so much online discourse about these terms and labels.

That said, if you just get offline and meet real communities of real people, none of this matters to people who aren't internet poisoned like you and i, so that's always a nice comfort.