#I have complicated feelings as a publicly trans person who is read as a trans woman about what I should disclose

[queerhawkeyes]

recently had a gender talk where I explained my whole deal and have to say it does not get less weird to explicitly come out as 'not a trans woman' to someone.

[sophie-frm-mars]

Hi, ex-supporter here. Genuinely hope you’re doing well. I have been tempted to start up my support again because you genuinely are a talented writer/creator and I do enjoy your work.

I hope you understand supporting your Patreon is somewhat fraught. Your private life should be none of our business, but sadly it is relevant here. Moral action, both private and political is central to your work; you have called out plenty of people for abuse & morality drives your politics. We know abuse took place on your end, but that’s all.

A lot of people like myself might be emotionally rooting for you to bounce back from this, but are unable to support you right now because that moral dissonance has not been resolved. We really don’t know if you are like other ‘cancelled’ leftist influencers and just use leftist values to deflect attention away from abuse, or you are actually trying to do better and working on yourself.

You don’t owe us anything. However, many of us who are eager to support you are forced to hold back because trust has been damaged, and there has not been any real sign of reparation or reconciliation. Maybe you think those kind of questions are invasive, maybe you don’t think we are real fans for not sticking by you despite the allegations.

I don’t know, I just want you to know that there are plenty of people who do want to support you, but feel they need to trust you first. And that can’t happen without addressing some things.

Anyways, best wishes. Take care.

Hiya, thank you for speaking to me on this.

Before I say the rest of what I say I want to be clear that between me and the people I was involved with in 2023, there were some instances where I was responsible for harm, there were instances where I received harm and there was also a general pervasive ecosystem of harmful behaviours in the community I was in. This includes people who signed the statement against me, and in one instance one of them did something which everyone to whom I have described it has agreed is sexual assault, though there is more besides.

For the time being I'm not talking publicly more about what happened because it was a very messy situation, and although I have been seriously harmed by issues in my personal life being litigated in public in this way, I don't want to give my full account of my relationships with everyone involved because I don't want that type of harm to be done to other trans women. There are plenty of complicating factors as there often are in real life that social media isn't really capable of parsing. I have made it clear repeatedly that I am open to hearing anything that people involved want to say to me, and I talked in this post in January about that and about what I would be doing to ensure that I put in the work and make sure I don't cause harm like it again

https://x.com/sophie_frm_mars/status/1745414530455261531

I think that that post says everything I would like to say for now, although I regret saying I agree that my behaviour was abusive, because with more distance and perspective I don't think abusive behaviour was actually described to me.

As I understand it via the support that my therapist and friends have offered, my problems in 2023 were that: I wasn't taking my mental health seriously, I didn't learn good kink practice, I had very little appreciation of my own boundaries and when I shouldn't be doing something that someone asks me to do, and I was high basically all the time. I am in therapy and doing DBT and taking my mental health deadly seriously, I have done a huge amount of reading assigned by my therapist about kink, sex, relationships and mental health, I am working in an ongoing way on learning how to effectively communicate, know my boundaries and understand myself well enough to not be in the kinds of situations that risk harm, and I'm no longer high all the time.

(If anyone is interested in those book recs, so far I've read: Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel; The Right To Sex by Amia Srinivasan; Screw Consent (I hate this edgy title) by Joseph Fischel; Playing Well With Others; The Loving Dominant by John and Libby Warren; I Hope We Choose Love by Kai Cheng Thom; The New Topping Book by Dossie Easton and Janet W Hardy; and Dissociation Made Simple by Jamie Marich. There have been some others, and I've written a bit about them in the book club channel on my discord as I've been reading)

I haven't heard from the people involved. The last I heard from anyone was one of my exes calling me a pathological liar and saying that they just want to move on with their lives, so while I'm doing the work to make sure I act better in future I am just trying to get on with my life and let them get on with theirs. I hope this clarifies why I have not talked further about the situation.

I will say that the last few months have been hellish for me. I have been frequently suicidal, I spent Christmas and new years alone, I lost a tooth because I couldn't afford proper dental treatment, people from within the community I've been ostracised from have been putting pressure on my remaining friends to cut ties with me, Keffals had my abuser on her twitch stream, a bizarre exaggerated and monsterised version of my personal life has been publicly gossiped about by trans people, fash and "leftist" drama streamers alike, I have been doing other work to make sure I can still pay rent and afford my bills and my HRT, and to survive. As I've been getting more stable and more able to focus on things besides this, I've been working on new writing because all I want with regard to my work and my channel is for my writing to help people. I don't want to talk about my private life, but I do understand that some number of people will feel after what has been said about me that they can't move forward with me without hearing the full details. Lots of people in my life have repeatedly encouraged me to publish a full account of everything that happened but I know how the Internet works and I don't want other trans women to be harmed in the ways that I have been harmed.

[gold-rhine]

Afab! Scaramouche x GN! Dom reader first time

A\N: I guess technically it’s hurt\comfort. sigh. I don’t like to center my writing of trans characters on negative emotions, if you’ve read my previous stuff, you know when I write afab! male characters it’s like. Just guys, who happen to have pussies, having sex. And that’s how I initially started to write Scara’s afab first time prompt, but his canon storyline is so overtly about struggle of dysphoria, anxiety and self-hatred that it felt wrong to not incorporate it into my explicitly trans fic. So I had to rewrite it completely and I’m taking his part out of the compilation so ppl who want to avoid heavy topics and just have a good time reading smut can skip it. Otherwise, give it a try if you like complicated brats, I think it’s one of my good pieces and it has a happy ending.

Warnings: not sfw. graphic descriptions of dysphoria, anxiety attack, dissociation, angst, self-hatred, allusion to self-harm. Fingering, edging, overstim, spanking, oral (character receiving), vaginal sex. Cock stands for strap too, as usual.

Wordcount: 2k

You try to start slow and gentle with him, but he huffs mockingly.

“How long are you going to be wasting my time?”

“This is literally your first time, you little git.”

“Maybe you mortals need to be coddled, but I’m not a weakling.”

But despite his bravado, he’s tense when you kiss him, he doesn’t know how to properly kiss you back and what to do with his hands, so they just limply hang down. When you start opening his clothes to reveal his chest, he’s becoming more and more wooden. You try kissing him, his cheek, his neck, but it doesn’t relax him and he refuses to meet your eyes, still painfully clenched up, jaw locked tightly, like he’s preparing for something bad that he needs to just get through. He is not out publicly yet, still clinging to the belief that if he conforms to her expectations well enough, his mother will accept him. He’s so critical of himself all the time, especially of his body, which is just horrible and wrong, he hates seeing it himself and hates even more the thought of someone else seeing him naked.

“Hey, are you okay?” you ask quietly. “We can stop.”

“No!” he snaps. “I’m great. I don’t need to stop, are you stupid?!”

He wants you, is the thing. He wanted you for some time, got butterflies in his stomach, fantasized about you at nights. He wanted you more than anyone else in his life. So if he can’t bear even for you to see him, to have sex with him, then obviously something is deeply, fundamentally broken in him, no hope for him at all.

So desperately, he tries to find a roundabout solution. He’s still wearing a skirt, which he normally hates, but now it’s convenient, you could fuck him without taking it off.

“We don’t have to take off my clothes. There’s nothing good to see anyway. ”

He sounds frantic and frustrated, eyes alight with anger, and this does not look like a good situation to continue to you.

“It’s not a big deal, we can do it some other time when…”

“It’s just a cunt, you don’t need to see it!” He finally meets your eyes and you realize the brightness in them is not from anger, it’s from held back tears, because he believes you are rejecting him no matter what you say, “Why wouldn’t you just fuck it?!”

He hates his body and he doesn’t even want to have a pussy, but somehow subconsciously he feels like the one he has is also wrong, not even good enough for fucking, that whoever sees it will also recoil in disgust, as he does when he sees himself in the mirror. It’s ridiculous and he knows it, but he can’t help feeling like this, and he hates himself even more for this idiotic, nonsensical weakness, so this spirals into this vicious, unending cycle of self-disgust that he can’t see a way out of. What the fuck is so wrong with him that he can have a person he wants so much touching him and still be petrified, when it’s so easy for everyone else, and when…

You scoop him into your arms, turn him around so he doesn’t have to face you and hug him close to your chest. When he gasps and tries to protest, you clasp your hand over his mouth, kiss his ear.

“Don’t worry baby, I won’t look. But you need to calm the fuck down.”

He wants to struggle, but he’s so touch starved that when you embrace him, your warm breath on his skin makes him melt, especially combined with the wave of relief from your promise. He stops fighting you, curls up into a little ball in your arms, hiding his blushing face in a pillow, humiliated by how good it feels to be held, how little it takes.

“You don’t want me,” he says, miserable, but stubbornly proud, when you let go of his mouth. “You just pity me. I don’t want you to be here just because you feel bad for me.”

“I want you. I just wouldn’t want to fuck someone while they’re having a nervous breakdown. You or anyone else, for that matter.”

“It’s fine,” he says firmly. “I’m fine. I will be fine. Just do what you want to me, ignore my reactions, and soon I won’t even feel anything. It’s okay. I’m a puppet.”

It’s the conviction in his voice, the absolute certainty that there’s no better option that breaks your heart a little.

“Fucking hell, do you even hear yourself?”

“Why?” he says, face pressed against pillow, but calm, limp in your arms, a puppet with cut strings, and you hate it. ”It’s true, I am not like normal humans. You don’t have to treat me as one. It’ll be easier for the both of us, in the end.”

Maybe I just want you to feel good, baby.”

“Pffft,” he snorts like it’s ridiculous, like you’re naive and this option is not even on the agenda, and also so stupid he doesn’t even want to argue about it. “Even for humans, first time is supposed to be painful.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No, everyone knows it, and…”

You clasp your hand over his mouth again and he starts squirming, noises muffled by your palm, but his protests die down as soon as your other hand starts siding down his body. 

“You’re so bossy for a little brat, aren’t you?”

You flip up his skirt and slap his ass, and he jolts up in your arms, gasps against your skin. You stroke the affected skin first gently, then with more and more pressure, until groping it, fingers digging into his tender flesh. “Maybe be a good doll and let me handle this for you.”

He didn’t know it could feel like this, not even when he came thinking of you before, so good, like he’s safe, being taken care of, but also so sweetly helpless, unable to resist. His head is light and dizzy with desire when you caress his thighs, nervously and instinctively clenched up, and he can’t remember his millions of concerns when you whisper “Open up for me, baby.”

He lets your hand between his legs, you slide into his panties and find him already wet, but when you stroke his clit and quietly tell him “Good boy,” it runs through him like lightning, eyes opening wide, moan escaping from his lips, his entire body arching up against you. 

“Yeah, that’s right, baby,” you keep caressing his clit, and he writhes more and more against you. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

His hand grips abruptly at your wrist, his slender fingers digging deep, and for a moment you think he’ll try to tear you off him, but then you realize that instead, he presses you closer to himself. You smile against his neck, the hand that kept at his mouth slides down, stroking his throat and down to his chest. At the same time, you slide your other hand deeper in between his legs, find his wet, pulsing entrance. You push two fingers into him, and he shudders against you, his fingers clenching at your wrist, but his cunt is wet and ready for you, stretching sweetly and leaking, his hips bucking against you. His breath is quick and frantic, heart beating rapidly, and then his fingers find your hand that isn’t buried inside of his pussy, leads it down his chest and then under the clothes, under the bra, to find and caress his small tits, and he whines sweetly, arches up, hard nipples poking at your palm. But when you take your fingers out of his pussy and press the head of your cock against his entrance, he tenses up again, his muscles spasming.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Just do it! It’s supposed to feel good for you when it's tight, isn’t it? So just fuck it, I can take it!”

He shuts up with a tiny gasp when you press your teeth into the side of his neck, which lets you keep groping his tits.

“I’ve never met someone, for whom a ballgag is so obviously needed for survival before. It’s going to be okay, baby, relax.”

You stroke his clit and massage his breasts, cutting his protests short, his hands clutching helplessly at yours, not trying to stop you, but just trying to be grounded. 

“What if it’s not going to be okay?” he asks quietly, his face buried in a pillow. “What if I’m just built wrong, if it’s just always going to hurt when you try to fuck me?”

“Then we’ll figure out something to do that doesn’t involve penetrating your pussy. It’s not that hard, baby.”

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course, don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to leave you just because I can’t fuck your cunt.”

“Really?” he asks, choked, trying for sarcasm, but failing badly, a raw edge in his voice. 

you would just switch to eating him out, but he seems pretty hung up on the inability to take you in, but from how easy it was to fit your fingers into him, how he seemed to enjoy it, you’re pretty sure the issue is psychological. So you stroke his clit, squeeze his breasts and kiss at the side of his jaw. You can feel his entrance involuntarily pulsing open and you push the head of your cock into him, feeling him stretching wider. He turns his head to you in alarm, but you catch his mouth in a kiss, keep caressing his body and slowly moving deeper into him. His fingers move from your wrists to intertwine with your hands, and when you squeeze back, he comes so quickly in your arms, before your cock is even fully sheathed inside of him. 

You hold him through the orgasm, then slide out of him, but then he turns in your arms, until he’s under you, he’s looking up at you, instead of being held. 

“I want more,” he breathes out, hot and heavy, and before you can think of the answer, he pulls his clothes open, opening his bra and revealing his chest, and then tugs his skirt and soaked panties down. He lies under you, both trembling and determined, his breath fast and nervous for exposing himself to you after trusting you won’t be disgusted with him, that you’’ll *want him*. 

“You’re so beautiful,” you run your eyes over him and kiss him, hard, and he presses himself against you, kisses you back with desperate abandon, but still when you break away from each other, he asks, his voice small. “Really?”

In response, you pepper him with hungry kisses, from the neck down the chest, ribs, stomach until you cover his swollen pink pussy with your mouth, while he’s leaking sweetly under your lips. When he comes, and he comes quickly, moaning loudly, you pull him close and kiss his lips with the taste of his own arousal.

“Really,” you tell him softly, while he’s blushing, soft and squirming against you. He shoots you a wry little look that you already came to associate with trouble coming, and says, trying to sound superior, but failing because of mischievous little smiles breaking his act

“So you like this body? That’s so degenerate of you, who would even like something so ugly and…”

He yelps and shuts up when you forcefully turn him over to lay on his stomach and slap his ass, but he looks pleased afterwards.

“There are much better ways to get spanked, you little brat.”

He arches his back, popping up his ass and spreading his thighs to show off his wet flushed pussy, entrance pulsing up open for you. Then he looks at you over the shoulder, eyes glinting in excitement, and sticks out his pink little tongue at you.

“Oh really?”

[velvetvexations]

it’s frankly kind of crazy to me how many folks just assume that everyone AFAB is treated as a woman, like. with zero complications or caveats. i have PCOS and have a disability that makes me look different from a lot of people (read: ugly, because i do not fit into white supremacist beauty standards). i have never been in my life truly perceived by anyone around me as a woman. female, sure, in the same way people treat dogs and horses and cats that are female - she/her pronouns by default (most of the time, though i do get ‘sir’ed on occasion because of my masculine features when you can’t see my huge fuckin tits (/derogatory)), an assumption of hysteria and stupidity in everything i say, routinely subjecting me to sexualization and sexual abuse - but i’m not ever really a woman to anyone.

i was thoroughly rejected from the concept by girls and women, looked down upon for being ugly and not having “feminine” interests or behaviors, having my features publicly mocked and denigrated, speculation about my genitals was public and humiliating, and it was generally assumed that i was a disgusting animal that no one with any dignity would ever be sexually attracted to except for rapists and pedophiles (and even then i guess i was supposed to be grateful for that attention because i was too vile and inhuman to expect anything better).

i literally always fit in better with men who did not feel any pressure to have to think about me as a sexual being, which was gay men when i was still IDing as a woman and straight men when i finally came out as transmasculine. if they didn’t have to wrap their head around how something as gross and ugly as me was supposed to be a woman (read: desirable), they didn’t have to agonize over how they were supposed to treat me. if i’m just one of the boys, that pressure’s lifted, and i finally got access to normal social involvement. i got the slightest access to personhood by no longer trying to be something it was basically completely agreed upon that i was a failure at.

as far as i’ve understood it that’s an experience some transfems have, finally getting access to normal social interaction by no longer having to pretend to be something they’re considered a “failure” at. i guess i just wonder why it’s always assumed that trans mascs never have this experience either. like we had it easy and still have it easy and are just pretending or making any struggles we have up for fun, i guess.

for what it’s worth (so this ask isn’t a total fucking bummer) i’m a lot happier now and am in groups where i am no longer expected to perform gender as strictly as i was growing up. i’m not reduced to my fuckability or lack thereof anymore and people value me like i’m a real fuckin person. and i never medically transitioned at all. i was just lucky enough to finally find people for whom being myself was what was actually important, not being a gender arbitrarily assigned to me based on being born with a V and not a P.

There's this really gross assumption that anyone transitioning out of being a woman is essentially "wasting" their assigned status as The Good Gender. It's very disgusting. I'm so sorry for everything you've been through and that people make it so rough assuming you've had it so easy.

[coochiequeens]

I would rather be a TERF than be someone who ignores that this can happen just to be an ally. True friends and allies would want anyone especially minors to be informed of what they were getting into concerning any medical procedure.

The tragic story of Griffin Sivret, and why it matters for every MA family.

Massachusetts Informed Parents Aug 19, 2024

Over the weekend we learned of the tragic death of 24-year-old Griffin Sivret, a “trans man” and MA native. For the sake of clarity, we will refer to Griffin by her natal sex. According to multiple sources, at the time of her death Griffin lived in RI but grew up in Worcester and attended Worcester Public Schools. She then went on to Becker College in Leicester. You can read her obituary HERE.

Before we go any further, we would like to extend our condolences to Griffin’s friends and family, especially her parents. Our hearts go out to you in your time of profound and unfathomable loss.

As a parent, the first thing that often comes to your mind when you hear that a young person has died, is the question: “What happened?” The answer to that question is why we feel that Griffin’s story must be told.

While an official cause of death has not been released, it has been reported that Griffin’s death was related to the long-term complications of “gender-affirming” surgery. Specifically, in Griffin’s case, the surgery that degraded her health and may have led to her death is phalloplasty. Phalloplasty, for those of you who have not yet been baptized into the hellscape that is “gender-affirming” surgery, is when a surgeon creates a neophallus (essentially, a fake penis) out of a flap of skin taken from either the forearm or the thigh of a natal female and sews it onto her groin area. This might sound like something straight out of a horror movie, but it’s very real. Phalloplasty surgery carries a high rate of complications, and the neophallus never functions like an actual penis, and often causes a multitude of other physical problems. For a firsthand account of what it is like to go through this surgery and to live with the complications, see this article from “trans man” and activist Scott Newgent. Newgent underwent phalloplasty while in her 40’s, and now works to sound the alarm about how dangerous this procedure is, and how it has destroyed her life.

Or you could listen to Griffin herself. Because as it turns out, Griffin was quite an avid TikTok-er. Over the course of a few years, she posted regularly on the app, where she talked about her surgery. As time went on, her posts became more and more about the complications of her surgery. In her last post, she looked quite ill. Two months later, she was gone. Her TikTok profiles are still up, and they can be viewed HERE and HERE. Griffin chose to share these parts of her life publicly, so we encourage everyone who wants to understand her perspective to listen to her share her experiences in her own words.

Here is one from just a little over three years ago, where she highlights the surgeries and “gender affirming” medical interventions she has had. Notice she started testosterone in 2014, which would have been when she was around 14 years old.

In this video Griffin can be seen driving to the hospital for yet another phalloplasty revision surgery, just six months later:

And just two months later she shares her grand total of phalloplasty-related surgeries to date: 8. She had eight surgeries on her genitals, and her neophallus still didn’t work the way she wanted it to.

Her TikTok doesn’t give much additional information on her health after that, other than her last post, where she sadly looks rather ill.

Now, heartbreakingly, she is gone.

We don’t pretend to know Griffin, or to understand all of her motivations or everything she went through. For the perspective of someone who has followed Griffin much more closely and had engaged her online while she was alive, go over to Twitter/X and check out user Exulansic’s profile, @TTExulansic. But even with our limited perspective there are many important things that can be learned from this tragedy, and to prevent future suffering for other people like Griffin, they must be explored.

“Gender affirming care” harms. Sometimes, it kills. Based on the evidence we saw, Griffin’s medical issues all seem to be traceable back to the surgical and medical interventions provided by “gender affirming” doctors. She spoke openly about the physical suffering that came along with the surgeries. While she maintained a public facade of being glad that she had a “penis,” she warned other people about the devastating physical impacts of her surgeries (see below). For almost half her life, she was a medical patient, all in the name of affirming her trans identity. While we don’t know the exact cause of her death, it is fair to say that at the very least, her “gender affirming care” left her physically weak and fragile. At worst, it killed her. (And if it did, it wouldn’t be the first time this happened. Here’s an article about another young person who lost their life due to “gender affirming” surgery.)

Losing a child is every parent’s worst nightmare. But affirming your gender-confused child’s trans identity won’t keep them safe. Parents of children who express a trans identity are often told by professionals that they must go along with the child’s new identity because otherwise, their child will kill themselves. “Would you rather have a living son, or a dead daughter?” counselors, social workers, and pediatricians ask traumatized parents. Manipulated and distressed by this question, many parents affirm their child’s trans identity because they feel they have no other choice. From what we can tell, Griffin’s parents were supportive of her trans identity. They used her preferred pronouns. At the age that most kids are entering high school, Griffin was already allowed to take cross-sex hormones. Her parents seemingly did what counselors advise parents in their situation to do - they affirmed her self-professed male identity, and they allowed her to transition. But tragically, their daughter is gone. The “gender affirming” treatment didn’t ultimately save her.

Hurting people hurt people. We don’t know what led Griffin to adopt a trans identity at 13 years old. But we do know that it is not uncommon for young people to seek solace in a trans identity after some sort of sexual assault, or simply because they feel so uncomfortable in their own developing body that they think it would be easier if they were a man instead. Regardless of her reasons, it is clear from Griffin’s TikToks that she was hurting emotionally as well as physically. And yet, it’s also possible that she hurt other impressionable young people by using her platform to promote gender surgery. In the TikTok below, she is answering a question from a 14-year-old “trans guy” about the ins and outs of phalloplasty. In it, she says that phalloplasty “surgically creates a penis.” This is simply not true. A neophallus created by phalloplasty is not the same thing as a penis. But the young person asking the question views Griffin as an expert, and they are left with no reason to question her answer. It makes you wonder: were confused young people enticed into a dangerous medical pathway by watching Griffin’s videos? Is there unintentional collateral damage from Griffin’s influencer persona? We may never know the answer to this question, but we do know it’s one more reason why parents need to keep their kids off of social media.

“Gender affirming care” is big business - for surgeons. In the TikToks below, Griffin gives two different figures for how much her doctors billed insurance for her phalloplasty and related surgeries. In a third video you will see later in this post, she gives yet another figure. The amounts don’t add up, but they are all astronomical. If anyone was still wondering if a perverse incentive exists for surgeons to do these dangerous, radical surgeries… well, now you have your answer.

Griffin received her “gender affirming care” in MA, and the doctor who performed her phalloplasty is still performing this surgery on other young people. Griffin identifies her surgeon in the TikTok below. His name is Dr. Oren Ganor, and he is the co-director/co-founder of the Center for Gender Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital. Gender surgery at Boston Children’s has a complicated and controversial history, and they have (unconvincingly) denied performing gender-affirming surgeries on minors. According to this article, Dr. Ganor has argued that the capacity for gender surgeries for minors needs to be increased. What does Dr. Ganor think about what happened to Griffin? Was Griffin’s surgery deemed a success? We hope a medical authority looks into this. Regardless, it’s important to know that Griffin didn’t get her surgery done by some hack in a back alley. She didn’t fly to a third-world country to get bargain-basement surgery. She went to the co-director of the most prominent gender surgery clinic in the state, and still faced this disastrous result.

In this post Griffin accuses Safe Homes of allowing adult predators access to vulnerable minors (in this case, under the guise of a drag show - ironically, the very thing we are always told doesn’t happen), of looking the other way when sexual assaults occurred, and of employing a “literal child groomer'“ who was continued to be allowed to work with minors even after they were reported.

Safe Homes encourages minors to join their Discord community. Discord is a website known for being infiltrated by predators. It allows for private chatrooms with little accountability, and most parents don’t know it exists.

Now, we can’t speak to Griffin’s accusations specifically. But common sense tells us that if an adult wanted to gain access to kids for nefarious sexual purposes, one of the best places to go would be an organization that attracts impressionable kids based on their perceived sexual identity and wraps its actions in the seemingly impenetrable rainbow-colored cloak of “Love is Love.” We imagine that it must have taken a LOT of courage for Griffin to publicly criticize an organization like Safe Homes, especially as a member of the “LGBTQ community.” While we have not yet been able to verify Griffin’s accusations against Safe Homes, we were able to verify her involvement there. In 2016, she was awarded an award at their annual gala. See her name in the photo below, which you can also view HERE.

Safe Homes is clearly a powerful and influential organization. What did Griffin see/hear/experience that pushed her away from the very organization that gave her an award? Do the politicians in these pictures know of her accusations against Safe Homes?

On her personal Facebook page, Griffin checked in to Safe Homes multiple times.

Griffin was also active on the Safe Homes Facebook page. In the post below, you can see that Safe Homes was very excited that “gender affirming” surgeries were coming to Boston. Chillingly, you can also see that Griffin “liked” that post. Is this how she first learned of the very surgery that would destroy her health, and possibly lead to her death?

It seems she was unsafe at “Safe Homes,” in more ways than one.

We checked out what Safe Homes has been up to lately, and we didn’t like what we saw. First of all, we saw multiple posts in memory of Nex Benedict, the “nonbinary” young woman from Oklahoma who tragically died of suicide but was falsely hailed in the media as a martyr after it was incorrectly reported that she was killed in a hate crime. Yet there was not a single post honoring Griffin, a past recipient of their “People of Courage” award, who was actually part of their organization and whose funeral was several weeks ago.

But their apparent ignoring of Griffin’s tragic death wasn’t the only terrible thing we saw. Safe Homes, which services kids as young as 14 (and focuses on ages 14-23), is leading more young people down the same path that harmed Griffin. They are ushering more confused, hurting young people into the gender medicalization pipeline by offering easy access to “short-term counseling for individuals seeking letters for HRT or gender-affirming surgeries” at their “Safe Homes Transgender Resource Center.”

They bring in special speakers, like this woman from Planned Parenthood, to talk to minors about hormone treatment:

They teach minors how to legally change their names:

And despite Griffin’s publicly expressed concern about how a Grindr-loving groomer drag queen had gained access to minors via Safe Homes in the past, they still seem to be bent on bringing drag queens around kids. Here is one recent example, where they were involved with/promoted a screening of the Barbie movie for “Youth Pride Night,” where a drag queen Diva D was set to perform:

And here’s drag queen Diva D, who you might remember from dancing on a table at Sutton’s Connections Conference. He’s not the only drag queen that Safe Homes has brought around minors, but he’s the most recent. (And for the record, we think it’s odd that he just can’t seem to get enough of performing for minors. You would think that the amount of negative feedback he received from his performance in Sutton would have inspired him to stick to performing for adults, but apparently it didn’t.)

A month before that event, Safe Homes hosted a drag show at The Rose Room Cafe in Webster. There was no minimum age noted to attend this event. One of the drag queens who performed, Lana Backwards (aka Rhys Stuller, née female), was a high school friend of Griffin. According to a tribute written on Rhys’s Facebook page, Rhys and Griffin attended Safe Homes together as teens - a fact that, given everything we now know about Griffin’s concerns about Safe Homes as well as the trajectory of these two girls’ lives, feels like it needs more investigation.

Safe Homes’ parent organization is Open Sky Community Services, a massive organization that provides community services to all of central MA. They openly support Safe Homes’ mission, including publicizing the Transgender Resource Center that provides easy access to hormones and surgeries for gender-confused youth.

Does Open Sky care about what happened to Griffin? Do they know that their support of “gender affirming care,” the combination of bad science and medical malpractice that has devastated the bodies and minds of so many impressionable young people, very well could have led to Griffin’s untimely demise? We think someone should ask them.

A quick google search provided evidence that Safe Homes has a foothold in many MA public schools. Fitchburg High School lists them on their guidance website as a mental health resource. Worcester Public Schools shared Safe Homes as a resource as well. Burncoat and Worcester Technical High School have invited Safe Homes to speak to their classes, as have Northboro Middle and High School. And we know that Safe Homes works with Pride Worcester and SWAGLY, both of which have been known to network with MA public schools.

To the Sivret family, we again extend our sincere condolences for the loss of Griffin. Our earnest prayers for comfort will be with you during this time of profound grief.

To parents everywhere, this sad loss brings to light many important things that we must all know in order to protect our own kids, and the kids in our communities. We can’t trust social media influencers to give our kids good advice, especially if they are in the middle of fighting their own battles. We can’t trust the medical establishment to keep our kids safe, not even highly regarded doctors who work for prestigious hospitals. We can’t trust our schools to protect them from outside organizations that, according to Griffin, allowed bad actors to prey on vulnerable minors. And we certainly can’t trust those same outside organizations to place our child’s health and well-being over their commitment to radical ideology - even if they have the glitter of prestige and host galas attended by high-ranking politicians. We must be aware that all of these systems, and all of these institutions, can fail our children. We have to know this story so that we can protect them. Because while what happened to Griffin is happening to kids and young adults all over the country, this time it happened in our own backyard.

May those who loved Griffin remember her fondly. And may the rest of us remember that no family is immune from this form of heartache. It is up to all of us to be eyes-wide-open, so that if it is our child who believes the lie of gender ideology, and they think gender surgeries will make them happy and whole, we can tell them the truth. And we can tell them this story. #equippingparents #protectingkids

[transpersian]

Hey just wanted to say sorry for how aggressive my anons were a bit ago I was having an episode and taking it out on you because I started to delusively see you as one of my past abusers because some of the things you had said reminded me of what everyone who supported them and and the things that my abusers themself have said.

I still think you're a rape apologist in actions considering you think coercion based SA and rape is funny and nonexistent but I shouldn't have actively been aggressive and having a full blown psychotic episode in your inbox.

HEY READ THIS FIRST BIG CW FOR SA AND R*** DISCUSSION

Okay, now read the ask and then continue below.

Hey, anon. I'm sorry that happened to you, genuinely. It's okay, I don't mind. It's not that uncommon to get that kind of message in here.

While you were (aggressively) telling me to publish your previous asks, now I'm going to assume that you don't want me to since they were the product of an episode. I'm still going to do my best to respond to some of your statements here.

First-off, I have to tell you that I myself am an SA survivor. The main one happened in 2020 and I haven't been able to feel safe enough to connect intimately during sex since. As a demisexual, that's a special kind of shitty.

Another more complicated sexually traumatic incident as a teenager.

There's another one my memories are kind of weird around, so I just don't touch it.

But you need to understand that I take it very seriously, anon. I do.

I'm wondering if you would be able to re-read my document and see yourself in my position. Invalidated. Brushed aside. Attacked. Pushed to begging and then reprimanded for it. Left with an indefinite break for two weeks on top of the originally requested week, with no notification. Left to watch her celebrate her birthday without me.

She talks about BPD and FPs. She was the first person I was able to trust since 2.5 years of my personal nightmare of abuse. She knew this, and she just left me hanging.

We have friends that have heard them mention letting relationships "whither" instead of actually ending things healthily and fairly for the other party. They don't fucking care. They just do what's most emotionally convenient for them.

I don't know how you read through the whole thing and just brushed it off as nothing, unless you didn't actually read it and just listened to what Poppy and Liana have been saying. Please, read it for yourself if you haven't.

If you already have, then I'd ask you to read it again without such prejudice against me. I'm not operating off of any breakup feelings. I'm operating off of the testimonies of many, many people I've spoken to about the things she's done to them.

The kind of logic that she's using to justify calling what happened to her SA is the same kind of logic people use against trans people about disclosure.

I'm not defending SA. I'm saying that I know more of the story and Poppy is lying about several things that change things drastically.

I'm not doing this because of our breakup. I'll keep saying it as much as I have to: I'm with Hela now and we're fucking adorably, happily in love together. I got over the breakup in August.

And trust me, anon. You can wish your trauma on me, but I promise you I've got more than you might think. I'm not what they're saying I am. When it comes to what I do behind the scenes, I am meticulous and thorough and work very hard to consider as many potential consequences of decisions as possible.

Where did I say anything about "norms of a relationship?" I'm being genuine, anon, I'm confused. Please send me a link to whatever you're referring to so I can understand whatever this is.

As for the risk of this, I'm not going to discuss it publicly for now beyond saying this: the risk of harm from doing it is far less than the risk of harm from not.

You don't have to believe me, but I promise you, there's more to this than I can simply convey here and I fully believe that I'm doing the right thing.

This isn't about vengeance or bitterness over some breakup. This is about protecting people.

I hope you'll give me a chance when the next drop happens, anon. Please take care.

And please, notice how being around Poppy and reading her story makes you feel, physically, in your body.

If Poppy is running a community that's meant to be a safe haven for survivors of all kinds of trauma, explicitly including CSA...

Why is she using that same community to process the extremely raw trauma of her experience?

All debate about the semantics of her situation aside, this is an extremely fucking triggering subject.

At the very least, it's extremely irresponsible and unethical.

[iceyrukia]

IT IS OBSCENE: A TRUE REFLECTION IN THREE PARTS

PART ONE

When you are a public figure, people will write and say false things about you. It comes with the territory. Many of those things you brush aside. Many you ignore. The people close to you advise you that silence is best. And it often is. Sometimes, though, silence makes a lie begin to take on the shimmer of truth.

In this age of social media, where a story travels the world in minutes, silence sometimes means that other people can hijack your story and soon, their false version becomes the defining story about you.

Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it, as Jonathan Swift wrote.

Take the case of a young woman who attended my Lagos writing workshop some years ago; she stood out because she was bright and interested in feminism.

After the workshop, I welcomed her into my life. I very rarely do this, because my past experiences with young Nigerians left me wary of people who are calculating and insincere and want to use me only as an opportunity. But she was a Bright Young Nigerian Feminist and I thought that was worth making an exception.

She spent time in my Lagos home. We had long conversations. I was support-giver, counsellor, comforter.

Then I gave an interview in March 2017 in which I said that a trans woman is a trans woman, (the larger point of which was to say that we should be able to acknowledge difference while being fully inclusive, that in fact the whole premise of inclusiveness is difference.)

I was told she went on social media and insulted me.

This woman knows me enough to know that I fully support the rights of trans people and all marginalized people. That I have always been fiercely supportive of difference, in general. And that I am a person who reads and thinks and forms my opinions in a carefully considered way.

Of course she could very well have had concerns with the interview. That is fair enough. But I had a personal relationship with her. She could have emailed or called or texted me. Instead she went on social media to put on a public performance.

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. But I mostly held myself responsible. My spirit had been slightly stalled, from the beginning, by her. My first sense of unease with her came when she posted a photo taken in my house, at a time when I did not want any photos of my personal life on social media. I asked that she take it down. The second case of unease was her publicizing something I had told her in confidence about another member of the workshop. The most upsetting was when she, without telling me, used my name to apply for an American visa. Above all else was my lingering suspicion that she was a person who chose as friends only those from whom she could benefit. But she was a Bright Young Nigerian Feminist and I allowed that sentiment to over-ride my unease.

After she publicly insulted me, it was clear to me that this kind of noxious person had no business in my life, ever again.

A few months later, she sent this affected, self-regarding email which I ignored.

Friday September 15 2017 at 4.35 AM Dearest Chimamanda, Happy birthday. I mean this with all my heart, even though I know I have fallen (removed myself?) from your grace. It would be impossible for me to stop loving you; long before you gave me the possibility of being your friend you were the embodiment of my deepest hopes, and that will never change.I think of you often, still – stating the obvious. I grieve the loss of our friendship; it is a complicated sadness. I’m sorry that I caused you pain, or to feel like you can no longer trust me. There’s so much that I wish could be said.I pray this birthday is the happiest one yet. I wish you rest and quiet and abiding stability, and of course more of the kind of success that means the most to you.I hope mothering X is everything you hoped and prayed for and more.Have a wonderful day today. Love always.

About a year later, she sent this email, which I also ignored.

Thursday November 29 2018 at 8.42 AM Dear Chimamanda, I realise this is long overdue and vastly insufficient, but I’m really sorry. I’ve spent so much time going back and forth in my head and my email drafts; wondering whether to write you, how to write you, what to say, all kinds of things. But in the end, this is the thing I realise I need to say.I’m sorry I disappointed and hurt you by saying things publicly that were sharply critical, unkind and even disrespectful, especially in light of all the backlash and criticism you experience from people who don’t know you. I could have acted with more consideration towards you. I should have, especially given the privilege of intimacy that you had offered me. There are many reasons why I chose to behave the way I did, but none of them is an excuse. And I clearly realise now, after many, many months of needless sadness and angst and hurt and actual confusion, that I did not treat you as a friend would—certainly not as someone would to whom you had offered unprecedented access to yourself and your life.You’ve meant the world to me since I was barely a teenager. It’s been very hard navigating the emotional fallout of the past several months, knowing you were displeased with me but truly not quite understanding why, then deciding I didn’t care, then realising that would never be true. I’ve always cared. But I was too mixed up about the situation to be able to make sense of it, or properly see past my own justifications. I’m sorry it took me so long to grasp how I let you down.I realise that I don’t have room to ask anything of you, but I would be grateful for a chance to say this in person. Still, even if I never get that, I really hope you believe me.Congratulations on restarting the workshop, and on all the other amazing successes of the past several months. I think of you often; it would be impossible not to. You look so happy in your pictures. I really hope you are well. All my love,

I hoped never to hear from her again. But she has recently gone on social media to write about how she “refused to kiss my ring,” as if I demanded some kind of obeisance from her. She also suggests that there is some dark, shadowy ‘more’ to tell that she won’t tell, with an undertone of “if only you knew the whole story.”

It is a manipulative way of lying. By suggesting there is ‘more’ when you know very well that there isn’t, you do sufficient reputational damage while also being able to plead deniability. Innuendo without fact is immoral.

No, there isn’t more to the story. It is a simple story – you got close to a famous person, you publicly insulted the famous person to aggrandize yourself, the famous person cut you off, you sent emails and texts that were ignored, and you then decided to go on social media to peddle falsehoods. It is obscene to tell the world that you refused to kiss a ring when in fact there isn’t any ring at all.

I cannot make much of the hostility of strangers who do not know me – fame taints our view of the humanity of famous people. But the truth is that the famous person remains irretrievably human. Fame does not inoculate the famous person from disappointment and depression, fame does not make you any less angered or hurt by the duplicitous nature of people. To be famous is to be assumed to have power, which is true, but in the analysis of fame, people often ignore the vulnerability that comes with fame, and they are unable to see how others who have nothing to lose can lie and connive in order to take advantage of that fame, while not giving a single thought to the feelings and humanity of the famous person.

And when you personally know a famous person, when you have experienced their humanity, when you have benefited from their kindness, and yet you are unable to extend to them the basic grace and respect that even a casual acquaintanceship deserves, then it says something fundamental about you.

And in a deluded way, you will convince yourself that your hypocritical, self-regarding, compassion-free behavior is in fact principled feminism. It isn’t. You will wrap your mediocre malice in the false gauziness of ideological purity. But it’s still malice. You will tell yourself that being able to parrot the latest American Feminist orthodoxy justifies your hacking at the spirit of a person who had shown you only kindness. You can call your opportunism by any name, but it doesn’t make it any less of the ugly opportunism that it is.

PART TWO

When I first read this person’s work, which was their application to my writing workshop, I thought the sentences were well-done. I accepted this person. At the workshop, I thought they could have been more respectful of the other participants, perhaps not kept typing dismissively as others’ stories were discussed, with an air of being among people below their level. After the workshop, I decided to select the best stories, edit them, pay the writers a fee, and publish them in an e-magazine. The first story I chose was this person’s. I wrote a glowing introduction, which the story truly deserved.

They sent this email.

Fri, Aug 7, 2015, 8:20 AM Thank you so much for that introduction. It means so much to me and I’m going to keep reading it to get through the rest of my stay at Syracuse. I sent it to my mother and she got nervous about the piece because you said ‘it disturbs’, said she’s not sure how she’s going to feel when she reads it. But she’s also one of those ‘let’s leave the past in the past’ people. My sister approved, which meant a lot because our childhoods were each other’s.All that to say, I’m so grateful you gave me the space to write the short version of this piece, the encouragement to write the longer piece, and now, a platform for it. I definitely have plans to write more about Aba.Thank you, with all my heart.PS- I wanted to sign off gratefully + gracefully in Igbo but I said let me not fall my own hand 🙂

About a year later, they sent another email to let me know that their novel would be published.

Wed, Jun 8, 2016, 8:20 AM Greetings! I hope all’s been well with you this past year. Belated congratulations on the baby’s arrival, I hope she’s being a delight (I’m sure she is), and on the Johns Hopkins honors.I was thinking about how this time last year, I’d just received the email from you about Farafina and I wanted to reach out with a quick update. I’ve just accepted an offer for the novel I excerpted as my application and it feels like the workshop was a catalyst for the events that’ve led me here. So, thank you, for the workshop and your words and the Olisa TV series and listening to me babble on about my story at the hotel. I deeply appreciate all of it and you. All my best,

Before the novel was published, I spoke of it to some people, to help it get attention. I had not been able to finish reading it. I found the writing beautiful, but the story false-hearted and burdened by bathos. When I spoke of the novel, however, it was the former sentiment that I expressed, never the latter.

After I gave the March 2017 interview in which I said that a trans woman is a trans woman, I was told that this person had insulted me on social media, calling me, among other things, a murderer. I was deeply upset, because while I did not really know them personally, I felt they knew what I stood for and that I fully supported the rights of trans people, and that I do not wish anybody dead.

Still, I took no action. I ignored the public insult.

When this person’s publishers sent me an early copy of their novel, I was surprised to see that my name was included in their cover biography. I had never seen that done in a book before. I didn’t like that I had not been asked for permission to use my name, but most of all I thought – why would a person who thinks I’m a murderer want my name so prominently displayed in their biography?

Then I learned that, because my name was in the cover biography, a journalist had called them my “protegee” and they then threw a Twitter tantrum about it, calling it clickbait, viciously disavowing having received any help from me.

I knew this person had called me a murderer, I knew they were actively campaigning to “cancel” me and tweeting about how I should no longer be invited to speak at events. But this I felt I could not ignore.

I sent an email to my representative:

From: Chimamanda Adichie Date: Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 2:06 PM I’m writing about X She attended my Lagos workshop two years ago and I selected hers as one of a few pieces I published after the workshop. Apparently I was referred to as her ‘mentor’ and/or she was referred to as my ‘protege,’ in some articles, which led to her tweeting about it. Her tweets were forwarded to me by friends. In them, she reacted quite viscerally to my being called her ‘mentor’ and her being my ‘protege.’ To be fair, she is not technically my ‘protege,’ and it is perfectly fine that she feels this way, but her ungracious tone and the ugliness of the energy spent on her tweets surprised me. I recently received her book and noticed that my name was included in her official book bio. I was stunned. Surely if she is so strongly averse to my being considered a person who has been significant in her career, (which is my understanding of the loose use of protege/mentor) then it is unseemly to make the choice to include my name in her bio. I found it unusual, as I don’t think I’ve seen it done before in a book bio, but I also now find it unacceptably cynical. It is only reasonable for a person who sees my name as it is used in her bio — ‘her work has been selected and edited by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’ — to assume some sort of mentor/protege relationship. To publicly disavow this with a tone bordering on hostility and at the same time so baldly use my name to sell her book is utterly unacceptable to me. I’d like you to please reach out to her publishers and ask that my name be removed from her official book bio. I refuse to be used in this way. Chimamanda

After contacting her publishers, my representative wrote:

They have asked whether your preference would be to remove the Acknowledgment to you in the back of the book also, in future reprints.

I replied:

I don’t think that is my decision to take, and so will not answer either way, although it would be ideal if she herself made the decision to do so.

On the subject of how to go about it, I was absolutely determined not to be used by this person, but I was also sensitive to the costs the publisher might incur, as this was not in any way the publisher’s fault. Instead of pulping the already printed copies, I asked that the jackets be stripped and rebound. To my representative I wrote:

I’m completely determined that I not be used in this opportunistic and hypocritical way. But I want to make sure to proceed reasonably.

I was assured that my name would be removed and I moved on.

But from time to time, I would be informed of yet another social media post in which this person had attacked me.

This person has created a space in which social media followers have – and this I find unforgiveable – trivialized my parents’ death, claiming that the sudden and devastating loss of my parents within months of each other during this pandemic, was ‘punishment’ for my ‘transphobia.’

This person has asked followers to pick up machetes and attack me.

This person began a narrative that I had sabotaged their career, a narrative that has been picked up and repeated by others.

The normal response would be to ignore it all, because this person is seeking attention and publicity to benefit themselves. Claiming that I have sabotaged their career is a lie and this person knows that it is a lie. But if something is repeated often enough, in this age in which people do not need proof or verification to run with a story, especially a story that has outrage potential, then it can easily begin to seem true.

My addressing this lie will indeed get this person some attention – may they bask in it.

Here is the truth: I was very supportive of this writer. I didn’t have to be. I wasn’t asked to be. I supported this writer because I believe we need a diverse range of African stories.

Sabotaging a young writer’s career is just not my style; I would get no benefit or satisfaction from it. Asking that my name be removed from your biography is not sabotaging your career. It is about protecting my boundaries of what I consider acceptable in civil human behavior.

You publicly call me a murderer AND still feel entitled to benefit from my name?

You use my name (without my permission) to sell your book AND then throw an ugly tantrum when someone makes a reference to it?

What kind of monstrous entitlement, what kind of perverse self-absorption, what utter lack of self-awareness, what unheeding heartlessness, what frightening immaturity makes a person act this way?

Besides, a person who genuinely believes me to be a murderer cannot possibly want my name on their book cover, unless of course that person is a rank opportunist.

PART THREE

In certain young people today like these two from my writing workshop, I notice what I find increasingly troubling: a cold-blooded grasping, a hunger to take and take and take, but never give; a massive sense of entitlement; an inability to show gratitude; an ease with dishonesty and pretension and selfishness that is couched in the language of self-care; an expectation always to be helped and rewarded no matter whether deserving or not; language that is slick and sleek but with little emotional intelligence; an astonishing level of self-absorption; an unrealistic expectation of puritanism from others; an over-inflated sense of ability, or of talent where there is any at all; an inability to apologize, truly and fully, without justifications; a passionate performance of virtue that is well executed in the public space of Twitter but not in the intimate space of friendship.

I find it obscene.

There are many social-media-savvy people who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion, who can fluidly pontificate on Twitter about kindness but are unable to actually show kindness. People whose social media lives are case studies in emotional aridity. People for whom friendship, and its expectations of loyalty and compassion and support, no longer matter. People who claim to love literature – the messy stories of our humanity – but are also monomaniacally obsessed with whatever is the prevailing ideological orthodoxy. People who demand that you denounce your friends for flimsy reasons in order to remain a member of the chosen puritan class.

People who ask you to ‘educate’ yourself while not having actually read any books themselves, while not being able to intelligently defend their own ideological positions, because by ‘educate,’ they actually mean ‘parrot what I say, flatten all nuance, wish away complexity.’

People who do not recognize that what they call a sophisticated take is really a simplistic mix of abstraction and orthodoxy – sophistication in this case being a showing-off of how au fait they are on the current version of ideological orthodoxy.

People who wield the words ‘violence’ and ‘weaponize’ like tarnished pitchforks. People who depend on obfuscation, who have no compassion for anybody genuinely curious or confused. Ask them a question and you are told that the answer is to repeat a mantra. Ask again for clarity and be accused of violence. (How ironic, speaking of violence, that it is one of these two who encouraged Twitter followers to pick up machetes and attack me.)

And so we have a generation of young people on social media so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow.

I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and re-read their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.

[neurodecadence]

hmm. prime numbers be upon ye

Emily I value you as a friend, but this is evil. I am just a poor sleepy dame and you want me to do maths? to find Prime Numbers? how dare you.

Anyway, let's do it.

2. Do you like to use the term queer for yourself? Or just LGBT, etc? Love queer as a term, adore it. My whole... deal is messy and not easy to discern and being able to say "ehhh you know that whole thing" is nice and easy.

3. Which pronouns do you use? So it's complicated a bit thanks to plurality (we have slightly different pronoun sets), but the shortest answer is "It/It's* for strangers and new people, It/She for friends and closer people". If I ever use She referring to myself, it's specifically one part referring to the other. *(yes I know the apostrophe is grammatically incorrect but the grammar was not written with the idea of it as a person pronoun in mind, so suck it, I am keeping it)

5. Are you "out" publicly? I mean I'm a six foot tall, broad shouldered entity in a wheelchair when I go out, who gave up on voice training because it's too much effort. I don't exactly have much choice BUT to be out, which is fine. I get a lot of kids being curious and I think that's sweet, when they look at me and are trying to process a LOT of thoughts all at once.

7. Are you the "token" queer person in your family? I don't have much of a family tbh. That's not just and edgy statement, my biological familia consists of me and my mother, every other person who shares my bloodline is not welcome near me ever again. I'm glad I don't have contact with them tbh, because I know I WOULD have been a token queer to a few of my family members, and I don't wanna be used like that.

11. Favorite (or just one you love) piece of LGBT media? Shiiiit, hard to narrow it down to one, you know. I might have to give it to The Last Girl Scout, by local tumblr legend Natalie Ironside. It's a story about queer love and building something beautiful in the ashes of the old, about healing, really healing, from trauma and pain, it's about connections and learning who you are through others. It's also about shooting fascists, a cool polish vampire, and communist political arguments. It's a good read, changed my life.

13. Do you choose to reclaim slurs, why or why not? I do it, but it's sorta tricky to express why. It's partly for the same reason I prefer It as a pronoun, it's about taking assumed power. What I mean is, as a visibly trans person, people are always playing the pronoun guessing game before I talk to them, running those guess and assumptions and deciding what they'll use at me. By using "It" as the preferred pronoun, there's a part of stealing that back, a bit of "you cannot have guessed that, and also if you intended to use that to misgender me, oooooh too bad bitch". In the same regard, calling myself a slur feel like taking power out of people's hands. Hands that may seek to wield it against me. I have faced institutional transphobia more than once, but it was always simple chafing microaggressions stacks atop one another. By saying out loud "yeah I'm a fuckin' tranny, what're you gonna do about it", it's like bringing a KS-23 4 Gauge Shotgun to a watergun fight (that's a very big gun by the by). Maybe I've overthought it a bit, and I'll admit, I don't make people in public use It pronouns for me because I don't really get out much (also a Pin for that might save some time), but that's my thinking on the topic.

17. Have you ever attended Pride in a big city/ large metro area? I really do not get out a lot. Also I forget that Pride month is february in Aotearoa and by the time I remember the parade happened weeks ago. So that's on me.

19. Do you feel safe and accepted in your local community? Pretty damn safe tbh. Folks around here practice the stance of "ain't gonna let that ruin my day". Doesn't hurt it's on the edge of a Uni district, lots of 20 somethings doing weird cool stuff. The only times I've dealt with problems have been petty bureaucrats with a lick of power exerting it at me. Then I go holler at higher ups and make their life a living hell. I'd feel bad, but maybe don't misgender me seventeen times in two minutes and verbally attack me on at 9pm on a monday night.

23. Do you prefer loud parties or quiet? Yeah I really don't get out a lot, and especially not enough to go to parties. Still I like a quiet gathering, if it's on the table. Everyone brings some food, there's music playing, no expectations but to be yourself. That kinda vibes.

29. Are you currently partnered, or if not are you interested in having partner(s)? I have two lovely partners, and I adore them to the end of the world and back. I'm not actively seeking any more romantic attachments, but I'm also not saying it's off the table (fate has a funny way with these things). My only problem atm is my dear partners are aaaaaall the way on the west coast of the USA, and I'm down here in kiwi-land. I'm not saying the distance isn't worth it, but I am saying I would like some more hugs in my future. Or sex. That'd be cool too.

31. Post a pic in your pride gear (or it can just be a selfie or anything else lgbt):

Have an image of this beast.

Okay that's everything, done, complete, kaput, finito. This is simply way too many words about myself but I can't NOT complete this order, especially since it's from cool pal Emily. If you read this far, please send me wishes that I get a good nights sleep at some point in June, I feel like I'm going nuts.

Well, Nuts-er, I mean.

[wreckitremy]

I think ur missing that intersex ppl can be trans too. I'm not a trans fem, but I am trans and I am intersex.

A lot of the stereotypical afab experience don't even line up for me, and i made it thru puberty without having my assigned gender questioned. Its difficult to talk about that as an intersex trans person, so it makes me sad when our communities struggle to understand each other.

I don't want to start a fight, but I also want to make sure the information is right about the intersex community. So I'm hoping to do a food for thought thing here.

It might be helpful to remember in this discussion that AFAB stands for assigned female at BIRTH.

Being intersex can mean you cross the line between the assigned genders a lot more than perisex trans ppl do.

Intersex ppl can get assigned female at birth based on the sex characteristics they have then, and then get reassigned to male when puberty kicks in.

If an intersex person in that situation, then as an adult, decides they are a woman, what would they then call what they were assigned at birth?

Its okay if you still don't feel like you get this, and still have that fear right now. It's okay if it takes you months or even years to actually internalize this. I know TERFs did some damage with their fake trans accounts. They've tried to separate our communities by doing that. Bc we can learn from each other.

Just try to remember how that distrust involving shared experiences feels coming from cis women about trans women, and how it might be a similar situation here where the distrust is about intersex trans women.

You dont have to engage further. You dont have to publicly go thru this. You are allowed to shut the post off, ask ppl to not engage you with this topic anymore while you reevaluate. Ppl should respect that.

You can sit with this and ask yourself the questions that you wish cis women would ask themselves when they distrust trans women. You are allowed to do that privately. You dont ow us that process.

I hope we can continue to try and help our communities understand each other. Hopefully as that happens, you can learn to differentiate between intersex trans ppl and terfs. I know it's not easy, but we can't abandon intersex ppl just bc it makes things more complicated.

The intersex community has been scattered and struggling to describe their experience due to medical suppression of our existence, so things are a little clumsy right now as we try to talk about things in places the internet has allowed us to find each other in recently.

Okay, everyone who has read this far, if you have the spoons, I highly reccomend you read :

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

and

Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex by Elizabeth Reis

Bc this convo has A LOT of nuance to it and these books help facilitate that. Remember, this isn't trans vs intersex. This is intersex and trans against the problem of hermeneutical injustice (injustice of not having the words to describe our experiences)

If I found out someone I knew who told me they were a transfem was actually afab, it would feel like a breach of trust. There are certain vulnerable things that I would not feel comfortable talking to non transfems about, because people who haven't experienced being barred from femininity don't understand it.

If "transfem" catches on as a label amongst nonbinary afab people, it will make it impossible for us to know who is a safe person to talk about transfem issues with, and who isn't. It will isolate us from having our own community. This was literally the intended function of the term when it was invented by terfs, to make it so transfems can't talk about their experiences. I know the people earnestly identifying as "afab transfem" don't intend for this, but it is what will happen if it catches on.

If you are someone who wants to identify this way anyways, please please please think about why the label calls out to you. If it's because you feel like "not quite a woman," realize what that reveals about how you see us. Transfems don't exist to be your "genderfuck goals," and if you yearn to be seen as an aberration like us, fortunately for you, you'll never know what it's like.

But I can assure you that if you use our language as an aesthetic, a good portion of us will never feel safe around you.

[chemicalarospec]

I've noticed a pattern regarding this in my own life, but I'm wondering if it's just coincidence, or maybe it evens out with age.

By "transitioning in a more binary way" I mean if someone is taking hormones & with what goal, surgery, changing their appearance (in what ways and what they're not changing -- hair, makeup?, chest, shaving?, clothing), and what pronouns they publicly use -- in short, whether a (queer?) stranger is more likely to read them as binary-trans or nonbinary (or even cis) and if they want to change that --, as well as how closely they actually identify to a binary gender.

(.... basically the normal definition of transitioning.... idk why I clarified that like that lol. ya'll understand the stereotypes of how nonbinary ppl (androgynous), binary men (masculine), and binary woman (feminine) look right)

I said "people raised as boys/girls" here because I know there's some ambiguity with AFAB/AMAB language... it's not perfect either, I know, like for people who transitioned very young, but i hope in combination it communicates what I mean. (yes, if you know many people who have more complicated situations, they are not included in this poll, sorry)

[mceajc]

My first real bloggy post thing

Let me introduce myself.

Hello, you can call me Roo. I'm 41 years old. I am trans.

But not like that.

I don't want to cross some gender dividing mountain range and get to the other side of the gender continent.

Partly because that analogy is silly.

It's what seems to pop automatically into people's heads when they hear someone is trans. "Oh, they want the big muscles, dick, chest hair and beard!" "Oh, they want the smooth skin, massive breasts and moist hole!"

Fuck off, no, I want to drift serenely above the whole gender continent, untouched by the physical manifestations, societal expectations and stupid legal definitions and strictures.

I have embarked on treatment for this, and this currently means I'm taking hormones and hormone suppressants - and have been for some time.

Today I had to try and explain that to my mother.

I was not nearly so coherent, and I fear there will have to be yet another awkward conversation.

Now you know a little bit - and if you're interested in reading on a bit more, I will go into detail. There might not be a TL;DR at the end.

My parents came to visit my home - for the first time since before the pandemic - so at least three years. My mother's sister had died after about six months of hospital time after an operation had complications, so of course I said yes, please come up and visit.

It was a fantastic weekend. We visited historic sights, we had pleasant meals out - all was calm. They drove home on Monday morning.

Tuesday, just after lunch, I get a phone call from my mother. She said "I found something in your bathroom bin, and I know what you've been doing." Or words to that effect - my memory is not functioning well at the moment, and it's never been superb. She wanted to talk then because dad wasn't home. I was at work, with colleagues all around, and I did NOT want to have this conversation at work. So I said I would phone her once I got home.

Three shaky hours later, my mind a blur, I am home, and I start the phone call.

I realise I am angry. She snooped through my bin? She has inserted herself into a situation I had actively been keeping from her - from EVERYBODY - because, well, it's none of anyone else's business.

And now she's asking questions - where are you getting these pills? Are you getting seen regularly by medical professionals? When did this start? What's the timeline for your future treatment? How far will it go? Questions I absolutely do not want to answer, have not been prepared to answer, possibly have no answer to.

Perhaps it is because we have never been a particularly sharing family. Perhaps it is because I failed to learn to be more involved in other people's lives. Perhaps it's because I know the hurt that a secret shared against your will - and especially when that secret isn't true - that I respect people's private lives utterly. If I learn something about someone that I think might be private information no matter how I learn it - that's as good as lost to the world unless I have that person's explicit consent to share it.

This is the context for learning that my dad is in the room with my mum. I thought she wanted to keep this knowledge to herself! Now, less than three hours after contacting me with the aim of having a private conversation about this, the number of people in the entire world who know this has gone up by an appreciable multiplier, and the number of people who aren't medical professionals has DOUBLED. I'm shaking with andrenaline. I can barely think. I try to stress how no matter what was going to happen in the future, I had never envisioned coming out publicly to my family. Not about being trans. Maybe about being Asexual - but not trans. Because of the assumptions. I hate the assumptions. I hate the questions, and I hate the questions based on the assumptions.

I know now that these are selfish feelings - but no less true and understandable. I have to try and be objective, and a long phone call with one of the very few people who know lets me recontextualise it from my mothers viewpoint. She cares for her child, wants to make sure that no harm will come to me, that I am doing things sensibly.

(As an aside, my decision to fully commit to transition occurred when I found myself on eBay looking at farm animal castration equipment - and I realised that a) I was serious about this, b) I was currently looking at the quick dumb dangerous path).

I am doing this responsibly. I have seen counselors. Medical professionals have been involved the moment they became available. They agree that this course of treatment is justified.

So the phone call with my mother (and father) moves on to other, less volatile topics - I forget who made the change of direction. But I am glad of this respite.

I have not yet fully understood that my life has changed again - must change again, and I must move forward in a world where my parents know a bit more about who I am.

Will they insist on becoming involved? How will I feel about that? Will I be forced to out myself to my siblings? Who else might exist in this future bubble of knowledge? Who else must I trust and who might betray that trust?

This self knowledge of who I am, this jealously guarded secret of more than a decade, it has slipped from my grasp.

I'm scared.

TL;DR: I was outed to my parents by sloppy housekeeping, and now I have to explain my entire existence to someone who isn't me, and I don't know how to cope.

[virtues-end]

FAQ

◈ Will we ever learn about the MCs past?

Indeed you will. Details about the MCs past will unfold gradually throughout the story.

◈ Does the MC age/is the MC immortal?

The MC has not physically aged since undergoing the ritual of binding ~7 years ago. As a result of that ritual, they are also effectively immortal. Canonically, the MC is somewhere between their late 20s and mid 30s.

◈ Why doesn't the MC just run away?

The MC will suffer severe (physical) consequences should they stray too far apart from their Keeper, becoming violently ill (potentially to the point of unconsciousness) if the distance becomes too great.

◈ Why doesn't the MC just kill Shea?

The magical seal on the MCs body prevents them from attacking their Keeper with the intent to kill. Also, I would not have a story if I let the MC act as a deranged murderhobo all of the time (a little murdering is okay, though).

◈ How do you pronounce Shea?

Feel free to pronounce it however you wish. I personally pronounce it as [ʃeɪ].

◈ Can the main character be trans?

Yes. You'll also be able to choose whether they've transitioned or not. It's something that might also come up later, in talks with other characters. For intimate scenes, the first time you engage in one you will be asked to 'set' your character's top and bottom parts.

◈ Who are the ROs?

Virtue's End has four relationship options: Shea, Penrose, Elexis, and Idris. You can read more information about them in this post. If you'd like to see my sketches of them, you can do so here.

◈ How tall are the ROs?

I've kept it deliberately vague in-game for immersive purposes but Shea is 192 cm (6'3"), Penrose is 198 cm (6'6"), Elexis is 176 cm (5'9"), and Idris is 169 cm (5'7").

◈ Are there any poly relationships in the game?

I'd like there to be, though it'll probably be complicated. Coding/writing-wise, but also... all of these people are not okay. Some of them hate each other's guts, or at the very least strongly dislike each other. And I don't want to force a loving relationship where there is none, so it would be toxic as hell. We'll see.

◈ Are any of the ROs trans?

Male Penrose is a trans man, and female Elexis is a trans woman. In addition, both Shea and Elexis can be set to nonbinary. All of the characters have set top and bottom parts that you will not be able to change.

◈ Are there any mystery or secret ROs?

At the moment, I've decided to limit the (full) relationship options to Shea, Penrose, Elexis, and Idris. However, the player might occasionally have the opportunity to engage in a fling/hook-up with a minor character.

If you're familiar with the old version of Virtue's End and are wondering about the ROs that were cut (namely Sutton, Eiri, Guinn, and Sinclair), some of them might still make an appearance, though they won't be full ROs. I've also chosen to 'merge' a few of them with the existing companions.

◈ Do you answer 'RO reacts’ kind of asks?

As these types of asks require a lot of energy to respond to, I generally do not answer them. However, I might make an exception if it’s a particularly interesting concept or prompt.

◈ Are you still working on the game?

Yes, I am! Although the game was on hiatus for a while, I've since resumed working on it, and am currently working on chapter two. Fair warning, I'm a slow writer, but I'm steadily chipping away at it. :-)

◈ Is there a Virtue's End discord server?

No. There used be, but I deleted it due to a variety of reasons (hiatus, inactivity, social anxiety, etc). And I'm currently not really interested in running a new one.

◈ Do you have a Patreon/Ko-Fi?

I do. I have a Patreon, where I post early access to game updates and sketches and progress updates, that sort of thing. Please note, however, that it doesn't offer very many Patreon 'exclusives' such as short stories/snippets/things like that. All game updates will be released publicly eventually, so please don't feel like you need to pay for them. I'd be extremely grateful for any support you could give me, however. I also have a Ko-Fi, though it serves as more of a tip jar.

◈ When was the game last updated?

The public version of the game was last updated on October the 15th 2024. The Patreon version currently offers no additional content.

◈ What's the current word count of the game?

The public version is a little over 76k words (excl. code). The Patreon demo currently has no additional content.

◈ Do you have an update schedule?

Sort of? My goal is to release an update roughly every 1-2 months. The length of these updates may vary, depending on how much time I've had to work on them and other (real life) factors. The Patreon version receives more frequent, 'incomplete' updates, whilst I generally try to update the public demo when I have something a little more substantial/finished.

◈ Is the old version of the game still playable?

Yep! The previous version of the game remains up on Dashingdon. Please note, however, that it will no longer receive updates.

◈ Do you accept nsfw asks?

Yes, I do, but it depends on the contents of the ask whether I feel comfortable answering it or not. Fair warning, messages that solely consist of people being horny about characters will most likely be received with a chuckle but will otherwise remain unanswered.

Any NSFW or suggestive asks will be clearly marked as mature and tagged with ‘nsfve’. Explicit content will always be hidden under a cut.

◈ Where is your awesome icon from?

It's a terrific tattoo design by artist Naomi Butterfield!

[vivacissimx]

What are your thoughts on the insistence (not head canons) that girls like Brienne, Arya, and Asha are queer? I've seen a few gender essentialist takes that their non-conformity is indicative of their queerness and/or trans identity. But we also have a text that examines their struggle with womanhood, the pitfalls of Westerosi's restrictive gender norms, etc. I'm unsure of how to approach this and was curious about your thoughts. Feel free to delete if you don't wish to answer!

alright i've sat on this for long enough. first of all i don't think anything of a tumblr user insisting on xyz reading, anyone can insist on anything and it doesn't affect me in any way.

now what do i (personally) think of headcanoning asoiaf characters as queer in a world where identities like gay or trans don't exactly exist? well i think it's complicated. there are characters who have gay relationships in asoiaf, are known to have them, and in-universe that's treated as a sexual deviance rather than a specific identity (i.e. laenor's preference for men being publicly acknowledged but not seen as a deterrent to marrying a woman). the same for gender nonconforming characters (i.e. pretty meris being a sellsword captain is treated as a result of the cruel gangrapes she once experienced having changed her very nature).

but it's also true that there's a proto-queerphobia in asoiaf. when jaime cites oberyn as having sex with "boys," not other men, but boys, suggesting a perceived linkage between homosexuality and pedophilia (oberyn does have sex with a teenage alayaya among others, so it's possible that jaime is speaking literally rather than pejoratively, but that seems unrealistic to me); that cersei cites loras' relationship with renly as a reason to keep him away from tommen as though loras might prey on him; that littlefinger specifically says lyn corbray likes "boys" (lyn may very well be a pedophile but all the evidence is off-screen); that victarion calls the castrated boy whores "unnatural" (their traditional role being to be sexually available for men) all combine to suggest that queerness is recognized such that it can be demonized in-universe. so in that sense there's no problem saying characters like rhaena, laenor, sabitha frey, renly, loras, oberyn, ellaria, morna whitemask etc. are under the queer umbrella. they're written that way on purpose, i'd say.

what you're describing is a bit different from those explicit examples though. if someone is specifically analyzing asoiaf through the academic genre of critique called queer theory (which is more like--queerness is defined by existing outside of the social norm/order so the queer identity is ever-shifting & defies exact definition // if the queerest experience you can think of is that of a Black trans sex worker, then who has more in common with queerness, a Black cishet single mother or a white cis gay man?) then that's one thing. because it would be easy to look at brienne and say oh well here is a person pretty clearly refusing the trappings of noble womanhood and instead adopting the trappings of knighthood, a profession for noblemen, thus being marginalized on account of her gender & therefore being queer. indeed, brienne doesn't strongly identify as a son or a daughter, but as some other space. that she faces misogyny is sort of like... sure, why wouldn't she? an AFAB person experiencing misogyny does not a cishet woman make, nor does alienation from one's assigned gender a trans person create. the label of enby or transmasc is not available to brienne, so interpreting brienne as firmly disconnected from cishet womanhood and separately experiencing attraction to men OR as a non-woman facing transphobia are both going to have a basis in the text.

for me, it's a bit of everything: yes brienne once held desire for a traditional womanhood that was denied her by her physical appearance / no she no longer does, her gender is now Knight / the discrimination she experiences is what fuels any desire she might have to be closer to cis manhood. that jaime is attracted to her & her to him is a separate & interesting conversation

for arya, i'm kind of like... arya is separated from noble womanhood less on account of not fulfilling a girlhood but by defying class expectations (so she is performing plenty of tasks assigned to peasant girls and boys alike, there is less of a gender segregation between tasks in that socioeconomic strata/age group). arya's transition in ACOK from arry to weasel to nan is pretty seamless despite crossing the gender line, on either side she's in fear for her life and being threatened with physical/sexual violence. so like? i have no inclination to call eleven-year-old medieval arya queer or not myself, it doesn't really have any strong bearing on her storyline that i can see. however saying arya's gay or ace as a way to scoot her out of the shipping wars is very nonsensical, like please don't do that. the reason arya's nonsexual at this point (and grrm truly did his damnedest to change that in TWOW Mercy) is because she's a kid, not because she's this that and the third queer identity

asha, on the other hand, is a totally different thing to me because i cannot even say how much asha truly doesn't conform to ironborn culture? asha doesn't seem to experience dysphoria in her escapades, the ironborn generally take her seriously in her own right and find her a competent member of their leadership. maybe there aren't many women on the ironborn raids but asha's certainly not the only one. the most misogyny we see asha face is a) from theon, who was raised elsewhere and also is understandably peeved because asha frankly assaulted him, and b) during the kingsmoot aka the elections for the HIGHEST OFFICE IN THE LAND, which is really not a given for any of the contenders. obviously asha's gender performance is markedly separate from the concept of a westerosi noblewoman, but it's mostly due to her belonging to a subculture which does that anyway! you can certainly read asha as queer despite george telling us she's straight (you yell at that cloud, old man) using Death of the Author, that's anyone's bet, & her sexual relationship with Qarl is one of if not the most equitable one in all of asoiaf--but saying she's queer based off her nonconformity with womanhood is probably a misread of the context. saying she's queer because she's a sexy swashbuckling pirate who ain't the stepfather but the father who stepped up for lady glover's kids, however, is completely valid

to summarize i would say i'm not drawn to labelling ambiguous characters as queer or not with any real conviction; i have my own headcanons and text readings with sources i'm happy to share (jon snow is bisexual / the septas be scissoring) but ultimately in a world without said identities, it's more fitting to search for what queerness means in that context rather than trying to create a 1:1 character to modern queer identity relationship

[seeingteacupsindragons]

What are your thoughts on Bond disguising himself as Irene? I personally didn't understand why Bond had to dress up as Irene since Irene was a famous socialite who was supposed to be dead for very specific reasons. However i had heard about people using the chapter to insist that Bond wasn't trans rep because he looked pensive and called it Cinderella's magic or something. As a genderfluid person i didn't really interpret it as anything of the sort even if I did feel a little weird about it. Wouldn't it have made sense for Bond to want to be referred to as Adler if he really wanted to "live as his true self for one night" instead of stopping Sherlock from saying his dead name?

I feel like considering how deliberately careful and obvious the trans men in the men's changing room conversation was in the series it wouldn't make sense for the manga to suddenly say Bond regretted being a man now so to me it felt more like Bond not being very happy about going back to Irene. Am I missing something in context?

I think what it comes down to at the end of the day is that a lot of YuuMori fans don't want queer rep.

Oh, they may say they do. But they don't. At most what they want is Slashy Boy Kissing. They don't want queer rep. They don't want complicated. They want things that fit into very prescribed narratives that they have decided on their own, and that is...innately antithetical to queerness. Queerness is inherently complicated and difficult and defies neat boxes and expectations. Some people are really, really bad at that.

Do I think YuuMori is all that queer? Nah, not really. Especially not in a way something like Jeweler Richard is. But it has a couple queer characters, which is really nice to see, and a few themes that really resonate with it.

Are there people who do want to see that? Of course. I suspect most of the people who hang out on this blog probably are, just because of the way I am as a person. But it's something I've noticed for months now and just haven't really talked about much.

And I think Bond is, unfortunately, a victim of this.

I don't think Bond had to dress up as Irene. I think he chose to. You're right, it makes the whole, "Aren't you legally and publicly dead?" thing very damn weird, but hey, Sherlock was also meant to be legally dead, and people were supposed to assume Louis and William weren't biologically related.

Sometimes, stupid things happen for the fun of the story, and we just have to...not think about that detail much. And, hey! Adler promptly died again after that scene, so it's not as if anyone could find out what happened to her.

Why would Bond, a trans man, choose to wear a dress and present as a woman? Honestly, I think he was fucking with Sherlock to get back at him for the bookseller disguise. And it worked, did it not? Did it not? Bond and Sherlock have been trying to get one over on each other basically their entire association. It's what their friendship is built on--and it's a lot like the dynamic he has with William, in some ways, and you cannot deny they're friends.

Trans men can wear dresses if they want to. And Bond was the one who planned to wear a dress and decided to, when literally everyone else including the formal plan, had Bond as a man dressed a man and Moneypenny playing Sherlock's female arm candy. Not one person expected Bond to play a woman. He decided to.

Personally, giving that choice to a trans man is validating as hell to me. Mr. Bond can wear whatever he want. Mr. Bond can do whatever he wants with gender. And it invalidates nothing!

And I think that chapter also made a point to contrast Bond, who has never really been "clocked" as trans, who has always read as a man as soon as he said he was one, to Moneypenny, who dressed as a man and said she thought it would be easy, and it wasn't. Now, Bond is a hell of an actor and always has been, and Moneypenny...well, that's not her background. But she did okay in The Man with the Golden Army.

But she's not a man. She's a kickass woman. And everyone can tell. Just as everyone can tell Bond is a man.

As for Cinderella's magic...I mean, especially in the Disney version of that story, Cinderella's magic did not reveal people as they truly were. It disguised things as something they were not, and could only hold the illusion so long. I think this was just a joke to Sherlock--and a reminder that he would be back in a suit as Bond just as soon as the fucking with Sherlock was over and the ball and the game was over.

That said, I don't really know how the story of Cinderella filtered into Japanese society. I don't think Takeuchi-sensei really thought that much about a throwaway joke line, but if he did, then it would require an understanding of how Japanese society thinks of and commonly interprets the folktale to parse. And I don't really know much about that. I bet you the people using it as "Bond isn't Trans" ammo don't, either.

Anyway, Bond is very trans and some people suck.

Thank you.

[homosexuhauls]

15 JUNE, 2021 by Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie

IT IS OBSCENE: A TRUE REFLECTION IN THREE PARTS

PART ONE

When you are a public figure, people will write and say false things about you. It comes with the territory. Many of those things you brush aside. Many you ignore. The people close to you advise you that silence is best. And it often is. Sometimes, though, silence makes a lie begin to take on the shimmer of truth.

In this age of social media, where a story travels the world in minutes, silence sometimes means that other people can hijack your story and soon, their false version becomes the defining story about you.

Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it, as Jonathan Swift wrote.

Take the case of a young woman who attended my Lagos writing workshop some years ago; she stood out because she was bright and interested in feminism.

After the workshop, I welcomed her into my life. I very rarely do this, because my past experiences with young Nigerians left me wary of people who are calculating and insincere and want to use me only as an opportunity. But she was a Bright Young Nigerian Feminist and I thought that was worth making an exception.

She spent time in my Lagos home. We had long conversations. I was support-giver, counsellor, comforter.

Then I gave an interview in March 2017 in which I said that a trans woman is a trans woman, (the larger point of which was to say that we should be able to acknowledge difference while being fully inclusive, that in fact the whole premise of inclusiveness is difference.)

I was told she went on social media and insulted me.

This woman knows me enough to know that I fully support the rights of trans people and all marginalized people. That I have always been fiercely supportive of difference, in general. And that I am a person who reads and thinks and forms my opinions in a carefully considered way.

Of course she could very well have had concerns with the interview. That is fair enough. But I had a personal relationship with her. She could have emailed or called or texted me. Instead she went on social media to put on a public performance.

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. But I mostly held myself responsible. My spirit had been slightly stalled, from the beginning, by her. My first sense of unease with her came when she posted a photo taken in my house, at a time when I did not want any photos of my personal life on social media. I asked that she take it down. The second case of unease was her publicizing something I had told her in confidence about another member of the workshop. The most upsetting was when she, without telling me, used my name to apply for an American visa. Above all else was my lingering suspicion that she was a person who chose as friends only those from whom she could benefit. But she was a Bright Young Nigerian Feminist and I allowed that sentiment to over-ride my unease.

After she publicly insulted me, it was clear to me that this kind of noxious person had no business in my life, ever again.

A few months later, she sent this affected, self-regarding email which I ignored.

Friday September 15 2017 at 4.35 AM

Dearest Chimamanda,

Happy birthday. I mean this with all my heart, even though I know I have fallen (removed myself?) from your grace. It would be impossible for me to stop loving you; long before you gave me the possibility of being your friend you were the embodiment of my deepest hopes, and that will never change.

I think of you often, still – stating the obvious. I grieve the loss of our friendship; it is a complicated sadness. I’m sorry that I caused you pain, or to feel like you can no longer trust me. There’s so much that I wish could be said.

I pray this birthday is the happiest one yet. I wish you rest and quiet and abiding stability, and of course more of the kind of success that means the most to you.

I hope mothering X is everything you hoped and prayed for and more.

Have a wonderful day today.

Love always.

About a year later, she sent this email, which I also ignored.

Thursday November 29 2018 at 8.42 AM

Dear Chimamanda,

I realise this is long overdue and vastly insufficient, but I’m really sorry. I’ve spent so much time going back and forth in my head and my email drafts; wondering whether to write you, how to write you, what to say, all kinds of things. But in the end, this is the thing I realise I need to say.

I’m sorry I disappointed and hurt you by saying things publicly that were sharply critical, unkind and even disrespectful, especially in light of all the backlash and criticism you experience from people who don’t know you. I could have acted with more consideration towards you. I should have, especially given the privilege of intimacy that you had offered me. There are many reasons why I chose to behave the way I did, but none of them is an excuse. And I clearly realise now, after many, many months of needless sadness and angst and hurt and actual confusion, that I did not treat you as a friend would—certainly not as someone would to whom you had offered unprecedented access to yourself and your life.

You’ve meant the world to me since I was barely a teenager. It’s been very hard navigating the emotional fallout of the past several months, knowing you were displeased with me but truly not quite understanding why, then deciding I didn’t care, then realising that would never be true. I’ve always cared. But I was too mixed up about the situation to be able to make sense of it, or properly see past my own justifications. I’m sorry it took me so long to grasp how I let you down.

I realise that I don’t have room to ask anything of you, but I would be grateful for a chance to say this in person. Still, even if I never get that, I really hope you believe me.

Congratulations on restarting the workshop, and on all the other amazing successes of the past several months. I think of you often; it would be impossible not to. You look so happy in your pictures. I really hope you are well.

All my love,

I hoped never to hear from her again. But she has recently gone on social media to write about how she “refused to kiss my ring,” as if I demanded some kind of obeisance from her. She also suggests that there is some dark, shadowy ‘more’ to tell that she won’t tell, with an undertone of “if only you knew the whole story.”

It is a manipulative way of lying. By suggesting there is ‘more’ when you know very well that there isn’t, you do sufficient reputational damage while also being able to plead deniability. Innuendo without fact is immoral.

No, there isn’t more to the story. It is a simple story – you got close to a famous person, you publicly insulted the famous person to aggrandize yourself, the famous person cut you off, you sent emails and texts that were ignored, and you then decided to go on social media to peddle falsehoods. It is obscene to tell the world that you refused to kiss a ring when in fact there isn’t any ring at all.

I cannot make much of the hostility of strangers who do not know me – fame taints our view of the humanity of famous people. But the truth is that the famous person remains irretrievably human. Fame does not inoculate the famous person from disappointment and depression, fame does not make you any less angered or hurt by the duplicitous nature of people. To be famous is to be assumed to have power, which is true, but in the analysis of fame, people often ignore the vulnerability that comes with fame, and they are unable to see how others who have nothing to lose can lie and connive in order to take advantage of that fame, while not giving a single thought to the feelings and humanity of the famous person.

And when you personally know a famous person, when you have experienced their humanity, when you have benefited from their kindness, and yet you are unable to extend to them the basic grace and respect that even a casual acquaintanceship deserves, then it says something fundamental about you.

And in a deluded way, you will convince yourself that your hypocritical, self-regarding, compassion-free behavior is in fact principled feminism. It isn’t. You will wrap your mediocre malice in the false gauziness of ideological purity. But it’s still malice. You will tell yourself that being able to parrot the latest American Feminist orthodoxy justifies your hacking at the spirit of a person who had shown you only kindness. You can call your opportunism by any name, but it doesn’t make it any less of the ugly opportunism that it is.

PART TWO

When I first read this person’s work, which was their application to my writing workshop, I thought the sentences were well-done. I accepted this person. At the workshop, I thought they could have been more respectful of the other participants, perhaps not kept typing dismissively as others’ stories were discussed, with an air of being among people below their level. After the workshop, I decided to select the best stories, edit them, pay the writers a fee, and publish them in an e-magazine. The first story I chose was this person’s. I wrote a glowing introduction, which the story truly deserved.

They sent this email.

Fri, Aug 7, 2015, 8:20 AM

Thank you so much for that introduction. It means so much to me and I’m going to keep reading it to get through the rest of my stay at Syracuse. I sent it to my mother and she got nervous about the piece because you said ‘it disturbs’, said she’s not sure how she’s going to feel when she reads it. But she’s also one of those ‘let’s leave the past in the past’ people. My sister approved, which meant a lot because our childhoods were each other’s.

All that to say, I’m so grateful you gave me the space to write the short version of this piece, the encouragement to write the longer piece, and now, a platform for it. I definitely have plans to write more about Aba.

Thank you, with all my heart.

PS- I wanted to sign off gratefully + gracefully in Igbo but I said let me not fall my own hand 🙂

About a year later, they sent another email to let me know that their novel would be published.

Wed, Jun 8, 2016, 8:20 AM

Greetings!

I hope all’s been well with you this past year. Belated congratulations on the baby’s arrival, I hope she’s being a delight (I’m sure she is), and on the Johns Hopkins honors.

I was thinking about how this time last year, I’d just received the email from you about Farafina and I wanted to reach out with a quick update. I’ve just accepted an offer for the novel I excerpted as my application and it feels like the workshop was a catalyst for the events that’ve led me here. So, thank you, for the workshop and your words and the Olisa TV series and listening to me babble on about my story at the hotel. I deeply appreciate all of it and you.

All my best,

Before the novel was published, I spoke of it to some people, to help it get attention. I had not been able to finish reading it. I found the writing beautiful, but the story false-hearted and burdened by bathos. When I spoke of the novel, however, it was the former sentiment that I expressed, never the latter.

After I gave the March 2017 interview in which I said that a trans woman is a trans woman, I was told that this person had insulted me on social media, calling me, among other things, a murderer. I was deeply upset, because while I did not really know them personally, I felt they knew what I stood for and that I fully supported the rights of trans people, and that I do not wish anybody dead.

Still, I took no action. I ignored the public insult.

When this person’s publishers sent me an early copy of their novel, I was surprised to see that my name was included in their cover biography. I had never seen that done in a book before. I didn’t like that I had not been asked for permission to use my name, but most of all I thought – why would a person who thinks I’m a murderer want my name so prominently displayed in their biography?

Then I learned that, because my name was in the cover biography, a journalist had called them my “protegee” and they then threw a Twitter tantrum about it, calling it clickbait, viciously disavowing having received any help from me.

I knew this person had called me a murderer, I knew they were actively campaigning to “cancel” me and tweeting about how I should no longer be invited to speak at events. But this I felt I could not ignore.

I sent an email to my representative:

From: Chimamanda Adichie

Date: Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 2:06 PM

I’m writing about X

She attended my Lagos workshop two years ago and I selected hers as one of a few pieces I published after the workshop.

Apparently I was referred to as her ‘mentor’ and/or she was referred to as my ‘protege,’ in some articles, which led to her tweeting about it. Her tweets were forwarded to me by friends. In them, she reacted quite viscerally to my being called her ‘mentor’ and her being my ‘protege.’ To be fair, she is not technically my ‘protege,’ and it is perfectly fine that she feels this way, but her ungracious tone and the ugliness of the energy spent on her tweets surprised me.

I recently received her book and noticed that my name was included in her official book bio. I was stunned. Surely if she is so strongly averse to my being considered a person who has been significant in her career, (which is my understanding of the loose use of protege/mentor) then it is unseemly to make the choice to include my name in her bio. I found it unusual, as I don’t think I’ve seen it done before in a book bio, but I also now find it unacceptably cynical.

It is only reasonable for a person who sees my name as it is used in her bio — ‘her work has been selected and edited by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’ — to assume some sort of mentor/protege relationship.

To publicly disavow this with a tone bordering on hostility and at the same time so baldly use my name to sell her book is utterly unacceptable to me.

I’d like you to please reach out to her publishers and ask that my name be removed from her official book bio. I refuse to be used in this way.

After contacting her publishers, my representative wrote:

They have asked whether your preference would be to remove the Acknowledgment to you in the back of the book also, in future reprints.

I replied:

I don’t think that is my decision to take, and so will not answer either way, although it would be ideal if she herself made the decision to do so.

On the subject of how to go about it, I was absolutely determined not to be used by this person, but I was also sensitive to the costs the publisher might incur, as this was not in any way the publisher’s fault. Instead of pulping the already printed copies, I asked that the jackets be stripped and rebound. To my representative I wrote:

I’m completely determined that I not be used in this opportunistic and hypocritical way. But I want to make sure to proceed reasonably.

I was assured that my name would be removed and I moved on.

But from time to time, I would be informed of yet another social media post in which this person had attacked me.

This person has created a space in which social media followers have – and this I find unforgiveable – trivialized my parents’ death, claiming that the sudden and devastating loss of my parents within months of each other during this pandemic, was ‘punishment’ for my ‘transphobia.’

This person has asked followers to pick up machetes and attack me.

This person began a narrative that I had sabotaged their career, a narrative that has been picked up and repeated by others.

The normal response would be to ignore it all, because this person is seeking attention and publicity to benefit themselves. Claiming that I have sabotaged their career is a lie and this person knows that it is a lie. But if something is repeated often enough, in this age in which people do not need proof or verification to run with a story, especially a story that has outrage potential, then it can easily begin to seem true.

My addressing this lie will indeed get this person some attention – may they bask in it.

Here is the truth: I was very supportive of this writer. I didn’t have to be. I wasn’t asked to be. I supported this writer because I believe we need a diverse range of African stories.

Sabotaging a young writer’s career is just not my style; I would get no benefit or satisfaction from it. Asking that my name be removed from your biography is not sabotaging your career. It is about protecting my boundaries of what I consider acceptable in civil human behavior.

You publicly call me a murderer AND still feel entitled to benefit from my name?

You use my name (without my permission) to sell your book AND then throw an ugly tantrum when someone makes a reference to it?

What kind of monstrous entitlement, what kind of perverse self-absorption, what utter lack of self-awareness, what unheeding heartlessness, what frightening immaturity makes a person act this way?

Besides, a person who genuinely believes me to be a murderer cannot possibly want my name on their book cover, unless of course that person is a rank opportunist.

PART THREE

In certain young people today like these two from my writing workshop, I notice what I find increasingly troubling: a cold-blooded grasping, a hunger to take and take and take, but never give; a massive sense of entitlement; an inability to show gratitude; an ease with dishonesty and pretension and selfishness that is couched in the language of self-care; an expectation always to be helped and rewarded no matter whether deserving or not; language that is slick and sleek but with little emotional intelligence; an astonishing level of self-absorption; an unrealistic expectation of puritanism from others; an over-inflated sense of ability, or of talent where there is any at all; an inability to apologize, truly and fully, without justifications; a passionate performance of virtue that is well executed in the public space of Twitter but not in the intimate space of friendship.

I find it obscene.

There are many social-media-savvy people who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion, who can fluidly pontificate on Twitter about kindness but are unable to actually show kindness. People whose social media lives are case studies in emotional aridity. People for whom friendship, and its expectations of loyalty and compassion and support, no longer matter. People who claim to love literature – the messy stories of our humanity – but are also monomaniacally obsessed with whatever is the prevailing ideological orthodoxy. People who demand that you denounce your friends for flimsy reasons in order to remain a member of the chosen puritan class.

People who ask you to ‘educate’ yourself while not having actually read any books themselves, while not being able to intelligently defend their own ideological positions, because by ‘educate,’ they actually mean ‘parrot what I say, flatten all nuance, wish away complexity.’

People who do not recognize that what they call a sophisticated take is really a simplistic mix of abstraction and orthodoxy – sophistication in this case being a showing-off of how au fait they are on the current version of ideological orthodoxy.

People who wield the words ‘violence’ and ‘weaponize’ like tarnished pitchforks. People who depend on obfuscation, who have no compassion for anybody genuinely curious or confused. Ask them a question and you are told that the answer is to repeat a mantra. Ask again for clarity and be accused of violence. (How ironic, speaking of violence, that it is one of these two who encouraged Twitter followers to pick up machetes and attack me.)

And so we have a generation of young people on social media so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow.

I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and re-read their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.

[ineloquent-creature]

minors, do not interact.

ᜊ( ᜊ ´ ˘)੭ ABOUT ME !!

you can call me creature! i’m a white autistic physically disabled adult, who uses they/them pronouns. i live in the US with my boyfriend! my favorite color is pink and i love kitty cats, plushies, and going on walks. i've had an interest in literature, psychology, and history my whole life! i write poetry as a way to cope with personal feelings about anxiety and childhood trauma.

my last account was a traumacore account, and while i’d like to post my vent poetry/edits on this account too, i want to be more thoughtful with how i present myself this time: as a poet in-recovery and not as a traumacore account. i want to make use of a better tag system (this is below the “read more” button and below my DNI) so that it’s easier to blacklist my triggering tags or find my work. i’m a mobile user and i don’t queue posts, i just go on my phone whenever to post & reblog as much as i want, in any order. sometimes i won’t post at all, as this is a personal blog and not a content machine.

you can message or send me asks whenever! please read my DNI (it’s below the “read more” button) before you interact and don’t take it personally if i block you because i block liberally. while tone indicators are appreciated they are not needed, so you don’t need to worry about color coding your text or using tone indicators when talking to me! i chose to use colored text, bold text, & symbols throughout my “about me” to create a visually pleasing experience for those with difficulty reading long paragraphs.

BYF: i am very vocal with my opinions and i am NOT anti-harassment. if that makes you uncomfortable, block me. i will not be harassing anyone in any online spaces, but if a pedophile finds its way into my inbox i will tell it to die. i do not agree with physical abuse or doxxing, but i will publicly shame adults who are openly abusing online spaces. (more about this is in my DNI.)

.˚₊┈┈┈┈୨(:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅[:🌸:]̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅)୧┈┈┈┈₊˚.

ᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ່࡚ࠢ࠘⸝່ࠡࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊ࠢ࠘𐡏˖ ࣪⊹𓏲⋆ DNI !!

📌 NOTE: there are two parts to my DNI. the first part is a growing list of all the terrible people who are NOT allowed to interact and will be blocked and reported on sight and the second part explains why i have no tolerance for the people in my DNI.

🛑 HEY! if you think you are missing from my DNI please shoot me a message. i’d love to hear your feedback on what i can do to make my DNI even better! (you will be blocked afterward. thank you!)

❗️PART 1 ::

DO NOT INTERACT IF YOU ARE A(N): (minor), racist, antisemetic, islamophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, pro-transandrophobic, interphobic, homophobic, lgbtqa+phobic, nonbinary skeptic, acephobic, arophobic, biphobic, lesbophobic, anti-queer, ableist, able-bodied, neurotypical, sexist, misogynist, incel, middle-aged white man, pro-patriarchy, femcel, anti-religion, pro-military, pro-authoritarian, fascist, pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-choice, right-wing, pro-police, pro-government, conservative, democrat, republican, trump supporter, anti-BLM, anti-ACAB, anti-ukraine, pro-russia, nazi, neo-nazi, pro-nazi, pro-eugenics, “proud boy”, elitist, white supremacist, elon musk supporter, anti-eat the rich, scientologist, pro-war on drugs, radical inclusionist, terf, swerf, radfem, anti-sex work, anti-anti, anti-fanpol, anti-fancops, anti-censorship, problematic shipper, pro-shipper, complicated shipper, faia, self-shipper, pro-fiction, pro-dead dove: do not eat, pro-paraphilia, paraphiliac, pedophile, chronophile, zoophile, somnophile, necrophile, rapist, xenomeliac, pro-incest, pro-cosanguity, pro-MAP, pro-NOMAP, pro-PHEN, pro-PEAR, pro-MOGII, pro-LIOM, pro-GRSM, pro-AAM, adult attracted minor, pro-good faith identities, pro-kink, pro-kink at pride, pro-child porn, pro-fetish, pro-DD/LG, pro-C/LG, pro-little space, lolicon, pro-agere, pro-age play, shotacon, fujoshi, kifujin, fudanshi, pro-yaoi, pro-yuri, whumpee, devotee, pro-all trans(insert) identities, transabled, pro-TAB, pro-currently abled, transautistic, transadhd, transage, altage, chronosian, chronopeculiar, transrace/transethnic (non-adoptees), pro-endogenics, pro-tulpas, endogenic system, tulpa system, non-disordered system, anti-sysmedicalist, pro-saneism, neuropunk, neurogender, pro-neurogender, pro-alter human identities, alt-human, objectum, alt-abled, dsmp fan, callmecarson fan, mcyt fan, harry potter fan, marvel fan, dc fan, disney fan, star wars fan, hannibal fan, ao3 supporter, pro-gore, pro-guro, anti-healthy coping skills, pro-obsessive love, pro-vore, cannibal, pro-cannibalism, pro-self harm, pro-eating disorders, pro-ana, pro-mia, pro-thinspo, pro-fatspo, pro-*insert*spo, anti-recovery, pro-unhealthy coping mechanisms, yandere, stalker, scammer, pro-child abuse/neglect, ex-child abuser, pro-child abuse, pro-child neglect, “autism mom”, pro-autism speaks, pro-“tough love”, anti-vaxxer… (this list is in the process of expanding & as these communities continue to grow i can only know so much, so if you know of an identity or term that i may want to add to this list please send me a(n) message or ask!)

‼️ PART 2 ::

📌 NOTE: in case i have not made it clear, i am ANTI pro-shipping and ANTI radical inclusivity. i created my DNI with the intent to exclude everyone who i think is “bad” & everyone i don’t agree with. i do not want to listen to what anyone listed in my DNI has to say and i do not care about their feelings, thoughts, and opinions. yes, this makes me an asshole. that’s okay, i do not mind.

🛑 i am only going to talk about pro-shippers & radical inclusivity (including anti-recovery) in this part. it should be obvious why everyone else is listed in my DNI… & more posts with views against those people will be posted throughout this blog. i’m only talking about this select group of people because they don’t think they’re a problem & think they can ignore people’s DNI.

the reason why my voice is important and valid in pro-shipping and radically inclusive spaces is because i am autistic, and as a minor i was negatively affected by ignorant, neglectful people from those communities, who were (and still are) spreading & perpetuating false information. when these communities were harming me they weren’t known as pro-shippers and radical inclusionists. i only recently learned what pro-shipping was in the past months (although i’d been interacting with pro-shipping content in fandom spaces for years.) & i learned about radical inclusion just four days before i learned about pro-shipping (although i’d been in anti-recovery, pro-endogenics, & MOGAI spaces months or years prior.) & while these communities didn’t have names at the time, they still existed as abusive individuals, mutuals, & friends who all shared the same harmful views. & i shared those views at one point because i believed they weren’t harming anyone & were inclusive views. but the truth is, at their core, pro-shipping & radical inclusivity are ableist, racist, sexist, and abusive movements. to say otherwise is to agree that you want to ignore the problem and refuse to take accountability for your neglect. & this is why:

pro-shipping was the first community i was affected by. i was born in 2003 and the first time i saw the word lesbian was on porn hub in 2010, on my iPhone 3G. before that, i didn’t realize that women could kiss other women let alone fuck them. my first time seeing gay fiction was on wattpad through poorly written scripts or smut (yes, this is my parent’s failure.) & at the time elementary & middle schools had not yet put gay media on their shelves so i learned everything i knew about sex through fan fiction, social media, & google. mental illness & neurodivergency was also a “taboo” topic growing up, and as an undiagnosed autistic (also my parents failure) i found a home in communities on archive of our own that wrote alpha/beta/omega (omegaverse) fiction. i didn’t like ABO for the sexual reason (i was 10), i liked the concept because i liked the idea of pack dynamics (or having a group of friends who are naturally comfortable with physical contact and affection), nesting (or creating a familiar safe space filled with soft things, scents, & toys that no one is allowed to enter until they have my consent), and depending on someone fully capable of supporting me. these 3 things are all vital to my personal happiness as an autist, and i was neglecting that part of my life at the time so i read fiction to cope. while this part of ABO isn’t a “bad thing,” i was still exposed to the sexual & abusive themes of the trope in every fic, like being unable to control raping anyone, as a natural part of biology, or not being treated the same as others because of your birth gender/sex/orientation. so of course i’ve seen pro-fiction from the dead dove: do not eat category, like, “rape/non-con/non-consensual touching/dub-con/dubious consent, somnophilia, necrophilia, sexual violence, yandere/obsessive behavior, erotophonophilia, violence/pain/murder/blood kink, gun play/knife play, cannibalism/self-cannibalism/vore, gang-bang/gang-rape, incest/twincest/selfcest, pedophilia, consensual underage sex, DDLG/CLG/agere/age play, watersports/piss/cum/pregnancy/breeding/inflation/lactation kinks, forced pregnancy/forced loss of pregnancy, slut shaming, public sex/voyeurism, tentacle porn/monster fucking/monster breeding/sex pollen/sex potion, gore/self harm/mutilation/torture, “wound fucking,” suicide, psychological horror, emotional abuse/psychological abuse/manipulation/gaslighting, abusive/manipulative/unhealthy relationships, “whump,” child abuse, forced infantilism, forced feeding, stockholm syndrome, alcohol abuse/drug abuse/underage drink/underage smoking, zoophilia/beastiality…” & i think you get the gist of it by now. some of these terms can be found with “attempted,” “implied/referenced,” or “accidental” in front of them. for example, “attempted rape,” “implied self harm/suicide,” or “accidental voyeurism.” they can also be found with “extremely,” “minor,” & other descriptive terms like, “extremely dubious consent,” “minor non-con themes,” or “slight voyeurism.” if you go to Ao3 and search “dead dove: do not eat,” you’ll find all of this. but basically, this is pro-fiction & all of it is bad. all of it is harmful. fandoms have always been full of people writing abusive fiction & those^ are the terms they use. (it’s foul, isn’t it?) i’ll be honest, i don’t know the origin(s) of ABO (it can’t be anything good) and although people have written properly tagged fics without abusive themes in them there’s still that underlying purpose in every fic of “it’s written to cope with (or the absence of) patriarchal abuse & segregation.” it’s all written by abusers & people who condone & romanticize abuse (also abusers), so you’re often exposed to dead dove: do not eat media wherever you go.

no amount of “comfort” and “fluff” fics will change that, you’re only adding to the problem, convoluting it & making the internet more unsafe. taking abusive fiction/media off of the internet would be a start in making this world safer to raise children. it needs to happen. & if you’re against “problematic fiction” & recognize the problem you need to stop being a pro-shipper, keep your head down & get the fuck out of everyone’s way. stop telling us that pedos aren’t as big of a deal as they are in your communities & that “you’ve got it handled,” because even you recognize them as a problem. and you don’t have it handled. so stop convoluting your messages with false pretenses of “helping us get pedos off of the internet” because really, you’re just making it easier for them to hide. pro-shipping was created by pro-contact paraphiliacs and they are using the term “pro-shipping” or “com-shipping” to generalize and publicize their abuse & maltreatment. (do you not remember MOGII, & pedos trying to join the lgbtq community?) the public, being ignorant, only sees what pro-paraphiliacs are doing on a surface level or doesn’t see them at all.

i should not have to explain why this media is bad. & why i want people to keep their rape fantasies to themselves is self-explanatory. what apparently isn’t “self-explanatory” is that adults are willingly neglectful and that there is a moral issue with ableism affecting us all. & pro-shipping is part of that issue. so i am not going to censor myself for you (but not in the way you think.) if you are against censoring media that openly shows fictional sex, horror, gore, abuse, incest, rape, etc., to children then we are not on the same page. if you think it is not your job as an individual to help censor media that has a negative impact on children, we are not on the same page. as adults it is your job to protect children from harm. no, this doesn’t mean laying a firm hand on them (physical abuse) or telling them what they can and cannot do (mental abuse.) i mean that you must control yourselves and censor yourselves for (your) children. children do not owe you anything. children are a privilege, not a curse, but too many of you are too sex obsessed to care. (& what i mean by the first sentence is that i am not going to censor my hate for your communities. i really think you are stupid, wrong, and need to stop existing.) children are not able to create their own media because they are children. (this means that their brains and bodies aren’t developed enough to make books, movies, & merchandise for themselves.) so, it is the adults job to create safe media and enrichments for children to enjoy. if you create media for children with any intent to add your adult interests to the content, you are a pedophile & you are pushing your adult interests onto children who cannot protect themselves. their parents do not protect them because they are the same as you: a pedophile who only cares about themselves. there is a difference between mentally scarring children and educating them. letting a child view (abusive) porn early is scientifically proven to be damaging to children. sex education must be better taught in school’s and it is up to the adults to make that happen as children are, as i said, incapable of doing that for themselves. if you think you have “the right” to harm children (minors) because they’ve harmed you in the past we are, again, not on the same page. if you weren’t able to grow up and realize that adults are the reason children hurt other children, you are now part of that reason and continue to perpetuate the existence of kids who bully. if you openly show your hatred for children by telling them that they are the reason for all of your pain because they are children, you are not helping the problem, you are helping to create bullying kids. if you think children can be “entitled” you’re the problem, children grow up to be entitled adults, & children are in no way responsible for how they were raised. you do not understand anything about growing up, children, or society and how it works. you are stupid and pathetic. i won’t use the term ignorant to refer to you adults anymore because you are NOT children and therefore should have learned your lesson. you should have came to the realization that adults are the cause of all of your problems, you were never the problem when you were a kid. but you were not able to, so now you are traumatized, abusive, and terminally online. you’re the problem now & i hope you all receive the help you so desperately need. & i hope you stop perpetuating this cycle of harming children and not caring about harming children. but you won’t, so i’ll just have to sit and wait for your age group to die off. that’s the best i can hope for at this point.

the issue with pro-shipping and pro-fiction is that it enables (child) neglect and abuse. & it doesn’t help that the abused were taught it’s okay to keep perpetuating that abuse as a coping mechanism. & it doesn’t help that technology has advanced so far as to give everyone a space to learn about and talk to each other. because ignorant neglectful people created that technology & have access to that technology, and those neglectful people had kids who have access to that technology & more knowledge, who have kids who have access to that technology & even more knowledge. older generations did not have as much access to knowledge as we do now. they did not know much about safety and did not care. they were racist, xenophobic, queerphobic child abusers. they lived through wars & never got over living through wars. they are stuck in conservative, minimalistic ways because that is how they forced themselves to live their whole lives. not only that, the first legal rape case was in the 1970s. people didn’t “know” about rape and if they did they kept quiet about it. people still choose to keep quiet about rape, both the assaulted & the enablers. (i didn’t know that COCSA (child on child sexual assault) was a real thing until i saw it in someone’s traumacore blog bio less than a year ago, and i am a COCSA victim.) the things that people refuse to act on in real life are the things that they refuse act on online. sure, they may notice the problem, but ultimately adults refuse to create safe, non-adult, spaces for kids. they state the problem and expect “god know’s what” to do something about it. nothing is ever done about the neglect & safety issue. & among those neglectful adults are the real pedophiles, rapists, zoophiles, etc., & they’ve all found a home online and will never be able to create safe spaces for children because they are pedophiles. (do you see the problem? people are expecting the abusers to do the work for them, enabling further abuse. it’s all ableism.) these adults are neglectful because they do not care about other lives, how their actions affect life, and will not agree that their actions affect those lives. i’ll break it down for you, it’s as simple as this: writing is an action, thinking is an action, typing words is an action, & consuming media is an action. that is reality. what you are doing is real and cemented in what is real. you can’t be cemented in anything but reality because that’s all there is. if you think anything otherwise, it’s a delusion. fiction affects reality because fiction subconsciously influences who we are & always has. we have no control over that, our brains are very complex and we’re able to learn more than we’ll probably ever be aware of. you are not as in control as you think you are. have you forgotten about book burning or the holocaust or anything regarding the destruction of literature? if you’re anti-censorship you should remember. fiction has always affected reality.

there are mainly three groups of people who exist in pro-shipping & radically inclusive spaces. the first is people who believe the past definition of words or are the past definition of words. this first group includes psychiatrists and old psychiatric definitions of terms and paraphiles, pedophiles, zoophiles, necrophiles, rapists, etc. the second is people who believe the past definition of terms but know that technology and intelligence are advancing, so they’re more open to those definitions changing but not if it’s not on their terms & beliefs, so they create their own definitions under the pretense of advancing technology & societal inclusion. this second group includes radical inclusionists, transableists, chronophiles, pro-shippers, endogenic systems, alter-humans, yanderes & everyone who supports them. the third group is “impressionable young minds,” minors who want to be included so much that they are willing to make-believe anything. adults refuse to create spaces for them, invade their spaces, and then complain about doing it, so these kids are coping as best as they know how, and they’re coping badly. the second and third group always have one thing in common: they are traumatized, abused, & neglected and they use their identity as a coping mechanism, using that reason to negatively cope in online spaces. the first group is often those who abuse, neglect, and traumatize, so even the first two groups stay away from them. there are subsets and offsets of the main 3 groups, & i’m now a subset of the 3rd group, an “ex-pro-shipper” who was abused by pro-fiction adults as a minor & finds pro-shipping so disgusting, they wrote a whole essay about it. call me an anti, fanpol, fancop… idc. i am all of those things. (although i don’t really like being associated with cops. one of my abusers was a cop. i feel like the use of “police” is insensitive.) say whatever you want, i’ve heard it all before. yes i sound whiney and childish but i’m an 18 year-old victim of fandom culture who’s a little pissy after learning that kids are still being openly abused online! so as your “fandom mom’s” say, read & make sure the issue hasn’t already been addressed by the op before you confront them for it, because anti’s have been doing this for years (& have been abused by pro-shippers for years) and we still aren’t going to listen to you because you. are. wrong. & you won’t listen to us because you are brainwashed, traumatized, abusers. pro-shipping will never be an inclusive movement, it preys on those most vulnerable. so much for your “inclusion.” you all need help and therapy! NOT an online space to condone abusive and unhealthy lifestyles.

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(#. _ .) ·˚ ༘ ♡ ˚⁎⁺ TAGS !!

📌 NOTE: i am an autistic adult in recovery from suicide and self harm who uses medical marijuana for their chronic pain and likes to “talk politics” and i will be talking about those things (in a non-graphic, but sometimes explicit, manner) & more on this account, so block me or blacklist triggering tags as needed, at your discretion.

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✨triggering ?! ::

#flashing, #flashing lights, #eye strain

#nsfw

#weed, #drug mention

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