#I used to think I didn’t have dysphoria until I started medically transitioning

[scramratz]

Can I get some insight from trans folks who don’t experience dysphoria?

[risingscorchingsuns]

What was hikaru's transition experience in the corps? How did they take his coming out (if that happened)? How easy was it for him to get care (you said shinobu did his top surgery)?

This is a great question! Unfortunately Hikaru being trans is one of the most historically inaccurate parts of his story, if not medically, then definitely socially. I use a lot more modern methods and language because I wanted Hikaru to be trans similarly to how I am. It’s my canon-accurate Achilles Heel 😭

Don’t get me wrong, trans people definitely existed back in the Taisho period!! We’ve always been here, but back then we were recorded a little differently, generally regarded as “women in men’s clothing”, et cetera. I will never deny their existence, and Hikaru being modern with his gender expression isn’t meant as erasure or denial to them, but as an expression of myself via a fictional character. Their existence is real, and valid, and they are no less trans than Hikaru- at the end of the day, he’s my silly little self insert, and I wanted to write his experiences based off of mine. If the focus of Hikaru’s story was his gender journey, I would put more emphasis on the time period and the difficulties surrounding being trans in the Taisho period, but the themes surrounding Blazing Heart’s Rhapsody are acceptance and solace found within family, and love in spite of war. This isn’t a story about trans people- Hikaru just happens to be trans ☺️

Hikaru realized he was a boy very very young, (probably around 6 or 7) and his father, Hiroki, encouraged him to live in whatever fashion made him feel most comfortable. Because Hikaru grew up in the woods with only his father and little brothers, he was never really socialized as a woman or a man- he was just Hikaru, the oldest Eritora child. He likely hit puberty while living on his own in the Sumitomo Forest, but didn’t experience dysphoria until he was found by the Kochos when he was 16. When he was brought into the Corps, Hikaru experienced gender norms full-force for the first time. It wasn’t really that they didn’t support Hikaru being trans, it was more that he didn’t fit. He was Different, and that made him Othered. For the first time, Hikaru was struggling with where he belonged, and that was when he started to really learn the societal importance placed on gender roles. Additionally, Hikaru is neurodivergent, so these norms never made much sense to him logically in the first place. So while he never really had to come out, he did have to fit in, which was difficult for him to navigate. He talked to Shinobu, who in all her medical expertise, gave him the best advice she could. She was the one who helped him hormonally transition, (if she can inject herself with 700x the lethal dose of wisteria without fucking poisoning herself, she can probably make Hikaru’s testosterone. She’s iconic like that I think.) and ultimately it was Shinobu who helped Hikaru figure out where he stood in terms of gender identity. Hikaru is a self-made man in every sense of the phrase, but he couldn’t have done it without the help of those around him.

As for top surgery, I don’t really have a canon-friendly justification for that. Shinobu’s not a plastic surgeon, she’s probably done minor surgeries before, but never anything to the level of gender-affirming surgery. I feel like she’d DIY that shit tbh. She could pull it off. I’d let her do my top surgery. Shinobu says trans rights 🗣️

Thank you for this ask!!! I rarely get to do longform Hikaru analysis :D

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Aaron Terrell

Published: Mar 29, 2024

I started speaking out about the dangers of medicalizing gender in 2019. I had spent the previous two years understanding the subculture that had grown around the notion of transgenderism. Apparently being “trans” was noble. Being “cis” meant you supported the white supremacist patriarchy. Apparently now gender dysphoria was a “cishet invention to pathologize transness”.  Dysphoria was something you had to claim to have in order to access your “life saving” hormones and surgery. It was all foreign and confusing and full of contradictions. I felt like it made a mockery of my “real condition”. See I transitioned in 2010. Grateful for the relief it brought me and not interested in tribes or support groups, I got on with my life “as a man” and didn’t pay much mind to the culture of transition. That is until late 2017 when I re-immersed myself as a kind of religious studies student.  

In addition to studying the culture that had arisen, I spent a lot of time reading stories from detransitioners. The detransitioners’ stories weren’t foreign or confusing. They sounded like my own. A lifelong sense of ‘supposed to be’ the opposite sex, and then learning this meant they were the opposite sex and transition was the only solution. Except it didn’t work. They felt more uncomfortable on the other side. Some felt like they were living a lie and presenting as the opposite sex was an act they no longer wanted to keep up; mentally, physically, or ethically. Unlike the aforementioned religious zealots, the detransitioners were easy to relate and empathize with.

So why did it work for me? And what does “work” even mean in this context? I have no idea. And certainly not for lack of trying to find the answer. I’ve now clocked over six yeas on a deep-dive into gender, dysphoria, detransition, sexology, psychology, etc. and I still don’t know. What I do know is there was no difference between us that could have been discerned by a “gender therapist” prior to transitioning, even back when things were “more careful”. The activists who came of age since 2010 are not just in the gender clinics, they are writing the guidelines for every therapist. They are told that to ask questions that might get to the root of someone’s gender related distress is “conversion therapy”. That “trans people” know what their gender is and to do anything but affirm them is akin to homophobia. We’re told detranisioners are just the rare few who were confused and got their gender wrong. While sad, sure, we shouldn’t weaponize them to punish “real” trans people.

So I am here as a “real trans person” to call bullshit. No one was “born in the wrong body” and sex trait modification is not “life saving care”. Some of us feel it was a net benefit, but recognize it was a serious medical intervention for what is a strictly psychological issue. There is no difference between a “trans person” and a “cis person” other than declared self-identity. If you are reading this, I’m fairly certain you agree. And yet, while attending the 2023 Trans Health Summit, I asked the trans and nonbinary 30 something doctors writing the American Psychological Association’s “Guidelines for Working with Trans and Gender Expansive Patients” how therapists can differentiate between a “trans child” and a “cis child”. I was told only a transphobe would even think to try.

In 2021, I began working with a friend and early gender clinic whistle-blower, Aaron Kimberly, who likewise does not regret transition. Together we launched the Gender Dysphoria Alliance and the Transparency Podcast. The aim of both is to shed light on the experience of gender dysphoria, without all the ideological noise that now surrounds it. Since then, we have gotten countless messages from parents, teachers, administrators, etc. thanking us for speaking out. Jamie Reed credited the podcast with helping her summon the courage to blow the whistle on her gender clinic. People have emailed us to say they decided not to transition or to detransition, crediting our content with them understanding their own motivations better. Mothers have told us their daughters dissisted after being shown the podcast. Personally I suspect that’s because most these girls have no interest in looking like middle-age men and being shown we aren’t cute K-Pop boys has them running from the testosterone. We’re happy to help either way!

However, we have also gotten criticism from Gender Critical activists who feel that by not detransitioning we are advertising transition. I would agree with them on this, if not for the fact of the culture we currently live in. The people with this criticism seem completely disconnected from the realities I described above. We live in a culture that celebrates all things trans while demonizing any investigation into it. There is no shortage of transition encouragement surrounding gender distressed individuals. What there is a shortage of is people telling them the truth from a position of compassion and empathy.

I am grateful to work alongside anyone productively working to interrupt this ideology. But just like how I didn’t need the trans tribes or support groups all those years ago, I don’t need gender critical ones now. If you don’t feel comfortable working with people who do not regret their transition, I completely understand where you’re coming from. I think it’s misguided strategically for the reasons I already mentioned, but I do understand it. I will keep writing and podcasting and trying to sound alarms, alone or with friends and colleagues, and I firmly believe the most productive way to do so is to continue to lean on my standing as a “trans person”.

[possibilistfanfiction]

hi i just wanted to say thank you for writing about queerness the way that you do - it’s incredible and has been immensely helpful to me lately. like i’ve agonized over wanting a haircut and a binder and to change my pronouns and have never had the courage to do anything about it, but reading your stuff is making me want to go through with it all. i had to pause a few times as i read your most recent piece (ava’s pov of butch bea) because i was overwhelmed with relief seeing ava and bea want that stuff too. i didn’t realize wanting it could feel so freeing. like i’ve never seen queer people written like that before, and never knew i needed to see it until now. it’s helped me feel okay about wanting the aforementioned things, and also okay about not knowing what i want or how i want to be. all around your fics are so healing and enlightening as far as gender and sexuality go, and gender and sexuality aside they are also flat out masterpieces. i cannot even begin to describe how much they, as well as your other posts on the subject, mean to me. thank you so much

:) thank u!

& i will say that i have spent the better part of the last 15 or so years just vibrating around trying to figure out what makes me feel good, especially in my body & how others perceive it. which is really hard! but trying stuff rocks — i figured out i wanted top surgery but not to transition in other medical ways bc i got a binder! the peace i felt with one felt right, & then i got to explore from there. i have had … so many haircuts lol & most of them have been good! (imo everyone deserves to buzz their hair at least once & just. deal with it lmao. a rite of passage.) now i don’t give a fuck about “what side of the store” clothes are on bc i know exactly what i want clothes to fit & feel like, & i have a tailor, so i just pay more attention to fit & fabric than i do any “men’s” or “women’s” demarcations, especially when most of the places i shop are mostly just vaguely androgynous earth tones anyway lol.

(of course this is with the caveat that there’s enough safety/financial stability but) try everything! especially stuff that’s not at all permanent!

there’s no way i would know what makes me happy & peaceful now if i didn’t try stuff in the past! do i want to wear button downs & chinos & have ppl call me sir?? no i would rather pErish. but did i always know that! of course not, & i got to have the space to try how that would feel. i definitely also know that i never want people to think i’m straight (lol but ppl are stubborn); i had a weird summer bc my hair was rly long, which i loved, but then started to feel just dissonant about… occasionally a little panicked by? (in addition to some transphobic nonsense thru work, which ofc doesn’t help). but once i sat down & was like what the fuck is going on — & felt safe enough to just sit for DAYS in dysphoria to try to figure out the root of it — i was like oh ok cool, easy, i can fix this. i knew i didn’t want to cut my hair rly short again (probably never again or at least for a Long Time, i don’t like ppl thinking i’m a man), but i didn’t wanna keep it long, so i was like ok great, stupid masc bob here we come, & my hairstylist is queer & has a soft butch wife, so i was set lol. but without getting to have space for the past decade to just try things, & to learn how to sit in dysphoria thru therapy rather than just Run Away from the feeling every time, that would’ve been a lot harder to navigate. i used to be VERY adamant abt they/them pronouns but i don’t feel that way anymore, & nothing earth shattering happened or has happened, i just… don’t care. i care more abt my privacy & agency than abt disclosing identity & experience than i do a pronoun, & so i get to make that choice whenever i want, which has been rly wonderful. & getting to try things will help you learn where ur most comfortable, especially as u continue to grow & change.

& like… it’s fun! queerness is so fun! i think beas queerness is fairly ~fraught~ canonically for obvious reasons but in any universe it’s nice to just let her take a fucking breath. kiss a girl, put on a hoodie, cut your hair, take a nap by the beach. it’s not so serious, not all the time. & ava is just FUN, her queerness is so so bright. to me it’s always just seemed like she was never Not queer bc ava has so much life to live & so so much to discover abt herself & the world. she’s falling in love with everything all the time, & with Wonder! & of course that includes queerness! it’s at the center of it bc it’s who you are & who you love, but it’s also just… people, & connection. i used to write rly angsty shit abt being queer & in moments of indulgence i do still enjoy a romp ofc to flex those wow sin & hell & an orgasm being so holy muscles lol, but queerness is my everyday life, & it shows up in the soft happy places more than anywhere else.

anyway, try everything!! especially a binder (bind safely!!!!!) & pronouns, even just online or w a few of ur ppl. if there’s a word you like for your identity, try writing it somewhere or just telling a friend (i texted my best friend that i liked the word ‘dyke’ a lot after having made ‘dyke on main’ jokes abt myself for ten years … we both just laughed). & of course haircuts & clothes are so fun, & they should get to be fun!

but even beyond that (& part of why i think ppl like reading stuff i write, maybe?) is that like so much healing for me in pleasure & peace in my queerness is so tied up in those same feelings abt … everything. food! sex! moving my body! my home! small acts of service! luxury! softness! skincare! the ocean! like whew, waking up & being like this brings me quiet joy, mary oliver was RIGHT, just lets the whole world kinda shimmer. not loudly, not in any remarkable way, but eating good food & having a good beer with someone who sees you for who you are; fresh flowers in the vase; LINEN PANTS; the dog asleep at your feet — all of those things to me are both queer & holy, inextricably together in my life. my wife’s queerness is very compatible w her religion & spirituality, & that’s rly rly beautiful to get to be around. queerness is abt deep care, too, in small ways: checking up on a friend after top surgery, still masking indoors, keeping my dog on lead unless i know her recall will be perfect. it shapes every part of my life. to me the mundane is the most glorious thing, & i have figured things that i love bc, for as scary as trying stuff can be (what if people see me? what if i hate it?) — you know, the most important question: what if you love it?

[gandalf-the-bean]

tldr most terms are only outdated to those that do not use them for themselves, and we should absolutely adhere to what a specific person uses for themself. but this does not apply to everyone. different terms have different meanings to describe an individual experience

————

for the most part i use afab because i’m a member of a system where we are not all male, so ftm only makes sense for 1-2 of us

anyway ftm is personally accurate specifically to me as well because previously i was very ADAMANTLY a girl. i was proud of it, i even called myself the “queen” when i was on the king square in nine square. like i was all in. and i consider [deadname] like a whole other person. she even wanted to be a bio mother for a bit (i super super never want bio kids and would be happy to adopt an older kid)

im proud of her and her accomplishments and talents, but she and i are not the same, though we did originate as the same person. she wasn’t her own alter because she doesn’t exist anymore and i am now where she was.

a big reason i consider us almost two separate people is that the lives we live/lived were very different mentally, physically, socially, even geographically. our personalities are quite different with shared core beliefs (i think)

that girl very much existed, but she does not anymore. i’m now a much more confident and content man more in tune with myself who is definitely much kinder and better liked

there’s plenty of reasons people would use afab, ftm, or any of the other ones for themselves. (even if it’s just calling yourself transsexual to perform rocky horror picture show, though plenty of people use that term for themselves). a reason i personally don’t use transsexual is because it’s not true for me. i have no intent to fully transition medically (there are some things i want but mostly i just want to stay how i am) and do not wish to be the opposite sex. i’m just simply not a woman and am only a man

people’s experiences are very different as well! my wife had always knows she’s a girl (now woman), but i didn’t start having dysphoria until middle school or know i was guy until mid-high school

there is no “universal experience”

don't use "ftm" it's outdated and offensive. it implies that the trans person was their agab, which we never were. i was always a boy, never a girl who became a boy.

i'm 35 years old. i've been IDing as trans or something similar to trans for nearly 20 years. i was probably calling myself FTM while you were playing tag during recess, anon.

i WAS a girl. i IDed as a girl early in my life. i recognized myself as a girl, called myself a girl, lived as a girl, and was a girl. who then IDed as a man. hence, F t M.

spend more time worrying about yourself instead of strangers on the internet, anon.

sorry not sorry if this comes off as needlessly hostile, but i've been getting a lot of shit from a lot of teenage trans kids about the language i use to describe my own goddamn experience, and i'm growing real fuckin weary of it.

i have elder trans friends who call themselves transsexuals and transvestites and trannies. are you going to seriously go to a 60-year-old trans person who survived the reagan years and tell her she's not allowed to use certain language to describe herself because it might offend the delicate sensibilities of some teenager on the internet?

do yourself a favor and log off, find some real-life trans people who are over the age of 20 or 25, and spend time talking to them instead of getting all holier-than-thou at random strangers on tumblr.

[nabu630]

Happy International Non-binary People's Day

I have made a previous post about Non-binary awareness week explaining the term non-binary.

I have also said in that post that I would make posts about a few terms that fall under the non-binary umbrella. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to do this and only got one post out. If there are still any terms that you want me to explain or define, just ask and I will try to the best of my ability.

My Experience

Now that that's out of the way, I kind of want to go over my experience being non-binary.

I was assigned a female at birth(AFAB). I was quite young when I started to question things about myself. I was always told that certain things that I enjoyed were for boys. I always hung out around boys through elementary school. When I was in third grade, a little voice in the back of my mind told me I was a boy. I liked a lot of things that were supposed to be for boys and I hung out a lot of boys. In my mind, that made me a boy.

This thought process continued for most of the third grade. I mentioned it to my religious homophobic grandmother who ingrained into my mind to "not think like that, you were born a girl so you are a girl". That stuck with me up until the ninth grade. I didn't want to disappoint my family. I determined I was somewhere on the bi spectrum(later learned I was pan) by eighth grade after questioning for all of seventh grade.

I don't know how I came to the conclusion I was non-binary. I have some gender dysphoria which I didn’t realize was gender dysphoria until later(explained more later). I just decided to experiment with she/they pronouns. I loved the feeling of showing my masculine side and not being restricted by the identification of being a woman. Later, I decided to go by they/them and only use she/her with my family considering I don't think that would be very supportive.

I am very feminine for someone who identifies as non-binary, but that is totally okay. There is no one way a non-binary person can look. I’m also trying to make my family happy and fly under the radar for a few more years.

My friends know and they use the correct pronouns along with showing me support. Well, most of them. Others I haven’t told mostly because I don’t want to be annoying and I have to correct people. Hearing my preferred pronouns just feels right. I haven’t done any other forms of social transition like changing my name. I do use the online name of a Jayden or Jay. Honestly, I could go by either online or government name but I don’t want to go through the trouble with my family.

I do have gender dysphoria. My body doesn’t feel right, my face doesn’t feel right, my hair doesn’t feel right. My pronouns don’t feel right, the way I express myself doesn’t feel right. I thought this had to do with my body and the way I look, which it does but adding the extra context of gender. Some of this I have worked on. I’ve made steady changes to my wardrobe, taking on a style which feels more me rather than the skirts and dresses I used to have. I chopped my hair but not to the style I want and I have told some of my friends about my preferred pronouns. I can’t do anything medical because I can’t have my family knowing. I’m trying to survive as long as I can as who I am before the world starts to tell me no. I mean, it already has but I haven’t found myself in too much danger yet.

Anyway, that’s part of my story. All this to say that it’s okay to be non-binary, or gender fluid, or bi gender, or pan gender, or anything else under the non-binary and trans umbrella. I feel that I am part of a supportive community(most of the time) and I’m happy I found one.

Even though the world seems to be telling us no, there are still days like today where we can come out of the shadows and show our faces. Even if it’s just to the mysterious world of the internet where the reactions are too mixed to know if you’re going to get cursed at or floods of love. I try to show support when I can and so can you.

Thank you for reading my experience with being non-binary

- human on the internet

[rivetgoth]

how do you cope w bottom dysphoria during sex / any advice? i prefer topping but straps/harnesses still make me somewhat uncomfortable

First off I hear you 100%. I don’t really like to top, and it is in part because straps and harnesses make me really dysphoric and always have. The awareness that I’m using a tool that doesn’t have any sensation and isn’t attached to penetrate honestly just makes it worse and strengthens the awareness that it’s not really my dick lol. There was a time I tried to use a fleshlight and it was the exact same thing, I felt awful after from the dysphoria that it brought about from the awareness that my dick wasn’t like, functionally like a cis male’s. So, for full disclosure, I generally consider myself a bottom preferably, and my advice might not be fully aligned with your feelings but here are my thots on the topic since I’m sexually active and dysphoric :]

For me I’d say that I sort of had to make peace with the fact that what I have is what I have for the time being. I’m thankful that being on T hugely changed the exterior of my genitals and I have a decent sized dick and that was a MASSIVE improvement. But there was just this reality (that it took me a long time to accept because it did initially make me feel like less of a man) that I wanted to bottom. I actually forced myself into some pretty deeply uncomfortable sexual situations when I was younger where I’d force myself to top and it never felt good. I would honestly say I wasn’t able to have a comfortable relationship with my body sexually at all until I’d been on T for at least a year and gotten top surgery. It was only after those things that I actually started to have a sex life where I felt genuinely like a willing participant who could enact and advocate for my own desires authentically. And even then, I’d say a huge part of it was also finding a partner who was patient and understanding and didn’t make me feel pressured to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with or ready for. Realistically, I think I would be more into topping occasionally, or at least penetrating (even if still in a subby role), if I had an attached, cis penis, but I don’t, so I make do with what I do have and what I can enjoy.

So I kinda came to terms with the fact that at this point there aren’t any devices that would make it feel like I had a functional cis penis and the present bottom surgery options don’t do it for me, they each have their own cons that keep me from pursuing them that I don’t need to get into in too much depth unless someone is curious. They’re incredible medical advancements and I’m glad they exist, and the answer for you very well may be pursuing these options down the line if you feel like you need it, but I had to weigh what I really wanted and came to terms with the fact that my desire for a cis penis doesn’t outweigh the financial cost, recovery time, risks, and downsides of phallo, while metoidioplasty would not produce a result that significantly differed from what I already have and still would not give me the ability to have sex the same as someone with a standard cis male penis.

So like, with that “out of the way” it just becomes a matter of what I’m actually enjoying and looking at things practically, you know? I enjoy bottoming. I have a vagina and frankly it feels good to have something in there. I like being a sub and being penetrated that way is a great tool for degradation and submission type stuff. On a practical level I can come to terms with using it because it’s what I have. A huge part of enjoying sex as a trans person (perhaps especially as what I’d call a “partially transitioned” trans person lol) is self advocacy and learning to reframe sexuality IMO. Instead of “if my body could just do X then I’d do Y,” it becomes “what feels good and what do I want right now, with the choices laid out before me?” I do top occasionally with a strap nowadays, it’s not my biggest preference but I have a partner I love and we mess around with all sorts of things and for me the enjoyment I can glean from the strap is refocusing my view of it from “I wish this was my dick but the fact that I can’t feel anything destroys the illusion” to “I want to make my partner feel good, see her from this angle, and know that I’m the one responsible for fucking her right now.” Does that make sense at all? Same with bottoming, reframing my mindset from “a cis man wouldn’t have a vagina so how can I be a real man if I enjoy vaginal penetration” to “I have this and it feels good to use it” was so liberating for me.

I also cannot stress enough how pivotal becoming shamelessly freaky with sex was for me. Like getting involved in kink, reclaiming fetish terms like cuntboy, really owning my desires and my body and viewing it as this tool for sensation and pleasure in a way that transcends any preconceived notions for how it “should” be and just focusing on pleasure. I’m VERY very aware that dysphoria cannot be willed away by just reorienting your mindset, hence why I just spent half a thousand dollars on the best prosthetic penis on the market. There are certain times during sex where I just can’t do it, either I have to stop completely for the time being or I have to do something different. Even the shit I jerk off to can be dependent on where I’m at with my dysphoria. I suppose that’s attached to a larger convo about how I don’t think there is a perfect way to “cure” dysphoria even THROUGH transitioning, it obviously helps but there is sort of a balancing act that has to happen between transitioning and also reframing your mindset through accepting who you are as you’re transitioning. Like, if you go into hormone therapy expecting that it’ll make you feel like a “real man” it’ll probably only lead to disappointment and bitterness over what it can’t do, rather than seeing it as a tool to take ownership of your body and push the boundaries of the physical self and craft yourself into the most authentic version of yourself possible. I fully believe transition is nothing short of an act of self love, you feel me? And sex should be the same haha.

ETA: OH! Forgot to mention, but it also helped a lot to read about cis men with micropenises, as well as cis male bottoms in my case — realizing that there ARE cis men who encounter similar issues and experiences as us was very reassuring and inspiring too.

[eyesfangsandwings]

Thoughts on cringe

Well, it wasn’t what I planned on writing, but I sat down and blacked out while free associating and here’s what popped out. Putting part of this under a cut because it got long. If the opening paragraphs tantalize you, just read on I guess? :,>

I wish I’d been cringe.

I wish I hadn’t spent years trying to hide and ignore a key part of myself, perhaps one of the most key parts of myself, because I thought I was just engaging in wish fulfilment. If I ignored it, improved myself, then my self-esteem wouldn’t be so low and I wouldn’t need to pretend I was a divine being to feel better about myself. I went to therapy and hoped it would go away. I quit otherkin and furry groups because they were “a bad influence” and hoped it would go away. I took medication and hoped it would go away. I started transitioning and I hoped it would go away.

Ten years. It never went away. Ten years to realize that by telling myself I was lying to myself, I’d lied to myself.

Ten years I could have spent learning about me. Ten years I could have spent learning about my faith. Ten years I could have spent growing. Ten years I could have lived more openly and been happy.

I see young otherkin, going to meets and talking openly about their kintypes. I see them bark, growl, hiss, and so on in public. I see them play. I see them do what their kintypes do. I’m jealous. I know I shouldn’t be. I just wish that was ten-years-ago me, being the angel he knows he is.

I grew up in the shadow of an expanding Internet and an expanding world. I saw what happened to people who were too openly weird, too openly nonhuman. You heard horror stories of furries who lost jobs when their hobbies came out. You had to deal with freak-of-the-week shows tearing away the curtains of secrecy in what often amounted to a safe space for people who were different in any way.

I had to constantly explain to furcon onlookers that the CSI episode was not indicative of the realities of a furry convention up until 2012, nine years after it aired. Almost as long as the ten years I spent choking back my awakening as it tried to crawl out of the human skin I was desperately trying to hold together. They approached me because I was the “normal” one. I didn’t wear ears or a tail, and certainly not a fursuit. You wouldn’t have caught me dead at a midnight howl. Furry was the only nonhuman indulgence I allowed myself for a time, before it started forcing me to realize I wasn’t pretending to be nonhuman on the weekends, I was pretending to be human on the weekdays. I could barely even do furry things, because I had to be respectable.

That was an annoyance compared to the people who’d stalk you across everything you did, of course. At least the onlookers had a sort of innocent ignorance. They didn’t know they were talking to someone who, while he didn’t think he was an animal, knew deep down he wasn’t human. The people who’d figure out all the names you used were the ones to be afraid of. It exposed the vulnerable side of you that you could only show with a name true to yourself, more real than the one you were given by someone else when you fell into the world screaming, then stitched the two together in an ugly patchwork for all to see.

I wouldn’t call myself a private person. I wouldn’t be writing this if I was. It’s more there’s just parts of me I couldn’t face. I put too much stock in being the logos-oriented person that society places so much value on. Humans are humans. There are no past lives. Only children pretend to be animals. Only someone with delusions of grandeur would pretend to be some sort of powerful mythical being.

Angels aren’t real. I can’t be one. I can’t. I can’t. It’ll go away and I can move on with my life. I can’t howl at the moon. I can’t talk about the dysphoria. I can’t run around in the woods barefoot. I can’t wear gear, no matter how much better it makes me feel. I can’t groom and preen in public. I can’t be an embarrassment to myself. I can’t be one of those people.

A fun fact! I still feel a deep sense of shame when I catch myself doing species-typical behavior in public despite not trying to actively repress it anymore.

Melodramatic, maybe, but I feel like I’ve damaged some part of myself and now I have to try and repair it. So I’ll wear gear. I’ll have my chew toys (they’re stim toys for human bodies, don’t worry, I’m responsible.) I’ll dump florals and honey into everything that it pairs with taste-wise and call it kinfood (and delicious, because it is.) I’ll make a nest to sleep in, and I’ll wear my kigu when I do, because it has wings and horns, and that’s me. I’ll wear a shawl and when the wind blows through it, I’ll close my eyes, and it’ll be the wind through my wings.

I can’t change what ten-years-ago-me did. I can affect what now-me does. So I’ll be cringe.

[vsilas]

Okay.... hear me out. T4T post-war Snarry where substance use starts them on the path to cracking their eggs and meeting as new people who are ready to give each other a second chance. A sickeningly self-indulgent fic idea, pure rambling. Target audience: me and me alone.

Transfemme Snape is on probation after the Death Eater trials and is stripped of her magic. It's temporary and much better than Azkaban but it also means that Snape is essentially a Squib for three years following the sentence. One of the things that happens as a result of this is that all of the subtle "notice-me-not" charms on the area around Spinner's End wear off and the local authorities finally decide it's time to get rid of that slum. Snape is forced to move, which is probably for the best, all things considered. Living with your abusive parents' ghosts isn't conducive to healing... and there's a lot that Snape needs to heal from. As things stand Snape really doesn't want to have anything to do with the wizarding world so she moves to a muggle town somewhere on the coast. What with not being able to do magic she also turns to muggle solutions for a lot of her problems. She makes a living tending bar (she's basically nocturnal, doesn't drink, and can quell unruly customers with a look, so it's a good fit). She starts taking medical marijuana for the chronic pain caused by her encounter with Nagini and it stops her from feeling mildly suicidal for the first time in ages. It's nothing like her life was before and so she slowly starts shedding some of the fear and pain that kept her in line and an effective tool... basically her whole life.

Trans guy Harry goes a bit wild after the whole "I died to save the wizarding world" thing. He feels like he's been robbed of his childhood, his adolescence, and basically all the experiences that "normal kids" should have, so he lets go of his remaining impulse control and starts to spiral. The summer of 1998 is rough. There's the funerals, the trials, everybody trying to pick up the pieces of their life. Harry doesn't think he has any pieces of himself left to pick up. He didn't really plan for a future after the war... he could never see himself grown up. Harry breaks up with Ginny because the way they are together makes his skin crawl, even if he can't put a finger on why that is. Ron gets really mad at Harry for dumping his sister and even more so when Harry says that he doesn't want to be an Auror anymore. He briefly goes back for his 8th year with Hermione but drops out in November when he only manages to turn in two assignments and spends most of his time finding ways to sneak off the grounds to get drunk in London clubs. Harry's friends worry about him but there's only so much they can do to help somebody who really doesn't want to be helped. Harry moves into Grimmauld Place, cuts his hair really short, and spends his nights "living" which mostly just means doing party drugs and having a few ill-advised one-night stands. When there is no one to party with, Harry gets drunk alone in Grimmauld Place and punches mirrors. He doesn’t see a future for himself so he decides to just live in the present, however long that's going to last him. He can feel a break coming, something terrifying but necessary. It feels like the only way to forward is to spiral down.

Snape, who has known something was off since she was a kid, finally lets herself accept what that thing is. It isn’t an earth-shattering revelation, just part of slipping off the masks of professor and spy and Death Eater until all that's left underneath is her. How the fuck did she fool everybody into thinking that she was a man for all these years? Maybe that’s why she was such a good spy. Started young. Hid it even from herself. It’s not really an easy thing to accept, but inevitable. Snape is already grieving everything else about her life so what's another lie, another chance at happiness that slipped away before she even knew what it was? She spends a lot of time in her shabby little flat getting stoned but she also walks along the beach and starts planning the rest of her life.

Harry cracks on another of his drunken nights out to some rather unpleasant consequences, including ministry officials having to obliviate dozens of muggles in a Camden club and a hangover so bad even potions don't help with it. Most of it gets hushed up but the yellow press takes the opportunity to start saying how the "Girl-Who-Lived" finally went off the rails, complete with an unflattering picture of Harry's new haircut (granted Harry was about to throw up when the picture was taken...). Harry lays low for a while but he is also a man of action and so he begins to research ways he could transition. St. Mungo's doesn't provide that kind of healthcare so if he wants to go the magical route he would have to figure it out himself or find an expert in gender magic... who doesn't seem to exist. There are references to a witch who brewed a potion to change her gender, but she lived in the 18th century. Being trans is stigmatized in the wizarding world so he assumes that wixen who have transitioned probably don't advertise the fact. Harry doesn't trust himself to do any magic or potion work that advanced without killing himself, so he decides to keep searching. He swears Madam Pomfrey to secrecy and asks her if she can help him. She's taken aback and tells him this kind of magic is not well studied and she doesn't know if there's a potioneer alive, other than Severus Snape maybe, who would even try working on something like that. However, even if Snape wasn't a squib and unable to brew anymore, Harry certainly isn't planning to have anything to do with his old potions professor. He decides that maybe he should just try muggle means.

Meanwhile Snape has been doing theoretical research on magical transition but hits a dead end. She needs access to a magical library, she needs to be able to actually experiment... Not to mention that she still has years of her probation left, which means years before she can even attempt transition. The only thing to do is turn to muggle means to both manage her dysphoria and maybe inspire the next stage of her research. It takes a while to secure an appointment, but one fateful day Snape walks into the reception area of a London clinic... right as Harry Potter is exiting the doctor's office after his check-in for being 3 months on T. To say that there is a moment of shocked silence would be an understatement.

They meet up for coffee and cautiously become a two-person support group for trans wixen who got fucked over by fate (and Dumbledore) and miraculously survived a war. Harry lets Snape use the library at Grimmauld Place and Snape promises to expand her research to try and develop something for him too. Harry apprentices to a curse-breaker and weathers the press dragging him through the mud every chance they get. Snape might have mellowed out a bit but she still gets on Harry's case about the drinking and not finishing school. They bicker a lot and sometimes Harry overcompensates on the machismo and acts like James, or Snape feeling a blinding rage that Harry is so fucking young and has his whole life ahead of him... but they end up coming around to each other every time. On some level, they are the only people in the world who can really understand each other.

Over the course of the next year and a half, they slowly get their lives sorted. And through that process, they become the most important people in each others' lives. What started out as reluctant solidarity grows until one day Harry can't imagine a future that doesn't have Snape in it, and Snape starts thinking of "home" as being wherever Harry is. It's not easy, considering how many issues both of them have, but it's the easiest thing in the world compared to the alternative. Cue resolution of them both magically transitioning, dealing with public perceptions, and leaning into being a scandalous power couple who doesn't take shit from anybody.

Now, if only I could write this as an actual story....

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

lol Im sorry I know I’ve been kinda reblogging a lot of discourse-y stuff lately, but idk, there’s something on my mind lately, and I’d appreciate some other people getting to see my thoughts. Today, my mind settled on, “How can t*rfs, r*dfems, or other people aligning with them believe that me or my partner are abusive - or being abused - without ever hearing what either of us have to say?”

I’ve just had a lot of Thoughts on t*rf nonsense and rhetoric ever since realizing I was trans (and most likely gay), me realizing I’m actually pan and that I only felt discomfort with anything other than ‘gay’ bc of fear of being misgendered and dysphoria, then my girlfriend realizing she was trans...

I see a lot of t*rfs acting like trans people are gonna force cis people (women, ofc, bc they couldn’t give a shit less what happens to men) to have sex with them and like...

i just wanna talk about what happened with me and my partner. I realized I was trans, I told my partner (she went by he/him pronouns at the time). She was shocked and, as she was undergoing a lot of stress at the time and the relationship was long distance, she was uncertain. She took some time to process it and ultimately said she would accept me, though she seemed apprehensive of me undergoing medical transitioning in the future. This kind of hurt, but I assumed she needed time - only to realize later she fundamentally misunderstood how things worked. We fought. We fought, because she had seemed onboard until she learned that other things might happen, aside from me getting a bigger clit and a somewhat more masc appearance.

But you know what?

We talked about it....

Shocker, huh?

We talked. We had an objective conversation, after emotions had calmed, about whether we still wanted this relationship. We did. So we talked more. She came to understand that being trans didn’t make me suddenly a new person, I was still me, and just wanted to experiment with gender presentation. SHE decided that SHE WANTED to continue the relationship with me, after I asked her objectively, if she did not want it to continue.

And you know what?

She realized that maybe her appreciation for feminine features, her envy for many women, may not be simple attraction. As I talked more about my dysphoric experience, she realized it sounded painfully familiar.

And when she was having these thoughts, we talked.

It started with her testing occasional feminine pronouns (the bigender label), before fully realizing she was binary transfem.

It.... it honestly saddens me, do... do people not think they can talk to their partners? If you feel you can’t talk to your partner about stuff like this... Then I’m sorry, but you might need to try working at trusting one another more, at being open to harder discussions.

Me and my girlfriend may have fought, but we never, EVER resulted to physical blows, name-calling, or anything else. We had some heated discussion over the topic at hand - more like a passionate debate than anything - but nobody was ever directly insulted. These harsher discussions lasted two days, with discussions after - while occasionally tense - never rising to anger again.

We love one another. I love her. I love her for HER... I certainly appreciate her body, but god, that’s not why I started hanging out with her? I don’t ever get to know someone specifically because they’re ‘hot.’ I thought she was funny. I thought she was captivating. I thought she was introspective, engaging, and fun. I still think she’s all of those things and so much more. She’s beautiful, in the way her personality melds with the comfortable, soft familiarity of her body, but I’m not there for just her body.

Changing how she looks will not make me love her less, it never has, and it never will. We had candid discussions, and realized she felt the same about me.

It.. it hurts so much to think there are people that think I am abusing her, or worse, that she’s abusing me, when they don’t know either of us - or our story - from Adam. It also makes me so angry that people would rather project their own insecurities and faulty looks on relationships onto perfect strangers, with such patronizing ideology, since they believe they just know so much better...

How can you know what’s better for us when you won’t even listen to us?

[missed-connections-of-fear]

If there’s one regret I have about the fearpocalypse ending, it’s that as I understand it, the bastard who started it is dead. I can’t help but feel cheated in that regard.

To clarify, I was an Avatar. Like, before everything went crazy. And I know what you’ve heard, but I was really trying to do the right thing. I mean, the Flesh wanted terror, you know? It didn’t care about what happened along the way. I figured, whose to say I no one else can benefit from this?

I took....parts from bigots and monsters, the human kind. I replaced them with others, leaving them wallowing in freakish misery. But every time I did, I helped someone. Medical transitioning is hard to do in so much of the world, or at least in the states. And I could do it better than anyone. So good people could escape dysphoria and live their best lives, and bad ones could suffer with the dysphoria they claimed didn’t exist.

Then the Eye rose...it all went sour. I had a clinic where I bent people into terrible shapes. I gave them what they wanted until they hated it, then threw them out into the cold for ages until I could do it again. And precisely NONE of that is what I wanted.

I just...these powers, these gifts....how was it not enough for them, those greedy cretins in London?

Anyway, this is two shoutouts. First, I want to tell everyone who was in the plastic surgery domain in Illinois that I am very sorry, and that almost none of you deserved that. But second...I noticed the changes I made to myself are still here. The ones before the Change, I mean. Is...is that true for others I worked on? I’d like to think my intentions had a few good results.

If you’re either of those people, feel free to give me whatever you think I deserve.

I do admire your choice to do good as much as you could before the change, but I think there is a lot of misunderstanding around the one who "started" the apocalypse. I've seen pretty much everyone blame him on a very personal level, even those who would defend avatars for not having a choice. What makes you think he had a choice?

I understand the assumptions, I really do. It's easy to point fingers when you're told one man was the catalyst to all of this. But I was shown a lot of the events surrounding the fears, before and during the change, and I really do think he did the best he could under the circumstances. You said yourself, the fears have to be fed, and everyone copes with that in their own way.

Blaming one person, or even multiple people, really glosses over the responsibility of, you know, the multiple entities of fear that actively wished us harm. We all suffered under their rule, even those who were in power. Well, that is debatable for some, but I don't think it's our place to make that determination. The way I heard it from the "professors", every avatar was happy to drink from the fear of their victims, but they were obviously biased. I know that isn't true from the many people who send us their experiences, and it makes me a bit sad to see that no one wants to extend that courtesy to the Archivist. I don't know what happened to him in the end, but I hope he's at peace.

Anyway, I share your hope that there are people who continue to benefit from your alterations. And I ask that you acknowledge that placing blame is a complex issue.

- Max

[nerdyqueerandjewish]

I want to ask a question and I hope it doesn’t get taken the wrong way. So please forgive me if I offend you, but can you tell me what made you decide/learn you are trans? Like where did it all begin? I’m just curious because I, someone who is not trans, would like to kind of understand a little more as to what people feel with this sort of thing. You can be as specific or as general as you like obviously. It’s whatever you’re comfortable with. Thanks.

Sure! I feel people tend to assume that trans people “always knew” they were a different gender from a young age, and I didn’t feel that way at all so I like talking about it to challenge those stereotypes.

Tw- gender dysphoria / body talk / dated language, including slurs

Growing up I actually enjoyed being a girl for the most part. I like things that people considered feminine and I even felt sorry for the boys and thinking that I was glad I wasn’t one because they seemed so restricted in how they expressed themselves (didn’t realize at the time that i was actually grateful I didn’t need to deal with the expectations of toxic masculinity). I think as I got older I sort of knew I was “different” because I was bisexual, but I didn’t think about it in a gender way that much. Even though as a teenager I knew trans people existed in an abstract sense, the idea of me being trans wasn’t really on my radar. I do remember sometimes I would just really want facial hair. Like, I thought if I could just be a “bearded lady”, that would be great. I didn’t really think beyond that, I would say it sometimes to friends, like “UGH I’m just so jealous of so-and-so’s beard I know that’s so weird lol (but I guess I’m just weird and quirky like that)!” And in hindsight I’m like Oh that was dysphoria! I was feeling weird about gender but didn’t know what was going on.

When I was in college I got out of my small town bubble and actually was around other out lgbtq+ people, and I think that really allowed me to explore my gender expression more. I said before, I enjoy femininity, and that’s true, but a lot of the looking like what society expected a girl or woman to look like felt like a costume to me. It was enjoyable in the way that dressing in drag can be fun - but it didn’t feel like an authentic expression of myself. Not that like, questioning the sexist expectations society places on women makes people trans, but it felt like, it wasn’t just make-up and woman’s clothes - having a smooth, peach fuzz face felt like drag on me. I had boobs and I thought they looked nice but i felt like they were not an actual part of me and they got to a point where they actively bothered me / made me uncomfortable. My costume wasn’t a bad costume, but having it be my everyday reality was exhausting, and transitioning was a way for me to have a life where I didn’t feel like I was playing dress up all the time.

I identified as genderqueer and nonbinary for a long time because I didn’t know if I was a man or not. I defiantly didn’t identify with the idea of “wanting to be a man” or “wanting to be masculine.�� My community was primarily queer women, and a lot of the trans men I knew were butch in the way they presented before they came out so I felt like being a trans man required a certain level of masculine gender presentation. Eventually I just kind of gave up finding a right word for me though and started more thinking like “what would I want to do if nobody was around? If no social pressure existed? Would I want to start testosterone? Would I want to have top surgery?” And the answer to those things ended up being yes. Reading about the trans scene in the 80s - 90s was also really helpful to me because things were a bit less focused on identity labels and more focused on being and doing what is best for yourself personally. Riki Ann Wilkins is an activist and in one of her books she has a quote that’s something like “I’m not invested in identifying as transsexual. I’m invested in being myself and feeling at home in myself, and society has certain words to label and communicate that idea.” And that really helped me start to focus on caring for myself and what I needed instead of trying to find the “right” answer to what I was. It was also reading her books that I found out that there was a subculture of transgender men (identifying as transfags) who rejected a lot of the masculinity that people saw inherent to male-ness and being a trans man and embraced gender nonconformity and their attraction to men. A lot of them also vocal about not wanting bottom surgery. Which, I know these things might not sound out there now, but it was actually pretty radical because adherence to gender roles, heterosexuality, and desire to “”fully”” transition was a requirement to get access to things like hormones and other parts of medical and legal transition. Anyway, I read about their existence and I was like holy shit !!! I can be a man in a gay way ?? And (related to the Rikki Ann Wilkins quote) being trans / being a trans man doesn’t need to be The Perfect Identity Label? It can just communicate some information relevant to my experience ?? Cool I guess I’m a trans man. I still consider myself nonbinary too, because I feel like that also communicates things about my experience with gender. I also feel comfortable using the term genderqueer to describe myself, but I feel like that term isn’t as used as frequently anymore.

I know that was probably long but there were multiple starts and beginnings of things. Gender feelings probably started around me being 15 years old, but I didn’t know they were gender feelings until I was around 19, and I didn’t really get settled in my own identity until I was around 25. So. It’s been a Time lol.

Also I just wanted to add - although I’m sure you get this and it’s just hard to know how to phrase things - there really isn’t a “decision” to be trans / have these feelings or experiences , it’s just what it is. But we do make decisions about what words to use to describe ourselves and decisions about social and medical aspects of transitioning. Some trans folks experience things so strongly that decisions are ones where they needed to pick a certain option. The option of not coming out or not taking certain steps in transitions are just not viable alternatives for them. I personally feel like I could have decided to not do certain things and survived, but my quality of would have been significantly worse and I wouldn’t be honoring my actual Self.

Also I know my experience revolved a lot around my experience relationship to my body, and following that, I know that’s not everyone’s experience. Totally cool to be a trans person who doesn’t experience dysphoria or be someone who really vibes with the newer wave of how we talk about identity, it’s just not me and I can’t speak on that experience 😎

[janedrakey131]

zukka hp au part 5

I’m so flattered people like this au. I didn’t think I’d be posting again so soon, but I had some more ideas last night. If you’d like to catch up:

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13

If you would like to join the tag list

My brief, very long, not at all fleshed out plan based roughly on what year Sokka is in and other associated events:

First year

Sokka’s first year is boring 

He meets Zuko, makes some friends in his house, probably a bunch of OCs

He finds the kitchens on day 2

Hogwarts just hires people who like to cook, who cares whether they’re magical beings or humans or whatever, there’s all sorts of really cool kitchen magic though

He’s always asking questions in class and you can tell why he’s a Ravenclaw

He wants to learn about everything

And once he knows how to do more than shoot a few sparks, he’s going to start inventing

He’s going to do some truly awesome things with transfiguration and potions

And I can’t wait for him to start arithmancy

Like let me tell you, Sokka is a genius, and he’s probably going to be the only one who understands magical theory 

This just ended up being a rant about Sokka, so moving on

Second year

The fun starts

Katara and Aang are finally here

Sokka doesn’t know Aang is the avatar

I’m very tempted to have both Katara and Aang be in Hufflepuff

And they run into Sokka in the kitchens

He does a double take, like who is this boy with my sister??

But Aang’s a sweet kid

So Sokka is immediately like we’re bros now, I don’t make the rules

Iroh starts working at Hogwarts (sorry, I changed my mind from herbology) as the potions professor

He comes in on the train with Zuko who just got banished (I actually...might change the specifics)

Sokka doesn’t know what to make of that

Azula is also skulking around annoying Zuzu 

But I think she secretly cares a bit and threatens anyone that looks at his scar wrong, because Zuko helped her a lot with some stuff

I think she’s going to be in the same year as Katara and Aang? I’m not sure

I have plans for Azula

I think Mai and Ty Lee are going to be in Zuko’s year, but closer to Azula

Mai and Zuko will date at some point

I think Mai will end up with Ty Lee

But she and Zuko had a short relationship

I think it was more expected of them by their families that they date

But they’re good friends now

I’m not doing this betraying and cheating and hurting other characters to find out who you are thing

Everyone is having wholesome relationships that just don’t work out

(Sidenote, I’m changing things, and characters might end up a bit OOC for atla, and I’m really sorry, but this is just wish fulfillment for me)

Anyway, there’s a plot to find the avatar 

The mini gaang (toph isn’t here yet) learn the prophecy (still working on it)

Third year

They find out about Sokka and Katara’s mom

I don’t think Hakoda really knows what happened either. I don’t think he was in the country at the time

I also have some ideas for the water tribe/fire nation beef, but I just made the realization that if I spell everything out in these posts, what’s the point of writing for Ao3 XD

But spoilers, it’s going to be pretty angsty

But I like happy endings, so I may find a way to fix it

Ish

I have this whole idea that if Suki or the Kyoshi are also werewolves, they have really cool rituals to respect and honor the moon spirit and that allows them the ability to turn into wolves whenever they want and not just the full moon

So other people can also be born as werewolves, but different groups have different ways of being a werewolf

Also, I believe I said Zuko starts following Suki around thinking she’s the avatar

And then Sokka decides to fake being the avatar (I completely forgot when I said this would happen, so I’m assuming it’s this year or the next)

This is about when Sokka’s letters to Hakoda start going on about Zuko’s everything even more

Fourth year

Zuko (Zuko’s fifth year) witnesses something unspeakable

Sokka is kidnapped

Zuko saves Sokka

That’s all the detail I have on this XD

But the unspeakable thing and the kidnapping are going to be this year’s mystery

Zuko, the idiot, still thinks Sokka is the avatar at this point

Aang is like no

But doesn’t bother to say he is

So Zuko thinks Katara is the avatar for a hot sec

But has some nonsense logic that there’s no need to stop following Sokka, because if he or his sister are the avatar, of the two, Sokka’s more likely to give something away

Which okay, Zuko, not actually terrible reasoning, except Sokka’s been leading you around by the nose for ages

There’s none of this the avatar rotates which element they can use

Because that’s predictable

And half the fun is that Zuko is trying his best, but has zero clues

Fifth year

This is the big question

I’m not sure what to do with this year

I hope Sokka can start inventing

I want him to make some cool shit

There won’t be an equivalent of the DA as far as I can see :( I can’t figure out how I’d structure that

I think it would be really cool to see them all learning how to use their elemental magic though

Toph and Zuko don’t really need the help

Katara and Aang have always had to deal with all the crap going on, so they haven’t had much time for it

I’m wondering if I should bring in Paku

Aang has it rough, because air magic users are really rare now

So I think he might work with Iroh, because he’s studied other styles of magic extensively

Sixth year

I think Mai had to figure out she was bi

I truly think Zuko doesn’t have time for gender

For like five years, he’s like DO YOU KNOW WHO THE AVATAR IS and if you don’t, he’s already forgotten who you are

So my headcanon is that he’s pan and when he and Sokka eventually get together, Sokka doesn’t know anything about his orientation and just knows he dated Mai, so he’s like “are you cool with me being a dude? Sorry, I just know you’ve dated Mai, so just checking haha?”

And Zuko’s so done with all the random crap he’s dealt with that he’s like “wow, you have a dick? Congratulations”

But then realizes Sokka’s actually concerned and talks it out

Anyway, everyone’s leveled up now, we’re all masters at elemental and non-elemental magic (seriously, Sokka could’ve sat for his NEWTs last year if he wanted to. He’s that far ahead and magic is that intuitive for him)

I have no idea what will happen this year lol

I kind of want an invasion of Hogwarts, I know I’ve been trying not to just blindly follow the books completely :/ So I guess we’ll see?

I’ll have to work on that

I’m such a sucker for the villain waits until the end of the school year to attack

Because it’s so dumb

Like I will find the avatar! *shakes fist* But education is important, kids

Like okay, Sozin

Maybe I can have Roku finally escape that mirror

I kind of want the past avatars to be spirits that anyone can interact with

But most people don’t know how

So the Kyoshi can interact with Avatar Kyoshi as well as other relevant spirits

Seventh year

????

The plot?? Who knows yet

I do know that Zuko’s graduated

And they’re all crying and like wtf do we do now

Because Sozin’s still around and they’ll miss him

And finally Zuko leaves

And he shows up as the assistant DADA professor and he’s like “Hi, Zuko here” and then he’s like “I mean, fuck, Professor Zuko, I mean, fuck...just call me Zuko. You guys all know me”

And the gaang is all like wtf Zuko, we thought we would only see you for breaks

And he’s like you really thought I’d leave you

The plan is that he’ll be an apprentice for a year or so and then take over as professor

Toph punches him so hard, Katara has to heal the bruise

I can guarantee a happy ending

I’ll do whatever angst on the way, but they’ll all be happy

I’m like 89% sure they’re all going to end up working at or around Hogwarts (why work for the government, when you can invest in teaching all these talented kids)

One more thing, there is going to be rep in this au. I know there’s at least one aro ace character. Multiple bi characters. One gay character. One pan character. One trans character that I know of, but I need to plan that out a bit more. Some of these orientations and identities, I can’t speak to personally. For instance, while I know a decent amount about the medical aspects of transitioning, I don’t think I’d be able to write the experience of gender dysphoria and give that its due right now. So unless it’s something I have first hand experience with, most of the individual emotions as part of figuring things out might happen off screen. That doesn’t mean I won’t bring up issues the characters may have had in the past, but any that I talk about, I’d have to do more research into first. Also, partly because this is mostly from Sokka and Zuko’s perspectives, we’re mostly going to be present for what other characters tell them about their experiences

I hope you continue to enjoy this au! Sorry, this got so insanely long. The next couple weeks are going to be a bit crazy for me, so I thought I’d write this up while I had the chance. I’ll be back soon though! If anyone has any suggestions or questions, please let me know :)

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13

If you would like to join the tag list

[metapianycist]

in which i ramble about “rapid onset gender dysphoria”

i think the thing that bothers me the most about the concept of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” is that of course when someone suddenly realizes that something they’ve wanted isn’t impossible but is still not obtainable, they’re going to have increased distress.

when i was 18, before i realized that i could ask to be called a different name and pronouns, i felt resigned to letting people call me she/her and my birth name. i suppressed feelings of it bothering me to the point where i thought it didn’t bother me--because i thought that being called anything else was impossible.

when i started asking to be called he/him and a different name, it became much more distressing to be called my birth name, even in situations where the other person didn’t know i wanted to be called anything different. because i knew that being called something different was possible. it has been more than a decade since then. today, i have a partner pick up my medications for me, because i can’t bear to speak my birth name aloud to the pharmacist. the pandemic has delayed my legal name change progress.

so to an observer who is unfamiliar with or is uninterested in learning how trans people actually experience ourselves, or even how i was experiencing myself, it looked like my distress about my birth name and pronouns came into being only after i started socially transitioning. when what actually happened was that it was there all along, and i just stopped suppressing it.

when i see people who purport to be “experts” applying this “rapid onset gender dysphoria” label to kids, i think about kids who suppress their dysphoria because they don’t know that trans people exist, and then they learn about the existence of trans people and suddenly they don’t have to suppress their dysphoria and can actually express it to their parents. and i think about kids who suppress their dysphoria because they know their parents are unsupportive, until it becomes unbearable and explodes. to someone who is not trans and knows nothing about trans experience, it would appear that the kid was totally fine until they learned about trans people and only then started experiencing dysphoria.

i believe that the people who coined “rapid onset gender dysphoria” explicitly do not believe that the situations i have described are possible to identify. they believe that allowing a child to socially transition--allowing the child to choose their own name, pronouns, clothing, and hairstyle--is harmful and will confuse the child about gender.

as if imposing arbitrary restrictions on your child with respect to gender isn’t harmful or confusing?? we have explicitly told our child why we chose to call her she/her before she could tell us if she wanted that, and we have been explicit about the arbitrariness of deciding someone’s gender at birth based on their body. we have explicitly told her that she can change her pronouns whenever she wants. she knows that gnc people exist and that people transition. she knows that i take testosterone because it makes me more comfortable in my body. she has a much better understanding of gender norms being bullshit than the vast majority of 4 year olds. i don’t think she’s confused.

but i digress.

i highly doubt that a cis parent who diagnoses their kid as having “rapid onset gender dysphoria” has any understanding of the many ways dysphoria can manifest, of any of the ways trans people will try to suppress it prior to realizing they’re trans, or that absence of evidence (of pre-existing dysphoria) is not evidence of absence.

[13yearslater]

Being stealth and why I no longer care either way

I spent a large portion of my life living stealth, ie not disclosing my trans status to anyone and I’m going to talk about how my attitudes have changed over the years and how being stealth is no longer something that appeals to me personally.

So we’ll start from the beginning. Unfortunately, in the 90s there was no understanding or help available for a child with gender dysphoria. It was dismissed, ignored, corrected. For the most part I was able to present as I wished although sometimes family would insist that I was a girl and attempt to correct my behaviours; neither approach removed my dysphoria. What I did learn throughout my younger years is how people react to someone like me. I got the very clear message that I should not talk about how I feel, that other people do not feel this way, that other people can and will be cruel. I have memories of other children shouting tr*nny at me; a word that they didn’t know the meaning of but I presume had learned from their parents, along with the appropriate context and harmful intent with which to use it. 

I was seventeen and it was the first time in my life that I was out of education, out of work and had nobody to answer to so finally decided to do what was right for me. I began socially transitioning and came out. I mostly passed as male, albeit as a young, prepubescent boy. I no longer felt that overwhelming sense of deceit from living in a way that felt completely disingenuous.

I decided almost instantly that I didn’t want to tell people that I was trans. I’d spent my life experiencing the judgement and comments of others and that was not what I wanted. I was afraid of social rejection. For the first time I felt like myself and I wanted other people to see me and not to view me as the trans person. I didn’t want to be viewed through the lens of other people’s misconceptions or prejudices. I didn’t want to be an oddity or a curiosity. I didn’t want to sacrifice my own privacy for being the sole educator of those around me. I hated the idea of anyone knowing I was trans and scanning my features for ‘signs’, viewing me as some sort of third sex. I wanted to be judged on my personality, my merits, my values, my achievements and not this one aspect of who I am.

Unfortunately, I lived in small town at the time and my past had a habit of following me around. It’s not that I wanted to disassociate from or deny myself my past, but it was often a painful time for me, a time when I didn’t feel able to be myself and I didn’t want the weight of that to be at the forefront of every interaction I had. I found myself the subject of gossip, I found myself in situations where others would try to forcibly out me to confirm what they had heard, in one instance pinning me down to grab my wallet. I avoided certain activities, I avoided speaking about aspects of my past or life experiences. Ironically, in my attempts to live freely, I was actually restricting myself.

This was my life until I was around five years on testosterone and moved away from the area. It was nice to be in a new place. No one knew I was trans and I no longer had to worry about gossip or being outed. I was seen as myself, as I wanted to be seen. I remained stealth and this was how I liked it, but there was always that gnawing wonder of whether I would be seen or treated differently if they knew I was trans. Is this friendship conditional? Are we friends based on assumptions about me and my life that are not actually what you think? It never felt like dishonesty because I wasn’t being dishonest, I simply didn’t want to disclose this very personal information that, at the time, I viewed as simply a paragraph in my medical history. It was no one’s business and my past wasn’t relevant to the here and now. But I always wondered... would they still see me the same if they knew? I always had the sense that I was holding myself back.

A couple of years later I did a lot of work on myself emotionally with the help of intensive therapy. I was deeply resentful and bitter about being trans and I held a lot of self pity. It wasn’t fair that I was born like this, it wasn’t fair that I had to spend years of my life playing catch-up, it wasn’t fair I was deprived of my childhood and other experiences, it wasn’t fair that by simply being me I was at risk of rejection and ridicule, it wasn’t fair that no one understood, it wasn’t fair that I wasn’t taken seriously as a child and had to go through a puberty that was absolutely traumatic for me. It wasn’t fair that I felt and had to deal with all these things and the last thing I wanted were for other people to know about them or to view me differently for something that I didn’t want or choose. I just wanted to be ‘normal’.

I projected my own shame, resentment and lack of self-acceptance onto other people. I did others a great injustice in assuming the worst of them, that they would judge me, never giving them the chance to show me otherwise. I just wanted to be accepted but if I didn’t accept myself, how could I expect anyone else to? How could I ever know true acceptance if I never showed anyone all of me? I deprived myself and others of my insights, perspectives, my view on life, wisdom, experiences, the things I’ve learned along the way. I held a part of myself back for the sake of others, for the sake of gaining an approximation of acceptance from people who didn’t matter.

Now, I’m no longer stealth. Me being trans rarely comes up in my daily life and is rarely relevant to mention so for the majority of my daily interactions, people don’t know I’m trans. But it’s different. I no longer feel I’m hiding or avoiding it, I no longer feel like it’s a dirty secret; I have no issue if anyone were to find out I’m trans and I’d have no issue speaking up about it if I felt my input was needed. Those close to me know I’m trans, those who aren’t as close may or may not know. I don’t explicitly mention it but I won’t go to any effort to hide it. Me being trans is a part of me, it’s something that has had great impact in who I’ve become, but overall it’s only one small factor in who I am as a person. It’s just not a big deal whether you know or you don’t know. I am much more than trans. 

Being trans is never something I’ve been proud of in itself, and I still don’t think I am, but I’m a point now where I wouldn’t change being trans because it has shaped me into the person I am today and I am proud of the person I am today.

I want to close by saying that this was my experience alone. Some people are stealth for safety reasons, some people are stealth out of preference and have entirely different feelings surrounding it than I do. There is nothing wrong with being stealth. All any of us can do is live a way that feels right for us, and us alone.

[transmedicalism-saves-lives]

Why did you choose to go down the medical route instead of getting therapy for your discomfort with your body, which afai understand, we both agree is out of the normal / a pathological condition? Why not address the root issues you have with your born sex instead of jumping to plastic surgery? Doctors don't tell anorexics that if they feel more comfortable starving, that's valid but the medical industry profits off of transsexuals undergoing insanely pricey sergery that aren't technically lifesaving but they're sneakishly presented as such. If no surgery means a transsexual remains in severe discomfort which leads to suicidal thoughts, then these thoughts and their origins need to be treated as the problem, not a healthy functioning body. Lastly, I'm sincere and if you choose to answer sincerely too, that'd be for me of interest to read.

Okay, hi! Thanks for reaching out. I’m really glad you asked, because the thing is, your question itself shows a common misconception. 

I did go down the therapy route. I went down the therapy route for five years before the first time I injected HRT. That included more therapists than I care to count, some practices that left me crying into my bedsheets, and a lot of hard work that came to nothing. 

Thing is, I liked being a girl. I never wanted this. I miss being treated like a girl, it suited me much better. Not to mention, I’ve had an extreme phobia of needles since I was strapped to a cot and stabbed with them for over two hours when I was five, because all my veins had collapsed due to blood cancer and they couldn’t get the needle in any of them. The prospect of a weekly injection turned my stomach, and surgery? Surgery is terrifying, and it hurts so much. I already knew how much surgery hurts. Transitioning wasn’t something I ever desired. 

But dysphoria is so hard to live with. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been through something like this could quite get it. It isn’t about hating how you look exactly. I can look at pre-transition pictures and admit I was pretty. Even back then I was well aware I was pretty. I looked better then than I do now. It was like there were bits of me missing, and that caused serious physical distress. My breasts, they always felt separate from me, like a parasite that was latched onto my chest and would not go away. My voice sounded false, even the way my body hair grew looked wrong, and not in a ‘I should be hairless’ sense.

I was not suicidal, I want to make that perfectly clear. I have never wanted to be dead, but the things I did to try to make my body feel some semblance of normalcy were dangerous. If I did nothing, I couldn’t get through the day. I’d end up leaving class to vomit a few times every day, or else dissociate until suddenly I realized I hadn’t noticed an hour pass and had mentally skipped class. My grades took a nosedive, and the consequences of that were awful. I don’t like talking about them. But, binding worked a little bit. Binding made it easier to get through the day. I used bandages until I got a real binder, which was dangerous enough, but not as dangerous as the time I dissociated in the shower and figured that I could end this right now if I just cut them off with a breadknife. I still have a scar from that. Even binding, the safest option, wasn’t that safe when it went on for years. It also wasn’t enough. Oh, have I mentioned I used to intentionally blow out my voice so that I’d sound less female? That was also a probably not smart thing I did. 

It took between when I was thirteen and when I was eighteen for me to give up on therapy. That’s half a decade of trying it your way, a good percentage of my life. I couldn’t keep doing it forever and more than that, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to spend every moment feeling like things were crawling on me, like my skin was full of parasites. I didn’t want to spend forever unable to properly enjoy sex, or let a partner see me naked without vomiting on her (sorry Rachel, honestly, you were the best friend I could have had at the time and I hope you find every happiness). I want a normal life. I want a house, a wife, as many kids as possible, I was so sick of this thing making it impossible. 

When I first put the needle in, I was scared. I had so many thoughts flooding my mind, like, “This is the wrong choice, you’re ruining your body, you can’t come back from this, nobody will ever love a freak like you, this is dangerous, how could you be so stupid?” But then the changes started, and all those voices were gone. It felt so good. I could sing again without hating it, I felt genuinely comfortable whenever I had a binder on. Transition did in two months more than therapy did in five years. How could I not want that? 

I got top surgery once it was clear that, no, my breasts were not actually healthy anymore. Binding, which kept me from dissociating, getting sick, or god forbid trying DIY top surgery again, had also been impacting my lungs, and ribs. I’d also had bruises there for the past few years. Surgery hurt, but binding forever would have ended up much, much worse, and not binding just wasn’t an option for me. Top surgery was hard. It was painful. But, I can run again without any problems. I don’t wake up with bruises anymore. I’m never going to have to run to the bathroom to cough up my lunch because I felt something move that shouldn’t have been inside me. I feel good now, whole. 

I feel like everything that was keeping me from being alive is gone. I’m free, and while I do intend to have bottom surgery (I want to have sex that isn’t one-sided before I die and urination is horribly uncomfortable) I don’t think I’ve ever felt so normal and relieved. There’s no more pain. It’s over. Therapy wasn’t giving me this. Two years and most of it is fixed, after five years of zero progress. 

I hope this helps you understand my decision. It was the only way out that I could see, and for me, it was what gave me my life back. I might never have died without it, but I wouldn’t have felt alive. It’s what I needed. Thank you for reading all of this, I really appreciate you taking the time to try and understand me.