#also disclaimer i am not trans i am cis but i drew a lot on like

[20s-turtle-posting]

The One Wherein Raphael is Actually Transfem

1.6k words | companion art >here< | second fic >here<

This is it. This is the moment.

It’s completely random, nonsensical, a moment that is perfectly mundane and yet she can’t keep it in her chest a moment longer, so it’s now or never. Forget the fear and anxiety that immediately set her heart pounding harder than any rooftop run, she has to tell them now or else she doesn’t know what else to do.

She stops in her tracks on the walk back from the pool, her brothers moving past her for several steps, still joking and laughing before they recognize that something’s up. Leo, predictably, is the first to notice and he turns quickly, blue-and-brown eyes alert.

“Raph?”

She balls up her fists for a moment, and it’s not that she hates that name, she still cherishes it because it’s been hers for so long…. But it isn’t her anymore.

“I uh-” Her throat closes up. Shit.

Mikey and Don are looking too, eyes wide and curious. Hell. What are they gonna think? About her? What will Leo think? What will Dad think?

Fuck it. She can’t keep it to herself any longer.

“So uhh, I have to tell ya’ guys somethin’....” Tugging nervously on her mask, looped loosely around her neck, she drops her gaze to the floor to avoid eye contact. Her heart is fuckin’ pounding out of her chest. “I’m not… really a… well, a guy.” She feels like she’s going to puke this sucks ass why can’t it be as easy as beating up a couple of Purple Dragon goons, this is her own family. Why is it making her so nervous?

“Actually I’m a girl and-” she stumbles and it’s out the words are out it’s done. Instant regret threatens to choke her, fear and hope churning like nausea so strong that she sinks back into the easy cover of an explosive outburst of “and-and that’s final! You can suck it up and get used to it!”

The instant she looks up, mid-shout, the anxiety starts to drain because Mikey, fucking bless him, has stars in his eyes already. As soon as her jaw snaps shut Mikey squeals and lunges.

“Holy shit!” he screeches at joyous, ear-splitting volume, throwing his arms around her neck, “free sister!”

A hand lands gently on her shell, and Leo is smiling delightedly when he says “congratulations on coming out! Welcome to the club.” Which is such a fucking Leo thing to say.

Don, for his part, stands there grinning softly and says, “Very cool, El.”

And that’s what really almost starts the waterworks because she should have known they wouldn’t turn her away and shun her. She knew it like she knew the sun rose in the east each morning, the way she knew she was a ninja, through and through, no matter what may come.

She’d brought up her new name briefly, almost in passing, almost three weeks ago when she’d thought Don was decently distracted by his latest project. Her heart had pounded then too, casually mentioning the name as if it were a stray thought occurring, nothing important, nothing of note. She had been wild with anxiety over Don’s reaction, but all he had said was “that’s nice” and kept soldering, so she thought that was as good as she’d get.

But he’d remembered, and that meant the whole fucking world to her.

“El!” Mikey breathes happily, squeezing the life out of her, “oh my GOD that’s so perfect!”

“Actually, it’s Ella, but don’t wear it out.” She shrugs Mikey off with somewhat of a herculean effort, he’s so damn clingy. “But uh, yeah, El for short.”

“No way we could wear it out,” Mikey says firmly, “We gotta break it in, El!”

Leo is still resting his hand on Ella’s shell, gentle and grounding. “So, just Ella or El?”

El shrugs. “Yeah. And uh, it’s not like I resent ‘Raphael’ but that’s jus’ not me anymore.” She looks around at them with a faint grin. “And I don’t care if you guys slip up, don’ worry.”

“We won’t,” is Leo’s instant response, and from the suddenly intense look in his eyes, El knows that Leo is already determined to have no slip-ups ever from this point on. That same perfectionism has pissed her off so many times before, but right now it just makes El feel like she’s been under the basking lamp all damn day; warm right down to her toes and soft as butter left out by the stove.

Don fidgets with his own hands for a moment, still smiling that gentle smile. “Female pronouns and terms only?”

Mikey interrupts with gasps. “Oh! I’ll stop calling you ‘dude’! If you want! But like, I totally mean it in a feminist way most of the time, if that’s cool. I mean if you’re not that’s fine and I’ll stop forever, lips zipped and all that!”

The focus is suddenly almost overwhelming, her brothers’ willingness to adapt is moreso. El scowls for lack of any other expression and shrugs again. “I mean it doesn’t bother me, I know what you mean. Just… maybe lay off it a bit. For now.”

“Nooo problemo!” Mikey beams

Again, Don fidgets with his own hands, then abruptly blurts out, “if you want, I can use mirror pronouns, if that helps?”

“Huh?”

Don doesn’t make eye contact, but he’s still outwardly calm, only picking slightly at a scab on one knuckle. “Mirror pronouns means that whatever pronouns you use can refer to me as well whenever you’re talking about me. Like if Leo asked you where I was, you would say, ‘oh Donnie? She’s in the garage.’ Like that.”

El almost chokes, about two seconds away from letting a few tears escape, but Mikey saves her by shouting, “you can do that!?”

“Gender is a construct, Mikey,” Donnie informs, darting out a hand to cover Mikey’s mouth, “and I haven’t met a construct yet that I haven’t disassembled for fun and curiosity’s sake. Anyway, this is about Ella, not me.” He… she–even just thinking it helps somehow, how is she so damn perceptive–glances at Raph with a crooked little smile. “Do you think that would help?”

El grunts. “Yeah, um, yeah that’s fine.”

“Cool.” Donnie’s smile is a thousand kilowatts.

El would give the whole damn world for her, for all of them. For Mikey and his intense, blinding joy at having a surprise sister, for Leo’s steadfastness no matter what, for Donnie’s ability to find the most unexpected tool to help. The idea that she could have ever had doubts about them is suddenly so absurd that she starts laughing. Her brothers join in, not really knowing why, just happy to see her happy.

Just then Master Splinter walks into the living area.

“I take it that you have had a good swim, my sons?”

Their humor evaporates and the bundle of nerves is back in El’s gut, twisting tight like a fist grabbing her insides.

Stepping forward, Leo starts, “Actually Master-”

El grabs his arm. “No. I got this.”

Leo immediately looks embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“No worries.” El pats him on the shell and then clears her throat pointedly at her brothers. They take the hint and scatter after bowing respectfully to Master Splinter and excusing themselves. They only get far enough away to be just out of sight and on the edge of earshot, El can sense them lingering close by.

Splinter merely raises one bushy brow as El approaches and kneels. “What is it, Raphael?”

“Sensei,” she says, surprised at how steady her voice is, “I hafta’ tell you somethin’.”

“Of course.” Splinter folds into a neat seiza, paws on his knees. “You may speak to me about whatever is on your heart, my child.”

My child. This gives her the courage to forge onward, even though she can’t seem to bring her eyes up any further than her father’s neatly groomed claws. “Sensei. I… I’m not Raphael. Not anymore. ‘S not that I don’t like my name, I just…. I’m not Raphael anymore. I’m a-a girl. I’m not your son. My name is Ella.”

The brief silence that follows is suffocating.

“I see,” says Splinter calmly, no indication in his tone whether he’s taking this well or not.

El trembles. If her father can’t accept this she doesn’t know what she’s going to do.

Suddenly one of her father’s paws lifts, reaching out to gently cup her cheek. A soft thumb pad brushes her scales, gentle pressure coaxing her to lift her head. Splinter’s black eyes are nothing but warm.

“I have seen a great many things in my lifetime. To say I am not surprised would be a lie, but it is not a lie to say that it brings me great joy to welcome you as you truly are, my daughter.”

The dam breaks, and El shuts her eyes tight against the tears suddenly dripping down her cheeks. Once again she shouldn’t be surprised by her family accepting her this way, but it’s still such a relief to be finally recognized. To be seen.

A sob shudders out of her chest and then father, as if she’s not a foot taller than him and three times as bulky, draws her close and hugs her tightly. His claws run across her carapace in a familiar rhythm, like they had so many times when she was still tiny, when she would run to him after a nightmare.

He presses a soft muzzle against the top of her head, whiskers tickling slightly, and then says, with all the pride he possesses as a father, “I am proud of you, my Ella.”

[rjalker]

actually yeah I am just gonna copy and paste the whole thing since it's only on the web archive now.

Understanding Binary Privilege: An Oft-Overlooked Axis of Gendered Privilege.

Published June 24, 2020

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Disclaimer: I, a white woman, originally wrote this article before the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of the police. As I say in the piece, I drew a lot of inspiration for this article from Peggy McIntosh’s 1988 essay on White Privilege, which she in turn wrote with input from the Black women she worked closely with. 

Civil rights activism doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The LGBTQ+ community has derived many of our civil rights advocacy practices from the powerful Black leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Though it’s Pride month, it’s extremely important that we do not lose sight of the very real and important struggle for justice, dignity, and respect for Black Americans. Black Lives Matter.

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For a long time, as a binary trans woman, I thought that I had a nuanced understanding of all things gender. I was under the impression that, because I had examined my own gender identity, I understood how that worked for everyone. However as I spoke more and more with genderqueer and nonbinary folx, I began to realize just how little I understood about the privilege my identity carries.

The unearned advantages many of us enjoy in life, known as privileges, have an undeniable and often insidious effect on our lives, as well as on the lives of people who do not enjoy these advantages. Though many people are familiar with concepts such as white privilege, male privilege, and straight privilege, there are other avenues of privilege which are less well-known. These include things such as able-bodied privilege, cis privilege, and one which is rarely talked about but extremely important in our current society: binary privilege.

The term privilege, specifically social privilege, refers to the advantages that certain groups in a society have over other groups. For those who enjoy these benefits, they are largely invisible, and seen as “normal” or “standard”, even though others in the same society may not have regular (or any) access to these things. In her 1988 essay on White Privilege, Peggy McIntosh described privilege as “an invisible package of unearned assets” which she had access to, but her black contemporaries did not. McIntosh was a white woman who realized, while trying to educate men about the advantages they had over her due to their gender, that she herself had advantages over the women of color that she worked alongside. This prompted her to examine and codify her white privilege with a list of 46 advantages that she had over non-white American women.

To understand what I mean by “binary privilege”, it can be helpful to think of privileges in terms of the axes upon which they sit. For example, women are largely disadvantaged in relation to men; this is the axis upon which male privilege sits. Similarly, transgender people are largely disadvantaged in relation to their cis counterparts; this is the axis on which cis privilege sits. Nonbinary folx are largely disadvantaged in relation to people who identify as one of the binary genders; this is the axis upon which binary privilege exists. Therefore, binary privilege refers to the unearned advantages that people with a binary gender identity enjoy which nonbinary folx do not.

For the sake of clarity, it is important to note that “nonbinary” is both an umbrella term and a specific identity. Nonbinary as an umbrella term covers such identities as genderqueer, agender, third-gender, genderfluid, and bigender, among many others. This is the way that I am using “nonbinary” in this article — not just to reference people with a static nonbinary gender, but also to reference people with fluid, multiple, absent, or otherwise gender-expansive identities.

Many people — including, for a long time, myself — are under the impression that the issues specific to nonbinary gender identities are covered under the broader transgender activism network. This is not always the case. Many binary trans people do not realize the inherent privilege in their gender identity. This is likely because, as we do not benefit from cis privilege, we assume that we do not enjoy any advantages on the basis of gender. This misconception makes us blind to the comparative disadvantages faced by nonbinary folx.

I once considered myself to be in the same boat as nonbinary people, because I assumed that in general they, too, identified as trans. We both had genders assigned to us at birth that we did not identify with. We both felt distress with the expected roles and appearances of the gender we had been assigned to. We even both often went through the arduous process of changing our names and pronouns.

It took some time to realize that not all nonbinary people experience these things. Even compared to those who do, as a binary trans woman I have certain unearned advantages that my nonbinary contemporaries do not. These advantages include, but are not limited to, the following:

I never have to explain my gender — everyone knows, broadly, what a woman is.

Though it can be difficult, I can get my gender markers changed to one that matches my actual gender. Only 15 states (and D.C.) currently have an “X” gender marker as an option on their official identification documents, and the U.S. Federal government doesn’t recognize them at all.

I have the ability to signal my gender identity through the use of standard “feminine” modes of presentation. It is much more difficult to signal nonbinary presentation, especially for people who do not physically present as androgynous.

I never have to explain the proper use of my pronouns. Though they/them may have gained the widest recognition, there isn’t a true consensus in the nonbinary community as to what the nonbinary pronoun is, forcing nonbinary folx to explain their pronouns to those around them.

My pronouns are a traditional part of the English language and have never had their validity argued. Nonbinary folx often have to deal with confusion, ignorance, and even hostility regarding their pronouns. Though it is currently the most widely accepted, singular they/them has faced grammatical criticism for years, and pronouns such as ze/zim and ae/aer are often dismissed as “made up.”

I was able to change my name to a feminine name to denote my gender — though some names are unisex, there are no names which are inherently perceived as nonbinary the same way names can be perceived as inherently male or female.

My appearance is such that people will most often gender me correctly and use the proper pronouns for me, whereas many people do not use they/them as a default pronoun. (This advantage also stems from my white and thin privilege, both of which help me to “pass” in day-to-day life.)

People tend to at least understand what being transgender is, even if they have issues with trans folx. Many don’t even consider the idea of being nonbinary.

There are no widely accepted gender-neutral honorifics — I am comfortable being called “Ma’am” or “Ms.”, but there is no gender-neutral equivalents. Though such honorifics as “Mx.” or “M.” technically exist, they are not widely used or recognized — and even in spaces where they might be recognized, they aren’t pronounceable, making their everyday use nearly impossible. Furthermore, there simply isn’t a gender-neutral “sir/ma’am.”

When I have a child, I will have no qualms calling myself a “mother”, but there is no equivalent gender-neutral parental word — except, perhaps, “guardian”, though that often refers to a child’s caretaker rather than their biological/adoptive parents.

I can, generally speaking, see people that I connect with in media. Though trans women are rare, binary women are extremely common, whereas nonbinary and genderqueer characters are rare, and nonbinary genders are often used to denote a “lack of humanity” in an other-worldy being — because what could be more incomprehensible than someone that doesn’t fit into the gender binary?

I never have my gender identity equated with any sort of apathy or emotionlessness — many binary people seem only able to conceptualize gender-neutral folx as robotic or alien.

I am not often lumped into LGBTQIA+ categories that I do not identify with on the sole basis of my gender identity — many people assume that a genderqueer or nonbinary individual is also trans, but this isn’t always the case.

I have never seen my gender equated with asexuality — some binary people are only able to conceptualize attraction inside the binary, and so assume that a nonbinary person cannot experience sexual attraction at all. Though some nonbinary people are ace, not all are.

I am not often made uncomfortable by the rhetoric of trans-friendly activism, except in relation to how they speak about the binary nature of genders. Many LGBTQIA+ and other activism networks persist in using binary, gendered language, especially in relation to gay/lesbian rights or the politics around transition.

I mostly fit into what people “expect” of a trans person, in that I chose to medically transition. Many nonbinary people are not trans or otherwise do not have a desire to medically transition, but they are often still expected to do so by their contemporaries.

I’ve never had to endure someone making a joke of my pronouns — whereas nonbinary folx are often mocked for the “nonexistence” of neopronouns, the supposed plurality of they/them, and even sometimes dehumanized by being told that if they don’t have a gender they should just go by “it”.

Because my pronouns are inherently singular, there is never any confusion as to whether “she” refers to an individual or a group in written scenes. Because they/them is the most widely accepted gender-neutral pronoun but can also be used as a plural pronoun, the antecedent of the pronoun can be difficult to parse in prose writing.

I can find spaces where I can be surrounded by other binary women, both cis and trans. Spaces where nonbinary folx might be able to congregate are exceedingly rare, and are often also occupied by binary trans folx.

I could choose to not pay attention to the activism for and developments of the rights of folx who identify outside of the gender binary, and that is unlikely to negatively affect me.

I can be relatively certain that, when attending events in trangender-friendly spaces, the validity of my experience of my gender will not be questioned. Many nonbinary folx in these spaces will be faced with questions about when they will “figure out” that they’re trans, or will be derogatorily referred to as a “transtrender” or similar because of their identities.

I can be confident that people in LGBT+ spaces will be understanding toward my gender identity and my process for discovering it — even among other queer folx, nonbinary people often have to justify their own existence or fight for validation.

If I am not out to people, they generally assume the correct gender for me. As nonbinary genders do not occur to most people, there is less of a chance that a person will assume that somebody identifies with a nonbinary gender.

I do not have to come out to people for them to gender me correctly (I can be “stealth”), whereas a nonbinary person must come out for someone to even consider gendering them correctly.

Though it comes in many different forms, the takeaway is this: binary privilege is having your gender understood. In our binary society, it is broadly assumed that everyone experiences their gender the same way — which is why it is somewhat easier for many people to accept at least the concept of a binary trans person. They can feel confident, looking at me, that I experience my gender in approximately the same way that they do — that it is innate, static, and easy to comprehend.

For many nonbinary folx, however, this isn’t the case. Though some experience a static feeling of a “third gender,” many do not. Some do not feel an innate sense of gender at all; others do not feel a static sense of gender. When confronted with the binary, gender-essentialist nature of our society, these folx tend to be misunderstood simply because no one asks them how they experience their gender. It is assumed that they experience gender in the same way a binary person might, and therefore anything they try to express outside of that feeling is them wanting to be special or somehow being confused. Binary privilege is an innate cultural understanding of your gender identity — the parallel disadvantage of nonbinary people is that others presume to understand their gender, and so never actually ask them about it.

The thing about privilege, as McIntosh says in her essay, is that it’s insidious. It can be difficult to dissect and identify the different sorts of privileges you might hold over another person — in fact, we are often taught to be unaware of these advantages. The idea of binary privilege never occurred to me until I realized that I’d never considered the world from the perspective of a nonbinary person. For a long time, I thought that simply knowing about and respecting them was enough.

Though that is certainly the minimum that can be expected of me, it is far from “enough.” The culture that we have grown up in is reliant on the idea of male and female, and it is so ingrained that it is seen as an inevitability, a resting state. To identify as nonbinary is seen as breaking that mold, to be pulling against what is culturally acceptable.

As a binary trans woman I enjoy the comfort, safety, and relative acceptance of fitting into one of the two prescribed boxes that make up the gender binary in our current society. Some people may dislike that I felt the need to change boxes, but I still get to be in one of them. Nonbinary folx, though, have to endure the issue of being completely outside of these boxes, of attempting to move between them with ease and comfort, or of trying to erect their own boxes despite the ire of those who think they should be content with the perfectly fine boxes we’ve got right over here. And, no matter how they present themselves or how they explain their identities, nonbinary folx will often find themselves boxed in with one of the binary genders.

Considering these realities helped me to realize that, even as a transgender woman, I enjoy gendered privileges that others do not. Even if I have to endure debate as to whether or not I’m allowed to be the gender that I am, there is no argument that my gender isn’t real. Just as Peggy McIntosh realized once she became aware of her white privilege, it’s become clear to me that it’s time to start deconstructing the systems that granted me these unearned advantages in the first place.

We cannot deconstruct these systems if we are unaware of them, which is why it is important to consider as many different types of advantages as possible. The gender binary is comfortable for those of us who get to enjoy its benefits — it was helpful to me when I started my transition, because people simply had to switch which box they saw me in. I could signal my box with name, pronoun, and style of dress. In all these ways, I benefited from the binary gender system — just as many other binary trans people have benefited from it, and just as binary cis people enjoy the benefits of a gendered system which they created.

This benefit, however, comes at the cost of disadvantaging nonbinary people. The only reason that the gender binary remains such a comfortable place for people like me is because it excludes people unlike me by insisting that they simply cannot exist. There just isn’t a box for them. The system as it is now must be changed, but these changes cannot be wrought by those who are negatively impacted by the system alone. Rather, as binary people, we should use our inherent privilege and power to try and bring about change that will benefit our nonbinary and genderqueer friends.

There need to be more boxes, and those boxes need to be far more malleable and porous than they are now. We need to build a system which advocates and validates people who build new boxes, who frequently move between boxes, who occupy more than one box, or who don’t really like the idea of boxes in the first place. These people deserve an equal footing in our society, and it is our responsibility as the privileged party to listen to them and use our unearned advantages however we can to support them. 

A great place to learn how to do this is The Gender Spectrum (be warned the link includes an autoplay video), an organization dedicated to helping create a gender-inclusive world for all children and youth.

[thuskindlyshescatters]

ilia, coco, and robyn?

Ooh, nice picks. The Commonly Accepted Lesbian Trio.

Ilia

Sexuality HC: Lesbian! That’s canon, babes.

Gender HC: Trans (mtf), mostly because the “trying to fit in with the other girls and ‘pass’ as one of them” narrative fits so beautifully. And plus, that carries a great message: break transphobes’ teeth!

A ship: Catmeleon (Ilia x Blake) shouldn’t be canon, but I like that, while Blake had a role in Ilia’s arc, Ilia’s character didn’t entirely revolve around Blake, EVEN WHEN she was canonically attracted to her! Good shit.

BROTP: Ilia and Sun’s brief interaction at the end of 5x10 (the Pinch of Forgiveness) suggests that they’d be great friends, if given the time.

NOTP: Stop shipping her with Neptune. Plz.

Random HC: She used to have a “theme color” growing up, before being in Atlas and the White Fang wiped it away. I like to think it was pink.

General opinion: I actually really liked Ilia. I’m glad she exited when she did, but I can’t help but hope she reappears in the future!

Coco (*insert “I haven’t read AtF disclaimer here*)

Sexuality HC: That one type of lesbian where internalized heteronormativity made her insist she was bi for a good couple years before finally accepting herself. (Then she had a phase where she was afraid she was being biphobic trivializing their identity. Honestly, these disaster lesbians.)

Gender HC: Cis girl. Tries to support Velvet, but doesn’t really know how. Does diligent research, though.

A ship: As I said before, Crosshares (Coco x Velvet) is the best! 

BROTP: Also as I said before, Coco and Fox probably get along swimmingly.

NOTP: I can’t think of one right now. Really, just... don’t be weird, you know?

Random HC: Like Pyrrha, her fan following alienates her from others, which is why she likes Velvet so much -- she didn’t get a chance to get a false, from-a-distance first impression.

General opinion: I know there’s people out there who would die for Coco, and I am not one of them. Nevertheless, she’s cool, her weapon is fab, and I hope she reappears soon!

Robyn

Sexuality HC: Wlw. I could make an “arrow ace” joke here, but I honestly don’t think of her that way.

Gender HC: When we first saw her in the Volume Seven Opening, I was actually kind of hopeful that she would be the first major nonbinary character, so there you go! She toes the line of androgyny, and likes to keep it that way.

A ship: You know, I find Springthyme (Robyn x Fiona) kind of cute. I actually drew fanart for them once, which doesn’t happen often at all!

BROTP: I think that if Qrow and Robyn get to know each other more, they’d make a great team. As of right now, the obvious connection Robyn has with the rest of her team is as “bro” as it gets.

NOTP: I see Schneewood Forest (Robyn x Winter) around a lot and it just doesn’t work for me. Sorry.

Random HC: This is more of a canon-compliant AU than a headcanon, but I kind of wanted her to secretly be a Faunus. Whereas Blake only had her own future at stake, Robyn could have potentially had the future of Mantle at stake if she expressed herself freely. That’s a dilemma I’d like to see -- would you sacrifice your identity for the people you’ve promised to protect? It’s would have been a potentially character-enriching detail that puts her in parallel with Ironwood (Mr. I Would Die).

General opinion: I don’t think Robyn deserves the hate that she sometimes gets from the FNDM. She serves her purpose and behaves consistently; character-wise, she’s pretty solid. I’m excited to see her in Volume Eight!