#also for the record all of them are transgender one way or another

[skshksxd]

they continue to be stuck on my mind (inspirations under the cut)

[zinniajones]

These "expert" pediatricians were paid by a far-right legal group to come up with evidence to attack the WPATH transgender standards of care

What this is: Leaked documents show the anti-LGBT legal group Alliance Defending Freedom paying manufactured experts to attack WPATH’s transgender standards of care, asking them to find evidence for harmful anti-trans myths that they knew were baseless and unsubstantiated. This is an original finding and report by Zinnia Jones (she/her), a transgender Florida resident of 11 years whose access to HRT is now jeopardized by the enactment of state law and policy based on work from these same experts.

Detailed summary: From 2019 onward, states across the US have been faced with an intensely active wave of reused anti-trans experts, recurring characters who keep repeating the same spurious arguments against gender-affirming care in court cases, legislatures, and other policy bodies. Where did they come from, and why did this start happening?

Due to the Florida-based anti-LGBT hate group American College of Pediatricians choosing to set one of their Google Drive folders to be publicly viewable by anyone, files were released this month showing the contents of their staff’s communications and other working notes over several years.

These documents included records of the Alliance Defending Freedom - another hate group who are also responsible for bringing the mifepristone case with ACP as a plaintiff - approaching ACP's leaders in 2018 and 2019 to offer them a grant of $10,000 or more. The ADF wanted the pediatricians “to draft a white paper that refutes the WPATH Standards of Care”, “for use in litigation and should also benefit many other allies at State and Federal Level”.

ACP’s president Quentin Van Meter and executive director Michelle Cretella promptly got to work on this “Special Project”, and the ADF hosted expert witness workshops at ACP's conferences. ACP members including Van Meter went on to present anti-trans testimony in several ADF-litigated cases and ADF-involved trans youth care bans.

In May 2022, Van Meter authored a sham report for Florida Medicaid to justify their trans coverage exclusion, mostly drawing from previous ACP position statements; court filings later revealed Michelle Cretella was recommended by the Florida governor’s office, and she pointed the way to all the other anti-trans experts hired by Florida in 2022 to support the Medicaid exclusion of transition care.

One notable document found in the ACP’s drive contains “Transgender Research Requests”, with the ADF asking Cretella and other ACP leaders to “substantiate” now-commonplace anti-trans talking points. These included bizarre claims by the ADF such as “it is normal during adolescence for children to go through a phase when they identify (to some degree) with the opposite sex”, and “For those who have undergone hormone therapy and genital change surgery, a paper that says they are no happier (and perhaps worse off if the research supports it)”.

The ADF was asking this anti-trans group to come up with anything that could support the arguments they were already planning to make.

This appears to be one of the very sites where those baseless myths about suicide, social contagion and other supposed harms, now regularly repeated in court cases and testimony and uncritically accepted by the mainstream right wing, were conceived and gestated.

These same experts then substantially reused these work products in their reports for Florida Medicaid, a public health agency whose accepted standards determination process is supposed to be a transparent and open-ended evaluation of peer-reviewed medical evidence.

Altogether, these documents appear to demonstrate a paid smear by a hate group and right-wing law firm against a leading professional transgender healthcare organization following the best available evidence and medical practices, as well as misconduct on the part of ACP experts who reused this work in their reports for a Florida public health agency.

(asks are open)

[demonir]

Reminiscing about my past… more specifically the first time I experienced transphobia directed towards me by a loved one…

I don’t remember exactly what age I was… either 13 or 14, I was still using mostly deviantart and skype as my social platforms of choice and my favorite online game was elsword

I had been roleplaying for a while by then and 99% of my characters were male so I found myself roleplaying as them… and enjoying the feeling of “acting as a boy” so much so that I told my online friends at the time to address me by a masculine name and “treat me like a boy” it felt… liberating, freeing, it filled me with a feeling that I would only find words for a long while later… gender euphoria.

I didn’t call myself trans, I didn’t say I was a boy, we all treated it more like some gag or bit, some “persona” I had taken on online. I had no one sit me down and explain to me what being transgender was, I certainly had stopped being homophobic half a year ago only so this was all entirely new to me and I wasn’t met with immediate rejection so I kept going while keeping it a secret from my more close friends as well as people irl only because deep down I felt it was “wrong” and I was doing something “I shouldn’t do”

While this happened I also had a very close friend, he was a cishet guy I had met in elsword and we had grown very close! We were both YouTubers at the time and we’d feature our sonas in each others videos all the time and we considered each other family, him being the brother I always wanted and me being the little sister he always wanted… he was 18 I believe? Or at least close to being so, he was very supportive and protective of me and genuinely a good person… even till the bitter end.

One day I opened skype and asked to talk to him about something important, he was none the wiser. I confessed to him how I wanted to be a boy and if he’d be okay with that… it was the first time I verbally acknowledged the fact that I was truly trans, and he was the first person I ever properly came out to.

He said he didn’t like it

He said that no matter what I did or said he could only see me as his little sister, that he didn’t want another little brother in his life… this of course broke my heart, I had very hesitantly come to terms with my identity for the first time and the person I looked up to rejected it without a second thought. I didn’t have an outburst, I didn’t yell at him, I didn’t try to defend myself… I simply said that if he couldn’t accept me then I didn’t want to stay, he kept messaging me after saying that we could maybe talk about it, reach some sort of agreement, I don’t remember his last words but I remember knowing he felt regret as I closed skype and uninstalled it forever.

He never tried to reach out to me through any other platforms after, not deviantart, not youtube, he didn’t even message me through the elsword friend chat in game

And that was the first time I felt someone dislike me for who I was, it wasn’t violent, I wasn’t told I was disgusting, I wasn’t questioned or told that I was mistaken… just told that he’d never see me that way… and somehow that hurt harder than any hate speech would in the years to come.

Just for the record, I do not hate him. I never did. I just feel disappointed even to this day… I hope he’s having a good life despite his hurtful words because for as long as it lasted our friendship left a mark in me, and a good one. The only thing I hope is that he sometimes thinks of me… and that he regrets his words deeply, that he re evaluates what he did and if he ever finds himself in that situation again… he won’t make the same mistake twice.

[coochiequeens]

Considering that suicide is a recognized social contagion maybe the local government should have offered counseling to the TQ+ community before sharing the method of death. But if they offered counseling they might hear about people getting trans medical treatments from unlicensed doctors in the first place and admit that therapy might be a better treatment that affirming people's fantasies

Adeshola Ore Thu 29 Aug 2024

The sale of a chemical used by three transgender women who took their own lives should be restricted by the federal government, the Victorian coroner says, after an inquest heard it has been used in dozens of suicides in the state.

Victoria’s coroners court last year held an inquest into the suicides of five transgender women who died between 2020 and 2021, including that of Matt Byrne, 25, who took her life after a botched back yard surgery.

The coroner, Ingrid Giles, on Thursday morning handed down her findings, including that at least three of the woman in the cluster – Byrne, Heather Pierard and a woman referred to by the pseudonym AS – used the same chemical. They each also directly knew at least one other person in the cluster.

The inquest had found Byrne was able to obtain the chemical, sodium nitrite, from an Australian-based online company, while AS obtained it from another Australian seller. It was unclear how Pierard acquired it, Giles said.

In naming the chemical, Giles acknowledged there were risks in drawing attention to suicide methods, but said they were counter-balanced by the “prevention imperative” of reducing its availability.

Giles concluded there was likely some discussion about the chemical, including with a New South Wales person who died on 23 July 2021 by the same method.

“The fact that four people (including one in NSW) who were socially linked to one another all used this method, within a matter of months, suggests very strongly that there was information-sharing between them, or between other members of the community, about the method,” she said.

Giles said the chemical was used in 52 suicides in the state between 2017 and 2023, and it had been investigated in a recent inquest into the suicide of a Victorian man who used it to take his life.

She recommended the federal assistant minister for mental health and suicide prevention investigate ways to further restrict the online sale and distribution of sodium nitrite in Australia.

Giles also called for urgent consideration of increased funding to meet the growing demand for public-funded health services delivering gender-affirming care to transgender and gender diverse people to reduce waitlists.

She said the connections between some of the deceased suggested that “contagion” played a role and some of the deceased, including those who did not know each other personally, were aware of other deaths.

Byrne died on 30 March 2021. AS, 19, died on 9 May 2021 and Pierard died two days later.

The inquest heard that Byrne sought gender-affirmation surgery from an unlicensed non-medical person, which resulted in an aborted procedure before GPs referred her to a qualified surgeon.

Giles said the fact that Byrne resorted to back yard surgery was “confronting” and an example of the need to improve the accessibility of gender-affirming surgery.

She also found several deficiencies in Victoria police’s investigation into Bridget Flack, 28, who died between 30 November and 11 December 2020.

Flack had been seeking admission to a private mental health facility before going missing on 30 November 2020. Her body was found by members of the LGBTQ+ community near a billabong in eastern Melbourne almost two weeks later.

Police recorded Flack’s risk level as “medium” when she was missing, the inquest heard.skip past newsletter promotion

Giles said there was a failure to appropriately identify and record the risk to Flack in the initial missing person report filed on 1 December which “infected the time critical steps in the investigation”.

Giles said Victoria police failed to capture risk factors which were known to police, including her transgender status, which carried an “increased vulnerability of violence and risk of suicide”.

The initial request to have Flack’s phone location searched via triangulation was not approved, the court heard. This was due to a legislative requirement for there to be an imminent threat, which has since been removed.

When a police investigator took over the case on 4 December, Flack’s location could not be found because her phone appeared to have been switched off.

Giles said the decision to not authorise triangulation of Flacks’ phone on the first request led to the search for her being based on less reliable data and delayed the discovery of her body.

“This led to considerable distress for her sister and for Mx Leigh [Flack’s sister’s husband] it also led to significant disquiet, fear, and outrage in the LGBTIQA+ community, a sentiment that unfurled and swelled in the days that followed and during which Bridget remained missing,” Giles said.

She recommended Victoria police implement all five recommendations from its review into Flack’s death, including identifying risks specific to priority communities such as LGBTQ+ people in missing person cases.

Giles also recommended mandatory LGBTQ+ training for all police and to improve data collection in relation to transgender and gender diverse people.

A Victoria police spokesperson said the organisation was aware of the recommendations made by the coroner and would consider them.

Outside the court, Flack’s sister Angela Pucci Love remembered Bridget as a fierce and dedicated activist.

“She was an artist, smart in every sense, a loyal and passionate person who loved to look after people around her and support causes very special to her,” she said.

 In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

[dextivestudios]

Gender neutral in Italian: It’s messy.

Introduction

Since I was given the “keep it basic” answer when I said I don’t know how to refer to someone in a gender-neutral way in Italian, I decided to do a little digging, mainly on Reddit as forums are extremely useful and a good resource when you have a question about someone else’s culture, since you’re likely to get answers from people who live there

But before we go into how Italians are shaking up the language to make it more inclusive, let’s talk about the femminielli

The Femminielli

From Naples, the femminielli are historically males who present themselves in a feminine way since first recorded in the 16th century book de humane phsyiognomonia. Although, today they include gay men, transwomen, and nonbinary people. The historical famminielli were considered channels of God, due to not being seen as male or female. As a result, they were also considered good luck and took gambling by Neopolitans. The femminielli came from poor communities, especially The Spanish Quarter, so health conditions such as an enlarged goitre.

While some transwomen and nonbinary individuals identify this way, it is incorrect to call the femminielli identity transgender. It is its own category, considered a third gender and is one of many examples around the world that such a concept is not a modern day American invention. (As many Italians believe it is.)

Gender Neutral Italian

Now with a small bit of history out of the way, we can get into the mess that is trying to shift the Italian language. It is difficult to find any answers, due to Italy being a more conservative country, leading to the idea of adding inclusivity to the language being “extremist” in the eyes of many. That, or people just have a “that’s just the way the language rigidly works” attitude, despite the observable fact that languages change and evolve. Just look at the constant adoption and dropping of slang terms, or even do a small bit of research in etymology.

So, what are the proposed solutions?

There are a few proposed solutions to this concern, albeit most of them have not gone anywhere. There is the singular “loro,” but it just doesn’t work. There is -u, but it’s a masculine suffix in certain dialects. There is dropping the suffix and replacing it with an asterisk, although it’s only online and currently unpronounceable. Shwa is another internet-born solution, an upside-down lower-case e (or a 3 symbol for plural). While shwa is technically pronounceable, it’s considered awkward as it’s a new letter, and it sounds like you have a certain accent and can reach communication issues there. They’re all controversial for their own reasons.

A final solution, which appears to be the best one currently, is referring to someone as “questa persona” or “quella persona.” While it means the rest of the sentence will be feminine, you’re not calling someone a man or a woman. You could back it up by simply not using pronouns, as pronouns are often dropped anyways in Italian.

Conclusion

The technically correct way to go about it is to just use the masculine form, as it’s the default way to refer to people and is used in mixed-gendered groups. I don’t know if it will still be in like ten years, and I don’t have any say on if it changes at all as an English-speaking American. I simply wanted to find an answer that fits in the rules of the language and respects the culture I wish to someday visit.

It turns out that it’s a complicated mess with no perfect proposals that not even the people from the concerned culture know for sure what’s best. I’m not going to make any suggestions on what anyone else should do, as it’s not in my place to do so.

Sources

Italy and Non-binary : r/NonBinaryTalk

Unknown Gender : r/italianlearning

Any Italians using they/them in the native language? How do you translate it? : r/NonBinary

Italian equivalent of singular “they.” : r/italianlearning

A Simple Guide To The Complex Topic Of Gender-Neutral Pronouns

How to be gender inclusive in Italian ? : r/italianlearning

how to refer to non-binary people in Italian ? : r/italianlearning

Gender neutrality in languages with grammatical gender - Wikipedia

The Femminielli of Naples - Are We Europe

This 18th-Century Italian Painting Proves Gender Nonconformity Is Far From a Modern Invention

New evidence of ‘third gender’ people in art | by Marina Viatkina | Hidden Gem: Art Treasures through the lens of History | Aug, 2023 | Medium

[redolentgrove]

It was about three or four in the afternoon at this point in the day. Loki had taken Millie off toward Undella Town, and Celeste had just finished recording a set of ocarina samples for Bijoux. The Sylveontaur had gone off toward the lake to take a quick break, leaving Bijoux by herself in the main clearing. The sun settled high in the sky, slowly heading downwards along with the passage of time, signaling that evening was on its way.

The Cinccino-taur sat there with a set of wireless headphones around her ears, head buried in her laptop, listening to the samples and stitching them together along with the samples of other instruments. The main rhythms sounded right; the ocarina mixed well with the shamisen notes, and some notes of piano, guitar, violin and drums accompanied things later in the track. There were minor blips; some things didn't sound like they had mixed smoothly enough, and she made small adjustments, tweaking things until she was satisfied with the way things blended together.

Bijoux looked up briefly, slightly taken aback by the approach of a shiny Roserade. She lifted her headset from her ears, hanging it around the back of her neck. She pressed the save function shortcut, pressing 'yes' when the program asked her if she was sure she wanted to overwrite the file she had been working on. She watched a progress bar showed up, keeping an eye on it slowly filling as the computer did its work. When the grass type addressed her, Bijoux moved the laptop to face away from the pair, listening while he introduced himself to her.

"Oh, you're one of MIss Charade's friends!" Bijoux trilled in discovery, looking down at the Roserade. "Yeah, I definitely know about that Meowscarada; Mom talks about her a ton. She's definitely got a crush on her… but with how easily she falls in love, I'm not sure how much Mom wants to act on that." She shook her head. "But uh… yeah, I think I've seen you around at least a time or two, if you're friends with Miss Charade. Mom said you were named after something to do with cards. You're mister, uh… Jack, right?" She stood and offered the grass-type a returned bow and a nod of her head, a gentle, welcoming smile on her muzzle. "Anyway, uh… you're doing soul-searching? Go ahead, ask me anything."

Bijoux listened to Blackjack's questions, letting out a small blush when he mentioned their gender identities. Sure, she was being more open about it, but it still felt slightly weird to have someone outside of her family and friend group mention it. Regardless, she nodded and thought carefully about how she could explain it to him, without overstepping any boundaries. Of course, she realised the Roserade was an adult, so she also didn't want to talk down to him in the process. She briefly eyeballed her laptop's screen, saw that her track had saved successfully, and closed the laptop when she was ready to address his questions fully.

"Well… my Mom actually transitioned about two hundred years before I was even born," the Cinccino-taur finally replied, rubbing her left hand behind her head. "There definitely wasn't an overlap of us discovering our gender identities together. I guess if anything, though, the fact that she had the experience and lived the same sort of discovery made it easier for me to come out as transgender. I didn't really always have the words to describe how it felt, but she did, and hearing her explain what it meant, that it was normal and valid to be… it was an incredible feeling to know someone had my back on the matter. That she not only understood, that she would go to any lengths to help me be who I was."

Bijoux offered Blackjack a broad, toothy grin, and let out a bit of a laugh. "It's weird. Once I came to terms with my gender identity, it was never really a struggle to figure out my sexuality and romantic preferences. I always knew I liked girls, and I still do, so I guess it wasn't all that surprising to come out as a lesbian as well. I guess that one was just another domino in the chain of events; you figure something out about yourself and a lot of times the rest falls into place."

The Cinccino-taur rose briefly, then stepped over to look at the Roserade more closely. It was only now that she realised that the grass-type was almost a full two feet shorter than she was. She knelt down in front of him, tucking her legs beneath her taur body to try and close the height gap between the pair. At least as long as she was sitting, she didn't have to look downward to look him in the eyes. She extended a hand slowly, steadily, to offer the grass-type either a handshake or a small pat on the shoulder, if he were to accept such contact.

"I'm going to be honest," she began. "I'm not here to ask you exactly what you hope to find with your soul-searching, mister Jack. I'm not going to assume I know anything about you other than that you're a friend of my mom's, but I do know that the most important advice I can give you is that, whatever you find, don't ever keep it entirely to yourself." She nodded sagely.

"I know I was extremely fortunate that my mom happened to have the same experience with her gender identity, and that not everyone necessarily has a friend who knows exactly what you're feeling. But if you have one friend you can trust, even one, then once you discover something, the best thing you can do is talk to them. Even if they don't know the words to describe your inner discoveries, it's better to at least know you can be honest with someone about those feelings, and know that they'll support you. And just because they might not know how to help, just having the chance to have someone listen is one of the best things you can have. And they might even know someone else who does know how to describe your feelings."

Bijoux held up a finger to signal for the Roserade to wait, before rising to her paws and heading to the grove's storage shed. When she came back, she had a small pamphlet in her hands. She knelt back down, offering it to Blackjack. Were he to look at it, there would be descriptions of different words to fit multiple gender, sexuality and romantic identities. Different coloured flags would accompany each identity, to correspond to each word.

"I don't know the exact feelings you have, and I don't have any intentions to make you tell me," Bijoux reiterated, her tail swishing half-heartedly behind her. "But when I first talked to Mom and we went to therapy, I took a few of these pamphlets with me. I thought at the time, maybe I wasn't completely sure of the way I felt. I read through the different identities, seeing what resonated and what didn't… but in the end, I realised, it was that simple as identifying as a transgender woman. At least, it was for me. Maybe seeing some of those put into words will help you a bit as you look through your heart."

Bijoux smiled warmly at Blackjack. "I hope that I was able to help you at least a little bit, mister Jack. Either with the pamphlet, explaining some of the history behind my identities… just, anything, really. But again, I feel like the most important thing you can possibly do is to search yourself for some answers, find the person you trust the most around you, and tell them about your discoveries. Maybe they'll know how to explain it to you in terms you both understand. Maybe they won't. But the nice thing about this, is that even if your journey is about self-discovery…"

"You don't have to do it alone."

(( @ask-meowscarada ))

[adultswim2021]

Moral Orel #36: “Dumb” | October 30, 2008 - 12:15AM | S03E06

Dumb takes place during School Pageant and Nature parts one and two. It begins with Joe, Orel’s delinquent friend, returning home from the school pageant. His father, the way-too-elderly Dr. Secondopinionson, couldn’t make it. He’s too old to move. Joe is a dick about it, and his allegedly middle-aged half-sister (the adultswim.com description calls her this, canon disputed?), who has a traditionally masculine voice.

That last bit is a little contentious in times where more people are aware of transgender issues. In a previous episode, she was Principal Fakey’s receptionist, and we heard her through what appeared to be a tinny-sounding speaker, but when they cut to hear speaking on the receiver she’s seen pinching her nose, the actual reason for the bad sounding speaker. I don’t think the intent of the joke was to mock transgender people, it was just meant to add another layer to the previous joke. That probably doesn’t keep the portrayal from being uncomfortable for some viewers, but eyyyy what can you do? Hope that detached nihilistic irony comes back into fashion one more time before the world ends, I guess.

Nurse Bendy calls Joe’s sister. It turns out she calls her to keep tabs on Joe so she can use biographic details on her own ersatz child, Sonny. We saw her talking to her teddy bear family in a previous episode, Alone. From here, Joe winds up going on a journey to reunite with his mother, whom he was told died during child birth. He finds out from Coach Stopframe that this isn’t the case. He eventually meets Nurse Bendy, said to be his actual mom. He likes her youth and her filthy ‘tude. The two begin to bond, and she takes him to her apartment to meet her teddy bear family. He disrespects them, sticking his tongue out at Sonny and what not. He fucked with the wrong hombre in that regard, for Sonny can dish it out exactly as hard with a simple squeeze. Sonny and Joe…  they are quarreling!

Joe beats the shit out of his father out of anger, but this is played sorta for laughs as it happens in the background. He tries to go back to Bendy’s apartment and sees Sonny in the trash. He finds her at work and she explains she threw him out because he didn’t work anymore, and that she hoped Joe could be her Sonny. The episode ends with Joe and Bendy imitating Sonny’s retractable tongue. It's heartwarming as fuck. Credits roll. 

This is a really great episode which demonstrates how this show managed to transform itself into something soulful and emotionally affecting while staying entirely in character. The style of joke-writing, the characterization, the absurdly hyperbolic explosion of anger displayed by Joe when he beats up his dad, it’s all very much in line with what Moral Orel has always been. The ending is heartwarming and sweet. The episode is scored by “Failsafe” by The Choir Practice, which is also a New Pornographers song. It’s written by Carl Newman from New Pornographers, but The Choir Practice version was actually recorded and released first if wikipedia is to be trusted. I think I prefer the version in this episode. It just sounds so beautiful in this episode. 

There are continuity tie-ins: We see Orel before and after the hunting trip. We also see Bloberta clutching Dr. Potterswheel’s handkerchief. Joe’s fear of getting old is explored a little more, which was most recently alluded to in Orel’s Movie Premiere. Nurse Bendy’s teddy bear family was first introduced in Alone from earlier in the season (I already mentioned this, but I struggled to think of a third thing). 

One dark thing to note is that the script for an unproduced episode, “Narcissism”, reveals that Nurse Bendy is 24, which means that she gave birth to Joe at the age of 12, which means Joe’s father prooooooooooooobably deserved his beating. It might potentially explain Nurse Bendy’s arrested development. 

These episodes take place in different moments in the chronology of events of Moralton surrounding Orel’s hunting trip. Some of them, like this one, take place across a span of them. And it’s fun trying to untangle it all. But this episode and Alone sorta tell me that trying to perform an actual fanedit of the show, attempting to make a movie or something out of these highly-connected episodes, would ultimately be a failure. Seeing Nurse Bendy’s traumatic freak out in the middle of these scenes probably wouldn’t enhance the story of Joe and her connecting to one another as mother and son. They’re probably better off as two separate things. But I’ll still download it and watch it if you make one. Just saying.

44 NIGHTS OF OREL

The 44 Nights of Orel was an event where Adult Swim showed the entire series in a special running order where continuity-specific old episodes were meant to enhance the season three premieres.

This episode was preceded by Elemental Orel, because it shows Joe’s Elderly father (for the first time?). After that was Holy Visage, which Dino says they went too gross with the wound (I agree!) but this episode shows Joe’s father working as a doctor, hence it's inclusion.

[pupintransit]

We're at the end of Month 5™️ of the wait. In the same way that August was pretty dull all things considered, September was very much not.

While I still don't have a firm surgery date, on the morning I'm writing this draft I scheduled my pre-surgery consultation with Dr. Brassard. It's set for November 6! Which is yet more waiting but having a date to look forward to is going to make the lead up to it much easier to manage. I'll be taking lots of notes, and i'd be more than happy to share them with everyone after it's all over! I want my experience in getting gender affirming surgery something that i can record for people to reference, so that it can be of use to someone on a similar journey to mine.

Another milestone this month was the fundraiser I started. As you might well be sick of me talking about by now, I launched a GoFundMe at the beginning of this month. Currently it's sitting at $435, which is honestly not too shabby! This could easily be where it fizzles out, but even if I don't get any closer to the $5,000 goal i'm still incredibly grateful for what everyone has given. Most of the donations came from people I know personally, who chose to send what they could to help me with such an important. I'll never be able to fully express what that means to me.

Plus, $435 is in an of itself a tremendous help! That'll cover the lion's share of one the four plane tickets i'll need to purchase, so for that metric alone the campaign has been a great success.

Now, something that comes with the territory of sharing around a fundraiser for a very major and famously queer surgery is that your friends and family are inevitably going to find out. For the more part the response has been overwhelming positive. Old college friends and old coworkers of mine - folks i hadn't seen in years - sent me lovely messages of support and affirmation. A few even donated to the campaign! It was honestly hard to take in right at first, and i still don't fully know how to articulate the joy i feel in that.

Now, all of this seems like pretty excellent news so far sooooo why am i using the header image i am? Well this is the part where the stress comes in. Earlier i said that a lot of folks found out i was transgender and pursuing gender affirming surgery via the campaign i linked to. I figured it was best to let my parents and in-laws know ahead of time, since i didn't want them taken off gaurd. My in-laws were terrific about it. My own parents?

Ehmmmm not so much.

Mom had a very difficult time with the news. I'm not going to get into specific details but, while i haven't been written out of the proverbial will, she's very much against me doing this and will be "praying" that something changes my mind or cancels the surgery. I think (i hope) with time she comes around on it and be more supportive of me, but i can't be sure of that. Truthfully i also can't be too upset at her reaction. This is a major change in one of her children, so it's unreasonable to think she wouldn't have a emotional reaction to it.

I'm a little more concerned about my father. He did not take me being gay well at all. I remember specifically he called my husband my "friend" (complete with quotation marks) for the first few months of our relationship, so i can't imagine he'd take me being transgender or getting a vaginoplasty well either. What isn't helping my nerves is that he plays Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh in their living room as though they were day time talk shows. I'm not being hyperbolic when i say that Shapiro, Walsh, and their ilk want to do trans folks like me harm. Talking with him about this is neither something i'm looking forward to nor have the slightest desire to bring up with him.... but since my mother has almost certainly already told him this is almost certainly going to be inevitable.

My parents don't have to understand why i'm doing this and what it means to me. They just have to accept it as a reality of my life, and respect that it's something that will make my life happier. I want them to know that i've put thought and care into this choice, and just how many professionals i've debriefed with to be sure of my choice, and that my relationship with my husband will withstand the change to my body. If they can't accept it, they don't have to be a part of my life.

Of course, it's much easier to say that about my parents than to believe it.

Anyway i have an appointment with my therapist on friday so he and i will have a lot to talk about.

[owlkhemy]

The Fun of School: Prefixes Edition!

I like to think I am smart. It's. A lie. But anyway, I had some classmates who weren't quite as smart as me. And thus I have memories of that.

In this case, classmates pulling a dumb with prefixes.

The "Sex" "Ed"

Even though it was literally supposed to be mandated in our curriculum, my middle school teachers tended to skimp out on sex ed. (I went to school in rural Canada.) So when we were supposed to have learned stuff in grade seven, we didn't. That led to the grade eight sex ed, aka "One Sentence About Types of Sex and One Month On How To Avoid STIs, and Also Different Sexual Orientations I Guess".

For the record, I realized I was aspec in grade eight. So I already knew a tiny bit about stuff. Particularly what the prefixes of orientations meant. Stuff like "homo-", "hetero-", "bi-", "a-", "pan-", you know.

The teacher told us to try and match the orientation to a prefix. I aced that in my head, pun fully intended, but the rest of my group did not. I remember a conversation like this:

Group: *discussing which one asexual is*

Me: "A" is not at all.

Group: *completely ignores me to keep discussing, for some reason I feel like they might have mixed up pan and ace?*

The Geography Incident

Our amazing geography teacher in ninth grade asked us what "trans" meant, in the sense of "Trans-Canada Highway".

Nobody answered.

The teacher said "It means 'across'."

Cue someone in the back of class being like "Oh, that's what you meant."

The Science Class Incident(s)

The classic mistake, taking the "homo" in Homo sapiens to mean the "homo" in homosexual. That was grade nine. (The first one is Latin for "man", and the second one is Greek for "same". Gay people are not exclusively "man-sexual", nor are humans "wise sames".)

There was another one in grade twelve when our chemistry teacher actually used the example of cis and transgender to make a note of how to remember cis and trans fats (in a respectful way, mind you, she was using them as their meanings of "on same side" and "on different side" essentially).

I fully expect my classmates to have misinterpreted though so I made a thing

Anyway

That's all for this. Just remember guys, prefixes mean stuff! And if you associate a prefix with certain things, don't, because if it's in another word it just means what it means, not that there's a relationship between the things.

Note: I actually find these incidents to be really funny in hindsight, and I don't mean to attack anyone who thought similar things. Everyone does it! Never feel bad about learning things, because without learning things, how would we know that trans fats aren't trans? We wouldn't.

Have a good day y'all!

[maeve-is-annoying-about-books]

Light From Uncommon Stars, November

"aaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" - unofficial plot summary by Maeve

The easiest way to separate an artist from their work is to bring up something insanely private in the most public place possible. Seeing a redux of Shizuka's tragedy of not being heard pass on to Katrina is equal parts prescient and heartbreaking. Tremon engineered the perfect scenario, the slimy little fucker.

While being transgender informs her life, her music, her performances, it is not the end-all be-all to who she is. But say it out loud and suddenly the comments on her videos have slipped away from people listening to and appreciating her music to being overwhelmingly concerned with her gender and presentation. Many of the people who chimed in with happy, thankful comments are probably the same ones berating her the most for the crime of being who she is.

It's a story that isn't only true in fiction.

Tremon Philippe has been the exact picture of the highest, wealthiest, most egocentric class on Earth for this entire story. He can't stand being out of control, he tolerates art so long as it serves his ends, he plays people into a corner to make them the only possible offer that would save them from ruin. A corporate bully, in so many words. It's part of the reason I'm so interested in how Shirley has recordings of Shizuka. Almost certainly, why wouldn't they? Light will travel forever in the vacuum of space, all the way into the hands of a refugee family who has no conception or care for any Hell but the one they're escaping. The larger, truer, interconnected world remains outside the reach of the consumptionist demon Tremon Philippe, missing the stars for the glitter of coins.

It's an allegory I like reading about, it's one that really cements the choice to have the Tran family be from outer space, fleeing from psychological entropy. What a playful little stroke of truth in emotion.

And Lan has listened to the music that Shizuka plays for the first time. Really play, and, in that moment finally understand what our favorite violin teacher has been saying all along. About how important music is, about how one song played in its entire complexity can inspire or enrage another into action to make their own. Like Katrina is now learning to do, following the flow of Shizuka.

It's the solution to the Endpla- Ah. It's a solution to the quiet. The quiet that comes from people beaten into an inoffensive, marketable shape that can go through the motions and tear themselves to shreds on the word of another. Because such things as self aren't worthwhile, don't produce.

But if that were true, would people really have subjected themselves to such hell just for a chance to be heard and seen? All of us hunched over our crafts until it hurt just because we have a song we wanna share?

It's why Katrina is practicing so hard with Bartok's Sonata. It's a strange piece, but it's what she wants to say. For Shizuka but also for herself.

This was a more condensed month, but I want to talk more about setups and payoffs in the finale of another February. The Golden Friendship Violin Competition is near.

I hope my words are enough to encapsulate everything I want to say.

[glitchdollmemoria]

just finally fully processed that like... i dont really suuuuuper identify with the label of "trans man". ive known for a while that im iffy about calling myself a man at all, usually if i do its in a sort of performative sense if you get what i mean? like the idea of a man. the concept. but im not a man in the sense of being a Binary Man, which is why i also tend to feel more comfortable calling myself more casual terms like guy or dude, or terms that include femininity like girlboy or ladyboy, or neutral terms, or just making sure to play around and mix up whether im calling myself a wannabe milf or a wannabe dilf at any given moment.

and i DO very much identify as trans, transgender, transsexual. those are all labels i regularly use for myself both externally and in my own mind. but ive realized my transness doesnt really change that i dont entirely identify as A Man. im like, schrodingers man. im a man when its funny or hot or when i appreciate the differences between my gender and my partners gender. or im a man when i feel forced to pick between only two options.

but ultimately when i do call myself a man, im never saying it in the way most men call themselves men. theres always a degree of separation there, like a fogged up glass wall. i can write messages in the steam. i can draw a smiley face. i can draw my lover. i can draw a funny dick with huge balls. and the men on the other side can do all the same, we can even play tic-tac-toe. but we arent ever going to be on the same side of the wall.

for the record, theres also a fogged up glass wall between myself and other women, but the glass has cracks in it - not enough that i could ever break through and be the same kind of woman as them, but enough that if im not careful, ill get cut and start bleeding all over the damn place. and so, growing up, i distanced myself from my own womanhood, less in the sense of avoiding other women but in the sense of avoiding acknowledging the similarities between their genders and mine. if i tried to interact with womanhood, id get cut, and then everyone would see what i was made of, and theyd say "womanhood cut you so you could never be a man".

but now that im on hrt, im beginning to realize just how many differences there are between myself and binary men. i knew i was nonbinary before hrt, but i wasnt able to see just how much. my body has given me so many new similarities, but they make the differences so much more obvious. so i start to try drawing on the woman side of the glass again. i can better see where the cracks are, so i can better avoid being cut. i draw messages, and a smiley face, and my lover, and absurdly huge boobs, and i play tic-tac-toe with the women on the other side. i realize i can almost be one of them, the same as i can almost be one of the men, and i can do it without getting cut as much. and when i do get cut, its not as much of an issue. i know how to bandage my wounds by now, at least better than i could before. there are more people who dont care about seeing my blood spill. there are more people who can see my blood and appreciate it for what it is. its not a big deal. its just how i was made.

and then i find the cracks in the other side of the wall, as im doodling on it, when my finger gets sliced on manhood. and i realize: my blood was never one or the other. because now people are looking at it and saying its the blood of a man. it was all one big joke the whole time. it was all fake. it was all just people threading strings between one thing and another, and coming to conclusions about their own perceptions without considering the reality of my body, of my existence. my blood, and muscle, and sinew, and bone, and hair, none of it is "man" or "woman" on its own. people are the ones trying to claim otherwise.

and all i can do is bandage my wounds. so what am i?

[our-time-is-now]

September 15, 2019 (1): A distraction without moving? Show me…

(previous play)

You can find more information about the authors, translators, content warning and additional information about the plays in the pinned post on our blog.  

Attention! This play includes transgender topics. For more details see our interjection.

Sunday, 10:00 am:

WhatsApp, David/Matteo: David (02:54 am): Woke up half an hour ago and was good and had them bring me pain medication. It worked pretty quickly. Now I can’t fall back asleep… because I miss you and because I hate having to sleep on my back… and because I want you to lie next to me. Will you sing me a lullaby?

David (02:58 am): How nice that we both stick to the plan and that you apparently have your phone on mute… maybe tomorrow night, I can turn a little on my side if the drainages are out… I’ll put your shirt over my face now and imagine that you’re there with me. And then I’ll hopefully fall asleep. See you tomorrow, tesorino. Ti amo così tanto…

David (07:03 am): Why does everything at a hospital happen so early? Christine was already here and there’s already breakfast on the table, as well. I’m way too tired to already eat… I think I’ll sleep some more… and when I wake up again, then you’ll already be over very soon! I’m already really looking forward to seeing you! And a good morning to you ;-) Will you bring coffee again?

*really fell asleep again in the morning, but only for two hours* *then ate breakfast and was interrupted during eating by very early rounds by Dr. von Fratschen and his team, who has looked at the now closed wounds and who had a generally good impression* *was relieved and glad to hear that the drainages can be removed and that he’s allowed to go shower afterwards and that nurse Christine is supposed to put new bandaids on only after he showered* *has said his goodbyes to the doctor and then Christine removed the drainages* *found it pretty painful, but was distracted very well by her and was consoled by the prospect that one usually feels a lot better once the drainages are removed* *has promised to call once he’s finished with showering, but first finished his breakfast and texted Matteo*

WhatsApp, David/Matteo: David (09:32 am): At least I slept for 2 more hours… The drainages are gone! Was very ouch, but still: Yeah! And I can go have a shower! Yeah!

*had a shower after breakfast and put on clean clothes* *has realized again how much he hates the sanitary pad and has planned on asking Christine if he’s soon allowed to use smaller ones, because it isn’t bleeding as much as it did two days ago* *has also realized how difficult it is to wash his hair and to put on and take off tops, but finally manages it somehow* *has also looked at himself in the mirror for quite some time and taken another photo, because without the iodine and the imprints of the bandaids and bandages, his chest already looks pretty good and he’s so proud of it* *then called for Christine, who put new bandaids on his nipples, and at 10:15 he reached for his phone to see if Matteo’s already awake*

Matteo: *had trouble falling asleep and has put on David’s recordings again* *then eventually fell asleep at a little past 1 am, after all* *sleeps until shortly after 10 and is immediately annoyed when he looks at his phone* *but sees that he has several messages from David and smiles when he reads them* *records a voice messages, because he’s too lazy to type*

WhatsApp, Matteo/David: Matteo (voice message, 10:07 am): Oh, I gladly would have sung you a lullaby, but I stuck to the plan. I only fell asleep shortly after 1 and now I’m a little annoyed because it’s already past 10. I’m still in bed and in a minute I’ll first put on coffee and then hop in the shower. I hope that I’ll manage to catch the bus at 11 that goes directly there, then I’d be with you at a little after 12. And yeah, drainages are out, I’m happy! How was the shower? Ti amo, tesorino, see you later/soon.

*then basically jumps out of bed, puts the coffee on and then hops into the shower* *gets ready and refills the coffee* *only then notices a bag on the table with a post-it on it: “So that you won’t run out of the house without breakfast again. Your flatshare ;)”* *looks inside and sees two sandwiches and a banana* *wonders whose idea it was, but quickly packs the bag in his backpack together with the coffee and leaves the house so that he’ll catch the bus that leaves at 11* *texts another message to David while on the bus and sends a photo of the bag and the post-it along* *arrives at the hospital at shortly after 12 and is at David’s room ten minutes after 12* *this time knocks and waits for him to tell him to come in*

David: *was happy that Matteo replied after Christine has put fresh bandaids on, and while he’s on his way to the hospital, they wrote a few more texts back and forth until Christine came in with the laser and he had to put the phone down* *is done with lasering at quarter to 12 and waits for Matteo to finally arrive* *eventually got up and stood by the window to check if he can see the bus stop from inside - which he can’t* *but instead realized how freeing it is to be able to move without all his bags and drainages* *was just about to sit back down on the bed when he hears a knock* *smiles, because he can already guess that it’s Matteo, and calls loudly* Yeees? *sees him open the door, beams immediately and takes a few steps toward him* *waits for him to close the door, but then pulls him toward him and kisses him briefly* *says quietly* I missed you… *wraps his arms around his waist, slightly squeezes him close and takes a deep breath, to recharge his batteries at least a little bit*

Matteo: *quickly goes inside when he hears the “yes”* *is happy when he sees David out of bed* *immediately holds his arms out* Hey… *wraps his arms around him after he gets a kiss* So did I… *presses a kiss to his neck and holds him tight* *asks quietly* Everything okay?

David: *is pretty happy that today, Matteo isn’t worried about hugging him back, and enjoys the feeling of being close to him* *smiles slightly when he feels the kiss on his neck and humms in agreement when he hears Matteo’s question* *murmurs quietly* It is now… and what about you? *also presses a tender kiss to his neck and then pulls away slightly to look at him* *pulls a hand away from his back and puts it on his cheek* *can feel that this movement doesn’t hurt as much as washing his hair or changing his top and is pretty relieved about that* *tenderly strokes over Matteo’s cheek, looks at him and thinks how nice it is that he’s here* *does this for a few seconds before he tilts his head with a slight smirk and asks quietly* Coffee?

Matteo: *also hummms in agreement* Same… *smiles immediately when he pulls away and looks at him* *leans a little into his hand* *then laughs at his question and nods* Yep. *quickly kisses him again and then takes his backpack off after he pulls away* *pulls the bag with the sandwiches out first and puts it onto the bed, and and then pulls the coffee out and hands it to him* Should still be pretty hot, I just made it…

David: *grins when Matteo laughs and then watches him unpack the coffee* *accepts it and sighs quietly* Thanks… *pours some of it into his mug from this morning and some for Matteo in the mug from the thermos and then pushes himself back onto the bed* *feels some pain again while doing so due to having to use his abdominal muscles, and is relieved when he finally sits the way he wants to, which is with his back leant against the wall* *then realizes that he forgot the coffee on the nightstand and laughs and groans* Oh man… could you…? *points at the mug and smiles gratefully when Matteo hands it to him* *pushes the breakfast bag aside and then pats on the free spot next to him in invitation* Breakfast, Florenzi… your stomach has already called for help on the bus… telepathically and so on… *grins slightly and then blows into his coffee*

Matteo: *watches him as he pushes himself into position on the bed and would really love to help him* *is therefore very glad when he can at least hand him the mug* *then grabs the bag and pushes himself onto the bed next to him* It’s really very useful that you have such a connection to my stomach… so from now on, I only have to ask you i I’m hungry. *laughs slightly and opens the bag* *holds it out to him after he took out a bread roll* Bread roll?

David: *grins broadly at Matteo’s words and says* I do hope that eventually you’ll hear your stomach again yourself once I’m better and that it won’t be all about me anymore… but until then I’ll gladly take over that task. *watches happily as he takes a bread roll from the bag, but then looks skeptical when he holds the bag out to him* *shakes his head and makes a negating sound* /I/ had breakfast… and the way I know this place there’ll be lunch very soon… *smiles when he takes a bite off the bread roll and realizes that he’s really also a little hungry* *sighs quietly and says* Okay… one bite… *but holds his hand out for Matteo’s bread roll, because he really only wants to take one bite* *reaches for his phone after he took a bite and swallowed it, and shows Matteo the photo that he took of himself in the mirror earlier* Look… without iodine and bandaid residue… now it only has to heal…

Matteo: *looks a little reproachful but lovingly at his words* It’s always about you… *but then grins slightly* But yes, I know what you mean… and okay… *then pfffs slightly* Yes, 5 hours or so ago… *then laughs when he wants to take a bite, after all, and holds his bread roll out to him* *reaches for his mug on the nightstand and takes a sip, but finds it still too hot and puts it back* *then looks at David’s phone* Whoa, cool, that already looks much better! *then hears a knock and sees a nurse that he doesn’t know yet come in: “Hello, Mister Schreibner… oh you already have a visitor?”*

David: *also looks at the photo again after he shows it to Matteo and smiles to himself* *looks up when there’s a knock and recognizes a nurse who has already been present during rounds this morning* *isn’t sure anymore if she introduced herself, but if she did, then he forgot her name* *still smiles slightly and nods* Yes, that’s Matteo, my boyfriend… *sees the nurse smile: “Your boyfriend, who brings his own food to not eat up your food - very laudable!”* *grins slightly and watches the nurse put his lunch down on the nightstand: “Enjoy your meal!” and with a look at Matteo: “And you, too!”* *grins slightly* Thanks! *but then remembers something* I have a question: This afternoon, there will be a few friends of ours visiting. Would it be possible to get a few more chairs from somewhere? *sees her think and then ask: “How many do you need?”* *doesn’t really want to say eight and therefore asks* How many do you have? *sees her think again: “A little further down the hallway there’s a small common room… it’s not really used that much. I’m sure you could steal three or four chairs from there…”* *smiles* Yes, great! Thank you! *sees her looking at him sternly: “But you do know that you’re not allowed to carry them, don’t you?”* *laughs quietly and nods* Yes, I know, don’t worry… and we’ll also bring them back later…

Matteo: *grins when the nurse praises him* That’s me… *nods again when she tells him to enjoy his food* Thanks, I will… *then listens to the conversation and adds* Don’t worry, we’ll all make sure that he won’t lift a finger… *sees her smile and nod slightly: “Okay… see you later then…”* *sees her leave the room again and takes another bite from his bread roll* *says with his mouth half full* We could also go downstairs later if it gets too full… well, if you’re up to it…

David: *thinks that - even if he wanted to - he wouldn’t even be close to able to lift a chair, but nods at Matteo’s words* *takes a big sip of coffee after the nurse has left the room, and then looks at Matteo when he hears his words* *nods* True… yes… if it really gets too full in here, then gladly. Or if anyone wants to drink something or whatever… *then glances at his lunch and the mug in his hand and sighs quietly, because right now it seems impossible to him to scoot all the way to the edge of the bed so that he can eat, because he doesn’t know where to put the mug* *holds it out to Matteo and asks a little desperately* Could you please hold it again? *then scoots over a little and tries to strain his abdominal muscles as little as possible* *is relieved when he also sees new pain medication on the tray, but first takes the coffee back from Matteo so that he can continue eating* *then lifts the lid off his food and sees soup and bread* *reaches for the spoon and tells him* By the way, my mother texted me… she’ll be here around 1… and Laura will pick her up here around 5… so you’ll probably see her, as well… *starts eating and realizes that he’s a little nervous about her visit* *hopes that it won’t be weird somehow*

Matteo: *nods* Yes, we’ll just see… whatever you feel like and whatever the mood is like… *then takes the mug off David, of course* Why don’t you pull the nightstand closer… hang on… *waits for David to take the mug back and then pulls the nightstand around so that it’s comfortably over David* *then hears him say when his mother will be there* Oh, that’s very fitting, then… *looks at him* Are you nervous about it?

David: *smiles when Matteo moves the nightstand around for him so that he can reach the food better* Thanks… *doesn’t know if he would have been able to manage this by himself yet, but is going to test it later* *but currently feels like he wouldn’t even be able to hold a bottle of coke for a longer period of time* *starts eating his soup when he hears Matteo’s question* *thinks briefly and then admits* I am a little bit… *sighs quietly* I don’t know… it really has been a while since I had a normal relationship with my mother… okay, the messages and the phone calls were okay… pretty good, actually… but I just know that I’m still skeptical… and that somehow, I’m still waiting on something to happen again… *then laughs quietly* What am I supposed to talk about with her alone for four hours?

Matteo: *has finished his first bread roll and wipes the crumbs off the bed* *nods slightly when he talks about his mother* I can understand that… but hey, if you have to, then you’ll just tell her about Italy… and about Venice, you can talk about that a lot, right?

David: *nods when he says that he should tell her about Italy* Hmm… maybe I’ll make a folder tomorrow morning with photos to show her… then she can look at photos… and then I can use this to tell her a little about it… and she can tell me about her holiday… *has finished half of the soup and almost the entire bread roll and reaches for the pain pill* *flushes it down with water and then continues eating* *after lunch he feels like he maybe should lie down again for a little while to relax his back and abdominal muscles before the others are coming later, and uses the moment when Matteo goes to the trash can to get rid of the bread roll bag to lie back down on the bed* *scoots over to the wall, smiles and then pats on the space next to him in invitation*

Matteo: *nods vigorously* Yes, that’s a plan… looking at photos always takes a lot of time… *then takes the bag to the trash can after he ate and smiles slightly when David is more lying down again than sitting up* *pushes the nightstand away from the table and then lies down next to David very carefully* That okay?

David: *smiles happily when Matteo really lies down next to him, but immediately thinks that he’s too far away* *humms in agreement at his question* *then grins slightly* You can come even closer… you won’t break anything or whatever… *would love to take his arm and push it under his head, but already knows that he can’t reach out and stretch that far* *turns his head toward him and curses the fact that he can’t turn on his side yet* *smiles at him desperately and pleadingly and says quietly* Come on, I’m yearning for you…

Matteo: *looks at him when he says that he can come even closer* *scoots a centimeter closer, but is still careful* *then sees his look and hears his words and says quietly* Me, too… *scoots even closer and pushes his right arm under David’s head* That alright? *presses a light kiss on his head*

David: *is glad that it doesn’t stay one centimeter and that Matteo finally really scoots quite a bit closer to him* *lifts his head a little when he pushes an arm under it and smiles at Matteo’s question* *humms in agreement* *then reaches over himself and halfway across Matteo with his right hand to search for his left hand and pull him a little closer still* *can feel some pain in his belly again due to the movement, but ignores it and places Matteo’s hand between the two sources of pain on his belly and entwines their fingers* *then relaxes again and sighs quietly* *then murmurs* It works… well… better than nothing, right?

Matteo: *entwines their fingers when David reaches for his hand, but is careful when David puts it down onto his belly* *looks at him a little skeptically at his words* Mhm… better than nothing… *runs his thumb over David’s hand and runs his other hand through David’s hair* But if it gets uncomfortable then you’ll tell me, right?

David: *leans his head against Matteo’s hand and closes his eyes when he starts to card through his hair* *would also love to be a little more active, to cuddle close to him, run a hand through his hair, to turn onto his side and kiss him, and realizes that the fact that none of this is possible right now makes him pretty unhappy* *but tries to remember that it will only be a few days and that it will get better after that and that it’s worth it to wait for a couple of days if it means that he can finally be a little bit more himself* *then hears Matteo’s words and has to grin slightly, because he’s making sure again even though he already promised him countless times that he’ll tell him when something gets too much or if it hurts* *humms in agreement, opens his eyes again and turns his head toward him* You know what would distract me pretty well from possible pain that might occur if I move too much? *grins a little and wiggles his eyebrows*

Matteo: *enjoys the closeness to David and really hopes that it isn’t uncomfortable for him, and that he definitely positions himself in a way it’s good for him* *also turns his head a little when David looks at him* *smiles slightly and then also wiggles his eyebrows* Hmmm, noooo… no idea… distraction without moving? Show me… *then grins a little wider and slowly gets closer to his face*

David: *gives him a small secretary’s-office-look when he pretends to not know what might distract him, and then laughs quietly for only a second, because laughing hurts his belly, when he says that he should show him* *groans desperately* I’d love to… but I can’t move… *but then sees him grin and come toward his face and also moves toward him a tiny bit* *releases their hands to run it through his hair at least briefly, and then closes his eyes when they finally kiss* *can’t leave his hand in his hair for much longer because his chest hurts, and lowers it again* *enjoys it very much to be a little closer to him and looks at him lovingly when they pull away from the kiss* *whispers quietly* I love you very much…

Matteo: *grins slightly* Do I have to do all the work? *closes his eyes when David runs a hand through his hair* *enjoys that very much* *then kisses him tenderly and automatically runs a hand through his hair, as well* *also looks at him lovingly and can feel this flutter of love in his stomach again* I also love you pretty very much above all… *tenderly kisses him again*

David: *when he hears his question murmurs* I’m afraid over the next few weeks you’ll have to… *before they finally kiss* *sees Matteo’s smile when he hears his words after the kiss and thinks how much he loves this sight* *then hears his reply and can feel his heart skip a beat, but still has to grin a little because Matteo naturally has to outdo him like that* *then gets kissed again and at first considers if he can somehow top his words, but then thinks that it doesn’t really matter and that Matteo knows how much he loves him and that it’s much nicer to simply concentrate on the kiss* *they make out for quite some time on the bed and he keeps wishing to be even closer to Matteo and tries to pull him closer or scoot closer to him several times* *but realizes each time that it isn’t really possible without pain and eventually stops trying, because he can see that Matteo is very well aware of the fact that he’s in pain and doesn’t want him to worry* *they get “interrupted” by a nurse at a quarter to two, who wants to pick up the tray from lunch, and they are actually quite grateful for the interruption, because they have completely lost track of time and because they are finally checking the time* *decides to go to the toilet again and to freshen up a little before the others arrive*

(next play)

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

“Elliot Page doesn’t remember exactly how long he had been asking.

But he does remember the acute feeling of triumph when, around age 9, he was finally allowed to cut his hair short. “I felt like a boy,” Page says. “I wanted to be a boy. I would ask my mom if I could be someday.” Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page visualized himself as a boy in imaginary games, freed from the discomfort of how other people saw him: as a girl. After the haircut, strangers finally started perceiving him the way he saw himself, and it felt both right and exciting.

The joy was short-lived. Months later, Page got his first break, landing a part as a daughter in a Canadian mining family in the TV movie Pit Pony. He wore a wig for the film, and when Pit Pony became a TV show, he grew his hair out again. “I became a professional actor at the age of 10,” Page says. And pursuing that passion came with a difficult compromise. “Of course I had to look a certain way.”

We are speaking in late February. It is the first interview Page, 34, has given since disclosing in December that he is transgender, in a heartfelt letter posted to Instagram, and he is crying before I have even uttered a question. “Sorry, I’m going to be emotional, but that’s cool, right?” he says, smiling through his tears.

It’s hard for him to talk about the days that led up to that disclosure. When I ask how he was feeling, he looks away, his neck exposed by a new short haircut. After a pause, he presses his hand to his heart and closes his eyes. “This feeling of true excitement and deep gratitude to have made it to this point in my life,” he says, “mixed with a lot of fear and anxiety.”

It’s not hard to understand why a trans person would be dealing with conflicting feelings in this moment. Increased social acceptance has led to more young people describing themselves as trans—1.8% of Gen Z compared with 0.2% of boomers, according to a recent Gallup poll—yet this has fueled conservatives who are stoking fears about a “transgender craze.” President Joe Biden has restored the right of transgender military members to serve openly, and in Hollywood, trans people have never had more meaningful time onscreen. Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling is leveraging her cultural capital to oppose transgender equality in the name of feminism, and lawmakers are arguing in the halls of Congress over the validity of gender identities. “Sex has become a political football in the culture wars,” says Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU.

(Full article with photos continued under the “read more”)

And so Page—who charmed America as a precocious pregnant teenager in Juno, constructed dreamscapes in Inception and now stars in Netflix’s hit superhero show The Umbrella Academy, the third season of which he’s filming in Toronto—expected that his news would be met with both applause and vitriol. “What I was anticipating was a lot of support and love and a massive amount of hatred and transphobia,” says Page. “That’s essentially what happened.” What he did not anticipate was just how big this story would be. Page’s announcement, which made him one of the most famous out trans people in the world, started trending on Twitter in more than 20 countries. He gained more than 400,000 new followers on Instagram on that day alone. Thousands of articles were published. Likes and shares reached the millions. Right-wing podcasters readied their rhetoric about “women in men’s locker rooms.” Casting directors reached out to Page’s manager saying it would be an honor to cast Page in their next big movie.

So, it was a lot. Over the course of two conversations, Page will say that understanding himself in all the specifics remains a work in progress. Fathoming one’s gender, an identity innate and performed, personal and social, fixed and evolving, is complicated enough without being under a spotlight that never seems to turn off. But having arrived at a critical juncture, Page feels a deep sense of responsibility to share his truth. “Extremely influential people are spreading these myths and damaging rhetoric—every day you’re seeing our existence debated,” Page says. “Transgender people are so very real.”

That role in Pit Pony led to other productions and eventually, when Page was 16, to a film called Mouth to Mouth. Playing a young anarchist, Page had a chance to cut his hair again. This time, he shaved it off completely. The kids at his high school teased him, but in photos he has posted from that time on social media he looks at ease. Page’s head was still shaved when he mailed in an audition tape for the 2005 thriller Hard Candy. The people in charge of casting asked him to audition again in a wig. Soon, the hair was back.

Page’s tour de force performance in Hard Candy led, two years later, to Juno, a low-budget indie film that brought Page Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and sudden megafame. The actor, then 21, struggled with the stresses of that ascension. The endless primping, red carpets and magazine spreads were all agonizing reminders of the disconnect between how the world saw Page and who he knew himself to be. “I just never recognized myself,” Page says. “For a long time I could not even look at a photo of myself.” It was difficult to watch the movies too, especially ones in which he played more feminine roles.

Page loved making movies, but he also felt alienated by Hollywood and its standards. Alia Shawkat, a close friend and co-star in 2009’s Whip It,describes all the attention from Juno as scarring. “He had a really hard time with the press and expectations,” Shawkat says. “‘Put this on! And look this way! And this is sexy!’”

By the time he appeared in blockbusters like X-Men: The Last Stand and Inception, Page was suffering from depression, anxiety and panic attacks. He didn’t know, he says, “how to explain to people that even though [I was] an actor, just putting on a T-shirt cut for a woman would make me so unwell.” Shawkat recalls Page’s struggles with clothes. “I’d be like, ‘Hey, look at all these nice outfits you’re getting,’ and he would say, ‘It’s not me. It feels like a costume,’” she says. Page tried to convince himself that he was fine, that someone who was fortunate enough to have made it shouldn’t have complaints. But he felt exhausted by the work required to “just exist,” and thought more than once about quitting acting.

In 2014, Page came out as gay, despite feeling for years that “being out was impossible” given his career. (Gender identity and sexual orientation are, of course, distinct, but one queer identity can coexist with another.) In an emotional speech at a Human Rights Campaign conference, Page talked about being part of an industry “that places crushing standards” on actors and viewers alike. “There are pervasive stereotypes about masculinity and femininity that define how we’re all supposed to act, dress and speak,” Page went on. “And they serve no one.”

The actor started wearing suits on the red carpet. He found love, marrying choreographer Emma Portner in 2018. He asserted more agency in his career, producing his own films with LGBTQ leads like Freeheld and My Days of Mercy. And he made a masculine wardrobe a condition of taking roles. Yet the daily discord was becoming unbearable. “The difference in how I felt before coming out as gay to after was massive,” says Page. “But did the discomfort in my body ever go away? No, no, no, no.”

In part, it was the isolation forced by the pandemic that brought to a head Page’s wrestling with gender. (Page and Portner separated last summer, and the two divorced in early 2021. “We’ve remained close friends,” Page says.) “I had a lot of time on my own to really focus on things that I think, in so many ways, unconsciously, I was avoiding,” he says. He was inspired by trailblazing trans icons like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, who found success in Hollywood while living authentically. Trans writers helped him understand his feelings; Page saw himself reflected in P. Carl’s memoir Becoming a Man. Eventually “shame and discomfort” gave way to revelation. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” Page says, “and letting myself fully become who I am.”

This led to a series of decisions. One was asking the world to call him by a different name, Elliot, which he says he’s always liked. Page has a tattoo that says E.P. PHONE HOME, a reference to a movie about a young boy with that name. “I loved E.T. when I was a kid and always wanted to look like the boys in the movies, right?” he says. The other decision was to use different pronouns—for the record, both he/him and they/them are fine. (When I ask if he has a preference on pronouns for the purposes of this story, Page says, “He/him is great.”)

A day before we first speak, Page will talk to his mom about this interview and she will tell him, “I’m just so proud of my son.” He grows emotional relating this and tries to explain that his mom, the daughter of a minister, who was born in the 1950s, was always trying to do what she thought was best for her child, even if that meant encouraging young Page to act like a girl. “She wants me to be who I am and supports me fully,” Page says. “It is a testament to how people really change.”

Another decision was to get top surgery. Page volunteers this information early in our conversation; at the time he posted his disclosure on Instagram, he was recovering in Toronto. Like many trans people, Page emphasizes being trans isn’t all about surgery. For some people, it’s unnecessary. For others, it’s unaffordable. For the wider world, the media’s focus on it has sensationalized transgender bodies, inviting invasive and inappropriate questions. But Page describes surgery as something that, for him, has made it possible to finally recognize himself when he looks in the mirror, providing catharsis he’s been waiting for since the “total hell” of puberty. “It has completely transformed my life,” he says. So much of his energy was spent on being uncomfortable in his body, he says. Now he has that energy back.

For the transgender community at large, visibility does not automatically lead to acceptance. Around the globe, transgender people deal disproportionately with violence and discrimination. Anti-trans hate crimes are on the rise in the U.K. along with increasingly transphobic rhetoric in newspapers and tabloids. In the U.S., in addition to the perennial challenges trans people face with issues like poverty and homelessness, a flurry of bills in state legislatures would make it a crime to provide transition-related medical care to trans youth. And crass old jokes are still in circulation. When Biden lifted the ban on open service for transgender troops, Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che did a bit on Weekend Update about the policy being called “don’t ask, don’t tuck.”

Page says coming out as trans was “selfish” on one level: “It’s for me. I want to live and be who I am.” But he also felt a moral imperative to do so, given the times. Human identity is complicated and mysterious, but politics insists on fitting everything into boxes. In today’s culture wars, simplistic beliefs about gender—e.g., chromosomes = destiny—are so widespread and so deep-seated that many people who hold those beliefs don’t feel compelled to consider whether they might be incomplete or prejudiced. On Feb. 24, after a passionate debate on legislation that would ban discrimination against LGBTQ people, Representative Marie Newman, an Illinois Democrat, proudly displayed the pride flag in support of her daughter, who is trans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, responded by hanging a poster outside her office that read: There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.

The next day Dr. Rachel Levine, who stands to become the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate, endured a tirade from Senator Rand Paul about “genital mutilation” during her confirmation hearing. My second conversation with Page happens shortly after this. He brings it up almost immediately, and seems both heartbroken and determined. He wants to emphasize that top surgery, for him, was “not only life-changing but lifesaving.” He implores people to educate themselves about trans lives, to learn how crucial medical care can be, to understand that lack of access to it is one of the many reasons that an estimated 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide, according to one survey.

Page has been in the political trenches for a while, having leaned into progressive activism after coming out as queer in 2014. For two seasons, he and best friend Ian Daniel filmed Gaycation, a Viceland series that explored LGBTQ culture around the world and, at one point, showed Page grilling Senator Ted Cruz at the Iowa State Fair about discrimination against queer people. In 2019, Page made a documentary called There’s Something in the Water, which explores environmental hardships experienced by communities of color in Nova Scotia, with $350,000 of his own money. That activism extends to his own industry: in 2017, he published a Facebook post that, among other things, accused director Brett Ratner of forcibly outing him as gay on the set of an X-Men movie. (A representative for Ratner did not respond to a request for comment.)

As a trans person who is white, wealthy and famous, Page has a unique kind of privilege, and with it an opportunity to advocate for those with less. According to the U.S. Trans Survey, a large-scale report from 2015, transgender people of color are more likely to experience unemployment, harassment by police and refusals of medical care. Nearly half of all Black respondents reported being denied equal treatment, verbally harassed and/or physically attacked in the past year. Trans people as a group fare much worse on such stats than the general population. “My privilege has allowed me to have resources to get through and to be where I am today,” Page says, “and of course I want to use that privilege and platform to help in the ways I can.”

Since his disclosure, Page has been mostly quiet on social media. One exception has been to tweet on behalf of the ACLU, which is in the midst of fighting anti-trans bills and laws around the country, including those that ban transgender girls and women from participating in sports. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says he will sign such a bill in the name of “protect[ing] young girls.” Page played competitive soccer and vividly recalls the agony of being told he would have to play on the girls’ team once he aged out of mixed-gender squads. After an appeal, Page was allowed to play with the boys for an additional year. Today, several bills list genitalia as a requirement for deciding who plays on which team. “I would have been in that position as a kid,” Page says. “It’s horrific.”

All this advocacy is unlikely to make life easier. “You can’t enter into certain spaces as a public trans person,” says the ACLU’s Strangio, “without being prepared to spend some percentage of your life being threatened and harassed.” Yet, while he seems overwhelmed at times, Page is also eager. Many of the political attacks on trans people—whether it is a mandate that bathroom use be determined by birth sex, a blanket ban on medical interventions for trans kids or the suggestion that trans men are simply wayward women beguiled by male privilege—carry the same subtext: that trans people are mistaken about who they are. “We know who we are,” Page says. “People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”

Even if Page weren’t vocal, his public presence would communicate something powerful. That is in part because of what Paisley Currah, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, calls “visibility gaps.” Historically, trans women have been more visible, in culture and in Hollywood, than trans men. There are many explanations: Our culture is obsessed with femininity. Men’s bodies are less policed and scrutinized. Patriarchal people tend to get more emotional about who is considered to be in the same category as their daughters. “And a lot of trans men don’t stand out as trans,” says Currah, who is a trans man himself. “I think we’ve taken up less of the public’s attention because masculinity is sort of the norm.”

During our interviews, Page will repeatedly refer to himself as a “transgender guy.” He also calls himself nonbinary and queer, but for him, transmasculinity is at the center of the conversation right now. “It’s a complicated journey,” he says, “and an ongoing process.”

While the visibility gap means that trans men have been spared some of the hate endured by trans women, it has also meant that people like Page have had fewer models. “There were no examples,” Page says of growing up in Halifax in the 1990s. There are many queer people who have felt “that how they feel deep inside isn’t a real thing because they never saw it reflected back to them,” says Tiq Milan, an activist, author and transgender man. Page offers a reflection: “They can see that and say, ‘You know what, that’s who I am too,’” Milan says. When there aren’t examples, he says, “people make monsters of us.”

For decades, that was something Hollywood did. As detailed in the 2020 Netflix documentary Disclosure, transgender people have been portrayed onscreen as villainous and deceitful, tragic subplots or the butt of jokes. In a sign of just how far the industry has come—spurred on by productions like Pose and trailblazers like Mock—Netflix offered to change the credits on The Umbrella Academy the same day that its star posted his statement on social media. Now when an episode ends, the first words viewers see are “Elliot Page.”

Today, there are many out trans and nonbinary actors, directors and producers. Storylines involving trans people are more common, more respectful. Sometimes that aspect of identity is even incidental, rather than the crux of a morality tale. And yet Hollywood can still seem a frightening place for LGBTQ people to come out. “It’s an industry that says, ‘Don’t do that,’” says director Silas Howard, who got his break on Amazon’s show Transparent, which made efforts to hire transgender crew members. “I wouldn’t have been hired if they didn’t have a trans initiative,” Howard says. “I’m always aware of that.”

So what will it mean for Page’s career? While Page has appeared in many projects, he also faced challenges landing female leads because he didn’t fit Hollywood’s narrow mold. Since Page’s Instagram post, his team is seeing more activity than they have in years. Many of the offers coming in—to direct, to produce, to act—are trans-related, but there are also some “dude roles.”

Downtime in quarantine helped Page accept his gender identity. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” he says.

Page was attracted to the role of Vanya in The Umbrella Academy because—in the first season, released in 2019—Vanya is crushed by self-loathing, believing herself to be the only ordinary sibling in an extraordinary family. The character can barely summon the courage to move through the world. “I related to how much Vanya was closed off,” Page says. Now on set filming the third season, co-workers have seen a change in the actor. “It seems like there’s a tremendous weight off his shoulders, a feeling of comfort,” says showrunner Steve Blackman. “There’s a lightness, a lot more smiling.” For Page, returning to set has been validating, if awkward at times. Yes, people accidentally use the wrong pronouns—“It’s going to be an adjustment,” Page says—but co-workers also see and acknowledge him.

The debate over whether cisgender people, who have repeatedly collected awards for playing trans characters, should continue to do so has largely been settled. However, trans actors have rarely been considered for cisgender parts. Whatever challenges might lie ahead, Page seems exuberant about playing a new spectrum of roles. “I’m really excited to act, now that I’m fully who I am, in this body,” Page says. “No matter the challenges and difficult moments of this, nothing amounts to getting to feel how I feel now.”

This includes having short hair again. During our interview, Page keeps rearranging strands on his forehead. It took a long time for him to return to the barber’s chair and ask to cut it short, but he got there. And how did that haircut feel?

Page tears up again, then smiles. “I just could not have enjoyed it more,” he says.”

[dangerous-mess]

Holiday Troubles

Characters: Aizawa, trans male reader

Contains: Unsupportive family, transphobia, homophobia, misgendering, mentions of a deadname (D/N), mentions of religion and praying, mentions of dysphoria, angst, hurt/comfort, angst with fluff ending. This was written mainly as a comfort fic during the winter holidays but wanted to post this here (originally posted on AO3). Please read with caution as this content may be triggering for some

Word Count: 2K+ 

The holidays were always rough for you, being not only gay but transgender as well. There were the off-putting tension and feelings every time you walked in the room, and the side glances and judgemental glares that were shot your way if you were even caught wearing something feminine and not masculine. Mostly from your parents and family, feeling the obligation that you had to follow gender norms in the hope to not only pass but to be taken seriously in your own identity.

The holidays got a little easier once you married your now husband. He made visiting your family a bit easier and made the holidays in general, more enjoyable for you. This year, unfortunately, he had meetings and a nightly patrol that he couldn’t get out of, so you were left to go to the Christmas family gathering by yourself.

The day came, and needless to say, you were a nervous mess. You dressed up in a suit, something masculine of course to appease your family and keep those comments at bay. Though, you knew you weren’t in the clear as there was still a high chance of being deadnamed and misgendered by family who were unsupportive or others who just didn’t try. Your husband, Shouta, let you know before he left early that morning that if you needed anything at all to give him or Hizashi a call and they would come and get you in a heartbeat. He said Hizashi, just in case he couldn’t be reached, which was fine with you, Hizashi had become a close friend to you.

You arrived at your parent's house a little later than they asked, just cause you were nervous and needed more time to prepare for this evening. You knocked on the front door, adjusting your suit as you waited for someone to open the door, only to be greeted by one of your younger siblings. They gave you a big hug, before dragging you inside where you were greeted by family. Your grandmother was the first to deadname you. She called out as you talked to your uncle, a devious smile on her face as the name rolled off her tongue. You cringed hearing it and so badly wanted to correct her, but if your mother caught wind that you did, who knows what drama may pursue. You endured the conversation with her, as she made sure to drop in your deadname every chance she could get.

“Honestly D/N, you really should stop playing dress up and realize that you are a girl. Your husband would be so much happier to have a wife who knows her place and not some confused girl.”

You took a deep breath and bid your goodbyes to your grandmother as you went to find someone else to talk to. Eventually, dinner was called, and you all gathered around and your grandfather said a prayer. You looked down at your feet the entire time, not really wanting to participate in the prayer. Soon it wrapped up and a line formed into the kitchen to get food. After everyone got food, everyone gathered around and talked, telling stories of things that happened within the past year in their lives, as well as asking questions to others to get the latest scoop. You just decided to eat silently, trying to not participate in the gossip fest happening before you.

“So Y/N, how are you and your husband doing?” Your dad asked before he took a sip of a beer. You held up your pointer finger, signaling that you needed a moment as your finished chewing food before you smiled and spoke.

“Oh, we are doing well! He sends his deepest apologies that he couldn’t make it, hero duties called.” You smiled, taking a quick glance around the room. Some whispers were exchanged, knowing it was about you and Shouta. It was clear that besides your family not supporting your identity, they also did not support your marriage to a hero. Especially a hero who was supportive of you and your identity.

“Honestly, how she manages to keep such a hero man, is insane. Like who would wanna marry some confused lesbian?” One of your aunts spoke out. You gripped your glass tightly, biting your tongue, not wanting to start any issues.

Other family members chimed in to add on to your aunt's comment and soon it became too much. You quickly excused yourself and went to the bathroom farthest away from your family. You pulled out your phone and texted your husband. You told him that you needed him or Hizashi or someone to come to pick you up, as you originally walked, as it was nice earlier prior to the sun setting. You quickly got a reply, saying your husband was on his way, and that he was getting someone to cover the rest of his patrol. You felt a bit bad to interrupt and have him leave his patrol, but god you just needed him right now more than anything.

You hid amongst the rooms as you waited for Shouta to send you a message or signal that he was here. Your mom called out your name, walking down the hall looking for you. The smile on her face dropped as she saw you and grabbed your arm.

“Come on Y/N, we are about to exchange gifts. Stop trying to hide and be nice and spend time with your family. It took a lot of work and effort to get everyone here, like your grandparents who haven’t seen you in ages.” Your mom aggressively whispered at you, as she pulled you towards the living room. You stayed silently, hoping that your husband would be here soon.

Your mom let you go and pointed to a chair near the tree. You sat down and were handed some gifts. You slowly opened them, trying not to draw attention to yourself. The first gift was in a gift bag, and opening it exposed a colorful piece of clothing. You pulled it out and it was a sundress. Although you didn’t mind breaking gender norms, dresses were never your thing, they held too many bad memories and made you dysphoric. You frowned, not having the energy to fake a smile. You felt your mind start to spiral before a voice pulled you out.

“Oh, D/N do you not like it. I made sure to even get the right size and everything. I thought you could put that on and surprise your husband when you go home. Imagine how he would react to see his wife, finally coming to terms with herself.” Your grandmother called out, staring at you the entire time. You went to open your mouth when another voice spoke up.

“Actually, I think my husband looks handsome and perfect just the way he is in the suit he is wearing, but thank you. Maybe we can save the dress and give it to one of my students, I know one of them would get much better use of it.” Shouta’s voice boomed out, making a hush fall across the room. You never heard the front door open, but then again Shouta was very good at staying silent. You looked at your husband, feeling all your emotions and feelings starting to rise to the surface. You caught a dirty look your mother gave you as you stood up and made your way over to Shouta.

He held out his hand as you got closer and held it tightly, quickly bidding goodbye for you both as he quickly led you outside to the car that was waiting outside and still running. “I had Hizashi drive me over, hope that’s okay.” You just nodded at him, not letting go of his hand until you got into the car. As soon as you and Shouta were in the car, Hizashi sped off.

“Heya listener, how did it go?” Hizashi asked out, peeking into the mirror looking back at you.

“I lasted longer than last year, so that’s a new record at least.” You joked, trying not to cry. At least not now, you had to make it until you were home and in bed, with your husband holding you close.

Hizashi talked most of the ride home, while Shouta kept glancing back at you. You tried to listen to what was being said, but you couldn’t focus, so you just looked out the window, slightly dozing off. You woke up to the feeling of being carried, your eyes adjusted as you saw Shouta was carrying you into the house and to the bedroom. On any other occasion, if he was carrying you like this you were bound to tease or crack a joke or something, but in this moment you just stayed in his arms, gripping onto him tightly. Once you both got to the bedroom, he helped you undress and slip on something comfy. After he finished helping you, he quickly changed and climbed into bed, pulling you close to him and holding you tightly.

For a while, you just laid there in his arms, fighting back the urge to scream and cry. Though, after he comforted you and let you know it was okay to be upset and that you could let it all out. In which you did, you sobbed in his chest for what felt like hours. You screamed and sobbed and let out all the feelings you bottled up for the few hours you were at the family gathering. Eventually, you ran out of tears to cry and were only left with your own thoughts. You were overthinking, mostly dwelling on the words your family spoke out to you this evening, and couldn’t help but question if it was true.

“Sho...I’ve got to ask you something, kind of important.” You gently pushed away and sat up in the bed, looking at him. He stared at you, and nodded, letting you know it was okay to continue on. You took a deep breath and went for it, “Am I enough for you? I brought a lot of baggage and trouble into our relationship and I know it can’t be easy for you dating me, specifically with the backlash and comments that get made by my family and others about me transitioning and just. If you were with anyone else, I feel like you won’t get all this drama and I’m sorry I’ve brought so much of it onto you Shouta.”

You watched as his facial expression changed and you quickly looked away, finding interest in anything that wasn’t his face, afraid of what his reaction not only meant but the words that were about to follow. “Y/N, please look at me.” You slowly looked up and he placed a hand on your cheek. “I love you Y/N. I love you for you, you are my husband and I won’t want anyone else besides me. You are more than enough for me. And we both have a lot of baggage but that doesn’t change my feelings for you, we can work through it all together. I meant what I said in my vows and at our wedding and I still stand by it. Forever and always.”

You fiddled with your fingers before speaking up, “I love you Shouta so much, I’m just afraid one day I won’t be enough, cause as silly as it is, I don’t feel masculine or manly enough, that you’ll find more of a ‘real’ man one day and just leave me behind.” Tears filled your eyes and you looked down, just wanting to hide under the blankets.

“Y/N Aizawa, you are absolutely masculine and manly enough. I will never find anyone else or more a man than you. You are all I want, and all I need. I love you so much, don’t ever doubt my love for you, cause it is never-ending sweetheart.” Shouta spoke out, lifting your head up and placing a small kiss on your forehead before pulling you into his arms, holding you close. You just stayed there close, as Shouta whispered sweet nothings into your ear as you drifted off to sleep.

Shouta always made the holidays more bearable, but he also made life in general easier. He made waking up a little easier and helped with your hectic thoughts to calm you down. He truly was the love of your life and the best you could ever ask for. You couldn’t have gotten any luckier to have a husband as sweet and perfect as you. He may not be the number one hero to the rest of the world, but in your eyes and his heart, he was, he was your number one hero.

[elamarth-calmagol]

What actually is LACE? (an informal essay)

What’s LACE?

Laws and Customs among the Eldar, or LACE, is the most popular section of the History of Middle Earth books.  It's available online as a PDF here: http://faculty.smu.edu/bwheeler/tolkien/online_reader/T-LawsandCustoms.pdf .  There’s a lot of LACE analysis in the fandom, Silmarillion smut fics are usually labeled “LACE compliant” or “not LACE compliant”, and I’ve been seeing the document itself show up in actual fics, meaning that the characters themselves are discussing it.

LACE is an unfinished, non-canonical essay split into several parts.  It covers the sexuality of elves, which is mostly what people talk about.  It also covers elvish naming (which I want to make a whole different post about), the speed at which elves grow up, changes that happen throughout their lives, their death and rebirth, and finally the legal and moral issues of Finwe remarrying after Miriel’s death.  The discussion about rebirth conflicts with Tolkien’s later writings about Glorfindel’s re-embodiment, but to the best of my knowledge, LACE is the best or only source for most of the topics it covers.

However, LACE is not canon since it doesn’t show up in the Silmarillion.  Counting all of the History of Middle Earth as canon is literally impossible, considering Tolkien contradicts himself all over the place.  It is only useful because it has so much information that is never discussed in the actual canon.  Many people consider it canon out of convenience.

Another important thing to remember is that, other than presumably the discussion of the growth of elvish children, the information is only supposed to apply to the Eldar (meaning the Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri, and Sindar) and not the dark-elves such as the Silvan elves and Avari.

The rest is behind the cut to avoid clogging your feeds.

Problems with LACE interpretations

But because it’s hidden in the History of Middle Earth (volume 10, Morgoth’s Ring), barely anyone actually gets the opportunity to read it.  I don’t think most people are aware that you can get it online, so it doesn't get read much.

I feel like this leads to a handful of people saying something about LACE and everyone else going along with it.  I definitely did this.  I was amazed by all the things that were in the actual essay that nobody had ever told me about, or had told me incorrectly.  For example, most people seem to believe that elves become married at the completion of sexual intercourse (whatever that means to the fic author).  In fact, LACE explicitly says that elves must take an oath using the name of Eru in order to be legally married.  Specifically: 

It was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete… [I]t was at all times lawful for any of the Eldar, being both unwed, to marry thus of free consent one to another without ceremony or witness (save blessings exchanged and the naming of the Name); and the union so joined was alike indissoluble.

I’ve seen a marriage oath being included in a few stories recently, but most writers leave out the oath entirely and just have sex be automatically equivalent to marriage.  What would happen if elves had sex without swearing an oath?  I don’t know, but I’d love to see it explored.

Then there’s a footnote that might explicitly deny the existence of transgender elves... or not, but I’ve literally only seen it mentioned once or twice.  Overall, I feel like all of LACE is filtered through the handful of people who read it, and we’re missing out on a lot of metanalysis and interpretations that we could have because most fans never see the actual document.

Who wrote LACE?

I mean within the mythology of Middle Earth, of course.  Since LACE appears in the History of Middle Earth and not the Silmarillion, we can be pretty sure that J.R.R. Tolkien himself wrote it and it wasn’t added to by Christopher Tolkien.  But that’s not the question here.  Remember that Tolkien’s frame narrative for all of his Middle Earth work is that he is a scholar of ancient times and is translating documents from Westron and Sindarin for modern audiences to read and understand.  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings come from the Red Book of Westmarch, and I believe The Silmarillion is meant to be Tolkien’s own writings based on his research (though it might also be an adaption of Bilbo’s “Translations from the Elvish”, but I haven't looked into that).  So what does LACE come from?

Christopher Tolkien admits in his notes that he doesn’t know.  He says, “It is clear in any case that this is presented as the work, not of one of the Eldar, but of a Man,” and I agree, because of the way it seems to be written as an ethnographic study rather than by someone who lives in the culture.  Honestly, it talks too much about how elves are seen by Men (e.g. speculating that elf-children might look like the children of Men) to be written by an elf.  This changes once it gets to the Doom of Finwe and Miriel, but that could be, and probably is, a story told to the writer by an elf who was there at the time.

Tolkien actually references Aelfwine in the second version of the text.  The original story behind The Lost Tales, which was the abandoned first version of the Silmarillion, was that a man from the Viking period named Aelfwine/Eriol stumbled onto the Straight Road and found himself on Tol Eressea.  He spoke to the elves and brought back their stories to England with him.  So it makes a lot of sense that Aelfwine would also write about the lives and customs of the elves for an audience of his own people.

Does LACE exist in Middle Earth?

I keep finding fics where first age elves discuss “the Laws and Customs” openly, as if it’s a text in their own world.  I usually get the impression that it was brought by the Noldor from Valinor.  But did the document actually exist in that time period?  For me, the answer is definitely not.

First of all, LACE was probably written by a Man, meaning it could not have dated back to Valinor in the years of the Trees, because Men hadn’t awaked yet.  In fact, the closest thing to an established frame narrative for it is that it was written by Aelfwine, who comes from the time period around 1000 CE (though Tolkien doesn’t seem to have pinned him down).  This is at least the fifth age, if not later.

But what if you don’t believe that it was written by a Man?  It still couldn’t have been written in the First Age, because it discusses the way the relationship between elves’ bodies and souls changes as ages go by.  For example:

As ages passed the dominance of their fear ever increased, ‘consuming’ their bodies... The end of this process is their ‘fading’, as Men have called it.

A lot of time has to go by in order for elves to get to the point of fading.  As a bonus, here’s another reference to the perspective of Men. LACE also discusses the dangers that “houseless feas”, which are souls of elves who do not go to Mandos after their bodies died, pose to Men.  How would they have known about that in the First Age?  It further says that “more than one rebirth is seldom recorded” (which isn’t contradicted anywhere I know of), and that’s not something you would know during your life of joy in Valinor, where almost nobody dies.  That’s something you learn after millennia of war.  This has to be a document written well after the Silmarillion ends.

So what about the sex part?  That’s all we care about, right?  Well, it is entirely possible that this was written down by the elves and Aelfwine translated it (though my impression is that he mostly recorded stories told orally to him and that elves were not very much into writing, at least in Valinor where you could get stories directly from someone who experienced them).  However, why would the elves write this down?  They know how quickly their children grow up.  They’ve seen actual marriages.  They don’t need that described to them.  And if they did have a specific document or story explaining the expectations of them when it comes to sex and marriage, why would they call it “Laws and Customs”?  That’s a very strange name for a set of rules for conduct.  I’m sure they had a list of laws written out somewhere in great detail, like our own state or national laws (that seems very in character for the Noldor, at least).  But I seriously doubt that those laws are what we’ve been given to read. LACE is not an elvish or Valinoran document.

Is LACE prescriptive or descriptive?

Here’s the other big question I’m interested in.  Prescriptive means that the document describes the way people should behave.  Descriptive means that it describes how people do behave.  And the more I worldbuild for Middle Earth and the culture of elves, the more I want to say that LACE is prescriptive in its discussion of sex, marriage, and gender roles.

But wait.  I’ve been saying for paragraphs that I think LACE is Aelfwine or another Man’s ethnographic study of elvish culture.  Then it has to be descriptive, right?

Does it?  How long do we think Aelfwine stayed with the elves?  Did he wait fifty years to see a child grow up?  Did he get to witness a wedding ceremony?  Did he meet houseless fea?  I don’t think he could have done all of that.  Maybe a different Man who spent his entire life with the elves could, but then when was this written?  When the elves were still marrying and having children in Middle Earth or when so much time had gone by that they had begun to fade already?

Whoever wrote this was told a lot of information by elves instead of experiencing it firsthand, the same way he heard the stories from the First Age from the elves instead of being there.  Maybe it was one elf who talked to him, maybe several different ones.  But did those elves accurately describe their society the way it was, give him the easiest description, or explain the way it was supposed to be?  If I was describing modern-day America, would I discuss premarital sex or just our dating and marriage customs?  Maybe people would come away from a talk with me thinking that moving in together equated to marriage for Americans in the early 21st century.  And I don’t even have an agenda to show America in a certain way, I'm just bad at explaining.  Did the elves talking to what may have been the first Man they had seen in millennia have an agenda in the way they presented themselves?

Or did the writer himself have an agenda?  Imagine going to see these beautiful, mythical, perfect beings, and you find out that they behave in the same immoral ways Men do.  Do you want to share the truth back home?  Or do you leave out things that don't match your worldview? Did Aelfwine come back wanting to tell people what elves were really like?  Or did he want to say “this is how you can be holy and perfect like an elf”?

Anyone studying the Age of Exploration will tell you that Europeans neber wrote about new cultures objectively, and often things were made up to fit the writer’s idea of what savages looked like. For example, my Native American history teacher in college told a story of how explorers described one tribe who (sensibly) didn't wear clothes as cannibals, because cannibalism and going around naked went together in their minds and not because of any actual incident.  Unbiased scholarship barely existed yet. Even Tolkien was extremely biased and tended to be imperialistic, as we all know.  There’s absolutely no reason to think that Aelfwine wasn’t biased in his own way.  (Of course, now we have to consider what biases a Danish or English man from the centuries around 1000 would have when it comes to things like gender roles. I assume he would have been more into divorce and female warriors than the elves are said to be.)

But is that what Tolkien intended? Probably not. He probably wanted LACE to be descriptive. But he also never got much of a chance to analyse the essay after the fact, which might have led to him discussing its accuracy and even the exact issues I just pointed out about explorers. Anyway, we know he's biased, and honestly, what he intended has never slowed down the fandom before.

Conclusion

In short, I take LACE to be a prescriptive document describing the way elvish culture is supposed to be, not a blueprint I have to stick to in order to correctly portray elves.  I also don’t believe the document that’s available for us to read existed even in the early Fourth Age, where The Lord of the Rings leaves off.  There maybe have been some document outlining the moral behavior of elves, as a set of laws, but thats not the Laws and Customs we have.

Of course, canon is up to you to interpret.  If you want Feanor discussing LACE with someone back in Valinor, go ahead.  If you want to throw out LACE entirely, go ahead.  It’s not even a canonical essay.  All of this analysis is honestly useless when you consider the fact that no part of LACE exists in any canonical book.

But that’s Tolkien analysis for you.

[everythingloureed]

Humphreys was raised in Bridgeton, NJ, and San Antonio, TX. It was said that the family were of part Mexican Native descent. An apparent trans child who played with dolls, and wore girls’ clothes, Humphreys wanted to do people’s hair. As Rachel she graduated in hair-dressing at a cosmetology school in Bayonne, NJ, (north of Staten Island, across the river from Manhattan).

She was a regular at Max's Kansas City, the hip and glam rock nightclub on Park Avenue South. She also frequented the 82 Club on E 4th St which was in transition from a transvestite performance club to a glam rock and then punk club.  The New York Dolls did their first show there on April 17, 1974, when they performed in drag, except for Johnny Thunders who refused. They were followed by Wayne County (not yet using the name Jayne) and short-lived glitter bands like Teenage Lust and Harlots of 42nd Street.

It was there at this time that Rachel met Lou Reed, the musician. Lou described Rachel in an interview with Bambi magazine:

"It was in a late night club in Greenwich Village. I’d been up for days as usual and everything was at that super-real, glowing stage. I walked in there and there was this amazing person, this incredible head, kind of vibrating out of it all. Rachel was wearing this amazing make-up and dress and was obviously in a different world to anyone else in the place. Eventually I spoke and she came home with me. I rapped for hours and hours, while Rachel just sat there looking at me saying nothing. At the time I was living with a girl, a crazy blonde lady and I kind of wanted us all three to live together but somehow it was too heavy for her. Rachel just stayed on and the girl moved out. Rachel was completely disinterested in who I was and what I did. Nothing could impress her. He’d hardly heard my music and didn’t like it all that much when he did. Rachel knows how to do it for me. No one else ever did before. Rachel’s something else.”

She moved in with him right away. He was then living in a modest one-bedroom apartment at 405 East 63rd Street. Lou had already written a few songs about trans women, and with the single, “Walk on the Wild Side” (which referred to the Andy Warhol-sponsored trans stars, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis) had his biggest hit. Rachel was at this time oscillating. Some days she was Ricky, and others he was Rachel. People who knew Lou and Rachel used either pronoun. One journalist referred to Lou’s ‘boyfriend named Rachel’. Both Lou and Rachel enjoyed the confusion and further muddied the water by wearing each other’s clothes. She was street-wise and spunky in a way that Lou only pretended to be. She was said to always carry a knife, and was good in a fight – which proved useful when a concert at the Pallazzo dello Sport in Rome turned into a riot 15 February 1975.

Lou had been working on his fourth solo album, Sally Can’t Dance – the title track and spin-off single assumed to refer to trans woman, Sally Maggio, who was manager at the 220 Club, another trans bar where Lou went drinking. Sally would in the 1980s open Sally’s Hideaway, and then Sally’s II, again a bar for trans persons and with trans performers. However it was Rachel whose image was on the obverse of the Sally Can’t Dance LP sleeve, drawn as if reflected in Lou’s shades.

She supported him on some of his tours. In New York, they lived for a while in the Gramercy Park Hotel, and then an upscale apartment on East 52nd St at FDR Drive where Henry Kissinger, Greta Garbo and John Lennon had lived. In 1975 they began to frequent the rather grimey but seminal punk club, CBGBs. Lou was recording Coney Island Baby, released January 1976 and several tracks refer to Rachel. At the end of the follow-up tour, Rachel was mugged and assaulted. A doctor was called, who inevitably referred to Rachel as ‘she’, even though Lou was saying ‘he’. As Aidan Levy says:

“Rachel had been contemplating gender reassignment surgery, but the transgender rights movement had not yet solidified, and not fully understanding the nature of the decision, Lou was adamantly opposed to any operations, a growing source of conflict in their relationship”.

Despite this, a friend commented: ““I think that Rachel was the glue holding Lou together, or at least keeping him in the public view in many respects … I know that he doted on her. If there was a light shining, it was the two of them together. It doesn’t mean it was the healthiest relationship in the world.” The cover of Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed, 1977 is of photographs of the two of them.

Rachel acted as road-manager on the next tour, managed the money, and watched over the road-crew. They were in London for their third anniversary and ordered a three-tier cake to celebrate, and Lou gave her two diamond rings. He said:

"Rachel knows how to do it for me, no one else before ever did”.

However by the end of 1977, Lou and Rachel were fighting more and more, and frequently it was about the issue of transgender surgery. She had a date for surgery but backed off as Lou said:

“Well why are you doing that? I love you because of the way you are”.

The title track of Street Hassle, 1978, is about her, and an article in Rolling Stone referred to Rachel as the raison d’etre of the album, although in fact it marked the end of their relationship. Lou moved on, having met Sylvia Morales, who became his third wife in 1980.

Reed completely refused to talk about Rachel after 1978. He desisted and decided to go straight. Both his later marriages were with cis women.

Rachel died in 1990 age 37 at St Clare’s Hospital, which specialized in treating AIDS patients, and she was interred in the gigantic pauper burial site on Hart Island off the Bronx coast (which contains over a million corpses).

Lou died in 2013, aged 71, from liver failure.

LegsMcNeil & Gillian McCain. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. Penguin books, 1997: 154-5, 206.

Marc Campbell.  "Rachel: Lou Reed’s transsexual muse".  Dangerous Minds, 02.06.2013.  Online.

Howard Sounes. Notes from the Velvet Underground: The Life of Lou Reed. Doubleday, 2015: 182-4, 187, 189, 191, 192, 194, 195, 202, 203, 205, 208, 212, 213, 214, 215-6, 221-2, 226, 229, 235, 248, 269.

Simon Reynolds. Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-First Century. William Morrow Publishers, 2016: 271-2.

Aidan Levy. Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed. Chicago Review Press, 2016: 221-2, 227, 233, 244, 251-3, 264, 285.

Corey Kilgannon.  "Dead of AIDS and Forgotten in Potter's Field:  In an untold chapter of the AIDS epidemic, scores of unclaimed bodies were buried in a remote spot on Hart Island.  How many exactly remains unclear".  New York Times, July 3, 2018.  Online.