#also im old tumblr im old tumblr and i think i will always be old tumblr im just not catching on to new shit anymore

[trans-axolotl]

my gendered experience growing up as an intersex person was overwhelmingly defined by my responses and resistance to everything that got me labeled as a failure: failure to quickly get a gender assigned at birth, failure to go through a normal puberty and grow up into a woman, failure at meeting the standards for "complete womanhood" because of my intersex sex traits, and yet simultaneously failing to ever be acknowledged as a "real man" and being treated as a threat when I expressed I wanted to transition.

before i realized i was a man and came out as trans, the ways that girlhood was denied to me was very often humiliating and painful. locker rooms filled with other girls were a frequent source of shame. there were many big and small ways that i was told that my intersex body made me insufficient, incomplete, broken. i was forced onto estrogen, forced into shaving my body hair, and was constantly being told to change myself to better fit this mystical idea of a "normal woman." and even though I ultimately ended up becoming a man, the denial of girlhood was painful.

but i think that these things would have been even more difficult to navigate as an intersex girl if on top of everything I already said, i was having to cope with the denial of my girlhood while i was forced into boys locker rooms. if my doctors were forcing me onto testosterone hrt and refusing to even discuss estrogen, if all my legal paperwork had "M" on it and was a logistical nightmare to change, if every support group for my intersex variation labeled it as a "men's support group," if the LGBTQ community spaces i tried to join were misogynistic towards me often to the point of exile, if my self determination as an intersex girl was denied in most spaces of my life, and on and on and on. while listing all these things out i also don't want to make it seem like it's all about suffering and pain--so much of transition for me has been about joy in my self determination and how much it feels like a reclamation of autonomy to decide what I want my body and self to be like--i know this is an experience i share with so many of my trans intersex friends.

as an person who was AFAB, although there were many ways that trying to grow up as an intersex girl were a painful, logistical nightmare, many times and places that i was excluded from woman's spaces, etc. however, there was a simultaneous affirmation that i was right to strive for that in the first place. which is logic rooted in some fucked up compulsory dyadism, but also which would have made some things slightly easier or even possible at all if i had wanted to embrace being an intersex girl within this fucked up system.

pretty much every time i've seen people on tumblr talking about "afab transfems" in an intersex context, people seem happy to collapse these experiences and act like there's no meaningful distinction or point in distinguishing between different types of intersex embodiment. it seems incredibly extractive, to be perfectly honest with you--taking terms already used by a community to make meaning of their experiences and to expand and dilute that term enough that it means something pretty different than the original.

it's making me think about the concept of epistemic injustice, which is a term coined by Miranda Fricker to describe oppression related to knowledge, communication, and making meaning of the world. There's two subtypes of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice refers to the dynamic where marginalized people are labeled as not credible, excluded from conversations, and their testimony and knowledge is labeled as unreliable, even when they're the ones who are experts and have first hand experience of what people are talking about. (this is why i probably won't make this post rebloggable--i've noticed this pattern on tumblr many times where trans men speaking about transmisogyny get lots of notes and are given a lot of grace, where trans women are silenced, attacked for not having perfect wording, and otherwise delegitimized.)

the second type is called hermeneutical injustice. it describes how marginalized people are denied the right to make sense of the experiences in their own lives. this can look like preventing people from building community, terminology, a political understanding of themselves, and the interpretive resources needed to process how you live in the world.

this is a form of injustice that I think almost all intersex people are very familiar with--we are denied community and interpretive resources to the point that we're told we don't even exist, that intersex isn't a real word, and so many more examples that leave us isolated and with very few options for understanding what we're collectively experiencing. as an intersex person i really intimately understand how frustrating, confusing, and painful it is to not have words for your experiences, your identity, your life.

so it makes me really sad and pissed off when it seems like intersex people seem to be replicating this exact same type of epistemic injustice towards transfems and specifically towards intersex transfems. pretty much every time recently i see people talking about "afab transfems" they're doing so in a way that seems to deny that trans women even have the right to make sense of their own experiences in the world. there seems to be this mindset that these political frameworks, these interpretive resources that transfems have built up are just up for grabs for anyone. and then on top of that has come with it a lot of cruel, hateful language and direct attacks towards many intersex transfems who are facing so much harassment right now.

an important value to me is this idea of reciprocity as a foundation for solidarity. to me reciprocity means that we're prioritizing the ways we care for each other, we're thinking about how we can uplift each other, and we're watching out for extractive or exploitative patterns where one group is constantly expected to be in "solidarity" with another group without getting the same respect and care back toward them. i think that there could be so many ways that intersex people of all genders could share our overlapping experiences and actually be in true, meaningful solidarity with each other, but i barely ever actually see that happen on tumblr. and that pisses me off, because i do think that there's so much we have in common that we could celebrate and support each other with. i feel so much kinship with so, so many of my trans intersex friends, and ways where i see our lives converge. but i don't think that can happen in an environment where there's no acknowledgment of the ways that our experiences will sometimes (often) differ from each other, and the ways that we have unique needs.

another frustration i've had based on this most recent couple months of transmisogynistic intersex posting on tumblr is how intersex people have been mostly ignoring intersex community resources and devaluing the existing intersex terminology that people created to try to meet our needs. so much of what i've seen people describing on tumblr seems to really line up with the term ipsogender. Ipsogender is a term coined by an intersex sociologist Cary Gabriel Costello, and is used to describe intersex people whose gender matches the gender they were medically assigned at birth, but who might not feel like cis or trans fits them, might experience dysphoria, and who might feel like they've ended up transitioning medically or socially in some ways. this is a word that exists that an intersex person put time into coining because they wanted other intersex people to feel seen, embraced, and have ways of understanding themselves and communicating to others, and that's something that's super meaningful to me! and yet, i've rarely seen anyone reference it, and also seen multiple people making fun of it in other spaces online.

there's also intergender, which is another intersex specific gender term used to describe when your gender is inseparable from your intersex traits, and that your intersex identity is intertwined with your gender identity in some way. some people just identify as intergender, others use it as an adjective and exist as an intergender man or woman. intersex terminology like this is really important to me, especially because we're so often denied the right to make sense of our own experiences.

i think ultimately what i wanted to say with this post is just that when i think about intersex community, some of the most important values of intersex community for me are solidarity, care for each other, and affirming our right to define our own existence. and i don't think that can happen in a community where people are acting in extractive ways, harassing and attacking their fellow community members, and being dismissive of the realities of other intersex people's lives.

[hella1975]

it's been pointed out on here before that a lot of terf arguments are actually rooted in sexist idealology that feminists fought and died to unnormalise decades ago and that's its own kettle of fish but one thing i also find very frustrating about this so called 'radical' feminism is that it's so... defeatist? like the moment you categorically label an entire section of society as Bad and Inherently Evil then there's also the implication that nothing can be done about it, and it completely takes all accountability away. saying all men are evil is just another way of saying boys will be boys. he raped her because he's a man. he hit her because he's a man. he didn't listen because he's a man - it's almost offensively oversimplified. there's no point trying to fix this issue in society because men are just Like That, okay! so now what? it's not like they're going anywhere, so you just accept that 50% of the population are evil and will forever treat you terribly and there's nothing to be done about it bc they're biologically predisposed to it? like is that fr the argument here? you're soooo radical for that

[best-enemies]

I've reached season 5 on my CSI rewatch and I'm a few episodes past "Swap Meet", where a woman is murdered after attending a swing party with other couples from the neighbourhood. Near the end of the episode there's a moment that made me jump from my seat:

(Grissom walks up to Sara and takes the seat next to her. He's holding two cups. He hands her a cup of tea.)

[INT. POLICE DEPARTMENT - BRASS' OFFICE]

Erin Brady: Everybody fantasizes about other people. (She glances at Grissom.)

Even you, Mr. Grissom. A neighbor, a friend ... girl at the office.

[INT. POLICE DEPARTMENT - HALLWAY]

(The door opens. Paul Brady walks out of the hallway. Erin Brady walks out into the hallway. Sara is sitting in the hallway chair watching them. She watches as they meet and kiss.)

(Grissom walks up to Sara and takes the seat next to her. He's holding two culps. He hands her a cup of tea.)

LIKE!!!!!!!

Right after Erin ends her sentence with 'girl at the office', the first time Sara and Grissom meet again, he brings her tea. This might be an innocent interaction but to me it seemed like a nod to this relationship they have where both are into each other, know about the other's feelings, but can't/won't do anything about it (although Sara has kind of given Grissom an ultimatum). I don't know if it was intentional - I'm guessing it is, because I picked it up immediately. I might or might not have squealed in delight.

[suffercerebral]

me having gone to bed at 6 am every day for the past week and generally spiraling mentally while rotting in bed waking up this morning: a 4 mile hike in the heat is a really good idea right now, and while we're at it let's start like 3 art projects

[cruelsister-moved2]

i like refrain from commenting on this but its getting to a point where i see it daily so listen i cant think of a nice way to say this sorry 😭 but if this is you then with all love now is probably not the moment in your life to start going by a hebrew name and changing ur icon to a magen david on a pride flag and starting a blog called journeying-to-hashem. and i say this with love for you like i think people are too worried to say something in case theyre gatekeeping but the fact is this type of thing is going to seriously negatively impact any future experience you do have - or on the other equally valid hand make it very difficult for you to realise that this may not be the right step for you at this point in time.

if you genuinely feel that every rabbi you meet is "super bigoted and weird" then (without judging you bc idk you and maybe you are just surrounded by dozens of homophobic rabbis and there's nothing antisemitic at all behind this statement) it could be that... joining the community they represent is not right for you, even if only at this point in time in your current location, and your tumblr experience is giving you the warped impression that its all nonbinary people in trad-egal minyans which is not going to be the case in almost any irl community so you will feel let down by all of them which unfair to both yourself and them (i.e my first point)

[mercurymacaroons]

woagh 2 posts in one day

[mayjeffneverstopyou]

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[karamazovanon]

DUDE I still think about off an unreasonable amount for an obscure rpg that came out I think 15 years ago now?? like I forget it exists for a year or more and then I'm like damn. I should play it again. And then i do. I think I've played it maybe 4 times in English and once in the French before they patched it. Underrated cornerstone of modern existentialist/post-surrealist media if u ask me

THE OFF (GAME) TEENAGER TO CAMUS ENJOYER ADULT PIPELINE IS FUCKING REAL

[fagoutboy]

sorry hold on. are people valorizing the past so strongly these days that now ppl think old fandoms were BETTER? like im sorry i really think the problem is just that you arent 12 anymore

[elegyofthemoon]

Aru Akise for the Character Opinion Bingo

AKISE !?!??!?!?!?!!?

I LOOOOOVE AKISE... ALL TIME FAVE CHARACTER EVERRRRR my 14 year old self was sooooo in love with him you have no idea. i was thriving off the akise-centric manga (thank god his popularity was so good the mangaka decided to make a whole spin off for him its super super fun!)

TBH he probably serves as the basis for a LOT of my fave characters nowadays too. If you're a detective, a white hair character, smart, OR you're going to die, I will glue my eyeballs on you :)

[callilouv]

idk if i rlly am unable to feel intense hate for something or i conditioned myself into thinking that hating soemthing makes me even more of a bad person so i refuse to feel such things HMMM

[ria-starstruck]

ik i post a lot of hollow knight art (and will be continuing to do so for the foreseeable future) but both my queue and my hollow knight art are not infinite, and i happen to have a lot of old art for genshin impact, botw, old original art (not just bug god ocs, I have other fellas as well), craft stuff (embroidery, jewelry), and maybe some other stuff (i do not remember)

so basically if anyone following wants to see anything listed specifically, lmk, it’d give me a direction of what to add to my queue next!

[lesbianraskolnikov]

I think my past fictional obsessions were funny because if i was lucky maybe one or even two other people gave a fuck about them while i did. Now theres at least 10 people... #beautiful

[theravequeen]

Sometimes I wonder if people find me annoying and if I should stop replying to my mutuals/friends posts

Like maybe every time they see a notification from me they just silently beg "ugh, Raven, just shut up already"

But im sure it's all in my head right haha

[playingonedchess]

hmpf maybe those tumblr people are really right about what characteristics make a type of person, considering how long it took tumblr to condition took me, a straight/cisgender guy, into being into shipping

[kittykatinabag]

Research question for the neuroscientists: Does alcohol's effects on the brain mimic dopamine's effect on the brain?

Yeah I know there's the whole thing about inhibition and lower of cognitive barriers, but I'm talking like the molecule level. Like whatever passes the blood brain barrier with alcohol to make the brain act this way, does that molecule/signal/whatever look suspiciously like dopamine because my god the delusion I get when I'm drinking feels like the few times I've overloaded my system with dopamine/oxytocin etc but with blurrier vision.

I single out alcohol because well, I've never done hard drugs and the few times I've smoked weed makes me paranoid and anxious. Its only alcohol that's made me feel this way, though I'm sure harder drugs would too but my family does tend to have a history of functional addiction so I try to avoid most drugs. Honestly don't even drink that much now-a-days either, at least not to the levels that I did back in 2019.