#also you shouldn't make fun of trans people for using the language that feels most accurate to them

[gay-otlc]

Straight trans guys need to understand that something that has repeatedly happened to them never really happened. Straight trans guys need to understand that they imagined all of it. Straight trans guys need to understand that they are not the authority on their own experiences.

[friedloverballoon]

hi I followed you recently, saw your post about how LGBT terminology shouldn't be losing it's meaning.

I don't have any big beefy intellectual arguments about this, just personal experience and observation.

As someone whose lived experiences have been very much shaped by certain aspects of who I am, having precise language to describe those experiences is important to me. I see this language appropriation happening in more spaces than just LGBT (mental health is the first that comes to mind).

The word "trans" is a great example... I am starting to feel almost a sort of disconnect with the term trans/transgender - which frustrates me, but it's happening anyway. Because like... you go into "trans spaces" and most people in them now are not living a transsexual experience. People have told me I'm a terrible person for saying that hormone therapy is not something to "play with" in response to someone spreading the idea that you can "microdose" T to get specific changes and not others... like I'm sorry, no, your sexual characteristics are not fun, customizable traits in a video game character creation. Health issues related to hormones are very, very common whether you are trans or not. I have chronic health issues and I have had to take transition very seriously and carefully. Like... no, I don't want there to be an "us" vs "them" mentality but it's almost like they did it for us. They started ostracizing trans people in trans spaces. Those who didn't conform got labeled transmeds and whatever else. Clearly they don't see themselves as trans as in transsexual (and made that a dirty word) but take over our spaces, spread misinformation about medical treatment we need...

sorry that's all kind of rambling.

Re: the word gay... I mean yeah I've seen people literally say "no gay is an umbrella term! everyone who is queer is gay! anyone can use it!" I mean... idk how do you think that make gay men feel you guys? to take the ONE word they have to describe THEIR experience and dilute it?

I have seen older lesbians (like, in their 60s) who are uncomfortable with the word lesbian, so prefer to call themselves gay... I don't know if there is maybe a historical reason/trauma attached to that.

then, you know, the "queer community" was like "well now queer is the umbrella term!" but it's also a bunch of different identities...

it took be a long time to be okay with calling myself bisexual because of these, what I consider, regressive behaviors in the "community" that I was sort of... idk. I feel like I was indoctrinated as a young person. I never wanted to call myself queer. I was called that when someone tried to kill me in a hate crime. I don't need to reclaim it. It doesn't describe anything about me. I'm not queer. I'm bisexual. I'm transsexual. That's it.

Now this is the type of discussion I love. I don't know if I'm supposed to post this or not, I usually just post the stuff I receive, so here it is anywaysss

I also see the appropriation you're talking about, mental health mixed in there too. It's very entitled, especially considering the positions they take as "inclusionary".

I don't want to add that much to your thing, since there's nothing more than really needs to be said, (and I don't want to take away the attention from you), although I did have a related confusion because of this type of stuff. I'm sure I've said it on here before, but when I was still questioning, I hopped from sexuality to sexuality, settling on "omnisexuality" for the longest time (I got really swept up in the different types of sexualities and all that, which is why looking it up online is probably even worse now), until the mere fact that omnisexuality didn't have an article on Wikipedia led me down the path to just letting myself be bisexual.

I honestly don't know how younger LGBT people can just erase the history and labels of their own community and then wonder why so many people who have been there longer than they have are basically just "opting out" of the community in its entirety. It feels poisoned by identity politics too, this whole "make 'gay' the new 'queer'" type of thing. Either way, I'll leave it there, I'm grateful for the follow, and it's kind of like a mystery. Like who could the anonymous follower of mine be 👀

[e-the-village-cryptid]

Hi! I wanted to add an answer to your 'straight folks afraid to ask questions' post but I'm not out on any of my blogs so please excuse the long ask!

So I'm not straight but I felt kind of the same way when I first started searching info on transness and trans people. I'm not from any English speaking country, and where I come from, we weren't teached about labels or anything. For exemple, I knew that I ''wasn't interested in dating anyone'' but only learn the term 'asexual' (in english) when I was 23ish. A lot of the internet places I visit are in english, with a majority of the audience being from the USA. So a lot of usa/english queer terms are used, that are not present / translatable in my language. It's a first 'barrier' when it comes to asking questions, because sometimes it's not you being an ass, it's just that it is genuinely something you don't have the notion for (or a notion you never encounter before). So. Transness. I had a trans friend when I was 14yo, but never would have think of him as 'trans'; he was a guy, just in a 'girl' body, full stop. When I started asking myself questions about what FTM, MTF, trans men, trans women, gender dysphoria, etc meant (really basic questions) I couldn't ask him, because we hadn't been in touch for a while and it would have felt weird AF to contact him back with 'ulterior motives' (aka ask about transness). So I turn to tumblr, twt, and the answer was always the same: trans people shouldn't have to be your teachers, go do your research yourself. I was honestly a bit scared by the harsh words some of those posts/tweets had, but you know, it was fair. It's always weird to have random people ask you intimate things like that. So I tried to do my own research, on google, on blogs, etc. And in short, most of it were snippets of answers with the same conclusion ''But you should ask a trans person, they're the one concerned after all.'' At that point I was just lost. I *had* to ask trans people questions to understand them better (logical), but also asking them was kind of rude and tiresome for them because they just want to live their life in peace (also logical). I stopped looking for answers for a long time, because didn't wanted to bother people. I guess at that point I also started to develop a tiny transphobic reflexion, because I was frustrated by people demanding I knew everything about how to talk to trans folks but also not wanting to answer a single question and being ready to get mad at any mistake someone could make. (Fortunately, that phase didn't last long!) Finally at some point, I can't remember how but I came across youtube videos of trans creators talking about their journey, their transition and answering a lot of questions about transness, something that I was absolutely unaware existed. I was really uneasy at first, because I felt like I wasn't their demographic and shouldn't watch it (the idea that, despite being just watching a yt video, someone could call me out IRL for objectifying them, or looking at trans folks as ''curiosities'' when all I wanted was more infos to better understand) but I ended up discovering really nice creators, who gave a lot of informations and also covered fun other topics. That's how I still feel sometimes when I wonder things about other sexualities a/o genders, this idea that I'm just a really annoying tourist pointing at locals and going ''what is that?'' rudely. I am still incredibly uneasy at queer events (but that may be because I feel like I'm not queer enough for it, and people will be mad at me). But I'm getting better!! I guess the tl:dr of it is that people should do their own research on topics they want to understand better, but also the internet is incredibly effective at making you feel like shit for asking any question whatsoever, and it's something that affects you in real life too... Also, almost 5 years since I started asking myself questions about trans people and turns out I might not be cis myself ahah :,) That was a really long ask, sorry about that! Hope you have a nice day!!!!

Thank you for sharing your experiences with this! And yeah, like I understand not everyone has the energy to educate people and that's absolutely not something required of them, but I wish more in the community weren't needlessly angry or aggressive in their refusals to answer questions. And if a community member wants to help but doesn't want to answer questions, directing the asker to another resource is always a good middle ground, because as you said, "just google it" doesn't always turn up the best info. (lgbtqia wiki is one place I like to direct people for basic information and terms.) I'm glad you found those youtubers, youtubers are some of the sources I've found most helpful in learning about other parts of the community, too! (For people looking for such creators— try searching within youtube with keywords like "my trans journey" or "my bisexual life"— stuff that is likely to turn up individual creators talking about their experiences)

Also, you're absolutely "queer enough" for queer events— the people who try to exclude you are the ones who shouldn't be there, because they're actively harming the community. And good luck with the gender haha, have fun and explore! Thank you for the ask and I hope you have a lovely day!

[poultry-books]

Review: May The Best Man Win by Z.R. Ellor

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Title: May The Best Man Win Author: Z.R. Ellor Genre: Young Adult // LGTBQ+ Publication Date: May 18th 2021 Rating: 1/5 Stars

Trigger Warnings: Death of a sibling, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, knife mention, lesbophobia

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A trans boy enters a throw-down battle for the title of Homecoming King with the boy he dumped last summer in ZR Ellor's contemporary YA debut.

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This review is NOT spoiler free.

I want to preface this by saying I myself am trans and autistic. So to learn there was a book that represented me perfectly got me jumping with joy and I pre-ordered it as fast as I could. But boy was I wrong. This is by far one of the worst books I've ever read in my entire life.

Mostly because of Lesbophobia [this is also all the representation that lesbians get in this book]

The book has four big problems. The biggest of which is that both Jeremy and Lukas are horrible people. And not in the endearing kind of way. Jeremy especially is a horrible, horrible person who never gets what he's due. In the course of the book he; ignored his best friend, ruined her trust, made everything about him. got another friend in trouble when he was told no, wanted to stab someone with the intent to kill and is overall just a horrible unlikeable character. The book justifies this horrid behaviour with paper thin excuses and of course everyone forgives him in the end. Lukas is less of a problem but he still pulls stuff that he should know better about it, like using footage of Jeremy pre-transition to make a promotional video.

A lot of side characters are actually a lot of fun and it's a shame they get overshadowed by such horrible people.

The author goes out of his way to make every 'bad guy' character the most horrid person you ever met without giving them much personality beyond that.

The next problem is that so much is happening in what is a short book. The problem of losing and gaining 8k dollars in a day is resolved with ease that shouldn't be possible, even in fiction.

My biggest problem though as an autistic person is the ableist language that exists in this book. No, I'm not talking about Lukas' brother using the r-slur when he was younger. I'm talking about how the author portrays autistic people. The entire novel, Lukas sees his autism as a disability. As something he really wants to hide. The book isn't sympathetic towards him at all and the main conflict kicks off because he failed to pick up a clue and he gets dumped on the day of his brother's funeral. [And as a fellow trans person, I hate getting misgendered too, but the author himself makes a point of how Lukas didn't really know at the time and also he was shocked and numb by the loss of his brother. I think there is a difference between people misgendering you on purpose and people making a mistake.]

Overall, Lukas is either portrayed as overly competent or dumb as a set of bricks. I get that his brother was an ass and that his family glorifies him. It's not easy to be stuck in grief like that, especially not as an autistic person. But the book is just so mean about it. At one point Jeremy threatens to tell the whole school Lukas is autistic and it's treated like the Worst Possible Thing.

I am willing to compromise and say that no one needs to know that you're autistic. I myself only tell a few people I know in real life about it. But the way it's treated like some sort of big threat / you're icky and weird thing just doesn't sit right with me.

I am not upset that Lukas or Jeremy aren't good people. There are many books with villain protagonists that are worth a read but this one isn't it. They are flat characters, boring and mean to a fault. [Jeremy gets in a fight with a best friend of his because his shirt didn't feel right while she just messed up her SATs. I get his frustration but his friend was RIGHT there needing help.] And the worst thing is; they still get what they want with zero repercussions. It's not even a slap on the wrist for them.

Finally like the example of lesbophobia above, I do not like how the author treats they/them non binaries. As Jeremy thinks they are half trans. So many people feel not trans enough already without some debut novel calling them not enough.

You are trans enough you none binary legend.

Whatever this author tried to do; write a story with complicated trans and autistic characters where they aren't perfect little angels fell flat.

As a trans and autistic person, this really left a horrid bitter taste in my mouth and I wish that people would avoid it as best as they can.