#and I was already getting transphobic people trying to prevent me from transitioning by using that exact rhetoric

[girlboss-enthusiast]

i'm really not sure where to go about this now and i have a lot of friends who would fucking eviscerate me if they knew i was talking to a gender crit blog, but i need to say this to someone i know won't call me a transphobe for it. i'm not a radfem and i wouldn't call myself gender critical, i'm female & nonbinary and most of my close friends are trans. but i just really have to get this off my chest, i hope that's ok (please delete these if it isnt). disclaimers aside, 1/2 i guess

Ask series anon, I am finally able to respond to you!! Thank you for waiting :)

This answer is super long, so I'm going to tl;dr your asks so other readers can have context: anon has a nice trans woman friend and a misogynistic one; the misogynistic one has been verbally aggressive to anon and other women and is using gender identity to excuse it; anon is conflicted since many of her friends are like her nice trans friend.

(Please correct me if this is wrong, anon.)

ANYWAY. Here's the part where I answer.

All this sounds really difficult. I empathize with you. I'm going to call your friends Nice Friend and Jerk Friend in this response, and use the pronouns you used for clarity. I'm going to address your points first, and then wander off on a tangent second.

So, starting with Jerk Friend—this misogyny is something that I have seen over and over with trans-identified males (a term to group trans women and nonbinary men, abbreviated as TIMs). Upon transition, they realize they can get away with truly vile misogyny, because gender-affirming social circles (especially queer communities) refuse to address the loaded issue of their lifetime of male socialization which prevents them from having the same experiences as a natal (cis) woman. Whether this is because the community around the TIM genuinely believes their male socialization doesn't matter, or because they're afraid of backlash, or what, doesn't matter; what happens is that the TIM in question discovers they have a new weapon to wield against natal women, whom they hate. (I can elaborate on why this is, but this response is long enough already! Feel free to shoot me another ask if you want to know more.)

Basically, Jerk Friend follows a familiar pattern. Frankly, she would be an asshole regardless of transition, but transition has given her a tool with which to bludgeon women and not be called out. If she hadn't transitioned, would she have gotten away with calling you a bitch and being misogynistic to her girlfriend? If she were a natal woman or still identified as a man, would other people but you (and Nice Friend) have called her out for the way she's acting? My point here is that, whether or not she genuinely feels like a woman according to her definition, she is using her transition as an excuse for cruelty, and that is an inherently awful thing to do. Your reactions are normal and healthy, and I'm glad you set boundaries with her.

On a different topic, I'd like to address what you said in this ask:

like i don't want this to be a 'peak trans' moment for me. i love and respect my trans friends and 99% of them, no matter what they were assigned at birth, are incredibly respectful. i am not willing to sacrifice those friendships and relationships over this.

Between this and you calling Nice Friend your dearest friend, I think you're feeling guilty for having thoughts that you deem transphobic about Jerk Friend, and possibly about the effects of gender ideology in general. I 1000% know how you feel. I don't know if my perspective is an unpopular one on radblr or radfem circles in general, but as a gender critical feminist, I separate the overall trans rights movement and the harm it's causing from individual trans people. I used to ID as nonbinary—not sure if you knew—and sure, I knew some shitty people, but honestly? Most trans people I knew were trying to get by and live in a way that felt less terrible to them than the alternatives.

Now, there are plenty of critiques of people who do that, and I simultaneously agree with those critiques, and feel sympathy for trans people who are like those friends of mine, or like Nice Friend. I'm not sure if that's my libfem individualist background showing, hyperempathy, or what! But I cannot make myself hate individuals that have not caused direct harm to those around them. I don't think this disqualifies me from being gender critical or a radical-leaning feminist. I don't think that any of this makes me a bigot. And I don't think you are either.

Concerning your friend group: you might not lose all of them if you choose to voice your opinions (though I imagine those are still forming). I still have a couple friends from the local queer community (which I have since left). We hardly discuss politics anymore—we've all got shit in our lives we talk about instead—but I don't try to hide my opinions from them, and I think that if we *were* to discuss the subject of gender, none of them would drop me for my opinions. I don't know if that would have been true when we met 6 years ago, in our early-mid 20s, but frankly, all of us can see nuance now that we did not see (or maybe understand) at 22. I don't know how old you are or what your friends are like, but it's something to consider.

I reread this and it sounds like prevarication to me. Hopefully it doesn't come across that way. I find that my IRL behavior around gender ideology is a lot more complicated than when I reblog posts on tumblr! I find it hard to balance my ideals with the actions I take in reality. I have spoken to many women who *have* figured out that balance, and it usually involves becoming much more outspoken and brave than I am ready for right now. It is a process. It requires time. But as long as I continue moving forward and educating myself, I think it's okay to take some time.

Um, that paragraph may not be particularly relevant to you, but I'm going to leave it anyway. I think I addressed the main issues you brought up. And the resources I would recommend are the same ones as I gave to the other anon, along with maybe viewing @tra-receipts to see how Jerk Friend is an example of a trend and not a singular bad apple.

There's just one more thing I would like to ask you: why do you identify as nonbinary? If it is because you don't feel like a woman, then ask yourself, what is a woman supposed to feel like? If it's physical dysphoria, then what about your body makes you feel that way? Can you pinpoint any reason why?

I highly encourage you to consider this, to get a better understanding of yourself than anything else. Like I said, I used to ID as nonbinary, and I have some level of gender dysphoria (specifically related to reproductive health problems and a desperate hatred of the misogynistic objectification of my body; it took me literal years to figure that out). So I know something of where you're coming from.

To end this post: if you are on the younger side (like...22-23 and below maybe?), I'm going to post a request for advice from people that age for a different anon who is struggling with the same things you are. You can also shoot me another ask, or DM me, with your main blog if you want (I won't expose you) or with a throwaway blog.

Good luck, anon!

[coochiequeens]

I feel terrible for anyone stuck in a war zone. But the people interviewed just seem like people trying to justify not helping the resistance effort. Why can’t the transwomen just help create Molotov cocktails like other women? If asked why they didn’t flee they can just reply that women with children and elderly parents should have left first. They don’t have to go into detail about why they don’t have kids. Why can’t a transman fight? Ukrainian men from all over, many with no real military training, are returning home to fight. Will another inexperienced man really stand out?

Trans people in Ukraine have told VICE World News that they are “totally stuck” and “scared for their lives” in the country.

Two Ukrainian trans women said they can’t leave Ukraine or even safely travel through it because all of their identification documents say “male” and mention their “old masculine names”.

Some trans people have even been advised to “lose their ID” by human rights groups, in order to get out of Ukraine. Trans campaigners estimate this issue is leading to “hundreds” of trans people in Ukraine being left in “serious danger” and feeling “completely alone”.

One trans woman said she is “terrified” of being stopped trying to leave Ukraine, and being forced to join the Ukrainian army “as a man” – especially because authorities are stopping men aged 18 to 60 from leaving. Another Ukrainian trans woman is too scared to leave her accommodation in fear of transphobic attacks. She’s the only person left in her neighbourhood.

One trans man, who transitioned over six years ago and has lived as a man in Ukraine since, only has an ID showing “female”. He told VICE World News about his fears of leaving his house and trying to make it across Ukraine. During a phone call, screaming and explosions were heard coming from outside his accommodation, but he still refused to leave because of his ID issue.

A non-binary Ukrainian person explained their fears of leaving Ukraine and heading to “places like Poland or Hungary” where their identity is “ridiculed” and not recognised. “I need to choose between my own country – that I have learned how to navigate –or a totally foreign place where I could feel even more excluded and in danger,” they added.

A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Ukraine following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. The UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, confirmed that 520,000 refugees from Ukraine have now entered neighbouring countries since last Thursday, warning “this figure has been rising exponentially, hour after hour.” However, trans people may not have made those journeys.

Zi Faámelu is a 31-year-old trans woman from Kyiv. She is a musician and has appeared on TV in her home nation. Faámelu said she can’t leave the country and her life is in danger.

“Like hundreds of trans people in Ukraine, I am a woman, but I have ‘male’ in my passport and on all my ID, so this is a war within a war. Ukrainian trans people were already fighting for their lives.”

“There are hundreds of us stuck like this, living miserable lives. We need some influence from abroad. We need people to write to their politicians and charities to help us.”

She is sitting in darkness while she talks to me. In her hands, she holds a “very sharp” knife. Alone in her area, she is scared of who could be outside her apartment.

Trans people in Ukraine can obtain legal gender recognition, but human rights groups have called the process “abusive”, as it “violates the rights to privacy and physical integrity.”

Asked why she didn’t change her ID documents before now, Faámelu said the process in Ukraine is “humiliating” and she’s seen people having to “stay in mental institutions for months, with psychological and physical tests to prove their gender.”

“We don’t want to go through that, so we just kept our passports as they were and laid low, stayed quiet. It’s hell for trans people here. I should have left earlier but I was waiting for some emergency gender documents, but the doctors suddenly said no.”

“I'm completely alone now. Everybody in my neighbourhood has left. It’s such a dangerous situation, but I'm trying to stay optimistic. I've seen people running for their lives, and screaming at each other to leave things behind and just get out - but I have to stay where I am. It’s the only option for me right now.”

“It is very dangerous for me as a trans person in Ukraine on a normal day, so now, it is impossible. Many gay people in Ukraine can blend in with the rest of society now, but for trans people it is impossible. There are so many physical traits that we are attacked for – big chin, broad shoulders – we’re beaten, we’re killed. We need to get out now, but we can’t even leave our apartments.”

“They will see my passport and see ‘male’, they will see my birth name, and call me a man in a dress and attack me.”

Faámelu spoke of trans people who have been threatened by individuals openly carrying weapons in their areas.

“I’m now even more scared to be in Ukraine because everyone has a gun. Now my attackers have an excuse to carry out their hate and violence. People know where I live. Every sound outside is scary,” she said.

“Trans people now feel forgotten, neglected, abandoned. We are actually invisible at the moment. We need the United Nations, we need human rights organisations. We need people to help us get noticed.”

People fleeing Ukraine have been told that several neighbouring countries will accept them without any ID, however the journeys to get to the borders may still involve being stopped at checkpoints by the police or military, queueing with members of the public, and being split into “male and female” groups for prioritising safety and travel.

Being LGBTQ in Ukraine can be life-threatening. Attacks against people based on their sexuality and gender identity are common, and citizens told us “our police just stand by and watch.”

Less than a month ago, vandals damaged an LGBTQ community centre in Kharkiv, a city in northeast Ukraine. The attackers wrote “death threats” and “Christian scriptures” across the centre’s “mural of equality.” Campaigners said the centre had only recently been repaired after the last attacks, when “urine, shit and blood were smeared on the front door.”

Trans people in Ukraine have told VICE World News that their lives “were not worth living” before the war, and the current situation has only made matters worse for them.

Robert, 31, is a trans man who was living in Kharkiv, Ukraine. We are not identifying Robert’s surname to protect his identity. Robert’s years on testosterone have led to him “being able to pass like any other man”, but his ID still says he is “female” and uses his birth name.

“My parents tried to kill me when I told them I’m trans,” he told VICE World News earlier this week. “Everybody here knows me as ‘he’, nobody knows my situation. This is why I’m in so much danger now.”

“I’m so afraid for my life,” Robert added. “A lot of people have offered me help once I get to different countries, but I can’t get through Ukraine like this. The problem here is that you can look like one thing, but your papers say something else.”

“I can’t work, I can’t have a bank account, I can’t have a driver’s licence. I can’t continue at university because the university can’t approve my papers. I’ve just been cutting people’s hair, cleaning bathrooms and apartments, just to feed myself. It’s just existing, not living.”

Robert is now being supported by LGBTQ campaigner Rain Dove, who recently created a group and a fund to directly help “LGBTQ people, disabled people and families” stranded in Ukraine. The group has now supported “over 700 people” to get out of Ukraine, and many of them are LGBTQ.

Rain Dove told VICE World News: “We’ve had trans people get rejected at some borders, but everyone we’ve supported has eventually got out.”

“If you’re a trans woman with an ‘M’ on your passport, or you’re gender nonconforming with an ‘M’, we recommend that you ‘lose’ your passport before you speak to Ukrainian officials. Hide your ID in a water bottle, or in your shoe. If you get stopped, you can just say that you’re not from here, you can say that you’re a student in Ukraine, or were just visiting. Without an ID, you will be sent to a long line of foreign nationals, but you’ll then be talking to officials from the bordering nations, and you can present your ID without an issue. This has worked 100 percent of the time.

“If you’re a trans man with an ‘F’ on your ID, prepare to be gaslit by Ukrainian authorities. They will say ‘if you’re really a man, then fight for your country.’ This is unfortunately a really common thing. You could also hide your ID, but we know some people who have stayed to fight.”

Rémy Bonny, executive director of Forbidden Colours, an organisation pushing for LGBTQ equality across Europe, told VICE World News, “the Russian aggression against Ukraine has shocked the entire world, and queer people are extraordinarily affected by this war.”

Asked what people around the world can do to help these individuals, Bonny said, “Please donate to initiatives that are helping queer refugees from Ukraine. We are expecting about 100,000 queer refugees in the coming weeks, entering Poland, Hungary and Romania, but in the past, refugee camps have proven not to be safe spaces for LGBTQ persons.”

[destroyyourbinder]

why not go to therapy for gender dysphoria?

I see this question often posited by both trans people and radical feminists, as well as garden-variety homophobes and transphobes. This is a brief attempt at an answer from my perspective. --- 1. The first reason is that trans people aren't stupid. They are right when they say there is no known therapeutic modality that is known to reliably reverse transgender identity or get rid of gender dysphoria. This does not mean that transition is therefore the best means of dealing with gender dysphoria, but it means you cannot currently just go to a psychologist or therapist and "get therapy" to make it go away. I’m tired of dealing with radical feminists or gender critical types who dismissively insist that this is currently a possible option. I am skeptical that you can ethically treat transgender people with the intent to change their personal identity anyway even if some sort of treatment protocol was developed. There may be some way to lessen gender dysphoria in a therapeutic context without major ethical violations, but few therapists are willing to try, and those who will work with people wanting to ease their gender dysphoria without transition often are working blind and therefore are liable to make mistakes that can harm already vulnerable patients. Even barring the political environment around transition right now, I am not sure therapists generally know what to do to help people or even how to conceive of the problems of those who come into their offices framing their issues as "gender dysphoria" but who do not wish to transition or who are postponing the choice to do so. When I discussed my gender dysphoria outside of a transition context with two different therapists previous to desisting from trans identity, one in about 2007 and the other in about 2014 or so, the first one told me I couldn't possibly be transgender because I was waffling on wanting a penis and attempted to get me to work on rejecting femininity by asking me to do CBT practices when I got compliments about my appearance, and the second did not even know how to deal with my gender issues at all, asked me to educate him on trans identity more broadly, and then tried to get me to accept that I was attracted to men because I considered myself bisexual but was not wanting to interact sexually with them. I ceased discussing it in therapy (and considered the times I had attempted to an unacceptable risk) because I sensed it was actually impossible for my feelings to be understood outside a transition-based context and at the time transition was impossible for me. The desisting and detransitioned women I know who are trying to reconcile with their femaleness seem to have had a very mixed bag of luck with therapists; the ones I know with positive interactions with therapists around their gender stuff have had to go through multiple therapists to find a decent one, and I know a few women who avoid therapists entirely now. Even if you go explicitly seeking a therapist for this issue as a full and competent adult with decent boundaries and deep pockets you will often have poor luck. 2. Those people offering means of getting rid of transgender identity or gender dysphoria are generally explicit religious conversion therapists or pediatric doctors using unethically coercive strategies to alter children's gender behavior. These are the last people you want to be in contact with if you have a gender or sexuality problem, and their strategies don't work except insofar as they might shame you into suppressing your feelings and desires. The doctors offering these therapies for children are direct descendants of therapists who used these strategies to prevent adult homosexuality, some of the older ones literally having studied under gay conversion therapists or at clinics offering anti-gay therapies, and I would guess they probably have similar outcomes in that they permanently traumatize kids. You would have to be extremely self-negating to seek these people out or literally under the pressure of authorities, which obviously isn't conducive to developing a way of coping with your body, sexuality, and gender structures that is healthy and promotes your well-being. 3. One of the hallmarks of being trans is wanting to transition, and one of the hallmarks of gender dysphoria in female people is either strongly wanting to be male or literally believing you are in some way male. Trans people do reach for "being trans" as a primary explanation for their thoughts and feelings about gender, even though they may have pervasive doubts and obsess over the question of whether they are "really" trans or their dysphoria is "real". Female trans people in particular often believe that if they aren't trans or don't have gender dysphoria, they must be "making things up" or that their suffering is stupid, only for attention, not as severe as they thought it was, and so on. The obsessing over whether you are "actually trans" or not ends up locking you into your dysphoria deeper than you might have gone otherwise, and means you will hold onto being trans as an explanation and the trans identity far longer than you otherwise might, because your dysphoric mind is telling you that if you aren't trans then you must really have been a stupid girl this whole time. The last thing a dysphoric female person wants to be is a stupid girl, so you will continue holding onto interpreting your experiences as trans or as gender dysphoria because that is part of the dysphoria itself. I don't believe most trans people look to transition as something they wholeheartedly "want" to do (and those that claim to are likely extremely dissociated from the reality of transition and their bodies more generally); most I think recognize to some degree that transition is risky, painful, socially isolating, legally fraught, and a medical nightmare. But the whole problem with having gender dysphoria is that it's self-reinforcing; if you are actively dysphoric, the way your dysphoria works is to propagate itself and that means you will not try a solution that invalidates "dysphoria" or "being trans" as the reason why you feel this way. Although in some sense nobody "wants to be trans", most trans people are relieved in some way or another when they find out transgenderism exists and that transition is possible, and most female trans people actually resist the possibility of therapy to get rid of their self-concept as not-female. I have not met a trans man who actually wanted to stop considering himself a man, although I have obviously seen many trans people want to ease the suffering caused by gender dysphoria and stop being subject to the negative social consequences of being trans or transitioning or being subject to misogyny/homophobia/transphobia. The reason why trans people reach for transition is because it purportedly allows them to maintain their self-identity and also get rid of the suffering caused by their body being incongruent with their self-identity. If you already conceive of yourself as trans or have extensive gender dysphoria it is unlikely you will reach for a solution that will invalidate your own perception of what's gone wrong, a.k.a. you will not go to therapy that will eventually cause you to let go of the idea that you are a man or not-female. The problem is that the self-identity is not separable from gender dysphoria, and interpreting your suffering as the result of the fact that your body is female but "you" are somehow not is a framing driven by the insecurity cycles and obsessions particular to gender dysphoria. You cannot ease dysphoria long-term without being able to recognize and confront that you are female in a value-neutral way. I honestly believe to the extent that transition can work, it works precisely because it allows some trans female people to let go of constant nitpicking at their bodies, it allows them to be among other female people who don't see them as worth less because of their bodies (albeit ones changed through transition) and in an environment where they can freely discuss their experiences together, and it permits some to actually experience being embodied without shame and distance from themselves. This should not sound unfamiliar to most trans people as it's exactly how the positive results of transition are framed. I just disagree that transition is necessary to achieve these results, that transition actually achieves them persistently in most people, and that to whatever extent they are achieved it means that trans people are right about why they happen (that it means you are a man or not-a-woman). 4. I don't think therapy to achieve peace in your body usually works if you are female, whether you are dysphoric or not, and it's because I think the therapeutic relationship and medicine more broadly are a small-scale replication of the authoritarian and misogynistic practices that cause female people to be alienated from their bodies to begin with. I don't think most female people want or need an authority implicitly or explicitly telling them that their bad feelings about their body are wrong when authorities have inculcated these feelings in us to begin with. Most female people don't end up with gender dysphoric feelings specifically, but I don't think it's an inherent sign of mental illness or irrational for trans men or other female trans people to avoid authorities trying to invalidate or reinterpret their experiences with gender, sexuality, and their bodies. Maintaining a core identity (even if it's a male one) that is untouchable by others trying to convince you out of rejecting womanhood, when "accepting womanhood" means a shitton of gross, dirty, and violating things, absolutely makes sense, and I'm never going to try to convince anybody otherwise. Therapy is inherently intended to guide you to "better functioning" and for most therapists, this means decreasing your friction against social reality so you can hold a job, housing, maintain relationships, and so forth. Obviously being able to survive is important, but being able to survive in this world means making some horrible bargains against your well-being (such as devoting forty hours a week to being captive to people who don't share your interests in a place you don't want to be so you can make enough money for shelter and food) and therapists do not usually frame these bargains as having severe costs. They sometimes actually frame you as ill precisely because you recognize the costs of these decisions, and because you fixate on trying to find a way to escape them. So why would you go to a therapist, then, so you can make yourself believe you are a woman again, if that therapist won't acknowledge the costs of everything required for you to psychologically adopt that identity as well as try to adjust as a "proper woman" to others and gives you a pathological label for insisting that the costs are real or too high? If you are a trans person attracted to your same sex, why would you try to go to a therapist to adjust to being a lesbian for example when few therapists even know what healthy adjustment looks like, nonetheless the kinds of terrible bargains you have to make to avoid or deal with homophobia? One of the most isolating and devastating things about having gender dysphoria is that nobody else seemingly sees how awful it is to be female, and the people around you who should be supportive of you (your female family members, friends, peers, coworkers, etc.) are invested in doubling down about how happy they are and how great it is to do things that you find invasive and traumatic, and seem to be in horrific denial of how it could possibly affect you and may even attempt to force you to adopt these practices and attitudes yourself. If therapy is supposed to get rid of these feelings and replace them with the feelings of the women around you, of course you won't go! Of course you won't go to therapy if the therapist herself is one of these women, or is a man who does not seem to get it at all. If "adjusting" and "functioning" means accepting your lot, trying to gaslight yourself into believing your shame about your existence was unwarranted, crazy, or came from nowhere, and fixing your dysphoria means learning to act and speak and think like these other women and to LOVE it, then hell no, most of us will not adjust or function until our feelings are recognized in some way or another. For some of us this means maintaining being trans and pursuing transition, and for others it means politicizing our experience and becoming active feminists and/or radically anti-authoritarian. It’s telling to me that the medical industry is supportive of one rather than the other, because the latter choice is more likely to indict psychology as a practice and transition is capable of being incorporated into medicine. But seeing it that way is a function of my political view on the whole thing.

[grayingarchitect-blog]

Parents

Blue. See-through. Seductive.

Rotund. Slow. Awkward.

My first love. My gateway into the queer world. My first Apple computer.

Technically, it wasn’t mine. It was my aunt’s that I temporarily borrowed for a few months so that I could have my own computer in my room. Bear in mind that this was 2011, and still before iPads and tablets and teenagers having their own laptops. I think my phone still had a real keyboard.

BUT! I had internet access and a screen more than two inches across and I was ready to make my formal entrance into the queer kingdom that although unable to enter physically, my digital self was already a walking pride flag. I spend the next six months watching coveted episodes of The L Word on YouTube until 2am. Naturally all the good scenes were 18 and older only, so I had to use my exceptionally vivid and well exercised imagination to fill in the gaps. Despite my secrecy and well versed tall tales, I was still a rule follower when it came to all things digital. I even waited until my 14th birthday to create a Facebook account... Hold the judgement please. The only time I ever broke that rule was when I was ten, and I ended up in a year of fear that a creepy older man was going to show up at my door and kidnap me. But that’s a story for another time.

My parents sent me to reparative therapy when they found out that I was gay. I spent my Wednesday afternoons being driven by my mother to a small house across the street from their old church to meet with a middle aged woman who felt that it was her passion to help gay people find the root of their gayness and become straight “again.” She recommended a book to me called “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.” I never read it. The title alone hurt enough. Was I the wolf? Or was I the sheep? Was I a monster? Or was I a helpless victim?

Eventually I succumbed to it and let the idea of being “fixed” settle into my bones like the root of a toxic weed, slowly cracking through my soul and feasting on any semblance of hope that I had left for a life of peace. My mother started letting my drive to therapy by myself. I always went. I ended up attending an ex-gay conference at the church across the street and heard stories of straight people experiencing sexual abuse and trauma, a man who molested his step children and was able to seek help and develop a healthy relationship with them again, and a man who previously identified as gay and was now married to a woman and had children and the happiest life you could ever imagine.

I was sixteen. And this was the message I received:

You are broken.

You are this way because you’ve been traumatized.

You share the stage with pedophiles.

You must be fixed.

I graduated from therapy at some point. I went back in the closet. I continued seeing my partner in secret. Making out in the back of one of our cars at a park. Covert meals at Taco del Mar. Long walks along the lake. Hours and hours of late night silent Skype sessions. Sneaking into their bedroom through the window.

My parents were less than pleased when they found out about all of it. I was called a bitch. I was told to go kill myself if that’s what I really wanted to do. Eventually I was told that my father could handle me being gay. But it would kill him if I was trans. So that’s the one thing I absolutely can’t do. At least I wasn’t trans.

I spent a lot of time in and out of therapy for the next... well I’m still in therapy actually. My parents really damaged me. They broke my heart. They didn’t support any relationship I ever had. They couldn’t accept that I was queer, and loved who I loved. I went in and out of that closet like it was a revolving door and I was a six year old having the time of my life. I was so angry at them. When I got engaged, I had to tell them two days beforehand because I knew that they would be displeased. Thankfully I had hardened my heart in preparation, because they were cold and distant once I told them. They didn’t like my future spouse, and made it abundantly clear.

I bought my suit with my future mother-in-law. I was too afraid to ask my own mother to go with me, because I was wearing a suit and not a dress.

My mom walked out of the venue while we were decorating the venue because my MIL called me by my chosen name.

They cried during the ceremony. My mom refused to sign our wedding certificate as a witness, despite having agreed to do so prior to the ceremony.

My marriage lasted less than two years.

______

I blamed them. When I got the “I told you so” after telling them that I was getting divorced. When they told everyone else. When they said that they never really liked my partner anyway. I was so angry that my partner left me and proved my parents right. I felt inferior. I was the only representative of queerness to my entire conservative religious family. And I fucked it up. I fucked it up for all the queer folks that any of them ever meet.

That’s a big burden to carry as a young person.

I blamed my parents for a long time. I had to. I needed to. The emotional work to heal was just too much, and it was easier to push all of that emotional weight on them instead of carrying it by myself.

I lost everything in my divorce. My chosen family that supported everything about me. My friends. My home. My security. My self-worth.

I attempted suicide and was hospitalized within a year of my divorce going through. I blamed my parents for that too.

My parents had traumatized me. They had damaged me. They had hurt me so badly that I never wanted anything do with them again. I thought that I had experienced the worst parents that a middle class white kid could experience. My parents were homophobic, transphobic, emotionally stunted, vindictive, and cruel. They raised a depressed, anti-social, anxiety driven kid who hates themselves, attempted suicide twice, and can’t manage to find a successful relationship of any kind.

Even if all of that were true (it’s not), they still raised me. Despite all of the mistakes, errors in judgement, and harm that they caused, they still managed to raise a resilient kid that survived transitioning in a conservative environment and managed to find a life of his own.

I’m trying to take the good with the bad. No, my parents aren’t perfect. They have made major fuck ups. But they keep trying. When I told them about my most recent partner, my mom’s first question was “do they treat you right?” They have grown so much. Because they love me. Not because they had to, or because society pressured them to (they live in a pretty conservative bubble and don’t have to change unless they actually want to). They told me that I was broken when I first came out. They totally fucked that one up. If we had had a better relationship, I might not have ended up marrying someone that was incapable of loving me for me. But their homophobia prevented me from being able to decipher the truth from the bias.

My parents totally fucked up at times. But they still raised me. And I’m pretty fucking awesome.

[chequerootlurks]

What Is "Pretty Privilege" & How Does It Affect Trans Women?

[written by JUNO ROCHE

I didn't encounter the words "feminized" or "feminization" until I started transitioning. Yet currently, both words occupy quite a few media inches, in reference to those who have had feminizing surgeries and, by omission, those who haven't. It's a trans concern, but one that ripples way out.

When I first engaged in talking therapy to try and resolve my issues around gender, people (professionals and friends) would ask me what I was going to do to become more feminine, what surgeries might I have done to erase the masculine features created by testosterone. Would I consider having my face shape changed, my brow line, my hairline, my chin, my nose, my lips? Bigger breasts, smaller shoulders, pretty hair? I would stand in front of the mirror and quite literally tug, pull, push, and attempt to non-surgically change my face from what now felt almost Neanderthal into Disney. My internal aim was to look like Kate Moss — ridiculous, I know — but I often spent days hating my face and wishing for her perfect, symmetrical elfin beauty. I felt like I had to be dainty in order to fit in. I had to be soft and smooth.

All around me people talked about the parts of me that made me stand out: my voice too deep, my shoulders too wide, my eyes too heavy-set, my chin too square... the list is eternal. This felt strange because, before transitioning, I had spent my whole life being told I was too feminine for my own good: I walked like a girl, talked like a girl, sat like a girl, read like a girl, played sports like a girl. These were pejorative, nasty, spiteful insults — which, ironically, I adored. But apparently, the instant I started to transition, I resembled Cro-Magnon Man.

I felt elated at the start of my transition, proud of my courage to be open and honest about who I felt I was. But the process of becoming me was draining. The need to fit a stereotypical binary model of femininity was utterly dispiriting. For years I felt that I was not good enough, that I was clumsy, unattractive, that if I didn't have bangs or soft, razor-edged hair I would seem masculine.

Hanging over me the whole time was the knowledge that I could change my face and body by undergoing feminization surgeries and training. I could sell my house to pay for it — my house which I had struggled as a teacher to buy and hold onto through the years when I could barely pay the mortgage.

My first act of womanhood was a commitment to my economic security. I held onto my house and realized that I couldn't afford the surgeries that may alleviate the dysphoria which at that point I saw as mine to own, not as society’s problem, as I do now. I spent lots of time coming to terms with my body and face and realized that the surgeries we trans folk can have may offer safety and success, but they might not be progressing the rights of all trans people. I wanted to linger, politically and personally, and occupy trans as a destination. The longer I have transitioned, the less important it is for me to be seen simply as a woman. The authenticity of trans, masculine features and all, is so often derided by our rush to pass through it and get to a place where we are perceived to be just like every other woman.

I'm not like every other woman: I'm fabulously and creatively transgender. There, I said it — and the sky hasn't fallen in.

The other day I read something like: "She had facial feminization surgery and the work flooded in." Our community should celebrate any trans person getting success — and I do — but the context in which our success is celebrated and our careers advanced is far too often still packaged in cis society’s desire to see the trans in us disappear. We are celebrated when we shake off our trans-ness.

The implication is that being suitably feminine is rewarded with work. The brilliant Janet Mock has been one of the few to shine a light on the presence of "pretty privilege" in the trans community. In an interview with Nylon magazine, Mock talked about how, after embarking on her medical transition at 15 years old, she saw her body change; she began "passing" as a cis girl, and with it, the reactions to her body changed. “With my gender nonconformity seemingly fading away,” Mock said, “I began to attract the attention of 18-to-24-year-old cis guys who began stopping to inform me that I was pretty.” She explains that she was suddenly accepted, yet “did nothing to earn the attention my prettiness granted me.”

I know writing this will make me unpopular. I know that the transphobes out there who attack us every day might think this article is for them. It's not. I am not criticizing any trans person who wishes to blend — fuck that. I want to blend: It means I get work, it means I'm safe(r) in this shitty #MeToo world of ours. But the entry point for success, aspiration, and affirmation is walking slap bang into sexist structures that reward smooth, youthful beauty. We need to be able to check that; it's privilege that is creating a two-tier system which leaves trans behind as the ugly, clumsy sibling.

This isn't new, women on television not being entitled to age, having to erase any signs of life from their faces and reducing their reactions, their facial responses, their fun, their joy, their anger, their laughter, to an ever-present, part-frozen, Botox-regulated grin. I have beautiful friends in their 20s who are already having Botox to ward off lines, to stave off aging. Lines, natural lines, are seen as unattractive, not viable for careers.

Age happens to us all, so let's not think that these cultural norms we are creating (beautiful trans folk equal success; aging in anyone equals very bad) don't apply to us. I know it's spectacularly easy to think we can demarcate young and old, and I know many will view me as old — perhaps the word "bitter" will appear on my timeline — but I assure you this is about politics and cultural submissiveness, which I witness becoming norms.

Botox will not prevent you, me, us, from aging and eventually dying. We all age, we are all temporary, but the important things are always deeper; we should be able to look in the mirror and celebrate who we are, bare-faced and naked. That's the kind of politicized equality I want to work towards: one where all trans people have the same opportunity for economic and personal success and safety, one where women are allowed to age and not be shamed into feeling that they are letting themselves go if they don't paralyze their expressions into porcelain smoothness. I want to reside in my trans-ness and celebrate my trans identity. I think I may just define myself as simply being trans from now on, because I do trans very well. Trans is my success point.

[source: https://apple.news/AV5AFxzHBTviwHnXl7xfgjg ]

[thetenorsaxtrianglerabbit]

Transphobic FAQ

“So you want to be a boy/girl?” You’re implying that I’m not already the gender I’m transitioning to. My biological sex is what you’re referring to, which has nothing to do with my gender. It’s hard to describe what gender is because it’s basically what your brain is telling you that you are. Most people can only describe it as a ‘feeling’ even though feelings can be controlled a bit more easily. I don’t necessarily want to be my gender, it’s more like my brain will prevent me from ever being completely content with myself until I’m certain that people perceive me as my gender.

“There are only two genders. Why are people creating all of these new ones?” (Usually contains ‘stupid/dumb liberals/SJWs’ in it) First of all, I’m a binary trans person. I’m 100% male, even though I may not seem like it to you. However, it still irks me when people try to imply that being nonbinary or trans are new things. There’s historical evidence that suggests third-gender or non-gender people existing in early civilizations, typically for religious purposes, but not always. There are also some historical figures that I would argue are not completely cis, but did not know that being transgender was a thing possibly due to their time period. There was also an empress of Rome who was a young trans girl. I cannot think of her name. The reason why it coming up now seems so new is because trans people used to be terrified of coming out since it usually meant a death wish. Now, modern feminism has progressed everything forward enough that it’s possible for us to come out without as much risk of being murdered (but it is still disproportionately high for trans women.)

“What’s in your pants?” Legit, why do you care? You’re not getting anywhere near my pants. My significant other would probably kill you if they knew you wanted to see what was in my pants. Just respect my identity, okay?

“So if I pretend to be trans, people will just believe me when I say I’m (gender) because that’s what I say I am?” You totally misunderstand. In reality? No. Most people are going to being transphobic like you and try to assume what gender you are, which is not the goal of your twisted little dress up game. You don’t think we go through this for shits and giggles, do you? Some trans people might believe you because they know how awful it is to be misgendered, but they’ll probably figure it out. Generally, people should really just be themselves and you are not being yourself in this scenario.