#and he misgendered me as a trans woman on his report like-

[dkettchen]

[zmpl]

I’m sorry for the long post but I want as many people to hear this message as possible, so I’m extending it out to tumblr.

This is my friend Meghan Lewis. She’s a 52 year old trans woman from Bel Air, Maryland. She’s a huge advocate for the LGBTQ community and has devoted her life to helping her community. She worked with houseless LGBTQ youth. She mentored me during hard times this past year, acting as an aunt figure to me. But two nights ago, on December 27th, 2023, she was murdered.

From what the news reports are saying, she ordered food to her home and the delivery man, Brian Delen, misgendered her. This started an altercation where Brian stormed back into his car, and Meghan followed him on foot. Brian then got out of his car and shot her.

What infuriates me is that he’s likely going to claim self-defense, or that this wasn’t related to Meghan’s gender. and end up getting a lighter sentence. He called 911 himself and surrendered himself to the police. Even though these are the type of posts he made on Facebook:

Meanwhile, this is what Meghan would post to her Facebook:

I’m just so angry. I’m so hurt. Meghan had a heart of gold and would open her door to anyone who needed a shoulder to cry on. She didn’t deserve this. No one does. Please keep Meghan in your thoughts, forever. Pray for justice.

[pinchinschlimbah]

There's some bullshit afoot and I don't really feel like engaging but what I'll say is this: -acknowledging that someone who has had a drastic change in appearance over the past decade to appear more feminine, is in fact more feminine now, is not an act of violence or misgendering -calling someone they/them who seems to be intentionally presenting in an ambiguous way (both visually and in ways such as coming up with a feminine nickname for themself that they've repeatedly used to speak about themself in third person in place of using a first person gendered pronoun) because you're unsure of their current identity even though they might still be cis, is not misgendering on the same level that intentionally calling a trans person the wrong pronouns is -I can only speak for myself on this one but I come from the world of drag and queer nightlife where she/her is basically a gender neutral pronoun so me calling someone she/her doesn't necessarily mean I believe they're a woman, it's more a term of endearment than anything else

-Assuming cis/het identity as the default and refusing to acknowledge any potential for otherwise is just as invalidating as insisting someone is queer or trans when they're not -holding space for the potentiality of queer identity in someone who seems to be possibly having non cis/het feelings or expression but has not officially vocalized a coming out is not the same as deciding someone's identity for them -"If this person was queer/trans they would tell us" With how repressive and conservative Japanese culture is when it comes to this stuff??? There's a reason you can count the amount of officially "out" queer people in vkei in one hand and I can assure you it's NOT because there's actually that few queer people in vkei -"Yeah but Kyo said he's not gay in an interview several years ago so we should believe him and respect that" First of all see above point. Second, his visual presentation has changed SO much since then- specifically in the direction of queer/drag/femme aesthetics! And third, there are multiple reports of him saying on mic at a Sukekiyo show this past summer "I want to be loved by both men and women" and he has also made multiple posts about not caring about gender, so again, ignoring real sources that don't back up your belief that a person is definitely cishet is just as bad as insisting someone is queer or trans when they've said they're not -Are we reeeeally gonna pretend this person has not had ANY shift in gender expression and that there's NO chance these changes might possibly mean anything? Or are, as several people have suggested, just some sort of "joke" to amuse the fanbase? Come on nowww

Anyway that's all, have a nice day <3

[winniethewife]

There's nothing wrong with you (Miguel O’hara X Transmasc!reader)

A/N: For @romanarose 's Pride event!

Week 2: Transitioning

Warnings: Misgendering

Words: 810

He looked in the mirror, running his hands over his chest. He wasn’t sure about this new binder, especially under his spider suit. It hadn’t been easy, changing from a spider-woman to spider-man. In most universes that would seem to be the normal thing, a Spiderman. Many a Peter Parker could say that. But it was a little harder for him. He sighed, and pulled his mask on over his head and slapped his gizmo on his wrist ready to head to HQ for a meeting. His eyes glance over a newspaper sitting on his table and he shutters at the headline.

“Spiderwoman Saved 9!!!” It shouldn’t bother him. He should accept that it would take time for others to notice, but he hated the feeling none the less. He tried the whole coming out publicly, as Spiderman, but it was just not sticking. He was already having a hard time privately. His parents claim their “Mourning the loss of their daughter” and “Just need time to process the change” like he hadn’t been trying to show them for his whole damn life something was wrong. He sighed and activated his gizmo walking through the portal into headquarters in Nueva York 2099. He waved to some fellow spider people before swinging over to the meeting room. He found his seat in the empty room. The others filtered in slowly saying Hello to him and finding their seats. After Miguel came in the meeting began. Just going over basic procedures and clarifying some mission reports. Near the end Miguel startled him by calling his name. He looked up at the leader of the spider society nervously.

“Would you be able to meet with me after the meeting? There’s something I would like to discuss…you’re not in trouble.” Miguel clarified quickly as he could see the fear in his eyes.

“Of course Miguel. Not a problem.” He says with a smile. He was curious what it was that Miguel wanted to talk about, they hadn’t exactly been close or anything like that. Ask the other spiderfolx walked out he stayed seated. Miguel took a seat from across from him. He pulled up one of his many holographic screens and pulled something to the front. The newspaper from that morning. He felt the color rush from his face. Oh god, if there is such a thing, what will he do.

“I was pretty sure, that there was a press conference a few months ago, one where you came out as Trans. And you said you would like to be called “Spider-Man from here on out…Or did I miss something?” Miguel said simply in that almost terrifyingly cool tone he had whenever he stated facts, not opinions, Facts. He started to nervously fidget.

“No, you’re right…It just…hasn’t stuck.” He said quietly. He felt bad that Miguel had noticed, this would have been easier if…

“Maldito idiota… you would think after saving so many you would earn a tiny bit of respect.” Miguel curses under his breath as he scowls. That’s when he realized…Miguel doesn’t blame him…the shock was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“You….you don’t…I…But I…I…” He couldn’t get a full sentence out if it would save his life. Miguel suddenly looks at him across the table with a sad look in his eyes. He reaches and takes one of his hands gently, which he hadn’t expected.

“This isn’t your fault. There’s nothing wrong with you. You deserve as much respect as any other Spiderman.” He squeezed his hand gently his brows slightly furrowed.  “You. Are. Not. Broken. Don’t let anyone tell you that you are.” He said firmly as his scarlet red eyes looked into his. He realized this whole time he thought he was the problem, he was the one who caused issues that his choices made it harder for everyone else.

“No one…Has told me that before…that…I’m not…I’m…” He takes a deep breath and blinks away tears. “I thought I was inconveniencing people, that I was the problem. If I could just be-”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare think like that, Don’t you dare. I’m going to fix this.” Miguel was ever more determined now, how long had he just let this slide? How long had he let the press and god know who else walk all over him and disrespect him this way? Miguel would not let that stand.  Miguel got up, a man on a mission. He followed close behind, but before they could leave the room Miguel heard his voice behind him.

“Can I hug you?” He let the question slip before Miguel could leave, he blushed and felt like he had just asked way too much of the leader of the spider society, but he was quickly proven wrong, Miguel’s arms wrapped around him squeezing him gently.

“Just…don’t tell the others alright?” Miguel chuckled.

“Lips sealed.”

~

Translations:

maldito idiota: damn idiot

Masterlist

Taglist: @romanarose @silvernight-m @queerponcho @boredzillenial

[coochiequeens]

Jane Russell urged employment judge Sandy Kemp to force Peggie and her legal team to refer to Upton in “neutral terms” throughout the case. She claimed it was “simply a matter of courtesy” to use the preferred pronouns of someone, and that it was “troubling” to have Upton “repeatedly and deliberately” misgendered."

What about asking Dr Thomas to not upset women by using the changing room that correspondes to his biological sex?

By Reduxx Team February 17, 2025

A Scottish newspaper has been reported to the police after they referred to a trans-identified male doctor as a “man” in articles covering an Employment Tribunal case centered around his gender identity.

The Scottish Daily Express has been one of the outlets covering the progression of a tribunal being held against Sandie Peggie, a nurse who had been employed at the Victoria hospital in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. The case relates to interactions between Peggie and Dr. Theodore “Beth” Upton, a male doctor who had begun using the women’s facilities after beginning to identify as transgender.

As previously reported by Reduxx, despite being a biological male, who Peggie asserts “looks like a man” to hospital patients, the two encountered each other in the female changing rooms at the hospital multiple times after they first met in August 2023.

Upton prior to his “transition.”

On at least one of those occasions, Peggie had been in a state of undress, and felt extremely uncomfortable when Upton entered the changing rooms and saw her. During another interaction on Christmas Eve of 2023, Upton declared that he had “as much right” to be in the women’s locker rooms as Peggie did, leading to an argument that resulted in the nurse being suspended from work and an investigation being launched into her for “bullying.”

The case has continued to make headlines over the past two weeks, with Peggie being supported by a number of pro-women organizations outside the court. Peggie’s legal team has been referring to Upton as a man throughout the tribunal hearing, something that the opposing legal team had initially attempted to block them from doing.

Just prior to the start of the tribunal hearings, the lawyer representing NHS Fife and Upton demanded that Peggie and her legal team not be allowed refer to Dr. Upton with male pronouns at any point. The lawyer has claimed that her “gratuitous misgendering” of him had caused him “pain” and “harm.”

Jane Russell urged employment judge Sandy Kemp to force Peggie and her legal team to refer to Upton in “neutral terms” throughout the case. She claimed it was “simply a matter of courtesy” to use the preferred pronouns of someone, and that it was “troubling” to have Upton “repeatedly and deliberately” misgendered.

“I’m afraid the way the claimant and her representatives are conducting this case is a form of activism, that in my submission, is contributing to a climate of hostility and hatred towards trans people, which is actively harmful and has actively harmed the second respondent. It shouldn’t be allowed,” Russell argued. But NHS Fife’s argument was rejected by the tribunal after Naomi Cunningham, representing Peggie, argued that the fact of Upton’s biological sex is “right at the heart” of her case.

During the course of proceedings, Upton has attempted to argue that he is “biologically female” as a result of taking cross-sex hormones, and that sex has “no defined or agreed meaning in science.”

But as part of their coverage, the Scottish Daily Express chose to refer to Upton as a man, issuing a statement that Upton’s biological sex was a simple fact.

“In court stories, accuracy matters above all else (as I and many other journalists before me have found out to our cost) and so we believe the most accurate way of describing Dr. Upton is as a man, albeit one who is choosing to live as a woman,” editor Ben Borland wrote in the statement.

Because of this editorial decision, Borland was reported to Police Scotland by the SEEN Police Official Open Public Network, an account on X which claims it is dedicated to “challenging illegal policing decisions motivated by fear, hate, laziness or incompetence.” However, the Network has claimed that Police Scotland have yet to sufficiently action on the report.

Note that SEEN Police Official Open Public Network has no relation to Police SEEN UK, an advocacy group which serves officers and police staff who “hold lawful sex realist and gender critical beliefs” and seeks to remove ideological influences from policing.

“This links to our first report, which Police Scotland are currently REFUSING to deal with. In this new incident, Borland explains his reasons for intentional and gratuitous misgendering and deadnaming are ‘simply stating a fact’ and other well-worn ‘gender critical’ tropes.  Yet, he is fully aware he is causing harassment and distress,” the account claims.

They suggest that if Police Scotland don’t act, it will “end badly” for them, as not arresting Borland would be tantamount to a “breach of the Equality Act,” despite UK law recognizing the rights of gender critical people under the act.

“We are ready to apply for judicial review if this continues any longer. We will not allow Police Scotland to go on excluding the trans section of the public from the protection of a police service – which is effectively what they are doing, and have been doing since their infamous cowardice with JK Rowling,” they continued. The account was likely referring to the refusal of Police Scotland to charge JK Rowling last year under the country’s new hate crime law, which created a new offence of “stirring up hatred” related to protected characteristics such as gender identity.

“They are fobbing us off and know they are wrong,” the account concluded. “FAFO [f**k around and find out] Police Scotland. FAFO.”

Despite the threatening conclusion of their public statement, a Police Scotland spokesman told the Scottish Daily Express that they had “received a report on Friday, 7 February and a further report on Saturday, 15 February,” but that “on both occasions the information was assessed and no further police action was required.”

The SEEN Police Official Open Public Network account has repeatedly engaged in conspiratorial posting. According to the account, the assassination of Donald Trump was “staged,” and the President was never hit, and that criticizing transgender ideology is tantamount to “Christo-fascism.”

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Stephen Knight

Published: May 29, 2024

Comedy is becoming increasingly humourless and ideologically captured. So it should come as no surprise that the small number of comedians willing to make jokes about the ridiculous nature of trans ideology have become targets of fierce criticism. However, there is something especially pathetic about efforts to police what is acceptable in comedy when it is other comedians doing the policing. It’s like an ambulance being involved in a hit-and-run. It’s just worse.

Two particularly bad offenders are comedians Joe Lycett and Nish Kumar. Both have recently gone after Ricky Gervais, whose stand-up material pokes fun at trans activists. This week, Kumar took aim at Gervais on his podcast, Pod Save the UK, claiming that Gervais wants to ‘target and attack a vulnerable and marginalised community’. Similarly in February, Lycett appeared on The News Agents podcast, where he slammed Gervais for ‘doing material which is attacking trans people’ and ‘minorities’.

These attacks by Lycett and Kumar reveal that they either haven’t watched the material they say is so egregious – or worse, they didn’t understand it.

The routine that Lycett and Kumar are likely gesturing to is a bit from Gervais’s 2022 Netflix special, SuperNature. Far from attacking transgender people, the joke in question takes aim at the deranged disciples of trans ideology and gender self-identification.

The premise of the routine is that a trans activist becomes increasingly irate the more his belief that women can have penises is questioned. When a woman raises concerns about sharing the female toilets with a transwoman, asking ‘What if he rapes me?’, the trans activist becomes furious. ‘What if she rapes you, you fucking TERF whore!’, he screams.

The joke here is obviously that these gender zealots care more about a bloke with a penis being ‘misgendered’ than about the safety of a woman having to share loos with the penis-owning stranger. What Lycett and Kumar fail to understand from inside their ultra-progressive echo chambers is that this scenario isn’t just an invention of one comedian’s imagination. Any woman that has dared to defend their sex-based rights from the encroachment of gender ideology will be able to tell you about the rape and death threats and the risk of cancellation they face. Whenever they try to gather anywhere to protest for their rights, they are met with violent intimidation. In some cases, they have been visited by police.

Just this week, it was reported that the NHS is facing legal action after 26 female nurses complained about being forced to share the women’s changing room with a trans-identified male. One of the nurses in question, who was the victim of sexual abuse as a child, spoke of how ‘petrified’ she was to have this male in her space. Not least as the man repeatedly asked her when she planned on getting changed. The HR manager responded to these concerns by telling the female nurses they must ‘be more inclusive’, ‘broaden their mindset’ and ‘be educated and attend training’.

Worse still, in real life, the female victims of assault by trans-identifying men really have been compelled to recognise the ‘gender identity’ of their attackers. In 2018, a woman was required by a court of law to pretend her male attacker is actually a woman. In 2022, mainstream news outlets, including the BBC, edited the direct testimony of a rape survivor to avoid the unforgivable sin of ‘misgendering’ her rapist.

Just look at the ordeal Roz Adams has faced. Earlier this month, an employment tribunal concluded that she was unlawfully discriminated against and unfairly dismissed from her job at the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. Why? Because she believed that the victims of rape – who often understandably find being in close proximity with men traumatic – had the right to know and choose the sex of the staff member providing them with care. The tribunal concluded that management’s treatment of Adams amounted to a ‘heresy hunt’.

Such ‘heresy hunts’ are the backdrop for Gervais’s jokes about trans ideology. And it is the suffocating new reality regular people now find themselves having to navigate on a daily basis. The average person no longer has to contend with the authoritarianism of the church. They are more likely to fall foul of the blasphemy codes and dogmas invented by the new gender puritans in our midst.

Lycett and Kumar want us to believe Gervais has devolved into a chauvinistic, reactionary shock jock. In reality, he has always gone after quasi-religious ideologies that are hostile to science and the right to free expression. The new church of gender ideology is no different. It compels people to believe that men can become women simply by saying so and demands that all who disagree are financially, reputationally and sometimes even legally punished. Surely this gives any conservative, science-denying, crackpot church a run for its money.

Taking aim at trans ideology isn’t a regression for Gervais. It’s a display of consistency. It is just that he is joking about a worldview that the Lycetts and Kumars of this world simply aren’t equipped to think about critically. They imagine themselves as moral guardians of what is permissible in modern comedy. Unfortunately for them, the speed with which Gervais continues to sell out tours and break streaming records tells us that audiences still have the final say of what goes and which jokes land. And it seems that they have had their fill of censorious, virtue-signalling ‘progressives’ who are too toothless to leave the safety net of their right-on establishment views.

Thank God for comedians like Ricky Gervais, who refuse to play it safe. Most of us want a laugh, not a lecture.

==

At bottom, this is a complaint about religious blasphemy by a heretic.

There's no human right to not being offended. And demanding that you (or one group) alone get to be immune from comedy is demanding special privileges. Equality means you get to be treated as fair game like everyone else.

[imaginebetterfutures]

"After the sporting time, comes the legal time."

On Sunday it was reported that boxer Imane Khelif had hired a legal team, and that they were filing a complaint on her behalf. The letter begins with the line "Apres le temps sportif, vient le temps judiciaire." Which translates to "After the sporting time, comes the legal time."

The complaint was filed with the "the anti-online hatred center of the Paris public prosecutor's office" and argues that the case "will determine who initiated this misogynistic, racist and sexist campaign but will also have to focus on those who fueled this digital lynching."

Some reporting I've seen says that Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan may join her on the case. I haven't been able to independently verify that.

I'm not a lawyer and I certainly am not familiar with defamation laws in France, so I don't have much to say about how likely it is that this case will go anywhere. (I know from personal experience that getting any kind of legal remedy for online harassment and threats can be very hard.)

But there is some historical precedent around cases like this! Here are two examples that came to mind for me immediately:

On episode two of my podcast Tested, we talked you about a newspaper article about Helen Stephens that accusing her of being “too fast” to be a woman. What we didn’t tell you, is that she actually sued Look Magazine over a related story, which used her picture and the headline “Is This A Man Or A Woman?” And she won! The court awarded her $4500, according to the papers, which is the equivalent of $98,179 today.

Here is the spread from Look Magazine that Stephens sued over, and won. Stephens is the one on the right, under the caption “Is This a Man Or a Woman?”

In Caster Semenya's memoir, she tells the following story about a strip club in Johannesburg using her image: “The owner of Teazers had come up with some clever advertising for his club. A giant billboard on a main highway in Johannesburg that featured a naked, blonde, White woman with the words “No Gender Testing Necessary” written across the bottom half of her body.” Caster’s team sued, and won R20,000 (about $1,000). Here's an image of that billboard if you want to see it.

Obviously these are not legal precedent that could be used in this case, but it's a reminder that this kind of case isn't new.

Two other thoughts on this:

This actually will not be the first case filed at this office coming out of this Olympic games. The very same office has opened a case to investigate harassment and death threats aimed at Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the opening ceremony. Jolly alleges that he has been facing death threats and harassment, largely stemming from his use of drag queens in a segment that some assumed was based on the Last Supper (Jolly says that the painting was not his inspiration).

I'll be very interested to see the line of argumentation that the lawyers use here. The harassment that Khelif and Lin endured was awful, and/but there's a tricky line to walk here I think. Will they argue that simply being called trans is bullying? I understand that for Khelif and Lin it amounts to misgendering them, which is a form of bullying. And it also strikes me that if not handled with care, that could be a precedent we might not want to set. It reminds me a bit of the cases in which people have won defamation claims for situations in which it was suggested that they were HIV positive. Because that suggestion is still so negative that it rises above the level of the usual bar for defamation in the United States.

If you want more about the history of sex testing, listen to Tested!

[pleasantspark]

How Frieza Implemented Gender Affirming Care on The Force Zarbon x Saiyan! OC (Orion/Daikon) Genre: Romance Tropes: N/A Warnings: Transphobia, Intentional Misgendering, Deadname Used AUs Utilized: Overhaul AU A/N: I am so mentally drained because I cannot write for shit, I am so overstimulated and cannot write for jackshit but YAY! Green Fic again! Anyways enjoy this self indulgent fic, I tried pushing out something because I tried, I suck at writing. I wanted to do this idea because XV2 Mentioned he had Child Rearing and Maternity/Paternity Leave and I was like "Hm, what about the Gender Affirming Care?" also because I am trans male too.

Aboard the flagship of Frieza’s spaceship. Zarbon was tasked with the annoying and albeit grating task of doing headcounts, on days like these he hated to do them because it takes forever and most of the soldiers seemed to be smartasses all around, but without any delay he had everyone line up in a straight line. 

“Okay, when I call your name, say present.” Zarbon said.

“Appule.”

“Here.”

“Ginyu.”

“Here.”

“Jeice.” 

“Here.”

“Burter.”

“Here.”

As Zarbon called out attendance he landed on one name, it seemed to be a name, “Uh, Daiko?” 

There was silence, and Zarbon frowned, “Daiko, are you here?”

“Um, I am-” Said a voice.

“Look, I don’t care if you’re here, just stay here.”

“I don’t go by that name anymore!” Said the voice, Zarbon snapped his eyes up and met the defiant voice. He was met with what looked to be a woman, wild hair, sayian. His eyes narrowed.

“What business does a woman like you have talking disrespectfully to your superiors?” Zarbon asked.

“Um, General Zarbon.” Appule began, “That’s a he.” 

Zarbon turns his face to the many expendables and raises an eyebrow. “A he? It says here, on her folder and file report that she is a female sayian by the name of Daikon.” 

Appule shook his head, “General Zarbon, it doesn’t matter, he identifies as male, and he is currently named Orion.” 

Zarbon sighs, and places his fingers on his temple. “Look, if she isn’t here, then I’ll mark her as absent.” 

It wasn’t heard of for a soldier above Frieza’s Spaceship to switch genders, there wasn’t that much of a thing to where trans people were working for Frieza, either because they kept to themselves or Frieza wasn’t progressive, despite the fact he had such a wide range of diverse creatures before him. 

While he was doing standard protocol, he couldn’t help but feel disgusted with himself, he called someone a she, someone who went by the pronouns he/him. But instead of understanding he went straight to misgendering and using the wrong pronouns… But he had to, it’s on her file, wasn’t it? No, it’s still not right, with a sigh he marked Orion- not Daikon as present.

“Come with me.” He said to Orion who nervously shifts to follow him, and everyone looked at him pity in their stares. 

The walk through the corridors was silent and Orion didn’t know what Zarbon wanted from him, all he could have known was Zarbon was planning to kill him, he shook nervously before they stopped at a door. 

“Relax, you're not in trouble,” Zarbon said, wiping a hair strand from his head, “We’re discussing changing your name and gender on your file with Lord Frieza, I’ll be doing the talking and you can watch.”

With those words being said, Zarbon stepped in the room and cleared his throat. “Lord Frieza.”

The male looked up and smirked, “Well if it isn’t, Zarbon. What is it that you need?”

“I was here to request on behalf of a soldier to change his name and gender.” 

“So you want him to be known as a she?” Frieza asked.

“Opposite, I want her to be known as a he.” Zarbon said, Frieza snorts.

“What the fuck are you talking about? Is this a joke? She-”

“He.” Zarbon sharply said, in a tone Frieza was not familiar with before and his eyebrow (if he had one) arched.

“Zarbon, you don’t use that tone around me, you know that.” He snapped, but Zarbon wasn’t backing down.

“Daikon is dead,” Zarbon began, “She died years ago, and the person who came back is named Orion, I request you to respect Orion, it doesn’t matter.”

“I won’t respect someone who can’t pick an identity they want to be.” 

“You should, he’s trans male, he’s still the same soldier but with a different identity, we have child rearing and maternity leave why isn’t there Gender Affirming Care?”

“Because, we never had a single transgender person abord this spaceship! How am I supposed to supply or understand the concept of trans people?” Frieza asked, slightly annoyed.

“Then why didn’t you say so? Orion can teach you!” Zarbon slightly relaxed though his posture remained stiff and uncertain, labeled with a sense of having a guard up.

“I will keep that in mind, I will be changing Orion’s name from Daikon to Orion and removing the ‘F’ as ‘M’ and having the officers refer to him as he/him for the future, and for now I will be looking into possible Gender Affirming Care in the future for the Frieza Force.” Frieza said, Zarbon smiled, and nods.

“That’s all I ask.” With that, Zarbon escorts Orion out of the room and upon entering the hallway, a few soldiers snicker and points at Orion.

“Hey Daikon! How’s things going?” One of them asked, “I hope your female body won’t die out on the fields.”

“Hush,” Zarbon snaps, placing a hand on Orion’s lower back, “It’s Orion now and he’s a he, not a she, get that correct.”

Zarbon walked away with Orion before the two transphobic soldiers can call Orion any form of slurs. Surprising Orion in the process.

[sputnikscock420]

Quick Summary of the Situation so far:

Tumblr mods ignore harassment of Black & LGBT+ users

Tumblr mods allow nazis, white supremacists, and transphobes to spout obvious hate speech

Super quick to flag/ban Black & LGBT+ users over the most minor of violations and sometimes for nothing at all. These users regularly experience posts related to things like BLM or transition being flagged and appeals being denied

Trans user Avery has been on receiving end of provable harassment and mass false reporting as well as SFW transition pics getting flagged and has had blogs suspended due to the (again, provable) mass false reporting

Avery expresses frustration over all of this at CEO with an admittedly violent, albeit obviously non-actionable, non-serious, run-of-the-mill-Tumblr statement that is genuinely on par with Loony Toons-type cartoon violence

CEO cries “tHeY[sic] tHrEaTeNeD mE”, permanently bans her account, bans every subsequent account she tries to make, threatens to get law enforcement involved, and sends her an email that states her account was actually terminated NOT for “threats” as he claimed publicly, but for sexually explicit content despite a clear lack of said content on her blog, all while misgendering her in the process

(important to note here that transphobes on Tumblr have directed much more violent and much more serious statements at trans users with no consequence - reports of such statements have even been met with being told that the behavior is NOT against TOS)

CEO starts getting absolutely clowned on by his userbase for considering the hammer car explosion statement to be a serious, actionable threat, and for thinking anybody was going to believe that that was the real reason for Avery’s account being terminated

CEO also starts getting dragged by his userbase for showing such obvious bias against a trans user while trying to deny being a transphobe

CEO seemingly monitors posts related to the situation, finds trans women that posted or replied to posts about it, and DMs them within minutes of their post or reply asking why they’re “spreading misinformation” and insisting he’s not a transphobe

CEO then FOLLOWS Avery to other social media?? And tries to insist PUBLICLY on Twitter that she definitely did have sexually explicit content on her blog, going so far as to POST THE URLS OF HER PRIVATE BLOGS PUBLICLY TO TWITTER to try to paint her as some kind of sex freak as justification for terminating her account, likely outing her in the process(idk if she was already out on Twitter or not)

(Important to note here that, again, there is no proof or evidence to suggest that she actually had sexually explicit content on her public blog. Most of her private blogs were empty. A bit telling that he stopped trying to insist it was because of “threats” once he realized we weren’t falling for it. Also as we all know, “trans woman = sex freak” is transmisogyny 101… he ain’t beating these allegations…)

CEO then pins a post to his blog about how he’s definitely not transphobic while turning off replies and asks

Yeah this is totally fine and definitely not the behavior of a completely unhinged transmisogynist 👍/s

[cordycepsfem]

The HRC's insistence that there is a "campaign" of violence against trans people is so frustrating to me, because they often do not mention how the trans people who lost their lives to violence died. Spoiler alert: it's not all hate crimes. It's so disingenuous.

Their own reporting says (bolding mine):

The death must have been committed by another person, either directly or through contributions to the circumstances that resulted in the death. This means that suicides and death from illness and substance use are not included. The cause of death must be confirmed by authorities to be a homicide and/or caused by another person.

“Authorities” includes official statements (or press reports of official statements) from law enforcement and/or lawyers and advocates involved in the case. Violence, including structural violence, must also be a component of the circumstances, even if the perpetrator did not set out to kill the victim. Thus, deaths due to robbery/burglary, hit-and-run and vehicular homicide, and deaths which occur at the hands of the police/while in police or law enforcement custody, are included, in addition to deaths from homicide and manslaughter.

So let's see how many of these deaths were hate crimes, as opposed to deaths that could occur to literally any American (like hit-and-runs, which are generally not crimes that target people by gender identity).

Deaths from the end of 2023 going forward through 2024:

Amiri Reid and Kejuan Richardson - shot by a man while driving together. No motive was released for the suspect's act, and he later was found dead.

Jean Butchart - a verbal altercation between the deceased and the shooter escalated. The shooter committed two other assaults. There is no known motive, and authorities called the death part of a string of "random, violent" acts.

Savannah Ryan Williams - the victim of an actual hate crime; was murdered by a man after engaging in mutual sex.

Meghan Riley Lewis - after a delivery driver misgendered her, she followed him on foot and demanded that he confront her. He shot her in self-defense.

Amber Minor - was found dead in a driveway from a gunshot wound. No suspects, no motive announced.

Kitty Monroe - the victim of an actual hate crime; was chased and assaulted by two individuals, one of whom later ran her over with a truck.

Righteous Hill - murdered in his yard by an unknown shooter. No motive has been released.

Diamond Brigman - shot by a man now in custody, but no motive has been released.

Alex Franco - shot by two teenagers after he met up with them with plans to buy a gun; they planned to kill him and rob him.

Meraxes Medina - shot and also hit by a vehicle. No motive has been released, though a friend does believe Medina was targeted due to her identity.

Africa Garcia - a homeless and impoverished woman who was shot; no known motive.

Tee Arnold - believed his life was in danger before he was shot to death, but no motive was given. Police identified a potential suspect as someone who knew Arnold.

River Goddard - murdered in a domestic violence incident.

Andrea Doria Dos Passos - a homeless woman who was brutally murdered, and despite police saying she was not targeted due to identity, there are signs that she might have been, such as "overkill."

Sasha Williams - stabbed to death by an assailant who gave no motive and has been declared unable to stand trial.

Starr Brown - killed by a coworker.

Kita Bee - killed in a hit-and-run.

Reyna Hernandez - killed in a domestic violence incident.

Tayy Dior Thomas - killed by her partner.

Michelle Henry - killed after a fight in a house. Not classified as a hate crime.

Yella (Robert) Clark Jr. - got into a fight in prison. Part of his convictions included the 2018 murder of another inmate.

Jazlynn Johnson - shot by a friend who claimed it was an "accident."

Liara Tsai - stabbed by an ex-partner.

Pauly Likens - murdered by an individual potentially met on Grindr. Likens was a teenager.

Shannon Boswell - was both shot and hit by a car. It's unsure which killed her, and there are no suspects or motive.

Kenji Spurgeon - shot by an unknown assailant. Motive unknown. Killed in an area where the nightlife frequently leads to violence.

Monique Brooks - killed outside a Florida mall. No known suspects or motive.

Dylan Gurley - killed after an altercation potentially about money; the suspect and Gurley were both homeless and had had fights before; the suspect said he would kill the next person who stole from him.

Tai'Vion Latham - shot by an unknown assailant. No known motive.

Vanity Williams - killed by a friend. Motive not reported.

Redd (Barbie) Black - killed in a random shooting.

Kassim Omar - originally paralyzed in a shooting, died from her injuries two years later. Two teenagers were charged. No known motive was reported.

Honee Daniels - killed in a hit-and-run.

Santonio Coleman - potentially died from an accident after falling from a trail. Death could not be classified as a homicide.

Quanesha Shantel - killed in a domestic violence incident.

To me, the majority of these deaths are ways anyone could die. Women die, on average, in the US, at the rate of 3 a day by intimate partners. But when it happens to trans people at the rate of a few out of 40/yr, it's an "epidemic" or a "genocide." People die in hit-and-runs and random shootings literally every day in the US. It's not part of an "epidemic" unless we're talking about an "epidemic" of gun violence.

Solving violence against trans people seems to include the same solutions as solving violence against most other people: housing, safe spaces to go in uncertain times, gun regulations.

[pojkflata]

Seeing critiques of transandrophobia makes it quite clear to me that most detractors believe this came out of nowhere, as if somebody rightfully called out a trans man on his misogyny once and he instantly snapped and became a reactionary gamer bro. So I'd like to tell you that at least in my case, this has been brewing in me for some time with the rise of a new transphobic movement that specifically targets transmascs, and I gave you not one, not two, but three chances to take my worries seriously. If you don't like seeing me discuss my oppression like this, it's your fault for not being there for me when you had the chance.

April 2019

The Swedish national broadcaster puts out a documentary about trans healthcare. It's bad. It's really bad. It lies about the ease of access to HRT and concern trolls about an "explosive rise in mentally unstable girls identifying as transgender". It cites an at the time obscure study suggesting that being trans, specifically transmasc, is communicable. It's pseudoscience, but nobody cares. A woman goes on national television funded by tax payer money to complain about being silenced. Parents come in to misgender their sons, and shortly thereafter one of these sons talks on social media about how his mother was lying through her teeth the entire time. No trans person is allowed to speak. The documentary is mass reported for its obvious bias, misinformation and invading the privacy of a trans man. In the end, it's only charged for the privacy breach - in the eyes of the public, the bias and misinformation are forgivable. A sequel is released in the fall of the same year when they actually bring in a trans person... a trans woman. As if to say "this is what a real trans looks like, unlike you mentally unstable girls". They then announce that they are detransitioning and calls themselves a "effeminate gay in a woman's body". Now the narrative is more like "if even this real trans wasn't actually trans, what makes you think you could be?"

My mental immune system went into overdrive, I panicked. This was new to me but I knew we would have to deal with this brand of transphobia for a long time going forward. I also knew that these people obviously hated trans men and trans men specifically, this was reactionary pushback against increased visibility. "No, you can't take up space like this, what about the children?" This rhetoric is also literal gaslighting - it teaches you that if you happen to be a trans man, especially if you came out as a teen and/or you're ND, you can't trust what's going on inside your own head, you're delusional, and you certainly don't deserve healthcare. I write a tumblr post describing to the best of my abilities why this is dangerous. It gets a couple of dozen notes, but not much else. I try to rationalize it - the post was written in panicked delirium and I didn't know what to call this rhetoric, I knew calling it "transmisandry" would get me laughed out of the room. Additionally, this isn't happening in the US (yet), so I have to be happy I even got notes at all.

I was pre-T at the time and I was terrified that this would prevent me from transitioning. Knowing that this documentary is now what most people in my country believe about me is a horrifying thought. At least one Swedish trans man attempted suicide following the documentary. As for me, I started crossing streets without looking for cars.

Strike one.

June 2020

An author whose work I never particularily cared about has a twitter meltdown over language designed to include me. She cries about feeling dehumanized by being called a person. Shortly thereafter she writes a full manifesto justifying her TERF sympathies. But this doesn't look like the typical TERF rant. While she goes over some very classic and violent TERF rhetoric like calling trans women predators, she spends even more words on regurgitating the rhetoric I knew from more than a year before. Some people sound the alarm about what this might mean for trans men, but they're shut down - TERFs don't hate trans men! Look, she said she included you! Just don't think too much about the fact that the reason this happened to begin with was that she threw a hissy fit over having to include me.

I try to rationalize this response again - this is many people's first exposure to this rhetoric, they just might not know quite what to make of it.

Strike two.

Summer 2020

A book is published once again rife with the rhetoric I was now very familiar with. The author is invited to the biggest podcast in the world where she says word salad about how people like me are women with unresolved body image issues and that's why we transition - T redistributes fat storage, that must sound awesome to women who hate their bodies. Just don't think too hard about how T actually allocates more fat to the stomach and how a woman with body image issues would realistically react to such a development.

The book itself is also vile. It misgenders trans men whose lives were lost to hate crimes. It fetishizes my reproductive organs, claiming that maintaining my fertility is more important than my wellbeing. I'm reduced to a breeding stock, what a shockingly feminist move.

It openly hates trans men who are out and proud with their experiences, it accuses them of stealing their children in a manner not unlike how autism parents talk about autism. But this might be worse - these are individuals who are being blamed. It makes uncomfortable remarks about their bodies and many of them are harrassed following the publication of this book.

At this point you have to stretch ridiculously far to claim that this isn't about hating trans men. I gave the people who should've been there for me the benefit of the doubt, and they proved me wrong. "Who do you think she believes is doing the seducing? It's trans women" I actually paid attention and she clearly blames trans men, why are you being this willfully ignorant? Does acknowledging the truth force you to reconsider your worldview?

Strike three.

That's when I ran out of patience. I realized the larger trans community was incapable of handling my issues with any tact or grace. We needed new terminology and rhetoric to address this emerging reactionary movement that specifically and obviously hates me and my brothers. And I refuse to back down now.

[lick-me-lennon22]

Trans Man!Reader X Beatles headcanons/How they'd support a trans (FTM) partner + help them through dysphoria 💙💙💙

(lengthy title, I know ^^' this amazing request is from @anonymous-blanket ! they originally asked for how the Beatles would help a trans [FTM] reader through dysphoria, but I sort of expanded it to add general headcanons- I hope you don't mind :) 💞)

⚠️⚠️⚠️DISCLAIMERS:⚠️⚠️⚠️

- I myself am a cis woman and this is solely based on the experiences my trans guy friends have been so kind as to share with me, as well as some of my own research on gender dysphoria and grounding techniques

- this is NOT entirely accurate to the 60s or 70s

- I have written these with the assumption that the reader has already come out and has transitioned or is currently transitioning; with that being said, none of the lads would ever out you or disclose your identity before you are ready to do so yourself/without your permission!

- all of the boys would respect your identity and address you by your name and preferred pronouns !!!

- please feel free to (kindly) correct me if any of this post is offensive or incorrect! I have written these headcanons with nothing but love and respect for the trans community ♡

Paul:

when you come out to Paul (if you were together before you began your transition), he's so proud of you for being your authentic self and so glad you're willing to share something like that with him

he immediately offers to take you out shopping and buy you a more masculine/comfortable wardrobe, as well as items such as boxers and binders if you want them

whenever you're up for it, Paul does your eyebrows and some masc contouring (if you ever want him to)- he's quite good with makeup, as he often does his own!

along with (of course) using your correct name and preferred pronouns, he showers you with gender-affirming nicknames and compliments ("my handsome man," "my prince," "dashing," "Adonis," etc.)

if you ever feel dysphoric about sitting down to pee, Paul reminds you that he also pees sitting down (hc)- "It's just more comfortable that way, no shame in it," he shrugs

he makes it a point to remind you how strong and handsome you are often

if you're having a particularly bad day and your dysphoria feels suffocating:

Paul respects your boundaries if you want to be left alone or don't want to be touched

he stays close to you and holds your hand if/as soon as you're okay with it

he tries to take your mind off of your discomfort and ground you by serenading you with your favorite songs

he listens attentively if you just want to vent, and gives you plenty of reassurance and words of comfort/validation if you need them

Paul reminds you that however you want to present is valid and that you are still, of course, a man- regardless of idiots who may tell you otherwise

"How can you not look like a man...? You are a man, love" ♡

John:

when you come out to John (if you were together before you began your transition), he talks you through everything you're feeling and listens intently when you share your experience with him

he suggests going to therapy if you feel like it'd be beneficial (he attends therapy sessions as well- hc)

he immediately assures you that he'll beat the living daylights out of anyone who dares to deadname or misgender you

John (without an ounce of subtlety) corrects anybody who uses the wrong pronouns to refer to you

he makes sure you know and always remember that your identity is valid

if you're comfortable with it, John places pride pins on his leather and denim jackets- regardless of the comments people make

he will absolutely go off on bigoted and closed-minded interviewers/reporters who question your identity or your relationship

John accompanies you into the men's restroom if you're nervous (and if you want him to) and will tell off/uppercut anyone who even looks at you the wrong way

if you're having a particularly bad day and your dysphoria feels suffocating:

John reminds you that your body doesn't dictate your gender and that your identity is 100% valid

he offers his clothes for you to wear if that would make you more comfortable

he helps ground you and distract you from your discomfort by putting on a silly movie for you to watch (together, if you'd like)

John carries his/your cat into your bedroom and places them in your lap for cuddles and purrs

he reminds you of what a hot, sexy stud you are ;)

"A... woman?? That's the dumbest thing I've ever 'eard. You can't 'look like a woman,' you ain't one- you're a man, love"

John tells you he can't wait until the day you become his husband ♡

George:

when you come out to George (if you were in a relationship before you began your transition), he sits patiently and listens as you share your feelings and experience with him

on his next trip out to the store, he buys doubles of all the masculine-scented hygiene products he usually purchases (body wash, deodorant, shampoo, etc.), as well as some extra boxers in your size in case you'd want them

when he arrives back home, he wordlessly places the items in your shared bathroom/dresser so you have access to all of them, but won't have to ask if you aren't comfortable enough to yet

he's very mindful about using your correct name and pronouns from the moment you come out to him

George supports you if you're on T and gives you daily reminders, or advocates for you if you aren't and want to be

he supports you equally if you don't want to start T at all!

he reminds you that your presentation doesn't invalidate your identity

he refers to you as "my boyfriend" or "my man," and tells you that you look sexy, dashing, and handsome ;)

if you're having a particularly bad day and your dysphoria feels suffocating:

George respects whatever you want to do and makes sure you're as comfy as possible if you just want to stay holed up in your bedroom for a while

he fetches you some comfy, baggy clothes in case you feel like disappearing into them for a bit, and offers you some of his clothes if you'd prefer them

he'll bring your pet into your room for some extra love and cuddle time

George will be considerate of your boundaries if you don't want to be touched, but stay by your side if you'll allow him

he's taught you how to meditate and will practice meditation with you as a grounding/relaxation strategy

"Remember, darling- your body doesn't dictate your gender. You are a man no matter what" ♡

Ringo:

when you come out to Ringo (if you were in a relationship before you began your transition), he is elated and relieved that you feel comfortable enough to share something like that with him

the next time you leave the house without Ringo, by the time you've arrived back home, he's set your entire dining room up like a gender reveal party: complete with an It's a Boy! banner and everything blue he could find (it's overkill, but he means well)

on the table is a care package he's bought and assembled for you

in it, he's included plenty of masc-scented soap/deoderant/shampoo, boxers, a pricey and great-quality binder (if you've expressed that you want to bind), and a very thoughtful handwritten and decorated card

from then on and if/when you're ready, Ringo makes a point of (re)introducing you to everyone (and I mean everyone) as his boyfriend- you both love the sound of it!

he'll give you the most genuine, validating compliments out of nowhere

for example: the first time you watch your favorite show together after you've come out to him, Ringo admits that he's always thought you looked/sounded a lot like one of the main characters (who happens to be male)

if you're having a particularly bad day and your dysphoria feels suffocating:

if you're still alright with being touched, Ringo smothers you in one of his famous bear hugs and tells you that everything is okay and you're no less valid for feeling this way about your body

he brings your favorite snack/treat into your room for you to eat and enjoy

he'll sit on the bed and engage in honest conversation with you if you feel like venting; if not he brings you all of the pillows, blankets, and/or stuffed animals in the house- as well as any clothes you'd like to change into

he showers you with gender-affirming nicknames and compliments: "my handsome man," "my prince/king," "heartthrob," "hunk," "stud"... some of them silly, but all of them sincere

Ringo is sure to remind you that no matter what your body looks like or how you're feeling about it in this moment (and no matter what bigoted asswipes may say to either of you), you are just as valid and masculine as any other man:

"Because that's what you are, my love- a man!" ♡

[mlm-mod-taka]

Hey hey!! I hope you're doing well, Mods Kiyondo and Taka!! (Don't feel any rush to answer, and drink some water while you write!!! Self care is very important!!)

[Even though I may not be good at it]

Anywho, may I request some Hajime with a trans ftm partner who started a band with Ibuki after she left her old one?

MUSICIAN S/O • hajime x trans ftm reader

hi mod makoto! im doing pretty okay, and do not worry, i did drink water. i hope you all do so too! anyways, of course you can. i really liked this concept, so it only took me around 20-30 minutes to do. i hope this didn't effect the quality and that its still good enough!

tws/cws: ibuki threataning hajime violently, stalkers, doxxing, invasion of privacy, transphobia, misgendering & dead naming.

|| -> mod taka <3

out of all of the wonderful men he expected to fall in love with, he was pleasantly surprised that it was you of all people. but! he isn't complaining at all. it was just very unexpected, is all.

how you two met was actually through ibuki. she claims to be both of yours' wing woman, and constantly asks questions about the relationship.

she also often threatens hajime to never hurt you or else she'll chase him with all of her guitars, then break every single one of them over his head. you're pretty sure she's joking, but only pretty sure. mioda is a very protective person over people she loves, so wish him luck if she actually does mean it.

he's not the biggest fan of music, but you quickly change that for him. it doesn't matter what genre it is, he'll listen to every single one of your songs in repeat, and ask others to stream them like he does.

if you ask him for any music ideas though, he'll freeze on the spot. he really loves your music and wants to help you out any way he can, but he doesn't have the best ideas, or taste.

if you ever do that thing that some musicians do for their lovers, which is make a song about them, then he might actually cry out of how happy and flustered he is. please don't do this to him because he can and will ugly sob.

actually really likes most of your fans/stans! hajime often interacts with the nice ones of twitter, and agrees with them on a lot of positive things they think about you.

if any fan takes it a little too far though, like going out of their way to find out things that are very personal and should be kept confidential, he'll call the manager of your guys' band to handle them.

there are also those really invasive people that purposefully deadname/misgender you, or try to find your deadname. as a result, he'll report their account, as well as block them on your personal social media so you don't have to deal with such disgusting people. you don't deserve to see that, you are a boy no matter what any one else says.

is just super duper supportive of you! protects you from genuine hate and shows you the nice criticism that people give, also interacts with your fanbase alot, which they picked up on.

the whole fandom ships you two and makes a lot of ironic memes about hajime being a simp, which he technically is. he would gladly be labeled a simp, since he loves you so much!

[gaythingliker69]

PLEASE READ

TW: transphobia, mentions of hate crime

Hi, so since my post the other night I feel a sort of responsibility to tell people the situation of trans people in the UK. The short answer is it’s really bleak. The first thing I’ll mention is that in 2017 a trans woman was given residency in New Zealand from the UK as she faced “persecution” for her gender identity. The NZ authorities ruled that to send her back here would be “unduly harsh”. This must be at the forefront of everyone’s mind when trans rights come up in the UK, though it’s been forgotten over the last few years.

At that point the Labour Party was sort of ok for trans rights, with then leader Jeremy Corbyn calling for self ID. He certainly wasn’t perfect but he was better than his replacement. Corbyn was replaced by Sir Keir Starmer last year, and in his campaign for the leadership he refused to sign a pledge for trans rights, which was signed by his competitors Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy. The fourth contender, Emily Thornberry, refused to sign the pledge but spoke of her support for trans rights after the fact. Gemma Stone, a trans woman who said she was considering joining Labour but decided against it, described Starmer’s silence on the issue as “deafening”.

These days, Parliamentary support for trans rights comes from the backbenches - Members of Parliament who don’t hold a position as a government minister or shadow government minister. These include Zarah Sultana (the responses on that tweet are awful, but gives you an idea of what we’re up against) and Nadia Whittome of the Labour left, and Layla Moran of the Liberal Democrats, the first MP to identify as openly pansexual. Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, has called transphobia “not acceptable” in her party. However, Moran lost the LD leadership contest to Sir Ed Davey in 2020, so no party in Parliament in England and Wales has a platform for trans rights. Starmer has appeared to embolden transphobia by not cracking down on MPs like Rosie Duffield. We are very much on our own. Even on the far left, often accused of supporting trans rights as a means to undermine Western civilisation or something (I joke but I think you get my point), has major issues with it. The Communist Party of Britain has rumours and allegations of transphobia in its ranks, and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) infamously referred to LGBT+ politics as “anti-Marxist” and “anti working class”. Are there no working class LGBT+ people? Regardless, even the people who are labelled as liking us don’t appear to.

And Johnson’s Conservatives are a non starter. Just this year, they proposed making unenrolled deed polls (a method of quickly changing your name) invalid. This would mean there is a publicly available list of trans people and other vulnerable individuals, like those trying to escape or disassociate from abusive partners. The process would require consent from any spouse (the only other process of this nature that requires this is gender recognition for trans people) and the addresses of those who have changed their names would be public knowledge. I shouldn’t have to tell you how dangerous that is. It also appears there is little being done to stop the rise in hate crime, which were reported to have quadrupled last year. Politics is openly hostile from nearly every corner, it would seem.

In terms of healthcare there has been a similar decline. The BBC described waiting lists of over 3 years for gender clinics as “hell” (bear in mind this article was written before the pandemic hit the UK), though there were claims on Twitter that these times were up to 60 months in some places. These waiting times can lead to people taking the unfamiliar and often expensive private route. The High Court recently ruled that under 16s are unlikely to be able to give informed consent on puberty blockers, a troubling ruling that could have dangerous consequences depending on how the courts extend it in the future. The ruling that puberty blockers can only be used after you’ve gone through the bulk of puberty is a really curious one from a logical standpoint - they are not hormones, they are not irreversible. But I fear that’s what the courts or Parliament will come for next.

If you’re looking for an alternative source with different information from someone older, here’s a decent thread on how British transphobia partly emerged from the Skeptics in the Pub movement, making it unique to this hellish little rock.

This overview is really brief, and it would require me going a lot further in depth to go into how the media has fed into this, the controversies surrounding certain private doctors, or different groups and dog whistles they’ve adopted. But for now, I honestly feel quite helpless. There’s not much you can do to affect Parliament, especially not with the new laws coming in around protest in the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill. Petitions are useless unless they’re done through the Parliament website. If they gain 10,000 signatures they go to a petitions committee, then maybe the House of Commons itself. Only to be almost definitely voted down by Johnson’s Conservatives and their majority. Just please, spread this for all of us living here, and give any sort of suggestions for action. I fear this is going to get far worse before it gets better. We can but hope I’m wrong.

Update: 05/05/21

There have been some recent developments that I’m gonna note. I might use this as a sort of compilation document of documenting our position here.

Maya Forstater was a contracted consultant at the Centre for Global Development. Her contract wasn’t renewed in 2019 after a series of transphobic Twitter posts caused staff to complain about her. She received support from the Index for Censorship and was able to crowdfund her campaign. At the Central London Employment Tribunal, Judge James Tayler branded her views “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”. He said that her views weren’t protected under the Equality Act 2010 as they “violated the dignity” of trans people due to her insistence on misgendering. Judge Tayler did not say she couldn’t conduct so called ‘gender critical’ campaigns.

Part of Tayler’s judgement from the above linked article, the judgement itself can be read here. Various views on the case can be found in the ‘Reaction to the tribunal judgement’ of the Wikipedia article.

Forstater appealed, and there is yet to be a judgement. However, the Equality abs Human Rights Commission has intervened to say that Forstater’s beliefs are protected under the Equality Act as they are philosophical beliefs. The irony in this should be clear. The equality watchdog making an effort to protect bigotry over people’s right not to face abuse. I’ll update this when the decision is handed down, which will be later in the year.

[pleasantspark]

SNEEK PEEK!

As Zarbon called out attendance he landed on one name, it seemed to be a name, “Uh, Daiko?”  There was silence, and Zarbon frowned, “Daiko, are you here?” “Um, I am-” Said a voice. “Look, I don’t care if you’re here, just stay here.” “I don’t go by that name anymore!” Said the voice, Zarbon snapped his eyes up and met the defiant voice. He was met with what looked to be a woman, wild hair, sayian. His eyes narrowed. “What business does a woman like you have talking disrespectfully to your superiors?” Zarbon asked. “Um, General Zarbon.” Appule began, “That’s a he.”  Zarbon turns his face to the many expendables and raises an eyebrow. “A he? It says here, on her folder and file report that she is a female sayian by the name of Daikon.”  Appule shook his head, “General Zarbon, it doesn’t matter, he identifies as male, and he is currently named Orion.”  Zarbon sighs, and places his fingers on his temple. “Look, if she isn’t here, then I’ll mark her as absent.”  It wasn’t heard of for a soldier above Frieza’s Spaceship to switch genders, there wasn’t that much of a thing to where trans people were working for Frieza, either because they kept to themselves or Frieza wasn’t progressive, despite the fact he had such a wide range of diverse creatures before him.  While he was doing standard protocol, he couldn’t help but feel disgusted with himself, he called someone a she, someone who went by the pronouns he/him. But instead of understanding he went straight to misgendering and using the wrong pronouns… But he had to, it’s on her file, wasn’t it? No, it’s still not right, with a sigh he marked Orion- not Daikon as present. “Come with me.” He said to Orion who nervously shifts to follow him, and everyone looked at him pity in their stares.

[kindness-ricochets]

SoC Hospital AU

First & most important, thank you to a friend for sensitivity reading this (not putting a name because I don’t have permission to do that, but you know who you are <3). Even so: I am a cis writer including a trans character, so if there’s anything wrong or inappropriate in the fic, please tell me. It is never my intent to cause anyone offense.

TW: misgendering (some out of ignorance, some less so), allusions to suicide attempts

This place was too cold. Jesper lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, with the covers pulled up to his shoulders. The crocheted blanket didn’t really keep him warm. As he tried not to die of boredom, he slid his fingers into the gaps and out, wriggled them all the way through and—

Crap.

He looked at the blanket. How had his knuckles made it through the weave only to get stuck?! Jesper tugged at it, but ultimately needed his other hand. His stitches hurt when he sat up.

It wasn’t like he had nothing to do, either. His homework was right there. A guy couldn’t even have appendicitis these days without a little APUSH reading to go along with it.

He poked at the stitches and resolved not to do it again.

The hospital was a boring place. Presumably the surgery itself had been a little more exciting. Jesper barely remembered it. How was that for a bit of luck?! One of the most exciting things to happen in a guy’s life and he was all delirious! So now he sat on a semi-comfortable bed in a too-cold room. He had a window, at least, not that he could see much through it. A curtain was drawn across the room long-ways, like he might get jealous of that empty bed and… and race them or something. Yeah, like rig up an oxygen tank and have a two-bed hospital race, that would be cool!

He wasn’t going to, but it was fun to imagine.

Jesper knew he should do some reading. Exams and all that. But he knew it was pointless, to. His mind would wander after a few minutes. And if he was being honest, he didn't actually want to study. Didn't he deserve a break? A proper sick day?

So he leaned back and decided if he was stuck on his own, he might as well entertain himself. He sang to himself. He started with “Walk the Line”—picked up courtesy of his father, who hadn’t even been born when it was first released, but played Johnny Cash all Jesper’s childhood.

It was a good song, anyway.

Jesper waited a moment after the end of it, pausing for an imaginary audience.

“Thank you so much, it’s an honor to be here tonight. Now, for my next hit, this is ‘Party in the CIA’ by Weird Al Yankovic…”

And obviously he had to do a few moves, it was a song that just begged for finger-guns, imaginary sunglasses, and pretend tie-straightening. He limited the moves after an objection from his stitches, but that in no way limited his good time. Except, Jesper had only got to a line that always got him—“We got snazzy suits and ties/and a better dental plan than the FBI’s!”—when he heard… laughter.

Jesper stopped the song.

“What the—I thought I was alone!”

There was no answer.

“Well, now I know I’m not, so you might as well speak up.” And ideally his roommate could confirm his age. Jesper was seventeen, so they had stuck him in the pediatric ward. He hoped he wasn’t bunking with a kid—that would be… weird. Plus he’d have to work on not cussing.

“H-hey,” said the other guy. He sounded a little younger, but Jesper couldn't be sure.

“Hey! So you like Weird Al?”

“Who?”

“Weird Al Yankovic. Never mind, never mind. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Cool, I’m seventeen. So what’re you in for? I had my appendix out.” And his roommate was close to his age, so he had someone to hang out with! Jesper glanced at his APUSH book, then back to his fingers tugging at the blanket.

“Did it hurt?”

Jesper hadn’t initially said it was appendicitis. He hadn’t known. He thought he just felt miserable, but he didn’t want his parents to worry. By the time he couldn’t pretend anymore that he was okay…

“Nah. They knocked me out, anyway. I’m just bored.”

“Me, too.”

“Want to play Twenty Questions?”

“Sure. You pick something first.”

“Got it. It’s a person.”

The game continued for a while. It wasn’t Jesper’s favorite game in the world, but it kept him occupied—that and toying with the blanket—even as they got into an argument over whether or not “a field” counted as a thing. It totally did, a specific field would have been a place, but this was a kind of place, which was a thing. 

“No, a place is a place, you can’t just decide a place is a thing!”

“Yeah, if it were a specific place, but it’s not a place. It’s a category of places.”

“So a room would be a thing, but this room is a place?”

“Glad we agree.”

“That is ridiculous.”

Jesper laughed. He was about to retort that it wasn’t ridiculous, it was logical, when the door opened. 

“You look cheerful,” Aditi Hilli reported, coming to sit on the edge of his bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Good. Just cold and my stitches are itchy.”

“Itchy means healing,” she said, smoothing a hand over his hair. 

“There you go, siding with medicine again!”

He knew she only had a minute. She wasn’t treating him, that would be a severe conflict of interest, but she had found time in her shift to stop in. So Jesper didn’t waste time groaning. He didn’t even put up a fuss when she hugged him.

“Are you dizzy or in any pain?”

“No.” It was a medical question, but he understood that it was a mom question, too. It was a how are you question with more detail.

“Have you—”

“Ma, I love you, but I am not talking to you about pooping.”

“Honestly, Jesper, I changed your diapers.”

“Ma!”

“After an appendectomy—”

Jesper grabbed the pillow and wrapped it around his head like massive earmuffs as he informed her, loudly, “Not listening! Not listening!”

She shook her head at him and checked his chart. Okay, fine, she knew she could get that information. He still didn’t want to have the actual conversation. Seriously, was nothing sacred?

She set down the chart. He set down the pillow.

“I’m glad you’re okay, little rabbit.”

Jesper slumped just slightly. It was easy to shrug off being sick, but he knew his parents had genuinely been scared. He should have told them earlier, but that was easy to say in hindsight. But he was already enough of a disaster. Telling them meant giving them one more thing to worry about, and he had expected to hurt for a while and recover on his own.

“I love you, too. I’m fine, I promise, just… bored. Do you have my tangle? Or my zippers?”

“No, but your father’s coming to see you after work. He wanted to stay but I knew you wouldn’t like him hovering.”

“Thanks for taking care of us.”

“I’ll ask him to look for your things. Do you know where they are?”

“Um… y’know… I think I have a couple bracelets in the bathroom, and my tangle might be in the back pocket of my jeans. I’m sick,” he reminded her, playing up his ‘sick face’ to avoid hearing about how he needed to clean his room. He knew that. He didn’t mean to leave it a mess, he just kind of… forgot. The mess was organic. 

“I’ll ask him.”

She kissed his forehead and left. There wasn’t a lot of down time in hospitals. Well… there was. But it all went to patients.

After a moment, Jesper said, “So… you heard that.”

Great. His anonymous roommate had heard his ma talking about his messy room. Among more embarrassing things.

“She seems nice,” his roommate said. “My mom’s a nurse, so I’m used to… you know, being asked about symptoms.”

“Great, I can’t wait to hear about whether or not you’ve pooped.”

“I’m not here for poop-related reasons.”

Jesper laughed.

***

It was much later when his roommate’s mom visited. Jesper’s da had been in and gone. Like Aditi, Colm was glad to see his son recovering. He had a more frank, less clinical way of saying how worried he had been. He brought Jesper a hat and socks for the cold, and two zipper bracelets and his infinity cube, so the nothingness of the room stopped grating on his nerves quite so badly. The feeling was difficult to describe—it was like having this emptiness building up against him so he couldn’t find a space to exist.

Jesper would always find something to fidget with, but knowing he had dedicated fidgets at hand softened an edge.

The roommates couldn’t see each other, but they could both see the door, so Jesper saw the woman with curly red hair come into the room and head over to his roommate.

“Hey, sweetpea.”

“Hi, Mom.”

That was… not his roommate’s voice. This voice was softer, higher, and a little nervous. Jesper couldn't help having his interest piqued by the shift. Sure, Jesper changed his tone with his parents, but he still sounded like Jesper. His roommate sounded like a stranger.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. I… ———… we love you.”

Well, damn, his roommate was a girl! Jesper thought back over their conversation, searching for anything he might’ve said that he maybe shouldn’t’ve.

“I love you, too, Mom.” She sounded like it hurt to say.

“If this is about what your father said the other day, he… he needs you to be patient with him.”

“Okay.”

“He’s trying.”

Jesper was, by now, sitting very, very still. He knew this conversation wasn’t meant for him to hear, but in a small room, he couldn’t exactly not hear what was said a few feet away. So he tried to stay quiet and not make them feel self-conscious—and, if he was being completely honest, he was curious.

“Why do you excuse everything he does?”

“He’s not perfect, but he loves us. You’re still his little girl.”

“Okay.”

“———.”

“Could you just leave me alone, please?” said his roommate, in what Jesper could only describe as an amazingly rude way.

“———.”

“If you had to lose me or leave him, who would you pick?”

“That’s not fair.”

Jesper’s roommate said nothing.

“I’ll come back later. I hope you feel better then.”

Jesper settled back on the pillow and closed his eyes, doing his very best impression of sleeping. The door opened and closed, and they were alone. He stayed quiet for a moment, absently turning his infinity cube over and over in his hand. He had wanted to go back to talking with his roommate… but now he didn’t know what to say. That had been a heavy conversation to just ignore.

Then he realized his roommate was crying.

“Hey,” Jesper said. “———?”

She didn’t answer. 

“You okay?”

“That’s not my name.”

“Oh.” Jesper looked at the cube, clicking idly in his hand. He had no idea what was going on. “My name’s Jesper, but I guess you knew that since my ma visited. You want to play twenty questions? I got a good one. C’mon, you’ll never guess!” he wheedled.

After a moment, his roommate sniffled, then asked, “Person, place, or thing?”

***

“I feel wronged.”

Jesper snorted. Yeah, that was about the most accurate summary of their current situation. He still hadn’t seen his roommate, but they called to each other across the curtains. The entire situation looked brighter in the morning light. Jesper felt better. His body was rapidly putting the surgery behind him.

Even sunshine couldn’t fix the picture in front of him, though. Last night, his da had brought him food from home. No such luck today: Jesper sat up in bed, mournfully regarding the hospital’s breakfast tray.

He lifted the toast and gave it a shake. It wriggled.

“I think they steamed the toast,” he said.

His roommate laughed. “Think they toasted it first?”

Jesper set the toast aside. “You eating yours?”

“I can’t.”

“Me too. The apple looks okay.”

“Looks are deceiving things.”

Jesper bit into his apple and shuddered. He carefully removed the piece of fruit from his mouth, trying to pretend he hadn’t felt that mealy hellflesh. 

“Cereal and milk it is!” he announced. “I got Corn Flakes. You?”

“Rice Krispies.”

“This is blatant favoritism and I won’t stand for it!”

“You just had surgery, you’re not supposed to be standing at all.”

“Wow,” Jesper said, not at all appreciating that. It was true, but… wow.

He poured the mini box of corn flakes and carton of milk into his bowl. The breakfast tray was a depressing sight. There was steamed toast and an apple that was an insult to other apples. Still, at least he had juice to look forward to and the jello had been pretty good.

Halfway through his Corn Flakes, he asked, “So what are you in for, anyway? I had my appendix out.”

“I was sleepwalking—it’s dumb. I thought I was eating Skittles.”

“What were you really eating? Steamed toast?”

“Aspirin.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I was sleepwalking.”

“Yeah, totally,” Jesper said, trying to sound like he believed it. 

A while later, once the salvagable parts of breakfast had been endured, Jesper’s roommate appeared around the curtain, leaning on an IV stand. She was small, the sort of girl who looked like she would never be more than 5'. She had freckles and a curly red-gold ponytail, and if Jesper was being completely honest, she was cute.

“Want to play cards?” she asked.

“Um—I…”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s cool.”

“I have a gambling problem,” Jesper blurted out. “I can’t… it’s really… I have a problem. But if we keep it chill?”

“Sure. How about Go Fish? No one gambles over Go Fish.”

Gamblers would gamble over anything, but she sounded so sweet and optimistic, he didn’t want to ruin her bright outlook.

“Sounds good.”

She sat on the end of his bed and dealt. 

They made it a few rounds without chatting much, then she said, “I’ll tell you my name, but you can’t tell anybody.”

Jesper wanted to ask why she was trusting him, but instead said, “I won’t.”

She leaned nearer and whispered it. Jesper had suspected something like this. He appreciated having it confirmed. Now that he knew, he rearranged his thoughts about his roommate to use the correct pronouns.

“Wylan’s a cool name.”

Jesper’s roommate smiled at his cards, a smile that was determinedly interrupted with a scowl.

“Not as cool as Jesper,” he continued, “but still pretty cool. You want to play again?”

By that afternoon, they had both seen their mothers again. Wylan’s mom seemed to really love him, Jesper thought, even if she did use his deadname. The visit still left Wylan withdrawn, but Jesper talked his new friend into another round of Go Fish. It wasn’t such a fun game. It was about the company, though said company remained gloomy. He had a scowl like thunder.

“Here, I have an idea.” Jesper pulled off his beanie. “Do you want to…?”

Wylan took the hat, pulled it on, and tucked his hair up under it.

“I hate feeling it,” he said. “That’s probably stupid, but I hate it! It’s stupid. You have long hair and you don’t look like a girl!”

“You don’t look like a girl, either. And you don’t sound like a girl, I thought you were a guy until I heard your mom say your name. Which now I know isn’t your name,” Jesper added. 

The stormclouds began to disperse. 

“When I was a kid, I used to imitate cartoons.”

“Oh yeah? Can you still do it?”

Jesper didn’t have to hear the answer—which was just as well, because Wylan didn’t give him one.

“Do one for me! C’mon, just one.”

Wylan shifted, keeping his eyes on their forgotten game of Go Fish. Then he said, “Meep meep!”

“Pfft, Road Runner doesn’t count.”

“Road Runner’s a cartoon!” “You said one word and it was onomatopoeia!”

“Okay, yeah, but… okay. Okay.” Wylan took a deep breath, settled his shoulders, and stared at the sheets with a deepening blush as he said, “Duck season! Wabbit season! Duck season! Wabbit season! Wabbit season! I say it’s duck season, and I say, fire!”

Jesper laughed. “That’s really good!” he said. He wasn’t laughing at Wylan, but because the impression was so good, almost like different people when Bugs and Daffy spoke. Besides, the cartoon was a classic. Wylan must’ve known, because he smiled.