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soulvomit · 4 years

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Because of how I was brought up with regard to emotions, I had very, very poor emotional regulation for a lot of my early life. I was also basically just left to emotionally fend for myself in a lot of ways. My parents basically couldn’t deal with emotions, and didn’t teach me to deal with them, and my going from this school to that school to homeschool to that other school to homeschool again didn’t help, because I didn’t really get to practice this stuff with other kids, either.

Basically I was taught that I had to internalize all of my feelings, so I had two modes, Vulcan and Tornado (when the emotions couldn’t be internalized anymore). The problem is, by the time the emotions hit, they were just a seemingly unprovoked rage tantrum or a cry fest, sometimes triggered by some emotional content in a movie, or something weird that my brain had latched onto that didn’t even make sense to me. There was a period when I was 8 where pictures of orchids would set off crying jags. I don’t understand why. I didn’t understand why then, either.

I just had all of these random emotions that I didn’t understand, I didn’t even know what they connected to, and because I couldn’t make sense of my feelings - I couldn’t even tell you what I wanted, because I was conditioned to just name off practical considerations or “logical” reasons I SHOULD want a particular thing. (And it’s for this reason that I stayed in shitty relationships, or even stayed with people I didn’t love. I didn’t like my ex husband that much, but I couldn’t even admit this to myself. I had all kinds of rationalizations for why I should marry him anyway just because HE was interested. But tbh, I didn’t like him that much, and I never did.)

When I started questioning my sexuality, the biggest reason my mom couldn’t wrap her mind around this is because of her mindset that personal fulfillment is NOT WHY WOMEN GET MARRIED. And the problem is - sexuality and gender identity are ALL ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL FEELINGS. And in her mind, this was a reason that gay and trans people were actually invalid. I tried to talk to her about my feelings for other women, but what came up was, “feelings aren’t why people get married.”

And when I questioned my gender, she also couldn’t wrap her mind around that, either. “But ALL women have those feelings!” You just perform whatever role has been assigned to you, PERIOD, that’s how you are a good person, or you are letting multiple people down. And your gender isn’t just your identity, it also comes bundled with specific DUTIES. (The irony is that I would not have been able to be with my fiance if I had not learned to accept that People Partner Because FEELINGS. I had to go through “wait... it’s okay to be gay” to unravel that tangled mess. Identifying as gay for as long as I did, was partly about making a stand that MY PERSONAL FEELINGS MATTER. And once I acknowledged that same sex relationships - which exist largely because of FEELINGS - were okay... eventually, I fell in love with a man who was not someone my mother would have picked out for me. But this was only possible because of my having internalized the idea that MARRYING FOR LOVE was okay in the first place.)

So basically, this is the soup I was swimming in when I was struggling to learn emotions. It doesn’t help that I grew up in a household where the whole idea of feelings, was basically disregarded. (I wonder if it’s this way with other people whose parents are poor, or in survivor mode, or who are from more traditionalist/”old world” families). I was expected to put my feelings aside and expected to have the emotional skills of an adult. And also, my mom has a lot of deep-seated stuff about how personal growth and fulfillment are ONLY FOR MEN. (She actually has a lot of resentment over this.) She believes most advice about being happy as an individual, or how to succeed in the world, only applies to men. But she also internalizes the Judging Voice of ancestors who believed this or that was women’s duties and that doing anything else, for a woman, meant shirking her primary assigned duties. It’s about half unconscious but sometimes she will blurt out something that actually indicates that she believes this.

I learned to control my emotions via directly manipulating my brain chemistry. This is how I stopped being a “crybaby” - there are a couple of different methods. In the short term, I dealt with overwhelm and feeling the tears or rage coming on in public, by doing a particular exercise that I made up. When I was 12, I had taken a brief class in t’ai chi, and we did breathing stuff and “glowing green ball” visualization. Inspired by that and by the Vulcan people from Star Trek, I made up an exercise to suppress my emotions where I would do breathing exercises then steeple all my fingertips together like Mr. Spock and imagine a glowing green ball in my hands. All of my emotions would go into the ball. My thoughts would slow down and I would return to an emotionless space. The other thing I did, had to do with my maladaptive daydreaming. I would project my emotions onto fictional characters - often unconsciously (I didn’t know WHY I was drawn to particular images, I just was). I would replay scenarios in my head that took place between fictional characters. I was especially addicted to romantic scenarios and imagery. Being obsessed with romantic couples felt like a deeply shameworthy hidden “kink” and the less I could talk about it openly (believe it or not, it’s fanfic culture that brought this out into the open), the more obsessed I was.

One of the problems I had was how much I was used to using my maladaptive daydreaming scripts to cope with shit going on in my real world instead of just... fixing that shit. The funny thing is that my school psychologists recognized that this was what my daydreaming was, when I was a child, but my parents didn’t really acknowledge it; I was actually rewarded for both my obsessive interests and my daydreaming as a child, because both of them meant that I was being undemanding. I was coached, however, not to talk about these things with other people. They were okay to do at home.

I also had trichotillomania, and when I was in a period of doing lots of group therapy in my early 30s - I discovered what my “trigger” was, I discovered that it related to feeling abandoned and empty. And just like that, that’s when I finally stopped doing it - I learned to recognize the feelings that triggered my trich, instead of jumping right into doing the trich things. I had been learning how to just sit with my feelings. And at some point, I started using my “centering” method (the breathing thing with the glowing ball) to quiet my mind down and sit with my emotions, and to reduce my stress levels, instead of using it to suppress my emotions. My emotional landscape was like this... “I don’t know how I’m feeling. All I know is that I’m pulling my hair a lot and daydreaming a lot. Also, I had a meltdown at work but I don’t know why. Also, I got irrationally angry at so-and-so because they offended me personally.” (And my offense was connected, generally, to my emotionality being triggered.) But over time, and with lots of learning and new skills, I learned... that the fact that I wanted to do a particular unproductive or self-destructive thing, was indication that I was feeling something. And this meant that I was not to act out, but that I was to sit with my feelings and ask myself what I was feeling.

I had to learn to start validating myself, and seeing my own feelings as valid. The funny thing is, I parsed to lots of people as being unemotional. I could not have emotional conversations with my partners; stuff about emotions made me dissociate or check out. I felt horribly confronted whenever asked about my feelings. (Honestly, this is a big reason I had begun preferring male friends. We didn’t talk overmuch about feelings.) This comes from a background in which I was often shamed for my feelings.

The turning point for a lot of this was in my early 30s.

This is about the time when I was doing Landmark Forum, when I was in group therapy, when I was going to Adult Children of Alcoholics (to try to repair my relationship with my dad, who is an Adult Child; alcoholic-adjacent coping mechanisms can persist generations after the last alcoholic in the family has died.) I was in a shit ton of therapy for years. I was in a bunch of support groups, but most importantly, they weren’t 100% filled with peers who validated me 100% of the time. In fact - looking for “safe spaces” full of only my own peers, had been what had held me back. What was actually beneficial to me was being in spaces that had people who were older and further along in their recovery than me, people who had better coping skills than I did, and learning to be present when people bitched me out instead of just automatically “shields up” and spacing out when I got confronted about stuff.

I also was doing a SHIT TON of journaling and blogging and writing in spaces such as message forums and mailing lists (Tumblr sort of picked up where the forums left off.)

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thisiskatsblog · 5 years

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Soup, Sex and Sun Salutations

Fixed it!

[Note: all it took was some copypasting - just the italics are mine]

“We had the chance to sit down over some miso soup with Harry Styles. We didn’t talk about his new album at all but were charmed by the way he challenges gender norms and by what he had to say about sexuality, his female fans, feminism, while male privilege, toxic masculinity, his publicity relationship stunts, and how meditation and yoga have helped him deal with it all. ”

Challenging gender norms

He’s got a white floppy hat that Diana Ross might have won from Elton in a poker game at Cher’s mansion circa 1974.

His nail polish is pink and mint green.

He’s also carrying his purse — no other word for it.

He hosted the Met Gala with Lady Gaga, Serena Williams, Alessandro Michele, and Anna Wintour serving an eyebrow-raising black lace red-carpet look.

He is the official face of a designer genderless fragrance, Gucci’s Mémoire d’une Odeur.

Harry said in his speech (note: for Stevie Nicks). “She knows what you need: advice, a little wisdom, a blouse, a shawl.” He added, “She’s responsible for more running mascara — including my own — than all the bad dates in history.”

Refusing to put a label on his sexuality

Harry likes to cultivate an aura of sexual ambiguity, as overt as the pink polish on his nails.

He’s asking questions about culture, gender, identity, new ideas about masculinity and sexuality.

He’s dated women throughout his life as a public figure, yet he has consistently refused to put any kind of label on his sexuality

On his first solo tour, he frequently waved the pride, bi, and trans flags, along with the Black Lives Matter flag. In Philly, he waved a rainbow flag he borrowed from a fan up front: “Make America Gay Again.” One of the live fan favorites: “Medicine,” a guitar jam that sounds a bit like the Grateful Dead circa Europe ’72, but with a flamboyantly pansexual hook: “The boys and girls are in/I mess around with them/And I’m OK with it.

He’s always had a flair for flourishes like this, since the 1D days. An iconic clip from November 2014: Harry and Liam are on a U.K. chat show. The host asks the oldest boy-band fan-bait question in the book: What do they look for in a date? “Female,” Liam quips. “That’s a good trait.” Harry shrugs. “Not that important.” Liam is taken aback. The host is in shock. On tour in the U.S. that year, he wore a Michael Sam football jersey, in support of the first openly gay player drafted by an NFL team. He’s blown up previously unknown queer artists like King Princess and Muna

His worst fears

“While I was in the band,” he says, I felt so much weight in terms of not getting things wrong. I remember when I signed my record deal and I asked my manager, ‘What happens if I get arrested? Does it mean the contract is null and void?’ ”

About Rainbow Direction

“Now, I feel like the fans have given me an environment to be myself and grow up and create this safe space to learn and make mistakes”

“It’s a room full of accepting people.… If you’re someone who feels like an outsider, you’re not always in a big crowd like that,” he says.

At one of his earliest solo shows, in Stockholm, he announced, “If you are black, if you are white, if you are gay, if you are straight, if you are transgender — whoever you are, whoever you want to be, I support you. I love every single one of you.

What do those flags onstage mean to him? “I want to make people feel comfortable being whatever they want to be,” he says. “Maybe at a show you can have a moment of knowing that you’re not alone.”

“To me, the greatest thing about the tour was that the room became the show,” he says. “It’s not just me.”

About vulnerability, toxic masculinity, and meditation

“I’m discovering how much better it makes me feel to be open with friends. Feeling that vulnerability, rather than holding everything in”

“I feel pretty lucky to have a group of friends who are guys who would talk about their emotions and be really open,” he says. “My friend’s dad said to me, ‘You guys are so much better at it than we are. I never had friends I could really talk to. It’s good that you guys have each other because you talk about real shit. We just didn’t.’”

“I was such a skeptic going in,” he says. “But I think meditation has helped with worrying about the future less, and the past less. I feel like I take a lot more in—things that used to pass by me because I was always rushing around. It’s part of being more open and talking with friends. It’s not always the easiest to go in a room and say, ‘I made a mistake and it made me feel like this, and then I cried a bunch.’ But that moment where you really let yourself be in that zone of being vulnerable, you reach this feeling of openness. That’s when you feel like, ‘Oh, I’m fucking living, man.’”

Doesn’t this ambiguous sexuality clash with his public image?

He’s dated [a string of high-profile] women throughout his life as a public figure, yet he has consistently refused to put any kind of label on his sexuality - [and] he never gets caught uttering any of their names in public.

We’re off to the pub,” he tells his mom. “We’re going to talk some shop.” She smiles sweetly. “Talk some shit, probably,” says Anne.

“It’s not like I’ve ever sat and done an interview and said, ‘So I was in a relationship, and this is what happened,’” he says. “Because, for me, music is where I let that cross over. It’s the only place, strangely, where it feels right to let that cross over.”

So how does he feel about the industry?

“Only a city as narcissistic as L.A. would have a street called Los Angeles Street,” he says.

About his female fans, and about feminism

He’s always had a fervent female fandom, and, admirably, he’s never felt a need to pretend he doesn’t love it that way. “They’re the most honest — especially if you’re talking about teenage girls, but older as well,” he says. “They have that bullshit detector. You want honest people as your audience. We’re so past that dumb outdated narrative of ‘Oh, these people are girls, so they don’t know what they’re talking about.’ They’re the ones who know what they’re talking about. They’re the people who listen obsessively. They fucking own this shit. They’re running it.”

“To me, the greatest thing about the tour was that the room became the show,” he says. “It’s not just me.” He sips his tea. “I’m just a boy, standing in front of a room, asking them to bear with him.”

He doesn’t have the uptightness some people have about sexual politics, or about identifying as a feminist. “I think ultimately feminism is thinking that men and women should be equal, right? People think that if you say ‘I’m a feminist,’ it means you think men should burn in hell and women should trample on their necks. No, you think women should be equal. That doesn’t feel like a crazy thing to me. I grew up with my mum and my sister — when you grow up around women, your female influence is just bigger. Of course men and women should be equal. I don’t want a lot of credit for being a feminist. It’s pretty simple. I think the ideals of feminism are pretty straightforward.”

About white male privilege

“It’s not about, ‘Oh, I get what it’s like,’ because I don’t. For example, I go walking at night before bed most of the time. I was talking about that with a female friend and she said, ‘Do you feel safe doing that?’ And I do. But when I walk, I’m more aware that I feel OK to walk at night, and some of my friends wouldn’t. I’m not saying I know what it feels like to go through that. It’s just being aware.”

I’m aware that as a white male, I don’t go through the same things as a lot of the people that come to the shows. I can’t claim that I know what it’s like, because I don’t. So I’m not trying to say, ‘I understand what it’s like.’ I’m just trying to make people feel included and seen.”

On tour, he had an End Gun Violence sticker on his guitar; he added a Black Lives Matter sticker, as well as the flag. “It’s not about me trying to champion the cause, because I’m not the person to do that,” he says. “It’s just about not ignoring it, I guess. I was a little nervous to do that because the last thing I wanted was for it to feel like I was saying, ‘Look at me! I’m the good guy!’ I didn’t want anyone who was really involved in the movement to think, ‘What the fuck do you know?’ But then when I did it, I realized people got it. Everyone in that room is on the same page and everyone knows what I stand for. I’m not saying I understand how it feels. I’m just trying to say, ‘I see you.’”

Heartbreak and loss

As Stevie starts to sing “Landslide” — “I’ve been afraid of changing, because I built my life around youuuu” — Anne walks over to where Harry sits. She crouches down behind him, reaches her arms around him tightly. Neither of them says a word. They listen together and hold each other close to the very end of the song. Everybody in Wembley is singing along with Stevie, but these two are in a world of their own.

[Note: I doubted a bit whether to include that last part, but then I did, because this HS2 is apparently an album about sadness, and the description of that moment reminded me painfully of the real heartbreak and sadness Harry and Anne have had to deal with in recent years. So here’s a little shoutout to Anne who lost Robin, so recently still. Wishing her all the courage to continue building her life without him at the center of it. We love you.]

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canallynwrite · 5 years

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I bring asks: 2, 4, 7, 12, 13, 17, 26, 29, 30

thank you!

2 - HOW DID YOU DISCOVER YOUR SEXUALITY? TELL YOUR STORY.

for context: i’m biromantic asexual!

i was one of those kids who didn’t even know that it was actually possible to like girls as well as guys, so i only really discovered the lgbt+ community after i entered middle school and got access to the internet. the first time i actually thought about being anything other than straight was when my friend came out to me as bisexual. now, my first (or second, whatever) thought was: “does she like me?”

and nobody wants to be the person who thinks their not-straight friend of the same gender is into them just bc said not-straight friend came out to them, so after doing some research i did some self-reflection and realized my actual feelings were more akin to something like: “i hope she likes me.”

for the rest of the year i tried to convince myself that she was the exception to my straightness and was definitely not crushing hard on her. then at the end of the year i started dating someone who, after we dated for a week or so, came out as a trans dude, and i sort of just accepted my bisexuality. the last bit probably doesn’t make sense, but he was in the middle of figuring out his gender, so for a while he identified as a gal and that was when i first really acknowledged that yes, i am indeed very not straight. him coming out as trans just hammered my bi-ness. looking back on it, there were many signs that i was not straight at all. i just had zero language for my feelings!

my asexuality was just always there, tbh. i found out about asexuality after i accepted my bi-ness so as soon as i learned what it meant i just went ‘yah, that’s me. i’m ace.’

4 - WHO WAS THE FIRST PERSON YOU TOLD? HOW DID THEY REACT?

uhhh, apart from the dude i was dating, probably the aforementioned friend who’d come out to me as bi. she was really happy for me and we celebrated my first coming out experience together!

7 - WHAT IS ONE QUESTION YOU HATE BEING ASKED ABOUT YOUR SEXUALITY?

i try not to get mad at ppl asking questions, bc i know that it is Quite Possible to not know much about sexuality (for the longest time i didn’t know ANYTHING) but biphobic and acephobic questions in general really get my goat. yes, asexuality is a thing that exists; no, i’m not going to cheat on my partner just bc i’m bi.

12 - WHAT’S THE STUPIDEST THING YOU’VE HEARD SAID ABOUT THE LGBT+ COMMUNITY?

tbh, any time a straight person starts talking about the lgbt+ community like they know everything about it and are Great Allies i have to roll my eyes. jordan, you’re straight as uncooked spaghetti and cisgender, please stop pretending your opinions have any authority here just bc you read a few articles on gender/sexual fluidity and have a gay friend or two.

but, on a more well-known note, the stupidest thing i’ve heard would definitely have to be anything that those assholes who claim that the lgbt+ community includes pedophiles have ever said. that idea is both stupid and enraging.

13 - WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE THING ABOUT THE LGBT+ COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE?

i’ve seen lgbt+ people say a lot of stupid shit, even against other sexualities (especially against asexuality), but as a whole the lgbt+ community is extremely accepting and seems to have so many little niche corners for every possible interest or hobby. like, u want lgbt+ writers??? u got it, pal. a group lgbt+ athletes??? u may have to look a little harder than for the lgbt+ writers but damn, they’re there! blogs about lgbt+ animals in nature??? yes, that does exist!

it’s such a large community, filled with so many different types of people, which is what i love about it!

17 - HAVE YOU BEEN IN A RELATIONSHIP? IF SO, HOW DID YOU MEET?

i’ve been in two! and am currently in,,,, something? it’s a little complicated. we both know we like each other (and i wish we were dating!) but we haven’t “””officially””” decided to go out.

the other two were a) some dude i broke up with after two days lmao; we won’t talk about him, and b) the dude i talked about earlier! we met on a roleplaying forum for ppl in our area when we were younger and really hit it off. i asked him out two or three months after we met, and we were together for about six months before going off ‘n on. we “””officially””” broke up after a year or so bc he needed some time to himself for his mental health.

26 - WHAT IDENTITY ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR YOUNGER SELF?

well, for pre-middle-school me i’d sit her down and give her an hour long lecture on the lgbt+ community and recommend her some books w/ lgbt+ characters. she doesn’t know that being bi is possible so i’d also pull up an irl bi person as an example. for questioning!me, i think i’d just advise her not too push to hard against the idea of being bi. if you continue to like girls (and you will) then that’s okay and not something to tear yourself up about.

29 - WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU WISH PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT BEING LGBT+?

a) we are, in fact, a very wide spectrum of individuals, and stereotyping irl people does not help anything. being interested in women does not make me super butch; it makes me, me.

b) being lgbt+ is most certainly not all peaches and if you act like it is then you are Very Wrong Indeed, my friend. tbh, i don’t have much for this point besides complaining about that one straight person who called themselves an ally but still tried to police who i came out to and implied that if i wasn’t okay with having my sexuality shouted out to the world in the middle of a crowded cafeteria then i must be repressing myself. so, yeah, don’t be like that person, kids.

30 - WHY ARE YOU PROUD TO BE LGBT+?

how persistent lgbt+ people - of the past and present - are. throughout every age and every culture, no matter if lgbt+ ppl are oppressed or accepted, you will find lgbt+ people. some are harder to find, because of hate towards people like them, but look hard enough and you will find them. even when lgbt+ people were persecuted, they were there. even in places where they could still be put to death today, they’re there, and they’re fighting.

the pink triangle was what nazis marked gay men with in concentration camps, but lgbt+ people, most notably the AIDS movement, have reclaimed it, taken it back and turned it into a positive symbol for lgbt+ people.

and that is why i’m proud to be lgbt+. to stand with these people is an absolute honor.

#lgbt+#biromantic asexual #queer-coding #the pink triangle #pride month #ask me stuff!#asks #alessia-writes #tw: queer #my thoughts #yikes i wrote a lot #lgbt+ pride #well #have fun reading!#lgbt+ asks

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theliterateape · 2 years

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The Personal Grievances That Fuel Ideology

by Don Hall

"So, have you always been a Republican?"

"Nah. I wasn't really political in my twenties."

"So something happened? What changed your mind?"

I was out and about, getting some sun, strolling—yes, strolling at a time and space in the world when strolling is in the same category as riding a Big Wheel—and talking to strangers on the Las Vegas Strip. He was a guy who seemed about my age, wearing a "Let's Go, Brandon" t-shirt, coming out of Treasure Island and looking around at the place in the way that someone who has come here to vacation and lose his house payment on a solo weekend. I laughed at his shirt. That started a conversation in the shade.

The way I describe my political affiliation these days is as a Classic Liberal which seems to align with anyone labeling themselves as a Fiscal Republican—both seeming to eschew the insane extreme ideologies while generally agreeing with the philosophies of Left and Right. I find far more of my GenX brethren to adopt this practice than either the generation prior or the two following.

"Nothing really changed my mind. My ex-wife was super liberal. I mean, that bitch was crazy and never stopped talking about all of her causes. Drove me nuts. I guess when we divorced, I started looking at the other side of things."

"I get that. What's with the shirt, though?"

"Oh," and he laughed. "That's just to piss off the kids."

"And your ex-wife?"

"If I ever saw her, yeah. I mean, fuck her, you know?"

When Jordan Peterson hit the news back in 2016, I found him interesting. Prior to his stance on the Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (Bill C-16), passed by the Parliament of Canada to introduce "gender identity and expression" as prohibited grounds for discrimination, his work was clearly clinical rather than political. By the time I had heard of him, he was already seen by the Left as hopelessly rightwing, by the Right as hopelessly leftwing, and a cultish figure for the same young guys taken in by the work of Ayn Rand.

Self described as a "Classic British Liberal" I was interested to see how he went from his first book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, which combines psychology, mythology, religion, literature, philosophy and neuroscience to analyze systems of belief and meaning to the kind of figure you quote to 'piss of the kids.'

I'll confess I didn't wade very deep in the pool because this cat has hundreds of hours of what those same kids call 'content' and I have trashy streaming stuff to watch but I did take a day or two checking him out. What I surmise is that before his criticism of the Canadian government's push to effectively make the refusal to adhere to preferred pronouns as discriminatory practice, he was sort of like a Joseph Campbell but definitively on the left side of the fence. Then the videos surface of him arguing and being attacked by trans-activists hellbent on shutting him up.

My thumbnail conclusion was that his move to the right occurred as response to the insanity of the extreme left. These activists branded him a Nazi, it royally pissed him off, and he slowly shifted right to 'piss of the kids.' After time wearing his very Canadian version of a 'Let's Go, Brandon' t-shirt, the concept creep gradually shifted him to the right end of the bizarre cult of Libertarianism (which is a bit like Scientology if it was a political party).

Since coming to Vegas, certain friends and former acquaintances in Chicago have openly wondered why I am suddenly so vocally critical of the woke, cancel culture, the attempt to eliminate basic biology in our terms for one another, and my full-throated defense of free speech in all quarters. One person texted me "When did you become a Nazi?"

So, I asked myself "When did I become a Nazi?"

Chicago, 2016. She was an up and coming performer who routinely turned to me for advice. As a veteran in the field, I felt it was both my responsibility to be of help and my pleasure. She was raw but talented and truly excited about her future. I loaned her money, befriended her son (they both called me his ’second father’) and supported her when things turned sour in a relationship and she had a miscarriage. We became friends.

After some time, we drifted apart and she began to hang with a different crowd. When I decided that She had drunk a bit too much of the critical race theory and had become someone I simply didn’t want to hear from anymore, I decided to do the simplest thing possible—unfriend her on Facebook. I sent her a personal email to let her know why and wished her the best.

Two days later, the shit hit the fan. She had gone on a two-day tirade about what a racist, sexist piece of shit I was while I had her blocked on social media. She casually enlisted ex-girlfriends and a few notables who never liked me to begin with and, in my absence, trashed me with a vitriol only reserved for Guy Fieri and Pearl Jam. When I contacted her, she assured me none of the trolling and pitchforks would have been necessary if I had only called her.

Unfortunately, I thought that fighting back was the right move. I was wrong. The more I defended myself, the louder the online pillory. The more I went on the offensive, the more I cemented their framing of me as aggressive and toxic. People whom I worked with would tell me in confidence that She was batshit and that I was fighting the good fight but in public, my friends had knees of cream cheese and were so terrified She might come after them, they stayed silent.

Prior to this silly scuffle, I had told Her that I was white, therefore I was racist by default. I was all-in with the concepts of intersectionality and the tenets of critical theory. I was considered to be 'an ally' by many in the arts community, the guy who called out the overwhelming whiteness of public radio and the theatrical community. I was living with a Marxist and had a friendship with Bill Ayers. In terms not widely adopted for years laters, I was 'Woke AF.'

After this mêlée of pettiness, I started to question the concepts behind her indoctrination a bit more critically. I became skeptical when I read about another white man brought down and dove in a bit more thoroughly into the stories. I read a lot about the ideas I had been so in favor of just months before. I found the abuses of those ideas writ large. I saw patterns of cancellation that resembled my experience.

I became a Nazi to 'piss off the kids' who had pissed me off.

No, I'm not a freaking Nazi or even remotely conservative. The term changed sometime ago and any question of the tactics behind BLM or MeToo was received as the question of someone obviously in-line with the Nazi party. It's the new linguistic game being played by the Rage Profiteers of the modern age and anyone who gets in their way becomes a target.

In my final days in Chicago, I was considered to be somewhere near the alt-right end of the spectrum. During my three years in Vegas, I'd guess I'm seen as a centrist. I'm moving to Kansas where I'll be seen as a full-on libtard. Few of my core beliefs—equal protection under the law, protection of free speech, universal healthcare, free college, funding public education equitably, and legalizing all recreational drugs—have changed. The framing based on location and personal experience has shifted.

This reflection makes me wonder about the ideological labels we embrace or are placed upon us. Is it a belief based on knowledge or a personal grievance expanded into a philosophy? Did David Mamet go from über-liberal to arch-conservative because he grew older, got richer, or had some personal experienced that started as annoyance and slowly became a radical transformation of his ideas?

The questions are accomplishing something I believe we all need these days—curiosity about my fellow citizens rather than condemnation. When I see someone openly advocating for defunding the police, instead of assuming they're too stupid to see how adversely that affects the urban, black communities they are striving to aid, I stop and try to find out what happened to them personally that solidified that position. When I encounter someone still in thrall with the Big Lie regarding the last presidential election, in lieu of rolling my eyes and deciding they're to ignorant to even bother, I'll attempt to find out what specifically happened to them that nudged them over to complete moron territory.

My guess is that an awful lot of people adopt these extreme ideologies to piss someone in their lives off because they felt wronged.

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adventures-in-transmania · 5 years

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Let’s talk about misgendering. I know I’ve addressed this before. It used to be a constant sore spot from the time I came out to the time I started passing as male.

High school was a joke. I knew I was trans at that point. I was reluctant to talk about it with the cisgender male friends I had, seeing as they weren’t exactly supportive about the name I preferred to go by. Online was a welcome reprieve, I didn’t have to show my face, I could talk to people. I felt bad about ‘lying’ for some time to some pretty decent friends, however, once I actually talked to them about /why/ I did it, they became the most supportive people in my life at that time. I’m not quite sure what would have happened without them. My family wasn’t the best, I’m sure I’ve gone over that repeatedly.

I got to college where a classmate brought me into their circle of friends, most of which happened to be queer. Even those who weren’t were super supportive (or certainly knew how to pretend to be-again, another sore spot that I’ve gone over repeatedly). It was nice. I didn’t realize that initially and introduced myself as my deadname by wrong pronouns. I had to reintroduce myself and while some people didn’t understand why I didn’t just do that in the first place, they went right along with it, just like they did with the several other people who did the same. I was so used to going by my legal name, by my legal pronouns, I didn’t think I could do anything else. The name thing was something to get used to, not only for those around me but for myself as well. The pronouns, people kept apologizing. They still do sometimes. A quick apology is okay. Ideally, just the correction is necessary. I misgendered myself and deadnamed myself so often at first. I have talked to trans people who had the same issue, I’ve talked to trans people who said they’d known for as long as they can remember and didn’t have this issue. It depends on the person.

In high school and for the first part of college, I wasn’t really all that dysphoric about the lack of facial hair, my body shape, my voice, etc, etc. Hell, I was okay with never starting hormone therapy. It wasn’t a sore spot. I was still all for top surgery; breasts just get in the way, tbh. But it was expensive and I didn’t have the necessary support.

However, after going to counseling, talking to some other trans people (one trans woman in particular, tbh), a switch got flipped and suddenly I was aware in a way that was much more painful. I wanted the flat chest, I wanted everything that would make people think I passed as male without question. A peer referred to me as ‘he’ for the first time without saying ‘she’ first and things just /clicked/. I felt relief and anxiety. I felt gender euphoria. By that point, I believe I was in the process of legally changing my name. The university had quite the time with it, but the professors seemed to not remember me from the first two years I spent being quiet, so they seemed to have an easy time adjusting. My advisor, I’m pretty sure didn’t even come to know me as my deadname.

I realized I wasn’t genderfluid or non-binary. I was a transgender man. I invested in a binder. The first time I put it on, I’m pretty sure I cried or came very close to it. I was still hiding this stuff from my parent, because of a lack of support. I would bind occasionally to start with, it wasn’t a necessity. Everyone around me knew I had breasts, it was kind of hard to hide DD boobs. I wasn’t supposed to start HRT while living with my parent and grandmother, so I got a bit depressed, believing there was no hope of ever achieving that goal. It wasn’t a big deal before, but now it was. It was becoming a chore to explain to people around me that just because I appeared to be a woman, I wasn’t. I wasn’t good at confrontation. My friends were great (well, except for some instances, but again, beating a dead, traumatized horse). I relied heavily on their support, their attempts at not misgendering me, at not deadnaming me. I had a classmate that graduated with me from high school that I thought would pose a problem, but he was fantastic. I know it was harder on him than the rest, considering he’d known me from such a young age, since before we had a concept of gender, part of living in a small town, and he lived probably 2000 ft away from me for the majority of our lives, not that we were close.

At work, I had several older women who tried their hardest. My department manager wasn’t the best, but the effort was made and I could not ask anything more. She was infamous for the long apology, the one I’ve come to hate. It’s nothing personal, I promise, but every trans person knows it takes time and effort. You do not need to go into the whole speech. We’ve heard it before. Hell, most of us have said it before, whether it be to ourselves or others. We understand it takes time. We understand that you met us under different circumstances and that it’s hard to change your perception of us. But the more you do it, the less you have to think about it. Whether it be name or pronouns, the more you make the effort to refer to someone with the correct pronouns, even if it doesn’t match your perception of us, it will come more naturally and eventually you won’t even have to try! How do I know? Because I looked in the mirror, compared myself to every other cisgender male I saw, pointed out all of the areas people would consider feminine or masculine. I analyzed every move, every thought I had. I categorized things as masculine or feminine (in a very binary way of thinking, which is harmful in of itself). I nitpicked myself. I practiced and practiced. No matter what I did though, I couldn’t change my voice, my breasts, my first impressions on people. They perceived me as a woman and I could not change that, no matter how I acted. I could see how trans men fall into the toxic masculinity thing, and I did myself on some instances. I’m trying my best to be better now, but it’s easier when you pass.

I worked in customer service. I didn’t correct customers because they saw me once and that was it. It was pointless. So I got misgendered a fuckton. It hurt, sure. But I forgot about it, most of the time. I tried talking to my transgender parent about it and got indifference or the argument “they couldn’t possibly know,” as if I didn’t already know that. I was looking to them for support, not for them to defend everyone else. I knew logically it made sense, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less. It didn’t mean I didn’t deserve support from someone who I thought would get it.

The rare instances I’d get gendered correctly would make my fuckin’ week. I’d be happy the rest of the day. Getting misgendered was just another ‘eh, whatever’ moment, especially at work, or for anyone just meeting me for the first time. I had classes I was out in and my peers were rather great with discussion. I particularly remember touching on trans issues in sociology and having great discussions with a variety of people. They corrected their pronoun usage once they realized I may have looked like a woman, but I outed myself as a trans man.

In my experience, women had a much easier time with the acceptance. I had a handful of men who also accepted me, but women seemed to have less of an issue. I felt more comfortable around men in middle and high school, just because I got along better with them. But after that, women felt safer. Whether they perceived me as a woman or as a transgender man, I felt safer in their presence rather than men.

In the same vein as the legal name and pronouns, I had issues with restrooms. I felt uncomfortable using women’s public restrooms and I felt forbidden to use men’s rooms. The incident with my cisgender men who called themselves friends and who I considered supportive certainly destroyed any progress I’d made. There were times, I’d either put it off or walk across campus just to use the one single stall restroom. I felt uncomfortable having to use a stall every time. It was bad. I left college in June of 2018. I stopped talking to pretty much everyone from college at that point. I stopped counseling.

Before that, however, I left my job with some supportive coworkers. I talked so openly about being trans, those who weren’t supportive were surrounded by people who were. I was terrified. I left this job to take one with my aunt, who didn’t know I was trans, who didn’t really keep in contact with me.

I started in August of 2018. By the end of October, I walked into an appointment I had with specialty care and got my first shot of T, unbeknownst to my parent, my grandmother, my aunt, my current workplace, which I’d only been at for a few months. I wanted to come out before that. I needed to. I was so tired of being misgendered and just broken down. It hurt and I had nowhere to go with that hurt, no one to talk to, no one who got it. My conservative aunt didn’t know, I worked with many older people, older men especially. I was terrified. I couldn’t talk to my transgender parent about it because I’d get the whole speech “you have to understand...” I understood! They didn’t know any better. When I tried to talk to them about anything regarding trans issues, it was them making excuses for cis people. Like, I get it, cis people can’t be expected to suddenly ‘get’ it, but I sought out to complain to another trans person who I thought would get it. The fact I didn’t even have that outlet, it was discouraging, to say the least. If another trans person, if my parent didn’t ‘get’ it, what chance was someone else going to?

I started HRT and suddenly it wasn’t an option anymore. They’d notice. I needed to be out. I should have told my aunt first, I shouldn’t have taken the job without telling her, I shouldn’t have taken the job without telling /them/, them being my three male managers. I was terrified.

I talked to my parent about it. They offered no advice. They left the option up to me. To be fair, I didn’t give them an option with the HRT. I wasn’t supposed to start it while living with them and I did. They were disappointed I didn’t tell them prior, but I think I would have made the same decision given the circumstances. Their condition was that I shave if necessary and keep my voice high for my grandmother (the second of which I did not do, but it didn’t seem to make a difference, she didn’t notice that).

I wore a button at first that said “ask me about my pronouns” or “use male pronouns.” It was a big store that day. At the end of the day, I came out to my aunt, who said “niece, nephew, it doesn’t matter,” which was nice at the time. It was definitely a response I didn’t expect to get, but was happy about. I wasn’t really someone the managers were keeping tabs on, so it flew under the radar for quite some time. In November of 2018, probably a month or two after I came out to my aunt, I was a passenger to a travel store with another coworker (a team leader) who I apparently felt comfortable enough to address the issue with. He’d helped me more than any other person at this job and seemed like a decent guy. I figured he’d at least understand the dilemma I had, given other circumstances. I either didn’t use the women’s restroom and avoided the men’s room, or got over my anxiety (thanks “friends”) and insisted I use the men’s room. It wouldn’t have been bad, but I worked with so many different people in so many different places. A lot of the places didn’t have gender neutral options and I didn’t want to make my coworkers uncomfortable. However, after starting HRT, it was clear I would eventually pass to our clients and it would become unsafe to use the women’s restroom, if that was what they agreed upon. Luckily, I live in NY where the state law is people are able to use the restroom of their gender identity, thank you NYC. Unfortunately NYC doesn’t offer protection up in our very conservative area. When you pass several Trump 2020 signs in small towns, you feel a little unsafe as a transgender individual.

This coworker offered what I would have considered unconditional support. He even offered to talk to our managers on my behalf. While I asked him not to, as I thought I should be the one to talk to them about it, he did anyways and it made it somewhat less awkward. He was sooo god damned supportive, more so than any other cisgender man in my life offline had ever been. I went into our office probably a week later to talk to the three managers about it, only to have the wind taken out of my sails when they said he had already brought it to their attention and it shouldn’t pose an issue. I had spent an entire week planning what I would say in my defense, because that’s how I thought. In my last job, my manager offered to put a lock on the men’s room so I’d feel comfortable, which I never took her up on. This wasn’t exactly an option in this job and my managers didn’t seem to have ever worked with other trans individuals, so they wouldn’t have really had the forethought or sensitivity training like my last manager to have thought of something like that.

It still wasn’t exactly that easy. I didn’t want to cause issues so I would keep an eye out to make sure no one else from our company would be in there before using the restroom. It was torturous at times, it was unfair, to be completely honest. I hated that I had to do it, I hated that I felt the need to do it, I hated that one person who made me feel so uncomfortable in male spaces that I still, despite passing quite well (I haven’t gotten misgendered by a stranger in months) STILL have minor anxiety about using men’s restrooms. I’m getting better, but I still brace myself for the confrontation that may occur. I’ve had several male workers who have either seen me exit the men’s room or been in there with me but haven’t caused an issue. I have a handful of circumstances I remember in particular. One being an older gentleman having no issue seeing me come out of the men’s room. I don’t think I ever came out to him, but he didn’t even hesitate. I was terrified he’d have an issue with it, but he just treated me as he usually did, nice as could be. I’m pretty sure he stopped referring to me with she/her after that. Another instance I waited to make sure another male coworker wasn’t going in on break because he would always refer to me as she or her. That supervisor, the one who’d shown “unconditional acceptance,” followed me in not thirty seconds later. I had a slight panic attack. I wasn’t exactly ‘passing’ at that time, and it was certainly another coworker, not a stranger. I couldn’t help but think back to that time with ‘friends’ where they were okay with it until suddenly they were faced with the reality that they would be sharing ‘male spaces’ with me and suddenly they weren’t okay with it. I didn’t want to, I couldn’t go through that again, not with the one person at this job who seemed to not only accept me but was able to talk about serious stuff like that, while somehow making it seem a lot less serious. I waited as long as I felt socially acceptable before exiting the stall and proceeded to wash my hands and leave.

Skipping ahead to probably a couple months ago, that same supportive coworker (ally, if anyone deserves that title) got excited over someone gendering me correctly. This, after months of people gendering me correctly. It was still super validating and kind of him. It was nice to see someone else excited over a source of gender euphoria for me. I may have brushed it off at the time because of course others who hadn’t met me before were calling me by male pronouns, I passed well enough. But I think it’s harder for those who met me with their perception of being a woman. I don’t think they’re able to see past that perception as easily as people who didn’t have that perception to begin with. That’s why I don’t mind too much if my coworkers misgender me occasionally, as long as it’s followed by a correction, no apology necessary. I get it, you met me and thought I was a woman, and I didn’t correct you then. However, if you don’t correct yourself, you will get me correcting you. I’m done being misgendered mercilessly in front of clients, ESPECIALLY when I’m the one running the inventory. I know I pass well enough to clients, I haven’t been misgendered by clients in probably ~8 months, unless they hear one of my coworkers say something.

That leads me to today. Since 2020 started, I’ve been rather aggressive in correcting people about pronoun usage. I was quiet before, to the point that people may not have heard me. However, I now have facial hair and a pretty deep voice. I’ve been passing for at least 6 months now. They’ve had time. If you do not correct yourself, I will loudly do so for you. So, I’ve had rather very little sleep in the last week or so, working and all. I was a bit manic this morning. An older gentleman misgendered me (not the first time, probably won’t be the last) and I corrected him rather publicly (”I’m not a girl, thank you!”) in front of several coworkers. The supervisor, that ally I mentioned earlier, came up to me probably 30-60 minutes later, apologizing for that guy. I had no clue what he was talking about originally. I was over it after two minutes. After being misgendered for 6-8 years, it’s not something you hold close to your heart. He asked if I wanted to know, I, of course, said yes. After he informed me, I felt the need to explain some things. I’ve never had someone apologize for someone else. Especially a cisgender man apologize for some other cisgender man. I’ve talked to this supervisor about some personal things, too, and I like to think he gets it to the extent that he can, just like I can sympathize, but not entirely understand the things he’s got going on. It’s an understanding that I don’t have with many other people. It’s nice in that environment. I’m not sure why he felt the need to apologize, maybe the fact I was so loud about it, but I wasn’t exactly “upset” by it. Rather, I want the correction to be made, because then hopefully he’ll correct himself next time, and the time after that, there may not even need to be a correction. He seemed to think I took it to heart that this person misgendered me when 1. this person misgenders me a lot, 2. I expect this person to misgender me a lot, and 3. I take it to heart every time a person misgenders me. I mean, sure, if certain people were to begin to misgender me, yeah, it would hurt, especially after all the time they put into not misgendering me. But this guy is not and will not be one of them. It was such an insignificant event but I guess my response went above what was expected? Despite being told that my response was completely valid? It was just an odd exchange, although I still appreciated that thought and the fact he listened to my reasoning. That person had no reason to apologize on behalf of someone else, though. I’m rather sorry he felt the need to.

#Misgendering #Mention: HRT #Hey work sucks I know #Real life #Family and coworkers

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