#and its not like pronouns are inherently a queer thing but we all know thats what it's been turned into

[ellraiser]

i can't beelieve that people actually say "woke mind virus" like out loud for real unironically? it's like hearing someone say skibidi ohio rizz in the wild

[whomst-is-hex]

hi im a cis (late teenage) woman who was a transgender man for like 5 years and just recently figured out im not. throughout that whole period there was so so so much fear about how people around me would view me, and it was a very insecure time. BUT, unlike the general expectation of detrans (the asshole idea that transitioning was for trends) i'm really fucking glad i did it.

before i fully started going by he/him and Marcus, i had a couple months where i was just switching from gender to gender, sexuality to sexuality, because i just recently started comprehending queer people and was desperately searching for identity and community. i settled on the name and pronouns one day at a playground, where i told a stranger around my age my name was Marcus and i am transgender. i told my parents shortly after (i told my parents everything in that regard) and right after that i started to strip away anything remotely girlish about myself, which i kinda started doing anyway after i started to call myself a lesbian.

a few years in i started to notice that the "femininity" was around anyway. i admired my silhouette sometimes in the mirror, but quickly switched to trying to flatten my chest. i loved being masculine, i loved passing, but i really also loved my body in all of its generally-percieved-as-woman-ness. this pretty much balanced me out for the last couple years. i stopped trying desperately to pass, and started to accept myself as inherently masculine without binding or vocal exercises (and even in drag, which i still really fucking love doing)

and now we're at a few months ago, where i presented fully female for 30 days as an experiment. obviously my brain had went through SO many chemical changes, and i think just general maturity caused me to click and realize that i don't want this anymore. not to say that young trans people are immature, or that being a man is low, i just started to realize that i messed up and taught myself to fit in another box that i didn't fully want.

right now, i have ditched that box all together. but now i know that it never had to be a box to begin with. i believe that i really was a man for that period of time, even when i admired my curves and face and voice. i was looking for identity, and i found it. but now, i'm sort of a different person with different needs in life and myself. and because i had that experience of rapid change, experimentation, insecurity, and self love, i really really know how to be a woman now. and like the post i reblogged just before writing this says, being a woman doesnt have to mean much in terms of differences. in my case, it means that i am not the basic cisgender bisexual woman cutout i was terrified of becoming when i was younger. and it means im keeping marcus as my name, and my dead-name remains as my middle name.

my point with this was to catalogue my experience, but i think i really need to bring up how actual trans people experiment at all sorts of ages, and it works for them pretty damn well. i have friends who experimented just as much as i did and are way more cemented in their transgender identity than i ever was. i think its also important to say that my experience happens a lot as well. brains change, people change, and i've heard of trauma messing with identities too. point is, we have Got to stop generalizing trans and detrans people, or at least catch ourselves when we do. brains are so goddamned complicated and we dont even know everything about gender. what we do know is it changes sometimes, its unpredictable, and its across all cultures. like my dad says, the minute you figure out something about yourself, itll change. and i believe having a brain that doesnt change is no way to live

TL;DR: i was transgender, now im not, im happy, people are happy being trans or cis sometimes and thats cool as hell. dont be an asshole and stop trying to assume things about people like identity that shit sucks

[ars0nism]

okay, final post on this. my thing with terfs isnt the terfs. im 18, ive been through a lot, i can handle a couple of terfs on my page. what bothers me is the young people, especially young girls & transmascs, that fall into the terf rabbithole on accident.

SO.

heres my quick & easy guide on how i personally check for terfs. PLEASE check for these signs. to protect yourself. ofc not all things immediately mean terf, but this is my personal checklist

rad and or fem in the url (IMMEDIATE red flag)

labrys lesbian flag (somewhat of a red flag, could be innocent young lesbian roped into it. if theyre an adult its a red flag)

if you click on the search icon it will show a bunch of commonly used tags. look at the tags. common tags wpuld be radfem, radical feminism, terfism, gender critical etc

look at where they reblog from. who theyre following if its public. what posts they like if thats public. look at the bios of these. if the terf doesnt have a bio and is trying to be stealthy, oftentimes the people they agree with are open about it. block both while youre at it

queer slur discourse (also done outside of terf circles but far more common among terfs, especially coupled with the "not queer, im lesbian" stuff (though thats understandable and not inherently terfy) and in combination with other red flags)

exclusionism (not inherently terfy but still a good point to look out for)

fixation on wombs and vulvas (immediate red flag no one but terfs is that obsessed with their reproductive organs)

the "LGB" community, or even the "remove the L" because they dont want to associate with gay & bi people

really big hatred of the concept of "genital preference". sexuality is only about genitals to them.

intense man hatred. they hate men so much. (also not an immediate red flag because yeah some of it is warranted but you can tell the difference between joking about trauma/standing up against the patriarchy and straight up... being a terf)

the term "ssa". stands for same sex attraction. (pretty big one i think. i personally have only heard it from terfs.)

febfem. bisexuals who only date women. (also one i didnt know about until like half an hour ago. also a big one)

this is one specific to the current time and might be obsolete soon but if theyre vocal amber heard supporters. those are ALL terfs.

terfs are also often swerfs. hating on sex workers (not the system, the system is fucked and we should recognize it) is terfy !

they like to refer to us (trans people) as a cult. which, to be honest, after this experience, im more likely to call them a cult. (if a terf disagrees with you, get ready for closing anon & gross bullshit in your notes. we have mutual circles, they have them too)

and of course green flags for trans people & trans allies, if they have these the odds of it being a terf are. a lot smaller

pronouns in bio

some variation of lgbtq+

following trans blogs

inclusive

mature fucking human being

and if you're in doubt whether or not its a terf, its better to block an innocent person than to interact with a terf, id say. odds are the innocent person doesnt care.

BUT!

let's say you said something they didn't like and now your post is circling in their shitty little group chat. what then? my suggestion would be to

CLOSE ANON ASKS. once their cult has found your page and realizes you post about trans things, or worse, are trans, they will harass you. anon gives a lot of confidence to send death threats. dont let them.

Block all of them. No, it's not gonna stop new ones from harassing you in their place, but it does make for a pretty nice blocklist.

If you need to, don't hesitate to step away from tumblr for a while. Not everyone can handle harassment, and it's okay to step away if it's too much.

Remember you're worth so much more than any of these terfs. Remember being trans is something to be proud of, remember you are loved, and most importantly, remember they're just terfs on the internet. laugh at them. make fun of them. they may say shitty things, but they can't actually hurt you. (anything that can hurt you, like doxxing, is illegal. get law enforcement if possible if you think you're in actual physical danger)

Best of all is to ignore it. Don't keep talking about it ("take your own advice" im working on it). it's not fun to harass someone who just ignores you.

If you really can't cope, it's okay to close your blog. You don't have to stay. Make a new blog. Only tell your mutuals.

(also, side note, i have a blocklist filled with terfs. i am absolutely down to share this blocklist with you, if you want somewhere to get started)

[vegannaise]

boys deserve love

i started realizing around 16 that i wasn’t cis. i flipflopped back and forth between different nonbinary identities, occasionally wondering (in private) if i was just simply a boy. i was already out as gay, and people already regarded me as a “tomboy”, so that helped alleviate some of my teenage discomfort.

I didn’t date a lot in highschool, partially because i was incredibly intimated by girls, partially because boys didnt pay too much romantic attention to me, and probably a little bit because i had 0 interest in sex all throughout my teenage years.

when i was 17 i had my first “serious” relationship. it was with a boy that coerced me into hooking up with him while i was nearly black out drunk (wow,, what a catch right???!!! thats a whole different story). as sad as this is, i finally felt like my existence was valid. i felt like i had finally achieved this unspoken goal of having someone love me in a romantic way, having someone find me desirable. i was happy for the first time in years.

of course, i was still trans and in the closet during all of this. one night, i was completely swallowed by my dysphoria. i was either on the floor or in front of the mirror crying because of how my body looked. i even ended up giving myself a stick n poke to avoid self harming. Mason (boy in question) was texting me throughout this, i think i had told him i wasn’t feeling good, but i didn’t want to tell him why. he eventually pressured me into telling him what was wrong, and i told him “i dont like my body. i want my body to be a different body. i want to have a BOYS body”.

for just a second, i pictured myself years in the future with a flat chest and stubble and a deep voice, my arms around Mason, who still loved me even though he was “straight” and i had transitioned.

sadly, this fantasy was violently ripped away as soon as i came back to reality. Mason had responded with clear discomfort, saying he wasn’t gay. i told him i knew he wasn’t gay, but wouldn’t he still love me for me??? i would still be the same person, so wouldn’t he still love me????? to which he prompty responded, firmly and bluntly, that if i were to transition and call myself a boy, he would break up with me.

this experience made me go back into the closet for 2 years.

fast forward to when i was 19, i was in a relationship with a transguy. since i grew up in a tiny homophobic town i was never able to date another trans person, and most likely put this person (lets call them...... Pickle) on a big ol’ pedestal because of that. Pickle had been out as trans for almost 5 years, and had been on T almost just as long. they were the first person to tell me that nonbinary people can be trans. they were the first person to actually make me feel seen and valid as not only a trans person, but as a boy.

i ended up coming out to them, in tears, as a transguy. i still felt really confused, i was a boy but didnt really feel connecting to masculinity. i wanted nothing more than to be a pretty boy but recoiled at seeing myself as a Man™. even though that relationship was incredibly toxic, Pickle supported me unconditionally through getting on hormones, they even bought me a new binder. they were the support i had desperately needed.

we had been dating for 8 months when i left town for a few days. something seemed off when i would text them, it felt like something was wrong, but they werent telling me what. Pickle was staying with me at the time, so i saw them as soon as i came back. they said they had something to tell me.

they told me that while i was out of town, they had had a major identity crisis, and realized that she was actually a butch lesbian. of course, i gave her a giant hug, i told her i loved her and that i was so happy she had figured this out about herself. thats when she started talking about us.

she told me that since she was a lesbian and i was a boy, we had to break up; as if this shouldve been obvious to me...... it wasn’t. as she sat there telling me things like “i still love you” and “and i wish things could be different” we both cried. a lot. i still couldnt wrap my head around what was happening. here she was, telling me she wishes things were different so we can be together, why couldnt we just be together as is??? if you want to be with someone, why does it matter if they’re a boy or a girl??? especially when you’ve already been together for 8 months??? it felt like it had a lot more to do with other peoples perceptions of us, it wasn’t because i was a boy, it was because she didnt think she’d be seen as a lesbian dating a genderqueer boy.

the next day i confronted her about this. i was so confused, i had given myself a headache and multiple panic attacks trying to figure out what the fuck i was feeling. she told me that she felt like we should break up anyway, that her realizing shes a lesbian was just “the final nail in the coffin”. i found myself even more hurt and confused than before. id told Pickle all about Mason, how i went back in the closet because i was scared of him leaving me. i told her about all the shame i had accumulated over the course of my relationship with Mason. despite her knowing all this, she still decided to scapegoat our own identities, rather than just own up to the fact that our relationship was falling apart already.

this experience made me question my entire identity, the identity i had JUST started feeling valid in. this experience made me eventually stop taking hormones. this experience made me feel more invaild and undesirable than ever before.

during this time, i started to also ID myself as a (nonbinary) lesbian. i had felt my attraction to men dwindle, and i was grappling with my attraction to women. but more than anything else, i convinced myself that being a boy = being hated. looking “like a boy” = being ugly and undesirable. not only did this feed into terf rhetoric, but its a result of being told my whole life that my worth is directly tied to my level of attractiveness, and that no one would find me attractive if i looked the way i wanted to.

it felt so much easier to stay how i was. all i wanted was to be seen as queer, and since people already read me as a lesbian, i might as well just settle for that, right? at least people would get it. at least people would see me.

i’m 22 now, and ive really only just started to deconstruct these things and unlearn my internalized transphobia and self hatred. about 6 months ago i started calling myself a boy and using he/him pronouns again, and for once i actually feel safe. for once i actually have a good support network. for once i actually feel seen. for once i actually feel loved.

to anyone who actually bothered to read this all the way through: healing is not linear and our identities sure as shit arent. if you’re in the closet right now, or if you’re questioning your gender/sexuality for the first or fifth or tenth time: i see you. i love you. you are so valid in your fear and confusion. the world still actively hates LGBT people, and that internalized fear is so real and deserves to be acknowledged, but please believe me when i say that there ARE people out there who hold the deepest love, appreciation, and camaraderie for you, even if you dont know them yet. your existence as an LGBT person in this world is inherently radical, please don’t ever forget that.

[morphogenetic]

okay so its been a few days but i keep Thinking About Shit about pride stuff so here we go. im going to politely request that you dont read this unless you can like it/acknowledge that you read it somehow (unless you’re on mobile and this readmore doesnt work in which case: im sorry) and also d/o/nt rb but if you’re some variety of not-straight and/or not-cis replying to this is totally fine 

also this is long as fuck sorry

im in this very weird place where, although i am not in any way cis or het, i don’t feel like i truly belong at pride. like. obviously i’m trans, i’ve been out and living as trans and nonbinary for literally a third of my fuckin life. it matters to me very much that i’m trans, i have to basically come out over and over for the rest of my life because everyone is going to read me as a dude when they meet me for the first time and that is equally as wrong as when everyone was reading me as a girl before t. or if people look at my id and see the ‘f’ even though i can’t even change it to anything else and don’t even want to bc i have no desire whatsoever to tell the fucking government ‘HEY IM NONBINARY’

like being trans and nb is going to affect the rest of my life literally forever. but i’ve been out so long and since i was so relatively young that i just don’t think about it any more. i have absolutely no desire to even be cis, not like i can be bc that would mean i wasn’t nonbinary and the idea of being a binary gender is so fucking weird to me lmao. but it’s like. it’s obviously not a bad thing to be trans and i specifically am very content with it. being nonbinary and knowing that for sure and being super comfortable in that identity is great! but i also don’t feel like i have any reason to celebrate it because i just am. like it’s the same reason i feel very weird about celebrating birthdays and stuff. i mean my birthday isn’t soon in the slightest lmao but like. yeah cool i’m this age now! neat! i’m fine with telling people im this age and i have no negative feelings about being this age! but i just AM that age now why do i need to celebrate being a year older? it’s like that kinda

theres always the issue of the aroace-spec thing too like. yeah boys (and transmasc/masc-or-androgynous-leaning nb people, not girls lol) are attractive sometimes so i am, technically, gay, but my interest in having a relationship is so fucking low. ive had two crushes in my entire goddamn life! in 21 years! and both of those were on friends bc im also super demi! and otherwise the mere idea of a relationship is like. why the fuck would i want that?? why would anyone else even genuinely want that from me, a fucking average-as-hell-looking, balding-at-fucking-21 person who has literally no fucking ability to even function reasonably as a human being?  

like. even putting aside all the fucking issues that i have with actually having and maintaining close relationships - not even in a dating kind of relationship, i mean literally just trusting people in general let alone as friends  - thanks to the shit that three different former friends of mine pulled. even putting that aside i really don’t think i would ever really want a relationship even if i somehow managed to be even a little bit attractive to someone lol. im just too much of an inherent introvert for that. 

and obviously you can be gay/bi/queer/pan/(insert other not-straight romantic/sexuality orientation im sure im forgetting) and not be in a relationship lol. it’s just. there’s so much fucking pressure ESPECIALLY in the mlm communities that i would theoretically be most in-tune with to be extremely sexual. and obviously that’s not inherently a bad thing at all!! it just doesn’t work for me in the slightest because i have basically no drive for that at all and the only time i ever did was when my body was adjusting to being on t initially. now that i’ve been on it for long enough shit has settled back to where it was for most of my life and yep, still basically no interest in that.

and like. im not gonna pretend that i have it the hardest out of literally any lgbtq person. im incredibly white (some ashkenazi sprinkled in there but like. nobody would ever be able to tell that without me saying it since it’s only a fourth and i have no association at all with any religion let alone being jewish) and able-bodied (to the best of my knowledge lmao) and definitely in a rare space of having extremely well-educated liberal parents who, while not being like millionaires or anything, are able to financially support me and didn’t ever reject me. 

and because of all this im like. i dont belong at pride! it’s not for me! yes im trans but any random person is gonna think im a white cishet dude without me correcting them on pronouns. yeah im white but thats the only part of that that’s true but i still shouldn’t be taking up space that i honestly really do not need. i am happy the community exists and i WANT it to continue to exist and i dont think im gonna make any new cishet friends for the rest of my life but i just dont feel like im ever really going to be a true part of it

i really have no idea how to fully put my feelings about this into words. it’s just like. i am not afraid to be who i am but i dont feel proud of it in the way that i’m proud of like. my accomplishments. like when i graduate im gonna be proud of that! but i can’t be proud of who i am as a person in the same way, regardless of what im actually proud of myself for. i’m not proud of being 21 or having brown eyes or having my height. im not upset about them either but they’re just facts to me! in the same way that me being trans is just a fact about me

and pride is just. that. it’s just being proud of and celebrating your own existence. and im happy for people who can feel pride in existing (for all sorts of minority-related things not just lgbtq+ stuff) and i want people to continue to feel that way because when the world tells people they can’t be proud of who they are that’s shitty! but that’s not me and i don’t think it ever will be me. i realized i was aroace and accepted it in the span of a few days. i found out nonbinary people existed and immediately realized ‘oh that’s me’ within a week without feeling any self-hatred over it. realizing that i was mildly gay and not 100% aroace like i thought took me literally hours to realize and then accept. and i dont know how to express this irl without it seeming like i don’t want pride to exist because I VERY MUCH DO. i just. i never had the struggle in accepting those parts of me to the same extent that so many other people do and it feels wrong for me to be in a space for celebrating making it past that internal struggle when i never had it

[the-queer-look]

Nothing Rhymes With David

Name: David James Age: 30 Location: Wollongong Occupation: freelance music journalist/podcaster Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Gender: Cis Male

Without the hair and the beard I look like Augustus Gloop in Wonka’s chocolate factory, so as soon as I was able, I started growing all this out. I haven’t had a hair cut in eight years, and the beard really does it for me, so I’m set like this. Of course now I’m getting grey streaks and thats a whole thing to deal with, but I’m thirty, I can just deal with that. I have well over a hundred band shirts, five pairs of shoes, and three pairs of pants, so some variation of this is what you’ll see on me from day to day, just a constant rotation of band and wrestling shirts. Like Kevin Smith said “If you’re fat, you wear black, and you wear layers.” and he was right. I’ve never gone for his jorts, but I respect his dedication to the craft. Over time they seemed to get wider and wider until it got real distracting. Kevin Smith has as many and varied hockey jerseys as I have band shirts, and I respect that hustle.

I realised I was bisexual when I was fifteen, it was the video for “Make Damn Sure” by “Taking Back Sunday” and I remember Adam Lazzara being cute as hell. At first I thought that I thought he was just really cool and I wanted to be like him, but I then realised “Oh no this is more of an infatuation sort of thing like when I was watching Angeline Jolie or whatever” and I just sort of put two and two together and realised that there must be a thing for that. Basically when I find out something new about myself I just add it to the list of things I know about me; Like realising that I was a bit straight edge, once I had the words to describe it, it just became a part of who I was. Having the words to be able to describe myself like that is very comforting y’know? Like I was diagnosed with Aspergers’ as a kid, but didn’t get told about it until I was a teen, and finding out just made a lot of things make sense. There was no change in the way I presented myself, I was fifteen, Mum mum bought my clothes for me!

I don’t know what being queer means to me, I’ve never felt that I really fit in with all that. You know when you’re a kid and see those signs saying “you must be this tall to ride?” I feel like when I look at queer stuff that if I want to be involved I’m going to see a sign saying “you must be this queer to enter” and I don’t know if I’d measure up. I just feel like I’m caught in the middle, and I’m just not cool enough or queer enough to be included in those conversations. Being queer is as much a part of my life as being right handed or left handed, its one part of the puzzle that makes up me.

I don’t think that anyone in my community, and in my scene knew any any trans people before Laura Jane Grace. To the best of my knowledge that had never happened in such a public way in the modern punk or hardcore scene. There were a few gay people - we were kids when Rob Haldford came out and he was in his mid forties when he finally came out in 1998, long after people had stopped caring about Judas Priest, and frankly that’s what brought them back into the mainstream. So there was a few queer people in the heavy music scene, but Laura Jane Grace was the first time that we learnt about trans people and transitioning, and learning about proper pronouns, and seeing it all happen very publicly. It was a huge thing to see, and the closest we’d come to was fictionalised stuff like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, or the Crying Game or something, we’d never seen it be so real and so open. They weren’t the first trans punk person, but they were the first big name performer in the punk scene to do this. On a smaller scale? there’s a musician from Newcastle called Rachel Maria Cox who came out as Non Binary a few years ago, and we’d never heard of that stuff. I grew up in Nowra, I didn’t know about this stuff, I didn’t meet another openly queer person until I was nineteen and came up to Sydney for a show, and even then in terms of people who weren’t Cis I wouldn’t be able to tell you shit. To find out what non binary was, and what transitioning was, it was incredible for me. That opened up a whole spectrum where people were way more comfortable explaining who they were, and no I have a whole load of non binary friends. That dialogue has become so much more open, and I attribute that to people like Rachel, and Laura who really blazed the trail really.

I feel like we need more positivity for larger men. When it comes to a positive role model for a fat guy like me I get… DJ Khaled? No thanks really. There aren’t really any fat, queer dude that you can look to and see as an aesthetic role model. Which is a problem inherent to queer society as well, is this big push of these gorgeous, slimmer people. As much as there’s this push for body positivity, especially for women, I so rarely see larger men being held up as positive examples of queer masculine aesthetic.

you can follow David on:

davidjamesyoung.com

Podcasts:

all my friends are in bar bands hottest 100s & 1000s The big show show show

David’s band

“Nothing Rhymes with David”

Instagram:

@DJYWrites @notforprintpods @XNRWD @hottest100s

full interview on facebook

follow us on instagram

please contact us if you would like to be involved

[spector]

if u have time it'd be super cool to hear more abt your adventures in lgbt psych as an undercover agent

WELL i dont have that much to share, i have several lgbt psych related classes and tbh the smartest people are in queer theory class which isnt a psych class per se but more of a… culture/philosophy class. SO YEAH, IT GETS… FRUSTRATING A LIL BIT

but in my lgbt psych seminar, the prof once told a story abt one of her trans patients that had bad experiences with psychoanalytic therapist and it went a little like that

prof: …and then the therapist told her ‘i wont use she/her pronouns for u because u still have a penis and thats just repression’prof: (pauses to hopefully hear students’ outrage)the same girl who said in another class that periods are inherently gross: well did she have one????

LIKE….. i feel like those classes are filled with heteros but psych student heteros are like.. some of them really treat lgbt cases as ohhh something different and exotic and they love hearing abt them during classes but in reality they wouldnt know how to help one. they dont know the lingo, they dont know what ‘intersex’ means, for example. and at the same time, they live in a bubble of ‘well i dont discriminate lgbt people so they dont have it that bad, i dont get why dont all lgbt people come out’ they just???? dont understand in my opinion, there need to be MORE lgbt classes and furthermore they should be REQUIRED classes bc lgbt people are at much higher risk of developing mental illnesses than heteros !!!!!

we were doing a therapy exercise once, the prof wanted to check how well we know the work ethics and asked us to envision a situation in which a gay patient comes to us and asks us to change his orientation to hetero (in that situation, an ethical therapist is required to tell the patient that he cannot condone such therapy and present evidence for the fact that reparation therapy is more harmful than helpful and present an alternative process that would lead to healthy integration of the lgbt identity)

but this one chick kept going on ‘well id ask him if he had any relations with the opposite sex because i observed that people usually become gay when they had no success with the opposite sex and thats why they go gay’ and i almost like. fucking jumped her kfhgkfhg I GET SO AGGRESSIVE DURING THOSE CLASSES, PROBABLY BC IM THE ONLY LGBT PERSON AROUND (well the prof isnt but u kno)

and today, with the coming out thing, i was just so fucking frustrated you know?? coming out is such a difficult topic to me bc i still havent come out to my family bc im super afraid of their reaction, i mean i know they wouldnt kick me out but i cant even. parse the fact that they could start loving me less etc so its so fucking stressful and those hetero fuckers were sitting there and just. talking about how they have gaydars in their skulls and also? coming out can be a fun wholesome experience for the whole family !

so yeah IT… GETS FRUSTRATING. the most engaging class, like ive mentioned, is the queer theory class bc its not psych students but like. literature students really?? and we dont analyze lgbt perspective from a medical standpoint of finding pathology, but we just? critically explore the culture and various texts and its really engaging and interesting… i think this is wht needs to be implemented into lgbt psych, something abt the lgbt culture. i know we’re already moving away from the pathologization of lgbt people but we need to go a step further and … just.. demistify how we treat lgbt patients, we cant treat them as an exotic minority group… we REALLY REALLY REALLY need to combat heteronormativity in psych field, we NEED to teach psych students how to talk to an lgbt person, what words to use, we need to teach them the history of treating lgbt patients, lgbt classes cant be just. a bonus thats usually shoved in with sexology. 

i think i painted a very bleak picture but u gotta remember i come from an eastern europe country where gay marriage is still illegal and u know, society cant get woke overnight. there are students who legit want to understand how to help lgbt patients, they wanna learn. and then there are those who think they already understand everything because they watched skam or whatever. and thats my biggest issue, i NEED heteros to understand that there are experiences they will never fully get as they will never live thru actual homophobia/transphobia, so they cant write them off, they dont understand the stress that comes with being a sexual minority and if they wanna help patients, they NEED to understand that and try harder to envision what its like to live in a heteronormative society etc

anyways i rambled a bit but yea I GOT SO ANNOYED BY TODAYS CLASS i was like fuming honestly

[polyamradiotranscripts]

Ep. 1 New relationship Energy

polyAM Radio espisode one: New Relationship Energy

[Begin transcript]

[Sophie]: Hello everybody and welcome to polyam radio. I'm Sophie Last-name-redacted

[Mara]: And I'm Mara Fake-last-name

[Sophie]: Welcome to the first episode of our brand new podcast about polyamory that weird relationship thing you do with lots of other people.

["Crazy little thing called love" by Queen plays]

[Sophie]: as i mentioned my name is Sophie, I'm a trans womam my pronouns are she her hers

[Mara]: I'm mara, I use them them theirs pronouns

[Sophie]: we're engaged

[Mara]: pretty cool, no big deal, whatever

[Sophie]: yeah, little bit, ya know, fiancees, plural

[Mara]: cool

[Sophie]: yeah and we've been doing poly for about four or five years now, depending on when you start counting

[Mara]: yeah yeah I'd say do

[Sophie]: yeah yeah cuz we've been together for almost six years this is our new show and we just wanted to tell you a little about it before we jump right in to this weeks topic. Basically this show is going to be about queer, trans, modern polyamory, we're not really going to be talking about swinging a whole lot we're not relly going to be talking about open relationships, or strict heirarchical structures very much, we're going to be talking about very egalitarian very feminist oriented polyamory

[Mara]: well and and, and not that those things are awful or horrible or bad or wrong it's just uh, this is this is what our experience is, this is what works well for us this is what works well for a lot of other people

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely the goal of this podcast is not to rip on those things

[Mara]: well and and I think it's like worth mentioning when you and I started polyamory like we had a tiered open relationship and like that just that didn't work for us that was a bad time uh

[Sophie]: yeah I mean we were also like literal kids and, dumb, and stuff

[Mara]:  oh yeah, no, we were dumb high schoolers

[Sophie]: yeah, so

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: uh, yeah, high school sweethearts, lets talk a little bit about the structure of the show basically we're gonna try to drop episodes every other week. We're just starting so if we mess up a little bit, really sorry, there's not much we can do about it

[Mara]: we're humans

[Sophie]: yeah we're both students, uh, which is like a subcategory of humans uh that we someday hope to become humans, someday we hope to become humans, not inhumans like the x-men or whatever

[Mara]: well we're alreay inhumans, sike

[Sophie]: yeah I suppose

[Mara]: human, inhumans

[Sophie]: cuz I've got all these special powers, um

[Mara]: like weeping

[Sophie]: yeah, like lots of crying. Like i said we're going to try to drop shows every other week we're going to have a different topic on every show there's a small chance that if sometime we feel like there's new information out or something like that or our perscpectives have changed we'll drop an episode on a topic and revisit it, uh but generally speaking we're going to try to keep it fresh. How this is going to work is that me, Sophie, so you'll learn my name Sophie Sophie Sophie. I'm going to be the main host of this show, and Mara is going to be one of a couple co-hosts that help me out all the time so Mara is a voice you'll be hearing from a lot but probably not on every single episode. Got some other partners that wanna get in the rotation get in the mix, partly just to keep the perscpective fresh and everone's an expert on different things which is actually where I'm going next which is we're going to have occasional guest speakers on the show that are really knowledgable about specific things, because personally me, I don't consider myself an expert on poly or polyamory

[Mara]: Oh, god and I know I'm not and expert

[Sophie]: Yeah, absolutely I've only been doing it for four or five years, there's no way I could be and expert in something in that little amount of time. Ya know your undergrad takes four or five years and you barely know anything after that

[Mara]: well and and some people just have like different experiences too

[Sophie]: right exactly there are ascpects of polyamory that I can't speak to because I haven't had those experiences I think it would be really cool at some point to do a program or ya know uh and episode about having polyamorous parents and being a child raised in that. I was not in that situation so I can't really speak to it. So, we're going to try to mix it up, you're always going to have to deal with me unfortunately, uh, just to kind of keep some moderate level of consistency in how the show works, we're going to roate out the guest speakers based on ya know just kind of what information and experiences they have and can speak to

[Mara]: If this was a heirarchical relationship Sophie would be like your primary and I would be like a secondary [laughs]

[Sophie]: we don't do that bull shit here because, well  in my opinion it's inherently unhealthy and it makes people feel like they're less worthy and our beloved co-host is not less worthy so we also wanna talk about us some of  the other sections so we're gonna have some people talk about the main topic but we're also gonna have an advice section, hopefully and a lot of that is depedent on you the listener ya know if you want us to have a really cool advice section you have to send us really cool quetsions

[Mara]: I mean because the only thing I can give advice on is Oh my god both of my partners leave their dishes in the sink and don't do their dishes so how do I get my partners to do the dishes so like it can be goofy things like that or it can be, help, my partner is moving across the country how do I cope with this

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely and how do I tell them I'm that I'm running off or being scared or stuff like that, so it can be silly or serious if you want a sill or serious answer depending I mean you'll kind of get out of this what you put into it. basically what we're gonna try to do is if we get a lot of quetsions on a certain topic that'll inform what topics we cover in main episodes to try to hit couple of those with one stone and then address those quetsions directly, uh, or if ya know we may if we get a ton a ton a quetsions we may just do an episode at some point that is just ya know no cohesive structure just answering quetsions because y'all loved em and it was really popular

[Mara]: that would be a lot of fun

[Sophie]: that would be a lot of fun I would really dig that like ya know once every couple months just do an advice show, so the best way to reach us then would be either on twitter uh its polyam_radio uh you can tweet at us or you can send us and email with your quetsion and if you don't want it in public but you want it answered in a public medium, which would be weird, but you're certainly free to do that if it's longer than [Sophie]:40 character or however long they give you on twitter and our email is polyamradio@gmail.com and I believe that's right I'm going to check it and vamp for time until I do

[Mara]: [vamp with 'do do do']

[Sophie]: [vamp with 'do do do']

[Sophie]: Oh no I typed in fmail on my computer not gmail

[Mara]: uh while sophie looks that up actually I could probably

[Sophie]: polyamradio all underscrore no, uh all lowercase no underscore anything at gmail.com so poly a m radio, it's a joke ya get it? cuz AM radio is a medium where you talk to people on the radio and we call it polyam cuz polyamory. Alright so lets jump right in to talking about what this is actually supposed to be about now that we've waste about ten minutes of your time we're going to talk about new relationship energy today, we figured it would be good because this podcast is shiny and new and we're relly excited about it and we hope you're really excited about it and a lot of times when relationships are new they are bright and shiny and sometimes you do dumb shit because of it

[Mara]: sometimes?

[Sophie]: sometimes, yeah, uh

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: yeah sometimes uh

[Mara]: speaking only for myself here I do really dumb shit

[Sophie]: yeah and it's really interesting because the times you where you haven't done dumb shit uh because you're in a new relationship generally speaking that just means that it hasn't been the appropriate amount of months since you've done that dumb shit and you're not ready to really own up to it yet so if you're like that's not me I'm not doing dumb shit cuz of my new relationship tweet at me in like six months or whatever and then we'll talk

[Mara]: sophie is the queen of doing that

[Sophie]: okay I mean you say that but like saying that is kind of I think is reductionist because like I do dumb shit all the time anyways

[Mara]: okay true but like you're you're new relationship dumb shit is like [wooshing noise]

[Sophie]: yeah well part of it is that um like, we talk about, we're going to be talking about disability and a lot of stuff on this show uh I'm bipolar so I have to deal with mania on top of new relationship energy sometimes and ya know I mean, I've taken psychology clases and we learned about mania as running naked through the shopping mall ya know in this extreeme cases and that's not at all what mania is in most people's lives I have had some, relationship equivalents of running naked through the shopping mall uh ya know I've definitley um ya know called a partner like 80 times or something like that, in a matter of, however long, ya know or at least it felt like 80 times

[Mara]: let me just pull up my phone records

[Sophie]: yeah, honestly,

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]:yeah well you live with me so you get the worst of it

[Mara]: middle of the night, cuddle me[sustained]

[Sophie]: okay, thats not even, well yeah um, that was mania lat night but normally that's just cuz I'm a huge cuddle bug

[Mara]: that's true

[Sophie]: anyways, um, new relationship energy uh it feels weird and it can makes us do dumb shit and sometimes it can even make our partners insecure so we want to have a discussion about it because as people who have started a lot of new relationships recently it's been something that's been very prevalent in our lives and it's been something that we've had to deal with ya know I I kind of alluded to this before but we don't neccecarliy consider ourselves experts on poly, we consider ourselves and I consider myself someone who has made a lot of poly mistakes and who has done a lot of things wrong, and I've also done a lot of things right because just by rote of doing this for a long enough ya know you, you make lots of decisions and choices and actions and some of thema are great and some of them are not so great and we wanna talk about that so I wanna preface all of this with, we do not consider ourselves experts on it, this is our experience, what we think, if you think we're totally wrong I'm not gonna say that you're wrong and that we're totally right, uh I do think that ya know I think that no matter who you are or where you're coming from even if you're a monogamous you'll be able to get something out of this cuz a lot of these feelings and experiences and what not aren't neccecarliy unique to polyamory in my mind  

[Mara]: yeah uh so now that we've been like babbling at you about new relationship energy new relationship energy we should probably like talk about what it is so people are sitting there like horrifically confused so it's kind of almost exactly what it sounds like

[Sophie]: Webster's Dictionary defines it as

[Mara]: yeah okay [laughs] so Webster Dictionary definition probably more like, urban dictionary definition

[Sophie]: ooh that was a good goof I like that

[Mara]: you could proba- like so you know how you feel so happy like you're gonna puke in the begining of a relationship just like constantly just like the butterlies in you're stomach and this person can do no wrong, and oh my god how is everybody not in love with this person maybe, mabye that's just me but like I oh my gosh I like I feel like I'm gonna puke I'm so happy when when I start a new relationship, it's pretty dumb

[Sophie]: yeah well with me a lot of times it manifests itself in uh a manner similar to ya know I'm always wanting to talk to this person always wanting to be around this person and even there are times when I'm kind of saturated with them where it's like wow, I could really use a moment alone to myself to like clean my glasses and wipe my ass and just ya know someth- like time where it's like a little isolated little quality time alone, that's good sometimes uh you want to hermit a little bit and that is normally what happens with partners with me at least just because you can't be around people constantly, problem is, is that a lot of times with new relationship energy that feeling of wanting to isolate yourself just a little bit every now and then isn't there, at least for me uh and that can cause some problems either just because you're around people all the time or you're neglecting your other relationships or responsibilities, it's like we're both students who have like homework and shit, so it can cause you to, in some cases neglect other areas of your life because you're, ya know, hopping into bed with this perosn when you have other shit to do or you just wanna, ya know , you're planning your day around getting dinner with them even though you've seen them every day this week and just kind of going to uh sometimes like comical levels of effort just to spend time with this person and kind of shoe horn-ing it in, for me a lot of times that's what it ends up looking like and a lot like Mara said that it feels like butterlies it feels like this person is amazing and oh my god I can't believe they're into me and, ya know, sometimes even just being insecure and being like maybe the're not into me so, uh, for me a lot of times that's how it manifests

[Mara]: um, yeah, for me I'm like oh I don't know I just I I get super super into people and I'm like not not neccecarliy like I wanna be around you every second of every day uh like Sophie gets I I very much value my alone time and my hermitage time and I will like totally straight up interrupt dates with partners to be like, ya, no I need to be alone, I need to take a bath with a bath bomb and just like chillax that's that's who I am as a person but like I'll be constantly thinking about them, I'll be wanting to spend all of my time with them, I'll like, I don't shut up about people when I get new relationship energy like I will just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, to anyone who will listen to me uh which that's it's not great

[Sophie]: yeah Mara really like ya know how um the kind of the romance dime novel that I'm not actually convinced anybody reads

[Mara]: speak for yourself

[Sophie]: woah wow okay

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: that's a guilty pleasure you should feel bad about [laughs] wow okay yeah learning new things learning new things about my fiance gonna have to like process that later but you know like the shitty fantasy dime novels where it's like ya know, she swooned or whatever an like then like Ma- Mara gets very swoony over new partners and it's really cute and it's endearing

[Mara]: well I'm glad you think so

[Sophie]: well they think so to typically at least in my experience ya know everyone thinks you're super cute

[Mara]: that's alright I just kinda want to die uhh [laughs]

[Sophie]: well it's also really funny because you're really shy

[Mara]: [quietly] yeahhh

[Sophie]: so you're swooning but a lot of times you're to nervous to talk to people

[Mara]: they must'nt know, they must'nt know I swooned over them Sophie

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely

[Mara]: they'll think me a harlot

[Sophie]: well you are

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: ya know, so [laughs] sorry I'm just imagining you as the kind of person who's concerned with being a harlot or not and it's I'm not handling it

[Mara]: I I don't know what you're talking about I don't know what you're trying to imply about me

[Sophie]: yeah well I mean [pause] okay

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: yeah right now I am stammering worse than Mara does when talking to a new partner, ba dum cha oh with the look I'm getting right now folks

[Mara]: your intent was to shoot an arrow through my heart

[Sophie]: yeah yeah

[Mara]: fuckin bullseye

[Sophie]:  like this is an audio only medium but like I hope you can hear like the fear in my voice from the look I'm getting right now is, it is not great folks

[Mara]: yes clearly I am a very terrifying person

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely

[Mara]: [laughs] but so, so like the dumb stuff it can make you do, uh, that's what it is, that's how it feels

[Sophie]: so, so let me ask you a question then, basically it feels good generally right?

[Mara]: um, yes but

[Sophie]: yeah good but weird, ya know

[Mara]: well and and there are times where I don't know, speaking of like disability I'm, I've been like horrifically depressed my entire life so like when I'm really happy I'm just like alright when's the other shoe gonna drop what's gonna happen, but ya know

[Sophie]: yeah, I'm not saying it can go on for, indefinitely like if we're talking about ice cream like ya know I'm very lactose intolerant I shouldn't be eating ice cream at all but like, ya know the fact that we say ice cream tastes good doesn't mean that we always and only ever want to eat ice cream

[Mara]: oh yeah, no, no

[Sophie]: so so like this is a feeling that's generally good right like it's not a bad feeling

[Mara]: sometimes it's like being strapped to an emotional comet or at least for me ya know it's just kind of like this person has has tied like something around my heart and has just kind of sent it off into space and like I can't think straight and I don't like it all the time

[Sophie]: that's fair I uh a lot of times I get annoyed that I'm always thinking about this person cuz ya know I'm a I'm mean I've frequently got other stuff I'm trying to focus on like come on y'all I'm trying to do this calculus here like I can't be thinking about sucking on this persons face right now like ya know, derivatives they're sexy and they're important and  I should be doing them

[Mara]: that's cute

[Sophie]: yeah

[Mara]: uh

[Sophie]: that's my life

[Mara]: and I think I think for me um part of why I don't always neccecarliy like enjoy the the uh intense excitement is I I think that like I can kind of feel like I'm like neglecting my partners sometimes like oh oh I'm just so excited that it's kind of like negatively affecting this relationship I think that ya know it can feel really nice and really really exiting but I think sometimes why I don't neccecarliy enjoy uh that that strapped to an emotional comet feeling is um being like with other partners I talk and talk and talk and talk and talk right and I'm constantly talking about my new partner and like oh what if they're getting annoyed what if they're feeling left out like what if I'm neglecting my partner for this other person and that's a really horrible feeling for me personally

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely and that's actually what I kinda wanted to get into here, ya know, we talk about this and it's, ya know again like I said it's it's like a roller coaster or ice cream or whatever it's not neccecarliy bad it's not always what you're in the mood for and there is a tim- there is a point where it becomes too much but like what are some of the negative effects of new relationship energy because ya know we chose this to be the first episode of our podcast and at least in my mind it would be weird to have picked that and have it just be something that we talk about where it's like oh it's this vaugley inconvinient little thing that doesn't really affect you or your other relationships at all like cuz in my experience it does have, ya know for lack of a better term some deleterious, some bad uh effects, some drawbacks so what are some ways that uh in your experience uh new relationship energy can be a bad thing

[Mara]: [laughs] le- let let me think of a couple examples here

[Sophie]: I think I think for one at the very least is ya know all the dumb shit it makes you do

[Mara]: Oh yeah no for sure

[Sophie]: like we talked about that briefly but like ya know it's worth bringing up again like uh it can make you make an ass of yourself ya know I had a relationship a while back where ya know it was making me kind of blin- the new relationship energy was kinda making me blind to how this how this other partner was treating and interacting with some of my other partners and, ya know, not to say that ya know this person wasn't the devil by any means but there were lots of like little like slights and everything going on and it was causing my partner a lot of well well you it was causing you a lot of anxiety

[Mara]: yeah it was

[Sophie]: and it was making, ya know, the fact that I wasn't seeing this was making you feel gaslit when it was something that ya know I was having a hard time validating because I ya know I wasn't noticing and I wasn't picking up on these frankly very subtle signals and and and whatnot

[Mara]: well and I think the hardest thing too was that um like even if you weren't picking up on it like you weren't listening ya ya know and that was the really hard thing for me

[Sophie]: yeah I think new relationship energy makes communication harder and I and I think that's the reality of it, ya know

[Mara]: well and I think especially like something, uh, dumb shit that you do when when you're um when you're experiencing new relationship energy is, ya know , it's the problem isn't you, right and the problem isn't this new person like it's, what could be wrong like you know this relationship is so great it can be really hard to to listen to what this other person is trying to say to you like hey here's how your attidute towards this is kind of hurting me

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely and I think that ya know to a big degree it's not like this person couldn't possibly be doing anything wrong it just feels like, get off their back ya know it just feels like what do they do that's so bad

[Mara]: well and you don't know them like I do, and

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely it's like you're not spending all this time with them and everything and ya know and you're trying to make the new relationship work, you're always worried that you're gonna scare someone off or whatever and that's pretty standard stuff that we all ya know deal with and what not I mean I don't I don't think that  doesn't make you the devil because you're having this new relationship energy

[Mara]: oh god no no

[Sophie]: it can just kind of make you blind to certain things that are going on, not even saying this new partner ya know this isn't a problem that only occurs if your new partner happens to be someone who is secretly totally toxic ya know this is a problem that occurs ya know like lots of people have like little things about them that make them ya know not a hundred percent positive influences on your life like there's no way anybody's a hundred percent positive influence on your life unless they're totally bullshitting you putting a ton of effort into it that's why being a parent is hard that's why your parents don't talk to you the same fucking way they do their friends is because they're trying to be a hundred percent positive, well, most parents I think are ya know are at least trying to be a hundred percent positive influence, I think a lot of them fall way short but that's an entirely different conversation ya know the fact of the matter is, is that when you're trying to be a good influence for someone you behave differently then when you're just, like, chilling around them and spending time with them doing all this other shit ya know so like, it can make you blind to, to some of things your partners are bringing up I think is the big thing for me ya know I, what are some other ways that new relationship energy can kind of, hurt other relationships or or that relationship itself

[Mara]: um, I I think sometimes like I've personally made some pretty like rash decisions about a partner before ya know in the new relationship energy phase and ya know all of the sudden the new relationship energy is dissapated and like you're hanging out with them and you're like oh, oh no like

[Sophie]: [laughs]

[Mara]: what have I done here, ya know I uh, I don't think I want this with this person anymore how, how do I talk to this person about it I think that's something that can be like for me it's a very big concern it's like am I making this decision about this partner because it's genuinley what I feel and what I want or am I making this with uh, ya know, the dopamine and they oxytocin and all those fun brain chemicals are kinda like they got you going and they, this person can do no wrong like let's move in and live together and have babies together and and all the sudden, oh shit, I don't wanna have babies I don't even wanna like with this person let alone even have babies ya know

[Sophie]: yeah well and I also think that ya know realistically I know we've both been in situations where new relationship energy has made us get into more commited relationships then we had time for and we were ready for uh, that's happened a couple times realistically and it's been really hard to back pedal uh because that's not a fun conversation to have with someone and be like yeah listen I'm still interested in you but ya know how we were gonna be ya know this really committed really serious thing, that's not actually something I'm ready for and I was just being really foolish and foolhardy and I'm sorry that was a shitty thing I did like that is not a conversation that is fun to have for anybody and it's really hard to come back from there, ya know it's kind of like you can't un-fuck someone, you can't, ya know, you can stop sleeping with someone you can can, ya know you can choose to not continue to do it but you can't undo the fact that you did it and that can be really hard to do

[Mara]: right, well you can't take back the the words that you said and the feelings that it caused like  I think that's something that ya know this is this is a relationship and I've kind of made this bond to you, I can't I can't really get un-engaged from you at this point like we can't just say ohh nevermind like we don't wanna be engaged anymore we we kind of have to say like alright like what does what does this

[Sophie]: well I wanna put out there ya know we could but it would be messy

[Mara]: oh yeah [laughs]

[Sophie]: we would have to like re-structure our whole relationship and focus for probably years on returning to whatever point that we wanted to get to with a lesser commitment I mean and ya know whether or not the relationship would survive that I honestly can't say I, just like, not that I would want to leave you if you did that or whatever, just that's a really tricky thing to learn how to navigate

[Mara]: yeah for sure well and I think like ya know even even on the flip side of like ya ya know, I think sometimes when I'm ha- with a partner who's experiencing a lot of new relationship energy like this is this is a personal flaw uh I can feel like kind of left out or like oh, this partner doesn't actually love me they love this person way more they're just with me because I'm familiar and ya know I've I've been with them for a while and I'm just, ya know they're gonna get sick of me and they're gonna get tired of me and they don't actually like me like that is that is something that I have concerns about and like part of that is like acutal emotional trauma from my past, but, like part of that too is just kind of, we're, we're kind of surrounded by this society that thinks oh monogamy is the one true way and all you polyamorous people are gonna settle down and, umm, which is that's just dumb

[Sophie]: yeah it's foolish

[Mara]: like you know it's not doing this because I don't want commitment, I have several commitments like I want commitment it's not I don't want commitment uh,

[Sophie]: yeah I more commitment in one of my relationships, this one in particular than most monogamous people do in theirs and then if you add up all the commitments from all of my relationships into one gigantic scary comittment monster, ya know it becomes

[Mara]: [gasp] is this what I've been hearing about? The commitment monster

[Sophie]: the commitment monster yeah

[Mara]: is this why people get cold feet?

[Sophie]: I guess, yeah

[Mara]: is the comittment monster coming for them?

[Sophie]: we have our first celebirty appearance on our show it's the commitment monster

[Mara]: [growling a la commitment monster]

[Sophie]: wow yeah

[Mara]: [growling] I do [growling]

[Sophie]: [laughs]

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: hello commitment monster how are you doing today

[Mara]: I'm, I don't know will I wanna be with you forever and ever

[Sophie]: oh no how do I get out of this now

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: see that's how they get ya folks ya konw commitment monster I gotta say you sound a lot like uh like a t-rex but you look a lot like if cookie monster and animal had a baby and I'm just really curious about that

[Mara]: I am the product of their commitment

[Sophie]: [laughs]  well you heard it here first folks cookie monster and animal the muppets are in a triad with a t-rex and they're very committed and they're presumeably very happy a well maybe not becuase that's why a monster grew out of it they're in an unhappy triad

[Mara]: [normal voice] no it's their baby

[Sophie]: ohh, oh it's like spwan thing

[Mara]: yeah

[Sophie]: oh I thought this was like a metaphysical I though this was like a metaphysical being that arose out of like ya know just like the spirit of commitment

[Mara]: I mean I think everybody has their own commitment monster, some of those are acutal tangible babies

[Sophie]: fuck that's deep

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: ya know you say like you're ripping on babies a lot for someone who like ya know was the one who convinced me to have kids

[Mara]: oh god I love babies like don't get me wrong I love babies, I'm not ripping on babies I I think but you know for some people, they're afraid of having kids and for them like that comittment monster is kind of realized in like I don't wanna have kids, I'm scared of having kids with this person I'm scared of like ya know

[Sophie]: that's fair

[Mara]: like I'm scared of being saddled to this tiny little life for eighteen years that's a long time folks

[Sophie]: yeah that's fair well and, well really forever, like basically until you die because like at eighteen years ya know like they don't stop being your kid like you just like

[Mara]: the relationship changed

[Sophie]: yeah like that is the best case scenario for when you no longer have to deal with them in your house anymore

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: like that is the shortest commitment for like okay how much longer until this little fuck isn't eating my food anymore like that's what eighteen is

[Mara]: and even they come back from college and uh hi mom sorry for eating all your food

[Sophie]: I didn't but my parents don't keep food in the house they

[Mara]: right well that's a different story

[Sophie]: yeah they subsist on like saltines, apples, and Fox News alone, yeah it's pretty rough

[Mara]: well the racism is enough to kind of sustain any white American I suppose

[Sophie]: any good red blooded American can be sustained on racism alone

[Mara]: [laughs] but, I digress or we digress

[Sophie]: yeah, yeah that got kind of off there but I liked it

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: I like where it went

[Mara]:  but it can really kinda feel like um ya know it it you're old and you're boring and your partner is just going to get rid of you right that's like the ultimate goal of your partner ge- they're interested in somebody else so they must be more interested in them than you like thats just the very monogamous attidute towards it, right? but like we personally practice relationship anarchy all of our relationships just are what they are and they don't really have effects on ya know what another relationship looks like like my relationship to Sophie does not uh affect my relationship with another partner or anybody else really just like ya know having, being friends with one individual doesn't affect your friendship with somebody else I think that's pretty silly when you think about you're you're friendships that way so why would you think about like you're re- romantic relationships, sorry folks, there is there is a squirrel

[Sophie]: yeah there

[Mara]: stealing an apple out of our compost

[Sophie]: a whole apple that got just too rotten to eat so I threw it out

[Mara]: oh that squirrel is going to have the greatest day of its life folks

[Sophie]: litterally like I'm just watching a squirrel just jizz its pants over how much food it found

[Mara]: it's having new relationship energy over this apple

[Sophie]: my biggest concern is that it's gonna hop down from our deck, which is on the second floor of our, so it's an apartment it's on the second floor, my biggest fear right now is that the squirrel is gonna try to jump down from here with the apple in its mouth instead of just knocking it down and retreiving it and that the extra weight is gonna make it hit the ground real real hard and just kill it

[Mara]: and that is why new relationship energy is dangerous folks

[Sophie]: yeah I guess

[Mara]: it uh that apple, that apple will get ya every time

[Sophie]: yeah well, apple a day, well ya know keep the doctor away cuz you are a squirrel and it will kill you

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: [laughs] okay, uh

[Mara]: goodness gracious

[Sophie]: yeah yeah we're great at this we're really good podcasters folks this is just like people are like tuning in for their auditory experience of the day and just just having a blasty blast

[Mara]: they're getting, a squirrel

[Sophie]: yeah

[Mara]: oh no

[Sophie]: oh he'll be back

[Mara]: I hope so

[Sophie]: the apple is still there he not

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: god I swear to god all of this is making it through post, so anyways going back to things feeling like maybe your partner is only with you because it's, ya know, familiar and and it can start to feel like maybe you're just there as a saftey net for your partner uh and ya know maybe they're not just into you maybe they're just into the stability of you and I gotta say folks, if you're feeling that way about your partner, I don't know you, I don't know your partner, ya brain's lyin to ya, it just is, I I got that feeling all the time about a lot of different partners and I gotta tell you like I'm really fortunate my partners got they're so fucking into me they're it's it's rediculous

[Mara]: it's pretty dumb

[Sophie]: it's like they don't even know who I am

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: it's real bad folks

[Mara]: I uh well yeah it's it's ya know

[Sophie]: well but but my point is like this isn't something that, ya know y'all aren't just with me cuz it's easy to be because I'm not always the easiest person to be with and y'all aren't just in this for stability or whatever cuz, here's the thing when people are in relationships just for the stability they get out of those relationships because that's not something that they probably want to continue to be in, if there's someone else they'd rather be with and they no longer want to be with you they do this thing called a break-up or a divorce or whatever we  have a word for that folks, so, ya know, that's a little message from me to you, that's not what's happening, but it can feel that way and if you are feeling that way it's super important to communicate that to your partner, and it's okay to just say hey, ya know I know you've got a lot of new relationship energy and I I'm supporting that, that's great ya know that's real real good

[Mara]: right like I'm excited for you too

[Sophie]: yeah I'm feelin compersion, I'm happy for your happiness and I'm happy because of your happiness even though it doesn't directly impact me it's called compersion ya know that that like I said that's all good good stuff, and it's also okay to be like ya know I'm just, I'm feeling a little insecure and I'm feeling like maybe you're just with me because this is familiar and, ya know, I just need reasurance, do you still wanna be with me and everything and probably they'll say yes because you're a real real cool person uh and they'll just put their arm around you and say hey listen it's familiar, but not too familiar

[Mara]: but not too not familiar

[Sophie]: it's a new craze, something something "mbmbam" and then you'll go have sex because your problems will be solved, if you're into having sex when your problems are solved

[Mara]: [gasp] sorry, the squirrel wants to come in

[Sophie]: he can't

[Mara]: I know he can't, sorry folks, you were getting into this for they polyamory and it's just squi- it's all squirrels now

[Sophie]: yeah you can tell your friends about it if they're into squirrels and shit, so that's basically our take on new relationship energy uh if there's anything you felt we left out or anything you want to add to the conversation feel to take that to our twitter or to our email, preferably twitter because it's public and then other people can benefit from what you have to say because I'm sure it's genius, if you wanna holler at us because we did everything wrong that's fine too, ya know, just try to be nice about it we're both, ya know, pretty new to podcasting this might now be the best, ya know the most deligh-, this might not be the most delectable audio experience you've ever had but we're working hard to make it better and any tips you have about that would also be appriciated, I do wanna mention quick that we were welcomed into the trans podcaster visibility initiative so we are part of that network, and I just wanna thank them for their help and guidence while we were getting started it's been a huge huge help and actually before I even made this first episode ya know I had just sent someone a message to ask them a question and, ya know, one thing let to another and we were invited to join this good good network where all these trans, queer podcasters are uh, ya know, making their art, and making their stuff and I just think it's really cool and we're really fortunate to be a part of that and I think we're gonna have some real good guest speakers because of that network also I doubt they'll ever hear this but I just want, I think we both kinda want to thank, the entire Mcelroy family especially Griffin, Travis, Justin, and Clint for just being real real bad at Dungeons and Dragons and for getting us into podcasting through "Mbmbam" and "The Adventure Zone" they're not paying us to say that, just real big fans and you should go watch their stuff, uh

[Mara]: or listen

[Sophie]: er, listen to their stuff, yeah because this is an audio medium and I know that because I'm looking at a microphone and no camera, so anyways this has been polyAM radio and just a reminder before you go, don't date your best friends dad and don't date your dad's best friend, see ya next time folks

["Good old fashioned lover boy" by Queen plays]

[Announcer]: This show was part of the trans podcaster visibility initiative

[End transcript]