#and people really treat you differently when youre visibly transgender | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

angstics · 2 years ago

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it's always been interesting to me that the only thing seemingly "separating" the transgender truthing from the homosexual truthing, in terms of legitimate proof that someone who only knows gerard way through interviews and stage performance could provide, is the history of open gnc-ness. which doesn't really correlate to any kind of transgender identity but obviously i know why people choose to interpret it that way. (even then, the offstage dude kissing could and usually does fill an identical role in other peoples interpretation of gerard as being secretly gay so. shrug). but this time TRUST ME his performance art in solidarity with an oppressed queer group is ACTUALLY him being secretly trans. i try not to engage with any mass discourse events and find the she/her pronoun usage distasteful and just personally uncomfortable, so i dont directly encounter many people who even orbit this kind of discussion lol. im curious what you think about this comparison! and i apologize if anything was worded unclearly :)

this is a big can o worms! i like hearing your thoughts. there’s sooo many different readings on his identity and how the outfits factor into that.

it’s invasive but it’s not the same ethics as theorizing about a friend. understanding an artist is important to people. it’s part of being an artist which is normal but heavily contested. im always reminded of siken’s response to the student who wanted to learn more about his life to understand his poetry lol (he wasnt nice). why would it matter? authenticity, connection, need to label? there’s no universal or moral answer

anyhow back to gerard. the shift from homosexual to transgender truthing is funny! people didnt give up, they just concluded he’s unlabelled gay 😭 not from the on/off stage kissing (which were all performative) but from the tweetsss. “when people try to define your sexuality [morrissey picture]” and “why would i hide it if i was a Homosexual”. the affair conspiracies and gay music themes and general stereotypes probably aided that. whether the assumption is true or false makes no difference. the reasons behind why ppl even make the assumption are so intriguing to think about… but this is already too long.

the “trans truthing” is complicated bc it’s more personal to ppl. im not gonna create a boogeyman. ive seen all of this, some i align with some i dont. putting them in a list cuz it’s easier to read

ppl in my corner of the fandom are comfortable with calling him queer, nb, trans — from most to least common. all as umbrella terms. all to mean not-cis. justification is good ol FLAGGING. like getting an undercut to tell girls yr a dyke without needing to come out. i can expand on this thought process if wanted. ive seen this kinda labeling for YEARS

a lot of ppl i follow stop at gnc because that is the only visibly obvious option. and it’s the term The Advocate used for him in 2018 (tho we gotta note that he didnt self-id — the writer used the same principal of gnc being about presentation over id). the term is treated as if it were between cis and trans. or more accurately, not-cis not-trans.

ive noticed that old/ex fans or outsiders under my 30k cheerleader gifset see the dress as a coming out…? people of 1 and 2 chalk it under that history of gender nonconformity. it’s surprising but makes sense. i think that’s the function of said history

all the egg talk ive seen is on twitter among transfem ppl and tumblr posts in the wild. i searched “gerard way trans” and got so many tweets referencing kurt cobain. that is transfem business, not mine 😭

all this to say that i havent seen anyone in these circles insinuate he was Secretly trans. it’s the same as the gay assumption. it isnt about proving what reality is. just whatever individuals accept as their truth. lots of 1 ppl have said that if he suddenly came out as cis, their perception wouldnt change. i take that to mean bc the performance itself is the person and the performance they see is transgender.

i dont see how art and artist can be separated in performance. what other version of the artist are you getting? i dont know if anyone round here is talking about the couch sitting gerard way. like why would we 😭 even if one does, it’s under the perception of the performance we know. if we werent talking about the performance, we wouldnt even be talking about it. you wouldnt imagine your loved one watching tv. youd sit next to them. look at them. talk to them. YOU KNOW? like this whole debate on whether it’s invasive goes NOWHERE. we arent talking about someone who could be known. we are barely talking about the real person.

and he knows this because anyone with a Name becomes this. the real life person doesnt need defending. he needs respect. to me that means not harassing him, not digging into his private life, not speaking for him. the rest is what feels ok for me. if the environment is uncomfortable, all i can do is share why. which is why talking about it is important.

ill say, im fine with she/her-ing him. i know those arent his defined pronouns. i know i use them as a term of endearment and character-dedication. i know when to avoid them. i personally dont believe in rigid pronoun use. i don’t believe in there being a handbook of rules of what is or isnt rude (not to say there arent general rules). you learn person to person.

goes back to the Pursuit of Universal Morality. god i remember last year getting so mad at the trans labelling id leave tumblr to complain on twitter. but ive changed my tune to seeing the non-cis ambiguity. not because of Evidence but because i found comfort in that connection. i wasnt wrong then, am not wrong now.

it isnt really about him, it’s about what he says and does. which IMO he’s likely to accept as an artist.

so yeah. TLDR: posts that are like “how can you say he’s [cis/trans] if X?!” are really just stating their own perception. even if they uncritically believe what theyre saying is reality, it’s THEIR reality. there is no difference btwn “his performance art in solidarity with an oppressed queer group” and “him being secretly trans”.

#there’s a tldr if it’s too long. sorry for party rockin #ask #mcr #mcr queer studies

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myragewillendworlds · 2 years ago

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It's an interesting question, the way you've framed it. You're asking for physical signs that show off immediately to the world that a person is "indisputably obviously" transsexual. Something that lets everybody visibly read a person as transsexual. You not only think it's normal to actively search for these differences that visibly other transsexual people from everyone else, you want these differences to exist, and for what, for the sake of some kid's fucking fanart? See, you almost reached the point where you realized that there isn't necessarily a visible difference between transsexual and non-transsexual people, but then you took a hard turn into "but there should be, so I can more easily tell them apart." How the hell does someone think they're on the trans-supportive side for thinking this way?

Also, if a person is "LGBT" but not transsexual, I'm pretty sure that implies they're a cisgender person then. What difference does someone's sexuality make when talking about transsexual people? This really well illustrates my personal gripe with the term "LGBT", this idea that associating yourself with it grants some automatic right to speak for every single letter in the acronym. People need to stop treating LGBT as some homogeneous community; at best it's a political coalition of separate, individual communities.

And yes, given that to be transsexual means to strongly feel that your natal sex and your experienced sense of your gender do not match up, a feeling that is called sex/gender dysphoria, not experiencing this would mean someone is not transsexual (or transgender; same thing). To imply you can choose your gender or choose to be trans, is to imply transsexual people can opt out of it as well; but you may find this rhetoric sounds an awful lot like that of conservative transphobic people.

I feel the same way about this; it's almost never not fetishistic. Not even that it's always sexualized, but it's objectified into something for their own personal enjoyment that has nothing to do with actually transsexual people, and more often than not actively dehumanizes them. It's been perverted, in the original sense of the word, as in corrupted, distorted.

It's drama-porn. Emotional torture porn. Or it's about treating transsexual people as little more than extreme crossdressers. It's exploitative. It's got fuck-all to do with "representation" or "activism" and in my personal experience, the only people claiming to make this to represent themselves are the non-dysphoric not-actually-transsexual crowd.

Basically, you've got a crowd that points out how cisgender people can have similar scars, appearances or treatment/surgical needs as transsexual people, and how invisible and insignificant the differences between cisgender people and transitioned transsexual people can be; and you've got a crowd that actively emphasizes the differences, frames transsexual men as "men with female parts" and transsexual women as "women with male parts" and outright fetishizes, glorifies or just fucking memes the shit out of that. These are not the same.

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vaspider · 3 years ago

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I've seen two posts in the last 24 hours about pronouns. The first was complaining about how "they/them is just used as the default for non-binary people now and it's bullshit it's not meant to be a trinary" and the second was "cis people asking your pronouns is so performative and it's bullshit" and like... I'm out of ideas? If I don't know what someone's pronouns were, I WAS using they/them until I felt comfortable asking but now I just don't want to use any pronouns for anyone ever. What do?

Well, first of all, I think your mistake is treating queer people like we're a monolith. There will always be conflicting ideas from everyone within the community on what's the best thing. In general, as long as you are acting with best intentions with your best information with an intention to do the best and kindest thing toward the largest number of people, any reasonable trans person is going to be good with the efforts you make. If you don't know someone's pronouns, using 'they' until you can ask is, generally speaking, fine and good. We'll come back to that in a minute.

Second, like, the first person and the second person's statements are not necessarily in conflict and I'll walk you through why. I will say up front that I am not speaking for anyone else, I do not know whose posts these are or what they meant. I am only speaking to general thoughts and why those statements might not be in conflict when I say:

We do have an issue of cis people (and binary trans people, for that matter) treating non-binaryness as though it's simply a third gender, and not an infinitely-sized galaxy filled with an infinite number of genders, some bespoke, some shared, and with everyone experiencing their gender in a different way. (Cis people also experience their genders in unique ways, but that's an entirely different conversation.) My gender is not the same as an agender person; my gender is not the same as another butch's gender. My gender is my own, and it is not 'generic non-binary.'

There is a tendency to refer to non-binary people as "they/thems" or whatever, usually by people who "don't think non-binary is real" (whether those people are cis or trans) or by people who are being dismissive of non-binary diversity and reality. And insisting that anyone whose gender is non-binary in some fashion is they/them -- when a lot of us use flexible pronouns, mixed pronouns, neopronouns, or even just binary pronouns -- is something that quickly becomes a problem. This tendency springs from the very human desire to put everything into easy categories. That it is understandable doesn't make it correct, of course.

Then the other part of this, the second post, is that a lot of the time cis people will only ask for people's pronouns when that person is visibly transgender by the reckoning of that cis person. So you end up with -- for example -- non-passing binary trans people, and people who deliberately present outside the binary regardless of their gender, being asked for their pronouns, but no one else. And on top of that, a lot of the time that's as far as some cis people go in becoming accomplices with trans people. They're not doing anything to materially better our lives, to enforce our rights, to uplift the most marginalized segments of our community, to understand the less-visible parts of our community -- they figure "I asked their pronouns and I used them, I'm a good ally, gonna pat myself on the back and get a cookie."

So it can be very performative and it can actually be really othering depending on the way it's done. If a cis person looks at someone and says in their head 'that's a boy' and doesn't ask pronouns, then a) they may be wrong and b) when they turn to the person next to that 'boy,' who, idk, has both tits and a moustache, and asks them for their pronouns, well, that may be a cis woman with PCOS, first of all and second of all, it becomes really obvious who that person "sees as trans." And that can be a shitty feeling. (It's also a shitty feeling if you don't 'present non-binary enough' and people presume you use binary pronouns, which happens to me a lot.)

I understand being frustrated by conflicting information. It's very frustrating being on the operative end of "I don't want to use pronouns for people ever because two different trans people had two different opinions," too. I hope you understand that your desire to just say 'fuck it' and not use pronouns, and feeling like ... that's ... the worst you get out of it? That's a form of privilege. It's like the privilege of not caring about politics bc your identity isn't political. Sure, you can try to not use pronouns for people and only use their name, but that's generally obvious, too. I only know one person who doesn't use pronouns at all; every other trans person I know does.

Do your best; use 'they' if you're not sure and until you can ask. Ask politely and do so by offering your pronouns first. Don't just ask the people who you think 'look trans,' ask everyone. Practice it and it'll become natural to offer your pronouns and ask. And don't let pronouns be the only thing you do: advocate for trans people, support us, show up for us.

And if you do that, and someone's still a dick to you about your efforts, please try to remember that a lot of us are carrying around so much trauma about how we're treated with regard to our names and pronouns that the person who gets angry and frustrated or whatever probably isn't really responding to you per se but speaking from a place of profound trauma over having their identity continually invalidated or turned into a point of mockery. That doesn't mean it doesn't suck for you, but it does mean that you have the opportunity to allow that minor frustration to flow over and past you because it isn't really about you. Like, yes, it's frustrating, so imagine how frustrating it is for us, being misgendered at every turn and then on top of that having to deal with cis people's fragility over being asked not to deadname and misgender us, having to walk people through how to show us basic respect and be tender with their feelings when we're bleeding... and then try to just let it go.

Yeah, it sucks that we're trying to figure out how to not have our identities invalidated constantly and that we don't always agree on the best way to do that. I'm sure that's confusing. Do your best, and let it go if someone gets frustrated or you get it wrong. Honest mistakes are what they are, and as long as the mistakes you're making are well-intentioned and honest, you'll be fine.

#trans issues #pronouns #gender identity #non binary #spider speaks

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hellomynameisbisexual · 4 years ago

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“QUEER”

First of all, let’s clear up a common misconception. Queer does not just mean gay. It’s an umbrella term for an identity which deviates from society’s perceived norm: heterosexual, or straight. Queer can refer to sexualities — gay, bisexual, pansexual, — or it can refer to being gender-queer; i.e, any label that deviates from the perceived gender norm: the binaries, male and female.

“Queer” is a reclaimed slur.

If you do not fall under the umbrella of queerness, it is safe to assume that you cannot use it. At all.

I am bisexual.

This means I experience attraction to plural genders. Pansexual also works fine. For the difference between bisexual and pansexual — see here:

Being bisexual isn’t easy. I went through similar hardships to gay women: I experienced attraction to women and was scared of what this meant for me, in such an oppressively homophobic society.

I am not saying being bisexual is harder than being gay, nor the inverse. But my experiences are distinctly bisexual, not gay.

Without further ado, here are the 3 things I’ve found to be the hardest about being queer, but not gay (enough).

#1: Finding My Place

Or, not being queer enough

I always knew I wasn’t straight, but I didn’t know what I was. Up until recently, I was still questioning. This didn’t feel enough to join groups or conversations with LGBT+ folk, let alone go to pride. Was I even LGBT if I was never L, G, B, or T?

I am still yet to attend a pride, even though I identify (fairly confidently) as bisexual. I am in a relationship with a man. This is (problematically) known as a “straight-passing relationship” and makes me feel even more undeserving of a place at pride.

This has been upsetting to me at times. But for others, it can be outright devastating. Growing up and needing support, but feeling like you’re ‘not gay enough’ to ask for it? So many young people are being left alone and afraid. Finding others like you is vital to figuring out who you are. Likewise, finding spaces which are safe and inclusive is vital for anyone, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity. A friend of mine happens to be a transgender man, and he summed up the issue perfectly:

“One thing that I keep noticing is how all hangout spots are “gay bars”, or (far less common) “lesbian bars”. I’m a straight man, so I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be there, but hanging out at regular bars is still too much of a gamble, so I don’t really have anywhere to go.”

It goes without saying that gay folk aren’t always safe in these spaces, as seen by the homophobic attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, in 2016. Bigotry hurts the entire LGBT+ community. Bigotry doesn’t stop to ask whether you identify as gay or otherwise queer before it pulls the trigger.

But the LGBT+ community itself is much more welcoming to those who “pick a side” and just come out as gay, already. The infighting is inexplicable when one looks to attacks such as that in Orlando: bigots don’t care which letter you are in the acronym. So why does gatekeeping exist when we need to be strong in the face of intolerance when fragmentation only makes us weaker? Who are we helping by continuing to exclude identities from the discussion?

#2: Myths and Misconceptions

Well, it stands to reason that if bisexuals are what they seem in TV and movies, why would anyone want to make them feel included? They’re “greedy” and inauthentic. They’re attention-seeking, not to mention their propensity for threesomes. Now, I haven’t been in a wild orgy yet, but it seems like it will only be a matter of time before I follow my natural path.

Straight men, in particular, need to own up to their assumption that bisexual women are down for a threesome. The thing is, we are. But not with you, you big ASSUMER.

Infidelity

All jokes aside, the stereotyping of bisexuals is not only hurtful, but leads to difficulties finding and maintaining relationships.

As I came to terms with my bisexuality, I also had to accept that I might never be fully trusted by my partner, regardless of their gender or sexuality. I was shocked when my partner reacted to my coming out with the equivalent of a shrug — so much so, that I burst into tears of gratitude that my soul-bearing moment hadn’t been met with slut-shaming or assumptions of disloyalty. Nothing has changed. If anything, our bond is even stronger for me having been more authentic after coming out.

But cruelty came from elsewhere: when I came out, I was told that my partner was to be pitied, either because I’m gay and in denial, or bound to cheat on him. The main consequence of such attitudes has been the crippling fear of coming out to my partner. It saddens me that I felt so relieved when he accepted me for being who I am, and loving him just the same as I always have.

This outcome is not the case for many couples, with straight folk worried that their bisexual partner will realise they’re gay and just leave them. This fear of abandonment comes from a place of ignorance. When the media presents bisexuality as a steppingstone on the way to “picking a team”, it’s no wonder that people struggle to trust their queer partners.

Other Queer Myths

The myth that all trans folk medically transition invalidates those who choose not to do so, and let’s not forget the ignorant jeers that it's all just a mental illness. Asexual folk battle the stereotype that they can never have a relationship and shall forever remain a virgin (because what an awful thing that would be, right?) And pansexuals… well, at the lighter end, they’re asked if they have sex with cooking utensils. But often, they’re erased as irrelevant because “we already have the label bisexual”.

This brings us onto the third and final difficulty that comes with queer folk who aren’t easily categorizable as gay: erasure.

#3: Erasure

Erasure refers to the denial of an identity’s existence or its validity as a label.

Non-binary folk face ongoing and loud claims that they simply do not exist. This is despite the historical and scientific evidence to the contrary. Plus, the most important evidence — them, existing. Asexual folk are told they simply have not found the right person yet, or that they are just afraid of sex. Demi-sexual folk are told “everyone feels like that, unless they’re just sleeping around!”. And bisexuals are dismissed as simply being in denial that they’re gay.

Monosexuality & The Gender Binary

Our culture is so built on monosexuality (being solely attracted to one gender — for instance, gay or straight). Monosexuality is reinforced through everything from marriage to dating apps, the media to what we teach in schools. People cannot fathom that someone might want to experience more than one gender in their lifetime.

The binary models of sex and gender are also deeply ingrained. These rigid belief systems combined are to blame for our inability to accept that bisexuals do not need to “pick a side”. I was paralysed by fear for 17 years because I found girls attractive and that might mean I’m gay, because bisexuals are just gays who haven’t realised they’re gay yet.

Bierasure

Bierasure is dangerous, firstly because it leads a child to have to internalise both biphobia and homophobia. For instance, I had to work through being taught to hate gayness, whilst being taught that any attraction to non-male genders made me gay.

Women were cute, and so I was gay, and this meant I was disgusting.

My own mother told me this. She also told me that something has “gone wrong in the womb” for a child to be gay. (Well, Mum, I’ve got some bad news about your womb!)And she, like any bigot, extended this theory to anyone who experiences same-sex attractions — anyone queer. This is another reason why bi-erasure is perilous. Whether you’re a gay, cis-male or a demi-bisexual, trans woman… if your parents will kick you out for being gay, they will likely kick you out for being any sort of queer.

If we deny the bigotry that bisexuals undergo, we will continue to suffer. It won’t just go away. It will fester, with bisexuals having no one they can go to who believes them. And thus:

Erasure Kills

Bullying and suicide rates of queer-but-not-gay people continue to sky-rocket. We must direct funding, support and compassion to every queer individual, as they are all vulnerable to discrimination and bullying. The problem is being left to fester. This is in part because bigots treat all queer labels as just ‘gay’, deeming them equally unworthy. This is how far erasure can go.

Conclusion

Earlier on, I stated that my experiences are distinctly bisexual. The same applies to any queer identity.

Emphasising our differing paths and struggles is important to avoid the aforementioned erasure of already less visible groups. But this does not mean that the LGBT+ community should be fragmented by these differences.

If we can unite in our hope to live authentically and love freely, we will be stronger against bigotry. We are fighting enough intolerance from without: there is no need to create more from within.

So out of everything, what’s the hardest part about being bisexual?

It’s the fact that nobody knows it’s this hard.

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dramaticviolincrescendo · 4 years ago

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So. Ryan.

I’m going back to s4 for a minute because the wonderful @damngcoffee and I were discussing fleeting yet fascinating Ryan, and I wanted to put my thoughts out into the universe. I hope you don’t mind.

I’ve never thought too deeply about the dynamic between Ian and Ryan before. Even in planning out “In Pieces,” analyzing Ryan’s motives wasn’t strictly necessary because it’s not really something Ian would pick up on based on his perspective in this situation. Ostensibly, it’s quite simple: during his club days, Ian is swinging with a new and visibly elegant circle in a drastically different part of society than he grew up in. That’s why Mickey is so out of his element there, whereas Ian expertly camouflages himself the way he always has. On the surface, there’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Just a party. Just Ian, manic and feeling on top of the world and in his element. Just another red flag missed amidst a sea of them. What happens at the party, however, really seems to potentially indicate that there’s more to this and more to Ryan as a character than merely acting as a clever setup for Mickey to indicate that he and Ian are officially in a relationship.

Up to that point, all we’ve seen surrounding Ian from Mickey’s point of view are real slime balls—older men preying on someone that they don’t necessarily realize is underage, but they definitely know is very, very young and vulnerable. There’s the lap dance guy, the one who can’t run to save his life, and the dude who’s just asking for his fingers to be broken one by one. Mickey alludes to two in particular over breakfast that first morning, and when Ian mentions a regular inviting them to a party, Mickey is focused on a rather specific image of what one of Ian’s regulars must be like.

Then they go to Ryan’s loft, and...it’s classy. Sophisticated. This isn’t a raucous after-party, but a very different atmosphere, full of upper-middle to upper-class ladies and gentlemen who are clearly professionals. Many of them are in suits or dressed nicely, having a late-night drink and speaking tastefully. They’re also substantially older than Ian and Mickey, who are only nearing seventeen and nineteen respectively at the time. These people have careers and, in the case of the sociologist Mickey speaks with, are working on advanced degrees. The only visible drugs are the ones on the table in front of Ian while he’s asleep the following morning. This isn’t the kind of party that we’d expect, knowing where Ian is mentally at this time like we do.

We tend to focus a lot on what Mickey’s response to all this is, but I’d like to use it as a diving board for analyzing a few dimensions of Ryan’s character that appear to indicate that, through the encroaching darkness of Ian’s as yet unacknowledged illness, there are people who are possibly watching out for him. So, here are a few things that stand out about our encounters at Ryan’s loft:

Ian says that Ryan is one of his “regulars.” Based on what we’ve seen so far, this immediately has us thinking there’s a level of sexual interest on Ryan’s side, even if only as something of a voyeur who enjoys watching Ian dance at the club. There’s no physical manifestation of that interest, though. Ryan noticeably doesn’t behave like the skeevy guys we’ve already seen, Ned included. That doesn’t exclusively mean that he’s on the up-and-up, of course, but I found it worth noting that their hug is just a hug, and he doesn’t step out of his role as a cordial host for a second. He treats Ian the same as he treats Mickey: with kindness and social acceptance, albeit with more familiarity. And when Ian goes with him to see what drinks are available, there aren’t any apparent undertones. Ryan immediately heads towards the open kitchen, and Ian follows at a polite distance. Host and attendee—those are our initial vibes as far as Ryan is concerned. It’s jarringly different from our other forays into Ian’s current lifestyle.

Enter the sociologist. What a fascinating individual for Ryan to interact with. He immediately asks if Mickey is with Ian, which is nothing special in itself and serves as a way to engage Mickey in conversation without simply asking what he does. The fact that he moves into that, however, is very interesting to me because he’s so straightforward about it. It’s not an interrogation, yet there’s an element of investigation to it. Perhaps he’s just a curious guy making conversation with someone who looks uncomfortable; perhaps he’s familiar with Ian from these parties and is doing a bit of research into who it is that Ian brought with him, as it is arguably the first time that’s happened. Either way, what he says that he’s studying is a “blink and you’ll miss it” sort of reference. It also flies under the radar for anyone who isn’t familiar with the field of sociology. We end up like Mickey: lost and confused by “transgender sex work and symbolic interactionism within the framework of hustler-client relations,” but generally understanding that he’s studying sex workers and pimps—emphasis on the sex workers. Something we know Ian was at the time, working the front and back of the club as he later admits.

Now, for the uninitiated, symbolic interactionism is a theoretical perspective in the field of sociology that focuses on how our social interactions with other people, social institutions, and the world around us both facilitate our construction of reality and alter or solidify our perceptions of our existing reality. While there are many directions his study may be taking him in, this sociologist is writing a dissertation on the meaning that is made between hustlers and clients—what symbols emerge that define each side, their roles, their meaning to one another, the dissemination of the values and norms that guide their relationships, etc. In short, he’s studying the socially constructed meaning of the relationship that specifically transgender sex workers and pimps have with each other and their clients.

On the surface, that has no bearing on this situation. Mickey’s confused, and it’s an ironic bit of writing to connect him to this group he’s uncomfortable with by showing that South Side Mickey is the pimp that the upper classes of society are studying for their Ph.D. It’s pure satire, a brief commentary on just how different classes of society can be and perhaps even a nod to how lower classes are inside the fishbowl that upper classes are peering into but will never truly experience. To the viewer, however, what a sign that may be, depending on your interpretation. Ian has clearly been around this group of people enough that he’s known. They’re familiar enough with him to say that he’s great and how lucky Mickey is to have him. If Ryan is one of Ian’s regulars, then they know where he came from. They know he’s young, and they know what he does for a living right now. There’s no way this sociologist—studying what he’s studying, asking what he’s asking—doesn’t have some professional interest in Ian’s circumstances. Enough, perhaps, to check in on who this person he’s brought with him is. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t read so much into that, but this isn’t the only time it happens.

The next morning, Ian is asleep and Ryan chooses to wake Mickey first. He knows Mickey wasn’t comfortable with him the night before, which I thought he handled with a lot of grace and good-humor. In most cases, I’d expect more disdain, but not with Ryan. It’s interesting, then, that he didn’t go to Ian first given their familiarity. Sure, he knows Ian worked the night prior. He may just have impeccable manners and want Ian to sleep a bit longer. If he’s a regular, he knows Ian needs it. (He probably also sees the drugs on his coffee table and figures he definitely needs it, but I digress.)

So, he wakes Mickey. He makes a casual joke. Then, when Mickey says he’s not Ian’s keeper, his demeanor shifts just slightly. His expression grows hesitant—tentative, like he’s been meaning to ask something but hasn’t quite worked up to it. For someone who should just be a regular, who shouldn’t care much outside of Ian dancing, whose interest has been that of a polite acquaintance thus far, his gaze is more intent than I’d have expected as he waits for Mickey to tell him if he’s a boyfriend or if he’s someone who is a one-night deal. Are they together, or is Mickey just a fleeting fancy for Ian?

Are they together, or is Mickey taking advantage of this very, very young sex worker that Ryan has conveniently invited to his home after work instead of him going home with some stranger?

Are they together, or is Mickey some stranger?

When Mickey says they’re together, the intensity ebbs and casual Ryan is back. He offers a contented reply and heads off to get breakfast for Mickey, still not knowing what Ian wants. If that was his prime motivation for approaching them in the first place, wouldn’t he have woken Ian up at that point? Wouldn’t he have completed his task of taking breakfast orders? It makes me wonder if that’s not why he woke Mickey at all. It makes for a good excuse when he was delivering food to others who stayed overnight, but the more I rewatch their interactions, and the more I read into how dissonant his position as “a regular” and his behavior are, the more I wonder if there’s something else to Ryan.

A regular who doesn’t seem all that interested in Ian as anything other than an acquaintance—a person, not a dancer or object like literally everyone else in Ian’s new life that we’ve seen so far.

An engineer and photographer Ian says with absolute certainty doesn’t want or expect anything from him.

A professional with professional friends who are studied in the fields of sociology and sex work.

A man somewhat older than them who checks in with Mickey—after someone else has already done so and discovered that their sex worker guest is there with a self-proclaimed pimp—to inquire after his relationship with Ian in a relatively non-invasive manner.

Ian was taken advantage of by so many people as a kid and especially during his initial spiral. I’ve always thought of this as being a lonely time for him even though he certainly felt like he was a part of everything and surrounded by all the wonders of the world. He abandoned the military and his dreams. He flitted into and out of Ned’s home. Monica flitted into and out of his life yet again. His family wasn’t looking until Lip’s hands were tied by the MPs, and even then they were almost immediately distracted by the situation with Fiona and Liam. Mickey was married and seemingly out of reach. He’d left his friends and connections behind.

But maybe, just maybe, there was a guy who saw him at work and saw him. Maybe there was a guy who was a little older, a little more educated, and a little more savvy about the scene Ian was involved in when he noticed this kid dancing on a stage in a place he had no business going to.

And maybe this guy decided that he’d look out for this kid who was in way over his head, indirect and not at all obvious about it, yet someone who cared at a time when Ian unknowingly and unintentionally had to rely on the kindness of strangers.

#shameless #shameless meta #Ian gallagher #it’s ian gallagher loving hours

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barbasbodaciousbeard · 4 years ago

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If You Love Someone, Let Them Go: Part 8

Summary: Since starting with SVU, Sonny hadn’t kept much terribly close to the chest. The squad knew about his family, growing up on Staten Island, the classes at Fordam. What was hidden was why he didn’t date. Sonny Carisi was also separated from his childhood sweetheart, a separation neither ever took to divorce. They had the same haunts. They’d grown up neighbors. Their paths crossed every few months, and divorce talks would turn into reminiscing would turn into a night spent together, sometimes sex sometimes just talking until the early morning. It always ended with one of them waking up alone however. How will that change when the squad finds out?

Pairings: Sonny Carisi x Original Character

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

A/N: I really wanted to write Sonny and conflict with his family in Transgender Bridge so this chapter includes transphobia via his mom and then talk about past homo- and transphobia in Sonny. I think Sonny’s acceptance of things is really interesting, especially given he seems like he’s from a traditional/conservative family.

June 2015

“Hey, doll. Can we wait and do dinner? I know it’s an anniversary dinner, but this was a bad one.” She didn’t like how his voice sounded. He’d been keeping her in the loop, and there’d been a spirited, to say the least, discussion at the Carisi family dinner that Sunday. His mom had fought him regarding Avery, a transgender teenager, over the phone. The case had been everywhere it felt like, and the traditional Carisis felt that Avery wanted attention. Sonny, for his part, was confused, but between Amanda and Victoria’s reminders he didn’t know a single guy who would wear a dress for no reason, he’d come to realize it wasn’t a choice, just like being gay, straight, or bi.

It was hard for him sometimes. Despite the fact Victoria had always been open and accepting, a result of her mother’s influence and LGBT family members, Sonny was raised that all of it was wrong in the eyes of God. That said, as he grew, he saw how much harder it was for Victoria’s aunts. It started to dawn on him that he didn’t choose to want to be in his body or be attracted to women. Why would he assume someone woke up and chose something that didn’t make their lives easier? He also came to believe that God did make them exactly as they were, and human influence had bastardized the love everyone part of His message. When he stood up to his mother, Victoria was pleased to see the growth in him; usually, he’d have let it lie.

“Of course it can wait. What happened?”

“She died,” he said, voice tight. “The boy that pushed her is being tried as an adult, but Tor, her parents don’t want it. He’s just a kid. He even drew her this comic apologizing. He got scared because she was different.”

She knew what he wasn’t saying. As good as Sonny was, as much as he’d grown, they’d both been easily influenced at one point. When they grew up, it was easy to get swept into easy homophobia and transphobia. Sonny had said things she knew he regretted as he learned more, and they both knew how easy it would’ve been for him to get swept up in the crowd at that age, trying to prove he was tough and manly and straight.

“How about I pick up the pizza ya like? We can stay in? I’ll tell ma I don’t feel good. I don’t think that visit is what you need right now.”

“Thank you.” They said their I love yous, and she quickly scheduled pick up for the pizza and tucked his favorite treats from the cooler into a box. When she got home, she straightened up the apartment and threw his favorite pajamas in the dryer so they’d be warm when he got home. One pizza and beer run later, Sonny came through the door, and he was visibly exhausted. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, taking his coat.

“You pajamas are in the dryer.” He let out a grateful groan, changing into them before coming back and dropping onto the couch, arms out over the back. She sat beside him, handing him a beer and opting to sit in silence as he nursed it. Her Sonny was a big softy, but she also knew he’d talk about things when he was ready; that was a change she could rely on. He wrapped his arm around her, caging her against his chest as he laid back. His eyes were closed, but his brow was heavy and his mouth set in a frown. Carefully, she smoothed his hair, and he pressed into her hand.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice barely audible.

“Any time. Thank you for telling me what you needed.” He nodded, rubbing her back.

“I saw a pink box.”

“It’s an assortment. I got all your favorites. And the pizzas.”

“I love you so fucking much.”

“I’ll call ma tomorrow to get us out of going there. It’s just you and me all weekend, okay?”

He nodded gently, cheek pressed against her forehead. This case didn’t sit well, and in this moment he was deeply grateful not to be the ADA for this case. He understood logically where they were coming from, but he was also acutely aware of how little Avery’s parents agreed with trying Darius as an adult. Their daughter believed in forgiveness, and he was a kid. His colleagues liked to pretend they’d always been the cops they are now, but Sonny remembered being sheltered and ignorant. If Victoria hadn’t been there to tear him a new asshole when he was 13 and started using slurs he didn’t fully understand, he could have gotten swept up in this type of accident. Lord knew his mother didn’t think this case was anything but bad luck for the boy. She thought Avery had finally gotten the attention she wanted. That had set him off at dinner, and he swore Mia was proud of him, sitting by Victoria as he defended where this may have been coming from.

Sonny, God made him a him. He doesn’t make mistakes.

Or, ma, maybe all those things you like to call trials? Maybe transitioning and dealing with this kind of ignorance is a part of her trial. No teenage boy would wear a dress if it weren’t real. Avery is a girl, and if you can remember Aunt Rhonda’s new name every year when she gets married again, you can at least call Avery she.

I’m just saying, any of my grandkids pull that, we’ll be taking them somewhere. That’s attention seeking behavior, and needs to be taken care of.

If Victoria and I’s child ever comes out and you are anything but supportive, you will not be a part of their life.

You can’t do that. I’m your mother.

I don’t know ma. Making your own blood feel less than? Sounds like real attention seekin’ behavior to me. Needs to be taken care of.

He let Victoria guide him to the car afterwards, but he hadn’t cancelled the next family dinner. Knowing Avery had died? He couldn’t do it. Meeting her had taken a logical belief that trans people were the gender they identified as and made it more serious. He’d known his mother felt that way, but he’d never heard her articulate it like this. Before the separation and therapy, he’d have bottled up how wrong she was, tucked it away to keep the peace. Now? He couldn’t do it.

“Thank you, Tor. For all of this. And for calling her. I’m still so angry.”

“I know, Dom. I love you.”

“I love you too. And I meant what I told her. If our kid is gay or trans or something else that exists that I’m sure I don’t know about, I don’t care. They’re our baby and I’ll love them and I’ll take them to whatever store to get whatever they need or whatever doctor. I’ll beat the ever living shit out of anyone who makes them feel like they're wrong for how God made them.”

“You’re going to be an amazing father.”

“That should be the bare minimum though, shouldn’t it? Loving your kids no matter what?”

“It should. But that can be hard, you know? Like your mom. She exists in that really conservative vacuum. I’m proud of you for changing when you learn about things, not ignoring it and doubling down.”

“That means a lot, doll. People act like I’m supposed to have been born knowing. Our priest was open minded, and I met you. Otherwise, I may not have turned out like this. And that was scary to realize?”

“Bella, Theresa, and Gina all did it too. You’d all have grown.”

“What if our kid is gay or somethin?”

“We’ll love them. If your mom can’t handle it, we’ll keep them from her.”

“You mean it?”

“Yeah. we’ll get close to my family or something. Or have holidays with Amanda and Liv.”

“Good,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t want to, but I won’t subject them to their grandma actin’ like that. The world is so shitty. I want family to be supportive.”

“I know. We’ll be okay. And who knows? Maybe you snapping makes her reevaluate. I had to yell at you to make you start reevaluating things. We didn’t talk for awhile month. That’s years in thirteen year old time.”

“True,” he chuckled, rubbing her back. “One can only hope. You’d have liked Avery. Into photography and comics.”

“She sounds awful cool.”

“She was. And she was so kind. Like she was hurt, but the last thing she did was forgive him, Tor. Can you imagine? He drew her a comic, and she forgave him. Then she died.” He was facing the ceiling with his eyes closed as he talked.

“Do you want me to be there?”

“Maybe come by at lunch?”

“I’ll be there, okay?”

“Thank you, Doll.”

“Thank you for sharing how you’re feeling.”

@cycat4077 @fear-less-write-more

#sonny carisi #sonny carisi x reader #sonny carisi x oc

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fwoosh-prompts · 4 years ago

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Writing Advice: Soulmates

My first recommendation when it comes to writing about soulmates is to not do it at all. Yes, I admit I vehemently dislike this trope (I could probably rant even more about all the reasons why), but if you really want to do it, here are some things I think you should consider/think on to avoid the most common traps:

Consider to not make soulmates a literal concept. The few times I've managed like this trope, is when the characters have developed such a tight bond they feel like soulmates, but there isn't a preexisting spiritual bond.

Make their relationship a healthy one (see the romance post). I know there are plenty of asshats out there in the real world, but there are far too many stories out there which tries to make abusive relationships seem romantic. My first issue with that is that it isn't fucking romantic (it's one thing if you have that as a subject in your plot and other characters are trying to help the abused one that think it's normal etc., but that's a different kind of trope). My second issue is that with this supposed destined spiritual bond is that they're supposed to be the ultimate match, so why one is being treated like trash by the other? Do you know what that tells me? That this "holy bond" says that one is less valuable and valid than the other, that they aren't equals. And that sounds nothing like a holy soulmate connection to me. If you really need to have abuse in the soulmate-relationship, at least make sure it has consequences which are triggered by the bond itself and not an outsider.

Is the relationship really flawless? Now, to some it seem hypocritical of me after ranting about healthy relationships to ask this question, but here's the thing: Everybody have different opinions, viewpoints and ways to process things, so sometimes there will be misunderstandings or disagreements. That's not abusive, it's human, and every couple have their way of dealing with things. Now as the concept of soulmates normally states they're the Ultimate Match, they probably will be able to work things out fairly quickly, so instead of making a drawn-out conflict, maybe you want to give them a quirky way of handling it? I know for example a couple who once told me that when they had smaller disagreements (e.g. home-cooked vs. take-outs) they would grab their swords and shields and then they go out and spar about it.

Does it have to be a romantic one? I don't understand why platonic love is valued less than romantic, and the hype about the latter really bothers me because people tries to find happiness through another instead of finding it within themselves and sharing it with their companion. Besides, there are plenty of people out there who prefer to be in some kind of queer-platonic-relationship instead of the classic romantic one, or don't want one at all, and there is nothing wrong with that. The key any relationship is for everyone that's involved to be in it as equals, with consent, and communication. Just because you don't understand or desire something for yourself it doesn't mean it isn't valid. (And to any troll that might try pull the pedophile/beastiality card: Children and animals CAN'T GIVE CONSENT, therefore pedophiles are NOT a part of the LGBT-community no matter how much all the bullshit-propaganda might claim it is, you ignorant homophobic walnut!)

If you decide to go with the common name-on-body trope... Will it be visible for everyone? When does it appear? Will the placement be the same on everyone? If it's on a limb, what would happen if said limb was amputated? What would happen if the soulmate died? What if they made a name change? Or if they were an in-closet transgender, would it show their birth name or the name they think of themselves as? Can it be tattooed over? What if the name is in a language they can't even read (and if so, what if their family are racists)? For a blind person, would it be written in braille? What if it's a really, really common name? To what lengths would a "desperate love-hungry nutcase" go to find their soulmate? What about people who have been traumatized (possibly by the nutcase if they survived), would they try and hide to avoid getting into the same situation again? What if the soulmates are from vastly different classes (e.g. Princess Zelda and Link the orphan who was raised by a tree)?

If you go with some other visible/noticeable trait... e.g. a strand of hair or an eye that's the same colour as the soulmate's, seeing everything in gray-scale or a hue that's the same as the soulmates eyes colour until they meet them, or some kind of tattoo/symbol/birthmark. You'll have to ask pretty much the same questions as in the name one, with possible a few different addition/alterations. Let's take the hair-colour one for example: What if both characters have black hair? It's probably the most common hair-colour in the world, so statistically, there should be quite a few who ends up with this problem. How would they solve it? What about people who lose their hair due illness? Will they have a discoloured spot on their head? Will the soulmate have a bald spot?

Arranged marriages, what happens to those? Arranged marriages were common back in the old days, and is still practiced in some areas today. But in an AU where soulmates exist, what would happen to that? You have to remember, that feelings were often disregarded as the arrangements usually were (and still are) a political/financial move. So what kind of consequences would that have? Would society as a whole where it's still practiced disregard it as unimportant? Would they actively try and temper with the mark (if they have one) to make it match their choice? What of cases where they think they were lucky because their names matched but it turned out they just have namesakes so they weren't the real matches?

I might create prompts in the future based on these points, to encourage people to develop and subvert these tropes.

#writing advice #soulmates #most common mistakes #imo #this trope leave too many unanswered questions for me #or doesn't make sense to begin with #fwoosheye #fwoosh prompts

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gallifrey1sburning · 5 years ago

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My Heart Saying Hi

The idea of a genderqueer Ginny Weasley has been floating around in my head for awhile, but J.K. Rowling's horrendous transphobia rearing its ugly head once more made it feel all the more imperative. Many thanks to @mxmaneater for the quick beta and to my discord full-o-queers who encouraged me to finally remove this from my brain and put it onto the internet.

Rating: Teen Words: 1,756 CW: gender dysphoria, coming out Pairings: Ginny/Luna, Ginny/Harry, Ginny/Dean Author: GallifreyisBurning / @gallifrey1sburning AO3

In the beginning Molly Weasley had always wanted a daughter. Ginny knew this from when she was old enough to understand things like that; boys were different than girls, and Ginny’s mum had wanted a girl. Ginny didn’t really get why it made a difference, why it mattered, but she was glad she made her mother happy.

Age 8 “What a pretty little girl!” The exclamation came from a shopkeeper in Diagon Alley while they were out buying her older brothers their school books. Ginny tried to hide behind her mother, still clinging to her hand. She cringed at the endearment, as she did every time a stranger commented on her appearance. She hated when strangers called her things like that. She didn’t know why, but it made her insides squirm. Her mother apologetically told the stranger that Ginny was just shy before calling her boys back to her so that they could move on to the next shop on their list.

Age 11 When she started at Hogwarts, some of the kids at school called her “Girl Weasley,” and it drove Ginny spare. She wasn’t sure quite why it grated so much; she only knew that she hated it. She quickly became proficient at bat-bogey hexes, and, in turn, her classmates quickly learned to address her by her proper name.

Midway through the school year, Ginny got her first period, and with it came a crippling shame and a sense of wrongness that she couldn’t bear. She had begrudgingly gone to see Madam Pomfrey for “supplies” at the insistence of her dorm mates, but had been unable to look the kindly matron in the eye. When Pomfrey reassured her that this was a normal and healthy part of becoming a woman, Ginny felt something crawly make its way down her spine. She muttered a thank-you as quickly as she could and rushed back to her dorm.

Age 13 When she received her dress robes for the Yule Ball in the mail from her mother—frilly and pastel and dainty and everything she was not, did not want to be—Ginny cried. She’d teased Ron about his robes, but now she regretted it. She hadn’t realized how much she loved wearing a uniform every day; the ability to blend with the rest of the student body, with no differentiations but the crest embroidered at her lapel. The thought of donning this… thing made her nauseous. But she thought of her parents, and how hard it must have been for them to get together the funds to buy this for her—her, the only daughter, whom no hand-me-downs would suit—and she dried her tears and put it on, cleaning up her face with a quick charm so that no one could see that she’d been crying. Her dorm mates oohed and ahhed and told her how beautiful it was and how lucky she was that Neville had asked her to go to the Ball with him.

Age 14 When Ginny’s breasts began to develop, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She’d known, in the abstract, that it would happen; it had happened to all the other girls, after all. Somehow, though, she’d managed to ignore that fact until the reality was upon her. They were sore, and they were visible, and she hated them. Her friends thought that her displeasure was because they were so small, and she didn’t know how to tell them it was because she didn’t want them to be there at all. She took to wearing sports bras daily to better hide them beneath her robes.

Age 15 Dating Dean Thomas had seemed like a good idea, at first. He was a good friend, and funny, and a good kisser. The longer they were together, though, the more he wanted to touch her. He didn’t pressure her, of course; he wasn’t a monster. But she could see it in the careful, tentative wandering of his fingers from her back to the sides of her ribcage, in the light press of a palm on her thigh. He treated her differently, too; as a friend, she’d been an equal, but now he was… solicitous. Chivalrous. Carrying her bag, placing a gentle hand at the small of her back to guide her through a door ahead of him. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she’d broken it off.

Dating Harry had been different. For one thing, his hands hadn’t wandered. For another, other than the snogging, he didn’t treat her any differently than he had before. Sometimes, she thought that Harry didn’t much care that she was a girl. He looked at her, yes, but she’d seen him look at boys, as well. Harry appreciated people; it didn’t matter what kind they were. It was why he was so popular—he liked people for who they were. He collected the Hagrids and the Lunas and the Nevilles of the world, and he wrapped them around himself like a blanket of reassurance.

Age 16 In her sixth year, Ginny didn’t think of anything but survival.

Age 23 Ginny had only been dating Luna for a month or so when they went out with a group of Luna’s art school friends for the first time. Luna easily integrating into the Muggle world had surprised many of their Hogwarts friends, but Ginny hadn’t thought it odd at all. Someone as unique as Luna was an oddity everywhere, and therefore fit anywhere. It was one of the things Ginny loved about her.

As Luna made introductions, one in particular stood out: “This is Jack,” she said, gesturing to a tall, thin person with shaggy black hair that reminded Ginny a bit of Harry’s. “They’re in my experimental film seminar.”

Later, when they were curled up together in bed (Ginny found that she felt more comfortable in her body with Luna. Luna only touched Ginny where she wanted to be touched, and never asked “why” when Ginny said she didn’t like certain things. She didn’t complain or comment when Ginny left her sports bra on while they had sex. She made Ginny feel safe) Ginny asked about Jack. “Is Jack a boy or a girl?” she asked, her stomach fitted to Luna’s soft, smooth back, her fingers playing with her girlfriend’s wild blonde hair. “I couldn’t tell.”

“Neither,” Luna answered blithely, “they identify as genderqueer.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Ginny confessed after a moment.

“It means they aren’t either,” Luna reiterated patiently. “They aren’t a boy or a girl, they’re just Jack.”

“But they must be something,” Ginny argued, feeling off kilter.

“Not really,” Luna said. She turned in Ginny’s arms, trailed her fingers over her lover’s face, tracing the freckles there. “I don’t think that what body someone has defines them, really, do you?”

When Luna’s fingers retreated from Ginny’s face, they were damp with tears.

When Gin was 23, they realized, with the support of their girlfriend and a transgender support group that they’d visited for the first time at the invitation of Jack, “just to see,” that they had never been a ‘she’ in the first place. All of the little broken pieces inside of them rearranged themselves into something new, and they felt whole and seen and right for the very first time.

Age 24 Coming out was a slow process for Gin. The name was the easiest part; people had called them Gin for short from time to time anyway. The pronouns were a bit harder. The Wizarding world was small and sheltered and slow to change. Still, Gin pressed on, telling first their closest friends, and then their Quidditch teammates, and then their brothers. A few people were shitty about it, but Gin had never expected anything else. They’d heard many coming out stories in their support group; they knew that not everyone would understand. “I don’t need you to understand it, I just need you to respect it” became their armor. Luckily, most of their friends didn’t seem to care at all. They’d lived through a war, after all. Many things didn’t seem as important as they once would have, after that. The general response seemed to be “whatever makes you happy,” and it wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t hateful, and for now that was enough.

Gin put off the hardest conversation for last.

Molly Weasley had always wanted a daughter. Gin had known this from when they were old enough to understand things like that; boys were different than girls, and Gin’s mum had wanted a girl. Gin hadn’t really gotten why it made a difference, why it mattered, but they had been glad they made their mother happy.

When Gin came out to Molly Weasley, they cried. “I’m so sorry, mum,” they said, wringing their hands in front of them on the worn kitchen table where they had shared so many family meals; so many happy memories. Their eyes were trained on the warm, honey colored wood, unable to face the disappointment, the heartbreak that they were sure they would see in their mother’s eyes. “I tried so hard, I really did. It just never fit. I didn’t… I know you wanted a daughter. I don’t want to let you down. But this is who I am. I’m sorry.”

Molly was quiet for long enough that Gin couldn’t help but glance up. Their mother looked sad, but not disappointed. “Oh my dear,” she said, reaching her hands—hands that had begun to wrinkle with countless loads of laundry and sinks of dishes and years of life—across the table to grasp those of the child she had once thought was her daughter. “Oh my sweet baby. You could never disappoint me.” Tears filled the warm brown eyes; eyes framed by crinkles formed of laughter and grief and so, so much love. “You’re perfect as you are. You will always be perfect as exactly who you are.”

When Gin began to cry in earnest, Molly got up from her seat and rounded the table, wrapping her youngest child in the tightest hug that she could manage. “I did think that I wanted a daughter,” she murmured, resting her chin atop fiery red hair, “but I suppose I was wrong. It’s happened before, though don’t you dare tell your father I said that.” Gin let out a wet laugh, and Molly ran a hand up and down their forearm comfortingly. “I might not have gotten a daughter,” she continued, “but I got you, and I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else.”

#ginny weasley #luna lovegood #genderqueer ginny weasley #genderqueer #coming out #harry potter #molly weasley #dean thomas #fuck jkr #hp pride month #not drarry #but important to me #my fic

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raichukfm · 5 years ago

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To a confused anon: I’m here to offer my assistance, as best I can. As a fair warning, I have a bad habit of shoving my foot right in my mouth and coming off as an ass, but I promise that’s not what’s intended here. Also, I spent a lot of words on all this. If you don’t want to read a lot of words, scroll down past the break a bit and read the bolded bit, because that’s the most important part, I think. Also, anybody seeing this because they’re following me, this is here to show somebody else, so you can read it if you want but keep that in mind I guess.

Step one, as I am a real trans woman who happens to be gay, I can speak pretty authoritatively that this is gay. Because I’m a woman, and I like women. So it’s gay when I like cis women, and equally as gay as when I like trans women. If I hypothetically liked a cis man or a trans man, that wouldn’t be gay, and also I’d find out I was bi I suppose. If I liked someone that wasn’t a man or a woman I’m not really sure what word I’d use for that, but that’s not really the point. Sexuality, sexual orientation, and sexuality are complicated things. But, generally, what you are attracted to is someone’s gender. You may also be attracted to their sex, or you might not. It’s possible to be attracted to someone’s sex and not their gender. It’s possible to be attracted to someone because of an incorrect perception of their gender. It can be messy; real life is messy. Generally, people will define their own sexual identity in regards to their gender, because that’s what most people care more about in their identity. Usually, that aligns with sex, which is pretty cool, but when it doesn’t for someone, the person generally thinks of themselves as that gender that they are. That’s... kinda the point. So, if you were exclusively attracted to women, you would think yourself straight if you’re a man, and lesbian if you’re a woman, regardless of if you were cis or trans. Similarly, most people are attracted to gender; specifically, gender presentation. It’s by definition more visible than gender identity or sex, and also coincides with both, most of the time, though it can coincide with only one or neither, in other cases. You sort of have to learn or infer those. However, people don’t only care about gender presentation. (Okay, some people probably do.) Which has two major components: 1. People almost always care about a potential partner’s gender identity. It’s just a basic interpersonal thing, even if it doesn’t impact one’s preferences. And if there is a preference, it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker, but... If you like men, then finding out someone you find attractive is actually a woman would probably tamp that down a bit. For one, they are likely (although not necessarily) going to adapt their presentation to be less masculine in the future, but even beyond that... They’re a woman. That in itself can put you off. It’s also possible for that to interface with romantic attraction more than sexual attraction. And that’s okay. A good thing to keep in mind is that your feelings are just feelings. It’s possible for them to go against your self-concept, or have unfortunate implications. Feelings aren’t conscious beliefs. So if you’re attracted to someone for their sex, but aren’t attracted to their gender identity, that’s just an awkward coincidence. No more, no less. Don’t let it get to you, and don’t be a creep or jerk about it. If someone’s gender identity changes, or they come out to you as a different identity than you had previously thought, and that’s not congruent with your sexual or romantic orientation, that’s okay. It can definitely be worthwhile to stick together and see if it works out, because it genuinely might. But it’s also entirely legitimate to split up because of it. The thing is, if this was someone who you cared about, that shouldn’t go away even if your attraction does, so be kind and supportive. They might need distance, or you might, I’m no relationship expert, but do your best to help both of you through something like that. 2. People often care about a potential partner’s sex. This is not a controversy-free take, but it is entirely legitimate to be attracted or not attracted to a sex regardless of gender. That’s fine. Feelings are feelings. There is however, as in all things, an onus not to be a jackass about it. If you are attracted to cis women, but not attracted to trans women, just treat them decently, and turn them down nicely when you must. If you’re attracted to cis men, but not attracted to trans men, just treat them decently and turn them down nicely when you must. If you have a strong preference for or against a certain kind of genitalia or other sexual characteristic, that’s legitimate. But if you’re together with someone and then find out they’re not what you’re attracted to in some respect, you still have to be a good person about it. You don’t owe anybody affection, romance, or sex, but you have to be decent. That goes for physical features the same way it goes for habits, beliefs, anything else. I think what leaf brought up with the fetishizing thing is that a lot of the time the people who (loudly) care about a trans person’s sex treat this as, well, a fetish. And while I think it’s fine to fetishize whatever, a lot of the time that fetishization of a concept involves treating real, actual people shittily, reducing them to objects or . It’s not an inherent quality to caring about someone’s sex I use “care about” a bit broadly there, such that it doesn’t necessarily mean “have a preference about”, because some people genuinely don’t have preferences about gender identity, or about sex, or about either, but still wouldn’t really disregard those. This is maybe muddying the water a tad, but oh well. This is mostly focused on binary gender identities, because the whole straight/gay etc. terminology is mostly focused on those, but the general principles also include nonbinary people. I’d elaborate, but I think it’s pretty straightforward how they fit in. The short of it: If you’re attracted to someone, whether that attraction would be classified as “straight” or “gay” is most respectfully contingent on your respective gender identities. It may be useful to understand your own sexual attraction as contingent on the other person’s gender presentation or sex instead, when it’s not congruent with their gender identity, but I’d stress that’s only for understanding your own feelings. Whatever horny part of your brain might not get the relevant nuance, but you’re a whole intellect, so you don’t get that excuse. If you’re romantically/sexually attracted to somebody you intellectually wouldn’t consider a romantic/sexual partner, that doesn’t invalidate your orientation, but it doesn’t invalidate their identity, either. That’s a bit long for something I’m calling “the short of it” but brevity has never been among my skills. As for another point that apparently came up in asks, about the very nature of gender identity as a thing, I’m going to do my best to crack that nut. I think there is a very simple case to be made: Gender identities exist. If you ask someone, there’s a likely chance they’ll feel pretty strongly that they have one. They might tell you they’re a man, or a woman, or something else. People who don’t believe they have a gender will probably feel fairly strongly that they don’t have one. Even people who don’t believe in transgender or nonbinary people almost always believe in this, even if they want to call it something else. Your gender identity is the gender, if any, that you identify as. We’re just defining the term as that. It turns out, people generally tend to identify with genders (or at least sexes), so we have a term that refers to an idea and correlates with observed reality, so... We have a real thing! Score! I belabored the point a bit, but that’s just the thing. The argument against transgender or nonbinary people tends to be that gender identity isn’t a real thing, that it’s denying reality, or that it’s . But... You can verify it exists. It has to. And it doesn’t obey any restriction to only being two genders, because you can see a sizeable amount of people whose stated identities don’t obey that restriction. I mean, you can disbelieve this, you can think essentially everyone is lying, but that’s a bit of a reality denial position. So the question isn’t “Does gender identity exist?”, because that question has an answer you can’t actually reasonably deny. The question is “Does gender identity matter?” and, um... Again, I’ll invoke the argument that most people care about it. Cisgender people usually care about their gender identity, including those that think it inextricably linked to their sex. Transgender people certainly care about it. What grounds is there to think it doesn’t matter? The arguments I see all tend to rest on this assumption that this is a made up thing, but... It’s not, as earlier stated. It’s based on thinking gender identity must necessarily align with sex, but; you have to just arbitrarily assume that; there’s no justification for this other than it appears to be obviously true to some people. But “It’s obvious, duh” isn’t really an argument. “It’s basic biology” also isn’t an argument. Sex is a fairly basic biological idea, although it’s itself considerably more complicated than just XX chromosomes = biologically female and XY chromosomes = biologically male. But gender identity is a thing to do with your mind. Ergo, it’s your brain, and as it happens, that’s considerably more advanced biology. There’s no obvious reason why a mental self-conception should necessarily correlate with biological sex, and the observable evidence doesn’t point to such a necessary correlation, since transgender and nonbinary people exist. Given that gender identity exists and people care about it, I think there’s a pretty clear case to make that you should respect other people’s gender identities: They want you to. It’s kind. It’s at best rude not to do it, and being rude is one of those things generally agreed to be bad. It’s a whole archetypical way for things to be considered bad, in fact. Any argument in good faith based on psychology will pretty easily come to the conclusion that it should be respected, because that’s the field consensus. The studies show it helps people deal with gender dysphoria to be treated as the gender they identify as. All the anecdotal evidence in the world is there to show you people overwhelming prefer to be treated as the gender they identify as. And the utilitarian counterarguments are... that it poses logistical issues? That’s okay, those can be addressed. That it makes some people uncomfortable or annoyed? It’ll probably be easier for them to get over that and adjust to the way things are. That accepting it will lead to some disastrous consequences? Well that’s... I mean it’s already largely accepted. Last I heard, there hasn’t been any disastrous wave of disastrous consequences here to foreshadow the coming storm. So, to put this aside, if you don’t understand gender identity: That’s okay. It’s messy, but relatively simple. People feel like they are a certain gender, and want to be accepted and treated as that gender. (Or feel they have no gender and want to be accepted and treated accordingly.) That’s the same for cis and trans people. Whether or not that gender correlates to any physical or biological feature in them isn’t really the point of it, because it’s a mental thing. No physical part of you directly correlates to what your name is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important to you, for instance. (And, as a last note, if you’ve seen a statistic that the rate of suicide attempts don’t fall after one transitions, it’s being grossly misrepresented. Every time I have seen that with its actual source given, if you follow said source, you find the statistic is from a question being asked about whether the person ever attempted suicide in their life. So, someone who was suicidal pre-transition who lost those suicidal tendencies after transitioning would still answer “yes”, and thus be marked down as such and post-transition. Therefore, the fact that the percentage was roughly the same for pre- and post-transition people says exactly jack shit about the effectiveness or lackthereof of transitioning for suicidal ideation. Every other piece of evidence I’ve seen points to transitioning, and more generally affirming someone’s gender, helps with the negative effects of gender dysphoria. Of course, don’t listen to me. Look it up. But I implore you, basically never trust someone’s summary of the research, at least not totally; the media all too often sucks at summarizing science, and average people are often worse, and that’s without an ideological axe to grind. Find the source if you can. You don’t necessarily have to read the whole thing, but check the abstract or such. As an example, I had a college textbook claim that “Women use their whole brain during conversations, while men use only half”, with a citation to an I think Wired article that restated a BBC website article that incredibly poorly reported on a paper that was actually about putting people in MRI machines listen to books on tape. Women had more activity across both hemispheres of the brain while men had activity more centered around one. It was about strokes and how signals travel across the brain, not communication. Professionals can cock stuff up bad. I’m not saying “Don’t trust the news” or “Don’t trust anybody”, but it doesn’t hurt to check into things as much as you can, and that goes doubly so for research and science.)

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specialmouse · 3 hours ago

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A message to transgender men:

If you truly believe that you are not a woman, and that you have the body, experiences, and brain of a man, and belong in conversations and communities about men, then you need to accept the same but the inverse for transgender women just as wholeheartedly. Otherwise you are just a transmisogynist. You cannot use the excuse that you were socialized as a female to say that transgender women oppress you. You're a man now, yeah? Your past body does not define you, correct? You've always been a man, even when you were being treated as a woman? Right. So what the fuck makes you think it's any different for transgender women? You're right, it is a little different--now that they have transitioned into transgender women, they are visible as such, and are more likely to be victims to transmisogynistic violence and discrimination, at much higher rates than you will receive from cis men. And why don't you receive that violence? BECAUSE YOU ARE A MAN.

If it is important to you to hold in your heart the misogynistic violence and discrimination you've endured, because you do not want to let the people who perpetrated it off the hook and/or because you think it's important to voice how trans men are also victims of the patriarchy, then do that. But to laud it over the heads of trans women by saying you were socialized female and therefore are still oppressed as a woman, taunting those who likely have in the past and are currently experiencing those same things as a result of their transwomanhood, is to do exactly what transphobes want you to do. You are oppressed as a transgender man--but the more you pass, the more in league with cis men you will become, with similar power over women, and similar power to perpetuate these stereotypes that you say keep you oppressed. You saying that a transgender woman oppresses you in the here and now because she was "socialized male" as a child, is you calling her a man, and you calling yourself a woman. I can't stop you from doing that, but I really wish you'd stop.

yall i get it, i really do, but i also need us to stop saying male/female socialization doesn't exist because the alternative is bioessentialism.

what female/male socialization is:

the differences in the way the parents, family, educators, and general community (including peers) raise and treat a child based on its perceived gender; in a sense, "grooming" the child into gender roles so that they will autonomously perpetuate them as an adult

reinforcement of misogyny and bioessentialism at very very young ages so people have an immediate negative reaction to challenges to these norms as they grow

SOCIOLOGICAL--IN OTHER WORDS, WE (AS HUMANS) CHOSE AND ARE CHOOSING TO DO THIS

what female/male socialization does (or attempts to do, anyway):

naturalizes behavioral differences between "male" and "female" children as innate to their biological sex

pits men and women as biological opposites that want and feel different things, and inherently cannot understand each other

example: at the playground, a girl child falls down and skins her knee and begins to cry. parents rush over to her, start to coo at her, and pull her into a hug. what the girl child learns: when she is hurt, crying will bring help. after having seen this exchange, a boy falls down and skins his knee, and he begins to cry. the parents watch from the park bench and his father yells at him to toughen up. what the boy child learns: crying is weakness, and, having seen the girl rewarded with care for crying earlier, crying is for girls. girls = crying = weakness, therefore girls = weak. he also learns not to go to his parents when he is hurt and to bottle his emotions inside his body. the girl sees this same exchange and comes to the same conclusion, but the inverse: boys = not crying = strength, and since boys are the opposite of girls, girls = weakness.

example: the girl child in the house is expected to help her mother with household chores and is punished more harshly when she does not perform them than her brother, who gets away with doing them haphazardly or not at all, because the mother thinks he doesn't have the capacity to do them correctly. the brother does not understand when his sister is angry with him for not helping, because he sees chores as a female task that he is not supposed to do. he goes on to not know how to do his own laundry or wash his own dishes as an adult, unloading that labor onto his future female partners unconsciously and creating rifts in his relationships.

example: (based on a real study) a girl child is struggling with a multiplication problem. the teacher, also a woman, decides that since girls are worse at math and are more inclined towards the arts, her time is better spent helping the boy child get through the problem because he has a greater capacity for mathematics and will use these skills in his career--when the actual reason is because he is more likely to be taught correctly because of this exact assumption. the girl goes on to continually struggle with foundational math skills throughout her education, telling people she is naturally bad at math, thereby strengthening the stereotype. when she becomes an elementary school teacher, she perpetuates the cycle all over again.

example: (TW: CSA) family is coming over. the mother of the house tells her girl child to put on pants instead of shorts because adult men are coming. meanwhile, the boy child can run around the house shirtless. the girl child learns that it is her fault if an adult tries to touch her, that it is normal for men in her family to act inappropriately with her if she is showing her body, and also her body is inherently "naughty". an older man in the family assaults both the boy child and the girl child. along with the inherent traumas of sexual assault by an older family member, the boy child does not understand why he was touched because he is not a girl, creating complex feelings based around his already lesser view of girls, and he decides not to tell anyone because he does not want to be perceived as weak. he keeps his emotions bottled up, which turns into rage towards others. the girl child learns that she is never safe around men in her family (or men at all) and/or continues to think that the molestation was her fault because she did not do more to prevent it. she tells no one because she is afraid that she will be punished. both children are more likely to develop PTSD, depressive disorders, self-harm habits, substance abuse disorders, and trouble with interpersonal relationships. and the older male figure is never found out.

what female/male socialization is not:

raised female = good, perpetual victim, non-sexist, and raised male = evil, brute, biological rapist that can't be trusted in women's spaces

universal across or even within cultures, societies or households

based on biology

unchangeable within the psyche

unchangeable within society

female/male socialization does not:

make someone into a woman or a man

mean that cisgender women cannot be sexist/misogynistic

make transgender women privileged for their treatment based on their perceived sex as children (quite the opposite usually--"male" children who deviate from the expectations are punished, both by authority figures and their own peers)

mean a transgender child who transitions early is socialized based on their "biological" sex

make transgender men perpetual victims to the patriarchy that can never participate in misogynistic rhetoric or violence

make transgender women into predators

On that note about predators: predatory behavior, such as rape, pedophilia, assault, grooming, etc. are not explicitly encouraged within the patriarchy, and are touted as harmful to it, even though they're actually extensions of it--think about all the conservative men who rage on and on about pedophiles and rapists but go on to vote for them. However, given the few examples I listed above, female/male socialization still does exacerbate that behavior in men towards women. Given that, though, don't you find it odd that, despite both groups being socialized as male, the rates of predatory behavior in transgender women is much lower than cisgender men, even with the stark population difference? That is because even though many transgender women were socialized as male, it does not actually mean they are retaining these messages--in fact, because of their resistance to male socialization, and therefore social ostracization and abuse, they are more likely to be victims to predators. One in two transgender people report having experienced sexual violence in their lifetime.

Male/female socialization is a real thing, based on fake shit. We cannot cede this concept over to TERFs, because it is fundamental to our argument that our bodies do not determine who we are for the rest of our lives. Recognizing socialization as what it is, and correcting when people claim what it isn't, is the key to combatting bioessentialism. I understand the kneejerk reaction to seeing the phrase "male socialization," and you are right to raise an eyebrow. Most people who are actually using the term correctly wouldn't be using it like that. However, I think it's important that we don't write off the concept of gendered socialization entirely. Thank you. Goodnight.

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alecthemovieguy · 5 years ago

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Being Nicole

‘Supergirl’ star Nicole Maines’ passion for transgender rights makes her super in real life, too

Transgender activist and actor Nicole Maines knew she was a girl around the age of 3 or 4.

“My case is kind of unique because I have a twin brother (Jonas),” she told Ellen Degeneres during an appearance on “Ellen” in 2018. “So, growing up with him, he was identifying with all these male things and feeling very comfortable in his body, and I wasn’t.”

Maines, the subject of the Mount Washington Valley’s One Book One Valley community read “Becoming Nicole,” slowing began publicly transitioning in the first grade, and officially presented herself as female in the fifth grade, when she changed her name from Wyatt to Nicole.

Maines, who is turning 22 on Oct. 7, became the center of the precedent-setting Maine Supreme Judicial Court case Doe v. Regional School Unit 26 regarding gender identity and bathroom use in schools. Maines had been barred from using the female bathroom after a complaint, but the court ruled that denying a transgender student access to the bathroom consistent with their gender identity is unlawful.

In 2018, Maines debuted as Nia Nal/Dreamer, television’s first transgender superhero, on “Supergirl.” She is returning as a series regular for season five which premieres Sunday, Oct. 6, at 9 p.m. on The CW.

One Book One Valley has a series of events throughout October culminating in an evening with “Becoming Nicole” author Amy Ellis Nutt on Thursday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m. at Loynd Auditorium at Kennett High School in North Conway, N.H. In addition to Nutt, the plan is to have the Maines family be part of the discussion through a Skype connection.

I recently talked with Maines about growing up transgender, activism, privilege and the upcoming season of “Supergirl.”

“Becoming Nicole” is beautifully written, but it is very journalistic and academic in its approach. Is there anything you would’ve done differently or included in telling that story?

I don’t know. I think, of course, Amy did a phenomenal job, and I am so happy with how the book came out because I think it really does have something for everyone, whether or not you’re just starting to learn about transitioning and you’re looking for something new. But there was so much that had to be cut out in the final editing process and, unfortunately, a lot of what did get cut out was original writing from Jonas’ perspective. I don’t know if it was something I would’ve done differently, I think it is more of a shame that it couldn’t make it into the final cut. It was just so long before it was cut. So, I do hope at some point people do get to see that because it is really, really beautiful.

In “Becoming Nicole,” a therapist told your parents that you weren’t transgender because you were peeing standing up. What are some other examples you’ve encountered of misinformation about what transgender is?

Where do I even begin? So many people think that it is one of those things that you can kind of slap a label on and say, “This is what this is,” and with something as expansive as gender it is really impossible to paint it as very black and white. So many people have tried to say “Oh, all trans people look like this. This is how you spot a trans person.” And that’s 1) offensive, and 2) not true or realistic.

I think a lot of that has to do with how historically we are represented in the media: men in dresses and this and that. It is so much more expansive than that. No one group of people looks a certain way, and it is dangerous to try to categorize people like that. So, I think besides the peeing standing up, which is ridiculous, what is equally ridiculous is the idea that some people think that they can spot a trans person, and that’s sort of the whole basis of their argument.

You know how sometimes you read certain blogs or you read certain Twitter accounts just to make yourself mad? I stumbled across one, it was a really popular TERF account — which stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminists, which is pretty much feminists who believe trans women aren’t women, and they use recycled rhetoric from the ’70s saying that trans women are just men trying to invade women’s spaces and stupid shit like that. It was this person going on and on about, like, “Oh, none of you pass. None of you look like women. Yada yada yada.” And I was like, 1) no room to talk because her haircut was atrocious, and 2) come say it to my face. It really made me mad. It is atrocious that people think they can spot something like that. It is ridiculous.

It is kind of like the back-handed compliment that I receive a lot, that is “Oh, you don’t look trans,” or “Oh, never really would’ve guessed.” A lot of the time, I try not to jump on people for that because I know it is coming from a place where they’re trying to give me a compliment, but what does trans look like? What did you think I was going to look like?

And, of course, everyone thinks that we are supposed to look like men in dresses, which — even if we did — is rude as hell to say something like that because, not only is that stupid, but it is also reinforcing negative beauty standards among women, not just trans women, but women. Because you hear about the bathroom bills and they are like, “Oh, we are going to enforce no trans people in bathrooms.” Well, how are you going to enforce that? And then you get cases of cis women getting kicked out of the bathrooms because they look more masculine than others. Even for cisgender women that is not a black and white line. People look different, and it is totally unfair and unreasonable to say just because someone has harder features than somebody else that this is what is going on in your pants. That feels like a wild, crazy assumption to me.

So, obviously your father always loved you, but he struggled with your identity. Was there a specific moment when you finally felt truly seen by him?

I know a lot of moments where he really started having light bulb moments. I think for me, one of the first moments where I felt like I started being seen was when I started wearing girl’s clothes to school. My transition started going there slowly, but between second and third grade I had gone from wearing longer hair to wearing girl’s clothes all the time. I don’t know if it was even just my father, but by everyone, but that is when I started feeling like I was being seen. Then in fifth grade was when I had fully transitioned. I was allowed to pierce my ears and I was allowed to wear skirts and dresses. That really felt like I am seen. And then, of course, when my father finally started fighting for me. Because I knew, at that point, he still didn’t fully understand, but when he started defending me and defending my transition and my using the girl’s bathroom, I felt like I had him on my side.

I love last season of “Supergirl.” One of my favorite moments was when Nia Nal/Dreamer publicly announced herself as both an alien and a transgender woman because it put a positive face on a group who were being demonized in the show. How important do you think it is to give a face to marginalized people?

It is incredibly important. The best way to fight against marginalization and the most effective way that we fight back against people who are trying to erase us is with visibility. When you have an administration who, for incidents in a crazy hypothetical, removed me from the 2020 census, then the best way to combat that is to be more visible than ever. By saying, OK, you’re trying to make people think that we are not valid, you’re trying to make people think we don’t exist and that we are not solid and valid in our identities and our existence. Well, then we are going to show you that we are. We are going to show you: no, you cannot ignore us because we are here and it doesn’t really matter what you believe. It doesn’t really matter if you say, “Well, I don’t really believe in transgender.” Well, it isn’t really something for you to believe in because whether you like it or not, we are here. We exist and that’s not a matter of opinion. You do not get to choose whether or not my identity is valid because I am not doing it for you and we are not going to let you erase that. So, I think visibility is the number one method of defense against erasure.

Based on the trailer, the new season of “Supergirl” partially deals with the betrayal and anger Lena Luthor feels toward Carol Danvers hiding her identity of Supergirl from her. This seems like an apt metaphor for the similar sense of betrayal, hurt and confusion some people feel when a loved one comes out as trans or gay. Do you think that is intentional?

I don’t know if it was intentional. I think because there are so many different layers with Carol and Lena’s relationship, and especially with the Kryptonian-Luthor relationship. I think it is hard to boil it down to just that, because I get why Lena is upset and I get why those feelings are floating around, but personally, I’m kind of like nobody owes any facet of their identity to anybody but themselves. If they did not feel that they wanted to share a part of their identity with you, you don’t get to be mad about that. That is something that belongs entirely to them and if they did not choose, for whatever reason to disclose that part of themselves, that’s not because you necessarily did anything wrong, that’s because they had a choice and that’s not necessarily on them either. But, like I said, it is different between being trans and being a superhero. It is hard because, at the same time, it is like, “Oh, you were treating me like Lex, and I’m not Lex. You can trust me.” So, there’s a whole bunch of other stuff floating around, but I don’t know if it was a 100 percent intentional, but there are definitely connections.

That’s the great thing about sci-fi is that it can always be used as a metaphor for exploring social issues.

Absolutely.

How will Nia Nal be challenged in the new season?

The theme of this season is communication, and so something Nia is struggling with the first chunk of the season is communicating with how she feels with Brainiac because they’ve been dating and they have been having communication issues. Neither of them are the best at relationships, and so this is kind of a new area for her and she’s trying to work out, “How do I express how I feel without hurting you?” And that’s something she struggles with a lot. It is being open and honest with how she’s feeling and trying not to bottle up what she is feeling for the sake of other people.

What I also really love about Nia Nal is when she puts herself out there — kind of going off the whole thing of passing — she does pass as both a human and a woman, and so she doesn’t need to put herself out there, but by doing so she empowers others. Do you also try to lead by example in your own life?

Absolutely, I recognize 100 percent as Nia and as Nicole that I have an insane amount of privilege. I’m white and, like you said, I pass and I’m on TV. And I mention that I am on TV because when we look at issues like HB2 and we look at bathroom bills and stuff like that, that is not necessarily going to affect me as someone who passes and as someone who is in Vancouver. I’m working in Vancouver, HB2 will not affect me. I am not there. But I recognize that there are issues that are affecting members of my community who don’t have the same significant platform that I do. And so it is my responsibility as a member of that community, as someone with that platform, to lift them up and to start to shine a light on issues that are affecting members of my community, even if I personally will not feel the impact of that harmful legislation.

It is important and that’s what we talk about in feminist circles. We are always talking about how can people with privilege use that privilege to lift others up, to better the situation of others who don’t have those some privileges. We ask that of men, we ask that of white people, we ask that of abled-body people, of trans women who pass. We ask that people use their privilege responsibly. And so that is what I try to do and I hope that I am succeeding. I just try to use my platform and use my voice to talk about issues that I feel matter.

Going back to “Becoming Nicole,” the book discusses “The Little Mermaid” as a metaphor for being transgender because Ariel doesn’t feel she belongs in the ocean and everyone tells her you have to be with your own people blah, blah, blah. Ariel was one of your favorite characters growing up, do you feel even at a young age you were drawn to this character because your struggle paralleled her struggle?

I guess subconsciously, yes, but on a surface level, I liked mermaids. I don’t know why I liked it so much and that’s why I say subconsciously I was drawn to it. I remember loving that more than anything else. I loved everything about her. I remember I was like, “That is what I want for myself.” I was like, “She is so beautiful, and she is so graceful,” which is not a trait that I’ve been able to replicate in my own life. I remember being so drawn to her, and I was like “Mom, Dad, that is what we are going for. That is the look.” Between her and, I’ve said it before, Storm from the X-Men. I remember watching “X-Men: The Animated Series” as as kid and she had that hair and the cape and was like “Oh, that’s drama. I love it.”

And now you have your own cape.

Well, metaphorically speaking. I don’t have a superhero cape. I feel a little cheated.

Well, maybe you can get one.

No, I have the best supersuit. It is shiny and holographic. It is awesome.

One part I really liked in “Becoming Nicole,” I think it was before you were going to enter fifth grade, you were asked what kind of story you’d tell and you said it would be this mystery/comedy/fantasy with a sassy character and a sidekick who was even sassier. If you were to write that story now what do you think it would look like?

Oh my God. Well, it would definitely have the sassy character and the sassier sidekick, because I remember growing up I was always the biggest fan of the sassy comic relief characters, which is why I tried to play that role in my own regular life, which took some getting used to. I remember in middle school people didn’t exactly get the whole me trying-to-be-funny and I think it just came across as annoying. If I was going to write that story now, I think it would absolutely be about murder that would be the mystery. The comedy that would manifest itself in probably macabre, offbeat humor about murder. And then the fantasy ... they are all vampires. I’m just describing “Bit.”

I haven’t been able to find anyway to watch “Bit” (which stars Maines as a transgender teen who falls in with four queer feminist vampires, who try to rid Los Angeles' streets of predatory men), but I am very interested in that film. What was it like making that?

It was so amazing and I hope you’ll be able to watch soon. Right now, it is making its festival rounds, and hoping someone will choose to distribute it, and we’re like, “Pay us, please!” It was so incredible. Everyone on set was amazing and our writer/director Brad Michael Elmore is the coolest dude on the planet. I was talking about using our privilege to tell stories that matter and to raise up minority voices, and that’s absolutely what he did in this situation. I know a lot of the festivals we have gone to have been feminist festivals and gay festivals, and we’ve had a significant amount of people kind of be like, “Oh, you were written by a straight cis white guy,” and we’re like,“Yeah, and he’s doing exactly what we want him to be doing, which is using his privilege to create this super awesome movie featuring queer and interracial talent, this intersectional group of feminists.” We had a female DP which how awesome is that? We had this super awesome kaleidoscope of different identities in this film and I feel like some folks are very quick to write it off because it was written by a straight cis white guy. 1) I don’t feel that is fair to Brad, and 2) I don’t think that is fair to the movie. The movie is so cool and the movie deals with such cool issues and it approaches them all in such a fucking awesome way. To write it off because of who our director is feels very shortsighted.

And obviously you wouldn’t say or do anything that felt disingenuous to your own experience.

Yes, absolutely. I was like, “Ye of little faith.”

When you were 13 years old you went to the Maine statehouse and spoke to dozens of representatives to convince them to vote against a bill that would make it legal to discriminate against trans people. Do you have any interest in getting into politics either working for a campaign or as a candidate yourself?

I think I would be willing to support someone else’s campaign. Politics are not for me. I do not have the stomach for that. I do not have the patience for that. I know where my lane is and it is absolutely not going for an elected position. I am more the person who shows up when the politicians are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. That’s when I get involved.

The big thing I took away from “Becoming Nicole” was that prejudice and hate is something that is taught, because the boy who started harassing you the most was told by his grandfather that you were wrong and that he should go after you. And so I guess the question is, what do you do to undo these wrongheaded lessons that are passed down by parents or grandparents?

I think the first step comes from within. You cannot make anybody do anything. You cannot make somebody unlearn hate and prejudice. That journey has to start with themselves. With my father — and, of course, he was never outwardly hateful or anything, I always knew he loved me — but his journey to acceptance started with him deciding to pick up Jennifer Finney Boylan’s book (about being a transgender woman) and read it. He had to ask himself what he was so afraid of if his son was his daughter. He had to ask himself what about that terrified him so much. And that’s what every person has to do.

Every person has to be aware of their own prejudices and their own biases. We all have them. We have to be aware of them. We have to actively work to undo them because it is something we are taught, not even just by our parents or caretakers, but through television and society. We are pumped full of biases and prejudices that we are not even aware of, and so we have to pay extra care and extra caution to do undo those. And when we catch ourselves, we have to recognize, “No, that’s not right” and go from there.

It has to be a conscious choice, and so that is hard. It is a hard thing to do. It is a really gross feeling to try to unlearn stuff like that, and so a lot of people won’t do that because a lot of people are more comfortable being like, “No, I don’t get it, that’s gross, I don’t like it and I’m going to hate it.” That is much easier and much more comfortable then asking yourself what you are afraid of. As socially responsible participants in the community, we have a responsibility to ask that question anyway. All of us have to ask that question and not just about trans issues, because if we don’t do that, if we are looking for what is easy and what is comfortable at the expense of other people, then stay inside.

And I feel like the biggest thing is if you’re afraid of a gay person or trans person or black, Hispanic, whatever social issue, if you actually talk to these people that you are afraid of, that you’d see that they are just human beings.

That is the number one thing. It is so much easier to marginalize a group of people when you are not putting names to faces, when we are not putting faces to groups, when you are dehumanizing them. It is so much easier to sweep their plights under the rug and be like, “Oh, they don’t matter,” because you are not talking to them, you’re not seeing them as people. That’s why I always say, “Come say it to my face.” It is so much harder to be an asshole to someone’s face because you have to look them in the eye and tell them their rights don’t matter.

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flying-elliska · 6 years ago

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You said it feels cool to have a specific identity but isn't that exactly why we are seen as the special snowflake generation? Not to mention wasn't the whole point to be free from stereotypes and dress however we want, love whoever we want etc? And yet there's now so many identities, labels, flags which create an implicit pressure to define yourself so you'll be included. Idk I think your french friends are right,it still feels like we're pushing people into boxes; they're just woke boxes now.

Hey anon ! Thank you for this very interesting question. I hope you’re ok with getting a mini-essay as a response (that’s kind of my brand now lmao)

So first of all, if you don’t feel like you personally need labels, you are totally valid. And so are my friends. I think you have to find out what you’re most comfortable with. It’s true that labels can be used to exclude, esp in the LGBTQ+ communities. I think we focus our activism a little bit too much on words and online stuff and media representation nowadays, as opposed to practical political action, and that’s an issue. And we focus too much on people not having the correct, latest approved terminology and labels as a way to show you’re a good person, as opposed to what people are actually doing and their lived experiences, and who is authorized to use what label and those debates often just exasperate me to the highest point. It’s like, don’t you have anything better to do ? It becomes very clique-ish, school courtyard drama at times. There should always be a place for questioning, fluidity, no labels, a place for discovery and uncertainty, shifting identifications, multiple labels at once, words changing, and questioning what place they take in our lives.

But, on the whole, I still like my labels, and I’m going to try and explain why.

Labels are words right ? They have the benefits and drawbacks of words. A rose under any other name would still smell as sweet, of course. But we are a fundamentally social species, and words are a way to create bridges between people, between our experiences. It signals that you are not alone ; it’s a way to make visible things that are usually invalidated, ostracized or just plain erased by the mainstream and the status quo. The development of a vocabulary for the queer community was what made their political struggle and pride possible ; before it was “the love that dare not speak it name”, all euphemisms and shame. It honors, too, the struggle of those who came before us ; it places us in the continuity of a history ; it says we have been here before, it gives us memory and context. Of course words are going to betray us, because they can never retranscribe the fullness, complexity and confusion of lived experience. But they’re a conversation starter ; they bring people together ; they create spaces of freedom.

I’m going to give you a personal example : a few years ago I fell in love with a girl for the first time ; after that I seriously started thinking of myself as bisexual. There had always been a thing there but because I had been mostly attracted to boys before, I’d swept it under the rug. But finding the ‘bisexual’ label made me realize - no this is a thing, this is valid, and it made me look back at all those instances in the past of having weirdly intense feelings for some of my girl friends, of being obsessed with certain actresses, etc…that back then I didn’t understand, I just thought I was weird…and I always thought that bisexuality was something that something Hollywood starlets did for attention. But finding a community behind that word that was seeking to reclaim it from the stereotypes and being proud about what it meant, it was so healing.

After that I immersed myself more in my local LGBTQ+ community ; and in particular I volunteered for the European Bisexual Convention - that one in particular was incredible because it felt so…liberating. In the general LGBTQ community, people expect you to be gay until you say otherwise. In the student association I was in, it was cool, but it was also…very normative in a way. Lots of stereotypes about how we were expected to be, what we were expected to like, behave like. So for Eurobicon, to have all of that lifted, it was amazing. And it was also so much more inclusive - of disabled, neuroatypical, transgender ppl, different body types and ethnicities, like you could feel that they had made an effort. I also met several nonbinary ppl for the first time of my life and I was like…oh wow there’s something here that feels very important and real. We shared experiences that we did not have a space before, that were specifically bisexual and that tend to go unheard in general queer spaces because they’re not part of the dominant narrative : the daily hesitations, the lack of visibility, the much higher rates of staying closeted, feeling like you are not really part of the community, but also the really cool aspects too - there was this incredible energy of fluidity too of thinking, here is a space where everyone can potentially be into everyone, there aren’t as many barriers as we usually have to think about. And there was this one party and we were all dancing and flirting in a very sweet kind of way, people of different ages and body types, gender presentations and configurations I hadn’t thought about before, a girl in a wheelchair swirling around and being treated like a queen, guys in corsets and cool butches and just some beautiful people - and there was this euphoria in the room, of recognition and kinship, and it felt so…normal, not freakish like I had been led to believe it would be. Nobody was putting on airs or trying hard or whatever, they were just being themselves. And I was like, wow, this is something I need more of in my life. And this freedom was made possible by people coming together under a certain label, recognizing that certain people have specific needs and experiences. Especially after growing up in environments that never tell you that those things are possible, finding the right label can be like coming home.

I have other labels for myself I am less public about because I don’t want to deal with the social aspect of it, or I’m like this is none of anybody’s business, or I want to give myself the time to figure it out on my own. But they’re tools for self-knowledge, they allow me to think about things, to conceptualize, to research (and lol I’m a nerd so…). And to be less hard on myself sometimes, and to stand up for myself in a ‘I know who I am and it’s okay’ kind of way. Because society tends to pathologize, ostracize or demonize the things it doesn’t understand, and labels can protect you against that.

In an ideal society maybe we wouldn’t need labels - to have a right to exist or survive, and that’s definitely a goal, but I think we would still make some, because that’s who we are as a species, we need to classify certain things in order to think about them. The problem is when those boxes become cages instead of like, beautiful pots to grow seeds in, like art or poetry. And of course deconstructing the boxes we don’t want remain important. But I don’t think we can ever be box-less, it just to me doesn’t compute.

I just wanna come back to the ‘special snowflake generation’ thing. If you don’t want labels, like I said, that’s fine. But I hate hate hate that term, and I don’t want to define myself in reaction to it. To me it’s used by a) bigots who just hate the fact that natural human diversity is becoming more recognized and discussed, and want to put us back in the artificial, stifling boxes that dynamics of power, patriarchy and imperialism have made us believe were normal when they really weren’t. And b) older people who are uncomfortable with increased levels of emotional intelligence and lability among younger generations. It’s a thing I’ve noticed over and over again ; people used to talk so much less. When they had feelings in general, or experiences out of the norm, they were taught that stuffing them down and sitting on them and repressing the shit out of them, was the noble/normal/grown up thing to do. So they did and they suffered in silence. And maybe some of them now feel bitter, or at least bewildered, by younger generations refusing to do so and inventing and or reclaiming all those new ways of talking about their experiences out in the open. And so they’re like ‘it’s too much ! you’re spoiled !’ because they want to believe that their sacrifices had a point. They don’t want to realize they could have done things differently all along. It’s very sad. But I don’t think it should be a barrier to us using them like…just as we shouldn’t refrain from using washing machines because our grandmothers suffered to wash everything in a bucket…There’s nothing entitled about wanting a better life than previous generations… And to me, having more words and more space to express myself will never be a bad thing.

#pride #labels #bisexuality #bi pride #lgbt

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destroyyourbinder · 6 years ago

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unsplitting the sex atom

I wanted to add an important addendum to this very lucid post made by @slightlycharredwitch deconstructing the propaganda in a trans meme featuring an argument between someone claiming biological sex is a social construct and someone claiming it is not. This is that the “hook” in this meme and in arguments of this nature-- the reason why this meme and arguments like it sound plausible at all despite the framing of reality they describe being wildly misleading-- is what slightlycharredwitch mentioned briefly in the beginning, that an analysis of this sort is roughly correct but it’s correct about gender, not “biological sex”. It is roughly correct about the things societies use to attribute characteristics, roles, norms, and punishments to members of each sex. It is roughly correct that a starkly maintained division between the sexes and their roles, one that both amplifies sexual dimorphism (through femininity and masculinity practices) and obfuscates actual biological traits by attributing what is convenient to patriarchy to “nature” (essentialism), is necessary for the continuance of male dominance/ exploitation of women and the marginalization of and/or violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Analyses of these types are more likely to go wrong in describing how this all works, but they often contain enough familiar material, cribbed from the life experiences of women and LGBT people, that you can buy into the mechanisms that they describe. When transgender activists and their allies with this sort of ideology try to break down “ideas about biological sex”, what they are describing are actually a certain kind of mechanism of gender enforcement, which in feminist thought we used to call “biological essentialism”: the idea that there are two sexes divided both in physical, reproductively-oriented purpose and innate or otherwise “natural” behavior, such that each sex best expresses or fulfills its purpose through its correspondence to patriarchal gender expectations. Biological essentialism does make claims about biological sex, some of which are accurate (female organisms produce ova as gametes, female humans typically have the organs to facilitate gestation) and some of which are very much not and are distorted descriptions of human biology based on patriarchal value judgments (the female role in reproduction, both behaviorally and bodily, is best understood as passive, menstruation is an aberrant occurrence only happening if a female human fails to reproduce optimally). Some claims of biological essentialism are hotly debated, with varying degrees of political or value-based analysis in both fields, in reproductive biology and among feminists, such as whether rape is an effective reproductive strategy for human males. The problem with the way transgender activists and their allies frame what we call biological essentialism and what they call “biological sex” or the “sex binary” is that they believe it is the division-into-two-sexes that is the source of the problem. Not just the fact that this division is socially relevant in the way it is, or that the division is artificially made larger through social practices, or that the division is used for purposes of power and control. No, they believe that the concept of a division at all is the primary and perhaps original source of gender-related oppression, and that making sure that people do not use this concept-- do not divide humans into two sexes-- is the best way to ensure human rights for women and sexual and gender minorities. Transgender activists and theorists have a point that obscuring the division between the sexes can have political and personal use. If nobody knows to identify you as female-sexed or as homosexual due to your passing as another sex, then you can escape certain kinds of treatment or perform certain kinds of solidarity or disrupting actions without getting caught; gender non-conformity can be a powerful way to break or disrupt systems through visible protest that you cannot and will not comply with categories and norms designed to exploit or harass you. But the fact that these strategies work is not somehow testament to the idea that there are not actually broadly two reproductive classes of human beings that correspond to the reproductive classes of other gamete-producing organisms, or that it is the concept of there being two reproductive classes, one of which bears young and one of which can impregnate, that has led to the oppression of women and violation of LGBT people, rather than what systems of exploitation were established using this concept, among many other ones. The fact that the atom bomb was invented using the concept of nuclear fission does not mean that nuclear fission is not a real physical phenomenon, that we ought not to ever use the term “nucleus”, “isotope”, or “neutron” ever again, or that we ought to ban physicists from doing atomic physics unless they can redescribe all physical properties of the atom and its components in terms derived from nuclear disarmament activism. The fact that the widespread extraction, burning, and use of fossil fuels has lead to life-threatening climate change does not mean that “fossil fuels” is not a coherent category of natural resource. It does not mean that climate activism should focus primarily on preventing oil and gas companies from being able to identify the differences between crude oil, natural gas, and wind power, as if the reason why green energy is not widely adopted today is merely that it being seen as a legitimate form of power generation was not respected and we ought to elevate it to “validity” by erasing and confusing the differences between solar and coal. This would be absurd. Yet this is where we are in women’s activism and gender-related activism. We are expected to accept an ideology that obscures the causes and mechanisms of our oppression-- in fact treats this obscuring as its primary focus of activism-- while it does nothing to actually solve the oppression. It wants to “dismantle” the “sex binary” (our means of understanding what it is that is being exploited, i.e. women’s reproductive capacity) as if it is the primary problem and all others will disappear once we stop seeing the difference between males and females. But even assuming we can cork up the genie again, uninvent the splitting of the atom-- that we could never see reproductive sex forever more-- why would those in power, those for whom this concept is essential to their operations, want to go along? If some of us have convinced ourselves to not look at the basis of our oppression in the name of progress, but some of us still peek anyway while deciding who’s making the coffee and baking the cookies for the trans support group, what then? What if some of us don’t look when talking about our reproductive rights, but those who pass laws really love the usefulness of declaring two classes of humans, one of which is legally subordinate to the other? We will have ended up in a worse spot than before. Beware an ideology that tells you not to know or to see, because someone has not blindfolded himself like you. You cannot unsplit the sex atom; you will have to make the bomb impossible another way. Photo from U.S. Department of Energy and the Oak Ridge Public Library. The photo is of a sign outside Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a “secret” city built by the US government during WWII to support research and development related to the Manhattan Project (the US effort to develop a nuclear bomb). The sign is topped by a picture of Uncle Sam, who has taken off his hat and rolled up his sleeves. The sign has a picture of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys in the background, and reads, WHAT YOU SEE HERE WHAT YOU DO HERE WHAT YOU HEAR HERE WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE LET IT STAY HERE

#writings #responses #construct295

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the-scottish-costume-guy · 6 years ago

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My Trans Story

Story of my social and medical transition under the cut, I know its not trans day of visibility anymore but consider this a belated contribution. I hope it helps anyone who’s questioning, or even anyone whos curious about the experience. This is very long and has some mention of dysphoria, abuse, bullying but also has a happy ending so thats your warning:

The earliest I remember giving any indication of being trans was at five or six years old on my way to primary school with my mother (who I will mention was a fairly good mother at the time - this will be relevant later). I turned to her in my little green and white uniform dress and said “I’m a boy, aren’t I mum?” I’m not sure what prompted the question really curiosity maybe but my mother laughed it off - something I dont blame her for, kids say silly things all the time. I wouldn’t say I was a super boyish kid. Yeah I liked a bit of rough and tumble play, I was into pokemon cards, then yu-gi-oh, beyblades - which were all considered “boy” things when I was at school. I liked to play british bulldog and tag, and as I got older I’d get into Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons, The elder scrolls and other nerdy things which are seen as more unisex now but again in the time were considered “boy” interests. But I liked having long blond hair, and I was curious about make-up. I liked to bake and sew and weave, and as a child I even enjoyed knitting. I cried easily and got hurt often - I was accused of attention seeking through most of my childhood though even looking at myself critically I can only ever remember wanting validation. When I was hurt, when I’d achieved something I was proud of - my motivations were called into question when I sought out help or interest. I remember being heartbroken when art I’d worked on was dismissed or I was told the bad bruise I’d gotten was nothing to be upset over and to stop seeking attention. It set me on a path of questioning everything I did and why I did it.

Unfortunately I have a lot of memory gaps in the lead up to high school and through much of school.

Fairly early on in school though I came out as bisexual. Honestly I think a part of me was threatened by cis guys masculinity and that drove me to women. I had a fairly even number of girlfriends and boyfriends. One relationship the boy I was with implied being ready to try sex and we ended up breaking up not long after when I distanced myself. I didn’t know how to explain the discomfort with my own body that I didnt even understand. How I didn’t want to be touched in certain places or do certain things. I felt like a freak.

It didn’t help that I was already bullied pretty much from the get go in highschool, from age 11 I did have many friends and there were periods where I had none. I was bullied for my hair, for not having friends, for being gay, for being depressed. Hell sometimes I was bullied for being bullied - high school is weird.

I was also... “bullied” by a “friend” who would hit me, talk down to me, at times wouldn’t let me sit on furniture. Once she choked me to the point of passing out among other things. Somehow I was still convinced she must like me on some level - why else would she hang out with me? I wish I’d known better. She introduced me to the concept of being transgender but not in a way I identified with. She told me about a documentary of “Boy becoming girls and girls becoming boys.” she told me “The girls that become boys are always still pretty, you can tell they were girls. But the boys that become girls, you cant tell they were boys they just look like ugly girls.” I imagine shes less ignorant now but its stuck with me.

Eventually around age 16 Two trans people spoke at my school. They talked about how they always felt different, things they’d disliked about themselves - the relief of coming out. I understood completely but my brief excitement was dashed by their talking about harassment and fear. I wrote my email address on a slip of paper and ‘please help’ which I put in the box they were collecting at the back of the room for any questioning youth. They never emailed me. I made an appointment with my doctor.

I actually begged my doctor to fix me, and he referred me to a GIC (Gender Identity Clinic) in Edinburgh. It took a full year to actually be seen there. I told some of my close friends about my concerns and confusion, and came out as genderfluid. I used a random R based male name to try and settle - knowing that as it was fandom related I’d change it later. When I spoke to the specialist at the GIC, I came out as a Trans Man, I felt validated. I came out to my family not long after and it was not well received. My cousin (who had spent every summer with us for as long as I could remember and I viewed like a sibling) died when I was 14. My godmother (his mother) died a year after. Within the ten years since my cousins death, he, my uncle on my mothers side, my great grandfather, my godmother, my gran and my grandad have all passed away. When I came out to my dad he begged me not to put more strain on our family. My mother turned to drink when I was only 14 and had worsened becoming more and more abusive as time went on. I’d had mental and physical health issues since the age of 8 and my experiences were being written off. My mother got worse, and I ended up being her full time carer for a few years. She was abusive, she hit me, she destroyed my things, she wrote on the walls and threatened me with knives. When a letter for my third GIC appointment came, (the appointment that would have gotten me hormones) I highly suspect it was my mother that destroyed it. I didn’t even know I’d been dropped from the list until six months later when I called to ask when my next appointment would be. I’d apparently missed it and for that reason they’d silently, without fuss, taken me off their active patients list. I was upset but handling my mother was enough strain for me not to fight my case for another few years. I went to attempt college for a second time in 2015 - nearly six years after I first came out, and four after my first GIC appointment. I called my best friend over to my house, and together we sighed 15 deedpolls changing my name and title legally. I contacted the clinic and got another appointment for that September. The doctor wanted longer - more appointments to get to know me, but after hearing I’d already had two with another doctor, had waited four years, had told the story I’ve told you now - she told me she wanted to get me on hormones for christmas. She rearranged her schedule and had me come in on december 9th, four days later I had my first doze of testosterone. I didn’t tell my father that I’d started hormones but I had told him prior that I was going to soon. My dad continued not to accept me, as did one of my tutors at college. I kept my head down and muscled through. I’d become so used to not passing that only 4 years later, when Im passing easily and consistently, its both a shock and yet somehow feels like its always been the case. I had top surgery on October 23rd 2017. To my surprise, my father came to the hospital. He’d said he wouldnt visit, but made the 4 hour drive anyway. Last summer, he started introducing my as his son to strangers. He started inviting me out for drinks with him and my brother. He treated me how I had always wanted. Sure he still drops the feminine endearments in - but I’m not going to fault him that. Everyone I meet assumes Im cis until I tell them otherwise. I was finally comfortable enough in 2017 to come out as gay, and I’m now engaged to my wonderful Fiance who is just beginning his own transition journey. My point? It gets better is a tired phrase that feels worn out by use. And no my life isn’t perfect but dysphoria and lack of love is definitely not the problem. Years ago I felt I’d never pass, I told people as much. I thought I was ugly, and unlovable. Now I like how I look, I Know i pass because people call me “sir” “Mr” ect. One of the tutors for the university I applied to was excited to “finally have a man in the class.”

The journey is long, and at no point can you see the end of it. Eventually you just look back and see how far you’ve come. Stay strong.

#Transgender #tdov #tdov2019 #transman #ftm #my story #trans day of visiblity #transgender day of visibility

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