#boihood

[boid0ll]

aweee

Another thing I found when looking up Bobby Gene (transmasc cartoonist who drew the strip I reblogged and who designed the FTM International logo) is that he wrote an articlein Transgender Tapestry that was reprinted in GenderTrash from Hell, alongside this sweet thing.

Transcript:

BOYHOOD by Bobby Gene There's something special about being a boy. I'm talking about the "wonder years." The pre-pubescent years, when a boy is a being one and apart from anything else. He's not a man, not a girl… just a boy. And there's something unique about the way the world looks upon his boyhood. A boy is endearing, sometimes obnoxious and selfish, but always filled with the magic only boyhood provides. His innocent charm and mischievous nature are the subjects of volumes of Twain's imagi- nation, Disney's fantasy.

And us, the men of today and tomorrow, who were the invisible boys of yesterday, known only to ourselves, we watched the boy rituals move about us, all around us, without us, excluding us from what was also rightfully ours but not granted. So now we discover we can be men. We travel the road to our lifelong dream of trans- formation. Our own boyhoods camouflaged and brief, having to be mixed with the respon- sibilities of adulthood we've acquired over the years. We feel the same boyhood now that we only watched before. It's okay. Put down your pen, your quar- terly reports, turn off your computer, push yourself away from your desk. Kick off your wing tips and tie on your Nikes. Slip out of that suit for a while. Exchange it for your favorite pair of old jeans, which now fit more the way you've always dreamed they should. Take a moment to live the boyhood you missed in the wonder years. Climb a tree. Go fishing with Huck. Take it, it's yours now. --Pinocchio 1992 Bobby Gene

End transcript.

[boid0ll]

but listen when this muscles fill up, what’s left is to be pushing every sketchy cis-man i see on the streets with it. will i ever retire from causing trouble to cistems that trouble me?! >>> maybe if i marry enough wives 🫂<<<    more interesting gist: was at a trans*masc panel yesterday, and the conversations were a lot more healthier that i expected. personally i never wanted to be visible in any prescribed idea of masculinity until most recently when my people were like we need you in that capacity & then tricked me into getting comfortable inside it by showing me how my visibility can be disruptive—knowing i’d fall for any opportunity to cause trouble, so yeah they said, your visibility will be disruptive (in a good way only for people who get it). much like when they convinced me to be open/vocal about gender & lack of when i saw how visibility was more than me, & as a service. 🤱🏾    i moved from boihood to manhood in a matter of hours while still having the liberty to be a boi at any given time.  if anyone asked me now what masculinity in the way that i occupy it means to me… it’s a journey of healing! not just for myself but for my kids & future fam that i am so excited to father & protect 🤍💌    i’m equally if not more excited for who i’ll be for myself, outside of being a husband & father 🤸🏾‍♀️🤸🏾‍♀️🤸🏾‍♀️

[channelworldbluez]

I remember back in the days when black studs Butch and tifs used to have a sorta family vibe with each other and I used to look up to that but now it’s tifs being like “nah imma man, I’m not like you..” and the distance is there and it’s broken I wanna bring that back.

It was like this understanding back then that yeah u was on hormones and u might’ve gotten top surgery but u knew what you were in the end and idk…let me stop rambling..

[queerliblib]

do you have books about trans men of color? Written by trans men? Asking cause I can never find books with trans people in them, let alone written by them, and it's especially hard to find books about & by trans men, especially trans moc. (Also, I've never once seen a book about a straight trans man, which idk I always feel nervous asking about cause "erm straight ppl can't be queer" or whatever but I want to see some trans het and T4T books)

Anyways, sorry for the bother but I need some new books to read and I've decided to be self indulgent this time around

oh please don’t apologize, you should absolutely be self-indulgent! these (as far as our research shows) all have trans moc main characters and are primarily by trans moc (with a few non-binary authors of color)

Freedom House by KB Brookins (poetry)

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (YA)

Black on Both Sides: A racial history of trans identity by C. Riley Snorton (non-fiction)

We See Each Other by Tre’vell Anderson

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender (YA)

The Passing Playbook by Issac Fitzsimons (YA)

& here are a few more titles from our wishlists that we hope to buy in the future, just to give you a few more ideas

Pretty by KB Brookins (memoir)

Outside the XY by Bklyn Boihood (anthology)

Boys Run the Riot by Keito Gaku (manga)

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar (adult fic)

as for trans het or t4t, caveat that the authors & characters here aren’t necessarily POC but I wanted to still give you a few options!

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall (trans femme)

Chef’s Choice by TJ Alexander (t4t)

A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee (trans masc)

Stay Gold by Tolby McSmith (trans masc)

[tacticalhimbo]

TRANS DAY OF REMEMBRANCE 2024

Don't have the spoons to make a spiel about how solidarity in and out of the community is important, but wanting to highlight that as is. We need to speak out and show up for those who fight alongside us, and for those we've lost*.

*Remember: Any concrete numbers you see statistics wise are not 100% accurate. The violence against us, especially our BIPOC siblings, are majorly under-reported.

Here are some organizations and resources to share around, with attributions and pronouns (as of writing the post). I'll section this off based on what type of resource/org they are... more or less--

Archival.

2600 Pages of Hate: Transphobia and Fascism by maia crimew (It/She)

Black Trans* Oral History Project by Blu Bachanan (They/Them) and Naomi Simmons-Thorne (She/They)

Digital Transgender Archive by K.J. Rawson (He/Him) et al.

LGBT+ Intersectionality, a Google Drive full of Resource Books

The Mirror Memoirs by Amita Swadhin (They/Them), Jaden Cervantes-Fields (He/Him), and Bilen Berhanu (She/Her)

NYC Trans* Oral History Project

The Trans* Library (Carrd)

University of Victoria Transgender Archives (Canada)

Varied.

Baltimore Safe Haven, established by Iya Dammons (She/They).

Bklyn Boihood, established by Black masculine-of-center queer and trans people of color.

Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, established by Jordyn Jay (She/Her)

Black Trans* Travel Fund, established by Devin Michael Lowe (He/They) and Morticia Godiva (Her/Shey)

Brave Space Alliance, established by trans and gender non-conforming individuals.

FedUp Collective, established by Zain Lugay (They/He), Sam (They/Them), Cody (He/Him), Ian (He/Him), JO Walduck (She/They), et al.

For the Gworls, established by Asanni Armon (They/Them; Sources Vary)

The Gender Affirming Letter Access Project, established by transgender, nonbinary, and allied mental health and medical providers.

"The Gender Binary" is a Misnomer; Gender Has Always Been a Hierarchy by Talia Bhatt (She/Fae)

Privilege, Power, and Pride: Intersectionality within the LGBT Community by Kittu Pannu (He/Him)

The Okra Project, established by Gabrielle Inès Souza, Max Rigano, and Celyna Jackson (Pronouns Unknown).

Organización Latina Trans in Texas, , established by Anandrea Molina (Ella/She, Rigoberto Reyes/Monika Adams (Él/Ella/She/He), Gia Pacheco (She/Ella), Danny Lopez (Él/He), Noemi Garza, Barby Ledesma, Vanessa Garcia, and Kassandra Rivas (Pronouns Unknown).

Princess Janae Place, established by Jevon Martin (He/Him) and Dani Farrell (He/They).

The Transgender Education Network of Texas, established by various BIPOC trans community members.

Trans*, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project, established by Janetta Johnson (She/Her), zy'aire nassirah (He/Him), zen "zee" mills (She/Her), van dell (They/Them), Valentine McClain (They/She), eli b. (They/He), et al.

TransgenderNI (Northern Ireland) / Belfast Trans Resource Centre, established by trans community members.

TransInclusiveGroup, established by Tatiana Williams (She/Her/Goddess), Krys Gordon (She/Her), Adrianna Tender (She/Her/Diva), Mei-Lan Diaz (They/Them), and Na'stacia Buchanan (She/Her).

Trans Latin@ Coalition, established by Paolo Coots (She/Her/Ella), Arianna Inurritegui-Lint (She/Her/Ella), Alexa Rodriguez (She/Her/Ella), et al.

Trans* Needle Exchange, established by Oliver (Pronouns Unknown).

And remember, community is what keeps us alive.

It is important to call out bigotry in our spaces; important to let those here know we value them and their existence. Do not solely fight for those who are gone, fight for those who are living with us here and now.

Let the folks in your lives and in your communities know you care about them. Listen to them. Learn from them. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Which is why I'm also going to drop broader-focus organizations and resources for the global community:

alQaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society

Canadian LGBTQ+ History

India's LGBTQ+ Movement

LGBTQ+: A Troubled History in Mexico

LGBTQ+ Orthodox Jewish Education (PDF)

LGBTQ+ Narratives in Pakistan

LGBTQ+ Rights Ghana Support Fund

Nigeria's Queer History

Queer Activism in Africa

Queer Nigerian Emergency Fund

Feel free to add onto this (preferably with more grassroots kinda stuff/individual spotlights; anything goes long as it's vetted really).

[liondrakes]

Transitioning Into A Beastman

Examining Gender, Humanity, and Nonhumanity in My Transspecies Identity

by Sivaan of Candlekeep

Blurb: A personal essay in which I discuss the connections between my identity as a boi and my identity as a beastman through non-normative role models for my masculinity. Much of this is discussed in relation to being transspecies.

I owe much of my masculinity to two groups: masculine-of-center lesbians and other gender-nonconforming queer people in the black community and furry characters of the bara variety. Odd combination at first glance, yeah?

It makes perfect sense from where I stand. I’m a beastman— as in an individual who has the qualities of a beast and a human, not a man (gender) who happens to be a beast. I'm also what's called a "boi", an overlooked identity that sprung up from the black queer community referring to individuals whose masculinity is not cisheteronormative.

I am transmasculine and genderqueer, plain and simple. That said, being a boi’s still an intrinsic way of life for me. Boi simultaneously is its own thing and incorporated into the specifics of my gender identity. It cuts deeper into my queerness through my cultural experiences and connections. It also cuts into my sense of self outside of an anthropocentric lens.

I am transspecies. My idea of masculinity isn’t conceptualized in the same way as most cisgender, heterosexual, and typically (ortho)human men. I guess one could say I am a “beast boi” in this regard.

The kind of masculinity I admire is the confidence and unapologetic self-love of an aggressive. I also admire the proud disposition of an anthropomorphic bear, one whose build is akin to a bear in the queer-specific sense. That’s the kind of masculinity I want to embody for myself.

But it’s not all about the looks. It begs two questions. Where does boi come from, and why is it relevant to my transspecies identity?

The history of the term has bounced around different spots within the LGBTQ+ community. From butches and tomboys to transgender men and other transmasculine folks, that's the flavor of queer you'll find amongst bois. One group who’s established communal bonds and created initiatives through boi identity is bklyn boihood; I personally recommend Outside the XY: Queer Black and Brown Masculinity, a collection of essays, stories, and poetry created by members of the organization. I read it within the past year, and it’s personally one of my favorite books of all time.

A year after I came out as transmasculine, I discovered this term through the now defunct Queer Undefined website. Curious, I decided to look into it and learned more from Evan Urquhart's article on the subculture:

"The first major recorded use is attributed to rapper Big Boi (Antwan André Patton) of the duo Outkast, which formed in 1992. The I in Big Boi came from a street spelling of boy in the Black community in the early 1990s or before... Not long afterward, the gay community began using boi to mean a young, attractive gay man, as on the cover of XY magazine in 2000. Concurrently, boi came to be applied not only to men but also to boyish young women—originally young women in skateboarding. By 2003, the dominant definition on Urban Dictionary was a young butch lesbian, and so it remained until 2016."

“Boi was, and is, an identity term, primarily used by people of color, that traverses the messy, occasionally overlapping space that encompasses masculine women, nonbinary transmasculine people, and transgender men. (An earlier word, butch, pulls off a similar trick of spanning communities that are in the process of pulling apart.)"

If my interest wasn’t piqued before, it sure was right then and there. I’ve known for a while that my blackness plays a significant part in my queerness, even before I came to terms with my transmasculinity. The scope of my race and culture has touched on every facet of my selfhood.

The overall culture of black, queer people in the U.S. was extremely important in shaping how I understood queerness. Femme queens and butch queens, aggressives and studs, same-gender-loving people (SGLs), that’s the realm of queerness I knew. Some cases may not be black-exclusive nowadays (for example: ballroom), but all of it did come up from my people, our history, and our relationships with queer identity.

So how does that intersect with my species?

Prior to joining the alterhuman community, I also identified with queer masculinity as seen in a particular subculture. For a lack of better words, something awakened in me when I discovered bara media within the furry community. There’s the attraction element, yes, but more importantly, it was their presentation that drew me in. I developed a personal attachment to these strong, beastly, and burly characters for reasons that I couldn’t quite explain yet. This attachment did not form for their human counterparts, however. My view of those characters was exclusively from a place of attraction.

At the time, I saw it as my preferred content within the subculture. I'll admit I was too young to be checking out things like Nekojishi, and I waited until college to actually engage with them. Nonetheless, I really clicked with these sorts of characters. This was applicable to characters that weren't specifically made within this subset of the furry community as well; characters such as Kumatetsu and Kimahri Ronso also resonated with me as ideal models of masculinity.

There's barely any overlap between this and the queer culture I've come to know in my youth. The only similarity between the two was the fact that each emerge from queer people of color, considering that this subset of furry media is based on the art and literature of Japanese gay men. That said, it is dependent on the artist whether or not they're fine with referring to their art and/or literature as "bara"; I certainly wouldn't recommend saying this in referral to the creative(s) themselves as bara has its roots as a pejorative term. Think of it in the similar vein as not all folks wanting to be labeled as queer within the western LGBTQ+ community.

Despite the absence of an overlap, I've come to establish my own connections between these snapshots of queer identity. I liken my experiences with species to my experiences with gender on account of their growth. Each began as a trek into the unknown. These were possibilities hidden within myself, and I approached it with confusion and uncertainty for the most part. Yet, I was full with the desire to explore. My worries didn’t stop me from combing through my introspections and fishing for insights from my surrounding communities, hoping to better understand what my relationship to either concept was.

That’s why it felt so right to call myself transspecies. I’m sure it’s why it felt so right to call myself a beastman, too. To be a beastman is an inherently transformative experience, no different than how it is for me as a transmasc and as a genderqueer person.

Transspecies feels a lot like boi in the sense that it’s not only a broad label, but it’s reflective of my way of life in this community. It emphasizes on the discovery and intimacy I feel in taking this personal path, fully embracing myself instead of prioritizing what my society deems as “acceptable”.

I am transitioning into a beastman. Simple as that.

I maintain my body hair not only as a preference for my presentation but also in resonance with my transspecies identity. I relish in the feeling of my body hair as well as faux fur clothing because it feels as though I have a body completely covered in fur. This euphoria is an additional reason for me to go on testosterone in the future. I have no interest in pursuing body surgery, but hormones have been something I’ve sat with for a while now and am now confident that I want to pursue. This is to affirm my masculinity and my beastliness, respectively.

My wild relatives are a part of my transness as well. Be it lions, antelopes, vultures or badgers, I am one of them. I associate them with my gender goals, just as much as I do with fellow masculine-of-center queer people of color. Those goals range anywhere from maned lionesses like Mmamoriri to the Hrothgar of Final Fantasy XIV, leaving me with a diverse array of gender expression woven from the natural world and elements of human society.

I’ve been stretched out and contorted into something strange and beautiful. In both the transgender community and the nonhuman community, I am someone whose views on either experience are shifting sands of possibility. Many won’t like it. Some may feel the same as me. Some will not care at all. Regardless, that is how those identities intersect for me. I am a self-made beastman.

“Beastman” also suits me as a general label for my animality. It’s somewhat relative to therianthropy, specifically therianthropy in its original mythic context. Though when it comes to humanity and nonhumanity, this experience is holistic. The nonhuman animal is inseparable from the human animal. I’ve considered the possibility of having a beastman kintype or theriotype in the past. Much like my beastman identity now, these speculated ‘types were similar to Japanese juujin characters and other beastmen in fictional media. Yet, I’ve found that being transspecies, or a transbeast, was a more accurate descriptor for my experience.

Furthermore, one of my prominent phantom bodies is my ideal self as a beastman. This phantom body takes the shape of a humanoid lion or gemsbok with a stocky build. Occasionally, this body takes the shape of a humanoid honey badger or lammergeier as well. Besides those four, I’m rarely any other animal species within my beastman identity. Instead, those identities remain as constels.

Either way, I’m some form of African wildlife with a human-like physique. The parts of this phantom body are sensitive as well. My tail is always swishing behind me, and my ears (when applicable) are quite reactive no matter the situation. I get a little dysphoric at the lack of fur or feathers along my body, but those feelings don’t always linger. They’re infrequent, thankfully. Otherwise, that’d be a massive inconvenience to wrestle with.

That aside, this is how I perceive myself on a daily basis. It’s not that I don’t relate to the general sentiments surrounding nonhuman identity. Most of my *anistels are experienced as they appear on Earth, in their sources, or whatever mythos they stem from. I’m no stranger to having a fully animal perspective. Yet, this union between humanity and nonhumanity is more prominent to me than anything else within the scope of my animality. It’s why I tend to have a sophont perspective.

*Constels that are species of animals. Relative to constelic identity.

I am proudly and passionately someone whose nonhumanity doesn’t reject humanity, but rather, incorporates into my beastly nature.

I am an uncanny individual standing on two legs, acting as a human would, but once I open my mouth, my words are carried by a low rumble. Whether I bellow, grunt, growl or stay silent, I present myself in an unorthodox manner. I’d say it’s best compared to a maned lioness like before: visibly masculine yet not quite applicable to any binary that’s put upon nature. I’m not exactly male or female under the surface, and more notably, it’s clear that I’m not entirely human either.

I have the head of a nonhuman animal. I have fur or feathers completely covering my body, adorning me with their patterns. I have a snout or a beak and a tail or tail feathers. I have retractable claws at the edge of my fingertips and talons at the tip of my feet. I have an animal’s eyes. I have an animal’s horns. I engage with the world of men and have no qualms living in said world, yet I’m clearly not interchangeable with your average human.

Comparatively, I’m not interchangeable with my standard animal species either. I have human characteristics that set me apart from my fully nonhuman counterparts. I am exactly those animals, just in a complex and rather queer position.

I am a boi. I am a beastman. I am a beast boi, even. My sense of self is not cisheteronormative nor does it align with orthohumanity.

In being transspecies, transgender, and a reminder of my communities’ often silenced perspectives, I’ve come to terms with the fact that my species identity is inherently queer. I recognize that’s not the case for everyone else, but I refuse to disregard these connections in context to myself.

My gender identity and species identity are so deeply intertwined as personal discoveries that I’d be kidding myself if I kept ignoring their relevance to each other. The same happened in the case of my race and my gender. Although discovery had nothing to do with my cultural background, I’ve held the belief that said cultural background was pivotal in building my relationship with gender. After all, it was through my ethnic community that I began exploring and finding meaning in my own queer identity.

I’d argue it’s come full circle now, seeing that I’ve also written on the relevance of my blackness to my alterhumanity. I don’t expect others to readily understand where I am coming from, especially when some folks still argue over whether or not transspecies is a “valid” enough descriptor for one’s species identity.

Nonetheless, I know what my identity looks like. I’m fond of the nuances between these experiences and the ways in which I’ve bridged them together. They’ve brought about some truly remarkable moments in my life that I can’t imagine going without. I look forward to many more for the journeys ahead.

[kunthug]

Boihood

All I ever wanted to be was a song—  something soft and light held in the mouth  sung sweet beneath the coming dawn.  I return to that first desire—its gingham blouse 

rubbed against the heavy pull of flesh hovered  in a dark that I can only recall as that dark. I ask what grace awaits that tender tendril’s suffered  stretch of green wide enough to tear a stark 

light out from under a troubled sky? I return to the center of that smallness and sing its wounds— jagged rasp crooned until edged out and earned. I was the only boi I knew dreaming in soft bruise. 

And it made me as beautiful as the blood’s slow sprawl at my knee, right before punching a bullying boy to crawl.

about the poem—

“The sonnet here is an ode to the ‘in-betweenness’ of my childhood concerning gender and the body. It is also an origin song of the kinds of love/lovelessness I sustained as a child, due to gendered expectations placed on my emerging self. The spelling of ‘boy’ here represents both the Black masculine and the center/genderqueer iteration of the word, spelled ‘boi,’ as a means of honoring the many bois like myself forced to learn to love themselves at and beyond the margins.” —Jari Bradley.

[xltribe]

This week in XL Tribesmen Tribesmen Of The Week Van Bailey we celebrate Happy Pride Month. I wanted to open the month with a person that lives the trans experience. I know it's been months since my last Tribesmen but we are back up and running on new servers that are faster and can handle the growth. What’s one misconception about Big & Tall Men that you hear often? And what are you doing to change it?A misconception I often see is that all Big & Tall Men fit the "brawn" build. I am a shorter person and when I see Big & Tall, I often wonder - does that include me? I would love to model for a Big & Tall brand, however, as a person of trans experience, I do not see that representation out there. I would urge brands to reconsider their model representation. Fashion is for everybody. If you sell the size, create the representation. If you don't sell the size, consider everyone you're leaving out due to styling limitations. Because there aren't bigger darker folks of the size of trans experience in the fashion world, I have done my best to curate spaces to highlight my love of fashion and style. I have worked with LGBTQ+ brands like DapperQ, Qwear, and the Stud Model Project, and am the lead stylist for the bklyn boihood collective. For me, in order to see myself, I have to be brave enough to put myself out there. Fashion for me is ancestral and the way I adorn my body is a means of celebration and survival. Photo credit: Stud Model Project If you could change one thing about your favorite Big & Tall brand what would it be and why?Create more opportunities for people of trans experience to see themselves in your brand. We are worthy of representation. Representation and visibility is life-saving for queer and trans communities of color. So, be more open to having diverse representation of all sizes and heights. Photo credit: Stud Model Project Tell us about your worst shopping experience? And why ? Honestly, going to malls is always a high-stress experience. I have to wonder, will they have my size? Will I be able to find a tailor who's worked with trans bodies before? I have been misgendered in spaces, especially early in my transition and those moments stick with you for life. I remember a few years ago, I was shopping online at one of my favorite stores, ASOS, and they did not have any bigger representation but they sold the sizes. This has shifted in recent years but I see a number of brands selling sizes but then not having bigger bodies display those sizes on their website. How am I supposed to know how it might fit on my body? Am I not worthy of representation? How can I know what's possible if I don't see what's possible? Photo credit: KXJ Apparel What’s on your fashion bucket list?I want to be signed to a fashion agency and model for big fashion houses. While I have walked in New York Fashion Week, I would love to get experience in other fashion weeks, including going abroad. I would love to model for DXL and Savage X Fenty. It would be a dream to be featured in a Savage X Fenty show. Photo credit: Stud Model Project How did you get introduced to the world of Big & Tall fashion?My father is a bigger guy, so I remember going shopping with him at DXL and department stores. I used to love watching him get tailored after picking out a suit. Then, as I got older I realized how there weren't people who looked like me in magazines, fashion shows, or in the media. When I started working with bklyn boihood, I was so inspired that they had representation of all body types in their calendars. I knew once I came on as a stylist and a collective member I wanted to keep that momentum going. XL Tribesmen Tribesmen Of The Week Van Bailey Social media links: Website: https://www.drvanbailey.com/styling Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr__handsome/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dr__handsome

[olodara]

08/10, AN ENJOYABLE TIME TODAY

i.

update

the papier-mâché mix i made and placed yesterday is still drying. i will need a kiln/oven to dry things in my studio. the acrylic is getting deeper as it dries. waiting on final results.

ii.

layering

the photos + text are hitting harder than trying to paint digitally, but not harder than trying to set scene. finding ways around setting scene with fragments in painting. it needs to set scene and tell a story. and while we are waiting to get there, photo transfer experiments and cris-crossing how things can get imprinted might be the way to go.

iii.

spiriting

i'm besides some spirits and some spirits are beside me. it's too cute, my life as it has been happening now. i am enjoying process and patience. i swear i am learning delightful beauties about myself and how to be as i sit to create. i am thankful to not have so big a pressure that removes me from doing what i am doing now. today, i whispered in my chest: i am a full-time artist.

the other part \divinity\ of this experience and feeling is healing through the boihood i am choosing to live. not only am i being carried in the spirit of masculinity at its purest, i am also becoming. sometimes healing is becoming. or becoming is healing. it feels really good to become. it feels good to create as transsexuality creates.

and on transsexuality

i wanna dive and dive. like, create like transsexuality is. this riotous, audacious and glorious power of creation. primal and basic. i am at the base like sex and as i thought more about this i am getting more comfortable with openly using ó/he pronouns, till when i drop the he for just ó. till then revelling in transsexual audacity!

iv

hacking, which makes the marriage true and more true.

as i was tattooing text with acrylic, i felt this strong sense of my best friend being near, right inside of me even. i love you. i thought about my next memoir being titled mostly unimpressed as it describes a constant state i've been in for most of my life. not much makes my heart flame but i would argue it is how we know ourselves. and so, i love you orí odara, odara and every other flame.

the real gist of this section is about hacking but first a dream: this person coming to tell me odara favours good penmanship. fast forward today, and i'm tattooing letters remembering that. puzzle pieces join another puzzle piece in the small stretch of a moment.

odara will help me override and overtake. its grace i claim, it is a grace i call a birthright, without even reasons and anxieties of "late blooming" given. it is inside the process we learn to hack.

(visualizing in the absence of photo transfer tools.)

[mae-we-post-poems]

Boihood

Jari Bradley

All I ever wanted to be was a song—

something soft and light held in the mouth

sung sweet beneath the coming dawn.

I return to that first desire—its gingham blouse

rubbed against the heavy pull of flesh hovered

in a dark that I can only recall as that dark.

I ask what grace awaits that tender tendril’s suffered

stretch of green wide enough to tear a stark

light out from under a troubled sky? I return

to the center of that smallness and sing its wounds—

jagged rasp crooned until edged out and earned.

I was the only boi I knew dreaming in soft bruise.

And it made me as beautiful as the blood’s slow sprawl

at my knee, right before punching a bullying boy to crawl.

[theburningflash]

From Boihood by Jari Bradley

[ukdamo]

Boihood

Jari Bradley - a bittersweet childhood remembrance from the genderqueer poet.

All I ever wanted to be was a song— something soft and light held in the mouth sung sweet beneath the coming dawn. I return to that first desire—its gingham blouse

rubbed against the heavy pull of flesh hovered in a dark that I can only recall as that dark. I ask what grace awaits that tender tendril’s suffered stretch of green wide enough to tear a stark

light out from under a troubled sky? I return to the centre of that smallness and sing its wounds— jagged rasp crooned until edged out and earned. I was the only boi I knew dreaming in soft bruise.

And it made me as beautiful as the blood’s slow sprawl at my knee, right before punching a bullying boy to crawl.

[dyke-a-saur]

Woods Adventures Of A Young Butch (Pt. 2)

Went out again yesterday! This time I decided to check out the thickets across from my house. It was really pretty and it had less thorns:

Then I decided to revisit the statue I found yesterday and leave some gifts for her:

There was also a pretty brook that I forgot to mention in my last one:

Anyway, here's how I looked today:

(Also, I recommend listening to Gaelic folk music while on these kinds of hikes. It hits different)

[fearlesslyinbloom]

Our blackness is divine. 🌻Acknowledge the power that has always been yours.

Poetry from Black and Blue

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[lesbiansovereverything]

[keepitandro]

I am worth it.