#but I feel like I'd be more open to being enby or some sort of other/3rd gender if I was amab

[inspiredtrans]

is there a gender for "I don't give a fuck anymore so long as I get to have a cock instead of the fuckery I have now"? Asking very explicitly for myself

[e-the-village-cryptid]

[ID: a reply from @enby-raccoon reading: "can you elaborate on the kidnapping thing that no one voted for please?" /end ID]

absolutely. those were a wild couple of days

ok so the rumor was loosely (loosely) based on real events. here is what ACTUALLY happened:

a few weeks before I graduated high school, I was out running and got hit by a car. unusual accident in the sense that I was running all the way in the left shoulder and the car was coming up behind me. it should have been in the right lane. not the left shoulder.

anyway I was like... weirdly fine after this accident. I landed face-first in soft-ish dirt off the shoulder, narrowly avoiding hitting my head on a rock that, according the the medical responders, would have killed me instantly. my face was pretty cut-up, but no serious wounds elsewhere, no broken bones, and as would later be confirmed at the hospital, no skull fractures or brain damage because my nice squishy face took all the impact. I was basically ok.

the guy who hit me got out to check on me, gave me some gauze that he apparently just carries around with him, and offered to give me a ride home (bro what??). (he seemed quite stoned to me. obviously was under the influence of something to veer that far off the road.) obviously I said no to the ride. at this point i had no idea what to do, I was mainly focused on looking for my glasses, which had fallen off (and been completely destroyed as I would soon find), because not being able to see made everything feel so much more overwhelming. he helped me look for my glasses for a few minutes before another person drove by, saw the scene, and called 911, at which point the guy who hit me took off, never to be seen again because the cops botched every step of the investigation so badly it was almost impressive.

ok and now here is how this story turned into the wild rumor.

so i'm from a small town and obviously the game of gossip telephone began instantly and rapidly. i had been hit by a car. i was in a coma. i had broken all my bones. i was dead. it was another student who had hit me. it was some different student entirely who had gotten hit. the entire thing was on purpose and a targeted attack. just all out rumor frenzy

and then my track coach heard about the part where they guy had offered me a ride and decided that, because the circumstances of the accident and my overall lack of injury were somewhat unlikely, it must have been intentional. he decided that the guy had deliberately hit me after slowing down just enough to daze but not maim or kill me, all with the intention of getting me into his car and kidnapping me. (i was pretty pissed at the coach for starting and spreading this)

now obviously this idea was absurd because the guy was clearly panicking, had never tried to touch me in any way, and had had me alone and injured on a deserted road for several minutes before anyone came by and all he did was help me look for my glasses. the guy is obviously stupid and a dangerous driver and should not be allowed on the road, but it was pretty clear to me that he didn't have ill intent.

did that stop people from latching on to this juicy new rumor? of course not. it was all an elaborate scheme! it was an attempted kidnapping! it was a human trafficking ring! the guy had been in the middle of dragging my unconscious body into his car when at that very moment the police arrived and i was rushed to the hospital where i was in critical condition! no, i'd already died! no, actually... and on and on and on

i never fully understood the term "they looked like they'd seen a ghost" until i walked into school the next day and saw people's faces. lol. (the fact that the facial wounds were too large for any sort of bandage and had to just be left open and visible definitely didn't help matters)

it was pretty astonishing how widely-believed even the most ridiculous rumors were. even once people could see that clearly the death and coma and every bone broken etc. rumors were untrue, variations on the kidnapping rumor continued to circulate for days until a more popular teammate of mine who had most of the school following her on social media posted a statement clarifying what did and did not actually happen (with my permission, in the hopes of making everything less ridiculous), at which point things mostly died down.

it was... definitely a way to end senior year

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

Good day to you!

Gender question: I recently heard that binary trans psyches become more stable when they start taking their identified hormone. Like ftm mental health will improve when their testosterone increases. If I think I think I'm enby but my depression goes away when I increase my T, does that make me any less nonbinary? Is it different when you're dealing with binary hormones (estrogen vs testosterone) and a third gender not associated with either? Am I trying too hard to be different but I'm actually appropriating a repressed identity? Asking for a friend~

hello, dear! first of all, i want to make it very clear that i have absolutely no qualifications to answer this question. i have zero medical training, i am not educated on hormones, i have not even really read about this subject. so i'm going to give my opinions and what little i do know, largely just from lived experience, and i want to be clear that that's all you're getting, so please don't take my word as any sort of authority here.

secondly, before we go any further, you cannot "appropriate" being nonbinary or trans as long as you are someone genuinely questioning if you are/believe that you are nonbinary/trans, provided you're not using a culturally specific identity that is not open to you, such as native american two spirit.

if you are not faking on purpose, you're not faking, and if you're not faking on purpose, you are not doing anything wrong. your gender belongs to you, it's a personal identity, not a culture that can be appropriated. you are free to explore it, change your mind, and change your labels at any time, in any way, for any reason, because it belongs to you, and it's about what makes you feel the most comfortable in yourself.

thirdly, it's also important just to be aware that it's possible to be a nonbinary trans man on T. if you feel like you are ftm, if you want to take T, be masculine, etc, that doesn't mean you're not nonbinary. nonbinary is not inherently "third gender unrelated to masculine or feminine", it's an umbrella term that encapsulates a damn near infinite kaleidoscope of gender expressions that don't fit into the boxes of "100% male" or "100% female".

personally, i go by nonbinary because i don't know of a word that actually describes, "i was trained to categorize myself as a girl but i never fit in with the girls, i often felt more comfortable with the boys but i've never actually wanted to BE a boy, i hate being called a woman but i'm fine using she/her pronouns, i'm also fine being regarded in more masculine terms because there's definitely a masculine part of me, but i think that the very core of me, my soul i suppose, is genderless. i don't want to use they/them or wear a binder, though sometimes i daydream about having a mastectomy and hysterectomy just so i'd never have to wear a bra or get a period again, and i kind of like being referred to as mx." i have no idea what to call that except nonbinary, so i just say nonbinary, and it's okay that my nonbinary is very different from other people's nonbinary.

if you want to take T, if you want to transition or do anything else associated with being ftm, that is completely okay. that doesn't mean you faked being nonbinary, and if you explore being transmasculine and it turns out it's not for you, that doesn't mean you faked being transmasculine either. while there are some people who "always knew", there are also lots of people who have to try out different identities and labels until they find the one that's actually right for them.

AND, sometimes your labels change without your prior identity being "wrong". if you end up transitioning to binary transmasculine, that doesn't mean you weren't nonbinary before, it would just mean you aren't anymore. not being something anymore doesn't necessarily mean you never were. sometimes we just change.

fourthly (?), i don't know whether it's a fact that "binary trans psyches become more stable when they start taking their identified hormone". i'm sure that that does happen often, i'm sure that receiving proper hormone therapy absolutely can improve trans mental health, but i don't know that it's a hard and fast rule. hormones are powerful things, and i'm sure that sometimes just having your chemistry altered can cause some psychological upheaval. and on the other hand, sometimes having your hormones adjusted can make you feel better just on a purely physical level, totally irrespective of gender.

in other words, i don't think anyone should start T or E expecting it to significantly improve their mental health, but if it does, that's great. i also don't think that feeling better on T means that you're a trans man, or should i say, it doesn't mean that you have to be. if you feel better on more T, you don't have to throw up your hands and say, "well i guess i'm a man now," like you have no choice in the matter.

do you want to be a man? do you think that being a man (binary or not) would make you happy? would you feel more comfortable in your skin if you presented as masculine?

honestly, i think sometimes those are better questions to ask than sitting around soul-searching for what you "really are". maybe you're like me and you don't have a single word to summarize yourself, or maybe you'll only find that word after exploring new experiences. maybe you'll find something that you've repressed, or maybe you'll just create something new that you never imagined before.

regardless, i don't think you should worry. if you feel more stable and happy taking more T, that's great. do that. if you feel more comfortable and authentic transitioning to male, that's great. do that. if you don't want to do that, then don't do that. explore yourself and your expression without fear that you're appropriating anything, because you aren't.

you're okay, sweetheart. just keep living. you'll figure it out.

[leam1983]

TL;DR: I don't entirely agree with Anon, here's a few clarifications - word salad below the cut.

1. Gender isn't real.

That's... a lot to unpack. I agree in the sense that it's a construct and that it's not some sort of hardcoded biological imperative - but I'm also not blind to the fact that as far as our basic makeup is concerned, Nature tries real, real hard to work with a binary setup. I know said setup fails and there's a shitzillion of conditions where the binary is hard to apply or defend (intersex people, genital malformations that require extensive surgery or even fetishes that involve the removal of external sexual characteristics) - but we all tend to start as Nature's attempt to define as one thing or another. Everything else? It's all the product of Nature's own twists on the formula (some species change their sex as needed, some genders occupy varying posts in the family structure that go beyond the so-called "standard") and the human mind's ability to work past the initial reification of the concept of the Gender Binary.

It's complicated. Any biologist could tell you the human relationship between sex and gender is super complex, and an anthropologist would email you their thesis on the subject. To say that gender isn't real, however...

It's like people who tell me my disability is relative and that I define how much of a handicap it is for me. I'd love it if it were true - it's an extremely well-meaning thing to say - but there's a ton of external factors I have no control over. In the government's eyes, for instance, no matter how much pluck and moxie I apply to my struggles, I 100% am a cripple. By the same token, I might be bi and have a ton of interests that aren't masculine, strictly speaking; I'm still a man as far as several facets of everyday life are concerned. Similarly, trans people tend to fold into whatever gender identity they're integrated, and enbies and fluids don't have much choice but to pick clothes and services at various points across the male and female commercial sectors.

2. Women cannot appropriate feminism.

That's another toughie. I like to think that most well-meaning guys out there are open to considering themselves as feminists, but there's stripes of the movement, especially in academic circles, that are pushing for a more Essentialist view of the concept. As in, men who support Feminism as a cause are allies, but the concept of being a feminist belongs to women.

I can sort of see where it comes from, especially seeing how open guys are at excluding the fairer sex from their own issues, so it sort of feels like a retaliatory measure or a mark of ownership. It's probably germane to the notion I've heard that able-bodied folks simply cannot fully grasp the extent of the struggles of a disabled person. I've always championed for compassion and empathy, sure, but to go back to Feminism, the fact is that I'm not a woman, and that this place has made it patently clear that any attempts at empathy presented through the prism of my own struggles as a disabled person tend not to be well-received.

And that, well... I think that's a problem. I understand that compartmentalizing Social Justice and having your own turf of sorts probably feels empowering, but I've worked with community outreach groups for quadra and paraplegics, and we always welcomed the input of well-referenced able-bodied officials and medical specialists. If we had to sort through apples to find the exact combo of a wheelchair-bound neurologist with XYZ years of experience in the field of Care Worker training, we'd never have gotten anywhere.

I say that knowing that someone's going to Reblog this or add a reply, angrily stating that I'm making a false equivalence and that men simply cannot fathom women's struggles - but I've got a family full of long-lasting marriages that says otherwise.

What's the goal, here? If you answered To crush the Patriarchy, I'd say you've got about 75% of a workable response. Yes, there's abuse figures at all levels and most of them happen to be male. Yes, there's societal and cultural pressure on men to act towards women in ways Polite Society looks down upon. Everyone's a Progressive until they have female employees in the workforce, basically.

As someone who's coming into this from a different fight, I'd say the goal should be Equality. That means educating men so that insecurities are handled and don't resurface as abusive traits, and addressing systemic and cultural issues so that said Patriarchy is uprooted and replaced with a system that favors the right people, gender be damned.

And honestly? If anyone's response after reading this is to roll their eyes and say "Ugh, men, amirite?", I'll just remind them that I'm writing this from a perspective that's forced me to accept help from any and all individuals with the skillsets and tools I needed to later thrive on my own. My learning disabilities were handled by educators both male and female, and the plurality of their views is something I've always seen as being eye-opening.

Where would I be, today, if I'd been Redpilled and refused to pick up anything beyond basic arithmetics on the grounds that my first orthopedagogue was a woman? I'm sure you can see how ridiculous this would've been.

1. Women cannot appropriate feminism

2. The user who coined FART was a fetish blogger who also had a transformation kink

3. Gender isn't even real. Get rid of your essentialist notions.

4. Same sex love is our birthright as gays and bisexuals. Get over yourself.

How am I supposed to interact with this? Is there a right way or a wrong way? I am out of depth here... Also, I know it's you @ranger1509, talk to me like a person who is brave instead of hiding behind anonymity.

[enberlight]

Agender enby here. I'm not going to transition myself (how do you get to "neither"), but it would be nice to see mechanics available in a fantasy setting. As said before me, a gradual transition would be appealing. It's how it works for those of us who choose hormone therapies, after all! There could be a daily or weekly potion. And you stop taking it when you reach your desired characteristic balance. Maybe an annual or quarterly maintenance potion after that. And don't discount surgeries, those have been around longer than you'd expect, and having magical healing/sterilization boosts can only make it more plausible in fantasy settings ;)

I'd just be careful about how you describe the potion, calling something like that, say, "essence of (gender)" would be iffy when gender is more spectrum than binary and defining it specifically as something you can pinpoint and distill... Ehhh. It'll rub some of us the wrong way.

An option might be particular plants (more than one) that work in combinations to impart preferred physical changes. So, a bit more herbal than magical and. Kinda what we do now!

If naming the potion try to avoid polarizing it with light/dark good/bad subtext too. And be careful with side effects - don't have the potion user get roid rage or turn permanently nonemotional or hyperemotional or something. (Ups and downs in moods that anyone else could reasonably have are fine just not played to the hilt where masc transitioning via magic/potion erases empathy and kindness or femme makes you a permanent weeping flighty overreactive softy or some other stereotypical bleh.)

And don't make your transitioning character any sort of villain or predator, please! Nonhuman could also be pushing it if they're the only trans rep. (Try to have multiple reps of any minority, not just one, when going for diversity.)

Anyway get lots of feedback and run your idea by a variety of trans people for a sensitivity read for feedback! We'll all have different takes and squicks.

I think most of us can agree we'd love to skip a needle or being reliant on having someone else administering the magic hormones though. How hard it is to get the potion, and any taboos or perceptions around transitioning, would be another thing to consider. Is it accepted? In the open? A secret? You'll need to determine how both society and individuals feel. It can be public or private for the potion user even if society is supportive. And individuals they meet will have different reactions too. How big of a deal you make of it depends on how essential it is to plot. Is transitioning a focus, or background info for some of the characters that Just Is?

Question for Trans peeps

I am not cis but I have not/probably won’t go through a medical transition so I have a question.

In a fantasy world do you think that some just being able to drink a potion and instantly transition is offensive (ignores, invalidates? Sorry I can’t think of the right word) the real life struggles of transitions or would you rather read/see a world where it could be that easy?

I’ve seen a couple opinions on this but not from a trans person so I love to hear what y’all think