#but i am physically transitioning

[atypi-cals]

if I had a nickel for every time a middle aged man, upon finding out that I'm transitioning, immediately assumed I meant to female, and complimented me on my hair (which is long), I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice

[doomdoomofdoom]

any trans person should get HRT for free (no insurance required) and in exchange they should participate in the occasional study/survey.

research into sex hormones and their effects is so scarce and you have a whole ass population group who's willing to not only switch up their hormones but keep it up for very long periods of time. you could run some incredible long term studies with participants across all sorts of demographics.

while it's impossible to conduct any blind studies on this due to observable change in appearance, there's still so so so much data we're giving up on because we'd rather...

lemme check my notes. that cant be right.

...because we'd rather deny trans people health care and let them die. huh.

[sunnnfish]

having tashiro gender thoughts. the way he doesnt crossdress in that first year is because hes got crazy leg hair. not like No im a boy. or I dont want to. he's candidate at all in the first place after miyano because they're both "tiny" and would look the best (also opinion of shirahama. won't get into that. hey shirahama you think miyano and tashiro would be cute if they were girls...? sorry) Miyano, firm in his masculinity, is angry for the both of them. yeah hes got a complex about it but you'd think tashiro could resist a little more. he doesnt think hed make a good girl because of the leg hair. this flimsy barrier of "masculinity" hey tashiro what would you think if you shaved it. would you make a good girl then? would that remove your inhibitions? or would you find something else. are you scared of what you could discover if transformed into a girl? sit in the chair why dont you. flimsy barrier, a hairs width thick, between you and girlhood, supposedly. Gon-chan, a girl name accepted so easily, so comfortably. resist a little more! youve said before Miyano may be cute, but hes definitely a boy. are you definitely a boy? do you even care at all. nah, i cant make a good girl. ive got craaazzyyy leg hair. Shave it! Hell no! switch the flip.

[tenshouining]

Day 2 - Transition. A conversation with your future self. colourless ver. under rm !!

[windwardstar]

"transmascs can be feminine and still have their gender respected while transfemmes have to erase any signs of masculinity"

Except if you're nonbinary and feminine you're just a theyfab and not really trans

If you don't bind you're just faking it

If you have long hair and get misgendered it's just your fault. You should try harder.

If you try harder. If you bind. Cut your hair. Foreswear anything pink or girly or feminine. You're misogynistic and toxic masculinity.

You're an evil man (because all men are ontologically evil. It's not biological which is why trans women are women and good but trans men are men and bad. It's the masculinity itself. Rid yourself of masculinity and you are purified, washed clean of the sin of man). You're an evil man (your misogyny is somehow the worst possible most harmful incarnation of misogyny without any of the grace given to cis women. Where you have to unlearn youre misogyny but nobody has to unlearn their transphobia)

You raise your voice to speak up, to defend yourself, to take up space and it is proof testosterone has made you angry and dangerous and evil. Tainted by the original sin (of being a man). (And because you choose this, it is worse, because it is not something you can say is just something that happened to you, that you cannot repent and say please save me from this darkness, your revel in all the ways the mark of the devil changes you into his image) you speak on pregnancy and get accused of mansplaining. You speak and get told to shut up to let women speak- as if you too have never had your voice silenced.

You get told you just want to be oppressed. That you don't experience misogyny. As if you are not trans. As if you have not grown up under the thumb of misogyny that pressed out and punished any display of masculinity (because it wanted you to be a girl. Good and pure and feminine.)(where you're not really trans you just want to escape misogyny- you're just a confused little girl, shut up you dont know your own experiences.)(where you are trans and so have escaped misogyny- so shut up you don't know your own experiences)

You get told to be caring and kind and pushed to be feminine. To be the homemaker and nurturer. Because you are a girl. When you transition though suddenly it is proof you are a predator. Why would a man want to be in this position? Why would a man want to be around vulnerable people if it wasn't to take advantage? And you're trans. Which makes you a sex freak. Which makes you a dangerous pedophile and predator.

You get told you have to realize women see you as a threat (as if you are not already intimately familiar with why, as if you have not been the victim, as if you are not still able to be one)- because you are now a man (inherently dangerous) and there is now way women (inherently victims) can be a danger to you (because transphobia against transmascs doesnt exist). (And how can cis women possibly be a danger to trans men. Don't you know it can only be men who are dangers to women)

That you have to be ok with being kicked out of girls only groups. That sorry this program is meant to uplift women+ voices and you're a man and there are already enough men. As if by claiming the title of man your transness does not matter, that your marginalization does not matter.

You're transmasc. You are feminine. It is proof you aren't trans.

You're transmasc. You are as masculine as you can be. It is proof you are irredeemably evil.

You're transmasc. You try and find a balance. Masculine enough to be respected to not be misgendered, to not have being misgendered be your fault. Feminine enough you don't get accused of misogyny and hating women and toxic masculinity. Feminine enough you don't get cast out of every space you occupied before because just the presence of testosterone in your body makes you dangerous.

You strike the balance, you contort yourself into making them comfortable, and they say you don't have to try. That you get respect regardless of what you do.

(Also before anyone wants to misrepresent or misinterpret or misunderstand this: none of this makes what transfemmes face any less hard or horrific or whatever words you want to use to describe their struggles. It is possible for multiple groups to face the same struggles and recognizing shared experiences, to speak about the unique manifestations for one group without claiming there isn't a correspondingly different version for another. Trans women and trans men are both punished for masculinity. Trans women and trans men are both punished for femininity. Society wants both groups to conform to their agab and wants both groups to transition in a way that makes them conform as closely as possible to their chosen gender to get respect- and will simultaneously be punished for doing so and accused of misogyny. Trans people are both failed women and failed men, both and neither and whatever will be most easily wielded against them.

And this all goes for nonbinary and intersex people who have their own unique ways in which those aspects are experienced.

You don't have to push down one group, dismiss and invalidate their struggles in order to speak about and uplift another group. You can talk about the things transwomen deal with without dismissing what transmascs face (and the reverse, but this is in direct response to a series of people doing the first.)

[boy-above]

here's my new sona! its pronouns are it/he :3

[marshmellowtea]

happy pride specifically to trans people who don't want hrt or any surgeries and are perfectly happy with the body they have. to the trans men who enjoy presenting femininely and the trans women who enjoy presenting masculinely and the nonbinary people who enjoy presenting as their assigned gender at birth, even if that means we're largely perceived as "cis". maybe this june we'll finally be acknowledged and people will stop treating us as hypotheticals.

[orcelito]

I just can't get over how pretty some of these page compositions are

[youngpettyqueen]

thinking about trans Julian again specifically thinking about the idea of Julian being trans but electing to not undergo any gender-affirming surgeries

like I was thinking about this the other day in the context of his line about him and Kira being the only other options for a womb when he had to transplant the baby from Keiko, because the implication that Julian has a womb also implies he's elected out of having a hysterectomy for gender-affirming purposes. I say that because we know gender-affirming surgeries- at least the more cosmetic ones- are very easy to undergo (see Profit and Lace, where they very quickly and easily turn Quark into a woman (yes I know it wasn't gender-affirming for him but its the easiest episode to use for my point)) so I feel like it wouldnt be a reach to say that a hysterectomy would be a fairly easy procedure to ask for and undergo

which as ive been thinking about it more I think this like. perfectly tracks with Julian as a character, that he would opt out of undergoing gender-affirming procedures. because I think, considering what his parents did to him and how strongly he resents it, that he would steer clear of anything he would view as "changing" himself. honestly so far in the future I think its safe to assume views of transitioning are very different, and I'd like to think that there wouldnt be nearly as much social pressure to physically transition at all, but even if there was I think Julian would be very resistant to the idea that he would "have" to change anything about himself. Julian is very unapologetically himself in every regard, so im pretty confident in saying that that would translate over to his gender identity and asserting that he is a man, and he doesnt need to change anything about himself or his body to be one

[scribbling-dragon]

i do believe. if anything will do me in it shall be. chemistry. terrible beast that it is

[androidboy]

-

[wild-at-mind]

Random trivia re your recent post: "Born in the wrong body" was def a narrative popular in a prior generation (at least in the US). It was popular w trans ppl both bc it accurately described some of their feelings, and bc cis ppl were very receptive to it: "Aw shucks I'm just a normal person who was unlucky enough to be born in the wrong body, and now I'm correcting this mistake with surgery so I can Become Normal" was a framing many cis ppl found plausible and comfortable, and it went hand-in-hand w the medicalization of transness, so it's ironic that nowadays the British press + TERFs are claiming it sounds ridiculous. (Also it's long since fallen out of fashion in the trans community, altho some folks still use it and relate to it, as always happens w older language/concepts)

This makes sense! I'd never tell someone not to use it for themselves. I don't know if UK TERFs are using it, possibly they are but it mainly comes from the right wing tabloid press here (who align with TERFs where its convenient but aren't quite the same thing). Maybe saying it sounds ridiculous was wrong- I think because the press is often talking about children it is meant to scare parents about surgeries and hormones given to children, or something. I've also noticed in reactionary centrists both here and in the US (the people who do 'I support trans people in theory but in practice I am mainly concerned that trans activism has gone too far') there's often a get-out clause where they acknowledge that trans people who have very severe physical dysphoria should be allowed to transition, but if anyone wants to for other or perceived lesser reasons they become very reactionary. It becomes kind of a 'some people are in anguish about their bodies every waking second and if that isn't you then there is no reason to transition, and in fact if you do then it will have Severe Implications for Society.' (ETA- they also of course only approve of a 'full' transition to a binary gender.) To be honest I often struggle with the fact that medicalisation of trans-ness is in some ways reactionary, and shouldn't be compulsory, but it's also the part that is most heavily under attack in UK media, and is an arduous process to obtain through the NHS. So we spend a lot of time talking about it and not so much about social perception of gender.

[goldkirk]

.

[typingatlightspeed]

texas toast at a steakhouse? call that place texas toasthouse

"flesh and blood", even with the bit of sads, is just so cute i could squeal. i love how you write pyro. and engineer. and texas toast.

how you portray engineer's cyborg journey is just like being transgender. at least to me it reads like that. transhuman and transgender both have "trans" in it

Thank you! I really love writing Engie and Pyro! Engie's just fun in general, with the way he talks plus being a mix of a sweetie and scary as fuck, and while I love writing Pyro as the sassy little shit he is, but also there's a that sadness under the surface in the MI version of him, since he's gotta deal with the whole being ancient and forming bonds with mortals thing, plus the whole "people freak out when they see a man made of fire" thing. Makes me wanna just hug the poor guy. Though if I'm honest I need to show him doing his job and loving what he does more. He's not just a softie, that's just one side of him, after all. <3

I adore them as a couple, too. They're a lot less dramatic than the other couples on base, and their problems are a lot chiller but slower and more complicated to work through. Unfortunately that tends to make for less exciting stories, and requires time and discussion to really surmount, hence the series being dotted with little stories that update their lives amid all the crazy shit happening, lol. I like those stories a lot, though. They give me opportunities to really dig into the characters involved (and have helped me flesh out BLU Soldier in fun and unexpected ways too!) and write some very fun dialogue. If you couldn't tell, I love me some dialogue lol

As for Engie's cyborg journey, yeah that tracks. There's a lot of overlap in the vibes of transhumanism and transgenderism, both of them being things that tend to reject the whole "sanctity of the body" thing, and can involve modification of the body to suit the needs of the person inhabiting it. While I'm not expressly trying to evoke a particularly strong transgender vibe with it, the vibes exist and cross over readily, so even without express intent even I see that they're there. I like to imagine the stress it puts on his relationship with Pyro doesn't hurt that, since it's an all-too-common unfortunate thing trans people have to deal with as we change how we present and want to be addressed and sometimes change our bodies, too. Luckily Pyro for all of his reservations is supportive, and is working to understand.

Thanks for the ask, anon! Hope I didn't ramble on too long lol