#but im talking specifically from that perspective because i am trans so its something i can personally speak to)

[doberbutts]

hey so feel free to delete this if its inappropriate/not the right time to share it

i’m a trans woman and (obviously) i can’t get pregnant, but i did get sexually assaulted by some guys trying to show was one of them. and also having an m marker has caused issues with trying to access resources and shit.

idk this isnt the same thing and all but my point is that im standing with u as some random trans woman with vaguely parallel experiences and im sorry to hear its somehow even worse & more likely for some of yall.

I wanr to preface this with a disclaimer, to get things out of the way first.

I am not trying to say that trans women do not experience devastating sexual assaults. They do. Quite often. Though to me, even once is too often. Rape and sexual assault are terrible, awful things. It's horrible that anyone has been made to go through this.

Nor am I trying to say that your M marker doesn't get in the way of things. When it comes to the domestic violence you experience, or the homelessness rates, or a determination of what prison you go to (esp since y'all are more likely to be wrongfully accused and arrested), or the various aspects of your own reproducive healthcare, your agab and gender marker is absolutely used as a weapon against you.

The question was asked for a unique example. Unfortunately, the conversation around reproductive rights is much different for me than it is for you. But it's also much different for me than for cis women and cis men as well. Those without a functional uterus cannot get pregnant. Those who cannot get pregnant are not forcibly married off to be raped until pregnant as a means of detransition and correction. This misogyny we share with cis women.

However an added aspect of that is that if this happens after we've changed our legal documents, an additional layer of transphobia occurs when insurances and doctors see our M or X markers and deny us care out of hand. Now we are stuck with a pregnancy we don't want and constant reminder of what happened to us, or a huge medical bill with devastating financial consequences.

And that's just for those who got out safety- for those who rely on shelters, again the choice becomes detransition for safety at a woman's shelter, or struggle in silence as a man. That, we share with you, though for different reasons.

A unique interection of transphobia and misogyny specifically experienced by trans men was asked for. That is what I provided. Much like how in Crenshaw's essays one could not provide a complete understanding of "because woman" or "because black" because neither would show the full picture of "because black woman", it is not possible to describe this fully as "because trans " or "because man" because the complete "because trans man" must be provided.

I am of the opinion that there is very little "unique" about oppression- mostly that the various points of intersection change its face. In other words, I think trans men share a lot with trans women, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I also think that doesn't disclude something from earning its own name or having its own place to be talked about.

I have hesitated to post those statistics because they can so easily be twisted to say "trans women don't experience these things" or "trans men have it worse". But, a look at the graphs say the first isn't true, it just happens at a statistically less rate. The second, well, I personally don't think it's useful to quantify who has it worse. I once was in that mindset, apologizing to my mentor (an older trans woman) for complaining about my problems because obviously she had it so much worse.

She told me she doesn't like to think about it like that. For her, she would rather be raped than killed. For me, I would rather be killed than raped. Who has it "worse" depends entirely on perspective. Murder and rape are both terrible crimes to be a victim of. Rather than weighing this violence in a scale, more effort should be put into stopping it from happening in the first place. I think she was very wise. I'm lucky to have known her.

I'm sorry that happened to you. I would like to reach across the table and take your hand, to walk forward into the future together. I think we are stronger when united in this world that hates us. You are my sister. We may fight like siblings, but you're still family.

[royal-they]

when discussing gwens transcoding i feel like people dont talk about how her being spider women is literally viewed as politics from the start.

people talk about her and the validity of her actions and choices in front of her even before peters death. her dad specifically questions how she dresses. why she need to hide behind a mask. the spider suit was made to hide the identity of the wearer yes but for gwen stacys spider woman thats always been different, even in the comics.

presenting the way she does keeps her safe when she’s gwen stacy but it also represents the choices she makes. her work as spider woman. its her badge. this line is something that always stuck with me in the comics and i love that they didn’t change it in the movie. her suit and mask are not hiding who she is, theyre an extension of it.

being trans makes how you present yourself very complicated at least in my experience. youre constantly worried around new people and strangers, do they think i look like a boy or a girl? am i passing? if im not passing am i safe? its really complicated, passing doesnt make you more or less valid but a lot of society views it that way and how people see you can change how safe you are. these things are nuanced is what im saying and i like how gwen is allowed to do what feels right for her regardless of what others think.

another point is how shes met with violence when she first essentially “comes out” as spider woman. even though its a loved one, her dad doesnt take it well. because of his duty to society he feels he cant accept her as spider woman.

so she has to run away from home. live with the people who do make her feel at home, her own band as she puts it. and only then, when she’s is able to stand on her own does she face her dad.

they both needed time. to work on themselves. and something important is that he stops being a cop. stops this duty he feels he owes to society to get rid of spider woman to protect their children.

only when he takes time to truly understand her perspective and actions is he able to accept her.

as trans people our identities are constantly considered something cis people and the government get to determine. but with spiderverse we see gwens story as being portrayed as a villian by society. we see it from her perspective. not her dads perspective. not miles, an outsiders perspective who has to come and fix everything. her own perspective. and in the end she doesnt want society to accept her. she just needs her dad. her loved ones. because shes never given a damn about outsiders, there’s never a focus on how some random j jonah jameson feels about her. they instead focus on her dad. because he is who hurts her. and for me at least that’s very relatable.

spider man in general is a very trans subject because society hates him and he has to disguise himself to stay safe. but gwen stacy as ghost spider or spider woman really stands out to me. because it feels so much more personal to get to spectate her life. she’s so real, so human. and that is essence of what makes a spidey.

[our-alterous-experience]

so i just recently discovered alterous attraction and it felt right to me. i have so far identified as panromantic demisexual, and i was just curious how you thought that fit in with my current orientation.

i know its totally individualized, i am just curious to hear someone else's thoughts on the matter, since i cant talk to the people in my life abt it right now.

Well!!!! Depends on how you feel. As you said, it’s individualized so I can throw out some interpretations !!

So I came out as pansexual as a child and always thought I was ace. I flirted with calling it panromantic but never committed. Because I’m aromantic, bc i’m aplatonic, I find it fitting to call myself panalterous. Bc while I am still aspec what’s more important than my romance or sex take or whatever is how i feel alterously. That being said, you don’t need a direct “name” to fit in conjunction with all the other labels and identity. While some people are Romantics and others feel they are that way about Platonic ideals; the same applies to being alterous. I think sunfriend is my favorite alterous term I ever heard but that’s more hyper specific terminology than helpful thing.

For me, I’m also trans, i’m also queer, i’m also aspec, im also arospec.

I don’t think it’s productive all the time to go hello im Vexerin from genderfluid butch transmasc transsexual neopronouner pansexual aplatonic aspec aceflux aromantic alterous land.

Because honestly! It’s much easier to say Hello, I’m Vexerin, I’m panalterous, I’m 20, I’m aromantic and aplatonic. (Within, the context of someone asking me what the fuck i am for the first time at least)

Which is not to say I dislike any of the identities I identify with, it has given me so much freedom to accept these many facets and factors of my life. But for strangers and people who don’t really Know everything about you or even your sexualities, I would recommend just verbalizing “the hits”. The pieces that impact you the most/ are most relevant. For me that’s a lot of my A-spec identities. For me it’s important that I tell a new online friend I’m aplatonic. Is it important for you to tell someone you’re alterous? Are you itching to tell someone?

When I first started introducing myself as alterous in new spaces there was eventually questions and sit downs and I explained my experience and point of view. With new people I was explaining myself for the first time. It was remarkable I got to set expectations in my own way in my own relationships. So the default wasn’t automatically the society standard. I mean it was but it was changed, and that changed me. I will have this conversation over and over again. Like the classic saying, you never stop coming out.

So my perspective is, what do you want to introduce yourself with? Do you want to mention you’re alterous? I think it’s okay to, I think it’s also okay not to. Or it could be something you don’t mention when first talking about your sexuality but you make sure to mention it the second time. or maybe you only mention it when it becomes relevant, you feel alterous or you remember an alterous moment and you bring it up.

There are many different ways to try to go about this. Which one is the best for you? Or rather, which would you want to try out first?

[occultruby]

i did this a while ago but heres my imscared white face gender transing theory diagram. putting explanation under the cut for... courtesy? the amount ive thought about this is kind of embarrassing

ok first off i think wf is genderless because its not human or even corporeal, its just a terrible little computer curse. if anything i honestly think its more aligned with the feminine. idk its weird to me that most people gender wf as a man when ivan zanotti (hello sir if youre reading this im sorry) at least from the perspective of an english speaker, has pretty much done everything to avoid gendering wf at all (only ever having used “it” pronouns for wf! hello!), besides the only other appearances of humanoid forms (also wf) being coded as women/images of womanhood/concept of womanhood/whatever

down to business. maybe it isnt as specific as this but a potential idea is the entity being made and intended to be female or at least read as female. since it clearly is sentient and keeping in line with the knowledge that wf is not human and isnt the ghost of the deceased, i dont think its hard to believe wf would not only not understand gender, but also feel constrained by it. if the question is “why would it give a shit” my answer is 1. throughout the game its pretty clear that wf doesnt like being constrained, literally or metaphorically and 2. the same reason any actual person would feel trapped and uncomfortable with their assigned gender or any gender. it comes with expectations for how you should act, look, talk, where you should go, and what you should do there.

the sketch labeled “original” isnt really literal, more of an idea of “someone made a computer virus and its a girl i guess”. HER i think is what white face perceives itself to be, and therefore becomes, as its world is essentially made of its own imagination

everything about HER screams “caricature of womanhood” just straight up This Is How Dysphoria Makes You Think You Look. her huge [REDACTED] and hips/thighs, cinched waist, exaggerated limp wrist, and absurdly long hair. her name is literally “HER”. HER is white faces experience of feeling “this is all i am”, an embodiment of unwanted expectations.

what in general we know to be “white face” is the same entity, named for its appearance as a floating head. i read this as wf hiding its body (something that could be done by editing its own code to make it invisible) but i visually represent it as a black cloak. i also thought a neat but kind of odd idea would be wrapping itself up in its own long dark hair?

on the events of the game. the important part lies in the transition from the first part into BURY HER, in which wf changes into HER, making its body visible and adopting somewhat different behaviors (which seem to communicate a more depressed demeanor and an instinct to self isolate/hide). wf if pretty clear with the player that it makes this change to keep the players interest. personally i have known other trans people who, despite knowing they were trans and going through some levels of social transition, will go back to performing their assigned gender in an attempt to please someone whose approval they desire. and like in real life, wfs practice isnt sustainable. wfs monologue before shooting HER has SO much to dig into. of course it established that it made this change for You. but then, the rain turns to blood as it bitterly remarks that it hates what it became (knowing that wf feels like the mask of HER takes the players interest away from itself, meaning that even if HER and wf are the same entity, wf does not identify as HER. in the end its just an act to impress you). the part that gets me the most about the grave level is that she specifically tells You to “bury [HER] in front of [HER] birthplace”. she was already dead and buried. wf dug her up for You. even though You are the one playing the game, wf is the one seen with the gun. in the end, it was about wf once again burying this past version of itself that it cannot stand any longer.

i dont think it hits as hard as the main events of BURY HER, but im going to come back around to the concept of all figures in the game being coded as women. in the labyrinth we see the various portions of womens bodies (which some people use to theorize that wf is a serial killer but this is nothing to me because. it wasnt a human person lol) that lead into/are portals to a “dark world” (the whole thing with having to reconstruct shards of a broken mirror also kind of screams dysphoria, the whole dress thing! idek how to put this into words im just feeling it), the portrait of a girl in the house (maybe an “original vision” for what wf was intended to be? wfs one source for what a “woman” is?). you could argue that the weird little things with the long arms when youre trying to break the gramophones arent female but 1. literally whatever and 2. theyre essentially extensions of HER made to be mini jumpscares and 3. i think they parallel the “you shouldnt be here” area where HER is seen hanging from the sky by weird distended limbs.

we know wf is entirely unreliable and likely s completely lying on occasion. but i think lies, especially in a game like this, can be dissected to discover something truthful in the narrative. something so specific is the story wf tells about having a brother that it had horrible thoughts about getting hurt in an appliance store, only to reveal that it never had a brother. this is in one of the more vulnerable text files in the game. im gonna go on a limb here and say the story isnt literal, but also does hold significance. no one is reading at this point and its 2:30 so im going to word this more abstractly because thinking is getting harder and i have a 9am class. brother/not real brother is about an imagined person, who wf wants to be or how it perceives itself to be. like it is metaphorically the brother that it doesnt have because it WANTS to be that. honestly if you wanted to you could argue this point works towards the idea that wf is a trans man because of the idea that it wants to be a man but doesnt perceive itself to be a real man so it tells the story of a brother it does/doesnt/is/isnt/wants to be. the whole thing about being injured in the appliance store probably means something about the fragility of the concept or identity or whateverless complicated idea came to me like two paragraphs ago. and its that imscared is about coping with the loss of a sibling by trying to recreate their identity as a program but that its inherently impossible (program saying “i never had a brother” because the brother MADE u to be his sibling but you ARENT because you are just a little game file) but like i got too invested in white face transgender ANYWAYS SO IMSCARED IS OFFICIALLY ABOUT GENDER DYSPHORIAAAAAAA

[lunasaturnine]

Vienna and cultural trauma

WOW so cool to sign into tumblr and see 99+ notifications, and think “oh a post got some attention,” but it’s actually just general attention!

My astro blog is ready for some action! Or maybe ppl are just bored bc of the quarantine. Either way, it would be cool to write.

I want to write about VIENNA.

I just took a course about somatic healing of trauma and it gave me a good overview of how trauma recovery works. Chapter 1 of trauma recovery is gathering resources. Chapter 2 is dipping or oscillating back into the memory, whether it’s a clear memory or just something held hidden in your body, with your new resources, and allowing circles to complete. Chapter 3 is being bigger bigger brighter in the world !!! (It’s a nice course, it’s on somatopia.com, it costs $40 if you have that to throw around, it’s like 2 hours of videos of a nice man talking in a soothing voice in intelligent language about healing from trauma)

Now I’m thinking about cultural trauma and Vienna. I have long felt that helping to heal the Hitler wound of Vienna is one of my soul’s major dharmic thrusts. So I googled “healing cultural trauma” and most resources out there talk about the trauma of the victim culture. That kind of trauma is totally different, because it recommends amplifying the traditions and greatnesses of the culture, and when you’re a cultural perpetrator of violence, amplifying the greatness of your culture is a trigger because cultural superiority is what lead your culture to be violent. But there are still a lot of resources with a lot of valuable information. I’ve only skimmed a couple things so far and it seems like one thing people emphasize in cultural healing is human connectedness.

The internet is a little hard to navigate on this topic, but I found an NYT editorial called “I loved my grandmother but she was a Nazi.” The author’s sweet grandma was literally a Nazi but she was a nice person who didn’t hate Jews. When the author talked to her about it, she would deflect. “He said a lot of things, I didn’t listen to them all” and “I was caught up in my own life” etc. The author says, that’s bullshit, there’s something she’s avoiding, and I can’t understand what it is or why she’s doing it, and I’m hesitant to say this because it might seem like I’m trying to forgive Naziism but I’m really just trying to understand who I look at when I look at my grandmother. It’s the most direct address of the West’s Nazi wound that I’ve found in my two and a half minutes of searching on google and I think it’s on the nose.

In the readmore are my more concrete thoughts on potential resources for Western/German/Viennese healing, and thoughts about what working through phase 2 would look like for a perpetrator culture.

Resources

On this reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/5nfqwp/my_grandmother_grew_up_in_nazi_germany/

there are some resources. First of all, 1. there are people from diverse backgrounds respective to WWII, coming together and talking as equals in the same kind of “room.” The descendants of the persecuted and the persecutors are together and they are not enemies. The knowledge, and SOMATIC FEELING EXPERIENCE, of that, can be  a resource. I am typing over this brusquely and that’s Mercury magic for you and you should know that I just burst into sobs. That in just a couple of generations, the grandsons and daughters of enemies can be together and not hate each other and even love each other is an immense resource and can be leaned into at any point. There is a vast well of cultural relief available here. My tears are thankful, grateful tears, tears of relief. I am thinking of the parks in vienna that are holocaust memorial parks. I am thinking of that horrible statue out in front of the Albertina that is a memorial to cultural violence but at the same time, also represents the trapped soul of the Perpetrator culture, since we are all One. In the same way that a piece of music which opens with a terrifying chord represents both the terror experienced by the terrorized, and the menace of the terrorizer, AND THE FEELINGS IN THE terrorizer that caused them to generate this chord... off on a tangent, and I’m not sobbing anymore! That was crazy. I have a tendency to lock my feelings up, but being alone in this house and in this quarantine, I can open up locked wells of feeling like that.

That resource is IMMENSE, and it’s RIGHT in front of our faces all the time. I took a class on 20th century germany in undergrad, and the professor was a young guy with a Nazi grandfather, well I’m not sure if he was a Nazi but he was a German soldier, and he remarked on it. And I think at the time I thought “how lovely” but if you sit with that feeling, it’s deep as hell. And if you sit with it from the perspective of a penitent perpetrator, it’s REALLY FUCKING DEEP.

So that’s available. Im gonna post this real quick as a way of saving the draft but I have more ideas.

Okay. Continuing,

Resource 2 also from reddit post

The top respondent says his German POW uncle had a British GF. That’s similar to the first resource, but more immediate. I’m sure there are lots of stories like that. Intercultural experience that nullifies certain tensions

Resource 3 also from reddit post

The stories of people who did do the right thing... maybe. I dont know. I’ll get off this post soon but it’s interesting. Idk if this counts as a resource, it’s kind of a tangent, but the more I learn about karma and trans-life inheritance of it, the more it seems true that it really is better to die living in line with your beliefs than to live safely. Like the person in Pweuy’s post. That father died but his karma was pristine as far as this was concerned and perpetrator trauma did not cling to him.

ok jesus this is an interesting post... the girl skipping over the river of blood as it trickled out of the asylum... the hitler youth boy befriending a lamb and the nazis slaughtering it in front of him... the russian soldier who guarded the german girl because she reminded him of her daughter...

Okay. Before I go on, I want to clarify that I am not specifically talking about people who held Nazi beliefs in their core. There is a special type of perpetrator injury that is specific to that kind of thing, true villains and terrorists. I’m talking more about “ordinary Germans” who didn’t think very hard and got swept along, moderate supporters to moderate resisters. As a culture, they were moved by the tides into Naziism. They have culpability, but not the exact same kind of culpability as perpetrator people. The culture moved to perpetrate these crimes, and they were a part of that culture. That’s the specific kind of wound I’m interested in healing. There is a poster on that page whose grandma really loved Hitler...

Ok! I spent a lot of my energy in that page, now its 10PM and I still have veggies to prepare. I need energy for this next thing I was going to talk about.

Resource 4 - this one specific coffee shop

I’m putting *s in its name because I like this blog anonymous. P*****n is a coffee shop in Vienna that is the only happy place I went. There were places that were ok... and fine... maybe pleasant... but this place was American levels of happy. Waiters danced around and were actually relaxed and happy. P*****n’s theme is intergenerational communication. It hires grandmothers to work behind the counter, and make pies, and you’re supposed to buy a slice of their pie and talk to them a bit. And then the waiters are young, and they communicate with the Omas. And the Omas are maybe not old enough to have been Nazis but their parents were.

They also include a bit in all their menus about intergenerational dialogue and wondering what more they can do and how they can be more of a space for it.

I had MANY genuinely pleasant little experiences there... and I think that little space that some person with a vision made, is a blossoming flowerpot with lots of healing energy where true dialogue could happen. So that could be a resource too. The happiness of that place. In fact, these conversations could happen there.

But I wouldn’t want to break the space. The course I just took talked about titration, which is just accessing a TINY part of the traumatic memory, so you don’t get overwhelmed. This is a very icy fucked up conversation for a lot of people. My Viennese friend told me to talk more quietly about it than I was. Actually I did talk about it there with some people! The German girl was surprised that I thought Vienna had a wound. So was the Irish girl actually. For other people it’s really evident. My Viennese friend. D**n. Rf: “it’s ALL I feel when I am there.” ME. God that conversation was sooo gentle and sweet and light. The Irish girl was wondering if she should move to Vienna or stay in Barcelona, and the three of us talked about Vienna nd it was SOOOOO LOVELY, holy BALLS.

But even if we don’t hold conversations there exactly, that could be a really good place for conversation to start. I could reach out to the people who run the shop to ask them about it. And then maybe conversations could happen in other places (don’t want to spoil the sweetness of the shop).

Resource 5 - personal as I investigate maybe not really a resource - but yes maybe it is a resource: Grounded, comfortable people who are Viennese, and who understand the goals and also understand the sensitivities of Viennese people more than I do; 

Resource 6 - people who are experts at cultural healing in victim cultures

Resource 7 - fostering dialogue between those two parties, also me.

Again I’m really playing fast and loose with the idea of resources. Maybe. We’re starting to move into phase 2, also, because with this dialogue, I want to open up some scripts for how to TITRATE sensitively.

phase 2

For instance, notice that I didn’t say something like “Remembering Vienna’s amazing heritage of incredible music that has the power to redeem and heal equal to and more accessibly than religions.” I think it’s true that Viennese music is a major healing resource (BEETHOVENSCHUBERTMOZARSKLTBSLJRTHBLEWSKJNS:OFDFD), but since it is bound up in Viennese identity, that notion is complex. Also, it’s not only that Viennese identity is nasty because it’s nazi and therefore that gives Schubert etc a dark tint, but also, the grand things that Vienna has contributed to western culture are now a part of Vienna’s current wound of degradation, cheapification, and humiliation by TOURISM. although I will say that I think Resource 8 should be MY OWN deep internalization of the healing power of Viennese music. Posting again to save...

...not only does that music help me be healed, but it also helps me understand healing process in the specific language of the culture i’m interested in

okay.  Phase 2. 

A picture of what I think sorta needs to happen

I think Omas that say “It was just a lot of talk, we ignored it” and “I was busy in my life”... I think what needs to happen for a perp culture is for them to actually own their part in the villainy, to claim it and stand in it and feel the pain, and say “I’m SORRY, this was HORRIBLE, I AM SORRY.” THIS WILL ALLOW THEM TO BECOME NEW!!!!!!!

That’s a v different healing process from like native american healing etc.

I really think somatic approach is a better road in than cognitive because, god, imagine cognizing all of this HORRIBLE SIN bit by bit knowing your culture perpetrated it and not having anyone to blame it on. Jesus.

How might the process of getting there look?

This is vague especially now that I don’t have that burst of energy. Conversations...

Here’s a question. After resource gathering.

“Knowing that bells rang for Hitler in Vienna, how does it feel to be Viennese?” IN YOUR BODY?

Damn THAT’S GOOD! THAT’S THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION. How does it feel to be Viennese? The goal is for it to feel OK.

Um, speaking specifically about Wiener trauma and their welcoming of Hitler, a few years ago, I read this in some guidebook, Vienna’s government acknowledged that they welcomed Hitler and that they were wrong, and investigating that is important for my mission. It’s cool because 1. it’s a Big Ol Step and 2. it lays groundwork for all of this.

Step 3 is really beautiful to think about. In the course I took, it’s where the instructor got out of his soothing calm neutral demeanor and started speaking passionately and bursting with smiles.

In addition to being able to be more firmly grounded in their own individual and cultural identities...

Okay, so, I’m drawn to this because I’m drawn to it, punkt. That’s all. But also, and I think I’m really late on the uptake here, I think I was due in Vienna many years ago, I think that whatever work I do in Vienna is helpful for the echoes of Naziism in today’s world, such as Trumpism (which does not...exactly... have the same kinds of premises but uses a lot of the same kinds of mecahnisms) and actual brazen nationalism, white supremicism, and far right movements. Hitler is a LOUD and REVERBERANT figure in our history for this kind of energy, and if we can do healing surrounding him, re-discovering resilience in the moderates, helping them go through the emotional journey they need to go through, they will be a beautiful resonant horn call from the past, a solid core of NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that will strengthen the culture of the entire FUCKING world.

Music will be a part of it.

I have always loved Vienna, and I can’t really analyze it. I love it like a girlfriend. I know she’s problematic. And she can be really really horrible.

The wound is deep. The horribleness, the life negating quality not only of the FUCKING WRETCHED SHOP CLERKS, but also of the WAY -- THINGS -- HAPPEN, of the overall weird ass SPIRIT in Vienna, is... God DAMN WHY do I like that city so much? It’s bizarre. It’s very pervasive. I don’t enjoy experiencing it, I don’t think it’s attractive, I don’t like it. I love Vienna THROUGH that wound. I REALLY LOVE Vienna. That’s one of the clearest things that I know in my heart. I love Vienna... and that’s the whole story. It’s one of the easiest things for me to say.

Lots of people love a city. We do it for reasons. I think our hearts are drawn where they are drawn because we are attracted to healing the specific karmas of places. The karma of my hometown is mainly racial, with native american underneath. The coffee shop that is equivalent to P*****n serves often as a place of racial conversation and healing. It is actually pretty amazing. And once there was a white supremacist with a gun there and he stood up on a table and let people see his gun. He didn’t yell or anything. But that vital thing happened there in that coffee shop.

Excuse me I also love coffee shops and Vienna is the land of coffee shops.

Okay. I love Vienna! I literally love Vienna, with my heart. I love Vienna.

One last thing. I’m saving then editing...

The postscript: A major resource, and it kinda sidesteps some things, is language. It will be much better if German is spoken in these conversations. When I went to Vienna last, I didn’t prepare my German because when I went to Vienna first, everyone spoke English and it was simply easier to speak English all the time, so I figured I wouldn’t try to give the illusion and disappoint. But lo... the native people really, really resent it if you don’t even try to speak German. They actually seem to experience it as an injury. It is wild, if you’re not expecting it.

ALL OVER VIENNA I saw the Graffiti stamp/brand, “Tourism is terrorism.” 

When I was in the airport and the cute customs dudes asked me the purpose of my visit, I said “TOURISM” and they laughed. That was fun. But it was a lie. I was a pilgrim. I... know I was a tourist, technically. But I felt such hatred for the tourists standing like apes in front of the Schubert statue in the Stadtpark. Their wretched selfie smiles plastered on top of the emptiness of their experience. My purpose in Vienna had nothing in common with theirs. And I claim that I didn’t do a lot of the tourist things - not many museums or concerts or whatever.

One of my more pleasant memories was going into a used book shop and asking about a book in the window, a German-language edition of the tao te ching from 1923 (a very strange time). I asked in English. The clerk was confused and asked if I spoke German, and I answered in German that I spoke some German, but was learning, and knew the TTC very well, and that it’s simply usually easier to speak in English. I might have used imperfect German, but I felt dignified and natural doing it.

Ok, not only the German language, but the quiet Viennese demeanor of Scorpiness. Scorpscorpscorpscorp. Quiet, observant, emotional, and responsive to gentle tenderness and consideration, and traumatized by brashness. 

Both the spoken language, and the language of the demeanor, I think are somatic approaches that sidestep cognitive...things and make the culture feel unconsciously accepted and open.

On my first trip I learned howwwwww AMERICAN I was, and then on my second trip I opened myself up to my inner Wiener and was quiet and scorpy, and I felt warmth emerge from the people and city in response. It felt really right, and it felt like i was honoring...her, and it felt um sort of romantic. ha 

[radiqueer]

1/3 You're still wrong on this. 1. The problem with "lesbians shouldn't feel bad for not liking men, so stop pointing out transmisogyny" is the equation of trans women w/ men, not the assertion that lesbians don't have to be w/ men. It's important to make that distinction. Casting suspicion on lesbians' asserting their orientation in the name of trans women doesn't help trans women (it concedes that trans women=men) + demonizes (cis&trans) lesbians' boundaries/sexuality. 2. "Sexuality is fluid"

2/3 as a universal statement is biphobic AND homophobic, & in general can be used to push ppl's boundaries: it's all those things at once. Everybody, at times, criticizes something from one angle without systematically exploring all issues; OP has the right to talk about the homophobic implications. 3. A post about "lesbians" doesn't specifically exclude trans ppl. I don't see anything in that post that can't be true for trans/nb lesbians. (OP is an nb lesbian, not cis.) It's not wrong for a

3/3 lesbian to not want to date nbs who don't also have some affliation w/ womanhood or lesbianism, or to decline to date someone they learn isn't a woman. 4. You're wrong about the development of these discourses. You're considering this primarily from the view of intra-LGBTQ dynamics (and a certain angle of those dynamics) & therefore are missing a lot of the picture/history. TL;DR: "some lesbians use this as an excuse too..." isn't an excuse to invalidate lesbian sexuality.

with reference to this post and this post

i think you should learn reading and critical thinking, in that order. but lets take this apart

The problem with "lesbians shouldn't feel bad for not liking men, so stop pointing out transmisogyny" is the equation of trans women w/ men, not the assertion that lesbians don't have to be w/ men.

yeah this is true and ive never said it wasnt

Casting suspicion on lesbians' asserting their orientation in the name of trans women doesn't help trans women (it concedes that trans women=men) + demonizes (cis&trans) lesbians' boundaries/sexuality.

i am not “casting suspicion” on lesbian sexuality. i don’t want lesbians to date/fuck men if they don’t want to. i am looking at these assertions of lesbian sexuality in the context of this site and the lesbian spaces on it rife with terfs&terf rhetoric. i am suspicious because i know already that there’s a staggering amount of radfem talk that goes unchecked and i have every right to be suspicious, because that screenshot was taken from a terf’s blog. that’s not a neutral observation lmao

criticizes something from one angle without systematically exploring all issues;

i am going to be suspicious lmao when bi&ace people analyse the world from a specifically bi/ace perspective we’re lambasted for not accounting for lg people/monosexuals......but when LG people analyse from their perspective they have often used to to completely dismiss and denigrate our sexualities. things exist in context and you cannot remove LG people refusing to even acknowledge the existence of bi, ace, trans, and nb people from the context of our continued erasure and demonization in queer/lgbtq spaces, by those same LG people. 

A post about "lesbians" doesn't specifically exclude trans ppl. I don't see anything in that post that can't be true for trans/nb lesbians.

really?? because i can see SO many things that need to be acknowledged because the experiences of trans lesbians differ noticeably from the experiences of cis and nb lesbians. arguably op is trying to speak from their own perspective but the fact that they failed completely to mention trans lesbians at all while making a post containing word-for-word talking points that terfs use to exclude trans women is SO fucking suspicious and again, im sure op does include trans women, but at best it’s eyeroll worthy at best that they didn’t see fit to include trans women in the body of the post the first time they made it......a grossly transparent oversight.

It's not wrong for a lesbian to not want to date nbs who don't also have some affliation w/ womanhood or lesbianism, or to decline to date someone they learn isn't a woman

never argued this at all lol

You're wrong about the development of these discourses. You're considering this primarily from the view of intra-LGBTQ dynamics

posting a take on a website full of lgbtq people inherently means that it’s going to be read in that context. however, i do understand what ur saying: that this is something straight people also use. but op was so eager to post the take they failed to contextualise it like that, which means that terfs were able to reblog it with no dissonance. the fact that terfs were easily able to co-opt that post and everything it said to be anti-queer, anti-trans, and anti-bisexual is not a neutral fact at all

"some lesbians use this as an excuse too..." isn't an excuse to invalidate lesbian sexuality.

if you’re making a statement which has been used by violent groups to target vulnerable members of your community then you have a basic responsibility to acknowledge said vulnerable members, and explicitly exclude the violent groups. i should not have to say this because it’s very basic and you only need one brain cell to understand that. 

TL;DR: “lesbian sexuality does not include men” is a neutral position on its own but must be contextualised properly to not come across as bigoted because it has been co-opted by violent groups to enact violence. if you go an entire post about lesbian sexuality not being fluid without so much as noting in passing that trans and nb lesbians exist, that it is a biphobic talking point, and that there is more to statements like “sexuality is fluid” than the homophobic and biphobic aspect of it.............that’s not a good look and not fucking neutral

[tumblunni]

HEYO! oh man now my friend helped me get all inspired again for working on my Cathedral Tower Defense game so WOO lets have another long post of miscellaneous ideasies for storyness! may not be very coherant tho cos i am super tired and ill! but happy!! THANKS SUMMON-DAZE FOR BEING MY ULTRA BESTIE

* Okay now I am super sure that I’m gonna let you choose the gender of the protagonist! And I wanna keep it so that their name is Amity either way, cos that’s kinda stuck in my mind. Surname Amity, player gets to decide the first name, but people will still be calling you Amity a lot at first cos you start off all awkward and formal with everybody. You’re a newcomer to this cathedral town and nobody knows whether to trust you, from their perspective you’re this dangerous person theyre forced to accept just because they need you to help protect them, whether you’re good or bad. They’re all worried what price they might have to pay for this, trying to figure out how to minimize the damage if you turn on them... and its not like they’re bad people for being untrustworthy, they’re just scared people huddling in a church and trying to keep their families safe at any cost. So try and prove your worth to them, and help them learn to protect themselves too, and make this ramshackle settlement into a real home! ....anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, gender selection is a good! And it could be relatively easy to impliment too, cos of the situation. Doesnt even necessarily have to be a menu or anything, it could just be like sir amity/lady amity/master amity. Cos you’re this paladin knighto, itd make sense for them to ask for your title. And it could just be like a shot of protagonist’s badass silhouette in the gateway of the cathedral and then you get the dialogue choice to pick your identity, and its all Super Cool~!

* It also actually gives me more of an idea of what i could do for their design, like I dunno maybe they have some sort of face-concealing helm or headdress or something. I was just thinking of them being dressed like a generic nun or princess but maybe emphasize more on the knight aspect instead of the holy part? So like anyway, maybe they have a very all-concealing outfit and that could be the framing of the first scene instead, its like *pulls off the mask and you’re into the character selection screen* Orrrrrr maybe there doesnt need to be any magical setup for a gender selection and it can just be a menu before the first scene starts XD Or maybe you have a cool face-concealing helmet thing anyway, like all three gender options just have a different one, lol

* More random magical names i got via the cool name generator site summon-daze linked to me! Dunno if I’ll actually use any of these but im writing them down here so i dont forget. Berebath, Betnia, Amurziz, Jetre, Miemahl, Semdach, Batxahl, Sidefarch, Botolohn, Vausach, Thammoch, Droibhal, Lekonach, Zeidhal, Tieloch, Rabrohm, Maesur, Smoiroch, Baelbuhr, Axoth, Jige, Chushou, Hukru, Nejeget, Roucu,  Jinah, Aujus, Yekoth, Nugresah, Israfel, Jabriel, Tabris, Douma

* Also I’m remembering Jade Cocoon and how I liked that the different ‘families’ of monsters shared naming traits. Like how all those weird snake/slug cutiepies that i loved best were nushab, rashab, etc etc. And tamatoch and somethingtoch and so on. I think there was at least one where the modifier was a prefix too? I dunno why i’m talking about this, but there you go. I just think if i wanna do full original made up names for demon species then i wanna make em stuff that just... feels like that. I dont actually wanna make like five different elements of each one tho, i wanna have only one per element and then they have like two different higher level finalized forms. Like, the human characters can have two job classes each and the demons can have two specializations within an element. That helps me think about how to limit it down to four or five elements, if we can combine common fantasy elements together! And yeah I was thinking it’d be cool if the demon ‘job classes’ could have their own evolving appearances and new names!

* Thoughts for the ol elemental groupings! The only one I really have finalized is grass + poison = same thing. Florin, why u always the character that gets developed faster than everyone else XD And I’m thinking giving them their own made up names would make it easier! Like how in SMT you have spells being stuff like ‘media’ and ‘agi’ instead of cure and fire. But here (hopefully) it’d be easier to memorize cos its just the element names that’re fantasy words, and the attacks themselves would be a little more self explanatory. i just think it’d work cos like... the idea i had of rock and fire being one single demon type, you could just call that magma. But i mean, what can you call plant + poison? Except.. like.. plant. Cos poison is reasonably often a grass type skill anyway. And i mean, game creators dont often worry about making sense, what with how ‘grass’ is the common element name when thats just one plant in a million. I cant stop thinking about that now I’ve noticed it! I legit thought grass was a synonym for plant when i was a kid, i learned to read from pokemon yellow... ANYWAY IM GETTING OFFTOPIC AGAIN The other idea I had for groupings was fire + non-elemental together? I was just thinking like... aura. Non elemental/physical attack as a ‘magic’ could be fighting spirit! And thematically speaking it tends to be shown as fire effects in anime, i guess XD But then i couldnt put fire with rock and that means I’d have to redesign malachi again. his design ended up looking more firey than rocky :P Another idea is maybe darkness + non-elemental together? like, interpret non-elemental as ‘void’. Or light and dark could be together actually, that could be an interesting way to do it, instead of having them opposing. Like maybe the elements could be colours! Grey element, able to specialize into white or black but neither is any sort of ‘good and evil’. And then the rest could be like green or like.. instead of red maybe fire could be bronze and thats why it has rock skills too? or man, maybe rock and metal could be one element and fire could be grouped with something else. And would water and ice be too ordinary and boring? do they already kinda count as one element? should I throw in something else? GAHHHHHHH

* Ideas for the multiple religious groups aligned with each element! I’m thinking I want one of them to interpret the setting’s absent god as two deities. like, every perspective on this deity is a wildly different character, this one is just even more so! they’d see malahat (tentative name) as two people, but kinda more like a shared soul that can manifest as either a male or female form. But there’d be ambiguity and debates in the mythos over whether this is actually a genderfluid god, or if its ‘twins who were cursed to never exist at the same time’, or various other variations on the story. I wanna make it like real life, where even within (for example) catholocism, there’s different sects and different translations of the same text. And where there’s predjudice against minority groups and people like to twist their faith to ‘justify’ it, even when parts of the original tale could easily justify treating those people with kindness too. So there’d be some followers of the twins religion who are very openminded to LGBTQ people, and historically anyone trans was able to hold a unique position as a priest, being treated as someone blessed by god. But like in norse mythology, this wasnt necessarily a sign that society was 100% okay with LGBTQ people. Its kinda depressing to read about how trans women and gay men were considered the only people able to become a specific kind of witches, but also how you kinda HAD to take this one safety net in society to stop people from making you an outcast. It was like ‘make them fear me so they dont fuckin kill me’. You had to become a medicine person and at least claim to believe in these magic powers, you had to be blessed by the gods to prove you were like.. one of the good ones. Otherwise its like youre saying the gods made a mistake when they made you, or youre choosing to be a deviant against nature. i can only imagine how terrifying it must have been if you believed in that religion and had to like.. be forced to go against it and leave society, or be forced to lie about being chosen by a god for a higher purpose, while believing that any moment you might get struck down for lying. And then I read in other history books about how the concept of homosexuality was far different in that old society too, how male-on-male sex was accepted at sea as long as you were the dominant one and you were forcing something unwanted onto a lesser shipmate as punishment. Like ugh, rape being more socially accepted than consensual LGBTQ relationships! I guess the only solace is that we can never be 100% sure how much of historians’s theories are correct and what might have changed in retellings of history, but honestly I can believe the past is this fucked up when the present is already fucked up in different ways. BUT ANYWAY I wanna explore those themes in my story maybe. And I wanna do more research into the subject to make sure I’m doing it justice, even though its a very sad subject that might be quite stressful. Maaaaan, I remember how I used to obsess about researching norse myth as a kid, it was one of my first Special Interests and I really wanted to see all the different reinterpretations of Loki and write my own fanfic/adaptation/vaguely inspired original story about What If He Stayed A Good Guy. Man I had soooo much sympathy for the poor sod. I mean it depends on the retelling whether he was always evil or whether he was like a comedic neutral ally to the gods who just abruptly becomes evil and gets killed off without remorse in the final story. And gahhh he’s like the biggest LGBTQ bastion in the whole mythos, and how can I not feel sympathetic?? When we get all these stories about him being a literal genderfluid shapeshifter and giving birth to half of his children and just like seriously its like The Story Of the One Trans Man In Homophobic Transphobic Valhalla and he was probably meant to seem Bad and Funny and whatever but im gonna sit here and grumpily cling onto the idea that he was deliberately written as trans, or that if these gods actually do exist out there somewhere then Loki would support me. *pout* I just have a lot of good memories of how this was like the first sign of me realizing my own gender, back when I first learned about Loki in school and then devoured every damn history book about the dude. And got in a million internet pissing matches about how innacurate the marvel version was XD Also it sucks that we like to believe that modern times are always 100% more enlightened in every way, yet its modern adaptations that always censor out the bits about him shifting gender identities and getting pregnant once. ... man this has gone offtopic too much, im really tired but seriously its funny how teenage bunni had NO CLUE they were nonbinary, no clue why they got so obsessed researching gender-defying mythological figures and historians who created gender neutral pronouns in the 1800s. i was so supernaturally oblivious, holy shit...

[merrysithmas]

The twitter post on nonbinary gender that you posted....ever since you started specifically posting about nonbinary gender, I've been wanting to ask you its meaning because I had never come across it. But I was scared and embarrassed to ask you cause i thought you'd get mad at me. Sometimes I want to educate myself but then you don't know who to talk to or ask about things. And also thank you because through your blog I am learning so much about gender.

oh thank you!!! thank you so much for sending this and asking. i am always here for questions and thank you for having an open heart and a kind soul. i know sometimes it can be intimidating to learn – and it shouldnt be. we live in a very divided world right now, and i wish people would be more receptive to questions and bridge building.

it is my personal philosophy there is a difference between anger and hate – anger can be channeled into action and example and good. hate makes you have a commonality with all the other evil sectors in this world and i refuse to be a part of it.

as for nonbinary gender – basically this is an umbrella term which means “is not male or female”. nonbinary people are included under the T or “trans” letter in LGBTQ because their assigned sex (AFAB, AMAB assigned female/male at birth) does not align with their gender. however, many nonbinary people do not consider themselves trans and consider themselves simply nonbinary. but many do consider themselves trans. it is up to personal choice.

there are several nonbinary genders: agender (feeling like one does not have a gender at all, genderless), genderfluid (fluid gender which switches to more female or male depending), genderqueer (a catchall term for many of these identities or some combined), nonbinary (feeling neither totally male or female, or feeling both, or feeling both but one more than the other, or feeling a new gender which is male/female combined), Two Spirit (a term specifically for use only for certain people from various indigenous societies/cultures which describes a lauded subset of people who have two genders or a conduit between genders), demigender (feeling partially male or female), etc. the list goes on.

i know a lot of people will scoff at this and think - “oh that isnt REAL” “there are only two genders”. well guess what? it is real. it has been my life for literally as long as i can remember back into childhood. it wasn’t until a few years ago i discovered the term for it, and it wasn’t until last week that i decided i want to use gender neutral pronouns. i remember one day when i was in highschool i asked myself “am i trans??” i remember being so scared i cried for a day and repressed it so hard. i have never aligned or fit in in that way. i remember telling my mom as a kid i wasn’t a boy or a girl. i remember always struggling so hard trying to decide who to be. i remember doing a google search as a kid and reading about Two Spirit people of various indigenous cultures and thinking — my god. it’s “me”. it was the first thing i ever saw that spoke to an understanding of my identity, and i felt such immense comfort i cant even describe it to you.

but now, after coming out to myself and the world i am literally the happiest with myself i have ever been in my entire life. i finally feel like i am not living inside myself, that when people meet me they know exactly who i am because im not hiding it anymore. my whole life i always had this little voice in my head saying “the person they think they are meeting/seeing isnt the whole you and they will never really know you, no one does”. i am “out” to my family and friends who matter and i am so proud of myself. im not afraid of being visible. in fact, i want to promote it.

im a future doctor and i can tell you with 100% certainty there is biological basis for separation of gender and sex. whether it it hormone levels, chromosomal activity, genome structure, brain chemistry, brain physiology and anatomy, or likely an infinitely complex amalgamation of all that and more. but one doesnt have to be a doctor to have credit in saying this: i can tell you, just as me, a nonbinary person - i am real. and i dont want to hide or suffocate anymore. society’s rules and binaries are truly blind. they leave out so, so many people. and we are at a revolution in our culture right now that i hope is going to change that exclusion forever. i hope people will see other people free and realize the strictures and rules they were brought up to live behind arent all that exists.

i always say it like this: if you are cisgender (a person whose gender matches their sex at birth) it is not your job to “understand” a trans or nonbinary person. because you literally cant. you can’t pass judgment on something you literally cannot experience. a cisgendered person’s brain is not built with the chemistry/function of someone who experiences a nonbinary life. there is nothing wrong with that. but the job of a cisgendered person is to say: “i will never understand what that feels like, but i will -believe- it is real because trans and nonbinary people have the dignity of personhood, they are PEOPLE, just like me, and if they tell me this is how their bodies work it must be how it is working inside of them.”

and one more thing - gender identity has nothing to do with gender presentation. which means, a nonbinary person who dresses femme, wears make up and has long hair is just as nonbinary as a masculine presenting nonbinary or androgynous nonbinary person. a cisgendered woman who wears tshirts and baseball hats because that is what makes her comfortable is still a woman. a cisgenderd man who wears makeup is still a man. a trans woman who wears suits is still a woman. a transman who likes makeup is still a man. your gender is in your head, your sex/genitals are in your pants, and your aesthetic preference is just how you hapoen to like to decorate your body.

sexual orientation is separate from all of this, and is simply who you are attracted to. a cisgendered woman can be attracted to women: lesbian, poly, pan, bi. a nonbinary person can be bi, pan, poly too. a transman can also be bi, gay, pan, asexual, etc. a cisgendered man can be hetero or gay.

dysphoria is psychological and physical discomfort with ones sex/genitals/body/body function because it does not align with one’s gender. some trans/nonbinary people experience and many dont! so for instance as a nonbinary person i sometimes get intense dysphoria over my chest (breasts) and menstruation. more often than not i deal with it, sometimes im even proud of it, i am proud of surviving as a female-bodied person in this misogynistic world! im proud of the perspective it gives me on humanity. but if i could get rid of them would i? most days, most likely! ive always wanted to get rid of my breasts, i legit hate them. but some days i can deal. i console myself by saying all genitals are homologous to each other - male and female gentials are essentially the reverse of one another and so the same. they dont dictate who you are. if a woman with cancer gets an oophrectomy does thay make her not a woman anymore? of course not! if a man has his testicles removed is he no longer a man? am i a woman because i have a vagina? nope! gender isn’t one’s body. as a nonbinary pansexual person my identity is pretty firmly in the grey area lol. i consider myself an attractive androgynous. i am proud of who i am and what i look like, even when im not totally content.

i hope some of this helps and i hope you will spread acceptance! sorry this got so long but i wanted to give a real answer. always feel free to ask anything else, weird or not weird, i promise i wont get offended. :)