#but plenty of cis straight people out there hate me because they think I'm an aberration

[musical-chick-13]

Oh, reeeeeeallllly feeling the "forever outside both communities for different reasons" tonight.

[velvetvexations]

"Trans women are women" used to be seen as this radical stance, a stance against the exceedingly popular standrd cis belief of "trans women are men" Now we're expected to believe that whole push was a lie? That "trans women are spicy women" is a belief that transmisogynists have? Transmisogynists?? The ones adamant about misgendering trans women as men? That's been their whole thing in fact...? They believe trans women are women and hate THAT?

They're just lying because it's fun to be mean to women. Such is the true beliefs of TRFs.

I wish I could submit a Patrick's wallet meme to you on anon because I swear every trf argument I see about how trans people are TOTALLY seen as our actual genders by cishet society really does feel like: "Terfs keeps creaming about how much they despise men and manly features, going so far as calling features usually belonging to people AMAB disgusting in great detail be they on women or men, correct?" "Yep." "And they talk in depth about how testosterone is poison and will turn you into a monster, correct?" "Uh-huh." "They speak regularly of how even male infants are evil, and cisgender lesbian separatism is the only way for women to be safe, you've noticed?" "They sure do." "And it's not just terfs either - plenty of transphobic talking heads otherwise all over the political spectrum conceptualize trans people as people 'pretending' to be the 'opposite' gender, as I'm sure you've seen?" "Yeah, I'm real sick of it." "So you understand, then, that much of the idea that trans women are an immediate physical threat to 'real' women and to straight men - the driver of arguably the majority of transmisogynistic violence - is based in misgendering?" "STOP CALLING TRANS WOMEN MEN AND STOP TRYING TO PRETEND MEN ARE OPPRESSED!!!1!!1!1 THEY'RE LYING ABOUT THEIR BELIEFS OR ELSE THEY WOULDN'T HAVE TREATED ME LIKE A FAGGOT BEFORE I CAME OUT, WHICH IS A FATE THAT HAS NEVER BEFALLEN A SINGLE MAN EVER!!!11!11!" ...come to think of it, do you think that last line is part of why so damned many of them are so determined to "crack the egg" of every GNC man or nonbinary person AMAB that they see? To prove that this kind of hatred is ONLY aimed at trans women and that proves their ~essential soul gender~ is real? Because honestly, fucking weak and pathetic.

kinna but that's mostly because they are just genuinely toxic whenever they see a man who could be a woman instead e.g. every crossdressing subculture

it's incredible that 'transphobes don't see trans women as women and they don't see trans men as men' is a controversial take now. what in the fuck is going on

unhealthy validation addiction

fellas, is it transphobic to acknowledge that transphobes are transphobic?

literally

The thing that bothers me the most about trfs is just how online they are, and I don't mean that to say they're harmless - I mean the opposite. I grew up in a VERY isolated neighborhood. I knew all of 2 other queer people in town. There certainly weren't hangouts for us. The nearest largeish city was a 3-hour, $100 round trip away - and that was also the closest other city-town-thing, at all. Going outside to meet queer community was NOT an option for me. What did I have? Why, I had the internet! As an adult I ended up moving to a relatively-nearby city. I also ended up being pretty badly disabled. Now I have access to outside queer gathering places...sort of. When I have the energy to go. Which isn't that often, and sometimes my choices of where to go are further limited because a lot of these things are in historical buildings with ADA exemptions so I can't actually get in the door in my wheelchair; I have to save those ones for the best of days. But the internet is still there for me! And no, offline queer spaces aren't utopian, you can still meet some REAL pieces of work there, the internet didn't INVENT exclusionist discourse - my (later admitted heterosexual!) mother had a whole stint as a political lesbian before the internet existed, so I know that from far too intimate experience - but the behavior there does usually seem to be tempered by 1) seeing as obviously as possible that the person you're talking to is a human being, not a disembodied source of words from the ether or a chatbot or whatever, and 2) being way more likely to get caught and thrown out and have the proprietor side against you if you start a fight. So who does this vile bigoted shit disguised as liberatory feminism affect the most? People who don't HAVE anywhere else to go, regularly or at all. Thanks, I fucking hate it.

Yeah. I'm completely alone out here and it sucks. People who don't have community need it the most.

tw for discussion of misogynistic hate crimes and things of that nature that happens in countries outside the global west it is SO glaringly obvious that the people in this stupid trans discourse are largely privileged and from western countries because they don’t think at ALL about people from other countries the trans woman in the middle east who can leave the country due to being AMAB is, in fact, more privileged than the trans man who can’t leave at all because he was AFAB and needs a man’s permission the trans women who aren’t being sold off as child brides ARE more privileged than the trans men who are forced to marry at age 12 and have children right off the bat like it is not that fucking cut and dry. there are more methods of oppression than transmisogyny and western problems. having privilege is far more complicated than that. and to be honest, i don’t think being ‘tme’ is much of a privilege when you’re the person AFAB who’s been murdered in an honour killing

Yeah, there's always complexity but people are obsessed with a black and white view where there's universally one good group and one bad group. It's why tankies exist. Cannot fathom that the West is bad and also maybe North Korea at the same time.

That - lady's entire blog is just her shitting on the "wrong" type of transgender person. Once again, people in our community are spending all their time infighting an attacking each other as opposed to actually fighting oppression. It's sad.

as ever

The fact that it’s now a cancellable offense to acknowledge that transphobes don’t see us as our actual gender(s) is so ridiculous I don’t even know what to say. I'm so sorry you consistently have people taking you in bad faith. This is one of the worst cases of wilful ignorance I’ve seen in a while. Seriously, I’m just dumbfounded. How the fuck did it get this bad?

this was sent right after I answered the anon mentioning a 'schism' so I'm assuming that's what it's in reference to specifically and dadgum it's more frustrating when it's people who should know better and have taken swings like this at me out of nowhere before

at least I know TRFs are going to TRF but it's exhausting having to deal with "so you're misgendering trans women??? the transandrophobia tag has officially become what it was always said to be!" from people in the same orbit, like disagree with me but can people please disagree with what I actually said before getting people apparently disavowing everyone involved in that thread?

and people have it rough sometimes and go through rough things and I feel for them going through rough things but that's not related to me so I'd appreciate not being swept into whatever other break is happening with other people who, again, aren't me

ppl be saying “to tmes it’s all genderfuck man in dress, until she asks you to respect her pronouns” like! i hate to break it to you but man in a dress isnt automatically a trans woman!!! that’s on you (general) for thinking that!!

they really fucking hate crossdressing men lmao and in fairness queer cis men have a lot of issues with misogyny but their identities are not mockeries of transfemininity and I need people to stop acting like it

ugh i hate that there are constantly posts in the transandrophobia tag that are like "well even though trans women are obviously more opressed and are totally right for hating us for our gender, could we maybe please have a word?? please we PROMISE we know we're evil for our male/afab privilege but just let us discuss our lesser issues a little bit" like omfg they're never gonna pick you

All of those people have me blocked lol.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/730572795212398592/what-is-up-with-all-the-trans-men-on-this-hellsite?source=share

As a trans man, I might have some insight into this one. I'm a lot older than the standard uwu sparkle anti, but I was in my mid twenties for the first wave of weirdness about trans boys on Tumblr about a decade ago, so I was just too old for it then, and I saw a lot of guys my age and a little younger get swept up in it.

OTNF rightly points out that young trans men are a particularily vulnerable demographic. This is part of it, but we're also a demographic that doesn't sit comfortably with our identites (gender identities or otherwise) and are told by everyone (on every side) that we are Doing It Wrong, that our existence harms others, and that we must be this specific way to be good people.

I'm sure you've seen the "trans men are better than real cis men" rhetoric. It's meant to be inclusive and to reassure us that we're not bad people just because of our gender, but it also denies us our entire gender identity.

So basically, you've got a bunch of young guys, most of whom were socialised like girls and learned to never be too assertive, many of whom are straight up suffering from dysphoria and stress, being told by people both within and outside of their communities that the are Wrong and Bad and Harmful just for existing. It makes sense that a lot of them would would find a movement based on moral posturing that will accept them if they perform correctly and will use their real name and pronouns. That's what Antis are; they say "use this vocabulary, send hate mail to that person, put these terms in your DNI, don't be caught reading that story", and, unlike other groups that police people's tastes and performance that hard, they're not overtly hostile to trans identities. So you can spout the right rhetoric, use the right tumblr icon, and they will actually accept you (on the surface, for a time, but we're talking about young and desperate people who aren't looking at the long game).

Helping them harass those badwrong horrible NOTP shippers or aces or middle aged women or some random artist who got caught drawing the wrong age gap or whoever is the fashionable target will prove that you aren't a horrible monster for being a man, you're moral and upright and correct.

And yes a lot of it is internalised misandry (that word has a lot of dumb baggage, but how else can I describe a boy who hates himself for being a boy?), or self-loathing born of dysphoria and just plain having to live in a world that's hostile to trans people.

Being an anti is a way out. It's a way to manufacture acceptence. And they're too young and too hurt to realise that that acceptance is as temporary and hostile as the people who accept them only if they pretend to be girls; the antis will turn on them the moment they start acting a little too manly or if they're caught liking the wrong ship.

(I've seen something similar happen to young cis queer guys and trans girls, too, but it isn't as pronounced since being raised as a boy means you probably already learned that standing up for yourself is ok sometimes)

--

I'm sure it also doesn't help that tumblr is absolutely full of BL/slash fandom. There's certainly plenty of gender diversity in these spaces, but it's inescapable that the majority of participants are women. So for a young, insecure guy trying to assert that he is a guy, it's easy to fall prey to "Waaaah, I need to reclaim my hobby for me!" gatekeepy nonsense.

Sure, it's going to be turned on nbs even harder than on cis women and will be used to misgender other trans men in the end and misogyny isn't cool anyway, but that's not what your average traumatized young fool is thinking when they first join up. They're thinking "I hurt."

TBH, though, probably the largest component is that all of us—all of us—have a mental image of a default human for a given context. It's rarely a trans man. And so anything a trans man does stands out and is A Thing Trans Men Do.

This is true even if you are trans. It is true even if you are not a transphobic dickhead. Unlearning the 'why girls are bad at math' xkcd strip is extraordinarily hard because recognizing patterns and having mental defaults is just how human brains work.

There are shittons of cis women who become antis, but they're just not notable in the same way.

Are trans men more vulnerable to becoming antis? It's possible, and the reasons you outlined above are likely why. I think it's an interesting question to discuss if we are specifically discussing why the trans men who do become antis do so.

But we don't actually have any hard facts to support that they are more prone to it than anybody else. My guess would be that vulnerable people are more likely to become antis, so any cis woman with a strong source of vulnerability like a shittastic home life is similarly vulnerable to a young trans man with no support network, but who knows.

Maybe only 5% of trans men on tumblr are antis and 50% of cis women. Maybe it's 90% of trans men and 20% of cis women. Maybe it's 1% and 1% and they're just all very loud.

We have no data. We just don't know.

And we will never be able to trust our own brains on this until trans vs. cis is such a nonissue that we don't even notice it.

[headfullofpresley]

Thoughts on the whole debate of people writing Elvis as gay/trans when he was straight and cis? I don’t think Elvis would like it, the man was prideful and would probably hate to see his name associated with those works but I also don’t think he would like 97% of the fics written about him on here regardless if it was m/m or not. I think the solution is to just stop over-sexualizing him altogether

hi anonnnn. I missed half of this debate tbvh but I know that there's fics like that out there on this app and possibly other websites. I made a comment on this, talking to a friend in our Discord server, saying what I think about it. I'm guessing that's why people are in my DMs right now, lmao. Anyways, I don't know, I rarely read fanfiction because I'm simply too busy with work and life and I'm a picky reader woops

But that's not the point. It's not about me reading it because I don't. It's about how Elvis is portrayed in lots of these fics and that's also what I said in Discord. And yes, it's fiction, but I do agree with you, nonnie. Though there's absolutely nothing wrong with writing fanfiction, it's an outlet for people and I'm not stopping anyone from writing it. All I've ever done is state my opinion on things and if people want to be so extremely offended by it, then that's not my problem. Like I can scroll past those fics (which I do), people can scroll past my opinion too. It's not about me (or people who agree) not liking these fics, it's how Elvis is portrayed. How he's put in a box/having put a label on him, but if people wrote fics about a gay person being straight and engaging in heterosexual intercourse, there would be a freaking storm of shit.

To me (see, this is the start of someone stating their opinion), it's just strange to be writing about him like that and like you said, anon, I don't think he would like to be written about like that, but I'm not stopping anyone from doing so or telling them that they're disgusting or anything else in such direction. I'm only giving MY OPINION.

Some people might not put their opinions on some things on their blog, some do. I do. And if anyone is offended by that, it's honestly not my problem.

Most people already know how I feel about Elvis being oversexualized. When it comes to fanfiction, I think there's a time and place for everything. If one writes only smut, then yeah I feel like that hyper-oversexualizes him and that's definitely not my cup of tea but there's plenty of amazing fanfic writers out there who don't do that. But like I said (because some people don't seem to understand this so I'll say it again), I can't stop anyone from writing what they write and that's not my intention. It. Is. An. Opinion.

Honestly, I don't have much else to say and this is the one and last time I'll speak on it, because people wanna be petty and send hate on anon (bc of that thing I said last week, lol. You know.) because apparently they don't have much of a life outside of this app or they're scared to come off anon, who knows. This is what I think about it and I'm not going to change my opinion. I'm not telling anyone they have to agree with me and if someone doesn't like what I have to say, they can kindly unfollow.

[florenceisfalling]

speedrun bc im in the dairy queen parking lot as we speak

You certainly never see people arguing NOT to put it in your bio

yes you do, i know this because i used to be one of those people and shared/supported dozens of posts about it. are you forgetting the whole premise of my original post is that i used to be a transandrobro against those terms?

how awful it is that a transandrobro doesn't think it's a good or feasible solution to kick all the Jews out of Israel?

i made a second post explaining his zionism, and this is just a blatant inflammatory misrepresentation of it.

I'm going to make you explain to me how you defend the scores of genocide txttletale openly supports or considers NBD as a tankie.

yknow, im not a tankie, but this seems to also be a pretty big misrepresentation of whats going on with healed. either way, i can dislike both avi and healed if that makes you feel any better. i did straight up say in another post that i agree with spacelazarwolf on some things, its almost like you can agree with some things someone says without vouching for all of them

there are TRFs out there writing books about reclaiming radical feminism

plenty of transmascs are openly transmisogynist terfs. and i don't think trying to look for good in second wave feminism and push it away from its current transphobic standing point is a bad thing.

almost all of the hostility has been from the TMA/TME crowd.

i like that you said you'd provide examples of this in your original reblog - and i was sure you actually would, considering im VERY aware transfems will say transphobic things abt transmascs sometimes. and then you just didnt even try

We're not doing that. What we're doing is describing harassment we've gotten in the transandrophobia discourse trenches

giving voice to transmascs by ignoring transmascs who disagree with you

We don't tolerate being transphobic towards other trans people 'round these parts!

y'all have a very fast and loose definition of transphobic, is the thing

Yeah? Her good opinions about genocide?

me: here are three good posts id like to source that explain something

you: oh so you agree with all of her posts?

Yeah, sorry, two harassment campaigns against trans women by mostly cis people and completely unrelated to transandrophobia drama is not relevant here.

my original post is quite literally about how its bad that transmascs harass trans women constantly. this is one of the most relevant things i can think of. what are you talking about

weird to claim it was mostly cis people when the people spearheading some of the most vitriolic shit, as linked, were trans men, and toonimal was a trans man abusing trans girls

TERFs would never try to exploit legitimate cases of transmascs being treated poorly, they're just attracted naturally like flies to all the evil transmisogynistic rifts in the community!

why are some of you so cozy with them then

The first was written by a trans woman and the second was a very funny joke about hyperbolic whining about sOcIaL mUrDeR.

tgirls can be transmisogynistic, case in point You, though im curious about why you get to bring up your transphobic harassment experiences when mine get responded to with "we're not doing that"

straight-up not about trans men bro

youre openly ignoring the examples i included of why trans men, specifically transandrobros, were relevant

thousands of TMA/TME weirdos will die on the hill that jokes about killing trans men are okay and non-binary people being called slurs is a transfeminist W.

hm i wonder if theres any reason why lately trans women have been especially frustrated or jumpy about trans men

it's the name of a radfem group that sexually abused other trans women, or was it all just complaining because it's, like, such a totally mean name to call people?

actually yea, there are a lot of trans women who take issue with the fact that when they acknowledge transmisogyny they get equated to a hated group of specific tgirls in 2016. also, doesnt excuse calling people a medieval slur, bc it didnt fucking originate in 2016. im not going around calling people faggots derogatorily just bc some of the transandrobros have it in their urls

fuck yourself

what problem exactly do you have with people referring to gender assignment as coercive??? do you want people to infinitely ignore the fact that gender assignment is a binary system that assumes all the details of ones life from birth??? i need you to know that when i block you in a minute, it isnt because you "owned" me, its bc you take issue with an intersex person using the term cagab lol

so laser targeted

i know who posted that, i know that shes informed by the fact that there are plenty of people comfy calling themselves theyfabs in her inbox. while i dont like the term, saying "people who have systemic privilege over trans women have internalized bias against trans women and need to learn to take a joke " is once again not that crazy of a statement

no it's just a term invented by 4chan transmeds to mock non-binary people

we dont know where it came from specifically bc its a simple ass term, unlike baeddel which we know started for sure as a slur. but either way i hate transmeds regardless, theyre not what im arguing against atm

I'm trying to keep you focused because you keep going off track like an imaginative child that doesn't want to be constrained by coloring in the lines

you really don't get to correct me on whats being discussed on my own post, especially when you failed to follow your own "rules," but im also gonna tell you that ^ sentence is the second reason i'm blocking you. why is it that you can cry tone policing bc youre "a bit bitchy" in response to a perfectly polite post but you take issue with other trans women being a bit bitchy in response to targeted harassment?

If you want to call all the people who have directly attested to me that they were kicked out of "trans friendly" spaces for being too masculine liars, you may!

they aren't liars, i just don't believe that the cause is masculinity in itself, and you are putting a lot of words in my mouth!

there was a brief period of time when i empathized with transandrobros largely out of my personal discomfort as a nonbinary person with the terms tme/tma - this pretty much entirely dissolved when i began to understand those terms not as obligatorily publicized personal descriptors but as tools with a communicative purpose. perhaps more importantly, i learned that most of the people involved with the proliferation of the "transmisandry/transandrophobia" concept were treating trans women like complete and utter shit and then making tgirls out to be the instigators. for this reason i seriously encourage every transmasc who finds themself feeling riled up against trans women to, like, double check the kind of messages and comments the angry girls are getting. i promise you, it becomes a lot more evident why those women are describing discomfort or fear or bitterness around trans men when you see the kind of sexually abusive, misogynistic, violent messages they're getting first. no, that doesn't excuse every joke or response, but it makes you understand how disproportionate the transmasc reaction can be. and if you can't find what i'm talking about, you don't see any examples of trans men being misogynistic, literally just message me and i'll be happy to provide as wide a range of examples as possible

[softpine]

Hi Brandi! I'm sorry if this is random but I could really use some advice because I've gotten a couple of out of pocket anons and I'm kind of frustrated. Basically just anons like "Erwin is trans but you made him so edgy when he's soft :(," "Erwin's cute for a trans guy," and even a lot of "Why did you make Erwin trans?" Is this a thing on simblr? I've been so close to making a post but don't want to start drama! I'm just... tired. Sorry to bother you, I just didn't know who else to ask. <3

(i wrote this whole thing and then realized i’ve been assuming you’re cis this whole time, i’m really sorry if that’s not the case!! i think the advice still holds up no matter who’s reading this though)

ugh yeah unfortunately i’ve gotten similar messages about stevie. you have to learn how to decide whether the message you received is a good faith critique (whether you agree with it or not), or just plain hateful rhetoric, or a question out of nothing more than curiosity. it’s easy to disregard the blatantly bigoted questions, but sometimes people will phrase things in an ambiguous way. in those cases, i try to really focus on what the person is asking or commenting on. would they ask the same question of a cis character? would they notice the same things about a cis character? would they hold the same opinions about this character if they were cis? is there any validity to what this person is critiquing my writing for? (in this case, the best thing you can do is ask a trans person for advice. i’m lucky enough to have trans friends irl who don’t mind me asking questions, but there are plenty of people online who would also be willing to chat if you look!). it’s important to keep your mind open to the fact that you might actually be making a mistake, or portraying something inaccurately, etc. and you can correct yourself if you need to. but if the criticism is patently not valid, just block them and move on. don’t even give them the pleasure of a response!

i would also say it’s a good idea to set your boundaries now and stick to them. for example, i already know that because stevie is a minor, i’m not going to answer any questions about bottom surgery or her sex life, both of which have been asked about WAY too many times (way, way more than any of the other characters around her age). i also choose not to engage with people who hate stevie for thinly veiled reasons. it’s perfectly okay to dislike a character, and i don’t mind you expressing this to me, but i’ve gotten pretty good at realizing when people are genuinely criticizing stevie vs. looking for reasons to hate her because they won’t just come out and say the transphobic shit they want to say.

tldr: if it’s a bad faith criticism, straight up ignore it! don’t respond in any way, it’ll just stoke the flames. if you’re not sure what the anon’s intentions were, give them the benefit of the doubt by asking them to clarify before you give them any kind of response. i’ve found that most of the time when an anon has to explain what they meant by something, it’s usually a genuine misunderstanding that gets cleared up easily. i hope that helps!! 💖

[actuallyvady]

Every so often I make the joke that every piece of art or fic where kim is trans adds a year to my life but the reality is way more complicated and personal than that?

I have had a complicated relationship with my body for a long time. I think most trans people do, though each person experiences it differently. I'm lucky, in a lot of ways! My breasts are too small to need a bra or binder, and my features are generally androgynous; in most ways, dysphoria hasn't been terrible. Which is probably why it took so long to decide I wanted to transition. But there's one thing that has bothered me a lot for a long time: my genitals.

It's weird to talk about it. I hate even typing that word. Because I have hated that part of my body for so long. I didn't want to look at myself, I didn't want to touch myself any more than necessary-- I don't do tampons because it bothers me. I never really masturbated much. The worst part, though, is that I get the most pleasure from penetration-- I can have a clitoral orgasm without it, but I don't like it near as much.

When I thought I was a straight woman that was... fine. Straight men are bad at foreplay but they can usually manage what actually gets me off. I didn't really want them paying much attention to that part of me anyway-- oral always made me incredibly uncomfortable.

Then I started to realize I was not a woman. At first it was identifying as nonbinary, in various ways. But it came back, almost every time, to wishing I had a dick. Sometimes I wanted both, sometimes I wanted to just wave a magic wand and be entirely a cis man. I had the deeply frustrating experience of recognizing that I wanted to masturbate but didn't have the body to do what I actually wanted. The fact that I could only satisfy my arousal with penetration was much worse once I recognized that.

I started having relationships and sexual encounters with people that were not straight men, which meant that sex did not look the same anymore... and for years I just. Didn't bother with my own pleasure. I had plenty of fun! I very much enjoy getting my partner(s) off, in various ways. But I never let them return the favor. I almost never took off my underwear, even. It would ruin the moment, for me, because what I had was not what I wanted to have.

Recently I started thinking seriously about transitioning, and the question of whether I would want phalloplasty came back. After all, what I wanted was a dick, right? When I first started researching transition, like eight years ago, that was the first thing I looked into. I didn't really want the things that T would do (or so I thought, for years) but I wanted that.

And then I found Disco Elysium. And Kim Kitsuragi.

I feel personally called out by his existence for a lot of reasons. I won't go into most of it here. But one of the big ones is that he isn't a pretty anime boy, or otherwise especially conventionally attractive. He's older, he wears glasses, he's got a receding hairline. And suddenly I felt very okay with some of the aspects of transitioning that had made me hesitate before. Did I want body hair? What if I hated my voice? What if I lost my hair? The existence of Kim made all of that okay. He's the reason I'm on T now.

And then I started seeing trans Kim fanart. Not just fanart-- smutty fanart. And fanfic! Trans!Kim, with the genitals I have always had complicated feelings about, being portrayed as an attractive, sexual man. Trans!Kim enjoying having penetrative, vaginal sex. Trans!Kim being comfortable with and enjoying his body. Trans!Kim being masculine and horny and sexually desirable. There was a whole day I spent dissociating and looking at every bit of art and fic I could find. I genuinely felt like I was drunk or high.

And all of a sudden I found myself... feeling better about my body. I'll masturbate, now, just because I can, and enjoy it. I let my lover actually see all of me, and touch me, and get me off. I don't even really feel that need to have a dick anymore. Sure, if I could wave a magic wand I would do so but all the surgeries? It doesn't feel necessary anymore.

And that's because of trans!Kim.

That's why I say y'all are adding years to my life.

[transmascrage]

julia serano was a bad example to use in your 4 whole paragraph response bc she literally is a transandrophobe and you can find plenty of evidence of that in her writings. but that doesn't stop me from using the word transmisogyny because i also never said not to use the words saint has coined. i never even said i don't believe in transandrophobia. all i said is that saint is a lesbophobic racist sack of garbage because he is. like i don't know how to tell you how unhinged you came off there but chastising me for "giving snarky responses" when you were talking to yourself is unwell person type behaviour. deciding to ignore and simply "disagree" that it's wrong for a man to openly fantasize about raping lesbian women is deranged. people should be aware of hymn whether you are or not. i think his contribution of the word transandrophobia is useful and we should keep using it, but i also know that even a broken clock is right twice a day. he's a dangerous person with dangerous ideas and he shouldn't be promoted as some martyr who people only hate because he's ~☆such a good activist uwu☆~. at the end of the day he is another man who wants to rape women, another non-Black person who shamelessly appropriates Black culture, another "she just needs a good fuck!" brand lesbophobe, another "everyone is bi!" flavour homophobe... the list goes on and on and on. get a clue, or a better soapbox. p.s. i can't "just block" saint (or his alt account/#1 fanboy nothorses lmao) to be rid of hymn; losers like you will still be out here praising hymn day in and day out like he pays your damn light bill.

It's true that you never said anything about transandrophobia, sorry for assuming, usually people use the two arguments hand-in-hand.

So here's the thing. I was "talking to myself" because you're on anon. You wanna be a big kid and come off and argue with me without hiding? We can talk about this in a conversation if you want.

Second. I'm not going to explain why having "problematic kinks" is not something to chastise people over, because so many others have explained it already. The base, the very core of kink is consent.

That's why it doesn't make sense to me to harass someone over their kink, who they perform consensually, on their private blog.

He wasn't going onto random people's blogs and misgendering or leaving inappropriate messages. His blog was password protected for a reason.

It's like if someone was doing kinky shit in their bedroom, someone barged in and went: "Oh my god, what's wrong with you?? Why are you pushing your kinks onto me?"

It's true that he's a man, but he's not a cis man. We're not talking about a cishet man who gets off to the idea of "turning lesbians straight". Transmascs have, surprise surprise, different experiences than cis men!

How do you know Saint didn't identify as a lesbian before and developed this kink as a coping mechanism? I don't, because I don't know hymn. And he's not obligated to tell anyone jack shit.

I can't stress it enough that you don't know what I'm into, or why I developed certain kinks.

If it bothers you that I'm defending hymn, block me and blacklist our tags. Or maybe stop bringing up this subject. We literally only talk about it because you keep mentioning it.

Also, you opened your first anon message with: "Why are you telling people to block someone who's calling out Saint?" but he wasn't, he reblogged something and reached so hard to find a reason to "incriminate" two other people. This isn't about Saint.

[cherrytea556]

It isn't? Like that kind of thing is what the medical system believes which plenty of trans people critiqued. Most trans people are like; 'if you find *insert label here to be for you, then go for it'. And their advocates for gender nonconformity as well even if your cis so...

Maybe the girls who were makeup feel attacked because you radfems make it seem like their doing it for men's attention, like men themselves don't think that same notion about them (along with what they wear). If you guys are saying that girls with makeup aren't attacked then why do you proceed to attack them for it? Like you may not be attacking them specifically but other radfems definitely have.

If gender abolition is what you guys say it is, that sex isnt connected to gender then why tf do you have a problem with trans men and non binary people? Why would it matter if they change their gender from what their assigned at birth to you, would man and woman just no longer exist but male or female? And what about intersex people or are you for baby circumsince? Also connectiveness to gender is a thing as someone whose cis. I don't think about my gender assigned at birth though if someone calls me a boy, it would feel odd to me. That would be the same with trans/non binary people where others referring to them by their assigned gender may feel odd to them and being referred to the opposite gender or none at all feels much more like them. It's simple stuff to understand really.

The reason why lgb is seen as 'weird' is because you guys view other queer people (TQIA+) as the weirdos who don't fit into society/your neat box of humans so you think their invalid and therefore, shouldn't be the community because their not 'same sex attracted' specifically (which makes it odd for bisexual to be in this list because im pretty dang sure they were discriminated against for the exact same reason as why you steer away from the 'tqia'). Its frankly hypocritical of you to say that sexualities shouldnt be deemed as 'gender nonconforming' then say that trans/non binary people 'link into sexist stereotypes' since gender isnt really a choice either (no one chooses to be discomforted with their gender assigned at birth just like how people didn't choose intrusive thoughts, it's just what the body/mind does to you).

You realise that people still arent normal about gay people right? That despite what you guys are suppose to advocate, people still don't view you as normal right? Now imagine how the others feel, feeling left out by both out and inside their own community just because their not 'normal' for them despite the whole point of the lgbt is to support those who don't fit society's norms (straight cis allos). The lgb is mostly of right leaning people and sure enough, right leaning people hate you guys too and will shun you like the others you deem 'weird' and not 'apart of your community'. Genuinely, what are you actually accomplishing here? If they don't consider us normal, what makes you think their gonna see lgb as normal? They aren't. That's just the reality of it. Let people live their life as they want to if it doesn't harm anyone, that should be what were all advocating for. Not just pick and choose which ones we like and which ones aren't. Me and other people in the lgbtqia+ are still apart of the community, whether you like it or not.

I'm done, hopefully you'll at least block me and not continue the convo further. Bye.

Daily reminder that misandry it is just the first steps to becoming a terf. Just saying!

[ex-terf-anti-terf]

I realize this blog is stressful to run at times so I want to say, before I write anything, that I don't whatsoever intend for this to be read as argumentative or aggressive. I just want to hear other opinions. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong.

I have a hard time talking about sex work because I don't think all sex work is the same. Sex work isn't just about meeting up with someone struggling to pay bills anymore. Acting out erotic scenes for a film can be considered sex work. Modeling in lingerie and whatnot can be considered sex work. Making songs and writing books about erotic things can be considered sex work.

When I think about all the things the term "sex work" could encompass, the more I realize how horribly a complete ban on sex work would hurt. LGBT content would be censored to hell and back. Women won't be able to express their sexuality. There'd be no discussion on sex period. Just an overall not a good thing.

I realize debates surrounding sex work are actually about whether or not erotic things should be depicted in the media. A ban on sex work in specific would inevitably lead to a ban on erotica in general because people would just purchase things in secret if erotica was allowed but sex work wasn't. Like it'd be pointless for just sex work to be banned.

But god damn it I just fucking hate porn. It normalized the objectification of women. I've been hearing moans in the hallways since middle school. I've seen boys at my highschool wear the playboy bunny on their clothing. I personally don't have this experience but it is very common for highschool boys with porn habits to make dirty jokes towards girls who were just yawning or just bending over to pick up a pencil. I also don't like that teen girls are being groomed en masse into making an Onlyfans - the amount of times I've seen influencers advertise sex work to their followers because it "made me so much money yess get that money from dirty old men!!!" is concerning.

I recoil in disgust at the idea of someone paying someone else for sex. I don't hold the opinion that it's the same as rape but I wonder how the sex buyer viewed that other person. To better understand my feelings I'll use a comparison: it's not sexual abuse for a consenting 50 year old man to sleep with a consenting 23 year old woman but I will wonder what that 50 year old wanted from a 23 year old woman.

In all honestly I have zero clue how to approach sex work and erotica. Sex work and erotica is rife with misogyny and I'm tired of seeing it glamorized.

I appreciate the disclaimer, thank you!!

That's the other thing about SWERFs; they focus almost entirely on porn and full-service sex work, rather than other types of sex work that are harder to fully condemn. Part of why I left was because I started to see how their very hard black-and-white approach to pretty much every issue was just... bad. It doesn't work, and it doesn't protect people.

Protocols for helping full-service sex workers will be different than those for helping actors in adult films. They'll be different than those for lingerie models like you said, or exotic dancers, or or or...

It goes on. Treating full-service sex work like it's the only kind of sex work actively works against accomplishing any of our goals.

I'll also say that while I agree porn is an industry rife with abuse and exploitation, I do not think that all porn is inherently bad, or at least equally bad. For example, my mother, who is a cis straight woman (and a massive feminist), has told me that when she does choose to engage with porn, she exclusively watches f/f because "you don't usually get to see a woman receiving pleasure in adult film." That's helpful for her, and I think that is one possible use of porn that isn't necessarily bad.

I've also known plenty of cis queer people who discovered that they were queer because of porn because they didn't have any other resources. That's a function of a lot of things, for sure, including homophobia. And at the same time, without pornography, they wouldn't have known they were same-gender attracted for many more years, if ever. I don't know, I just can't imagine taking that away from my friends. Because of how nuanced the subject is, I can't say that I think getting rid of all pornography indiscriminately is the right move.

(I could also get into all kinds of profic/fanti debate here but I don't want to.)

Plus, I don't really think it's just porn's fault that the objectification of women is so normalized; women have been objectified for a very very long time. There was a point in time where women were not allowed to vote or have credit cards, and where marriage was a business exchange -- a woman was no longer the property of her father, but now of her husband. These aren't the same kind of objectification that we talk about now, but they still spring from the same root; men viewing women as objects, not people, and as such believing that they are able to do whatever they want with us because women are possessions.

Sexual objectification of women has also been present for most of history, at least in the West. I don't remember where I saw it but I saw a photograph of a man crashing his car because a pair of women dared to wear shorts in public, which was practically unheard of at the time, and he was staring at their butts.

It's just one of those things that doesn't have one root cause. Porn contributed, yes, but saying that porn alone normalized women's objectification is giving it a little too much credit in my opinion.

Now, I'm not a policy maker, and I don't know what the best alternative would be. That's part of why I try to engage with radfems in good faith and allow them to ask me questions, because some of them do have opinions I've not heard before, and I want the most complete picture I can possibly get, which includes all kinds of different angles on the situation. What I'm doing here involves formulating and documenting my own thoughts and opinions, and trying to make sure that I stay honest and true to my own values.

[momota-kaiharem]

Hi I'm back. And wow this needs way more in depth discussion! I actually have a few things about this discourse to share because I've really been trying to understand it.

I should've originally prefaced with the fact that I am a homosexual, so slur use is an important subject to me, and the use within the community is much different than outside it. Within the community, context is everything, but from an outsider, it is nearly always an attack. I feel like that is very important to acknowledge (and we don't know kaitos canon sexuality, though personally I don't believe he's straight, so I'd be more inclined to give him more leeway on the slur usage than some people would).

Also I believe in the japanese version being absolute canon and wish to understand it. I find it really important to look into the original version of a beloved character and analyze them outside of the inaccuracies of localization. And the assumptions made by fandoms about Japanese characters is going to be very off sometimes because we are looking into their culture from the outside.

In regards to the slur itself, the word is "okama", and is an emasculating term for non-straight men. As an english speaker, I have been looking for more information on this word's use and history, and what level of offenseveness it tends to have. It's been difficult for me to find much out for certain because of the language barrier and cultural context involved. I think we should be more concerned with finding the true intentions of a character than just making assumptions based off western cultural norms.

And I am really bothered by how the fandom acts like the word itself is the only thing to discuss! The cultural differences here makes this a way more complex issue than just "that's a bad word, he shouldn't say it :( "

hi back, i’m kaiharem!

slur use is an important topic to me, too. sorry for coming across super stern, i just wanted to make sure we weren’t excusing the use of slurs or anything like that hehe, mostly so that people don’t think that’s something that i condone. i also think that kaito is gay! but while that does give him the right to use words like that in a reclaiming/empowering context, that doesn’t mean he gets to say them to other people, y’know? especially if he’s closted.

having said that, now that i know for certain what word he used, i’ve done some looking into the word myself. below the cut are some descriptions of the word that i’ve seen, and i’ll link all my sources down below. trigger warning for the f-slur, the q-word, and other gross gross derogatory words against gay men in the images that will below the cut. also trigger warning for mentions of sex, and reducing one’s identity down to a sexual act.

if you don’t want to look below the cut for my sources and the information i read about it, here’s my takeaway. the word appears to be used against not just gay/effeminate men, but also trans women, which i think contextualises the remark a bit, because if i’m correct, he said it to korekiyo after kiyo spoke in a more “feminine” manner. i know it’s important to analyse intentions, and i don’t think we should look at this from a western viewpoint culturally, but let’s also unpack this, alright?

it appears that people do use this word to refer to themselves, in the same way that lesbians might use the d slur and gay men might use the f slur and trans people might use the t slur. but does that give kaito the right to use that word/call people by it? in my opinion, the answer is no. canonically, i think that kaito is a cis male, which ESPECIALLY does not give him the right to be throwing around transphobic slurs.

it’s just not something that kaito can reclaim. i’m sure that people in japan do label themselves this plenty, but i don’t think that they condone the use of it against people. especially in the examples that i saw in the articles that i read. i think the line itself was just meant as foreshadowing about the whole Sister plot twist in chapter three, rather than Kaito Is A Homophobic Transphobe proof, but that doesn’t change what he said.

i do think there’s nuance, but i also think most of the conversation extends beyond “oh oh kaito said a dirty word”? it’s not like kiyo ever uses that word to refer to himself. he and kaito aren’t friends. he and kaito aren’t openly gay. he and kaito don’t do drag together. kiyo doesn’t do drag that kaito knows, and kaito didn’t say it as a compliment. he said it as an insult. and THAT’S where i draw the line when it comes to slur use. you just don’t get to throw around transphobic slurs that don’t apply to you.

also, given the information i found, i find it hard to believe that kaito didn’t know what the word means when he used it, so that’s another mark against him.

please don’t take this as me spewing kaito hate, i love kaito, i kin kaito, he’s one of my favourite characters, but again, let’s not excuse the use of transmisogynistic slurs (in the context that it was used) just because a guy is your comfort character.

via: https://legendsoflocalization.com/okama-in-game-translation/

(please tread with caution before clicking on that link, some of the images in the article have really disgusting caricatures of trans women/effeminate men and i do NOT want you to be triggered. it was upsetting for me, as a cis person, to look at, so i definitely do not want it to be something that one of my trans followers sees without warning.)

via: https://www.tofugu.com/japan/lgbtq-identities/

(the paragraph before this one discusses sex, so tread with caution.)

(note: if you’re not black, please do not call someone a queen unless they’re okay with it, ESPECIALLY a black women.)

via: https://allabout-japan.com/en/article/5102/

if you don’t think i did adequate research on this topic, or if you don’t agree with the definitions of the word that i pulled up, please reach out to me! i want to be as sensitive as possible when handling this topic.

[velvetvexations]

There's this intuitive feeling around mpsec orientations that are like, "but that's just not what the word means!", but if you really dig in the issue is that orientations don't really make a lot of sense conceptually because they're inherently tied to binary sex.

For instance, I'm a trans woman. Yet, until I get my tits, anyway, if I'm not wearing a big red bow like Ms. Pac-Man it would be completely impossible to guess that just from looking at me. Because trans women are women, a lesbian could date me and keep her lesbian card, at least among trans positive crowds.

For TERFs, this sounds like a win at first, like I'm pointing out a way in which being trans doesn't make sense because if a lesbian is into someone who looks exactly like a cis man she can't be a lesbian, right? Except...cis lesbians have been made fun of, harassed, and terrorized for their masculinity as far back as can be remembered. Even straight women have been put through the ringer if they don't look feminine enough - I will, for the millionth time, point to Chyna - but among lesbians specifically there have been countless women who could plausibly pass for men if they put just a little bit of effort into it, and many did because being butch as hell is something to be celebrated even if they didn't frame their far-end-of-the-scale butchness as wanting to "pass for men". They could have.

So in both cases, trans or cis, being attracted to a woman who is identical to society's idea of a man is not a disqualifier from being a lesbian. "Political" or "mspec" lesbianism, identifying with lesbianism for a reason other than definitionally being attracted solely to people who identify as women, is the only way the idea of being a lesbian makes sense. It's the only way being gay or straight makes sense. Because gender is so arbitrary, there's no way to make it work unless you're willing to enforce a strict binary that very few queer people want.

Like if you think girls can/should only have soft delicate features and wear lipstick and dresses, fine, I guess it's logically consistent to say being a lesbian is physical attraction to a fixed, limited set of features. But if you're willing to broaden your horizons to any extent, what being attracted to a woman means quickly breaks down. A TERF would say it's physical sex that matters and something something AMAB vaginas aren't the same but I'd like to take a Kinsey Detector and scan a lesbian who loves getting strapped by a hyper-masculine butch to see where she lands.

So there are all these situations where we say "still a lesbian", even though logically the people who are into those girls should be plenty capable of being attracted other people. To bring it back to the trans point of view, I don't really understand how a lesbian could be attracted to me and then turn around and say lesbianism is based purely on what gender you're attracted to, while some would be viciously mean to her and accuse her of transphobia (which I would hate) if she weren't into me. Because what if, hypothetically, I woke up tomorrow and said "you know, I think I'm feeling more comfortable thinking of myself as a man these days " - that changes everything over night? That lesbian is no longer attracted to me when I change my pronouns? What if I had already been thinking that and I just didn't say anything about it, was she attracted to a man for a brief period of time?

Gender and how we classify attraction is just very, very arbitrary. Gender abolitionists see trans people as reinforcing gender, but I've always said that if they thought about it for two seconds they'd realize trans people are a deathblow to everything they hate about gender. They can't separate gender from sex so they see it as trans people wanting every girl who's not traditionally feminine to be boys and every boy who's not traditionally masculine to be women.

And, well, that's one reason I hate egg shit because yeah that is actually kinna doing that. It's at least reinforcing pink=girl mentality. Like to be clear, I'm not saying you can't associate girlhood with the color pink, I just think that when a cis man likes the color pink and you go "have you tried estrogen?" you're not just associating the two concepts but actively backing up the societal expectation that to like pink is to be a girl. It's like the difference between associating candy canes with Christmas and being convinced it's somehow already December again when you see peppermints being sold in the middle of March.

But other than that, which I've gone on the record against over and over, trans people are smashing society's concept of gender into pieces. "Orientation" as traditionally thought of must naturally also come down because it rests atop that foundation.

[olderthannetfic]

You can't tell me that Shinji wouldn't have some fierce pent up rage he'd let out in the bedroom whenever he manages to make it in there.

Idk, I know my experience isn't universal but I only saw the anti-pages and flash games in the fujoshi sector. Flame wars on LJ with het ships oh absolutely. Hello stalking and other such nonsense. If you saw any hate/kill pages for het ships I'd love to hear about them because that's a weird part of internet history that I sometimes wonder if I dreamed up. That experience was a big milestone during my formative years. I could've done better without that experience. Either way, internalized misogyny is something we all get to battle, I'm sure, but I do take exception to people weaponizing and pedestaling Teh Gays to do it. Or any race someone doesn't have a dog in really but to stay on topic. The overall vibe I recall was 'this is so taboo and that makes it sexy so let's play in this filth for a while and kill Asuka' etc and I just think it'd be nice if that was done? So yeah. 1) Are we normalized yet and 2) What's the updog on the female character hate-sites?

IS IT SAFE YET?

--

Hmm... an intriguing point.

Fandom! Please weigh in on this pressing topic!

How does Shinji fuck?

--

I think the het side of fandom just called their enemy characters "whores" instead of "stupid and boring" like the m/m-shipping side tended to. IDK. It's not like over-the-top hate for the character in the way of the ship has ever been restricted to one group.

Plenty of female character hate I remember was from straight dudes who pretended not to care about shipping. That absolutely includes jokey shit about Asuka being raped or murdered for not fawning on their self-inserty take on Shinji or for not being a ~demure lady~ like Rei or some bullshit. I'm sure they too would be quick to blame it on the icky m/m shippers now though.

There's a really toxic subtext to your comments that's a lot more pressing than someone's character hate webshrine from twenty years ago.

"Or any race someone doesn't have a dog in really" is such a covert radfem way of thinking. That's for two reasons:

1. A shitton of conflicted AFAB m/m shippers grow out of their "girls suck" problems when they finally realize that they are not girls and that this hatred of everything to do with women is coming from a place of being constantly triggered by how people perceive them.

I remember reading some of Billy Martin's old stuff as a teenager and being really grossed out by how it treated women. I liked the m/m parts and the kinky shit, so I kept reading, but yikes. Years later, finding out that Poppy Z Brite was struggling for years and eventually became "Doc" and then Billy Martin made so much sense. That doesn't make misogyny cool, but I'll cut the dude some slack for taking a while to figure his shit out.

I don't restrict that to trans men. NB people and, frankly, a lot of more-or-less cis women with non-normative gender in some way follow a similar path.

2. What makes you think I don't have a dog in that race? What makes you think a woman cannot relate primarily to male characters or equally to male characters?

As a bisexual woman, I like bisexual characters. I don't give two shits about lesbian ones. My first point of identification is orientation, not gender.

The reason I say your (extremely common and thrown at me daily) talking points are covert radfem is that they posit a situation in which women should identify first and foremost with other women. We should choose women. We should center women.

Why?

What if you want to center your ethnicity? What if you want to center your age? What if you want to center your neurodivergence?

Or what, for that matter, if you want to write about the inside of your head and not the outside of your body? There are many, many reasons people choose these cross-group identifications for that purpose. The entirety of drag queen culture and gay men's use of female celebrities is a version of this. Sure, some trans women have been into the same stuff, and it was an expression of them being women, just as some m/m-writing AFABs in fandom turn out to be men, but there's also this whole other thing that has to do with making art that expresses your insides, not a representation quota.

--

Are we normalized yet? Is who normalized? Gay men? People who hate on m/m shippers in cliched ways? Yes to both. If you want to hang with the cis gay dudes, I'm sure they're around somewhere, though probably not in the middle of AFAB-ville on fanworks fandom tumblr. If you want to find a bunch of dickheads who hate "fujoshi", often in self-hating ways, they're all over the place though. Throw a rock. You'll hit one.

Character shrines, positive and negative, are long dead thanks to geocities and its ilk deleting our collective internet history, but as long as you see strawmen lurking around every corner, it will never be safe for you.

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

so, the girl that I like lives in another city and we talk by text message, lately she's been doing a lot of exams and she has to study a lot, she hasn't texted me barely anything in about 5 days and even rejected a letter (I write and send her "letters" once a week) because she hadn't got enough time and i got super sad and feeling really bad and i thought that maybe it made me feel bad because i believe that im not enough for anyone and that's what made me feel bad rather than she not writing to me in 5 days because that can cause insecurity (and maybe talking to her I felt good being myself) but when I felt bad about that it was kind of an excuse to cry for my mum not accepting me for being queer and idk every time I feel bad i just remind myself that I'm not enough for anyone and that if I want to be i just gotta fit the way other people see me, and I am always crying because i know my mum prefers me to be straight(maybe I'm not even cis and if I came out as an enby they would just laugh at me, so I guess I'm trying to be a girl because I don't want to feel worse) and that im a disappointment in that aspect, and idk i think I just make up excuses to feel bad about my family not accepting me, how can I work on seeing my self worth and loving myself a little more and caring less about things that I cannot change ?

You’re listing a lot of different things that could be The Reason for you feeling sad but I honestly don’t think it is just one single thing. All of those things are valid reasons to be sad about and they likely influence each other to a certain degree.

As for that girl you are texting with: I am not sure from your message if she’s actually your girlfriend? Or “just” a crush? I assume it’s the later. But either way, even if you two are officially in a relationship, she doesn’t owe you permanent availability. I totally understand feeling rejected and anxiety kicking in there. But you have to learn that other people have a life outside of their relationship with you - no matter what the nature of that relationship is. Whether it’s a romantic and/or sexual partner, a friend, a crush, a family member, nobody can or should have to prioritse you all the time. Right now this girl is having a lot on her plate and has to focus on something else. That’s life. And part of growing up is having to learn that not every decision that people make has anything to do with you. She is not burrying herself in exams because she hates you and wants a reason not to talk to you. She’s studying because that’s one part of her life and one that cannot be ignored right now. You are another part of her life and unfortunately she doesn’t have the time to give you the same attention you are used to. Right now she has to put the studying first. That doesn’t mean you are “not enough” because those two things (the studying and you) don’t have anything to do with one another. No matter how “much” you are - it won’t ever change the fact that she has to study for her damn exams because her exams are not about you. Don’t fall the trap to make things about you that are not!

Don’t get me wrong, I understand how you feel. I’ve fallen for the same thing plenty of times because it’s tempting to blame yourself for every little inconvenience when you’re prone to depression and anxiety. But really try to hammer it into your brain that sometimes people you love have to have other priorities and that does not mean that they don’t love or care about you anymore.It means that they have a multi-facetted life and not enough hours in the day to care about everything equally - so sometimes things have to take the backseat, sometimes you will have to take the backseat.

So if you want this friendship or relationship with her to be a long-lasting one then give her the space that she needs when she needs it. That’s part of being a supportive friend or partner.

About the issue with your mother: it always sucks when your family doesn’t accept you, especially when you still have to live with them (which I assume you do?). But no matter what your mother thinks, it won’t change who you really are. So “trying to be a girl” isn’t gonna work out for you if you’re not a girl. Which doesn’t mean you should come out as non-binary now if you’re not ready and/or it’s not safe for you to do so. But pretending in front of yourself that you are a cis girl when you’re really not isn’t gonna make you feel better. It’s only gonna make you step deeper into the closet. It’s suppressing your true self and it’s bound to take a toll on your mental health. Coming-out to an unaccepting family is an issue for another time, but try to be honest with yourself at least and allow yourself to explore your gender identity even if only in your mind or in conversation with friends that you trust. You can be non-binary and know that you are non-binary - no matter what facade you have to keep up for your family.

Maddie

[gefdreamsofthesea]

not trying to be rude or start anything, but just wanted to point out that your post about being queer is sort of contradictory. you think queer should be used to reference the lgbt community and then say that if someone doesn't want to use it they don't have to? your personal use of the word queer shouldn't determine if the whole community uses it. it's totally cool for you to be queer. but i'm not. why should it be called the queer community if not everyone is queer? just let people use lgbt

I'm not saying that you, personally, can't use LGBT or refer to the community as such, but let me put it this way, I'm personally uncomfortable with the word "dyke", I don't use it to refer to myself, but I don't go up to someone yelling "Dykes unite!" and be like "um sweaty that word is a slur don't say that when you mean lesbian", I don't ask the Dyke March to change their name, I don't yell at people saying 20dyketeen, most importantly I don't try to erase the history of the word (and plenty of other slurs, mind you) from our communities.

There's also the fact that not everyone feels like they fit one of the letters in the alphabet soup that is the acronym and queer is a useful shorthand for "not cis and/or straight" or complicated identities. Some people just don't like the idea of being shoved into a box with a specific label. I also feel that the acronym is easier for, say, corporations to co-opt. Nobody wants a synonym for weird on their merch.

Also, AFAIK, the whole "queer is a slur" thing really gained traction with exclusionists who hate aces, trans people, and anyone with a more complicated identity that can be summed up with more than one or two letters. Back in my day (the late 90s and early 2000s) academics were discussing "queer theory" and "queering [thing]" and nobody cared, I mean people knew it was a slur, literally every term we use for ourselves is a slur, but now here I am on tumblr and suddenly folks are like "um sweaty that is a bad word stop using the bad words" and I'm just like "all our words are bad???"

Anyways if you don't use queer I'm obviously not talking about you when I talk about the queer community because I'm talking to and about people who self-identify as queer.

[navalha-kw]

So to someone who is honestly confused… could you elaborate on what the “I am a man” and “I am not a woman” feeling is like?

How do I separate it from not liking femininity and also deeply wanting to be UNQUESTIONED while not conforming to femininity; which I can only get “as a guy”…… is wanting that actually being a guy or is it just wishing the world were different and trying to stealth my way to a good life? I guess I mostly don’t “feel like” anything and have no idea what these feelings are supposed to be. I hate my body but it’s tough to separate that from abuse around my sexed parts of my body and body dysmorphia on top of that and to say oh yeah me wanting to be rail thin and boobless = I’m actually a guy, somehow. And I have to admit I am exhausted by how sexism and homophobia affect me and I want out at any cost including just not existing or transition modifications even if they cause health issues I don’t care at this point. But also I’ve wondered if what I really need is to go hermit out by myself in the wilderness with just with a few trusted contacts. Idk :(

i'm really sorry you're so conflicted and feeling this way, i'll answer it the best way i can, but i honestly feel like the best thing you can do to find out more about yourself and go through this stuff is by going to a psychologist, even better if they're lgbt friendly and familiar with similar cases (there are plenty groups online that can help you find a specialist!)

first of all i believe you can hate stereotypical femininity and still be a woman if it feels RIGHT

i think it's like, when you're ready, you'll just know it. if you're not sure, maybe try thinking about where you see yourself in the future? what are your goals and dreams, are they somehow related to your gender?

as for body dysphoria, i breaks my heart to read about how you;re feeling :(( but if it may be related to other traumatic episodes, i think it's best you talk to someone who can really help you in this case, maybe through therapy. in my country (Poland), i believe that with such traumas, you'd have to prove you're transness is not directly coming from that, don';t know how it is where you're from

i'll share my thought and how i'm currently feeling about this stuff below in uh some detail, but transness or just not-being-cis-ness differs from person to person, so it might be completely different from how you're feeling

for me the "i am a man and not a woman" (while being afab) is a sum of social and body dysphoria.

it's how uncomfortable it makes me feel when people look at me and assume i'll be a mother, that i'm physically capable of bearing a child, that i'm a daughter and a sister, it's the uneasiness in my guts when people treat me like a woman on a daily basis, when i'm called a Miss, when i'm using the women's bathroom or locker-room and feel like i definitely shouldn't be there. it's when i'm living my life but feel like i'm not living at all, i'm always waiting, waiting for hrt, waiting for transition, waiting to be able to go to the gym without feeling like shit, able to sing without thinking how my voice sounds, able to wake up and stand up straight without shame

it's how when no matter how much i weigh or how i dress, no matter if i'm wearing make-up or not, there's always something wrong with my body, even when there's nothing i can change about it, even though it's perfectly fine. it's how i can look at myself and be aware that i'm objectively okay but deep down feel like i'm not even looking at myself. it's when i see pictures of myself and can't look at them because they force me to see how my body actually is. it's how proud i was when i was like 14 and cut my hair and people started 'mistaking' me for a son, a brother, a boy. it's how i'm jealous of how other guys look like proper adults and i still look like a kid, i'm jealous of them havng deep voices, beards, enough T in their bodies that they're able to build muscles more easily

jealous how they can just be themselves

i feel like my body is foreign or like i've just never fully developed

slightly n$fw below, tw for s*x, g*nitals and p*riod

it's how i've wanted to tear my feminine reproductive organs off since my first period began when i was in 5th grade. how desgusted it makes me feel that i hae a v*gina, how i would NEVER allow anybody to put ANYTHING in it. how being pregnant is my worst nightmare. how i'm literally unable to let anybody touch me down there because i feel so much shame surrounding what it is. i hate it.

i hate how i'm just a normal guy. i'm the stereotype, but bi. i'm just the average and i hate that some people look at me like i'm a Thing just becuase i look like something in between a woman and a man. i want to finally be average. i just want to live my life and not think about how people look at me and dont SEE me

please talk to me on pv if you're feeling like it? i hope i was able to help you even just a bit :(( stay strong, my friend