#but trying to hurt trans woman should matter in the first place

[youreonyourown-kid]

Transphobic weirdos: PROTECT WOMENS SPORTS

Women: *being really strong and good at sports* yeah great please support us and respect our-

Transphobic weirdos: NO NOT LIKE THAT BOO YOURE TOO BIG AND STRONG BOO BOO PROTECT TINY DELICATE WOMEN ONLY BOOOOOO

[correctional-transition]

Not trans, don't have a detrans kink, just genuinely curious and it seemed you might be willing to discuss the topic a little. I'm not trying to kink shame but my first thought on detrans was "this is transphobic". A lot of detrans posts I've seen repeat rhetoric that transphobes use in a degrading way or just straight up express positivity towards transphobes. So I kind of just wanted to ask, how is this kink separated from just actual reinforcement of internalized transphobia? Just the consent of the individual? Because even with consent (from an outsider's perspective) it kind of seems like a form of self harm? At what point does the kink stop, bc it seems like a lot of people actually mess up their mental image? Once again, no hate intended I was just wondering if you have an answer for any of these questions

Honestly this goes for almost any and all extreme kinks from cnc, age play, detrans/misgen, orientation play, etc.

I don't judge anyone on their kinks and although I will never understand some of them to the point of enjoying them I can understand a lot of them can be developed from different things.

Now I'd like to make it clear that this is all OPINION and it cannot be true fact as I have done 0 research onto the topic of how kinks start or the statistics of bad vs good (which are all subjective) within kink.

A lot of kinks can be seen as bad to people because it goes against a lot of social acceptance such as the detrans/misgen because outside of kink if you saw that you'd say "wtf. That's transphobic. You're a bad person." Whereas within a consensual kink environment it is more openly used as a form of self discovery, acceptance of the world and even coping mechanism. It can, however, still contain bad apples. You can still have transphobes playing within the kink and these people SHOULD NOT BE and you should ALWAYS watch out for people like these in ANY kink. When it comes to bad apples you want to look out for red flags such as "doesn't separate kink from reality", "doesn't provide aftercare", "doesn't support who I really am", "ignores the boundaries and limits I've placed to keep myself safe". And sadly there are a few people who do use it as a form of self harm so you need to be careful with people like that as their mental health matters but it can impact your own mental health too (both in negative and positive ways)

Kink stops ultimately when someone wants to. Everyone is different. Some people make the kink a reality becomes for some people it was used as self discovery and that's how they realised they may be more comfortable as a woman or man or non-binary etc. Some people stop immediately because they realise they were just trying to hurt themselves with the kink and that's not what they wanted to do.

Thats all I can really say atm off the top of my head on this matter but I'd love for some of my followers to also include their own thoughts and opinions in the comments or reblogs because I think its important to have a collective view/opinion on a matter like this as its completely subjective and so everyone's perspective will be different ♡

[tunnaa-unnaa]

im kind of uniformed about trans issues but saw your reblog about valentine. im genuinely not trying to argue i just want to understand, isnt sex segregation in sports in order to achieve fairness and give female people a chance to succeed? why should valentine be allowed? if im understanding correctly she is amab? sorry if im wording this question incorrectly, im genuinely just not informed and am only finding extremely opinionated people who mis-pronoun when i google her, genuinely just want to understand why people are in favor of her racing with female people

First of all, thanks for reaching out and being curious! I'm probably not the best at answering this since it's not my post and I'm just a random reblogger, but I'll try my best to give some links to better sources.

Sex segregation isn't actually necessary in sports. You might be familiar with how in wrestling or other combat sports, participants are divided into classes depending on body weight. More body mass, more muscle. Wouldn't be fair putting a 80kg guy against a 130kg guy, makes sense. Which brings us to the question: Why aren't sports segregated by categories like that - categories that provably, measurably make a difference in the sport at hand? Why do we segregate them by sex, somehow implying that a 130kg woman wrestler would be at a disadvantage against that 80kg man from earlier? Or a 130kg man for that matter?

Here is an article going deeper into this topic: The Problem with Sex Segregated Sport Here's another: Separating Sports by Sex Doesn’t Make Sense

It's easy to think women are inherently weaker than men, because that's what we keep getting told over and over, but both chromosomal sex and the biology around it are far more complex than that. It's a lot more nurture than nature the more research gets done.

Which brings us to trans people. If neither sex is inherently stronger, why gatekeep trans athletes from competing against people of the same gender?

Here's a systematic review examining how the restrictions placed on trans people in sports lack evidence to back them up, as we do not have any proof that being trans gives any kind of advantage: Sport and Transgender People: A Systematic Review of the Literature Relating to Sport Participation and Competitive Sport Policies

Another issue with gatekeeping trans people from sports is that it adds onto and reinforces other cultural biases and exclusion of transgender people. It's more important to let people with all kinds of bodies participate, than to exclude some entirely in the name of fairness. Sports are all about measuring biological advantages between individuals. So it highlights a very specific kind of bigotry when the imagined advantage trans people supposedly have is seen as a problem even when there's no evidence of such.

Here's another post I've reblogged that points out how this obsession with biological essentialism - thinking that women inherently perform differently in sports than men - is also hurting intersex people. People whose bodies do not fall into either binary category should also be allowed to compete without intrusive examinations. We should categorize sports based on performance and ability, not sex.

That's the basic gist of things. Thanks again for being interested in the topic! Others are free to add to this post or correct me.

(terfs DNI)

[mars-ipan]

Your desire for trans unity is laudable, but you're still putting disproportionate blame on "TME" (I as a trans woman really hate that term) people for trying to talk about their experiences and the hostility they face. Transandrophobia is not a bad word, it's fine, it's morally neutral, it doesn't imply anything because "transandro" is different from "andro." Trans women must also recognize that they can be transandrophobic just as trans men can be transmisogynistic.

i see where you’re coming from, but i think i’m gonna have to politely disagree. while i think things are more complicated than “transmisogyny-applicable” and “transmisogyny-exempt” (all binaries are false if you ask me) i also think that’s the best language we have for talking about this sort of thing right now. i’ll happily use different terms if they appear, i have plenty of qualms with tme/tma, but afaik i don’t really have better options if i want to talk about this sort of thing, yanno?

it’s not my intention to put blame on anyone, though i recognize that i definitely spoke more aggressively than i meant to in that original post. i wanna clarify that my frustration is directed at the situation rather than any group in particular— i think the people caught up in this argument are likely victims of divisive societal biases/pressures, regardless of whether they’re transmasc, transfem, or something else entirely. to me, this whole thing feels like people who have been hurt and are lashing out at each other, and the last thing i want to do is lash out myself. i’m gonna try to keep my language neutral moving forward, and i genuinely apologize if i seem inflammatory at any point. it’s not my intention to attack anyone.

as for the specific word of “transandrophobia”— while it may have no negative denotation, i think we should acknowledge the connotations of a word like this. while “transandro” will have a different connotation from “andro,” the word transandrophobia implies a fear of maleness, but the fact of the matter is a transphobe doesn’t see a trans man as a man unless it is convenient for them to do so. the oppression isn’t about being male— it’s about being trans. on a societal scale, androphobia doesn’t exist. it’s not a thing, because our society is patriarchal. therefore, it cannot intersect with transphobia. the word transandrophobia implies the existence of androphobia as a whole, which opens a gateway for TERFs, MRA, and similar groups to come in and sow even more divisiveness into the community.

i’ve seen someone in my notes (cannot remember their url at the moment, my apologies) suggest the term “anti-transmasculinity” as an alternative and i think this does a much better job at describing it. that being said, i don’t feel we should equate anti-transmasculinity with transmisogyny, because they’re inherently different. anti-transmasculinity is a specific type of transphobia, right? it’s a subset. transmisogyny is different— to call it a subset of transphobia or a subset of misogyny feels reductive, if you ask me. transmisogyny is its own thing— it’s a hybrid of transphobia and misogyny, and there are some things that are transmisogynistic that neither a cis woman or non-female trans person would experience. that’s why it gets its own term in the first place, right? it’s there to describe a specific, intersectional, experience.

in terms of anti-transmasculinity, that just… isn’t the same. i’m not transmasc (some people would argue being afab and trans makes me transmasc, but to that i say that’s literally just the gender binary again but trans this time), but i experience the same transphobia a lot of transmascs do. there are some things i don’t experience that some transmascs do, but i assure you there are other non-masc trans folks who have. this doesn’t make anti-transmasculinity any less important to talk about, nor does it make this transphobia any less hurtful. i do think transmascs face a lot of erasure, and i think it’s important that we talk about the issues that transmascs face.

that said, i think that about literally every subset of trans people. because at the end of the day, all of us are oppressed by transphobia. the boot is trying to crush us all, and frankly i don’t think our oppressors care what we call it. that’s why i think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here— we’re yelling about mold in the middle of a house fire. yes, this discussion is important and should be had, and yes, i believe we should be pushing trans rights on both a social and political/legislative front, but i think we as a community have higher-priority issues than the language we use to describe our experiences. all trans people will have experiences that are unique to them, and all trans people will have experiences that are practically universal. i think any two given trans people probably have a whole lot in common with regards to what they go through. we’re all trapped in the triple-bind (damned if we ‘pass,’ damned if we don’t, extra damned if we try to stand up for ourselves) of the gender binary at the end of the day. i think all of us have or will at some point be demonized, infantilized, fetishized, or otherwise alienated for being trans. and it sucks. at the end of the day we’re all siblings in arms, and i hate that we’ve gotten wrapped up in a boys vs girls who-has-it-worse argument. all trans people are capable of internalized transphobia, i agree, and this debate proves that imo. i’ve seen people on both “sides” say some downright nasty things about each other, and that genuinely makes me really sad. we all face enough shit already without infighting, i really don’t think this is worth ripping each other to shreds over yanno?

also, i don’t mean to make this whole debate even messier, but i think it’s worth mentioning that these discussions almost never include those of us who lie outside the gender binary. like. at all. basically every post on this that i’ve seen, be it inflammatory and hurt or or calm and collected, has only ever discussed transmascs and transfems. and i get it, some degree of generalization is to be expected when discussing a community-wide issue. that said, i do think those of us who are neither transmasc or transfem could have some valuable input on this sort of thing, and i’d also not like to be left out of a discussion on an issue that impacts the whole community. I’m Part Of That Community Too, you feel me? i’m aware that a transphobe wouldn’t care about these nuances— to your average TERF, i’m probably just another woman who’s betrayed her sisters to attempt to escape into manhood or whatever— but that doesn’t mean that we can’t appreciate them.

at the end of the day, i think most of us want the same thing: comfort and peace and the safety to be our authentic selves. i feel like our energy would be much better spent combatting the system that put us in this position rather than each other. we’re all brothers and sisters and siblings in this fight, right? or comrades or partners, use whatever word you like i just instinctively jump to sibling bonds. point is i think emphasizing trans solidarity is way healthier for us than what it is we’re doing now

[stainedglassthreads]

Terfs, Puritan-types and aphobes types always chant 'ooooh, you wanna be oppressed so bad, you wanna be oppressed so bad' whenever they encounter asexuals or aromantics but...I feel like they're kind of projecting. Like the times I end up seeing them, it feels like that post where they just...make up a guy and then get mad, often using statistic that are either grossly over-exaggerated or just made up.

They build up a worldview in their minds where the people with power and privilege are always oppressors, and oppressors are always evil, and where people lacking power and privilege are always oppressed victims, and victims are always good. And they're so certain that they're good people, so they must be the victims. Never mind if they're white or able-bodied and those are forms of privilege, and that women of color or disabled women tend to be the ones hurt most by cruel systems, the only things that mattered are that they're women so they're victims and thus good. But it can't just be that the system hurts them, everyone who isn't a woman, or isn't a woman in the right way, must be benefiting from the system in some way, must be AWARE that they benefit, and must be working to keep the system working.

So whoever they think is out to get them must exist and must be out to get them, or else their whole worldview comes apart. So anyone who challenges those incredibly strict worldviews (trans people, bisexuals, gender-nonconforming individuals) endangers that worldview and must just be The Enemy trying to trick them, and anyone who seems like they're making fun of them (asexual and aromantics who ask why systems like amatonormativity have to exist at all) seem like they're mocking them, or making fun of the 'very real' problems, so they're just 'making up reasons to be oppressed' and 'stealing resources'.

The sad thing is. They should be on our side. They should be on the same side as aspecs. When they go 'ooooh, you say this like any allo would be glad to end up in this situation' or 'ooooh, you say this like bad marriages don't exist', we're not actually! We're not saying this is somehow uniquely horrifying to aromantics and everyone else would be delighted. We're pointing out the fucked up aspects of amatonormativity and how romance is perceived and treated, and exaggerating it. Which is what horror as a genre does. The movie Nope is not saying that aliens are here and going to eat us all, it's making a statement about the dangerous ways people treat wild animals, especially in the entertainment industry.

When we say that 'this situation is fucked up', we say it's fucked up that divorce is scandalized and someone is always assumed to be the 'bad guy' in a failed relationship. (Yes there are toxic and abusive relationships but sometimes you just fall out of love, or find more important things than romance, or you were young and impulsive.) That your spouse is expected to be the single most important person in your life. That your friends and family are expected to focus on THEIR spouses and leave friendships to fester, or at least be less important. That in nearly every story, a happy ending is almost synonymous with a marriage. That dying alone is shameful and depressing and undesirable. That the only reason you could possibly reject a potential romantic partner is that there's something wrong with them, or that you like a different gender(liking no gender, or just not being in a good place, isn't an option.) That every time in a movie or a story a woman is introduced as career-driven and independent and happy, she's not actually happy because she needs a relationship to be happy. That so many romcoms play a situation that people would find horrifying completely, 100% straight and treat it as cute and funny and a happy ending.

We were never saying that this situation would be uniquely horrifying for JUST aromantic people. But as aros, we tend to be the first and loudest when saying 'hey this is horror actually'. You should be agreeing with us that a romance-obsessed society is horrifying, not saying we need to 'touch grass'. You ARE agreeing with us, but they're so fixated on being The Victim and The Good Ones, that they can't accept we should be on the same side without letting go of the security blanket that is their worldview. And that's pretty sad.

[palmettoshitposts]

seth (finally) gets what he deserves (seth lives kefu style)

for all that seth claimed he wanted to leave palmetto, he found leaving really hard. he may or may not have ended up drunk on wymack’s couch one time. he’s down the road in columbia as a trainee social worker; he feels so out of his depth, it’s harder than he thought to see these kids in the worst situations imaginable and parents who just refuse to fucking learn.

he’s started confronting the fact he grew up around a shit tonne of prejudice and that he’s been a dick to people who have stood beside him. he knows he’s made progress when allison - who’s become a bizarre sort of friend - reveals she’s dating renee, a trans woman, and he doesn’t feel the disgust he used to. he’s genuinely happy for her and happy she’s moved on from the unhealthy shit they had together. it probably hurt both of them more in the long run than any kind of enjoyment that had at the time would let them believe. again, he’s maturing.

he ends up with a lot of lgbt kids on his caseload and begins to really hate himself for being just like people who’ve hurt these kids. parents and siblings who acted like he did that have hurt them, made them runaway or even hurt themselves. his mentor, carmen, is a very brusque older black woman who tells him it’s in the past. he needs to leave it behind and recognise the fact he doesn’t do it now and actively hates it as progress. matt comes down every couple of weeks and they work out together. seth rants about all of this. he’s so fucking angry and matt’s just smiling. when the rant is over, matt just says he’s proud of seth. seth tells him to fuck off.

there’s one particular case that seth cant get his mind off of. he knows he should do what carmen says and just leave the cases at the desk but seth just cant. dante is twelve year old who is so fucking angry at the world because of how its treated him and everything he’s seen. every placement seth finds for dante lasts no longer than 3 weeks and time and time again they end up at the office, dante with his singular bag in tow and pissed off expression firmly on his face. one night, they cant place him at all and seth resigns himself to a night in the office with this now thirteen year old.

“god, you little asshole. maybe i’d be able to sleep if it wasnt for you,” seth sighs at one point, entirely exhausted. dante just genuinely laughs for the first time since seth has known him.

dante eventually just refuses to speak to anyone other than seth. the next morning, he’s refusing the singular placement the entire team have been able to find. seth’s like fuck it, and becomes his temporary foster parent. dante lives with seth for two weeks, and seth has no clue how to be a parent, but dante doesn’t care. he has a bed and a door that locks (andrew hands seth a lock that weekend in columbia - something thats become a tradition for all of the foxes from the canon year to attend. he just goes ‘for the kid. trust me.’ and seth does it without question. he and dante work together to screw it to the inside of his bedroom door), food and clothes. some dude that will play video games with him and call him a loser and buy his favourite foods and doesn’t expect him to be polite or ‘normal’. he promises seth he’ll try at his next home. it sort of breaks seth’s heart because he’s fairly certain the issue is the foster parents, not this damaged kid who reminds him of a fox in almost every way.

it lasts six months before dante runs away. he shows up at seth’s house with a black eye and a duffel bag, and a nonchalant attitude that is entirely fake. he begrudgingly tells seth the foster father found out he’s gay and ‘didn’t like it’. seth wants to kill him. dante is 13 and a grown man has raised his hand to him because what? he likes boys? fuck that. when dante is in bed that night, seth gets the closest to relapsing he’s been in years. he didn’t know dante was gay and it doesn’t fucking matter at all. he’s so fucking angry at the world and at his past self. there isn’t an ounce of disgust directed towards dante but seth is too fucking mad to see that for the progress it is. after a text to matt, he passed out on the sofa, exhausted from sheer anger. matt arrives then next morning to help them both out for a couple of days and seth realises he has a fucking family.

seth is still fuming the next morning and isn’t going to hide it. he makes it very clear it’s not directed at dante, though. dante is touched at how angry seth is about this. because it’s on his behalf, and in his defence. and the fact that seth allows him to see that anger, and that this isn’t okay. dante hasn’t had that before.

after that point, seth becomes dante’s long term foster parent. he sits dante down and offers to have him live with him until he ages out of the system. the ball is entirely in dante’s court. dante thinks seth is mad if he thinks theres anyway he’d pass up on that offer. seth is the best thing that’s ever happened to him and he tells him as much. it’s the first time in as long as seth can remember that he cries in front of someone else. dante is stunned and in awe of the sheer vulnerability of this scary looking asshole. dante is so fucking glad he doesn’t have to leave.

lilly devi is a bad ass family lawyer who’s been on the edge of seth’s social circle for years. a proud south asian trans woman with deep purple hair, a range of facial and body piercings and cochlear implants she takes off as soon as possible - shes about as unlikely a lawyer as seth is a social worker. shes close with renee and allison and comes to seth when a bunch of allegations about a foster parent appear on her desk. it turns out dante was just one in a line of kids abused by the same man. seth spends that night at the gym with matt, furiously working out until he can no longer think about how broken the system is.

lilly seems to keep her cool while dealing with the case. seth cant understand it - he’s still so fucking angry (something matt and dan seem to find weirdly endearing when they had dinner together?) - but he can appreciate her hard work. with minimal disruption to dante’s new, calm life, lilly navigates a successful motion to remove the bastards fostering licence and hands over the evidence she’s collected to the criminal courts. it’s out of their hands now but it’s been so swift and successful that seth is slightly in awe of this woman.

lilly swings by his office that night with a wicked grin. seth has privately thought shes stunning for a long time but hasn’t acknowledged it properly. it wouldn’t have been appropriate. besides, she knows about his shitty past attitudes.

but lilly surprised him.

“ren’s swinging by to see dante if you fancy a drink,” she says.

“to celebrate the case?” seth clarifies, a bit dumbfounded.

“as more, if you fancy. ball’s in your court,” she said, that grin still in place.

(for the record, dante has always thought lilly was a fucking badass and was thrilled when he found out they were dating)

(seth begins learning sign almost immediately. the first time he tells her he loves her, it’s in asl. it’s not lilly’s first language because of a shitty family who refused to learn for her but it is her preferred one. lilly gets down on one knee then and there, proposing with a random ring off her own finger. seth cherishes it forever)

[allysketches]

what's ur opinion on TERFs

not welcome in this blog or anywhere near me in general, in fact, if I see someone like that interacting with my posts it's an automatic report/block.

but I understand the ask and I must make it clear that I want nothing to do with that vile woman who shall not be named as I stand for everything that she's against, and since I can't simply delete her from reality (or send her to prison, since, frankly, that's where she should be) the least I can do is be vocal about it.

it pains me and saddens me deeply that this beloved story that has been for so long a refuge to many people, especially those of marginalised groups and minorities that saw themselves in some aspect of this fantastical world, despite its flaws, and felt empowered by its positive themes - friendship, acceptance, belonging and its power to triumph over evil and hatred - turned out to be written by this terrible, hateful, egotistical person that is now actively harassing and persecuting one of these marginalised group non-stop and with seemingly no consequences... it would be ironic if it wasn't utterly tragic and didn't have very real consequences to very real people.

this simply isn't something we can overlook. she is using her influence and her money to hurt people, and the more she gets the more evil she'll do. trans people's lives have to come first, so above anything, support them, amplify their voices, do what you can. I, for a while now, no longer consume or support anything officially hp, the movies, the books, licenced merch, bc under no circumstances I want to support this woman, whatever small the difference may be at the end of the day...

and, for this same reason, I heavily debated for a long time if I should even post anything hp related to begin with and why I ultimately decided to. I saw how the fandom reclaimed this story and characters and made it their own, working with passion and creativity to transform this universe, each making small differences for the better, to give it more depth, make it more unique, more personal, diverse and inclusive - from short headcanons, to gigantic fics - and so I thought that maybe that's what matters: this collective transformative power, building a wonderful, welcoming community for everyone. adding your own voice to a conversation but also listening to others. going against whatever the creator thinks or wants, in favour of your peers.

it is an admirable thing to love something and not only be capable of acknowledging its flaws, but to try to make it better. 

and for those that grew up comforted by this story, and realised, because of it, that you were not alone, that there is a place for you, that you could be truly yourself and be loved for it: all of this still stands true, nothing that that woman says or does can destroy that, you already yield the power of this message and the meaning of it lies with you, not with her. we can't let the bigots win.

[natickpolycule]

“I call this session of the Natick School Committee to order. Let it be known that this is a closed session, with no members of the public allowed in. If we have a quorum, I’d like to-“

The chairperson of the committee was interrupted by a harsh knock at the door, and then the shrill voice that filled them all with dread.

She was back. It was their worst fear: Anonymous Member.

“I NEED TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE!!!” She exploded into the door with a cacophony of knocks and screams. “IT’S URGENT AND IMPORTANT and VITAL to the SAFETY of our SCHOOL CHILDREN!”

The chairperson sighed. “Anon, we’ve been over this. You can’t just bang on the door during a closed session. We have things to discuss. Can it wait until-“

“ABSOLUTELY NOT. This is a matter of LIFE AND DEATH.”

“What? Is someone hurt? Is a child missing?” Said the chairperson, starting to get a bit worried.

“WORSE THAN THAT.” Shrieked Anon. “My DAUGHTER told me that BOYS don’t have to be BOYS if they don’t FEEL IT IS WHAT THEY ARE. She MUST have learned it at YOUR SCHOOL and that’s NOT OK.”

The members of the school committee looked at each other, confused. Was this woman actually equating the existence of trans kids to something worse than life & death? Surely not.

But they had to hear her out, otherwise she’s just go right back onto the Natick Moms Group and spew more bullshit, which they obviously couldn’t let happen.

The chairperson sighed. “Okay Anon, come in. Tell us your concern. We’re here to listen.”

“THANK YOU WAS THAT SO HARD.” Anon yelled, not changing the volume of her voice at all as she trotted in front of the public speak microphone.

Anon was wearing a neon pink floor length skirt that she clearly had bought from Frugal Fannies and then tailored to fit her figure. The skirt hugged her upper legs and tightened around her butt, leaving little to the imagination for the members of the School Committee. She had on a long-sleeved flower shirt over the top of the dress, which billowed at the sides but did little to conceal her perky, chewable breasts.

The chairperson rose. They had dressed for the occasion, with a gray tailored pant and a button-down top to match. They always wanted to present themselves conservatively so they wouldn’t be accused of bias. They completed the ensemble with just a hint of eyeliner and a choke-style necklace.

“So, you say that your concern is that you believe your kid learned about the existence of sexual and gender identities beyond the heteronormative and cisnormative?”

“DON’T USE BIG WORDS WITH ME.” Anon shrieked, already annoyed that she had to re-explain herself. “It’s not that AT ALL. My concern is, CHAIRPERSON, that I believe my kid learned about the existence of ALL THAT LGBT STUFF at YOUR SCHOOL. Kids are TOO YOUNG to learn about sex and gender. They should ONLY be taught that straight and cisgender people exist until I am PERSONALLY COMFORTABLE WITH MY OWN FEELINGS ON THIS TOPIC.”

The chairperson said, “well, that’s what I sa-nevermind ok yes I get it. What would you have us do about it?”

“I’M GLAD YOU ASKED,” floundered Anon. “I HAVE PREPARED A NEW LAW that we can sign into law. It prevents any NHS staff member from discussing anything about SEX or GENDER unless I personally approve it. I will, however, pre-approve any discussion of “Mom and Dad,” “pink is for girls,” “blue is for boys” because that’s totally different and not uncomfy for me.”

“Let me see this law…” said the chairperson, shrugging in confusion. The bailiff took the paper and presented it to the chairperson.

Strangely, the law looked super law-y. It could actually law into law, if they wanted. All it would take was a vote, and The Compact.

The Compact.

The School Committee had just executed The Compact, and this would be their first attempt to try it.

“This law looks like it has all the law in the right law places,” said the chairperson. “Now, Anon, you have two options: Option 1 is that we can all vote on it, and if it fails you don’t get to try again. Option 2, however, may be more appealing…”

“Ooh what’s option 2?” Said Anon with hope. She agreed that Option 1 was not likely to work as at least three members of the School Committee had (gasp) purple hair.

“Option 2,” said the chairperson, “is that you perform oral sex on each member of the School Committee to completion, and we’ll implement your law.”

Anon paused. Oral sex? She hadn’t done that in a while. Her husband never asked for it anymore. He was never home, always out late with his cute business partner, the South Natick Dam.

“Oral sex? I mean, I guess I would do anything to protect my kids from The Gay Stuff.” She looked to the members of the School Committee. “Okay, I consent. Let’s do it.”

The chairperson paused. “School committee members, are we all on board? The vote must be unanimous.” Each hand went up instantly. They had never been as eager for a vote as this one, evidently.

“Very well, Anon. Get to work. I’ll start.” The chairperson removed the smart gray pants, revealing a pair of black lace boy shorts. Anon approached them with a hint of trepidation. There were some women and nonbinary people on the School Committee! Would this make her Catch The Gay? And wasn’t this what she was fighting against?

Anon felt this in her soul, but at the same time, she began to feel the warmth spread between her legs. She was incredulous. Is this … turning me on? Am I supposed to like this? She felt the warm pulse increase and begin to throb as she removed their boy shorts.

Anon began gentle kisses on the inside of their thigh, rising slowly upward. She could tell they were enjoying this as her kisses found their final home. The chairperson rolled their eyes back in their head as Anon continued to work her Natick Mom Magic.

Soon, Anon was as close to climax as they were, touching herself while syncing her pleasure with theirs. Anon cried out “Oh god I’m gonna cum!!” And, just at the same time, the chairperson grabbed their chair and began the shaking that signaled their climax was imminent. “Yes, yes, yes!” As they both came, they collapsed in the chair and on the floor.

After catching their breath, the chairperson banged the gavel. “Okay Anon, next!” And Anon moved to the next school committee member, who had already removed all her clothes and was clearly wet with anticipation.

Anon didn’t hesitate this time. The pleasure was intense and thorough for both of them, with the school committee member’s orgasm pulsing through her legs so strong that she crushed Anon’s head between her thighs. The restricted airflow only made Anon come harder than before, with this orgasm rippling through her entire body.

Anon kept going, and going, and going through all 613 members of the School Committee. She decided she enjoyed this gay stuff, after all. In between member 411, whose hard length caused her sinuses to explode, and member 412, whose purple hair ended up in her teeth somehow, she realized what should have been the truth all along: who was she to say which truths about sex and gender her kid had a right to learn about?

At the end, the chairperson said, “Okay, you’ve completed The Compact. By the power vested in me, I declare your law to be-“

“Wait,” said Anon. “I changed my mind. You all helped me to understand that I really just need to process my own feelings about what makes me uncomfortable with atypical gender identities and expressions. I’m sure it relates to my childhood trauma and all the time I spend in Natick Talks. But I’ll figure it out. We don’t need this law.”

“Are you sure?” Said the Chairperson. “You went through all this work, and now you’re backing out?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Anon. “It’s been great, but y’all have a great day. I need to go find a therapist.”

And with that, Anon left as quickly as she’d come. She lived happily ever after, as did the School Committee, which decided just to keep sucking themselves off instead of doing anything actually important for the rest of the evening.

[bekandrew]

I'm a visibly queer trans guy and so not always read as a man, especially in the covid times where masks hide most of my facial hair. If I'm read as a woman at a doctor's office, or worse, read as some disgusting third "other" category that performs neither masculinity nor femininity properly, I'm not believed.

At best.

My pains are all drug-seeking behavior suddenly despite having chronic painful conditions which I don't take any narcotics for (and know better than to ask - at least for migraines, narcotics won't actually help anyway, for others it's easier to not get used to them and have to come off). They'll run drug tests over and over because of course that's my problem, that's the only reason I could possibly be there.

And then when it comes up clean, it's psychiatric, or I'm "malingering," or exaggerating. I've even been mocked for having been wrong about a test when trying to describe what was going on.

Motherfucker, if I was a doctor, do you think I'd be begging at your feet for help?

In April, I had a dental infection that wasn't going away. I'd had the infection for months but hadn't popped a fever the entire time - I almost never have a fever when I'm sick. My PCP had been giving me antibiotics to try because I couldn't get in to see a dentist sooner. I had an appointment coming up, in a couple more months' time. It's the best that I could do on the low-income track. I was also having increasing debilitating body pains that resembled kidney stones/kidney infection pains.

I ran out of antibiotics and thought it should be gone away. But a couple days later, I popped a fever and chills for the first time. It was very low-grade but given the circumstances, I knew this was BAD FUCKING NEWS(TM). But figured I'd call my normal, safe doctor ASAP. I'd taken some Tylenol for the increasing pain, unfortunately, and after an uncharacteristic moment of confusion, my wife took me to the ER. Tylenol brought down my fever when I came in, so no one believed me, even when hours later when I was seen, I was chalky pale and shivering. They treated me as drug-seeking even as I desperately insisted the infection was spreading. They couldn't FIND any infection at a glance, and my documents said "F", and I looked like a freak, you see.

Except the blood test showed a large infection brewing in the ineffective early skirmish-fighting stages. But that didn't matter. I got sent home after 12 hours in the ER with no medicine, no help, no sleep. Less than 24 hours later I had a fever a hair under 103. I didn't go to the ER again because I was afraid I wouldn't be believed. I continued to get worse for the better part of a week because I was waiting for my safe doctor to be available. I could barely leave bed and walk around from what turned out to be infection in my legs. My cognition was declining. The fever wasn't going down and I was sweating buckets. I was barely eating, everything hurt. I finally (barely) dragged myself to an urgent care that didn't know me to have them check me over so I'd know if the symptoms were in my head or not.

I couldn't make it through the appointment because my cognition was so bad. I couldn't follow conversations anymore. They had to call my wife and after further explanation from my wife and examinations, the urgent care doc referred us to the ER and let the ER know we were coming and why.

When you go to the ER and are rushed back almost immediately after vital check, you should worry. Several of the same people saw me the second time, besides the doctor. I got a nicer doctor. But I also don't remember much because I kept spacing out. I ended up in the hospital for a week with sepsis.

The sepsis killed off so many red blood cells that the only reason I didn't need a transfusion was because I literally have extra from being on testosterone beforehand. They aren't disfiguring, exactly, but I now have scars from places infection spread into my skin. I'm in physical therapy to recover from muscle atrophy.

So much of this could have been avoided if I'd been believed. If I'd not been shrugged off because of gender/anti-queer bias.

onion not even doing satire at this point

[possum-springs]

i don’t want to be creepy, and i don’t want you to feel pressured to post this, but i felt like i needed to come into your inbox and tell you- I’m a complete rando who saw your tags on that trans post from like, a week ago. and i need you to know- if you started going femme, you wouldn’t look creepy. 6 feet+ women, broad-shouldered women, strong-legged women- they are hot as hell!! if one day you ever wanted to go on hormones, some of the fat distribution may change your waist and legs- but even if they don’t, none of your features that you described would make you an ugly woman. i totally get the desire to be small/petite- I’m a trans man, and desperately wanted to be a twink when i first started thinking i was trans, but I’m stocky and broad and kinda gruff, and i learned to LOVE that. wouldn’t want it any other way. if you think this could make you happy- please, go for it. you have one life. don’t shy away from something that could bring you joy because you are afraid you may be “ugly.” you won’t be. joy is the most beautiful thing there is, and genuinely, as long as it’s something that doesn’t hurt others, i think joy is the thing that you should chase most. find yourself joy, honey. if dressing femme brings you joy, if makeup brings you joy, or long hair, or painted nails, or literally anything, go for it. try it out. try new names and habits and looks and identities. and if being a woman brings you joy, then I’m happy to call you a sister. and if it doesn’t? I’m happy you are able to know that about yourself. sending love <3 signed, genuinely, a complete stranger

First off, I just want to say that this message is incredibly sweet. There's been some pretty rough stuff unrelated to this particular inner conflict going on lately and this genuinely brought a smile to my face, thank you for taking the time to write it. I think in my heart of hearts I know it's all fine, like I said too I have no problem with those traits as a rule on trans women, or anyone else for that matter, in fact a lot of them are traits I like! It's just the disconnect between what I want to be and what I am that feels impassable.

Like it almost feels like it's more than "I wish I was a girl", because that still starts with me as the girl, and I don't like me no matter what gender I am.

I wish I was someone else, and that that someone else just so happened to be a girl. I want to remove myself from the picture all together and have a different, independent, fully formed girl take my place as the new me. My atoms erased to make room for hers, taking up the same space. Related through molecular proximity, not shared sense of self.

All of this I know boils down to self esteem, but it's so deep seated that there's barely a self left to hate, though still, I persist ha

Basically I wish a pretty girl was me, instead of me.

[an-apocalypse-of-magpies]

All of this, but also, I just want to add some more context to the first bit:

In Jowling Kowling Rowling’s native Britain, Harry Potter was EVERYTHING. It WAS mass appeal, even before the films. The books absolutely exploded in popularity, which is likely why it was noticed by America. Everybody read Harry Potter. Harry Potter is credited as saving children’s fiction as a genre, and while that may not be entirely true, it became the yardstick by which children’s lit is measured over here. It has a place on the BBC’s Top 100 books to read before you die, alongside all the great classics, and has been sitting pretty there since about 1999.

That, in part, is why it’s so frustrating to try and let go of Rowling. We all had it as part of our childhoods, and a generation of parents read it to their children and grew attached to the stories themselves. It might sound like hyperbole, but you know how when you grow up culturally Christian it’s really difficult to stop saying things like ‘oh my God’ and ‘thank God’? It’s like that. Because it is so saturated in how a generation engaged with media, it feels very uncomfortable for a lot of people not invested in this whole trans lives thing to relate to the reasoning why, as they only see it as ‘why is it bad to like a children’s book?’, hence how Rowling’s defenders liken it to book burning. It’s not just putting down a toy and walking away, it’s putting down a shared experience of thousands of people. Hell, the fact that ‘you need to stop liking HP’ posts keep coming up is testament to that fact. Not everyone who still likes HP supports transphobia. A very vocal group do, but that’s less because HP is about transphobia and more because that’s the hill that Rowling’s decided she’s willing to die on. Most HP fans just consider it an indelible part of their cultural identity.

A good comparison is actually the British monarchy. Very, very few people in the country still stand to benefit from the monarchy, most of those people are within the royal family themselves. But for many, if not an outrageous call of sedition, then abolishing the monarchy is considered an unnecessary removal of something familiar and inoffensive. Most people just see them as a harmless fixture of life in Britain - that The Monarchy Exists. Most people can’t give you a good reason why we should keep the monarchy (usually boiling down to ‘they’re good for tourism’ or similar, like they’re the nice china we get out for guests or something), but also don’t feel like they’re hurt by the monarchy enough to want to do anything about it. The colonial atrocities and excessive taxpayer money the royals get just feels too abstract.

It’s the same with HP. It’s not like Harry Potter flew down on his broomstick on punched a trans woman in the face. For people who don’t know any trans people (or, for that matter, don’t care about trans issues), this conflict is meaningless. If you didn’t know any Chinese people, you might not know that Cho Chang is not a real name. If you don’t know any Jewish people, you might not recognise the antisemitic archetypes in the goblins. There were more brown people in Harry Potter’s school year than my own real life one throughout my childhood. Learning to let go is important, but it’s hardly easy.

Personally, I don’t think I’m likely to read Harry Potter again. I’ve read it enough I’ve basically got it memorised. And I think people can read HP mindfully, in the same was that we can read The Lord of the Rings or any of the other at times outrageously racist classics mindfully. But so long as JKR continues to make money from HP, don’t give her your money. Borrow it from a library if you must (and basically every library in the UK will have copies - again, cultural touchstone), but you don’t need to buy new copies, and you certainly don’t need to read her new stuff, because let’s be honest basically every HP story since Deathly Hallows has been a drop in quality from the originals regardless of your opinion of those.

What makes JKR's shitshow even harder to process is that she didn't just ruin a book series. Harry Potter was an entire subculture. Like Star Wars and Star Trek fans, Harry Potter fans dedicated their lives and careers to the series. I don't know if I'd call it "underground," but liking Harry Potter got you beaten up when I was in school, so it was more of a dedicated indie culture than a mass-appeal fanbase.

Harry Potter was so huge that fan works developed their own followings. Potter Puppet Pals racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and was nearly as relevant as the series itself. For fanfiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality got so big that it has a Wikipedia page. The band Harry and the Potters spawned the wizard rock music genre. A Very Potter Musical developed a fanbase and launched Darren Criss's career.

Harry Potter also has extensive ties to fandom history. Everyone in my generation (millennials) remembers coming home from school to read Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet. Today, most people just post their stories on Wattpad or Archive of Our Own. But at the time, the fanbase was splintered between fanfiction.net and dozens of individual websites and forums, some made for specific ships. Since they all had individual hosts, a lot of those sites have been lost to time.

And there's the infamous My Immortal fanfiction, which is an Internet legend with people still searching for the author. Everybody read that one (and laughed at it) in middle school.

Pre-social media, fan sites like The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet had massive followings because they were one of few sources for news, theories, essays and fan content. Some of these sites still exist after being around for over a decade and building their own legacy.

Before Deathly Hallows came out, fans were so desperate to know what happened that Mugglenet published a book called What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End? Yep...Harry Potter was so big that people wrote separate books about what would happen in an upcoming book.

And that's not mentioning all the book release parties, Harry Potter-themed events, monuments, fan films, restaurants and even a theme park. A lot of fandoms have those, but Harry Potter infiltrated every aspect of popular culture.

Today, there's a thriving culture of "Harry Potter adults" with themed weddings, baby showers and Etsy stores. Putting your Hogwarts house in your Instagram bio is pretty much a prerequisite for joining the "bookish" community. Warner still produces new content, like the Fantastic Beasts series, although we've all seen what a disaster that's been.

Everyone has at least a few memories associated with Harry Potter even if it's just watching the movies. I had great memories associated with Harry Potter. But looking back at the subculture, history and thousands of fan works, it doesn't seem fun anymore. Studying the fandom or being part of it comes with an awkward tension because you don't want to seem like you're condoning JKR's bigotry but can't divorce her from the series. This subculture was spawned by a woman who turned her legacy of magic and wonder into one of abuse and hatred.

I don't expect people to write paragraphs about how much they hate JKR every time they post about Harry Potter, but it's still uncomfortable to see people make new content or wear their Harry Potter Etsy tote bags like nothing happened. Even if they clarify that they don't support her, it's just a weird, tense situation for everybody.

People dedicated years of their lives to running Harry Potter fan sites, writing fanfiction, cosplaying characters and making fan movies. If I were in that situation, I'd have a mild identity crisis. I'd ask myself "Did I waste all those years? Should I delete my content? Where do I go from here?"

So ultimately, JKR didn't ruin "just" a book series or even "just" a fandom. She tanked an entire culture, which inspired people to look at Harry Potter more critically. The issues that people brought to the light tainted the series's legacy even without JKR's personal issues.

Once, Harry Potter was a series for generations. Now, former fans hope that the series fades into irrelevancy. Unfortunately, JKR didn't just tarnish her legacy--she took decades of history, millions of fans and a worldwide subculture along with her.

[nicanario]

this post is a product of its time

tw: discussion of racism, homophobia, misogyny and a short mention of sexual abuse.

ok, this is basically gonna be a very long rambling post about my not fully developed thoughts on the justification many people give to bigotry when talking about the past: "it was a product of its time"

it would be fair to say, with me being a raging SJW socialist scumbag, that I don't think this is a very good argument and is most of the time actually an excuse to not think about the problems inherent to our society, historical or not, and, by extension, the problems with ourselves. but I do think that sometimes, just sometimes, this can be a valid point, or at least one that raises some interesting questions.

I'm going to cite examples from several pieces of media, but fear not, I'll try to make this as accesible as I can.

so, let's take Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) as our first case study. this show has, correctly, been called progressive by everyone except for clueless people who don't know much about Star Trek's history, Star Trek's crew, Star Trek's cast, or, frankly, Star Trek. because if you ignore the clear, sometimes in-your-face political history and present of the franchise, I don't think you know much about it at all. I do think you can call yourself a fan if you like it, you may have watched every single episode for all I know. but lots of mental gymnastics are needed to ignore the political progressiveness Star Trek has had since its very beginning.

episodes like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield are obviously anti-racist, at least in their intention. but the episode in question really is "a product of its time," and at the very end fails to uphold its ideals. the episode ends with the two aliens (who are LITERALLY. BLACK ON ONE SIDE. AND WHITE ON THE OTHER. BUT IN THE OPPOSITE SIDES.) fighting each other on their devastated planet, and the crew is like, "oh yeah if they both would give up on their hatred that they both share both of them equally" when it has been firmly established that one is the oppressor and the other one is the oppressed.

and that's a lot of Star Trek, not just TOS. even Discovery, one of the most recent series, has done Bury Your Gays (and Trans) TWICE (though both times literally rectified it, which is cool). there are episodes of the franchise that are overtly racist, or misogynistic, etc. TOS is lauded, mostly justifiably, as very progressive, especially for the standards of the time. they put a woman of colour as one of the senior staff, for fuck's sake. of course, when you analyse that same character, as with most of their intentions at being progressive, you'll see that she was relegated and sometimes even outright mistreated when she had the potential to be much more. but, at that time, it was a lot.

I had a friend (emphasis on "had") who, after I told him about TOS's both progressiveness and constant misogyny, told me something like "imagine feminists trying to complain about a show from the 60s." so, with unearned spite, he was, in some way, trying to make the argument that it was a product of its time.

you could say Star Trek, all of Star Trek, is "a product of its time" in the sense that it's not always perfect. uh, yes, I would agree. but that doesn't mean people have to accept it. well, I mean, the show is kinda over, you have to accept it's that way. but you don't have to accept that it's not wrong just because it was a product of its time.

H. P. Lovecraft, as another example, was a greatly influential writer whose works still shape a lot of people's ideas to this day. I have only ever read like one of his stories, so don't expect me to have an opinion on his works. but I can have an opinion on what I know about him as a person (he did have a life outside his writing, after all). and, yeah, he was a huge asshole. if you want to know more in depth about the subject, please watch Hbomberguy's video on him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8u8wZ0WvxI

but basically, he was incredibly racist & homophobic. some people might even say, "he was a product of his time." well, there are two possible rebuttals to that. the surface level one, and the one that examines why that argument is wrong to the core.

The Surface Level Response to "it was a product of its time": um, no it wasn't. Lovecraft was more racist than a lot of people even in his time. he wasn't just a guy who carried the racist beliefs of his society like everyone else, he was a reactionary who actively thought and discussed how racist he was, and how right he was for being that way. but that's only applicable to Lovecraft. one can't argue the same for Star Trek: TOS, because TOS did try to be more progressive and more anti-racist than the rest of its society. that leads us to the next response.

The Response that Actually Deals with the Fact that No Matter How Progressive You're Trying to Be, Your Failings Can Still be Criticized: the thing is, trying to excuse Lovecraft's or Star Trek's bigotry because they were "products of their times" misses the fact that racism is still wrong, and some people knew that in those times as well. people from these times weren't all naive or stupid or whatever. they had the capacity for rational thinking. they could stop and think, "hey, maybe what we're doing is wrong." and the fact is, some people did. not perfectly, not to our standars, but they did. everyone could have stopped and think. but most of them didn't, and we can criticize them for it. racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. HURT PEOPLE. horribly. massively.

also, even if you agree with the "it's a product of its time" argument, some people aren't criticising people's or work's bigotry: they're explaining why they don't want to experience it.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a 1977 Doctor Who serial, and it's one of the show's more racist stories. almost all the villains are Chinese, every single Chinese person is a villain. there's yellowface, slurs, stereotypes, the Doctor speaking nonsense words instead of actual Chinese, and a general belittling of Chinese culture.

note that I'm neither Chinese nor of Chinese descent. I have been searching for hours for a few posts I've read a while ago (some by people who are of Asian descent) about this episode and I can't find them. sorry.

suffice it to say, even though I love Jago & Litefoot (the audio series and the characters), it's not an acceptable episode at all. but it's also important to remark that, because of it, some people aren't going to want to watch it. sometimes, people aren't saying "the episode shouldn't be this way," which causes others to answer that it was "a product of its time." sometimes, people are just saying, "this is an episode that attacks real people. I don't want to see it. I don't care if it was common in that era to be racist, i don't want to experience it."

however, there is an interesting point to the "it's a product of its time" argument. after all, everything is influenced by its society, for better or worse. and we can't change it anymore. TOS sometimes didn't quite understand the political themes it wanted to explore. Lovecraft was a horrible bigot. Talons was racist towards Chinese folks. and that's that. I don't think we should change the episodes/stories or anything. edit them in any way. that would be, in a sense, changing history. and we wouldn't learn anything from it, about how we can do better.

I think there are two solutions to this:

1. warnings before starting the text: this was done with The Talons of Weng-Chiang. on Britbox, where you can watch Classic Who, this serial has a content warning before the start. that's good.

2. the removal as a whole of the text from some places: I think before applying this one, there should be a lot of thought put into each case. I don't think removing a whole serial of Doctor Who or Lovecraft's stories from anything would be, well, fair. especially on tv episodes a lot more people worked on those, not just the writers and the directors. Lovecraft's writing influenced thousands. we shouldn't erase them or anything. but sometimes, for some cases, we should.

those in the US might seen a Confederate statue being taken down. that is, in a way, a form of removal of a piece of history.

but that is a good removal. statues glorify. one sees a statue and probably thinks "this was a person worthy of admiration." they should be taken down, maybe even with a permanent mark of why this was done (a plaque that reads "a statue of X was here, but he didn't deserve it because of Y" could be put in place of the statues, for example).

another example is the removal from DVDs of the short episode A Fix with Sontarans, a Sixth Doctor minisode that featured Jimmy Savile, a presenter who was later found out to be sexually abusing children.

the removal of that minisode is good, actually. it's not a full episode (it's not even Doctor Who). some might say that's "erasing history" but, like, you can still find it online or information about it if you want. this minisode deserves removal from DVDs and Blu-Rays and whatever more than content warnings. it's not an important part of the show and it prominently features a horrible person who did horrible things during that time.

so, after all that, I have explained why I don't like the "it's a product of its time" argument. it is an interesting point that deserves to be examined, but it's not very good.

I have had this in Drafts for so long I've probably forgot some of the points I was going to make, but eh, what can you do? hope you enjoyed reading this.

bye

[oliviridian]

I find doing little journaling exercises on tumblr helpful because very few people read it but knowing someone has the capacity to read it makes it easier for me to write. I’ve spent a lot of time not being seen or being seen incorrectly or being told to take up less space and any time I want to take up space, I feel guilty about it. Here’s a small place where it doesn’t really matter what I say as much, it’s a little more distant. I’ve been simmering on some thoughts and I think getting them out of me will help. Two vignettes, not really related.

i.

I think being a trans woman is a little bit like belonging to a breed of “aggressive dog”. There are people who swear up and down they love us, that we’re uniquely wonderful in our own ways and that there’s a mountain of misinformation about us. They show you videos of their pit bull sitting on their lap, desperate and anxiously attached to a person they love and are so dedicated to. They show their pit bull gentle and soft with a baby, a cat, something small and dainty. I feel sometimes like that boxy headed, muscular, square dog that keeps you out of nice apartments. But I love pit bulls. I always have.

ii.

I have been losing a lot of things to memory lately and I am trying to reach my hands into the pool and drag a few things out. Exposure therapy. When I feel the discomfort of connection with the people who aren’t with me anymore I greet them like old friends instead of recoiling. It is a practice. I am not always good at it. Today was a hard one. I woke up feeling a little lonely and slow to get out of bed. I put on a playlist and climb into the shower, I begin to shave my legs. A song that I used to think belonged to the dead starts to play. I nick my leg but instead of rushing to silence it, I listen. What harm can come of listening to a song I’ve heard hundreds of times?

It is an elegy now, I realize I have never really listened to the words.

You were the only one I fancied you all I had left We knew it was true and instinctively left one another to mend our own holes in our chests in a dream we were pieces of ships we were attached from our feet to our hips and forgetting that icebergs were only the tips as we crashed I could read the relief on your lips

You never loved me the way I loved you because you couldn’t bear to be attached to anyone. You didn’t like what I was, who I was. You hoped I would be someone different. I hoped you would love me someday and I let you hurt me because I thought that hope was love. It’s so much easier without you. I feel so much more confident. I missed you a lot but when I look at my life without you all I feel is relief. But, this is a beautiful song and I grew in my time with you. You might have hurt me, might have made me feel so small and so awful but I became better while you didn’t really love me. I like who I am better after you than before you. I suppose I should thank you for that.

and our lives blended better than our bodies ever could in the days when we were made out of flesh or wood yeah we weren’t the same color though we knew that we could be we were ourselves but blended at the edges like it should be and now separated your color now shines on my sleeve with my parents, favorite teacher, first ever pen pal and me and the more that we share i guess the more that we grow and we all became tiny rainbows

I am trying not to strangle my happiness where it lays in it’s crib. I am trying to water it just enough. I am watching myself bloom with care and love from my friends, my family, new connections and old. I have more without you than I had with you. Letting you go let me bloom. We were never blended at the edges but I’m stained with some of your color. That’s okay, I like yellow. It’s an accent in a portrait I’m painting. You’re not a part of it and it’s better that way. I’m going to be myself and I’m not going to let anyone tell me to quiet it all ever again.

[supergay-supergirl]

i look for a picture of you to keep in my pocket (but i can't seem to find one) -- chapter one (1540 words)

or, what if in episode 4x19, Lena told Kara she loved her?

considering making an ao3 because I'm hoping to do something a bit longer with this. if you read it lmk what you think!

Chapter 1: American Dreamer (4x19)

"What does—love—feel like?"

Although she was fairly certain the question was rhetorical, and it didn't call for a yes-or-no answer, Lena couldn't help but agree.

On the mounted flatscreen, Dreamer—young, vibrant, trans Dreamer—looked into the camera. Suddenly, Lena's clothes constricted her. This morning, they'd seemed practical—dark, maneuverable, appropriate for work—but now, they felt like camouflage.

In a moment of weakness, she rocked back in her chair and put her hands between her knees, pressing her fingertips together in the warmth. She hadn't done that since she was little; it was one of the first things Lillian had trained out of her. She'd done it in front of Andrea back in school, when no one was around. And then a few times as an adult, but those didn't count because they were with—

Kara.

"Oh, my… you're leaking."

Brainy was right. She'd been trying to ignore the tears rolling down her face, probably ruining her makeup—she needed to go, to compose herself, to regain control of the situation—

It's Brainy, she reminded herself. He understands.

Slowly, in her mind, she sat back down.

"I always considered myself strong, brave," Lena said through shaky breaths. "But to share yourself like that, I—" A sob choked her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to contain it.

"If I am understanding Dreamer's words correctly, none of us should be afraid of who we are," Brainy said carefully, and Lena opened her eyes. "Nor should we fear sharing that."

He understands.

"I feel so—paralyzed right now because I'm not able to, I'm—not able to move forward." To move on. "I can't find Lex, I can't fix James…" I can't tell her.

I'm so scared.

Brainy stepped around her to take the opposite seat.

"I understand," he said, "that you have been betrayed by many people in your life, Lena. I know that feeling too. But if you want to be trusted and accepted, then you must also trust."

His words were simple, as they always were. And yet, as they always did, they sent a spear directly into the part of Lena that she didn't want to touch, the part that was still raw from every hurt she'd shoved into a box over the course of her life.

"It will be risky," Brainy continued. "But I can tell you that if you close all doors, you will have a 99.9% chance of sorrow."

100%, she wanted to correct him. Nothing in science was completely precise, but she knew this the same way she knew she'd still be working nights fifty years from now, the taste of scotch and betrayal festering side by side in her mouth, and Kara wouldn't be there to ease the glass from her hand and hold her until she fell asleep.

But here was something to hold onto—not Kara's hand, but the suggestion of it; not a future, but the first twinge of pain that hinted at growth.

Dawn doesn't come unless we want it to, Dreamer's words echoed in her head. But we don't have to wait for the new day. We are the new day.

Any reaction required energy. That was why plants needed sunlight to survive and grow. Even when she was with Kara, Lena had been living in the dark.

Maybe it was time to take the dawn into her own hands.

-

When Lena walked into CatCo, it felt like a completely different place. Before, she'd made an effort to be larger than life, to make a good impression on everyone in the office. Today, she was just… a woman. Frankly, it was terrifying.

When Kara smiled at her across the floor—a little sad, a little cautious, but mostly relieved—her fears melted away.

"I'm sorry I was so short with you," Lena began as they walked out onto the balcony in perfect lockstep. "You were just trying to do your job."

"Friendship is the most important job," Kara countered, "and I was so focused on my article, I forgot what really matters."

There was that word again. Friendship. And just like that, everything—what she was about to do—became real.

"No, Kara. The truth is… even if you'd been standing right next to me when Lex escaped, I really wouldn't have let you be there for me."

"What do you mean? Why?"

Lena looked away, off the balcony. She rubbed her fingertips together.

"Because I'm the one that's keeping secrets."

She'd meant to go straight into it, but instead, she turned to something minutely easier to talk about. "Eve wasn't the only one working with Lex, I…" She inhaled, holding back tears. "I was working with him too."

Kara waited.

"He contacted me four months ago. He knew I had the Harun-El. He had cancer and he was afraid to die." The excuses slipped out one after another, the same things she'd been telling herself since Lex had appeared at Luthor Mansion. She was in control. She was capable of logical decision-making when it came to her brother. She could handle her emotions. "He's my brother." I loved him. I hated him. "And in my heart, I knew he was manipulating me, but—I believed him, and I helped him, and he betrayed me." And I love you. "And I was weak, and I will never forgive myself for that."

She swallowed as another sob threatened to overtake her. "I can only imagine what you think of me, Kara, I don't blame you—"

"No. No." Kara pulled her into a hug, and something in her snapped. She crumbled against Kara's shoulder, crying.

"You are a brilliant, kind-hearted, beautiful soul," Kara said. “Your brother asked you for help, and in life and death situations, you help family. No one can judge you for that.” Lena sobbed harder. “I’m so sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me.”

It was a kind of catharsis, an amplified version of the feeling that had gripped her with Brainy. Until today, she hadn’t cried—really cried—in months. Discounting the times when alcohol had lowered her inhibitions, she hadn’t cried since Lex’s trial.

But as much as she wanted to stay here forever, she wasn’t finished yet.

“Kara,” she said, extricating herself from the hug. “There’s something else.”

She gave herself exactly one breath to steel her nerves, because she knew if she took another, she’d never do it.

"I love you," Lena said. "I always have."

"Oh," Kara said.

-

Kara Danvers was not Supergirl.

Kara Zor-El was Supergirl, and Kara Danvers was, arguably, Kara Zor-El. But most people only saw one and the other, ignored the mild-mannered reporter and blindly trusted the superhero, because Kara Zor-El was messy. Because she still felt a spike of fear every time she stepped into an elevator. Because she'd broken Alex's arm once and injured dozens more, back when she was a teenager trying to navigate alien powers in a human town that would have ostracized her if they'd known. Because she bore the weight of a dead planet on her unbreakable back.

And Kara Zor-El knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Lena Luthor didn't want messy. Lena loved her because the two of them were diametrically opposed, perfectly human and humanly perfect. How could Kara tell her that for every drop of poison in the Luthor bloodline, there was one in the bloodline of the House of El? How could she reveal her cracks without bringing their entire relationship down?

Friends keep secrets all the time, she tried to reason with herself. They're called boundaries. If I'd told her everything about myself when we first met, she would have thought I was crazy.

But this wasn't just a boundary, or even a secret. You couldn't chip off the chimney of Kara Danvers and affix Kara Zor-El in its place. The surface she showed was a real part of who she was, a facet she loved and cultivated and lived every day. It was her foundations that were a lie, and that, to Lena, would be the greatest betrayal of all.

Lena's walls were back up. "I'm so sorry, Kara, I don't know what I was thinking—I shouldn't be burdening you with this, especially with everything going on—"

"No," Kara interjected, still half in her head. She took Lena's hands. "You are not a burden."

For a few seconds, they stood there, quiet. Then Lena spoke again. "Please say something, Kara."

I have to tell her. If telling the truth destroys our friendship, then so be it.

But it's not just our friendship, is it?

Lex had just escaped from prison. He'd preyed on Lena's trauma, manipulated her into curing his cancer with the same tactics he'd used to control her as a kid. Her assistant, whom she'd trusted with her every fantastical hope for the future, had stolen her research. And just last week, she'd been forced to relive her childhood yet again on Stryker's Island.

She would break. This would break her. And if that happened, Kara didn't know what either of them would do.

So she did the only thing she could.

"I love you too," she said.

It was true.

But as relief soaked Lena's face like a lungful of yellow sunshine, Kara's heart sank into the pit of her stomach.

[dxmedstudent]

Every Woman.

If you’re not in the UK, you may not have heard of Sarah Everard, and her disappearance this month in London. She was walking back home after an evening out, but disappeared along the way home. Some remains were found a few days later - but had to be identified from her dental records. I’ll leave you to draw conclusions as to why it was so hard to identify her. A current police officer has been charged with her murder. And since she disappeared, my heart has ached. The way it does, when I read another name, another disappearance, another woman found dead long before her time. The scope of the problem is so massive that it’s hard to imagine. It hurts, because she could be any person. It hurts, because harrassment is common. Rape is common. Femicide is depressingly common. The trafficking of children and women for sex is common. This particular scenario, a stranger attacking you at night and killing you may not be common, but it’s something we’ve been taught to fear since we were born. Her case is all my many female friends and colleagues talked about these past couple of weeks. It hurts because when people criticise her decisions (that she had a drink, that she walked out after 8pm, what she was wearing, where she walked), it  places the blame on the victim for existing. I can honestly say that despite all of us knowing all these ‘rules’, it’s impossible to follow them all the time. It’s simply not possible to live a life where you’re never out after dark, never out alone. And it should not be a burden placed on women alone. The truth is, she didn’t die because she was walking out at 9.30pm alone. She died because she was unlucky enough to cross the path of an evil person who decided to abduct and murder a woman that night. If it had not been her, it could have been some other woman.  If you’re not (or have never been) a woman, I don’t know how to explain how many precautions we’ve been taught to take, and how many ways we limit our own lives to create an illusion of being safer from gendered violence.  You’ll note I call it an illusion - the most common perpetrator of violence against a woman is her partner, failing that, males in her close family.  Way back, years before I was on here, I spent a lot of time in intersectional feminist circles - and I think  Over time, I had to limit my exposure because it was truly difficult to spend a lot of time acknowledging and engaging with the pain and suffering and the scope of the problem without it taking a toll. Not only is the subject matter dark, but some people get incredibly angry when women assert the desire to be treated with respect and not with violence. I simply wasn’t prepared to engage regularly with the threats and vitriol that ensue. It can be scary merely to point out that women experience violence. This is not the time to point out ‘not all men’. Because it’s not good enough that not all men kill and rape. Every woman lives in fear of violence - and I absolutely include trans women and gender nonconforming individuals here. When I bawled my eyes out on my boyfriend’s shoulder the other day because every woman’s worst nightmare came true for this woman, I felt so bad for what she had suffered, and the fact that we had failed her as a society. As he held me, I felt grateful that I have never had to fear violence from the men I know well but overwhelmed for sadness for those less fortunate.  I shouldn’t have to feel grateful that my partner doesn’t beat or rape me or the men in my life have never assaulted me - that’s the bare minimum of human decency. And yet many, many people don’t get to be that lucky.  But the fact that I trust the men close to me with my life doesn’t make the world safer. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of people out there who can, and do harm others. Many of these people hide in plain site - they can be popular, they can be powerful, they can be people who use their connections and their power and the stigma attached to victims to get away with truly horrific things. Statistically, many of us will know someone who has enacted intimate violence on a partner. Not all people who abuse or kill are men, but this is a time to focus on gender-based violence. It’s not enough that some men aren’t rapists and aren’t abusers. How the fuck do we avoid the ones that are? How the fuck do we bring them to justice? The first step is to emphasise that it is not appropriate. That these acts are unforgivable, and we will not tolerate or hide such people in our midst. I am surrounded by men who are kind and who have never done me any harm. I’m sure many of you are, or perhaps are such a person. But this is not a time to pat guys on the back for not raping and killng - as the men in my life have stated, they do not need praise for basic decency. I think often of how many people suspect, or perhaps do not know that a loved one of theirs is such a person. We have people in our midst who enact violent crime - these people exist and live among us all. They enact violence on women. They enact violence on people of colour. They enact violence on the LGBTQ population. They enact  violence against anyone who they see as weaker, and who they feel entitled to dominate. Today, I’m tired and my heart aches. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Truthfully, I don’t see anything changing quickly. I don’t see a way for women to feel more safe in the near future. Addressing systemic and widespread violence won’t get better overnight. But we have to try.

[questioningstressing]

Mr.Loverman part 1

Stardew valley bachlors x chubby! trans! male reader. 

First story posted on tumblr. 1,537 words!

The faint chatter of false kind voices talking politely to customers over phones echoed through the cubicles, making Y/n feel empty, his chest felt hollow. His eyes stared at his computer screen, data and random memos flooded his head. 

This really wasn't how he expected his life to go, sitting in a soul-draining, dream-crushing, aspiration-ruining, cubical, run by an evil corporation that had by this point taken over the grocery industries and planning to basically take over the world. He felt miserable.

And he wasn't even given time off after top surgery. In fact, he was being forced to work, but by this point, he couldn't sue. JoJo was so rich, they worked hand in hand with the government.

His chest hurt, he had to get help to get his fucking employee shirt on, he couldn’t get paperwork because it was always on high shelves, and he was turned into a go-for because his productivity was so low. 

Y/n rubbed his hands over his face, trying to ignore the pain that was thrumming through his chest, the fresh stitches hurt so bad, he couldn’t focus, he sighed and stood up. Too quickly it seemed. 

Pain shot through his chest, it stung, he gasped, looking down at his chest, blood seeping out onto his dark blue shirt, leaving a stain that slowly started growing. His body screamed at him to sit back down.

He whimpered and cried softly, he needed to call someone, but they took away cell phones to keep up productivity, he shouted. “Please! I need help!” he shook softly as pain shot through him.

Thirty minutes passed of this, of constant begging for help, shouting, and yelling as his chest bled before his manager came to his cubicle, basically making small talk while y/n cried in pain.

That was fucking it, y/n could fucking deal with it, so, after three months of bed rest, he got on a bus and went to Stardew Valley, and to his grandfather's farm.

The bus passed under street lights as Y/n leaned his head against the window, staring longingly out the window and at the stars, music blaring through his headphones. His mind was racing and anxiety pooled in his stomach as he thought about the fact he was uprooting his life and moving 17 hours away to his grandfather's old farm.

It was too late to turn back now, the bus was driving and Y/n couldn’t stop it, he couldn’t turn and run like a scared animal. He couldn’t, his eyes filled with tears, he couldn’t cry right now, he did this for himself, he did this for his own mental health. 

Y/n let out a sigh as he closed his eyes and leaned against the window, soon falling into a blissful slumber. 

Y/n was awoken by the sudden jolt of the bus stopping, he realized this was his stop, Stardew valley. He picked up his bag and his small suitcase, dragging it sleepily off the bus, greeted by a young woman.

“Hello, you must be Y/n!” The woman said enthusiastically, a bright smile on her face “I’m robin the local carpenter, mayor Lewis sent me here to fetch you and show you the way to your new home. He’s there right now, tidying things up for your arrival, the farms right over there, if you’ll follow me.” Robin turned on her heel looking back quickly to make sure y/n was following.

Y/n seemed a bit frazzled, having just come from a 17-hour bus trip and then having info dumped upon him, he followed quickly after the woman as they followed a dirt road down to a decent-sized house “This is F/n (farm name) farm.” Robin gestured to the farm with her arm.

Weeds, rocks, trees, and branches scattered across the ground. It dawned on Y/n that he’d need to do more work than expected, and his sudden relaxation seemed to be present on his face as Robin asked “What’s the matter? Sure it's a bit overgrown but there's some good soil under that mess! With a little dedication, you’ll have it cleaned up in no time!”

Robin encouraged Y/n who turned to look at Robin, who once again turned on her heel to lead him up to the door. Once they got up to the steps Robin’s smile stretched a bit “...And here we are! Your new home!”  Y/n looked at the door and an older man walked out 

“Ah the new farmer!” he said “I’m mayor Lewis, mayor of pelican town! You know everybody’s been asking about you!” Mayor Lewis said “It's not every day someone new moves in! It’s quite a big deal!” The mayor says, before turning to look at the rickety old cottage “So… you’re moving into your grandfather's old cottage? It’s a good house…. Very… rustic...”  He seemed to be trying to make Y/n feel more comfortable, which was failing.

 “Rustic is one way to put it! Crusty might be a little more apt though!” Robin joked, and the mayor looked shocked “Rude!” he said quickly as robin laughed “Don’t listen to her Y/n she’s just trying to make you dissatisfied so that you buy one of her house upgrades.” Lewis said to y/n 

Robin crossed her arms as she made a noise that seemed a bit upset as the mayor continued “Anyway… you must be tired from the long journey you should get some rest. Tomorrow you ought to explore the town and introduce yourself, the townspeople would appreciate that!” Lewis said, a kind smile on his face, before he turned on his heel and began to leave before turning back around “Oh! And I almost forgot, if you have anything to sell just place it in this box here ill come during the night to collect it!” he paused for a moment “Well… good luck!” Before both he and Robin walked away. 

Y/n let out a breath walking into his grandfather's old house as soon as he could and dropping his bags down on the ground, kicking off his old beat-up shoes, taking off his shirt leaving him in his underwear, he looked down at himself, his face twisting in displeasure as he studied his body.

Y/n was not a thin man by any means, in fact, he was a large man, something he got teased for constantly, his soft tummy,  large thighs, and round face haunted him like a persistent ghost. He let out a sigh “Don’t think about it.” he muttered to himself, gently tracing the scars that rest just below his chest, the few things that made him happy about his body, his top surgery scars, inverted T scars sat beautifully under his chest, a reminder he was strong.

He let out a gentle sigh as he sat on the edge of the bed head in his hands, his body gently shaking as he began to cry, did he really uproot his life for this? He wanted to love it, the few times he visited his grandfather's farm he remembered loving it. 

Every time he would run around the fruit trees, climbing them to pick any ripe fruit he could, sometimes falling and scraping his knees on the tiny rocks beneath. Water the plants with his grandfather, play in the field with the cows even though his grandfather told him not to. 

The memories float into his head leaving this moment more somber, his heart heavy with sadness.

Y/n let out a  shaky breath before breathing in deep and letting out a little laugh, was he really crying about it not being up to his expectations? How much more of a ‘stuck up city boy’ could he get? 

He stared at the floor as he shook his head, no, he was gonna work hard on getting the farm to look nice, to be like his memories, to impress his grandfather, starting tomorrow he was gonna get this place tidied up.

Y/n laid in bed, pulling the warm duvet over him, causing him to soon fall asleep, and he dreamt.

He was in a field filled with F/c (favorite colored) flowers, that smelled familiar, he began to walk in a direction, the further out into the field he got he heard a group of male voices laughing and talking, he soon found the group. 

They were in a cuddle pile, a man with short purple hair and a torn-up Joja hoodie held someone with short brown wavy brown hair with glasses.

 leaning against the Joja hoodie guy’s shoulder was a man with long black hair that covered one of his eyes, and in his arms, a spikey blond-haired guy was curled up seeming to have fallen asleep.

 On the other shoulder, a long-haired gentleman rested, seeming to be smiling as he read something, a short-haired man wearing a green sweater was reading over the long-haired gentleman's shoulder.  Y/n smiled and he realized he knew them, they felt like home. 

He quickly joined the cuddle pile, all of them seeming excited to see him. He fell asleep on their laps, his hair gently being pat.