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mumblino · 4 years ago

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My self discovery journey

Heyo!

This is not what most of my posts are gonna be like, but I felt like it was important to talk about, and pride month is a perfect time to tell my (summarized) self discover journey~

My name is Brandon, although I don’t care if you call me Mumble. My pronouns change a lot since i don’t really know myself that well, but currently, they are He/Him, They/Them and It/Its. There are also days where I don’t really identify with any 3rd person pronouns, I’m just me, and that’s what I mean when I say No Pronouns.

I have Depression, Anxiety and Combination Type- ADHD, which is why i am on the internet a lot.

This is a very long post, so buckle up

//TW: Transphobia, Enbyphobia, Homophobia, Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, Disordered Eating, Racism (not a huge part, but there are mentions of it), Self Harm, Mentions of a Psych Ward, Medication

I am a trans-masc, afab teenager. I am a romance-neutral aromantic (my interpretation of that is that I don’t mind romance, but I don’t actively want one or seek one out), and a sex-repulsed asexual (I am completely repulsed by the idea of engaging in sexual intercourse with anyone). and I am currently out to my friends, my mother, and my step-father, and am in the beginning-middle of my transition.

I started questioning my gender identity when I was in early 7th grade, after my friend Saturn (pronouns are They/It/Bun) first came out to me as Non-Binary, and asked me to use They/Them pronouns.

I’ve never really actively considered myself straight. I’ve always seen love as between two people, and while I usually thought of a man and a woman, I have always been open to same sex couples. My best friend in 2nd grade actually introduced me to the LGBTQ+ community (not directly, but she did talk about those types of things quite a bit), and while I don’t want to assume her sexuality, I am fairly certain she experienced attraction to both boys and girls.

Before this, the only thing I really knew about trans people was that they existed, and I didn’t really care that much. However, my brother and my father had the idea that most LGBTQ+ people are “snowflakes” and since I didn’t know anything else, I believed them.

However, I wanted to learn more about Trans people, and how to be respectful and supportive of them. I did, at the time, consider myself to be LGBTQ+. In both 5th and 6th grade I thought I was either a lesbian or bisexual, since I didn’t know the difference between aesthetic attraction and sexual attraction, and well, people are pretty!

I also had this need to be very masculine, and I always have. I’ve always wanted to be a tom-boy, to be the masculine one in the group, be the Buttercup of my friends! And during th grade, as I started to learn more about LGBTQ+ people, I wanted to be the top. I wanted to be the stereotypical lesbian. The one with the androgynous style, chill attitude, and the one that scares the shit out of guys.

I’ve even said to myself (not knowing that being trans was a thing) that I want to be a boy. I’ve always identified more with the guys at my school. Not in a pick me girl way, but in a “I relate to you a lot, and I feel like I fit in with you” way.

And to some extent, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is because of how often feminine guys are made fun of. I would not be surprised one bit if this is because femininity has always been demonized to me, especially if a guy is being feminine.

Anyways, through this dive into the Alphabet Mafia, I found out about asexuality. It really resonated with me, because I always found sexual things gross, but that also confused me. If I was asexual, why did I want to be masculine so badly? Why wasn’t I like the other girls? I’ve always felt like an outcast around most people, but especially girls. I never related to them. I always related to more masculine people, and boys especially.

After this, I decided to start looking into trans culture, and FTM culture especially. Through this I found Kalvin Garrah. I know now that he is very much a toxic influence on the Trans community, but he taught me a lot about trans culture. I also found Sam Collins and Jammidoger through him, who also taught me a lot (and are much more positive influences.) These FTM youtubers taught me a lot, and I started to realize, that I might be trans.

Because of this, I decided to ask Saturn if they could refer to me by They/Them pronouns. I went with They/Them because I didn’t feel like I passed well enough to use them. My hair was still long, I wasn’t out to my family, I still acted feminine sometimes, etc.

I would also like to make note of the fact that at the time, I was not very accepting of most gender identities outside of the “binary” and didn’t consider it a spectrum. I had a very close minded and rigid view of gender, and this is mostly due to family influences. This view is why I didn’t want to use He/Him pronouns, because I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I have since grown out of that viewpoint, reflected, and tried to do better when trying to understand other people’s identities.

This stress of my identity crisis, untreated mental conditions, toxic friends, and general struggle with school caused me to develop disordered eating habits. I have never been diagnosed with an eating disorder, however I’ve struggled with disordered eating for a long time. During 7th grade, I started to struggle with binge eating. The moment I would get home, I would immediately start a binge. It was uncontrollable, I felt horrible, and eventually, my mom had started to notice that I was eating an unhealthy amount.

A few months after this, I started to see a therapist, and at the end of my first session with her, I came out to my mom. I could not be more thankful for how supportive of me she is. She has only shown love, and care for me, and the only time she’d no to a step in my transition, is out of a genuine concern for my physical and mental health. She is also religious, but she loves me for the way that I am, and has a very loving and positive viewpoint when it comes to that.

I didn’t do much for my transition at the time (other than switching my pronouns to He/They at some point) and focused more on school, depression, and my romantic orientation.

This was a part that really confused me. I’ve never had a crush (except for one that came from peer-pressure) and I’ve never had an interest in romance. (Keep in mind I had no idea what ‘Aromantic’ was) So what was I? For the time being I decided to consider myself either bi-romantic or hetero-romantic, because like I said, people are pretty, and I tended to notice pretty girls more than pretty boys.

There was also another hurdle. My (now ex) group of toxic friends. These friends weren’t toxic in the way that they wouldn’t include me, they were toxic in the way that they would talk shit about any minority group, a lot of which i was a part of. They were racist (I am not a poc but it still made me upset and uncomfortable) ableist (they threw the r-slur around a lot) homophobic (this was the biggest one, mainly making fun of them, callng them ‘pixies’ and would say they would ‘burn them’) and transphobic/enbyphobic (they didn’t consider they/them pronouns valid, they threw around the ‘attack helicopter’ joke, and they would dehumanize trans people, and call them ‘transvestites’)

Over the summer, I still spoke to them, and tried to ignore all of their behavior, because if I had cut them off, I would be completely alone. I have an extremely intense fear of abandonment, so the idea of doing that was comparable to death.

Through the first half of 8th grade (I was doing school from home) I didn’t talk to many people other than them. I stayed in my room a lot, and the first half of 8th grade was a steady decline in my mental health. My depression and anxiety had significantly worsened over that time, and I was extremely lonely. This was also worsened by the fact that I have ADHD, and at the time, it was undiagnosed, so I was failing almost all of my classes.

The only way I was able to comfort myself was through my hyperfixations, and over the summer, I had a developed a hyperfixation on the Origins MCRP group. Because I had nothing else to do, I decided to pick up drawing again, and in October, I did an Origins version of Inktober. Every day, I would draw a different character from their series Fairy Tail Origins. I did not complete the challenge, however I did get through the first week, and I am proud of myself for that.

One one of the days, I had to draw a character named Brandon (partial inspiration for my name lel.) Brandon is a sky devil-slayer, and a co-guild leader of a guild named Divinus Magia. and I decided to draw him in a picture that symbolically showed his mental struggles with a devil named Jupiter. I posted it to the fan discord, and the actor and creator of the character (online username is ReinBloo) noticed my artwork. I was extremely excited about this, and decided to start drawing more and more.

Because of this newfound motivation to pick up drawing again, I decided to create my own persona. I decided to make my main persona a revised design of my profile picture at the time. It was an improvised character, but I liked the aspects of it, and in late 2020, (yes i am 14 shut up) I created my main Oc, Jupiter. (at the time he didn’t have a name and I landed on Jupiter because I like it, and it fit him.) Jupiter is a space inspired demon, with dark grey skin, white star-like freckles, pure white eyes, white hair (that is slightly purple) and light gray ram-like horns with gray stripes on the base and tip. His color palette is that of the Asexual flag, and this was originally unintentional, but since I like the colors, and my Asexuality is an important part of my identity, I went with it.

I fell in love with this character, and he helped me figure out a lot about myself. I continued to watch origins, and draw for them (mainly ReinBloo’s characters lel) and on January 27th of 2021, in the premier chat of one of the episodes of My Hero Origins, I met MissyLea (She also goes by Lea, and Vesper). We instantly became friends, and moved over to discord to continue our conversation. By February 10th, we were already planning on being platonic valentines. We related on so many things, she was so kind, and loving, and understanding, and very quickly, I grew a strong emotional bond with her.

By the end of February, I developed an emotional attraction to her. I wanted to be with her forever, and while I personally wouldn’t consider it romantic right now, at the time, I did. After a few months of identifying as Aromantic (I had learned about it by now, through the Asexual community) I decided to change that label to Demi-Panromantic. I realized that I didn’t really see her gender, I didn’t care. I love her, and that’s all that matters to me. Now, I feel as though it was more of an emotional and somewhat sensual love for her, but even so, I love her to the edge of the universe and back, no matter what our relationship is.

I have told her things I’ve told no one else. When I was struggling, she was there for me, with kind words, and an endless amount of unconditional love. She is the type of person everyone deserves to have in their life, whether they are a friend, a family member, a partner, or anything else, everyone deserves to have a friend with the amount of love in their heart that she has.

On March 19th, I decided to tell her how I felt. When she said she felt the same way about me, I was happier than ever. To have someone who feels the same way about me as I do about them is amazing. We started dating later that day.

It’s only been 3 months, but I feel like I’ve known her for 3 years. Vesper has made me feel complete when I’m around them, but they’ve made it so much easier to stand on my own as well.

Near the end of my 8th grade year, I officially cut them off, and came out to them (albeit in a very aggressive way) and I wouldn’t have been able to do this without Vesper’s support. Just one person has made it so much easier to cut off toxic people.

Vesper’s support also made it easier for me to be more open with my therapist. I began to tell her more of what I was struggling with, and it has made my mental health journey so much more bearable.

Over these past two months, I have finally gotten a diagnosis, and been able to truly know what direction to go in to properly treat my mental health.

I hope that by sharing my story you can better know me, and I also hope I can help create a safer environment for others to talk about their stories.

I hope one day people will be able to be themselves, and talk about their experiences, without the fear of judgement, or persecution, and if just this one post helps us get closer to that, I will be happy.

Happy Pride Month everybody! You are all amazing, loved and valid! 🌈💖

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a-woman-apart · 4 years ago

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I am Bisexual

I am a black, bisexual ciswoman dating a white, straight cisman, and the fact that he is male and straight are not the reason I am dating him, nor are they a reason NOT to. Pretending though, that his labels don’t factor into who he is as a person would be completely idiotic.

At the end of the day, though, we are dating because we share similar values, we are compatible in multiple ways, we respect each other, and we love each other and are committed to making this work. It is true, that as a straight man, he wouldn’t be open to dating me if I were a man, but it is also true that if I were a man, certain aspects of my personality would change, due to a complex combination of nature and nurture that scientists still haven’t figured out.

Also, there are people from both our “communities” (said very loosely) that aren’t down with “The Swirl” which is only something you get to celebrate if you are extremely privileged and quite a bit into eugenics. We each have racist people in our families, and we both get dirty looks on the street when we’re together for different reasons, but hatred is always at the core of the discrimination.

Loving vs. Virginia was passed in 1967, and it is important to note that The Lovings wanted to be left alone and to live in peace, even though their marriage wasn’t recognized by law and it was a crime, even for white women, to give birth to interracial children. The Lovings only took their case to court when they faced racialized harassment.

To me, it is absolutely terrible that in roughly 10 years, we went to celebrating “love is love” to now criticizing people for who they choose to date or how they identify. I can’t tell you how many times on this site I’ve seen bisexual women pressured to identify as pansexual to be “less discriminatory” or told in disgusting tones, “Why date men if you can choose to date women?” as if bisexual and/or lesbian were just things you can turn on and off like a light switch.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rise of radical feminism and AFAB-nonbinary/transmasculine culture has coincided with poorer mental health for women in our community and also with a HUGE uptick in misandry and biphobia. Even gay men aren’t above being “canceled” for so-called “transphobic” caricatures of women, even though men have been playing women in the theatre for centuries, and now, women can play men, too. #Progressive

Honestly, one thing I will say that guys do better than us women (in general, there are always exceptions) is comedy. Yes, men, as a a general rule, are funnier than us. Men are more likely to make fun of themselves, us, and other people, with no mercy, and I honestly think the women/AMAB non-binary in our community-- either the black or the LGBTQ+ one, take your pick-- need to learn to take a fucking joke. It’s not that fucking serious, but the one thing that ISN’T funny is the hideous biphobia, racism, and backbiting I’ve witnessed online and offline this year.

What makes it even more disgusting, is that while I am including AMABs in my roast, I have actually seen MULTIPLE stories of AMABs being excluded from AFAB offline gatherings (DOCUMENTED ON THIS HERE VERY SITE) in the name of “safety” because they are seen than nothing more than a man in a dress.

So, here’s where I lose some subscribers...if a so-called “man in a dress” is unwelcome in your circles, do you REALLY think you have room to fucking talk when a huge portion of you you skirt the line between male and female because you can’t accept your own femininity? So really, are you really “non-binary” or are you just a scared little girls who can’t grow up?

Of course, that isn’t ALL of you, but when the country (as pointed out by J.K Rowling) sees a 4400% in female to male transition (a lot of it with very young girls becoming AFAB/non-binary, many of whom are taking testosterone) while male to female transition rates remain UNCHANGED, suddenly this isn’t a “trans” or a “non-binary” problem, this is a FEMALE problem. Trans people, prior to this huge upswing, made up less than 1% of the population, and that included MtF and FtM transition rates. These rates had remained steady FOR YEARS, so from a purely mathematical perspective this uptick is a huge statistic anomaly.

For years people on the Right have decried the so-called “feminization of boys”, when in reality the “masculinization of girls” is statistically a far more pressing societal issue.

I didn’t want to get this harsh, but this is concerning as a medical health issue, especially because research from the Scientific American reports that lots of young women who report having gender dysphoria end up not being dysphoric about their gender at all, but uncertain about their sexuality [click link]. If I had a quarter for every time a girl who never felt comfortable with her femininity or identified as asexual or aromantic turned out to “just be gay/bisexual” then I would be pretty fucking rich.

I felt the same way. I felt like I was “Not Like Other Girls” and even though I never felt like a man, I often didn’t quite feel like a woman. It turns out that bisexuality, especially in women, corresponds with certain personality traits (aggression, assertiveness, high sex drive) that have been “coded male.” Gender bias in medicine is still responsible for why we don’t have more studies on lesbian and bisexual women, or on women IN GENERAL. As someone who is concerned about women’s rights and the safety of young girls and women, I think it is a HUGE DEAL that modern medicine still sometimes operates on the false assertion that women are just men without dicks and added baby-hosting parts. The effects of testosterone have been heavily studied, but there is SO much we don’t know about estrogen, including why different amounts of it don’t factor into PMDD, PMS, and other reproductive issues, as much as certain women’s brains and bodies responding to it DIFFERENTLY for reasons not fully understood.

To make matters worse, while disparities in treatment based on race are less marked in other areas of medicine, black women still die in childbirth-- especially in the Southern U.S.-- at much higher rates than other demographics. Bisexual and lesbian women are also more likely than straight women to fear childbirth, which can be a huge source of anxiety for us. Even if we choose to undergo it, our anxiety is often downplayed by health care workers. This fear of childbirth can be seen even in bisexual and lesbian women who love children and strongly desire to be mothers. This, as well as the cost of surrogacy/IVF treatments, has been a reason that same-sex female couples often opt for adoption.

Bisexual women, in particular, are also more likely to suffer mental health conditions and be the victims of male-perpetrated domestic violence than straight women and lesbians are. “Straight-passing” doesn’t really seem to provide a shield from that, I hate to tell you.

The very concept of calling someone out for “passing” in an attempt to insult them actually reeks of jealousy and amazing privilege. In the case of bisexual people, it assumes that hiding an entire facet of our identity doesn’t matter and doesn’t take an emotional and psychological toll, because we can “choose” an opposite sex partner. This ignores the fact that falling in love isn’t based on choice, and that the moment we pursue a same-sex partner, we still have to “come out” if we want to maintain a healthy, open relationship with them.

In the case of trans individuals, it assumes that “passing” erasing the fact that you have biological differences (such as typically being unable to parent children) from cis people that might make you undesirable to certain partners. Also, if you are also “stealth” you risk the chance of experiencing discrimination and/or violence if your identity is “discovered.”

As far as being “white/European passing” this also does not erase the genetic and geographical ties you have to your ethnicity and/or country of origin. It doesn’t change the fact that if people start making racist comments about any of your racial demographics, it still hurts, even if you try to hide it.

#i am bisexual #bisexuality is not a choice #love is love #women's rights #end biphobia #tired of apologizing #hate is hate #no more racism #loving vs virgina #exile #cancel me please #gender dysphoria #AFAB #AMAB #no I'm not pan

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loki-zen · 5 years ago

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Personal; probably avoid if you don’t want to read about transphobia today; me being honest about what I feel is in my brain without filtering too much for how internet strangers might interpret it; sorry Sophia

I realised something.

There was a certain ‘thing’ (literally don’t know how else to describe this) that I have always had that I had attributed to like subconscious societally-ingrained transphobia/transmisogyny, but which I think I have just realised is something else.

Which is that, like, internally, I feel like I don’t really ‘count’ trans female representation (in pop culture, or whatever, but I also had a twinge of it when someone said something about a controversy over a womens’ representative in an organisation being a trans woman) as female representation. Or rather - representation of me. I feel the same way towards it as I would, idk, BAME representation; I support it and consider it a good thing, but it doesn’t feel like a personal ‘yay’ in the same way.

And, I feel a vague indefinable sorta all-else-being-equal anti-attraction-in-a-friendship-sense to binary trans people I have met or who I know? Like it’s not a strong thing at all and totally doesn’t get in the way of forming friendships with individuals, it’s just a similar sense to like... if I meet someone and they’re wearing a football top, I’m prepared to be proved wrong, but I have a small prior for ‘I am not going to personally feel a deep connection with this person; they are probably not going to be the person in this group I become closest to.’

And with everything that I’ve read about having all of these prejudices we have to unlearn, it made perfect sense that this was that.

Whereas in actual fact, I think it was this:

Re: representation - I perceive myself as a member of a category I’ll call ‘Category X’ (chromosome joke unintentional) defined by these traits:

stuck with the kind of body that, without extensive remodelling, people are going to perceive as female, and then people are going to decide all kinds of nonsense about you based on that and it’s really tiresome, and they expect you to do things to it to pretty it up; like society put you in a box marked ‘woman’ and decided prettiness was the rent you had to pay to be there, etc etc, sexualised or denigrated but always viewed in sexual terms just for possessing the unchosen physical features that you have...

stuck with the kind of body that (in theory) can get pregnant, and subject to all of the ways societies still underserve and pathologise that kind of body, and possessor of the physical traits common(er) in that kind of body.

I do not consider myself a member of a category defined by any one or combination of these traits:

has a gender identity, and that identity is female

is, in some sort of cosmic or internal sense, or any sense that doesn’t just mean ‘member of category x who has not made the choice to transition or publicly identify as something else’, a ‘woman’, whatever that is

feels a connection to a mystical womanforce, possesses ‘feminine intuition’, is From Venus, or is anything other than in one of two overlapping Bell Curves

feels a natural connection to or identification with traits and values deemed ‘feminine’, or has a natural talent in abilities deemed ‘feminine’, to the extent that, when confounding variables are accounted for, ‘femininity’ or ‘masculinity’ has any predictive value in guessing whether this person will possess a given trait, value or talent. (I consider upbringing, physical traits and to some degree brain chemistry to be ‘confounding variables’ for this purpose; if AMAB!Loki would have given up on sewing due to teasing, hands that are too big, or even some sorta genetic or hormonal tendency toward being less manually dexterous*, that counts. Don’t @ me. Or do, I don’t care.)

So I guess, when it comes to representation, it is literally true that a trans woman can be representation of a group that needs more representation, but not a group I feel personally a part of. I see ‘hell yeah, about time’, but I don’t get that same thing of ‘hey look somebody actually like me gets to do the thing’, and that kinda makes sense when I break it down like this.

When it comes to individuals, I assume that what my brain is doing is going:

Apparently cis person - we have no information on whether this person has a gender or cares about it

Person who I know, for whatever reason, is transgender - this person definitely has a gender that they care about so much that they will intentionally brave the horror of ‘people paying attention to your gender’ in order to express it, and I understand that exactly as much as I understand being into football

I think the still-unspoken assumption on the personal level, however, is that preferences/beliefs/internal landscapes that I find incomprehensible are necessarily a reason to feel that it is unlikely that I will become close to/form a good connection with someone.

It might simply be that it feels like more work.

-----------Side note: I wrote this as an aside and it got too long and ruined the rhythm of the thing but my brain vomited it forth so I had to include it----------

This class of people (category x) do and have experienced some phenomenal societal shit-canning around the world and throughout history, and this still needs addressing. We’re massively underrepresented in many industries including entertainment, on both sides of performing/creating, because of structural problems that date back to our being legally barred in many cases, and this should be corrected.

This is true irrespective of the (additional) struggles of trans people. Whether they are in this category, or not in it. Or once were, but did the extensive remodelling, and kinda still have to deal with the second bit but feel freer from the first now. Or who have found that nowadays they have the first trait and that’s not fun to deal with on top of everything else, or who wish they had either or both of those traits despite the problems that come with them. Or who wish they had them solely because people keep telling them they can’t be who they know they are if they don’t. Or who have additional complicated feelings related to the whole mess. Etc. Other categories of people have problems as well. People in this category can be privileged on other axes. Nothing about the paragraph before this one aims to deny any of this.

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edited cuz I’m a dingus and accidental wrote my real name

#gender! at the discourse #introspection #personal #not gonna say don't reblog cause I would be interested to talk about this #but I am apprehensive about reblogs #shall I say

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bullet-farmer · 5 years ago

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Okay, I’m having a horrible mental-health day and feel overwhelmed by work, and talking about something that’s been bothering me really feels liberating. Because I feel like it’s one thing I can control right now.

Please don’t reblog this or tag it. I don’t want this to become Discourse, especially in an awesome fandom. But I needed to get this out in a space where people I trust can reply if they wish. I’m fine with disagreement and discussion, as long as people respect my feelings, or ask for clarification if they don’t understand what I’m talking about.

This got long. And it’s about pronouns. And fictional characters. And idk.

Another thing that kind of bothers me about assuming they/them or ze/zir for Beelzebub’s pronouns, and why I’m using both less and less*: I’m really uncomfortable with how few authors do the same for any other character (save, of course, for Pollution, whose pronouns are clearly mentioned as they/them and really should be used exclusively, because that’s just the decent thing to do). Of course, some people use they/them across the board, or pronouns other than she/her and he/him in any combination. But in my experience, authors who do this are quite rare, at least on Ao3. In most cases, I find authors using “gendered” (for lack of a better word) pronouns for everyone else--namely, those that (presumably) match the gender of the actor who plays each role. For example: she/her for Michael and Dagon, and he/him for Hastur and Gabriel.

I don’t want to make assumptions about why people do this. For one thing, making sweeping generalizations about people is always a bad idea. It’s even a worse idea when talking about why a group as diverse as fanfic authors. For another, I don’t know what is in people’s hearts or minds, and I’d rather not try to arbitrate any thoughts but my own. That said, in the West, we are swimming in a sea of gender essentialism and binarism. And I can’t help but feel that both are somehow in play in this phenomenon.

Angels and demons in Good Omens are nonbinary. But from a binarist point of view, you could say that nearly all of the angels and demons have at least a few stereotypical masculine or feminine qualities. For example: Michael wears makeup, and a very frilly blouse at one point; Michael’s suit and Uriel’s have what we would call a feminine cut. Dagon has long hair in a style we would call feminine, Sandalphon has male-pattern baldness, Hastur has a deep voice and wears “masculine” clothes, etc.

But Beelzebub breaks this pattern. She’s what people in the West tend to think of when they hear the term “androgynous”: somewhat boyish and youthful in appearance, dressing in typically “masculine” clothes that don’t emphasize her shape, and behaving in a way that many would call more masculine than feminine. To put it another way, she is aggressive, she speaks forcefully, she shows no hallmarks of being a queen or princess, and she entirely lacks subtlety. Women, of course, are socialized to do the exact opposite. Save for her appearance at the airfield, she is also far more unkempt than any character in the series with the possible exception of Hastur. I’m beginning to see several problems as I go deeper into this deep dive. First problem: the assumption that “nonbinary” means androgynous or genderless. And, as a subset of that problem, the assumption that androgynous and agender/genderless are synonymous, and that they/them and ze/zir are “genderless” pronouns. For some people, they very much are. For others, they are not. (For example, a blogger I follow identifies as a cis woman and uses both she/her and they/them). Second problem: The fact that a character played by an actress simply must be agender or “not female” because said character is androgynous and behaves in stereotypically “masculine” ways. Third problem: ...Why are we only insisting on they/them or ze/zir for the dirtiest, least conventionally attractive character in the show? I mean, being dirty and unkempt isn’t a stereotypically nonbinary trait, but considering how society sees women who don’t obsess over their looks as “not real women,” this has some very unfortunate implications to me. Fourth problem: Y’all, Neil didn’t say that Beelzebub would probably use they/them as pronouns. He said “zir” (and to be honest, I think that was him being witty rather than making an official statement). I understand that some people can uses these interchangeably to describe themselves, but they really aren’t interchangeable. And acting like they are, strikes me as basically saying “well, these are all nongendered pronouns, so just pick whichever you like best when talking about someone.” Imagine calling someone whose pronouns are they/them, “ze/zir” and thinking that isn’t misgendering or upsetting. I also don’t see posts that insist we respect any other character as nonbinary--particularly characters like, say, Hastur, Ligur, or Gabriel. (Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I really feel like people are even more hesitant to call more “masculine” characters nonbinary than they are Dagon, Michael, etc. Which also strikes me as having really unfortunate implications. But that’s a whole other post.) Or regular use of “Nonbinary Character” and “Canon Nonbinary Character” tags on AO3 for any other demon or angel. All of this is really starting to get to me as a nonbinary/genderfluid person who absolutely does not see myself as agender or androgynous, even if people regularly describe my looks as “masculine” for reasons I’ll get into in a second. I’m genderfluid and nonbinary because I do not fully or consistently identify with the gender I was assigned at birth--and because I never have. While some days I feel fine with having society see me as a cis woman, some days I am deeply not okay with it--and am actually dysphoric because my body doesn’t look more stereotypically androgynous. However, when I realized that stereotypical androgyny is a concept that cisheterocentric society forces on nonbinary people--and DFAB people in particular--my dysphoria became a bit more manageable. I also do not attend to my appearance. I have no interest in wearing makeup, flattering clothes, or even feminine ones. I wear skirts for comfort; I’ve always hated pants because of sensory issues, but if I didn’t, I’d probably wear a lot of “men’s” clothes. As it is, I wear T-shirts cut for men, rather than the fitted versions for women. And baggy clothes that men can get away with wearing, but women not so much. I don’t regularly style my hair despite having it long. I don’t shave any part of my body--which began upsetting people when I was twelve, y’all. Adults constantly bothered me about it, and about looking more feminine and stylish. I may be the only “girl” on the planet whose father encouraged her to wear shorter skirts and more flattering tops when she was in her early teens.

It really upset me, but at the time I had no language for why--other than that I felt pushed and harassed. Thankfully, people have since mostly cut that shit out, but when you deal with it as a child, it really leaves some scars and some gender confusion--a fact I only realized while typing this out! Of course, I don’t believe that any of these life choices inherently make anyone any particular gender. But society thinks differently. To it, I’m a failure as a woman, and when you add on the fact that I’m nearing forty, childfree, offbeat, clueless about ‘appropriate” interactions with men, and loud and messy because of ADHD, I’m labeled as even less of a woman. I would have no problem with this if it didn’t come with the pejorative baggage. I have never been a girl or a woman, though I feel I share enough in common with this gender to be comfortable having it be part of my identity to some degree. Even as a child, I felt this but I had no name for it because no one was talking about trans issues in a conservative red state in the 80s and 90s, and they sure as fuck wouldn’t have done it around kids. I didn’t even hear the word “nonbinary” until the early 2010s. All of this also means that I don’t get many characters or images that represent me. Again, media portrayals of people like me (DFAB and not consistently woman-identifying) are so rare that Beelzebub is the ONLY one I have found in my adult life who isn’t, you know, the butt of a joke about viragos and lesbians who are too ugly to get a man, and “undateables.” So having people insist that using she/her is somehow misgendering is...well, I get that it’s not directed at me. That it isn’t about me personally. That it isn’t meant to hurt me. That it is a lot of nonbinary people and genderfluid people talking about their own experiences. I know all of that, and I don’t begrudge people their feelings. But it still kind of hurts when they disapprove of disagreement. And it makes me worry that fewer people will read my fic, and may accuse me of misgendering if they do, even if I always “warn” for pronouns. I’m even hesitant to make posts like this or to refer to Beelzebub as she/her in casual conversation. Which, well...kind of makes me feel like I do in life. Almost no one but my therapists knows I’m not cis, because I don’t think I could explain it to them without causing confusion and some distress. Which I don’t want to cause and don’t have the spoons to deal with, especially when my own gender issues are so complicated and unclear even to me.

I also just don’t have the spoons to deal with people for assuming I’m a cis, straight girl writing a hetero relationship when I use she/her in most of my Beelzefic. And to be honest, I’m just sort of hurt at the inconsistency around pronouns and the issues said inconsistency raise for me.

I mean, like I said, I know this isn’t personal, and I do my best to keep that in mind. But I don’t like having to hold my thoughts in because they might upset other genderfluid and nonbinary people.** I have to do that enough in my life already as a queer person, and as a mentally ill person whose feelings are not always appropriate to the situation. Having to hold them in here, too, feels really unfair and frustrating to me, and kind of like I can’t be myself even in LGBTQ+ spaces. so... tl;dr Use whatever pronouns for Beelzebub you like, or no pronouns at all. I am not the pronoun police, and I would never tell anyone what to do with their writing. But please don’t accuse people of misgendering if they do otherwise, or mistreat them if they do, or make assumptions about them or their reasons. You don’t know who they are or what experience they’re writing from, just as they don’t know who you are and your experiences. I guess that’s it. thank you.

* Yes, I am aware of what Neil said on the subject. I’m genderfluid and allowed to disagree and to present an alternate view. ** I really don’t care too much about cisgender folks’ opinions on this issue. I’m sorry, but I don’t. Especially when cisgender people opine about what pronouns we should use for a character. I’m glad that they’re concerned and think they’re trying admirably to be good allies, but this really is an in-house and stay-in-your-lane issue.

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autismgavemychildvaccines · 6 years ago

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Why I’m Ashamed to Be Christian

So, now that I am literally sick of the Measles nonsense (no, fucking literally, working 12+ hour shifts on an incident management team has got me sick and tired enough to call in tomorrow), I’ve decided to do a non PH rant, though it’ll for sure rear it’s fucking head somewhere in here. Instead, let’s tackle something real fun. Religion! Time to buckle up. In my half fucking awake daze that I was just nudged out of, something really wild hit me. My faith, my belief in a very specific God with a specific book (though I admit that other religions, so long as their origin is not a company or a tool to oppress others on the outset, are valid/likely just as true) makes no God damned sense. (For reference, here I will claim my most closely related sect as my own; American Evangelism [though if one were to ask in person I’d say “non-denominational”, but historically, the two are close] and will be speaking as a part of a community I used to closely belong to but now have drifted away from on some granola-crunching dumbassery that is “I am a church of one” bullshit. I’ve wanted to be other things, but ever since I left the Freemasons, fuck all else has had much appeal.) So, first things first, Garden of Eden, right? Pretty fucking cool place, some might have even called it a perfect garden, a perfect place for humans and God to interact? But here’s my hang up with it. The trees of Life and Knowledge, and the rule that Adam and Eve could eat of any fruit except those grown upon that pair. Why even fucking have them?

When I asked that as a kid in a faith based area, they said because it was a test.

Of what?

“Well, of our loyalty to God and our Faith, of course”.

Except again, what the fuck? Like, I get the idea of free-will, in fact I am a huge believer in individual free will (I’ll get to that in a sec), but here’s the stickler here. As any other creative type will tell you, we want our work to take on a life of its own. Like say I wanted to program a remarkably bright AI, and it worked, and all I wanted was for it to recognize me as its creator and to discover and enjoy what home I could make for it. You know what I wouldn’t do? I wouldn’t give an AI, even with some simulated free will, the ability to break certain rules. For example, I wouldn’t allow it unrestricted access to the internet or my personal accounts. I wouldn’t even give it the concept that such things existed, let alone put it right fucking there to be used. That would be a flaw, an imperfection in an otherwise perfect place. And yeah, there’s something to be said for giving free will with not-free consequences, sure. But two things: 1) Don’t be pissed when the thing happens that you allowed to exist in the first place and thus forced it to be a mathematical certainty now that you’re dealing with perhaps the most curious species to ever exist. 2) Don’t go blaming them for a lack of faith. If anything, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, an act that abusers often use to get what they really want and have a thin veneer of an excuse to make happen. Now doesn’t that sound a lot like a good number of the followers of this faith, as opposed to an almighty, omnipotent, powerful being? Hmm, something to consider there, maybe. Speaking of followers, let’s actually also take a look at some of the prophets that we as American Christians often hold so dear. Now me? I’m a Luke guy, I like Luke. Peaceful, loving gospel for the most part, and I dig it. Peace and love, baby, that’s all I want coming from stories regarding a higher power that we had to hang up like a fucking tapestry to make sure we got all that love. But do you know who I fucking hate, and who I blame the most for how the American chruch is? Paul/Saul of Tarsus. Thiiiiiiiiiiis prick. This fucking Deus Vult Vulture. Actually in many ways, he really is the archetype to the Modern Evangelical fucking anything. Actively participated in the harassing, attempted extinguishing and successful terrorizing of a marginalized group. Then after being hit back for it, literally “seeing the light” and trying to be the fucking vanguard of said group only to lead it down a path where he’s suddenly the appointed expert of anything to do with the issue. And while he does this, he helps create the most violent and bigoted thoughts in the whole of the religion, and is praised for his visions as he says they are truly from God, and can thus act oh so righteously. This right here is a fucking problem, y’all. Like, I know the whole forgiveness idea allows for some mental gymnastics on how this could even happen, but even then to make a genocidal ass-face your de-facto leader aside from Christ himself for the next 2000 years is a fucking flip that even at the 1988 Olympics, if Christians were America, Russia would give them a straight 10/10. And yet, for many of us, that’s exactly what we’ve done. Hell, we’ve even fallen into the forced victim narrative of the synopsis of this asshole: “Oh well, you see, I was a heathen and thus I couldn’t help myself, but then like, the God of the people I was killing talked to me and like, now I have to do this (Take on the “burden” of leading the church) as penance for what I couldn’t help myself over.” We’ve fallen for it so much, that it may as well be hard wired into our nervous system to believe anything resembling it, just as we assume if something is flat, green and on a tree, it’s a leaf. Maybe it’s why we as a religion (and let’s face it, other Abrahamic religions as well) are so damn good at beating down the marginalized while screaming that we are the saints, we’re the sacrificiers trying to make things better. Like, let’s have some modern day fun with this bullshit, man; let’s see how we treated and in many places continue to treat women. Of the few churches I have been to, 100% of them had one dual-sided message that made me real fuckin’ uncomfortable, fam: Part 1) That women cannot be trusted onto themselves and thus 2) Men must take control of them and society to not allow for some unspecified “Ridiculous bullshit”. (as a fair heads up; I do fully recognize non-binary, trans individuals, etc, but for the sake of brevity I’ll be mostly referring to M/F in the traditional sort of way, because opening up Christianity’s treatment of anything regarding gender fluidity is a Ph.D. thesis for another day) Now, I don’t know about y’all, but I know damn well that out of all the dudes I know, and all the lasses I know, they’re a pretty mixed fuckin’ bunch. It’s almost like their gender assigned at birth doesn’t really affect how reasonable they could be as people nor how much responsibility they should have. Obviously some cultural practices skew this quite a bit in so far that women are expected to take more responsibility, younger, and for less praise, but if anything that should help destroy, not reinforce that message. And yet, the idea persists so much in Christian circles. And not just by the men themselves, but the women, also. For the longest time of my church going days, the pastor was a woman. She wholly believed it was just and right that her husband be in charge of everything, that women should be loyal to their men in all aspects. Then again, she also (despite recruiting members primarily from college) did not believe in evolution at all, so there’s that in terms of an intellectual hurdle. But regardless, this inherent submissive attitude within the faith (and even the half-hearted and self-congratulatory “Yeah but we REALLY are the ones making the decisions because we can withhold sex if we want” is essentially that too just a smidgen more empowering), when combined with the idea that men should be wholly in-control (which is a breeding ground for toxic masculinity if there ever was) is shameful. It’s what has allowed so much bullshit in the past, including these recent abortion laws. Now, I’m going to cover abortion in another post (I might get to it tomorrow; It’s been on the burner for weeks), but it’s super pertinent here. We, as a religion, have allowed ourselves to tell women (just as we tell/told minorities before) that they cannot be trusted with their own bodies, that they cannot be trusted when they speak, and most certainly cannot be trusted to truly hold dominion over anything. And that has allowed the most insidious, hateful, bigoted, disgusting things to happen in the name of God. A God that while I am writing this post I still believe in, but my doubts about how genuine the message has ever been is hitting home. One whose words about peace have been ignored when they could be interpreted or pointed to to support war, where the rich can profit off the poor, or to support sexism, because we as men historically have wanted to control “everything of ours”, or to take the very free will we claim to hold so dear from those who need the ability to make their own decisions the most. Words that have been used to hold down good people from making lives better. Words that in the hands of those who wanted, could be profaned and desecrated and thus allow for profane and disturbing events, both on the grand stage of the world and behind the closed doors of any house in some small town. Words which are held up with a wink and a nod so that followers feel included when they are scammed by some fucking fried chicken joint who wants to make more money to fight against equality, or to pay for another $9 million jet for some asshole who croons about how the poor should be grateful they do not have the temptations of the rich. To other followers, do you not lament that we are this way? That we have been this way for so long? Because I fucking do. And to those who have been discriminated or marginalized or whatever else against because of your gender or skin colour or situation or victimization or past deeds of any sort; I’m sorry. Genuinely, truly sorry you have suffered as you have. Sorry for what people have done thinking it was somehow morally or spiritually justified, sorry that they thought they were saving you. And I can assure you that I will never try to lead you as those before me have tried to. Though if it’s all the same, I’d like to get to hear you, and walk beside you.

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migleefulmoments · 6 years ago

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I am a fan of Wentworth, and he was saying he wasn't gay in almost every interview at the time (before anyone read anything in that statement I'm not insinuating anything about D, just so we're clear). He didn't evade the question, he was stating "I'm not gay". Now when we were watching him (and of his own accord), the closeting had tremendous effect on his mental health.

There is an importance difference between “I’m not gay” and “I’m straight”. Gay men and women questioning their sexuality have often said “I'm not gay” but nobody says “I’m straight” and then walks that back. Darren has said it hundreds of time over 9 years. Sexual identity is determined by the individual and nobody else. Darren has been very clear that he identifies as straight. He has said it point blank many times, he has lived his life in a manner consistent with a straight man- he married a woman he dated for 8 years, he’s never dated a man that we know of- and the ccers have looked- and he has never insinuated he is attracted to men, even in a joke. There is nothing to suggest he is gay accept a group of fans who cannot let it go. This got long so ....

Wentworth has never talked about closeting being something that was forced on him by the show runner or in a contract form. His experience was like everyone else- the reality that LGBTQ actors get less work, are typecast as gay characters-which up until a handful of shows like Glee, Will and Grace, The L-Word and Queer as Folks, most gay characters where side kick, buddies, comic relief. There were other shows with gay characters but not many. It is changing, but when Wentworth was struggling, it was still scandalous to come out- they still had to do the big People cover stories claiming “I’m Gay”. Work was hard to find- so everyone giving gay actors advice to stay in the closet were giving good career advice. The problem is that they didn’t understand the mental health implications of this kind of pressure, they didn’t appreciate the struggle to be true to oneself and they seem to have lacked basic of compassion. Most of the actors who have talked about the pressure, also talk about their own struggle with accepting their sexuality and how that mixed in with the pressure to stay in the closet coming from their managers and casting directors. Coming out is not a one-size-fits-all process, it is a complicated, very personal experience that is affected by one’s upbringing, religion, whether there is family and/or friend support, and one’s own mental health status. All of those factors impact coming out but now add in “under the world spotlight” and “impacts your ability to earn a wage” and that gets much more complicated.

Several actors and singers have talked about being outed and the horror of being forced to talk about their sexuality way before they were ready. Some weren’t even ready to face their sexuality themselves and were forced to when people kept bringing it up. Whether they were outed by the media, by coworkers, by fans or a combination, these are all deeply disturbing stories of depression and anxiety brought on by being outed.

The problem with the cc trope is that the reality isn’t as simple as Abbu’s theory that one person pushed an actor inside the closet and locked it with a signed, never-ending, legally binding contract. In fact, cc theory is a simple, 1-dimensional look at what really goes on with LGBTQ performers and the closet. It is simply a prop in the CrissColfer fantasy that is used to further their “proof” but it is not based on the reality of what is happening in Hollywood, it discounts the individual’s struggle to be accepted and to accept themselves, to come out and be safe and earn a wage. The ccers out Darren daily with no remorse. They ignore the stories being told by actors who struggle after being outed and they fixate on their fantasy that “Darren wants them to out him”. Nobody ever wants to be outed.

Closeting in Hollywood isn’t based simply a misconception held by casting directors and managers who are out-of-touch with the times. As a society, we-and by we I mean ccers- still label people as gay based on effeminate behavior and gay kids are being threatened and bullied at school at an alarming rate. Gay kids are still committing suicide. The problem is much deeper than Hollywood. We are making changes but they are slow and the Trump administration and Mike Pence are trying to turn things back to 1950. They just barred transgender troops and have fought to end the rights that Obama administration gave to protect trans kids in school.

The cc fandom needs actually read the interview and quotes they post because the people aren’t saying what the cc fandom are hearing. They cherry-pick quotes to highlight and ignore the stuff that disproves their 1-dimensional theories. Today Valentinaheart posted and Abby reblogged (Bold is theirs) :

Garrett Clayton made headlines when he came out as gay back in August.

It followed years of unfair speculation from both the public and the media – many of whom pressured him to come out when he wasn’t ready – and closed out a chapter of the actor’s life that saw him hide his true self in the public eye.

Now, in his first interview since coming out as gay, the former Disney star tells Gay Times he “finally feels comfortable” with his sexuality – but there was a time that the homophobia he experienced in Hollywood pushed him further into the closet.

“One of the first things somebody who was instrumental in starting my career did, they sat me down and they said, ‘Are you gay?’ And I could feel the pressure of the question, so I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m gay, or bi, or whatever’, because suddenly I could feel that there was something wrong with that in this person’s eyes,” he says.

“They looked at me and said, ‘No one wants to fuck the gay guy, they want to go shopping with him, so we’re going to have to figure this out.’ It turned into this situation where I’d get calls and they’d say, ‘You still need to butch it up’. I literally had to change everything about myself at that point, otherwise I was never gonna make it.

“And that was so conflicting, because here’s somebody offering you your dream, but they’re telling you that you’re not good enough the way you are. You’re talented, but who you are isn’t good enough.”

Unfortunately, this insidious homophobia was something that continued long into Garrett’s career.

“They had me changing the way I walked, the way I spoke, the way I dressed, the way I answered questions,” he continues. “It got as petty as them saying, ‘People need to see that you’re into sports because they’ll think that’s more masculine, so why don’t you go buy a sports hat, take some pictures in it, and make sure people see you in it’.

“There’d be calls after I went into casting offices like, ‘Hey, this is how gay casting thought you came across today, so here’s what you need to do to fix it’. I even had cast members screaming drunkenly in the middle of a room, ‘Who here thinks Garrett is gay?’ and then yelling at me for not having come out yet.”

It felt “like being back in high school” for the aspiring actor, and the self-suffocation prescribed by those around him inevitably took its toll, leading to a period of reclusive behaviour and depression and, ultimately, therapy.

“I convinced myself that I was the problem, and I got into a really dark place for a couple of years. Then I went to therapy for about a year and a half to really sort through all the things I went through growing up and the situations I found myself in while in Hollywood. I got to work through all those conflicting things.”

The second paragraph was not in bold and yet says a lot to a fandom who outs Darren on the daily: It followed years of unfair speculation from both the public and the media – many of whom pressured him to come out when he wasn’t ready – and closed out a chapter of the actor’s life that saw him hide his true self in the public eye

The article says that

“...but there was a time that the homophobia he experienced in Hollywood pushed him further into the closet”

Interestingly, they did bold this section which could have directed at them

I even had cast members screaming drunkenly in the middle of a room, ‘Who here thinks Garrett is gay?’ and then yelling at me for not having come out yet.”.

How can they not see they are the cast members yelling “are you out yet’?

So, the taunting and outing took its tole and lead to depression? Hmmm.... they never listen to what their posterboys are saying.

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04nc1n9 · 2 years ago

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haven’t slept in a while so thoughts are going mushy and i came up with a headcannon for zelda that statistically probably already exists but i don’t care. i came up with it while thinking about how fun it is to annoy zelda fans by calling link zelda. so firstly i will explain what i hope to convince you of throughout this; the legend of zelda is a metaphorical and literal transition story of ganon transitioning into zelda, with link being the space in-between when she was questioning her gender and felt too anxious to even speak. okay so i have like zero cold hard facts and, although i own and have access to a ton of zelda games, have only played like the tutorial to two of them. this may not be very well explained, but i do have the combined information of almost two decades worth of consuming creepypastas, game theories, and miscellaneous info on all of the games. first piece of evidence: the “three” of ganon, link, and zelda are all essentially soul bonded together through divine prophecies and such. it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that they all share a single, albeit fragmented, soul. this soul materialises as the triforce (i do not care about some goddesses that the triforce actually represent, the goddesses are just zeldas inner conscience. boom won.), the triforces being might (i think) for ganon, courage for link, and wisdom for zelda. lets start with ganons piece of the triforce and work from there. so, ganon is linked to the “might” piece of the triforce, the piece that symbolises tyrannical rule, physical strength, a stalwart defence, and brutality. i think, again i haven’t played the games. with all my expertiese (that ebing none) i believe that ganon represents a stage in zeldas life where she was so far into the closet that she denied her true self and turned to crushing both herself and others. yes, i am saying that ganon is zelda from a time where in order to escape herself and ridicule that she believed could have been brought upon her by others, tried to swing harshly in the opposite direction. she embodied every toxic stereotype of masculinity, pushed other trans people down, and tried to project her self-hatred onto others. let’s leave gandalf here for now. enter, link. link, as the name suggests, is the transitionary period between rejecting herself and accepting herself. link’s triforce is the triforce of courage, the courage to reject all that you’ve been forced to be by an oppressive society, the courage to own up to your old mistakes and wrongdoings and try to rectify them, the courage to apologise and help others that are struggling, and the courage to be yourself. link, unlike ganon, embodies less of the stereotypical features associated with far end of toxic masculinity. link in many of their games has some form of lost innocence, i believe in one game, after saving the day, was unable to live with the rest of their kin as their actions caused them to age unlike the rest of their kin. i believe, metaphorically, that this is due to links uneasy transition from ganon. before being link they had already shown themself to be antagonistic to people who are questioning their genders. perhaps this is also a reason that link rarely, if ever, speaks. perhaps this could also be a significant reason for link’s undying will to fight back against ganon- link never wants to let ganon win again, link doesn’t want to return to being what they were before they finally started accepting themself, and they want to make amends for all the wrongs they did when they were ganon. perhaps the events of majora’s mask were link further questioning, and maybe becoming panicked, that they couldn’t figure themself out- and in blind fear started taking on the identities of people around them, as if putting on masks. and maybe, just maybe, heart canisters are a metaphor for taking estrogen. i don’t know how to justify this it just feels right. but after all that desperate searching- there stood geruda clan which link had to dress femme to enter. i believe this to be the moment that, after all the years spent questioning, link finally began to understand who they, she, really was on the inside. wearing clothes that affirmed the gender of the “zelda” hidden deep within and being accepted into a women’s-only space, even if link wasn’t doing it with the intentions of self-discovery to begin with, and even if it will take time for them to understand what that feeling truly was, it was there. again, i haven’t played botw, i only know about this whole thing from femboy link art. now onto zelda, after all the trials she had to go through, she finally accepted that this is who she is. the triforce of wisdom; enlightenment, knowledge, experience. zelda has all of this because she has experienced centuries of living in many different shoes trying to find the one that fit, until one finally did. but, even after coming this far, she knows she is still wearing those wacky-physics steel shoes also known as “ganon,” she knows that even if she did come this far what is behind her must still be amended, and even after all those decades she still works against her past self, trying to overcome the damage she, and others who were like her past selves, have done. she developed a way to speak with her past selves (because elf magic, duh) to try and help them on their journey to becoming her, but the only one that seemed to listen was when she was link, and thus she stood by the version of herself that finally was able to udnerstand right from wrong and against the version of herself who was still incpable and tried to make wrongs right. and then she transitioned and got magic powers and time travel and stuff, imma be honest i’m reaching at this point, i know basically nothing about zelda other than she’s a princess and what i’ve already written. i’m going to be honest i could come up with a shit ton more absolute word vomit like ganon being just slightly off from another anti-trans (basically anti-everything tbh) hate group but i don’t want to bloat it. so that’s my theory on trans zelda, hope you enjoyed. my eyes are throbbing and dry and i need to sleep.

#zelda #trans #legend of zelda #game theory

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the-ghost-of-jason-todd · 7 years ago

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“using non-binary as a label is the easy way out because afab wlw can’t accept their own womanhood--”

bruh. you may have a point in that it can be hard to come to terms with your own sexuality and/or relate to loving women separate from the persistent male-gaze but calling any trans label ‘the easy way out’ is incredibly backwards and i Do Not Care For That Shit.

it’s like a nightmare combination of ‘special snowflake uwu’ accusations and ‘gay men think they’re trans women because they’re doing mental contortion to be heterosexual’ arguments (that’s the original transmedical argument, btw. that homosexuality could be ‘cured’ by gay men becoming women. this is how it came to be that gay men like alan turing were chemically castrated with feminizing hormones. it’s also tied into the medicalization of female sexuality, both cis and trans. just like. as a heads up).

listen, i’ll be the first to admit that gender and sexuality is a hard intersection to think about, especially because we’re limited to whatever common language is in use at the moment. but man... trans people already fight so hard against a slew of accusations that come at them at every waking moment, from every possible angle, that suggesting they haven’t thought hard enough about Who They Fucking Are is rude at best and damaging/silencing at worst. i will always encourage people to think deeply about their identity and their existence in conjunction with that identity, but to phrase it as if choosing a trans label is somehow EASIER than choosing a non-het label? nah. fucking nah. not in the western world that i inhabit.

the closet for trans people is a hell of a lot smaller than it is for gay people. hiding who you kiss vs HOW YOUR FACE LOOKS? your partner’s pronouns vs your pronouns? the culture and behavior of gays/lesbians in public spaces vs every single indicator of gender/sex characteristics that every stranger pings fifty times per conversation and feels like they have a RIGHT to know? yeah, MISS me with that ‘oh boo non-binary is just a way to get around your sexuality and not think too hard about it’ because being non-binary makes me 200% more visible than liking girls ever did. i had to think VERY FUCKING HARD about being trans.

i just... you cannot possibly think that it’s easy to be trans/nb. who gets public support? gay people. gay men specifically. most ‘queer’ movies are about gay men. not bi, not trans, not ace. trans people are much more likely to be physically hurt just EXISTING. every month a trans woman walks into a parking lot and gets beat to death like--TRANS=/=EASY. IN ANY CAPACITY. i have to explain my transition to EVERYONE. cishet people, gay people, other trans people. saying ‘i like girls’ is NOTHING like trying to say ‘i am a boy’.

and honestly... why do you guys like to hate so much? you hate when kids are questioning and insist they don’t have a space in the community. yet you hate when they pick a label because oooh what if it’s the WRONG label? what if they didn’t have the same label journey that YOU had? obviously they did it wrong!

you hate the kids who can’t articulate their feelings on their identity, you hate the kids who are just now learning what ‘transgender’ even means, you hate on the kids who come to you asking basic queer theory questions because you’ve somehow forgotten that 90% of our society DOESN’T HAVE AN ANSWER FOR THEM THAT ISN’T “WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THAT, IT’S BAD”

i DO NOT care if an afab lesbian is using a non-binary label. i DO NOT care if an afab lesbian takes twenty years to unlearn internalized homophobia and can finally call herself a cis-lesbian. i’m going to support her when she uses non-binary labels and i’m going to support her when she decides that she was just using them as a cover for her true feelings on wlw relationships. because i TRUST that she had a good reason to sit under the trans umbrella and because i KNOW that gender/sexuality is fluid and no one else needs to answer to me about why they feel the way they do.

like jesus christ, guys. NOTHING queer is easy. is it easier to be nb instead of lesbian? NOT FUCKING LIKELY. the transphobia and gatekeeping from within the community alone testify to the fact that being nb is hard. it’s hard even in a designated queer space. we can talk about how it’s normalized for women to aspire to be a man and adopt masculinity, even in lesbian spaces, and how misogyny and femininity intersect, but that conversation does not cover what it’s like to actually live your life as a trans individual. nor does it actually cover what makes a lesbian a lesbian! being ANY type of queer means trying to define a nebulous cloud of a hundred different facets of You and it’s not easy getting to any label!

at the bottom of this whole thing... i do not get the weird trans man vs lesbian narrative people are pushing. honestly it’s blowing my mind thinking about it all because i’m seeing people fighting over what someone ELSE should identify as and??? there being one more trans man in the world doesn’t somehow take credibility away from lesbians. same goes the other way. it isn’t ‘switching sides’ if someone picks one label over the other. it isn’t ‘faking it’ if someone changes their mind. there is no false advertising, or transtrending, or whatever the hell.

we’re all fucking people. marginalized people, at that.

TL;DR: if you don’t understand why people take up the non-binary label, then stop fucking talking about it because the discussion is not for you and your strange desire to apply your own mental journey onto other people. go ahead and talk about how you came to your labels, and how internalized homophobia shaped your path, but don’t--don’t. imply that there are inferior labels or that non-binary identities have no weight.

#26th #March #2018 #March 26th 2018 #honestly it's driving me nuts #this idea that trans identities are people driving off the road to avoid being gay or lesbian #like people actively want to be socially shunned going to get their groceries #this is the 'ooooh but what if you detransition what then' thing all over again #like WHO CARES??#the people who detransition had to figure their own shit out #that's on them #there are so few people who transition all the way and THEN decide that they made a mistake like #it doesn't even matter!#i would rather some cis person make a mistake than have a trans person DESPERATE to transition and unable to #and really... honestly..... other people don't matter when it comes to your identity #why are you so INTERESTED in making sure that no one makes the same mistake you made on your personal journey?#are you afraid that you are actually the one who screwed up?#that if you don't preach your way then someday you'll realize that you made the wrong call?#like is it a kind of affirmation to be able to say 'HA YOU'RE ACTUALLY A LESBIAN JUST LIKE ME'??#i don't Get It #transgender politics #transphobia #salt #forgive me #like oh the misguided young lesbian who thinks she's a man #fuck OFF bro #it's none of your business

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sinesalvatorem · 7 years ago

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I can’t stop thinking about this quote from Leslie Feinberg that @wearsshoes showed me:

I was considered far too masculine a woman to get a job in a store, or a restaurant, or an office. I couldn’t survive without working. So one day I put on a femme friend’s wig and earrings and tried to apply for a job as a salesperson at a downtown retail store. On the bus ride to the interview, people stood rather than sit next to me. They whispered and pointed and stared. “Is that a man?” one woman asked her friend, loud enough for us all to hear. The experience taught me an important lesson. The more I tried to wear clothing or styles considered appropriate for women, the more people believed I was a man trying to pass as a woman. I began to understand that I couldn’t conceal my gender expression.

So I tried another experiment. I called one of the older butches who I knew passed as a man on a construction gang. She lent me a pair of paste-on theatrical sideburns. After gluing them on, I drove to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. As I walked around, nobody seemed to stare. That was an unusual experience and a relief. I allowed my voice to drop to a comfortably low register and chatted with one of the guards about the job situation. He told me there was an opening for a guard and suggested I apply. An hour later, the supervisor who interviewed me told me I seemed like a “good man” and hired me on the spot. I was suddenly acceptable as a human being. The same gender expression that made me hated as a woman, made me seem like a good man.

I keep thinking about this fucking quote because it feels simultaneously so #same and so bizarre.

It seems bizarre for entirely typical mind reasons, because to me it feels like femininity is easy and masculinity is near-impossible. And I’m bad at internalising that this is a me thing. The same way that I had a really hard time coming to terms with the fact that not everyone hated fighting games in primary school, I have a hard time alieving that not everyone is naturally inclined to walk/talk/sit/gesture like me and isn’t expending continuous effort to not do that in order to appear Stronk.

But I was also thinking about what Leslie said about those interviews and, yeah, I think I’m a perfect reversal there. I wouldn’t feel particularly uncomfortable interviewing for a job as a waitress, as long as I established that my employer was OK with having a transgender employee. And on Sunday I was walking down a street that seemed to have fifty hairdressers and nail salons and cosmetologists on it and I thought that, if I decided to opt for a low-pay job instead of continuing to study programming, I could probably just walk into these places off the street and ask about openings until one hired me.

On the other hand, a while back a transmale friend of mine suggested I get a job as a security guard because I’d get to sit around for most of it, and I was like... no. I am trans in the wrong direction for that. There’s no way I’d be able to send a vibe that said “cultural fit”, much less “could actually appear threatening ever”.

And that vibe is definitely a gender expression thing. I have two modes: Uninhibited, in which I radiate signals of femininity in all directions, and cautious, in which I try to suppress having any clear gender signals apart from the ones I’m relatively confident I can pull off, like keeping my voice low. When I was in high school, I sometimes tried to imitate distinctively male behaviour, but I’d keep doing it subtly wrong due to not actually 'getting’ it, leading to a cross between “how do you do fellow kids” and being actively uncanny valley. So I started aiming for a lower bar of seeming genderlessly nerdy, rather than visibly faggy.

But my uninhibited gender expression doesn’t feel like imitating women the way my abortive attempts at seeming bro-ish in high school felt like imitating men. I’m sure at some point in my life I must have picked up my behaviours by imitation, because a lot of my gender expression is culturally dependent (eg, British women smile way less than I do). However, when I’m interacting with people in the moment, my uninhibited gender expression doesn’t feel like anything at all. I’m not really paying attention to it, apart from some amount of background stress that it’s going to make other people mad.

I suspect a good analogy is to languages, which I’m pretty good at learning about the structure of, but really bad at producing in real time (other than English). At some point early in my life, I started picking up English from the people around me, and it stuck really deeply and I got really good at it. I can be articulate in English. Meanwhile, when I’ve tried to learn languages since then, I’ve been pretty bad at it - especially speaking them in real time, when I flail around and fuck it up.

And the same thing seems to be going on with gender expression. I learned how to do girl when I was very young by observing the women around me, and am now pretty good at it, to the point where people who are trying to gender me as male often lose that battle. Meanwhile, when I tried to learn how to man, I got an OK grounding in the structure of masculinity, but next to no ability to convincingly do it. In high school I could speak boy about as well as I could speak French - enough to ask for directions, but not enough to get a job or maintain a friendship.

But, of course, the last line of that quote is the most relatable (again, gender flipped). People at best tolerated (very bad at being a)boy!me. And, well, often they didn’t. Even when I had otherwise achieved social success by making my presentation a combination of low-gender and high-charm, I was still widely considered unfuckable, because “not outputting a massive amount of femininity constantly” isn’t enough on its own to be attractive to androphiles. You need to actually be able to dude, which to me sounds like being told to ‘just’ hold my breath for an hour.

Meanwhile, girl!me (or openly-flamboyant!me when I don’t pass) just... Doesn’t have those problems. People find me pleasant to be around even when I’m not actively doing Charm. And the unfuckability is very much a thing of the past. I’d never had a single successful romantic interaction before I met my first girlfriend in [Redacted], who immediately read me as female upon meeting me. But, since transition, there has never been a moment when I’ve been single (for better or worse?), and I don’t really expect there to be unless I choose it. Life is just so much easier when my role isn’t in direct conflict with my inclinations all the time, which is what I think Leslie feels too.

#tragic backstory #gender #transgender #i cannot hide what i am #gender collapsed when measured

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transstudiesarchive · 7 years ago

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Poems from a young queer trans kid who eventually made it out

New offering for this project below (click “Keep reading”). Full text for the four poems above included below that. ______________________________

Four poems written by a young queer trans kid, raised Mormon, who didn’t know out queer people existed and had never heard of the concept of being trans. I lived in a small, conservative agricultural town with seemingly more churches than people. I was the fifth of eight kids. When I came across a bunch of my childhood poetry a while back after coming out as trans, they all made so much more sense…

Once I’d Seen Seattle

I think I’m glad I didn’t know sooner—

I’m not sure I’d have made it out.

I always knew I didn’t belong, but had no idea why.

I lived in a desert of ideas. Actually, it was worse than that.

I lived at ground zero where ideas that took hold were quickly censored or driven out; there was nothing in the air in my suffocatingly small, claustrophobic town to even let me conceptualize what I would later realize to be not only my truth, but my beautiful kaleidoscope of identities.

My town might as well have been an island because we never left the city limits. The only time anyone ever left was when my parents traveled to nearby towns for cancer treatments or other medical care.

I am the fifth of eight children raised in what I thought at the time was a staunch Mormon home. My dad was the eldest of six, all of whom lived within thirty minutes of us.

My siblings joked that I had to be adopted because it was clear I didn’t fit. Nothing fit.

But I kept trying.

I was a mama’s child and for some reason I was driven to be a golden child. I wanted to excel at everything and make my mom proud. But in my town, that meant Cub Scouts, then Boy Scouts along with church groups which became gender-segregated church groups and gender-segregated sports at school and at church. And outside school and church? Partying, partying, partying. And three-wheeling and fishing and shooting guns and hunting. But I never went hunting. (Even then, decades before waking to veganism, I couldn’t fathom how anyone could point a gun at a beautiful, innocent animal—a sentient being with a will to live—and pull the trigger.)

So I kept trying, sometimes channeling some fictional character to manifest some forced hyper-masculinity and jackass behavior. Somehow I survived all that and so did my closest friends. Even though at least a couple kids every year didn’t survive.

I learned about ‘homosexuals’ from the bible and felt a combination of curiosity and fear. Even as I sensed the repulsion and fear in others whenever it came up, I found myself fascinated. Was this me? Two close childhood friends later came out as queer.

Maybe, I told myself at the time, my discomfort in all-male spaces was because I was really attracted to guys and frightened it might show or that I would be tempted to act on those feelings.

But that didn’t explain how much discomfort, bordering on distress, I felt when I had to wear masculine church clothes—button-down shirts and jackets and slacks and ties and Oxford shoes. My mouth is getting that vomity sensation just writing this.

I remember the horror I felt one day when my sister pointed at my bare chest:

“You’re growing chest hair! You’re becoming a man!”

It’s the first time I remember feeling truly depressed. I found myself feeling more isolated as time passed and activities at school grew more polarized. Skipping events started to feel much better than staying and having to be one of the guys.

I loved nothing more than when I’d be invited to activities with the girls—but they were so heartbreakingly few! So I often stayed home, a devoted mama’s child, happy to help out with what she asked me to do.

In junior high school I had that rare teacher who loves what they do and has held onto the spark. He brought homemade borscht in when we were studying Russian literature.

I have no idea how, in a town like ours, he got approval to do this let alone budget, but he took us on an overnight trip to Seattle to see Shakespeare productions, art museums, art galleries and the science center. My world went from gray to a riot of color during that trip.

I don’t know if I saw something or someone in particular while there; if I did, it never registered consciously. But that trip lit something in me that gave me hope about who I was and who I could become. I knew there was someplace better for me.

In some ways, that made the next four years more difficult and more painful than the years before. Because compared to Seattle, my town was hell. Specifically, my town was a dull bathroom break in the red-state flyover part of hell. And I had four more years ahead with no clear path out even then.

I got contacts and became the class clown, but I lived under storm clouds I couldn’t dispel. My grades suffered. When I was at risk of not graduating, some friends of the family came up with a plan. I moved in with them and after graduation, at their encouragement, I left for a two-year Mormon mission to Japan.

Then I came back, moved to Seattle, met someone amazing, sang her Somebody by Depeche Mode without missing a word in the middle of the store at the mall where we worked. We got married in the temple because for some reason I was still doing that then. I struggled off and on with the feeling I might be gay. It was still all I knew; the only option that could explain the fact that I was different. That I didn’t belong.

I knew I’d made it out when I went back to visit my parents one year and the clerk at the drugstore asked my partner and I if we had ever visited the area before. I asked how they knew we were from out of town and they said, “I can just tell. Are you from Seattle or something?”

Almost thirteen years after saying “I do,” we divorced after giving an open relationship a try. I was a workaholic the entire time. A had a few relationships of varying duration, including some casual relationships with men. A couple months after swearing to stay single for a year I met the person I hope to spend the rest of my life with. We met through mutual friends, but both had online dating profiles and both had ours set to exclude vegans because WTF? How does that even work? Then we got together and went vegan.

Over the last several years before we met, the idea of being trans hit my radar. I’d talked with previous partners about it. I’d even gone through the not-atypical pattern of splurge-and-purge where I would embrace my sense of who I was and buy a bunch of skirts, cute tops, dresses and other things that never saw the world outside our house. My partners were supportive. But then I would panic and get rid of everything and go back to life in drag. I would do things like let my fingernails grow long, shave my armpits and some of my body hair, pluck my eyebrows—but never enough to “give me away,” as far as I knew.

Then at the age of 47 I learned my company was going through a restructuring and my department was being eliminated. Having grown up in poverty, I’d always let a stable job and reliable income take precedence over everything else. And my life history reflected that. But because of my partner, my circle of friends and who I’d allowed myself to become, I did something I never thought I would do. I left my job, volunteered at the local QIATBLG+ community center two days a week, did other social justice organizing and volunteer work, came out as trans, changed my name, updated all my legal documentation (including the non-binary X gender marker on my driver’s license) and enrolled in school full time. I had been on the fence on whether to start school or start a non-profit to serve the area trans and queer communities. When I learned about the brand new major at PSU—Sexuality, Gender and Queer Studies—I knew what I had to do. And I knew my life was right on track. - Iris @ Age 49

Signs of Humanity

Why can’t I be human? I’m called a child when I cry So I hold my feelings deep inside. Again I ask you, why?

Why can’t I be human? When I laugh, they think I’m weird. So I just smile to myself. Are feelings to be feared?

Why can’t I be human? When I’m quiet, they ask what’s wrong, So I think of something to talk about. Must I do this to belong?

Why can’t I be human? I’m scoffed at when I make a mistake. So I just turn and walk away, Though deep within, I ache.

Why can’t I be human? Why can’t I act like me?!?! Instead of just another model in… Series: Humanity. - by Iris @ Age 14

Close Your Eyes and Look at Me

Do not judge me by appearance. You have eyes but cannot see. Look at my spirit and my feelings. Close your eyes and look at me!

Hold your ears so you can listen. Hear my meaning, not my words. It is my heart that is speaking now. Is my language so absurd?

Quell your pride so you can feel. I know that you care deep inside. Why must these feelings that are so human Be held within, always denied? - by Iris @ Age 15

Balanced Confusion

Just sitting here, my mind is spinning With contemplative images. Caught in limbo between past and future, Unable to focus on the present. Trapped in a loop of unanswerable questions, I seek out nonexistent facts. Falling toward my termination— Groping for what is not there. Each time I sense a certain order And settle to a steady state, A new unknown begins to form And throws me into chaos. Emotions reign in my subconscious Running rampant, take their toll. I struggle to cling to reality, But slip across the line… Perceptions are nearly nullified. I no longer trust my senses. I crawl to the center of my mind And slumber in balanced confusion. - Iris @ Age 14

Sitting in the Oven

Sitting in the oven Wondering why the hell I’m here. I’m thinking and feeling something… Not sure what, but sure not fear.

It’s not too comfortable in here. I’m sitting on the wire rack; The bars aren’t big enough for my butt And there’s nothing to support my back.

Looking through the dirty glass I can see life passing by outside. Something is welling up inside me; I’m not sure what, but it’s sure not pride.

I guess I don’t like it here, But there isn’t much that I can do. Maybe if someone opens the door I’ll jump and try to make it through.

I’ve come to the conclusion That this is not the way to live. I’m thinking and feeling something… Not sure what, but sure not initiative. - Iris @ Age 16

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rejectedusername-trashfics · 7 years ago

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One Shot Everything’s Going to be Alright

Summary: Ryan wasn’t born what he wanted to be. But he has a wonderful boyfriend with the Fake AH Crew to support him. Then, he’s not careful and he and his boyfriend have to deal with the consequence for the rest their lives. Maybe, the consequence won’t turn out to be bad at all.

Word Count: 9,064

Pairing: Gavin/Ryan

AO3

The Vagabond was the most terrifying man in Los Santos. He had a lot of pent up anger and distaste for the world, and he thought being a killer for hire, a mercenary, would be a productive way to get it out of his system. He was very angry with the world mostly because he was not born into the right body. The Vagabond, James Ryan Haywood, had actually been born Jane Ryley Haywood.

When he had tried to come out to his parents as a boy, they brushed him off, claiming that it was just a tomboy phase. He ran away from his home in Georgia and off to Los Santos after that. He had partnered up with another girl he met in Los Santos, who went by Dollface, and worked with her for quite a few years. A time went on, Ryan’s name as the Vagabond grew. Eventually, the girl joined an all-girl gang, called the Los Santos Sirens, and Ryan and his partner separated. The two still kept in touch, anyway.

Even with the Vagabond working solo, the notoriety and fear that came with the reputation he’d built continued to grow. Eventually, jobs offered by the infamous Fake AH Crew landed on his desk. He was honored to be getting bigger jobs like this. After about three jobs with the crew, he was asked to join them full time. He gladly accepted, he thought maybe this crew could be the family he always should have had. Though, he never planned to come out as trans to them, hoping they would only ever know him as Ryan.

Th crew offered him a room in their penthouse, which he gladly accepted. He sold off his apartment so he could start HRT. He had begun to grow more facial hair and have more muscle definition. His more defined masculine looks caught the attention of the Golden Boy, Gavin Free. Gavin had no idea what Ryan spent his heist money on, so he began to treat Ryan. That led to the two of them having feeling for each other

The two of them eventually started dating and there was a sense of harmony throughout the penthouse, considering everyone saw it coming. The only thing that was slightly confusing about the relationship to Gavin was that Ryan refused to get physically intimate with him nor would he ever let him see him naked. Gavin assumed that was because Ryan was asexual or something. Gavin learned the real reason when he walked in on Ryan changing.

He saw Ryan with a binder on. Ryan saw Gavin and quickly put his shirt back on and tried to run. Gavin locked the door, not allowing him run. He quickly assured him that his physical parts don’t change the fact that he still sees him as Ryan. Ryan blinked in surprise, smiled, and the encounter finally turned intimate, after that. Thus, the two of them began to have a very active sex life.

Gavin was with Ryan for every step of his transition after that, as well. He would go pick up his HRT and feminine supplies, until Ryan stopped needing them. He took care of him when he was recovering from Top surgery. He had even started looking into who the best surgeon for Bottom surgery in the country was, for Ryan. Everything was going well, until the crew got super busy and Ryan missed his monthly HRT shot…

8 WEEKS

After Ryan had missed his HRT, he decided to wait until after he got his period again before he started it back up. When it didn’t come, at first, he assumed it was because of leftover hormones in his system. Then, he started to constantly feel nauseous. This caused irrational paranoia to set in. One May afternoon, Ryan decided to test if his irrational paranoia was actually correct.

He sat patiently on the toilet, waiting for the results of his third pregnancy test. The first two had come back positive, be he wasn’t going to believe them until he had three tests to tell him that he actually was pregnant.

The third one finally gave him a positive result. He gasped, he didn’t think that something like this would ever happen to him. He dropped his head in his hands and sighed, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. He had always wanted kids one day, but had had given up on that when he decided to become a mercenary and started HRT.

Suddenly, he heard a knocking on the bathroom door. “RYAN,” Lindsay’s voice called out. “YOU ALMOST DONE IN THERE? CAUSE I HAVE TO PEE.”

Ryan quickly grabbed the pregnancy tests and shoved them in his pocket. He got up and unlocked the bathroom door. “Sorry,” he apologized.

“It’s okay, but can you not block the bathroom so I can use it?”

Ryan nodded and began to shuffle out of the way. “Do you know where Gavin is?”

“Lads are playing Hitman in the living room,” Lindsay quickly replied as she slammed the bathroom door shut.

Ryan took a deep breath and sighed, he knew what he had to do next. He walked over to the living room to see the lads trying to outdo each other with creative assassinations in the game. He tapped Gavin in the shoulder. “Gavin, we need to talk,” he started.

“Not right now,” Gavin quickly replied, not looking up from the TV screen.

“Or you could do it right now,” Michael popped in.

“Distracting Gavin would make things easier for us,” Jeremy added.

“I think I found out why I’ve been nauseous lately,” Ryan continued, ignoring everyone.

“Yeah, Gavin’s ugly face,” Michael joked.

“Oh, come off it,” Gavin retorted. “What actually is it, love?”

“It’s something I need to tell you in private,” Ryan finished, emphasizing the need to do this privately.

“Can it wait until after this?”

Ryan’s eyebrows furrowed. “No,” he answered as he picked Gavin up off of the couch, slung him over his shoulder, and marched out and to their room. Once he got there, he set Gavin down and closed the door.

“RYAN, WHAT THE HELL?!” Gavin angrily demanded.

Ryan sighed, this was the moment of truth. “You know I missed my HRT back in February, right?” he asked.

“Yah, and you were gonna wait until you got your period again. I know this, already!”

“But, it never came.”

“Probably cause leftover hormones.

“I think I know what my nausea is,” Ryan said, to get back to the point.

“Right, but I don’t see what that has to do with,”

“It’s morning sickness!” he finally spat out.

Gavin raised eyebrows. “Ryan, you’re being irrationally paranoi-,” Ryan grabbed the positive pregnancy tests out of his jacket and threw them at Gavin. One of them hit him in the face and fell into his lap. He saw that it was a pregnancy test and gagged, “Oh my god, you hit me with sticks you peed on!”

“Look closer at them,”’ Ryan demanded.

Gavin forced himself to stop gagging so he could take a closer look. He looked closer at the one that fell on his lap and saw that it was positive. “Ryan,” then he looked back up at him, “oh Ryan, what are you going to do?” he asked.

“What am I going to do? What are we going to do?! Cause I sure as fuck ain’t going through this, alone.”

Gavin looked down and sighed. “Right.”

“So, what do you think, Gavin?”

Gavin looked back up and sighed. “Well, ever since Michael and Lindsay had their little Sophie, I had been wanting a little sprog of my own. But since you started your,”

“Then we keep it,” Ryan interrupted.

“Ryan,”

“Look, I always wanted a biological kid, myself. I gave up on that idea for the same reasons as you. Now, this could be our only shot at this, so I’m not giving it up. I can go back to my transition afterwards.”

Gavin’s face lit up with excitement. “Ryan, we’re going to be parents!” he exclaimed as he got up and rushed over to Ryan to give him a kiss. He stopped as he pulled Ryan into an embrace, “wait, but this means you’re gonna have to come out to the crew,” he pointed out.

“We’ll,” Ryan stopped and sighed, “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Gavin nodded. “Oh, Ryan,” he cooed as he pulled Ryan into a deep kiss. This was going to be an interesting rest of the year, but they knew it was going to be alright.

14 WEEKS

Things had begun to change for Ryan in ways. Raging hormones had made Ryan much more irritable. Gavin was afraid at first, but mood swings immediately flipped the emotion switch and Ryan would apologize for his poor behavior. Ryan had also become constantly tired. Constant exhaustion and irritability made the interrogations Ryan conducted much more sinister and hostile.

A more noticeable change was Ryan’s cravings. He had desired odd combinations such as pickles and ice cream. Ryan had hated pickles before the pregnancy, but couldn’t get enough of them, now. Though even with all the other changes, he still had his thing for diet coke. Gavin had to step in after reading that caffeine was bad during pregnancy. Ryan reluctantly agreed to switch to caffeine-free diet coke for the time being.

The most noticeable change was that Ryan started to gain some pudge around his stomach. When Gavin pointed this out and went to pat Ryan’s belly, his hand got smacked away. He was self-conscious about anyone recognizing his pregnancy. He already wore looser shirts so he could hide it, he still wasn’t ready for the crew to know about it.

The only other crew member who knew about Ryan’s pregnancy was Lindsay. Ryan had already come out to Lindsay as FTM trans a while ago, and the only reason he told her that he was pregnant, was because she had found empty pregnancy test boxes in the bathroom that weren’t hers. She promised Ryan that she wouldn’t tell anyone.

An afternoon in early June, was when Ryan suggested that he and Gavin go out to meet his old friend, his first partner in crime in Los Santos. They planned on asking her to be their child’s godparent since Ryan wasn’t comfortable sharing his pregnancy with Geoff. He and Gavin were walking to the door when Ryan stopped and took a whiff of the air and smelled something divine.

“Love?” Gavin asked to try and get Ryan’s attention.

“What is that?” Ryan asked as he turned towards the smell. He saw Michael and Jeremy eating something at the kitchen table.

“Fried pickles, dude,” Michael answered as he shoved one in his mouth.

Ryan quickly walked over to the table, “May I have one?” he asked, gingerly, as he got to the table.

“Sure,” Jeremy answered.

He picked one of and took a bite. His eyes blew up, wide at the taste. He moaned in pleasure at the taste. “Oh, deese ah orgammic,” he gushed with his mouth full of pickle.

“Ryan, we’re going to be late for lunch. And I’m sure the place we’re going has fried pickles,” Gavin called out in an attempt to get Ryan’s attention again.

Ryan quickly turned back to Gavin, “Right,” he acknowledged as ha ran back over to Gavin. The two of them exited the penthouse.

20 minutes later they arrived at a diner, Last Train in Los Santos. Gavin scanned the front patio for any possible hostiles, when he spotted a familiar purple haired woman in glasses looking over the menu. Gavin began to shake as Ryan spotted her, as well. “MEG!” Ryan called out to get her attention and started to wave.

The woman looked up from her menu and smiled, wide, as she saw Ryan. “RYAN!” she cheered as she got up to give him a huge hug.

Gavin began to shake more violently. “You’re… you’re…”

Ryan started to rub Gavin’s back. “Gavin, this is Meg, my best friend outside of the crew.”

“And you’re Gavin. I’ve heard all about you from what Ryan’s told me. And seeing you in person is only proving that Ryan has good taste in men,” Meg compliment.

“You’re Dollface?” Gavin asked this time.

“Yep,” she confirmed.

Gavin grabbed Ryan’s hand and shook harder. “Ryan, she’s Dollface!”

“Breath sweetheart, I know that,” he instructed. “We’ve known each other since long before the names, Dollface or Vagabond, meant anything.”

“Yeah, and it’s been Ryan’s persuasive reasoning that stops the Los Santos Sirens from starting anything with the Fakes,” Meg added in an attempt to calm Gavin down. Gavin’s eye’s widened in surprise that Ryan had been preventing crew conflict. He took a deep breath and sighed. “Right then, do we want to go back and sit down? I already have a table for us,” she finished as she began to walk back to her table.

“Sitting down sounds like a dream right now. Come on, Gavin,” he commented as he took Gavin’s hand and followed Meg.

Gavin looked at how honest, caring, and cheerful Dollface was right now. He could see why Ryan had remained friends with Dollface, no, Meg, for so long. “Right, so what’s good on the menu?” he asked as he and Ryan sat down.

“Quick question though, does this place have fried pickles,” Ryan quickly asked.

“They do, but I thought you hated pickles,” Meg commented.

“Normally, I do hate them, but I’m actually rather fond of them at the moment.”

“Ha! You wouldn’t like pickles unless you were pregnant,” she joked.

“Well…” Ryan trailed off as he began to rub his arm, nervously. Gavin grabbed his hand and be began to rub circles in it to comfort him.

Meg looked up and saw the affection. Her eyes widened. “Oh my god, you are. Oh my god, Ryan!” she cheered as she quickly got up and gave Ryan a hug. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you,” he replied, graciously.

“You have to tell me all the details,” Meg demanded as she sat back down.

“Well, the little one is due in December,” Gavin started.

“And before you ask, no, we haven’t told the crew.” Ryan clarified.

“Oh,” Meg replied, sadly.

“But, Ryan, here, wanted us to ask you something,” Gavin filled back in.

“What is it?” Meg asked Ryan.

“Well, I wanted to do more than just tell you, I’m pregnant,” Ryan started.

“Well, what else is there?”

“I wanted Gavin, here, to meet you because I wanted him to know the person we were gonna be asking to be the godparent.”

Meg’s mouth dropped in shock, “Me?”

“Yes, you. If… you’d be okay with that.”

“Holy shit, I would love to be Mini Meg’s godmother!”

Gavin twisted his head in confusion and Ryan snorted. “Mini Meg, really?” Ryan asked with a smirk.

“That has to be its name now.”

Ryan sighed and smiled. He looked over at Gavin, and Gavin smiled in return. They both knew everything was going to be alright.

18 WEEKS

As expected with pregnancy, Ryan’s body continued to change. He continued to grow sleepier, and he couldn’t tell if it was psychosomatic of not, but he swore we was starting to feel movement in his lower abdomen. Gavin began to grow uneasy about Ryan going out to do missions for the crew, even offering to teach Ryan some hacking techniques. Ryan refused at first, claiming that he was still fit to do his work as crew muscle. Gavin finally demanded that Ryan take a break from missions after he got grazed by a bullet in the shoulder.

Ryan said he still needed to exercise, though. He asked Gavin to go weightlifting with him at the gym, saying that maybe they could try to switch roles in the crew. Ryan would be the lead hacker while Gavin could get to be the crew muscle. Gavin happily agreed to those terms.

Ryan’s stomach continued to expand, beginning to look more like a baby belly, rather than a pot belly. Gavin had a greater desire to pet Ryan’s stomach, and would ask permission before he tried anything. Ryan was very reluctant to agree, seeing as he was very self-conscious about his pregnancy and still hiding it from the rest of the crew.

In mid/late July, Gavin had stepped out to work out a negotiation. Ryan waited on the couch, patiently, for him back at the penthouse. As the hours passed, Ryan dozed off. He had been fast asleep, so he didn’t hear footsteps approaching the couch. “Ryan?” a voice asked. Ryan continued to snore. “RYAN!” the voice yelled to wake him up.

“GGGAAAAHHHH!” Ryan yelped as he jumped. He looked to see who had woken him up, to see it was Geoff. “Yes?” he asked, with a yawn.

“So, Gavin asked me not to put you on any missions,” Geoff started.

“I know,” he replied, groggily.

“And, I was wondering if everything is okay with the two of you. I mean, is he trying to be too controlling or something? Cause I’ve seen him try to control your actions, even seen him trying to control your diet.”

Ryan blinked and sat up. “Everything’s fine between us. He just wants me to be healthy.”

“Well, I’m not sure it’s working ‘cause it looks to me like you’ve been eating a bit on the side with that beer belly you started rockin’ there,” Geoff commented as he went to go poke Ryan’s stomach.

Ryan quickly swatted Geoff’s hand away. “DON’T TOUCH THAT!!!! I CAN’T DRINK ALCOHOL ANYWAY! CAN’T AND WON’T!!!” then he got up. “I’m going back to my room, don’t follow me,” he demanded as he shuffled away. Geoff just sighed.

20 minutes later Gavin came back. “RYAN, I’M BACK!” then he looked around and saw Geoff sitting on the couch, alone. “Where’s Ryan, I thought he’d be waiting there for me,” he asked as he walked over to Geoff.

“I asked him what you were doing to make him stress eat so much, on the side, and he wouldn’t tell me,” Geoff started.

“Oh no…”

“And when I went to poke his beer belly, he swatted my hand away and ran off. So, tell me, Gavin, what are you doing to him that’s making him do this to himself?”

“I…” then Gavin sighed, “I can’t tell you.”

“Seriously!?”

“I want to bloody tell you!” he cried, “but, I promised Ryan I wouldn’t tell a soul. This whole ordeal is a lot bigger that it may seem on the surface!”

“Well if it that big of a deal, you better tell me before Ryan gets any bigger!”

Gavin sighed again, “I know,” he said to himself. “Listen, I’ll go talk to Ryan, but you have to get the whole crew together. We’re gonna need to fill the whole crew in.”

“Got it,” Geoff confirmed with a thumb up.

Gavin found Ryan in his room sitting in his bed with his face in a pillow. “Rye?” he asked as he walked in.

Ryan lifted his head to reveal a damp face and red eyes. “Gav?” he choked.

“Oh, Rye-bread,” he replied softly as he walked over to the bed and got on to hold Ryan. Ryan smiled softly at the nickname. “What happened, love?”

Ryan frowned again. “Geoff called me fat, then tried to poke our little one.”

“Oh love, it will be okay,” Gavin comforted. Ryan snorted mucus back into his nose, in response. “But, the little one is starting to grow big.”

Ryan sighed glumly, “I know.”

“I think it might be time we tell everyone about the little guy.”

“But, but, that would mean,” Ryan began to shake in fear.

“I know what it means love. But, we prepared for this.”

“Hey,” a voice, Michael’s, came from the other side of the door, “are you guys coming? We heard you had an announcement.”

“Well, it looks like this is it. You ready?” Ryan nodded, sadly. “BE THERE IN A MINUTE!” Gavin called back as he rolled off of the bed. “Need help getting up?” Ryan shook his head and slid off the bed. “Do you want me to grab your senior yearbook?”

“I got it,” Ryan answered as he walked over to his desk, sighed, and grabbed his yearbook.

Then Gavin held out his hand. “You ready, love?” he asked again.

Ryan sighed one more time, “as ready as I’ll ever be,” he finished as he took Gavin’s hand. The two of them walked out of the room.

They entered the crew meeting room to find the main crew sitting around the table. “So, you have a big announcement, I hear,” Jack stated.

Ryan looked nervously at Gavin and he gave him reassuring look to let him know that it would be okay. Ryan gulped. “I uh, wanted to show you my senior yearbook photo,” he announced as he began flipping through the yearbook to find his photo.

“Ugh, lame!” Jeremy groaned.

Ryan rolled his eyes at that and put the book, opened to the page with his senior portrait, down on the table and pointed to his photo. The crew gathered around to look.

“Jane Ryley Haywood?” Michael read, “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“It’s interesting to see your sister’s portrait, but where’s yours?” Jack asked.

Ryan took a deep breath and sighed, this was finally it. “I, I don’t have a sister.”

“Then who’s,” Michael began to ask.

“It’s my portrait. Jane Ryley is me, who I used to be,” Ryan took another deep breath. “My whole life, I thought I was born in the wrong body. I wanted to fix that when I moved to Los Santos,”

“So, you’re trans?” Jeremy asked. Ryan nodded gingerly to answer. “You know, that’s actually pretty cool.”

Geoff’s eyebrows furrowed, “and know you’re leaving the crew,” he guessed.

Ryan’s head shot up and his eyes looked like they were beginning to water. “What?” he asked as he begun to shake with fear.

Gavin tried to hold Ryan, “Geoff, please don’t kick him out of the crew,” he pleaded.

“I’m not,” Geoff started. “Kdin left the crew the day after she came out to the crew as a woman, I can only assume Ryan’s doing the same thing.”

Ryan sighed in relieve at the fact that he wasn’t being kicked out. “Geoff, no. I was already in my true, male, identity when I joined the crew. And Kdin left because the Los Santos Sirens offered her a job to do exactly what she wanted to be doing. It was nothing against you,” he informed Geoff.

“So, you’re not planning on leaving the crew?”

“I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”

“Alright then.”

“Congrats on coming out,” Jeremy cheered in support. The rest of the crew clapped along as well.

Ryan smiled and Gavin rubbed his back, “You did it love,” he congratulated.

“Ha, now that you have the stress of hiding in the closet gone, you can work on losing that stress weight,” Geoff commented.

Ryan’s eye’s widened again and he looked back to Gavin for reassurance. “It’s alright, love. You did the hard part, so this part should be easy in comparison.”

Ryan nodded and took a deep breath. “I… can’t lose this weight right now…”

“Why not?”

“I uh… can’t lose it till December.”

“Wait, let me guess,” Jeremy started, “you have a stomach tumor and you’re getting it removed in December.”

Ryan did a double face palm and Gavin sighed. “Don’t call ‘em a tumor,” he whined

“I just came out as FTM transsexual, and you think I came out because I have stomach cancer?!” Ryan demanded.

“Then, what is it?”

“Take a wild guess!”

Jeremy looked at Ryan confused. Then, Michael looked Ryan up and down, “Ryan, are you… pregnant?” he asked.

Ryan nodded. “Yeah.”

“Ryan and I are having a baby! We’re gonna be parents!” Gavin cheerfully announced.

The rest of the crew began clapping wildly. “Congratulations!” Jack congratulated.

“I guess that means I’m a granddad, now,” Geoff laughed.

“Sophie’s gonna have a buddy on the crew!” Michael cheered as he ran over to Gavin and gave him a noogie, “I can’t believe Golden Boy knocked the Vagabond up,” he teased as he gave him the noogie.

“Micool!” Gavin complained.

Ryan looked over and chuckled. Gavin’s eyes met his and they both smiled, they knew everything was going to be alright.

20 WEEKS

Coming out to the crew was a huge weight off of Ryan’s shoulders. He was a lot more eager to learn Gavin’s hacking techniques, and Gavin was happy to teach. Ryan was also happy to help Gavin train to become more adept at intimidating people during interrogations, even teaching him how to throw knives. He even helped Gavin train at the gym until his stomach rounded, had grown a bit too large, and he no longer has the energy to teach or do intense work outs. He asked Michael to step in as a trainer and he happily obliged.

As Ryan’s stomach continued to grow, Ryan had to find even larger shirts and switch to sweatpants. He wasn’t as self-conscious about it after he came out, but he still wasn’t a fan of anyone touching his stomach. This was why Ryan had postponed his ultrasound. He knew he was pregnant, but the thought of another living being growing inside of him was a bit to freaky for him. He didn’t want a photo reminder of the fact that he was pregnant.

Since the only doctor Ryan saw outside of Andy, the crew doctor, was his OB/GYN. Ryan was pretty reluctant to visit his gynecologist, but he knew that he still had to go see her to check up on the baby and so he and Gavin could figure out the sex of their child. So, Gavin scheduled Ryan’s appointment for an ultrasound, the first week of August.

Gavin opened the door to the doctor’s office, and held it open for Ryan. When Ryan wasn’t moving towards the door, he got worried. “You alright, love? Can you not walk?” he asked, concerned.

Ryan groaned, “I can walk, I just don’t want to be here.”

Gavin old his eyes, “oh, come off it.” He then went to go grab Ryan’s wrist and drag him into the office. “We should have done this at 18 weeks, but we were too busy coming out to the crew, yah.” Ryan groaned, once more. The two of them walked to the receptionist’s desk. “Excuse us, we’re here for Mr. Haywood’s 1:30 appointment for an ultrasound,” he informed her.

The receptionist looked at her computer to check Ryan in. “I have you down,” she started. Then she looked him up and down, “though, I don’t understand why a man would go to a gynecologist’s office for an ultrasound.”

Ryan gave a small smile at her obliviousness. “It’s a, uh, small exception.”

She raised her eyebrow, “alright. Just have a seat and the doctor will come get you when she’s ready for you.”

“Come on, love,” Gavin directed Ryan to one of the seats in the waiting room. Ryan grumbled as he walked over to the seats. Gavin rubbed Ryan’s back as he joined him. “Aren’t you excited to find out what we’re having, though?”

“We’re having a baby, we already know that.”

“No, I mean whether we’re having a boy or a girl.”

Ryan scowled. “We won’t know whether they’re a boy or a girl until they know whether they’re a boy or a girl or something else.”

Gavin shook his head, “no, no, I didn’t mean gender,” he clarified. Ryan jut sighed in response.

15 minutes later, a woman doctor with long, blonde hair stepped out. “Mr. Haywood?” she called out.

“Over here,” Gavin called out.

She nodded, “Come on back, the room’s all set up,” she informed them as she motioned for them to follow her. Gavin stood up and grabbed Ryan’s hand. Ryan sighed and stood up, as well. the two of them followed the doctor. “How are you feeling?” she asked Ryan.

“I hate what pregnancy is doing to me,” he admitted.

“And why’s that?”

“I’m not allowed to do my job, and even if I was, I’d be too tired to do anything. I’m an emotional train-wreck. I’m fatter than I’ve ever been. I wouldn’t hate the cravings if thy weren’t making me even fatter. I pass gas a lot more than I used to, and that’s just embarrassing.”

“It’s not really that bad, Rye,” Gavin reassured him.

“You won’t let me be the little spoon because you don’t want me to fart on you! And it’s starting to get difficult for me to be the big spoon,” Ryan complained.

“Well…” Gavin’ face went red with embarrassment.

The group arrived at the room for the ultrasound. “Alright, here we are,” she informed the group, “Ryan, you lay down on the exam table,” she instructed. Ryan sighed and followed directions. Gavin went in to follow him, but the doctor stopped him. “Can I assume that you’re the baby’s father?” she asked him.

“Yeah, I’m Gavin, the baby’s, uh, other father,” he corrected her.

“Right, I should have known that. My apologizes. I’m Dr. Atkinson,” she introduced herself, at the end.

“Pleasure,” Gavin greeted back, offering a hand to shake. The two of them walked into the room.

Dr. Atkinson walked over to Ryan and grabbed the ultrasound gel. “Can you lift up your shirt, for me?” she asked him.

He whined and looked at Gavin. “I promise not to look at your tummy,” Gavin promised. Ryan sighed and lifted his shirt.

The doctor squirted lubricating jelly onto Ryan’s stomach. “Jesus! Why is that so cold?!” he demanded.

“Just relax,” she assured him as she began to rub the ultrasound transducer on the lubricated area. Images of the fetus began to appear on the television screen beside her. Ryan’s eyes were transfixed on his stomach.

Gavin’s eyes skipped over Ryan and looked at the screen. His eyes lit up as soon as he saw the fetus. His smile grew wide as he began to wave at the screen. “Hi, little guy. Can’t wait to meet you,” he told the image.

“Gavin, I thought you said you wouldn’t look at my stomach!” Ryan growled.

“I’m not looking at you, you dunce! I’m looking at our baby, through the ultrasound,” Gavin quickly fired back. “Why aren’t you looking, too? It’s quite extraordinary, getting to see our baby.”

“I…,” then Ryan took a deep breath and finally looked at the screen, as well. His serious expression melted the second, he saw his baby. “I… wow!” he breathed out with a smiled. “You’re going to be my world,” he told the screen.

Gavin looked at Ryan and smirked. “That’s a big title you put on the baby,” he commented.

Ryan rolled his eyes, then looked back at Gavin. “Our world,” he corrected himself.

Gavin sighed and shook his head, “right.”

Dr. Atkinson, who had been looking at the television screen, look at Ryan and Gavin. “Well, everything seems to be looking normal with the baby. Everything’s right on track for their December due date. Would you like to know the sex of the baby?” she asked.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Ryan told her.

“Well, I’d like to know,” Gavin commented.

Ryan shook his head and sighed, “then, let’s hear it,” he relented.

Sex and gender were touchy subjects for Ryan. He didn’t see the importance of know which set of genitals his child had, seeing as his gender identity may not end up matching them. Or the child could end up normal, nobody really knew for sure. He was just glad he got to see his baby as best he could. It only took one look at the child for him to know that everything was going to be alright.

25 WEEKS

As the little baby grew within Ryan larger, the child became very active. The kid would constantly be moving around, wiggling and kicking Ryan’s organs around. Ryan had to pee a lot more because his bladder was constant target for kicking practice. The child’s constant movement was starting to keep Ryan awake more, but he still didn’t mind any of it. The beginning of September came, and Ryan was spending most of his time either in the tech room, the bathroom peeing, or snoozing in his room.

Fakehaus members, Bruce and James were visiting the crew one day in mid-September. They were hoping to work out some territory disputes. They decided not to make this a formal meeting, opting to have it in the living room to make it more casual.

Geoff and Bruce sat in chairs facing each other, while Gavin and James sat on the couch in the middle.

“Look, your crew has control over South Los Santos, what more do you want?” Geoff asked.

“South Los Santos is predominantly African American, and we’re kinda a crew of white guys,” James pointed out as he played with his knife.

“How about East Los Santos, then?” Gavin proposed.

“We were actually thinking a bit of upper class stuff. Like maybe parts of Rockford Hills?” Bruce requested.

“I’m not sure that,” Geoff was cut off.

“Ryan, what are you doing!?” Gavin quietly demanded at the larger man quietly walking out and toward the kitchen.

“Sprog’s being rowdy. Figured diet coke might calm him down,” Ryan yawned.

“Wait, Is that you, Vagabond?” Bruce asked, surprise.

Ryan’s eyes widened as soon as he realized he was being called out. “I…”

“Holy shit Vagabond, you’re huge! what made you blow up like a balloon?” James commented, next.

Ryan took a deep breath. “Don’t worry about it,” he breathed out.

“No seriously, what happened to you?” Bruce pressed.

Ryan scowled. “It’s none of your goddamn business what happened,” he stated firmly.

“If it wasn’t impossible, I’d say you looked preg,”

Before Bruce could finish his statement, Gavin snatched James’s knife away from him and threw it at the wall, getting everyone’s attention. Everyone’s eye grew wide as it embedded itself in the wall. “ENOUGH!” Gavin screeched. Everyone turned to face Gavin. “Vagabond, run back to your room. I will get your diet coke,” he instructed as he stood up. Ryan nodded and did as he was told. “And I believe everyone ELSE was negotiating territory. So, get back to it, yah.” Everyone nodded, nervously, “good.”

He grabbed the diet coke from the kitchen and walked back to Ryan’s room. Ryan was rubbing his stomach, “Ow,” he yelped quietly as the baby continued to kick his insides around.

“Love,” he cooed as he walked over to Ryan. “I brought your diet coke,” he said as he handed Ryan the can. Ryan tried to sit up enough that he could drink. He brought the can to his lips and took a few big gulps. The baby continued to move around and Ryan winced. “Still rambunctious?” he asked. Ryan nodded. Gavin quickly thought of an idea. “I have an idea of something else that might help. May I rub your tummy?” he asked.

“Baby, after a knife throw like that, you can do whatever the fuck you want to me,” Ryan answered in a raspy, attempted sexy, voice. Gavin began to rub Ryan’s stomach and the baby calmed down. “Ooh, yeah.”

Gavin raised an eyebrow as he rubbed Ryan’s stomach, “Ryan are you turned on?”

“Mm, yeah. To tired and fat to act on it. I missed the days when we fucked like savage animals.”

Gavin sighed, “I miss them too.”

“Can’t wait till I have a massive cock for you to bounce on,” Ryan lazily smirked.

“Ryan, you tease,” then, Gavin realized what Ryan had just said and he tilted his head in curiosity. “Wait, you’re still planning on that sex change?”

“Absolutely. This pregnancy is a onetime thing. If we actually want more kids after this one, I gonna have ta freeze my eggs,” he mumbled.

Gavin’s eyes grew wide. “Wait, you can do that!?”

“Yah, did… research…,” Ryan told him as he fell asleep.

Gavin continued to pet Ryan’s baby belly. The door to the room suddenly reopened. “Yo Gav, you coming back or,” Geoff started.

“SSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” Gavin shushed Geoff and motioned to a sleeping Ryan.

“So, I take that as a no, then?” Geoff asked more quietly this time.

Gavin scowled and grabbed the knife that was sitting on the nightstand next to the bed. He chucked it at the door and Geoff quickly dodged out of the way and slammed the door close. Ryan, who wasn’t completely asleep anymore, smirked. With a partner who was willing to protect him like that, he knew everything was going to be alright.

34 WEEKS

Ryan was reaching the point where he tired of what pregnancy was doing to him. First of all, he was tired of being tired all the time. The odd cravings normally wouldn’t have bothered him, but he wasn’t looking forward to all of the excess weight he was going to need to lose. He was huge because he was pregnant; his stomach protruded a good seven/seven-and-a half inches and could barely walk straight anymore. His bust had grown back to an A-cup and he absolutely hated it. He hated the constant reminder that he was biologically female and he thought he couldn’t wait for this kid to be out of him.

But, there were still a few things he was thankful for about his situation. He was thankful he had a wonderful crew to back him up. Michael was able to offer legitimate fatherly advice, helping his boi on his transition into fatherhood. Geoff wept tears of joy when they showed him ultrasound pic of the little one, saying how proud he was to be a grandfather, no matter how unofficial it was. He was thankful for Gavin, a loving boyfriend and amazing father to be. He waited on Ryan, hand and foot, and comforted Ryan in his hormonal, emotional needs. Not a day passed where Ryan wasn’t given a reason not to be madly in love with him. And as annoying as they were, Ryan was thankful for the child they were going to have. The constant activity was only proof the Ryan that the kid was clearly his and Gavin’s.

At the beginning of November, the crew planned to throw Ryan a baby shower. Gavin thought Ryan would hate the idea at first, but Ryan thought it would be a good excuse to introduce the crew to their child’s godmother. Geoff was slightly bitter about not being named the kid’s godfather, but he was willing to accept it.

The baby shower was being held at a safehouse in Morningwood. Ryan and Gavin were frosting the baby shower cake in the kitchen with Ryan sneaking little tastes of the frosting in between, Michael and Jeremy were tying balloons around the living room, Jack was setting up snacks on a table to the side, and Geoff was turning the cushioned chair in the living room into a thrown fit for a king who happened to be pregnant, complete with a ripped paper crown.

“Ooh,” Ryan whined in pain.

“Oh my gosh, what’s wrong?” Gavin quickly asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” Ryan quickly reassured, “Just a rather painful kick to the bladder. I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he clarified.

“Need help?”

“I think I can still make it. I still have some use in me,” Ryan replied with a smile. He started to waddle away towards the bathroom. Gavin smiled fondly as he finished icing the cake on his own.

Five minutes later, the doorbell rang. “Is that an intruder?” Geoff asked, panicked.

“No, no. it’s probably Meg,” Gavin announced as he rushed over to the front door. He checked the front window, then opened the front door with glee. “Meg!” he greeted, happily, as he went in for a hug.

“How are you, Gavy?” she asked as she hugged back.

“Top.”

“Is Ryan inside?”

“Yah. The sprog’s playing kickball with his bladder, again.”

“Daw.”

“Well, would you like to come in or,” Gavin was interrupted be the sounds of guns, cocking. He turned around to see everyone has their guns pointed at the front door. “Guys,” he whined in disappointment.

“Get out of the way, Gavin!” Geoff demanded in anger.

“What are you on about? Why do you have your guns out? Why do you even have them with you!? Ryan told you not to bring them!”

“Don’t you dare let that siren in here,” he instructed, ignoring Gavin.

“She’s not gonna do any harm, she’s just here for the baby shower.”

“Do you really expect us to believe that,” Jack questioned with a scowl on his face.

Meg shrugged, “well, they have me beat because I didn’t bring a gun,” she announced, sheepishly.

“Oh yeah, then what’s in the bag!?” Michael asked, furiously.

“A present… for Mini Meg…”

“Guys, what’s going on? I thought I heard guns cocking and,” Ryan started to ask as he left the bathroom. Then he noticed that everyone had their guns pointed at Gavin and Meg. “OH, COME THE FUCK ON!!! I TOLD YOU PEOPLE NO GUNS!!!!!!!” Ryan shouted angrily.

“But, she’s Dollface and your boyfriend has an apparent hard on for her,” Geoff argued back.

“No, I don’t!” Gavin squawked.

“I have a girlfriend,” Meg added.

“MEG TURNEY IS THE GODMOTHER OF MY CHILD!” Ryan screamed.

“YOU CHOSE A SIREN TO BE YOUR KID’S GODPARENT OVER ME!?” Geoff yelled back.

“THAT’S BECAUSE I’VE KNOWN HER LONGER THAN I’VE KNOWN ANY OF YOU!!!!!”

Gavin ran over to Ryan and started petting his head and rubbing his back. “Calm down, love. High heart rate’s not good for the baby.”

Ryan took a few deep breaths, “sorry, sorry, that was all unnecessary. Meg, please come in.”

“Whatever,” Geoff grumbled.

Meg happily skipped in the room and over to hug Ryan as best she could. “How are you, Rye?”

“Tired, fat, but pretty overall happy,” he answered with a smile.

Then, she placed he hands on both sides of Ryan’s belly, “and how’s Mini Meg?”

“Actually, the name Gavin and I decided on is,” Ryan lowered his voice to make sure only Meg could hear him, “Henry.”

“Henry!” Meg exclaimed. Everyone around the room looked at her in confusion.

Gavin frowned, “Ryan, we were gonna wait to reveal the name until after the ‘sex reveal cake’.”

Ryan shrugged, “sorry,” he apologized, sheepishly.

“You’re having a boy?” Jeremy asked.

“Yah. We were gonna wait until the cake to reveal all that. But after this whole ordeal, we could all use some sweets right about now,” Gavin joked.

The room lit up with laughter. In an instant, all unnecessary conflicts seemed to be forgotten. They could all get back to the fun baby show day they had planned. In that moment, it seemed like everything was going to be alright.

39 WEEKS

They were in the home stretch. As excited for having a kid as he was, Ryan could not wait for the kid to be out of him. The pregnancy was becoming very annoying, at this point. His body had been tricking him with Braxton-Hicks contractions since he was seven months along. Of course, he had dealt with the pain of being shot on multiple occasions, so the false contractions were nothing more than an annoying inconvenience.

As time moved closer to his due date on December 18th, the baby shifted lower on his hips in preparation for birth. His belly was already the size of a basketball, and this made walking steady even harder for Ryan. Gavin helped Ryan get from point A to point B when he’d let him. Ryan had nearly bit his head off though, when he suggested that Ryan be confined to bed-rest.

On December 11th, the crew had planned on going out for a heist. This heist would be Gavin’s first big heist as crew muscle. Of course, Ryan would be staying back at the penthouse helping with tech. That morning, Gavin helped Ryan to the kitchen. Jack and Jeremy were already sitting at the kitchen eating breakfast.

“Are you sure you want to help with this, today? Because you could go back to bed to rest and nobody would blame you or anythin’,” Gavin attempted to persuade Ryan as he led him to his chair.

“Gav, we got a week left before I’m truly out of commission,” Ryan argued.

“I could stay in,” he started.

“Sweetheart, this may or may not be your only chance at being real crew muscle. I want you to take it, show me how big and strong my boyfriend can be,” Ryan argued, further. Gavin just sighed in response.

Jeremy looked up from his food to see Gavin and Ryan. “Morning, Gav and Rye,” he greeted the two of them. “And you’re looking festively plump today, Ryan,” he joked.

“Jeremy!” Jack scolded as he swatted Jeremy’s arm.

“Ha, jokes on you,” Ryan retorted as he slowly sat down, “I won’t be like this anymore by the time Christmas rolls around.”

Gavin rolled his eyes at the exchange, he was still very excited about the fact that he would be a father soon. “Right, what do you want for breakfast then?” Gavin asked Ryan.

“I’m feeling like… cheesy scrambled eggs.”

Gavin quickly went to the fridge to grab the supplies he needed to make the dish. “Gavin, you can’t cook, you’re going to burn the kitchen down,” Jack pointed out.

“Learned,” Gavin quickly informed him as he cracked two eggs into a pan.

As the rest of the day went by, Ryan felt a contraction every few hours. He was too busy doing tech work on the crew’s heist at Pacific Standard Deposit Bank to notice that the time between each contraction growing shorter. He was directing the crew when another one, a strong one, hit. “You got the money,” he asked.

“Yeah,” Geoff confirmed.

“There’s an exit on the Alta street side that would be a good,” he stopped when the contraction hit and he whined, quietly.

Lindsay looked up when she heard Ryan’s whine, “you alright?” she asked.

“Yeah, strong Braxton-Hicks. Tell Axial to take tech lead for a bit, I’m gonna go splash some water on my face to get my head back in the game,” he replied as he used the table to push himself out of the chair. He waddled to the bathroom and turned on the sink. He splashed water on his face, “get it together, Haywood. You can do this,” he told himself He turned off the sink and started to back to the room went get noticed his pants were all wet from his crotch. He hadn’t thought he’d somehow spilled any water on his crotch, and it quickly dawned on him that he actually hadn’t spilled any sink water. “LINDSAY!!!” he screeched in hopes of getting her attention.

“What?” she asked as she ran in the bathroom. She looked Ryan up and down, and frowned, “did you really just call me in here to show me that you peed yourself when you were three feet away from the toilet?”

“Didn’t… pee myself,” he gritted out.

Lindsay’s eyes met Ryan’s, “Wait, did your water break?” Ryan gave a slight nod to answer her question. “Oh my god, your water broke. Holy shit, you’re going into labor!” Lindsay then ran back to the tech room. Ryan attempted to follow behind her, hoping to make use of the time between contractions. She got into the coms and tapped in so she would only be talking to Gavin. “Goldie, I need you to get out of there,” she informed him.

“Why? Everything’s going fine here,” Gavin asked over the com.

Ryan quickly yanked the com mic away from Lindsay. “YOU WERE RIGHT! YOU WERE ABSOLUTELY FUCKING RIGHT, YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED HERE WITH ME! CAUSE I NEED YOU HERE WITH ME RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!” Ryan screeched.

“Rye,”

“HENRY’S COMING!!!!!!” he finished yelling as another contraction hit.

Gavin dropped everything that he was doing and ran out of the bank. “Where the hell do you think you’re going!?” Geoff yelled after him.

Michael had a feeling he knew why Gavin was running away. “Don’t get caught, Ryan needs you right now!”

Gavin drove back to the penthouse and ran in the front door. “Ryan, I’m here!” he called as he ran in.

Ryan waddled out, clutching his stomach, with Lindsay following behind. “How did you get here?” Ryan asked.

“Drove.”

Ryan groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. “Idiot,” he gritted out.

Gavin smiled, “but, I’m your idiot, love.” And Ryan smiled back sweetly, then, he groaned in pain as another contraction hit.

“Alright, I’ll drive you two to the hospital. Gavin, get changed out of your heist clothes while I get Ryan down to the car,” Lindsay instructed. Gavin quickly nodded and ran to his room.

Lindsay and Ryan got down to the car. Two minutes later, Gavin met them at the car in civilian clothes and they all drove to the hospital. Ryan and Gavin were admitted into a hospital room while Lindsay had to wait in the waiting room. Ryan wailed in pain all night long, yelling that that baby better take his uterus out with him. By the morning of December 12th, Henry Daniel Haywood-Free was born.

Ryan sat up, cradling his baby in his arms, while Gavin leaned up against the bed. Gavin gave his finger to the baby to grab onto and the baby latched onto it. “He’s gorgeous, a right handsome baby,” Gavin cooed.

“Yeah, he sure it,” Ryan agreed, lazily. “He got your nose,” he giggled.

Gavin shook his head and smiled, “sorry, Hen,” he apologized.

“Don’t be sorry. Your big ole’ nose is pretty cute, just like the rest of ya,” Ryan complimented as he began to shut his eyes.

“Daw,” Gavin smiled. “‘e prolly got your gorgeous eyes.”

“He’s… perfect,” Ryan said as he drifted to sleep. Gavin quickly picked up Henry and began to cradle him so Ryan could sleep.

His son yawned in his arms, he was going to be the perfect baby for him and Ryan. Sure, this kid was born into a life of crime, but none of that mattered. Their little family was now complete, and he knew for a fact that everything was going to be alright.

15 Months Later

Henry’s first year of life was kinda interesting. Ryan had chosen to go by the name Papa for Henry, while Gavin chose to be called, Dada. He was just as rambunctious as he was when he was in the womb, and that caused a lot of trouble for his parents, but that were still happy that they had him. He had criminals coming from all over the city to care for him, but he was too young to know what being a criminal meant. His godmother would make the finest clothes for him, despite his Dada buying him all the posh baby clothes a baby could ever want. Little Sophie Jones was eager to play with him, even though she was a year and a half older than him. Michael and Gavin joked that it was the next generation of ‘Team Nice Dynamite.’ The world was a big, bright place for Henry.

Ten months after Henry was born, Ryan took Gavin out on a date to La Spada, a nice Italian seafood restaurant. In between dinner and dessert, Ryan got down on one knee and proposed to Gavin. Gavin ecstatically said yes and passionately kissed Ryan. After a hot and heavy, intimate night of more “dessert,” Ryan asked when they should have their wedding, and Gavin said he didn’t want the wedding until Ryan was done recovering from his sex change. Ryan said he hadn’t scheduled one yet, and Gavin handed him a pamphlet for a cosmetic clinic in Liberty City and a note for an appointment reminder. Gavin had found the best clinic for Ryan’s sex change and scheduled the surgery for him. Ryan couldn’t be more in love with Gavin after he did that for him.

Five months after that, Ryan, Gavin, and Henry few up to Liberty City. Ryan was taken into surgery, with Gavin and Henry waiting in the waiting room. After ten hours, Ryan was released from surgery. They went to go check on him and he was fast asleep. They retired to their hotel by the clinic for the night and went back to visit Ryan the next day. The nurses warned Gavin that Ryan may be high from the pain killers. Gavin took Henry up to Ryan room and they saw Ryan blinking, groggily.

“Hey, ya pretty cute,” Ryan complimented Gavin.

“Thank you, Rye,” Gavin smiled back. Henry cooed as if to compliment his Papa.

“Now that I have a dick, I’d fuck ya with it,” he slurred.

Gavin covered Henry’s ears. “Ryan, don’t use that type of language around the baby.”

“Sorry sweetheart, but right now, I’m hiiiiiiiiiigh as balls,” he giggled and reached his arm to point up.

Gavin quickly rushed over to push his arm back down. “No, no. You don’t wat to rip your IV out.”

Ryan’s eye’s drooped as he smiled, fondly. “An ya care ‘bout me too? Think I migh be in love wich ya.”

Gavin snorted. “I should hope so,” he replied with a smile.

“Buh cha can’t tell mah fiancé dat.”

“Ryan, I am your fiancé.

Ryan’s eyes widened in surprise, “Really?”

“Yah, and Henry, here, is your son.”

“He’s beautiful,” Ryan cooed, “An you’re drop dead gorgeous.”

Henry babbled happily, as if to thank his papa for the compliment. “Daw, thank you, Rye-bread,” Gavin thanked as well.

“Love it when ya… call me that…” Ryan mentioned as he fell back asleep.

Gavin and Ryan’s lives were in no way considered normal. They were a gay couple living in a big city. Ryan was an FTM transsexual who had inexplicably gotten knocked up. And on top of all that, they were members of one of the most dangerous criminal crews in Los Santos. Some might assume that life might be hard for the two of them, but for Gavin and Ryan, their life was more than alright. It was perfect.

#freewood #fake ah crew #mpreg #trans Ryan #ragehappy #fanfic #rt fanfic

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