#define trans

[defining-trans]

Ask a Transgender Person Anything 🏳️‍⚧️

I'm tired of watching the same heated conversations over and over again where nothing gets solved. This blog is the solution I've come up with.

Ask me any question YOU have about being transgender.

I don’t care if it’s phrased “problematically”, insensitive or intentionally invasive, I will do my best to answer. However, you may not like the answer I give you.

Whether you're just trying to learn more about us, are too scared to ask a trans person you know for fear of ridicule, or genuinely believe people like me are deluding ourselves into identifying the way that we do and that we need to be "taught better"/"shown the truth", you have full permission to ask me, a trans person, whatever the hell you want.

Ground Rules:

I will respond only to asks and anonymous messages sent directly to my inbox. Any questions directed at me via comments, reblogs or tags on my posts are fair game for me to ignore.

If your question is indeed rude, or would most likely be perceived as such by a trans person you know IRL, I'll explain why and, if possible, give you an example of a better way to ask it.

If your question is about queer and/or trans discourse in general, I will answer it to the best of my ability. If it's about my personal stances on said discourse, I may or may not answer it. That will depend on whether or not I feel like it.

Regardless of how I feel about the questions I’m being asked, I will not resort to ad hominem attacks. (Your background and personal beliefs have no bearing on whether or not I’m capable of answering the question you’ve asked, therefore the most I will do is discuss how said potential background/belief may have prompted you to ask it.)

The only assumption I will make about you is that you want me to answer your question. I believe this to be a fair assumption, considering you will have to go out of your way to send me your question.

Leading questions (ones intended to coerce a specific predetermined answer out of the party being asked) and sealioning (feigned ignorance with the intention of wearing one down through the emotional labor of continually explaining one’s point of view) will be treated differently than genuine questions—I will first point out what about them I find objectionable, then dissect the question. If any part of the question is salvageable or could be a genuine question in another context, I will also attempt to give a genuine answer.

I am doing this purely out of personal interest. There is no secret agenda, I will not attempt to “convert” you to my “side” of things. I’m just curious about what questions people actually want to ask a trans person but are too shy or afraid of being judged to ask someone they know.

I will answer your questions based on my broader knowledge and my own personal experiences. Neither of these things are reflective of the trans experience as a whole and should not be interpreted as such. The only trans person whom I speak for is myself.

Insults are not questions. Words such as "anything other than male or female is a mental illness" and slur-flinging and so on - by themselves - are not questions, so I refuse to entertain them. Additionally, sarcastic questions like "so were you dropped on your head as an infant or are you just stupid by choice?" will be ignored.

We are not entitled to personal information about each other. You can ask me about stuff aside from being trans (i.e. completely unrelated political beliefs), but the focus of this blog is trans stuff, so I may decline to answer any off topic questions.

I'll get to your question when I get to your question. If you start sending me entitled or guilt-tripping nonsense, it will make me less inclined to answer your question. (Not all of us have the luxury of enough free time to entertain the questions of strangers on the internet who may or may not believe we deserve to die horrible deaths, and those of us that have that and the stomach to do it won't be up for it 24/7.)

It's fine to reblog and comment on my posts even if you don't have questions for me. In fact, that would help me reach more people who might have questions about transness that I can help answer.

I'm undecided as to whether or not I'd like to open my direct messages to people looking for a civil debate or more private atmosphere. Please respect my boundaries and do not DM me with questions or arguments at this time.

[beebfreeb]

[taliabhattwrites]

On Transmisogyny, Feminism, and the Myth of the 'Baeddel'

This will go well.

[mollymaclachlan]

the conservative party starting off pride month by promising to rewrite the equality act to exclude trans people from sex-based legal protections is so depressingly predictable and I fucking hate this country

[rabid-catboy]

Okay first off please don't take this the wrong way I promise I'm not trying to say trans women all have male privilege or something. I think it is perhaps important to consider that while trans women do make up the majority of trans homicide victims, generally (cis) men make up the majority of homicide victims. In 2020 in the US, men made up 82% of victims.

I think trans women being killed more than trans men isn't necessarily because of transmisogyny being so strong or w/e, but a combination of people being more okay with killing people *they view as* men, and because transfems are much more likely to be sex workers than transmascs (though that may be caused by transmisogyny). Gay men are also killed at much higher rates than lesbians, and usually most homophobic rhetoric and laws and tropes are targeting gay men specifically, but I haven't seen this used to say lesbians have it significantly better, or have structural power over gay men, the way I have seen the same used to say that about trans men

Obviously, trans women are not men and trans men are not women, but to transphobes enacting violence, they are. Imo, it's important to keep in mind that transphobes do not actually view trans people as the gender that they are, and this means that the mistreatment of us will mirror the mistreatment of the gender we are transitioning away from, not towards.

I'm not saying that trans men have it worse, or that trans women all secretly have male privilege or something, just that less overt obvious violence towards trans men does not mean we have it significantly better, just as lesbians facing less overt obvious violence does not mean they have it much better than gay men. If you argue that gay cis men have it worse than lesbian cis women because of this, fair enough, that's consistent, but you can't define male privilege as "the privilege men of any group will always have over women of the same group all else being equal" if you do. (Or you could argue cis gay men are also affected by transmisogyny, I guess?)

Genuinely please don't bite my head off for saying transphobes don't actually view trans women as women (and vice versa) and that affects how they're treated skdkfkdjxhd if you have a good faith criticism of this post I'm all ears

[drdemonprince]

people who are obsessed with passing are gonna be the death of our community i swear

[prolibytherium]

Just in general I think trying to look to pre-late modern period history for validation of LGBT+ identities is an absolutely useless venture. Every single underlying human experience defined through the lens and framework of LGBT identity has always existed, but it's impossible to pin down Exactly who and what a figure might have been if they existed in this contemporary context and decided to self identify via these labels.

It's also a wildly reductive lens that flattens the complexity and variety of how sex and gender has been constructed across time in different cultures, how sexual norms have varied, etc. This is not a constructive approach to learn about history and you're never going to be able to fit historical figures neatly into little identity categories.

[lazylittledragon]

I've been loving ur mombin comics, but where is the other mom? what trans hottie is not paying her child support out here? (this is said with a lot of love and affection, im very curious abt how she got into that situation, if you have thoughts abt it <3)

ajsjhsdfh i wasn't going to answer this because it's explained in the next comic but kudos to you for being the only person to say 'who's the other mom' instead of 'WHO'S THE DAD'

also the way this is worded made me laugh for like 5 minutes thank you so much xx

[unlimitedbutchworks]

there’s a lot of infuriating transmisogyny but for my money i think some of the most annoying microaggressions are over casual entitlement to our bodies and assumptions we’re fine with touch. i still remember getting ready to go to an event and snapping at a transmasc acquaintance once in college for greeting me by getting their fingers in my hair, messing it up trying to “fix the way i parted it”and they proceeded to mumble out an apology before moping behind me and the rest of our friends for the whole walk there to cry about being told it’s not cool to touch borderline strangers out of the blue without asking even when she’s a tranny

[sleepfight]

In DAI, Krem talks about how he had to bribe a doctor to sign off on his papers in order to enlist in the Tevinter military and that he had to flee after being outed and liiiike

I really want to know what enlistment was like for Tarquin. If he began his transition after the ultimatum from his father, he was presumably of or near the age to qualify for service but still young enough to rely on his family for survival. Just coming into adulthood, just finding the words to define himself, just grasping the magnitude of knowing.

And in a near parody of support, his father will only accept him as a son if he pledges his life away to a deeply patriarchal institution where stealth is not only mandatory to obtain the position in the first place, but enforced by the threat of legal prosecution. You want to be a man? Fine, if you are not a man here, you will be punished for it. As a soldier, your masculinity will be defined and held to account or you will face violence for your trespassing.

Or stay the course. Accept an adolescence of grooming to become an ideal wife and marry up in status, bring the family new opportunities. Bear children, play politics, repress, repress, repress. Swallow poison and choke on what could have been.

Be a man or be destroyed, either way.

[cowgirls-blues]

Lesbian fanartists I hope you're ready for the second London Time Quangle. I'm counting on you. You'll see why.

[vmures]

New bill has been introduced to the House of Representatives Defining Biological Sex

This is something that has potential to harm a lot of people, including but not limited to, intersex folks, trans folks, and even cis folks. Laws like this can be built on and used to rigidly enforce very specific gender roles and hierarchies.

They can also be used to enact stronger limitations on very specific health care procedures, including necessary hormone replacement therapy for cis people who have medical conditions requiring hormone replacement therapy. People of all genders experience changes in their hormone cycles as they age and frequently need hormone replacement therapy to help improve their day to day life. This sort of law would help make outlawing hormonal treatments across the board. Already people, cis and otherwise, are having difficulty getting progesterine and/or testosterone. I know my very cis brother-in-law has had difficulties getting testerone treatments, which again, are frequently a necessary thing for aging men. Similarly, menopausal cis women are struggling to get progesterone.

Laws like this will also mean that all children must be assigned male or female at birth. This is incredibly harmful to intersex children in particular and can result in genital mutilation and forced surgeries.

If you live in the US, it is important that you contact your congress person and tell them that you want them to vote no on this and why. You can find out who your congress person is here.

Here is a link to the full text of the proposed bill:

[aardvaark]

im so glad that we never get a clear picture of sophie’s background in leverage & i hope we never do. however i also really like making up various, often conflicting backstories for her in my head. perhaps they’re all backstories for an alias of hers, ones she laid to rest back in season two.

[ottern0t]

(Tiny cw- nonsexual nudity) Context: i headcanon all timelords are intersex and ten got human dysphoria from being on earth so long

[mascxdaddy]

thinking about the person who got mad at me and called me a "r*pe enforcing creep" for using the word "cock" in a lesbian tag and reminding them that women can have dicks because apparently any words akin to that don't belong in lesbianism LMAO

hope they're doing fucking horribly🫶

[uncle-fruity]

If anyone tells you that being trans means you have to suffer for it in any way, or that lack of suffering makes your voice less important or makes you less trans, that person is full of shit. A lot of us love being trans, find endless joy in being trans, and would choose to be trans over and over again.

Please. You don't have to hate yourself to be trans! You don't have to deal with endless suffering to be valid! If you experience those things, that's totally understandable & I hope your situation improves! We ALL deserve to heal, to feel comfort, and to be healthy. Anyone telling you you can't be happy as a trans person because to be trans is to suffer (or whatever) is not giving you the full truth of the matter.