#fuck them kids (say me and the other trans youth)

[krispiecake]

uk moots idk if youve seen the rishi sunak school guidelines shit but. like it was already so bad like its been getting worse and worse for years now and somehow it just. like i dont think ive heard someone say something so obviously VILE about the equality act.. ever. i know its not all official yet like it was a proposed speech but i do not see this being scrapped not with the people in control rn. this is gonna kill lgbt kids especially trans kids and i feel so fucking helpless again.

[in-depth-transsexualism]

I need some of y'all need to get real about the trans men/transmasc male privilege discussions. Because I was literally the “girl” with long hair wearing frilly outfits being told by people online and irl that I had male privilege.

The "trans men and transmascs all have unequivocal male privilege" is so fucked to me. You've essentially told a young me that I'm not really a "man" and not even a "trans man" because I haven't gotten on hormones and passed at all. Is that not it's core transphobic? I thought my own mere self identification was "valid?" What happened to trans men who are feminine are "valid?" Also the very things you expect me to do to "earn" my title, I didn't get any tips from the likes of y'all jumping to tell me about this so called "privilege" I have. When I looked up "trans men" in the search bar, you know what I saw? Not resources on how to afford HRT and where to find binders, but discussions of passing trans men and male privilege. No, I did not have "toxic masculinity" when I had long hair and wore dresses and told people that the "I hate men" and "kill all men" comments made me uncomfortable. I WAS A SCARED TRANS KID, I WAS A TRANS YOUTH. I see the "protect trans kids" t-shirt you wear. I was constantly told by people close to me that I was incredibly kindhearted, only to be told, suddenly told, after I came out I needed to be "a good man." That if I had an issue with that rhetoric I was toxic. I strive to be a good person, regardless of my identity, I always have, but suddenly now as a "trans man" I'm not doing enough. If I squint it looks no different to me than being told being trans is a sin from my own Church Priest. Because that's the only thing that's changed about me.

When I pass? It mostly happens in the dark or in a way when I'm read as a twelve year old effeminate boy. I had someone come up to my friend while we were talking in the dark telling her he "wish he could have me." Within the years I've been out, I've been raped, explicitly because of my gender identity, dealt constantly with "jokes" about hurting me and lots of other shit.

What are you doing about those issues?

Some of y'all need to get so real. Get uncomfortable with cisgender privilege, get uncomfortable acknowledging there are people in your community who are less fortunate than you. And as a disclaimer, I'm not saying these conversations about passing and male privilege aren't worth having. I'm saying they both A, require more nuance, and B as a participant, you need to think about why you're having them. I think they're a shield for some of you to avoid facing something. Maybe it's the non-passing trans men that make you uncomfortable because of your internalized transphobia, maybe it's cisgender privilege, I don't know.

[dokiluvsk]

⚠️ POLITICAL POST ⚠️

With the recent election and the fact that i have many trans friends, id like to talk about some issues that i otherwise wouldnt talk about on my main blog.

Just to get this out of the way, i am not trans. I do not know and will not pretend to know how dysphoria feels, socially and physically. As well as the many other struggles trans people face day to day. However, my best friend is trans. So i do at least have a better understanding of it than i did say a year ago.

This election has been chaos. Its invoked fear not only in American's, but the world. The "Land of the Free" shouldn't make the world piss itself simply because of election day. And the lives of the LGBTQ+ Community, POC, and women all over the country are now endangered. For this post, i will be talking mainly about LGBTQ+ rights and my thoughts. Specifically because thats the area im most worried about right now. This is in no way to say that POC rights or Woman's rights are less important, that is not at all what i am saying. I plan to make separate posts for each of these 3 subjects in the next month, i want to dive into each of them fully and not have to skip over any details about our future (As an indigenous, gay woman.) So consider this 1/3 Parts of a very, long post.

Transitioning into the actual conversation, This election has been terrible. Millions of kids around the country terrified to have their rights taken away, the fear of how powerless they are and how little they get a say in politics is the driving nail in this coffin. Remember people, gay marriage hasn't even been legal in America for 10 years! Everything is very uncertain, and I wish people would understand the LGBTQ communities worries more. Our people are killed, tortured, and taunted around the world every single day. There aren't many countries nowadays where LGBTQ people have ALL their human rights, no strings attached. And one of the biggest countries in the world, supposedly the land of the free , is now trying to rip those rights away again. So many people i know are currently fleeing the country, planning to leave as soon as they are financially stable, or are mourning because they aren't able to. Thats horrid.

What i am especially worried about is transgender youth and transgender people in general. This is the part where my personal political opinions really come into play, if you aren't a fan, you can click off the post. Or read! i don't care! i encourage you all however to stick around and comment or reblog this post, telling me your opinions on the matter. I genuinely would like to hear to get more insight on my audiences views.

The reason i've been so worried about trans people specifically is because changing your gender is very different from loving someone romantically. Yes, we are all the same community. That is certain, and I am in no way trying to alienate trans people. But changing your gender is a physical, mental, and social challenge. Trying to get T or HRT? nope! sorry! top or bottom surgery? yoink! cant have that one either! oh you wanna cut your hair short or grow it out long? good luck with all the bullying and teasing you'll face! haha sorry kid! thats just the good ol' American way 😁

On a now serious note, I think im getting my point across. I can hide the fact im dating a girl, i can hide that from the neighbors across the street, trans people cannot hide their physical transitioning. Social transitioning cant even begin to happen because of uncertainties of your safety. You are denied medical products, denied public spaces, denied even trans unrelated healthcare, those aren't JUST trans rights, those are HUMAN rights. And I don't think republicans realize that mental toll. This isn't attention seeking, this is justice seeking. Do y'all know how many teenagers and adults contemplate suicide because of an unaccepting society? too fucking many. That number should be 0, yet never has been. Do y'all know how many gay teens and adults have to hide their love from the world? way too fucking many!

My girlfriend and I are obviously 2 different people. I am out of the closet, i have been for years and years. I am fortunate enough to have a family who accepts me and loves me. I am fortunate enough to have friends for the past few years who are also apart of the community, i am fortunate enough to have religious friends who don't hate or deny who I am. My girlfriend cannot come out to her family out of fear, she cannot be public about who she is, she does not have as safe of a space as I do. Despite me and my girlfriend both loving each other and being in the same community, we have very different personal lives. kind of like 2 sides of the same coin. No LGBTQ persons experience is the same. Every single one of us is different, you know why?? because we are fucking human! LGBTQ people are HUMAN! just like everyone else! what is it going to take to get that through politicians heads?? we deserve access to healthcare, we deserve to be able to comfortably talk about our lives, we shouldn't have to lie, hide and suppress ourselves just to be safe and live a normal life.

I hope the community hears me on this, LGBTQ people, do NOT kill yourself. do NOT do it. do not be scared, you need to remember that at the end of the day, nobody, not even your governors, can silence you. You have free will, the world is literally your oyster. Stay strong, I love you ❤️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[earthwormjimnocontext]

If this is my final post on Earthworm Jim No Context, I'd be fine. Because I'VE GOT A THEORY WITH SOME EVIDENCE I'M GONNA HIT YOU WITH! BACKED UP BY THE SCRAPPED FILES OF EARTHWORM JIM 3D! AND IF A CONCRETE ANSWER POPS UP FROM CONCEPT ART, AND I'M WRONG, I WILL SPEED RUN IT AS KIM.

Here goes:

Now as we could all piece together, Kim was probably not intended to be the trans icon she is, and was put in that final boss slot final minute. So what was she initially?

Earthworm Kim was originally Jim's mother!

Now I know what you're thinking. WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF IDEA IS THAT?! But, there's some evidence for this.

Evidence #1 Scrapped Dialogue

The following is a dialogue tree found hidden within the files of the PC version Earthworm Jim 3D:

004dd96c Gee thanks..Mr Super-ego

you've been a big help.

"Gee thanks..Mr Super-ego\nyou've been a big help.\n" ds

004de79c I think the swelling is

going down now. "I think the swelling is\ngoing down now." ds

004de79c I think the swelling is

going down now. "I think the swelling is\ngoing down now." ds

004de8e4 Hello EJ. I seem to have

had an allergic reaction

to this water. I hope my

mum isn't angry with me »Hello EJ. I seem to have had an allergic reaction to this water. I hope my mum isn't angry with me« ds

004de9c4 I'm learning to use an

opposable thumb. "I'm learning to use an\nopposable thumb." ds

004deb24 Hello EJ. I seem to have

grown a hand sticking out of

my head. Cool isn't it? I hope

my mum isn't angry with me. »Hello EJ. I seem to have grown a hand sticking out of my head. Cool isn't it? I hope my mum isn't angry with me.« ds

004df034 You've found my wig!

Here's an udder. "You've found my wig!\nHere's an udder." ds

004df1ec Thanks for finding my

family. Have a reward "Thanks for finding my\nfamily. Have a reward" ds

004df2c4 I'm missing just one

more of my kids - find my

child and I'll reward you. "I'm missing just one\nmore of my kids - find my\nchild and I'll reward you." ds

004df430 You've found one of

my aquatic squirts - now

find the other two! "You've found one of\nmy aquatic squirts - now\nfind the other two!" ds

004df4e0

Help me find my 3 children.

"\nHelp me find my 3 children.\n" ds

These text files are not used in the game, and tie into the scrapped hub world Childhood, where Jim would have saved a boardwalk in his youth from radiation poisoning, so the text most likely belongs to scrapped missions in that level. One of them requires the player to find an unnamed mom's kids, and one looking for a wig. Now these are cool, but how do these tie to Kim being the mother?

Evidence #2 Voice Lines

Kim has a total of three recorded lines, as so does every boss:

"Remember Jimmy, it's for your own good!" - Intro quote

"Ouch!" -Hit Quote

"I know where you hid those magazines!" - Defeat quote.

Take note of the first and the last quote, as if Kim was intended to be Jim's feminine side this entire time, then why is it in this cadence? All 3 lines are addressed in a motherly delivery (Quite possibly by Linda Wallem), and the last one especially sounds like a quote from a mom.

Evidence #3 The Paintings in Fear

According to the instruction manual, the manor used to belong to Jim's family before Professor Monkey for a Head took it over. So naturally there are paintings of Jim's family. (despite him being an orphan) Including this painting on the wall that I don't feel like taking a clearer picture of because I do not feel like playing Jim 3D again. She looks the most like Kim. Who is this painting on the wall? It never says.

Evidence #4 Star's Magazine Run.

I used to have an Internet friend named Starlight94, and she was the record holder for this game and Tonic Trouble, often going through the trouble of looking for beta content. One was from a magazine that she couldn't refind again that had a picture of Kim and the childhood level with the writer stating that she was Jim's... Girlfriend. I'm going to take a guess that this is a "Cowboy Bebop at his computer" situation because this Miswriting shockingly happens a lot. Especially my favorite: Bonus Bob! But once this page is found it is confirmed that Kim was originally in the childhood area.

Evidence #5 The boxart?

The PC box features this gag review from Jim's Mom, alluding to masturbation

Can't have Earthworm Jim without sex jokes in the marketing

But with this many references to a mother, AND the scrapped dialogue, AND her supposedly appearing in Childhood, it leads me to this theory.

Teddyroo12, Signing off Earthworm Jim No Context, until new content is made.

[jcryptid]

I love my friend group actually bc it’s always like “this person is definitely a vampire!”

“And this one is the spitting image of how I imagine my favourite podcast character!”

“This one is a feral animal (and I have a sneaking suspicion they’ll turn into a fox and root through my garbage if my turn my back on them for even a second). I am still working on house training them.”

“This one is absolutely some kind of eldritch Fae horror posing as human. Every time I see an apocalyptic mutated hell scape, I think of them.”

“This one likes making friendship bracelets with colourful beads but will absolutely stab a bitch with no hesitation. They found out I was enby years before I did and was subtly dropping hints to me in all that time. Somehow their whole body decided to pull some absolutely insane shit on them, and at this point even the doctors are impressed.”

“This one is a pixie and we all call them ‘Mother’. I’m pretty sure I’ve never met someone who made me feel like I still have time to make up for my childhood”

“This one is the living embodiment of everything anti-vaxers fear and turns everyone they meet Autistic. They’ve called me on my bullshit more than once,”

“This one is loving embodiment of what conservatives fear, and turns everyone trans, and is also dating the autism virus. Together they are terrifying. We actively warn new cis friends of their immense power. ”

“This person we picked up on a train to the middle of nowhere. They have a toadstool named Terry and treat every bug they meet like a new friend. I’m pretty sure they aren’t human either, or at the very least not entirely.”

“This person is my go to for chatting about and sharing fanfiction. We are both unapologetically seeing feeding each others fanfic addictions, and have no desire to get clean.”

“This person is 6ft and has the demeanour and fashion sense of a fluffy pastel unicorn. I met them at a youth group, I scare away the men at bars for them.”

“This person helped me figure out I was touched starved by giving me hugs and gave me all their favourite recipes they made us during final exams”

“This friend helped me understand what sharing in fandom with friends could be like, and we did our first cosplay together”

“This friend and I trauma bonded during high school and adopted a legion of younger teenagers”

“This friend pulled me out of quicksand that one time, and gets mad when I don’t update my fanfic”

“This friend is always there to chat when pulling all nighters”

“Me and this friend have a relationship exclusively built on bullying each other for the most mundane things”

“I feel like it is my god given duty to protect this person at all costs”

“This person is my go to if I ever have a group project bc we work so well together.”

“This friend said some of the wisest shit I’ve ever heard, and they have all the experience in things I was too scared to try”

“I have no idea who this person is but I must have met them at some point bc I invited them to the discord chat and they’re always there for us”

“This person is my go to if I need a scary as fuck monster design. They are definitely some flavour of undead.”

“This person is constantly bidng their time for the perfect moment to say the funniest fucking thing you’ve ever heard. No one ever sees it coming. It’s uncanny, and frankly impressive.”

“This person is secretly absolutely a kids tv show host. And not the human kind, they’re probably made of felt to be honest.”

And so on.

What a strange and wonderful group of people I’ve collected in my life. 🙃

[gowns]

i tried to be non-binary when i was in middle school. i tried to change my name to beck and would tell people i didn't feel like a girl or a boy. but people would say that wasn't a real thing, and no one called me beck (outside of one boy who said it half-jokingly and continued throughout high school...). there was no representation of non-binary or trans or bisexual / queer people when i was growing up (well -- there might have been some out there, but it was scant compared to today, and i was sort of sheltered). i had a feeling of who i was, but there were no words for it, no models. i just felt like a weird fucking kid. other people fascinated me, because they spoke in a language that i didn't understand, related to each other in ways that were weird to me. i went through a lot of sexual harassment because i just didn't understand gender or sexuality the way other people did around me, my body was developing and it was terrible.

i had no social pressure around me to be gay as a kid, i had no idea what "non-binary" meant, but i was still consumed by both of these concepts. they just had no words, no images, no relation to any known way of being, which made me more obsessed, more troubled.

being around other LGBT+ people, meanwhile, has the opposite effect -- i no longer have to worry about my gender presentation, or sexuality, or "the way i am," i feel more and more comfortable, more and more myself. more honest, more candid.

like, now i am a wedding photographer for gay weddings and i mentor queer youth and every time i am in my community it's like, yes, yes, shit, this is it! these are the people who are like me! this joy is unmatched!

--

humans are social creatures... of course we all want to fit in within a group. that's just how our brains work. but i am so glad there's the internet and more expression now! because the youth that i see, they are so much more comfortable with gender and orientation, and they "come out" at a very early age, a lot of them in middle school. this cultural change is good. what is identity, what is self... if not constructed through social constructs, if not constructed through a shared language?

this is why it's so important to talk about these things... because the personal is political... the political is personal... conservatives want to drag us back to a time "before definition." before visibility. because we're easier to exploit when we're all miserable and trying to fit into the status quo

[ali-dot-txt]

yo i played persona 5 for the first time (III)

Alright, so this post (previous one here and first post in the chain here) is going to be about my general final notes and about Hina as a character.

Despite all my gripes, I did end up enjoying the game. I wouldn't have poured 230 hours into it if I'd hated it.

But most of the enjoyment I wrung from it was a result of the mod and the personal headcanon I spent the whole game developing. I really don't think this game would've been for me without that, which is why I don't intend on playing Persona 4 (well, at least until that game's female protagonist mod gets off the ground). I might play Persona 3 Portable as that game's female protagonist after a little break, though.

The final tally of Hina's Confidants:

Sorry to all the Yusuke fans.

Everyone's final stats:

In 2017, this would be about 88,000 dollars? Which is an absurd amount of money for her to just have on hand.

Favorite characters? I guess I'll list the characters:

Hina (cop-out, i know, but I like her a lot)

Futaba

Haru

Lavenza/the twins

Sojiro

Sumire

Ann

Ryuji

Akechi (he really jumped up in the last arc)

Hifumi

Sae

Morgana (he really jumped very late in the game as well)

Yusuke (sorry, Yusuke fans)

Iwai (I feel like I'd like him more if I'd got further in his Confidant)

Chihaya (same as Iwai)

Makoto (a sudden and incredible fall)

Maruki (he's the worst therapist ever, but he's pretty interesting when he's not talking way too much and his final scenes are really good)

Skilled Gamer (gonna be real, I don't remember his name)

Ohya

Takemi

Mishima (would have preferred if he was removed entirely)

Hina never met Kawakami outside of class and never spoke to that politician.

Anyway, as for Hina...

She's maybe my favorite player character in any video game ever. The slight jankiness of her implementation lent her so much charm, and characterizing her was a ton of fun, especially with how close my trans headcanon seemed to the game's reality. Does that affection transfer to Akira/Ren, or other people's genderswapped Jokers? Well, no, not really. I can't say I'm an expert on the way people view Joker as a character, but from a cursory glance, I feel like Hina's distinct enough from the popular interpretation that she's basically an entirely different person slotted into the role of protagonist. Maybe that's conceited of me.

Hina has the most common family name in Japan, and I thought Hina was the most popular given name in Japan in 1999, the year she was probably born. Turns out that wasn't the case, Hina is actually much more popular recently. The actual most popular name for 1999? Miku. So if I'd had accurate data, she may well have been called Miku Satou. Probably not though.

Hina didn't have friends in her hometown, partially because she was really quiet as a kid and partially because everyone started avoiding her after she started coming to school in a girls' uniform.

Hina's parents have been supportive from the beginning. In fact, her name is from them (she requested it). Also, they sent her to Tokyo with a maid outfit in her box of stuff, which is extremely funny. She calls them once a week, early on Sundays. She doesn't tell them about her phantom thief activities.

Hina's legal name is changed, but not her legal gender (people only ever call her Hina, even in situations where they'd have only read her name off legal forms, so her name must legally be Hina).

Hina largely doesn't react when people misgender her because she's used to it.

When Maruki mentioned that Hina might make a good counselor herself someday, the headcanon wheels started turning in my head and I realized that that's really fucking good. Hina wants to go to university to become a youth counselor, because she saw what happens when someone has the worst counselor ever. Not to mention Hina wanting to help kids like her who might not react well to an authority figure telling them how to live is really sweet.

Hina's trying to create a real version of her Phantom Thief outfit she can wear casually. She has red gloves in her winter school outfit! Why else would she have those? She's going to get white glasses frames next.

Hina isn't good at talking to people, but she comes off as confident because she also has a hard time speaking in any particular tone, so she almost always seems to be talking without reservations.

Hina is an only child. (Fairly sure this is an element of most people's imagined Jokers. No way does this person have siblings.)

I don't think most of the harsh things I put in quotes to indicate that Hina said them are things she actually would say. I think she's probably thinking them.

Hina has a gaming PC in her hometown. Her buying that laptop was because she was going stir-crazy from not having access to a desktop computer.

Hina likes Morgana much more than I do. She doesn't think of him as a big brother (lmao), but she does love him like a brother.

In contrast, I think Hina has exactly as much disdain for Mishima as I have.

Hina isn't really invested in Akechi. She thinks he's a terrible weirdo who she wishes would stop talking to her. When she learns about his actual motivations, that switches to thinking of him as kind of pathetic. She wishes he would have talked to her about his issues at all, because she probably could have helped him deal with them like she helps literally everyone else, but she's not so broken up about him not being in her life anymore. (In contrast, I actually quite like Akechi now that I get what they were going for with him.)

Hina is good at schoolwork, but she's lacking in common sense.

Takemi actually never misgendered Hina, and Maruki only did so once. It's pretty funny how the medical professionals are consistently the least transphobic people in the game. I wonder why that is? 🤔

Hina got really good at making coffee and curry in the year she spent at Leblanc.

Hina being shorter than regular Joker is especially funny because her animation speed has to be adjusted, so she walks really fast in cutscenes where she moves places. She has to move that fast to keep up with people.

Hina's relationship with Haru is going to cause an absolutely awful scandal if it ever becomes public. I have no idea how they're going to deal with that, but hopefully they'll figure it out.

Hina doesn't really find any new friends when she moves back home, but she's alright with keeping to herself and focusing on her studies while having friends she can talk to online and a cat who can talk.

Hina might be rejected from a lot of universities for her criminal record or her transness. She might've had her record expunged, but she still spent time in juvie, not to mention the heavily political implications of her actions might risk scandal for any university that she enrolls in. She might end up having to apply to universities abroad, where the Phantom Thieves and the events surrounding them weren't so much in the public consciousness.

Anyway, that's Hina Satou. I might write fic for her someday? But she requires a lot of context to really understand her. I care about her a lot, and people understanding her is important to me for some reason.

And finally: some of my favorite screenshots of Hina.

[nappingpaperclip]

idk it rlly gets to me sometimes to be told that I like don’t get it/don’t care about trans youth or whatever whenever I am vocally critical of democrat politicians cause. idk I AM trans youth, I struggle a lot and get treated like shit a lot for it, by politicians and people who should care about me and idk, have y’all ever been kicked out as a teenager and had to call the only adults who support you to come pick you up as a lonely suicidal trans kid? have you ever had to walk home from pride cause you can’t call your parents? ever been outed to your parents against your will and without your knowledge? cause I have and it rlly sucks. having my own experiences and rights used against me, as a token to silence me and others is rlly frustrating and upsetting. It was so lonely being a trans teenager and I spent a lot of time trying to connect with other lgbt+ people but especially younger trans people at my high school (lowerclassmen at the time) when I was a teenager cause I knew how lonely it was growing up with no one to see you for who you are.

People talk down on me for speaking out against politicians who have done nothing to secure my safety or rights, my right to exist because it is “too controversial,” ever since I was a child, and things are somehow even worse now… like I don’t live in the south, like I don’t see the obituaries of murdered trans people on my social media every day, like I don’t see tv ads from local politicians insulting eachother via support for people like me aka “letting men in girls bathrooms” and like I don’t have to see signs around local places bathrooms that say transphobic stuff. like I somehow don’t get it even though *I* don’t feel safe or comfortable no matter which bathroom I’m in, like I don’t have evangelical conservative “”redneck”” family members who would pop a blood vessel in their face if they saw what I look like now, like I don’t get called slurs by strangers or experience crazy micro aggressions in public & at work, like I didn’t have the experiences of being one of the literal handful of openly queer people in my southern public school.

Do you guys even know what it’s like for trans people in the south?? do you know how often trans kids get assaulted in bathrooms at school? it’s so fucking scary to hear from my friends from Florida, to hear them talk about how their friends got assaulted in their high school bathrooms, to hear about the crazy shit their teachers and classmates and politicians said….

idk. y’all don’t know me. You don’t know my story, you don’t know how hard I’ve fought just to be here. I don’t rlly have a point, I just wish people would stop saying stuff like that in my replies. I can take getting screamed at and flipped off irl but this type of stuff is worse and for some reason it rlly gets to me.

I know it’s the internet and ppl are going to be cruel but sometimes it makes me feel very isolated from my community and it drives me crazy because like, damn what about me? Am I not the trans youth too?? am I not included in that, are my opinions thoughts and experiences not important just cause I’m loud abt my opinions in a way u disagree with…??

[slytherwrites]

"hurt and grieve but don't suffer alone // engage with the pain as a motive"

Title is from "Achilles Come Down" by Gang of Youths

Info: Theo Putnam & Trans!Reader, to pronouns for reader other than you, pre/during season one, before Theo comes out to his friends, the reader is critical of religion in their narration so if that's a trigger, skip this please!

Note: For the first part of this fic, the reader uses they/them pronouns for Theo, not certain what pronouns they'd prefer.

Summary: You couldn't give two fucks about the shitty kids at Baxter High, but you can tell that you being out is giving someone more confidence in themselves. And that's why you deal with these shitheads.

Upstate New York wasn't what you imagined with your parents said that your dad was moving to New York for work. You could be forgiven if you thought that you'd be in the Big Apple, where people with some actually decent worldviews and basic fucking respect existed.

But, you couldn't have been that lucky, could you? Because the small town of Greendale needed a new doctor and your father could open up his own private practice with a whole town of new customers.

Honestly, how this town had a prominent mortuary, but not a doctor freaked you out, but you wouldn't say anything about it, because who knows what those Spellmans are up to.

But, you settled in decently. Classes weren't difficult and getting around was easy, with everything practically being within either walking or biking distance—something you'd taken up getting around your old town, as public transit was abysmal and here it's nonexistent.

Assholes were assholes and cliques were formed, but not like stereotypical high school television would proclaim. There wasn't a bitchy female at the top, ruling everything. Everything seemed to span from the ire of the misogynistic, football team and their backwards, Judeo-Christian values.

Honestly, you couldn't understand it. The fucking egos on these guys were astounding, truly.

But, you noticed something in between the constant jabs and minor pushing around from the guys bigger than you. That the kid from your English class with the curly hair kept staring at you.

You didn't think it was malicious, but it was persistent. They sat a bit behind you, next to two girls: one of which was the preacher's daughter and the other came from the mortuary family you were going to stay away from.

But, they looked harmless. Curious, in fact. Like they'd never seen someone like you, like them. Like they'd never seen someone who's undeniably trans.

You weren't certain they were trans, but if gaydar was a real thing, yours would be on full alert.

And so, when you were able to catch them staring all by their lonesome, you slipped away from the meatheads and their closemindedness towards them.

"Hey, you're in my English class, aren't you?" You appear in front of them in a blink of an eye, "With Ms. Wardwell, right?"

"Oh, uh... yeah. I am." They stammer, "You find it alright."

"It's not that difficult. Similar stuff I was doing at my old school."

"Where are you from?"

You tell them, trying to hide the disgust of this place and the fact that you really miss home.

"I can't for the life of me remember your name and I'm so sorry about that! Can you tell me?" Even if your reasoning was different, you truly couldn't remember their name, as Ms. Wardwell tends to take silent attendance.

They sigh, "Susie. Susie Putnam."

"You sure about that?" They choke on the air caught in their throat and you continue, "I mean, Y/N wasn't always my name. My parents helped it get it changed. So... are you sure that's your name."

"I don't know what I want to change it to." They admit, "but Susie hurts to hear."

"I get it." You put a hand on their shoulder, "Sometimes you gotta grin and bare it, but hey, when you pick one out, tell me."

"You get it?" They said, "You understand what I'm going through?"

"Oh yeah." You offer a laugh to break the tension, "These people are assholes, but your friends seem to be decent enough. And if they fucking suck like these dickheads, then you can hang with me, alright."

"And if my friends don't suck?" They ask, "Can I still hand out with you?"

You fish out a spare piece of paper and write your number down with a smirk, "I think that's fine as well."

[archaeopteryx4216]

Today I heard about an Idaho bill to criminalize trans healthcare for minors, and it has me so pissed, just like every red state's homophobic and transphobic bills. Apparently a christian lobbying group is behind it (the same group is behind abortion bans too) and I am just so fucking sick of christians trying to impose their views on everybody else. Yes, I know there are progressive christians, but there are far more who are right wing brainwashed nutjobs.

At this point I full on believe the world would be a much better place without christianity in it. And before you try to tell me how your version of christianity is better or different, I want you to think about why you are so desperate to get people into your religion instead of letting people believe what they want to.

Let me tell you about myself and my experience with christianity. I am a transgender woman, who was born in a very religious household. Through about 5th grade or so my family and I attended an evangelical "non denominational" church. This church would not allow women to teach any class that an adult man might attend because they believed that women were not allowed to teach men. Needless to say this church was not accepting of queerness, so I was raised believing that homosexuality and being trans was innately sinful. I was a child, I didn't know any better, and I certainly wasn't going to challenge authority on the matter.

Do you want to know why I was (and am) so afraid of authority? It's because this church taught that you have to beat children to get them to immediately obey parents without question. So yeah, as a small child I had any ability to resist authority beat out of me. It wasn't until I moved to college that I felt free enough to start examining and questioning my beliefs.

Anyways, I was raised repressing my queerness and hiding my femininity with shame, too afraid of getting in trouble to question anything, and I mindlessly repeated these viewpoints to other kids, because I desperately wanted to be "good".

After leaving that church around my fifth grade, we joined another church that was more progressive in a lot of ways, but was still regressive with respect to LGBT rights and affirmation. I remember they even brought in an ex-gay conversion person to talk to our youth group once. I remember feeling like I desperately wanted to be able to support LGBT rights, but that it was "against the rules" so I couldn't be supportive.

Now I am an adult. I left christianity over a decade ago, but only recently have I started to process the trauma that I have from being raised christian and the result is a burning rage and hatred of the belief system that hurt me and so many other queer people and women throughout history.

[mollieblue]

Hey #labour, you should hire me to talk at you about how to actually fix Britain:

Terfs are the enemy, Trans folx are the people.

Small businesses need support on the ground level in order to foster amazing communities.

Invest in education to the point teachers are as paid well as their private peers or dare I say as well as an MP. I would say that if an MP describes their role as being vital, integral and essential to running the country, who receives a handsome tax paid salary with expenses paid with the public purse, why is it that other public sector roles are paid relatively below minimum wage? This applies to all public sector workers; civil servants, NHS staff, and teachers of all stripes. They are just as vital, integral, and essential to running the country, if not more so, than the openly profiteering geezers in Westminster.

Why is it that the rule makers are more important than those ensuring that the rules work? Those holding up society and holding it together are so sorely underpaid in this country that they are giving their lives to you at pittance so you can be okay. The NHS is a wonderful thing, and it breaks my heart that we don't fully fund it. The same goes for education, social services, community organisations, and libraries. These currently literally keep people existing at the bare minimum, but when fully funded and staffed, they transform lives for the better.

Equal pay for Equal work 》 Equal pay for Equal Importance. Ignore the 'we can't pay them the hundreds of thousands that MPs get' elephant in the room. I want you instead to imagine a world in which all public sector workers are paid the exact same amount regardless of hierarchy or public aspect they interact with. I'm no expert, but I reckon £86,584, the basic annual salary for a UK MP in 2023, would be an absolute god send to a junior doctor on roughly £38k. My partner practically works at minimum wage for 50 hours when you account for the marking, the planning, the organisation of your entire schedule to an impromptu meeting with angry parents and worrying about ofsted. It has worn them down, mostly because we can't have a social life, spending money on the theatre, in shops, on things that make us happy and human. We can't save, and we can't afford nice things. That fucking sucks. It wears a person out and throws them out of the system that's holding up the world.

Everyone I know is feeling like the above, regardless if they're private or public, freelance or salaried. One solution to help is basic universal income. Give everyone over 16 £500 & everyone over 18 £1000 each month for a year and see how awesome it would be in a year's time. I already know how much good that would do to me and everyone I know.

So pay everyone £12,000 a year and then pay all public sector workers the base salary of £86,000 rising in step with inflation. If the private sector can, in theory, pay whatever wages it wants, having a guarantee that your basics are paid will eliminate sooooo much stress. Rich folx can donate theirs, college kids can do interesting work at college because £500 buys a lot of art supplies and travel to museums, exhibitions, and events. Youth would have means to explore the nation before university or set up in an apprenticeship. Our elderly can use it to afford end of life care provisions or enrich their retirement or hell, just keep the lights on. Working folx would undoubtedly benefit the most and would probably like their jobs much more if they know things are covered.

To foot the bill, impose a commons tax on all privately owned land that fairly compensates the commons, ie, the UK public, back.

Make the North part of your game plan, rather than a foot note.

On a serious note; nationalise the railway system and expand the network. It is hell going east to west here, up to 3 hours to go 50 miles west and just 3 to get to London from Selby in North Yorkshire. How is this acceptable?

Invest in working class politicians to bring the reality of Britain back into government. Without our views or experiences on the table, why are we surprised when the Tories fuck us over again? If you want true, enthusiastic support from the British people, do not talk at us as if we're irresponsible children and actually engage with the very liberal and progressive discussions we have daily. Especially people under 40 - the older generation that pulled us out of the EU will be gone soon - you need to court and actually help out.

[razorsadness]

There is so much, so much to say. So much, these days. And I’m sleep-deprived so this entry will be a haphazard list rather than a well-thought-out piece of prose, but I need to get some of this down because there’s just going to keep being more and more and more.

—The last day of March I dressed up in a very queer-punk getup to attend the Queer Youth Assemble rally in Kenosha. I put my harness on along with my other undergarments, and over that I wore tall black boots and a loose, long black dress and my leather jacket that has studs and appliqué roses on it (the one I always describe as cowpunk-meets-Kathy Acker). I did elaborate eye makeup and darkened my wispy lil’ mustache with mascara, and went to the rally. And a bunch of my cishet ally friends were there, and a bunch of my queer and trans friends were there, including my crush Shelley. (Shelley is a pseudonym and yes, I did christen them that in an homage to both Mary and Percy Byshe, because they are goth and a poet.) All of us were in our Most Gender finery, complimenting each other, and Shelley looked super hot in their leopard coat and cat’s-eye glasses. After the rally ended due to rain, Shelley and a few other folks and I went out for beers and nachos and I can’t tell you how good it felt to be Out and Queer. In fact, our waiter (gender neutral) said they had wanted to be at the rally but couldn’t make it due to work and they thanked us for going and said we all looked ‘hot as fuck.’

—It got warmer as the day went on, rained more, then the fog rolled in, then thunderstorms, then back to just rain, and it was warm enough I was able to leave the window open overnight for the first time this year, and I could hear the rain and the trains.

—April first it got cold again, and the wind returned, and it was not my lover, this was brutal bitter asshole wind. I ran some errands, including meeting up with K. to pick up the Joe Strummer piece I commissioned him to do for Ali’s birthday. And then I had a bit of the sads, because the kids were cranky and I was PMSing. And because I was thinking about M., how it’s now been 18 years since he died, and how it still hurts that I can never tell him how much he meant to me. But I wrote some poems and took some selfies and then I drank a little too much wine and listened to W/IFS, like I do when I’m in my feelings.

—And the two days after that were kind of crappy, I was still sad and cranky from PMS, and stressed about the upcoming election. But I did some voter outreach stuff and wrote more poems and did some painting and ate dark chocolate and drank tea.

—Then election day, and despite the storms (including hail!) Wisconsin turned the fuck out, and the election turned out the way I had hoped, and I am so relieved that my state overwhelmingly voted against the right-wing extremist judge and that my town voted against the MAGA freak mayoral candidate. And P. and I had amazing sex that night.

—And the next couple days were mostly about packing for a trip to Door County, and more poems, and more sex. And there was more rain, more storms, but also warmth, and bits of sun and butterflies, and the greening grass.

—Two days before Easter, we headed north. Everything was muddy and brown and we saw e a lot of birds—hawks and herons and wild turkeys. There were road snacks and road silliness. We saw a truck that said Lubenow on it, and we figured out later it had to be someone’s last name (like Luben-ow), but it was like “got it, looks like Lube Now.” And at the rest area we usually stop at there’s this big Wisconsin tourism sign that’s supposed to look like a license plate, and it says LUV R AG (as in Love Our Agriculture), but again, because of the kerning and design, it looks like Luv Rag. So P. and I were making jokes about how Luv Rag sounds like the name of a band of sleazy middle-aged dudes trying to cling to their ‘80s hair metal days, and I said: “Thank you! We are Luv Rag, and this is our new single, ‘Lube Now!’”

—We were up there for five nights, 4.5 days. It was less stressful than staying with my parents usually is, and except for the first half of our first full day there, the weather was great. I ate a ton of good food and stayed up late writing most nights; found out about a sonnet contest I’m going to enter. P. and I got to go out, just the two of us, several times. We went out for drinks a few times; got to sit out by the fire pit at Door County Brewing Co. and listen to a great folk musician who goes by the name of Hunter Gatherer. (I already liked him cuz when we first arrived, he was playing a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and then a bit later he was introducing one of his originals and said: “This song’s about running from the cops.” And I liked him even more.) Other times we just drove around the peninsula, or went hiking in Peninsula State Park and exploring our favorite tiny old cemetery. Our last full day there, we took the kids swimming (in a pool, not the lake—it’s still way too cold for that!), and I hadn’t been swimming in years and I had forgotten how much I love it, how at home I feel in the water, like that’s where I belong, like that’s where my body works the way it should.

—We arrived home to the daffodils and violets in bloom and everything even greener, buds on the trees, more warm weather, and there were days of childlike joys and nights of adult pleasures. Days of playing hopscotch with C. and reading endless books, of iced coffee and shooting hoops and watching the backyard birds and squirrels. One evening, we even got to grill for the first time this year, and make s’mores for dessert. Nights of drinking a bit, and hot sex, and staying up late writing.

—Then it got cold again, and it rained, then snowed. Yesterday I felt really bad for the first half of the day. Partly cuz of the weather; gray and cold and gloomy and it was hard being cooped up inside again after that week of warmth and sunshine. Partly cuz I was sleep-deprived (the kids have been waking up hella early lately.) Partly cuz fucking everything was making me cry. I dunno, I was having weird-bad gender feels, and also feeling uninspired/unmotivated writing-wise, like ‘oh, I made it through the first half of NaPoWriMo, but I think I’m tapped out now.’ And maybe a bit of that ol’ pre-Mercury Rx shadow period creeping in there, bringing up old issues and feelings—I was missing my good old bad old scumbag days. The days of freight hoppin’ and basement shows and circus freakery, and dumpster diving and busking and long bike rides across cities, of wheat paste and graffiti and stick n’ pokes and sleeping out, under the stars, giving myself over to scary thoughts, & omens, & excess. The days when most everyone I knew had a clown act and a copy of the Crew Change Guide. I made a cup of tea and lay in bed watching Netflix for a while. First I watched the “Beyond the Binary” episode of Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, and then I watched Mae Martin’s new comedy special, Sap. And of course both of those have to do with gender stuff (at least in part), and both of them talked about growing up queer/GNC and having such a hard time and turning to drug abuse and other self-destructive behaviors, even though they were white, middle-class kids who were not kicked out by their parents. And I was like, oh hey, me too. And both shows made me cry, and it was good cathartic crying, but I still felt like shit afterwards. So then I started thinking about some ways to bring back some of the less-destructive aspects of my scumbag days back into my life, and I was still feeling sad, and then I decided to check in on the contest results of the WB Yeats Poetry Prize and the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize.

Both of them said they’d announce the contest winners on their websites sometime in or after March. The Yeats Prize said it would also contact the winners directly; the Ginsberg Prize said no such thing, but I assumed they would. Starting in mid-March, I was checking both sites every few days or so, and obsessively checking my email/snail mail. And nothing, nothing, nothing. The last time I’d checked the sites was April 3, and yesterday I was like: “Well, it’s been two weeks, there must be some news by now,” and I was assuming I would go on and see the list of winners and my name would not be there and maybe it was a bad idea because I was already feeling so crappy, but then I was also kinda like, well, I might as well get all the bad feelings out of the way at once. But still, on both websites, the most recent winner’s list was from 2022. And then, I shit you not, like eight minutes later, P. brought the mail in and handed me an envelope. Return address: The Poetry Center At Passaic County Community College, One College Blvd., Paterson, NJ. Location of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. My hands shook as I opened it. And…I fucking won! Not first, second, or third place, but I don’t even care because one of the poems I sent them (the one that is probably, in my opinion, among the best poems I’ve ever written, but also one of the riskiest) received an Editor’s Choice Award! And it’s gonna be published in the Spring 2024 issue of the Paterson Literary Review, and I’ve been invited to participate in the awards ceremony/reading there, next February.

I don’t even know how to express how much this means to me. Professionally, but also personally. Like, first of all, New Jersey is such a huge part of my personal mythology. I was conceived in New Jersey! So many of the people who have meant the most to me, personally/artistically, have New Jersey roots! Like Allen Ginsberg! And Jack Terricloth! And Bruce Springsteen! And my witchwife, Penny! And also just, well, I mean god, Allen Ginsberg. For better or worse, the Beat Generation and punk rock have been the most enduring influences on me/my writing, starting at a very young age, and Allen Ginsberg is definitely towards the very top of that “beat + punk influence list.” I just. Can’t. Fucking. Get Over It. Can’t quite believe it! I keep touching the letter they sent me to remind myself it’s real. (It’s on the Poetry Center’s official stationery, which is on beautiful, thick, creamy paper.) I keep blowing kisses at my framed photo of Ginsberg, one where he’s sitting at his typewriter, writing a poem.

—So yesterday evening, P. and I dropped the kids off at my folks’ house for a bit. We went to pick up takeout dinner for everyone, but also got to have a celebratory whiskey while we waited. And I stayed up late last night. First, I wrote a poem—guess I wasn’t totally tapped out, after all. Then I was just awake scheming and planning (and wishing and hoping). About immediate future stuff, like this year’s vegetable garden, and going through my books to find some to donate to the library’s book sale. As well as the positive scumbaggery I can reincorporate into my life—I remembered that I bought myself that stick n’ poke kit last year, so soon I’m gonna give myself a new tattoo; and I started thinking up ideas for a poetry wheatpaste project. And then—travel. I still wanna travel a bit this year, but I think I’m gonna keep it mostly midwest. Then, next year, I’m gonna head out east again finally, after all these years, for the awards ceremony, but I’m gonna try to book a mini-tour around it, and there will be old friends and new friends and old haunts and…yeah. I am so fucking ready.

—And today I’m sleep deprived, again—I was up late, and the kiddos once again got up stupid early. But I don’t even mind. I got some writing done and listened to some podcasts and oh, tomorrow I get to go see Bikini Kill. I’ve been waiting for this concert for over three years (from when I first bought the tickets in December 2019, before it got postponed many many times due to CoViD), but I’ve also been waiting for this concert since I was twelve—from when I first heard Bikini Kill, and wanted to go see them, but then they broke up before I got the chance. (And yeah, I saw Le Tigre a couple times, and that was fun, but not the same.) And there’s a lot of stuff going on right now that teen me and early-to-mid twenties me would be super stoked about—like the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize, like seeing Bikini Kill, like stick n’ pokes and wheatpaste and travel plans. And that feels kinda great; showing my younger self that I am still rocking that shit at my advanced (haha) age. And just overall, things are so good lately. There is so much joy, even in the mundane. Even the bad shit doesn’t seem as bad as it did for a while, because in these past four months I have proven to myself that my life isn’t over, that I can still do rad shit, that I can still experience beauty and joy.

[bitch-b0i]

Hi! Since Tiktok for some reason believes that all trans people share the same opinion and that my head won’t explode if I see another 15 year old trans kids opinion on neopronouns, I’m gonna try this one more time to see if it sticks:

Neopronouns are not the reason you don’t have rights. People who hate trans people fearmongering, persecuting, and legislating against us is why you don’t have rights. Please shut the fuck up about neopronouns.

For the love of earth, it’s so far out of my business to start beef with teens on the internet and usually I’m such a block and move in sort of person but the amount of likes and people agreeing with the kid in the comments put the fear of god into my soul. It’s the refusal to engage with trans discourse and liberation in any way that doesn’t directly have to do with you, it’s the way that they refuse to understand that their oppressors literally DONT CARE about whether or not neopronouns are used widely or whether people adhere to the gender binary because that’s NOT WHAT ITS ABOUT. Your liberation has nothing to do with how legit your oppressors see you, or how closely you adhere to their idea of normal. Your liberation has nothing to do with “those other, weirder trans people” that you don’t understand making you “look bad.” THE LAWMAKERS IN THIS COUNTRY DONT THINK YOU SHOULD EXIST. IT HAS ZIP AND ZILCH TO DO WITH HOW CRINGY YOUR PEERS ARE. THEY WANT TO FUCKING KILL YOU. And the fact that somehow they have convinced you that if you just hide enough of your trans ness by adhering to the gender binary, or that attacking other trans people and turning on your own community is the way to solve that issue is terrifying to me.

And it’s even scarier to read when you recognize that the language these children are using are verbatim what conservatives and transphobes have been saying to trans people for years to justify their persecution and murder???? Claiming that identifying “as a bug or a dog”, which is already a gross misunderstanding of what neopronouns and genders are, is a mental illness??? Claiming that “oh some trans people like me are fine but those OTHER ONES?? Ew”??? And shoving an entire group of identities under the rug just because the conservative brain poison has convinced you that only some trans people are valid in their eyes? Horrifying. Even worse, using your identity as a get out of jail free card, thinking that oppression of your own community is suddenly valid and ok if it’s coming from a member of the same community?

And look. This kid was 15. Did I engage with them? Obviously not. I did what I always do - curate my online space and block them so that I never see that toxic, misguided drivel on my fyp again. But that video had tens of thousands of likes and dozens of comments that said they shared the exact same sentiment. And I know they’re not the only young queer person - or even adult queer person for that matter - who thinks those same things.

I’m scared for our trans youth man. I really am.

[thegayclarinetist]

this is gonna be a long one, probably with a bunch of trailing points, but I feel like I need to write this down.

truly sucks how the widespread availability of the internet has just… fucked over the youngest members of the lgbtq community.

PLEASE HEAR ME WHEN I SAY THIS IS NOT AN ATTACK ON PUBLIC SUPPORT GROUPS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT

I think a big problem that many of the ~20-30 year old tumblr thinkpiece writers have been unaware of is the actual state of lgbt youths. It’s a problem of marketability politics, feelings of social isolation, mental illness, social media systems, and our good ol’ friend Capitalism.

I will state here that I have firsthand, personal experience with this stuff. i’ve got a severe case of “ADhD where it makes me think a lot about stuff that i’m not exactly an expert on but i have a lot to say about”, so I may be wrong in some parts or leave off on topics that i meant to come back to.

First, i want to talk about Mental Illness and LGBT identities! When I was a tween/ early teenager, i figured out I was gay. Many children like me figure this out, around the time when we have a need for personal identity, but not an amazing grasp on the systems that shape our world. so when we take to social media to communicate about this, we have a strong desire to seek out others similar to us. I’ll get to social media a bit later.

social media is built out of, and constructs it’s own, systems that shape our understanding of the world. And as queer people, young(12-14) queer people fall into these systems in ways that they don’t yet understand. but they have a very strong desire to understand themselves and their identities, the communities around those identities, etc. as an insecure young Gay boy, i found myself on twitter and Discord servers, desperately trying to find a way to participate.

here’s where I’ll talk about social media! It sucks. it truly, really fucking sucks. and i’ll get to why eventually. so we have these young queers. they join some social media group and look up some gay creator or trans artist. they look up and follow these people that share identities. the algorithmic nature of social media reccomends them more. and as Young, malleable minds, they start to pick up on

THE DISCOURSE

hmm. shit.

and because they don’t understand said discourse, they pick up the first few most reasonable posts, add it to their idea of “what this identity is/means/should be”. they see the posts that are targeting and harassing certain creators. so they pick up why these creators are bad. and then the algorithm pushes them to the logical endpoint of this system: the Echo Chamber.

I’ve been through this cycle.

it’s scary, BUT I DIDNT KNOW WHY I SHOULD HAVE BEEN SCARED.

because as a mentally ill gay teenager, I didn’t need to worry about the minutia of transgender infighting based on philosophies of gender. no teenager does. but I was pushed towards these communities and I was adding these ideas to my head. And it’s happening exponentially more, and more severely, to each group of 12-13 year olds because of the growths of these communities.

and being 12-13 sucks, because you are old enough to be subject to some of these systems I mentioned, old enough to feel the need to _do something_, but not old enough to understand that they’re not talking about YOU. the algorithm on twitter doesn’t give a shit if you’re 12-13 and you follow gay people. it shows you the discourse meant for 23-27 year olds. and you don’t know that your mind is being influenced in these ways!

I’m gonna talk about my specific experience with this to maybe clarify what i mean a bit.

I, newly gay, previously a Gifted Education kid, with a lot of ideas and the stubbornness to match, download twitter and discord. I am immediately greeted with discourse. I had already educated myself a bit about how social media twists narratives from watching things like Contrapoints, etc, so i had at least a little bit of a safety net. so i read the discourse, i am subjected to trump tweets and political rants and righteous anger. I, as a 13 year old on the bus rides home from school, start to “learn” about slur discourse, transmedicalism, reaganomics, etc. i start to argue with MAGA dumbasses. i start to try and help people figure out their identities. i memorize all the pride flags.

on discord, i see all of the pronoun roles and the identity roles and emojis. overloaded. i think to myself “it is my job to learn these all, because Twitter told me I am a BAD PERSON if i don’t learn ALL THE LABELS”. I am confronted with these people who i talk to on VCs, text chats, etc, who all have gone through the same pipeline as me. i start to hang out on there a lot. i start to think of myself as a Knowledgeable Expert on queer identities(as a 13 year old). some of the people I was online “friends” with left. some of the popular users leave. i think to myself,”I am one of the Popular people on here. I know what’s up”.

i am exposed to more discourse about binding, tucking, transgender surgery, etc. on twitter.

at some point, i came out to my parents, and i soon stopped interacting on Discord and deleted twitter.

i finally made some queer friends IRL. the kind, who, like me, were subjected to that pipeline.

but i started to realize that the way they were acting was… too much. trying to fight some other friends of mine because they said the wrong microlabel. so i decided to let the overly concerned friends go. i re-educated myself about queer identities. i read a book! it was great. i realized that i wasn’t mature enough to need to give a shit about any of that yet.

i’ll continue this in a reblog i need to get a fresh post open.

[mushi-shield]

both of my grandmas got married when they was just 12/13 one was sold off to a mountain man he died and she got remarried and had 13 kids she was very abusive to her kids but my dad refuse to ever say anything mean about his mom and dad. (she hated me would tell me i would go to hell each time she saw me  she would put on cartoons and when it caught my interest she would scream at me you are going to hell for liking that devil show) 

while my other grandma had six kids, her husband would beat her and he was a drunk he beat her one time where she almost lost the sixth child. but she was the sweetest women you would ever meet. 

why did i bring up the stories of my grandmothers, because the older generation  think everything was great back then when back then they sold off there kids to the highest bidder. they also think whipping there kids and then making the girls stop going to school so they have to watch the younger kids and if they make a mistake then they get a beating where they could not walk straight for a few days and when the girls could not take it anymore they run off to got married to the first man they meet just  to get away. and let not talk about random shit they would feed there kids to treat them for illness  and then tell them to walk it off. 

but yes lets talk about how evil technology is how it is ruining the youth, know what ruining the youth parents not spending time with there kids, parents not teaching there kids right from wrong, parents not talking with there kids or try to understand what there kids are going through, parents not wanting to take part in there kids school activity, parents not at least trying to help there kids with there homework even if they don’t fully understand it, parents not taking interest in what there kids enjoy or not even trying to understand there hobby or why they like it. 

when something ever happen it is always xyz to blame but never the parents because they don’t want to feel like they are bad parents 

 if  kid’s can’t tell what's real and not then the parent’s are to blame for failing in teaching them. 

the older generation need to wake up and realize not everything in the pass was good, like how the younger generation know we have problem’s but we don’t know how to fix them and it just feels hopeless i am in my late 30′s and have no fucking clue in how to help my niece and nephews and I am scare shitless for what the future hold for them

and having old fools keep saying stupid shit everyday is not help to fix anything. 

there have been more kids taking there life then the last few generations because they feel there is no hope so why even try. 

my niece who is only 14 is cutting herself to just feel pain she also don’t know if she is trans or lesbian. 

so kids don’t need to be told if they watch something it make them bad or do bad things. they already dealing with more shit   then any other generation. before them. 

 i am just a aunt  who have no clue what my niece and nephew’s  generation is going to face which scares me half to death but it not going to be technology that will destroy them but parents that not willing to spend time with them or to get to really know there kids. that what going to destroy a whole generation. 

im so done with seeing articles about kids and screen time that doesnt mention parent behaviors even once. “kids are always on their phones” so are the parents! which the kids look to for how they should behave! ipad babies didn’t chose to only play on their ipads, thats what their parents gave them!

an anecdotal example: when i was a kid, all my parents would do in their minimal free time was watch tv and then they would be surprised when in my sister and i’s minimal free time we would also only watch tv/play video games. they scolded us for not reading books, but they never read books. they scolded us for not going outside but they never went outside.

“kids are always on their damn phones” my mom is in her 60s and opens up candy crush anytime she’s sitting — it isnt just the kids

[viscerasmoothie]

NOTICE: THIS IS BEING UNPINNED AS OF 2024/10/8 BECAUSE IM QUITTING TUMBLR

\\ Pinned Post 2: Electric Boogaloo //

\\ Names/Nicknames/Whatever: Viscera, Viscera Smoothie, Chris //

\\ Date of Womb Evacuation: 2010/09/17 //

\\ Main Interests: TF2, FNaF (My shitty au specifically), psychology, human biology, other shit related to the previous two //

\\ Side interests and Former Interests: Ace Attorney (Former ~2021-2023), MLP Creepypasta (Former, ~2017-2018?), Yandere Sim (Former, ~2017-2019?), Gravity Falls (Side), analog horror (Side), tech restoration (I blame Wade from Dankpods and Bringus Studios for this, Side), religions and cults (Side) //

\\ YouTubers I Watch Frequently/Consistently: Dankpods/Garbage Time/The Drum Thing, Emkay, Bringus Studios, Kwite, planet clue, RTGame, ManlyBadassHero, The Click //

\\ I don't even know what to title this so uhhh here's some shit I believe:

People with personality disorders (Specifically Cluster B) aren't all complete garbage (Narc Abuse isn't real)

People faking disorders and shit shouldn't be harassed because there's absolutely something below the surface (Pro endo, pro recovery(is that fitting?))

Also harassment is bad in general (Anti-harassment, self explanatory)

The human brain is a pile of electric meat that we don't really understand shit about (Pro endo, pro good faith identities, shit like that y'know)

Glorifying abuse and shit is bad (NOT antiship OR proship, there's a shit ton of nuance here)

People hating children for no fucking reason is bad (I hate to break it to ya but turning 18 doesn't make someone automatically not annoying so uhhh yeah)

Trans people aren't inherently bad (Also I'm literally trans myself so)

\\ TW for shit under the cut: medical shit, mental health shit, drugs, suicide, etc //

\\ Shit I suffer from:

Depression (Dx, taking Zoloft for it)

Anxiety (Dx, not taking meds specifically for it but the previous probably covers this as well)

ADHD (Dx, used to take Adderall but the hyperactivity part fucking died so no more meds)

Autism (Dx, probably need a lobotomy /s)

Anhedonia (Symptom of depression, this shit is eating me alive because there's spurts of joy from shit but mostly I just feel numb all the time)

Something related to sleep maybe (Idk my circadian rhythm is fucked, I can sleep for 12 hours and still feel like I've been put through seven different steamrollers and the only thing keeping me from going right back to my pseudo coma is my eyes refusing to stay shut)

Walking and gait/posture shit (Literally the only way I could walk for like 9 years was through toe walking, and it got so fucking bad that when I tried to put my feet flat on the floor I'd start falling backwards, got surgery to lengthen my Achilles tendon, and now I have lower back pain, foot pain and my knees feel like they're locking up after a while even though I can still bend them, and there's probably more lol)

Chronic pain (Again, lower back and foot pain, pain in my limbs that feels like it's in the bone, headaches almost everyday and I know my reports say otherwise but it's still a daily thing I'm just stupid and forget to go the school nurse for my meds, also I chug liquid Tylenol like it's from the fountain of youth and I get finger joint paint and the bone and joint pain I try to relieve by cracking my joints but it either doesn't do shit or makes it worse)

Fatigue (Sleep issues already mentioned, my limbs sometimes feel tired and it's only the limbs, I'm in my bed like 90% of the time and idk how voluntary it is anymore)

\\ Family situation and friends:

Live with my 71 yr old grandma who's been my primary caretaker since shortly after I was born

Grandpa is alright (was a neglectful shithead towards his own kids though) but him and his current wife (Not my grandma) are transphobic but unknowingly affirm my name change because my grandma masked it as wanting to distance myself from my mom

Oldest uncle likely had bipolar 1 disorder (undiagnosed because neglectful dad and mental health stigma shit) who committed suicide on my mom's birthday/about a month after I was born

Currently living uncle is kinda anti-vax (he said that a coin stuck to his skin because COVID vax made him magnetic or something and if that were true people who work with screws would get a shit load of boosters) and not the best but there's absolutely worse so yeah

Mom likely has ASPD (also undiagnosed but idk my grandma reading the opening section of the Wikipedia article for ASPD and says it's literally her then I think that's pretty damn close but idk I'm dumb, also I don't hate people with ASPD I hate people who are garbage regardless of reason) and had (also likely still has) a drug addiction (heroin specifically). She found out she was pregnant because she got caught in a sting and purposefully swallowed 10 balloons of heroin and when they did an ultrasound to see if any were in her stomach/intestines/whatever there was a stupid dumb baby (me), and she did not stop doing heroin throughout the pregnancy. This led to me being born addicted to heroin and went through a withdrawal that notably consisted of a seizure minutes after being born, and when I was taken back to her room like right after being born and before the seizure she literally said "I don't want her*, give her* to mom." So uhhh yeah, also unsurprisingly she gave 0 shits about me and pawned off a Barbie airplane I got for Christmas 2017 for drug money (though being 7 fucking years old, I thought it was cigarette money because the place she was staying at had ash imbedded into the carpet)

My relationship with my cousin is weird, but the things of note are that he used to watch wrestling and would try to perform moves he saw on TV on me (he's 3 years older than me so he wasn't going to kill me or anything, but probably wasn't super pleasant), when I was 9 he was playing bitlife and wanted to act out the shit his character was doing and his character got someone pregnant and he wanted me to lie in his bed in front of him and I said no (he asked me a couple times and tried reassuring me that he wouldn't dry hump me but I was super uncomfy and at least he didn't actually force me to do it so that's good maybe), I'm pretty sure he either put a pillow on my ass and slapped the pillow repeatedly or he slapped my ass with the pillow repeatedly (either way I was laying on the floor), he flashed me at least once after he took a shower because he covered the trampoline in soap and asked me if I saw his dick and I refused to answer because I just wanted to play with his Mario chess set (did not use that shit for chess, I was a dumb kid rping with chess pieces lol), and he showed me his dick on the trampoline. I'm probably slandering him by only saying that kinda shit about him but idk we don't talk much anymore so yeah

No clue who my dad is and it's not the guy I got my last name from (if you know me irl you'd know that my grandma's last name and mine are different and it's not because she's married), I have a hunch though

Rex was the guy who I thought was my dad for a while, he was roped into drug addiction by my mom but he did infact give a shit about me (though he was better suited as the fun uncle than a dad but I'll take what I can get), he would take me with my mom to "the corner store" which was probably a dollar tree/general/family and but me mike and ikes and now n laters while my mom would buy cigarettes for both of them

Susan, Rex's mom, used to try and spoil me because she actually had money (I love being poor /s) and she bought me the Barbie airplane from earlier and an entire Barbie dream house but she let my mom (and maybe Rex idk) mooch off of her and she got evicted from her apartment (the one with the ruined carpet, that shit would stain my feet when I walked on it), so she moved in with her dad and had to offload her old cat Spazzy to us because cats weren't allowed there I think so that happened but before she got evicted she would let me stay up when I stayed the night at her house and I'd watch adult swim and robot chicken gave me nightmares I think and I wanna watch that one show that was probably written by someone with 10 bongs in their mouth (which probably doesn't narrow the list down at all)

My best friend I met at a preschool that was also a church and I literally just went up to them and asked "wanna be friends" and they said yes and their life has probably changed for the worse because of me so yeah, their brother has autism so they probably do too but their parents haven't gotten them tested soo but they used to take my shopkins beanie from me (it was playful, id run after them and I'd get it back) and so I did that with their pink beanie back for a while and there was this thing where they'd act like my robot and I could command them to do shit and they'd give me stupid error messages (god recalling this shit makes me miss being a stupid idiot child) and it was super fun I think and gay and then in 6th grade I had like no classes with them until I got the surgery then I had 2 including ela and then in 7th grade we had a couple of classes and this year we literally have 0 other than lunch and if I have a dollar for everytime the school I was going to had a different principal come in because the last one was upgrading their position in the school district in the last year that I was going there and made me have no classes with my friends id have 2 bucks and 5th grade sucked kinda because of that

Sailor (who I'm name dropping because istg if you don't use Tumblr by now then what are you doing with your life) was someone who I shared classes with for a little while, we went separate ways in like 3rd and 4th grade and then in 5th grade the school therapist mentioned them to me bjt they changed their name so I was confused and then she invited us to lunch in her room and there was this "YOURE TRANS TOO???" moment we both had and then we reconnected and then 6th grade was kinda a disaster but we still had each other then they got accepted into an alternative school so we lost contact in 7th grade and then we reconnected at pride this year and we played ponytown together for like 5 minutes (which lead to me finding a really cool lavender infection rp and I ended up adding the person who started it on discord) and we went to the gay youth center thing together this year as well and I've sent them stupid TF2 shit and I think they're a system now which is cool I think idk I'm a singlet lol

There's this other friend who I know I had history prior to 6th grade but we really only reconnected in 6th grade because we had a tech class together and during a 7th grade field trip to the zoo I got their phone number and also sent them stupid TF2 shit and I see them sometimes in the hallway because both of us use the elevator at school so uhh yeah also they're a little hard to understand but I'm also stupid so that might be why (I'm not trying to be a dick my brain just needs a minute to process what they say I'm sorry)

Yeah there's probably more but I'm lazy and need to go to sleep also can you tell that I got lazy here anyways uhh gay gay homosexual gay you stupid gay bitch /pos /lh