#i also hate feeling like i have to present femme when im dysphoric to get treated with basic fucking respect

[bunnyboy-juice]

NO MORE ASSOCIATING THINGS WITH FEMMES ONLY BECAUSE THEY ARE PINK!HYPERFEM FEMMES ARE GREAT AND I LOVE YOU CAMPY FEMMES WHO EMBODY PINK BUT ALSO JESUS CHRIST CAN YOU GUYS NOT GO MORE THAN ONE DAY W/O TRYING TO SHOEHORN FEMMES INTO BEING ONLY PINK UWU BABIES. I AM FEMME AS IN GRASS AS IN DIRT AS IN TREE BARK AS IN WEEDS SPROUTING THROUGH THE SIDEWALK CEMENT. FEMME AS IN GENDER NONCONFORMITY AS IN FUCK YOU MY FEMININITY IS WHAT *I* SAY IT IS. FEMME AS IN DEPTH AND DARKNESS AND WARMTH AND TERROR. FEMME AS IN CAVES. FEMME AS IN LIGHTNING. FEMME AS IN AN AMALGAMATION OF TRAITS THAT I HAVE DECIDED ARE FEMININE REGARDLESS OF WHAT SOCIETY SAYS. FUCK IS IT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!???

[trinidaddy88]

Weird how I felt more secure in presenting as masc when I was skinny. Now I feel silly and I think it's because what society accepts as truly queer and masc are pale people and skinny people. People doubt I'm fucking trans and queer as a dark skinned, fat black person.

Also people who catch on def treat me with a lot less respect than when I was skinny. It's like kinda disheartening how obvious people look down on you for things you are actually okay with being, which for me is being black and fat. Lol idk. This post isn't supposed to be deep. Just venting

[honeyviscera]

i would like to hear the rant !!

ALRIGHT so. last summer im working for a summer camp, and in the training phase us staff members are all trying to get to know each other yknow and the higher-ups leading the training seminars and stuff are asking for us to go around and share names and pronouns. and see at the beginning of the summer i was like. trying to figure out what exactly is going on with my gender like. i know something's a bit off but im not sure how i want to express that, and like im also not super ready to share that with everyone.

and just in general, im not super loud about my queerness, and it's taken me a while to become even somewhat comfortable being out as queer irl. but anyways back to the story.

so at this point im like, to myself well, im still okay with she/her, and im not super ready to add they/them or anything like that, so i'll just say im ocean, she/her. (using ocean here in place of my real name, you get it.) anyways we were asked this in the morning, and i was fine saying it then. but then every time a new presenter for a new section of the training would come in, all of us would have to go around and introduce ourselves to them again. hi, im ocean, she/her. now im becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this, because i present pretty femme, i have a high voice, tits, all that, so i just know that the box im being put in by everyone when i, afab, say my pronouns are she/her, is "cis". i am being read as cis. and i have to repeat myself maybe five times in one day. but it gets worse.

now all of this comes to a head when the whole entire staff comes into our training area and. you know the icebreaker game that's like. everyone stands in a circle and says their name and what they're bringing to our imaginary "picnic" and the next person has to say everyone before and add their own? ie:

person 1: im sally and im bringing apples! person 2: that's sally and she's bringing apples, and im joe and im bringing bread. person 3: sally brings apples, joe brings bread, and i'm lily and im bringing pie 4: sally apples joe bread lily pie and im wally and im bringing juice

and so on all around the circle. the goal of this game is to get to know everyone's names. now we were going to do this, but somebody spoke up and suggested that instead of picnic offerings, we say our pronouns.

oh.

my.

god.

so i had to listen to everyone during that game (which we played TWICE bc the group was so large so we had to split into 2 groups and then switch) look me in the eyes and say ocean, she/her. over and over again. ocean. she/her. ocean. she/her. ocean. she/her. and i had to say ocean, she/her. so. many. times. that is definitely the most times i have ever had to say my pronouns in a single day ever.

see, i usually never experience dysphoria. im very comfortable with how i look, sound, dress, act, and present. like i am very comfortable with myself. dysphoria is not a thing i normally experience. but that day for the first time, having to say my pronouns over. and over. and over again i just. i felt so so viscerally wrong. i knew everyone was reading me as cis and i didn't want that.

and it didn't stop there bc the staff had a discord server to communicate over the summer about work related stuff, and the requirement was for you to put your server nickname as [name] [set of pronouns]. a month into looking at my name with she/her attached to it i got so fucking fed up that i changed it to she/they on impulse and that's how my summer job basically forced me to out myself before i was super ready.

dear fucking god. i know that sharing your pronouns is supposed to make spaces more welcoming, but all that this fucking did was make me feel violated and dysphoric, for the first time in my fucking life. i hate that i was required to share my pronouns and there were so many better ways to go about this. one of my coworkers and i were talking about this later in the summer (they also use she/they publicly) and she agreed with me that the "pronoun game" was horrible and that she was going to make a complaint about it bc it was so unnecessary.

AUGH.

[memelzebub]

[waddles by] pardon me vent post coming through...

formality and the ability to fake maturity don't mean shit when it comes to treating people you consider friends with respect and kindess 😑 if you don't want to cradle your ego tight while shedding tears and repeating to yourself (AND THE PEOPLE YOU HURT???) that you're a good person to get through the days, just try being nice?? I promise it feels really good to be nice to people and make them smile, and it feels really good to not force yourself to be around people you "project your insecurities" onto. 😑😑😑 oh but i guess it WOULD hurt you since you knee jerkingly say such hurtful things. I saw you were thrown for a loop when I unironically told you I already knew I was stupid when you just took a joke I made about myself and crushed the insecurity under your foot by saying "that's called being stupid" you better be getting your fucking mean habits in check, and I KNOW being around that entire family that is just so inconsiderate, imbalanced and downright emotionally abusive to eachother isnt gonna make that easy!!

I remember you telling Sam she'd be an ugly girl. Fuck you. I remember someone else never saw me and Sam as the genders we identified as! And she STILL DOES, I KNOW she still does! and you're staying friends with her despite being part of the LGBT club and all this other stuff like why did you even bring her back into this when we were leaving you because this is a whole other issue????? She doesnt believe in lesbians. SHE DOESNT BELIEVE LESBIANS EXIST SHE THINKS LESBIANS ARE DELUSIONAL AND DOESNT BELIEVE NONBINARY IS AN ACTUAL GENDER IDENTITY AND YOU THINK ITS OKAY TO LET US KNOW YOURE STAYING FRIENDS WITH HER WHEN YOURE TELLING US YOURE NOT TRANSPHOBIC ANYMORE IN THIS STUPID ASS GOOGLE DOC ABOUT HOW MUCH BETTER A PERSON YOU ARE?? Remember when you said you were trying to "protect me" from her and all this shit about how she made homophobic jokes about dating me?? What the hell is wrong with you?????? You are not respectful to Sam and I!!! You treated me like I was this emotional soft boy and you treated Sam like she was this gross person who was "too fat" for you and you were ashamed of dating like why didn't you tell me you and her were dating in the beginning?? Why did I have to find out through context clues that you two were dating?? Why was Sam the only person I ever saw initiate pda with you?? Why did Sam tell me about this time you two were at the store and you made a scene that "made people think you were abusing her" MAYBE ITS BECAUSE YOU WERE ABUSING HER!!!!!!!

And why? Why did I ever think you were better than that? You "accepted" me, but not Sam! My fucking sister.

And why did you have to take my own emotional blockages and shortcomings so personally? You never truly understood or cared for what I was going through, huh? That's fine, not everyone is going to, and I know you have it rough, too. I lost nights of sleep worried about you and I wanted to be there for you so bad when shit hit the fan before. But I thought that, before shit started getting weird, that we were super close and I could trust you and you'd understand me. But you took the emotional distance I developed when highschool hit way too personally. And you never understood Sam who is my sister and just someone that I highly relate to emotionally and mentally. And now I have to undo that emotional distance somehow without sabotaging myself over these self villifying messages I told myself that I somehow happened to read word for word in these dms you had with someone else that you chose to snapshot and put in the stupid fucking google doc you shared with Sam and I!!!

You should know better than to tell someone to their face that they're like their parents. And you do know better which is the worst part, you just think you can do it anyway for whatever sick reason hiding under all that woke and inclusive language you picked up on over time. And you think it doesn't count because it's in a snapshot from a dm from a few years ago, well you snapshotting it and posting it for me to read in the present is essentially renewing the statement you fucking jerk. And I know I rubbed that other person "the wrong way." She really hated it when I criticized Bayonetta's oversexualized design one time, I'm certain I did other things that made her uncomfortable like be afab and be more interested in women and femme presenting people and also not shill idiotic white cis men that hide behind large words because theyre so obsessed with being right and sounding intelligent like she does. And it probably rubbed her the wrong way pretty hard when I dropped her for making me feel like she saw me as a delusional, brainless lesbian who only thinks they're a lesbian and will realise they like men just like She does in time. She made me feel like that when I was around her when I'm literally gnc nonbinary and pansexual. Like, I was guilty at first but it was because I couldn't accept I'd dropped her for a reason all my own, and it was always because she made me feel more and more dysphoric and unintelligent the more i interacted with her. Just like you did.

Ugh. Im so fucking mad and ashamed of myself.