#i always try to compliment other gnc men now when i see them

[townofcrosshollow]

The interaction with another GNC man that sticks with me the most was with this guy who sometimes shops at the grocery store where I work, and often comes in wearing a pencil skirt, tights, and high heels. I don't think I had my nails painted and we wear a uniform, so at work nobody can really tell I'm GNC. I was the self checkout attendant that night, and he called me over to ask for a bag. While I was there I got up the courage to compliment his shoes. His response was a very earnest "Thank you for saying something."

It's hard to describe the amount of shared pain behind those words. It was not thank you for the compliment. It was thank you for identifying yourself, publicly, as like me. Thank you for telling me there's a person here who supports me. I'm alone, you're alone, but right now we're alone together.

[femboyhorror]

🌲 pines family headcanons ✨ click the read more for more in-depth headcanon stuff!

this started out as a little silly edit of ford, then i decided to do one for stan as well and once that happened i knew i had to do edits for the pines twins as well. i might end up doing others like soos, wendy and pacifica but for now we have the main four pines.

🌲 dipper has glasses but prefers not to wear them. he thinks they look nerdy but wears them more often with the support of mabel and his grunkles. 🌲 bisexual disaster. 🌲 dipper will always be a transboy in my head. struggled with gaining acceptance from his parents but knows he always has a place where he can be himself in gravity falls. 🌲 CW SELF HARM IMPLIED: his dysphoria and dissociation from his body ends up worse for a while after sock opera. for a while turns to… not so great methods to remind himself that his body is his own. 🌲 became clingy after weirdmageddon, either clinging to his sister and grunkles before going back to piedmont or just staying by mabel's side often after. 🌲 probably has pierced ears but would wear very subtle earrings, to mabel's displeasure.

🌠 big decora kei vibes. so many stickers and hair pins. she also will often wear mismatched socks! 🌠 is the one to suggest she and dipper get a matching hair streak. blue was the only color dipper would agree to. 🌠 mabel gives me big pansexual vibes. starts to discover her own identity around the time dipper does, and ends up dating candy and/or grenda for a hot minute. 🌠 wholly supported dipper when he came out as a transboy and was his biggest ally growing up. 🌠 after weirdmageddon she asks ford for drawing lessons. the two bond over arts and crafts. 🌠 CW MILD ED suffers from a sort of survivor's guilt after weirdmageddon, guilt over being tricked by bill and almost staying in mabeland manifesting mostly in the form of being a people pleaser, forgetting to eat and sleep. the other pines thankfully notice this and put a stop to it.

🎣 i love long haired stan. i like to imagine after the series the guy feels comfortable enough to grow his hair out again. 🎣 stretched earlobes! 🎣 is a transman and also gnc as hell. he also is insanely good at using makeup. (dipper and ford don't really use makeup and mabel just likes to be Silly with makeup.) 🎣 (tbh i can also imagine stanley as being transfeminine as well, they're just That Gender.) 🎣 as soon as mabel saw his "glorious mane" she was practically begging him to let her braid it. he pretends to just go along with it for her sake but he secretly loves having her do his hair. 🎣 the adhd to ford's autism. he definitely suffers hard from rejection sensitive dysphoria and tends to panic if it seems like someone is upset with him. (i.e. ford confronting him over the broken machine, mabel upset with him for lying in the land before swine.)

✋ his sweater is a huge comfort for him. in general he likes heavier clothes to ground him. ✋ i like to imagine him with plenty of earrings and tattoos. earrings mainly themed around space and stars and ends up getting some tattos on his wrists to cover the burn scars from weirdmageddon. ✋ a touch of the tism. has a hard time distinguishing tone. (i.e. not being able to tell if wendy was complimenting him ironically or not.) ✋ while he doesn't mind if people see him as a man, he himself doesn't feel all that attached to the idea of being male. fine with any pronouns but probably likes to use neopronouns. (maybe star/starself?) ✋ achillean, mainly attracted to enbies and men. tried to date a few girls growing up to try and be "normal" (comphet's a binch) but at around high school enough bad experiences made him avoid dating for a while. ✋ he loves loves loves space and astronomy! it's sort of his hyperfixation. used to name constellations with stanley while spending nights on the stan o war and they bond over this on the stan o war ii!

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hi! I was raised in church in a very traumatic environment where the gender binary defined how I was expected to behave and perform in pretty much every context. This summer, after a lot of therapy, I finally came to terms with the damage that this has done. I think I am still processing a lot of it? I told a couple close family members who asked if I was “trying to prove something,” which really hurt. Once I explained, they were supportive…but it was kind of a brutal process that involved a lot of me crying and a lot of them being weirded out. I tried labels, but none of them seemed to fit exactly. All I can say is, I’m a woman, but I’m a human first and I enjoy more masculine-coded AND more feminine-coded performance esp. thru clothing. My therapist and my GNC friends assure me that this is fine and I do not need labels, but it’s hard because sometimes I show up to church in my Tintin haircut and my baggy trousers and button-up and men’s loafers, and other days I show up in a super cute dress, and I always sit alone and see all these nuclear families and… I don’t know. I guess I don’t know if this is just me? I don’t identify as non-binary, but I think I could say I’m an “androgynous woman”? I’m just confused. And lonely. Any thoughts would be helpful because growing up there was no space for how I feel except to be a horrible unnatural sinner and now, as an adult, I’m not condemned, but there’s just this sort of…silence…?

Aw dear, I really feel for you as you go through these feelings of loneliness and people's lack of understanding.

Since you're asking whether all of this is "just you," I can tell you — it's definitely not just you! I relate to a lot of what you're talking about; and I can think of friends of mine + people whose stories I've heard who would also relate.

My childhood experience with church & faith weren't as flat-out traumatic and stifling as yours, from the sound of it, but there were messages I absorbed there that do still impact me today; that have taken me years to pull apart so that I could build something new and more life-giving. Even if you're in a better place now, the pain of your childhood church is real.

Same with the pain of your family members' first response — even if they're more supportive now, that pain lasts. When I remember how some of my family and friends responded to me first coming out to them as nonbinary, my gut still twists and my spirit aches. 

In all of this, I'm really glad you've got a therapist with whom you can process that trauma! I will offer the hopeful note that as time passes and good experiences build up, more healing comes — the good doesn't erase the bad, but it does tilt the balance in favor of the good. Pain won't be the last word; there is so much joy to come as you find more support, more community.

For me, every time my parents refer to me with the correct pronouns without any trouble, a little piece of my heart slots back into place. When I visit my new home church and am greeted by people of all genders and sexualities who love me and my wife dearly, my experience of the word “church” moves from being more about isolation and fear to being more about connection and love. 

For you, maybe an example of a moment like this will be a family member casually complimenting one of your more masculine outfits; or glimpsing another gender nonconforming person in the pews.

I wonder, are there any ways you can cultivate moments of healing in your life? For instance, you might pray about exploring some LGBT-affirming churches, places where you won’t be surrounded solely by “nuclear” families but families and connections of all kinds, and other gender nonconforming people like you — not to replace your current church, necessarily, but to supplement it. You could attend one church one week, another the next, etc. (Here’s a post where I discuss how to find an affirming church.)

_______

Not to talk too much about myself lol, but I do want to share one specific experience I had a couple years back. I was back in my hometown, and decided to visit my home church, because there’s so much I loved about it once, and because it’s Catholic and I miss a lot about Catholic mass. 

When I was there, and settled somewhere in the back of the very crowded church, I looked around and couldn’t recognize any kin among the other churchgoers. Among those very gender conforming people, those families of one man, one woman, and some kids with boys in pants and girls in dresses, I felt Alone. I felt like i stuck out like a sore thumb, too; it was hard to convince myself that no, it’s not true that “everybody’s staring at you.” It was so hard to let go of the feeling that I was being judged — even though no one said a thing to me or even did more than glance my way.

And when the purpose of worship in church is to worship God in community, that sense of isolation is quite an obstacle!!

One thing that helped me get through that Mass (and other services like it over the years since I started dressing in “GNC” ways) was imagining that some of the people around me might be Like Me — but still closeted, either still unaware of their difference or else hyper-aware of it but not ready to live it out openly yet. 

Maybe the child pouting in the pew in front of me had to be wrestled into their pretty dress that morning, demanding to know why they couldn’t wear pants like their brother. Maybe they’ll see me and realize, oh! i’m not the only one! and when i’m older, i will be free to dress myself, to be myself!

Maybe a middle schooler, or even someone decades older than me, will see me and be — amazed — or encouraged — or emboldened — because here is someone living into non-conformity in a way they can’t, or aren’t ready to do!

Maybe a homophobic family member — a parent, a sibling, an aunt — of someone who has come out will see my genderqueer self approach the alter, hands folded with palms outward to receive the Body of Christ. Maybe they’ll see the priest place that host in my palm, not denying me because of how I look; maybe they’ll see me place it reverently on my tongue — and they’ll see that I do not drop dead, struck down by God for my impudence — and maybe...maybe...maybe their heart will open just a crack to the idea that one can be queer/LGBT/gnc and a person of faith, beloved by God.

When I can imagine myself as an agent of God’s good news as I sit there scared and alone among all those “normal” people, I feel courageous enough to stay, to worship, to receive God. ...I have no clue if imagining that will help you, or if that’s just me, but yeah. When i feel i stick out like a sore thumb in church, i try to transform my fear of that into part of how i might live out God’s love.

___

Another thing about my visit to my childhood church: when the feelings overwhelmed me; when I just couldn’t connect to the other people in the pews, so that I felt like i was worshipping all alone instead of jointly with them — i did eventually leave the pew, to go sit with my Mother Mary. 

The church has a statue of her, of Maria Della Strada, or Mary of the Wayside, in one corner, with votive candles you can light and a kneeler so you can pray before her. I sat on the kneeler in that quiet little corner and asked her to join me in worship, so that I was worshipping God in community even when I didn’t feel like part of the community of the other people physically there. 

I wrote a poem about that experience (and took a couple photos haha) that you can see here. 

___

Well. This got long, and I don’t even know if any of it will even help you at all! But if nothing else, know that you aren’t alone in what you’re feeling; that who you are and how you like to express yourself is not only valid but even holy — a beautiful example of the diversity in God’s image, of how Jesus calls us not to be “conformed to the world” and all its norms, “but transformed” (Romans 12:2). 

If anyone else has advice, or encouragement, or solidarity for anon, please do share! 

[that-stone-butch]

Hi can I ask for some general advice? I’m femme and single and every day that I don’t have a lovely butch in a leather jacket smooching me is another day wasted. I just want a older butch to call me sweetheart, change my oil, and roll us a joint while I make them dinner while wearing a pretty dress so when I bend over they can see I’m not wearing anything underneath! Is that so much to ask!! Where are they?? How do I flirt with butches when my friend turns into Silly Putty around hot women?

Or, more specially, how would YOU like a femme to approach you/ask you out/express interest? Granted, most of it is online at the beginning, cause there aren’t very many if any queer spaces in my area that are open, and even then they were 97% gay men anyway. I’m very much a bottom and a sub so being the one to break the ice and get the ball rolling is very strange and difficult for me, but I also know that a lot of butches can be shy at first so I gotta Just Do It. Help me Jasper, you’re my only hope….. to get laid.

I'M your only hope? oh NO! i'll do my best! obviously i'm not every butch but i'll do my best to bring my perspective into this. i've never participated in hookups and casual sex, all of my flirting experiences have been geared towards building a relationship. but for the most part, i'd wager the 'showing someone you're interested' credits transfer. on that note, if anyone has input on more casual experiences, i genuinely invite them to add on to this post.

okay so it seems like we should separate the advice into online flirting, and irl flirting. let's start with online.

it's always better to make a good first impression rather than come on too strong, in my experience. start with a compliment, keep it light and respectful. in general, i find that the best compliments are things that someone *chose*. as someone who gets constant online 'compliments' (spoiler alert it's actually catcalling), i'm NEVER flattered when someone opens with talking about my body. 'your jawline is incredible' isn't the ice breaker it sounds like; maybe i'm self-conscious about my jawline! you don't know, you're literally introducing yourself with this. like so many people compare me to men and male actors, and they think i'm going to take it as a compliment? the very POINT of opening with a compliment is that you DON'T know what people do and don't like about themselves. maybe you like tall girls, but just because you do doesn't mean the person you're interested in is proud of the fact they're tall. ESPECIALLY in trans and gnc spaces, you just don't know what relationship strangers are going to have with their own bodies, and opening with that is just going to display a level of entitlement that is a bit of a turn-off, personally. so compliment people on things they chose, like their attire or aesthetic or tastes. it's really flattering to hear someone say 'hey, i also like that thing you *chose* to make part of your whole deal.' from there it might be the case that someone likes and enjoys hearing compliments about things they didn't necessarily choose, but you really should test the waters first.

additionally, compliments like this break the ice because it's also a thing you would say to a friend? it's my experience that good relationships always grow from good friendships. even if your conversations don't end up in a relationship, or casual sex or whatever, you can still end up with a friend which is a great thing (butch/femme friendships are something we don't talk about a whole lot as a community, because we focus a LOT on sex, but they're life-changing like my femme friends make my fucking day). it can be difficult online to make your intentions known; you don't have the subtext, body language, all the things that help you further communicate your intentions in person. that's why, online, it's good to make your intentions known after you've built up a good rapport with someone. strike up conversation, find things in common, and after a little bit it's perfectly respectful and okay to tell someone you're interested in them. however, and i cannot stress this enough, do NOT be vague about your intentions online. at least in my case, it's very easy to misinterpret people over text. (who am i kidding, tumblr is the internet capital of people misinterpreting each other). be plain about your intentions. from there you might talk logistics, trade phone numbers (use encryption! use signal!), agree to focus on building a friendship together, part ways, etc. get to know people, ask them questions about themselves, show them you're engaged and interested.

i want to take a second here, especially for younger people reading this, just because someone is gay and/or you're into them doesn't mean you should be unsafe with your information. play it close to the chest, if you're going to meet up meet up in a neutral location. DON'T meet people from the internet in your home, or theirs. exchanging addresses is something to do well after you know you're in a safe situation. ALWAYS be ready to bail. be safe.

as for in-person, i'm sorry to say but in my experience you ARE likely going to have to make the first move. for a lot of butches (and femmes) being out and about is kind of a gender battleground. the LAST thing i want to do is make someone uncomfortable, especially as a masc woman. a misread signal can be dangerous. additionally, i want to say you should NEVER hit on someone who can't leave the situation. never hit on someone just doing their job (unless they're stating very clear intentions toward you from their position. it's sometimes okay to flirt *back* with people on the clock, but still give them space to back off) because you're putting them in a VERY uncomfortable situation.

in-person flirting for wlw is kind of fraught with some difficulty in that you need to signal that you're gay. for me, as a butch, if someone hits on me and they don't signal very hard that they're gay, i'm left wondering if they even knew i was a woman. i've had straight girls hit on me, it's the weirdest fucking thing. now, i'm not equating femme presentation with looking plausibly straight or whatever femmephobic brainrot is floating around out there, femmes ARE gnc and do so in a unique and beautiful way. but being wlw, especially what feels often like a 'gender outlaw,' you're often plagued with self-doubt. sometimes it's easier to believe you're misreading someone as gay and they were just being friendly (or just being friendly AND are gay, as i said earlier that happens and that's a GOOD thing).

i find, in person, it's a good idea to open with a compliment that specifically recognizes someone's butch presentation. if someone says 'i love your hair, by the way' i'm IMMEDIATELY in blush mode. it feels so good to be recognized when i'm out and about, when so many people just decide i'm a man to validate their own worldview, or think they have to compensate for my presentation, assure me no i'm pretty i look very feminine, to validate me as a woman. meeting someone in-person, that you're interested in, it's validating and refreshing to just be seen and shown that someone's interested in the way i'm putting a lot of effort into presenting.

that said, never push people. if you see someone at a coffee shop, campus diner, bookstore, etc. that you're interested in, as with online it's a good idea to aim to leave a good impression. chances are, you might see that person again. i'd rather have someone see me, flirt a little, and then approach me *again* the next time they see me, then go all-in intense the first time. obviously it's smart to play it by ear but if you feel like you're coming on too strong, it's a good idea to back up a little. but that's just me.

above all, remember to have fun with it! flirting is fun, and if you're trying to tactically align your flirting with someone too hard toward a relationship, it kind of loses a little something? i find it's usually a good idea to approach people with the genuine intention of making a connection, and seeing where that takes the two of you, rather than trying to *get* someone to reciprocate. keep it fun! keep it light!

i hope that helps! i'm sorry i don't have more experience, if anyone has something to add, they're welcome to!

[when-dust-is-gone-blog]

Guys i want to cry I'm so fucking overwhelmed in a good, happy way!! I have been a whirlwind of emotions and questions and realisations and I feel like I'm really starting to figure things out and become myself and it all started from a video i saw on facebook about nonbinary genders and i decided to track down the maker of this video to try and find more content and instantly just fell in love and related to this person and their journey so much and it made me question everything i knew about myself. and this person has since reached out to me and offered to chat with me about my gender stuff and it's like YOU ARE MY IDOL YOU ARE THE REASON I'M EVEN THINKING ABOUT THIS I OWE YOU MY LIFE AND NOW YOU WANT TO HELP ME EVEN MORE??? So I'm just so blessed and i believe i have been sent an angel from queer heaven to take me on this journey.

Anyway while im out here having a million realisations a day I figure maybe i should start tracking and recording my thoughts and feelings and "aha!" moments. So here are some things:

- it turns out my lifelong attraction to and fascination with gnc people, particularly androgynous and masc presenting gnc (david bowie, la roux, gay and trans men) is not a sexual preference but my soul crying out to be like them. ofc im drawn to and attracted to them duh that's so obvious now. I spent so long a) wondering if there was something wrong with me preferences and then b) wondering if i was like...fetishising trans and gnc people but no actually in the same way i spent ages being drawn to and interested in gay culture as an "ally" turns out i was just responding to the call of my people

- one of my main worries in all this was my experience of dysphoria and how it doesn't match the traditional narrative ive known theough popular content and trans/nb friends. i have never hated nor wanted to reject my femininity, my womanhood, or my female body. but i had never let myself explore any other option or way of presenting. I fantasised about it a lot, and often would dream of or about of being a man. and it never even occurred to me to try dressing masc or binding and im wondering now how much of my love for "girly" stuff was actually just patriarchy instilling it into me. like yea i still like makeup and dresses and look great in them but god it felt so fucking good to just wear a button up and binder and thick eyebrows today!! I got so many compliments! I couldn't stop taking selfies! I kept stopping to stare at myself in reflective surfaces!! I dont remember EVER feeling that way about myself

- i spent a lot of my early teens wondering if i was ace because i had no desire to explore my own sexuality, and obvs part of that was being GAY AF but also I never really explored my body and i wasn't comfortable doing so. nowadays i am and i dont feel dysphoric in that respect but in terms of letting OTHERS touch my body that's a whole other story and i always put it down to just regular old anxiety or body insecurity but i realise now it was dysphoria and i didn't even know it, i just knew SOMETHING felt wrong.

- i actually have a very distinct memory of beinh like really really young, maybe 4 or 5, and wanting to pee standing up and thinking that because i was pretty good at it that made me a boy, i also very distinctly remember finding my clit and not knowing what it was and thinking it either was or was going to grow into a penis - and i was cool with that.

- ive always related very strongly to trans and nb issues and i always just put it down to being humanitarian and having good queer influences growing up and then later being part of the queer community but im rly starting to see why i related so strongly

- i also rly distinctly remember my mum calling me into the lounge when i was like 12 because there was a 60minutes special avout trans kids and even though i never related it to myself at the time i was SO CAPTIVATED and it really stuck with me

- in the same way I ID'd as bisexual for a long time due to comphet, I'm wondering how much of my identity as a woman has been forced upon me. The further i let myself fall into trans and nb stuff the further i feel from womanhood and i thought i would be sad about it but it's almost a relief?? Like i was pretending without even knowing i was.