#i made this to show that i've been showing signs of being trans since i was two

[theabigailthorn]

Hey I’ve been a fan for a little while now, and I just wanted to say that you’ve been an inspiration for me, a younger transfemme. But I do wanna also ask: what’s it like being a trans woman with her life together? I’m 19 (as of sending), been on hrt for almost 5 months, and have been trans for a year and change. But I’m scared. So, I guess, I wanted to ask: does being trans ever become the norm, my baseline? What’s it like after 2-3 years? And does it get any less confusing or scary?

I think there are a few things going on here.

I don't have my life together as much as it might seem; I just don't show you all the ways it's not. I don't talk publicly about the auditions I don't get, or the things I try and fail at, or the insecurities in my own head that hold me back sometimes, or the handful of decisions I've made that were bad calls and which still keep me up occasionally. I've talked about trauma and mental illness in the past, but I only ever discuss stuff I'm comfortably over - when I'm overwhelmed or in the middle of a crisis I don't post about it. I don't set out to deceive you by presenting myself that way, I just keep my most private stuff private. Everybody has failures and regrets and insecurities: "it's a sign of having lived," as my friend Phoebe told me today. But you see a curated version of me that appears not only more together than the real person, but more together than any real person.

Also, if you're 19 a lot of your life hasn't been in your control until pretty recently and a lot of it still might not be. I'd say it's okay to not feel like you have it all together. You just transitioned, which I think is one of the hardest things a human being can do: you can give yourself credit for that even if you feel like you're not settled into it yet. Congratulations!

As for it becoming the baseline, I mean yeah? Kinda? At least for me. Sometimes I forget. I had a moment today in the gym where I saw a man and I was like "Oh yeah, I used to be one of them, sortof? Weird!" The first year is the hardest, or so they say. I wouldn't say I get less confused or scared now, just scared and confused in different ways. I worry less about getting attacked in the street than I did in my first year, for example. (I'm lucky and privileged in that regard.) But I worry a lot more about other people. I struggle a lot with survivor's guilt, which is something only people who survive get! Anyone who's had a drink with me in the last six months has heard me beat myself up because the night of The Prince premiere in New York was the night of Brianna Taylor's vigil in the UK. That wasn't a deliberate decision - the premiere was booked and paid for months before she was even killed - but I've become a lot more sensitive to those sorts of feelings precisely because I spend less time worrying about myself. I'm more aware now of what my transness means for other people. Like, I made an ironic joke when I came out that I'd become The Transgender Princess of TERF Island, and it's kindof haunted me since - I didn't set out to become "a famous trans person" but it's happened a little bit and it's going to happen a lot more next year. That comes with serious responsibilities and a few mild drawbacks, as well as perks, obviously. So I guess that's a longwinded way of saying I might be a weird person to ask this question because, at least for right now, my transness, my whole self, doesn't just belong to me.

Oh also, some great advice I got from my friends: Paris: "Only change the things that bother you on your good days," and Mattie: "Don't believe anything you think about your life after 9pm."

[genderqueerdykes]

How to deal w a longtime friend that at some point became a radfem? I was bad at recognising it back then when there were clear signs and didnt know how to argue, so i stayed passive and argeeable, esp since im a nonbinary guy n shes a (sorta questioning) cis girl.

When i showed discomfort with her doing the "i hate all men" type stuff she's said "omg you're not one of those 'not all men' types" and bc i didnt know at the time i backed off, n she also mentioned how she sees/treats both trans men n cis men the same

I mean ive always felt like she's treated me that way, or that i felt like i needed to stay silent or had more priviledge when around her, despite being pre-everything and pr much closeted in my everyday life, or felt more like i was a binary man around her when im not

She has also been sorta weirdly sex/kink negative or made fun of it, for some time i figured that it was just a bit bc of her being sex repulsed n her being immature, but i still felt sorta more ashamed regarding my kinkiness/sexuality around her when not (were both on the aroace spectrum, though i figured out more recently)

Also parroting radfem rhetoric about "well the sex industry is harmful" (..every capitalistic industry is harmful) and when mentioning kinks/fetishes for some reason often brought up "but what about those kinks where people get off to women starving themselves/having problems w their weight" which is like?? Yea okay if they are doing that to real people thats bad but like what kink/fetish spaces do you hang out in where that would be the first thing you'd bring up??

I also once remember her mentioning that she felt weird about her own connection to masculinity, which i sussed and esp now sus might be due to her being this man-hating

She's told me "you don't have an issue w the 'man vs bear' thing since you're a guy right?" but i didnt feel like arguing at that time so i just agreed and quickly moved onto another subject

Looking back at older texts, she's also said before that im "one of the few men she actually respects"

I've realised how harmful and bull radfem rhetoric is now, n i want to keep a distance from her, but idk how to deal w it bc ive always been the more agreeable and peace-keeping one between us

i'm so sorry you had to go through this. radfems are possessive of the identities of everyone around them to the point of coming up with the most asinine bullshit to make other people feel insecure and question themselves and just go along with whatever the hell they're saying. it's toxic and abusive.

whenever i talk about transmasculine and trans male issues, i get those "oh you're one of those not all men types" as well. it's such a useless thing to say. like if the thing you're opposing is people making blanket statements about women and being treated like a monolith, why are you doing it to someone else? that's the example you're setting, but yet you expect different treatment? double standard.

the sex & kink negativity in radfeminism is exhausting, too. it's not progressive. a lot of people choose to go into sex work and enjoy it. some don't mind it. some are okay with that being their job. a lot of people are exploited, but not everyone is. like you said, it's the capitalist corruption of these industry that causes problems. like you said, people instantly jump to the worst possible conclusion when the subject of kink comes up

the normal song and dance is "men who are into BDSM are only straight guys who are misogynistic and want to beat women. women who are into BDSM are scared and confused and being taken advantage of and are enabling abusive men." they have very few arguments and they're all so far out of left field that it's not relevant to the type of conversation you're having in that moment. making blanket statements about all kinky people being abusive in some way... that's profiling.

at this point its your choice if you continue to interact with her. if you do, you are allowed to stand your ground and tell her that those kinds of things make you very uncomfortable and that it's just not okay. if she can't handle that, then it's not your job to try to change her mind. if she cares about you, she'll treat you with respect. i hope that's the case, but you don't owe time or energy to people who treat you like garbage. good luck, stay safe

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

🧃🧃

TLDR: am I the asshole for not bringing a gift to a Christmas party for a baby that doesn't know me?

Context:

This was my in-laws Christmas party. This was the second year I was invited. There were over 30 people at their house, including multiple babies and young children. A majority of the adults didn't bring gifts for each other, and my mil provided most of the gifts for white elephant. My partner ALSO didn't get a gift for their niece, they just sign off on whatever their mom picks out. Outside of white elephant, neither I or my partner received any gifts (not a complaint, I'm Jewish and they got their gift later). Christmas is the normal awkward affair. Then two weeks later, my partner's mom announced at the breakfast table (this is second hand info) that she no longer likes me because I didn't bring a gift for my partner's niece. Unprompted, and she'd had plenty of chances to take the shot to my face, but she just whips this out two weeks after. I've also spoken to her and been in her house since she said this and she hasn't brought it up to me AT ALL. I did bring desserts for the post-dinner buffet also. More facts:

1) My SIL is extremely combative and doesn't like me much, if I'd pissed her off she'd have said so in front of gd, the guests, and everyone right there on Christmas

2) This might be related to my mil being embarrassed that I'd told my partner about an inappropriate joke she made at my expense during dinner. She's extremely conflict avoidant and could be letting off steam over that, or any other number of holiday related events

3) During the breakfast conversation she also directly asked my partner if I was trans and for the sake of keeping the peace they lied (I've given them permission to do this)

4) Most importantly, yes I do see this baby semi-regularly because I have a responsibility to show up to family events sometimes. But also this baby doesn't know my name and couldn't pick me out of a lineup. She's also kinda spoiled (her parents have some issues) and gets mountains of gifts for every holiday, including Christmas, and is one of those kids that has to blow out the birthday candles at other people's birthdays or she gets upset.

5) My partner's nibling is 2 years old.

6) Other adults did bring her gifts, but not every adult at the party brought a gift for every kid

My partner and I are kind of baffled, mostly because she waited so long when she had ample opportunity to bring it up. They think she was just having a bad day and saying mean shit to blow off steam because that's what she does. I, on the other hand, have actually taken this really personally. I did a drastic haircut and have kind of written off having a relationship with her. I called my mom and she said it's iffy on whether or not I'm the asshole here, but that she doesn't personally expect people in their mid-twenties to be giving out gifts to other people's kids unless they're really close. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[mxjackparker]

Online roleplayers are very often trans. Here are some transmasculine perspectives on online roleplay and how it can be useful for gender exploration!

I played a lot of male characters when I was younger since I couldn't be seen that way in real life. Now I mostly play male characters, but I'm more comfortable playing characters of any gender since I'm very socially male now. Playing a female character no longer feels like a stab to the gut.

"I nearly always RPed as guys -- at first because the fandom I first RPed in was mostly male characters, but even afterwards when I would RP with OCs they'd usually be men. Now that I've realized I'm NB and transmasc, I think I might have been exploring gender back then (especially since this was combined with me identifying more with male characters ever since I was a kid)."

I roleplayed as Gilgamesh, the Master, and other male characters before I came to terms with being a trans man, also roleplaying helped me be more okay with being gay or exploring gay scenarios before I could picture myself as a man.

"By being able to play men I was able to explore the idea of being something other than a girl for a bit before I realized I wasn't a girl at all. After that, it was often one of the only places I could act like I was anything but a girl. It's also allowed me to explore transmasculine identities, desire surrounding them, and general queer desire in ways I often could not express in my day to day life due to being mostly-closeted."

"Before I knew for certain that I was trans, I used to roleplay as men to "test the waters" as it were. I only roleplayed one woman and it made me uncomfortable so this didn't last long."

I often use roleplay to act out my male based fantasies in order to cope with my dysphoria, specifically my genital dysphoria. I learned that I could only feel satisfied sexually by fantasizing about two men, then learned that was because I AM a man. Funny.

A lot of the transmasculine people I spoke to were very worried about being labelled a fetishizer of gay men. They often carried guilt with them about their roleplaying habits, feeling as though it was wrong to portray themselves as boys or men online without disclosing their assigned sex.

Once they lost this shame about the practice, transmasculine people were much more comfortable and found roleplay to be a fulfilling way to be viewed as a man without question.

"I used to feel so guilty that I was “tricking people” for so long as I used a male persona online, but I realised this was my transness showing at an early age!"

"Roleplaying was a freeing experience for me as a closeted trans man because I was able to express my desire to be a man without facing any social consequences."

To hear from a range of roleplayers of all genders about their experiences in roleplay, highlighting trans experiences in general, get updates on the book here or sign up to get notified when OOC: Exploring Online Fandom Roleplay goes live for pre-orders!

[desperatelyseekingcannibals]

Hannibal? Meeting Mads at RDC6

Following on from meeting Hugh in Boston and gifting him a copy of Adapt. Evolve. Become: The Genderqueer Fandom of NBC's Hannibal, I wanted to gift a copy to Mads.

No disrespect to Mads, but I wasn't expecting (and didn't get) the same sort of interaction I had with Hugh. I've met Mads at many cons before, including one in 2018 right before I had top surgery where I had a lovely chat with him about queer and trans Fannibals.

But I've noticed over the years, including from accounts of other Fannibals too, that he's become much more guarded in his conversations. Which is fair, his star has been forever on the rise and he's been working for bigger studios and properties. But as a trans person, I am always very cautious when people become much less vocal about something they previously seemed to support - though I do acknowledge that some people just don't want to get dragged into what they see as a volatile issue. And I knew, given how much more stoic he's become, and the time limitations of signings at cons, that this would be the case regardless of his personal point of view.

Also (and I've mentioned this before in posts about his answers on con panels), Mads has a habit of just saying what he thinks people want to hear, and what will get the biggest reaction - he's a master at fanservice. Which even includes repeating the same stories (Fragile Little Teacup for example). Which again, is not a criticism, but an observation and another reason why I was pretty nervous about meeting him again. And that was BEFORE a couple of different Fannibals approached me with concerns that some of the things he'd said at RDC6 hinted that he might be making a movie that may include a trans character in an unflattering way. (I'm still on the fence about whether that was his meaning, but I'm glad I'm already pretty emotionally divorced from him since he did FB).

ANYWAY! I had talked with the fantastic wholeanddeadly before the event and we agreed on getting his brilliant "F**k transphobia Grindelwald" art print signed in order to auction it for trans charity (in fact we ended up getting two!). As we knew in advance we would be doing this, I wanted to let Mads know, because I don't feel right auctioning something without someone's knowledge if we had already made that plan.

So, this is what happened:

I was maybe third of forth in the queue (which was huge), so this was going to be a whistle stop and I'd thought carefully how to frame it and use my words wisely. So I walked up and he said "Hello, Sir!"

Which, thanks! (always love getting correctly gendered!)

I asked "May I give you a gift", and he said "Yes, of course!"

Whilst I was getting the book out of my back I told him that I met him in 2018 right before I had gender affirming surgery and he was very kind to me. His response was along the lines of "Oh yeah?"

I continued to tell him that since then, I have been involved a lot with of the trans and non-binary Fannibals and we made this book because of what the show means to us. He took it and flicked through and stopped at some of the art and admired it. He asked if it was just about Hannibal, and I said yes because I totally blanked in the moment, so the HEU stuff will be a nice surprise for him, lol.

Then the art print got passed over by his helper and I said I didn't want him to personalise the photo as I wanted to auction it to a charity that supports trans youth if he's OK with that. And he replied "you can do anything you like with it, man." I said thanks, and we were all done.

Whilst on the surface this was all good, I was definitely struck by the difference between this and times I'd met him before (especially in 2018). And perhaps it was just down to him being more guarded, but it felt very... standoffish. Which is fine, it is what it is.

The funniest thing is that Mads often signs the characters name on the things he signs, and the one we already had signed the day before via a friend, he didn't put the character name on it. On the one he signed for me, he did: Hannibal.

I saw him hesitate part way through signing the name but it just made me chuckle at the potential that this character meant so little to him he didn't recall his name and then the next day confused him for another character - Trans Rights Wizard Hannibal!

Anyway. I hope he reads the book. I hope he gets something out of it. I hope he's not making a transphobic movie.

And I hope you'll all check out @transhanniday on here (and on Twitter), where the two signed prints and some other bits will be going up for auction soon! The proceeds will be going to UK trans youth charity Mermaids, the same charity that Deadly supported with his original art prints.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

hi! could you possibly share the intercept new report about gay men and their misogyny? i know this isn't really about br politics, and im not even sure if it is in English, but i think it is really important to be shared

I hope it's not too late 😅

-

Gay men and misogyny: no more ignoring this problem

'Don't talk about vaginas around me': for a long time, we ignored the disqualifications of women and the feminine made by gay men. No more.

"If I liked women, I would have become a gynecologist."

"The law of gravity is a crime against women."

“Funny” gay guys, usually white and showing a certain hatred towards females, are a very common social type in contemporary pop culture. The character Felix “Bicha Má” ["Evil Fag"], played by Mateus Solano, from the Brazilian soap opera “Amor à Vida” [Love For Life], is an easy example in Brazilian lands – the sentences that open this text are his. But this sharp-tongued young man who directs much of his bitterness towards women, including friends and relatives, has never only lived on screens: he is a common presence in our daily lives.

"Oh, don't mention a vagina around me, I get all messed up."

"My goodness, this singer was beautiful, but she got old and ugly."

"Get out of here, I don't even like cracks."

I can't say how many times I've heard phrases like that from fellow gay men. For a long time, these ways of disqualifying women – despite the certain discomfort felt by every person who is repeatedly the target of prejudice – were endorsed and reflected by women ourselves. Offenses dressed as “I was just joking” have largely naturalized these forms of disqualification, but the good news is that, in an environment in which feminism has gained ground, what seemed to be just a joke is now named by the right word: misogyny.

This is a delicate subject, since we are talking about people – mostly cisgender gay men – who have been and still are victims of a series of violence, whether at home, at work, on the streets. Perhaps it was precisely this that made us, cisgender or transgender women, leave the discomfort of being made fun of in the background. After all, confronting homophobia in a sexist country like Brazil is no simple task. But if this machismo affects homosexual men, what can we say about its presence in women's daily lives? And what can we also say about the homophobia directed at cis/trans homosexual and bisexual women, especially invisible and also targets of “jokes” by gay men?

“I had a very close gay friend, like a brother. We went out to parties together and often slept in the same bed, at my house or his. Several times, as if he were joking, he said that he was terrified of vaginas, that he was born through a cesarean section so he wouldn't have to go through one. He'd gesture the sign of the Cross and said ‘God forbid’, smiling,” says Adriana Conceição, 47 years old, a telemarketing operator from Recife who, like several other women, took a while to classify the guy's actions with the right word.

Game developer Renata Gomes, also 47 years old, found herself at the center of a virtual outrage after questioning a post by a gay Brazilian film critic living in the United States. In the post, he talked about missing Brazil, since people worked a lot more in the USA. Faced with the possibility of his speech being reductive and stereotypical, he began to treat Renata as “ugly”, “militant”, “frustrated”. Furthermore, several of the critic's friends entered the comments to reiterate the delegitimization of Renata's speech.

Younger people also identify the problem: aware of the issue, Curitiba university student Nicoly Grevetti, aged 24, listened to several people who circulate in LGBTQIA+ spaces about the subject and wrote a text about it. In it, she also identifies how pop and queer cultures, supposedly safer and “modern”, also present misogynistic elements.

One example is the use of the term “fishy”, constantly evoked to define drag queens who closely resemble cisgender women (that is, who have a high degree of “passability”). The expression refers to the smell that these women's vaginas supposedly have. “[Cisgender] women grow up believing that their private parts are disgusting and spend their entire lives using products to reduce their natural odors, which can lead to various diseases. Having female genitalia as something disgusting is so common for this group, that you can find countless reports of women talking about it on the internet,” she wrote. The topic was the subject of discussion in the famous series RuPaul’s Drag Race, generating academic works like this one. Cisgender drag queen Victoria Scone, a former participant in the show, also spoke on the topic.

A few months ago, I experienced a significant episode of this machismo and misogyny that had been attenuated for a long time in relation to gay men. I was in a doctor's office very close to a shopping center in the south of Recife. After the end of the consultation, the dermatologist – homosexual, white, in his late thirties, and anti-Bolsonaro in the last elections – lightly tapped my hand and said: “Okay, now you can go for a walk in the mall.”

Especially on that day, I was rushing to finish presenting a lecture that I would give the following day, online, at the University of Coimbra. Obviously, if I wanted to window shop or spend the afternoon reading celebrity magazines, it wouldn't be a problem (in fact, I love it). The point here was the doctor's obvious intention to fit me into the cliché of the futile and consumerist woman, a sexist and anachronistic way of disqualifying the female gender. Icing on the cake: while I was leaving, the gay boy warned me not to forget to take “the boss” to my next appointment. He was referring to my romantic partner.

If it's feminine, it's smaller

The misogyny present in the practices of part of this population is so evident that it goes beyond the boundaries of gender and occurs between equals: it is common to see it operating even among gay men themselves. Research I carried out in partnership with Professor Ricardo Sabóia, from the Federal University of Pernambuco, analyzed the relationship between body and celebrity on the Grindr app. I was astonished by both the hatred towards what is socially seen as feminine and the extremely high level of normativity, standardization, and even elitism. “'I'm not into effeminate guys” is a constant, as is “I'm not into fat guys”.

In this environment of extremely high value for toned biceps and abs, being masculine – and looking very masculine – is the strongest currency. Thus, men seen as “little women” are disqualified. This is what researcher Carlos Alberto de Carvalho calls “misogynistic heteronormativity”, in which the masculine and masculinities are placed as positive – on the other hand, femininities and the feminine are valued negatively. It is, therefore, an environment of hegemonic masculinity and subaltern masculinities.

The global soap opera “Terra e Paixão” [Land & Passion] currently features an illustration that refers to this scenario, with the character Kelvin (actor Diego Martins), an “effeminate” gay man in love with Ramiro (Amaury Lorenzo), the masculine man, self-declared heterosexual, who desires the other person, but still doesn't know how to deal with the situation. What diminishes the power of the first is precisely its proximity to what is considered “womanly”. But, looking at Grindr, even the desirable “brucutu” [Brazilian slang for a brute and rude man] has his limits: issues such as level of education have weight in the app used mostly by gay and bisexual men, where it is common to read “no illiterates”.

The LGBTQIA+ culture, in which rich and middle-class white homosexual men repeatedly appear to discriminate against other peers from the same community, is a central sociological issue for discussing social inequalities not only in Brazil, but throughout the world. “Queer cultural production has helped to reproduce class distinctions based on the hegemony of representations of middle-class gays”, writes Lisa Henderson in the article “I’m not/I'm not into: circulating meanings in the presentation speeches of the Grindr app”, by Rafael Grohmann. In the same text, Juan Marsiaj summarizes: “Such a strategy can lead to the acceptance of a type of gay (white, middle class), seen as a model of citizen-consumer, and a greater marginalization of all other 'debauches' who do not fit this way. In more Brazilian terms: there is a risk of accepting rich gays and further marginalizing poor queers.”

Discrimination on the part of this part of the queer community was evidenced in a historic episode in the 1970s, in super liberal New York. In June 1973, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally took place in the city, a demonstration held in favor of the rights of the queer population – which, at that time, as we will see, in fact was basically limited to white, middle-class gay women and men.

But, among the public, was the activist Sylvia Rivera, a transvestite who in 1971 had created the Revolutionary Action of Street Transvestites, STAR. Rivera had been trying to get on stage for some time, but Jean O’Leary, a lesbian white radical feminist, acted to prevent her from participating. A sample of how, many times, cisgender homosexual/bisexual women also enact the same discrimination as homosexual/bisexual men.

When he finally managed to grab the microphone, Rivera took aim at the hundreds of mostly white gay men and women present. Her speech is a synthesis of the violence experienced by queers who are too effeminate, too poor, too black, or too latine.

“I've tried to speak out here all day for your gay brothers and sisters in jail. They write to me every damn week asking for help – and you don't do a damn thing for them. I lost my job and my apartment for gay liberation… and you guys treat me this way?” she screamed.

The anger had yet another weight and meaning: alongside another important name, the transvestite Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera went down in history as one of the first to face police repression at the New York bar Stonewall Inn, on June 28, 1969. The conflict was the trigger for a fundamental civil movement for human rights – so much so that the date ended up becoming what was then called International LGBT+ Pride Day.

The question remained: how could that engaged audience repudiate the person who, at just 18 years old, spoke out against violence that was not directed just at her? How could they recriminate someone who pulled the trigger that would benefit precisely that white homosexual population?

Rivera and Johnson, who lived in a shelter, were profoundly different from the majority of the public who would return to their comfortable homes after the demonstration. Unlike Rivera, the daughter of a Venezuelan mother and a Puerto Rican father, most had not spent nights in jail or suffered police rape. The activist died homeless, alone, without the care she should have received. Marsha P. Johnson, the decorated, made-up, smiling, super queer transvestite, was murdered and her body thrown into a river.

Thinking historically and humanly about both is a central issue in the debate on hatred of “feminine” and other diverse discriminations present among the LGBTQIA+ population. The right-wing has long opened a war against women, and the rise of red pill assholes is just one of the phenomena of this reality. It still includes names like former federal deputy Daniel Silveira, who broke the plaque with Marielle's name alongside Rodrigo Amorim. [Note from the translator: Marielle Franco was a black bisexual favela-born leftist councilwoman who was assassinated by militias.]

But, as it turns out, misogyny is not exclusive to right-wing radicals and conservatives. And if Sylvia and Marsha were on the front line to guarantee the rights of millions of people, without distinction of creeds, race, genders, and degrees of “femininity”, it is worth asking: when will cisgender gay men, mostly white and middle class, join, with emphasis and strength, debates such as the right to abortion, employment, and wages, issues of life and death for the majority of black Brazilian women? When will the majority of this same group take a stand on the thousands of rapes that mainly victimize girls and teenagers? What collectivities, after all, are we talking about? As Jorge Ben would say in the song Zumbi: I want to see. We're here.

Source, translated by the blogger.

[gerardpilled]

Kat of the band Scowl posted this after they’ve been accused of basically being industry plants and I thought it was interesting.

Transcribed:

I am sick of hearing the phrase "Industry plant" every single time Scowl experiences success.

Our friends bands- bands commonly full of men, will sign brand deals, have a song in a commercial, get a co-sign from massively successful musicians, etc... yet I never read whisperings of whether or not they deserve those successes, whether or not they are valid enough, GOOD enough, or worked hard enough to be deserving of that success. Is our success never valid enough for you? Why is this competition created between us and our community, specifically femme-bodied individuals?

A competition I never participated in, a patriarchal competition I challenge by questioning my thoughts, actions, and insecurities every single day.

The message I receive is that I am not granted independent success as a woman. Am I never grateful enough? Hard working enough? Confident enough?

I'm grateful to be a part of a community we have ALWAYS contributed to lifting. By the way it isn't that hard to do... If you believe in yourself and your friends you've done half the work! If you believe in your scene, walk through that door, buy that t-shirt, and maybe even gather up the confidence to make a new friend or dance along to your favorite song you are CONTRIBUTING to something bigger than yourself.

Starting a band was the best decision I ever made, it saved my life in many ways and it helped me find confidence in myself that I never believed I formerly had.

I am happily part of a scene filled with beautiful, intelligent, unique and inspiring people. A scene that could have never blossomed without every single individual.

Is it so hard to believe that a woman-led band can be a hardworking and organic success?

Is it so challenging to grasp a womans success that you have to create a fantasy that the music industry had a hand it?

An extremely male dominated music industry by the way...

That being said:

My life and my bandmate's lives would be SO MUCH EASIER if we had industry backing! I garnered the little confidence I had, not without the emotional support of my friends and my scene, in May 2019 to play Scowl's first show. My life has changed so much since that day, but it would've never been possible without my friends in the bay area/santa cruz hardcore scene.

The women/femme/trans individuals who I've embraced all around the world that have always had my back and saw me for my genuine self.

Those individuals will always come first to me.

Scowl has worked tirelessly to be in the position we are in. We have practiced late into the night, day after day. We have relentlessly toured. Last year I had bronchitis for months on tour, l've blown my voice out a handful of times, we have experienced exhaustive physical injury, blah blah and only dropped ONE SHOW due to those circumstances the past two years. Not even counting the depression, anxiety, grief and other general human sufferings experienced thousands of miles away from home. Slept on countless floors, gone hungry for a little too long, been in the negatives on my bank statements, etc. Is that punk enough for you? We do this because we LOVE IT. Because it makes us happier than anything else. I have the privilege to play music for a living! Of course l'm gonna chase my dreams!

The most valuable lesson I learned from hardcore is that if you have something to say, scream it into a microphone.

I would be nowhere without the countless BIPOC/trans/femmel gender nonconforming individuals that l've shared the stage with and have had meaningful conversations & relationships with.

I'm so grateful to music for giving me the opportunity to form those connections.

You have all collectively inspired me to never ever give up!

Whether we talk all the time or have had a short swift encounter, you know who you are and I LOVE YOU!

You remind me that l'm never alone.

[frogofalltime]

12.02.2024

i didn't get to sleep until super late due to extremely painful cramps, so i didn't set myself a morning alarm, and i woke up around 12:30pm

i stayed in bed for another hour because of the pain but i finally got up, took a shower, and got dressed

then i ate some soup and a toasted bagel really quickly before therapy. i was slightly late for therapy because my laptop shut down unexpectedly (it doesn't recognise the battery so if you accidentally knock out the charger it turns off lol)

my therapy session was good !! i love my therapist. they get me very well.

after that my dad facetimed me and i panicked (ever since my mother warned me about my aunt thinking i'm a lesbian — which i'm literally not, i'm a trans guy in a queerplatonic relationship with another trans guy, but my family is very transphobic and homophobic and they don't care about semantics — i've been constantly on edge worrying that my dad is going to find out) but he just wanted me to show him what was wrong with my laptop. alhamdulillah

my parents are coming to visit me on wednesday and i am very anxious about that especially because they make me doubt things and worry that i am going to hell, so my therapist recommended me to spend time in the morning before they arrive doing something / with someone that affirms my identity to remind me that being myself isn't something to be ashamed of. so i messaged @etherealspacejelly asking if they wanted to feed our pigeons, and robin was like YES OF COURSE, and also reminded me that day would be valentine's day, which i had completely forgotten existed lmao. since we are an aroace couple (and we are both staunchly against capitalism) we decided to just spend time together in nature rather than doing anything commercialised !!

then i went for a walk to watch the sunset from my favourite place, and joined in with an emergency protest calling to stop the attack on rafah (and gaza in general). after that i got some things i needed from a shop on my way home, then sat in my room for a while to decompress.

my childhood friend was going to call me in the evening, but they had a really long day at work and needed to go to bed, and i was also pretty tired and extremely dysphoric from being on my period, so we decided another day would be better.

then robin messaged me to tell me about a funny youtube video he just watched and i needed cheering up so i decided to watch it while eating dinner. i had no energy at all to cook, so i just made myself some sandwiches which i heated up in the microwave and i had them with some bombay mix and nuts. then i really craved chocolate so i ate the rest of a big hazelnut chocolate bar that i had left over from yesterday with some fruit to balance out the meal.

after eating i washed my dishes and went back to my room. i needed to wrap up my brother's 21st birthday gifts; his birthday was actually the day before mine but the book i bought for him is really big and heavy so i decided to give it to my parents to bring to him when they come to visit rather than spending a lot of money to post it in the mail. so i did that and made him a pokémon-themed birthday card using random scraps of paper and stickers that i had in my room, and it turned out pretty cool if i say so myself !

i kept listening to youtube while doing this which was very fun. i also got advice from @wiggles-mcgee on how to sign the birthday card because i haven't properly come out to my brother yet and he would probably open it in front of our parents so i didn't want to surprise him with my "nickname" turning out to be my chosen name, but i didn't want to use my birth name either, but lucy said to just sign it "your favourite sibling" which is funny because i'm his only sibling. so that was a very genius idea !

then i randomly had a burst of productive energy so i tidied up the huge mess in my room, i had done a lot of art / scrapbooking / card making in the past week so there was Debris™️ from that everywhere and it took quite a while to sort it all out.

finally i brushed my teeth, put my pyjamas on, and went to bed. unfortunately i couldn't sleep at all until around 2am or even after that idk, i had a headache and i kept needing to get up and use the bathroom which was very annoying because i had to wake up at 7am for class :')

but i must've fallen asleep eventually because i woke up on time to my alarm !! and i have to go get ready so see yall later :)

[charlieeedieded]

This will be a very chaotic post (and it turned out very robotic for some reason??)

Hello Tumblr I've decided to post something since of the pride month. And because of that, I wanna show you a cool artist, because who would I be if I didn't promote underground Polish artists to non-Polish ppl on my socials???

Anyways, this is Aljas, a very cool Polish queer rapper who has only about 6k listeners on Spotify rn, if you're Polish you might know them from their tiktok cuz they post a lot of memes there

They make a lot of nice music and mix different rap genres (I think so, I'm not really into rap music besides them). A lot of their songs are about their girlfriend and being a lesbian, which is a great alternative for the sapphics who dont really like indie pop that much, and one of their songs, "Scarchest" also talks about being trans. They only make music in Polish and ik stuff like that is mainly interesting for queer Poles, since we don't have much representation in media, especially in rap (and music in general), but I'd love it if you gave their music a chance even if you don't speak our language. Oh and did I mention they're also a tattoo artist??

I'm writing about this stuff mainly because Aljas is a queer hero to me and my favourite Polish rapper of all time, they need a bigger community fr +they will be releasing a new EP on 5th June, which is like tomorrow and playing a concert in Warsaw on 7th June, so come on, show them some love <3

And for now thats it I'm going back to studying and leaving their socials here +a shitty meme in Polish I made bye y'all

(took the photo from their ig)

[idioticsky]

So this new ROTTMNT OC... Tell me more about her!!!!

What do each of the boys + April and Splints think of the lil addition? Who does she seem to favor or lean toward more? Does she have or get any Ninpo? I'm assuming she's welcomed as a Hamato to do so? HER IN THE FUTURE?????

... And what would her and Tams interacting be like you think? 👀

*cue evil laughter* which one? I have like 2 now, both of them you know but I just have never introduced to this blog-

But I assume you're talking about Danny, so let me give a little picrew and backstory (I'll find the picrew link to the first one at some point but I wanna share this first, also link to the second one)

This little bitch right here is Danny, a trans fem witch, let me explain her-

I made Danny like a year ago then forgot about her until I started up a rp with Cherry and I've been using her for more things ever since.

Danielle (used to be called David) Gray was born 300 years ago in Italy. You might be questioning how she can live so long, we will get to it. She was then known as one of her parents two children, their sons. She was told and forced to be practically perfect because they had an image to uphold and would not let a child ruin it. Sooner or later, her older brother, Lucas Gray, ran away when she was 100, leaving her alone until she also found her escape around 50-100 years later. She had somehow found her way to the hidden cities and found a way to the one in New York.

There she changes her name, her face, everything about her that she wanted. Danny then made her way to the surface after staying in the hidden city for a long while, making friends with her roommates, Aqua, Nora and Selene. She then meets Tamsin, who she met before when she was first adjusting to New York, a friend. They reconnect and Tamsin would probably introduce her to April.

The way she meets the turtles is a bit different tho. You see, her and her roommates like to have tea days like every Friday and she wanted to get yet another tea set for the house. Need less to say, Leo ends up crashing throw the window of the little tea shop and landing in front of Danny. Instead of being horrified like any normal human, Danny is just really curious about them, she wants to know more about these turtle mutants. I think the boys would be confused by this, but after a while accept her as a new friend. She'd get along well with Splinter and April, with her being calm one on one, but still chaos with others. Danny would soon get closer with the boys and ends up hanging around Leo and Donnie the most, Donnie cuz chaos and Leo cuz she loves to annoy him. She ends up getting closer with Leo and even ends up dating him tho.

As for if she has Ninpo: yes, she has her magic so she never really uses it. She doesn't even really realize she has it until it just kinda shows up during a fight. Her Ninpo is kinda a transportation tool, it's really just like inhuman speed (because of this I think Leo gives her the nickname Zips lmao).

And for her in the future, this part goes two ways.

● Bad timeline: Danny would end up fighting on the front lines, but only for a little while. She has this thing where if she experiences too much stress or overwhelming emotions, she just has this ringing in her ears that can last years, because of the high amounts of stress in the resistance and everything, she becomes mostly deaf. She can still technically hear, but not well enough to understand people without them having to sign out what they mean to her. Her and Leo do get unofficially married during this time tho, even having two kids: Naomi and Michael (if people want I'll make a follow-up post about them and everything). She doesn't make it to the end of the apocalypse tho, she dies during a Krang attack on one of the resistance bases. The entire place blew up basically.

● Good timeline: Danny and Leo would get closer after stopping the Krang invasion. They would get married later on with a over-the-top wedding and everything. They still do have Naomi and Michael, but also another daughter named Suzu (once again, I'll make a follow-up about their kids if y'all wanna see). That timeline I haven't really though too much about tho.

Also her and Tams interactions are so funny in my head it's just like-

Danny: ya think I could fit 20 marshmallows in my mouth?

Tams: ... you're an idiot- and a coward, do 30

And about how she lives so long. Her magic keeps her alive. You see, magic in my head is basically like a life force for some, it can extend someone's life to an extent, but either how much magic Danny has in her body from connecting with her ancestors and members of her family, she's basically immortality from natural causes. Magic is kinda like blood tho, if you lose enough if it, you're gonna die, so too much spell casting or bleeding out since it it literally connected to your blood in a way, you're dead. Explaining how she can die in the bad timeline.

They're so silly I love them-

[transmascpetewentz]

Syscourse jumpscare

While I normally don't post syscourse on this account, I felt the need to add to a conversation that's been happening recently (and one that's been ongoing for a while) regarding the term "sysmed" and its usage.

So, a little bit about my system that I rarely talk about on here: we're a polyfragmented DID system. I have been the host since about April, and I don't know most of the other system members very well. We have varying views on endogenic systems, leaning towards pro. I still haven't really decided what I think about this whole debate. Either way, we all can agree on the fact that the term "sysmed" is transphobic.

Transmedicalism isn't just "when people think you can't be trans without dysphoria." Transmedicalism, more than being a belief or a set of beliefs, is a societal attitude about transness and about gender as a whole. Modern transmedicalism is an intracommunity issue, but it is rooted in "science" such as the debunked theories of Blanchard. The difference, however, between Blanchard's "science" and the science around systems, is that Blanchard's "science" is complete bullshit. The gap between FTM "HSTS transsexuals" and "autohomoerotic transsexuals" is almost nonexistent because this "science" is based entirely on the stereotype that transness exists for sexual reasons.

Modern transmedicalism, while it harms everyone in the trans community, is mainly straight gender conforming transmascs trying to weaponize heterosexuality and gender conformity against femmes, gay transmascs, and other non-straight transmascs. Being feminine or attracted to men is seen as a sign of "trending," just like the debunked homophobic idea that being attracted to men made you a fetishist of male homosexuality before it. The history of transmedicalism cannot be divorced from this "science," which is something I've spoken about previously.

To compare this history to anti-endos being mean online is transphobic on so many levels. Anti-endos being mean online aren't what cause young gay trans men to hate themselves for not being attracted to women. Anti-endos being mean online don't spread an ideology that gets you denied T if you show any interest in men. Anti-endos being mean online are not in any way comparable to the severe, irreversible harm that the idea of autohomoeroticism has done to the gay trans male community.

Before the 1980s, there were not even words to describe us, because people didn't know we even existed. Those of us that lived before then just called themselves faggots. So many of our brothers lived their whole lives never realizing there was anyone else like them. The simple truth of the matter is that we live in a world that tries to erase our existence at every point it can, and this erasure is something that shapes how each and every one of us views and interacts with society.

Anti-endos being mean online, while I do not want to minimize the harm they can cause, did not do this. Anti-endos being mean online are traumatized people taking it out on the wrong demographic. They are not continuously silencing a group of people who have been subject to invisible violence for hundreds of years only to be written off as fetishists when people realized that we exist.

Obviously, transmedicalists are not the cause of gay trans men's oppression, and we have more in common with straight trans men than we are different. But transmedicalists are people who have fallen for some of these dangerous ideas, among others, that are rooted in gay trans men's oppression. Anti-endos being mean online are not directly contributing to oppression that is in any way comparable to this.

When I see systems who are cis or not planning to transition bodily use "sysmed" to describe anti-endos being mean, I can't help but be hurt. However valid your argument may be, if you do not experience transphobia, our suffering is not your gotcha. Our oppression is not a hypothetical "[x] is bad so everything that's bad is [x]." We are real people and our voices matter. Allow us to do the talking when it comes to our issues.

Anti-endos aren't off the hook either. If you are cis and you call a trans system transphobic for usage of "sysmed," that is not okay, and you are transphobic. If a trans system is using sysmed, I will still disagree with their usage of the word, but that is for trans people to discuss and sort out amongst ourselves. No matter how good your intentions may be, that is simply not your place.

If you're a trans system (traumagenic or otherwise) and disagree with anything I've said, feel free to reply to this post so we can discuss! This post is directed at cis systems and systems who do not experience transphobia in their daily lives. A system that does experience transphobia regularly who uses "sysmed" is very different from a system who does not who uses the term, and I guess that's the main point here.

[grimescum-2]

saw you were reworking ocs tell me about them :>

HIIII!!!!! i'm looking at yoy SOO evilly rn. rubbibg my little hands together soo mischievously you dont even know what you signed up for

long ass paragraphs under the cut 😈😈 i dont think its a lot to read but i tend to talk a lot ... so... i dont blame you for not reading all of it but if you do i'm literally grabbing u and shaking u and hugging you

basically i have.. like. a LOT of ocs i'm unhappy with (be it their design or backstory) and for a long while i've been working on them passively.. though as of recent i've been taking a more direct approach to developing some of my favourites AND working on a few new concepts at the same time :o3 (this might sound like a lot but i dont do anything EVER i literally only lay in bed and sleep)

for the new concepts i've been focusing mainly on this guy (any pronouns)

considering the boogie man or just boogie for a name. they're 7 ft tall and they love to scare and confuse the shit out of people.. but only sometimes. they're relatively chill otherwise, though they keep their intentions unclear. if the spirals didn't say this then they were very inspired by michael (the magnus archives) and uzumaki !! basically they're michael but with 60s-80s aesthetics (i plan on giving them more purple and a hippie/disco vibe)

a few other less notable ones are a sona, a jester (inspired by jevil) and a VERY self indulgent zombie scientist oc to feed the reanimator brainrot

for pre-existing ocs- all of my mains are getting some kind of revamp so i won't speak on all of them, but the closest to being finished is Frenzy!! heres one of a few concepts i'm happiest with:

she's like... a partial sona in a way. i might insert her into fandoms i like if i can get over the embarrassment and shame (i love seeing other people do it but when i do it i feel bad BHABAHA) BUT in short she's a 22 year old neet hikikomori who's only hobbies are watching horror movies, anime and browsing the internet. that + her family trauma and her poor health and mental illness naturally makes her a little crazy, to say the least. she's also transgender mtf because i support trans wrongs!!!!! i plan on giving her design a v-kei, menhera, pastel goth and yume kawaii vibe.

lastly, claudine is still in the works but I've made a fair bit of progress :o3 she's going to be a lot less harmlessly silly and just a little tiny bit more evil in the sense that she feels like recruiting vampires and giving them access to blood and people in exchange for working at her circus is a necessary evil that must be done to put on the greatest show in the world, an aspiration fueled by both her genuine desire to leave a positive impact on the world and her greed for fame. still as silly as ever.. if not more so, since watching The Mask gave me a LOT of inspo for her character BHABAHA

[dandelionbutch]

poisonous excitement

today i found a video of myself when i was in high school. i tried to copy a friend who had been vlogging while in her car. ofc i didn't have one so I made them in my bed. an attached blooper shows me making fuck-boi faces and remarking 'i look like a butch lesbian! but i'm kinda killing it?'

oh honey wait till you find out..

i remember thinking how pretty i looked. that whole time thinking i wasn't thin enough to think such a thing. going home to my mothers comments about my food and how i looked, constantly. it ruined my brain forever..

it was a great year, i was learning so much about myself and growing exponentially. i had just found a new artist to fixate on and was exploring my identity. you should see how smart and well-rounded i sound in the video! in it, im talking about getting over someone i fell for who moved away months prior:

ghostly, we'll call him, had come back to my state and some friends stayed in an airbnb for the weekend. It was so fun, we ate cereal at 11pm, i tried indian food for the first time, we laughed like good old friends even though i had met 2/4 of them that night. (that was the night i learned sleeping in fetal position was a sign of trauma, frozen was gonna be an emt, and hes a fireman now) i missed ghostly so much and he was extra cute on hormones! that trip we had cuddled and i found out frozen wasn't cis..(genuinely had no clue, ive never picked up on that stuff)

I knew i was in deep, and in the nature of poisonous excitement, i couldn't sleep. I wandered the blocks up and down the beach, alone, at 1am, until i found a huge lana del ray mural and begged her to tell me what to do about my heavy heart. i figured she knew a thing or two about confusing love. shortly after that he went back to his state and I haven't seen him since.

i recall being in love with another trans guy after ghostly who was one of my closest friends at the time. it was a fun summer until I started a skin medication that made everything down-hell for 8 months.

ANYWAY

the video of me is talking about the same thing i go through everytime i've ever fallen in love. i call myself a pathological liar, make up an ending about ghostly and me, bounce my knee the whole video, and start vomiting up exposition about things no one had asked me to explain.

i'm still doing that.. 6 years later. i really have to take my own advice.

[snake-bytez]

I'm late to posting for Trans Day of Visibility whoopsies. Hey hi to the small speck of people that have their eyes on me over here.

This is a long rambley post, just talking about my whole journey, scraping the memories off so everythings kinda jumbled everywhere, sorry!

I haven't really done a TDOV post before......

Suicidal ideation and attempts are discussed here under the cut, beware, stay safe

Gender affirming care saved my life. This is not an exaggeration. Without it, I am in a horrible depressive state. I was not able to identify it nearly as easily in my youth because there was just so much going on then, but it took 6 months of no heathcare coverage last year for me to realize.

After being content with life on HRT, it was taken away from me temporarily and it is my person own prime example as to why any gender affirming care is important. This was not by fault of any laws passing, just a bad rollover period (aka I had ZERO coverage for anything so that in of itself was a problem), but it may be soon for so many people if things keep up the way they have been.

I have known I was trans since I was 12. Yes, 12 years old. But I've shown signs way before then too, typical "tomboy" kid, always preferred my hair shaved short, ect. ect. My mom always told me that I used to purposefully mess up my dresses so that I'd be dressed in more comfortable clothing. Even baby me didn't like the typical girl things.

I was scared to come out because of the people around me. Not my family, but my city, stories from my friends who came out before me, and stories online that made me scared to come out to my family anyway. I held a lot of internalized homophobia for another year until I finally came out as non-binary at 13. At first, it was only to my friends, the only other queer people I knew in real life (that I knew of). It was accidental when it came to my family, one of my friends slipped and used my preferred name at the time around my mom when they stopped by to find me (I was out biking elsewhere at the time, not knowing they were stopping by) and she talked to me about it later. Before then, my knowledge on queer people was just my small friend group and the community infighting online.

I was deep in my own depression at this time. I had plans to commit, and I tried twice, both of which got me hospitalized. Neither times helped the actual issue. The first was a voluntary admission, before I openly came out as non-binary. I had recently (at the time of course) vented to a friend. So many issues I worried over and yet none of them ever mentioned being trans. I worried about keeping my straight A's, worried about being the perfect smart kid, I held resentment towards my parents for that reason. Being a self-appointed golden child. Yes, it really was as outrageously stupid as it sounds in retrospect. It was all on my own end, my parents did not care as long as I passed. I did not mention having a plan, but there was enough said in those messages that showed how bad my mental state was. I used to play on my mom's computer from time to time and signed into Facebook to message my friends while I did so. I forgot to sign out. My mom doesn't usually snoop, she told me this during the confrontation, saying she'd usually just sign me out, but she had a weird feeling about me lately and wanted to see what it was about. This weird feeling probably saved my life. She had recently come back from the same mental hospital I went to, she's the reason I went. She told me all about it and asked if it was something I might want to go to. That was my first visit.

My second visit was way after I had come out. It was involuntary. I had a plan, and I was committed to it. Late at night, I messaged all my friends a goodbye. The thing about those middleschool kids, though, is that they all had so much more energy than we all do now, and so they were awake. They panicked and got a hold of my mom, who once again saved my life that night. Because it was so late, I had to be admitted to the actual hospital. My parents deescalated everything and got me in the van that night, where I spent the whole night in the hospital waiting for an opening in the mental hospital an hour away. I will always remember those two weeks in that hospital. It was summertime, so no schoolwork faxed in (I forgot to mention the first visit was during the school year, I had returned the same night as one of the choir concerts, and I was committed to actually participating. I surprised my friends by showing up. They didn't know I was back yet. Sweet end to that story, I suppose) and the usual school time was turned into an art class instead. The ward is mixed gender-wise, but they only room men with men and women with women. 2 people per room, but only with the same gender to... Prevent sex. Hm.... There was a trans woman in the ward, but they didn't know how to deal with her, so they put her in a room alone. I think that was my first visit... I hadn't seen them before, despite being near the front of the building. Anyways, they kept misgendering me until I got fed up and told them outright that I was non-binary. They put me in that same room. It is right in front of the main desk, and even with the door closed, it felt worse than the room I was in prior. I hated not having a roommate to talk with. The isolated room had no carpet either. The reason I will always remember that visit is because of how poorly they treated me just for being trans. Every night, you're supposed to fill out a slip of paper asking how the day went. Every night, I wrote how I do not want to be called a girl or anything adjacent to it, nor be belitted and called "buddy" (which was a whole other story because every autistic person knows that one...). I do not think they read them, even though we were supposed to turn them in to them each night and it was supposed to be something to help them in our "path to recovery", and if they did read it, they completely ignored it.

I almost went for a 3rd time after breaking down in therapy, but my family was moving that same week and we could not delay it any longer. Getting out of that city helped me a lot too though, so suck on my non-existent trans balls, fuckers!! We moved out of state, and everybody failed to sent anything over. I had to wait for school transcripts, medical stuff, so on and so forth. I got those transcripts, but absolutely zero medical referrals went through. Even to this day, I do not attend therapy despite being promised on multiple occasions. I do not care to chase it anyways.

At 15, I came out as a trans man. I had watched the community burn itself down over the idea of neopronouns and a lot of the older queer people I looked up to instilled in me a handful more bits of transphobia. I was an impressionable kid. They were older than me, obviously they knew what they were talking about. This seems ridiculous in retrospect as someone who actively uses neopronouns currently lmao

At 16 I started HRT. In the state I moved to, 16 is (or was, now that 19 is the federal lowest......) the legal age to start HRT. I got a referral to the one singular pediatric endocrinology center in the state too early, and had to try again after I turned 16. They prescribed me a puberty blocker injection until then, which actually covered my 6 month wait to start testosterone. I think that's when everything started to turn around though. I was actually listened to on both the medical side of things after both me and my mom being outright ignored by my provider in the last place of residence, and on my social transition.

I turn 20 this year. Just... Putting it all into perspective. I am surrounded by an accepting family, most of who are queer themselves (which makes my initial fear of coming out to them more ridiculous in hindsight, but poor scared young Lunaris didn't know). When I say "it gets better", I don't mean it in the way some cishet white woman might say to comfort you. I say it in the way that means I've been through the lowest trenches of my depression and I shoved through, and I know how you feel now and I want to help you see that other side.

Live to love, live out of spite, just live.

Happy Trans Day of Visibility 2025.

[ardroise8723]

A vent post about my mother and how she treats me.

I'll be keeping it under the cut. Trigger warnings are family issues, miscarriage mention and mentions of S/H/su1 with a general crash out with it.

I can't believe my mum actually thinks I'm gonna fucking push her wheelchair when she can't move anymore. She got herself into this mess. She had me. She had 5 kids. 1 died in a miscarriage. Fucked 3 different guys. Invalidated ALL of my sibling's trauma as well as mine. In truth, she's no better than my father.

I told her I wanted to get ADHD assessed since I'm showing a lot of signs and have been for as long as I can remember. And I've been falling behind in school. I'm entering burnout. She yelled at me and started being somewhat abusive to me when I opened up.

I thought I could've trusted that old hag! Am I actually that stupid???? Why did I trust her?? And now whenever I open up about ANYTHING, let it be about the system, my feelings of potential depression, or ADHD, she just starts yelling and ignoring me. Why am I so tortured like this??? What did I even do wrong????

And don't get me started on when I tried coming out as trans. I started dancing on the topic that I might be, and immediately she started harassing me. Why. Fuck off.

I hope she gets that cancer that our family gets in our 50s! And I hope she can't pay her fuckin treatment! She's been abusing me and my family for YEARS and I'm SO FUCKING SICK OF IT. BURN IN HELL. I will laugh on the day of her funeral. She's made me suffer so much and if I can't take my own life, I'll be glad when she looses hers.

[learningtogirl]

1

(nothing wrong with me)

2

(nothing wrong with me)

8

(huh, what?)

1. what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

* My time working as a camp counselor at a place I no longer would feel comfortable showing my face because it was run by conservative Christians (thank god I escaped that, wish I had recognized it sooner). I certainly have mixed feelings now about the Bible portions of that (I don't think I directly peddled the hate at all? But I also was definitely not free of it at the time.)

But the rest really influenced who I am quite strongly. It pretty directly led to a big transition for me from being someone who needed structure to feel comfortable to being happy with winging it as we go (ideally within some known constraints, but still). Huge general improvement in social skills. Made me a much better guitar player. Got me a bit too comfortable with speaking in front of large groups and doing silly things that embarrass myself as long as it's making others happy. And also taught me various skills (archery, canoeing, axe throwing, how to run a ropes course, how to keep 9 year olds from panicking when they're stuck in the bathrooms for an hour straight because that was our tornado shelter).

But the biggest impact was probably the way it made me feel loved and included and truly a member of the community. I have spent the majority of my life being one of those people on the outskirts of groups, a part of it that everybody knows and loves and that's it. They don't actually get to know me or talk to me outside of the group and I never form those deep lasting connections. But the particular combination of relationship of friends/coworkers/sorta trauma bonding over the rough bits and spending literally all the time in this group of 20 people for 2 weeks of training before we started having campers and the way that I would spend a week working very closely with one person in particular, really helped me to feel loved. To a degree that I really haven't seen in many spaces since.

(Now of course that was just a feeling and didn't actually carry into reality for various reasons. Among them the fact that I am awful at staying in touch/communicating and the bonds weren't as deep as they felt and also the whole thing where a majority of the people disapproved of who I have realized myself to be.)

* Being trans. It's influenced .. everything. From the way that I always felt more drawn to the girls in my class to the way that I felt weird and gross and insufficient to actually be friends with them and have left myself in a state where I am very much a hug person and also missed all the learning process for the signs of when someone wants one/is open to it and have an incredibly deep fear of being too forward and seems as weird or creepy so I never initiate and end up completely touch starved. And it's not just hugs, that's just a symptom that's easy to point to. And then the years of drifting through life because I could tell there was something missing but couldn't figure out how to fill it. So I threw myself headfirst into academics which worked for a while (until I flunked out of my PhD program) and then various games and church and books and music and even sports and so on and nothing ever really kept me going. (The undiagnosed ADHD very much did not help this, to be fair.)

But it's definitely not all bad! The fact that I figured out that I'm a girl pretty late in life (started hrt on my 30th birthday, which was <1year since I had admitted to myself even that I was trans) has given me a lot of opportunities in figuring out who I am and what my style is and such that at a younger age I just wouldn't have had the time/resources/awareness of myself/the world to do. Granted I definitely haven't taken full advantage of them... And the way I've been forced to figure myself out has helped me embrace some new things I've been wanting to try, like dancing which has somehow become an absolute cornerstone of my life/stability in the 4 months I've been doing it! And like friends tried to drag me into it in college but I simply did not have the social confidence to enjoy it.

Uhhhh, ya, it's shaped me but I am definitely not one of those girls who embraces it and finds her life better for having been trans. I hope I get there someday.

* Theatre! Joined the tech crew on a whim in high school (tangent: I very nearly did not. I had been interested and then completely missed the message and was barely able to join. And then we had a huge class so I wasn't part of the run crew for my first show which really threw me off as a freshman and so I almost quit forever until my parents talked me into going back for the spring show because I had really enjoyed it up til that point.) It turned into a fantastic group of people to spend time with and really taught me the joys of physical work and of being a cog in a machine to make something greater happen. And the pains of when it goes wrong and someone blames you even though it wasn't your fault. Or if it was.

And then in college the bit I did gave me a great way to meet people outside of my norm. And connections I made through it led to the job I'm at now. And the community theatre I have found myself a part of has a very strange place in my life because it's a bunch of extremely talented people who love me for both who I am and my attitude and my skills, but also we once again hit the "never talk to me beyond it" problem. (Dammit me I hate myself so much for missing the chance to change that by going to the ren faire with a few of them, but such is life. There's always more chances ahead.)

2. show us a picture of your handwriting?

God no. It's awful and embarrassing. (Fine I will but in the morning because I'm sleepy and don't want to find paper.)

8. any reacquiring dreams?

Not particularly lately. There have been a few throughout my life.

When I was very young there was a specific one where I was in a campground gift shop holding my treasured baby teal (like baby blue but green tinted) baby blanket (real blanket) and then something started chasing me and I had to run through the woods and then the slow motion running thing happened and it was awful and I was never actually caught but I would usually drop my blanket and then it would be put into some kind of horrible steampunk crushing abomination that tore it to shreds. No idea if it ever had a real conclusion.

Then of course all the trans ones. Those came in a few main variants:

* primarily in high school was some sort of fantasy in which I was able to swap bodies with a classmate through some mystical mechanism or another. Dream portals that let us try it for a day, random chance, genie granting a wish, god randomly deciding to bless us, god "cursing" us for arrogance and making us prove ourselves in different lives, whatever

* also mostly in high school was the different world sort. Like a VR space where we could just go play board games with friends all night long while bodies are resting, and since the avatar could be whatever why not a girl? (and of course they magically accept me doing that and it's fine.) Or in youth group we have a contest where I lay down and become a sand sculpture and then friends mold me to be the fastest mermaid or whatever and then I unsand and have to race (conveniently of course these are always feminine forms)

* many many dreams about going back to that camp I worked at but as a girl (both counselor and camper)

* in college I had one about how cool it would be if I were a girl and were roommates with another girl (often recurring ones I may have had a crush on) and then for reasons decided to save space by sleeping in the same bed, but because they were bunked and small we better be sure we don't fall off by being in a single pair of athletic shorts together and holding each other close all night. These were surprisingly not explicit for how extremely horny

* and some more weirdly detached dreams in which I was, like, inhabiting a house or whatever and simply watching the lives of people go by. And then I could hop on board to someone and watch their life for a while and then leave and go back to watching wherever they were at the time. Somehow this always seemed like a delightful thing to hope would happen to me, whereas nowadays it sounds like the premise to horror that leaves me scarred