#i reject the idea that only we can experience gender dysphoria because it will lead to pathologizing us

[uncanny-tranny]

I've seen some discussions pop up about gender dysphoria and how it's treated and pathologized, and in my opinion, gender dysphoria is a real feeling in that many trans people are dysphoric, but that medical professionals (notably cis ones) only hear what they want to hear. When it comes to gender dysphoria, I don't think it is inherent to being trans, but there is correlation between being trans and having gender dysphoria. I also think that dysphoria is exasperated when gender roles are so tied to sex and personhood - in my opinion, I think a lot of people's dysphoria may be eased in environments where perceived gender deviance is not seen as horrific or undesirable.

Basically:

1. Gender dysphoria is real and certain aspects of one's culture or environment can make those feelings more persistent. Gender dysphoria can look different between people, and that doesn't mean that one person's dysphoria is worse than another person's, or that one person's dysphoria is "right" while somebody else's is "wrong".

2. Gender dysphoria is tied to transness in a way that I think only pathologizes transness, and gender dysphoria shouldn't need to be proven in order to transition (socially, medically, any way)

3. Gender dysphoria can be a dynamic issue for anybody who has it, and a person's needs may change as their dysphoria changes or becomes lesser

4. Gender dysphoria is something a ton of people deal with - trans or no. Associating dysphoria with only trans people doesn't help the dysphoric people who aren't trans. Again, associating dysphoria only with trans people pathologizes transness itself because people will conflate the two.

5. For trans people with gender dysphoria, transition is a viable (and often necessary) form of treatment. It is not "enabling", it is helping trans people meet their needs. Transition is an option that is often successful, hence why forms of conversion therapy do not work. Transness is simply a natural variation of human identity.

I've been diagnosed with gender dysphoria/GID many times by many professionals, and I find that more often than not, these professionals are not equipped to deal with cases of gender dysphoria - especially when the person is also trans. This can be harmful because you essentially are meant to deal with those feelings alone.

[purplespaceace]

very few characters actually have adhd in media, and when they do, what people mean by that is just that they fidget a lot, not that they have adhd. the only character with adhd I can think of where I’ve watched/read it and I’ve gone, “oh, this character actually has adhd” is Jake peralta from Brooklyn 99. so, here’s my take on how to write adhd, with examples from Brooklyn 99.

I’ll do the best I can to separate them into three categories; the three things people look for in adults with ADHD, which are rejection sensitivity dysphoria, an interest-based nervous system, and emotional hyperarousal.

I’ll also randomly bold and italicize bits so people with ADHD can actually read it.

Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, or RSD

Rejection sensitivity dysphoria makes people with ADHD overly sensitive to criticism, even if they perceive a rejection and there actually isn’t one. Their emotions are also very strong generally. Because of RSD, people with ADHD become people-pleasers and can develop anxiety because they’re so eager to please.

For me, RSD makes me cry an embarrassing amount for any little reason. in your writing, make your characters overdramatic, criers, and/or people-pleasers. They’ll have trouble saying no. They may also be over competitive, as their perceived rejection may include losing.

how does Jake show this in b99? When Jake comes up with a catchphrase and Rosa says it’s terrible, jake is far more hurt than he should be. He hates losing, and he gets overly upset whenever someone says they don’t like him or don’t trust him, etc. he’s also a people pleaser who has trouble saying no.

An interest-based nervous system

An interest-based nervous system includes hyperfocuses and an inability to pay attention. It stems from the fact that we can’t make as much dopamine as neurotypicals. This means that while neurotypicals get dopamine after completing a task, people with ADHD don’t. That means that people with ADHD don’t have any reason to do tasks, especially those they don’t like. This leads to executive dysfunction—people with ADHD will know they have to or want to do something, but they can’t seem to do it. people with ADHD hyperfocus on things that bring them dopamine. I was obsessed with warrior cats for three years. But hyperfocuses can also last a short amount of time—I’ll have a drawing idea in the middle of class and won’t be able to concentrate on anything else before I finish it. this is where our impulsiveness comes from. we can leap into things we think will give us dopamine without thinking, which can lead to injury. We also tend to tell people personal things they don’t want to hear because of this, and don’t have very good boundaries. We sometimes say whatever comes into our head, which can also result in us being rude on accident. Our voices can also get very loud or we can interrupt people frequently because we’re so impulsive. When people with ADHD hyperfocus, they can forget about anything else. I’ll forget to eat if I’m busy reading a Wikipedia article about feminism in the 1850s, and won’t go to the bathroom or drink water either. It’s also important to note that taking away distractions doesn’t help, because we can do things like pick at our skin and daydream—something that people with ADHD do a lot of. Because of executive dysfunction, people can call people with ADHD lazy or irresponsible.

people with ADHD can also be extremely indecisive because ADHD affects our executive functioning, and making decisions requires planning and prioritizing, and task initiation, which are both executive functions!

people with ADHD also have poor memory for important things, but tend to remember random bits of trivia. Poor memory leads to object permanence problems, which means people with ADHD can forget to call a friend back for weeks, forget that they need to read library books in a closed cabinet, or forget that the vegetables they got will go bad. People can sometimes say that people with ADHD don’t care about anything because of this.

people with ADHD can also be prone to depression because of under or overstimulation. Boredom feels painful for people with ADHD. If we’re overstimulated, we can experience sensory overload—if things are too bright or too loud, if too many things are touching us at once—often it’s not because the thing is too intense, but because too many things are happening at once.

We also have something some people call dolphin brain, where we jump from one thing to another. From the outside, it looks really random, but I find that when I’m talking to another neurodivergent communication is generally easier. For instance, someone with ADHD might see a bee at a baseball field and tell their team about the time they saw whales at seaworld because their little brother was also stung by a wasp there. people will see no connection on the outside, but it makes perfect sense to the person with ADHD.

people with ADHD can also be overachievers, either because they hyperfocus on schoolwork or their RSD makes it so that failing at something isn’t an option. people with ADHD can also be very controlling and stubborn, probably because we hyperfocus on something and cant handle it being any different, and any change to our plans can be seen as rejection.

we can also have a hard time ordering our thoughts or doing stuff like math in our head. a lot of the time I number my thoughts like, 1. this reason, 2. this reason, etc. even if theres only two or sometimes I just need the 1. as a transition for my brain. when I don’t write it down or organize it like that it feels like I’m trying to grasp ropes that have been covered in oil (it’s not going to happen) and then my brain gets all jumbled and I have to restart at the beginning. this is probably just me, but it feels the same way when I’m reading long paragraphs of something uninteresting, or even short bits of historical documents because the way they phrase things is really pompous and hard to process.

also, stuff like caffeine calms us down and helps us focus. people who don’t take medication (me) often drink coffee or caffeinated sodas to focus.

another random tip, but if your character with ADHD also is genderfluid or genderflux, they might have a hard time figuring out their gender sometimes, because we can be known to have a hard time putting our feelings into words or our brains will just go, “nope, not thinking about that right now” and move on, which can be pretty frustrating.

people with adhd also have a trait called time blindness, where we have no idea how long something takes and therefore can’t manage our time very well. this often results in us being late or just sitting around the house because we got ready way too early.

we also have something called consequence blindness—we do things and are completely unaware of the consequences. if I don’t brush my teeth, I get cavities. but I don’t think about that when I’m deciding I’m too tired to brush my teeth.

in b99, jake regularly stays up all night solving cases and watches documentaries on random topics. He’s also very distractible—when they’re trying to find the person who sent Captain Holt death threats in the train yard, Jake says he and captain holt should take a train trip together sometime. Jake says that he’ll forget Amy if they don't work together because he’s like a goldfish.

Emotional hyperarousal

This is the only thing people tend to include when writing characters: the fidgeting. People with ADHD tend to need more stimulation than others, so we’ll do things like draw during class and chew on pens.

people with ADHD can also have apd, or auditory processing disorder. we tend to watch shows with subtitles on and may take a second to process what you’re saying, or hear it wrong. The subtitles thing may be partially do to creating just the right amount of stimulation, but if I don’t have subtitles, me and my other friends with ADHD will watch tv with the volume turned up very high. People with ADHD also can have a hard time interpreting other people‘s tone and have a hard time controlling their own. They can be bad at social cues and have poor manners because we don’t pick up on that stuff.

people with ADHD also tend to observe everything or nothing at any given time, mostly based on the amount of stimulation they have—if they dont have a lot in their main task, they’ll need to take in something else at the same time. Likewise, if I’m hyperfocusing on something I often don’t notice anything else, like if someone asks me a question.

in b99, Jake fidgets with things a lot. In the intro, he’s picking up and examining a figurine on his desk, likely because he was bored with paperwork or some other task.

[fandomshatelgbtqpeople]

On why “not like other girls” isn’t a useful criticism anymore (and maybe never was)

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the way people have been talking about femininity in feminist spaces for the past few years really fails gender nonconforming queer and neurodivergent girls.

In particular, I’ve noticed and seen others talk about the tendency to push the ideas that women never enforce gender norms on other women, never punish other women for not conforming to gender norms, and that female bullies essentially don’t exist because girls would never do that to each other. I’ve also noticed how the “face” of internalized misogyny has become the blatantly queercoded, neurodivergent-coded girl who’s Not Like Other Girls. That’s not an accident.

There are feminist circles made up mostly of women who have never had a problem with being accepted by other women, and their ideas about how girls and women treat each other are very influential. The things is that they don’t realize that how other women treat them and how other girls treated them growing up isn’t universal. They’re unaware that they aren’t accepted just because they’re women but because they’re able to check off a number of conditions that signal to other women that they “belong.” One of the more important conditions is being able to do femininity the right way. They’re unaware that there’s a huge difference between women who can do femininity the right way and choose to subvert it for feminist reasons versus women who can’t do it the right way at all, and that difference has a huge impact on how other women treat you. A lot of these women are probably well intentioned, but that doesn’t make it okay that their viewpoints, which erase women who are marginalized in ways they aren’t, have become so mainstream.

This, of course, has a disparate impact on gender nonconforming queer women, who can’t do femininity right because it leads to things like dysphoria and depression, and autistic women, who often can’t do femininity right because of sensory issues with makeup/tight clothing/certain fabrics, because they’re unable to understand the social rules that govern things like fashion trends or matching clothes, or because their special interests aren’t seen by their peers as acceptable things for girls to be interested in.

The problem arises because women in the first group, the influential feminist circles, seem to have decided that the idea of female bullies is a patriarchal trope pushed by men (girls wouldn’t do that to each other) and that only men enforce gender norms on women (girls are so much more accepting of other girls uwu). Gender nonconforming queer and autistic women, who grew up as gender nonconforming girls, know that this idea is frankly bullshit because they were bullied and ostracized by other girls for not being able to do femininity right or enough, but when we try to talk about this, we’re shouted down by the first group of women as just having internalized misogyny. The entire time I was in middle and high school, I only remember having my appearance insulted by a boy once. It was almost exclusively something other girls did. And yet we’re told that our own lived experiences can’t possibly have happened because “bullying is a boy thing, girls are all friends.” You would think that this conversation would at least be happening in queer circles but even there, gnc queer women are the only ones talking about it, while everyone else is all, “It’s so great how lesbians never enforce gender norms against each other. Anyway, here’s my fanart of a canonically butch character wearing a dress.”

So here’s where the girl who’s Not Like Other Girls comes in. The stereotypical girl who’s Not Like Other Girls is blatantly queercoded and blatantly neurodivergent coded, and that’s not an accident. It’s because those are the girls who are disproportionately likely to be rejected by other girls because of their inability to do femininity right, and that’s something that the women who love to talk about the girl who’s Not Like Other Girls have subconsciously picked up on.

Now, I’m not going to try to claim that no one who thinks they’re not like other girls has a sense of superiority about it, but overwhelmingly, the girls who think that aren’t thinking “I’m not like those dumb sluts.” They’re thinking “why am I not like the other girls.” For me (an autistic lesbian), my Not Like Other Girls phase was never about thinking I was better than everyone else. It was an attempt to explain to myself why I was being picked on and excluded by other girls, even the ones who were my friends. I knew I was different from other girls because I was told that by other girls. And the idea that girls who hang out mostly with boys are doing it because they hate other girls is largely false. Lots of teenage gnc queer and autistic girls hang out mostly with boys because they find that there are fewer unspoken social rules between boys, boys are less judgmental about their appearance than other girls, girls their age are starting to develop interests they find alienating, and/or because they’ve just given up on trying to befriend girls after years of rejection. It’s not internalized misogyny, it’s a trauma response.

All this vilification of the girl who’s Not Like Other Girls really accomplishes is making gender nonconforming girls and women into the main perpetrators of internalized misogyny and gender conforming girls into the main victims. It should give us pause that our idea of a stereotypical victim of internalized misogyny is a thin, blond, pretty queen bee-type and our stereotypical perpetrator is a queercoded, neurodivergent-coded girl with no friends, because it’s a blatant example of homophobia and ableism in mainstream feminism. It’s because the women with the loudest voices want to feel like they’re always the victims and never to blame. It should concern us how many posts are dedicated to condemning girls who think they aren’t like other girls when I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a single post condemning girls who bully other girls for not conforming to femininity. That’s an incontrovertible example of internalized misogyny that’s honestly a much more widespread problem, and everyone either wants to pretend it isn’t happening or has decided they’re okay with.

Gender nonconforming queer and autistic women grow up being ostracized for their gender nonconformity and no one can even make a post telling them its okay to be the way they are without having to add about a dozen disclaimers to avoid hurting the feelings of gender conforming women and still having 20 people in the replies reminding them that “some girls like to wear makeup :)” Meanwhile people will make 380 posts about how feminine girls should be celebrated without a single thought to how that contributes to the alienation and exclusion gnc queer and autistic girls are experiencing. Not everyone needs to learn to love pink or whatever. It’s so okay for gnc women to have deep negative feelings towards femininity as a concept when it was the reason for their abuse at the hands of other girls. That’s not internalized misogyny. 

Anyway, I remember around the turn of the decade when the idea of the girl who was Not Like Other Girls really took off and I remember being able to picture exactly who it was about, but looking back, I can’t for the life of me remember whether that person was someone who actually existed irl, or whether it was the result of a popular media trope that everyone just assumed was also a problem irl, or whether it’s always just been the most acceptable women with the loudest voices blaming gender nonconforming queer and autistic women for something we weren’t doing.

mod k

tl;dr - Blaming girls who Aren’t Like Other Girls for internalized misogyny is victim-blaming bullshit. Girls thinking they aren’t like other girls is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

[raavenb2619]

Hi, if your still taking ask, I'd like to ask about gender.

I'm amab and I use he/they, I heard about demiboy and it sounded exactly like me, but it didn't feel right. I feel weird identifying as not cis because I don't have dysphoria. I know you don't need dysphoria to be trans. Maybe I'm just gender nonconforming? But I don't feel wholly like a man?

I guess I feel like transness itself isn't a valid option for me because I don't have dysphoria but I feel good when people refer to me as they

So I guess the big question is how do I work through whats left of the internalized transphobia and the transmedicalism that was ingrained in me when I first became active in the community?

So if this is incoherent and rambly

There are a lot of reasons I think making dysphoria a requirement of being trans is a bad idea. 

On a personal note, I don’t want my existence as a trans person to be inherently defined in terms of negative experiences; isn’t the idea of Pride that instead of believing that your existence is inherently negative and bad and shameful, that you can believe it’s something positive, something valuable, something worth being proud of? Being trans is a positive experience for me. I like being trans, and I’m proud to be trans, and I don’t want anyone or anything to take that away from me. 

I’m a trans person who has dysphoria, but if dysphoria was a requirement of being trans, it’s possible that I wouldn’t have realized I was trans until a lot later than I actually did, because dysphoria can be subtle and confusing. Sometimes I’ve been dysphoric about something, and then for no discernible reason, it’s disappeared and doesn’t bother me anymore. Sometimes I’ve been comfortable with something, but then I hear that someone else is dysphoric about something, and then I start being dysphoric about it. There are things that I’ve been dysphoric about for pretty much as long as I can remember, but before I was trans, I had convenient excuses for them. “Oh, everyone’s like that. Oh, that reflexive behavior you’re barely conscious of doesn’t mean anything.” It was only after I realized I was trans that I understood that I was feeling dysphoria. Without that additional context and new perspective, my dysphoria was just...noticed but unnoticed. 

I don’t think gatekeeping is in the interest of the trans community. The idea that a nefarious cis person would pretend to be trans for personal gain is pretty unrealistic. (Like, most cishets are super uncomfortable when someone thinks they might not be straight, let alone not cis.) But if there really are some nefarious cis people who want to pretend to be trans, they could just claim to have dysphoria, so gatekeeping is completely ineffective at stopping the hypothetical cis invaders. On the other hand, gatekeeping dysphoria would probably lead to kicking people out of the community who need support. If you definitely experience dysphoria, but not as much as other people, are you still “trans enough”? If you experienced dysphoria, but you transitioned and took steps to get rid of your dysphoria, are you still “trans enough”? Whoever answers these questions wields enormous power to withhold support from people who likely need it. The whole point of a community is that we’re stronger together than we are apart, so why should we turn on each other? 

I think prioritizing dysphoria could put pressure on trans people to transition in ways that aren’t necessarily comfortable with. Dysphoria can take many different forms, and people have different ways of coping with it. If you and I are dysphoric about the same thing, but I transition a small amount to cope with it, and you transition a large amount to cope with it, that could lead to people saying I’m not “really” trans because I “clearly” don’t have “real” dysphoria, because any “real” trans person with “real” dysphoria would have to transition a larger amount. In that scenario, I have to choose between the transition that manages my dysphoria in a way that’s right for me at the risk of losing my community’s support, and transitioning in a way that I’m “supposed” to so that I can “prove” that I’m “really” trans. I think that’s a terrible position to be in, because transitioning should be about what’s best for you, not for other people. Trans people already have to deal with cis people telling us how we should look and dress and act, so why should we have to deal with trans people telling us that, too? 

Saying that trans people need dysphoria ignores our history instead of learning from it. As I wrote in this post, the term “genderqueer” was originally coined by people who wanted to use the term “transgender” but were excluded at the time because of the dominant narrative that only trans men or trans women who had had (or wanted to have) bottom surgery could call themselves “transgender”. A lot of people who felt distinctly non-cis sought out the trans community but were rejected, and I think that’s really unfortunate. Being rejected by mainstream society is hard, but being rejected by someone you expect to have your back can be even harder. If someone doesn’t feel dysphoria, but they’re still seeking out the trans community, I think there’s probably a really good reason for that, and we should welcome them instead of rejecting them. 

Hope that helps, as always feel free to ask for clarification/any follow up questions. 

[gayrezi]

(if ur uncomfortable w answering feel free to ignore srry!) how did u realize u were non binary,, bc I think I am but idk if i have dysphoria :shrug:

putting this under a read more bc i like talking about gender, so this got a little long. tl;dr: you don't need dysphoria to be trans/nonbinary, though it can certainly be an indicator. for me, i was initially very unsure of myself and didn't recognize my dysphoria until after i allowed myself to start exploring and experimenting with my gender, and what helped me most was giving myself the freedom to be questioning and try new labels or interact with new communities online.

content warning for mentions of dysphoria under the cut.

i first started questioning my gender in july of 2019. i don't remember the context, but i was searching up labels like "demigirl" and "nonbinary lesbian" on tumblr because i'd seen a couple posts mentioning i and i was curious. and the more i looked, the more i related to the ideas i saw people talking about -- it wasn't a perfect match, but certainly fit better than calling myself a cis girl.

back then, i viewed being a cis girl as the "default option" for myself because i was born afab -- like "yeah, i guess i'm a girl, but only because i've never been called otherwise in my life and i also know i’m not a trans boy. i just happen to have a lot of shared experiences with girls my age because i am viewed as one of them". at the time i didn’t think i had dysphoria, but i didn't enthusiastically identify with womanhood on any level except for knowing that i held a lot of feminist beliefs and that i liked women in a gay way (but with the existence of nonbinary lesbians now introduced to me, even that was shaken up because i identified more with being a lesbian than i ever did with being a woman in that context). my history with feminism, lesbianism, and collectively being grouped with girls my age made it really difficult for me to untangle my gender.

at this point, i spent a really long time on the fence about my identity - i looked at a lot of quora threads in desperation, which honestly i don't recommend (it really only lead me to the conclusion that "i’m gonna have to decide for myself what my gender is, huh"). what DID help me was allowing myself to try new labels, presentations, pronouns, or just ways of viewing myself. i didn't need to commit, just to allow myself the freedom to view myself as "not necessarily cisgender." i started using they/them pronouns online, dressed in ways that made me feel more androgynous and comfortable, and interacted with more trans people here on tumblr. joining a trans discord server really helped me a ton, since i got to see people talking about gender and living authentically in a way i never saw from my cis peers in real life, and i could take part in a community that would support my own exploration of my gender.

once i gave myself these opportunities to get to know myself, *then* i started finding out all the details of my personal experience of gender. once i was open to the possibility of being enby, sometime around september 2019, only then did i start to recognize my previous feelings of discomfort about my body and interactions with others as dysphoria. i realized the label of demigirl didn't really fit, and actually it felt wrong to be misgendered as a girl at all, and shifted to call myself just "nonbinary" ("agender" is TECHNICALLY also accurate, since i don't really have a connection to gender at all, it just doesn’t feel like something relevant to me, but i like the openness and fluidity and blatant rejection of the gender binary that comes with "nonbinary." this is 100% my personal feelings though, may not apply to you or anyone else). this is still pretty much where i stand now, and i've really been able to embrace this identity after coming out to my immediate family at the end of march 2020 and being in a weird semi-out state at university currently.

the most important advice i'd give to anyone questioning their gender is this: you don't need to know what you are Right Now, and instead should focus on pursuing things that make you feel good and comfortable with yourself - the label will be easier to identify with time if you allow yourself latitude for exploration! there’s no wrong way to be nonbinary, and what matters most is that you find a means of self expression that makes you happy.

i don’t want to get into my most personal thoughts on my gender publicly on this blog, but if you want to dm me about this (whether you're the anon who sent this or not) feel free to, i would be happy to talk more there! you can message me on this blog and we can chat on tumblr or discord. good luck with everything and have a wonderful day :)

[nottskyler]

Dear In-Laws,

I gave you the pamphlet about Transgender people from the National Center for Transgender Equality in hopes that you would understand more of what I’m going through and why I decided to transition. I honestly feel like you never read it because how could you read it and then decide that continuing to use my dead name and pronouns was a good idea?

What I want you to know was repeated several times in different ways: “Trying to repress or change one’s gender identity doesn’t work; in fact, it can be very painful and damaging to one’s emotional and mental health.”,  “Telling someone that a core part of who they are is wrong or delusional and forcing them to change it is dangerous, sometimes leading to lasting depression, substance abuse, self-hatred, and even suicide.”, “For some transgender people, the difference between the gender they are thought to be at birth and the gender they know themselves to be can lead to serious emotional distress that affects their health and everyday lies if not addressed.”. Or in my own words, I’ve been broken and lost all my life and I found the way to heal, be supportive and love me in my efforts. I would not dare walk down this path if it wasn’t so that I could be made whole through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I realize a major issue that leaves people from understanding what it means to be transgender is that all the definitions and explanations out there talk about it in scientifically sterile terms. That’s their job since individual experience is varied. I also think the major discourse around whether or not a person has gender dysphoria has been a major negative in this realm as well, leaving people to believe that people are doing this just for fun.

Here is what it really has been like. I have had depression as long as I can remember. I don’t remember too much past puberty, so I think that was the start of it all. Beyond after school activities and school and homework, I had no life because I was depressed. My “hobby” was to take naps which was really to cry or just lay there without the strength to do anything. This is why I pushed myself into so many different activities because I knew I had no strength to do anything on my own. My fun-loving personality that loved to sing and dance and do exciting things was rapidly eroding.

I simply assumed that it was simply the ails of being a teenage girl in a world that hated teenage girls. I ate up a lot of feminist ideology and thought that my dissatisfaction with being female had to do with society at large because that’s what everyone says. I didn’t realize that normal girls did have some comfort in their own skin alone because that was when I felt it the worst.

I don’t think people understand how terrible it is to feel like a stranger in their own body, how alienating, how it hinders you from existing how you are want to exist. The experience in and of itself is terrible and people with body image issues really need to get help because it hurts and prevents you from living your life. Then, on top of all of that baggage, comes the debilitating depression and suicidal thoughts that I’ve fought the majority of my life. I’ve had therapy and I’ve learned how to cope and handle these thoughts, but they still keep coming no matter how much I try to avoid negative thinking and the downward spiral.

Turns out what triggers those thoughts and feelings is my body. Any movement or seeing myself in a mirror or any reminder of what I am on the outside send this feeling my way no matter how much I try to change my perception of myself and my body or my identity and the gender assigned to me at birth. I have tried so hard to be comfortable in my own skin, but it is my own skin against me. I had no power and I was losing more and more of myself every day, laying in bed without the energy and motivation to get up and face a new day. 

Then I discover that what I am experiencing is gender dysphoria. An idea I had avoided my entire life because being “trans is a choice” and “trans women/men aren’t real women/men”. I knew I was a goner when I was standing in a changing room full of women and wished they saw me as a trans woman. I knew at that moment that my perception of trans people was wrong and that I was in their same shoes. In that moment, I committed to living my life as a woman because I felt that was what Gd wanted from me, but Gd sent the challenge from President Nelson to read the Book of Mormon so I would quickly learn that I was wrong in that regard as well.

Without cultural pressures within the Church and the conservative environment in which I was raised, the choice would be between being in bed all day, depressed and unable to get myself to do projects that took more than a few hours or take a bold step and begin to transition and start to have a life again. It wouldn’t be a question without the beliefs and worldview that trans people are lying and pretending just to get places.

If there is a choice in being trans, it is choosing to live instead of dying every day. I wanted to be present in my own life and made this choice. Gd understood what was necessary to get me on the path and gave me all the spiritual blessings and change of heart that I’ve been seeking my entire life to show me that this was my path, that this was the only way for me to gain my own exaltation. And it is clear how this is true because I can’t serve when I’m stuck in bed, I can’t radiate the spirit of love when it takes all my love to keep me living, I can’t experience the joy of the gospel when I am living in despair. I am choosing life and you are rejecting me for it.

I know the truth of my existence challenges your worldview and that is something difficult to cope with, but I had hoped you had enough love in you to choose love over being right. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about changing your worldview, repentance would be incomplete without it. You are rejecting me and the Gospel of Jesus Christ by choosing to dead name me. Nothing you do will be able to take my testimony of my identity away from me. The only thing you can do is harm the relationship and trust we had.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about agency and choice. You have the choice to love me for who I am or to support ideologies that are not founded in doctrine or science. You have the choice between distancing yourself from your son and his spouse or embracing a new understanding about the world and yourself. You have the choice to take a step of faith and trust or to spurn it in favor of the familiar and comfortable. I ask you to reconsider and to change course.

Sincerely,

Your son-in-law

Skyler

[vodcar]

i agree with parts of that post but i fundamentally reject that "living as trans" happens in interaction with others. thats almost always pretext for "you're not your gender until you look xyz or do xyz", basically the same idea that you're not a woman until you "live as a woman", which is something that somehow keeps remaining unexamined for its cissexism and the harm in those societal norms. and it makes it impossible for non-binary folk to "exist" because they are not acknowledged by society

thanks for ur thoughts felix !! definitely an aspect i didnt think about on the post.So first up in response, I think that you’re absolutely right about the danger of making transness or ur gender as something that always and only is about how others perceive you. I dont like this point of view at all (thanks, contrapoints).However, on second reading, I wouldn’t be so quick as to nail the post down to this point, I think the post absolutely does incorporate that position of self-realisation and actualisation of one’s own gender:

our transness takes shape and acquires consequence in relation to the world; it is a certain set of behaviors and relationships to our selves, our bodies, and others that place us in opposition to gender as a social system

transness is a way of living, in relation to yourself and the world, and no one needs a psychiatric diagnosis to live a trans life.

so yeah, here i reckon there’s absolutely scope for placing an emphasis on one’s own relationship with oneself. My reading here is that in considering this relationship to the world and the ‘opposition to gender’ we can (and imo must) place our own subjectivity first. When i was interrogating my gender, and questioning the feelings i was having when being gendered as how i was then perceived, it was about the internal thoughts, feelings, and responses i was having when going up against the world. for me, this was the thing that first let me know that something was up, and i eventually found that womanhood was the place that i wanted, and realised later that i have always wanted, to be. Further, this is what matters most to me moving forwards with my transition and my womanhood, my lesbianism. And it is here that similarly i find comfort, fulfilment, and a kind of primacy that allows me to make sense of my life ever since i was a kid.

On to the second point about ‘comforting’ ‘essentialism’ here. I’ll admit that I’m not 100% sure what your second ask means, so pls help me out if i get something off.To clarify this point:

we continue to fixate on the idea of an essential transness because it gives us comfort, as well as the easiest answers.

I think the post is not saying “if you find your identity comforting, it’s essentialism, which is bad.” but instead saying “basing transness on essentialism is done because its comforting, which isn’t necessarily right or a good thing to do.”So like, its not: “oh you’re comfortable with being a man? that must be essentialist!” but rather: “If you say, ‘I was born this way, [or] i was a woman trapped in a man’s body’ you’re finding comfort in an essentialism.”(im not going to say more because im not sure i understand the last bit of your ask: “and considering that as a self independent of behaviours or how i'm perceived by others is not "comforting" to me, which is so often used as a word that dismisses some experiences in lieu of others'.”)I will say that there does seem to be, as you rightfully point out, a tendency for the left in trans theory, to see the system of gender as something that is oppressive and therefore any experience with it must be uncomfortable or degrading. To a large extent I agree with the analysis of gender as a system is something to be suspicious of, in late capitalism especially, however, I disagree with the motion that therefore we must disengage with gender totally, or always find it traumatic to exist within no matter what.My disagreement comes in two parts:1. it often then makes a call for the abolition of gender no matter what, disregarding many native traditions of gender and alternative systems of gender arose and still function largely (if not entirely) outside of western/capitalist constructs. Denying gender carte blanche without applying a postcolonial or aptly historical materialist lens to the case often leads to racist conclusions. I also think that it does try to tack on an ‘if’ or a ‘but’ to trans people’s identification by placing conditions on that identification that do not exist in the world, and only exist by means of a thought experiment. “if gender was abolished, would there be trans people?” “If dysphoria was no longer a thing, would trans people still need surgery?” I think these questions only ever point to a utopian project in which the material conditions in which things like ‘trans’ and ‘gender’ are completely changed beyond recognition. Systems of gender have been in place for most of human history, and employed to various levels of discrimination or celebration. to eliminate these things, it would take the destruction of capitalism and probably a thousand years at least, by which time technologies, social relations, everything, would have changed so completely -so what is the point of time-travelling trans people to this realm? go read about indigenous history if you’re that interested in alternative approaches to gender.2. i think it moves away from what we should actually be doing in the real world with regards to trans rights activism which is advocating for the ability to freely, informatively, and consensually gender oneself. talk of throwing out gender entirely is, although illuminating at times about various subjects, fundamentally disregards the pressing issues of today such as free universal access to trans healthcare, raising kids without gendered trauma (a feminist issue as well), eliminating transphobia etc. etc..I think the post does kinda get at this stuff (in 2.), asking how medical diagnoses are effecting trans people and how we think about ourselves and the bad effects of that, and indeed how cissexist society is only ever talking to itself whilst processing trans people within it.Hope this kinda makes sense???? Again, pls feel free to hit me up with any responses, questions, or where i’ve misread you lol.

[p1scespr1ncess]

Extended artist statement

Untitled

Missouri Wilton

‘Untitled’ is a series that expresses the experience of questioning and navigating gender identity. According to Judith Butler, an American philosopher and gender theorist, gender has no relation to biological sex but is rather socially constructed and performative, “Masculine and feminine rolls are not biologically fixed but socially constructed.”[1]Growing up we were only ever expected to be the gender that related to our biological sex and we’re held to the cultural standards of said genders by our parents, teachers and society as a whole. This conditioning of identity and self-expression through gendered ideals is extremely toxic for young minds and can lead to discomfort, suppression of intrinsic behaviours, and mistrust in one's self-perception. My partner Dylan has recently transitioned to the nonbinary pronouns they/them after years of struggling to fit in with different standards of beauty not only heteronormative but also homosexual beauty standards. It has been a hard journey but it’s only the beginning and I wanted to explore the intimate moments they share with their body and document the ways they go about dealing with dysphoria. I wanted to use photography as a vessel of empowerment for those struggling to understand their identity because there is nothing more beautiful than a queer body, a body that rejects societal standards and embraces all the different elements of gender expression and holds no boundaries to biological sex.

I have created this work as an extension of a documentary series I did where I looked at contemporary LGBTQ nightlife and safe spaces. I wanted to pull someone from that crowd and take a closer look into their life as a young queer person navigating self-discovery. I don’t believe queer bodies are exposed enough in the media or in society, that’s not to say there aren’t people who are attempting to contribute to the normalisation of this but they are not shown enough for people to feel comfortable and accepted within society. My partner struggles a lot with feeling accepted by the people around them which is an aspect I have touched on within my work. There comes a real sense of loneliness when dealing with identity as it’s a very personal experience so I have been photographing them by themselves with a blank background to isolate them and take them away from the rush of the outside world. I chose an orange tone because the warmth of the images make the photos feel really concealed and internal just to once again express how intimate the struggles tend to be, it is also a very gender neutral colour. I decided to shoot with gladwrap and orange cellophane over the lens of my camera as it creates a really soft and blurry appearance to the images and when the gladwrap catches the light it creates white spots that look like lens flares. I really like using this technique in relation to my current project because it creates an abstract nature to the photographs which perfectly communicate the fragmented view my partner holds towards their identity in the midst of navigating their gender expression. I also blurred the chest area on the model as breasts tend to be an area of dysphoria for a lot of gender queer, transgendered people and blurring them out communicates the disconnect those people feel towards their chests and how they’d prefer to have nothing there. I have chosen to print the three chosen images in A2 with a gloss finish as I feel the gloss will catch the light in a way that will emulate the light flares in the photographs.

I have always been quite interested in other cultures acceptance and encouragement of gender fluidity. In Samoan society there is a widely accepted third gender known as fa’afafine which is where one is born with the body of a male but the spirit of a woman. I have taken inspiration from the artist Shigeyuki Kihara who is a Japanese, Samoan Fa’afafine artist whose work focuses on ideas of gender and identity in relation to her culture and the perception of her existence as a fa’afafine in the western world. In Native American culture there is a traditional, highly praised and accepted third and fourth gender known as nádleehí and these people are considered to have been gifted with ‘two spirits’. Native Americans believe that everything comes from the spirit world and that a person’s characteristics are just an external reflection of their spirit. Unfortunately, due to the Europeans invasion of America in 1942 and the power they held over Native American people, ‘two spirited’ individuals were shunned and forced to confine to their biological sex. In India, gender has never been binary and the existence of a third gender has been around for centuries. Once again, in Indian culture this third gender is considered highly respected and sacred. I think the way these different cultures from around the world have such deep spiritual understandings and outlooks on life promote healthy acceptances of gender diversity and allow those gender fluid people a space in society that is safe and loving. Due to modern, western influences such as Christianity and Catholicism which are known to promote hateful views on gender fluidity and homosexuality, cultures that once looked up to third genders were forced to think differently and had their opinions forcibly changed.

‘Untitled’ speaks to the entire experience of being gender queer including physical issues like gender dysphoria and emotional struggles involving identity, acceptance and loneliness. On a deeper level it speaks to the shame that’s been instilled by western gender standards onto those who struggle to fit heteronormative narratives including gender and sexual orientation. It does this by exposing elements of discomfort and uncertainty with one’s self-perception in relation to being gender queer.

[1] Judith Butler

[neonstatic]

(transcripted convo)

i’m reposting a discussion i had w a terf. i previously posted screenshots but she messaged me and said she didn’t want her url or avatar displayed. editing the pics to post them again was hell so i’m posting a script instead (i learned my lesson tumblr: you suck). if anyone ends up finding the convo and thus the redacted speaker... idc. this is a public website and we technically had this convo in public - the notes of a post aren’t private spaces afaik. i’m posting this as proof that sometimes calmly reasoning with ppl lead to nothing. (i know anyone could say the same but lmao leave me alone.)

tw for transphobia/transmisogyny 

[redacted] (speaking to a transmasc discourser about the "woman path"): Ok let me explain what I mean :) if your experience was totally different then thats fine :) im 24 and when I was little i was encouraged to play with dolls and learn 'motherly things' like playing with baby dolls while my brother played with toy trucks. There was a lot of pressure at school to wear dresses, and be sweet and polite. @[transmasc discourser] then of course, learning to deal with periods and the shame and taboo around them. Removing body hair because its considered unladylike. Etc

@[transmasc discourser] have you had none of those experiences?

neonbaebae: these are all common experiences for women bc of gender roles/stereotypes but none of that defines womanhood as an identity.

[redacted]: completely agree they are gender roles. But menstruation isnt a gender role. Its a frustrating part of being female. But that said, what IS womanhood then?

(rest under cut)

neonbaebae: menstruation is a biological function that is in no way exclusive to female bodies. remember intersex ppl, who come in all forms and shapes. women aren't all the same and it's likewise for men. there are intersex women who don't fit all the criteria for being "female" yet still identify as women. there is a distinction to make between womanhood as an experience and womanhood as an identity.

the woman experience is what you've described. the woman identity is feeling like one, e.g.: liking female-coded clothes, makeup, hairstyles, feeling comfortable in the societal role of being a woman. identity is essentially abt self perception most of the time

[redacted]: intersex is unique and I respect that not all womens bodies are the same. Intersexuality is complex but it doesnt represent the majority of biological women. I dont have a strong baclground in intersex knowledge so I'm certainly not gonna speak on behalf of intersex women. so if identity is self perception (which I completely agree with) how can a biological man self perceive his femaleness.if he's never experienced it?

neonbaebae: trans women never identify with being male and all in entails. and they can see, thru watching women counterparts and how they interact with the world around them, that they id more w the idea of womanhood and much less w the idea of manhood. it's esp why dysphoria often settles around puberty bc the dissonance manifests physically and that's harder to handle

[redacted]: but what youre talking about is what trans women see women do.  If thats what someone aspires to, its a very basic and narrow understanding of  what womanhood is. Its only what they see. And people are far more complex than this. Does a biological male aspire to periods stigma, beauty conformity and lesser social stance in the world? Or do they aspire to femininity? Something many biological women dont feel comfortable with

neonbaebae: womanhood as an identity is a feeling that is strengthened by a disconnection to manhood, its polar opposite. someone who completely rejects the idea of being man is likely to prefer being a woman (not always but likely!). many trans women do aspire to femininity and it has nothing to do with the cis women who are uncomfortable w it, just like there are many cis women who embrace it too.

many trans women cannot quite explain their transition in another way than "being a man felt wrong but being a woman feels right and authentic to my true self". i'd suggest to ask an actual trans woman for her pov tho since i'm not one, i'm just basing myself on what i've heard them say

[redacted]: but feeling disconnected with manhood (which is understandable and gender roles are frustrating) doesnt make someone the opposite of a man. As society we need to open our understanding of gender expression. But this isnt the same as thinking 'if I dont feel like a conventional man or connect with male social expectations, then I must be the opposite'. Theres no logic in that

we live in a world where gender stereotype binaries are considered natural, and people who dont fit this understandably feel marginalised. In fact Id argue to a greater or lesser degree, none of us truly fit the prescribed gender binary.

but i find it problematic when a man thinks they're a woman based on what they think 'woman' is.

neonbaebae: you're right in saying that a disconnection from manhood doesn't make someone a woman - a connection to womanhood does. it has v little to do with the upbringing of women which you seem to define thru misogyny and menstruation alone which is frankly a pessimistic view of womanhood. it's less not feeling like a conventional man and more not feeling like a man At All. tru it doesn't sound logical but gender is not logical it's abstract and complex

it seems problematic bc one might think men would gain smth from iding as women but stats show that trans women are at higher risk of assault for being out and open, both of bc of misogyny (not directly related to having a vagina or menstruating after all) & transphobia. it's esp telling that trans men aren't targeted as much. do you disagree w trans men as well?

[redacted]: but as a women i dont connect with womanhood. Lol i am a women. It would be nice to think we live in a world where women are equal, but that's not the world we live in. Womanhood is hard. And we do live under a patriarchal society that's cultivated female inferiority over many centuries. We're still negotiating freedoms today.

Its not about gaining or loss. Its about the male right to self define womanhood on their terms, without the biological or social conditioning. In fact, many have recieved MALE conditioning as children. This comes with its own privileges.

I think transmale is a very different experience so no I categorise them very differently to transwomen

neonbaebae: "as a woman" you say. even if the experiences and stereotypes don't fit you perfectly, even if you reject it, you still id as a woman. you feel like one and you suffer the consequences of being one. believe it or not trans women suffer from iding as a woman as well and thrice as harshly. i can provide sources if you want.

trans women don't think like men bc they feel like women. the thought patterns are different. they don't digest the social messages abt men bc their mind doesn't relate to it. male entitlement and all doesn't apply to them. and in sociology alone womanhood is often defined as more than a biological or upbringing thing. it's a social identity and trans women have a right to it if they don't id and reject manhood altogether

my question tho was do you think trans men aren't men either cus otherwise that'd be hypocritical

[redacted]: my point is its not an identity. Its a reality. Im a woman. I have xx chromosomes and the world treats me as such. Similar to my race. I dont identify as my race, i am treated as the world sees me.

male entitlement does apply. Statistically baby boys are fed for longer than baby girls. And little girls are left to cry for longer than baby boys. Little girls learn many motherly caretaker roles while many of their male counterparts are encouraged to conquer the world. Children are raised by gender. Even subconsciously. I can also provide sources :)

there are many more male leaders and men in authoritive positions in the world. Women fight very hard for the same respect, but womens voices are less valued. It takes no genius to see men have greater standing in the world

about transmen. No I dont consider them men but I'll respectfully use the pronouns anyone prefers, male or female. Its common decency.

I think society needs to get more comfortable with non confirmative gender expression

neonboobear: but it is an identity. that's why there's a distinction between sex (bio) and gender (identity & expression). if it would feel wrong for you to be called a man or nonbinary then that'd be bc you don't id as such. (also there are women with chromosomes other than xx maybe you should avoid phrasing it that way.) i id as my race but race has v different roots & impact than gender historically and it cannot be compared. let's stick with gender.

and i'm not denying gendered socialization but it doesn't shape a child more than their personal feelings on their identity, which can differ v early in life bc (some) would rather engage in activities associated with the opposite gender for example. if it were that simple trans ppl wouldn't go at lengths to "play the part"

you're right society does need to accept gender non conformance but that's v different from the trans experience. i rly think you should have a deep conversation with a trans person to try and see their pov

[redacted]: if womanhood is an identity, it totally invalidates what it means to be female. And yes its arguable that there're are women who arent xx but how about the majority of the population that are. Must we pander to the few at the expense of the majority? also what makes you assume I dont talk to trans people? Critique doesnt mean lack of empathy.

Children and gendered socialization is complex. Maybe if 'feminine' activities werent coded as female and just 'childhood play' we wouldnt have the same degree of dysphoria. It goes back to the irrational logic, 'if I like the pink toy section then I must be a girl.'

neonboobear: i'm afraid that is your pov for the ideology that womanhood is an experience but also an identity is considered a v valid theory in the science field. the fact that there are women with chromosomes other than xx is proof alone that xx chromosomes aren't what makes a woman. and i've suggested a deep conversation and an intention to Understand the Other. not just a talk. i said nothing abt empathy.

there would be less dysphoria but i'm sure it's still be there. many think the abolition of gender would solve everything but i doubt so

[redacted]: i have a close mtf friend and we have the debate constantly. We don't always agree with her but there's a lot more common ground then you might expect :) Gender roles damn us all. Hmmmm... abolition of gender is impossible but theres is a lot that can be done to challenge gender expectations. But not an easy battle! neonbaebae: i mean this with the least offense okay but i sincerely think neither of you should be friends. i’m black and i’d never befriend a racist. that’s a lack of self respect on her part and a plain lack of respect on yours. 

i’d like to end this conversation here. i’ve said my point and i’d only repeat myself by continuing. and since i’m not a trans woman i don’t want to misinterpret them (so sorry if i’ve already did. trans girls feel free to bring up clarifications). might sound tedious but i strongly suggest you watch this 50-min long video essay by youtuber contrapoints. her vids are informative and entertaining and so v easy to digest despite the length. i’ve heard she’s not v liked in terf circles but it’s worth it to listen to what she has to say as a trans women.

[transrph]

                                       Writing a Trans Character                                As Experienced by a Trans Man

With more resources coming out for trans faceclaims, I wanted to make sure that there were also more guides on how to write a trans character. So I’m going to be sharing my personal experience with gender as a toolset for those that haven’t/aren’t questioning their identity. Please keep in mind that this is entirely based off of my personal experience and growth, and that every trans person has their own journey with their own experiences. None are invalid and all are equally as important. This also wound up turning into more of a gender study as well, so feel free to share and message about your thoughts. I’d love to have gender discussions!

Part one    |    Part Two    |     Part Three 

Part Four Coming Out

This is something that so many youth struggle with, even me at 24 had no idea how to come out and it wasn’t the best experience, however it wasn’t the worst. No matter what kind of experience it is, no one should take away the bravery or the strength it takes to tackle this obstacle. And everyone deserves to feel proud of themselves for it.

To start, I want to say that some people don’t come out to family for safety reasons. And because I am an advocate of keeping the community safe (especially mentally as many people use rp as a way to cope and escape from the world) I beg anyone reading this not to use coming out as a reason for some abuse thread. For a characters backstory sure, because the plot can then revolve around the recovery. However as a thread where it is being currently written is something that many people have already faced, and do not need to see, even if it is to a fictional character. Many times it is the description that causes trauma to resurface and I would hate for anyone to be forced to face that again. So please, keep any abuse stories left as backstories.

As far as the actual act, this is another thing entirely up to you as the writer. I won’t go into my experience as much because it was rather dull and unimportant. I will say though, that not all parents that claim to be accepting will actually show acceptance. There are not the only two extremes in someone accepting or not accepting. A parent could say they are fine with their child being trans, but then never use their proper pronouns (note they are not preferred, they are proper). Or they dead name them (the act of using someone’s birthname rather than the name they have chosen for themselves). There are various things a family member or friend can do that will cause mental harm to their child/pal. Just like there are various things they can do to help. I’ll be splitting this up into two to keep the two things separate. I am going to write this a bit differently, for the sake of those writing a trans character but also writing with a trans character because I feel it’s very important.

First the bad.

As I said before, deadnaming is a possibility. It can be a very invalidating thing to hear. For me, when I hear someone use my dead name I visibly cringe. It has never felt like my name, and so many people I have met have said I never looked like it fit me. Deadnaming is harmful in that it can make someone question themselves, but also make that voice in their head saying no one will accept them and they should give up all the louder, which can worsen depression and lead to possible suicide.

Improper pronoun use can be linked with the above for all the same reasons. It’s a constant reminder and a constant invalidation. It can make someone feel like you aren’t seeing them. Not the true them. And so they start to feel invisible. Proper pronoun use is important to show someone that you see the them that they see in themselves.

Claiming it is a phase. The person being told this knows better than anyone what they feel. But as mentioned in part two, there is the constant questioning of themselves. So when told this, it’s hard to quiet the voice that is saying we aren’t sure, or that we can’t be because our experience doesn’t match someone else’s.

Calling someone a special snowflake. We already think we’re just trying to get attention, and most times when people question this, it isn’t fake. When you question whether or not you’re doing something for the sake of attention, that shows an awareness and admittance. How many people do you know admit they are doing something for attention? So questioning it is a sure sign that you in fact are not looking for attention. However, when people claim this, it’s hard to prove them wrong. Especially if you’ve been struggling with your gender for only a short period of time.

Denying them as a friend/partner/family member. Making them feel like they aren’t good enough or worthy. The amount of courage this takes is something cis straight people will not get in their life, so to say that you can’t be friends with someone or date them right after they come out is very harmful. I’m not saying people that are dating are forced to stay together, it’s the immediate reaction that would be harmful. A calm talk afterwards is fine and all can be discussed. As far as friendships, if you write your character no longer being friends because of this, congrats, your character is transphobic. As far as family goes, rejecting a child or sibling breaks a level of trust that person could have for any if not all deep rooted relationships. It sets an example that even people that you’ve known since birth can betray you and hate you for being yourself. And that fear and resentment can bleed into other areas of their lives as well.

Using their past identity as punishment. I’ve already gone over the deadnaming, however I have experienced a parent using my dead name as a punishment. If they felt I was speaking out against them, or if I did something they didn’t like, they would use my dead name as a punishment. As a way to cause me pain because they could see how much it bothered me. This is in a way an emotionally violent attack as, for me, it triggered a great deal of dysphoria and trust issues.

I feel those are good key points though certainly not all of them. But for the sake of length I want to move on.

The good:

Unconditional support. When a character comes out, to see unconditional support is the biggest relief. In reality you can see people’s eyes light up. It is always a relief to say that you accomplished facing something truly terrifying and it turned out well.

Proper name and pronoun use. For the exact opposite reasons above. Incredible validation in hearing these used. It also helps to fight away questioning thoughts and anxiety/depression when someone else is using your name and pronouns.Even slip ups where someone corrects themselves is better than ignoring the mistake at all.

Correcting people for them. It’s another way of support, and also proving to us that you have our backs no matter what. Sometimes having to correct someone is embarrassing, and sometimes it can be a hassle, so to see someone else sort of take over for us without speaking over us or outing us on accident is incredible.

Going to the bathroom with them. An odd thing to think about but when you’re faced with the choice and not sure whether you pass enough or not, this can be very validating and helpful. It truly is a terrifying experience. For example, I had one time when using the restroom, I wpas followed in and a man stood outside the one stall waiting, then used the urinal, washed his hands, and got very close to the stall door. All fine and normal, until he washed his hands a second time, and then came close to the door. And then washed his hands a third and stood again. I can’t know for sure what his intent was, but he eventually left the restroom. Meanwhile I had my phone out ready to call my manager (because this was at my place of work) to escort me out of the bathroom.

Again for lengths sake I want to stop this here, but you can get a good idea of what support is and what it isn’t. I will add, for those writing with a trans character, that making their transition about your character is not how you should write out the plot. Their transition affects some people outside of themselves, yes. But it affects them the most.

The last list I want to make is how your character can come out, because there are many ways.

Writing a letter/email

Sitting people down

Recording a video

Hinting with talk of other trans people

Facebook statuses

Phone Calls

Text Messages

Cards

Get creative. If your character is afraid to face the people they are coming out to, think of how they would best want to go about it. Informatively? Creatively? Nervously? Boldly? This is entirely up to who they are as people and their personal values. Where you take their experience past that is entirely your own, but again I beg that you do so as a backstory and not write this out through a thread if it involves any sort of abuse.

Prompt Version

What fears did your character have before coming out? Who where they most afraid to come out to? Why? What did they question about themselves before coming out? How did they come out? What were their expectations of coming out? What was the reaction from family of them coming out? What was the reaction of friends?

[the-mira-life-project-mtf]

Following Your Path (My MtF~H.R.T. Journey)

FIND YOUR PATH ALONG MtF/FtM

     Finding your path is always a challenge and staying on the path is equally harder. When something is held dear, the path is clear. However, like any path there is always obstacles you must over come if you wish to proceed any further.

     For example,

     Every choice in life has many other potential paths that lead to different conclusions. Take for example: Patient A has three paths that they can follow. The blue line represents the pathway of transition for a transgender person.

     Since my perspective is from the viewpoint of a male-to-female, the pathway begins with Patient A starting off with a sex of male and and as they progress through life, their end-goal is to become female. On the pathway of transition, there are three possible transgender pathways (however, in reality there is an infinite count of pathways)

     Let’s say Patient Aa takes pathway number one: to get off the pathway of transition, one must leave the comfort of the set biological path and step into the wilderness. Patient Aa isn’t exactly comfortable with the whole transgender aspect and is considered ‘exploring’ the field. They try telling their parents about their feelings, but the family rejects the claims. This builds anxiety in the patient and they must go at this alone. With no support from the family, they turn to their network of closes friends and advisers and find no support. Disgruntle, the patient leaves the pathway of transition and attempts self-medicating with overseas off-brands of estrogen, but without patience to wait for changes to occur, the patient gives up on H.R.T. and resumes the pathway of transition.

     Now lets say Patient Ab takes pathway number two: prior to leaving the pathway of transition, they consider the implications and effects of taking hormones; but after a month or two of deciding, they begin HRT. They experience the early stages of transformation: lost of libido, skin changes, breast budding. They try to open up with their biological family, but the family denies to accept the changes. This leads patient Ab to deal with depression and insecurities, threatening to end their path. Their insurance changes and find without a diagnosis of dysphoria, their estrogen isn’t covered. This is only a minor setback as the patient is able to get covered and celebrates their breast reaching a B-cup in two years. This growth causes mixed feelings with the patients significant other and they break-up. Rising anxiety builds as their facial features are starting to change and they are not certain how they will be accepted. The patient finally comes out to their parents and friends once more and is accepted as the opposite gender. This leads to changing the gender markers on all legal notoriety. With complete acceptance, the patient undergoes breast augmentation surgery to increase their cup size from B to C-cup. Since their face still appears male this leads to intense verbal harassment. But because the patient has a strong support group, pushes past the comments and considers SRS then has SRS performed. Finally, facial reconstruction surgery (which they had to save up for) and behavioral analysis finds patient ‘happier’, as is true with most transgender patients upon completion.

     With pant 1 and 2 passed, Patient Ac immediately heads off the pathway of transition and begins their transformation without issue or deliberation. They are successful with year one and maintain a healthy relationship with their partner. With softening facial features and widening hips and budding breasts, this leads to unwanted sexual advances and harassment...some threats of violence are present. This causes the patient to speed up their transition as they have SRS done, but due to complications, the surgery needed to be repeated. Taking a break for a few months, the patient then goes in for breast augmentation. Running out of finances, the patient considers themselves happy with their current gender and sex.

     Same patient, same family and same settings...but all different paths determined on the patients knowledge, self-advocacy, need to change and social network.

MY PATH...

     Every persons path is unique to themselves. Some have a path that might have one or two obstacles, or many obstacles. My path seems to have broken off into three branches. In the past blog posts, I’ve have commented about my paths diverging and coming back together as I dealt with obstacles.

     Above is my path...at first glance it is quite difficult to read, but follow the path and it will make sense.

     The dark blue line is my life-path ‘during transgender’ times. My transgender path begins at #1 Port Orchard - Age 7: My path even begins earlier then that, around the 6th month of my conception in the womb as I was described and identified as a girl and not a boy by my mother OBGYN. It was at the age of seven did I first notice that I did not think nor behaved like a boy, but like a girl; thanks to my mothers upbringing. The medication certainly helped the external appearance as I was already developing breasts due to steroids. I was taught how to use the restroom as a female, wiping and cleaning. How to care for a family and tend to the house. If i tried acting masculine, I was punished.

     This behavior lead to a growing dysphoria as puberty took my body one direction and my brain the other direction. I became depressed with my masculine body and began to hide myself as it did not seem right. Leaving Port Orchard, we moved to my #2 Olalla - First Considering Being Transgender: growing up, I was conflicted with idea and sensations. My desire to be before left me to buy fate breasts to give me the desired shape and even would wonder what it would be like to bear my own children. I would allow my nails to grow and present my body in feminist fashion. This caused much anxiety when my family found out I was transgender at the age of 19 and I was severely punished verbally, physically and mentally. This pushed me into hiding and denying.

     By the time I was in my 30s, I decided to act upon my needs and began my hormone therapy at #3 Tacoma - Cedar River Clinics. This was a risky move as I was still living with my trans-phobic family and considered my friends as non-excepting of me being Mira. I began to low dose of hormones and increased the dose over the year. As the months ticked by, I found myself desiring to become more female and less male then when I began. Even the H.R.T. prescribing doctors noticed this as I transitioned from being nonconforming to something like nonconforming/fluid to even just being ‘female’. As my body began to change with the reduction of my libido and the changing fat deposits upon my body. When my breasts reached a B-cup in just the first 10 months and my face was feminizing faster then expected, I personally cut my path into two: Path 1) End All HRT & Lose My Adopted Family or Path 2) Expedite HRT & Lose My Biological Family.

     #4 Victor - New Family/Mira was the results of my first verbal attempt of coming out. It wasn’t easy, but after I was finished speaking, I found myself adopted and welcomed into the Messinger family as Mira (in time of course!) and this gave me room to grow and develop as I first really considered SRS and facial surgery to correct my masculine appearance. Slowly, I have been transforming my identity and life in just the past 22 days; every day slipping further away from being David to being Mira. As the first week has come and gone, my name and identity seems to have been welcomed by my new family and friends. I started off with 115 Facebook friends and ended up with 116 friends! Lol! Many of them now only refer to me as Mira and as a female.

     Everything to this point is still upon the path, but have not been reached. I am certain that there will be plenty of obstacles to overcome before I finally reach the end of my hormone replacement therapy path! #5 Bainbridge - Dr. Worth/Transgender Care (4/26/2019) will not happen for another 4 days and much of the path forward depends on her acceptance. There are other paths I can take with other transgender care providers at Virginia Mason, but I feel that Dr. Worth is the provider who is suppose to be on my path. Once my transgender care is being managed; being not only treated as a male patient, but also a female patient...I will feel comfortable. By May 5th 2019, I will have reached my 1st year on hormones (Although I am labeling July 21st as my year one since I missed about 1.5 months of hormones).

     In time, with Dr. Worth’s guidance and expertise; having her as my doctor opens Virginia Mason to my transgender care as they are the only hospital on the west side of Washington that handles facial reconstruction, breast augmentation and a whole array of cosmetic procedures that I will never be able to afford! As my face causes the worse of my anxiety, it is paramount that it is the first to be changed. I don’t know what I want it too look like, just not masculine! #6 Seattle - Facial Surgery/Transgender Woman Care will probably be performed at the Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Washington and I would like to have that done in 1-2 years if possible. But I believe there will be a side path I might have to follow to get my diagnosis codes up to date with a proper behavioral assessment for the gender dysphoria diagnosis that is needed with a SRS.

     #7 Portland - Sex Reassignment Surgery...since there is no hospital or provider who preforms SRS here in the state of Washington (odd for a state that quickly adopted the transgender law before it became law), the closes is in Portland, Oregon at the Oregon Health Hospital. This surgery probably will not happen for at least two years...and if my health continues to get worse, probably never. I see this as the capstone of my journey and a sign that my transition into womanhood is over. HRT will never end...I will always have to take estrogen my whole life to replenish my body with hormones (even if the testicles are not removed).

      As with any path, there is always Influencers pushing you in both directions. I have identified 6 influences that might have turned me into Mira before I even knew it. Even though it isn’t on the list, the top one would have be the OBGYN, my Mother and Slobid before I was 7 years old. This laid the building stones to developing my female side over my male side. With my father out of the picture, I was starved of the masculine role-model and even recall the family trying to break me out of the feminine role with male role models. It never worked! Here is a list of the 6 events, places and people who nurtured my femininity.

     #A Port Orchard - Legalizing Mira is quite possibly the capstone of coming out. This path has not exactly happened yet. I am in the process of building a case for my full name change and if you have lived under the desired name for awhile, it usually helps your case. Also, I don’t want to change it legally, to give my new family time to settle in, for me to adapt to just being Mira and choosing July as a memorial to the birth date of Amanda to begin my new identity. Ironically, I wasn’t planning on changing my name until after August, but with the smooth transition, I am eager to dissolve my painful male identity.

     Going back to 2004-2008; the first conditioning to the term LGBT came from #B PLU - Influence Of My MtF. Pacific Lutheran University would have been the last place you’d expect transgenderism to run rapid, but in most of the physiology, psychology, literature and sociology classes I was required to take, the idea of LGBT was quite influential. If you wanted to survive the universities social justice warriors, you had to adopt that being a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender was okay and even blessed by the Lutheran church. If you were heard speaking negatively about the LGBT, you would have been discharged from the school. Most of the time, I was unaware that my transgender nature was quickly developing at the university as it even caused me to moved away from analytical thinking as a scientist and into the field of medicine as a nurse.

     For a long time, I’ve been taught that transgenderism is a disease and that the people who think they are the opposite gender or have no gender suffer from a severe mental disease and should be euthanized. Irony always seems to get you good! As fate would have it, I would date a lovely woman...who was bisexual and preferred women over men...as to why she chose me...I think it is clear! It wasn’t only the physical world that seem to change me, sometimes it was also the metaphysical world as seen at #C MSH - Spirit Lake Event. Spirit Lake has always held dear to me...but it also fed into my mental image of me as a woman. When I would study at the mountain, I would tend to wear female clothes and my fake breasts as I was free from the bonds of the Puget Sound. However, it wasn’t the lake that influenced my change...it was the South Side of the mountain...there I dreamed about a life that seemed so distant.

     When I traveled with my girlfriend to #D Umpqua - Relationship Issues, it was suppose to be a relaxing trip, just us two, heading south down the 101 towards California. At first, the trip was going great, then it just became...tiring! I was tired of assuming both the female and male role and became upset. For many years I tried coming out, but I did not have the heart to say that I identified as female and she needed to pick up the slack. Two women driving on the coast...just does not work! When we reached Florence, I had desired to see the dunes, but she was becoming unbearable and all I just wanted to do was drive to my destination and sleep. When we reached Umpqua, all hell broke lose.

     To the reader, it may seem short-sided...but imagine setting up camp, cooking, paying for food, gas and camping, driving and being responsible for reservations. Not to mention, I had to care about her issues as she payed no mine to my issues. I told her that I wished she would pitch in and contribute and did not want excuses. We were not partners in this trip! She then said that she did not really think we were capable and that my attitude was frightening her. Calling me a sexist and bigot. I was so frustrated, that I just gave up and walked off to the shower to cry. Being hurt was pretty bad, but nothing compared to drowning...twice!

     #E&F Copalis & Pacific Beach - Mermaid Events: I am certain that this might come as a surprise, but I have seen mermaids...many times! At one time, I once lived underwater as one of them...but for some reason, I decided to live a life above the waves...and it kills me! I don’t typically use this blog for my mermaid life...but I am thinking ‘It is part of me...why not?’ Besides, I am in no danger...as long as I stay out of the ocean! Not surprisingly, mermaids are one of the lowest believed mythologies out there as we’ve all been told that we did not evolved out of the sea...but that is just not true...for most people.

     My re-connection began in April of 1991 when my family went to Copalis Beach in Washington to hunt for clams. Most children have a born affiliation for water, but mine went beyond it. I would spend most of my baths underwater and loved the pool. When we were in the rolling Pacific, I was swept out to sea and pulled by a vicious riptide. I was pulled underwater where I lost my breath...yet was still alive and aware...and breathing! Something grabbed me and quickly pushed me back to the shore where I was found 10 minutes later. It was a miracle that I survived underwater that long!

     Two years later, March of 1993, we went to Pacific Beach to hunt clams and once again was pulled out to sea. I felt the pain of drowning and then the relief of breathing as I was embraced by a mermaid as she help me to swim. I still remember her warning to me: The next time I am pulled out into the ocean, I will remain there indefinitely...and in 40 years, I will have no choice but to join her as my lungs will become useless and I will be unable to breathe. Ironically, now 34 years old, my lungs are failing from unknown reasons...I am literally suffocating on air! And I know why. Atlanteans are not permitted to live above the ocean, it is our curse for attacking Athens. Greed is a killer!

     Since the Mermaid Event’s...it seems that somehow, she triggered my memories of my Atlantean past and who I was 10,000 years ago. She also seem to awaken my elder mer-spirit and it has been slowly changing me into a woman and fish. Weird, but it is hard to explain my scaly rashes, webbed digits, ability to see underwater and ability to swim and hold my breath much longer underwater then above. Even with diseased lungs. To this day, I feel that I am being pulled by the Atlantean spirit and the Human spirit...a battle the Atlantean spirit is easily winning. Maybe this is why I am connected to crystals...who knows!

     #G Wenatchee - Asexual...although, not exactly discovered at Wenatchee, Washington (this revelation would be made at St. Anthony Hospital, Gig Harbor, 2018); it was the first time I realized that I had a serious issue if I wanted our relationship to go any further. Prior to the blow-out on the Oregon Coast, my girlfriend and I traveled up into the Cascade Mountains for some crystal mining and primitive camping, but she did not want to do that and unwilling to go back home, I asked where she wanted to go and she said we could go see her mom in Wenatchee.

     The last time I visited Wenatchee was when I was 13 years old...the mountains were on fire! Rolling over the mountains, the rain turned to sun and the heat of the day was delightful! With no place to stay, we checked all the hotels, but found no lodging! Luckily, by sundown, we found a place to stay at her grandma’s house and there we camped.

     She asked day after day if I wanted to kiss, cuddle and maybe even partake in a little foreplay...but the first day I thought it was a joke, the second day was too tired and the third day, I just turned her down. Any other man would have jumped at the opportunity to have sex...but sex does not appeal to me. I have no need for it. Oddly, I am not attracted to human’s, sexually. I call it a curse for my past, but learned to live with it. But realistically, it was dysphoria stopping me. I currently was on the path to transition, but have not considered a hormone replacement until the camping trip nightmare and this event certainly showed that if I wanted to get serious with her...I needed to be serious with myself.

     When she and I repaired our relationship and I told her I was transgender, she said: “I had always wondered if you were asexual, but as Mira...maybe a lesbian.” boy that chilled me to the bone! Considering I desire a full transition, she was correct...by all respects...I would become a lesbian if I assume my sex as female, but if I assume a non-gender, then I just be a transwoman (perfering only women) which is hard to find when you are transgender and iffy about other transgender individuals.

[ievani-e]

I’m Genderqueer, I Guess!?

(AKA, My Experiences Accepting  — and Then Rejecting  — Womanhood)

Over three weeks ago now, on February 4th, I started out wanting to write a random little opinion piece about Disney’s Mulan. I had experienced a personal epiphany, and I wanted to revisit some of the ideas I had had about Mulan in the past, and contrast that with how I felt about it now. But, I realised, there was something else I had to write before I could. I had to write this random thing first, because this post informs that one.

So what this post is going to be about is this: I am genderqueer.

This is not a recent thing. I have not suddenly changed as a person. On the contrary, I’m exactly the same person I have always been. The only thing that has changed is the label itself: a label which, for reasons explained below, I have decided to don.

In order to properly tell you about where I am now, I have to tell you a bit about my past and give you an overview about my experiences growing up. I have to tell you how I first got to this place for my decision to come out as genderqueer/gender non-binary to make sense.

Some backstory, then: While I never directly suffered as a result of my gender identity the same way some others have, I did still struggle with gender dysphoria. I recognise that many trans and queer people have (or have had) it way worse than me, and that I am extremely fortunate to have avoided being bullied or ostracised due to my gender identity, having firmed up and sussed out what it even was only now. But, nevertheless, it was there the whole time.

Growing up, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was medically wrong with me: that the doctors must have made some kind of a mistake, and everyone around me treating me as a girl ever since was simply the result of carrying the error forward. I must have had a higher dosage of androgens in my system, or maybe an extra chromosome or something. I must have secretly been intersex and just hadn’t been diagnosed. Surely, something had to have been wrong. I couldn’t have been a girl, because any definition of or expectation for a “girl” I ever heard was something so different from what I was.

As a child, I grew up with a very narrow definition of what it meant to be a girl and what girls could and couldn’t be, because that was what had been spoon-fed to me by the media and the social norms I saw around me. These norms were perpetuated at school, by members of my family, and on TV — with TV standing in as a representative for the world at large. What I saw around me was: girls liked shopping and jewellery. Girls liked fashion and beauty. Girls liked horse-riding and ballet. Girls were vain. Girls were stupid. Girls only cared about wearing pretty pink dresses and chatting about boys. Girls were… <insert other extremely limited, restrictive, two-dimensional female stereotype here>. Those were the conclusions I had come to, based on what the world was showing me and teaching me.

And I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t like those girls. I was nuanced, I was complicated; I was intelligent and smart and not at all interested in love and romance, and I much preferred to hang out with boys like I was one of them than try to date any of them. I liked video games and horror films and reading thrillers and action adventures. I was no girly-girl: I was a tomboy, and proud of it.

Nothing I had heard about girls applied to me or appealed to me in any way. (I mean no offense if you are more feminine than I was and you do like that sort of stuff: it’s totally okay to be that way, too! It’s just that I, in particular, wasn’t).

I, the little weirdo that I felt like at the time, had never fit into the picture of the archetypal girl. So, I reasoned, the only logical conclusion was that I must not have been a girl. I must have been a boy. At least, I fit much more comfortably into the definition of a “boy” than I did the definition of a “girl”.

The problem there is, it’s easy to decide that certain characteristics associated with a certain group aren’t compatible with you when the characteristics given to you are so limited in the first place. There was a very specific mental image I had in my head of what a girl should be like, and there didn’t seem to be very much room for discussion. For boys, on the other hand, it seemed like they could be anything except that. That has a whole host of issues all its own — ones I won’t be getting into in depth now — where boys are discouraged from displaying feminine characteristics or emotionality, and this is just as harmful to boys as it is to discourage girls from displaying masculine characteristics. Double-standards do exist, and they are not okay.

But, putting aside that can of worms for now, boys generally had a lot more options than girls did. Of course I would be able to see more similarities between myself and boys when there was a wider range of options to choose from from the start.

Please permit me to be an optimist for a moment and say that I believe that, in an ideal world, all positive characteristics would be embraced and encouraged in children, regardless of whether they were typically “feminine” or “masculine”. We would love unconditionally, and judge each person for their own individual merits and demerits, rather than holding them up to some perceived notion of being “girl” enough or “boy” enough. Doing so is incredibly detrimental to us all because, when we start holding personhood up to some arbitrary standard, it becomes very easy to fall short. And that does not feel good for the many of us who don’t measure up.

But the real world and the ideal world are worlds apart, and social norms did, and do, exist. In any case, I certainly didn’t fit the cookie-cutter mould of what it “meant” to be a “girl”. And that felt like a failure on my part. I felt like I wasn’t enough; like I wasn’t good enough, just the way I was.

I grew up empathising and relating to men in a variety of ways, because in our culture and in our media it is predominantly male characters and male role models that we see. Female role models… Not so much. Female characters in books, video games and TV were few and far between to begin with, and those that did exist tended to be depicted as homemakers, love interests, sex objects and… nope, that’s about it. As a result, I didn’t know that there were more ways to be than just those.

That’s not to say that shows featuring more positive role models didn’t exist — it’s not even to say I didn’t happen across a few of them myself. Rather, it is that those positive influences weren’t numerous enough or prevalent enough for me, as a child, to notice; or to start to change my mind about women as a whole because of them. There weren’t enough positive portrayals of women for those portrayals of women to form part of a larger pattern; certainly not enough to challenge the already-existing patterns of behaviour that were being perpetuated far more prominently and pervasively. There were exceptions, but that’s just it: complex, interesting, autonomous female characters — women such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess — were exceptions; not the rule. (And I’ve never actually even seen Xena: Warrior Princess myself, so…)

One such example that comes to my own mind is that of Elizabeth Bennet, from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; which isn’t actually about pride and prejudice anywhere near as much as you might think. That, I read when I was 13? 14? 15? as part of my high school’s English Literature course, and Elizabeth Bennet was probably the closest thing I had to a positive female role model in literature at that time. Even then, Elizabeth, too, was posited as the exception, not the rule: even within the book’s own canon. You see, Elizabeth was exceptionally skilled, witty and intelligent; she was particularly sensible, reasonable (even if not open-minded…) and capable of critical thought. Unfortunately, the logical continuation of such a premise leads to the (incorrect) implication that other girls… usually… weren’t. So in the book, we see that Elizabeth wasn’t like other girls. Elizabeth was different.

So while I saw myself, to a certain extent, in Elizabeth, I also saw the same demonization of —  and the desire to distance oneself from — other women which I experienced first-hand, along with the desperation to distinguish oneself from the gender norms as if they were true; not as if they weren’t. The mistake Elizabeth and I both made was that, by thinking of ourselves as “special little snowflakes” and elevating our own status to that of the exception, not the rule, it came at the cost of failing to appreciate the basic humanity and the complexity of other women: women who may, in actuality, have had a lot more in common with us than we first gave them credit for.

Meanwhile, it seemed that (cis) men were allowed to be human, and experience (almost) the full range of thoughts and feelings and ways of life attached to that, in a way that women just weren’t. But, the issue of gender and representation in media is in fact another beast entirely. What is relevant to me throughout all of this is that this all culminated in the fact that I was someone who accepted men exactly the way they were, and could relate to men in a multitude of ways; but, before discovering feminism, despised anything even remotely “female” or “feminine” and discriminated against it, dismissing it or distancing myself from it for one reason or another, despite being female myself. What. The. Fuck.

Now I’m an adult and I know better, I know that the majority of my discomfort with “the feminine” stemmed primarily from good old-fashioned sexism, both internalised and otherwise. I know now that those beliefs — both the ones I had impressed upon me, and the ones I in turn applied to others — are inherently inaccurate and deeply flawed.

Problem solved, then: it’s not that my gender identity or expression was wrong. It’s not that I wasn’t woman enough, despite not feeling like I fit in all my life. It’s that sexism exists, and sexism is the cause for all of my dysphoria, hurray(!)

Or so I thought.

Sexism does still play a part, however, and that’s what has made coming to grips with my gender identity all the more difficult for me. Before I could discern what was really true about myself, first I had to disentangle what was really true about “what it means to be a female/ a woman/ feminine” from all the fallacies, generalisations and mistruths. When I came across feminism several years ago as a young tween and learnt about what it was, it opened a lot of doors for me in terms of coming to a greater understanding of myself and the world around me. Feminism has been a very positive influence in and on my life, and is responsible for a lot of personal growth. But also, in this particular instance, confused me even further. And that’s because, I started to think that… maybe the reason why I didn’t associate myself with the concept of “girlhood” or “womanhood” when I was younger was only because the concept I had in my head had been so completely wrong all along.

Before feminism, all that internalised sexism really did go a long way towards meaning I related more to men than I did to women; or at least, thought I did, because really, I never gave women much of a chance. I had to unlearn a lot of the preconceived notions I had grown up with, and learn everything all over again from the ground up.

The more I learned, the more I came to understand; but even so, the feeling of me being different or not quite fitting in anywhere didn’t go away. It’s just that I started to think that maybe it wasn’t me who was wrong: maybe it was the gender norms themselves that were wrong. It was the idea that “women are like X and men are like Y” — and that this is universally true for all women and all men — that was wrong.

What I had to learn was that women could be anything. And I mean; I already knew that about men — but women, too?! So women can think and act for themselves, and be incredibly intelligent and have their own thoughts and opinions and expertise on a subject, and have a vast array of interests?! It sounds stupid now, especially if you already know it to be true; but it was a much-needed life lesson for the twenty-year-old me. I was already fully accepting of a wide range of personalities and occupations for men, because I saw such a wide range of men and male characters/personalities in the media. It was already a given to me that men could be anything. And yes, there is that whole “…except be feminine” thing I mentioned before, and it is an issue; but I never personally bought into that. I had my fair share of male role models with a sensitive side or more typically feminine character traits as well. What was shocking to me is that I had to learn that the same thing I had always believed to be true of men was true of women, too.

What I had to learn, absurdly for the first time as an adult, was that not every woman had to like the same thing or have the same hobbies or interests. Not all women had to look or dress or behave the same way, or any way in particular at all. Not every woman had the same likes and interests as me: but — and here was the key difference — they could have done. There was, in reality, no logical reason why they couldn’t. I realised that girls can be tomboys and gamers and total nerds and still be girls.

If that was the case, then maybe my own experience and my own expression of self — despite being so far removed from that limited childhood notion of “girl” = “pretty, vain and vapid” — was nevertheless still valid within the wider, broader and more inclusive interpretation of “womanhood”. Maybe, even with my own complete and total lack of femininity and associating myself with more typically-masculine traits and behaviours, maybe I still was a woman: just that the category for womanhood was far broader than I had been led to believe. Perhaps I wasn’t a woman who had fit into those narrow definitions I had held as true in the past; but a woman nonetheless, who could still meet the definition of a woman if only I broadened those definitions up.

No two women are the same; and as such, it makes no sense to think that there is such thing as a universal expression of that womanhood. Every single woman is a unique individual, with her own skills and experiences and her own story to tell. Just because my own experience didn’t have much in common with the experiences of those around me, that didn’t necessarily mean that I wasn’t a woman, or couldn’t have been a woman, or that I was some abhorrent anomaly. I might have been three standard deviations away from the mean; but that doesn’t mean that I was not, nevertheless, a valid data point.

So I got confused.

The feminist within me wanted me to think of myself as, and identify as, a woman. After all, I had just truly come to understand and to appreciate that being a woman was okay. I had just come to understand that “femininity” existed on a wide spectrum, and even oddballs like me could be included within that. Besides, if I was a feminist and believed in women’s rights (as a targeted approach to believing in equal rights in general), then wasn’t I supposed to be proud to be a woman? Wasn’t I meant to further the cause and #represent? If being a woman was no inferior to being a man, and if women came in all shapes and shades and were allowed to claim and celebrate their own individuality as they saw fit, regardless of the norms, then why would I need to be anything else? Was “woman” not sufficient? How could I be a feminist and yet still feel a reluctance and general disdain towards identifying as a woman?

That was one side of the confusion.

The other side of it was: well, if I wasn’t a woman, what else would I be? As a child, I had felt I fit in more with boys; but I had no all-consuming desire to be a boy or to be thought of as one myself. What I wanted was simply to be myself. I didn’t think of myself as a boy, hanging out with other boys. I thought of myself as myself, hanging out with other boys. As an adult, I feel no more and no less an affinity for one gender than the other. There is no affinity for either; and likewise, no antipathy for either. I feel empathy for everyone; a general relation towards all individuals, regardless of their gender. I don’t come down on one side or the other.

It was around the same time that I started batting around the idea of being genderfluid; but ultimately decided against exploring it any further or even acknowledging it in any real way, because it “didn’t matter, really”. I don’t know why nothing came of that back then. I guess I didn’t have the courage to pursue it, nor was there the same motivation to do so as now. I thought private thoughts: I often joked/ seriously heartfully felt that I was a gay man trapped in a woman’s body; but I also felt like a gay woman trapped in a woman’s body. And, because I felt like both a gay man and a gay woman, I reasoned that, maybe, if I looked at it a certain way, that was almost like having elements of both a straight man and a straight woman instead. Either way, I was bisexual! (Which I am, by the way.)

I tried to use my own sexuality against me; I tried to twist it around, and pressured myself to act more like a “straight woman”, or how I thought a straight woman should be. And, no, there does not seem to be much logic to that train of thought: it was just me oppressing myself, trying to knock myself back down into a more “acceptable” way of being, even if that meant flattening myself in the process. It’s weird to see how, in this way, I was still equating “straight” with “normal”, even though I was bisexual myself. This is why queer representation is so important!!

That particular mental interpretation was lacking, for many reasons. And something I didn’t think about at the time was that either way, I wasn’t cis. Either way, there was that overlap of masculinity and femininity in me: I had elements of both, but neither were quite the way convention might have you expect. I felt like I approached femininity from a male perspective: I was “feminine”, but in the same way that (some, not all) gay men are “feminine” without being women. Likewise, I approached masculinity from a female perspective: I was “masculine”, but in the same way (some, not all) lesbians are “masculine” without being men. I had traits of both within me, but even then, they were crossed over; associating my inner “male self” with the “feminine” and my inner “female self” with the “masculine”.

So maybe now, as I write this, it’s more obvious why I didn’t fit in. Everyone else around me associated “male” with “macho” and “female” with “femme”. Such extreme interpretations were at direct odds with mine, and left no room for the many variants of gender identity and gender expression in between. It was, society said, one or the other. And I wasn’t either.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t something I came to understand until much more recently, or else I might have been able to place myself sooner.

But even those past times I did question my gender, those thoughts stayed only thoughts. And in any case, because I didn’t feel like I most definitely, most assuredly wanted to be/become a man, I thought that meant that I had to be a woman by default.

So, I thought, if I can’t commit to not being a woman, I guess I will just remain a “woman”. I guess I will just stand and be counted as one of the many women who do not fit the cookie-cutter mould dictated to us by gender norms, as many women don’t. I will be just one of the many examples of why the mould is rubbish: of why putting men and women in boxes does not work, because we do not all fit in neatly. I will hold my head up as a woman and say, “I do not follow the rules, but I am not the exception. It’s the rules themselves that are jank.”

And the feminist in me was appeased. After all, this way, simply by being myself I could prove patriarchy was wrong, or something to that effect. I was proof the norms were not catch-all, be-all and end-all. I could live with being a woman; just one that defies typical social norms. And those norms ought to be questioned and defied, anyway — so I comforted myself into thinking I was doing someone some good, maybe, somehow, by acknowledging the expectations for my gender but then subverting them; and that, in so doing, it might contribute towards shattering the preconceptions themselves.

I still didn’t feel comfortable in and of myself, but I shrugged it off. I was like, “okay, maybe this is fine.” In the wise, wise words of Lindsay Ellis: “This is fine. This is fine. This is fine, guys. This is fine.”

Of course, there were still times when I felt the incongruence more keenly than at others; my wedding and the times when I get compared to my sisters were particularly triggering experiences for me. But when it was just my husband and me, together and alone, there was no incongruence. There was no discomfort. We accepted each other, and loved each other, exactly the way we were. When it was just the two of us, we could just be the two of us. When we knew each other as well as we did, on that close and personal basis, then there was no need for labels.

And so, I had privately settled the dispute of my own gender. I had mentally filed it away under “agree not to agree; it doesn’t really matter, anyway. Putting a name to it doesn’t actively change who I am.” I had told myself that that was good enough; and I had kept on living my life, continuing with things just the way they were.

I had accepted womanhood, and resigned myself to it.

And that was that.

 Cue hbomberguy’s “Donkey Kong Nightmare Stream”.

 For those who missed it and the surrounding controversy involving TV writer Graham Linehan (#thanksgraham), hbomberguy (real name Harry Brewis) is a YouTuber who makes sensible — okay, maybe not “sensible” —, well-thought out videos addressing a variety of topics in modern media: usually video games, film or television series, but he also commentates on social trends and ideologies, as well.

Link to hbomberguy’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClt01z1wHHT7c5lKcU8pxRQ

My husband first knew him from his LetsPlays, and I became a fan too because of his game, film and television analyses. (Someone who overthinks and overanalyses works of fiction for all possible meanings and real-life takeaways?? Here’s a man after my own heart!)

So when he announced he was going to do a livestream of the classic Nintendo 64 game Donkey Kong 64 in order to raise money for the organisation Mermaids — a charity offering support groups, education, and crisis hotlines for transgender individuals and their families, as well as training for corporations to raise trans awareness — we were very interested in watching it.

Link to Mermaids’ website here: https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/

Unfortunately, my husband and I weren’t able to watch the stream as it went up live; but we did watch through the archived footage after the fact. And boy, did it hit hard. So many feels were had. So many feels.

My husband isn’t as informed on social justice issues as I am, so a lot of the overarching context that was old-hat to me was brand-new to him. But bless him, he is learning. I, on the other hand, thought going in that I was just going to be watching a stream of a dude we liked from YouTube playing a game, and raising some money for a good cause while he was at it. What I wasn’t expecting was that some of what I heard would hit me so hard in the heart.

To pick out just a few key moments from what was truly an epic event the whole way through, Susie Green, the CEO of Mermaids herself, appeared in the stream — and, let me just say, she is so effing awesome. I have an aunt called Susie Green, too, who is also one of the most kick-ass ladies I know, so awesomeness must come with the territory or something.

Anyway, among other things, Susie Green (the CEO, not my aunt) was saying (and I paraphrase) that one of the best ways to support trans people is just to let them know that they can be safe around you.

And that broke my fucking heart, because fuck. Because LGBTQ+ people could be safe around me: but if I myself wasn’t out and proud — if I myself wasn’t visible, or open about my own situation — how the fuck would they know that?

That idea (built upon by CaseyExplosion when she said just to be a friend to trans people you know) deeply resonated with me because of past personal conversations I have had with some members of the gaming group I’m a part of. In private messages, there were people I spoke to at length about gender and about sexuality. The thing is, I was never the one initiating these conversations. Due to my own experiences and empathy, whenever they brought up that they were struggling, I would listen and I would relate and I would tell them a bit about my own experiences, too. And something that came up in one of those conversations was how difficult it was to know who you can talk to about gender and sexuality stuff, because you don’t know how people will respond or who you can trust.

One of my dear friends talked to me about his struggle with sexuality and being gay, and I could understand and empathise and listen to him without judgment because, although it isn’t exactly the same, I am bi and have my own experiences with making the personal journey of coming to understand and accept your own sexual identity, and the struggles along the way. Another friend confided in me she was having confusing feelings for another woman, and she didn’t know what to do. Again, I shared with her that I could understand because I was bi, and we talked for a long time about how she was feeling. She said later I was one of the few people she could trust to talk to about this, because she knew I wouldn’t judge her.

I know people who struggle with their own experiences, and I also know people who are so far removed from those struggles in their own personal lives that they can come across a little insensitive and non-inclusive in their speech or actions; not due to malice, but sincere lack of experience, lack of information, and lack of awareness. One such friend of mine gets very confused over what is “sex” and what is “gender” and frequently conflates the two, and tends to be very dismissive of the social issues going on around him or the community’s attempts to address those issues. And again, this is not because he is an uncaring or unkind person, because he is usually exceptionally caring and kind. But in these particular instances, because he is young and uninformed and he is not part of those circles himself (nor knows others who are immediately affected), there is no reason why he would know more about it. There is no reason why he would understand.

Still, he recognises that he doesn’t understand, and he does try to learn more and keep himself open to learning more. Thus, I unofficially took it upon myself to educate him, to try and foster that understanding; and I talked to him a lot about my own gender identity, too, to kind of serve as my own example for him of what the gender spectrum was. I told him a lot about my own experiences, eventually summarising my situation as, “I don’t agree with the gender norms and I don’t fit into them myself, but I don’t really know what I what I would fit into. I’m not comfortable being a woman, but I don’t know what I would consider myself as instead, so… … …”

On each of these occasions, and many more besides, I was fortunate enough to have these incredibly deep and meaningful conversations with real people all over the world; some of whom were struggling to find understanding and acceptance at a time when they really didn’t know who they could turn to. I’m so incredibly lucky to have them in my life, and that I could learn from all of them and know their unwavering love and support. Our friendship has enriched my life, and I have been exposed to so much love and positivity and really grown as a person because of it. I’m so grateful and glad that they found me, and that I could likewise be a positive figure for them in their time of need.

But that’s just it: they found me. They took a leap of faith, not knowing the outcome, because they needed someone to talk to and they didn’t know for sure if I would be accepting or understanding: it was just that, based on our group conversations, I seemed like the kind of person who might be. They demonstrated an incredible amount of trust and faith in me, and I am extremely grateful for that. But it’s something that they should not have had to do. They should have known that they were safe from the get-go; I should have made them feel safe. I should have been more open, more inclusive; more forthcoming with my own experiences and beliefs, so that they knew they would find a kindred spirit in me, without needing to take that risk. And that is a failing on my part.

Remember how I said about how it even came up in one of those conversations that it’s difficult to know who you can talk to about gender and sexuality, because you don’t know how people will respond or who you can trust? Well, back then, my response to that was something along the lines of: “I would hate it if someone was struggling with this stuff and they felt like they couldn’t talk to me about it, just because they didn’t know that I was queer too.”

And yet…

To my shame and my dismay, although I did share my own experiences with others one-on-one once they had already started talking about it with me, I was never the first to say, “hey, I’m LGBTQ+, and if you’re LGBTQ+ too, that’s A-okay!” I was never the first to bring it up; and in so doing, I’m worried that I might have inadvertently created an atmosphere within our gaming group where LGBTQ+ members feel like they might not have been welcomed or represented.

Because our gaming group is online, everyone is totally anonymous, and no-one has to reveal more about themselves than they want to: including their appearance, their sexuality, or their gender. Still, I wonder if maybe there are some members, new or old, who are LGBTQ+ or who are internally struggling with their own self-identity, who look around and do not seem to see anyone like them. The atmosphere in our group, as is the case with society as a whole, is one where it’s assumed cis/hetero-normative by default. Topics of gender and sexuality rarely come up in the group chat; the more in-depth ones take place in private messaging instead, where they are invisible to the others.

So, by all appearances, straight and cis is the norm… even when it isn’t.

(Update: I am very happy to announce that, since I began writing this, this has now changed! Although it was my intention to come out to my gaming group after posting this, I ended up outing myself to the group early, which initiated exactly the kind of conversations about gender, sexuality, and inclusivity we should have been having all along. Our gaming group has now officially adopted “other” as a third gender option when we are asking members to introduce themselves, along with asking for preferred pronouns! I hope this change, minor though it may seem, goes a long way to helping every member feel more comfortable when disclosing their gender and their pronouns, should they choose to disclose at all.)

Getting back to the point, Susie Green saying that something you can do is to simply help trans people feel safe… That really struck a chord with me. If even people like me who do struggle with their gender and sexuality don’t say that they do, how would anybody else know? What chance do we have of finding each other? What choice is there but to feel different and alone, even if you actually aren’t?

And in my case especially, it is very, very easy to assume I am cis and straight, even though I’m not. I’m very obviously female (thanks, big boobs), and I’m married to my husband — so that makes us a straight couple, man and wife. Luckily, my sexuality was much easier (relatively) to come to terms with for me, and I have been proud to say that I am bi the few times it does come up, as I have known that about myself in that particular regard since I was 13. Even so, because it is so easy for everyone else to assume that, because I married a man, I therefore must be straight, it doesn’t come up that often.

(Even my husband sometimes forgets. We often joke around with each other about the things we say, deliberately taking innocuous things out of context and saying, “That’s racist!” or “That’s homophobic!” One time, we were joking about something — I can’t even remember what — and I teased him about something he had said by exclaiming in mock-indignation, “Hey! That’s homophobic!” His response? “Well, can you really be homophobic against someone who’s heterosexual?” And I’m just like “…”)

It’s easy to assume a woman who is married to a man is straight. It’s easy to assume everyone is cis by default, because most people are. But that shouldn’t be the default. It shouldn’t be the norm to think, “Well, I’m just going to assume everyone is cis unless they specifically say otherwise.” All that does is create the idea that everyone really is cis, because after all, not many people (dare to) say otherwise; which in turn stunts efforts to spread awareness as many people who might have identified as trans if they had had the resources to know more about it don’t have those resources in the first place. And sticking to that as the norm creates the expectation to conform. It creates the idea that people, even those who aren’t cis, need to be cis, or at least pretend to be; because that is the norm and such thinking inherently comes with pressure to adhere to it.

Assuming cis by default makes it that much harder for trans people to say anything to the contrary, because they don’t see very many people who have the same experiences they do and may not necessarily know if it is safe to talk about it. If everyone assumes that everyone else is cis unless they make a big fuss about it, trans people may very understandably not want to make a big fuss. Maybe they’ll feel, like I did, that the only thing they can do is quietly fade into the background; to try and hide, and try not to draw too much attention to themselves, or out themselves as anything other than “the norm”.

What we all need to do is be more welcoming and inclusive, right off the bat; not because we know for certain that there are LGBTQ+ individuals in our midst, but because we recognise the possibility that there could be. Because we, as a society, recognise that there are many different expressions of gender and sexuality, and all are legitimate and valid.

I don’t want to fade quietly into the background. I don’t want to not be seen, not even by other LGBTQ+ people — those who should be my fellows. That sounds incredibly egotistical, but what I really mean is that I don’t want other LGBTQ+ people to look out at the world and not see themselves reflected in it and think that they are alone; the way I did before the charity stream began.

You are not alone. We are here. We are queer. And we should be proud of it.

For me, Susie Green’s line about simply letting trans people know that they are safe around you resonated with me deeply. For me, it was a call to action. I couldn’t hide any longer, privately satisfied with my own answer that I guess I just won’t bother defining who I am. That approach didn’t sit right with me after that. I want to be known; not for my own sake, because I’m an asocial fuck who couldn’t care less what other people think of me. But hopefully to be recognised; for someone else to see themselves in me and think, “Hey, maybe that person could relate to me. Maybe they know a thing or two about gender dysphoria and would be willing to listen to me. Maybe that’s a person I could talk to.”

That was what motivated me to come out. But I’m writing about my decision to come out as if it was a very simple process. It wasn’t. I make it sound as if I was just getting on with my life; then I happened to see the charity stream; and that inspired me to come out, and so, I did. In reality, gender issues have been interwoven with my psyche my whole life. Videos and discussions on social justice, representation and important issues within marginalised communities are something I actively seek out. And even when I felt like I really wanted to come out — to show others that they would be safe with me, and that I would welcome them and refrain from judgment — there were still things getting in the way there, too. And it was difficult.

The first time I heard Susie Green’s story on the stream, about her and her daughter and how things could be made better for today’s youth, I cried a lot. I thought about it a lot. I watched nothing but Donkey Kong for days on end, and dreamt about it too: not necessarily about the game itself (but also about the game itself), but the people, and their voices and their thoughts and their stories. I was trying to make sense of it all. For over a whole month now — ever since my husband and I started watching the stream — my head has been filled with thoughts on gender. It has overtaken my entire life ever since, and that’s because I want to do more, be more — and even this first step of simply coming out of the closet myself has taken a lot of preparation. Far more than I thought it would, actually.

For over a month, I have lived, breathed and dreamed gender non-stop. And thinking non-stop about such emotionally heavy, difficult issues does take its toll; especially when you include the multiple conversations I had about coming out with multiple people, multiple times.

But those difficulties I experienced with coming out weren’t what was getting in the way of coming out. The real difficulty there was giving myself permission to be anything but “woman” in the first place.

Remember feminism? Remember that feeling I had that, if I were truly a feminist, I would be proud to be a woman — not actively wishing womanhood away. I had unlearnt and relearnt a great many things about what it truly meant to be a woman; and ultimately, what it meant was to be human, just the same way as men were human. But even so, I did not know where matters of discrimination based on sex ended, and matters of individuality began. When it came to how I felt about myself, how much of it was to do with my sex? How much of that, in turn, was due to sexism? How exactly did I feel about myself, on the individual level, if, hypothetically, sex and sexism had (and had had) no part to play in it?

I didn’t exactly know.

Fortunately, my subconscious had the answer, even when my conscious mind did not. Some of the dreams I had about the Donkey Kong stream were mindless, repetitive, and nonsensical; just as the Donkey Kong 64 game itself is mindless, repetitive, and nonsensical. I dreamt only of hbomberguy getting endlessly stuck on puzzles and wandering around in circles — not so different from the real stream, then(!) When he cleared one level, he was faced with another, and another, and another; the game stretching endlessly on, in the way that dreams do. But the final dream I had about the stream was far more emotionally significant.

In that dream, I dreamt not about the game, but the stream itself. I dreamt about the chat, and the Discord channel for other YouTubers and allies that had been set up there. In my dream, for whatever reason, I had been accepted to join the mic call. I was able to talk directly to Harry himself and the guest stars; I was able to be a part of the stream as it went out live over the internet. I was able to talk to them all first-hand. I wept at the opportunity, and I thanked them all so much for doing this; I wanted them to know how much it meant, for them to be so open and so brave and for standing up for what was right. I told them how wonderful it was to hear them talk about their own experiences and their identities, because I was still struggling with mine. I told them about my dysphoria and my disillusionment with being “a woman”; but how I lacked the certainty and the conviction to do anything about it. I also told them about the guilt I felt as a feminist; that pursuing an identity as anything other than “woman” felt like it would be very un-feminist of me.

At that, I could very clearly imagine Harry’s face and hear his voice as he gave a bewildered, “What?!” And, to be honest, it’s probably the same reaction I would have had as well, if someone else had told me the same thing. And that’s because, as Dream Harry went on to say, that’s not what feminism is about. Feminism is not about forcing yourself to be a certain way, or about trying to be what you think someone else wants you to be regardless of the personal cost to yourself — so much so that you end up disempowering yourself in the process. Feminism, rather, is about empowerment. It’s about giving a voice to the marginalised and, in the case of trans rights and gay rights, telling them that who they are is real, and that they are worthy, too.

The stream itself is proof of that. It’s an example of the community coming together to support trans rights and recognising that transgender identities are valid identities too. No-one should be forced into a box that does not fit them, but allowed to define themselves for themselves. That included me, too.

And it was weird when I imagined the YouTubers telling me this in the dream, because it made me think about how I would respond if it was somebody else telling me they were trans. And if someone else came to me saying they were trans, I would accept them straight away, exactly as they were. I’d encourage them to be true to themselves and do what feels right for them, whatever form that may take. My own personal beliefs are that trans women are real women; trans men are real men; non-binary people are real people (even though I didn’t know that non-binary identities even existed until recently); and that feminism is about raising everyone up and empowering them, and accepting and embracing everyone as they really are. I would never tell anyone else they were being un-feminist just for being themselves; indeed, I would fight for their right to be themselves. I would regard them with unconditional love, and respect what they were telling me about themselves; accepting it as true without question. I would never tell them that their identity was wrong.

But it took hbomberguy telling me the same thing in a dream for me to actually apply those principles to myself, too.

Until experiencing the stream and hearing the personal accounts of other trans people first-hand, I had still been tied down into thinking that being for women’s rights meant that I was locked into being a woman myself; or that I was doing some kind of disservice to the cause if I were to acknowledge myself as anything else. But, for everyone to be free to be themselves and to be accepted without hate and without prejudice is the cause.

That was a conclusion that maybe I should have been able to come to on my own; but either I couldn’t, or just didn’t. It took hearing all of the wonderful people participating in the Donkey Kong stream talking about their experiences for me to realise that, maybe I was okay the way I was, too.

Discovering feminism and learning that I could be exactly the way I was and still be a woman had been an important step for me. But it was not the end of my journey. I had to go a step beyond that. Knowing that I could identify as a woman, with no degradation to myself, was one thing; but learning that I could also not identify as a woman if I so chose was also an important milestone. There are more options in life than the arbitrary one we get assigned to us at birth; and for me, being so uncomfortable with mine, I saw no reason to try and force it upon myself any longer.

I hadn’t been at all sure at first where the line was between respecting women and recognising that I myself was not a woman. But now, with the help of feminism, the Nightmare Stream and the dream that it inspired, all the amazing people who participated, and even just the knowledge that an amazing charity like Mermaids even exists and is doing great work in the world… I think I’ve disentangled myself and disavowed myself from enough sexist notions that I know that it’s not that I don’t believe in being a woman. It’s that I do believe in being an individual. And as an individual, speaking on the personal level, not only do I not follow the stereotypes and/or the mandated patterns of behaviour prescribed for my sex; I don’t want to, either. There is still something to be said for how maybe those stereotypes ought not to exist in the first place, and maybe then I wouldn’t mind so much what my sex was or what my gender was. But they do, and so I do, and I know the path that has been laid out for me is not the one I want to walk down.

And I also know that, if I hadn’t’ve been motivated to come out now, even after hearing all those brave and courageous voices; even after hearing all those incredible stories of personal tragedy, triumph, and strength; even after experiencing something which, even though I was only an onlooker, nevertheless felt made me feel like there was a space for me after all, and made me feel like I was home… then I was probably never going to come out. Ever. If even that experience, which moved me so much, could not bring me to accept myself, then it would probably have never happened.

What Mermaids and the Donkey Kong Nightmare Stream gave me was something invaluable: they gave me permission to give myself permission to be who I was all along. It taught me that I was allowed to be who I was; and that who I was was okay. That’s why the work Mermaids does is so valuable: so that no child has to go through this all alone, navigating complex topics without the words to properly explain it. Mermaids gives love and support and important information and resources, so that each child can come to terms with themselves and accept themselves the way they are. And that’s much more preferable than being a grown-ass adult trying to get your shit together when you have no clue what you’re doing; scrambling to put the broken pieces back together when really, you were never broken at all.

 So, that leads me to writing this declaration:

 I know what it’s like to feel uncomfortable with the gender norms thrust upon you because of your sex.

I know what it’s like when your internal experiences of yourself are incongruent with said norms and other external expectations.

I know what it’s like to feel like you are wrong just for being yourself, and like an outsider in your own skin.

I know what it’s like when you are forced to acknowledge your assigned gender and a piece of you dies because that’s not who you are, and it starts to feel like you never can be who you really are as long as the world keeps reminding you otherwise.

I know what it’s like when even simple things, such as which box to tick on a form, can be a deeply divisive topic rife with internal conflict and strife. And I know and I loathe how, in my case, I have to opt for “woman” anyway, on account of my being female and there being no better option.

And I also know how I have struggled to come up with a satisfying answer about what a better option would have been, though I have found my answer now. (Although, going back to speaking more generally, simply including the simple and unassuming option “other” would be a start!)

 I don’t know what the fuck I am. But I know I’m not a cis woman.

Thankfully, there’s a catch-all term for that, and that��s genderqueer. That’s why I wanted to write this post: to come to terms with myself as my new identity, and re-introduce myself as genderqueer.

 And actually, the above line about not knowing what I am is no longer true, and that’s because I can get more specific than that now. Unlike when I first started writing this, I can now say that I do know what I am. Three weeks down the line, I can now say that recognising myself as genderqueer was the start of something beautiful. Through the process of writing this post — and having many, many private conversations and coming out many, many different times to many different people — I have been learning more and more about genderqueerness all the time; and, in doing so, myself.

Through those conversations and through watching and listening to the YouTube channels of other trans and non-binary individuals, I’m becoming more and more sure of myself. I’ve realised that I am very happy to identify as non-binary; and that non-binary suits me and my own situation very well. So now, it’s not that I don’t know what I am other than “not cis” and am relying on a catch-all umbrella term to cover me anyway; it’s that I know myself to be non-binary. It’s a far more accurate of a term for how I feel myself to be than “woman” ever was.

So, while I may at first have picked up the genderqueer umbrella due solely to its all-encompassing nature, only knowing at that time that I was “not cis”, it has nevertheless led to a journey of self-discovery where I’ve realised that, hey, I actually really fucking love this umbrella. And it’s a much more comfortable umbrella for me to fit under than the “woman” umbrella had been for me. It’s so much roomier under here!!

 So anyway, that’s what I wanted to say. I am bi; I am genderqueer/gender non-binary; and I am still questioning. I am B and T and Q; and LGBTQ+ folks, you are safe with me.

 fin

 P.S. Thank you, everyone who read it this far. Thank you for tolerating my self-indulgent trite as I waffle on about my own life when, all things considered, I have enjoyed an immense amount of “comfort” — or rather, the avoidance of misfortune — because of being able to pass. I have enjoyed a lot of love and support from the people closest to me and the ones I love the most, and that is why sitting down and definitively defining my gender — when really, it is something so personal to the individual — didn’t seem to make much difference to me as an individual before now. But it might just make all the difference to someone. I’m planning on expanding my thoughts on this (namely, gender identities vs individual identities) in a future piece of writing.

That said, if you are a LGBTQ+ person reading this (or someone who is unsure, or questioning) and you are not currently out, then despite my encouragement to make ourselves seen and our voices heard, please, please, please don’t come out if you feel it is not safe for you to do so. I am only coming out now myself because it is safe for me to do so; it was just inconvenient for me before, and that’s why I didn’t do it until now. Your safety and your well-being is the number one priority, so please, do not do anything you feel uncomfortable with or which you feel might put you at risk.

 P.P.S. To serve as something of a glossary: “Genderqueer” is just an umbrella term meaning “not exclusively masculine or feminine”; which falls within the umbrella term “transgender” meaning “anyone whose gender is different from that of their assigned sex”; which itself falls within the umbrella term “queer” meaning “anyone who is not exclusively heterosexual and cisgender”. There are several layers deep to this, and getting further down is just a matter of specificity.

For example, someone who is gender non-binary is genderqueer, who is trans, who is queer. Someone who is a “trans woman” or a “trans man” (as opposed to “trans” on its own) is someone who identifies as the binary identity woman or man, but were born male or female respectively. Thus, trans women and trans men obviously come under the umbrella of “trans”, but are not “genderqueer”, though they are “queer”. The Q in LGBTQ+ can thus be seen as a kind of tautology, because all LGBT individuals are by definition not heterosexual and/or cisgender, and therefore are all queer. But while all LGBT individuals are queer, not all Q+ individuals are LGBT, as they might identify as something else entirely not covered by its own letter. The Q can also stand for “questioning”. In this way, the Q catches all individuals who are unsure of where they fit in but who do not identify specifically as LGBT, and the + denotes the inclusion of all communities and identities not covered by their own letter (of which intersex, pansexual and aromantic/asexual, to name only a few, are examples).

The website OK2BME has a great page on this. Link here: https://ok2bme.ca/resources/kids-teens/what-does-lgbtq-mean/

 P.P.P.S. Interested in supporting trans rights yourself? To once again paraphrase Susie Green, Mermaids CEO, a good way to support trans rights is to support trans people themselves. Look up your local trans charities, donate or volunteer if you can, call out casual transphobia when you see it, and just generally be a friend. A number of trans individuals have crowdfunding campaigns active to try and help them cover the cost of transitioning, so that is an option as well.

YouTuber and Twitter user Mama Math (link here: https://twitter.com/hellomamamath) made a spreadsheet with links to some of the guests on the Donkey Kong Nightmare Stream who consented to be listed with the details of their websites or where to follow them. The spreadsheet also includes whether or not that person is trans. If you are interested in learning more about trans rights and what it means to be trans, simply listening to the stories of those who are trans and supporting the content they make is a great place to start. Link to the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sdavyrGPnsrNdTxWBILoulCKxvIvzMkMaJoXPjNQcOI/edit#gid=0

 If you are interested in watching the Donkey Kong Nightmare Steam yourself, here are the links to the parts:

Part 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/365966431

Part 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/366901309

Part 3: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367450055

Part 4: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/369226467

 P.P.P.P.S. (Okay, this is getting ridiculous now. This is the last post script, I swear!) In case you’re wondering, as I haven’t actually addressed it at all above, my preferred pronouns are “they/them”, as I consider “they/them” the most neutral and free of assumption. While I am not agender, I nevertheless prefer gender-neutral nouns and pronouns. I consider my own gender to be more fluid, and sometimes, “she/her” or “he/him” will feel right to me; but sometimes, they won’t. For example, if someone refers to me as “he/him” online, I won’t feel compelled to correct them and actually enjoy being referred to as such. I do not have the same euphoric reaction to “she/her”, though I understand that many people will fall into old habits and believe that it is the more “correct” term to use, even though actually it’s my least favoured out of the three. My point is that, sometimes, using “she/her” or “he/him” to refer to me may be acceptable; but using “they/them” is preferable and will always be applicable, so that is what I ask for you to use.

However, I do still have a feminine side to me, and as such, I will still relate with some feminine terminologies; but I am not “a woman”, nor do I relate exclusively to women. In this specific instance, I do ask for you to avoid calling me “a woman” and refer to me as “a person” instead.

I’m considered as something of the “mum” within the online gaming group, with others teasingly and lovingly calling me “mother”, and I love that. A very important person to me calls me “sis” or “sissy”, short for “sister”, and I wouldn’t want to change that, either. To my husband, I am still his “wife”. (I recently discovered I have a major aversion to “princess”, though, so that one’s definitely out…)

I am not truly gender-neutral, which is why I do not identify as agender; but rather, I encompass both masculine and feminine traits, and therefore I will adopt both feminine and masculine terms where they seem applicable. Some days I’ll feel more in touch with my feminine side, and some days I’ll feel more in touch with my masculine side. That doesn’t necessarily mean I want to reject all gendered terms completely, and certainly not all of the time. But I do want to introduce some gender-neutral ones into the mix, so that gender-neutrality is recognised as an option. Again, I am stating a preference, with my preference being for the gender-neutral.

As for my preferred name… well, I go by my online handle “Evani” within most game-related things, and I’m perfectly happy with that. In my mind, I know that the name “Evani” is short for “Evan-Evani”: an original character of mine who has both male and female selves (better known as the Animus and the Anima, à la Jungian psychology). Those selves are named Evan and Evani respectively, and thus they are collectively referred to as both names, even when they present as one whole and not as the two halves. I’m comfortable with my online name and don’t feel the need to change things there.

My “real” name, however… After a lot of thinking about it and batting around about a million different names and variations, I finally settled on one I was happy with: “Ievan”. (Pronounced just the same as “Evan”.)

I had been looking at all kinds of different names; starting with those which were variations on my birth name, to names which looked similar or shared the same letters, to ones which had the same semantic meaning. I couldn’t find any I liked, until a friend asked me what it was that spoke to my soul. At that point, I realised I had been trying to find a name “in keeping” with my birth name, “Stacey”; not for myself but to make the perceived adjustment easier on others around me.

But to be honest, I had never, ever liked the name “Stacey”; and changing how I spelled it to “Stacie” may have made it more tolerable, but even then, I still did not like it. I had been trying to find a new name I liked, based on an old one I didn’t. No wonder I had been having such difficulty!

Recognising that, it made no sense to base my new name for my new identity on my old one. The point of coming out as non-binary was to feel more comfortable with myself and my own identity; and adhering to my past name ran counter to that.

So, with my friend to bounce ideas off of, I took the search away from “Stacey” — the name I had never liked — and back to “Evani” — the name I had already adopted for myself some years prior and had used for myself ever since, albeit only in online settings.

I choose “Ievan” instead of “Evan”, which is perhaps the more obvious choice, because it’s an anagram of “Evani”. It also meant that, by slightly changing my online name from “Evani” to “Ievani”, I could create an amalgamation of both names. “Ievani” included both the names “Ievan” and “Evani” within it, symbolising the dual nature of the masculine and the feminine and the great deal of overlap between the two; just as I experience an overlap and a merging of the masculine and the feminine within myself. I appreciated the symbolism, as well as the fact that “Ievani” captured the same meaning to it as “Evan-Evani” did; only much more elegantly, representing “Ievan-Evani” but with much fewer letters. Having taken to “Ievani” as I did, my choice of name for “Ievan”, as opposed to “Evan”, became an easy one to make.

Plus, by spelling the name as “Ievan” with the extra “i” and not as “Evan” (even though they are both pronounced the same) meant I could have the best of both worlds: I could have a name which sounded masculine, but looked feminine. It was a blend of both, and gave me a lot of versatility and adaptability to play around with as well, owing to the fact that you can draw a lot of different nicknames and short-forms out of it. Some examples: Ieva, Eva, Ev, Evi, Evie, Eve, Iev, Ieve…Now I can basically be called whatever I feel like being called, and friends and those around me can pick out their own personally-preferred nickname for me! It grants a lot of freedom and customisation, which I love. Now, when people call me by my name, I smile instead of cringe.

(As a side-note: yes, this does make me “Ievan Evans”, and you are right, it is repetitive! But I love the peculiarity. It’s been a running gag of mine to have characters in my stories whose surname is a repeat of their first name; the first one being “Evan Evans” — the aforementioned Animus — and another one called “Luca Lucas”, though the latter is technically an assumed identity deliberately made to parallel “Evan Evans”. Now I can be a part of the joke myself, too!)

Realistically speaking, I don’t expect everyone to switch over to “Ievan” straight away. Not everyone is going to read this post, and I’m not going to choose to tell everyone who doesn’t. It’s fairly common within the queer community to not come out to everyone, and not all at once. So I accept that, to certain people, I will still be “Stacie”. And that is fine. As long as I am happy with my own identity and the way I live my own life, I can make my peace with it if I will still be “Stacie” to them.

So, if you still want to call me “Stacie”, that’s fine. I won’t fight you over it. I just might not be fine with it; but even then, it’s fine.

In regards to my writing and my self-published works: my past works were published under the name “Stacie Evans” and, in that particular regard, I think I will keep it that way going forward as well. “Stacie Evans” can be my pseudonym as an author! (Which is ironic, because usually it’s the pen name that’s supposed to be the fictitious one…) While I could legally change my name, it would be a hassle; and right now, I’m happy just adopting it for myself and testing it out.

In short, I’ll be using: Ievan for real life (including Facebook, which is more personal); Evani for games; Ievani for other social media (which I consider a mix of both); and Stacie Evans for works of poetry or fiction, as well as with those who are uncomfortable calling me Ievan.

Feeling confused? Don’t worry. You can always ask to make sure! (Which is a good idea in general, about anything; and you can apply it with pronouns, too! I personally love it when people ask my pronouns, as it confers a sense of understanding, compassion and respect.) All questions are welcome, because I believe there is no such thing as a stupid question. All questions are a chance to learn more. (But please, keep it considerate.)

 Useful resources:

(not an exhaustive list; these are the things I have come across and have found helpful myself, so I am sharing them here too)

 Mermaids, a UK-based charity providing support for transgender children/ young adults and their families, as well as crisis hotlines, online forums and interventions: https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/

 The January Donkey Kong Nightmare Stream to raise money for Memaids:

Part 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/365966431

Part 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/366901309

Part 3: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367450055

Part 4: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/369226467

 Spreadsheet of the participants in the Donkey Kong Nightmare Steam, with links to their Twitter and YouTube accounts: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sdavyrGPnsrNdTxWBILoulCKxvIvzMkMaJoXPjNQcOI/edit#gid=0

 Let’s Queer Things Up!, a blog about all things queer: https://letsqueerthingsup.com/

 More from LQTU! content creator: https://samdylanfinch.contently.com/

 Specific article linked to on the above about what it means to be genderqueer: https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/genderqueer

 Specific article linked to on the above about what it means to be gender non-binary: https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/nonbinary

 Genderqueer Me, a website with featured voices from transgender individuals and their families, as well as online talks about trans issues and information regarding transition: https://genderqueer.me/

 OK2BME, supportive services for the LGBTQ+ community: https://ok2bme.ca/

 Private YouTube playlist I made of videos I have watched, discussing transgender and non-binary experiences and identities, which are of personal relevance to me in some way or which discuss things which are particularly useful or important when it comes to developing an understanding of the transgender spectrum (also not an exhaustive list; I plan to keep adding videos as I find them): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTv7NUhc6gDOr1AW13CmlZujWAEo2Msyh

[ellenlucasonlinedatingblog]

A Quick and Easy Guide to Queer and Trans Identities is THE DREAMIEST.

We got our collective, grabby little hands on a copy of Mady G. and J.R. Zuckerberg's A Quick and Easy Guide to Queer and Trans Identities a couple weeks ago and we're in luuuuurrrve.

It just came out this week, so we're here to tell you that we think you -- especially if there are some young people in your life you can share it with -- should get your hands on a copy, too.

What is it?  This 100+ page book is a trippy, cuddly and affirming comic adventure that very warmly, gently and with great joy leads the reader through a wide range of identities and some parts of life that are often about or involve them, like intimate relationships, dysphoria, coming out, making decisions about gender expression and our bodies, including medical decisions, finding -- and feeling without -- community and support. It's something that takes some subjects that can be really scary for people, especially for many queer and trans young people, and that I think could help turn a lot of that fear or dread into understanding, acceptance and happy celebration.

It's amazing and wonderful and just the very sweetest thing, is what it is.

I think it's going to be a goodie for just about everyone: whether you don't know jack about any of this, or whether all of this is very much about you and you know a lot from lived experience, a million awesome queer or trans history internet rabbit holes, and other ways of learning. This is potentially for you if you feel pretty comfortable, perhaps even deeply at home, with these arenas and ways of being, or if you are feeling intimidated, lost and uncomfortable (the sheer delight in all of this will help, I promise). For those who don't yet or currently have any queer, asexual, trans, genderqueer or nonbinary community, this can provide some of that feeling.  I think this book would be a great choice for teen readers, including young teens.

There are talking snails! There are Sproutlings (you'll see)! There's even a Julia Serano cameo! There's some dorktastically cool extras in the back. There are soft and lovely colors and beautiful patterns. There are excellent definitions and descriptions and talk-throughs and other helps for understanding concepts that can really get people twisted sometimes.

There's oodles of mad affirmation, bigging up and support. This is a comic full of wisdom, full of whimsy, and really, really full of love. I'm completely over the moon for it. It's my new most favorite thing.

Here's what some of the rest of our team had to say about it:

Al:

I really, really loved this. I loved how in-depth it went into things that I tend to see covered a lot less (asexuality, dysphoria, the challenges of coming out). I really liked the Sproutlings, especially in light of their creator's comments about imagining an idyllic world that truly does allow for infinite diversity where the rules aren't quite so strict and the answer is almost always "Sounds good! Thank you for telling me! I love and accept you!"

Also, I lightly wept when I read the nonbinary-alien part: I can't tell you how many times I've felt like an alien in my own skin. I refer to myself as a frog a lot precisely because of how the things that make me feel different from the people around me (read: brown, fat, hairy, genderqueer and generally odd) might feel more okay if I was amphibious. And I'm at least a few years older than the average "queer youth," so I can say that I've 100% experienced that feeling, and that it's spot on.

Mo:

I am really impressed at how it manages to present concepts in a pretty nuanced way without feeling too heavy or overwhelming for people who may be unfamiliar with what's being discussed. The art is fun and cute without feeling *cutesy* and has a great energy to it; there's such a great loving and celebratory vibe through the entire book. I think this will be a really helpful resource for people who are questioning or just starting to explore their queer identities and for allies who want to educate themselves; this is absolutely the sort of thing I wish I'd had oh...17 years ago when I was first starting to understand my own queerness and had a lot of questions and not many places to turn for answers.

Jacob:

This is so beautiful!!!

Sam:

I love how casual the identity sections are. They do a great job of hitting all the key points without feeling preachy. Also, the reaction the snails have to seeing all the queer humans for the first time is not unlike how I felt the first time I went to a Pride event, and I love seeing that idea that the diversity of queer presentations is something worthy of joy and wonder.

The relationship section is really strong. I could see it becoming something educators use. The prose and drawings communicate the realities of healthy and unhealthy relationships in a way that's going to be accessible to a lot of people.

That link way up top to Simon and Schuster's page for this book has a handful of links to places where you can buy it. We also want to make sure you don't forget you can get it at our favorite local feminist bookstore (the endlessly amazing and resilient Women and Children First), too!

books

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trans

nonbinary

asexual

orientation

inclusive

identity

genderqueer

affirming

information

education

guide

comic

things we love

help

support

YA

new

resources

from MeetPositives SM Feed 4 http://bit.ly/2ZAo68H via IFTTT

[thelastangryman-blog]

Ah! You Know What I Mean; Write?

A Three Course Meal Regarding the Current State of Converse Today

 1.       Definition

 When it comes to the Star Trek (series) debate; I’d be partial to Voyager. Not because it’s part of the Star Wars franchise. It was just a good show.

 I liked Captain Janeway and the crew; their adventures as they tried to get home. The Doctor and 7’s relationship – right in the feels that moment he confessed his love to her before the virus that was eating his programme deleted him forever. After he took his last virtual breath... the Captain asked the computer to run the back-up Doctor programme. #morto. But I digress.

One of the recurring enemies was The Borg Collective. ‘We are Borg. We are many.’

They were a human/machine hybrid with a collective hive mind. Totally badass; really got my 15 year old nihilist going, when I wasn’t masturbating to 7 or Janeway. Though as menacing as The Borg were, Species 8472 had The Borg scared.

Though we haven’t reached The Borg level of ‘resistance is futile’ yet, as if we had none of this Otherkin preferred pronouns triggers warnings would have seen the light of day. But we do have the collective hive mind – Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr: where the individual is problematic.

‘We are The Parroting Collective. We are many.  And we have a thousand and one shoeboxes of identity and gender politics.’

 Diluting words to the nth degree: peeling a layer off each time we place it in our shoeboxes until there’s literally nothing left of the word. Just like when Hugh Mungus raped Zarna Joshi.Intersectionalising and filibustering them into dust with no substance or taste left. Any wonder people are hesitant to speak their mind when they no longer know what words are now considered micro-aggressions. Everyone wants to start a conversation but no one wants to contribute. Individual comment is smothered by the collective’s blanket of buzzwords that bring nothing to the conversation but only make it more difficult and confusing. Words have to start meaning something again.

Arguments are now made by unlearning and rewording. As long as you submit a tomb of footnotes to confirm what you’re not saying. Predicating every statement; post and thought with a completed-abridged TL;DR A-Z of the things you stand for and don’t. All those pointless labels that first have to be seen and checked off some imaginary list so what you’re saying/asking can be allowed and only after every problematic word has been over-lapped on Venn diagrams into a black hole: finally to consult color-coded reference charts for the appropriate response.   Or the more frightening reality of discourse today: being fired, doxed or handed the racist, sexist, misogyny card – a hat-trick with as much validity as the original Holy Trinity – shown so many times it’s blank at this stage; you can write whatever you want on them when their definitions change every half hour.

Language itself is in a serious state dysphoria. And what does language trans into? Emojis and hashtags. Hieroglyphics?

 We’ve become so tightly wound, every word is negative-red and we charge-in-positive with hair triggers and its civil war in the comment section over an opinion: a word that is spelt with 2 eyes. I would go even further and say 4, 2 silent ones. We have to stop constructing rebuttals with our feelings. Argue the principle, the point; not the passion. All the facts and figures count for nothing if your passion speaks for you.

Ask any vegan, they’re a funny bunch. They’ve facts and figures for every sort of fact and figure and yet; they’re still a fringe-whinging minority. I sincerely admire their passion but when you share pictures of a child in a baking tray adorned with vegetables and an apple in their mouth… How can you reasonably respond to that?

I do see their point of view. I understand the argument they’re making. But their passion moots their point. Yet, I’d easily debate any meat-eater about the healthy, humane alternatives: though I’m still going to have a chop for dinner. Phss... You know that squirt you get in your mouth when you chomp into a sausage – that blast of hot delicious goodness that, that’s the essence of vegan tears.

And spare me the: you know there’s more potato in McDonald’s chips than meat in a sausage. So. Some people say abortion’s murder. Doesn’t mean they’re wrong. A true reflect of character, the individual as a whole, is not found in an opinion. Or half an argument.

 And if you’re wondering what this has to do with Star Trek? Well, I think we can all agree that that prequel of an abomination can fuck right off.

 2.       The Other R-Word

 Rape can be problematic. I’ve thought about it. I suppose a lot of us have at some point. It can be an alternative or at the very least; it can help reduce your meal costs. But you know yourself… F.C.E, %D.M.D and the other factors. And this all depends: are you fattening cattle or is it for pre-lactating ewes? Ha. Ha.

Make sure you know what you looking at before charging because sometimes son, the curtains are just blue. Whatever happened to face value? Will someone please put up some flyers or photos on milk cartons? But would we recognise it; if we saw it again? If postulating landed you in a straight jacket or the wrong side of the law, then where would we be? Still in the cave and not exploring space through the Stargate Universe. Though I think we moved back in, the cave, sometime ago. Did some renovations; got rid of the rock and replaced it with glass.

 We have to become familiar again with how to listen to the words that people are using and their context in-relation to the topic been discussed: individually and not interpreted through the tone-deaf shared collective. And learn to ignore the echo-friendly conscious bias sound-byte, a hard thing to do in a cave. I’ve always enjoying climbing trees, that’s not a metaphor but this is.

There’s more to a tree than the bright topical, ignorant, leaves on display. It’s not magic that has them floating there. Look passed the red leaves; see the branches they are connected to. Sometimes that’s where the point is made or found. But leaves tend to blow away with the passing breezes. The branches stay there. If you wanted to extend that metaphor, you could say that the leaves are a result of the roots that anchor the trunk to the ground.  But I’m no tree expert. However I do know that timber warms you 7 times.

Of course a words meaning, tone and context can change – I should know; I am literally a bastard, born in a country that used to take them from their mothers (Now, bastard’s the default birth cert setting) – but overtime and naturally. Simply squawking like a hen after laying an egg regarding the term Cis Privilege and how it has to mean something: aren’t you just a delightful little block of wood; Pinocchio.  And speaking of intelligent design, my old friends... The Vegans, God love them. They make funny arguments claiming that A.I (Artificial Insemination) is rape because the cow can’t give consent. And please, don’t take my word for it. Look that up. I dare you; I’ve been down that rabbit hole. Which leads me to the conclusion that, in that context, of a vegan narrative, it would allow for some hilarious rape jokes. I said look it up. I’m just mining the gold I see. The gold that it is. Nobody owns the river, Nestle would disagree. But fuck them.

 The books of Nietzsche and Kahlil Gibran thought me a lot about the individual but so did #197. She was an auld ewe we had years back. I would say she taught me more because she was real. The Internet doesn’t matter. Real life is more important.

  3.       Hocus-Pocus

 Anyone who’s ever received a rejection letter – or as they are known in the biz; a PFO – will know: all the complaining won’t change a damn thing. You have to be precise with your one shot.

 Here’s a classic scene from Cheers.

Sam, the ladies man, was told by one of the barmaids that no matter what her friend asked, he was to say no. And only no! She was worried her friend would be corrupted by Sam and his silver tongue. So Sam eventually agreed. The friend came in and sure enough, she asked Sam this question.

‘Would you mind coming home with me?’

 We have to stop blindly building walls with wonky words then we hold everyone accountable for poor construction when they naturally fall down upon us. Meow. And please trust me when I say: trees are a pure hoor for knockin’ walls and Lady Limestone has taken all my fingernails at some point, irregardless of what I wanted.

What we hear will be an echo of what we ask and we have to stop being so outraged over basic math.  If your figures don’t add up, may be you need to check your calculations then reword them up again. You’d be surprised.

I originally had ‘afraid’ instead of hesitant.  (Part 1, Par 4, line 4)

We have to start taking responsibility for the words we use. They’re all we have to communicate, sincerely and properly. This P.C culture and egregious hyperbole are the 2 current threats to freedom of speech.

P.C for the obvious reasons. Now hyperbole in a piece of work; a character���s narrative – that’s what makes it funny. But everyday interactions with co-workers and strangers; a serious debate; asking out someone you fancy; accusing Hugh Mungus of sexual harassment; a national conversation. No! You have to use proper words. It’s getting to the point where people don’t know what to think, let alone say.

We’re not the Borg. We are individuals. For now, we’re allowed  to hold opinions and ideas that are not your own and ask ‘Why the hell not?’ Or ‘What’s going on here?’ As for your personal experience on the subject in question, be it in-depth or non existence, it has no merit in the argument. (Part 1, 1st par, 2nd sentence) You cannot apply conditions to asking questions. I will disagree with others and not assimilate.

Holding the opinion that the term Rape Culture is akin to Cis Privilege in terms of its validity is not the same as saying ‘I condone rape.’ And I abhor the fact I have to tack on, so cheaply, that caveat. That’s how bad it’s got. We can no longer differentiate between this and that. We’ve forgotten how to separate personal from professional – Kim Davis!

 Words have to start meaning something again. But for the love of every made up Deity: they’re not magic spells; uttering them won’t make it happen, so until then, and only then will word-policing be relevant, needed and necessary. And I’m so confident that that day will never come *Blesses himself* it will also be the day I become vegan.

 Hopefully by then there’ll be an episode of Star Trek where they don’t break the Prime Directive.