#i’ve been called girl so much by people who know I’m nonbinary

[everylasttime]

i dont really use this account i just wanted to let my feelings out and maybe get some advice

im a 17 year old conventionally attractive girl. but i dont feel like a girl. ive known this for nearly four years now and in the past i’ve identified as nonbinary but realized no one actually respected it. i wore a binder and everyone made fun of me, they still saw me as a girl. i posted a tiktok about my binder and all the comments were about how i’ll always be a girl. so i thought if im gonna have to be a girl i’ll at least be a pretty one and i managed that pretty well. i started to wear makeup and got pretty well at it people always compliment me and i don’t wanna sound weird but lots of people have a crush on me. but i’m not that girl, i’m not the person i see in the mirror and it kills me. i’m stronger than i was a few years back now if people make fun of me i wont care that much but i have a girlfriend now. she’s my soulmate and my favorite person in the whole world but i feel like she’ll always see me as a woman. she always calls me her woman (it doesn’t sound weird in our language) and always tells me about how pretty she thinks i am and that i’m the prettiest girl in the world but i’m not a girl. and i can’t ever tell her that. i wish i felt like a guy maybe that would’ve been easier at least it’d be in binary. i don’t know im just a mess and i dont even feel human anymore. i’m not the person in the mirror and it kills me everyday to act like i am. i don’t wanna be a pretty girl, i dont even wanna be a handsome one i just don’t want to feel like this anymore. realizing that im a lesbian and coming out was hard enough i cant do this anymore especially in a country where most people dont even know what nonbinary is. im just so fucking tired. no one knows i feel this way and even a friend of mine made a joke about how cringe my genderless phase was and i do wish it was a phase. i wish a was just a cishet girl who wanted attention. if you have any advice i would be grateful and thanks if you even read this this far. im a mess so i probably made a lot of grammar errors.

[gin-juice-tonic]

I've been thinking a lot about gender identity and stuff lately, but to my shame I’m not the most educated person when it comes to lgbt related stuff. Every time I try to search it to learn more I end up freaking out and clearing my browsing history because of the feeling of being watched. I know I’m being unreasonable, but it’s stronger than me. I don’t have anyone to ask about this kind of stuff. Everyone around me is negative about lgbt, I grew up among this negativity. I’m afraid to ask my online friends because I don’t want to seem ignorant or stupid. What have I decided to do? Send an anonymous ask to a stranger about my concerns (sorry about that), whose blog helped me to accept the fact that I might not be who I though I was at the first place. It feels more safe. Back to the point.

As a teen I used she/they pronouns and a different gender-neutral name online for years. I still do it as an adult and now I realise that “she” was more like a compromise for me because it was what I used to be referred as for my whole life, but didn’t feel quite comfortable with. So it’s they/them for me, I guess. Okay. I’ve always preferred to not be related to any gender, but now I see that there’s more to it. I might be a nonbinary, but what if I’m actually an agender? I also consider the possibility of being a genderfluid because one moment I wear a dress and think that it looks good, and the other moment I cry in front of a mirror because of the idea of wearing it. So yeah, it depends on my mood. I don’t know how it works. I’m just so confused. The only thing I know that I’m not comfortable with being referred to as a female anymore. I’ve never really been.

Admittedly, as someone who is binary trans, I do not have a lot of knowledge in this area. I do know what it’s like to not know what you’re “supposed to be” though. And I know it can be frustrating and scary to be lost in trying to figure out your own identity. 

I asked some of my friends, who are nonbinary and genderfluid themselves, and the first thing we all have to say is you should allow yourself more kindness. I am sorry that you grew up around so much negativity. But I want you to know that it’s both okay to feel afraid but also okay to not know everything. If a friend is going to treat you badly for asking questions, they’re not a very good friend. 

One of my friends says the part you said about “making compromises” resonated a lot with them a lot, so you aren’t alone there. As for how you feel in a dress, clothes do not equal gender. You can like how you look in a dress without any of it having to do with girl-ishness. I suggest you try to think about why you like it when you do, and why you don’t when you don’t. My friends also suggested trying other clothes you can express yourself with. Think about why you like them, or why you don’t like them. (Of course, sometimes the answer has nothing to do with gender. I like athletic clothing because they make me look sporty, which is a neutral thing. But it’s good to know what parts aren’t related to gender at all too.) That extends beyond clothes too, any part of your presentation that you think you can play with without getting yourself into danger, you should. 

It’s tempting to feel like you have to scramble to figure out a label. Especially when advice and other people you can talk to can feel sort of “grouped” under them. And there’s a lot of knowledge to be gained that way for sure. But there’s a lot of knowledge to be gained just in figuring out what you do and don’t like. What makes you feel bad, what makes you feel at ease, what makes you super excited. You‘ve got it nailed down that you don’t like being called a female, that’s not a bad start! 

If your friends are people you think are good and kind, I would suggest reaching out to them so that you can explore things a little more with them, considering they know you better than I would. I know it's scary, but there's nothing wrong with not knowing things, and I hope they'd be aware of that too. And even if you call yourself something now and explore more into it, there's no harm if in the future it doesn't fit so good. There's no wrong way to be a gender, and more importantly there's no wrong way to be you.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for implying my sister’s a transphobe?

For context: i’m a nonbinary girl and at the time had recently broken up with my trans girlfriend of a year. I also have very different political stances than my sister, which historically makes me very frustrated (she’s a liberal so very into making sure people have rights but never acknowledging the structural problems that cause minority hatred/prejudice).

So my sister and i were playing a videogame together and having a great and fun time. We were switching the game and there was an add for Hogwarts Legacy on her home screen, which we both saw. I genuinely don’t remember who commented on it first. Either i said something like “ugh, please don’t get that godawful game” or she said something like “oh i wanna get/play this game”. Knowing me it was probably the former. A throwaway comment for sure. Either way, that started a little argument between us.

More context: my sister and i both grew up as avid potterheads. I was even more obsessed with it than her, as a lonely middle schooler with no friends, harry potter was my favorite avenue of escapism and basically my main coping method. Which is why i was so devastated when, in 2020, i found out about all the terf shit jkr had been posting and supporting. It felt like losing a close friend, and so it’s a subject around which i have a lot of pain thinking/talking about. But my sister (cishet) usually thinks I’m overreacting. She doesn’t support jkr’s rhetoric but doesn’t think that supporting her or her work monetarily is a bad thing whatsoever. Mainly she believes it simply won’t make a difference to her bottom line.

Anywho, we were arguing about Hogwarts Legacy and how i think that she shouldn’t give jkr any money regardless of how closely she was involved with the production, since she’s getting profit from it regardless. Sister brings up that she’s seen trans people who want to buy and play the game, and that i’m not the authority on the issue. I tell her that the people saying that are not the majority of the community, and that maybe she should listen to the person who’s actually trans and sitting right next to her. She disagrees, and i say “then just don’t call yourself an ally”. I don’t quite remember what she said, but the argument didn’t last long after that.

We continued playing whatever videogame, and then i excused myself to have dinner. When i came back k stopped by her room to share a fun fact, and she confronted me about how much it hurt her that i said she wasn’t an ally. She told me that she had put in real work by taking an intersectionality class in college, and by attending trans rights protests — all of which i’ve never done (mostly because of mental health issues i won’t get into). She was crying and upset, and i told her i was sorry for having that conversation at a bad time, and for how i phrased my thoughts, but that i didn’t take back what i said about her not being an ally and to say i was would be lying. I didn’t say much more because i saw how upset she was and didn’t think that was a good time to argue about my opinions - so we decided to talk about it later when she was calmer.

I still haven’t started that conversation because i haven’t decided if what i said was unnecessary and made me an asshole, or if what i said was justified and she needed to hear it. It’s been a few months now and we’re both back in college and living hours away from each other in different countries.

So, tumblr, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hi! It’s midnights anon (thank you sososo much for the name) and I need help with finding my gender identity? There’s a lot going on with me and stuff which I’m trying to focus on healing during my winter break but right now I’m not confused on my gender and sexuality

I used to think I was a lesbian, but I have since then tried to remove myself from diet culture and have gotten better from my slight ED and now I know I don’t fully feel (even even feel at all) like a woman. I don’t feel like a woman who gets to be small and wear dresses and wear makeup because I’m black and tell and never got to fit into femininity in that sense, I never got to be skinny or enough when it came to being considered a woman.

But whenever someone calls me a boy? It sucks sometimes, but it also feels REALLY good at other times, and my knee jerk reaction when someone calls me a girl is to immediately feel/think “I am not a girl I am not a girl”.

I like being called a boy, gay, etc. and I don’t identify as lesbian or sapphic, but I like the label Bisexual because I HAVE been attracted to women in the past? Except I’ve never felt sexually attracted to anyone, only aesthetically and platonically and (occasionally) romantically.

I’m also afraid of being attracted to women because I feel like a predator because of my experience growing up as a girl. I know the feelings of inadequacy and insecurity that is so prevalent in girls my age because I still feel that way and it feels wrong to want to pursue something with a girl.

I like boys but if I date one people think I’m straight because I don’t pass as a boy so I look like a really weird girl.

I want long curcly hair and a body that I shape because of my own preferences and not who people say my dream body should be

Ive liked women before but now I feel predatory because I don’t feel like a girl anymore and I like boys but what if someone thinks I’m a girl?

I…

Oh. I’m a trans guy. I am a gay trans man?? But I don’t feel like a man? I like having a chest? I don’t feel non binary? I don’t feel like a girl??? I don’t want a wife anymore??? But I kinda do???

So I’m a bisexual gender-fluid person?? Then why do I always feel like a boy?? Why do I want my gender to be liked by any sexuality?????

What is me????

Sorry for the long rant. Uhm… thank you for listening! 😅

Hi <3

So first, I need you to take a deeeeep breath. Remember that whatever you're feeling, it's okay and it's not bad.

Second, remember that you don't HAVE to pick a label. You can just be YOU and like who you like.

But if you want to pick a label, I'd encourage you to look into labels outside of the few you mentioned. There's so many more besides boy, girl, and nonbinary and gay, straight, and bi. As you look into these things, remember that there is NO rush to pick anytime soon or if at all. AND you can decide on a different label if things change. It's okay to explore your feelings <3

[wordslikesilver]

Seeing the discourse lately on transmisogyny and coming across new terms like tme and tma being used more than I think I’ve ever seen before because of everything going on had me uneasy, not gonna lie, I always do when I find new terminology from the alphabet mafia because I’m thinking to myself oh boy, more stuff to explain to cis people. Looked into it, it all seems pretty reasonable to me tho for including nonbinary femmes and femme intersex people I’ve sorta just always by default assumed “Trans Femme” was really good given the whole “it’s a spectrum and transmisogyny by definition is talking about the people on the femme side of it who didn’t start there” so admittedly I’ll probably be a grump about changing my vocab soon.

But then I see some new shit in the wake of all this TERF nonsense and bigotry being used against trans women? Detransitioned cis women calling themselves trans women and saying WE don’t understand the concept of gender well? The audacity? Look, changing the labels of a community to be less offensive is something I support so loudly and love and adore. This isn’t that. This is people encroaching on our pride and our identities and pretending the flag we nobly fly, the icon of bravery and unifying love in the face of oppression that it is, isn’t clearly “ours” enough. That it’s something they’re allowed to say belongs to them too so we need to come up with something new to call ourselves when we discuss the pain we face in our lives. Erasing and rewording the definitions of who we are til our identity is gone altogether. Moving the goal posts and telling us to teach everyone a whole new set of labels when the average layman still doesn’t even know that “Cis” isn’t a fucking slur, let alone what it means. Never forget that at your core when you fight against this new bigotry and they try to dance circles around you with their words and misdirect the conversation to stupid shit. Alienation from an already unified identity is a classic means of making it so much fucking harder for the oppressed to have their pleas for basic rights be acknowledged. Never let your people’s pain be silenced by someone pretending to they’re too stupid to know who you’re talking about.

To the TERFs and bigots who find this, and I fucking hope you find this, Trans Woman is not yours to fucking claim just because “gender is a construct and complicated” you will NEVER know the pain people like me have been through. I refuse to acknowledge a claim on my people’s identity because someone managed to misunderstand a concept hard enough and it’s now snowballed into a new form of complicating discussions of deserving basic and equal rights. I have felt the pains a cis woman has felt, I have felt sexist and awful treatment from men, I have been catcalled, I have been stalked, I have been made unsafe, I have been expected to be a mother for no other reason than “all women want them one day” and I have been assumed to be less than a man for some imagined frailty of the fairer sex. I am a woman. We can share that label, I WANT to share that label. We can bond over sapphic love and feminine experiences and hardships we both suffer under a cruel patriarchy. In just the same way, I have never known the pain of period cramps. I don’t have a vagina. I will never have a pregnancy scare and I will never feel the side effects of birth control. I wasn’t catcalled by gross men walking home when I was in high school. I was never sexualized by the media when I was in middle school the way cis girls would see happen to them. I am NOT a cis woman and I will never be one. I grew up as a boy, I lived and I loved as a young man, I saw the world through masculine eyes and was raised being treated as one, I will never pretend I know what it’s like to be a young girl being preyed upon and used by an older man. I will never touch that label because it’s simply not correct at the most fundamental level. I am a trans woman and that made me who I am. After all the people I’ve met and all the experiences I’ve shared, it took time to be so proud of calling myself a trans woman. Holding up the sky would’ve taken less strength of the heart, but now I feel the deepest pride knowing I’ve done something inconceivably harder.

But you, you people cannot take that from me and my sisters. I draw the fucking line at saying you think you have the slightest notion of what it’s like to be transfeminine. To be born in a body that makes people see you as a man from the very first glance, to hear you wrong from the first whisper of your voice. To spend the rest of your life working tirelessly in a fight against your own biology and/or the perception of the entire world whenever it casts its ugly eye upon you. Some of us don’t even have the privilege of fighting those perceptions or the things or own bodies have been programmed to force on us. Some of us don’t even want to have to do anything about how we look because it’s bullshit to have to fight for that basic respect from our peers in the first place and their standards just don’t align with who we are deep down in the first place! Gender is complicated but this isn’t. Have you EVER held your breath in the women’s public washroom and tucked your feet in because you were scared you’d make other women uncomfortable, because you’re not sure if you’re in an accepting space? FEARED what might happen if you step into the women’s change room to put on a bathing suit or your work clothes? Have you EVER been threatened with physical violence and called slurs in front of your own mother on public transit? Have you ever had to tell your doctor you’re ready to drop out of school to show how “sure” (re: fucking desperate) you are to be prescribed HRT? Sure, lots of cis women are on HRT, I treat them as patients all the time. Have you ever had a hot flash at the age of 21 because you were late on your injection? Did you pierce your skin with thin metal once a week for years and years to get the breasts you have? Did your body do irreparable things to your bones and your voice that make it so no one will ever see you as a woman at first glance without thousands of hours of effort, of tears, of sheer fucking focus and fixation on achieving the ideal self you see in your mind and dream of being one day? DID YOU HAVE TO BEG YOUR GOVERNMENT TO LET YOU HAVE THE BODY YOU LITERALLY ALREADY HAD AT BIRTH OR DID THEY NEVER EVEN SO MUCH AS TRY TO GET IN THE WAY OF JUST BEING CALLED MISS ON YOUR GOD DAMN LICENSE? Cis women can’t even begin to imagine the feelings I have felt, building my wings of feather and bones and wax, day after day, dreaming of flying beside my sisters who were born with wings they’ll never fear will melt, all the while remembering the last time someone born in a body like mine flew too close to the sun. Maybe they’ll perhaps know what it’s like to bind them to their back and hide them beneath their shirt, maybe they’ll even have sheered and ripped the bones from their sockets and one day wish they could have them back and sing with the rest of the angels like they used to, but they will NEVER fly on wings like mine, fear the heat from the light that makes life worth living the way I do, fear the same slings and arrows screaming up through the air from down below and even at times from above my head to let me know loud and clear they wanna knock me outta this sky, this sky that’s so beautiful and holy I cry when I touch it, the very first chance they get.

Transphobia won’t ever take the sky from me. My Icarian Wings are made on the foundation of generation after generation of my people who dreamed and yearned to touch the sunlight blue skies and the infinite glittering nights, each of us telling each other, telling ourselves we’ll never fear the light again one day, lifting each other when we fall, soaring higher each time than the ones whose wax melted before we could save them could, warmly teaching each other how to fix our broken wings and freely gifting each other the love it takes to make them stronger for the next flight. Holding each others hands as we dance and show each other how to fly, hand in hand and heart in heart with the angels who call us sister angels. A cis woman having the audacity to flap her never melting wings and saying hers are just like mine, that the name of my people is just a construct so she can say she she’s just like Icarus too, makes me wanna vomit. Pretending she knows what it’s like to watch in terror as all the feathers fall out suddenly in a moment of weakness making her break her bones upon the rocks, listening to everyone around her say “I knew it, I knew his wings were fake, look at him crawl along the ground in the dirt and the mud where he belongs.” Pretending that if two people both have skin, even of a different colour, that since the labels are made up, the sun and society itself will surely treat them the same if the white one calls themselves black.

Transphobia won’t ever take the sky from me. Come and fucking try to take these wings from me and see what happens.

[im-not-a-l0ser]

Hi! Grace asker again.

I wasn’t intending to call you a misogynist by any means, I had simply seen a lot of differing opinions of Grace based on her insanity and just wanted to know if it was a female thing or if she was genuinely irredeemable. I’ve been in a few fandoms before where it was mostly just a female thing, and it gets very exhausting very quickly. But, if your dislike of Grace is because of her insane, cult-building, murderous tendencies, I get it. A lot of people just don’t like to see that in their fandoms.

However, does that same logic apply to how you view Max? He was also—in my eyes—an irredeemable monster, and it seems like the general consensus in NPMD is that life in Hatchetfield was undeniably better without him there. And he also was shown to be a huge bully and bigot in canon, so what makes it more acceptable to make him gay, yet not offer that same development to Grace?

Once again, maybe I’ll change my mind once I finish watching all of the content with her, but for now I’m just gauging where the line is here.

Okay, sorry. It's just a thing I've already heard and refuted before so I was a little defensive.

With Max, he isn't actually ever shown Ever doing or saying anything specifically about minorities, which is my main problem. Like, he's just generally a jerk, not specifically against queer people like Grace is.

I might be super wrong here, but I'm also pretty sure he's supposed to be bi in cannon. I don't know if that was Will Branner who said that or one of the Lang's, so take that with a pinch of salt.

He's definitely got way more of "I am being defensive because I am abused and I cannot be seen for how much I'm hurting," thing going on. If you haven't watched thw show, I totally get how you couldn't gather that. In one of my linked posts, I went a bit more in depth about it.

I've always tried to give any aggressor... well, not the benefit of the doubt, but I've always put thought into why someone might be doing something.

A great example from my own life was for a period of time, someone who'd bully me for years would call me by my chosen name, Conner. And then one day, when I posted something about how I'm not a girl, I'm nonbinary, he suddenly was really brash about it and began deadnaming me again. And instead of being offended, all I could think is "what on earth happened at home." Which is what shifted my view of it in the first place.

Just like how I don't like Grace, I can fully understand anyone who doesn't like Max, and i won't jump to his defense, I'll only jump to my own defense if I am specifically being attacked for how I perceive him, and even then it's just like "Oh, well, I see him like this."

Sorry for being agressive in the first response. It's not the first time I've heard shit like that, and it will not the last either.

I am interested in what you think after you watch the show, which I think you haven't based on how you're wording things, but I'm also at work, so I'm only skimming and I might be wrong. Either way, interested

[our-transmasculine-experience]

A while ago when I was younger, my Nana asked me what was wrong because she’d noticed I’d been doing “worse” (I was just tired)

but then, I decided it’d be a good idea to start crying because I did have a lot of pent up emotions (a lot from being trans)

She finally got me to speak (very rudely) and asked me what was wrong, and I tried to be vague as possible and say that I didn’t want to be a girl/wasn’t a girl

She responded terribly, saying “well why can’t you just be nonbinary for a little bit?” Which makes no sense in the way she was thinking. And she also calls trans people “transvestites” (that only means dressing as a traditionally “opposite” gender)

And she entirely shut me down every time I tried to speak to her, saying it was just hormones (she says that every time I’m sad, idk why she even asks me why I’m sad anymore??)

Then, later, my Uncle came in and talked about “God created you as a woman” or something, knowing damn well I’m not religious (+ revealed his toxic masculinity and how much he loves gender roles)

and this isn’t the first time I’ve “come out” either, so I knew the outcome (the other two/three times were from searching my electronics)

She also has no idea any of what she is talking about, she gets all her information from Fox News blindly, yet tells me “check your sources!!1!1!1!” (She thinks a fucking binder destroys your boob tissue??)

She’s also very much a transmed and has told me (this is word for word) “Real transvestites chop off their penises.” what is that even

that’s just so stupid. She doesn’t even use the right term and says she knows everything about trans people from the most bigoted news channel ever

it just upsets me so much

and she tells me she’s not transphobic

Sorry if this is messy, my brain is messy

don’t apologize. this is a horribly messy situation and i am so sorry that you have to deal with this. you know that she’s wrong, so try not to take it to heart. laugh it off, if you can. i know it really stings and i have family like this too, but what helps me is laughing at their ideas in my head even if i feel hurt, so eventually it doesn’t hurt as much.

i’m not religious but support anyone who is, but i absolutely hate it when people use their religious beliefs to justify hate and bigotry, so i totally understand how it feels.

i hope you feel better, anon, and i hope that the situation gets better for you in some way or another.

[remremsies]

Gang I’ve been gone for a while again I’m so sorry😔

I decided to come back and show y’all my OC who I’ll use while playing Our life now&forever!

Soo first I should warn you that there will be mild mentions of mental health issues and SH‼️ If these things trigger you, please skip my STEP 2 text or do not read this at all. It isn’t anything big, but I don’t want anyone to feel anxious while reading this🫶

Here it starts (I apologize for any grammar mistakes, English is not my first language)

Her name is Rosemary Salmonbay and some might say her surname is silly, but it’s a literal translation of my own surname! I love it, hehe. So, Rosemary is heavily inspired of my own life and almost just me. I made Rosemary a long time ago to make little stories that were inspired of my life and just as a way to cope. But she’s not 100% me either, because that would make me feel uncomfortable lmao.

I used picrew‼️ This is Toon Me!

STEP 1:

Rosemary is an awkward, shy and silly kid. An outcast, kind of. She’s very into anime, games and drawing. At first not very talkative and finds new people scary, but once you get closer to her she becomes very loud and energetic.

Rosemary enjoys playing outside with dolls, especially Monster High dolls and even dressing up as these characters. She likes drawing them a lot and making new outfits for them. Usually her doll plays are enspired by the games and animes she enjoyed.

She liked games that many other kids didn’t back then, such as Ib. Animes she watched were Ouran High School Host Club and Death Note.

As you can notice from the picture, she didn’t have much fashion sense because she just wore whatever felt comfortable and looked cool. Shirts with Mickey Mouse, Youtube merch and galaxy print.

Rosemary has tried many sports to have at least one hobbie, but nothing really fit her. Football was her favorite though. Rosemary was more into videogames and YouTube.

Moving to a new place made her very nervous but hopeful that she would make friends who wouldn’t judge her too much.

Rosemary gets called Rose, Rosie, Roses, etc. So many different nicknames and sometimes it annoys her, but doesn’t really stop anyone. She’s a bit bigger than other kids, which always made her feel embarrassed. A bit taller than most kids and didn’t like her tummy:(

STEP 2:

These years were the hardest for Rosemary, because she was very lost, didn’t know who was her true friends and even has some issues with her mother. But mostly Rosemary battles with herself during this time.

Now, Rosemary tries her best to stay away from any spotlight and has only few close friends. She doesn’t want any conflicts, so she has a hard time choosing sides whenever a classmates would have drama.

Rosemary’s escape is music and dancing now. She’s very into K-pop and J-pop during this time and has kind of dropped her old gamer and anime loving self. Though, she still misses those times when it was okay for her to be ”cringe”.

Her mental health declines rather harshly, even making her harm herself in certain ways to relieve overwhelming emotions. She usually regrets doing it afterwards, because it’s hard to hide and it makes her vulnerable.

Even though Rosemary says that she isn’t trying to fit in and is genuinely herself, it’s most likely a lie. She indeed is just trying to somehow fit in and make others happy. Rosemary starts wearing clothes that show off her body more in hopes of making herself like the cool girls and tries to learn makeup.

Rosemary gets more into studying herself and understand that maybe, just maybe this isn’t truly her. So, in subtle ways she tries to show her true self (such as jewelry). Rosemary accepted herself as pansexual/romantic already when she was 12, but for a long while she questions her gender. Being a girl feels right but also empty, being a boy is too much for her and nonbinary isn’t right either. But, she tries to ignore it.

She’s still rather chubby and hates it. It causes her to wear more ’boring’ clothes, because she thinks they won’t show others her bigger body. Rosemary only accepts Rose nickname during this time.

STEP 3:

Everything kind of starts making sense now. Rosemary is gaining confidence and got professional help for her problems. She accepts her actual style and doesn’t wear ’boring’ clothes anymore.

She’s still awkward and kind of anti-social, but tries her best and is more laid-back now. Rosemary only goes with her kind of people now and won’t force herself to fit in.

They also got back into gaming, anime and even started cosplaying sometimes! They still sometimes listen to K-pop and J-pop but more for nostalgia and during rough times. They’re also into makeup and fashion now, especially fashion styles from Japan.

Did you notice how I used they pronoun for Rosemary? Well, they finally realized and accepted themself as a demigirl! Rosemary prefers she/they pronouns but doesn’t really care if anyone uses he.

Rosemary isn’t entirely happy with her body still and also feels kind of lost, but is slowly and surely getting better. She’s trying to live healthy now, not working out to lose weight but to love her body no matter how chubby she was.

A bit more confident in themself, but still has ways to go and a lot to learn. They aren’t 100% certain what they want to do in the future, but have some ideas.

That was all I have for her now! I haven’t made one for Step 4 yet, but I’ll work on it. I’ll probably post more about her as well and maybe change some things. This is kind of like a first draft, but I doubt I’ll change anything drastically.

[mordredsheart]

Nixe’s Top 10 Films Of 2024!

in chronological viewing order, including both new and new-to-me films from this year.

04. I Saw The TV Glow

What if she was right? What if I was someone else? Someone beautiful and powerful? Buried alive and suffocating to death on the other side of a television screen?

I’d never heard of this movie before seeing it on the AMC app and deciding to check it out on a whim. When the end credits finally started rolling, I couldn’t get out of the theater fast enough. Standing at the bus stop under the hazy pinks and blues of an L.A. sunset, I felt like I had just clawed my way out of the grave. My thanatophobia was triggered for weeks; whenever I tried to sleep at night, my breaths caught in my chest while I obsessed over what the last one I ever take will feel like.

I’ve always been proud that I’m not easily fazed by horror—and, when I *do* find myself fazed, through spite or stubbornness or simply an artistic masochism, I usually try to stick it out. Partly it was that masochism that drove me back to this movie, months after my first watch. But it was also partly because I knew it was a damn good work of art that I hadn’t been able to properly appreciate on account of, you know, the terror. There was something wondrous to be discovered, if only I could stomach it.

(What about you? Do you like girls?) I don’t... I don’t know. (Boys?) I... I think that I like TV shows.

In an interview about I Saw The TV Glow, the director, Jane Schoenbrun, said, “I don’t think my relationship to gender is something that I completely understand. It’s actually quite comforting to embrace incoherence.” As a nonbinary person whose gender is “idk, whatever Ziggy Stardust was doing,” and whose response to discussions about identity and presentation is, nine times out of ten, a massive fucking shrug, I felt extremely seen.

Knowing that they feel this way also makes the movie’s ambiguity that much sharper and sweeter. Maddy and Owen both exist in that hazy pink and blue sunset space. It doesn’t matter what, specifically, they might define themselves as. They’re being buried alive, buried by a world that wants to trap them in boxes as narrow and inescapable as coffins, and what matters the most is clawing out of the grave.

But, despite the power of what Maddy and Owen go through, I have to admit my favorite pieces of genderfuckery in this movie came from Marco and Polo (seen here, and also, oh, God, right behind you!). In the context of The Pink Opaque as a throwback to kids’ shows of the 1990s, they carry an incredible double entendre.

On the one hand, as henchbeings to Mr. Melancholy, the malicious Big Bad, Marco and Polo are agents of the literal personification of dysphoria and transphobia. They gleefully attack the protagonists Tara and Isabel and drag them to what feels like certain death. On the other hand, their hermaphroditic appearance feels like a shout-out to the queer-coded villains of 1980s and 1990s kids’ media, who might have terrified and unsettled parents, but sparked a powerful, undefinable feeling of kinship in the hearts of kids like me. Marco and Polo are, somehow, both a threat and a promise.

(Am I going crazy?) No. Never let anyone convince you of that. You’re like me. You’re special.

I see people talk a lot about how The Pink Opaque is a love letter to Buffy The Vampire Slayer and its fandom. I never got into Buffy, so I can’t speak on that. I grew up with a different Monster Of The Week show, a long-forgotten Disney Channel series called So Weird.

As with I Saw The TV Glow, there is a charged current of death that runs through So Weird. It follows a girl called Fi and her encounters with the paranormal. Several episodes feature confrontations with ghosts, liches, or another type of unquiet dead, while the overarching narrative is about Fi coming to grips with losing her father, who might have been killed in something much more sinister than an alleged car wreck.

Two episodes in particular stuck with me long after the show had gone off the air and become relegated to a “does anyone remember...” curiosity on forums: one where Fi communicates with the spirit of a girl in a coma to bring her back to the world of the living, and one where Fi squares off with a banshee to buy her dying grandfather a little more time. In both cases, death is not something that must be endured as a natural inevitability. It’s something that can be faced, fought, and defied.

I think I was born bored I think I was born blue I think I was born wanting more I think I was born already missing you

I struggle a lot with cultural narratives about the acceptance of death. On an intellectual level, I understand why that’s a thing, why it’s healthy. I also know that my OCD and thanatophobia blow up the specter of death for me in a way that most 30-year-olds don’t necessarily experience. Maybe without them I’d have less of a problem with it. But the acceptance is always something I resist. Annoyingly enough, it’s also always the first thing I’m told I need to do to overcome this terror. Maybe that’s part of why I love horror movies so much; no one’s sitting there patiently telling me that I need to accept the inevitability of the nine-foot tall creep revving a chainsaw at me.

The terror of death, both literal and metaphorical, is front and center throughout I Saw The TV Glow. Actually, scratch that—what renders it so effective is the very blurring between literal and metaphorical death. There is absolutely no difference between Maddy and Owen trapped in a queerphobic suffocating suburban hell, and Tara and Isabel having their hearts cut out and being buried alive by Mr. Melancholy. All those deaths are equally horrifying. All those deaths must be fought against with everything they’ve got. And that’s where the hope comes in: as long as you’re living, death has not won, and there is still time. That’s why I can breathe easier when I watch this movie now.

[transenbyconfessions]

Tw // Queer infighting, slur mention, suicide bait

I’m so sick and tired of how people treat trans guys. Just guys in general.

I have a classmate who, when I first met them, was still closeted so a gay “guy” (they’re nonbinary). I was out as transmasc, still nervous about it. They hadn’t known very many trans people, but they did really well about it. We chatted occasionally, they apologized and corrected whenever they misgendered me, they put effort into not calling me ‘girl’ bc it was a filler word for them like how I use dude, gushed over my top surgery. Early on it was a lot of “ohymgosh I’m soo sorry I don’t want to offend you!!” And me going “nbd, it takes a bit to get used to! Thanks for putting effort into it :)”

And then they came out as non-binary. I was really happy for them at first, but the way they act towards me (and honestly also everyone else) has just.... gotten so much worse since then. They call people - people they’ve been friends with!! Other trans people!! - transphobic for accidentally misgendering them even when the person immediately apologizes and corrects themselves. Like I totally get being sensitive about it, but when you’ve been out for less than a month.... there’s an adjustment period. It sucks, I know, but they’re not doing it on purpose. One time I disagreed with them, I don’t even remember what it was over, it didn’t even have anything to do with gender, and they got huffy and said “I’ll post on Twitter that you’re nonbinaryphobic!” Like???? My good person I am Also Non-binary. And they always pass these things off as jokes when people call them out but like. It’s really obvious that they’re not.

Even worse, they’ve completely fallen down the “kam” hole. They talk about how “all men are shit/need to die” just.... in front of everybody!! They’ll say it straight to the faces of the guys in the department, especially the ones they know won’t say shit back. They’ve been particularly targeting one of the freshmen (a cishet guy) they’re constantly saying shit about him being “stupid worthless man” and even called him a faggot???? Like Hello what the Actual Fuck do you think you’re doing????? They’ve said shit like that to him and one of my best friends, both cishet guys, both some of the most respectful people about me being trans that I’ve ever met. It makes me so furious that I start physically shaking.

And on top of all that, whenever I try to steer the conversation or defend the guys, they start talking shit to me too. It got to the point they looked me dead in the eye and said “all men should die, and you’re a shitty man too.” Which is especially fucked because I’m not!!! Even a man!!!! And they know that!!! But transmasc is close enough to tell me to die with the rest of the men, I guess. It was such a slap in the face that I couldn’t even respond, I stare. But they went on later, chatting and acting friendly as if they hadn’t told me straight to my face they think I should be dead.

We’re going on a school trip soon, and I got roomed with them, presumably because we’re the only two trans people going. Just thinking about it makes me so nauseous, I’ve already had a panic attack over being alone with them for that much time. But I don’t feel like I can intrude on asking to switch with anybody, because I’m trans and I could make them uncomfortable. and I just can’t make myself prioritize my comfort over others. Anybody else who rooms with them will get shit too, and as another trans person, I can defend myself against the bullshit they say better because it’s all amateur radfem-lite rhetoric. And I‘m probably the only other student who knows enough about queer theory and infighting to fire back. So i guess I’m just.... the sturdiest punching bag. After everything they said about being excited to talk to me about being trans!!! After all the effort I’ve put into being the first to come out in the department and help my professors and peers not be uncomfortable and tip-toe around me being trans!!!! I feel angry and betrayed and sad and scared and it’s so, so fucked up. I can tell they’re doing this because they’re scared and angry but it’s making things so much worse. And now I’m stuck playing both damage control and emotional meatshield. I hate this, but I can’t stand by and just watch either. I’m so tired.

Submitted July 13, 2023

[genderqueerdykes]

i’m a younger guy, who lives with his parents. my mom isn’t very conservative but my dad is, and he’s the main one who tries to influence me. he’s not outright homophobic or transphobic, but he’s very iffy about it all.

i call myself a guy because i’m not sure. i’m AMAB, but lately i’ve been questioning my gender and sexuality. im pretty sure im bisexual, but im most confused about gender.

what do you call it when someone wants to be feminine but not necessarily a girl? sort of like non-binary but in a girly way as opposed to androgynous. (sorry if i’m not using correct terminology, i haven’t had much freedom to explore the community.) I like the pronouns He and They for myself, but when someone calls me she (almost always as a joke) it fills me with joy, just to be received femininely.

Do you have any kind of advice? I know that was a lot and i’m sorry, but thank you for your time.

hello there!

sorry for the delay in replying! hope you have been doing well and are safe! sorry to hear your dad is such a hard figure to work with, some folks just refuse to let go of the control they have over others. i hope you will be able to spend more time with your mom and other supportive folks who will be able to help you come out or experiment with being yourself!

that would be transfeminine & transfemme for you, since all they mean is transitioning to femininity! femby and femme enby are also terms i've seen used! demigirl or gxrl may also apply. i'm glad you're figuring out what you want to do with yourself and your presentation! you do not have to identify as a girl to be feminine, and i hope you're able to get what you need in order to feel more like yourself! and im really glad being called she gives you so much joy, you deserve that!

the sky is really the limit with being nonbinary, you are allowed to dictate what you do with it and how you present. nonbinary people don't have to go full tilt into androgyny or gender neutrality, i know many nonbinary femmes! and if you find that more specific labels don't fit you, that's okay! calling yourself transfem/me nonbinary would get the point across very easily, but you are free to choose how you express it! take care, good luck out there, let us know if you need anything else, we're glad to have heard from you!

[fanby-fckry]

Random vent: (If this is rebloggable, it’s a glitch/me forgetting to turn reblogs off; please don’t reblog)

Content Warning: Transphobia, exorsexism, queer infighting

Transmascs who don’t believe in transandrophobia confuse me. Like, have you never experienced it? How have you never experienced it?

I guess some of them are just too white? I know it’s definitely worse for trans men/mascs of color, especially Black trans men/mascs, because antiblackness already hits Black men super hard, and adding transphobia on top of that just intensifies it.

But like, I’m white and I’ve had experiences with transandrophobia? I would say that maybe this is a ‘coming out in 2014 USA, just 1 year after we decided it was time to try and catch up to the rest of the world on trans healthcare’ thing, but this whole theyfab bullshit is pretty transandrophobic.

(Don’t come for me on that. I survived Tumblr’s 2010’s tucute vs transmed discourse. Like 90% of ‘transtrender’ stereotypes were about AFAB nonbinary people being feminine/having boobs/not binding, along with the non-dysphoric/semi-dysphoric thing, and “weird” genders/pronouns. There was a very strange, sometimes vaguely sexual focus on our boobs. I did not run a tucute blog just for people to rebrand this bullshit and act like it’s not transphobic/transandrophobic/exorsexist.)

Also, speaking of exorsexism, intersex people get left in the dust in transmasc vs transfemme infighting, and they deserve better. Perisex trans people stfu and acknowledge that the sex binary is just as much a social construct as the gender binary, listen to intersex people, and accept nuance challenge.

Anyways, just in case people genuinely cannot recognize transandrophobia, here are some of my experiences:

I cannot research my own medical condition without being misgendered, because it involves having a uterus

I cannot find an OBGYN to help me treat said medical condition that doesn’t misgender me; most have “women” in the practice name, and I spend time educating my fucking doctor about trans & nonbinary identities, just to still get misgendered. Because I’d rather not have my uterus make me literally psychotic roughly once a month, I grin and bear it.

The aforementioned transtrender/theyfab stuff

People assuming that being transmasc is just a symptom of “internalized misogyny” or “being fed up with how patriarchal society treats women” (I mean, I am fed up with the patriarchy, but I’m still fucking trans)

Not being taken seriously because I take birth control and not T (Again: medical condition! PMDD is already understudied because of medical misogyny, and I haven’t seen anything but a single instance of anecdotal evidence regarding the effectiveness of T as treatment. There’s no guarantee that T will stop my periods, and even if it does, some people still PMS or get cramps on T after losing periods, and PMDD is PMS on crack, with cramps so bad they set off my abdominal migraines!)

There is a very specific brand of transmasc infantilization that I’ve been subject to (I know transfemmes are infantilized too, but people often come at us both from different angles, and it’s ok to acknowledge that; transmisogyny and transandrophobia can exist at the same time and even overlap somewhat without us invalidating each other’s experiences)

My cis ex-bf often weaponized transandrophobia and exorsexism, along with against me, claiming it was “difficult” to be with someone who was nonbinary, that he was being oh-so patient and kind to me by not dumping me after I came out, and implying that nobody else would want me because I wasn’t a girl anymore (joke’s on him: I’m t4t now, motherfucker)

My trans fiancé and I are called lesbians on the regular. Even if we explain it, some people will argue, as if we don’t have the agency to define our own genders and relationship. And if they don’t, usually the best I can hope for irl is to get his gender recognized because he passes better, and have people think we’re a straight couple.

And that’s just me, personally. I don’t have the intersecting marginalizations that trans men/mascs of color and intersex trans men/mascs do. I haven’t been straight up denied medical care like some trans men/mascs. I haven’t been arrested for possession of legally acquired T like some trans men/mascs. I’ve never been harassed or assaulted for being transmasc like some people have. (I’ve been harassed for being trans, but that was actually general transphobia and exorsexism; it wasn’t targeting my transmasculinity, but the fact that I was trans/nonbinary at all.)

Like, if you’re transmasc and you’ve never experienced any of that, good for you, I guess? But that doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t out here in the trenches.

[jjkyaoi]

Multigender is a term for anyone who experiences more than one gender identity. It can be used as a gender identity in its own right, or can be an umbrella term for other identities which fit this description. Or at least, that’s how the wiki describes it.

When some people think of the term multigender they think of genderfluid, and really, I can’t blame them. Amongst the small, vastly underrepresented multigenders, genderfluid is the one that’s most known. Although, with the way it’s represented, I could argue that people don’t know jack about how being genderfluid works, but hey, that’s not what I’ve decided to complain about.

Not to sound like companies in June, but it’s a spectrum. There’s hundreds of identities—not just amongst the multigender label, but that’s what I’m focusing on—that aren’t represented amongst the media, and it’s because they aren’t simple. They aren’t understandable enough as trans, or nonbinary, or gay or bisexual, and it’s not like those are widely understood either. Peoples reaction to multigender folks is usually an instinctual, “that’s not real”, and sure, to people who don’t experience the things that multigender people do, it does sound far fetched. It doesn’t make sense. Trust me, buddy, not making sense is my whole fucking existence at this point.

I’m a little something called abrogender.

Abrogender is a gender identity with two definitions: A form of genderfluidity that changes more erratically and in a less defined way. A gender that is so intricate, and changes so quickly, that it is nearly impossible to nail down. Again, at least that’s what the wiki says.

With “micro labels” like these, it’s easy for people to say, “well, that’s just genderfluid” and yeah, it’s similar, but you can’t make that call. You don’t know what I experience and how it differs, and sure, to some people the “millions of labels under the LGBTQ+ identity” are annoying and hard to understand, but they’re there for a reason, because it isn’t as simple as labeling myself as genderfluid as it is for most people, which is another reason why you won’t see bigender, pangender, genderfaun/genderfaunet etc people being represented in media because the media doesn’t know how to represent us, or they take something as complicated as our identities—something they can’t make sense of in a blink of an eye, and call it not real.

Can you imagine how fucking frustrating that is?

I can’t describe to people who are comfortable with their gender, in the body they were born with, the type of feeling that looking in the mirror and seeing the wrong thing is. It’s hard to describe it if you haven’t experienced it, as much of this will be, but I remember I was getting more and more uncomfortable, for reasons I didn’t understand—I didn’t have access to all these millions of different labels as a kid.

I never really felt connected to being a girl. You know, it wasn’t instinctive revulsion, I didn’t “feel trapped in my body” most days, like some trans representation will have you believe. I’m not Kalvin Garrah, I’m not going to say you have to have dysphoria to be trans. I didn’t feel connected to any gender, really, but I didn’t feel without one either. If somebody were to assume I was a boy, I wouldn’t get offended, because sure! It’s not like I wasn’t a boy. Most people don’t experience that shit.

And then quarantine hit. I was on the internet more than I ever had been, because it’s not like there was much else to do, and I was allowed access to things I barely understood before. AKA, I was dipping my toes into the trans label.

Demigirl was what I started with, because at the time it felt accurate. A label where you still identify as a girl but also somewhere outside the binary? That’s exactly what I thought it was. This isn’t me shaming demigirls, you guys are so hot, sexy etc, it just wouldn’t be that simple for me. And then, as the years went on, I felt more and more disconnected from being a girl, and I picked up nonbinary like a golden star and stuck it to my shirt for a couple years, without fully reading the contract that came with it. Again, at the time, that’s what I thought it was. The idea of being a boy wouldn’t come to me for a couple years, but once I started doubting my gender again I sort of.. hid from it? The last couple weeks of identifying as nonbinary weren’t honest, and it was more so me clinging to the surface level of the trans identity just so I wouldn’t have to come out a second time. I slapped transmasc onto the nonbinary label and was hoping to god I wouldn’t fuck around and find out.

And then.. after a while, I allowed myself to look further. Bigender, and then trigender, and then pangender—none of them stuck.

One thing I did know, was that now that I was allowing myself to identify as such, I loved being a boy. I loved it. I wanted to have a flat chest, and a big, bushy beard, and for people to look at me in the store and call me sir, and to be somebody’s husband in the future—I wanted all of it. And with this, I strayed further and further away from being a girl, if that was even possible, and adopted the trans man label in 2022.

Most people would think; well, you’re a trans man. You’re not multigender. And that’s what I thought. I really did think so, I thought my gender crisis was over, I felt content, and I didn’t think much into it because it’s not like I could be wrong again, right?

Well. Some fucking god must have had it ought for me, because after a happy year of identifying as a trans man, in early 2023, I had yet another patented moment of wait.

I have been relatively open about my gender struggles here. Relatively is an understatement, I’m sure you can find a post about each label I identified as at the time I identified as it if you just search it on my account, so you can imagine how frustrating this was. I was finally content with being a trans man, and that year was really, really good. My friends were all insanely supportive, were using my correct pronouns and everything, and then I would have to do the walk of shame to tell them, again, that yeah.. I wasn’t right about this, guys :/

Out of everything, the number one thing I was worried about was annoying people. Amongst my own thoughts of faking it, of trying to be different, I really did think my close friends would get tired of me constantly saying something else. I wanted so badly to just be normal, to be simple, to be like the thousands of cis people in the world who are born with the gender they’re assigned as and don’t have a moment of questioning it—of feeling unsure, but at the same time whenever I thought about being just a girl for the rest of my life I got this sick, awful feeling in my stomach. But just being a man didn’t feel right, either.

So, what? What was I?

I still don’t know. If you assume I’m a girl, you won’t be wrong, but you won’t be entirely right, either. If you assume I’m a man, you won’t be wrong, but you won’t be right either. If you assume I’m neither, something that exists outside the binary, you won’t be wrong and you won’t be right.

I tried to be content with just being me. With saying, I don’t need a label, I am who I am! But that wasn’t true. I wanted so badly to have a label, something to explain this, something to prove that there wasn’t something wrong with me—that I wasn’t alone. That I wasn’t faking it after all.

Abrogender is the closest definition to what I’m feeling.

The definition isn’t in my own words, so it isn’t exactly what I’m feeling—hell if I’ll ever be able to explain that to people without sounding insane—but when I found that label I breathed out the biggest fucking sigh of relief. It’s the closest thing to unlabeled as I can allow myself to have, but at the same time it’s still a label. It’s still a sign that people feel how I feel, enough for there to be a definition for it. After years of switching, of nothing sticking, of feeling crazy, like I was making the whole thing up and trying to stick to one thing just to please other people, I finally, finally could breathe. And it’s not something I can explain to somebody who never has to doubt any of these things to begin with. I’m not going to force myself to tone down what I am just so it appeals to a mass of people who wouldn’t have loved me anyways. I’m not going to do that. I was miserable doing that.

So, if you think it’s not real, what I feel and how I identify, and if you think the millions of people who identify as multigender, or some label on the LGBT spectrum that isn’t easy for you to grasp are all faking it, just know that you have the privilege of never feeling a stranger in your own body, in your own mind. You have the privilege of getting up and getting ready in the morning and loving your body, never feeling like an imposter, like you have to put on a performance to please. Of course you couldn’t understand what we go through, and you know what? I am happy for you.

There's a part of me that’s bitter, that’s envious, because I’ve wanted that experience for myself for years. I can't tell you how much. But I’m learning to let things like that go. If you’re one of the millions of people who are truly, entirely happy with how you identify, then I’m happy for you.

If you asked me why I posted this, I would tell you don’t fucking know. Is it because I wanted people to understand the complexities of gender, of the vast labels and how they’re overlooked, as a person who has a lesser known label? Yeah, sure. Is it also because I wanted to just talk my shit for no apparent reason? Yes.

If you’re doubting your own gender like I was, if you feel like you’re faking it, like you’re an imposter to yourself and the people around you, I promise you that it’s going to make sense eventually. It might not be this year, or the next, but you’ll find something that’ll work. You’ll have that moment of finally being able to breathe, of that euphoria of finally not feeling alienated for something you can’t control anymore—no matter how long it takes, it will happen. And you’ll find people who’ll understand, who won’t get upset with you for being confused. There’s millions of people on this earth, and no matter how much your brain tries to convince you, there is always a group of people, no matter how small, no matter how unrepresented, that feel the same. I feel the same.

[evillainist]

does anyone else have like, super contradicting gender/sexuality labels? like i call myself a nonbinary transmasc demigirl and a lesbian (long post ahead)

i use transmasc VERY loosely here because i started transitioning at 13, and, in some ways, masculinity is integral to my identity, but i also do not identify as a man at all. i think the best, albeit still confusing, way to describe it is that i identify as somewhat masculine, but not in a man way

i think that part of the reason why i still keep transmasc as part of my labels is because i solely identified as a boy from when i realized i was trans after starting puberty (so at around 11) to when i realized i was nonbinary when i was around 17, and now i feel like i have to keep the transmasc label around for some kind of self (or honestly even social) validation of my transness. the discourse surrounding afab nonbinary people that’s been rapidly increasing recently definitely doesn’t help (for the record, they’re all valid). it’s really hard to accept myself when i see so many people invalidating people who have similar identities to me

my gender is so unstable and constantly shifting, but since i realized i was nonbinary, i’ve been slowly “reclaiming my femininity” for lack of better words. within the past month or so, it’s gotten to the point where i identify most strongly with femininity, but also nothing at all at the same time. being nonbinary, maybe agender, is the core of my identity, but i’m slowly becoming more comfortable with the idea of presenting and identifying as something girl adjacent recently. it feels different now that it’s something i want rather than something that was forced onto me from birth

don’t get me wrong, i do not regret transitioning, and i’m definitely not detransitioning. being trans is an integral part of my identity and that isn’t going away just because i’m finally able to embrace my femininity

me being a lesbian is something i’ve only started to realize and accept recently. i didn’t think it was okay for me to call myself a lesbian even though i’m a feminine-ish identifying person who is only attracted to women and feminine identifying nonbinary people

i hold myself to weird standards compared to everyone else. it’s self-hypocritical of me because i believe that transmasc lesbians are valid, he/him lesbians are valid, and so many other “contradictory” lesbian identities are valid, but me identifying as a lesbian? not valid. i’ve finally started to accept it and embrace it because i AM a lesbian, but there’s still that small part of my brain that’s like “you can’t be a lesbian”

this post is not just me seeking validation (although it would be nice because of how much my brain tries to convince me i’m not valid). i’m just kinda rambling/venting/ranting, whatever you wanna call it.

anyway, tldr; gender and sexuality are fucky. i’m kinda a girl, not in a cis way even though i’m afab. i’m just reclaiming my femininity, and if anyone is even reading this, i just want you to know that you’re valid

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hello!!

How are you?

I’ve been feeling stressed out about a lot of things recently and everytime I’ve felt like this in the past it’s you who always helps me out! So I’m back… (not sure it’s a good thing)

Ok so firstly let’s discuss my sexuality. So for the past 3 years I’ve identified as bisexual. I basically like all genders but do have a preference. For example, I am more attracted to masc presenting people than fem presenting people, but I also prefer queer people more often than not. Does this make sense?

This makes me bi, right? Bc I have preference?, bc sometimes I wonder if I could be pan, but pansexual is with no preference (?)

Alrighty, second thing on my mind is the dreaded gender. I’ve been questioning for about 10 months now and I feel like I’ve made progress and I wanted to talk to you about it! So I was that anon and go was spamming your asks back in like December and January bc I was so confused about what gender identity I could be. I asked about almost all of them and you truely helped me so much!

I thought I was faking it as I’m like older than most people when working this stuff out (19), but you reassured me that I wouldn’t be faking it if it was keeping me up. You also said I could be genderfluid, like you. I remember you said you had similar experience to what I was describing: I did look into that and it’s still something I think about. I know I’m not cis. Sometimes I do relate to being a ‘girl’ (as uncomfortable as that makes me feel, it’s the truth). (I am afab). I know I’m definitely not a man. And I had thoughts that I could be agender.

I’ve come to conclusion that I am non-binary, possibly genderfluid, in which fluctuates from agender to demigirl to nonbinary. (Still discovering it all though). I just wanted to come on here and thank you so much for all the help and guidance that you provided! It really means a lot and you are the most amazing human in the world for that! 🫶🏼

Ok now lastly I am a uni student, and I have placement in 2 weeks. I’m going to a school to teach… yes I’m going to be a teacher (like you!) Clothes were the initial issue with placement as clothes always make me feel dysphoric, but you helped me with that as well! The thing that’s keeping me up lately is the title of what the students will call me. Most teachers go by Ms/Miss/Mrs/Mr and then their last names. I don’t want that. I know I’ll end up being called Ms ______, which makes me sad. What do students call you? Do you think it’s bad if I just tell them I want to be called by my first name or is that unprofessional? I know this is silly and I shouldn’t be overthinking it but it’s making me feel uncomfortable and sad so I thought I’d ask you for advice. (I also don’t know how I feel about Mx being used for me).

Again Cas, thank you for all the help you have provided me these last few months! I am so glad I found your blog when I did bc you have helped me in more ways than I ever could have imagined! I am so so grateful for you and I hope you have everything you want in life bc you deserve it!

Enjoy your day/night :)

Hi!!!

Yes, I remember you!

Okay so for sexuality...I think this is a matter of opinion, to be honest. Like, I've read completely different things and I am by NO means an expert. But in MY opinion? If you have the ability to be attracted to anyone, regardless of gender, that would be pan. Even if you have preferences. But if you're strictly only looking for certain genders, that would be bi. I hope that makes sense? Like there's a difference between having a preference and not being attracted at all.

I'm so glad I could help you with your gender! With teaching, have you ever considered just going by your last name? I think it might not be a good idea to go by first name, just because that brings you on a 'friend-level' and some kids will take advantage about it. But just your last name isn't gendered, and also give you some authority.

I'm so so glad I could help you, and please feel free to write again!

(Also I am naming all the anons who write to me in case they want to write in the future, and I am using a random positive affirmation generator to do so. So I dub thee: impressive anon. Enjoy your free tag!)

[disaster-fruit]

Believe it or not, I am 27 and have just discovered ATLA and I have some questions. Is my feeling correct that most Zutara shippers are women/nonbinary folks and most Kataang shippers are, well, men. I just can’t help thinking how Kataang is written with such a male gaze in mind, while Zutara covers both perspectives. Anyways, I understand why the show ended with Kataang, I’ve read all the big metas, I understand that Bryke kind of sucks etc. etc. But I’m curious what you think about this perceived gender divide since you’ve definitely been around longer lol

Hello! I gotta say, i don't think i have a better perspective of the fandom to offer, since i haven't actually been part of the fandom since maybe 2012? and back then i was a literal child and i couldn't speak English so 'being in the fandom' was mostly just reblogging gifs and reading the zutara fics in brazilian ao3 of the time. I have watched and re-watched ATLA an unholy amount of times since then, and i have read and watched hours and hours of meta and theories and whatnot, but the fandom itself is not something i'm well acquainted with to give a good perspective on.

I do, however, love to talk and love receiving asks, so i guess you'll get my opinion anyway. And everyone knows i'm not usually concise.

First of all, are most zutara shippers women/non-binary and kat@ang shippers men? I don't know. I haven't been in the fandom and i haven't checked the bios of most posts i did see and interact, so i have no idea. The only kat@ang shipper i personally know is a friend of mine, who is a woman. So i won't speculate on whether or not your feeling is correct, perhaps a fandom veteran would be better equipped at answering it.

What i WILL say is that Kat@ang is, in my opinion, much more appealing from aang's perspective than from katara's. She's older than aang, in an age girls are absolutely not looking at younger boys that way, and doesn't show any interest in him romantically through the whole show, with the only exception that comes to mind being their dance on season 3 (easily their best moment imo), and then their kiss at the very last minute. All we know is that Aang likes Katara, and the other way around is open to interpretation at best.

One sentiment I've seen from kat@ang shippers is that they seem to really like aang and what him to be happy, and since he likes katara, they ship the two. That is all well and fine, we support people having fun with their ships for whatever reason here. That is however not a good enough motivation if you are, you know, the creators of a show who were supposed to have some duty to storytelling, themes, and cohesion. So them making kat@ng happen just so that aang could 'get the girl', despite all the ways that weakens an otherwise phenomenal story, is a bad choice that should be criticized. At the very least, in its execution.

So yeah i don't think its wrong to say there's a 'male viewpoint' to kat@ang as it was made in the show, though i wouldn't necessarily extend that to the kat@ng fans in the fandom since i don't know them, and it feels unfair to make that assumption. For all i know there is probably no shortage of amazing fics out there that explore their dynamic much better than the show did.

But though i can't speak for kat@ang fans, there is another group i've seen more often in my metas and video essays journey and talking to male friends throughout the years, what i'll call 'shipping neutral' men. You know the type, they love avatar, they'll spend hours and hours dissecting all the aspects of the story and the themes and the worldbuilding up UNTIL the topic is romance in the show. Then they'll wave it away dismissively saying the show 'was never about romance' and the crazy shippers are 'getting distracted' from the real story and how they just don't care about that aspect. And some of them will say they're fine with Kat@ng because it's canon (and no other reason), some wont have an opinion on any of the ships, except that they're not important and anyone who HAS an opinion on that is just silly.

And HERE i definitely see not only a gender divide but a sexist tendency to disregard romance as less important to any story, and not as an integral part that deserves care and deserves to be well interwoven with the rest of it. It's basically a stereotype now about how zutara fans have all these metas and analysis about how perfectly the ship fits the shows themes and how that would improve the writing (and yes, i agree with all of them) and that's because we know that romance is just as deserving as action, as worldbuildng and whatnot, and that it can be a powerful writing tool to enhance character and plot and themes, and that the way it is done it ATLA is not that. And i think these 'shipping neutral' men's analysis all fall short and even tend to not notice flaws in the story because they refuse to interact meaningfully with that aspect. Because as we all know, romance is for silly girls.

And being honest, i have much more respect for any kat@ang shipper of any gender that is out here being passionate about what they like, writing their fics and writing their own metas and having fun in a respectful way, than i have for men (and people who aren't men) with that dismissive attitude towards the romance arcs in the show.

That was a tangent! But damn i haven't answered an ask like this in a while and its always very fun. Hope i didn't offend anyone lol If its not clear i'm not a fan of ship wars, we stan having fun here. Buuut i also love debating and engaging with the story and that sometimes can get confrontational. There's definitely a space for 'ship discussion' or 'ship debate' that doesn't cross the line to 'ship war', i think that line is 'fun'. We're having fun, right? Discussing fandom and writing is fun, right?

Anyways hope this makes sense, sorry I didn't actually answer your question even though i talked THIS MUCH.