#ive just stuck to the trans man identity and he/him pronouns because i wanted to get away from trying to be pushed to being a girl

[lighthousegod]

Recently, my cis lesbian roommate made a comment about "he/theys" that kinda stuck with me. She said these people, on her dating app, were matching with her and ignoring that she had lesbian in her bio.

We'd had convos about whether trans mascs and trans men could be lesbians (im a transmasc person, but not a lesbian, although ive identified with the label before), and I'm all for he/him lesbians and trans men who are lesbians- I've researched, I know Stone Butch Blues, I don't think telling anyone they can or can't be anything is right.

So this sorta stuck with me. I went, "but. They probably identify as nonbinary if they use they, and even if they don't, trans guys sometimes ID as lesbians too." And she was like "well, but I'm not attracted to masculine people." And I brought up that she does usually like butch lesbians (who definitely use other pronouns besides she/her sometimes!), and she sorta brushed me off, saying there was a different "vibe" between transmascs who use he/they and butches (even though they... sometimes are the transmascs she's talking about???)

So I was like "well, do you have 'looking for femmes' in your bio or something?"

"No."

"Then how are they supposed to know??"

"I don't know it's just my preference!!"

It was super. Odd. I should say, my roommate is cis but uses she/he pronouns. She is, in fact, a lesbian who uses he/him sometimes, as he identifies as bigender *but not a man, ever.

I just find this all so confusing. I mean, let's think about it, fr.

So the popular idea today is that lesbians cannot be men, so trans men can't be lesbians.

Now, here's what that implies: if trans men can't be lesbians, then they are always in the same category as cis men. Now, of course, some trans men ARE in that category, usually binary trans men- and they're all men, right, so every man is under that umbrella. But still, gender isn't so simple. Trans men and transmascs have vastly different experiences between each other and especially cis men. This isn't to do with internal identity, but outward perception. Regardless of whether I'm a man or not, the world has seen me as a woman all my life. That makes it very hard to be accepted and comfortable in mlm spaces, especially when theres so much transphobia in the cis gay community. Plenty of trans men are stealth, or simply have a supportive community, and are welcomed like a cis man would be. But that's not the case for everyone, and not every trans man WANTS to be treated in the same way a cis man might.

But whatever, okay, let's go with that. Trans men are men and lesbian means non-man attracted to non-man, so they're not included cause it's invalidating to (some) trans men, regardless of if they've identified with the label lesbian for years or feel unsafe in mlm spaces bc of how overwhelmingly cis they can be, or whatever else.

So... what about nonbinary men, then? Nonbinary women seem to be accepted, not just nb fems but those who identify as both nonbinary AND a woman- so why are nonbinary men not?

"Because they have man in their identity and lesbians can't like men"

So.. what about bigender people? People who are both men AND women. They can't be lesbians? I guess not.

But let's say they can, and we're just excluding binary trans men from the term lesbian..

People often bring up "would you accept a cis man identifying as a lesbian?" As an arguing point here. Bringing it back to my original point, would you accept a "he/they"? What if they were amab, and had no interest in transitioning? Or a transmasc person who DID? I just saw a transfem lesbian saying she couldn't possibly let trans men with full beards into lesbian spaces as it was transphobic and wrong- aren't there transfem lesbians who don't want to shave or get their face lasered? What do sex characteristics have to do with it? I thought we were trying to avoid labels based on that sort of thing.

So at the end of the day, I guess it really is about the label of "man." What's that even mean? That's literally just a word. I'm so confused.

[bongkillua]

im SUPER late to the ask game however. 5 & 9 for all of them

anon you are never too late i love talking abt these guys and these r rly good questions

5. How did you figure out your oc’s identity?

TUCKER - Tucker's has definitely ebbed and flowed with my own identity! He initially had a very different backstory that was explicitly about him being a stealth and closeted gay trans man. the way i played him made it so that it didnt really work for him to be trans but i hate playing cis characters so there was some weird magic and memory shit involved to make it work. but it just didnt make sense with the reworked story. took it as an opportunity to make him more openly trans but he was still an exclusive gay man for a while. and well then xander came around and i realized i was bisexual so now tucker is unlabeled because i just know hes going to keep changing with me. but like i truly dont think his character can wholly by separated from Gay Trans Man because so much of his personality and identity was built around that in the beginning.

XANDER - i made xander for the sole purpose of having fun with him. like seriously i made him for a school assignment because i didnt have a "cunty, whorish enough" character for the assignment and then she just stuck around so like... her identity has always just been "whatever is fun!" in the beginning he was like explicitly transmasc but i was playing around with using she/her pronouns for myself again so i gave them to xander to see if it would help me gain more confidence and it did! as i fleshed her out more tho her backstory started to rly revolve around changing identity and like specifically masculinity vs. femininity and how she performs both, and wuth that came the idea of transitioning back and forth over periods of time. because of THAT i wanted her to be really into drag because thats what drag is all about... and because shes rly into drag i wanted to explore her relationship to the transFEMININE experience because drag really cant be separated from that. so ive rly focused on embodying binary identities as performance for her gender. and because she sleeps around a lot ive just made her super fluid in terms of sexuality. shes not picky!

JORDAN - jordan was a he/they from the jump but i struggled a lot with their design and development for like YEARS but once i finally started fleshing them out i was immediately like "nah this guy prefers they/them and tacks he on for normies" and it genuinely helped me solidify his perception of not only their own identity but also life in general? theyre very "go with the flow because theyre extremely confident in themself and dont care how others perceive them". and then bisexual just seemed Right. idk. he sorta embodies "cool bisexual kid in high school that helps u realize ur also queer" and i just kinda went with the stereotype lol. also he seems like a Megan Fox Enjoyer.

KONAMI - i designed konami at a time where i was rly interested in the intersection of neurodivergence and queerness so his identity was def informed by that! along with queerness in childhood as a theme. ive always associated aesthetics like his with the rise in usage of neopronouns (in a good way!) so it just made sense to have them use it/its. if i wasnt a coward id throw some more fun pronouns on there but konami is also just a little guy so i honestly default to he/him a lot in the same way that you'd refer to like. a dog. and once again bisexual just made sense. i established pretty early on that his parents were super accepting of him being trans (konami was a binary trans guy when he was alive!) so i feel like sexuality just wasnt a huge concern for him.

9. Are there cultural or lore specific aspects to their identity? If applicable, does their species affect it?

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD THIS IS LITERALLY THE ENTIRE UNDERLYING PREMISE OF WOLFSBANE SO HERE WE GO LOL

TUCKER- ok so the more independent tucker became as a character the more i really leaned into how lycanthropy influences his identity and specifically his queerness. its always been a big part of his story but i rly got to Focus on it once he was mine and mine alone. so in wolfsbane lycanthropy is like. almost directly a metaphor for neurodivergence and like. how do i say this. Being Weird And Feeling Wrong As A Child. which you could argue also makes it a metaphor for transness but like i feel like his lycanthropy makes him trans in other separate ways? like lycanthropy in wolfsbane canonically causes an increase in testosterone production so tucker naturally has facial hair and body hair and a rly deep voice and "male-aligned" body fat distribution. despite being afab. and thats like a big struggle in the story bc his father wants him to Hide that but tucker is very Confident in that, both because he wants to embrace being a werewolf but ALSO because it gives him gender euphoria. and it takes him a LONG time to figure out that those are simultaneously separate things ("im not trans i just look like this!" (you are. you are trans)) and also intrinsically tied (transness as a feeling of Other as opposed to a distinct Gender Identity). AUGH idk if that makes sense. sexuality works pretty similarly. tucker has to repress a lot of himself because his family is scared that his lycanthropy will make him unruly and uncontrollable, and that he will hurt WHOEVER he loves. and in trying to control him they want him to Assimilate (aka Be Heterosexual). so he faces a similar struggle where he spends a long time trying to figure out if hes queer because he Likes Men or if hes queer because he Likes People, BOTH of which have been withheld from him.

XANDER- xander is an energy vampire and relies a lot on the balance between Taking and Giving. this means that he has to hide his true identity and give people a false one in order to get what he needs from them. and when you are performing an identity day in and day out is it really a performance anymore? or is it such a performance that it cant possibly be who you are? so thats like the Central struggle that vampirism invokes onto his identity. sexuality works similarly (can you tell that i have a hard time distancing gender from sexuality?) where he spends so much time forging these fake bonds and hooking up with anyone who will give him the time of day that he really doesnt have the time, energy, or maturity to figure out who he's Truly attracted to. her constant need to perform makes it nearly impossible for her to feel authentic in any way.

JORDAN- im gonna start sounding like a broken record at this point but my understanding of transness and queerness is so far removed from the idea of gender itself that i have no choice but to talk about identity as a whole. SORRY. anyways jordan's identity is heavily influenced by his schizophrenia and his dad. and the way THAT influences him is that he wants to Minimize his body because they do not feel attached to their body at all. and Maximize his ability to Reflect his Father because those experiences were the most important to him. so like. really thinking about it now i feel like a big reason why they even identify as transmasc is a. They Need To Remove Any Unnecessary Part Of Their Body NOW And That Means The Tits Have Got to Go amd b. he can distance himself from who he was as a child and align himself with his FATHER who is like the most important and influential figure in his life. in terms of sexuality they're kind of similar to xander but like the reverse side of the coin? They are so authentically themself that its hard for them to find room in their life for another person. so like while jordan identifies as bisexual i often say they also align themself with aromanticism because romance is just very difficult for him to figure out. a lot of the times it boils down to utility over attraction. which works for some people! (tucker) and not for others (all of his ex's).

KONAMI- konami died and forgot what gender and sexuality were. i explain this more HERE but because of konami's history it doesnt have a reference point for what gender Is. so a lot of his identity boils down to concepts as opposed to things like masculinity and femininity. i really want to do more deep exploration into how tucker, xander, and jordan's queerness influences konami's own identity as well as his perception of gender and identity but i guess for a quick answer he latches onto Connecting Words before he latches onto Individual Labels. so things like "dad" and "aunt" make more sense to him than "man" and "woman" because they have a purpose and a role attached to them. but then again those roles have been defined by queer people who don't perfectly fit into the Status Quo of that role but enact/perform it in unique and nuanced ways. this is also why he more quickly latches onto "son" and "boy" (and specifically how boy fits into a Family structure) than any other gendered labels. again like ive stated before, bisexual came pretty easily because with a lack of gender awareness just came an understanding that gender wasn't a factor in regards to attraction. hence bisexual.

this is so long omfg but what it all boils down to is um. my relationship to queerness is founded on experience, intersectionality, and bodily autonomy, not gender as its own concept. so nonhuman identities (and sometimes just Different Human identities) are always going to influence identity and Be A Metaphor for HOW experience influences identity and vis versa.

[bondsmagii]

dude i remember waaaay back on angrynerdyblogger when people were asking you if you were trans and you were like No im not (politely) and i hadnt even realised i was trans yet but i had trans friends and i remember reading like hm... i have a feeling about this one. now flash forward and we both use any pronouns and actively choose it/its pronouns. ive been following you since i was a middle school girl and now im a genderfuck old enough to buy alcohol and getting dick surgery next year. fuckin crazy how time flies. time doesnt heal all wounds but it sure does trans your gender

god... I remember those days...

the funny thing is, even at the time I did identify as a genderfuck. I've always been pretty nonconforming when it comes to my gender identity, and I've always been fairly androgynous in appearance -- and I've always loved this. I would have probably been a bit more open about it at the time, but a lot of people were so weird about trying to "work me out" lmao. I don't know of the climate was just different on Tumblr at the time, but I did get a lot of sexually suggestive asks or just people crushing on me, so there was an... investment in what I had in the pants department, and some people got very pushy. every time I posted a selfie, I would have to contend with asks debating if I was "really" a boy or a girl, and demands to know if I was trans. obviously a polite question is fine, but I also got asks demanding that I disclose my trans status, if I had one, because I "owed" it to other trans people to be a good role model, and it was transphobic to deny it because it was like I was ashamed, etc. I even got messages from people demanding to see shirtless pics to "prove" I was a boy, and I just... ugh. needless to say, it made me very uncomfortable for the obvious reasons, and also there's the fact that I'm definitely some flavour of ace as well. I don't like people openly viewing me as a sexual object and telling me to my face; I also dislike having my body appraised in a sexual manner. if people want to do that privately that's fine, but I had dozens of people in my ask box every selfie, telling me their evidence for why they thouggt I had a dick or a fud lmao. it was... weird, so I just stuck to "I'm a boy" and people could take it or leave it.

now, there's a lot less of that and I'm also older and less bothered by people being twats. I'm more open about my gender identity now, but aside from my recent adoption of it pronouns as well as he/him (preferred, but if I get she/her I also don't mind), everything else is the same. I've never been just a man or just a woman; I've never really been either. I'm kind of just... both at the same time, I guess. it's very nice to be able to talk and present openly now, but it's been this way for my whole life! if anything, I would say it was quarantine that made me decide fuck it, I'm embracing it with both hands lmao. I grew my hair down to my mid-back and it unleashed a gender nonconforming beast.