#look at the faggy little mustache

[natjennie]

this man. is gay.

[d3l3t3d-deactivated]

as a fruity little trans man who lives & works & spends a lot of time out and about in busy areas in a major city and just has a LOT of public interaction in my day-to-day life, lately i've been like... surprised at how infrequently i get misgendered. like, i just got top surgery and have been on t for just shy of 2 years, and have a mustache and a deep voice, and post-op have been making a real effort to keep my back straight and my shoulders unclenched to help my posture, and i know that i LOOK like a man, but i'm weirdly still like, surprised to get sir'ed and he/him'ed by strangers on the street and old people at my job. Especially too since i'm like, 5'5", and fruity as hell, have shoulder-length hair, and often wear heels, jewelry, makeup, and 'women's' clothing. No real thesis, i just think it's super cool, especially since before i figured things out i feel like i was exposed to a lot of online discourse and "guides" on passing/looking masc, and it kept me away from starting my transition because i love makeup, and heels, and my little gayboy outfits, and letting go of that felt less, not more, authentic to me. I'm also at a point where i don't care at all when strangers approaching me on the street misgender me, and that's not the case for everyone which is so real, but when someone is like "hey missy" or whatever to me my brain isn't like "aw i don't pass ):" it's like "lol you really saw this faggot and thought "girl???"" like it used to happen often enough I needed to train myself to not let it bother me, and now it both doesn't bother me and rarely happens anymore. no real thesis, it's just so special to be a trans man, and having gotten to invent my own version masculinity that's authentic to myself while not really caring how i'm perceived by strangers, and it coming as a pleasant shock when my faggy, spooky, eccentric little drag queen-ass self is begrudgingly accepted as a Man by society.

[tache-noire]

ok....... peter avalon looks significantly better in those little shorts and without a mustache. he's getting faggy with it and its working for him.

[intergalactic-chameleon]

gender stuff once again

SOOO ive finally come full circle and am now considering hypothetically one day getting top surgery (if not just breast reduction) and maybe also going on T at some point.

literally about a year ago when i was discussing gender with my roommate at the time, she asked me if i would consider getting top surgery after i told her that i was going to get a binder just to “try it out” and see “how it feels.”

i thought abt it, but told her “no, not really” because my boobs had never rly bothered me before and they made me feel “more like an adult” (im really short and tiny and would occasionally get mistaken for being a teenager rather than someone in their twenties, so my boobs were often the one age indicator for people). besides, they also made me feel attractive - i had long, wavy hair and taking topless photos of myself was a hobby of mine because i just looked fucking good. ultimately, my tits, which have always been somewhat disproportionally big (i think im a 34D), helped feel me more feminine and sensual as i grew up. though i definitely had a hard time trying to find cute tops that fit me and give me enough support sans bra, i still built a good wardrobe of interesting feminine clothing that i really enjoyed.

but despite all of this, i still wanted to try out something different. at the time last year, i had only just begun to think about being more transgressive with my gender presentation. i had realized that i wanted a shorter, boyish haircut (specifically to look like steve harrington) and kind of started to wear less feminine clothing overall. i also was discovering how attracted i was to men in an undeniably queer (ie. faggy) way, which further propelled me to explore masculine identity even more.

anyway, i was prolonging ‘the big chop’ until after my sister’s october wedding, so i began to grow my facial hair out in order to grow more comfortable with gender non conformity. and to my surprise, my mustache became very noticeable and at some point i realized that i could genuinely grow a little baby chin beard. ofc, by the time of the wedding, i shaved all that off, but went right back to growing it out.

then, the big day: i got my first ever short cut in january. it was shorter than i was expecting, but i immediately felt something shift. i started to feel a lot more confident and got tons of affirming compliments from loved ones about how well it fit me. i also finally felt comfortable enough to dress more “masculinely” and my facial hair didnt make me feel ratty and unkempt anymore; it just fit.

in the coming months i continued to feel more confident and expressed myself more openly around my peers. additionally, a lot of my trans peers started identifying me as trans (which was honestly very validating because i kinda felt like i couldnt loudly identify as trans unless other ppl saw me that way). thus, ever since i’ve been thinking about myself as a trans person and continuing to develop my identity around that.

however, now that ive been actively presenting more masculine/andro for about 6 months now, ive now run into several things about my appearance that i kinda struggle with, such as my height, my shoulder width, my small little arms, fussing with my hair, and of course, my chest. and so i now have this conundrum where im not necessarily experiencing intense gender dysphoria that leaves me feeling depressed, but i have this voice in my head that’s just like “hm, yknow, it’d be nice to maybe not have my tits” bc i’d really like to show off my chest / torso but my tits are so big that it’s distracting !!! and if im binding then i cant rly show off anyway…

so tl;dr: my tits dont make me hate myself but they’re getting on my nerves bc i feel like i’d be hotter without them but that doesnt feel like a good enough reason to gather all the resources needed to obtain a reduction/removal !!!! i also get sad thinking abt how pretty n feminine i used to look and how getting my tits altered (and/or if i went on a low dose of T) would make it hard for me to “return” to how i used to look … idk. how do i find out what i truly want for myself….

[lids-flutter-open]

James orsino -goth gay YA ch 5

“Hey,” Orsino said. He was smiling at me. “Nice to see you. James, right?”

“And you’re Orsino.”

“I’m Robin,” said a girl with good skin and short hair in a flat-top. She looked like a panel from a 1980s lesbian comic. “I’m Orsino’s sister.”

“Hi,” I said. “Does anyone want weed?”

They did. We smoked and January talked to Ian. I didn’t get all of what they said, but Ian was glowing. Overhead the trees dropped a few leaves and some of the pine needles from the scrubby little pine tree by the house blew over the yard and into the bonfire, sparking as they went. There were at least fifty people at the show. Probably more, inside the house and around in front where they weren’t meant to be. People were slowly trickling back around the edges of the show space in the garage, waiting for the temperature inside to finally get cool enough to repopulate. 

“So are you from around here?” I asked Orsino. “Or where?” I had given him a joint I’d rolled earlier and been carrying around in my cigarette case. He coughed a lot as he smoked.

“Down south about an hour,” Orsino said. “Near Centralia, kind of. But most of the time lately I live up in Tacoma with Robin and January. My dad owns some cows and a chicken farm and my mom is always fighting with him and it’s bad to be around. You?”

“I’m from here,” I said. “I’m in high school. One of the ones near the farms. It’s all rednecks. No gays really.”

“You go to that Compton House thing?” Orsino asked. “I know that’s like, a big thing for gay kids here. My therapist was trying to get me to go since I didn’t like the trans group in Tacoma.”

“I go,” I said. “I’m on the Speakers’ Bureau doing sex education at schools and public organizations and stuff.”

“Oh,” Orsino said. He waggled his eyebrows. “You know a lot about sex then?” He exhaled some of the smoke from his joint into my face and smiled.

“In the public health sense, anyway,” I said. “I know where to get condoms and free dental dams.” I paused. I really wanted to say something flirtatious, but wasn’t sure what to start with. “And I know from Delaney and Genet and White for the rest, though who knows what I’m missing in that sense.” I could feel my hands reach up and touch the bad little patch of stubble on my neck. I wished there was a mirror or a dark window around I could glance into to make sure I didn’t look like a fool. I crossed my legs and turned more towards Orsino.

“Don’t know who those guys are,” Orsino smirked. His eyes were really dark brown and the firelight was sort of reflected there. I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me for the references or making fun of me for doing sex education as a teenager like some kind of Young Democrat. I didn’t know his vibe enough to tell.

“They’re all older. Delaney’s the one you’re supposed to read, I’m pretty sure,” I said. “Or at least, he’s the one most likely to have been read by hot people, from what I can tell.”

“Oh, it’s a book,” said Orsino. 

“He’s an author,” I said. “Samuel Delaney. Chip Delaney. Time Square Red, Time Square Blue. Science fiction and sexy gay memoir. Never mind. I’m stoned. I’m sorry.”

“He writes about sex and taught you sex, is what you’re saying.”

“Yeah.”

“Does he write about like specific kinks you were trying to communicate to me or something?”

I felt my face grow hot. “Public bathrooms,” I said. “Is one thing he’s very into. Not that I am. Unless you are. But that’s not—it’s just his prose.”

“Do you always give a … what’s it called. A bibliography. Do you always do that when someone asks you about sex?”

“Do you always ask boys about sex two seconds after meeting them?”

“Only when they’re hot,” Orsino said. “Then yeah, I do. Sorry, I can’t read social cues well. Was that out of line?”

“No.”

“You didn’t answer the question. You go around give out bibliographies about sex? Like that pink hair lady who draws that weird comic about sex toys online?”

“You’re the one named fucking Orsino,” I said. “Literary references are something you signed up for.” I took a hit from my pipe. I was starting to feel slightly more comfortable, but it wasn’t happening fast enough. I glanced at Orsino’s hands. The nails were short. His pinky nail on his left hand was painted black but none of the other fingernails were. There was a little stick-and-poke of a rabbit on the back of his right hand.

“Maybe I should change it,” he said. “To something butch. I can be Harry. Or Brandon.”

“A trade name,” I said. 

“A farm boy name.”

“Brandon is a G.O.P candidate name.”

“Now that’s trade.”

“What music do you like, Brandon?”

“Well, I’m here. OVID’s good. January can be a bitch a little bit, but it’s good music. And I like Dyke Drama and G.L.O.S.S, obviously. And LOONE. But also Mitski. And Blood Kennel and Limp Wrist and Dick Binge. But I also like The Shins.”

“My dad likes The Shins,” I said. “I have like a gag reflex about The Shins.” I could hear my voice, catty and faggy. “They’re such a dad band. How old are you, anyway?”

“Eighteen,” Orsino said.

“Okay. Well, for an eighteen-year-old you sure like dad bands.”

“It’s good music,” Orsino said. “You gotta listen to the lyrics. What about you?”

“I only listen to Ariana Grande,” I said, smirking at him stupidly and fluttering my eyelashes. I might have been being dumb, but he was still smiling at me, so I wanted to try being bolder. “And Gaga. I literally only listen to Just Dance by Lady Gaga and Pete Davidson by Ariana Grande every single day of my life. On repeat. I hate punk music.”

“Oh, really,” Orsino said in a flat-affect kind of voice. “You must be having a really interesting time here tonight then.”

“It’s really funny music,” I said. “And nobody is wearing platform boots or a rainbow pin or jewels or teal hair or anything.”

“I saw someone with teal hair,” Orsino said.

“That was me, actually. Earlier. I came with teal hair and an Ariana Grande tour shirt and changed.”

“Oh really,” Orsino said. He made eye contact with me and then slowly reached out and pulled at one of my curls. “I like what you’ve done with your hair since then. Insta-dye job to black. Insta-goth. It’s a really cute haircut on you, actually.”

“Thanks. I did it in the bathroom sink,” I said. “Just now. Using charcoal from the fire. I thought, oh no, everyone has dark hair or bad orangey dry bleach jobs. I have to fit in.”

“You’re doing good and blending in,” Orsino said. He finished the joint and ground out the end in the dirt under the stump. “Wait. Did you just neg me for my bleach job?” 

I felt my face fall. “What?”

“You said bad bleach jobs and looked at my hair. Were you making fun of me for my bleach job? You know, negging me? I know it’s all dry forest fire thatch up here.”

“I guess I did,” I said. I looked at his hair and back at his eyes. 

“Didn’t expect you to be acting like a straight English major goth at a sorority party over here,” Orsino said. “Calling all the girls ugly cause you think it’ll make them like you.”

I swallowed. “You’re right. That was cruel of me. I made fun of your name, earlier, too, and that was wrong. I shouldn’t be mean to cute boys.” 

“And my music taste.”

“That’s just a difference of opinion.”

Orsino looked at me like a cat playing with a mouse, but in a friendly way. “You were very cruel about my hair, though. I feel so small.”

“Sorry. It’s a bad habit. You can do two negs for me now. Tell me I’m ugly so you can hit on me better.”

“Hm,” Orsino said. He swung one hairy leg over the stump so half of him was in shadow under the trees and his right foot was nestled in the ivy and broken glass that lay all along the perimeter of the Goat Mansion yard. “Well, you aren’t ugly, so I can’t do exactly that. Maybe I want to save my negs. Find your weak spots and then go in for the kill.”

“I’m shaking,” I said. 

“Okay. I have one. My first one is that your mustache sucks. It’s like really cute that you’re trying it and I know what you’re going for, and the concept is attractive to me, and I like your philtrum, but it’s a bad mustache.”

“Ooh. Ouch. That stings,” I said. “I think it stings more because of all the compliments you threw in with it to cushion it.” But I scooted closer to him.

“I can do more.” He looked at me hard. “If you consent. I can be meaner about it.”

“About my mustache? Okay,” I said. “But I might be hurt and never speak to you again.”

“You’re trying to look like Freddie Mercury or something, right? You look like a summer camp counselor from the 1980s.”

“Ouch! You sure snatched my wig.” I put on a faggy voice. It kind of did sting to hear him say that, though also I knew that my mustache amounted to about twenty-four downy bad little hairs. But I guess I deserved it.

“See how it feels?” Orsino scooted a little closer. I found myself appreciating how broad his shoulders and torso were compared to mine. I looked at his smile. His canines were a little crooked.

“I actually am a summer camp counselor,” I said. “During the summer.”

“I’m Sherlock Holmes.”

“I can give you another weak spot,” I said. “I’m a nerd and I used to be a horse girl. Got any horse related disses?”

“It doesn’t count if you give them to me. That’s a self defense maneuver. Also I don’t know if you’re even telling the truth. It’s gotta be something you’re sensitive about.”

“Are you sensitive about your hair and your name?”

“Yes! I’m a punk. My image is very important to me. Talking shit on my hair was mean. You started this whole battle.”

“Okay, fine. I’m sorry already. But give me time to recover from your first cutting remark before you do any more to me.” I put away my pipe. I glanced briefly over at Ian. Jukebox had left and now he was talking to Opal and Robin a few feet away. I felt like socially I was obligated to join their shit instead of sitting here talking to this boy I didn’t really know yet. At least so I could be up on the whole deal with Miss San Juan and the Dusties or whatever the new band was called. “Do you want to meet my friends?” I asked Orsino, standing. 

“Sure,” he said. He pulled himself up. “Hey, you’re not really hurt about the mustache thing, right?” He wasn’t smiling as much any more.  “I was just playing around. Your mustache is fine. It looks like every other high school punk’s mustache. Better than some. Better than mine. And you’re cute. You pull it off pretty good.”

I realized he thought he had misstepped and now I’d lost interest. I felt a flutter in my stomach. 

“It’s a really sensitive topic for me because of my gender dysphoria,” I said in a deadpan voice. I walked over to Ian and Opal and Robin.

Orsino followed me, squinting a little as if he couldn’t tell if I was joking. He put his thumbs into the belt loops of his pants.“Are you serious?” He asked.  "I’m sorry, I…”

“I won’t ever forgive you. Hey, meet my friends. Here are my friends Opal and Ian, who I guess have a band now.”

Ian paused. He had been saying something to Robin about some music stuff. I wasn’t sure what equipment they were talking about but it had hertz. He looked over to Orsino and then me and raised his eyebrows. 

“Hey,” he said. “I’m Miss San Juan, otherwise known as Ian. You saw me set up and then saw my set just now. You were jumping. Didn’t get your name.”

“I was indeed jumping,” Orsino said. “It was a pretty good show for how messy it seemed like things were before it started. You did good. You have a great stage presence. I’m Orsino.” He held out his hand, arcing his arm out for a man-handshake. 

Ian placed his delicate little hand in Orsino’s big one like a princess greeting her security guard. “Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m Orsino,” Orsino said again to Opal, holding out his hand again. For the first time I realized he was maybe kind of too stoned.

“I’m Opal,” said Opal. “I’m a drummer and use they/them pronouns and I’m really hungry for some trash food right now. Does anyone else want food?” They looked at me and then at Orsino. “You both look like you want some trash food.”

“Fuck yeah,” Orsino said. “Do we know when the next show starts, though?”

“There’s the gas station that doesn’t sell beer around the corner that way,” Opal said. “They have chips and sometimes hot dogs and pizza. We’ll be quick.”

“Let’s go,” Orsino said. He put his arm around my shoulders and set off toward the edge of the yard as if we had been walking together like that everywhere for years, as if he had touched me before.

“I don’t think I want food right now,” Ian said. “I’ll stay here.” He had a sort of quiet, wan tone in his voice that made me pause.

“Oh,” I said, and dug my feet into the ground to stop and pulled away from Orsino’s arm. I looked from Orsino to Ian. I didn’t want to leave Ian standing here alone right after his big set. “Ian, are you sure? You’ll need calories in a little bit.”

“I just feel like standing and smoking for a second in the quiet over here by the fence,” Ian said. 

“Quieter out by the gas station,” I said.

“I don’t feel like walking.”

“I’ll stay here too then,” I said. 

“I’m still going,” Orsino said. “I’m genuinely hungry.”

“Come on, then, big papa,” Opal said. “Let’s get some cheese fuel.” They turned their chair and wheeled fairly rapidly across the grass. 

[jacobclifton]

Atwood formed so much of my understanding of the world but definitely that 1990 movie was the first thing that got me, before the book -- I was very young; it was one of the few VHS tapes we owned.

Mother wouldn't let me watch it because it was "too much" -- and as I say this, I should clarify that my favorite movie was Pretty Woman, another VHS tape we owned. So it wasn't the sex, or even the questions of agency. It took me a long time to get what she was trying to save me from.

Elizabeth McGovern was so, so good -- I have remained a staunch fan since then, probably wouldn't have gotten into Downton so early if not for her -- and I think I took on her role a little too easily, for gay-teen-trauma reasons (http://screenertv.com/television/will-grace-returns/) -- obviously my response to that film and book, as a man, are one thing...

But as a gay tween who was just then coming to grips with how easily my life might be ended for it, the story spoke to me in a way that I'm only feeling more and more legitimate about, as I age.

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What the TV show does is brighten the corners on Atwood's mission more strongly: That it's not just a dystopia and all the things it is as agitprop, it's also a Margaret Atwood novel -- a description of the economy between men and women that we live in NOW. A nearly judgment free, objective report on how our lives were at that time -- and are now even more, I would say.

For example: We take the very simple proposition that other people are unknown quantities, okay, and we say, "I think I am a person--do you agree?" And with the world so heavily tilted away from that truth, you feel like a spy: You feel like you're saying a codeword, hoping for the response.

And then the world, to protect itself from that very dangerous thought that you might both be people, processes these negotiations into the depersonalized counterintelligence that passes for common sentiment: "Women always fight with each other, give me a fight with a man any day, women can't be trusted, not even other women trust women."

And all you were trying to do was ascertain whether the world was actively fucking you, or if there was a joke you're not in on. The only answer the status quo will ever give you to, "Am I being gaslighted right now?" is going to be "Wow, you are even fucking crazier than we thought."

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Or for me, not that gay men aren't trained to hate and fear each other both as men and as traumatized woman-equivalents: The way, for example, the Aunties have to beat it into your head that you're the reason, you specific woman, for the things that happen to you--that the institutional and archaic, tilted way we look at women and femininity is so unnatural that for the system to work at all, for it to just seem like real life or something worth fighting for, we must rely on our parents and peers to literally beat it into us. (And return the favor, as parents and as peers.)

When it came out about young Mitt Romney holding down that boy and cutting off his faggy hair, I got into so many tough conversations about the LDS Church and its reverence for gender roles--how far down it goes, just like any orthodox culture that fears dissolving if it ever stops breeding--and how Mormons can be so awesome in so many ways but still so brutal about enforcing something as silly as "this is what a woman used to look like, this is what a man was once supposed to be or do."

(Homophobia and hatred are often fake-Christian values, but the Mormon thing is verrrry specific here--and a ton of money goes into it.)

And so to me as a reader, and a lover of the TV show, it was always just as important that we look at how tenuous those dumb rules are, and how silly in that context things like "religious freedom to not bake gay cakes" or "bathroom bills to protect the nonexistent" actually are -- that they're vestigial symptoms of a greater traditional need that no longer has meaning. That cannot save a single life or people, if it ever could.

And that most of our ideas about gender are just straight-up wagging the dog at this point, and causing so much pain and death in the process. It makes me angry, but not in the social justice way that the more literal sides of the story do. It makes me angry because it's needless and wasteful and sad.

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We think of other cultures' treatment of women's bodies as this bizarre outlier, like a virus that got in their heads. But the truth is that clitorectomies are on the same exact axis as defunding Planned Parenthood: Both are sociopathic acts men can justify because it rests on such a rich, deep foundation of things that once made sense but no longer do, even on that basic a level.

The joke about colonialism is like, "I claim this thing!" and the birds don't care and the fish don't care and the trees don't care -- because you are making a fool of yourself. And the second they start laughing, that's when you start killing people: To make it true. To take that fantasy of conquest and make sure nobody's left to laugh at you.

Or like a few weeks ago I made a joke about how straight people are so stupid they think an all-gay planet would die out from the inability to have children--and my mother got offended, which was adorable and whatever, but it's the same basic thing:

One fish says "the water's warm today!" And the other fish says, "...What the fuck is water?"

You can't describe the system to a person who is trapped by it, which is why Rule #1 for a happy life is never describing privilege to someone when they are displaying it, because you are critiquing the universe on a level that makes so little sense it is Lovecraftian.

If I say "gay Boy Scout Troop Leader" you think perverts with mustaches wandering in off the street -- you don't think "gay mom, gay dad" because we aren't there yet: What the fuck is water? And if I even try to tell you what water is, I'm calling you stupid or worse.

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Here, it's frustrating to know it's a fight that never NEEDED to be fought--that the entire culture war is just fighting for a dead king, like those Japanese soldiers from WWII still out in the jungle, because you got beaten with an effective amount of brutality when you were young enough to think that's as good as it could get, and that spreading that abuse is helping.

The "Children of Men" high concept is spectacular enough that most of us only get to those secondary readings late in the game, but it's the easiest part: What if men had a REAL reason to police women's bodies?

But that's an idea a sentence long, that's all it is. That's like saying "Election" is about vote tampering, or "Mean Girls" is about the immigrant experience. They are also portraits of the human experience, and they are also specific to this:

To our lives surrounded by the water, never breathing air -- because you don't know what air is, either. And because nobody ever told us, "Look up! This is all very stupid! Don't worry about it!"

Which is why Handmaid isn't just an effective "rebellious" text and all the things we'll be calling it when it airs: It's also a George Saunders-type absurdist text about the foolishness -- the crushingly humiliating, embarrassing silliness -- of thinking someone else's body could ever be yours to own, to conquer. Or to dirty.

[matttheratking]

Looking in the mirror at my faggy little mustache and tiny fag dick and just being euphoric

Gotta say. Reclaiming the term faggot for myself really do be doing something