#ma'am all my friends are queer

[ongoing-catastrophe]

didnt want to outright state "i'm asexual" at a family and friends dinner in my small little town (we're headed in the direction of gay rights but people are still a bit confused by bisexuality, so i dont think they're quite ready for me) which means that when i was talking with a family friend who (semi-recently) got married and obviously fucking regrets it, i got stuck in a conversation that was mostly

her: "you should date"

me : "cool i'm not really into dating"

her : "dont marry the first person you're in a relationship with. i did that"

me : "i mean my parents did that and they're fine"

her: "dating was the best part of my life"

me : "thats cool, some people enjoy dating. not my cup of tea tho"

her: "ok but it really opens up your mind. you should try to date"

just on a loop for like 20 minutes and oh my god honey please just divorce you husband and dont try to live vicariously through me. please.

[pastelalleycat]

idk if i'm nonbinary or cis genderqueer

[mr-ribbit]

gonna rant again bc im seeing a lot of trans women on my dash having to carry the heavy lifting to argue for their basic respect and a lot of other queer people who want to ??? get mad about that apparently. for the record as usual: im tme, im not speaking for anyone besides myself and my perspectives, but I am trying to reach out to fellow tme people to level with y'all from inside the house.

i thought we all got past the 'calling people gendered terms when theyve asked you to stop' thing in like. 2012. i swear we were allllll on board with not calling women dude anymore, nerfing sir and ma'am, neutralizing collective terms for groups, and all of that was like, during the onceler era. that's how we got off-putting shit like folx into the mix - remember???? why are we here again.

to those who I've seen claiming that they REALLY genuinely don't want to offend anyone, and that theyre trying to understand the dude thing, and they don't want to be seen as transmisogynistic when they aren't: ok. let's talk about it. step one, stop sending that really loaded anon to a trans woman you don't know, and close that in-group hatepost with 100 replies from people name-dropping trans bloggers they don't like. try to open your mind and assume for the duration of this post that I am not cynically trying manipulate thousands of tumblr users into making Bro the next big swear word, but a fellow queer human being who thinks you're all being pretty intentionally obtuse about an upsetting trend in our community

to be clear: this post is about the issue of trans women being called bro, dude, man, etc., particularly in recent tumblr discourse about transmisogyny, and the backlash they face if they get upset about it. this is also maybe moreso about the shitty ass excuses I see tme people make for why they supposedly can't stop doing this.

so let's go through some of the things I've been seeing people say they don't understand, supposedly in earnest, about this issue

"I DIDNT USE DUDE AS A MASCULINE TERM. I CALL EVERYONE BRO. MAN IS A GENDER NEUTRAL TERM"

I'm not actually going to exhaust my list of reasons why dude/bro/man are not strictly neutral, but you should be pretty aware that all words have context. Dude might be seen as neutral in many contexts, sure, but 'woman who is frequently called a man by others' is a situation where the context adds extra meaning to your words, just like calling someone "sweetie" might be neutral in some cases, but if you've got the context of knowing that's your coworker who's half your age, it's a bit less neutral. If you're not capable of reading that context and being tasteful about when you say dude, then you need to at least be ready to respond gracefully when someone asks you to stop. This is the part I'd rather focus on.

"BUT I DIDNT MEAN IT THAT WAY. IM NOT TRANSPHOBIC"

I think you should consider broadening your perspective *beyond* your intention behind the word. people may already understand that you meant the word neutrally and therefore didn't have transmisogynistic intent, but that's not really the entire scope of what people are saying. if that's your only concern, you're just trying to clear your record, not actually listen to what they're saying.

there are lots of words people don't enjoy being called, and in most cases, when they say 'pls don't call me that', people respect that and move on. even if the word isn't a slur, if it hurts someone's feelings, we all as a society have agreed that it's pretty shitty to keep calling them that. if your friend asked you not to call them 'buddy' anymore because their dead grandparent called them that, or something equivalently personal, you'd probably respect that instead of telling them 'but I call everyone buddy!!' right? even if you didn't really understand why it bothered them so much?

there is a prominent tendency for trans women to be denied this privilege, and when they ask not to be called dude or bro, people don't seem to respect this request as much as they would in other situations. when I accidentally use a gendered word and someone tells me they don't like it, I try to respond with something like "my bad, I didn't mean it as misgendering but I can see you were still bothered by it, so I'll try not to keep saying it. sorry!" and most people are willing to accept that. when trans women ask people this favor, a lot of people get VERY defensive, and treat the request as inane or unfair, instead of just apologizing and moving on. this is why people are upset when this happens, and it's why people are calling your actions transmisogynistic

also like you might not be doing this, but a lot of people DO use dude and bro in an intentionally gendered way to make trans women uncomfortable. it's a power play bigots use to talk down to them or otherwise maliciously harass them. do you know what arguments they use to defend that behavior when called out on it? 'oh I call everyone that' 'dude is gender neutral calm down' 'dont overreact its just a word'. by acting like this, youre all just giving credence to those same arguments.

"WELL THEY SHOULDNT GET SO MAD AT ME WHEN I DIDNT MEAN ANY HARM"

they can get as mad as they want!! also, are you sure they're 'mad'? or are they just expressing their feelings about a negative topic to you, and it makes you feel bad, so you have to make them out to be unreasonably emotional? how do you think they should have phrased 'dont call me that' to better spare *your* feelings?

also like, in most cases, these women do not knowww you. if your main response to someone saying you disrespected them is to say "I didnt mean it that way, I meant it in a friendly neutral way", well that's NOT YOUR FRIEND! she has no idea what your opinions are or what you think of her!!! she has no reason to assume you only upset her in a friendly way and not a bad unfriendly way! but she did get upset, and she did the one thing she can do which is *tell you what upset her* and your response is to say "well actually you shouldn't be upset at all"??????

and another thing:

it's not just the issue of using the word 'dude', it's because you're coming off extremely dismissive of women who have asked you to stop doing something that harms them, and because your argument is basically that they just shouldn't be so bothered by it. or that they're stupid, irrational, or otherwise crazy for telling you that it bothered them at all, just because you Technically used a gender neutral word according to Your Rules. be honest, does that seem fair? If people were calling you something that bothered you enough to ask them to stop, and they responded like this, how would it make you feel?

focusing solely on your intent and what the words mean when you use them is the same thing as saying "just get over it". no woman should need to Prove to you that 'dude' is gendered for you to care about what she's saying. the fact that you're asking people to do that sucks and makes you look bad, which is why people are arguing with you and calling you a misogynist.

especially those of you who are only doing this with trans women who are actively arguing with. you're wielding misgendering as a cudgel and we can all see it, grow up please.

[olderthannetfic]

I was reading a fic and genuinely enjoying myself up until the author decided to make a huge deal, in their AN, about how their protagonist is bi. As in ACTUALLY bi, not that stupid "straight with one exception" trash homophobic fujoshits write. I'm a cis man. I am heterosexual with exactly one exception. I don't know why. I went through years telling myself I was just confused. I heard from my queer friends at the time that only being interested in one other man wasn't a thing, that it was actually me being confused in the other direction, hiding all my crushes and desires from myself.

My family was convinced I was straight. My friends were convinced I was bi for a lot of men, I just wasn't admitting it. My now husband was the only one who told me it was fine. He's gay and he had a crush on one woman, once. Exceptions happen.

So at the risk of siding with the dreaded (presumed cis, presumed het, presumed white) enemy known as women, I... actually like the whole "if it's you, it's okay" thing. I don't assume an evil fetishizer who hates queers is writing it. It never reads that way. It reads as a story, just like any other story. A way to be queer just like any other valid option. Queerness is a spectrum. Not everyone is bi in the same way or gay or lesbian or anything else. The Kinsey Scale exists for a reason.

I spent five years in and out of therapy and church trying to fix myself. Being bi in any way was too much for my family. It was "get rid of the gay or get out" territory of panic. I could have a family or I could have my feelings for him. Choosing him involved giving up everyone I had grown up with. It involved years further of "so you can admit now that you had other male crushes, right?" no matter how many times I said no until I had to cut some queer friends out of my life, too.

And I'm not "ACTUALLY bi", apparently. I'm a trashy homophobic stereotype fujoshi came up with. I'm not actually bi. Real bi men have an equal number of women and men they're into. Bi is code for 50/50 or else you're, you know. Basically fictional. Definitely doing it wrong.

Upon some digging, I found out the writer is a lesbian woman. You would think with all the shit lesbians get she'd know better. I've seen people try to tell lesbians they aren't lesbians because "oh you dated a guy once" or "uh, you had sex with a man, you can't be" and all kind of shit that makes no sense whatsoever. So for her to turn around and go, "there is a single correct way to be a bi man" is just insane. Ma'am. Ma'am. You should know that's not how queerness works! You're queer!

This has annoyed me so much that for the first time in nine years I have pulled up a Microsoft Word document and I am writing fanfic. I am going to write so much It's Okay If It's You, one-exception-only queer fanfic.

Because it's fine to be queer even if it's this way, actually. It's fine to be queer, period! There are not rigid rules to it, that's one of the biggest joys of it!

I feel so old and tired and I'm only 40. Jesus Christ. "ACTUALLY bi". Fuck. The world is broken.

--

[shapeshiftersvt]

Well!

This sucks.

In 2016, Shapeshifters was two and a half years old when the country we operate in seemed to elect one particular asshole. Today, this company is ten and a half years old, and the same damn asshole is back again.

Under that first term Shapeshifters went from a two-person, back-of-the-dining-room operation to a production floor in a converted warehouse to the beautiful studio we're in now. We sent chest binders in anonymized packaging all over the country and the world for those four years. We hired trans people in our town and purchased services from queer folks in our network. We left behind the landlord who objected to our Black Lives Matter banner and hired models for photoshoots who knew what we were about and were excited to join the work.

Then we took a damn breath. We found stability in our little studio, over the last four years. We experimented with prints and patterns and fashion lines. We worked on new projects with new people.

It sucks that we're back here again.

And: our job now, as always, is to connect you with what you need and connect each other with what we all do.

There's a lot of good advice out there about keeping yourself as safe and healthy and stable as possible, from a lot of activists and poets and people much better at it than me. I speak from my position as a business owner from a family of economists, who's been trained to watch the money. Buy queer when you can, buy local when you can. Keep the money close, trade the same $20 back and forth with your friends for services, re-use and repair what you have.

Buy a binder, or a sew-your-own-binder kit, ora sports bra, or a binding dress, or some cryptid art from us here:

Find a queer-owned business for what you need at Everywhere is Queer:

And also from Hey Famm:

If you are located in or near Western Massachusetts, find some queer folks to support via Bloom Local:

and if you have a few bucks a month to spare, maybe support a trans person on Patreon. I suggest friend of the shop @neolithicsheep :

and Mercury Stardust, the Trans Handy Ma'am, who is a great resource when you need to fix something yourself:

Spend your money for good whenever you have the chance. It matters.

And you matter, too.

Keep talking to us, keep talking to each other, keep in touch with your people. Keep building these systems and these structures and these networks. We're going to need all of them.

And, hey: if you're trans and starting a business, reach out. I'd love to help folks in the early stages, connect you to resources, pull you over some of the hurdles we faced. There's a lot more room for queer business owners now than there was eight years ago. Let's take up that space.

Keep building, fam. It matters and it's worth doing. Every time.

[genderqueerdykes]

Do you have like, some nice words?

Like I’m just so tired of how constant tme/tma speak is on my dash. Posts about how transfems should leave friend groups of “tmes” because they will inevitably be bigots

Why are half the popular transfems on this site horribly transphobic in their own right the moment a transmasc dares exist in their vicinity

Sorry I’m basically just venting in your inbox, thank you for being a breath of fresh air

i'm sorry you're dealing with this. it's natural to be worn down by this behavior, it's literal transphobia and intersexism and people just don't seem to care.

the tme/tma (transmisogyny exempt/transmisogyny affected) binary doesn't work. the issue is that in real life, most queerphobes you come across are assuming you are a trans woman. the average person associates the concept of transness with transfemininity on average, unless they personally know some transmascs or trans men, or are one. it's very rare to find a stranger who gets it. every time i come out to a stranger, they immediately switch to she/her pronouns, call me ma'am/miss/girl/etc., and ask what my "real" name is. it's really weird

transmasculine invisibility is a genuine issue offline. certain pockets of the internet are obsessed with hating trans men but that doesn't mean that the vast majority of people in the offline world know a damn thing about any of this. i do not ever have anyone understand that i mean i'm transmasculine when i say im trans. as i'm transmasc and transfem i don't really challenge it, but it sucks that people have one assumption and one only.

it happens with other queers. i moved in with a bunch of perisex trans femmes and was dating one for a while and flirting with a few others. my other roommate was a perisex cis gay man. i was the only intersex person who was there at the time, and i think a very small handful of others were around regularly, so there was a high chance that people should've been pretty informed about the existence of intersex identities. i know some people who came around pretty often were intersex, at least from my memory

the second people found out about my physical anatomy, they switched how they treated me. everyone thought i had a penis for some reason? and were made wildly uncomfortable upon finding out about it. when i revealed that i'm intersex & genderqueer, and that i'm bigender: a trans man, and a trans woman all hell broke loose suddenly nobody knew what to think or feel or anything.

people honest to god just defaulted to misgendering me.

and treating me like i was stupid as fuck.

this was the hardest part. i was being treated like i was dumb as HELL and it frustrated me to no end.

my emotions were "too much". i kept getting told i was too needy or whiny or possessive or that i needed too much of sometimes time or that i was touching the wrong things around the house. i kept being criticized for moving objects that impacted an environment i was allowed to work at. i was criticized for organizing a bookshelf i was asked to organize. i was ridiculed and insulted. my roommate and a girl who was flirting with me questioned my dissociative identity disorder, which i have plenty of medical records spanning back to 2017 from various doctors in various states and hospitals showing my diagnostic history with dissociation and dissociative disorders, and he also questioned my schizophrenia when i have records dating back to 2015 showing my history with severe psychotic episodes and the development of schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type

i was no longer the arbiter of my own lived experience because everyone found out i didn't have a penis. i'm a vagina haver so i'm stupid. i'm dumb. i'm a cis woman. i'm faking. i'm not actually a man. well i am a man. i'm evil.

i'm breaking this silence on this garbage. it's time stop treating trans men and mascs this way. we're real people. we have real experiences. we are also being talked over. it really is possible to speak over us. it's happening right now. it doesn't need to. trans men talking about how we don't need to be seen this way isn't hurting trans women. we're being misgendered. we're being hurt by transandrophobic and misogynstic behavior. one does not need to hurt trans men in order to heal from one's own trauma with manhood. it won't help. it doesn't do anything

this is such a goddamn long ask but i wanted to thank you for this because your honesty and bluntness is what's needed right now. thank you to every trans man and transmasc speaking up about this right now. please feel free to send your own experiences with this because it's over. i'm not humoring it. i'm going to keep talking about it until people calm down and understand that conversations have multiple participants

i now more than ever want to actually focus on uplifting transmasculinity and trans men. i have been forcing myself to try to focus on a broader range of topics to avoid backlash but let's not start 2025 thinking we have to do this anymore. we literally don't. it's over. trans women are allowed to talk about the struggles we face. always and forever. but a trans man talking about their own experience is not an attack on you. and sometimes a trans man will give you criticism. and sometimes... you have to take it.

sometimes you have to take a trans man's criticism.

you really, really do.

and it's not the end of the world.

if a trans man tells you you're talking over them, you really should actually stop and step backwards and reassess what you said to them. you may have done it on accident. actually listen before you keep talking. if a trans man tells you they have a health condition, listen. don't participate in this behavior. there's literally no reason to think that trans men and mascs are too stupid to articulate our own experiences. it's ridiculous. that's how society treats women- you don't want to be treated that way! please don't do it to other people, especially people you view as women...

anyway i hope that this helps in any way. i'm just tired of this shit. i'm happy to start 2025 by completely and totally breaking the silence on transmasculine and trans male erasure. join me. we're not doing this shit anymore. we're starting this year off being more compassionate. we're starting off this year accepting that manhood isn't what has traumatized any of us, it's toxic masculinity, it's patriarchy, it's specific men. let's ditch this shit

[spro-o]

i noticed that in your art you referred to gowther as auncle and that had me kicking my feet so may you please spare your nnt gender/sexuality headcanons and fave ships? hope your exams have gone/are going well and that you have a great weekend :D

*laughs evilly* yes,,,, my time to shine,,, >:3

thank you very much for the ask!! indeed i would love to share my queer hcs and favourite ships for the gang!!

hcs (heads up, some references to horny preferences)

Meliodas:

trans man (he/him) (im not projecting, trust) (lie)

pansexual

he has a very high libido/pervy tendencies, yes, but also an equally strong potential for romantic love - i do think of him as quite the possessive/protective type on a very deep emotional level, he just covers it up by acting like a perv all the time (something something traumatised and doesnt want others to see him caring for people since he fears they will take them away from him)

top-leaning switch and much freakier than his appearances may lead some to believe

Diane:

cis woman (she/her)

bisexual

has definitely kissed elizabeth multiple times on their "girl's nights/sleepovers"

the type to blush and fawn over every woman in existence,,,, and her husband too ig

pegs king on the regular

Ban:

masc-alligned genderqueer (he/they) (not projecting again) (another lie)

bisexual

finds men and women attractive at about an even ratio

he picks his clothing to be so slutty for a reason (queer signalling + hes a sucker for that kind of attention, though he might act like he doesnt care) (he cares most when said attention comes from meliodas, which is affirmed every time mel takes the chance to feel him up)

bottom-leaning switch and the most masochistic masochist you ever will meet

King:

cis man (he/him)

bisexual (god damn all these bitches bi ‼️‼️)

i think we all know how king discovered his like of men (,,, cough,, helbram,,)

yeah helbram definitely pull a couple of those 'leaning in for a kiss/doing some other gay shit' stunts as a joke and was like haha got you and king was just sat there, bright red, blood streaming down his nose

denied these stunts had any effect on him whatsoever

gets pegged by diane on the regular

Gowther:

non-binary (they/them) (intersex??? i mean, theyre a doll, probably got interchangeable parts lmao)

demisexual and demiromantic gay/queer

they dont really have a specific label to describe what genders theyre attracted to, its just sorta 'anything goes if we vibe', and its gay either way, so they keep it broad

as mentioned, theyre referred to by gender-neutral titles, but dont mind the occasional "miss ma'am" for comedic effect

tends to prefer bottoming, but not exclusively

Merlin:

nb trans woman (she/they)

aro-spec lesbian

shes never had much luck or want for romantic relationships but has definitely had her fair share of thotin around with women

very skilled at rizzing up said women, but its really a 50/50 whether shes doing so to get someone laid or to acquire her next social-experiment subject (whom she will also probably dick down later, who knows)

Escanor:

cis man,,,, he/him

straight,,

sorry yall, gotta have the token straight ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tho i do hc as being aware of the fact that merlin wont return his feelings, but having accepted that, so all the poetry he writes for her is more of a sign of appreciation of her as a friend, and not as an attempt to hit on her

Bonus!!

Elizabeth:

cis woman (she/her)

pansexual

the type to have gotten so so many crushes when she was younger,,, finding everyone really attractive and charming, and as a result being the most easily flustered person ever

as each sin rejoined the group, shed have her mandatory moment of "oh god,,,, its another very very hot/attractive person"

switch, but very gentle and caring no matter the position

Elaine:

demigirl (she/they)

sapphic

very easily flustered (extremely weak for elizabeth)

pillow princessing all over the place

Zeldris:

non-binary (he/they/xe)

bisexual, with a preference for women

tends to be pretty resistant to flirtatious remarks and whatnot, but is the absolute weakest when its from gelda (professional simp /pos)

,,,, also a massive bottom, but i digest

Gelda:

trans woman (she/her, also doesnt mind they/them)

demiromantic bisexual

knows exactly the effect she has on zeldris, but loves pretending she has no idea

shell say "oh, sorry just need to grad a book from the shelf behind you" and then get her boobs as close to zel's face as possible without making skin contact, and stay there until xe's gone bright red

hung

ships:

Melban - obviously, this one goes kinda goes without saying for me. i absolutely love the dynamic between these two, and their shared history as well. they are both very much sick in the head and have so many issues they each struggle with, but at the same time they cant take anything seriously. there are countless interactions between them which are just so so homoerotic, if not just really sweet. these two quite literally will go to hell and back for the other without a second thought, and i adore that (say its bros bein dude all you want, you cant convince me they didnt fuck in purgatory and on many other occasions)

Elilaine - theyre like melban but less punchy, more of the "normal about expressing love for the other". i know there arent many deep interactions between Elizabeth and Elaine, but i just, once again, think that they have a really adorable dynamic and would just make for the most lovely couple (with equally deceivingly harmless looks, but very much the potential to whoop ass if need be)

Geldris - these two, despite canonically being just a straight couple, are one of the most queer duos in the damn series,,, they just are, man, idk. big fan of them both being very gothic and stuff, and obviously im a sucker for how much zeldris buckles at the knees for anything gelda does,,, love them

Hendreyfus - old,,, old man yaoi my beloved (i just think theyre really adorable and are like and old married couple - very cutes!!) (also yeah old men)

i also do love the rarepair (? polycule) of all time, that being melban x elilaine,,, we should have seen more interactions between mel and elaine, and between ellie and ban!! they definitely got up to all sorts of stuff, i just know it

anyways!! thank you very much for the ask!! thankfully i only have one more exam left on monday and then im free from those :,) i hope you have a lovely day!! :D

[transmasc-positivity]

I love being trans! I'm multigender, but I usually just say "queer" or "genderqueer trans guy" for ease. I'm solidly masculine no matter what gender I'm expressing at any given time. When I'm a woman, I'm a masculine woman and I love it. The beard I grew on HRT doesn't take away from my womanhood, but rather enhances it for me. It's like a big fuck you to everyone who says I can't decide what to do with my own body. When people misgender me -- using she/her or calling me ma'am -- the presence of my beard makes me feel like they're queering me up even more, and that is delightful. When I'm a man, I'm masculine, but not in the way that a lot of people see male masculinity. I paint my nails black and wear eyeliner and wear small black stud earrings and I feel incredibly masculine. Just like the beard enhances my womanhood, the make up enhances my manhood & feels masculine in a "fuck your gender norms" kind of way. I almost never wore make up when I thought I was a cis girl -- I even had a little breakdown when I was a teenager about "having to" wear it if I wanted to get a job -- but as a man, it fits perfectly, and it isn't a chore to put on. And even when I'm neither a man nor a woman, I am still masculine. I love a soft masculinity and I always have strived for it in one way or another.

I know a lot of people feel like transitioning is something they have to do and have always known that they want to do it. I know some people don't feel like their gender is a choice at all. For me, transitioning socially and hormonally was something I learned about in my 20s and something that was, ultimately, a choice at every turn for me. It's a choice I made knowing all the risks that come with it. It's a choice I made because, in my mind, I can be whatever I want to be, and people will see me however they see me. So hormones made them see me closer to how I see myself. It's a choice I made when I was still identifying as simply a nonbinary trans guy, but after I started T, I felt weirdly more comfortable and connected with my womanhood, which eventually led to me realizing that multigender is a valid label for me. I love being a wrench in people's gender essentialism. I find it funny when people are confused about how to judge my gender and, by extension, how to judge my character (because, unfortunately, those two things often go hand in hand).

Kind men, soft men, sensitive men, men who use their anger as motivation to make a better & safer world and not to tear others down, men who love flowers, men who love to learn, men who love feminism, men who love openly and unabashedly. Those are the kinds of men I have as friends. That's the kind of man I try to be. It's the kind of men I needed more of in my life growing up, so I'll be the man no one would be for my child self.

At the end of the day, being a trans guy is a great joy in my life. Whether my gender shifts or not, the time I've spent understanding and prioritizing myself has been vital to the improvement of my life. Even with all the bigotry and the fake friends who hated men so much that they dropped me and the systemic issues I face -- even that can't extinguish the joy I feel as a transmasc. There is so much power in being able to look at people making snap judgements about who you are based on your appearance and/or identity and *know* that they don't know you as well as you know you and that they don't have any power to change you. In that sense, being trans is freedom.

This is so wonderful and amazing, I'm truly so so happy for you! I'm glad you could find joy in expressing yourself like that and find out what your gender really means to you.

I also have wonderful men in my life, and it's truly beautiful.

Being trans is freedom!!!!!!

[buntress]

Freak is not a slur, grow the fuck up

sir, ma'am, or whatever the hell you might be. I am a self described freak, I have done freak shit your brain could not fathom, all my friends are weird fucking freaks, at my old age of 25 going on 26 I have been to more freak ass queer pride shit than you have for fucking sure. I have seen butch lesbians so fuckin weird you'd puke and I have kissed them.

If I wanna tag that word bc it makes some people fuckin uncomfy, I will. I'm sorry you lack the empathy to understand "hey yo some people in the queer community aint super about that word, makes em feel bad to be described that way" but like, idk, make some friends? Go to a gay bar? Maybe you're too young for that idk, you're hiding behind anonymity bc you're too ashamed to show your ass and show everyone around you who ya rly are. I highly recommend a course of therapy followed by entering irl queer spaces whenever you're free from what makes ya think being a dick in some other freaks inbox is like, a cool and fun move for you.

Namaste or whatever the fuck, find your peace buddy.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

birthday and pronouns and fascism, oh my

since my birthday means it was time to update my blog bio, @actuallylukedanes made the excellent suggestion that i also post about it.

cuz while i needed to update my age (woo, a round number! maybe it won't take me six months of adjusting to remember how old i am, for once!) and i update my blog title constantly, sometimes more than once a day, lol...i also finally updated my pronouns.

so if you've known me for years or just happened by my little corner of the internet cuz you saw something you like, i don't know about you but i'm heading into my yeah maybe we're all gonna end up dead or imprisoned but i'd rather fight some fascists era as this coming year approaches.

so i'm here to support (and as much as i can, protect) my family and friends and people who need help, and i understand the battening down the hatches of every person who has to be more careful now, who can feel the precarity of their rights and safety more acutely than ever. i'm also worred about my own rights and safety, as a disabled queer mentally ill fat person in the world, whose only income is ssdi and only safety net is (wonderful, yet piecrust-precarious) community.

but i remain the same person who was labeled both 'ornery' and 'little miss contrary' by my grandmother as a child, and i suspect that's why my response to the truly horrific possible futures we could be heading into is Time To Get Louder Then. i don't plan to take ill-advised risks, but i also have no interest in quieting myself down.

therefore! since i have, for life/mental health reasons, ghosted my own blog for so long that i kind of didn't post through a lot of developments, i am here to say that my bio update includes pronoun changes because, well, pronouns (like people) change. though i haven't actually changed so much as figured out more accurate descriptors, over the last little while.

i've said on here for years that my gender is 'person wearing a red shirt at target' and that still feels true, because my identity is less a firm, specific thing than it is a lack of a thing. as somebody afab and socialized that way, some descriptors don't bother me at all, like terms of endearment from people i love. and broad common female pronouns (she, here) feel more clinical, somehow, as if that degenders them a little. whereas ones like 'ma'am' and even 'female' feel *more* gendered.

idk why that is, or why things that feel girly to me grate on my brain in the first place. but in my 20s and 30s, i couldn't explain why i identified as gay or queer yet was deeply uncomfortable with 'lesbian.' now i know, and as much as it feels like further complicating my descriptors (i've already got 5 different disorders! i contain multitudes!) it's a huge relief to have the language.

some of which, also wasn't new. i think i found the term agender a while back, at least a few years ago. i'd never seen a description that fit me before, not quite so well. i identify as lacking gender, wanting to exist outside of the recognition of gender--i understand the different gender labels/norms and respect them for other people, however they identify...but for me, gender feels like a lie.

it's only within the last year sometime that i finally figured out, with the help of resources via my best friend, that being agender fits under the nonbinary umbrella, which can also fit under the umbrella of trans. i've never thought of myself as someone with gender dysphoria, and that gave me this huge feeling of 'identifying as trans would be claiming something i have no right to.'

so i had to think about that a while. i had an epiphany moment (thanks to the barbie movie, of all things) where i had a physical reaction to a thing as if it were an attack directed at me. that was when i realized i may not feel like i have the right, thanks to internalized stuff, to call myself trans--but i feel part of the community whether i say it or not. and even though i don't mind 'she,' anytime my best friend refers to me with 'they' it gives me a little glowy feeling.

so, again, this might not be huge news for all of you. a lot of you have been my friends for years. but it's nice to officially add agender to my 'asexual queer-romantic' breakdown, and mentally expand the umbrella of where i fit, and with who. and it feels like well past time to do it publicly.

[drdemonprince]

as an autistic transmasc, have you had an issue with your voice tone being a "giveaway", especially early on with learning about your autism and unmasking? I've found for myself that my "customer service voice" or even "public" voice (aka my masking voice) is much more feminine, lighter, and friendlier than my unmasked voice, even pre-testosterone, which often leads to me getting misgendered more in my work place. This happens worse on days where I'm already anxious or having a rough mental health day, so I'm not focusing on unmasking, and so I'm automatically putting up my pre-T mask voice without thinking about it. If you have experience with this, do you have recommendations for working on this?

Growing up, I had a lot of gay male friends who would invariably get "ma'amed" on the phone. They continued being mistaken for women over the phone after we all grew up, because their voices are lighter, softer, more filled with emotional affect, and just generally more stereotypically feminine than straight men's voices are.

Familiarity with men like these got me comfortable with the idea that my voice can be high, expressive, and feminine without me being a woman, and that people misgendering based upon it isn't even a uniquely transgender experience. Lots of gay men like me have it. So I don't think about it.

If your customer service voice makes you feel dysphoric, you certainly can practice changing it. I have a "straight guy" voice that I will trot out when I'm donating blood or in certain unfamiliar customer service situations. It's low and gruff and flat, very inexpressive; my straightsona is a mopey depressed kind of guy. He gives less emotional energy away to other people. If you're working in customer service, feeling less pressure to do all that emotional labor of being bubbly at people might be desirable, maybe you want to be more gruff. There are a lot of great resources out there on voice training for trans femme people -- I like Stef Sanjati's videos -- and you can adopt the same techniques for practicing a more reflexively masculine voice if you want one, or if it sounds more like the real you to you.

But my real self is expressive and swishy and gay and gets ma'amed over the phone sometimes and doesn't give a shit! So I don't worry about how people interpret my voice. Your mileage may vary anon, but I'm of the opinion no trans person should have to worry about vocal training and that one of our most attractive qualities as queer people is our unusual voices.

[yanci-indigo]

PRIDE MONTH 2024 EVENT STORY!!!!!

So me and my childhood bestie decided to meet here at this place called "Queer Market" to look at the stalls. We both like stickers, crochet minis, pins, or even accessories—LIKE THEY'RE SO MANY!!! Unfortunately, we ended up broke (again) because we are both tempted huhu but we had fun anyway.

Do you see that first stall? Yeah, that one. I had a hard time choosing which pair of earrings I should spend on with no regrets. While we were sweaty and indecisive, there is this pink fem girl who stood beside us looking at the same stall. Her outfit aesthetic is eye-pleasing: all pink, miniskirt, white boots, white blouse, and pink vest(?). Oh she even wore lesbian earrings!!!

I don't want to look at her literally, because not only it looks weird and awkward but also I was shaking when she stood next to me. I was sweaty and I can't afford to let her accidentally brush my arm like I DON'T WANT YOU TO GET DIRTY HUHU, and the way she spoke sounds sweet, girly, and soft LIKE AAAHHHH K1LL ME PLS!!!!

AND IT BECAME WORSE WHEN I STOLE GLANCES AT HER OUTFIT WITHOUT EVEN SEEING HER FACE AND SHE MADE ME TURN AWAY AND GIGGLE LIKE AN IDIOT INFRONT OF MY CHILDHOOD BESTIE BAHAHAHA

SHE EVEN SAID EXCUSE ME TO US LIKE AAAHHH MA'AM YOU ARE GORGEOUS!!!

My bestie even called me out for being gay LIKE EXCUSE ME??? I'M NOT!!! NOT HERE!!! /j

(Yes I have a boyfriend I still love him dw he's my only man in my world but I can't deny to myself that I'm gae huhu I'm sorry)

Anyways, she was talking to the stall owner and they were acquainted to each other. I heard her headphones was blasted Red Wine Supernova by Chappel Roan, and since I stood next to her, I can hear the lyrics lmao. I even told my bestie about it, and we talked about Chappell Roan being famous before Pride Month (good for her!).

My bestie and I left that stall first because I told her that pink girl was cute hihi. We went to the other stalls to buy stickers after that.

This is what we bought btw!!! (These are a bit expensive but we still support small business!!!)

We both walked towards the plaza and we catch up sme stuff like college and life itself. And I even accompany her just to make sure my bestie went home safely, and I walked alone after that.

I posted an IG story about this whole story and my bestie replied to it that she forgot that the pink fem gurl is her friend's friend LIKE WTF WHAT A SMALL WORLD!!!!

Translation:

OH WAIT IS THAT THE GIRL WHO WEARS GLASSES AND ALSO LESBIAN???

MY FRIEND KNOWS HER I THINK QHDHWHHS

Translation:

I told my friend who's friends with the gurl we saw that she's pretty

She said thanks 😭😭😭

She forgot the name of the pink girl because it's her friend's friend and they weren't that close.

But yeah glad to know, and I don't know when we'll meet. Who knows?

OKAY THAT'S ALL THE END!!!

I had fun this year's Pride Month. Hopefully I'll can make it again next year.

Thank you for your time reading my yapping, and HAPPY PRIDEEEE!!!!

~ 🧊

[mycochaotix]

My “real”nonbinary friends and fam, please read this and tell me your thoughts!!! —r/nonbinary user commented:

“I feel that Blair White and others like her are calling out bad behavior and demanding personal accountability. We all can live our lives as we see fit, but demanding nullification of sexual orientation in relation to one's gender or having a melt down over misgender pronouns without self realization about how we present ourselves is narcissistic and provides our detectors against the lgbt+ community with reason to vilify us.

Non-binary people are not the problem, to be clear. It's people who believe being non-binary qualifies them for special victimhood status and who go on public forums to decry society's ills for not recognizing their non-binary lifestyle on sight that creates this negativity.

If you know you are emotionally mature enough to get through your day and live your truth without being angry someone isn't into you or that the days your presentation may lean one way or the other on the gender spectrum and gracefully correct and move on, you know you aren't the problem.”

- they were downvoted many times when I saw rhe comment, so I asked chatgpt why and replied to them:

“Asked ChatGPT why your comment is being downvoted, it said: “This comment appears to express a negative view towards individuals, particularly non-binary people, who assert their gender identity and seek recognition. The use of terms like "meltdown" and the implication that asserting ‘one's gender identity is narcissistic’ may be perceived as dismissive or transphobic by some. “ 🤷🏽”

- they responded to my comment with:

“I mean, if you like feel that someone crying over a stranger at a fast food restaurant calling them "Ma'am" while taking their order on Tik Tok is good representation, we're at an impasse. That's not real life and it doesn't represent real non-binary people.

Edit: More importantly, if we ourselves do not call out bad behavior in our own community and ensure that negative representation isn't the only viewable commodity, we're practically committing self harm.”

- i replied with:

“Up until this comment, I havent made a personal belief claim about your comments. Just saw you being downvoted and wanted to understand why :) hence why I asked chatgpt.

Honestly, your comment reflects that you seem to be trying to police or gatekeep what anyone gets offended by. Why does that matter. Most non binary people i know are too concerned about being hate crimed to actually get offended at a mcdonalds worker incorrectly assuming their gender… much less asserting their correct pronouns when being misgendered.

Your use of “real non binary people” is quite problematic tbh. I think you may have an insulated understanding of Queer people thats influencing your perspective in an unhelpful way. Im a real non binary person and I disagree with your perspective and characterization of non binary people. Your edit is something im not comfortable addressing specifically tbh, I process it as problematic and not worth pursuing as you seem set in your beliefs.

Your feelings, and mine, and whatever queer scapegoat you are bringing up from tiktok, all matter and are valid. You dont know the trauma history of the person who is offended at being misgendered. To be misgendered is uncomfortable, especially for trans folkx and especially for those who are aware of the insane, incessant gender norms, mores and expectations on us at all times.

Calling out bad behavior is fine, but looking at situations empathetically, and from as many perspectives as you can, is going to aid you on identifying behavior thats could be a meaningful change to call out , and behavior that you just dont like and want to stop someone from doing because of your discomfort.”

—

Queer, and specifically: Transfam, please tell me if im far off here … or what yall think!

-mcx

———

update:

[uh-velkommen]

Physically transitioning before socially transitioning is definitely a strange choice because I thought I could hide it, but the whole point of transitioning is to stop hiding. The thing is, I feel like it'd be much easier to come out as a man and then start looking like one, but I'm still agender, I just want to look more masculine. So if/when people ask about why I'm transitioning, I'm gonna have to explain all of that and I don't want to explain myself. Talking about this topic with people I hardly know feels the same as talking about sex or the fact that everyone poops. It's private. I have to fully trust that that person isn't secretly transphobic because I've spent all my life surrounded by blatant transphobia. It's why I've been so scared to come out at all.

And that's been another challenge with socially transitioning. I don't know what it feels like to ask a friend to use different pronouns or another name. I don't know how it feels to experiment with how I'm perceived. I've never had anyone in my life long enough, who I've felt close enough to, to trust with this information. It's easier to share it with strangers who haven't known me pre-transition. I've been panicking a bit at work with the question: At what point do I have to socially transition? When the dysphoria gets to be too much? When my voice completely deepens? When my feminine business casual uniform no longer fits the same? What do I say when customers greet me with "sir" and my coworkers make a fuss like, "hahaha they thought you were a boy!"

I don't want to tell people my gender because the point is that I don't have a gender!! I don't feel like anything! Don't sir OR ma'am me. I wish I could burn all gendered terms. I wish the world was advanced enough.

I guess I'm just nervous about peopleswitching up on me. I sent a message to my roommate telling them that I've started T and if any of my behavior changes or seems odd, that's why. They didn't respond at all. Not even a thumbs up emoji. And it completely triggered this worry I've been harboring. Here's someone who's seemingly progressive, queer and has at least one trans friend, but when I came out, I got radio silence. The first person I came out to in real life, and I got no reaction. Not just no support, but complete disregard.

And I feel like trying to be myself is making me shrivel inward even more. Isolating myself. Trying to become as invisible as I can. Yet another post about why community is so important...

[awwordnd]

MEET KOBOLD AND ATERIS!

G'day! I'm Kobold/Koh and I play Ateris!

I'm a genderfluid, 30 something, queer, neurospicy, disabled streamer and v-tuber from Aus!

Any/all pronouns welcome just please no female honorifics (mrs, miss, ma'am etc)

I mostly do art and gaming but occasionally do true crime streams, copilot streams and D&D streams. You can find me and my stuff HERE

Ateris is a tough nut to crack. A war vet who completely rescinded her paladinship and god leading her to have to start anew. She's looking for her son Hallis who went missing just after she was caught in the Descent of Elturel and in the time since her return from the hells, has been living with her closest friend (and situationship/unofficial husband) Dr Alligan Hue.

[indigo-a-creeping]

Hi again, it’s me back at it again with the top surgery questions. I’m sorry to ask so many questions and bother you but you’ve been a big help to me, so if you are willing to answer, I’m going to ask as long as you don’t mind. (Feel free to ignore if I ask questions you are comfortable answering)

I’m curious what you told your work in terms of needing time off. Did you tell them everything or keep it simple and say you were getting surgery and needed this much time off or something similar? I’m also curious how much time you took off and how easy it was to get that time off? I don’t know what to tell my job. In an ideal world I would keep it as vague as possible but it will be noticeable once I have the surgery as I have a large chest. (In an ideal world they would actually just be accepting if I told them I was non binary and there would be nothing to worry about but still) I also don’t even know if I’m supposed to talk to HR first or if I can just talk to my boss as my boss is usually the only person I need to talk to when I take time off. I’m going to look at my company’s policies tomorrow. But I’m also debating between asking for two weeks off or three after the surgery so I was curious what your experience was.

I'm always happy to answer what questions I can, friend! You're not bothering me.

So I work for a company that's got pretty notorious liberal leanings. There was a trans guy working there when I started, and I quietly observed how supportive all the management was of him, how kind and understanding and accepting they all were.

You don't legally have to explain any medical things to your work, but I went to my boss and explained exactly what I was doing long before it came up, and he and the assistant managers all made sure I got my leave officially approved, and talked me through the process of getting short-term disability pay. They checked in with me while I was recovering, were patient while I recovered, and made sure I knew I'd still have a job when I came back. They took me back as soon as my surgeon approved it, on transitional duty (which is just slightly less heavy lifting) for the first month just in case. If I had needed more time, they would have absolutely given it to me. If I needed more restrictions to work, they would have worked with me. They asked me about pronouns a few times, to make sure they were using the right ones even though I don't remember my own a lot of the time and all the customers call me she/her/ma'am. I don't know why I thought that would change, but it definitely didn't. I have a really good work environment. (I also scheduled surgery during our slow time of year, which I didn't need to do, but I wanted to) Do you trust your boss? Do you know how they are with queer people in general? With trans people specifically? Are you very familiar with the HR department? Definitely check your company's policies! We have specific paperwork that lists all the physical requirements for work (make sure you pay attention to more than just weight restrictions).

One of my friends who had top surgery told his work he was getting shoulder surgery, which may be an option depending on your shape, attire, and how close people get to you. The thought of claiming breast cancer crossed my mind early on, but I wasn't comfortable lying about that and I wouldn't recommend it. Again, legally you don't have to tell them any specifics, but it's something to think about with something that's visible.

My surgeon said I could lift up to 25 lbs at 3 weeks after surgery, and in my experience I could lift a little more than that at the time (I was probably lifting close to that at 1 week)... but I couldn't lift my elbows above my head, and couldn't carry any weight at that height, so I took 6 weeks, at which point I wasn't completely at 100% capacity but I was able to do my job. If you work a desk job, 3 weeks is fine. 2 is probably fine too. Don't hesitate to ask for more though.