#my parents don't believe in trans

[failyaoi]

Johnshi/Kencageblade/Swordblade kid oc just dropped (read tags for more info)

[uncanny-tranny]

I think what might actually help the families of trans loved ones is to actually engage with where the trans person is at - especially if the family isn't quite understanding yet. When I came out, I was completely alone in figuring out my manhood. I had peers and I had exposed myself to so many trans people who explored gender, and while it was amazing, it isn't quite the same at times. I grieve quietly, sometimes, about all the missed opportunities that might have just made it easier for my family to have seen how utterly happy I was. It took them a very long time to actually notice that I was happy, especially once I got on testosterone. I'm lucky that they saw that happiness eventually, and slowly accepted it. My manhood is completely detached from their influence, both to my relief and chagrin. It's sad to me that I learned to shave from a kind online stranger, somebody who didn't even have a father and yet, I do. I have a father. I grieve at the loss of a potential shared experience. I grieve about the pain I went through when I was in that stage of transition, especially because it was raw and vulnerable. I grieve that many trans people today are traversing the path I had to, because it's sometimes lonely (even when you do have other forms of support).

It's hard to know that I will never have gotten my sense of being from my family. In many ways, it has severed a lot of connection with them because there were so many times that I was begging them to see happiness when they were focused on the idea that I was almost in a state of purgatory - flesh which felt warm but held no familiarity to them. I don't harbor ill-will toward them, I hope I don't leave the impression that I despise them. I understand what they felt, even if I can't conceptualize it myself. However, it's a raw wound in my heart, and I don't want to leave anybody else feeling that way, either.

[sexiestsex]

It's so wild to me that like. t e r f s position themselves as being the ones to support detransitioners while also talking about them and their bodies in the most vile way. And while I understand that transition regret is real and very very hard to deal with and maybe seeking out people who validate the way you feel about your body feels good in the moment, I truely truely do not think it is a healthy way to cope with it. And obviously blaming the trans community is not a great way to go about it either lol.

I also think, we as a community are honestly also doing detransitioners a disservice by not acknowledging the ways that, doctors do pressure and expect trans people to conform to a certain transition path and even intentionally misinform you to get you to make your choices differently. This is how and why they are still performing unnecessary surgeries on intersex children. They want our bodies to conform as closely to one binary sex as possible and that means you have to do a lot of research about every single transition decision you make and can't rely on only doctor's information. It sucks and it's disgusting that they don't care about actually helping people be comfortable, only about making them conform but it's something you really have to keep in mind. No one is pressured into a transition, I'm starting to feel they'd rather we die than transition. But yes, once you are transitioning there are pressures to do it a certain way.

I'm sorry to everyone who regrets a decision they were misinformed about, that they were pressured into or otherwise didn't have full agency over. That just makes it so much harder to deal with the regret and i really can't give advice on it, except that, if you ever felt pressured into any decisions about your body, you should not be fighting against the availability of transition care but also join our fight for informed consent in medical care.

Informed consent is not yet a standard in any treatment but it really really needs to be. And there need to be consequences for doctors who intentionally misinform or don't inform patients. The insurance should not be allowed to demand one kind of treatment to cover another, especially when it's not a necessary treatment. The stories of medical malpractice you hear when talking to people are absolutely unhinged and abhorrent and put lives at risk.

The solution to absolutely none of them is less autonomy and less agency.

Originally I was gonna make this a body neutrality post, validating the right of all people to feel however they do about their bodies and their decisions about their bodies but arguing against this disgusting narrative of brokenness and being "ruined" that is spread to trans and detrans people but i guess I got side tracked. Anyways. You can find happiness in your body again no matter what you've been through, even when it's hard. I hope you find ways to enjoy yourself and your body in the time you have here. Other people can make it harder but it's still possible and you can still do it.

[sunsetschloe]

to the church, and to my parents:

Please stop forcing me to love out of pure terror that my soul will be in eternal agony. I truly don't think humans are that evil and terrible that a person had to die for us to even get a chance to not rot in the fires of hell. If we are to be judged because of something an ancestor did thousands of years ago, then what is life, except trying to atone for the sin of an ancestor that made one wrong decision? Isn't god's love towards us toxic, because only if we worship him will he accept us into his realm?

Religion has always been about power and oppression, and it simply isn't applicable to the modern world. You can't just take the same standards set for people thousands of years ago and force it upon people today. Yes, the bible preached kindness and love to all, but it also provided the foundation for a deeply sexist society that people today still suffer from. Not all the sexism and racism and xenophobia are directly due to religion, but large aspects can be attributed to it.

I love church, i truly do. I love the discussions, the songs, the prayers we did for each other, but I'm starting to realize how messed up everything is. To be saved means to pray everyday, to go to church and sing about how terrible humans are and how kind god was to kill his son so we could live and how lucky we are for this chance for salvation. I'm tired of thinking that I'm worthless if I don't do all this, and I'm tired of believing that it's only if I love god that I can have peace. Isn't this what we all deserve? Even if christianity was real and proven, I would rather live believing we all deserved peace and joy and love without having to worship a god that deemed us worthless if we didn't worship him everyday. I want to believe that all of us are deserving of love.

[allisonreader]

My heart hurts. Not physically, but emotionally. I don't like the news, I tend to avoid actively searching it out, for that exact reason. I ache because as people we just can't seem to get along. Learn to compromise and fully try to understand the other side. It's exhausting to understand why people are against certain things, even when it's the opposite of what I personally believe in.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

that moment when: everyone's lives are restricted and constricted and these imposed consequences are attributed to anyone's continual individual failures to seek, find, and follow the Correct Path through Life, and so everyone is left on their own to only be seeking & finding these failures as well as the only answer to how their lives can be better....versus Not seeing the world as the free marketplace meritocracy of everyone's personal failures/successes, nor everything in your own life, and thus not forever having to scrutinize Where You Must Be Bringing It Upon Yourself by fucking up or at least failing to do the correct thing, and exist only in perpetual punishment for your ongoing failure and occasional temporary reprieves from it. recognizing everything that wasn't & isn't & wouldn't be [this is because you're bringing it upon yourself] and thus having more capacity & capability to look at the realm of your personal individual self, reality, experiences, life through the perpetual instances of seeking, finding, and following your own needs/wants through one's inherent personhood and exercises of autonomy and recognition of where & when & how one recognizes moments of their existing freely & in more resonant genuine alignment with themself, you know? endless examples to be found in endless fractals of [where & how are people's lives made smaller]. and that of course this doesn't preclude the ability/option at any time to question one's choices, since you'll be able to find more Actual choices available to you (and, also crucially, find more actual choices made by others that are in the pursuit of limiting Yours) to look at, and people getting to exercise their autonomy isn't the same as "everyone doing anything they want regardless of how it affects others" since that [how does it affect others?] element instead being Regarded would be able to lead to recognizing that, in fact, an effect might be the infringement on others' autonomy, hence: There's A Problem....like the ability to just go ham with [questioning???] anything in existence, certainly including oneself, b/c the "norm" is such that rather you're only supposed to be able to question yourself for your failings (or those positioned as less than, thus, beneath you) and not even have the language to express a questioning of aspects of life beyond that b/c stop calling anyone "cis" they're just Normal, Just Be Normal and it would all be fine

[unkownknowledge]

I love people claiming to represent me saying my identity is a kink

[exercise-of-trust]

.

[weissman]

I feel hopeless.

[inkskinned]

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

[yeahimatransman]

Signs from being younger that probably are signs of being trans:

Making a sock penis and wearing it in my room. Never admitting it, but wanting a penis.

Fantasizing that I was turned into a boy and choosing to stay that way.

Taking quizzes that claim to "guess your gender" and wanting to have the results say I was a boy.

This one makes me laugh, but pretending to be a boy when I would play on Club Penguin.

Really liking how I looked in our jazz band uniform which includes a men's dress shirt, dress pants, a tie, and a vest.

Signs in adulthood and right now that probably are signs of me being trans:

Buying a packer and really enjoying wearing it in public.

Loving the bulge my packer gives me and wanting to look at it all day long/wear it everyday.

Wanting a real penis.

I want a beard so bad.

Buying a binder and being frustrated that it didn't make me completely flat because I have a large chest. Kind of liking how it looked anyway when I was able to get over that and see that it did make my chest smaller.

Still fantasizing of being turned into a man and choosing to stay that way.

Going by he/him pronouns on here.

Changing my pronouns on Facebook to see it say "changed HIS profile picture" and seeing that I was listed as "brother" and "son" on my siblings and parents pages. (Changed it back out of fear of getting caught).

Changing my gender on Facebook to Male even though it's hidden.

Picturing myself in the future presenting as male with short hair, a beard, and having gotten top surgery.

I want to be a man.

AND YET I am still struggling with believing I am actually trans or that I should move forward with transitioning. There is so much that goes into this. Internalized transphobia. Inability to let go of my religion even if I don't necessarily believe because it's what I have known my whole life and all my friends are there. Religious trauma and being told that my being a woman is eternal and divine. Fear of disappointing my family and friends or confusing them/ruining our relationships. Messing with the status quo at almost 28 years old. Not being taken seriously. I probably should see a gender therapist.

I just really needed to get that all out. If anyone has any advice or ideas or maybe even just validation, I would really appreciate it.

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

My nana at 9 years of age was dragged kicking and screaming to school. Her math teacher had been molesting her. She told her parents. They did nothing. Best part? Her father was the principal. So obviously that teacher learned he could get away with anything and started molesting the other girls, who then blamed my nana because...I dunno, little kid logic I guess. It was unlikely their parents were going to be any more helpful than my nana's and he knew it.

My great aunt at the age of 13 was forcibly kissed by a teacher in full view of several witnesses who then gave her shit for seducing an honourable man.

My mom at 12 years of age left her physically abusive father to live with her mother and stepfather, only for her stepfather to molest her. Her mother to this day refuses to believe it.

My best friend had a longterm close male friend who sexually assaulted her in her sleep. Their entire friend group as well as the youth counselor encouraged her to forgive him because it was obviously a misunderstanding and she'd been giving off mixed signals and he'd had a huge crush on her and he wasn't intending to hurt her! So she did forgive him, publicly. And he did it again. And again. And again. And then it was her fault because she kept hanging out with him. If she really didn't want him doing it, why didn't she just abandon her entire friend group? He also got emboldened and went on to sexually assault other girls, so eventually they all started talking and went to the school against him. The youth counselor admonished my friend for going forward against him.

My other best friend decided to be "open-minded" and dated a trans-identified male. He also sexually assaulted her multiple times in her sleep but he framed her as the abuser at their youth support group for not adequately validating his identity.

My stepfather molested me from the ages of 7 to 12 and when I reported him he was dating a new woman at the time. She didn't believe it. They're still together. I can only imagine the number of girls he's been given access to over the years (he didn't go to jail, or get convicted of sexual assault).

I was also sexually assaulted in my sleep at my friend's party once. That guy's friend said I "probably wanted it".

Went to group therapy. All the women there had very different stories, but one theme that kept cropping up: they weren't believed or they were blamed.

I read books about therapy sessions with other victims. And that theme kept up. Not believed or else blamed. One woman told her story, learning to gloss it over before being dismissed out of hand, for decades before a professional finally asked her to elaborate and put her in touch with a sexual assault crisis centre. Another thing that came up in those books: knowing how hard it was for victims to come forward, and all the discouragement from people in their lives, many women must take it to the grave.

But hey, it's fine. Men have it worse. I mean we all watched a rich abusive man successfully publicly humiliate his victim while everyone said he was the victim and she was the abuser. And actually it's super common for abusive men to claim to be the victim, and police and family believe it! And it can take multiple women to come forward against one man for anything to be done, and often even that's not enough. But never mind that, men have it worse. We know this because they so--no, no, don't pay attention to hospital records or homicides or child marriages, or--Men. Say. They. Have it worse! So they do. Everything a man says is truth. That's why you must believe whatever a man says and accept every observation he makes as objective. No, there's no irony here, no historical precedent, no global trend.

[scramratz]

hello there! I hope I'm not overstepping any boundaries by asking this – you don't have to answer this ask at all. I've read your comics and they've given me more insight on being trans. I've known what trans is and identified as ftm for the past 6-7 years, I've played around with more masc and fem presentation, yet my closest loved ones say there has never been anything male about me and they've just been going along with it in hopes I grow out of it. That and people saying that quirky, sensitive girls use transness to escape themselves makes me doubt even my happiest moments when I pass and people call me sir or gentleman. Being trans isn't even on my mind when that happens. What would you think? Can you relate at all? Thank you for reading this :]

My parents were the same way growing up. They made me doubt every part of myself. it was insane in retrospect. When you deal with that all the time, you begin to believe it, and it's hard to stop. There's only two facts that have helped me get out of that mindset of self doubt.

1.) Fakers aren't worried about whether or not they're faking; they're worried about getting caught. Pretend is a deliberate action. If you're worried you're just doing it for attention, you're probably not.

2.) Even if it is a phase, so what? (Phases don't last 6 years btw) nothing wrong with figuring yourself out. How else are you supposed to be a well rounded adult?

[drdemonprince]

Oh I love gender talk. If we have a patriarchal society, what’s like. The point of having men if we want to overturn it? So many ideals of What It Means To Be A Man seem to boil down to “don’t have traits that patriarchal society has deemed womanly” — so if being a man exists mainly in Not Being A Woman, then how can we like. Have men? In a non-patriarchal society? What does it mean for potential future gender systems if the existing power structure necessitates that manliness come from exerting power (esp over others)? Why not just like. Not have men anymore. Am I missing something essential here? I feel like I must be missing something

how exactly do you propose that we don't have men?

My argument would be that the coercive gendering of all infants is the real big bad here. Even I don't want to force parents not to gender their kids though. Like it or not, gender is a really important part of a variety of people's cultures and identities, and I don't believe in authoritarianism or fascism. So like. how do you think we just make there not be men? Especially without hurting any trans people in the blast radius.

[stardustpr1ncess]

Bonzle is 100% without a shadow of a doubt a trans allegory. People have been trying their best to say Sora isn't transcoded, but Bonzle is 2 scenes away from looking at the camera and saying "Hello. I'm a trans allegory." I shall now go into detail on every piece of evidence for this claim because fuck you.

EPISODE 5: Bonzle is afraid of how her found family will react to learning she's a spell (trans) and worries she will be rejected because of it. Easy parallel to trans people being afraid of revealing they're trans post transition. There's also her conversation with Bitch Boy Master Wu, with her saying she feels great loneliness, and only after gaining a physical form (transitioning) she feels happy and her true self. Very common trans experience. Gonna also put all of the quotes for my evidence as well since I know there's transphobes (filth) that like Ninjago and will be scrambling to deny it when people start coming to this conclusion too.

"Bonzle: I-- I was afraid of what you'd think if you knew about my past... Wu: It's called loneliness... Bonzle: I feel like, for the first time ever, I've become who I was destined to be... Bonzle: I was afraid if you found out I wasn't a real person, you wouldn't want me to be in our family anymore."

EPISODE 6: Bonzle is apprehensive about meeting with Gandalaria, seeing as how she's only known Bonzle as a spell, aka pre transition. She worries if she will respect her identity, much like how actual trans people fear how their family, more specifically a parental figure, would react. Bit of a light episode but an important aspect, here's the quotes;

"Bonzle: The Sorceress. She only knows me as a spell. What if she doesn't believe in me as a real person?"

EPISODE 7: This episode is the sauce. Bonzle is reunited with Gandalaria and their conversation is nothing short of magical. Gandalaria immediately recognizes Bonzle, saying she was her greatest creation and had always hoped she'd come home, shattering Bonzle's fears. It's a fantastic contrast, showing how this interaction can go well for some people, while others get an interaction much more akin to Sora's parents. When she's informed of Bonzle's chosen name, Gandalaria immediately starts using it, saying it's a great name. However, for that juicy authenticity, Gandalaria accidentally says spell before quickly correcting herself saying Bonzle. IT'S LITERALLY SO FUCKING OBVIOUS BONZLE'S BONES MIGHT AS WELL BE BLUE PINK AND WHITE. Oh yeah, here's the paragraph of quotes;

"Gandalaria: It's you! My dearest! You've come home! Bonzle: You... You recognize me? Even in my boney physical form? Gandalaria: Oh, I would know your true essence anywhere. Bonzle: I was so afraid you wouldn't accept me for who I am now. Gandalaria Are you kidding? I put my heart, my soul into every spell I weave... The most complex spell I've ever woven, and the first of my creations to ever come back to me!.. Bonzle: I'm Bonzle. That's the name I chose when I became a person. Gandalaria: Well, that's a splendid name... If this Ras times it right, he could reverse the power spell-- uh, Bonzle here--."

EPISODE 9: This episodes importance comes from Jordana, who acts EXACTLY how transphobes do. She constantly calls her a spell (some sort of derogatory term), says she's playing person (like pretending to be a girl), and says she's helping her do what she was made for, like transphobes very creepy beliefs in reproduction. Literally you half expect Jordana to ask which bathroom Bonzle uses since she was a spell. THE QUOTES;

"Jordana: Settle down, spell. I don't know what you think you've been doing, playing person with your fake family, but I know your true purpose... You should thank us. We're helping you to do what you were created to do."

In conclusion the silly lego skeleton girl is one of them spooky transgenders. Lmk if there's anything I missed. Thank you for reading.

[borninwinter81]

Queer horror from my teens

I periodically wonder whether these books are still known and read by young goths and horror fans as they were all extremely important to me in my teenage years, so I thought I'd share them.

Though I'm cishet, during the mid 90s two of my favourite authors wrote primarily queer fiction: they were Anne Rice and another author from New Orleans who is now known as Billy Martin.

He came out as a trans man in 2011, however these books were published prior to that so unfortunately you have to search for them under his deadname. This is why I've used that name in the tags on this post. I don't believe the books were ever reprinted with his current name.

Though I loved Rice, I always felt a more immediate connection with Martin due to his vivid portrayal of subcultures like goth and punk, and how it felt to be a teenager who was part of them. I could see myself in many of his characters as I had the same interests, listened to the same music, and shared the same sense of social alienation. Remember in the 90s the Internet was still a reasonably new thing, and many of us didn't have a home Internet connection at all. There was certainly no social media, no YouTube, and no real way to meet and interact with like-minded teens unless you were lucky enough to have another "weird kid" at your school. If you were a weird kid, you likely had very few friends and were bullied.

That as much as anything else led me to seek solace in books written by an author who I felt understood me, and characters who became my friends.

Lost Souls is about vampires in a kind of Lost Boys/Near Dark way. Fans of the YouTuber OfHerbsAndAltars might be interested to know that this book is where the name of his channel comes from - it's a description of the taste of Chartreuse liqueur.

Drawing Blood is about ghosts, a "murder house", computer hacking, comic art and a very beautiful (if rather messed up) romance. This one is probably my favourite of the three.

Exquisite Corpse is about serial killers, set against the AIDS crisis of the 90s. If you like the Hannibal TV series you'll probably enjoy this one - imagine if Dennis Nilsen and Jeffrey Dahmer had somehow met.

Martin doesn't pull any punches when it comes to descriptions of blood and gore, violence, abusive parents or his portrayal of toxic romantic relationships (of which there are many in his books), but if you can deal with those things there is also a great deal of beauty, phenomenally good writing, and a somewhat unique perspective on the supernatural.

Maybe I'm biased, looking at these through the lens of my teenage self. Maybe they'd seem horribly dated to today's young audience. But I still wanted to make this post in case there's someone out there who will end up loving them as much as I did.