#nonbinary historian

[enbycrip]

ID: a black and white photo and caption from a newspaper showing a young white trans man with light hair wearing a tweed jacket and high collar smiling at a young white woman in a pale dress as he brushes her mid-length dark hair. She is smiling at him from the slightly complex angle as he brushes her hair. The photo is faded and not great quality but their faces are clear.

The headline over the photo is “Here’s How I Used To Do It!”

The caption below reads “An expert at women's coiffures although not a hairdresser, Zdenek Koubek proves himself as he combs the locks of Cinda Glenn, New York night club beauty. Koubek knows all about coiffures from experience, since they were of concern to him when he was the foremost girl athlete of Czechoslovakia, prior to a sex-change.”

Zdenek Koubek was born in Paskov, Czechoslovakia (at the time) in December 1913, one of eight siblings, and competed as an athlete. With minimal formal training, he began running at age 17, decided to pursue it formally aged 19, and broke two world records at the 1934 world olympics.

Because queer and gender-diverse history is complex, I’m genuinely unsure if Zdenek was intersex. He seems to have been pretty gender-nonconforming when read as a woman in his early life and seems to have retired from athletics because he was harassed by people wanting him to undergo invasive “gender checks” after his gold medals at the 1934 Olympics.

Apparently the current obsession with “defining gender in sport” has roots back to the 1930s. Athletes competing in female athletics have been forced to undergo a variety of examinations for the purpose of declaring them “female enough”. They seem to have never been pleasant, appropriate, or anything other than invasive and dehumanising, and they seem to have always focused on a) defining gender by physicality b) defined that physicality in fairly arbitrary ways that are actually incredibly difficult to relate to anything objective, despite a veneer of scientific objectivity.

I can entirely see why the threat of such harassment would have caused Zdenek to decide an athletic or adjacent career wasn’t worth undergoing it, whether he personally believed himself to be intersex or whether we would recognise him as such today. The term “intersex” has many definitions, and is often challenged by medical professionals if it could potentially cover too many people - e.g. medical professionals have repeatedly challenged the term when used by AFAB people with PCOS, which can cause fertility issues, hirstutism etc, purely on the grounds of “that would make around 10% of women intersex”. Zdenek simply publicly stated “I was wrongly assigned as female at birth” without giving any other details - as he had *every* right to. Some historians have characterised him as intersex based on this, and others simply as trans; he appears, very reasonably, to have preferred to preserve his privacy on the details.

Zdenek went on a lecture tour of the US talking about his life and transitioned in 1936. At the time of this photo, he was pursuing a career in cabaret in the US. He seems to have been reasonably successful but never settled there, returning home and marrying a cis woman with whom he lived happily for the rest of his life, dying in Prague aged 72 in 1986.

He joined a local rugby team along with his brother Jaroslov after WWII and seems to have been an enthusiastic amateur player. I hope he got a lot of joy out of it, which he does seem to have.

Like so many queer and trans histories, Zdenek’s is somewhat obscured because so much of what has been written about him is always skewed by the writer’s own perspectives about gender and transness. Including the drive to impose a false binary on trans experience - which I as a nonbinary person know is certainly not universally present.

There are, of course, *absolutely* trans people who always have a strong feeling of gender equating to “knowing they are a boy/girl from an early age”, and I in no way wish to erase them or their experiences, but it must also be noted and acknowledged there are plenty of us with different experiences. There are people like me who feel “wrong” in our assigned gender from pretty early in life, all the way down to having quite strong dysphoria in puberty and afterwards, but don’t strongly ID as the “opposite” binary gender either. There are people who rub along fine in their assigned gender, or who have many issues with it but don’t know what they equate to, until they have some experience presenting otherwise and suddenly experience strong gender euphoria for the first time in their lives. There are people who never feel anything much at all about gender and only ever do any identifying purely as a matter of convenience because a very binary society requires it.

Cis people seem to find the “always knew/born in the wrong body” narrative the easiest to relate to, and I can only assume that is because it is the narrative that allows them to challenge our society’s gender-essentialist, binarist worldview the *least*. It is considerably easier, and requires much less thought and critical attention, to say “I guess sometimes the occasional person is just mistakenly assigned to the wrong category” than to question those categories, why they exist, what they actually are, how they are imposed, and whether they actually mean anything at all in an objective sense.

I have no idea where Zdenek fell on any of this, or if his experience was very different in another way.

I posted this to, as ever, note that we are not a new phenomenon. Trans people are part of human history. We have always existed. We have always contributed. The way the society we lived in perceived us *and* how the societies our stories have passed through perceived us affect how our stories are told today, and those things can make it complex to uncover the lived experience of the trans person behind all of that. Queer and trans history must always be about acknowledging those facts and uncertainties while doing our best to find out as much as possible about the actual lived experiences of our siblings in the past.

[yourdailyqueer]

Mo Moulton

Gender: Transgender non binary (they/them)

Sexuality: Queer

DOB: Born 1979   

Ethnicity: White - American

Occupation: Historian, writer, professor

[zeneby]

At this point I've given up on pleading against the inevitable, if I'm gonna be part of history the least they can do is depict me in the most unenthusiastic, low spirit, "done with this bullshit", tired, character ever if historians ever take interest in my boring life

[unknowngenius85]

Brain is Stressy Spaghetti

Ok...so more stuff is happening and I'm freaking out a little. I am now a part of an all woman trio of professional singers called the Stage Foundation Singers. I am also going to start filming "Constance", which is the film I'm the lead in, mid May.

Then, we are going to break for the hot season and I'm going to do rehearsals for Man of La Mancha where I get to play a pretty much straight acting role and a bitch to boot. I love playing those type of characters.

I'm also finishing a book that I took a break on due to the person I was working on it with being a total jerk and I wanted to separate myself from that work cause it was causing me a lot of emotional pain but the person is going to pay me for my work so I have to finish it. I also have to figure out a cover design...OOF.

Another thing that I am dealing with is that I am non binary. I am trying out a new name. It is Maven. I am She/ Fae and I am still getting used to it cause I am so used to going by my birth name. All the people I have told so far have been accepting as all heck but my mom almost got mad when I hinted at possibly being non binary. She said, "You're a woman and you identify as a woman. Only because I haven't had any other option.

[vampigeon]

You may have seen a video on the internet recently. As have I!

A comic strip, Vampigeon by Josh Jennings.

Panel 1: Caption: It’s not all bad, James Somerton fans. Now that you know his formula, you can make an infinite number of his videos using only the power of your imagination

Panel 2: [A title card, with Stock Footage of cows with color filters and the text "Moo, Britannia by James Somerton."]

Panel 3: [YouTube Other People's Words Reader James Somerton presents a video.] James (Encyclopedia Text): Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include abnormal behavior, trouble walking, and weight loss.

Panel 4: James (Standard Dialogue): Historians theorize that the first Mad Cow was, big surprise, straight and female. These symptoms, the abnormal behavior in particular, mimic what people with vaginas are like all the time.

Panel 5: James (Standard Dialogue): I don't acknowledge nonbinary masc people or trans men, and, as such, their silence on the issue of Mad Cow…is deafening.

Panel 6: James (Standard Dialogue): Once, I was walking down the street at night, when a pack of roving vaginas attacked me.

Panel 7: James (Standard Dialogue): They brandished Mad Cow Burgers, screaming about I needed to kiss a boy in front of them.

Panel 8: James (Standard Dialogue): I managed to get into my home, but I could still hear the scraping of their claws against the glass. Hear their sickening howls, bragging about how women don't have problems.

Panel 9: [beat]

Panel 10: James (Encyclopedia Text): Currently the only reliable test for Mad Cow is examination of tissues during a necropsy citation needed.

[cat-in-a-mech-suit]

Transmasculinity Throughout Time: Hatshepsut

Kicking off this first post in what I hope to be a long series by saying that I am just a guy who likes obsessively researching things and I am absolutely not a historical expert, and in this case, not an Egyptologist. My perspectives and interpretations are my own. You are welcome to have other ones.

Hatshepsut is known as Egypt’s first and only female pharaoh, and is discussed as such throughout almost all material about them. I will be nonetheless using they/them pronouns to refer to them, but during their life they used both masculine and feminine pronouns. The tendency to project modern ideas onto historical figures is common. Especially in the case of people who exhibited signs of transmasculinity, it is common for their entire lives to be reduced to “women who cosplayed as men for power” which is problematic for obvious reasons. Cis men coveting masculinity for the pursuit of power in a patriarchal society is never a reason they are actually women, yet it is okay to do this with historical transmasculine people in the name of feminism? There is a clear double standard. So, I will be using gender neutral pronouns because we can’t really know if Hatshepsut was alive today whether they would identify as a woman, trans man, nonbinary or as none of those identities. I am simply going to be discussing the history and some of my interpretations.

In the context of ancient Egypt, the pharaoh was a living embodiment of the masculine god Horus. Hatshepsut embraced this role after coming to power, ascending from the position of queen regent alongside a child king once their former husband Thutmose II had passed, to “his majesty the king herself.” As their rule progressed, they were depicted as more and more masculine in statues and reliefs, using the same ceremonial fake beard as male pharaohs, muscles, and other masculine signifiers. They didn’t stop wearing makeup and jewelry when presenting as a male king though, which some historians take as evidence to support a female gender identity - it could mean that, but it could also just mean they liked to be fashionable and didn’t subscribe to restrictive gender roles!

Like kings before them, Hatshepsut emphasized their connection to the gods by telling a story to justify their rule. However, the story they told had to be exceptional - and it was. Hatshepsut’s throne name, Maatkare, translated to “truth is the soul of the sun god.” This demonstrated a connection to the sun god, Amun or Ra, and to Maat, the tradition of maintaining harmony in ancient Egypt. The story was that Amun had appeared to their mother who had conceived Hatshepsut for the purpose of being king, commanded by the god of creation Khnum, to “fashion [them] better than all gods” with “the great dignity of a king.” In carvings, Khnum created Hatshepsut as a little boy. This explanation for their lineage is especially interesting because it emphasizes their connection both to their mother’s bloodlines and to being the child of Amun, not ruling as just a queen regent, but as a king.

During their rule of 20 years, Egypt’s trade flourished and there was an immense period of construction during which countless buildings and statues were created, and temples renovated. Unfortunately after their death, extreme measures were taken by Thutmose III to erase all records of Hatshepsut from existence in order to preserve the line of male kings. These efforts were primarily successful, and much of their history has been lost to time. There are many things about Hatshepsut that we will never know.

[hotvintagepoll]

personally I would love a poll for hot vintage actors/celebrities who played with gender and androgyny or were outright trans/nonbinary, but I'm not sure how many there are or how much time you have to dedicate to the polls so I'll throw it out there for any followers who want to start their own poll

I thought about doing this, but it would be an impossible poll to run fairly for a couple of reasons. (I'm going to be using the word "queer" here as a catch-all term for trans/nb/gender-nonconforming presentation, in the hope that we all understand I'm using it in the reclaimed sense.)

For one thing, being queer was so heavily silenced, punished, and/or criminalized we can't say with any certainty which hotties were trans/nb/questioning. It's possible many of these hot vintage performers would have come out if it had been safe to do so, but we can't tell from this distance. I would hate to exclude anyone just because they don't read as queer "enough" to my eyes, when for them they were just busy surviving.

The other thing is that even as recently as the vintage era of these polls, queerness sat a little differently than it does today. Just as modern historians can't project current systems of gender on figures from the past, I would feel uncomfortable assuming that someone might be trans/nonbinary/gender nonconforming just because they would be read that way today. There's been a lot of cultural shift over the last 100 years where certain things that used to be considered very radical and genderqueer are now utterly normal (ie, women wearing pants) and other things that now read as queer would not have raised an eyebrow then (ie, the oft-quoted article from 1918 that posits that pink is a boys' color, or the entirety of the classic Wings).

In a way, this is freeing—watching vintage movies shows many different ways of framing gender and sexuality, and while some of it is the kind of dated binary we expect, some of it is like light pouring through a window. There are many different ways of framing a gender! The whole concept of gender is moveable and transient! Queerness is as much a part of human nature as love, and teeth, and bones, and touch! But because it was a different era, and because the secrecy prevalent at the time doesn't fully let us know who was or wasn't part of the community, we can't really say for sure (without a lot of extra research, and lots of very careful framing) who was doing things with gender we would today translate as trans, nonbinary, or queer.

Hope this makes sense!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Colin Wright

Published: May 3, 2023

The transgender movement has left many intelligent Americans confused about sex. Asked to define the word “woman” during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings last year, Ketanji Brown Jackson demurred, saying “I’m not a biologist.” I am a biologist, and I’m here to help.

Are sex categories in humans empirically real, immutable and binary, or are they mere “social constructs”? The question has public-policy implications related to sex-based legal protections and medicine, including whether males should be allowed in female sports, prisons and other spaces that have historically been segregated by sex for reasons of fairness and safety.

Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union frequently claims that the binary concept of sex is a recent invention “exclusively for the purposes of excluding trans people from legal protections.” Scottish politician Maggie Chapman asserted in December that her rejection of the “binary and immutable” nature of sex was her motivation for pursuing “comprehensive gender recognition for nonbinary people in Scotland.” (“Nonbinary” people are those who “identify” as neither male nor female.)

When biologists claim that sex is binary, we mean something straightforward: There are only two sexes. This is true throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. An organism’s sex is defined by the type of gamete (sperm or ova) it has the function of producing. Males have the function of producing sperm, or small gametes; females, ova, or large ones. Because there is no third gamete type, there are only two sexes. Sex is binary.

Intersex people, whose genitalia appear ambiguous or mixed, don’t undermine the sex binary. Many gender ideologues, however, falsely claim the existence of intersex conditions renders the categories “male” and “female” arbitrary and meaningless. In “Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex” (1998), the historian of science Alice Dreger writes: “Hermaphroditism causes a great deal of confusion, more than one might at first appreciate, because—as we will see again and again—the discovery of a ‘hermaphroditic’ body raises doubts not just about the particular body in question, but about all bodies. The questioned body forces us to ask what exactly it is—if anything—that makes the rest of us unquestionable.”

In reality, the existence of borderline cases no more raises questions about everyone else’s sex than the existence of dawn and dusk casts doubt on day and night. For the vast majority of people, their sex is obvious. And our society isn’t experiencing a sudden dramatic surge in people born with ambiguous genitalia. We are experiencing a surge in people who are unambiguously one sex claiming to “identify” as the opposite sex or as something other than male or female.

Gender ideology seeks to portray sex as so incomprehensibly complex and multivariable that our traditional practice of classifying people as simply either male or female is grossly outdated and should be abandoned for a revolutionary concept of “gender identity.” This entails that males wouldn’t be barred from female sports, women’s prisons or any other space previously segregated according to our supposedly antiquated notions of “biological sex,” so long as they “identify” as female.

But “intersex” and “transgender” mean entirely different things. Intersex people have rare developmental conditions that result in apparent sex ambiguity. Most transgender people aren’t sexually ambiguous at all but merely “identify” as something other than their biological sex.

Once you’re conscious of this distinction, you will begin to notice gender ideologues attempting to steer discussions away from whether men who identify as women should be allowed to compete in female sports toward prominent intersex athletes like South African runner Caster Semenya. Why? Because so long as they’ve got you on your heels making difficult judgment calls on a slew of complex intersex conditions, they’ve succeeded in drawing your attention away from easy calls on unquestionably male athletes like 2022 NCAA Division I women’s swimming and diving champion Lia Thomas. They shift the focus to intersex to distract from transgender.

Acknowledging the existence of rare difficult cases doesn’t weaken the position or arguments against allowing males in female sports, prisons, restrooms and other female-only spaces. In fact, it’s a much stronger approach because it makes a crucial distinction that the ideologues are at pains to obscure.

Crafting policy to exclude males who identify as women, or “trans women,” from female sports, prisons and other female-only spaces isn’t complicated. Trans women are unambiguously male, so the chances that a doctor incorrectly recorded their sex at birth is zero. Any “transgender policy” designed to protect female spaces need only specify that participants must have been recorded (or “assigned,” in the current jargon) female at birth.

Crafting effective intersex policies is more complicated, but the problem of intersex athletes in female sports is less pressing than that of males in female sports, and there seem to be no current concerns arising from intersex people using female spaces. It should be up to individual organizations to decide which criteria or cut-offs should be used to keep female spaces safe and, in the context of sports, safe and fair. It is imperative, however, that such policies be rooted in properties of bodies, not “identity.” Identity alone is irrelevant to issues of fairness and safety.

Ideologues are wrong to insist that the biology of sex is so complex as to defy all categorization. They’re also wrong to represent the sex binary in an overly simplistic way. The biology of sex isn’t quite as simple as common sense, but common sense will get you a long way in understanding it.

[justinssportscorner]

Alex Abad-Santos at Vox:

Despite being a time when people from all over the world come together in equality and peace, the Olympics are still uncertain territory for transgender athletes. There are no transgender athletes who are competing outside of the gender they were assigned at birth at this year’s Games. Transgender women who transitioned after puberty aren’t allowed to compete in major sports on a college level. Athletes Nikki Hiltz, a runner, and Hergie Bacyadan, a boxer, both identify as transgender (Hiltz also identifies as nonbinary), but both have always and continue to compete in the women’s division, which is the sex they were assigned at birth. Athletes who do not identify as trans, like Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, have also been scrutinized for their gender. Along with China’s Lin Yu-ting, Khelif is one of two women boxers who failed a “sex test” from the International Boxing Association last year. They have since been connected to discussions of sports and Differences of Sexual Development (DSD), a rare group of genetic and hormonal disorders allowed under International Olympic Committee guidelines. After Khelif’s Italian competitor Angela Carini conceded their match less than a minute into their bout, many have weighed in, including Elon Musk and J.K. Rowling.

Outside of the Games, trans people face so much backlash, often for simply existing. The conversation around sports is particularly fraught, from children’s athletics right up through the pros. Despite the International Olympic Committee vowing to be more inclusive, the future for trans athletes is unclear. It all raises the question: How did we get to this point, and did it always have to be this way? The answers found in historian and journalist Michael Waters’s The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports might be surprising. Waters’s book traces the emergence of Zdeněk Koubek, a track and field star representing the country formerly known as Czechoslovakia who, at 21, won two medals — a gold in the 800m and a bronze in the long jump — at the 1934 Women’s World Games. (The Women’s World Games was the precursor to women competing at the Olympics). In 1935, Koubek announced that he would be living life as a man and swiftly became an international celebrity.

Perhaps the most intriguing facet to Koubek’s story was in the public response. Koubek was more welcomed and celebrated than we might imagine. There was an open-mindedness and empathy to the reception of Koubek and his gender identity and expression in the 1930s. Waters also pinpoints where and when that changed, specifically at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. Armed with a propensity for eugenics, gender anxiety, and a startling lack of scientific evidence, a small set of Nazi officials influenced the International Olympic Committee into gender surveillance and trans panic — stuff that eerily mirrors the transphobic attacks that athletes, cis and trans alike, face today.

Anti-trans discrimination in the Olympics stretches as far back as the infamous 1936 games in Berlin.

[lesb0]

I'm always trying to stay on the cutting edge of every permutation of our constantly evolving visual culture but the elusiveness of every new form makes it difficult for me, even as one of the youngest possible millennials. in fashion, my freshman students are all wearing 2000s or "y2k" fashion: baggy grungy or baby phat hiphop, with an elevated touch of modesty, good color theory, and a stark awareness of bodily proportion. in memes, legendary 00s icon, lisa frank. its embarrassing to follow influencers with over 10 mil, now, as if it breaks the parasocial connection.

someone asked yesterday if tiktok is now the premier vehicle of visual culture. I open tiktok. on one side, a zoomed in interview with the mother of a shooting victim. but the other side is a compilation of slime videos, a woman cutting soap, life hacks, and chinese "smart" product placements. you can hear and see both. this bizarre genre, I can only recognize as content. on social media, content is technically anything you can doomscroll, the action of spending over 2 hours on a social media feed, a for you page, a timeline, a dashboard to tumblr addicts.

I'm watching cable TV with a girl I'm seeing. the ads are remarkably only geared towards boomers and older gen x. but, so is the 'content', bad action movies made for cable and reruns of 80s/90s TV shows, but the exact same show marathoned in hours long successions.

to be an effective art historian, I have to take things from this ever-shifting visual culture and translate it into the equally fickle and amorphous art world... so what does 'content' look like for museum shows? my first 100+ object loan show was in part by a colleague, a younger curator at BAMPFA. a massive exhibition of all female nonbinary artists, from the 60s PoMo feminists to the self obsessed identity displayers of today. I absolutely LOVED it. I had no problem enthusiastically flitting from object to object, frontwards and in reverse twice, to spend special time with all my favorites. a fave professor stopped me. I hadn't even recognized him in the excitement. he looked bewildered, but laughed about how giddy I was. he didn't write any criticism on the show. my boss at the time, our museum director, told me she thought it was "such a big mess". my favorite lesbian professor clutched onto her wife with an anxious look. my lesbian artist friend had panic attack and put his headphones on in a dark corner. on the other hand, the younger undergrad girls from berkeley looked elated and delighted, flitting around and oohing and aahing at my same pace. I learned one of them was an engineering student named erin who needed a feminist pickup from the disouragement in her male dominated field.

so how has the 'content' show, or the art world reception to them, changed in the past 4 years? well for one, it seems like major flagship institutions are dropping the mononym altogether. as the french impressionists take over the east coast, none of shows feature one painter as a sole focus, but curators use juxtapositions to keep people interested. in MoMAs, monoynym shows are reserved for major retrospectives or figuratively and literally, monolith artists like simone leigh. the older art historians are hesitant to adapt to these changes. one of my favorite shows this summer, over 300 very different collection pieces packed onto the floor and across the hall, wasn't enjoyed by any of the critics I know. My dates all hated it. except one, a hot ADHD butch who had a tiktok doomscrolling addiction.

what does this mean for the future of how shows are displayed.... how do museums let go of the traditional princely standard: 3.5 inch hangings with a 25 degree downwards tilt? is it better or worse to compromise museums into messy 17th century curiosity cabinets?

[rippleclan]

RippleClan: Moon 64

Scrubmask and Clammask’s litter all earn their names the night of the cleric’s meeting.

[Image ID: Honeybuzz, Splashtuft, Leathermask, and Drumtooth are all adults! Under Honeybuzz, it says LEVEL UP! HONEYPAW -> HONEYBUZZ, HAS LOTS OF IDEAS -> CONSTANTLY FIDDLING WITH TOOLS. Under Splashtuft, it says LEVEL UP! SPLASHPAW -> SPLASHTUFT, BOLD -> ADVENTUROUS, NEVER SITS STILL -> FAST RUNNER, LOVER OF ART -> STUDENT OF ART. Under Leathermask, it says LEVEL UP! LEATHERPAW -> LEATHERMASK, CONFIDENT -> NERVOUS, CONFIDENT WITH WORDS -> GREAT SPEAKER, AVID PLAY-FIGHTER -> GOOD FIGHTER. Under Drumtooth, it says LEVEL UP! DRUMPAW -> DRUMTOOTH, MOSS-BALL HUNTER -> GREAT HUNTER, + NEW SKILL: CLEVER.]

(Honeybuzz: 12, male, cleric, daring, constantly fiddling with tools)

(Splashtuft: 12, male, historian, adventurous, fast runner, student of art)

(Leathermask: 12, male, warrior, nervous, great speaker, good fighter)

(Drumtooth: 12, trans male, caretaker, loyal, great hunter, clever)

Oilstripe wakes up from the first peaceful night’s sleep she has had since Rustshade died. With Carnationspeckle and their two newborn kits at her side, she’s finally able to name them.

[Image ID: Oilstripe and Carnationspeckle watch over a light brown tom and a brown and white molly. Under Oilstripe, it says - CONDITION: NIGHTMARES, PREGNANT, + CONDITION: RECOVERING FROM BIRTH. Under the light brown tom, it says NEW PLAYER: TALLOWKIT, 0, MALE, SKITTISH. Under the brown and white molly, it says NEW PLAYER: SLUSHKIT, 0, FEMALE, POLITE.]

(Oilstripe: 68, female, historian, charismatic, ghost speaker)

(Carnationspeckle: 66, female, caretaker, compassionate, fish-like swimmer)

(Tallowkit: 0, male, kit, skittish)

(Slushkit: 0, female, kit, polite)

James’ grief and nightmares soften as he cares for Weedfoot.

[Image ID: James faces Weedfoot. Under James, it says - CONDITION: GRIEVING.]

---

“James, you’re an elder,” Weedfoot laughed as James carefully rubbed an ointment over her wounded leg. “Let Troutpool and Honeybuzz handle this!”

“What, your mate can’t care for you for a day?” James purred. The ointment stuck between his pads and made his fur stink. It took a lot of willpower to not sneer at the smell. At least he and Weedfoot had the elder’s den to themselves now that Parsley had passed on. Weedfoot was a good patient, sitting still while James followed Troutpool’s instructions on how to care for the deep wounds. 

“This is more work than you put in as a caretaker,” Weedfoot pointed out with a playful twitch of her whiskers. James had no witty retort for his love. Instead, he nuzzled Weedfoot with a soft purr.

“I hope you gave Autumnstar a good talking to,” he chuckled.

“That I did,” his love purred.

(Weedfoot: 113, female, deputy, charismatic, steady paws, formidable fighter)

(James: 140, male, elder, charismatic, den builder, formidable fighter)

Scaleripple refuses to cower at Tempestshade’s curse and goes to meet them on patrol. However, he finds them with their leg stuck in a silver jaw. Scaleripple frees them and hurries them to camp.

[Image ID: Scaleripple and Tempestshade walk away from a pixel bear trap. Under Tempestshade, it says + CONDITION: MANGLED LEG.]

(Scaleripple: 17, male, warrior, lonesome, formidable fighter)

(Tempestshade: 25, nonbinary (they/them), caretaker, childish, incredible cook)

Downstar caught Asterpaw in a lie.

[Image ID: Downstar says to Asterpaw, “Your kindness is admirable, but ask yourself, who suffers for your compassion?”]

---

“Downstar!” 

Downstar had been working with Carnationspeckle to prepare the shipwreck for the coming winter. While the broken wood had held up for many years, if Downstar wanted future generations to rest under the wreckage, caretakers and warriors would have to support the decaying planks and ancient ceiling. She and Carnationspeckle had a selection of planks freshly delivered from AshClan, ready to support the salt-crusted ship. However, just as they began discussing how to go about their repairs, Rattlepelt stormed out from her den of artisan supplies (formed through the whole Clan’s effort to roll away a rock and make more space), tail thrashing. Her fox pelt had been carefully cleaned of Weedfoot’s blood, but it made her look like a furious beast about to attack Downstar for just a moment. 

“Where is Asterpaw?” Rattlepelt snapped. “Where is that little thief?” Carnationspeckle jumped at the fire in her daughter’s voice.

“Rattlepelt!” Carnationspeckle cried. “Take a breath. That’s no way to talk about your Clanmate, you know that!” Rattlepelt hissed, flinching back with eyes shut tight.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Rattlepelt groaned, shaking her head so hard the head of her pelt slipped off. “I’m just mad.”

“What happened?” Downstar asked.

“Rabbitjoy and I were stitching together new wraps for Troutpool and Honeybuzz,” Rattlepelt explained, taking each word slowly as she fought back her frustration. “They were almost finished. I went to make the finishing touches, and it’s gone. Asterpaw is the only cat I know that would steal from me. You know what Gentlestar told us.”

“Yes, I do,” Downstar sighed. “Did you check with Rabbitjoy and the clerics? Maybe they took it and didn’t tell you.”

“They weren’t done,” Rattlepelt growled. “They would have recognized that. Where is Asterpaw?” Carnationspeckle pressed against Rattlepelt, easing her fury. Rattlepelt groaned and shook out her head like she had water in her ears. 

“I’ll speak to him,” Downstar promised. “Why don’t you help your mother for me? Make sure we have all the tools we need to support the shipwreck. Don’t worry about the wraps. If we can’t get them back, we’ll negotiate trade with SlugClan.” Rattlepelt nodded, taking a deep breath. Carnationspeckle nudged her toward the planks. The artisan calmed, Downstar trotted out of camp, the sun against the sea blinding her left eye.

Asterpaw had been tasked with his first solo hunt as a RippleClan apprentice. His many punishments in WheatClan had not delayed his path to graduation, and he had almost all of the confidence of a caretaker. There was no reason Downstar couldn’t let him hunt with the rising sun while she handled the shipwreck. While she had only known the apprentice for over a moon, Downstar had a good feeling as to where she would find him.

A sluggish monster trotted down the horsepath, doing little to torture its equestrian prisoner. The music of chickadees and kinglets danced from the burning trees that sprinkled the more open landscape of RippleClan’s southern domain. The smell of the leaves along the tan and green grass never failed to rejuvenate Downstar’s aging mind. If Downstar took to the hunt that day, the birds and mice would practically fall into her mouth.

Speaking of the hunt, Asterpaw stalked along a nearby hill, eyes locked on a junco shuffling through soft yellow conifer needles and huge, crunchy leaves. Asterpaw’s crouch was perfect, if not reminiscent of Rustshade in the early days of RippleClan; even Downstar still struggled not to disturb a single needle or leaf in her hunt, but when WheatClan so frequently hunted among the easily-disturbed human crops, where human hunters were the greatest danger of all, even the youngest apprentice knew not to disturb the land around them. Asterpaw was no exception. The junco stood unaware of its approaching demise.

Asterpaw’s pounce spelled instant death. He held the junco high, glancing toward the colorful sky, grateful for his catch. His yellow eyes spotted Downstar across the way. Downstar joined him at a casual trot, revealing nothing but curiosity in her gaze.

“How was my technique?” Asterpaw asked, setting the junco at his paws. “It took a while for any bird to land, but my fathers used to say juncos are some of the best tasting birds in the Clans. It’s worth the wait.”

“You’re an excellent hunter,” Downstar said. 

“I promise to catch something else before I go back to camp,” Asterpaw said, digging a small hole for his catch. “Did you need me for something?” 

“Yes, actually,” Downstar said in as easy-going a voice as she could manage. “Where are the wraps?” Asterpaw stopped digging.

“What was that?” Asterpaw asked. Downstar could see the lie by omission ripple down Asterpaw’s spine. She sighed and dropped her facade.

“The bandages Rabbitjoy and Rattlepelt were making,” she explained. “Who did you give them to?” Asterpaw turned his head away. His tail twitched, giving away his heart. “Asterpaw.”

“One of the humans took a thunder-stick to a farm cat,” Asterpaw snapped, head snapping back with enough force to make Downstar’s neck ache in sympathy. “It shot a pellet straight through her leg. I couldn’t let her try to recover with just cobwebs to stop the bleeding! RippleClan has so many wraps, why do you have to get upset at missing one? I figured you would assume Troutpool used another for Tempestshade’s leg! I’ll bring it back when my friend recovers.” Downstar sighed again. Asterpaw’s eyes did not match his frustrated tone. They were more akin to a much younger tortoiseshell molly, begging her Clanmates to understand why she and her friends pushed for such change.

“Your kindness is admirable,” Downstar said, “but ask yourself, who suffers for your compassion?”

“No one!” Asterpaw groaned. “That’s what I tried to explain to everyone in WheatClan! I don’t just steal prey someone else has caught, or dump out herbs to steal a pot. I make what I can and borrow what I can’t!” His short fur spiked up as he yowled, not looking at Downstar.

“But what if someone else got hurt in the coming days?” Downstar asked, sitting. “We don’t waste resources, either. We make enough to fill our needs. Rattlepelt wanted to weave new wraps because we’ve used a few so much, they’ve become unsafe to continue using. Who would be to blame if Troutpool needed to bandage a wound, and we had no more wraps to spare?” Asterpaw squirmed under Downstar’s gentle logic.

“The farm cats struggle to make weaves like we can,” Asterpaw muttered, too big for his pelt. “They need them too.”

“If they want to learn, they can visit us,” Downstar suggested. “Rabbitjoy is an excellent weaver. She would be willing to teach them. That’s part of why Gentlestar thought you a better fit in RippleClan. You’re allowed to care for outsiders to such an extent. But we still have a responsibility to one another that comes before the farm cats. Taking our wraps hurts us. There are ways to help others without hurting your Clanmates.”

“What if you said no?” Asterpaw gulped. “Without the wraps…”

“If you had explained yourself, I would have helped,” Downstar sighed. She set her chin on Asterpaw’s head. “I do think you’ll be a good caretaker, Asterpaw, but trust that your Clanmates will want to help you. Don’t sneak around our backs.”

“You promise to help them?” Asterpaw asked, voice a bit muffled as he leaned into Downstar’s chest.

“If they want our help,” Downstar promised, licking her apprentice’s ear, “we don’t turn them away.”

(Downstar: 123, female, leader, wise, trusted advisor, very clever)

(Carnationspeckle: 66, female, caretaker, compassionate, fish-like swimmer)

(Rattlepelt: 47, female, artisan, bloodthirsty, leather artist)

(Asterpaw: 11, male, caretaker apprentice, thoughtful, has lots of ideas)

[enbycrip]

It’s like “gender” is *actually* a social construct or some shit.

And not only is what any gender means very specific to a specific culture, regardless of the phenotype current people link it to, but even then not everyone in that given culture expresses it the same way, and some people *always* push what that gender and gender expression means.

Because “gender” is not only a social construct; it is a *continuously evolving* social construct.

Queer historians are good at noting that “although we might call x a trans man/a gay man/a nonbinary person etc etc if they lived today, these ideas did not make sense in the social context they lived in”. Historians in general need to get better at realising and elucidating that our modern Western concepts of “man” and “woman” are very different from, and in many ways may not even be recognisable, in, say, medieval Europe, Ancient Rome, medieval/early modern Incan societies, early modern Madagascar, prehistoric Pacific Islander societies, Heian period Japan etc etc, just because we are broadly applying them to many people with similar biological phenotypes.

[velvetvexations]

Over on bluesky there's a circle of trans femmes who like, abjectly refuse to accept material reality.

The most recent example was the "cissexual" incident. A girl says that we need to start differentiating between trans people who medically transition and those who don't, and that those who don't are "cissexual transgenders"

While I personally believe the girl that started all this was acting in good faith initially, but she likewise refused to accept the words of a literal historian telling her why we left those terms in the past where they belong and the harm they brought (because it creates a hierarchy of trans people) and start blocking people whenever the lightest pushback hit.

So of course this turned into every uninvolved trans femme going "Stop making up a tranny to be mad at when we're trying to describe our material reality and listen to what we say" and "Its transmisognynistic to block trans women" when everyone decides to just start blocking problem starters because nonbinary people apparently aren't allowed to be upset at the use of "cissexual" and intersex people aren't allowed to be upset about it, and anyone who complains is just a dirty theyfab who is the reason why transphobes are taking away HRT.

When like.... the same women who are saying this shit are constantly firing off with some manner of dumb ass take that they shot off because they're shut-ins who only engage with political theory they learned off sixth hand from another woman who probably didn't even read the books they're talking about in the first place.

I'm not going to pretend that a lot of trans women/femmes getting blocked by non-trans women/femmes somehow has nothing to do with transmisognyny but, when every other week a girl fires off with some shit like

"Aces don't experience oppression and if you said that you got raped for it you're lying for attention"

or

"Writing bisexual characters in a het romance is conversion therapy and is not in any way considered queer art, especially if they don't fuck on-screen."

Then you're going to find yourself blocked by a lot of people for your dogshit takes! It has nothing to do with being a "mean tranny"!

I didn't think it was humanly possible for me to hate transradfems more and now I know "cissexual" is a thing and I just. I just hate them all so much. I hate them. God how I hate them with my whole entire heart.

[littlestpersimmon]

Zimadar (they/them)

one popular occupation among the royal families of Janalila (and the rest of the Hidlawonen (the name of the world in my wip) is by being a "kalimbahin", aka a "prized princess"- Kalimbahin are taught from childhood to be expert historians and songstresses- They are inspired from the "Binukot" ("hidden women") of the southern / central philippines-

The scribes are scholarly, but the kalimbahin are courtly historians, often recounting history and religion by chanting and singing.. Many kalimbahin are said to be the most beautiful women (though many are also nonbinary) in the remaining world. No one is allowed to see them, they often hide behind fabulous, curtained palanquins, and when they perform at court, only the delightful silhouettes of their bodies are shown off via a fire lit behind them (like how shadowplays are done) The kalimbahin's auspiciousness becomes lesser when she begins her period, and she retires with honor from being a kalimbahin once she marries- which is why many royal families of Janalila beg the gods for a trans daughter so she may be an auspicious kalimbahin FOREVER.

This Kalimbahin's name is Zimadar, and they are the twin "brother" of another Kalimbahin named Maputli- However, Maputli was retired from princesshood in a very disgraceful manner, and Zimadar, who is a prince, secretly took her place to spare her and their family shame

[archangeldyke-all]

Hi, first time ever sending an ask like this but I needed to tell you how much I love what you write and that I am absolutely grateful you also write for amab sevika 🥺🙏❤️ I was wondering if you maybe would write amab sevika having sex with an insecure afab nonbinary reader and Sev kissing their top surgery scars and doing a bit of body worship? 🥺 Thank you 😭🙏❤️

of course!! this is gonna be a little less smutty because i just wrote a big ol' smut piece last night so i'm all smutted out rn, so i hope that's okay!

disclaimer! i'm cis, so i'm unfamiliar with the specifics of top surgery. if i got anything wrong, please lmk and i'll fix it right away! :)

men and minors dni

first of all, if you guys are together when you get top surgery, sevika would almost be more excited than you.

it's not that she doesn't love your tits. (she does.)

but she loves you so much more, and she knows top surgery is going to make you so happy, and she's so excited for you.

your recovery is uncomfortable and painful as it always is, but it's a little more bearable when sevika's waiting on you hand and foot, grinning each time she changes your bandages and sees your still-swollen but now flat chest.

each night, she'd insist she be the one to rub your scar-fading cream over the scars on your chest.

and each time, she'd press a kiss right over your heart as she rubs it in.

when you're fully healed, sevika wouldn't be able to keep her hands to herself.

not really in a sexual context (we'll get to that in a second) but just because she wants to reassure you and touch you and soothe the scars on your chest.

she's always tracing over the scars, slipping her hand up your shirt to gently rub her thumb back and forth over them.

if you're ever feeling insecure (maybe the scars are lopsided or really obvious, maybe your nipples look a little different now, or you don't have any at all, maybe you're just feeling blah about your body) sevika's the first person to notice something's off-- sometimes even before you do.

"what's wrong?" sevika asks when she wanders into the bathroom and finds you tracing your top surgery scars. you huff.

"nothin'." you say. she shoots you a skeptical look as she approaches you, both hands on your hips and her chin hooking over your shoulder to lock eyes with you in the mirror.

slowly, her hands creep up your side until she's holding your chest, gently tracing over the scars as she presses kisses to your neck and cheek.

"i love you." she whispers. "you're perfect, y'know." she says.

(it's always easy to believe her, especially when you can feel her dick growing hard against your ass.)

in the bedroom, sevika'd always have her mouth on your scars. tracing them with her tongue, pressing kisses to the center of your chest or your nipples, sucking hickeys underneath the scars to decorate them.

she still sleeps on your chest-- slightly less comfortable now without the fat of your breasts to cushion her-- but she doesn't care.

sometimes, you wake up to her whispering secrets to the scars.

"so pretty. so perfect."

"fuckin' sexy ass body."

and your favorite so far, "you made 'em so happy. never saw 'em smile as big as they did when they first saw their new chest. thank you." whispered reverently against the scar tissue on your skin.

you had to snap your eyes shut to pretend to be sleeping when she pulled back away, not wanting her to know you caught her.

she knows, though. she can hear your rapid heart beat beneath her ear as she settles back down. she doesn't say anything, just presses a kiss to your skin, a smile on her lips.

taglist!

@lesbeaniegreenie @fyeahnix @sapphicsgirl @half-of-a-gay @ellabslut @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner @shimtarofstupidity @love-sugarr @chuucanchuucan @222danielaa @badbye666 @femme-historian @lia-winther @gr0ssz0mbi3 @ellsss @sevikaspillowprincess

[redgoldsparks]

April Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo, read by Cindy Kay

Cleric Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey after years of wandering and collecting stories. They are shocked to see two war mammoths and a squad of soldiers at the gates, camped out and demanding something. But the Abbey is nearly empty- almost all clerics left on a mission to preserve the history of a nearby destroyed town. And the title of Acting Divine has fallen on unlikely shoulders- one of Chih's childhood friends. Now a difficult decision will be left in under-prepared hands. This might be my favorite installment of the series yet!

Bad Dream by Nicole Maines and Rye Hickman

Nia is a trans teen living on earth, but her mother is from another world. Nia may or may not be able to tell the future, a power her sister desperately craves. But the real magic she finds in this story is trans community and friendship! The dream sequences and the queer ballroom scene in this book particularly shine; the story would probably have hit me harder if I'd seen the TV show Nia debuted in, but I haven't. Do check this out if you are familiar with Dreamer on the Supergirl TV show.

Spear by and read by Nicola Griffith (re-listen)

I loved Nicola Griffith Hild, and was highly anticipating this one; it did not disappoint! I listened to the audiobook was completely drawn into the lyrical language and the magic of this Arthurian legend retelling. The story opens with a girl born and raised in a wild valley by a mother who is sometimes loving, wise, and overflowing with stories and other times depressed, fearful, and vacant. The girl knows that something terrible happened to her mother in the past; it has something to do with her birth and the beautiful enamel bowl that sits over the fire in the cave they shelter in. But the girl is too delighted by the world, and too curious about the plants, animals, and humans who live in the valley to dwell on it. She grows in strength and skill; visions and gut feelings draw her to collect armor and repair weapons, and eventually set out south towards King Arthur's court. There she stumbles into a story that was started long before she was born, but in which she will play a vital part. I absolutely loved this, it's deeply queer, and I highly recommend it! Re-listened in 2024 and enjoyed it all over again.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo, read by Cindy Kay (re-listen)

Beautiful, mysterious, queer, and surprisingly moving for such a short story. I listened to the audiobook (which is only 2.5 hours) and I was riveted the whole time. Chih, a nonbinary traveling cleric-historian, is on the way to the capital city to record the beginning of the new Empress's reign. But with the coming of the new ruler, many historical sites which had previously been sealed are now re-opened. Chih can't resist a stop at Lake Scarlet, where the previous Empress lived for a brief time in exile. Chih finds one last living servant of the previous Empress still tending the house, and they begin learning more and more stories and secrets about the exile. I highly recommend this story, and the audiobook in particular. Re-listened in 2024, and this time was able to even more full appreciate the twists and turns of this story. It's quite subtle and rewards a second listen.

Homebody by Theo Parish

The warm, affirming, gentle, honest story of a nonbinary gender journey. Easy to read, beautifully illustrated, very accessible, this is truly a book for everyone. By the end of the story, Theo felt like a friend. From now on, whenever anyone asks me for an "all ages version of Gender Queer" I'll just be handing them this book instead. I got to read and blurb an advance copy of this; very excited for it to hit shelves on April 25 2024!

Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb

I got through this book fairly quickly, even though it's about the same quality level as the previous book in the series. It has a fair amount of action and payoffs. I liked learning more of the secrets and history of Kelsingra, and I'm curious about the future of the new Elderling and dragon settlement. But I don't understand why this series has 4 books instead of the usual 3; there just isn't enough plot to sustain four books. I wish books 1 and 2 had been condensed into one and much of the angsty teen drama cut out. I just don't enjoy when Hobb writes from multiple POVs the same way I enjoy her single POV books; I don't love any of these characters the way I love Fitz and the people in his life.

Yotsuba vol 9 by Kiyohiko Azuma

Just as silly and charming as ever. The big adventure in this volume is a day watching hot air balloons.

Blue Flag vol 1 by Kaito 

The set up for this story is very standard: teens in high school dealing with crushes, friendship, and figuring out their sexuality. But the execution is so skillful that it elevates what could be a really generic or heavy handed tale into something that felts very deft and true. I'm not usually one to pick up a love triangle/quadrangle but I had a great time with this one and will likely read more. I just hope the closeted queer characters don't end up with tragic rejections!

Witch Hat Atelier vol 11 by Kamome Shirahama

I liked that this volume focused more closely on Coco and Agott's friendship and creative practice! I like when this story is about the witch students! I don't love that it continues introducing 3-6 new characters in every volume. Also, this one felt like it was 1 chapter shorter than the normal size for this series.

I Heard Her Call My Name written and read by Lucy Sante 

I picked this autobiography up after hearing Lucy Sante's interview on the podcast Gender Reveal and really enjoyed it. Sante came out as trans at age 67 after a lifetime of repressing her gender feelings and knowledge of carrying a weighty secret. Sante came to New York City as an immigrant from Belgium as a young child, and grew up bilingual, bicultural, and poetically inclined. This book weaves together near daily updates of the year her egg cracked and her early transition with memories of her childhood, teen years, and young adulthood in a cheap, dirty, punk, bohemian NYC which no longer exists. This window into the past is gorgeously narrated but might read mildly infuriating, depending on how much rent you are currently paying or how much you've struggled to break into the publishing industry. I devoured the audiobook in nearly one sitting.

The Yakuza’s Bias vol 1 by Teki Yatsuda (re-read)

Yakuza member Ken Kanashiro's life is changed when the daughter of the clan leader he works for takes him along to a kpop concert. Ken is moved by the kpop idol group's commitment, hard work, passion, and loyalty to each other and their fans. His introduction to fandom, and new social media friends, bring a breath of fresh air into his violent and dangerous life... and like most fervent fans, he starts trying to convince the people around him to stan the group to greater or lesser success. This manga series is very much in the same tone as Way of the House Husband but I appreciated the slightly longer chapters and the growing ensemble cast. It's a silly concept but with moments of genuine feeling as it shows how loving something can connect you to a whole new community. Edit on a second read: I got more out of the jokes on a second pass!

The Yakuza’s Bias vol 2 by Teki Yatsuda 

The main joke of this series is the contrast between super-serious yakuza Ken Kanashiro's usual poker face and the way he passionately emotes when either watching or talking about his kpop idol bias. This is a fun series, full of in-jokes and a developing cast of quirky side characters. One of my favorites is Megumi, the mafia boss's daughter who initially introduced Ken to kpop and laments not being able to understand her favs, but claims she is "too busy stanning to study Korean."