#nonbinary woman moment i guess

[therehavebeenstranger]

i like having a big girl job. i can save up for a nice handbag like a grownup

[diluc33rpm]

1/2 Do you think you really understand your gender and sexuality?

yeah this is a rough approximation of what it looks like

[sparklemaia]

Heyyy!!

So I've recently read a lot of your comics about top surgery, and I really resonate with your experience (I haven't had it myself but I'd like to). I've recently been exploring my own gender and realising I might be non binary, but I guess I feel sort of an imposter in that I want to keep my name and pronouns (afab), despite feeling like I never got the memo about what a "woman" is, which I know is fine, but I guess I was wondering how the shift from your agab into realising you were nb felt?

Like, you seem to describe your gender as sort of unknowable and indefinable, and I guess that's sort of how I feel? I just want to be... More me. I guess what I'm really asking is, how would you define/feel about that shift into realising you were nonbinary, do you still feel connected to your agab, how do you reconcile the two?

Sorry for the long ask!

Hi, this is such a good question! I actually DO still feel pretty connected to my agab. I feel like I am a girl but also more than a girl but also not enough of a girl, simultaneously. (Weirdly, I never ever feel like a woman, and definitely not a man, but I do feel like an adult at least some of the time.) Top surgery was 100% the right decision for me; my body feels so much more correct and I am grateful every single day this procedure was accessible to me. (I was on a low dose of T for a year and a half too, and I basically just got biceps and a sliiiightly lower voice out of it. We stan.) I simply don't have strong feelings about how these things do or do not map onto gender identity or other people's perceptions of my gender. I am generally perceived as female, and that's fine! Like, close enough! I often feel somewhere BETWEEN cis and trans, or even between cis and nonbinary, and sometimes I joke that I'm just "nonbinary for insurance purposes." I mostly use she/her pronouns, although won't object to they/them. I like my "feminine" name -- I chose it myself years ago for reasons unrelated to gender and I have no plans to change it again. In terms of gender presentation I'm usually somewhere in the "tomboy femme" zone. Basically, I've been through a medical transition but not a social transition. Which is not very common, or at least I haven't seen much representation of it! (Be the bad trans representation you want to see in the world, i guess??)

Even though the words are often used interchangeably, I feel more alliance to genderqueer as a label than nonbinary, because nonbinary feels too clinical and "third checkbox"y to me, whereas genderqueer feels more expansive and undefinable and dynamic, with space for the ways in which I both am and am not performing girlhood correctly. When pressed to pick a gender word for myself, that one feels the closest. But if I'm filling out a government form or whatever? Yeah sure F is fine.

A lot of where I land with this stuff, though, is just kind of relaxing my grip on language. Top surgery was a relief, it helped me feel present in and connected to my body. Ultimately it doesn't matter much to me how much of that was *gender* dysphoria and how much of it was just... something I wanted, a way to make my body feel more like mine, to align my mental image of myself with the thing I had to stuff into clothes and walk around the city every day. I believe very strongly in bodily autonomy, and in making our lives as easy and comfortable and joyful as we can for ourselves, without needing to have a clean and tidy explanation for our choices. It is very possible to know with reasonable certainty that you want something, that it will be a net positive for your life, without being able to articulate, even to yourself, WHY you want it. It doesn't need to have a bigger meaning than ahh yes, this feels right. At this point in my life, I'm more invested in marveling at the sheer improbability of my own existence than in wedging myself into the taxonomy of known and acceptable gender narratives. I'm just a person, here for the merest twinkle of a moment in cosmic history, making soup and knitting baby hats and admiring bugs and singing off-key and cutting my own hair and doing my gosh darn best to light my tiny patch of night sky with stories so that you (and you, and you) feel less alone on your own journey through the unfurling dark. Gender is just such an inconsequential detail in the narrative of my life, and pretty open to reader interpretation anyway.

Not having to wear bras is pretty great though ngl

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

WRITER SARA HESS TALKING ABOUT RHAENYRA AND ALICENT'S RELATIONSHIP IN SEASON 1 AND THEIR MOTHERHOOD FOR VARIETY MAGAZINE.

“I can definitely understand that it’s hot watching complex female characters who have agency and who are trying to navigate the world and understand themselves. Like, that is hot,” nonbinary actor D’Arcy says.

“And is very different from, I suppose, more two-dimensional portrayals of female sexuality.” 

Cooke adds: “I guess what’s alluring, and quite scintillating, is that they all live in quite close proximity to each other,” noting “House of the Dragon” Season 1’s focus on keeping its characters near the Iron Throne in King’s Landing.

“Stealing these loaded looks with someone that you fancy and that’s forbidden, that’s hot. It’s all hot.”

“We had a lot of conversation at the beginning about, is this a feature or a flaw?” Hess says.

“There’s a lot of births, do we want to see a lot of births? My thinking was, every single childbirth I’ve ever seen on television, in any show, in any genre at any time, has always looked exactly the same: the woman lying on her back with her feet in the stirrups and doing the pushing and the baby comes out.”

“In my experience, women give birth in vastly different ways.”

“I thought we should show them all and they be really, really different, separate experiences and not just, now there’s that birth scene and we all know exactly what it looks like.”

FOLLOWING THE BIRTH SCENE IN EPISODE 6, D'ARCY RECALLS SHOOTING A PARTICULARLY REALISTIC MOMENT OF MOTHERHOOD WHEN RHAENYRA FINALLY GETS TO REST AFTER GIVING BIRTH AND IMMEDIATELY GOING OFF TO SHOW THE BABY TO ALICENT:

“She gets in and [her sons] Jace and Luke have gone and got a dragon’s egg and want her to look at it.”

“And I just remember responding, ‘Wow, that looks perfect,’ but not looking at them at all, I was looking in the other direction.

“And that felt like what a lot of parenting is probably like.”

FOR COOKE, THE MOTHERHOOD MENTALITY HIT IN EPISODE 9, WRITTEN BY HESS AND DIRECTED BY CLARE KILNER:

“That moment in the carriage where Alicent’s hungover son asks her if she loves him, and she says it by smiling and saying, ‘You imbecile.’

“Like, it’s so obvious, this is all for you.”

“Everything that I’ve done.”

“Everything that I’ve sacrificed.”

“All the awful things I’ve done in order to facilitate your ascension is because I love the bones of you.”

BUT MOTHERHOOD IS FAR FROM THE ONLY ASPECT OF A WOMAN'S LIFE THAT FEMALE WRITERS LIKE HESS AND WOMEN DIRECTORS INCLUDING KILNER AND PATEL INFUSED INTO THE STORY, WITH MUCH OF THE SEASON FOCUSING ON YOUNG ALICENT (EMILY CAREY) AND RHAENYRA (MILLY ALCOCK) AND THEIR DEEP BOND AND INTENSE FALLING OUT.

“There’s an element of queerness to it,” Hess says.

“Whether you see it that way or as just the unbelievably passionate friendships that women have with each other at that age.”

“I think understanding that element of it sort of informs the entire rest of their relationship… Even though they’re driven apart by all these societal, systemic elements and pressures and happenings, at the core of it, they knew each other as children, and they loved each other and that doesn’t go away.”

Hess continued: “Olivia has told me she believes — and this is her headcanon — that they at some point kissed or made out or had some kind of physical interaction that Alicent’s mother found out about and forbade.”

“And that was Olivia’s head story, ‘Oh, I can’t do that. That’s not right.’ And that’s the background for her in their relationship going forward. I would be 100% down with that.”

COOKE SAYS SHE AND D'ARCY HAVE “DEFINITELY” TALKED ABOUT ALICENT AND RHAENYRA BEING “EACH OTHER'S FIRST LOVE”:

“But when it comes to our iterations of the characters, too much has happened and too much time has passed to probably even recognize those fledgling feelings.”

“But Condal and Hess weren’t “necessarily interested in ever defining” what that love meant in terms of the women’s sexuality.”

“I happen to be a queer woman, but I know straight women who had ‘Heavenly Creatures’ -esque, romantic friendship with their best friend at that age,” Hess said.

“That’s something that I think, probably — I don’t want to stereotype anybody – but it seems to be more a phenomenon with young women than it is with men, probably because whether you’re queer or not, society cares less if you’re physically intimate with each other or hugging or touching each other.”

“You can have sleepovers and sleep in the same bed and nobody cares.”

[a-bit-of-a-queer-one]

I loved Wild Blue Yonder, I thought it was a great episode. But if I see one more person proclaiming that the Doctor saying Isaac Newton was "hot" made the character "finally queer", I'm gonna set fire to sth.

For one thing, since they changed into a woman, the Doctor has, depending on one's definition, been canonically genderfluid/trans/nonbinary/genderqueer. That was made even more explicit last week in Star Beast. So saying that the Doctor as played by a man and using he/him pronouns calling a man "hot" somehow made the character queer is stupid in and of itself.

And secondly, the Doctor has long been regarded as aro and ace-coded by people of those communities and guess what? Aro and ace people really do exist and we are queer. And it would be lovely if other queer people could stop excluding us by saying that characters who provide what little, mostly accidental and incidental representation we get "become queer" by expressing same-sex attraction. It happened with Good Omens and it seems to be happening again with Doctor Who and I am so fucking tired of it

Edit (6th Dec 2023): Several people have pointed out in the notes that there have been quite a few instances of the Doctor ambiguously or indeed unambiguously expressing 'same-sex' attraction and exploring their gender identity/identities in the past, both in the show and in extended media. I just wanted to be absolutely clear on the fact that I was in way trying to diminish the importance of those moments by emphasing the aspect of asexuality and aromanticism in my post. That is not to say that I think anyone was implying that I was doing that, in fact everyone's been lovely (which is why I also wanted to thank everyone for their input, I learnt a lot, especially about the novels!!)

Of course, as an asexual, aromantic and agender/nonbinary person, that is the lens through which I watch the show and relate to the character of the Doctor. This does not make my reading of them any more or less valid than anyone else's. In fact, I absolutely love the fact that the Doctor is a character who speaks to people of so many different queer identities and I am so happy that RTD is exploring their queerness more explicitly, building on what he and so many other writers and also the actors have already established. I just hope that the fandom will respect the aro and ace aspects of the Doctor's queerness the same way they do their gender identities and other sexual and romantic orientations. Part of the reason I was initially quite worried about this was because of my experiences in the Good Omens fandom, particularly post series 2, as indicated in my original post. The other is that I doubt the show will explore the aro and ace aspects of the character as much as they may other queer identities - unfortunately aspecs have a history of being left behind in this regard...

But we will see, maybe I'll be proved wrong! For the time being, I just hope the queer community can celebrate all the different facets of the Doctor's undeniable queerness, including the aspec ones. And as the reactions to this post have been overwhelmingly supportive (I don't think I've seen a single outright negative response), I think this hope is far from unfounded.

(Sorry, this edit turned out to be longer than the original post...)

[chadchadsonthesnail]

Hey! If you are queer and you don't think bi people, pan people, asexual people, or aromantic people are valid? Go fuck yourself! If you don't think Heterosexual Aromantic people and Heteroromantic Asexual people are members of the LGBTQIA+ community? Go fuck yourself! If you say "I wouldn't date a bisexual/biromantic person because they are attracted to/have dated [the opposite gender]."? Go fuck yourself! If I see any lesbian say that shit, I block them! Because guess what? There are also lesbians who have dated guys! I'm one of them! I did that before I realized I wasn't attracted to them! So go fuck yourself! If you say that trans people/people under the trans umbrella aren't valid? Go fuck yourself! If you think that alloromantic asexuals are not valid? Go fuck yourself! If you think that allosexual aromantic people aren't valid? Go fuck yourself! If you think someone isn't a valid lesbian because they think some men look pretty/are aesthetically attractive? Go fuck yourself! Same for the other way around with gay men finding a women pretty/aesthetically attractive! And anyone who says "oh you aren't bi/pan because you are in a relationship with a man/women, or because when asked you listed more men/women that you were attracted to than the other gender, so you are just gay/straight!" No! Go fuck yourself! If you say that being nonbinary, or having any gender identity other than trans man or trans woman doesn't make you a part of the community, and that the only valid gender identities outside of cis woman and cis man are trans woman or trans man? Go fuck yourself!

We are ALL facing hate, and we do not deserve to get hate from within! Because we are all valid!

If you hate on people like this, you are just as bad as homophobes and transphobes, because JUST LIKE THEM, you are hating on someone for their attraction, or for their gender identity!

It's fine if your attraction is mainly towards cisgender women or men because both the gender identity AND the physical body parts are part of your attraction. You didn't make that choice, you aren't excluding them out of hate. But if it's towards cisgender people solely to exclude trans people? Yeah, go fuck yourself. Because you don't control what factors into your attraction, so having something like that be part of your attraction is fine. If your attraction is towards both people who identify as female AND people who have a vulva, or vice versa, yeah, you do you, you didn't choose for the presence or lack of a primary or secondary sex characteristic, that's just a part of your attraction. But the MOMENT the intent is to exclude trans people, you are just being an asshole.

So yeah, if you think that any of the identities I mentioned aren't valid? Let me know so I can block you!

Everyone else, if you are part of any of these identities, as someone who falls under a few of these categories, (Asexual, Asexual Alloromantic, Falling under the nonbinary umbrella) I will always accept you. As long as you yourself are not being exclusionary. You are JUST as valid as anyone else!

Signed, an Asexual Lesbian Demigirl

[saintjosie]

As a performer, and someone who regularly has good things to say, how have you dealt with your singing voice? I'm nonbinary, and sometimes hate how deep my voice is because it's one of the predominant reasons people misgender me. It keeps me from singing sometimes as well, even privately to songs I've loved forever (I did perform "Under the Bridge" by RHCP at a public karaoke event last year, but I can't bring myself to watch the recording of it even though everyone applauded) I guess it's a specific kind of dysphoria?

I know when it comes to voice training you've been very vocal (pun intended) about it being a choice. And I've had some voice training but as an enby I prefer my speaking voice to be either neutral or natural. But talking and singing are kinda different, so I'm just curious to get your take on feeling more confident and less bothered singing as a trans person?

when i was a kid my dad told me i sucked at singing. he was a singer and a guitar player and i looked up to him so i internalized that deeply. but i didn’t stop singing because i just loved it. it felt good to sing. i would sing along to all the disney movies. i would sing songs at church. i was that little kid who was always humming something everywhere i went because i loved music and i loved making music. i didn’t think anyone would care to hear me sing because i had been told that my singing didn’t sound good but nothing in the world was gonna stop me from enjoying it for myself.

eventually as i got older people started telling me that i actually was pretty good at it. i didn’t necessarily believe them but i at least heard it from someone else. and then i tried recording myself singing into the shitty microphone that laptops had back in 2007. and wow, it sucked. like it reaaaaally sucked. it sucked to hear myself cause i had never heard myself recorded before. it sucked to hate what i hear and feel like maybe my dad was right the whole time. and i closed the laptop and cried and went to bed.

but then the next time i opened my laptop, the recording was still there. and i realized that i had listened through about 1/4th of it before i had lost hope and on a whim, i decided to grit my teeth and listen through the whole thing. and almost all of it still sucked. BUT. for one brief moment, for only a line or two, i heard what i wanted to hear: a voice that sounded good to my ears, recorded through the shitty microphone, played through the shitty speakers.

and from that moment on, i knew that i was going to learn to sing because nothing in my life so far had compared to how i felt hearing myself for the first time sing in the way that i wanted to.

it’s been 17 years since that happened and i haven’t stopped singing because i just fuckin love it. there’s music in my soul and it’s gonna come out whether or not i want it to and whether or not it sounds good.

“but josie, this is about your love for music not about gender” no it’s about both.

when you realized that you could express your gender in the way that you already knew you felt inside, you knew it was right and you decided you were gonna fucking do it, damn whatever people say.

and that’s the thing about dysphoria and why people have such a hard time describing it to each other. dysphoria comes from when you feel like the way your gender is perceived doesn’t line up with how you want to be perceived. when i have dysphoria, it’s not because i don’t look like a woman to the people who look at me, it’s because of how i see myself.

present your gender however you want and do it for yourself. and sing your goddamn heart out because you want to. damn whatever people say.

[ms--lobotomy]

Let my gay (technically pan) little ass write my first f/f fic. Please. I want to kiss another woman (Edit: it ended up being gn/f so good news men/nonbinary people!)

Summary: You and Kesh spend a moment together before the next Blood Game.

Content Warnings: Putting a few headcanons on her because she was JUST introduced, also a bit short (I'm probably the only one bothered by this tbh)

Image Credit: @squishyowl

You always knew when she was going to attempt another Blood Game. You'd never tell a soul. It wasn't exactly like you could, having been evacuated to the lowest reaches of the planet. It was dimly lit; not much power was diverted to the room. It wasn't a cage, per se, but it was stifling enough that it may as well have been.

Her helmet was off, her war-torn, scarred face uncharacteristically soft when she looked at you. The light hit her, illuminating her face and her armor. Some scars cut deep enough for slight shadows to occur, and her long hair was tied back in a simple ponytail. After a moment of silence, she knelt before you, still the taller one.

She took your chin in her hand and leaned down, putting her lips on yours. Your face went warm before you melted into the kiss, your hands trailing over the ridges on her armor. You stayed like that for a few moments, taking each other in. She was the first to pull back, her hand trailing down to your waist.

"How long are you going to be gone, Cal?" you asked, grasping for her other hand.

She squeezed your hand at the mention of her name. You felt the armor dig into your much more malleable skin. Normally it was a slight irritant, but you knew that you were going to miss this feeling soon enough.

"Who knows?" she asked. "These things get longer every time, I swear. It's like they know I'm up to something every time I go down here." She ran her thumb up and down the little part of your hand that it could reach, and you gave her hand a little squeeze back.

You sighed. "Yeah..." you trailed off. You desperately wanted to say more, but you felt a lump growing in your throat. "I just... I guess I just wanted to say that I'm going to miss you. A lot."

You felt your face grow warm again as Calladayce let out a little laugh. "Don't worry. I'll be back before you know it." She took your hand and pressed it to her lips.

"But it was so long last time," you said, looking down and away from her.

You felt her hand trail off of your waist and turn your head back towards her. The gold-coated armor was warm against your cheek, softly pressing into you. You felt your heart flutter in your chest. You knew you weren't going to be alone in the bunker; there was a myriad of other people in there, mainly others on the planet close to Calladayce. But damn, you were going to miss her.

"Before you know it," she repeated. You melted into her hand, closing your eyes.

"And if you don't make it...?"

She laughed again. "I'll get Him this time, for sure."

She got up, towering above you. She ruffled your hair a little bit, running her hands through it before leaving it messier than she found it. She grabbed for her weapon by the door, a halberd-like polearm. You couldn't begin to understand how she could use it against a long-range weapon, but she was the superhuman and you weren't. She grabbed her helmet and put it on. Sometimes, you said it looked like a banana. You couldn't bring yourself to say so now.

You felt tears welling up in your eyes, despite everything. Right before she exited the door, you felt yourself opening your mouth.

"Go get Him, Cal."

[jonahmagnus]

How I think the TOH characters would react to you asking their pronouns:

1) Luz Noceda

Start of season one: "Uh, she/her! I think."

By the end of season one: "She/her! For noww~..." *double pistols and a wink*

Season two: "She/they baby! What about you?"

Season three: "She/they, but I dont really care."

Post show: "Ehhh, call me whatever. Follow your heart! See where the wind takes you. Look into the sunset. Listen to the whistle of the sea breeze. The answer lies within your heart, you just have to listen" *leaves before you can figure out what the fuck that means*

2) Gus Porter

"He/they, thanks for asking!" Hes a gay ally at the start of season one, but only because he learned about how humans are opporessed for "being happy" in their realm and that broke his heart so much he swore to stand by any "gay" human he ever found. So he self-identifies as an ally dispite being literally bisexual. Luz considers explaining what gay means in human modern context, but decides this is funnier, and then forgets about it.

3) Willow Park

Start of season one: "O-oh! She/they, thanks for asking! What about you?" A little unsure of herself gender wise but is coming into it

By season two: "They/She! What about you?" *Winks* By this point shes grown into herself and identifies as nonbinary. However, hes still not ready to peer into the depths of his soul and acknowledge the true hidden truth at the bottom there. No little plant boy dont internalize that!!!!

Post-show: "She/he/they, thanks for asking!" This is still fully a lie but he plays cat and mouse with his own gender for a couple years after the show. Literally refuses to think about it. He has other shit going on (he doesnt).

Finally, post-post-show: "He/him! Yours?" He is a nonbinary butch womanthing. Thank god he finally figured that out. Amity and Gus quietly exchange their bet money. Amity won.

4) Amitt Blight

Season one: "She/her. What do you want." I loved her bitch era it was so fun.

Season two: "She/they! Uh, thanks... for asking? Am I supposed to ask for yours now?" Still figuring out the proper etiquette. God bless her soul.

Season 3: "Oh, she/they. You?" This social script is so ingrained in her autistic speech patterns and mind that she acidentally said it to a cafe worker once and she almost turned herself into goo. Rip autopilot girlie......

Post-show: "She/they! :) What about yours?" She is secure in her answer now 👍 a certified category five nonbinary woman moment.

5) Hunter Noceda

Season one: "My..... whats?" You try to explain what they are to him and he says "My uncle says gender is a sin and I should never fall into it lest my soul be lost. And I dont know what that means but I dont want him to be mad at me so. Bye" and then he would flee the scene at 300mph and have a panic attack about in the closet.

Season two: "Oh... uh.... he... him?? I think??" *remembers youre supposed to ask something back* "Why do you need to know that" he sounds increasingly desperate as he realizes the social script for this conversation is slipping from his grasp, much like his current sanity.

Season 3: "Oh, oh, uhm, he/him, I guess" He sounds VERY unsure about that. You eye the book in his shoulder bag, and he shuffles awkwardly.

Post-show: "They/he!" They say, still a little haltingly. You nod like you believe it.

Post-post-show: "They...he... it? I mean I like they and it the most but Uhm he is still fine its fine like Im still a human. Im still a human... man" okay Hunter, for sure.

Post-post-post-post-show: "she...they?????" Sure Hunter

Post-post-post-post-post-show: "she/IT???" she shoulds desperate. Okay hunter.

Post-post-post-post-post-postshow: "It/its, but she/her is fine as well. Uh, thanks for asking. Uh. You?" There we go. Glad you finally came to this realization. The Murderbot Diaries would have irreversible affects on its gender.

[enbycrip]

Binary gendered people, can I please ask you, if you are writing or creating anything - from homebrew campaigns to published media - and you are thinking about nonbinary rep, not to *only* do it as with someone who is some form of shapeshifter?

Yes, there are complex and interesting questions to be raised about how perceived gender shapes a person’s experience. Yes, a lot of nonbinary folk *empathise* with amd see ourselves represented in shapeshifting characters - and what this is categorically NOT is a request to try to block nonbinary spectrum folk from playing shapeshifters, whatever that means in your setting.

But in real life every nonbinary spectrum person out there lives with a meatsuit that in fact stays very much the same.

We might get moments of serious euphoria by playing with presentations that massively shift how we *appear* to others; that give us a little bit of the potential experience as shapeshifting. But at the end of the day we are still stuck with a meatsuit that in fact does *not* meet the very narrow skinny white young abled idea of what seems to constitute Socially-Acceptable Attractive Androgyny, nor change effortlessly to meet fluid changes of what would give us euphoria or prevent dysphoria. Most of us live constantly with misgendering and denial that someone who looks like us could be different from the man or woman they read us as.

And if your only attempt to represent nonbinary folk is to do with physical shape, you are really misrepresenting not only the nonbinary spectrum experience, but saying a lot of things about gender that are not accurate and, frankly, playing into a lot of harmful ideas the cis still hold about gender.

You might not guess the huge joy you give me whenever I meet a huge hairy muscled nonbinary person, or fat curvy nonbinary person, or a nonbinary wheelchair user, or older nonbinary person, in fiction, but it’s very much there.

(YMMV. I do not in any way speak for all nonbinary people. No, this isn’t only about Double Trouble.)

[uncanny-tranny]

I'm trans nonbinary and I really kind of hate myself for it and feel like such a fucking freak and I don't even know why because I didn't even grow up around a lot of homophobia or anything. I let everyone assume I'm a (trans) man because in my head if someone found out I was nonbinary they would just think I'm so fucking wierd, even when I'm in spaces or with people I know for a fact wouldn't actually think any of that. I don't feel this way about anyone else, just me. I'm really sorry if this is too much of a vent kind of thing I totally get you deleting it or whatever, but any advice you have would be really great.

I want to preface this by emphatically saying: Nobody here (least of all myself!) are judging you. I am sure many trans people who are following this blog know how you feel intimately. It's a consequence of the world we live in, not an intrinsic failure of character. I want to make this clear because you were incredibly vulnerable and I don't want you to worry that your vulnerability is a bad thing. It takes a lot to open up like this, no matter if you're on anon or not.

I've talked about this before, but this is a process that takes... a long time to work through, if I'm honest. I've been out since I was a young teenager, and now as an adult I still fall into the trappings of feeling similarly to you. What helped for me is to generally avoid judging myself for when I do feel like this. I think trying to outright ignore how you feel is very inefficient - I have tended to be a person who needs to feel those awful feelings so that I can look back and notice exactly what went wrong. I wouldn't specifically recommend that you do this - I have had many years of combating internalized transphobia to feel this is effective for myself. But, regardless of where you are in your journey of internal acceptance, I will advise this: don't judge yourself for these feelings. It is easy to do, but you don't deserve to have even more feelings of shame, isolation, or overall feelings of hopelessness or helplessness.

Often, we won't know exactly "why" we feel these feelings of internalized transphobia. For me, I also didn't grow up with outright homophobia, but I did grow up with the idea that I would only be loved if I was cishet, so when I discovered I was neither, it was jarring. I thought I would never be loved. And years later, I became open to the idea that I might have been wrong because there were people along the way - friends, certain family, strangers, even - who showed the love I felt I surrendered when I realized who and what I was.

It has helped me to expose myself to other trans people, as well. It's a delicate balance, at times, because there are moments where I find myself growing envious of another trans person for the way I perceive their own transition. It's a natural response, I guess, a natural human response that is amplified when you are part of a group that is often maligned. But I have found that the pros outweigh the cons: I see trans people of all identities now, trans people who look like me, who have incredibly similar experiences, who taught me so much about what it actually means to love and be loved. It's funny, because I'm largely a trans man (with caveats), yet some of the people who have deeply impacted me forever weren't always the same as I am (in fact, one of the first true "I look up to this person" experiences was from a trans woman who I still to this day admire and look up to).

I'm not going to lie, this (how you're feeling) is an incredibly common, but sometimes devastating result of so many factors. While we all go about these feelings in different ways, it can be hard. Therefore, it's important that we support each other. I want to offer my support to you, and let you know that you aren't going to be looked at by others in the way you might fear. It's hard to even conceptualize, honestly, but I am being honest. I understand that some of what I might have said won't resonate with you now, or ever, and that's okay. When we have a community to talk about ideas as a way of support, we can start to have more resources that we might be able to utilize effectively.

Your vulnerability right now isn't going unnoticed. It took a lot to express this, and I hope you might read this and feel even slightly better. I wish nothing but good things for you, nothing but bountiful joy and understanding that you deserve so much from this world.

[theriverbeyond]

I guess we can't know Mizu's gender til he tells us, but tbh I think he's a gay man. In the scene in the brothel, he only has the response and flashback when it was two men kissing, not the man and the woman. He also bound his chest when it was only him and Swordmaster at the time. It's possible living as a man has affected him that intensely but he's actually a woman deep inside, but I personally don't think so. However! I don't get onto anyone for thinking differently because we Just Don't Know Yet.

I agree!!! this is how I see him... as either a gay man or transmasc nonbinary. idk i've read/watched a LOT of stories about women who dress as men for battle, freedom, etc, and this storyline definitely seems to be framing his gender as something different

and obviously I won't get on anyone for viewing him differently (especially if they identity with the character!!) but I also think that unless and perhaps even if explicitly proven otherwise, I will personally be treating Blue Eye Samurai as a trans story and Mizu as a transmasc person. Because honestly, I feel like we HAVE been told his gender, in ways far more extensive than many cis characters in media have their gender told. like.... most characters in media don't have a "JSYK, I'm a man/woman!" moment. they just Are and we the viewers understand. I think Mizu's gender is clear and I as a viewer am Understanding. (spoilers ahead!)

like u said, he bound his chest and presented as a man when it was just him and Swordfather, who is totally blind. you'd think that if he didn't have at least SOME kind of gender fuckery he would probably have just done the voice and dispensed with the rest of it at least while inside/not training/for sleep? and you'd think after Ringo saw him naked, if he wasn't trans he would probably unbind around the campfire/etc when it was just them. and if his male presentation was really just a front, after Fowler says Mizu's bones "break like a woman's" (and clocks him, basically) and he runs away to London you would think Mizu would dispense with the disguise while on the ship. but he doesn't do any of those things!!!!

he COULD have snuck into Fowler's fortress dressed as a woman, as one of Madame Kaji's workers, hiding his sword under the dress. and I was actually really EXPECTING it to happen... it truly seemed like the most logical way for him to sneak in, and you could still have included the epic fight scenes. But he didn't? the story made a concious choice to reveal that women often went in via the (for lack of a better term) sex worker tunnel system, and then made the concious have him sneak in *as a man*, using that same tunnel. that feels important idk!!

during his marriage era, despite dressing as a woman i just literally could not see him as one. He was eventually attracted to his husband, definitely, but the entire section felt somewhat like watching him in drag, and the times when he presented most feminine felt viscerally uncomfortable. especially the end, when he put on makeup as a way to try and present himself as less-of-a-monster specifically right before the betrayal. i don't how how to really articulate it but like. his husband had a husband. TO ME

i think Akemi's storyline also makes me think Mizu is more of a transgender story than a woman crossdressing for freedom and power reasons. Akemi is a female character that is presented to us explicitly as someone who strains against the social expected norms for womanhood. through her, we (the audience) also learn about how women's opportunities are severely limited, and through her, we see her rebel against those to seize her own power within that social hierarchy. like as a character she functions to give us a foil for Mizu on what their other option could be, and it just feels. really not Mizu!!! like the contrast just feels huge in terms of being able to directly compare Akemi, who doesnt want to be a woman because of the social/cultural burden, to Mizu, who seems to reject womanhood for intrinsically different reasons.

the way people clocking him is framed feels VERY trans in a way I am not sure I can articulate. But basically, the way the narrative acknowledges but also brushes over those multiple reveals (Ringo at the Lake, Fowler during the final battle, etc), the way everyone in the story still treats Mizu as a man despite and through those multiple reveals basically without batting an eye, is NOT how I would write a cis woman being recognized. to ME

also yeah. he only reacted in the brothel when two men kissed.

tl;dr transmasc mizu sweep!!!!

[roblogging]

(for your questioning anon) i'm not a trans man, but i did go through the "what am i" gender thing for a while during the pandemic (didn't we all?). and for me it was because i was turning 24 and people were seeing me not as a girl any more, but a Woman, and that...started to make me uncomfortable. for many many years i've been uncomfortable not on my body, but how i was perceived, and i usually thought it was because i was just being very sexualised since i'm like, 13 or something. so i always dreamed of having smaller boobs asdfgfdsa and like, not as many curves and that got me into an awful dysmorphic situation. but i never related it to gender until i started being perceived as a woman. and after a lot of thinking about it during the pandemic, i realise it didn't annoy me when i was a "girl" bc boy/girls body are not sexual. they are kids. but men/women are, even if they don't have sex. and then i realised my discomfort all these years was not because i was curvy, bc sometimes i like to show off those parts, but because when people see breasts = women. when they see curves = women. and they look at me and see something i don't particularly feel like. it was easy to know i wasn't transmasc bc I also would not like to be perceived as a man, but being socialised as a woman made it harder for me to get to a point where i'm at, which is...not a woman. i still use she/her bc my language has no gender-neutral pronouns, and it doesn't bother me, i have no attachment to it, but more gender-specific nouns are things i avoid. i don't call myself woman, i don't want to be anyone's wife etc. and yeah, the gender expression... i'm still finding out what makes me comfortable in terms of clothes, i do like makeup tho. it's a process. for me, it made sense to tell the ones i'm close and the people i knew it would get. i don't mind society as much now, tbh. i know i have a lot of passing privileges, so i don't get mad at people for thinking i'm a Woman. but if they're a friend, if i'm comfortable (bc i also have a job that would not Get It so i have to take care of myself) i share with them. i guess your questioning anon should question more! talk to people. i talked to my girl friends and i realised we had different views on womanhood and that helped a lot, bc i thought everyone was uncomfortable lol. There's no age limit or moment to come out, just do what makes sense to you and respect your journey. also, books/fics helped me a LOT too. idk if this will help them, but i wish someone had told me earlier some of those things.

sharing this for the anon because i think this is LOVELY and so real.

HEAVY ON BOOKS/FICS !! fics helped me figure out my sexuality after like yearsss of questioning, representation matters chat !!

and extra heavy on "there's not age limit or moment to come out" !! i did mine in stages, AND i did it twice when i realised nonbinary didn't fit me as well as i thought it did. i have a friend in fandom who's 47 and just started their gender journey !!

despite what the headlines and the govs want you to believe, We Have Time. we have time.

[demonir]

dude now I'm just sitting here staring at a wall thinking abt how fucked up being lgbt is...

Don't get me wrong I'm happier knowing who I am and I shudder to think what would be of me if I had never found out, there's so many queer people out there that will welcome you with open arms and guide you through or just simply offer you a shoulder to cry on and that's wonderful I love that and we need more of that

But then there's the rest of the people, the assholes that want you dead just for existing, the ones that are less vocally hateful and might tolerate being in a room with you but should you need anything they'd rather let you starve than approach, the "I support you but" people that say are open minded and supportive but the moment you cross some invisible line of theirs you are no longer "one of the good ones" and must be dealt with.

We've all seen these people, they might be strangers, coworkers, acquaintances, friends, family and even our partners and their words and actions hurt like knives. But a lot of us have learned that we shouldn't waste our time with them if we can avoid it, turn around, block them, leave the room, move out of the house if you can, we can do these things

But what happens when the hatred is coming from inside the community itself? I cannot begin to tell you how soul breaking it is for me when I see discourse like "LGBT without the T!" or "Asexuality doesn't belong in the LGBT" or "If you're bi but in a straight relationship then you're a liar/traitor" or "If you don't pass as your gender then you're not truly trans" and these are just some off the top of my head, there are so many more and even if they don't personally affect me it still hurts me to see it so much.

You're not making the community nicer or safer by dictating how someone should exist, there are no "traitors" there are no "liars" there are no "pretenders" everyone is just trying to live their life while staying true to themselves but everyone around them is constantly telling them they are wrong for it, not gonna lie to you I'm sometimes afraid that I'll get someone telling me I'm not truly nonbinary because I'm not androgynous or use they/them and I'm easily perceived as a woman, I get afraid I'll be told that what I'm doing is just a phase by other queer people despite the fact that I've been trans since I was 14 and it took me all those years to be able to come to terms with the fact that yes I love dresses, yes I like makeup, yes I'm fine with she/her pronouns, yes I sometimes find it endearing to be called a girl, but no I am not a woman and I'll never be.

But guess what? being afab carries this weird notion that I am somehow harmless or at least less of an issue than lets see uhh oh yeah amab trans people! trans women get labeled predators, groomers and a danger to everyone around them so often and the punishment for not passing as their desired gender is far greater than anything I've ever personally received. People have let these notions about birth genders and sexualities carry on to their trans views in macabre and harmful ways. You want to be wary of men? sure, there's an extensive history of issues that make your fears rational and justified... but why are you pointing your finger at a trans woman? Because she has stubble or a beard? no long hair? doesn't like dresses? doesn't want hrt or surgeries of any kind? has a deep voice? because she has "male interests"? do you not realize how harmful that is?

That's not to say trans men don't get a similar treatment, but I don't see them being labeled as dangerous and violent even half as much as trans women do, it's this notion that being born with a penis somehow makes you vile or something???? unless you prove to us how innocent and righteous you are by looking exactly how I want you to, staying 5 meters away from me and never displaying any sort of sexual attraction towards anyone ever otherwise I am calling the police on you

That's bogus nonsense and I'm absolutely tired of it, stop carrying societies old and nasty views of gender and sexuality into this community that is about supporting and uplifting people no matter how they want to be, and while we're at it someone's presentation and physical appearance isn't indicative of their morality

I wish every trans woman on tumblr right now that feels afraid to speak up about the current situation or even just their life experiences as a trans person a very very happy rest of their lives, and I wish every trans woman who IS speaking up about stuff a very happy rest of their lives as well

Again just so we're clear, I'm nonbinary and afab she/he he/she whatever order so I should in theory not be the target to any uhh "mysterious" blog bans and stuff, however if my blog dies after this post know that I did not do it myself.

Stand up for trans women always and forever, we are all fighting together and there is no glory in hurting each other

[vizthedatum]

I never thought I'd say this... But I might consider phalloplasty.

I don't know how much I'll grow on T. I may very well grow enough to be satisfied.

But like FUCK. I can see myself getting hotter. Like a lot hotter.

And even though I'm so new to medical transition, I am having less bottom dysphoria because I know it is possible for me.

My friend, he’s about to have his uterus removed… and he was talking really excitedly about phalloplasty the other day.

And my fears of the surgery momentarily subsided.

Plus everyone I've slept with or will sleep with this year have been so affirming (even before I started T!). They always affirm that it doesn't matter how big my dick gets. That it would still be loved as the rest of me in bed. (honestly t4t or dating pansexual people who aren't transphobic is the way to go - I feel very seen)

—

I also woke up today wanting to have just been born with a dick already. I could have still been a nonbinary femboy!

I woke up imagining myself, a gay cis-man with another man… being romantic. And just cuddling. And walking around. We both have dicks. We both hold hands. *swoon*

(don't get me wrong, I also wake up extremely sapphic! I fantasize about women - so many types of women - all the time!!)

I mean I'm bipan and genderfluid - I'm having fantasies constantly lmao.

—

I took a materials science course in college where phalloplasty and related surgeries was part of the curriculum. I was an engineer major. We had to watch surgery videos and stuff.

I'm scared. I have already had so much pelvic trauma simply due to my chronic conditions.

And to have major surgery? (which I'd have after making sure I was def not gonna have a baby biologically… or after I was done giving birth)

It is scary.

Even the prospect of having top surgery FOR THE SURGERY PART is scary.

I would look so hot with top surgery though. I would still wear bras. I would wear whatever I wanted. I imagine wearing cute shirts. And long necklaces lying flat on my skin.

And seducing everyone. :3

—

I know I was a pretty woman, and I love that I was.

But fuck.

CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE

(I can, obviously)

(I might be having a moment after finally taking my T shot this week lol)

(but fuck, I look so cute rn)

(and I guess it helps that other people think I'm cute too - and that they talk about my anatomy in a respectful but excited manner!!! I feel desired. I FEEL DESIRED.)

And I feel hot when I look at myself.

[boreal-sea]

You're being incredibly rude to a fellow trans person, when all I've done is try to explain the way terms harm us, and as a trans woman who's dealt with misogyny, I very much do experience more misogyny than what a trans man experiences, because, duh, trans women are women. us trans women experience all sorts of bigotry, so to make a mocking post about me? with the recent pools of hate and genocides happening? Fuck you, you don't understand how it feels being looked at as a predator when I enter the women's bathroom, and changing rooms. They think my genitalia is gross, so I have to get changed in stalls.

You're being a bad fucking ally, I'm not throwing anyone under the bus, you're the one spouting terf talking points about sex oppression when thats a new coined term for facists.

I am being rude to an asshole who tried to claim trans men don't face as much misogyny as trans women. To be frank, the instant you tried to claim ALL trans women face more misogyny than ALL trans men, I knew there was no point saying anything more to you.

You're wrong. Your beliefs are wrong. You think trans men magically obtain cis men's privilege or something, which is an incredibly transphobic, sexist, misogynistic and harmful belief that directly damages trans men.

You do not experience more misogyny than me. You and I face the same fucking amount of misogyny, because I do not pass as a fucking man. We are both viewed as women. Therefore, we both experience the same amount of misogyny.

And guess what? We ALSO both face the same amount of transphobia! Because we are both trans! Trans women do not experience more transphobia than trans men.

You wanna make this the oppression Olympics? I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna stoop to your level. Trans women are not more oppressed than trans men. Period. We are not in competition against each other for "most oppressed".

There might be individual trans women who, when compared to individual trans men who happen to completely pass, MIGHT at that current moment experience more misogyny than the trans man. But that ignores all the years before he came out, and before he passed, when he WAS facing misogyny. It also ignores the misogyny he faces every time he's outed at trans, and when he goes to the doctor, etc etc etc.

But that's a comparison of two very specific people, and you CANNOT GENERALIZE THAT TO ALL TRANS MEN AND ALL TRANS WOMEN.

The fact is that trans men face misogyny CONSTANTLY, and we face just as much misogyny as trans women and cis women.

And that's not even getting into nonbinary, genderqueer, and agender people.

Your beliefs are absolutely fucking dangerous to ALL other trans people besides binary trans women. You're not just throwing us under the bus, you're telling the driver to speed up.

PS: you still haven't cited anything to back up your claims.