#okay yes you can be accepting and respectful of this trans woman who

[homophyte]

mmhhgm 2 AM thinking about HRT…………..perhaps my urgency is influenced by the belief that my transness only becomes acceptable after certain parameters are met and that it is in some way inappropriate to present myself as a trans person while being pretransition . something radical about the exposure of the whole process instead of being one of those instagram transes who pop into existence 7 years on T and post top surgery

[the-trans-man-with-no-plan]

lol you women really wish you could. if any actual biological men pretend like they accept you as a man it’s because they want to sleep with you bc there’s something about being a man we allllll know you will never understand

Okay, okay, normally I just delete these because they're stupid BUT - I'm straight. I do not date or sleep with men. All my friends who are straight, cisgender men are well aware of this fact. And they're not really interested in sleeping with me anyway. Facial hair doesn't really get them going. Calling me a woman implies you also consider trans women "biological men," and I don't think they accept me because they want to sleep with me.

There are absolutely things about being raised as a boy that I will not be able to understand, that much is true. But if you are referring to: - Being raised with emotional suppression. I was raised by a narcissistic, abusive father. Emotional expression was not a thing around him for me or my cisgender brother. - "Trouble" dating. I'm barely 5'5, I would not be considered conventionally attractive. I just happen to respect women, and people in general. Believe are not, a lot of women kind of like when the guys they're into aren't total douchebags who clench their fists every time they walk past someone with a rainbow on their shirt - The common idea many cisgender men have that they are unable to control their rage. I am being pumped full of testosterone. For AMAB people, puberty lasts about 2-5 years. My HRT puberty lasted for a year. I received the hormones at least twice as fast as the majority of cisgender men (oddly enough, I've never met a transwoman who has the rage issue), meaning I was getting much more testosterone at once. At no point did I have trouble controlling my anger, even with severe PTSD. - Anatomy. Who gives a fuck? Seriously. Why do you care if I have a dick or not?

I am a man. I have been socially presenting as male since age 15. I know the expectations, I know the social rules, and I am expected to follow them just as much as any cisgender man is. Yes, there are things I will never understand about being raised as a boy and things I do understand about being raised a girl. That does not take away from the person I am today or the person I have always been inside. To all the trans people reading this, remember this; You are not your body. The consciousness, thoughts, feelings, gender itself, is all in the brain. Your brain knows who you are, your body does not. Your body can never take away from who you are, despite what anyone says.

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

i read your post you tagged “if you take nothing else from this blog let it be this”

and i’m glad i did because it paints a really great picture of your ideology

“i have nothing in common with trans women,” you say, and then you proceed to describe in vivid detail some obviously painful memories from your childhood that stayed with you: begging god to “fix” you, being viewed as dangerous by your peers for your identity.

you’re so right, when trans women were children everyone always clapped them on the back and said “great job today buddy we accept you!”

they never felt alienated, they were never treated as predators whilst being mere children, and they certainly never hoped a higher power would make them normal.

nothing human is alien to yourself and i’m sorry you think you have not an inch of common ground with 50% of the earth. i hope you’re very young, that would explain this really defensive, combative and self-isolating stance you’ve taken.

i’m a cis woman who was also bullied in middle school for being gay so unfortunately you cannot write this off as another “angry man” or whatever, but i expect you’ll find some other way to dismiss this criticism, or maybe you’ll pretend you didn’t read it despite me reading your much longer vitriolic post.

i’m not saying you have to love and welcome trans women into Our Spaces—although i wish you did feel that way—but specifically i’m baffled that you think you have NOTHING in common with them solely because they were born with a penis. are genitals really that defining of a human being? i personally don’t find it super feminist to reduce my entire identity and human experience down to my having a vagina.

No, anon, I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t read this ask. I do acknowledge and appreciate two things:

You took the time to read my post. If I can be honest, I thought it’d be a bigger hit, and the fact it wasn’t is at least partially contributed to its length, I’m sure.

Even though you clearly disagree with me, this ask is respectful. I really do appreciate that.

With that out of the way, I would like to give you a response.

““I have nothing in common with trans women,” you say, and then you proceed to describe in vivid detail some obviously painful memories from your childhood that stayed with you: begging god to “fix” you, being viewed as dangerous by your peers for your identity.

you’re so right, when trans women were children everyone always clapped them on the back and said “great job today buddy we accept you!”

they never felt alienated, they were never treated as predators whilst being mere children, and they certainly never hoped a higher power would make them normal.”

I would like to point out that the post I made was specifically talking about “lesbian” trans women. In the beginning, I speak a bit generally about trans women as a whole, but my post was mainly about straight males who claim to be lesbians. I'm willing to accept that I have plenty in common with homosexual trans women (trans women into males) because we are both gay. Not only that, but I can relate to being so gnc that I’d rather just be the opposite sex. However, this part of your ask does not make nearly as much sense if we are talking about heterosexual trans women. Yes. Straight males very much so are considered normal. I think where people like you and people like me get into the most arguments is that we can't decide who is and who is not a trans woman. You seem to view them as tortured minorities who struggled since childhood. And some of them are—mostly the homosexual ones, but the thing is that men with sissy fetishes or autogynephilia also call themselves trans women. “But they’re not!” is what you’re probably saying, right? Those men are perverts, right? Okay, but they call themselves trans women. How do you know who's telling the truth or not? How do we prevent the liars from hurting women? What is stopping a man with a fucked up fetish from identifying as trans, entering a woman’s bathroom, and assaulting someone? You might be thinking that if a man wants to assault somebody, a woman's bathroom sign isn't going to stop him from doing so, but the thing is, if you make it a law that anybody can go into whatever bathroom they want to go into, it then becomes asinine to call the police on him. The police can't do anything because how do they know he doesn't belong there? Do you understand why this whole thing causes women such great pause?

You and I can trade pathos all day. I can tell you sad stories from my childhood growing up gay. You can talk to me about a sad boy crying in his room wishing he was a girl. It always comes back to “who do you care about more?” If a teenage girl talks about feeling genuine discomfort over males being allowed in the school locker rooms and a teenage boy talks about how much he wishes he had access to the girl locker rooms because he “feels” like a girl, whose side do you take? Who do you care about more? I will always choose women and gay people.

I left something out of my post, anon. It wasn't relevant but now I think it is. I've talked about this before but when I was a kid I struggled greatly with the fact that I was black. I can say with full confidence that I had racial dysphoria. I wanted to be white so badly. Both of my parents are black people, but I used to ask people if I could pass as half white. It was pretty bad. Would you have told me that I was meant to be born white? No? Then why do you think it’s okay to tell someone they’re meant to be born the opposite sex? Why is sex the only thing people are allowed to say is “wrong” about them? How ingrained are biases about sex that people look at a little boy playing with dolls, say “he’s supposed to be a girl”, and a disturbing amount of people say “true!”? That’s insane! Imagine if someone looked at a white person eating watermelon and said they were meant to be born black? That’s how people with your ideology sound. You don’t think you sound that way because you’ve had so many people backing you up, but if you can tell me why racial dysphoria isn’t valid but gender dysphoria is, I’ll reconsider everything. It is my “bad” luck I was born black, anon. There is nothing I can do to change that. Some boy wishing he was a girl is a sad thing, sure, but it’s simply a matter of tough luck lmao. He shouldn’t suddenly get everything he wants just because of that.

“nothing human is alien to yourself and i’m sorry you think you have not an inch of common ground with 50% of the earth.  i hope you’re very young, that would explain this really defensive, combative and self-isolating stance you’ve taken.

i’m a cis woman who was also bullied in middle school for being gay so unfortunately you cannot write this off as another “angry man” or whatever, but i expect you’ll find some other way to dismiss this criticism, or maybe you’ll pretend you didn’t read it despite me reading your much longer vitriolic post.

i’m not saying you have to love and welcome trans women into Our Spaces—although i wish you did feel that way—but specifically i’m baffled that you think you have NOTHING in common with them solely because they were born with a penis. are genitals really that defining of a human being?  i personally don’t find it super feminist to reduce my entire identity and human experience down to my having a vagina.”

50% of the population? You and I have been talking about trans women this whole time. Are they 50% of the population? Are you talking about men when you say this? Why? This is a bit of a freudian slip, anon. Seems like I’m not the only one here who knows trans women and men are the same thing.

I do think that “nothing human is alien to yourself” is a beautiful phrase, and I do agree! There are men and straight people I can relate to just fine. But I don’t agree with calling males lesbians and I don’t agree that people can be born in the wrong body. I am defensive and combative. Women and lesbians are actively being threatened. Self-isolating though? No, I don’t think so. I don't feel isolated at all. In fact, I think being open about my views has led to me being close to people I never would’ve thought. And even if my views did lead to my isolation, I would much rather be alone than with people who are actively hurting women and gay people.

“i’m baffled that you think you have NOTHING in common with them solely because they were born with a penis.” I can concede that saying “nothing” was more emotion based than logic based, but I think that the straight male experience is pretty damn different from the lesbian one. The male experience, in general, is pretty different from what I’ve had. That’s what I was speaking about. 

“are genitals really that defining of a human being?” I don’t know about how much they define a human being, anon, but they definitely do contribute a lot to how the world treats you. If you have a penis, the world treats you a shit ton better than they do if you have a vagina. That’s just facts. Nobody can help being born with a penis, but the world is not a fair place. Also, for a trait that is apparently so neutral, people with penises manage to commit 90% of all violent crime. What do you make of that? If genitals are really neutral, why isn’t the crime rate between people with vaginas and people with penises a 50-50 split? You said yourself that nothing human is an alien concept to other humans, so if women go through the same experiences men do, why is there such a large disparity in crime? Why can women go through the things men do (and worse, let’s be real) and generally not end up as criminals? What is it about having a penis that contributes to this?

“I personally don’t find it super feminist to reduce my entire identity and human experience down to my having a vagina.” I never said women are only their vaginas. If I tried to talk about racism, I would not be “reducing black people down to their skin color”. There is no reason why talking about the female experience should be met with claims I’m reducing women down to their vaginas.

[moonisneveralone]

I'm not trusting y'all again. I got my beef with Kendrick. He's a good artist, but he's still got some hotep tendencies that I can never really accept. HOWEVER. Y'all really had me believing Auntie Diaries was this embarassing no go, when it really wasn't.

I can totally accept that it's jarring. It is. It's like most black people are tired of seeing black people suffer on screen right? I distrust most of these movies, but once in a blue moon you will get a Moonlight or a Get Out. For people who staunchly dislike black suffering on screen (because of real life obviously) it will still be a jarring and uncomfortable watch, but both movies are amazing and well done. They nail their subject matter.

And so did Kendrick. Auntie Diaries is not a song for trans people in that sense. It is pro trans, but again it is not there to meet trans people where they are (ahead of us cis people). Which is why I'm not trying to speak over trans people or telling them they have to like it. It is about meeting cis people where they are. And arguably black religious cis people.

It is also about Kendricks own journey to understanding his family members who have transitioned and how his behaviour harmed his relationship with his family members. Yes he uses slurs, but critically towards the end of the song he stops doing that and censores the slur as "F-Bomb". Because the song is supposed to symbolize his learning curve. He also turns it around and says we can all use it together, but only if we say using the n-word is okay. Something that he has experienced himself. At one of his shows he asked a white fan to not use it and gave her the mic she then proceeded to censor it once and then say it thought the verse.

The end of the song is him saying he chose humanity over his religion. He wants to love his family and that he also wants to stop being a hypocrite.

My personal assesment of him is that he is a hypocrite. But humams contain multitudes right?

He just really isn't a hypocrite about this.

But I also just followed whatever the hell people on here were saying and never confirmed shit for myself so who am I to judge?

Again I'm not saying he deserves flowers for this. Even though I'm very sure this could have been and interesting conversation to have. I also think anti blackness and maybe just a valid general distrust of cis straight men (and to white people the fact that he's black) played into this incredibly uncharitable reading of this song.

And I guess today I'm extra mad about it, because I saw someone come for Megan the Stallion about her not actually being bisexual. How is openly dating a woman as a famous person the standard? How many lesbians who are famous only really go out with their partners when it's long term? How many famous white lesbians can you name that are out in town with women they aren't married to? Yeah, do you think that it might be because the scrutiny is draining and scary? Do they need to show up with a girl so you can tick it off in your little who's really gay box?

I really can't help but feel white LGBTQ+ people don't want us to be a part of the conversation at all. And if we are a part of it it has to be in a demure and simple way. There is no room for complexity or to bring up issues. Truely in a glitzy glam respectability era.

Also stop acting like y'all grew up super unproblematic. I know some of y'all were straight up acting like demons because y'all couldn't accept yourself. If we can hold space for that complicated journey why not for a man who struggled to understand and accept his family members, because of all the conflicting messaging he was getting, but then found his way to love them and put them above his religion?

[keep-both-eyes-on-trump]

I'll play, even if none of this is in good faith from your end.

First, don't call it the trans "cult." Clearly you have trouble respecting peoples' rights.

Second, on to your question. The core of the question you are presenting is this: does the right to human life outweigh the right to bodily autonomy? You say yes, I say no.

Basic premises as follows:

Breastfeeding = pregnancy - Accepted.

Living beings have a right to live - Accepted.

Living beings may infringe on the right to bodily autonomy of others in order to live - Not Accepted.

Let's delve in to your scenario. There is a woman who has given birth. She now has an infant child. Her only option to nourish the child is to breast feed them herself. For reasons unknown, there is no baby formula, no other way to nourish the child, no other people to assist her in anyway, and no governmental support programs. Perhaps there has been a zombie apocalypse?

Question: is it acceptable for the woman to refuse to breastfeed and to let the infant to die?

Conclusion based on the premises above: Yes (and now I'm a psychopath)

But wait, there's actually a second question beyond the question of rights. You asked, is it legal for her to let the infant starve to death?

If you're asking if it's legal then that implies there is a government and the woman is not alone! She has support after all. Now we must consider the role the government should play in terms of the right to live and the right to bodily autonomy.

Question One: Should the government infringe upon the woman's right to bodily autonomy and require her to breastfeed the child?

Answer: No, the government should not enact or enforce laws that violate the right bodily autonomy. The child's right to live does not supersede the woman's right to bodily autonomy.

Question Two: Should the woman legally be allowed to let the child starve?

Answer: No. She's existing in a society now and supports are available. Her right to bodily autonomy does not permit her to let a child starve to death. It is the role of the government and society to have support programs or options in place to provide for the child since the only option is to breastfeed. Like, wet-nurses, perhaps?

But this is a silly question anyway because the very first premise I accepted to play your game in incorrect and we don't exist in a zombie apocalypse or the Middle Ages. Let's talk about abortion and look at it this way.

Is it acceptable for a woman to terminate a pregnancy? If yes, is it also acceptable for a woman to murder a baby?

Again the core question is: does the right to life outweigh the right to bodily autonomy. You say yes, I say no.

When a woman is pregnant, the life of the fetus is dependent on her. You could say it infringes on her right to bodily autonomy. Having choice means the woman can decide for herself if she is okay with continuing the pregnancy or not.

So, is it acceptable for a woman to terminate a pregnancy? Yes.

Should the government have laws restricting bodily autonomy? No.

Once the child is born its right to live is no longer entangled with the mother's right to bodily autonomy. The child is no longer infringing on her right to bodily autonomy. The rights are separate and both are able to be honored without infringing on the other. With societal supports and options she does not have to breastfeed or even care for the child at all. (Because baby formula and adoption exist).

So, is it acceptable for a woman to murder a baby? No.

Should the government have laws punishing murderers? Yes.

Now, let me ask you a question:

Suppose the government required everyone healthy enough for organ donation to register their blood type and all the other information needed to determine if you are a match with someone in need of a transplant. And one day, congratulations, you are! There's another living, breathing, human being with the right to live in need of part of your liver. Without part of your liver they will die. No one else is a match and there are no other medical treatments for them. Can the government legally require you to donate your organ?

That's not the same, you say.

It literally is the same as your question. You're the only match. If you refuse a human life dies through inaction.

Okay, well, it's not the same as abortion.

It's an imperfect parallel, yes. But so was yours.

A single question to drill holes into the pro-choice movement.

Not clickbait.

If you think women (or "pregnant people", for the ones who also support the trans cult) should have the "right" because of bodily autonomy, do you think it should be legal to not breastfeed your child? Is it acceptable to starve your infant to death as he/she would be depending on you (on your body, specifically) for survival? Let's say that there's no formula available in this case & breastfeeding is the only option.

Now, most of them would avoid answering the direct question & come up with excuses.

She's legally obligated to take care of the child after it's born, so yes.

Legality doesn't always dictate morality, so this argument is bullshit. Slavery was legal once.

2. But we are talking about an infant, not a fetus.

This is specifically only addressing the bodily autonomy argument & not about personhood or whatever. If you have bodily autonomy, it should apply even if it's an infant. If it doesn't, then you are actually agreeing that bodily autonomy can be limited under some circumstances.

3. Pregnancy is more burdensome:

So it's about burden? You can kill someone if they are "more" of a burden to you, is that it? If pregnancy were painless, would you be against abortion in that case? And again, you are agreeing that bodily autonomy can be limited by saying it doesn't apply when it's less of a burden.

4. Try to deflect the topic and talk about something else.

Get back on track & answer the direct question.

Or they can bite the bullet and say "Yes, it should be legal for women to starve their infants to death." At this point you can just walk away from the person because they are clearly a psychopath.

But, yes, please answer this question. I look forward to all the logical pro-choice answers.

Spoiler: you won't have one.

[solarwaters]

gay representation doesn't matter. First of all, I'm a homosexual, but I'm not a part of any community. You guys celebrate pride but what pride is there in liking the same gender. There is no pride in it and there is no point of celebrating something that isnt special. Yes, Im very sorry to tell you but you arent special for liking a girl when you are a girl. You're just being a human being. You cant change the norm and literature, the natural thing and the norm in literature, history and religion is heterosexuality. Obviously when you see shows and books they will usually only have straight people. You dont seriously expect homosexuality to be put into historical books? I respect transgender people that are truly trans. The ones that always felt somehting wrong with their gender, the ones that cried and felt dismorphic. I dont respect the "transgender" people who only became trans after they heard of LGBTQ community, they just decided they are trans because its "cool." Causes problems for your family. It means you have been taken over by the 2020 effect. Lesbians made a "lesbian apocalypse." okay, cool. and then bisexual people decided they wanted one too. Lesbians got mad at them for taking away "lesbian rep." what kind of bs is that? What do you need representation for? Liking a woman? There are queer youths who actually struggle. Their parents are homophobic and they wont accept their child. THEY need representation. More than half of you "lesbians" dont have that struggle. Your parents dont care, you tell everyone you're gay. You dont need any representation. I hate that REAL queers and trans people that have struggles are being over shadowed by people who just use homosexuality as a fun thing. People have called me slurs sometimes, people have been homophobic to me, but I'm not the one who truly struggles. People are mean to others all the time and this just falls into the category. Someone calling you the F-slur (dont want to get banned lmao) is the same thing as someone so sensitive person an idiot if they get offended by it. But it doesnt matter if you say asian, black, gay slurs no matter what race etc. you are If you only use it in a term that isnt specified to anyone who cares. like in the context of eminem saying f-slur in 'rap god.' He couldve said the n-slur since he wasnt targeting someone for being black. it doesnt matter then. Also it seems that yall have a little bias. like eminem can say the f-slur but your straight friend cant cause eminem "earned it." see how biased you are? you care about slurs and representation but you dont care about wars, gossip and back biting. freaks.

[piqued-curiosity]

Update on Bette Midler:

She saw the backlash, and tried to save face.

The article is a good read, and I’m familiar with it because I was listening to this stream from Lisa Michele and Radical Ramblings where they talked about it (they start reading it around 17:30). Because I’m familiar with it, I immediately knew that this attempt at saving face wouldn’t work, because the article is one that puts women first. In similar fashion to JK Rowling’s essay, it isn’t some huge transphobic rant about how we all need to gang up on trans people and kill them or something. It just points out how women are being negatively impacted by gender ideology. The closing note is essentially saying to respect trans women, but to not disrespect women while doing so. How does this come off as transphobic?

“Tolerance for one group need not mean intolerance for another. We can respect transgender women without castigating females who point out that biological women still constitute a category of their own — with their own specific needs and prerogatives.”

Because as we’ve seen repeatedly, women cannot say anything unless it is complete unwavering support while censoring our thoughts. We have to sandwich our words between “trans women are women!” And “trans men are men!”. We have to refer to ourselves as “cis” and consider ourselves a subset of women. We have to put the voices of men first and ask their permission to think what we do (“I’m a lesbian who doesn’t like dick, and it’s okay because this trans woman says so!”, or “I asked my trans friend if it’s okay for me to think trans women and women are different, and she said yes so you can’t be mad at me”). This article doesn’t do that. So of course, here are some responses to Bette’s tweet. They seem to sum up the attitude many people have.

That last one is interesting, considering the point of the article Bette responded to was that women are being silenced.

In between the “too bad, you’re transphobic” tweets, there are people who either acknowledge that she didn’t mean any “harm”, and people who don’t think the article is harmful at all and see the backlash for what it is; silencing women. Here’s one that’s on the money.

Exactly. Why does she have to be nice? Why does she have to put niceness before speaking about the erasure of women and our language?

I do believe that Bette meant no ill will towards trans people. I think she read an article about women, agreed with it, and used her huge platform as a celebrity to make a statement about the issue she’d read about. Unfortunately, that’s enough to be branded as a transphobe.

So, as with all women who deal with this; daring to speak out, getting loads of backlash, trying to backpedal only to find people don’t accept it…Bette Midler has a choice to make. Either way, she has to accept that as a woman, the only way she can please those calling her transphobic is to be silent. The choice is whether she shuts up or gets louder. It’s the same choice every single woman who has even the smallest criticism of gender ideology has to make. Some get bullied into silence, some see the bullying as a reason to keep speaking.

It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out, but either way I think we’re going to see the same thing that happened when JK Rowling started getting backlash. People, specifically women, see a famous woman get torn to shreds just for raising a concern over being called things like “menstruators” or “birthing bodies”. They see just how hostile people are towards women who voice opinions they share. They think, if this is happening to her, it could happen to me. They conclude that the backlash is wrong, and start speaking out themselves or at least quietly start questioning what they’ve been told. They conclude that any ideology that tries to silence women is misogynistic, and that gender ideology is no exception.

[merriclo]

sigh okay. i would like to preface this by saying i don’t care if you think Link is cishet or whatever, but at the end of the day this isn’t about Zelda, it’s about oppressing others through religion. i’ve done my part in reading your posts and understanding your views, and i don’t expect you to agree, but i ask that you hear me out. apologies for any odd wording of misspellings, it’s 2 AM.

1. Yes! very true, Link does infiltrate Gerudo town for the purpose of saving Zelda and Hyrule. however, that’s not what the image’s inclusion was for and you know that. in this scene, Vilia (who is either a trans-woman or a drag queen) gives Link the Gerudo Vai set, then compliments and flirts with them, causing Link to blush as shown. the queerness behind this is blatant.

2. i disagree, there is certainly enough information. but, if you truly are confused, i found you the article: Pride in Zelda: The Non-Binary nature of Link and an Argument Against Linkle by Emi Curtis on Zelda Dungeon. i believe the article elaborates for me.

3. again, that’s not what the image’s inclusion was for and you know that. i’m sorry if this sounds mean, but it feels like you’re being purposefully obtuse, and this would be a much more productive conversation if you weren’t. Sheik was included because Zelda, in Ocarina of Time, purposefully chose to disguise themself as a man despite there being no need to. their disguise would’ve been just as effective if it was female presenting and they simply, say, changed their hair color. in most cases, changing one’s presenting gender is a far greater feat than a simple aesthetic change. we can easily conclude that there’s an in character reason for Sheik being a guy, and that it’s because he’s trans.

4. this is, to my knowledge, a perfectly understandable interpretation, and i won’t tell you that you’re wrong for this point. however, i will say that, as an ex-mormon, i relate to Zelda’s arc in this because Hylia failed her, and it was only when she went to herself and those she loved for answers that she succeeded. also the reason that image was included was because she was saying “curse you” to Hylia, which uhhh cursing your own god is kind of against a lot of christian principles.

5. this comes from the same article as point 2, also your argument is blatantly false: nonbinary, genderqueer, and intersex people exist.

6. you’re correct, they can be. however take a moment and exercise those reading comprehension skills and analyze Shadow and Vio’s dynamic in the manga. discrediting the manga entirely simply because it’s not canon is doing a fundamental disservice to the works of Akira Himekawa. the two woman who worked tirelessly to produce the manga should be treated with respect. if you doubt their legitimacy, please do your research and understand how the manga was created closely with the games, quite literally being done parallel to the development of Majora’s Mask. yes, they are often drastically different, but they still follow the themes of the games and are approved by Nintendo and the head creators of the Zelda franchise. respect the creatives behind the franchise you adore.

7. again, yes. again, that’s not what the image’s inclusion was for and you know that. the addition of tri-force heroes in this post is to include every time Link crossdresses in that game, an activity not typically deemed acceptable in conservative circles. if this was an isolated occurrence, such as Zelda’s dress being the only one available to be worn in that game or if none of the other gender-ambiguous examples existed, i’d understand your insistence on this being without any trans-ness. but, alas.

8. at risk of sounding like a broken record, that’s not what the image’s inclusion was for and you know that. the point was Zelda’s blushing and her heart beating, as well as the specifically chosen flowery, sparkly void background which is typically used in manga and anime during romantic scenes.

9. how many times must i say this: that’s not what the image’s inclusion was for and you know that. i trust that you, as an adult, should be able to understand what the context of an image is within a post, and the fact that you seem to be ignoring it is concerning at best. Bolson defies/goes against gender norms, norms that conservatives love to adhere to.

i don’t care if you see your religion in Zelda, i actually think that’s a beautiful connection to have with such a franchise, but the beliefs you spread are actively harmful. i would be happy to have an actual conversation with you, i know a lot about these fears (both on yours and mine) and am open to a dialogue.

Conservative and Christian themes in The Legend Of Zelda moodboard

[rjalker]

people thinking "fem(inine)-presenting" and "AFAB" are the same thing....like ah yes, yet another asshole who thinks AFAB trans people are all women.

Stop calling people masculine/male-presenting and feminine/female-presenting as though that's something you get to assign people based on the gender they were assigned at birth.

Saying AFAB people are "feminine-presenting" literally just means the only thing you care about in regards to our gender is what we currently look like, despite the fact that the majority of us are either too poor or disabled to present the way we want to, or that you will just overlook whatever our desired presentation is and just fucking assign us feminine presenting anyways.

I was literally just thinking of that screenshotted TikTok on here from a few months ago where the person was saying they were wearing their masculine clothes and it was just comfy fucking pajamas and everyone and their grandma, both on TikTok and here on Tumblr, decided that transmisia is okay now, as long as you're making fun of someone for... *checks notes* not looking enough like the gender they identify with.

Because according to everyone who reblogged that post to mock that person like they'd never known that bullying people and being transmisc is wrong, the only way to be masculine is...to be buff, and have a deep voice, and have short hair, and not have boobs, and wear nothing but Acceptably Masculine clothes.

What clothes would those be, you ask?

None! Because once you've decided that someone doesn't look trans enough and doesn't look masculine enough for their identity to be respected, nothing they can do will fucking ever be good enough. Because next you'll laugh that they're "trying too hard"

This is literally the same shit trans women have to deal with but in reverse! Either they're not feminine enough, because they're wearing comfortable clothes and aren't spending an hour in front of the mirror before they leave the house and buying 100s of dollars in makeup, or if they do put effort into their appearance, then suddenly they're trying too hard and making a caricature of femininity!

Cis men get to fucking dress however the fuck they want without People Who Supposedly Have Morals™ mocking them for not being masculine enough.

But these same People Who Supposedly Have Morals™ will happily turn around to mock and harass as trans person for not being masculine enough because they're wearing comfortable clothes.

Cis women get to dress however the fuck they want, and wear no makeup at all, without People Who Supposedly Have Morals™ mocking them or saying they aren't really a woman.

But then turn around to harass trans women for putting the exact same level of effort into their presentation, because nothing they do is ever good enough!

Trans people are either "not trying hard enough" or "trying too hard"! You can't fucking win!

And it's not even just fucking cis people doing this shit, because most of the people reblogging that hateful post to mock someone for not looking masculine enough to meet their standards, were, themselves, trans!

TLDR:

Stop calling AFAB people "feminine-presenting" and stop calling AMAB people "masculine-presenting" unless those are literally their self-identifiers. You are literally just being transmisic and exorsexist.

The only people who get to choose, for real, what they look like are abled people with shit tons of disposable income. Most trans people will not ever even be able to afford to fucking medically transition.

[greyfongschemmenti]

There has been some discourse about Encanto and putting them in boxes on what their labels are. Especially with Isabella being a lesbian and Luisa being a transwoman.

I just wanna say that I don’t really care because that’s what a fandom is for. To create an extension of the story. If you want Isabella to be lesbian, you do you. If you want Luisa to be transwoman, sure. But people aren’t going to be forcing their idea or headcanons down onto other people because they don’t agree with it and then accuse them of being homophobic/transphobic. But there is need of some awareness of the potential harm.

Let’s all remember that this movie was about cultural struggles. Cultural struggles that a lot of ethic people have dealt with. This movie focused on a Latine family but other ethnicities and cultures can heavily relate to the struggles that happened in the Madrigal family.

Isabella not wanting to marry Mariano wasn’t about her being possibly lesbian. Simply put, she didn’t like Mariano. The whole reason for the potential marriage wasn’t for love or personal interest, but in order for the family to maintain their social status. Which happens a lot in ethnic families. Isabella is the perfect golden child, so she has to marry the perfect man. Not just any man but the most respectable, handsome, well rounded man in the town. Which happens to be Mariano. Any other man will not suffice.

Luisa being headcanon as a transwoman. Like I said above, sure, me personally, I don’t mind, but it’s a cultural issue and this is harmful because it’s such an issue with people of color especially with women of color always being masculinized. People look at Luisa and made the automatic assumption that because she is strong, a slight deep voice, and has these muscles that she’s trans. Which is wrong because women come in all shapes and sizes and different body styles. Would they be coming to the same conclusion if Luisa didn’t have a slightly deeper voice, muscles, and strong? It’s feeding into these stereotypes that quite frankly need to stop. Strong women can be just as feminine as other women who typically “fit” in society’s label of beauty. All women are feminine. All women are beautiful. Luisa is a beautiful strong feminine woman.

As a queer Latine, who has big arms and a slightly deep voice, yes the characters COULD be LGBTQIA+, but no matter if they are or are not, the movie is about cultural struggles, not queer struggles. If the movie wasn’t so focused on these cultural struggles then it would’ve been okay to insert and focus on queer struggles.

This is such a beautiful movie. With such a beautiful message about the importance of love, acceptance, honesty, and the unity of family.

[consange-interviews]

Love & Stigma: An Older Sister's Feelings

The freedom to fall in love is often taken for granted, but in many countries there are still laws legislating against adult, consensual relationships. Often touted as protection for children, laws against gay or consanguineous relationships do nothing more than cause anguish for those who have found themselves with these feelings.

Feelings of love should be cherished, and law dictating such feeling does nothing but harm those who would otherwise have a chance to grow their feelings into something beautiful. In the following interview, I have the privilege to talk to a young lady who has romantic feelings, and has continued to be affected negatively by these laws.

How would you describe yourself? Your gender, age range, romantic orientation?

Well, I guess I would say that I'm a lesbian trans woman in her early 20's, that's a succinct description.

And the person you have feelings for? How would you describe them, and your relation to them?

She's my younger sister, also early 20's, and she's cisgender and bisexual.

Could you elaborate on what feelings you have for your younger sister?

So many feelings, honestly, I obviously love her like a sister, just, I'm also *in* love with her too, romantically, very gay in fact.

Most people would view having both romantic and familial feelings as a contradiction. Do you find these feelings come in conflict often? Or are they complimentary?

Hmm, I wouldn't say they come into direct conflict a majority of the time, in fact I would actually say they are mostly complimentary, a lot of what goes into being a good sister and being a good partner has to do with caring for and respecting who you love; though, they do come into conflict in, at least, my own desire for romantic connection versus the platonic expression of familial and sisterly love.

How long have you had the romantic feelings for your sister?

Honestly? I couldn't say definitively. A lot of my childhood and teenage years were emotionally muddled from a variety of factors, not least of all being trans gender without realizing it.

But I do know that I've always cared for my sister and can say for certainly that I knew I was in love about 4 years ago now.

In those four years would you say you experienced self-hate or hardships due to your feelings for your sister?

Yes, I dealt with a lot of self-hatred and self-loathing, compounding my love for her with a variety of other issues.

If there was a lesser stigma against these feelings, do you think you would have had an easier time?

Absolutely, just meeting other people dealing with these feelings online helped me immensely, if I didn't have to worry about the social stigma or consequences, can't even imagine how much that would've changed things.

Do you think your sister would be supportive of people in relationships similar to the one you desire?

I don't know, honestly, she's been very progressive and accepting of others, even supporting me in my transition, but I'm not sure how much that would translate when it's something widely considered "taboo" and "disgusting".

If incest were legal where you lived, do you think she would have an easier time accepting it?

Perhaps, definitely wouldn't hurt though, at least.

Do you have any plans to talk to your sister about your feelings?

At present? No, none at all, trying to repair a relationship and be closer as sisters is hard enough without adding more pressure and risk like that, unfortunately.

Maybe in the future, maybe.

Would it change if the law were to change in the near future?

Absolutely would change my plans, probably wouldn't immediately confess my undying love right then and there, but I'd be more confident in sharing that part of myself with her, even if she didn't reciprocate.

Thank you so much for talking to me. Before we finish the interview, do you have anything you'd like to say to people who experience similar feelings?

Thank you for having me! And to anyone else struggling with these feelings, it's okay, you're not broken or perverse, you're just in love and that's wonderful <3

[absentcaryatid]

Uno and Gormlaith

An ATEEZ Yunho x female reader fanfic by AbsentCaryatid

1.7K words, Content note: brief violence and death, curse words

~

Crouched behind a hedge, the hooded man in the dark cloak lined up his crossbow shot on the mage. Just as you were ready to strike the powerful magician with your enchanted weapon, activity nearby caught your eye. A knight was about to bring a sword down on the female ranger before him engrossed in targeting the same quarry as yourself. Swiftly turning in place, you released the bolt into the knight's chest left unguarded by an arm raised to deal a fatal blow. Scoring a kill after hitting a weak point in the armor, you smiled at a job well done sparing the grateful low-level ranger. The knight's death would not pay as well as the assassin's bounty you had been about to collect on the mage who had fled, but you gained something far more valuable in the long run when you befriended the player who had begun to type in the game's local chat.

Uno99: Wow, thanks for saving my ass.

Gormlaith: Happy to help newer players.

Uno99: Shall we work together on this map?

Gormlaith: Sure, keep up with me if you can. If not, I will wait for you because that's how I play.

The young woman followed your male rogue, together taking out all the other players in the region.

Gormlaith: You have good skills for a low-level player. This a new character for you?

Uno99: Yes, been experimenting with this one. Want to play together again sometime as I level up?

Gormlaith: Sure. See you around sometime, ranger.

[Uno99 HAS ACCEPTED YOUR FRIEND REQUEST]

[Uno99 IS OFFLINE]

It was summer vacation and you had all the free time in the world which you happily spent in your favorite video game franchise. This year you had lucked out with no new training or college classes needed to maintain your teaching certificate so until it was time to get back to preschool your days could be spent in play of your own. Logging on the next evening, you were pleased to see player Uno99 was already in the game so you joined her. Hours passed in an instant collaborating in the game but also chatting in text.

After a week of meeting daily, you opened a direct message window and got to know your partner better over the following days. With enough information shared, you got the sense you were about the same age, along with other similarities that left you comfortable with them so you decided to offer one-on-one voice chat as an option since you got along so well.  

[Uno99 HAS TURNED THEIR MICROPHONE ON]

“Okay, I need to be upfront with you. I am a guy and my name is Yunho,” was the first thing you heard from the player of the female ranger. “I hope I did not lead you on by creating this character to experience what women players have said they have to put up with in games. Been interesting to see how many times I was underestimated.”

You could roll with that, especially when you had been keeping a secret of your own. Your higher pitched laughter was a clue. “Good to meet you Yunho, I have enjoyed the time spent in-game with you these last two weeks.”

Startled to hear you for the first time, Yunho spluttered out “You're a woman!” He even missed the shot he was currently lining up in his surprise.

“Some men have high voices,” you countered.  

“True,” he agreed. “You tell me who you are and I will respect that.”

“You are trans-positive, I like that in a friend and yes, I am a girl. As you may have learned from your own female character, I don't like the attention I get when seen as a woman so my rogue male was born though I do hint a bit with the username. Gormlaith means 'illustrious princess' and until it started showing up as lore in other video games most people outside Irish history buffs did not know the somewhat masculine passing name.”

“Well, very good to meet you your highness.” You could hear the smile behind his voice. Talking went well and you played longer than ever together that night, with many more to follow. After a month or so since encountering each other, Yunho finally decided to ask if you were comfortable sharing your age and location after he offered his own. Given the global popularity of the game it was not likely you were going to be geographically close but that was the case after all, as was being born the same year. Soon that led to exchanging phone numbers and in no time you had become good buddies texting throughout the day and sharing an occasional picture from daily life.

With your time off work rapidly dwindling, you decided to make the most of your remaining vacation and ask Yunho if he wanted to meet up in person sometime and he jumped at the chance. You had grown fond of each other and got along just as well on what you retroactively called your first date, though it had not been planned with that intention. The tour of the armor and medieval weapons collection had been of great interest with little need to talk to each other until the lunch break at the museum's cafeteria. This worked well because you were feeling a little awestruck by his presence. The young man was as handsome as his pictures promised, but more importantly polite, and kind.

In return, while describing your favorite parts of the exhibit over a shared dessert you would catch Yunho looking at you. Later he revealed it was that day he recognized he had already fallen in love, first from your personality in writing then voice, with an assist from some judiciously chosen selfies later on. Getting to really see you for the first time had cemented it. Three more museum dates later and you had a boyfriend upon your return to the classroom. For the first time, your young students were no longer the most important thing on your mind and Yunho was similarly captivated.

Dates continued through winter and spring and by the time summer break came around again you were busy getting your place ready for Yunho to move in. When that was settled, you then focused on another season almost consumed in gaming, this time working around some online classes for professional development. Yunho found it fascinating how such a sweet and gentle preschool teacher could thrive in the fantasy violence world of the first-person shooter game where you met, but being a complete softie himself he knew it was possible.

While you both held plenty of trophies in your own right, it was the team competitions where you really shone. Your partnership of hearts and minds made for excellent teamwork leading to substantial success in online tournaments. However, the next one coming up was for solo players and this would be the first time acting in-game as adversaries.

The day of the competition dawned and you smiled at each other over the breakfast table. “Now it is war,” Yunho tried to impress upon you. “In the spirit of the game there can be no favoritism, we have only been cooperative in contests before but try your best to see me as an opponent. Don’t spare my character due to your soft heart.”

“Okay, if you say so, darling,” you lovingly cooed before kissing and heading to work at your computer. “I will try my best.” It was difficult not to protect him, the urge was strong. You did see Yunho's character approach your vicinity but veer off after another player and you got the sense he was ignoring you rather than seeing you as a target for now.

Over hours the field winnowed to the best players. Yunho must have taken a massive hit because you heard his groan from the other room. It would probably tank his health and significantly weaken him but would not put him out of the game yet. Without even thinking about it, you sent a medkit which he accepted while smirking at your tenderness, only to open it and find it was a poison trap. “You fucker,” he yelled while laughing.

“I love you too, sweetie.” His health was wiped out and you got credit for the kill. Now out of the competition, Yunho came over to watch silently. You both took fair play seriously so he did not mention the threat he saw creeping toward you on the world map. Stabbed in the back while lining up a kill shot on another player, at least the weapon still fired from the shock to your body and that gamer was enough kills to put you in the top five at the time of your character’s demise.

Acting as a team once more, you prepared a late lunch together and recalled the morning enthusiastically reliving plays and praising each other's performance. “You were ruthless with me,” Yunho gushed, “I am so proud. You are an illustrious princess indeed.”

“Thank you, Yunho.” Beaming, you gave your boyfriend a lingering kiss as your arms wrapped around each other. “Now about tonight. I believe you are taking me out as we agreed the higher ranked player would pick the restaurant while the other treats.”

“Yes indeed. It will be my pleasure.” Later in the day while you showered before the date, he dug to the bottom of his t-shirt drawer looking for the ring box he had hidden there a few weeks earlier. Unafraid to be partnered with a woman who could best him in many things, he hoped you would accept his proposal. Not looking to show off for others, he would not ask over dinner but at a stop on the way home.

Yunho had considered asking in a private message within the game but wisely decided there was so much more to your relationship than the way you met. Patting his pocket for the reassuring presence before leaving the house, he was excited for how the evening would end. If your level of adoration for him and some prior conversations about hopes for the future together were anything to go by, Yunho would return a fiancé tonight. Perhaps you would throw a wedding in-game for your characters with other online friends present, but it was the real-life celebration he looked forward to the most.

~

Yunho Masterlist

General Masterlist

[aokozaki]

If you center the entire lesbian identity on "nonmen loving nonmen", you kinda paradoxically have to define what a man even is. And as you might guess from the wave of anti-trans legislation sweeping several governments, this is both a question that's very easy to politicize, and also difficult to coherently answer.

So like, let's assume we take the gender-identity respecting, broadminded answer of "a man is someone who in good faith identifies as such".

For one thing, it's odd that we're applying this broad idea of self-identification to the idea of "man", but not the idea of "lesbian".

(Almost like these two ideas don't quite go together and people who promote the "nonman" idea might perhaps have a different idea of how to define gender as it relates to a rigid sexual binary...)

But for another thing, using this definition of "man" to create the opposite in "nonman" used in our definition of "lesbian"? It's kind of a mess with shoddy reasoning and ample edge cases.

Like, often people pushing the nonman definition will acknowledge that several transmasculine identities can be included in lesbian attraction, so long as everyone involved (the lesbian and transmasc both) are okay with labeling their feelings thus --

(Again, rather odd that this openness shows up here, but draws the line at the mere concept of men, almost as if this definition is at best a retread of lesbian separatism, and at worst, outright TERF rhetoric coached in enough plausible deniability that even people who believe transgender people exist are getting fooled into using it).

-- but sure, good for them, respect for nonbinary identities.

But like, how do we separate "transmasc identity" from "man". We've got overlapping, fuzzy concepts here, and this is supposed to be a formal definition.

I've seen at least one person who tried to word this distinction as the idea that lesbian attraction does not include people who are "in any way men".

I'm not sure this actually solves the confusion here, but it did lead me to realize a huge edge-case in this definition.

Imagine a genderfluid person, who on some days, considers themselves a man, and on others days considers themselves a woman. That's a fairly vanilla, platonic ideal of genderfluidity, I feel.

But you see the problem, right?

Either this person can only be a lesbian on certain days, or the fact that they're sometimes a man means they cannot be a lesbian at all. Either solution here is completely absurd. And the latter may be outright bigoted.

(Also, I invite you to think where you've heard the kind of gender framework where manhood is inherently corruptive, that sits like a stain on you even if you move away from being a man.

I'm not being subtle about this: this whole definition of lesbianism originates in transphobic movements).

If you've followed my chain of logic this far, your response to the genderfluid example might be that the answer should be between the two absurd conclusions. That it depends on the individuals involved, and their boundaries. Just like the transmasculine identities, some people would include this in their lesbianism, and some wouldn't.

And, uh, yes, that's exactly correct.

But that solution is also kind of antithetical to prescriptively defining lesbianism as something that has to be a certain way, rather than a broad category of things it often is.

Either you accept that things like "man", "transmasculine", or "nonbinary" are broad, vague categories that depend heavily on personal experience and expression.

Or you don't, and start echoing gender essentialist talking points.

[saw something dumb on twitter] [is annoyed by LGBT+ identity discourse again] [is tempted by the devilish darkness to make a post about it]

[dakotadawn]

what you fail to understand is that no matter what radfems and terfs tell you, out in the real world, people aren’t just attracted to others based on what chromosome they have. sexuality is a nuanced and implacable thing for a lot of people. many people! including many people who identify as lesbians, and gay men. if you’ve ever been or lived in a big city with a large LGBT scene — New York, Chicago, LA, San Fran, London, Edinburgh, Brighton, Manchester, Liverpool, Paris — you will find that many (though admittedly, not all) of the people there just… accept trans people as our identified gender. Especially in the LGBT scene, the punk scene, the metal scene, the emo scene, the goth scene, the standup comedy scene, the skateboarding scene, the graffiti scene — anything radical and counterculture. You’ll find that, no matter what terfs tell you, “lesbian” and “gay” are not scientific concepts, they are cultural ones. They are not dictionary definitions, they are labels people choose from based on what fits them best. There is not an innate compass within us pointing to either an X or a Y chromosome; our understandings of ourselves are defined by an amalgam of our experiences, our biological predilections (which yes, often play an enormous part in this) and our intangible sense of self. This is why zoologists don’t define animals as gay or straight; rather they write of “same sex sexual behaviour” because, of course, a chimp or a dog or a penguin has no notion of what a lesbian or a bisexual is. It’s the same reason historians often recommend sorting far past historical figures into modern day understandings of sexuality — while Plato would probably understand himself today to be a gay man, the cultural ideas of sexuality and gender in ancient Greece didn’t work on the same metric or understanding as ours; not because they were wrong, not because they hadn’t “discovered” sexual orientation yet, but because their cultural ideals and norms were different to ours, much like they still are in other places in the world, in other cultures. As recently as the 60s bisexual women were considered wholly to be lesbians, by the lesbian community. Not because they didn’t understand themselves, but because the word meant something different then! It was used in a different way. Words and concepts are not immutable, our experiences define language, not the other way around.

I never denied that sexuality is more complicated than genetic makeup. I wouldn't be attracted to a passing postoperative MtF transsexual because she appears, in all senses, to be a female. I am not magically drawn to her XY chromosomes. I will accept other trans people socially as their identity, I'd be hypocritical to not, and thus socially I will treat a trans man as a dude. However, I wouldn't date someone who has a vagina.

Yes, I am shocked as to how much people accept and validate this whole trans thing in reality. I went in expecting that the majority of mankind would see me as a delusional freak. However, I think social acceptance is one thing. Most people will respect me as a human being, but don't want to sleep with me, because they do not find a body like mine attractive. That's okay. I'll find somebody someday. There are actually plenty of guys who have a thing for this so I'm sure I can find someone.

I'm not saying anyone's individual experience of sexuality is not real, but trans activists need to stop demanding lesbians sleep with trans women and gay men sleep with trans men, its nasty homophobic incel behavior. If we want respect, we must also respect others, and that includes respecting their boundaries. It is not transphobic for a straight man or a lesbian to refuse to date a trans woman, because they aren't attracted to biological males, and that's *fine*. Cotton ceiling rhetoric is absolutely disgusting and I will not change my mind on that matter.

Also, don't act like all radical feminism is is the trans debate, there's more to it than that. My core radfem beliefs are anti-porn and sex trade abolition, as I think those are two of the biggest problems and setbacks to women's rights that libfem ideology has created.

[unsafepin]

Nonbinary Invisibility in Binary Language

Nonbinary existence is a strange one, for sure. You are constantly in a dialogue between your own needs and societal standards. I, as a nonbinary person who was assigned female at birth, personally have no qualms with having long hair, wearing skirts, doing my makeup. I wear a binder, but besides that, I have next to no dysphoria concerning my body. I look at myself in the mirror and am content, a genderless face smiling back at me. I’m even somewhat fine being called ‘she’.

And the word “somewhat” in that last sentence is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Some days, the feminine pronoun slips through my ears like it isn’t a big deal, and on others, it stings like a knife through the chest. It depends greatly on intent. Language is a tool, and as any tool would, it has its limits. Like a paintbrush that can be used to make art, but also to stir your tea in the absence of a spoon, words take on different functions depending on a person’s intentions. My close friends use ‘she/her’ with me liberally and I pay no mind because they are aware of my gender identity and accept it, thus the pronoun comes with an acknowledgment that it doesn’t represent my whole gender. But when teachers, parents, strangers call me ‘girl’,’miss’,’young woman’ I instantly get queasy, them classifying me as a female in their mind.

With me so far? Okay, because it only gets more complicated. Technically, in the Lithuanian language, it’s nearly impossible to string a sentence about a person or object together without explicitly or implicitly stating their or its gender. And yes, we Lithuanians are so used to it it doesn’t even sound strange in our minds, but objects are all gendered. Ships are affectionately referred to with feminine pronouns in the English language, despite technically being an ‘it’, but in Lithuanian that would be an objective grammatical mistake. A yacht, maybe, that can be a ‘she’, but a ship is definitely a ‘he’. English, despite however many bigots fume about it, has a tradition of a singular ‘they’ to refer to a person of unknown or unclear gender. This allows English speakers to effortlessly adopt a gender-neutral pronoun for themselves and usually no one bats an eye. The construction of names is also lax, most English-speaking countries being a melting pot of different cultures, there are no rules on how to construct a feminine, masculine or gender-neutral name. As long as you don’t try to name your child XÆA-12, anything goes.

A lot of people have trouble comprehending what a ‘systemic issue’ means. How can any ideology be ingrained in a society built by so many different people? Well, having talked about my nonbinary experience and how gender functions in a language, I think you know where I’m going with this. Lithuanian language systematically erases nonbinary people. There is no genderless pronoun. There are barely any genderless nouns. Names, both first and last, have strict grammatical construction rules and it isn’t unusual that people end up in court defending their right to bend those rules. So what are nonbinary Lithuanians left to do? Many adopt non-Lithuanian names and plural ‘they/them' pronouns (jie/jų), the masculine pronoun (jis/jo), which is considered the ‘default’ for a person whose gender is unknown, or try to come up with a neopronoun, that removes gender but also works in Lithuanian grammar, which is a grueling and frustrating task, unfit for anyone who isn’t a professional linguist. The way that the masculine is seen as the default in the Lithuanian language (e.g. ‘jie/jų’ actually has a feminine counterpart ‘jos/jų’, but the former is seen as the standard for a group of mixed genders) opens a whole other conversation about how patriarchy is also systematically ingrained in Lithuanian, but I would like to shift the focus to the concept of neopronouns for a second.

To put it simply, neopronouns are pronouns which haven’t existed previously in the speaker’s language, for example, the English ‘xe/xyr’. And I’m ashamed to admit it, but I feel a deep rage within me when I see English-speaking fellow nonbinary people put something like ‘angel/angels/angelself/’ or etc. in their bio. And even more upset when these pronouns are respected online, them being referred to as they like. The acid of injustice that these new pronouns can be effortlessly implemented in the English language, while I can’t refer to myself as genderless without resorting to masculine pronouns or writing a thesis reconstructing the entire grammatical system of my language, it rises up my throat. And I am happy for these people, being seen as recognized as they desire, but it is a bitter happiness.

So what are we to do, show up on VLKK’s (National Commission of the Lithuanian Language) doorstep and demand a gender-neutral option? They can’t even seem to agree whether non-Lithuanian characters in names are okay. Only recently did they finally allow women to change their last names so it doesn’t represent their marital status, and even that didn’t go without hindrances. We don’t even have same-sex marriage or proper healthcare for binary trans people, let alone introducing gender neutrality. I am in love with the Lithuanian language. The language of songs, linguists call it. It has words older than some countries, one of the most complicated languages to learn, perhaps only behind variants of Chinese. But how do I reconcile loving this language vehemently and passionately and it not returning the sentiment? Do I become a linguist, sacrifice my life to retrospectively doing justice to all Lithuanian nonbinary people before me, only to be rejected by the strict norms of VLKK?

The language of songs, they say. When will those songs include us?

[haro-whumps]

Hey how do you think that would be a reverse version of GW? Like, instead of Galo getting the whumpees, the seven of them somehow, through a legal technicality, get a Galo that was Bethany's slave?How donyou think they'd all be, in this situation?

I would like to clarify that Galo and Bethany are NOT related in this version.

--

"... an old paramour," Greyson stated, hedging an explanation. Bethany had been, well, significantly too old for him, at the time. But he'd liked that.

Even so, he wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to disclose his past questionable relationships with his housemates.

"And what did she leave you, exactly?" Evan asked, wearing his joggers and leaning against the doorframe, Lilah dressed similarly and walking past him with a deep pull from her water bottle.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Greyson said, passing him the letter. Lilah propped her arm up on his shoulder, only to be dislodged as he propped his arm up on her head. The two leaned in and read the letter together, their faces screwing up at almost the exact same moment.

"Well that's cryptic," Lilah said, taking the page from Evan's hand and flipping it over, checking the blank back. She handed it back to Greyson, who nodded his assent.

"So my bet's on bird," Evan said, ganking Lilah's water bottle and finishing it off.

"Evan!" Nyla called from the other side of the house, "Have you sent me your portion of the mortgage yet?"

"I thought the point of buying a house was to get away from landlords," Evan muttered to Lilah, who snorted.

"Evan!"

"Doing that now!"

Sasha entered and gently shoed the athletes out. "I n-need to get st-started on dinner."

She placed her hand on Greyson's shoulder. "It'll be fine. Maybe it's j-just a dog?"

Greyson shrugged, sighing. He wondered why he'd even been IN the woman's will at all.

"N-now move. I'm cooking."

Greyson smiled playfully back, bumping his hip to Sasha's, and left. He found Nyla rifling through the rest of the mail.

"Are you sure that's all they sent you?"

"Unfortunately."

Nyla huffed, letting the letters smack against her skirt. "Why couldn't they have had a lawyer write to us or something? Anything to save a dime, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to be preparing for!"

"We can run to a pet store the day it gets here. If not, a night in the garage won't kill it," Greyson assured. Also, wasn't HE supposed to be the one preparing? He set his hand on her shoulder. "You worry too much."

"I worry exactly the right amount, thank you," Nyla said, whapping him with the mail. As she walked towards her office, she called out, "Lilah, you'd better have put those in the hamper!"

"Does it bring you joy to endlessly nag?!"

"I live in a house with four other people!"

Greyson chuckled. He was also probably overthinking this. It was weird, and definitely unexpected, but it would all be fine.

--

That was a human person.

Tall, with choppily short hair, kneeling in their front entryway between Evan and Lilah's running shoes and the narrow side table Nyla used for mail and key rings.

That was a human person.

They all looked to each other, wondering what to do, and this was technically Greyson's problem, which meant he was the one who should do something about this. Why. Why this. Why him?!?!

When it became undeniably obvious that the other four were waiting on him and the silence was stiflingly uncomfortable, Greyson cleared his throat and stepped forward.

"Hello?" He hadn't meant for it to sound like a question.

"Hello master," the slave returned, skirt fisted with shaking knuckles.

"I am Greyson," he cleared his throat again, "What's your name?"

"...Galo."

Oh Greyson was so out of his depth.

"So uh, you're Bethany's pet? Ex pet?" Evan asked, and Greyson was relieved someone else had said something.

"Yes master."

"This is weird," Lilah stated, shifting anxiously from foot to foot with jittery energy. "This is fucking weird. Why did your ex girlfriend give you a slave? Why were you dating someone who likes slavery?! Greyson what the fuck!"

"Okay deep breaths!" Nyla ordered loudly, everyone complying instantly. "This is. Unexpected," she agreed. "But let's not get out of hand. Galo, sweetie, would you please stand up?"

"Yes mistress."

"You don't need to call anyone master or mistress."

"Ma'am?"

"Ma'am is fine. Let's get you settled in. You can probably stay in Sasha's room at the moment, who'll sleep with me?"

Sasha nodded.

"Okay, good. Are these all of your belongings?" Nyla asked, gesturing at Galo's duffle bag, who nodded again.

"Okay, great. This way."

Greyson was so, so grateful to know Nyla. So glad she was in his life. Her competence was unparalleled.

"I-I'm going to make d-dinner."

--

Galo followed his mistress, who he wasn't going to call mistress, to a baby blue room with impressionist paintings hung from the walls, leaned up against each other, stacked against the desk and dresser. Canvases were just about everywhere, but it didn't seem messy. Just full.

"This is Sasha's room but you can stay here until we figure all this out. Oh! My name is Nyla, sorry, I spaced on that, we'll get you introduced to everyone properly once... once we settle down."

Galo bowed, hand crossed over his chest.

"This is just a little unexpected. We hadn't known you were--human."

"I'm sorry, ma'am."

"No, no, no need to apologize. Just some information lost in the pipeline. Why don't you settle in and... we'll chat more at supper."

His mistress left, closing the door behind her, and Galo was left standing in the center of a room that wasn't his.

He took a shaky breath. Well. They'd accepted his name, at least, which was nice. Maybe someday he'd tell them about... him being a man. Maybe. Definitely going to wait and see on that one, he wasn't interested in a repeat of what had happened last time he'd told an owner he was a man.

There were five of them.

Galo sank to his knees, duffle bag hitting the floor, his hands covering his mouth. There were five of them.

He was a fairly gigantic failure at keeping one owner off his back, how was he ever going to please five?!? And the little one had been so angry with his presence--he would have to show his gratitude to Mistress Nyla, later, for stepping in.

Oh god, what would they use him for? This house was no estate--maybe they would just have him clean. Yeah, maybe, maybe he could just clean for them and stick to the shadows and he would be ignored.

A hysteric peal of laughter bubbled out of him.

Ignored.

Yeah, right.

--

But for some reason, that... did seem to be the case. They ignored him. Mistress Sasha and Master Evan especially seemed to have no idea what to do with him, and would awkwardly prompt him to leave them alone if he guessed their routines wrong and ended up in the same room as them.

Master Greyson made earnest attempts to speak with him, which Galo responded to as best he could. But the conversations were stilted things. The most successful ones hinged around Mistress Bethany, and Galo always found himself stressed and exhausted after talking about her.

Mistress Lilah seemed to find him a curiosity, asking him questions and prodding him into helping her with her "Influencer Gig," which mostly involved holding light sources or cameras for her. She would occasionally do up Galo's hair and makeup, and Galo tried very, very hard not to show how miserable that made him. To smile and be grateful and not waste her product and time with babyish tears.

Mistress Nyla was his favorite. She had him help with the household chores and spoke kindly to him. She would praise and sometimes touch him. Conversations with her were... trickier, though.

Mistress Nyla has a very good memory. She would ask questions, know things he'd told Master Greyson or Mistress Lilah, gently pull his life's story from him. She would sometimes make him ask uncomfortable questions about himself, too, about his place as a slave, which--he knew better. He knew better!

She would stop, when he started shaking, though. Ask him to please go clean the kitchen or bathroom or fold laundry. It made him feel weak. A useless, manipulative slave who cried to get out of situations he didn't like.

"It's okay, Galo," she sometimes murmured, petting his hair and letting him kneel at her feet with his head in her lap. "You're being good for us. It's alright sweetie."

--

Master Evan didn't like talking to Galo. So he knew better. But one day, a couple friends of Master Evan's had come and gone, and one of them--

Not that Galo wanted to assume, or presume, but she'd. She had looked.

"Yeah, she's trans," Master Evan confirmed, looking desperately uncomfortable. Galo would find a way to apologize later. He just. He had to. He.

"And that's okay?" he blurted gracelessly, instinctively flinching back for two reasons.

"Yeah? I mean, yes, absolutely, I respect and support her 100%."

Galo fidgeted with his skirt, something Mistress Bethany had bought that he wanted little more than to burn.

"Are... do you, wanna tell me something?" Master Evan asked, also not making eye contact. "Or, maybe tell Nyla something, since I dunno if I'm really the guy to, uh." He gestured at himself and Galo bit his lip.

"The others are also, okay with, uh?"

"Being trans. Yes. It's not bad... bro? We're all chill and respectful here. Oh you know Sasha? Sasha's like, super smart, and knows all about this stuff, she could talk to you about this?"

"Yes sir," Galo said, knowing he'd overstayed his welcome the moment he'd opened his mouth.

"Cool. Chill. Yeah. Okay then," Master Evan said, and left the room quickly.

--

That night Galo had found a pair of Master Evan's sweatpants and a couple of old t-shirts on his bed.

--

The next time Lilah pulled Galo to help with her Influencer Gig, she'd done his makeup and hair and he had cried, to see a man who looked like him staring back from the mirror.

--

Mistress Nyla took him shopping. She held his hand, both literally and metaphorically, with increasing frequency as he started to transition and actually began to feel like this new house was his home. That these people weren't going to hurt him, that they maybe even liked him. Almost.

--

Mistress Sasha had him help her move her remaining belongings from the blue room. His room. They were, officially and permanently, making her old room his. Her paintings were either hung up throughout the rest of the house or set into storage in the garage. He helped her carry whatever else was left into Mistress Nyla's--now hers and Mistress Sasha's--room and organize so Mistress Nyla didn't work herself into a fit over the clutter.

"Thank you," he said quietly, crouched in front of the dresser and slipping some of Mistress Sasha's less-used attire into the drawers.

"Hm?"

"For, giving me your space, ma'am." For everything. For all of it.

Mistress Sasha crossed over to him and sat in the floor where he was, opening her arms to him. He leaned in, slowly wrapping his arms around her and pressing his face to her shoulder.

"You're part of the f-family now," she said warmly. "Of c-course."