#people will “compromise” for a neutral gender because transitioning to be a man or a woman

[our-lesboy-experience]

One of my many Lesboy experiences is having a oc that is actually just a queer happiness fantasy that uses she/it/him because you know for a fact most people would just she/her or at best he/him and never ever use it/its no matter what nor ever use the pronouns interchangeably.

it's so interesting to see the different ways people will avoid calling someone by specific pronouns. if you use it/its alongside she, he, or they people will always ever refer to you by one of those three depending on how they see you. if you're afab and use she/they people will only use she, but if you're afab and use he/they people will only use they. if people have the option to refer to you by your birth gender they will, but if not they'll settle for a "middle ground" by they/theming and avoiding using any gendered terms on you, even if you don't use those pronouns and would prefer gendered terms. it's weird

[smilesession]

ur not a man ur just a woman with enough autism to not feel like shes doing womanhood correctly

i'm going to level with you because you're invested enough to have sent this

i have spent the last five years solidly living under the paradigm youre suggesting. and before that, i had spent an additional five years actively compromising with a nonbinary identity, ten years of "it's ok, i don't really care you can call me 'she', it doesn't bother me, i know i look like a woman and i don't want to make it complicated for people, my identity's really just an internal thing and not something i'm worried about other people acknowledging" and so on. but before that i was, momentarily, an incredibly self-confident and assured transgender young man. ten years ago i was exploring transition. i was tall, androgynous, and young enough to have had the experience of passing as male, which i vividly remember the feeling of. it was only my parents bringing the hammer down, shaming me, telling me i could dress however i wished but they'd never refer to me as a different name or consider me their son that made me spend the next decade considering it futile. so i reversed course entirely, leading to this moment, and what you've come to me on this day to repeat to me thinking youre doing a service for women

i dont owe proof and i dont want to rely too heavily on medicalizing it, but if everything i felt was just the social phenomenon and a result of my experiences as an autistic woman, why do i remember being a young child who had not even lived long enough to have formative social experiences yet, whose parents raised me pretty gender-neutrally, ten years prior to an autism diagnosis, wonder when i'd "grow into my boy's body"? i have had thoughts and experiences that i would largely prefer to keep private that completely defy the reasoning that i'm just a confused sperg who just couldnt hack it as a woman in this crazy mixed up world. if i could simplify it to what youve just said, i would. i tried.

if radfem jesus comes down from heaven and reveals that i was truly and ontologically a woman with autism, defying my sex and so on all along, then I'm Sorry Women. but until that day comes i can promise you that i feel secure in my current decision of addressing the fact that living with the idea that "i'm just an autistic woman who feels i cant perform womanhood correctly" has been enormously damaging. instead of beating my head into that wall for the rest of my life i have considered changing course and trying out a different way of living, acknowledging that i've experienced dyed in the wool gender dysphoria since i gained consciousness. and i have as much of a right to acknowledge my autonomy as anyone else, that i have as much of a right to choose my own outcomes as anyone else, and in the process of doing so i find healing for a slew of personal handicaps that stretch far beyond the matter at hand, then so be it. do not politicize my ass

[transenbyconfessions]

I really need help but have nobody to count on, specially not about this. It involves so much, and I'm so... Confused, I feel kinda lost.

I've identified as a trans man for years now, since I was around 15 years old. I was dating a straight cis guy at the time, so I did everything I could to be accepted by him. Identified as gender fluid, then nonbinary, then demiboy, before getting the courage to say I was a man. With some struggle, he did accept me. We broke up after five years of our relationship, because he couldn't accept the fact that I was aroace, neither my recent autism diagnosis, but that's beyond the point.

Recently, I started identifying as agender, but I still am out as a trans man. I haven't transitioned physically yet, no hormones or surgery, because I live with a transphobic father that is still the only person that doesn't know. I'm out at college and the place I work at, I go by a chosen, masculine name whenever I can, I try my best to dress accordingly, and my young 15 years old self would be in awe if they saw me now.

Still, I feel conflicted. I know this might sound silly, but recently I managed to get myself a new hyperfixation on the God of War Ragnarok game. Those who are neurodivergent know how special these fixations can can be. And it sparked a wave of new feelings in me, both after being depressed with no media to cheer me on and after years of feeling... Stuck, perhaps?

There's this character in the game called Freya. After seeing her, I've come to realize that I like women. After so many bad experiences dating women (not their fault, but the fault of being a young queer kid in a shitty environment), I kinda shut off my attraction to them. But now, while I still think of myself as aroace and the prospect of relationships make me cringe, I know that I would much rather date a woman than a man. That's beyond questioning.

But also, I have such a strong feeling of gender envy when I look at her. A feeling that I've literally never felt for anyone or anything else. I desperately want to look like her, and it made me so confused and scared, because... Does this mean I'm not tied to masculinity? I've fought so many years to be seen as a man, I've failed too much but kept going, and now I want to look like a woman.

I don't see myself as female, or feminine. I don't like it when people use she/her pronouns referring to me. My country's language doesn't have any gender neutral pronouns, just she or he, so that wouldn't be an option. Deep down, I just want to look like her, but I still want to be called he/him. Ideally, I would love to be seen as a genderless human, and to not be tied to pronouns or anything at all, really. But reality is something we can't escape, and the compromise, the "least bad" option, is to be seen as a man.

What the fuck am I? After all these years, am I just a woman in denial? I'm scared that, if I ever proceed to look more like that character, I would get misgendered a whole lot more, and would be throwing all my struggles in the trash. All those fights my younger self fought to get to where we are now, to cut our hair short, to be a man. I don't even like calling myself a man anymore. Like... What the fuck?

Sorry for the long confession, but I just really needed to have someone else's opinion on this. Even if it's just to say I'm being overdramatic.

[pineconesarecrunchy]

Pâtissier

(Rime Solano Varela x gender neutral Reader)

You want to enjoy the afternoon but Rime wants flan, but both of you have no money. How will you compromise?

…

“Surprise!”

As Rime unfolds the blindfold off of your eyes, the sun stings as you adjust to the new setting of...a bunch of trees?

“Why are we in the woods?” You ask.  Rime stands in front of you as bright as ever smiling from ear to ear. 

“You always said you would love to go hunting.” he says slyly.

“That was when I first met you, you attacked me with your big deer-”

“Past is past!”

“That’s not what you thought when you faced Felix-”

“Do you want to see the rest of the surprise or not because I can leave you here in the middle of the woods, and you don’t know the way

 back to the main road because you were blindfolded.” He snarls and looks annoyed. You can’t help but feel a bit glad for teasing him. Seeing him frustrated brings you a sense of joy. Serves him right because when he first met you everything was Felix this Felix that. Ironic how he cannot shut up about how much he misses his ex while trying to move on with you. What’s even worse is both of you have to stay in his ex’s library while Felix finds out how to bring you back to Earth. You let out a sigh.

“Fine.” you mumble, but he does not look the least satisfied. He whines and snaps his fingers. The surplus of trees once around you melt away like tissue paper dissolving in water. The once comforting smell of pine and earth goes away back to the dust and must smell of the library. 

“Why aren’t you pleased with a thing I do? I make a mirage for you you go,” he closed his eyes and clears his throat and transitions to his best worst impression of you “ughh why are we in the woods.”

“I do not sound like that.”

“Well when you complain you do. I have another idea why don’t we...” he springs up off the ground. “Go to a cafe?”

“Are you asking me on a date? What would Felix think?” You cannot tell is Rime is BS-ing or he is serious. Can you trust Rime alone outside? Felix told you to keep a low profile because if anyone recognizes Rime we would all be in major trouble. Also under Felix’s library it seems like Rime can’t do any major harm to you,,but Rime seems so kind in this moment. He seems like he is being honest too...

“Who cares about that bit-,” he catches himself, “what that boy thinks. To hells with him! I can’t stay cooped up in this place anyways. I want to roam, explore, with you.” He looks at you with a smirk.

“No.” he gawks, you smile. “I’m just pulling your tail.”  You say jokingly.

“Oh I bet you wish you could.” he says eluding something else. This man.

You two exit the library with Rime in disguise, not one magic boy, knight, or blundering cat man in sight. Rime is talkative on the way talking about his favorite sweets. He seems a bit curious about food on Earth. Needless to say if he was there he would probably run a food blog, the way he describes flavors of the things he tasted in Astraea sound so detailed. He describes in a way only someone with a skilled tounge er exquisite palate taste would. As you two get closer to the bakery you can see the crowd of people inside it. As a group squeezes their way exiting through the door, a warm familiar smell escapes and it hits your nose. It smells just like a bakery on Earth. The rose tinted windows adorn with assortments of dried flowers and the front windows are aligned with little treats and pastries on doily lined cake towers. The selves in the back of the cafe are aligned with treats as well. Rime looks at them in admiration.

You are just about to open the door of the bakery just as Rime grabs your arm and says. “We can’t go in I don’t have money.”

“How the hells-why the hells- I- Rime? Why would you ask your date out, bring them to the location, and torture them to look at the food they can’t eat because you know darn well that I am broke.” 

“We go in and take pastries.” He says nonchalantly rolling his eyes, as if it was obvious. 

"That’s stealing!”

“Okay and?” his tone sounds a bit stressed and angry as if he thought you were on the same page as him. His eyebrows are raised and arms crossed tapping his dainty finger on his chiseled arm waiting for a response.“You have another idea?”

No... 

But, do you want to admit Rime is right? He is suggesting something that would be a major no-no on Earth but what goes the same for here? Stealing is the exact opposite of wanting to keep the low profile, but the cafe is crowded... it would be hard to notice...

 “What if we borrow it, get money from Felix or Anisa, and then return to pay them back?” you suggest.

“So basically what I said minus the paying back.” He retorts.

“No, we are borrowing without returning the pastries. Instead we will be returning money...tomorrow, next week; sometime not today.”

“That is the worst idea I have ever heard, and this is coming form someone who put up with Felix in-”

“I said what I said.” He rolls his eyes and heavily sighs. 

“You said what I said! Ugh, whatever! No one will notice.” He storms into the cafe dragging you by the wrist.

Lead by his pompous attitude, he squeezes through the crowd of people. The people are colorful from their horns, tails, ears, or clothes. He was right, no one did notice us or bat an eyelash. We grabbed pastries off the stand and placed them into a basket, trying to not damage their delicate adornments. Rime has his eyes set on one of the desserts in the back of the cafe. The flan in a freezer. He smirks and you have a premonition.

“There is hardly anyone over there, Rime if you go someone will catch us.” you warn.

“Catch me. I’m going to get that alone.” He hands you the basket to hold.

“But-”

“Just stay put, this isn’t my first time “borrowing” before.” He winks and is off. Sneaking up to the freezer, I look around for any workers. He grabs one cup of flan and holds it in his elbow...then he takes another? and another?? What is he trying to do is he trying to get caught-

“Hey you! Stop it! Thief!” I turn around to the voice. It’s not coming from a cafe worker in uniform, it’s coming form a small child sitting in a booth facing the freezer. The child is pointing at Rime screaming hysterically “Bad deer! Thief! Bad deer! Thief!” Rime looks at you like a deer caught in headlights holding a flan cup in his mouth. 

You have never seen him move this fast before as he runs toward you and grabbing you by the wrist once again and pulling you out the door. The workers chase after you as you make a sharp turn around the block and suddenly WHAM! The ground underneath you falters and you’re falling through the air and bodyslam into something hard it crinkles.

Your head is pounding as you look up. The basket once filled with pastries is no where to be seen, but it’s contents are scattered all around you except for a cup of flan which landed perfectly underneath your face. The crinkling was the plastic container for the flan! Rime’s flan is all over your face and couch beneath you...Oh no. You look around, Rime brought you back into Felix’s library, but where is he? You feel a tap on your right shoulder, but turn to see no one then feel something wet on your left cheek. Your reflexes get the best of you.

“OW! Hey!” Rime stumbles a bit back rubbing his forehead.

“What were you doing?!”

“Eating my flan?” He says still trying to assemble himself. It doesn’t take long until a smirk reappears on his face. “It tastes better than I remember.”

“You’re disgusting!” He rolls his eyes.

“I was trying to take back some of what was mine since you crammed your face into it.” He looks at you like a little kid who had their candy stolen. Well..how is that different form now?

“Well sorry it’s my fault for falling perfectly onto your dessert from the escape route you summoned.” You mumble. he looks baffled but kind of hopeful.

“Can I taste some more?”

“NO!” He laughs and you try to wipe the rest of the sticky flan residue off your face. Rime joins you on the couch. He rolls over onto his stomach, elbows on the couch with his face in his hands, looking up to you.

“Felix can never learn about our borrowing.” he says. “Or me trying to savor the dregs of my flan.”

“I’ll make up for your flan.” His eyebrow perks up. “Not in the way you’re thinking of though.”

“What I’m thinking? Tell me what I’m thinking.” He says slowly with a smirk. You roll your eyes. 

“I could try to replicate the flan...become my own pâtissier.”

“A pâtissier?”

“Someone who specializes in making desserts on Earth.”

“You wouldn’t need to become one if you can offer me something more better. Your body perhaps?”

“I won’t repay you if you keep making those comments.”

“You literally took my body-soul thing,” he huffs out some air, “whatever.” A few seconds of silence past until he closes his eyes and slowly leans closer to your face. Is he going to kis- “Gods you still smell like the flan.” He groans. You playfully hit him with a pillow.

“I’m just ‘pulling your tail’!” He says giggling.

“Oh you wish!” You both laugh away. The day was eventful and a bit ...fun with Rime’s mischievousness. Maybe you should have rendezvouses with him more often. Maybe he isn’t so bad. The library’s musty smell seemed to turn sweet from the bakery. Maybe the events at the bakery have a turn of heart too.

…

uhh h

Wrote this off Rime’s mbti, which is the same as Micheal Scott from The Office. So I thought,

“What would Michael Scott do?” and here we are

[shrimpmandan]

I’ve been reflecting some on my views lately.

I wanted to give my thoughts on the MOGAI community and my perspective on it as a neurodivergent trans person, and just kind of reflect on my stance on and understanding of it. This is really rambly because it's 3 AM and I'm tired, but this is just my own perspective on the MOGAI community and its relation to transmeds. I think the issue I have with MOGAI is mainly its conflation with being transgender, and how these terms are labeled with -gender at all.

To preface for anyone who doesn’t follow me and is just scrolling through tags, I'm autistic + ADHD, and to my knowledge a binary trans man. I consider myself a transmedicalist and anti-MOGAI, just on the basis that I don't think MOGAI genders can be, well, genders. From what I understand, gender is your neurological sex. I know there's been critiques of the brain sex theory, but it's the one that makes the most sense to me. In essence, your brain can't be pupgender because pupgender isn't a sex. I'm very science-oriented and I'm not inclined to support something as a label if it does not describe a real, proven occurrence. 

Though, I understand why people, particularly people with autism, use these labels. Some of them appeal to synesthesia, a complicated experience often comorbid with autism. I understand how an autistic person with synesthesia would 'feel' their gender. Hell, I know I do. I always described my gender as a feeling. Now, gender is more complicated than just 'a feeling', but my point stands. An autistic person may think their gender is foggy due to synesthesia, though I don't think there are any existing studies discussing such a correlation yet. Other labels, such as "autigender", are simply descriptors. It's not "my gender is autism", but rather "my gender is affected by my autism". This is where I have another issue. MOGAI labels are made for neurodivergent people, so why are they named in such a way that makes it really easy to misinterpret them literally? Even neurotypicals I've met see "autigender" and infer that it means "my gender is autism". Additionally, when getting into neopronouns, a lot of neurodivergent people have difficulties using or remembering neopronouns and how to conjugate them. I literally can't use nounself pronouns because it fucks with my language processing issues so much. But again, I can understand why they're used. Some neurodivergent people have difficulties using singular they/them. I read a post about someone having standard pronouns (he/she/they) be misophonia triggers, so they use neopronouns that don't trigger such a response. My only issue there is just how many there are. Thon/thons existed as a singular neutral pronoun at one point, and I think we should bring that pronoun back for folks who can't use standard pronouns comfortably, without having this laundry list of them.

In my opinion, MOGAI would be basically harmless if MOGAI genders weren't conflated with being transgender. Simply put, most transgender people can't relate to the MOGAI crowd. And by extension, what is MOGAI fighting for? How would their activism fit into ours? I know that many people who use MOGAI labels are also transgender, but some of 'em aren't. Some MOGAI users are cis neurodivergent people who have varying difficulties understanding or describing their gender. Now, I never experienced that, so I can't relate, but I can see it. I can see why a cis ND person would think "my gender feels kinda fuzzy" and then be like "fuck it, guess I'm fuzzgender." But, that doesn't make them trans. This weird conflation between MOGAI and being trans is extremely harmful and what a lot of people in transmed/anti-MOGAI circles take issue with. A lot of us don't relate to MOGAI and feel like our issues are being trivialized by this narrative that gender is just a fun way to express yourself, which is sadly not a reality for a lot of trans people, especially the teens who are pre-transition (the ones who are typically transmeds). It feels extremely invalidating for many. 

I think this is just down to the way MOGAI is presented. MOGAI was originally coined to be a more inclusive term for LGBT after all, and MOGAI genders are branded as, well, genders. I think that MOGAI should be rebranded and adjusted to be more cohesive (so that there aren’t a billion labels that are unused or just repeats of each other) as well as better described so that they don’t necessarily conflate with being trans. I've seen some people propose calling xenogenders "xenoidentities" instead, for example. "Xenodescriptors" could also work, possibly. I'm the type of person who tries to look for compromise. While I do put labels on my stances, my opinions on issues tend to be more complex than the label lets on. There's definitely a way to make both communities happy and healthy and fulfill their intended purposes. It's just difficult to get anything done when most of the online discourse is spent shitting on each other and harassing each other. I frequently see both transmeds and tucutes be doxxed, harassed, suicide baited, et cetera et cetera. That doesn't accomplish anything. That's just bullying. Name-calling and harassment is just bullying. If we could just facilitate a respectful, meaningful discussion and work together as communities to understand each other better and come to an agreement, then this discourse wouldn't need to go on any longer. Nothing is black and white. Both sides have their reasons for feeling the way they do. This applies to literally every other major LGBT discourse going on as well, from bi vs pan to acecourse to whatever the hell else. We need to make an effort to understand each other. This post is absolutely open for discussion if it doesn't get buried. I think I covered both sides pretty well but obviously the experiences of people who actually use MOGAI labels are much more important than my views from the outside. I’m cross-tagging this since I don’t want this to just be flooded with one side. I am actively welcoming interaction from either side on this post. Please just ignore this post/block me if you don’t wanna see it. This isn’t cross-tagged with malicious intent. I simply wish to gain more perspective on why people may use MOGAI labels, and also why other transmeds dislike them so. I obviously could be missing a few things.

[apportioned-abortion]

One thing I think changed a lot of my perspective on trans issues in general is letting go of the ideal and accepting reality at it is. Actually understanding the statistics and giving them more weight than the theoretical.

Theoretically, men and women are both capable of abusing others. Technically, there are women abusers. The statistics on domestic violence aren't even close about who the perpetrators are, and while statistics don't always portray reality (like the percentage of the American prison population that is black, for example), critical thinking fills in the gaps.

Take the trans bathroom debate. Theoretically, an abusive "cis" man is just as capable of being a predator in the women's bathroom whether he is allowed to be in there or not. The worst offenders are going to offend no matter what. So what does it matter if innocent "trans women" need to use it? It wont prevent any abuse! Well, in reality, the scummiest of scum will abuse no matter what, but the next tier down, the cowards and predators that only act if they assume they won't get caught come out of the woodwork then once there is less reason to suspect them.

The theoretical good trans women who only wants to transition and mind their own business exists obviously, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that at all, but when you are focused on the theoretical and ignore how real predators act and would find a way to abuse the theoretical framework (trans "lesbians" who benefit from finding themselves as an oppressed class all of a sudden despite being straight men prior, incels who can use trans ideology to benefit them and take away criticism for their anti-woman beliefs, cotton ceiling rhetoric finding new ways to pressure women out of their sexual boundaries, et cetera), you leave the door open to be taken advantage of.

Good people exist, but so do bad people, and the disinterest so many trans activists have in finding ways to protect vulnerable classes from the bad people/abusers is completely disengaged from reality. There are compromises that can be made. Trans people that experience dysphoria and have personal reasons for socially or medically transitioning exist and accomodations can be made for them.

I don't see a lot of trans activists willing to compromise. Third bathrooms seem like a no-brainer compromise to this issue, more single use bathrooms, which should be gender neutral across the board. As for finding partners, there are people that are happy to date trans people, those people are usually already attracted to the sex (not gender) of the trans person, it's not like there aren't dating options. But instead of accepting the people that want to be with them, they want to validate themselves by using partners that are only attracted to the sex they want to transition to. It's a winner takes all, no compromise battle of ideology, as if it's a thought exercise and not like... Actual people being affected and put at risk.

I don't know if the detachment from the reality of things is because so much of this discourse mutates from online discussion, where it's easy to ignore reality, or if it's just that many of the people arguing this are young or inexperienced with life, but it's extremely disheartening.

In a time where public spaces are disappearing and people are moving more and more of their socialization and hobbies into the internet instead of outside, I feel like this problem is only going to get worse and I don't see an end in sight.