#specifically gay trans people

[deep-space-lines]

happy trans day of visibility it was nice seeing u all. see u again next year 🫡

bonus rainbow flag version. im probably gonna make a few more For Me when i am not sleepy bc i can Edit That Thing, if u wanna request a specific flag version or smth leave a comment and i’ll see if i can get to it <3

[ratbastarddotfuck]

if you're a white person taking pleasure in the idea that Trump voters of colour are experiencing racist violence from white trumpers because "they got what's coming to them" I don't think you're anti-racist at all, I think you were just waiting for an acceptable target, and you're also fucking weird.

Bad Person Deserves Punishment For Their Sins give me a fucking break and get yourself out of the fucking catholic church. you're all prison abolitionists until you see someone you don't like.

[redysetdare]

"This fandom is so queer friendly!" This fandom literally hates, bisexual, trans, nonbinary, and aspec people but ok.

[prolibytherium]

Just in general I think trying to look to pre-late modern period history for validation of LGBT+ identities is an absolutely useless venture. Every single underlying human experience defined through the lens and framework of LGBT identity has always existed, but it's impossible to pin down Exactly who and what a figure might have been if they existed in this contemporary context and decided to self identify via these labels.

It's also a wildly reductive lens that flattens the complexity and variety of how sex and gender has been constructed across time in different cultures, how sexual norms have varied, etc. This is not a constructive approach to learn about history and you're never going to be able to fit historical figures neatly into little identity categories.

[lazylittledragon]

i'm going to scream i got accused of being a transmisogynist by someone on twitter because of this specific part of my t4t steddie art

[pokemon-radical-red]

I hate it when I headcanon a character who’s canonically a girl as a trans man and make ships of him and a character who’s canonically a guy and I refer to it as a gay/mlm/guyxguy/whatever ship and someone gets mad. Like omg let trans people have FUNNNNN. Why are queer headcanons and genderbends cool until they’re saying that the character is trans???

“OMGGG you’re so misogynistic I can’t believe you would erase FEMALE representation!!!”

and like half of the characters in the franchise are women, and a total of… NONE of the characters are trans men. Also, my headcanon doesn’t change the source material. If my stuff upsets you, you can block me and go engage with the source or maybe every single other fanwork, since mine is the only trans man hc for this character that I’ve ever seen.

or when people are like “WTF??? this is so transphobic!!! how dare you imply that a character who looks like that could be a trans man?!?! do you think that trans men are women or something??? she uses she/her, and you’re misgendering her!”

No, I don’t think that being a trans man makes you a woman or vice versa. That’s why it’s a headcanon, and the headcanon is that this character is actually a trans man and not a woman at all! You’ll never guess what pronouns most trans men had to use at some point in their lives, and you really won’t like it when you find out about pre-(or no-)transition trans men… or trans men who are in the closet… or trans men who don’t know that they’re trans yet.

“But the character is a kid!!! Saying they’re trans is sexualizing them.”

I’ve seen this one from other queer people. Like did you miss when all of the homophobes said this about your identity, or do you think that bigotry is only bad when it’s directed at you?

“Why would you say ‘testosterone could fix her’??? Are you trying to call her a delusional woman?”

Why would your brain even go to that first? This literally has to be a bad faith reading, because there’s no way that someone could see what I said and get this unless they were specifically looking for something to be mad at me for.

(Note for anyone unaware: “Estrogen would’ve fixed him!” was a meme going around at the time I said this. I’m not sure if it’s still super big, but this was a joke to the effect of that.)

“So girls can’t be tomboys anymore? You just wanna trans everyone?”

This is like actual real life transphobic rhetoric. This isn’t even just shitting on my headcanon, but in fact, sending transphobic hate to a trans man. Thanks 👍. Maybe you should go send JK Rowling another message about how much you loved her essay instead of bothering me.

[thepoisonroom]

'I flirted with the idea that instead of being trans that I was just a cross-dresser (a quirk, I thought, that could be quietly folded into an otherwise average life) and that my dysphoria was sexual in nature, and sexual only. And if my feelings were only sexual, then, I wondered, perhaps I wasn’t actually trans.

I had read about a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen, by a Northwestern University professor who believed that transwomen who were attracted to women were really confused fetishists, they wanted to be women to satisfy an autogynephilia. And though I first read about this book in the context of its debunkment and disparagement, I thought about the electricity of slipping on those tights, zipping up those boots, and a stream of guilt followed. Maybe this professor was right, and maybe I was only a fetishist. Not trans, just a misguided boy.

About a year later, on the Internet, I come across a transwoman who added a unique message to the crowd refuting this professor. Oh, I wish I remember who this woman was, and I wish even more that I could do better than paraphrase her, but I remember her saying something like this: “Well, of course I feel sexy putting on women’s clothing and having a woman’s body. If you feel comfortable in your body for the first time, won’t that probably mean it’ll be the first time you feel comfortable, too, with delighting in your body as a sexual thing?”'

-Casey Plett, Consciousness

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I realized (which was obvious to me subconsciously) is that... The family that vehemently didn't accept me when I first came out but now do accept me are still the same family that I am most unwilling to be open about things I feel protective over.

I remember that my dad reacted so poorly, not to my coming out, but to my transition specifically that my therapist was the one to ask if I wanted to put it on my file that I wanted nothing to ever be shared with him about my health after I broke down multiple times due to my anxiety that I would never transition. While there are and were protections for me, I was incredibly fearful at the time because I was a minor, and I was so worried that he would have prevented my transition that I couldn't have said for certain what (if any) lengths he would have gone to to prevent that.

He's grown a lot as a person, and made some commendable strides. But he didn't find out from me when I medically transitioned the second I turned eighteen, and I think that's among the things that truly made him realize the scope of the issue.

I'm not here to guilt trip parents, guardians, or other members responsible for the care of the children or teens or young adults in their care.... but this is a cautionary tale. You aren't saving the people in your care when you do this, you simply reinforce an idea that you will never care for them, never want them as they are, would rather them be shoved away.

When you give people reasons to be secretive, they will behave secretively. When you give people reasons to doubt their safety around you, they will become sneaky, defensive, and withdrawn. When you give people reasons to doubt that you value their life, they will believe that you don't care if they live or not.

[kwyoz]

'dragon age has gone woke!111!!'

you mean the series that has poc characters and lgbt characters in every game? you mean the series that has multiple trans characters? you mean the series that has a whole quest revolving around a gay man?

i didn't realize grifters could overlook all of that, but they draw the line at top surgery scars, but i guess they never play the games they complain about.

[ot3]

this flavor of trans guy misogyny where they do rhetorical backflips to explain why them not caring about women is good, actually, and since cis men are also misogynists a lot of the time we should all just stop complaining about it.

[fattylime]

rome downloaded a rainbow pencil brush what will he do (draw gay people)

[serpentface]

Given what you've said about braids and their relation to traditional feminity in the Wardi Empire how does it impact Couya as an odonii priestess and as an upperclass women very involved in politics. How is Couya wearing a men's cloak viewed? What are gender expectations for odonii priestesses?

Partially elaborated in another post, but I can expand. It's complicated because Odonii experience reduced pressure to conform to expected women's roles, and a degree of 'masculinity' is accepted and normalized.

This is most prominent in that they do not marry and are expected to remain celibate (marriage and childbearing is otherwise basically a given for women, especially in the upper classes in which marriages are almost invariably arranged and a means of brokering alliances between families). This both frees them from very practical social restrictions and costs, but also of perceived spiritual pollution otherwise considered inevitable to women via pregnancy and as receiving sexual partners.

Their involvement in the military sphere (otherwise considered wholly the realm of men under normal circumstances) also by proxy frees them of certain dress standards. A lot of their base clothing would be considered 'masculine' in other contexts, being less physically restrictive and more practical for free movement. (This style of clothing would also be associated with poverty- ie women who have to perform hard labor, but this association is offset via expensive blue dyes and other visual signifiers).

They occupy a unique, somewhat nonbinary space in the cultural gender framework- they are considered women but without flaws and weaknesses considered otherwise innate or inevitable to women (and in a material sense they are afforded legal rights and privileges otherwise only accessible to men). So a degree of 'masculinity' can be not only accepted but deemed highly positive, reflective of their superior qualities. But this is only the types of 'masculinity' already implied by their roles and function (ie physical strength, practical dress, an assertive and commanding personality, etc).

This doesn't mean they are entirely freed of gender presentation norms. Couya wearing a men's style cloak is in the 'acceptable' range (would be clocked as pretty masc, but acceptably so for her station- masc dress=freedom of movement and a display of strength, appropriate for someone who serves as a physical embodiment of military might). Frequently wearing hair loose and unbraided is Not similarly appropriate. It's not just that she's diverging from an expected women's beauty standard, but that it also culturally indicates laziness, looseness, and inappropriate masculinity. It (combined with everything else) crosses the line from appropriately de-feminized to inappropriately masculinized, and will receive some scrutiny and judgment. But the very, very powerful social status of Odonii means that most of the consequences are immaterial.

So Couya more or less gets away with it, but this has contributed to her being generally unliked and a frequent subject of gossip and jokes (tends to be of the 'good thing no one has to marry THAT' and 'she swore virginhood because no one was gonna fuck her anyway' ilk, including from other priestesses). And more of this social scrutiny means her other unfavorable traits become more apparent (social awkwardness, inappropriate bluntness, etc).

Just in general she was not set up for success. She is technically an illegitimate child- her father had an affair after his wife's second son was born fatally premature. She was claimed and given the family name to avoid the associated shame on her father and legal mother above anything else.

From a young age she was considered slow, antisocial, strange, devastatingly unconcerned with presentation, and annoying (she's autistic and does not exist in a context where that is like, understood and going to be readily supported), which only further disincentivized her parents putting any real efforts into developing her into a suitable female heir. They were kind of just running through the bare minimum motions of raising her. She grew up with the (TREMENDOUS) benefits of a very wealthy family, but had no chance at receiving a good inheritance and would have been married off at the first profitable chance. She and Janeys both experienced some pretty horrific parental abuse after Faiza was selected as an Odonii (chosen by the Odomache herself, a Big Fucking Deal) and removed from the household, and this four year period kind of shaped everything she is now.

Faiza was the only member of Couya's immediate family who actually liked her, and was motivated enough to get her out of there to persuade a senior priestess to select Couya as an Odonii. Their parents readily encouraged this once the possibility became clear (becoming a high-status priestess would be of greater benefit to the family than anything Couya could have provided via marriage, and it was a little concerning that they were losing out on another chance of producing legitimate heirs, but it would be alright since they had a legitimate son who was Totally going to do that). Couya performed very well in this context and was inducted and sworn, which pretty much saved her from a life of privileged misery.

She takes her role very seriously, and on a more personal level her unconventional presentation is a matter of pride. She's kind of flaunting her status by consistently presenting this way and experiencing few consequences worse than mockery. She gets to behave and present in ways that she was punished for throughout her childhood, and there's nothing anyone can really do about it. There's definitely a "FUCK YOU MOM" undercurrent to it, but it also pleases her on its own terms. (On a less profound level, she just prefers this style of clothing, likes having a masculine presentation, and doesn't like how braided hair feels).

So like all that being said, her status as an Odonii is a powerful protection against things that would otherwise be RUINOUS for a woman of her stature, and she is Not a good case study for how her presentation would affect a woman of her political standing. She gets away with a lot and faces mainly petty social consequences.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

I've let this ask sit in my inbox for a while, but I think it's time I answered it, though the answer will most certainly not be to your satisfaction, anon, I'm afraid.

First off, I'm a bisexual man, and so I definitely don't have any first hand experience of experiencing attraction to only one gender. And in these things, first hand experience is all that matters.

Secondly, as for other species, I have insufficient information about zoological studies in this field, but I don't think it's as simple as you make it sound (this isn't intended to be hostile, I'm just wondering)?

As for the last part, I certainly don't presume to define sexualities as fitting strictly into one of the boxes of culture, identity or inborn orientation. I'm sure that there are more perspectives on this than I can imagine, and I'm equally sure that the experiences of these queer people are valid.

Mainly, the reason I decided to answer this despite it being a non-answer, as you said, is because I do have something to say.

I'm not in the habit of forming opinions of subjects that I have insufficient information about. I know that being seen as neutral is often vilified. I've been in that position, being angry about people's neutrality regarding topics that to me seem obvious. I no longer agree with past-me on that stance.

I would rather not, in my ignorance, cause damage. I think that people with very strong uneducated opinions cause a good deal more harm than those who stay silent in a conflict they know nothing about. Of course this won't be true in all cases.

But personally, I prefer handing the mic over, as it were, to people with more experience, knowledge, sensitivity and perspective about the issue than I.

So, yes, I'll have to go with a very unambiguous lack of an answer here. I simply do not know enough about this, anon. Non-answers, I'm afraid, are going to be inevitable in deeply personal discussions such as these. These non-answers are invariably better than the divisive discourse, invalidation and gatekeeping that occurs a lot.

Let's all be a bit more okay with saying I don't know. I'm trying to be more okay with it every day. I cannot educate myself perfectly about every single relevant topic. I think that's alright. I hope it is.

[summergoodwife]

"If you want well-written women/queer representation/nuanced character arcs/less wish fulfillment/etc. just consume something other than shounen" completely misses the point of the original complaint. Like no, I don't just want representation. I want representation in shounen, the genre that I otherwise love but that never seems to respect people like me. And shounen can have representation. The idea that there's somehow a contradiction between those two things may come from a different place when it's shared by underrepresented people themselves, but it ultimately arrives at the exact same conclusion as anti-woke dudebros who think trans people and women existing is an assault. I have had too many other marginalized folks recite anti-representation, anti-diversification, pro-identity-based-gatekeeping arguments to me word-for-word without seeming to realize the logical end of what they're saying.

[shynerdwantscuddles]

Honestly, the way that so many queer events are labeled to make them seem like only binary-gendered cis people attracted to (only) one gender are welcome isolates so much of the queer community. There’s so few queer events in my area, and even less that I feel like I’d be welcome in. The lgbtqia+ community has a history of exclusion, whether you want to admit that or not, and a lot of the people who don’t fit perfectly into the “ideal label” are not going to know if they’re welcome unless you explicitly say so.

[butch-bakugo]

Oh my God a fucking " anti-transandrophobia truther" perisex fuck wrote word for word, in a massive fucking post " I wonder if intersex people know being Intersex affects your gender" (NO SHIT???)

And!

" I'm pretty sure all the afab/cafab (coercive meaning ya know ... GENITAL MUTILATION OF INTERSEX BABIES FORCING THEM INTO THE AFAB IDENTITY. The whole camab/cafab thing was stolen from the intersex community.) intersex people who claim the transfem title don't actually have transfem experiences"(regardless of the kind of the type of intersexuality they are?? You are just outting yourself as someone totally fucking blind to actual intersex experiences.)and! " They need their own term because they don't 'fit'". They tried to dress up the offensive bigoted nonsense they just spewed by trying to make it sound like they had our best interests at heart and "shouldn't be forced into using perisex language".... You are litterally trying to push intersex people you don't like out of our terminology to other them .... This literally reeks of literal terf rhetoric " most intersex lean one way and therefore shove them under that label" like...

Ur both intersexist freaks and bigots just in different ways. Imagine trying to claim you care about intersex people then try to determine our labels for us and push us in the way you think we should go regardless of our actual fucking lived experiences because you don't like sharing the transfem community with people who've experienced both transmysogny and transmascphobia. Not to even mention the fact the last time people tried to make a term to talk about their experiences, you've not shut up about it in years and called it a mens rights movement to try and silence an entire fucking portion of the trans community so you don't have to care about them. You literally fucking said " trans men experience both transphobia and mysogny but not at the same time (we do????) but trans women do" ok and ur blind to Transmasc issues because you think that nonsense and we are the same as cis men. Ur blind to our issues in the way you accuse us of being blind to your issues but only expect us to shut up and listen.

Anyway, denying that trans men can't face their own issues while also ignoring any trans man who disagrees with you and then attempting to delegitimize all intersex people who look you dead in the face in the transfem and Transmasc playing fields and tell you ur wrong...

Bro just say you hate Transmascs and anyone who might be slightly aligned with them and go home you intersexist piece of shit.

Also the whole " stop calling anti-transandrophobia truthers baddels! That's something specific"

My brother in CHRIST, THEY ARE LITTERALLY UNIRONICALLY IN THE USERNAMES OF THE PEOPLE YOU REBLOG FROM. BULLSHIT.

Anyway the fact y'all are all fucking white trans women and CONSTANTLY bring up black and indigenous people's experiences with gender while also being unironic baddels aka a horrifically abusive to trans men (including rape) and racist ASF movement within your community tells me everything i need to know as a native american two spirit intersex person with no "lean" whose experienced transmysogny and transandrophobia.

This is why they don't trust you motherfuckers, you got no class, just entitlement and weak ass attempts at silencing people you already hate and a weird trauma fetish for black and indigenous people. There is over lap between the transfem experiences and bipoc experiences but there is also an overlap between Transmasc and bipoc experiences, nonbinary and bipoc, like almost everyone can relate to our shit, ur not special 😭 leave us alone and don't use our oppression to try and legitimize your fundamentally transphobic views.