#talking about identity

[possum-erotica]

hi, im sorry if this is strange, and if you would prefer to not answer that is completely understandable. I came across your page recently and really appreciated your overall vibe. I’m transmasc, going by he/him and hadn’t really explored the possibility of connecting with the term ‘dyke’ or ‘butch’ until recently when I had processed my transition a bit more and really seen through others that is was a possibility. I guess I wanted to ask you what connected you to your identifiers and what they mean to you. Again i’m sorry for the strange question from a stranger, I live in a rural area of a red state so I don’t have many queer friends that I can speak to about certain things.

hi!! no worries at all!

there is really no right answer when it comes to labels lol. everyone has a truly singular experience in this life and labels will never perfectly encapsulate anyone or any feeling…and honestly that’s true for any word but i’m not about to go on a linguistics rant rn lol

I came to lesbianism before i realized my transness and being a lesbian has always felt like a description of my gender as well as sexuality. in my understanding, even for lesbians who are cis, existing outside of a heteronormative schema removes one from heteronormative gender ideas. the womanhood of lesbians is simply different than the womanhood of straight women, so when i came to understand my transness i already felt like whatever womanhood i did claim was already some fringe dyke pseudo-woman-ness.

and as we all know life is ever changing and no one is exempt from its ebbs and flows, so i still have days when i feel conflicted. i have days when i feel that the things i call myself take away from each other, but i always come back to the history of transness within lesbian life. we are not the first person to struggle with these things and we will certainly not be the last.

anyway i hope that wasn’t too all over the place!! feel free to ask more if anything didn’t make sense. i’ve been in rural red states before and sometimes it can help to find groups online, i used to go to a queer ya support group right after i came out bc i was stuck in my home town for some time and had no community to talk to. whatever that’s me done rambling

do what feels right. try things. change your mind and try again.

[sunfortune]

everyone keeps talking about men being radicalized etc etc but no one mentioning the elephant in the room that majority of white women voted for trump too

[captainkirkk]

Concept: Peter actually got bitten by a totally normal spider. It's just a coincidence that his mutant powers were awakened around the same time

[androdragynous]

as my own direct immediate list of game grievances i hate that stardew valley expects you to side against a wheelchair user who is upset that he was moved without his consent. i hate that the mass effect trilogy gives you visible scarring as a direct result of choosing mean dialogue and heals it if you're nice. i hate that the vampire the masquerade ttrpg has a monstrous player class that can appear as horrible vampiric monsters or as visibly disabled people and both of these appearances are mechanically the same. i hate that dark souls games have a difficulty level implemented in a way that cannot be adjusted for disability. i hate that i can play as a mermaid or a werewolf or a horse in the sims games but can't use a wheelchair. i hate that the ace attorney games have so much flashing and not all of the games can disable it. i hate that disability is constantly something that happens to teach a lesson, i hate that disability is something that happens as a punishment, i hate that disability is either compensated perfectly with no drawbacks or something that is endlessly sought to be cured. i hate that no character customization will ever include the mobility aids i use, that the player avatars that represent me will never look like me. i am so goddamn annoyed and so goddamn tired.

[zan0tix]

Assorted homestucks number 72382683

[chloesimaginationthings]

Five nights at Chiitan’s is the scariest game ever..

[coolhumanoidbeing]

Shout out to people with Complex Dissociative Disorders (parents edition):

If your parents genuinely changed and improved overtime

If your parents were absent when you were a kid because they were sick / ill / working / otherwise indisposed

If your parents were not your abusers

If your parents would have acted differently if they knew you were being abused

If your parents didn't have the resources or knowledge to help / understand you

If your parents were loving and yet still neglectful

If your parents inadvertently invalidated / didn't believe you, but now do

If your parents weren't your primary caregivers when the abuse happend

If you weren't abused at all and your trauma was medical / environmental / etc

Had emotionally and physically present parents but you still had disorganized attachment with them as a kid because of your delusions / paranoia / etc.

If your parents regret how they treated you

If your parents loved and love you but acted the way they did because of substances / mental illness

If your parents are not completely bad people, or bad people at all

If you still get along with your parents regardless of what they did

If you ever invalidated your own traumatic childhood experiences because your parents were "too nice"

Your trauma is not less valid if you get along with your parents today. Sure, you needed disorganized attachment to your primary caregivers as a kid to develop a CDD. But that can take plenty of formes, and they don't all include your parents being monsters.

Edit: any other emotions regarding your parents are also valid and okay, and I couldn't mean that more. Childhood trauma survivors go through so many rough emotions, and self-invalidation is sadly way too common. Your feelings are a direct result of what happened and that makes them normal.

[anneapocalypse]

So, just curious how many writers and creators will have to be forcibly outed by relentless harassment before we acknowledge that "This queer characters was written by a cishet person and that's why they're bad" is not good criticism.

[redysetdare]

I wholeheartedly believe that the last thing that should be said in response to aspecs hating their identity is "don't worry! Aspecs can still do X, Y, and Z" and I'm so fucking serious about this.

The least helpful thing you can do to someone who have not accepted their aspec identity yet is give them ways to compensate for it. If an aspec person is upset over not being able to enter a romantic relationship, the last thing that should be done is to tell them they can still enter one or instead enter a QPR - not because that's not true but because that is quite literally going to stunt their ability to accept their aspec identity. Telling them they can instead enter a QPR when they're upset over the lack of romantic relationships is at MOST a bandaid for the main issue. Instead of them coming to accept their identity and accept who they are you have instead handed them an amatonormative alternative on a silver platter that allows them to pretend they still fit into amatonormativity without every deconstructing it. This is how we get QPRs getting shoved into an amatonormative framework - these people NEVER got over the "I'm sad that I'm aspec" phase because they were handed alternatives instead of given actual support in deconstructing their internalized aphobia, self hatred, and amatonormative biases.

[inkskinned]

before you know about women, you hear that you do not need to love the man, just that you need to love him through his manhood. which is to say you have seen the future painted in lamb's blood over your eyes - how your mother shoots you a look about your father's inability to cook right. how your aunt holds her wineglass and says i'm gonna kill em. men, right! how your best friend bickers with her boyfriend, how she says i can't help it. i come back to him.

you learn: men are gonna cheat. men aren't going to listen when you're talking, because you're nagging. men think emotions are stupid. they think your life is vapid and your hobbies are embarrassing. men will slam things, but that's because men are allowed to be angry. if you get loud, you're hysterical. if a man gets loud - well, men are animals, men are dogs, men can't control their hands or their eyes or their bodies. they're going to make a snide comment about you in the locker room, about your body, about how you're so fucking annoying. you're going to give him kids, and he will give you the money for the kids, and you're going to be running the house 24/7 - but he gets to relax after a long day, because his job is stressful. the man is on stage, and is a comedian, and says "women!"

and you are supposed to love that. you are supposed to love men through how horrible they are to you - because that's what women do. that's what good women do. wife material. your father even told you once - it'll make sense when you're older. it was like staring down a very lonely tunnel.

it feels like something's caught in your throat, but it's all you know, so. it's okay that you see sex as a necessary tool, a sort of okay-enough ritual to keep him happy, even though he doesn't seem to care about happiness as-applied-to you. it is relationship upkeep. it is kissing him and smiling even though he didn't brush his teeth. it is getting on your knees and looking up and holding back a sigh because he barely holds you as you panic through the night. it's not like the sex is bad and you do like feeling wanted. and besides! he's a man! like... they're another species. you'll never be able to actually communicate, right. he isn't listening.

you just don't get it. you don't feel that sense of i'm gonna climb him like a tree. mostly it just feels fucking exhausting. you play the part perfectly. you smile and nod and are "effortlessly" charming. and it's fine! it's alright! you even love him, if you're looking. you could have good life, and a good family, and perfectly happy.

in the late night you google: am i broken. you google i'm not attracted to my husband. you google i get turned on by books but not by him. you google how to get better in bed.

the first time he yells at you, it almost feels like blankness. like - of course this is happening. this is always how it was going to end up. men get angry, and they yell, and you sit there in silence.

you mention it to your friend - just the once - while you're drunk. she shrugs and says it's like that with me too, i just try to forget and move on. men are always gonna hear what they want to. pick your battles and say sorry even though he's in the wrong. you play solitaire online for a month. you go to your therapist appointment and preach about how you're both so in love.

after all, you have a future to want. nobody lied about it - how many instagram posts say marriage is hard. say real love takes work. say we fight like cats and dogs but the best part is that we always make up. how many of your friends say happy anniversary to the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. if you really loved him - loved yourself too - you'd accept that men are just different from you.

the first time she kisses you, it's on a dare at a party. something large and terrifying whips through your body. you wake up sweating from dreams where her mouth is encrusted with pearls and you pick them off one by one with your teeth. fuck. you sit at the computer and your almost-finished game of sim city. you think about your potential perfect life and your potential future family. you google am i gay quiz with your little hands shaking.

you delete each letter slowly. you don't need to love him. you just need to keep going.

[mamawasatesttube]

the whole "jason rules crime alley and none of the other bats are allowed there!!1!" thing is so funny like. tim LITERALLY lives in the theater where bruce's parents died,

[jesncin]

Happy Pride! Now that Lunar Boy (our middle grade graphic novel) is out, we wanted to share our thought process behind queer vocabulary in media. The constant censorship, imposed western biases on queer culture, and what it means to introduce queer vocabulary to a young audience.

Check out Lunar Boy wherever american graphic novels are sold, or check it out at a library!

[gettinontopic]

What do you think about the word transemasculation? People are suggesting it as an alternative to transandrophobia.

I don't like transemasculation bc as a black man they dont always emasculate me, sometimes they over-masculinate me to make me seem dangerous 💀 its not accurate to me experience as a black nonbinary person and I'll be sticking to transandrophobia, personally.

[crocdocz]

The “Real” You?

[ew-selfish-art]

Dp x Dc AU: Jason and Jazz have been dating for a while and... Danny presumes that because he knows about Jason being Red Hood that Jason knows about Phantom. 

Danny got a text randomly in the afternoon from Jazz’s boyfriend. Which was inherently a strange experience considering Jason was typically dead asleep in the afternoon from all his ‘evening shifts’ and Jazz was in class. Stranger, the message just asked if Danny would be free to meet up today for a short chat. Jason doesn’t reply to Danny’s response of “Anything for my sister’s BOO <3.” 

Normally, Jason would start launching into a rant about Danny’s coffee choice being too like his little brother’s when they met at cafes- right now Jason looks deadly serious. 

“Look. I’ll cut to the chase of it all. I want to ask Jazz to marry me and well, your folks are shitty but it feels weird to not ask for permission.” 

“...Okay?” 

“So do I have permission?” Jason asks, a bit of a glare and Danny can see the RedHood’s famous attitude peeking out with the abundance of anxiety Jason must be feeling. 

“I mean, Yeah! She loves you and I know she’s been subliminally messaging you to find your balls and ask her already.” Danny rolls his eyes and laughs. His brother-in-law to be sure was a strange guy, but he liked him all the more because of it. 

Jason sighs in relief and his normal literature nerd, easy going and plucky ‘cool guy’ attitude comes back. They start chatting about the ring he bought for her, how they’re probably going to have to do a small wedding with his family members to appease his grandpa figure. Its all very cute and optimistic. 

“Love it! She mentioned your grandpa’s rose garden before and that’ll be perfect for human family events before the big ceremony.” 

“Big Ceremony?” Jason sounds unsure of where the conversation is going. 

“Yeah, you know. Plus now that I’m thinking about it, it’s probably for the best that you asked me, the observants would totally turn this into like, an interdimensional faux pa or something if I don’t give them a heads up.” Danny laughs at the idea of it causing an incident, but he can see Jason straighten his shoulders and his eyes attempt to pierce through him. 

“Danny. What the fuck are you talking about?” Jason looks more pissed than he looks concerned, and Danny is just confused. 

“Cause... You Know.” 

“If you don’t give me a real answer I’m going to-” At least Jason was taking deep breaths. 

“Hey man, chill out! I guess Jazz keeps it on the DL but my night shift has-” 

“Night shift? You’re an engineer.” Jason cuts him off and the fact sounds accusatory. 

“And I’m the Ghost King? You knew this?” Danny relents, he hated saying it out loud cause it sounded lame, but he’s not sure why Jason is so up in arms all of a sudden. Jason looked like he might have an aneurysm and Danny knows his expression is declaring Jason is the biggest Dumbass in the world. 

“Danny ...what the fuck are you trying to say to me right now?” 

“That you and Jazz have to have a royal wedding in the Infinite Realms or my counsel and advisors will throw an absolute fit.” 

Jason doesn’t reply so Danny decides to add “You know, ‘cause my title translates to the Family’s royal lineage and if you marry Jazz you’ll become a Prince. I guess you don’t technically have to have a big wedding but if you don’t it’ll just mean shit loads of paperwork and a huge fucking headache on my end. Which I can survive but... I’m sensing that you’re frustrated. Let’s call Jazz.” 

“Let’s do that.” Jason sounds like he’s being strangled. Danny thinks it’s a bit dramatic but is excited to help Jazz wedding plan. 

[trans-androgyne]

So glad to have the language of "identity determinism" now, because it negatively influences trans spaces so heavily. It's where we see narratives like "being a trans man means you were afab, you were raised to be feminine, you want to transition to look like a cis man, and you have male privilege." Sure, that describes a lot of trans men. But gender and identity are complicated. People can be intersex, be raised in an unusual environment, be gnc, be non-passing, etc. Your identity does not determine everything you've been through or how others, especially bigots, perceive and treat you, and believing it does causes a lot of harm. Leave it up to the person to tell you what their experiences are; you cannot simply assume it from their identity.