#that i Am the trans person. that they were able to ignore me for a decade partially because there was no one else

[corpsentry]

pick your battles

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

having complex feelings about gender stuff recently but i don't really know how to put it into words. some of it is about the self-erasure that becomes necessary when you try and talk about medical misogyny you've experienced as someone who isn't a woman but who is perceived by the world as one. some of it is about no longer feeling connected to female-centred stories of a kind you used to enjoy as a teenager because they always feel alienating but also not liking your own emotions about that because you should be able to enjoy stories that weren't written for you, it's just that they don't feel like stories that even allow space for you to exist in. but shouldn't men be able to enjoy women's stories too? but you're not a man. but you're not a woman. but the stories are about and for people who look like you but you're not one of them. but you would have been them if you lived in those worlds because nobody would have seen a difference, and that's viscerally uncomfortable, and impossible to enjoy--

and some of it is about looking for stories you could exist in and only finding stories that are profoundly unrelatable because they're only ever about characters who knew they were trans since puberty and had access to transition care in their teens and you didn't figure it out until adulthood and also that's not legally available in your country so that would never have been on the cards in the first place. or people who figured it out in adulthood but they're so certain and they're so ready to take risks and they'll change the world for a chance to become themselves because they know what they're aiming for. some of it is not being sure what you want but knowing you'll always have to be certain about it enough to fight for it because you're not going to get it any other way. some of it is not wanting to be an activist, not wanting to agitate, not wanting to have to resist every goddamn second bc you're just trying to exist in the world, but the only way anyone will ever give you a modicum of what you need is if you put all your energy into the struggle for it--

some of it is about feeling an ongoing tether to the experience of being a woman in a bad way but no tether to the experience in a good way and there's a weird kind of mourning in that, and a self denial, and an inability to reconcile your own contradictions in a way that feels comfortable. some of it is about feeling pressure to experience gender differently and to opt in to something else if you're going to opt out of what you were given but you don't want to do that either. and a lot of it is constantly self-policing your own emotions and thoughts and being convinced you're doing it all wrong somehow because you see other people being so free with their genderfuck, so unencumbered by expectations, so easily able to get it right for themselves and other people, and you're still misgendering yourself half the time in your mind because you don't even know what the right words would be at this point when you still have scars shaped like being a girl even though you're not a girl and you can't talk about them without doing yourself another piece of damage

like. i am who i am because i was thought a girl and maybe because i thought i was a girl and maybe i still don't understand why i'm not a girl but in my not-girlness i no longer feel i have any access to any kind of womanhood that doesn't hurt but i don't want to police myself out of femininity just because it isn't all that i am anymore

[ghelgheli]

Afab people can also develop a gendered subjectivity in response to transmisogyny, whether they've been victims of it or not, just as amab people can develop it as a result of misogyny. So, if transfemininity is also defined by this characteristic, afab transfem also fit into it. Your objection to this fact is just a bias based, at best, on ignorance.

-

It's is a bioessentialist prescription because you're adopting a conception of transfemininity that dictates that to be transfeminine, you have to fulfil to expectation of being male assignment at birth. this is no different from someone who uses the bioessentialist conception of womanhood which require female assignement at birth. Both are form bioessentialism that we should not perpetuate at our level, but rather we should re-thinking these gender categories in a way that doesn't align with bioessetialist conceptions

whoops! you caught me out aha. I forgot that afab trans people have subjectivities shaped by transmisogyny. I also forgot that cis womanhood is defined in large part thru transmisogyny: the fear of being clocky, constant affirmation by distancing from the tranny-object except when it's hot to have a bit of a jawline now, palatability as opposition to the monstrosity of being the shemale. I guess cis women are transfeminine too!

let's remember, while we're at it, that transmisogyny is the spectre that haunts the subject of the cis man. the gendered border policing lest one take a step too close to sissification, the prohibition on behaviour that could threaten to make him a girl—oh! cis men are transfeminine too!

in fact, we're all transfeminine! transmisogyny, as the recognition and attempted correction of the tranny-glitch that undoes the threads of gender, asserts itself against all of us. it is impossible to be a gendered subject without having contours shaped by the domineering pressures of transmisogyny, because that is what demands we all fall in line to the gendered nightmare. oops! all transfem!

but wait. a certain group, deprived now of unique identification, has just lost the ability to describe its gendered situation. it has been swallowed up by the seas of inclusive thinking or whatever. I guess that's okay :) I guess we'll drop our complaints :) we were a nuisance in the first place, weren't we? sorry. so sorry for existing this way.

listen to me. listen to me not as your fucking ephemeral gender oracle telling you what you want to hear before being thrown away, not as your bullshit mouthpiece granting you entrance to this mystical domain you want to claim for yourself, but as a god damn person for once—an impossible thing to ask of the transmisogynistic tranny wannabe, I know, but try!

you cannot escape hegemonic gender and its violent devices with flaccid platitudes about "re-thinking these gender categories" as though by changing the names of things you can change the things themselves. transmisogyny is the bioessentialism, and transmisogyny is why I am a failed man—the faggot embodied—something less than both man and woman—a gender traitor specifically against my assignment itself. and if you cannot recognize the unique ways that transmisogyny is deployed unrelentingly and irrevocably against the ones who will never be able to resort to birth assignment as a defense—against the ones who cannot throw their hands up and say, "I was never supposed to be a man in the first place!"—you have not understood the first thing about the root source of transmisogyny, and it is no surprise to me that you have no sense of transfemininity as a political category, a(n un)gendered class.

[can-you-stomach-it]

I am a bitter transmasc and I am HAPPY to see Somerton being called out as the shit person he is. But I am also MAD. Trans content creators called out his plagiarism YEARS ago and nobody cared! But now that a cis person points it out, they believe.

Edit: I do not hold any ill feelings toward Hbomb. I have enjoyed his channel for years, and I think his video was well researched and he used his platform excellently to adress something very unjust.

What I meant with this post is just what I wrote. I am mad that whenever Somerton's fans were told about the plagiarism, they responded by ignoring or ranting about how it was all a misunderstanding. Even when evidence was provided.

Not saying this was the one and only reaction. But I personally had people be incredibly rude to me when I politely tried to explain why I didn't like Somerton and cited cases where he had stolen from trans people.

Yes, it's true that the reason why he was able to get away with this was that he stole from people with much smaller platforms. But I also believe that the credibility and good faith given to him is RARELY afforded to people in the LGBT community who are not like him.

Let me be bitter about the fact that cis white men can get thousands of dollars by ripping off the work of more vulnerable folks.

[edenfenixblogs]

okay this is a bit of a random question, and please feel free to ignore it for whatever reason! and please forgive any clumsy wording, i promise i'm asking just from curiosity and without any malice.

i know in jewish culture the mother is the one who sort of 'transfers jewishness' to the children, so i was wondering what would happen if a jewish trans man had a baby? would the kids be considered jewish or, because he's a father, would it be different?

lastly, i just wanted to thank you for all of your posts. i learn so much from you, and it always makes me smile when i see one of your art or tree posts!

What a great ask!!!! Thank you so much for your kind words!!!! It makes the stressful parts worth it. 😊🩵🩵

So, first off, I’m no rabbi or even a religious scholar. I’m just a Jew who likes being a Jew.

But here is my take that other Jews are free to add onto or provide sources on.

But there is no Jewish High Authority. There’s no, like, Jewish pope to sit around and let Jews know they’ve Done Jewish Wrong. Judaism is a cultural of mutual acceptance based on the totality of shared cultural wisdom and understanding.

So, a person cannot just decide “I’m Jewish now” and be Jewish. Jews as a community must accept them into our tribe after they’ve demonstrated an understanding of and commitment to our broad understanding of life. Jews also don’t have sects. We have different branches or streams of belief ranging from humanist to ultraorthadox, but we are all equally Jewish. We don’t even all believe in G-d. Our core values revolve around how we treat one another and are nuanced, which is why becoming a Jew is a process.

With that in mind, with the exception of a few very strictly outlier cases, matrilineal passage of religion is more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule.

I could be wrong as it’s been awhile since I learned this and may have some details mixed up, but I believe that the matrilineal passage of culture was partially instituted due to the frequent rape of Jewish women. As a community, we consider a child born to a Jewish woman to be as much a part of our community as any other member of our community, regardless of who fathered that child. Likewise, we take communal responsibility and cultural claim to that child. Someone cannot rape a Jewish woman and the take her child from her to be raised as non-Jewish that is an affront to us.

Other reasons I’ve heard for why Jews pass religion through mothers is due to equality. Matrilineal passage of culture is only one part of passing Judaism across generations. Jews get the religion from their mother and their tribe from their father. There used to be 12 tribes named after all of Jacob’s sons. But those were mostly scattered/lost over persecution and diaspora. Now there are only three (depending on how you break it down. It gets complicated LOL): Yisrael, Levi, and Cohen. Most Jews are tribe of Yisrael. I am tribe of Yisrael because my father is tribe of Yisrael. When you convert to Judaism you also become tribe of Yisrael. My mother is a Levite (tribe of Levi) because her father was a Levite. Historically, Levites played an important role in the Old Temple in Jerusalem as well as other culturally distinct duties ranging from everything from maintaining the temple itself, education of the Jewish community, singing in the old temple, serving as judges, and serving as guards of the temple. In diaspora and in times of strife in the biblical era, Levites also helped keep Jewish communities together and safe.

The remaining tribe is Kohanim. This group is believed to be directly descended from Aaron, Moses’s brother and therefore descended from all the priests of the temple in the biblical era.

It is possible that the Levites and Kohanim were able to maintain their tribal lineage patrilineally due to their status as leaders in early diaspora and therefore being able to maintain their roles in diasporic Jewish communities longer. I simply don’t know. But I do know that the culture is what mothers traditionally pass down and the duties and history of the tribe is passed down via the fathers. When both parents are Jewish, what matters is that each parent passes an important aspect of cultural identity on to their children.

But none of this is compulsory or set in stone.

And I will again say that my understanding of it all may be fundamentally flawed in some way, because of how unimportant it is to me personally. I mean, I think it’s cool that my mom can trace our lineage back so far. And even some DNA tests done several years ago have confirmed that my mom is descended from an actual Talmudic scholar which is fun to know. I think it’s cool that my ancestors were biblical nerds and judges and that my grandfather was a lawyer and that my skill that benefits the Jewish community during times of strife in diaspora seems to be education and outreach. I like that I personally seem to excel at issues related to judgment and education and community cohesion, because it is so in line with the history of my ancestors as determined by cultural norms as well as DNA. It also makes me sad that diaspora has taken away some of that cultural heritage from other Jewish tribes.

But it doesn’t actually have anything to do with how Jewish we are OR how important or valid we are to or within the Jewish community. These are rules/guidelines that were developed with the goal of maintaining identity and culture despite immense hardship. These are rules/guidelines meant to strengthen our community. But they were never (as far as I understand it all) meant to EXCLUDE anyone.

And here’s the thing: a slang way Jews have of referring to one another is as “members of the tribe.” Because beyond Yisrael or Levi or Kohen, we are all JEWS. We are all a member of the same tribe, and that tribe is Judaism.

Is the trans man Jewish? Have he and his partner (if he chooses to have a partner) agreed to raise their child Jewish? Then congratulations to them and their Jewish baby!!!

If one parent is a Levite or a Kohen and the other is another tribe, I’ll let them and rabbi decide how to sort that out. But even then it wouldn’t likely be viewed as a matter of contention but more as a fun Talmudic riddle to explore.

TL;DR: Patrilineal Jews are just as Jewish as any other Jew. And trans men are men. Beyond that, everything else is Talmudic nuanced debate.

[cerastes]

as far as my circle of mutuals goes, i think you're the only cishet guy around these days

We held a tournament, Highlander style, where we beheaded each other after climatic sword duels and absorbed the fallen's power. I am the Last Cishet who absorbed all of their power, known only by my title: Son Boy Allowed.

No but jest aside, that post did make me think of the times it's been brought up that I Am This in spaces where that's not the norm, and, well, each friend group or community has its own story, and in my case, it happened to be that the majority of people in my friend group & adjacent community, over the years, came out as trans mainly plus a few other identities, and while I did not understand it at all initially (even considered it could be catfishing, because I am from ye olde internet where catfishing was rampant and an olympic sport), my logic was "ok I love this person, they are asking me if I can refer to them as the other gender now, and that that's what they really are. There's not anything wrong at all with that, nor do I think this person I consider my friend could have nefarious intents with this, like catfishing, because I know them, so sure thing, let's go with that" and with time, I learned more and more about these topics, either by my own initiative (because I wanted to understand more) and when committing faux passes, because my friends would correct me or pull me to the side (send an IM) going "hey uh Drimo, you reblogged something pretty bad just now, are you aware?" "oh fuck no why" and I'd always get a helpful explanation.

Which brings me to the point: As a cishet dude, it REALLY helped me a LOT to understand these topics to have not only loving friends that live those lives, but to have said loving friends that live those lives and are willing to assume that my fuck ups and oopsies were born from ignorance and good faith, not from a hateful and discriminatory hill, and who then kindly informed me of X and Y.

So I have to agree with that post! At the risk of sounding self-aggrandizing, I do think being able to tolerate the misteps of a well-intentioned cishet guy who might not know all the 1s and 2s of the dance does in fact directly correlate to healthy, cool friend groups and communities. Over the years, the majority of my net friends have come out as trans, and a few others as non-binary and genderfluid, and I've never really had a situation where someone blasted me for my misteps, instead explaining What Happened instead. I've learned a lot over the years, and in fact, as a therapist, I've helped trans kids come out and have explained the whole shebang to their parents, but as a cishet guy, again, initially this was all very arcane to me, so I am always thankful for the people that took time and care so we could remain friends and so that I could grow to be a more worldly and open minded person.

[arvandus]

If you don't mine writing Dabi with a S/O that's a trans man and on their period.

Oh anon, I'm so sorry it took me so long to finally write this. It took some time for me to build the confidence, as I am not trans. However, I hope that I was able to empathize and understand in a way that resonates for you. Hopefully you're still around to be able to read this and I hope it is to your liking!

Between a Rock and a Hard Place (Dabi x trans male Reader)

CW: A bit of angst; hurt/comfort; established relationship; Dabi learning to be soft.

WC: 1,704

Nothing forced you into the bone-aching, skin-itching discomfort of gender dysphoria like getting your period.

It didn’t matter how you dressed, or the chest binders that you wore, or the name that you picked for yourself that resonated within your soul in a way your dead name never did.  Each month, the flawed imperfection of nature reminded you exactly how ill-suited your body was to your spirit.

You did your best to ignore it, to handle what needed to be handled with barely a glance.  But no amount of pain relievers could rid you of it entirely, the pain sometimes so severe that it felt like divine punishment.

This was how Dabi found you. 

He’d snuck through your window – the one you kept unlocked just for him – to find you curled up and miserable beneath your blankets as you lay on your couch, the pale blue light of the TV illuminating your face. You barely looked at him when he entered, and that alone was enough to set off the warning bells in his mind.  Usually, you were happy to see him. Usually, you were scolding him about his unusual entry, even as a grin tugged at your lips and your hands pulled him close by his coat collar.

But not this time.

This time, you were anything but welcoming.

“Go away,” was all you muttered, you voice muffled beneath your blankets.

You didn’t really want him to go, but you also didn’t feel like yourself in this very moment.  You didn’t want to be perceived, and you most definitely didn’t want to be touched.

And Dabi always loved touching.

Lots and lots of touching.

Dabi didn’t go. Instead, he stared down at you with sharp, blue eyes, his hands buried in his pockets.  He stayed silent, brooding almost, as he walked past you and into your kitchen.  You sighed heavily as you heard the fridge open, heard the pop of a beer can being opened.

When he returned, he didn’t try to worm his way close to you, didn’t invade your personal space like he usually enjoyed doing.  Instead, he sat on the arm of the couch and stared at the show you were watching.

Silence hovered between you, and the longer he lingered, the guiltier you felt.  He came here for you, to find comfort in you.  You were his safe place, his home.  Even though he never said it, you knew it, could feel it each time in the way that he kissed you, held you...

But it felt like that person wasn’t here right now.  That version of you that he found solace in wasn’t home, instead replaced by someone broken and confused.

Tears started to sting the corners of your eyes, and close behind came the tingling sensation of nasal congestion, the harbingers of open crying.  You sniffed, wiped at your eyes before the tears could fall, hoping to keep the actions subtle.

But Dabi was far too perceptive for that.

“What’s wrong?” he finally asked.

“Nothing,” you lied.  “I just don’t feel good.”

“You sick?”

“...yeah.”

“Move over.”

You curled your legs tighter against yourself, allowing him room at your feet.  He sat next to you and placed his hand over your covered calf.  You recoiled from his touch, afraid of what it meant, of what it could possibly lead to. Dabi stared at you, his eyebrows furrowed and his lips pulled into a frown.

“You mad at me or something?”

“No.”

That much was the truth, at least, and it felt good to be able to say something that felt honest for once.

“Then why won’t you let me touch you?”

His question made you feel cornered, trapped.  He didn’t believe you.  Why should he, you realized.  It wasn’t as if you’d made him feel welcome since the moment he stepped foot into your apartment.

“Because I don’t want to be touched,” you replied.

Dabi didn’t understand, and you could see the confusion and frustration written in the angles of his mouth, in the tight pull of his staples.

“Why--”

You snapped.  “Because I can’t fuck you tonight, okay??”

Dabi froze, his blue eyes wide, mouth slightly parted.  You froze too, your breath caught in your throat, tears burning at your eyes and you hoped they would blind you, keep you from seeing how much you hurt him.

You expected him to snap at you, to get pissed.  You weren’t sure why you expected that... it wasn’t as though the two of you ever fought.  Oddly enough, your relationship with Dabi was rather...mellow.  Maybe it was because both of you had seen enough of what unhealthy relationships were to know what to avoid.

But he didn’t get mad.  Instead, his expression gentled.  Not into something entirely soft, of course... Dabi wasn’t a soft person. But it calmed into neutrality, and he stared at you for the first time that night as if he saw you... truly saw you.

“It’s that time, isn’t it?” he finally asked.

You were surprised he figured it out so quickly.  After all, he’d never been around you before when it was your time of the month.  It was a combination of circumstance and carefully delivered text messages that managed to keep him away from you when you were struggling the most.  The fear of his reputation as a wanted criminal leading a trail of breadcrumbs to your doorstep made his visits woefully infrequent.  And the other times, times when you’d planned to meet up, were occasionally canceled with excuses on your part.  The need to work late, stuck in a social engagement, having the flu, etc.

Your tears spilled over finally, and you nodded, half-covering yourself against his piercing gaze. You stared at the TV in an attempt to put distance between yourself and your emotions.

Dabi let out a sigh and took a sip of his beer as he stared at the TV.  “Well that explains a lot...” he muttered.

And you knew in that moment that your excuses would never work again.  It left a strange vulnerability within you that you weren’t prepared for, but were forced to accept just the same.

You waited to see if he would do anything.  Get up to leave or get mad at you.  But he didn’t.  Instead he sat there, waiting.

Waiting for you.

“Sorry,” you finally whispered.  “I should have told you.”

“’S fine,” he replied. He finished his beer and set it on the coffee table in front of him. “it’s not a big deal, y’know.”

“Yeah, it is,” you muttered.

Dabi gave you a look of reproach, as if you offended him.

“Trust me,” he said, “it’s not.”

“That’s not what I meant,” you replied. “What I mean is that it’s a big deal to me.”

You forced yourself to sit up with a wince, the blankets still wrapped around you and covering your head as you sat cross-legged next to him. You were close enough now for your shoulder to touch his and your knee to rest over his thigh, and you took comfort in his warmth, in the firmness of his body. It was grounding in a way.

“I hate feeling like this,” you muttered.  “Like I’m stuck in a body that isn’t mine. I wish I could rip it out of me, like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit.”

You felt Dabi’s arm drape over your shoulder, and this time you didn’t recoil. Instead, you leaned into it, allowing your weight to rest against his side.  You inhaled the scent of him, rich and comforting.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, his voice reverberating where his chin rested against your head.

“Yeah.”

“Did you take anything for it?”

“Yeah, but it didn’t work. I still feel like my insides are being scraped out with a knife.”

Dabi let a long breath out of his nose.

“Open up your blanket,” he said.

Your body stiffened again, and he noticed.

“Relax, I’m not gonna try anything.”

You unfurled from your cocoon and Dabi took the blanket.

“Lay down,” he ordered.

You did, resting your head in his lap. He put the blanket back over you, and tucked his arm beneath it until it was wrapped around your torso, his palm and fingers resting against the cotton of your shirt over your belly.  A moment later, a soothing warmth began to emanate from his touch.  Your heart fluttered in your chest and tears welled in your eyes.

“Dabi....” you started.

“Shut up and lemme take care of you,” he muttered.

So you did, falling into silence as you both continued to watch TV.  It wasn’t long before you felt his other hand on your head, his rough, calloused fingers gently petting you along your hairline and along the curve of your ears. 

Your breath caught in your throat at his gentle care.  He’d never done this before.  To be quite honest, you weren’t entirely sure he was capable of such affection.  It wasn’t that he didn’t care about you, but his way of expressing his feelings was either more heated and needy, or more... clumsy, all awkward pats and even more awkward words.

But now, right now, he was learning, adapting.  And you couldn’t deny that you needed it.  You needed this.  You needed to be touched, not out of desire, but out of love.  To be a person first and foremost, all other aspects of yourself set aside because they were secondary to what truly made you ‘you.’  One minute became two, two became three.  As the minutes stretched, your body began to relax.

Finally, Dabi spoke, his voice deep and laced with a tangled web of hurt and something akin to love.  “I don’t come here just for the sex, you know...” he muttered.  “I come here because it’s the one place where I feel happy.”

Guilt dug a hole deep into your heart.  You were supposed to be his rock, his safe space, and yet... here you were, neither of those things.

Tears stung your eyes again as your vision blurred.

“Even now?” you asked.

Dabi gave a dry huff. “Yeah, dumbass. Even now.”

And for the first time, you realized Dabi could be your rock too.

[leezlelatch]

There seems to be some discourse lately about content, the kind of content, and the community as a whole. Now, the last thing I want to do is stir up anything, but I had some thoughts that I'd like to type out, and I appreciate whomever decides to read it.

The purpose of this band is to make us happy. You've heard it time and time again, as long as we go home at the end of that show feeling just a little better, then TF is satisfied. And it seems like lately that happiness is hard to achieve here, on twitter, or wherever else one is active.

On Headcanon

Were you sitting at work today? Home? And suddenly that thought popped into your head, a little scene playing out about Copia, or Terzo, or Secondo, or Primo. A thought that filled you with excitement, butterflies dancing in your belly, which had you smiling because yes, in the world that makes you happy, that is what they are like. That is what they do. That is what they say. It's an amazing thing and it's good and okay, and you should be excited about it. Because you just added another chapter to the amazing story in your head. And you decide to post about it, but...someone left you an anon. Someone left you a comment. Someone vague posted. And it hurt.

This is happening far too often across tumblr, and it needs to come to a close. I understand that we all have vastly different ideas of who the Papas are and how the Ministry works, but that does not give a single one of you an excuse to say anything untoward or foul to anyone else on this platform. And this isn't talking about any particular group because more often than not, posts like this are used to justify the actions of others. You do not have permission to use this to further your agenda. Be kind. Choose to ignore that fic. Choose to stay off that person's blog. Stop making posts at the expense of others just because you don't like a particular aspect of their world.

I promise you'll still be able to sleep at night.

On F! Reader and x Reader Fic

I have seen many posts since I joined tumblr to write for the Ghost fandom that express a dislike toward reader fics, and in particular f! reader fics. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd like to just reflect on my own thoughts on the matter, and once again, I appreciate the time taken to read and perhaps understand where I'm coming from, and know that it is a place of care.

I am a woman. When I write fic, I am writing it to satisfy my own little world in my head. So naturally, I am going to make the reader female, because the universal you is not only the friends I share it with or those kind enough to read, but the you is me. Every sweet word whispered, or gentle touch from a Papa is something I wish would happen to me.

I do not have the right to invade someone else's perspective. I do not understand what it is to be a gay man. I do not understand what a trans person experiences every day, and therefore, I do not feel like it is my place to write these perspectives in an x reader fic, or more so than that, in smut. And otherwise, I'm just not comfortable in doing so. I know my experience, and isn't the first step of writing, writing what you know?

I want there to be inclusivity in writing, but that doesn't start with attacking other authors for writing from their own perspective. It doesn't start with making hostile posts about reader fics, because what's the outcome? You just end up with some people very hurt and unwilling to post their stories because they think it's unwanted.

If you feel comfortable exploring these topics, talk to your mutuals. Say hey, what can I do to gain a better understanding of the content that I'm writing? What can I do to ensure that I'm not fetishizing due to my lack of knowledge? Be a community, and help each other out.

On Notes and Reblogs

A note is not the value of your writing. Whether you receive just a few or hundreds, you have impacted someone. Someone loved your story. Someone is thinking about your story all day. Someone was able to make it through because that one thing line you wrote spoke volumes to them.

We put so much of our energy into worrying about notes that the reason we started writing in the first place is lost. It becomes a chore. There are a hundred WIPs sitting in our folders because it becomes so goddamn painful just to work on one.

No one owes you a reblog. No one owes you a like. And even though it's nice, and it's gratifying to see nice comments on something you worked hard on, notes cannot be used as a currency between followers or mutuals. It just becomes a poison. Your entire tumblr experience is going to be marred by the constant worry that you aren't good enough just based on a number.

Learn to appreciate the ones who do read. Allow your story to make you feel good because there it is! That thing you've been thinking about. It's written down. You brought it to life. That is far more valuable than a tumblr note.

If you've reached this point, thank you. Everything you're feeling is good, and okay, and we're gonna get through. Because even now? When it feels like things are more hostile than happy? You still have Ghost. And you still have everything.

[banana-with-a-bow-tie]

I have a friend who is a Christian who has started accepting LGBT lifestyles and claiming they are not actually sinful. Me and my friends have had meetings with them and given scripture but they refute it every single time and call us unloving. They don’t believe God actually said it’s a sin to be gay/trans and encourage other Christians to embrace the lifestyle to get closer to God. We aren’t even sure they read their Bible anymore, and if they do we aren’t sure how they can possibly ignore what it says. We have tried so many times to lovingly correct and they continue to tell people to go and sin because Gods word is outdated. What should we do now?

I’m so sorry to hear you’re going through that. Be encouraged that you were able to stand firm on the truth and loved your friend enough to offer correction.

As a random guy on the internet, I don’t have answers for what steps you should take in your situation or what your friend needs. I can only speak generally from the Scriptures. This is why the local church is important. Your pastor/mature Christian friend or leader can offer you much better wisdom and possess much better understanding of your situation up close than I can from a distance.

Ultimately “What you should do now” can only be determined through prayer and walking by faith in what you believe God has called you to do based on His Word. Here are few things I believe His Word says that would be helpful for situations like these.

Most importantly, only God can change a person’s heart. We can bring all the sound biblical arguments that we want, but our faith must be in God (1 Cor 2:4-5). It’s not our job to convince anyone, only lovingly present them with truth and action the way Jesus would and surrender them into His care. If there is a professing Christian who is falling for Satan’s lies, the Spirit weeps over that (Isaiah 63:10; Heb 10:29). God loves sinners and calls us to believe He has the power and desire to rescue those blinded by lies and imprisoned by sin (Isaiah 61:1).

If we believe that God wants to save people and is the only one who can save people, then before we do anything we must pray, pray, pray, and pray some more. Then when we are done praying, go and get some more believers and pray with them.

Ephesians 6:19

praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints

Phil 4:6

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Luke 18:7

And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?

Matthew 18:19-20

Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

That last one is really important because in context Jesus is commanding us to pray together for the restoration of a sinning brother. When we pray together seeking God's will for helping those in need of His grace, we can be sure that He will respond and help us know what we need to do with confidence that it is right.

As we pray together with fellow believers for God's grace to work in the lives of those we love, we will find God working in our hearts to shape us into the image of Christ so that we can be used by Him the way He wants. Then we can act in faith to share what the sinning believer needs to know.

Matthew 18 also tells us that if the sinning believer refuses to repent, even after going to him/her with two or three witnesses and elders and even the whole church, then we surrender them to their choices and put them out of the church. If they don't want to follow God's ways, then they don't need to be in God's church. Let them live like the world and trust that God will do what is right.

I will be praying for you and for your friend as well.

[queermasculine]

I've identified as a trans man most of my life, but recently the butch label has been calling to me, not to replace my identity as a trans man, but in addition to it. I think, sometimes, I still feel like a woman in some way and that woman is butch. lurking on blogs like yours has helped me work through these feelings. thank you

love that! that's how i feel about being nonbinary and butch. nonbinary came first for me. i knew early on that neither "man" nor "woman" were ever going to be comfortable categories for me to exist in, and that i would always feel safest around people who rejected them

but no matter how alienated i've felt from womanhood, i've never really been able to let it go. the tension between the person i am and the woman i'm expected to be has shaped too much of me to ignore. womanhood is a part of me, if only in the same roundabout way the absence of something can also be its presence. and that's the context in which my butchhood and my lesbianism exist

[echo]

this is a response to @anarcho-yorpism's tag for me in this post. i'm not directly rbing bc that post is long and it has a lot going on in the notes.

anyway please note all of my responses here are my own, and not representative of Staff or tumblr. i am not T&S and have zero power to make any moderation decisions here.

with that disclaimer:

Predstrogen received a message from Tumblr saying she was banned for "sexual content". If she was not, why was she told this, why were her transition photos removed, and why has she still not been told the actual reason? (I understand not making it public, but it is your policy to tell the user) If she was, what was this sexual content, if not her transition timeline?

i can't really directly answer this for few reasons. firstly, i feel that staff shouldn't talk about her anymore bc i feel this continued controversy will only attract more harassment for her on other platforms.

secondly, as a low-level staffer talking about moderation decisions can get me, y'know, fired. i'd prefer not to do that.

also just like... i want to avoid getting into a narrative of "well she did bad things so she deserves it" or whatever. idc if she broke the rules or not, she didn't deserve what happened.

i know this isn't terribly satisfying to hear, but i'd like to be honest about why i'm not saying more at least.

If you can't answerblegal questions, ignore this question: The NYCLU settlement agreed that Tumblr would fix its moderation so it targeted transfem users less. Why has there been no comment on the settlement and actions taken since? There could genuinely be a large legal case against Tumblr after this, and I love this site and don't want that to happen. Also, wasn't it illegal under GDPR to release her usernames?

i'm not able to answer legal questions. i don't know the exact text of the agreement, but it mostly boiled down to some training and stuff from my personal experience there.

however not as a staffer but as NYC trans human: i would not put a ton of faith in the NYCCHR. they have some noble goals but they are a chronically underfunded city agency that in practice does very little to curb real-world violence against marginalized people. i tried to use them myself when my landlord was kicking me out right after i had surgery and they didn't even get back to me until months after everything resolved. nobody i know in the community out here has been helped by them off the top of my head.

i have sincere doubts in relying on the state to help people here.

A lot of transfem users don't like vague language like "prioritize", especially given point 2 and Matt's statement that improving moderation was not on the agenda. I understand you can't reveal company secrets in an already risky post, but we would like to see the specific actions taken after this, given a lot of broken trust by what @\photomatt has said. Are any of the trans women banned recently for "sexual content" going to have their accounts restored?

i don't know. i'm pushing internally for at least a review of everyone suspended to see if the less egregious stuff can be reversed. but like i said, i don't have a ton of power as i'm not in charge of anything.

and yeah, "prioritize" is vague corpo-speak. i know some stuff is shifting internally and what we said does match what is happening inside. but also... i've been disappointed before.

i can say i'm tentatively optimistic. people are responding seriously, and being asked our opinions for once is pretty nice. but also, systemic stuff is hard. i trust in my fellow workers and i'll continue to fight until i can't anymore.

so... yeah. i genuinely wish i can be more informative here, but what we wrote (and i want to emphasize we here, it was not just me by any stretch!!) is what we can say in an official capacity.

i'm just frustrated, tired, angry, depressed... and also weirdly hopeful?

[velvetvexations]

I'm putting these asks in as text because my inbox is so packed rn lol. Love you Velvet Nation!

i swear to god cisfeminist spaces are the worst. a lesbian was asking why straight people have such bad sex (for the woman in the relationship, regarding the orgasm gap) and everyone jumped onto how testosterone is the reason for it (as in testosterone makes you want to orgasm in 3 minutes with no regard for extending sex outside of wanting to orgasm), even a trans woman saying the sex is so much better with oestrogen in her system. and me and a few other transmascs pointed out to this trans woman that it was probably because she was running on the wrong hormones, and any of us transmascs that dared to say we have extremely fulfilling sex that is infinitely better than the sex we had before we started T was absolutely shat on and berated for “speaking over women” even though we were just sharing our experiences, it’s just that those opinions went against the bioessentialism held deeply by the community

Yo, that's fucked? What the hell? Do people seriously earnestly not get how they come off here?

aside from OOP ignoring all of the black transmascs and other transmascs of colour in the discussion around transandrophobia (including a trans man of colour coining the term), i wonder if they believe we’re making up black transmascs because the transradfems i’ve seen so far have been overwhelmingly white. maybe because radfeminism is inherently racist or something… and their bible is written by a middle-class white woman with no perspective on transmisogynoir and this reflects upon a lot of the discussions of transmisogyny to this day…

Radical feminism is inherently Karenesque. They cross the street when they see the PoC transmascs they spend every waking hour slagging off approach on the sidewalk.

I just really want to chill and watch anime together with you some time, your taste is based as fuck

It sure is!

most bizarre thing i have seen today: a transradfem who clearly believes 100% closeted and non-passing transmascs have privilege over cis women but dancing around actually saying it because they know deep down it might get them backlash from the less radical transradfems

I don't even think it would.

I am still very "read another fucking author" at all the transfeminists who only ever quote Julia Serrano, but finding out she *also* hates the terms TMA/TME made my fucking week. Like, the transradfems' hero doesn't even agree with them!

A lot of them didn't even read Whipping Girl.

Can confirm male/female socialization is not actually a consistent thing because I was literally too autistic to internalize any gender roles, at least in relation to myself. Just. Never learned! Like water off a ducks back

High five!

Really if you take a character who presents as one gender and transition them some trans person is going to be mad about it cause they saw themselves in the original conception of the character. It's inevitable.

Yeah, that is the unfortunate truth of the matter.

That second paragraph is literally what terfs say about trans women. Turning that on trans men doesn't make you any more feminist it just makes you transphobic. (This is directed at the op of that post not you velvet)

Radical feminism is so fucking easy to recognize no matter how repackaged it is.

Racist feminism anon here: see this is the reason I feel like shit for having any critiques of feminism whatsoever. Like hashtag Not All Women obviously but literally these specific women aren't listening to marginalized men. We're not talking about whatever cis white able-bodied Elon Musk fan they think stands in for "men" in this situation. They put "valid concerns" in scare asterisks as though the very idea we have any is laughable. And no actually racism is not a "secondary manifestation" of misogyny and while transphobia stems from misogyny it shouldn't be treated as secondary for any trans person. How the fuck are we supposed to point out that white woman separatism leaves behind men who actually do suffer under patriarchy when it gets telephoned into "you stupid fucking bitch shut up I'll fucking kill you"

The point is making it so you can't.

BTW, I didn't get to edit it into the post before they blocked me, but they were reblogging Actual Nazi shit, like, the OP of the post was progressive but our dumbass here didn't notice that "if there was no hope their propaganda would be unnecessary" is (a) a popular Nazi thing and (b) added to the post by a literal Nazi.

It never does, they're fully removed from this plane of existence.

Note: At this point I kinna forgot I wasn't screenshotting these

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I can't believe someone who's BFFs with a tankie is a hypocrite.

You're the second person to apologize for using that format and it always makes me think of the clown-names drama every time.

[lesbxdyke]

Sometimes I really hate the way people act when people want to express a difficulty when they have a privilege.

I am white. I make no secret of this.

I am also autistic. I also make no secret of this.

I once posted in an autistic group on FB about how, I live in a small UK town with a very small POC population, and how I rarely go outside, so I pick up most of my new vocabulary from online memes, so when it comes out that that vocabulary is AAVE and Black People are asking White People not to say it, I have a bit of a tough time because my communication is built on scripts and patterns and once something has become an accepted part of my script, removing it is a hard thing.

I made it clear that I DO stop. That I put the work in to break those scripts and stop doing something that I've been asked to stop doing because it's harmful, I made no excuses, and made it clear that I wasn't looking for people to say "Oh it's okay, you can because you're autistic!" Or mollify me.

I just wanted a space with other people that might understand the struggle I was having to vent and release because it IS a difficult task for me.

And again, I repeated at least 3 times in the post that I wasn't looking for absolution, praise for trying, or permission to say things that I have no right to say.

(I would also like to note that this was ALL about slang (ala 'on fleek') and not at all about Slurs. I am very lucky that I have never picked up slurs in my speech, I've just picked up a lot of slang that was not immediately 'advertised' as AAVE online)

The FIRST COMMENT was from a moderator, saying 'While it's hard for you, remember it's harder for POC who have to moderate what they say all the time and don't have the privilege of having time to learn.'

And just like that, I felt shamed. I felt ashamed for struggling with this thing, despite approaching this group MADE FOR AUTISTIC PEOPLE to get off my chest that I struggle with something that NT people would shame me for.

I felt ashamed for struggling with something because of my disability, because "Other people have it harder."

And I still feel ashamed. Every time I pick up a new piece of slang, there's this intense grip of panic and shame, because what if it's not FOR me to use? And if it comes out it's not in a few weeks/months, I don't get to complain that I'm struggling because other people have it harder, I'm privileged so I should just suck it up and ignore that my disability is making my life difficult.

I would never DREAM of seeing a fellow disabled person complaining about how difficult they were finding a waiting list for something they required and bring up that it's more difficult for Trans people because in the UK our waiting list is 5+ years minimum for a first appointment and another 1 year minimum after that first appointment to get any sort of treatment. Because that's not what the conversation is about, and all it will do is make them feel shit about struggling with their waiting list.

The oppression Olympics "Well this group has it worse!" When someone is expressing a struggle/disappointment IS NOT HELPFUL!

Shaming people because "Well this group has it worse!" IS NOT HELPFUL!

Unless someone is claiming that they are the group that has it the absolute worst, there is NO NEED TO SAY THAT YOUR GROUP HAS IT WORSE ON A VENT POST!

Everyone, E V E R Y O N E, from a skinny CisHet NT abled white man to the most underprivileged person you can possibly think of has things they struggle with and as long as they're doing it in the right forum (their blog, a vent room in a discord server, a group for people with their disability to discuss the way it makes their life difficult, their Twitter, their private diary), they should be met with support and care as long as their vent is not actively harming people. Not shaming.

Stop with the bloody oppression Olympics.

[edenfenixblogs]

What are you doing to help black people?

Several things! (A Note on My Personal Limitations: I am not black. I am unable to protest for health reasons. I do not have much money at all)

I elevate black voices whenever I can

I joined an anti-racism book club where I can learn how to be a better ally and unlearn as much systemic prejudice as I can

I do not tolerate anti-black racism from anyone in my life for any reason. I call it out every time, publicly.

I donate (when financially possible) to several causes devoted to both long term and immediate aid to to black people including: various bail funds in my current state and my home state, the southern poverty law center, the Homeless Black Trans Women gofundme, the ACLU, and others.

I consistently educate people in my life about the goals of BLM — including defunding the police — in order to reduce their knee jerk reactions and foster better understanding.

I shut the eff up unless I can help. I’m no savior; I know this. I don’t break into conversations that don’t involve me. I just listen. Most of my public advocacy is amplifying black voices on issues that affect the black community without adding my irrelevant opinions as white-passing person.

Privately, I have and continue to reach out to the several black people in my life to let them know I support them and that I am listening. I listen to them vent to me about their pain and suffering. I let them tell me if I’ve fucked up somehow without getting defensive. Then I apologize sincerely and onboard the new information and don’t do whatever the offending action was again. I have not had anyone tell me I’ve fucked up in that way in over a decade, though. I did, however, realize (during my continuing journey of learning how to be anti-racist) that I’d held problematic opinions as a teenager (nothing crazy. Just ignorant teen bullshit borne from growing up as a liberal in a red state and thinking I was more progressive than I actually was at the time) and proactively reached out to the black friend I’ve known since my teenage years to say that I know I was an idiot back then and I’ve learned a lot since then and I will continue to learn and to apologize.

My work involves public communications. In my role, I continually advocate for anti-racist, black-affirming language in our company guidelines and publicly disseminated materials, even when that means confronting my boss—who is a white man.

I vote in every election in which I am able, researching every politician and bill thoroughly from multiple sources and voting as leftist as possible and educating people in my life about these bills details and the politicians platforms and records.

I am not perfect and don’t claim to be. I only claim to try my best to continually improve.

I don’t make a habit of sharing private communique and am only doing so now because this post asks for receipts. Here are some excerpts from conversations had during 2020 when tensions were a little higher. I decline to share receipts from more recently, as those conversations include more private and more identifying information. The pictured conversations involve friends I’ve had since pre-school, high school, and college. Again, this is not something I would normally share, because saying “I have black friends” is tacky and gross. But I am trying to respect your request for my commitment to the black community, which does of course include my friends. It feels wrong not to mention them in this context, even though I feel awkward saying it at all. Im also sharing only the start of longer conversations, as my friends’ pain and concerns are not for public consumption.

Idk if replying to your question alerts you, so tagging you just in case. @phantomdiebe

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I The Asshole for letting my mental issues tear a friendship apart? Pretty sure ITA but I wanna make sure I guess.

I (Agender Masculine, 16) had been close friends with someone (Trans Male, 16) who we'll call A, for a few months. I have clinical anxiety, autism, ADD, and a bit of a savior complex as well as just overall being a very overprotective person, while A is from an abusive household where he's undergone prolonged emotional and sometimes physical abuse and used to undergo sexual abuse as well. A used to trauma dump on me, and quickly learnt of my savior complex as I... well I genuinely suggested murdering his family, who had all taken part in abusing him at some point or another, as a solution, which at first he tolerated but later on at times was one of the only people that would actually have stopped me from doing it. Along with that, we had been fluctuating immensely between the friendzone and the grey area that lead to relationships for a few weeks, which increased my libido for a rather long time. Those two mixed together were rather unsettling to him in the long run, as all my disorders together making it difficult for me to really read him, and thus I could be a bit annoying and sometimes straight up agitating, as I'm a very touchy, emotional person that loves sharing stuff with people, while he's been going through problems and at times needed space, which I couldn't tell. Another thing is that due to my anxiety, violence and combat have long been forms of a strange comfort to me, and I would infodump about that to him, which also made him uncomfortable.

Another problem is that I have had a crush on him since I met him, and for a few weeks he believed he might have as well (why we fluctuated to the grey area leading to relationships). A's polyamerous, but his boyfriend, who I'll call B, is not and is not ok with sharing, so they broke up temporarily because of it, which caused A to grow a bit of resentment towards me.

Along with that, my crush is the main reason for most of my problems in the first paragraph, since normally I would have filtered those behaviors away, but since A had shown reception to my crush for a while and been ok with them for a while as far as I had been able to tell, I did not, and when I did start to realize the behaviors were problematic, it was already too late, and he declared us no longer friends.

Basically, AITA for driving a good friend away with problems caused by my ignorance and my mental problems?

What are these acronyms?

[terra-feminarum]

I bet the next big thing after gender identity is identification into a non-mainstream culture.

It's already happening in my country. Right after I had abandoned trans stuff I neary jumped into another identity train but then I realized it's trans all over again.

I factually do belong to that group when it comes to my heritage but the way activists are talking about it is weird. It's oppression olympics. It's claiming victimhood when our generation were never the victims. It's "You're X if you feel you're X." It's placing the blame on an entity that's easy to blame and doesn't retaliate, while ignoring the very entity which actually caused most harm, pretty much like trans people blame feminist women and ignore transphobic men.

Go ahead, learn the language, keep the culture alive, I'm all for it, I really am. But there has to be another way. I can see the appeal of being a special and oppressed person without actually having to experience the oppression in your daily life, but we need to be able to appreciate other things than victimhood. This is a complicated matter and I don't always disagree with the activists but it seems obvious this is another identity project which is supposed to make you special.

Anything like this happening elsewhere? Obviously things like these might differ very much in different contexts and it's a sensitive subject. It's very legitimate to connect with your ancestry and I highly recommend it to everyone, but what maybe rubs me the wrong way is the idea that some part of my ancestry is boring and another part could be a cool costume that makes me special.

I believe a part of this is the wish to reject the americanized consumerism that's now the culture of all western nations. But that's not the ancestral culture of anyone. Not you, not me. I know why people want to reject it and find identity elsewhere but the rejection can be found in all of humanity.

Once again, this is all very contextual and by no means I claim this applies to all matters around national and ethnic identities.

Anyway. I predict in the next five to ten years there will be more opting out of your boring mainstream ethnicity if the local circumstances offer an opportunity.