#the trans in transformers stands for transgender

[buckbedrivertooth]

fucked up spaceship hrt

[chrissy-kaos]

God, you’re very beautiful. I love that you don’t post pics that are HEAVILY filtered like the other girls. It’s nice to see a real face once in awhile.

Look I’m going to be real with you. The filter thing isn’t me. I’m not into that. BUT if a girl uses a filter and that’s what helps her feel comfortable, confident and beautiful. Then it’s NOT anyone’s business or place to open their mouth about it. Let that girl live her best life.

I know what you’re going to say.. oh but it’s fake blah blah blah. You know what else is fake. “Just for men” or going to the barber and having them spray paint your bald spots 😑. Better yet using a pfp that’s 20 years younger..

Bruh shut the fuck up. Let people live their lives.

[bubblegumpopdefiance]

I am still waiting for my letter from Hogwarts.

I still want a sorting hat to take the hard choice from me and tell me “it’s okay, you’re safe here.” I’m still waiting for a howler to come out of nowhere and defend me when I’m afraid to speak up for myself. Because I have so many good reasons to be afraid.

But my letter isn’t coming. The letter came out the magical printer and Rowling saw it and puked. She saw a monster and tore up my letter.

And she forgets: I was a scared little girl in the back of a library reading Harry Potter. I thought I saw my mother. I thought: finally! someone gets it! Someone gets that it’s okay to be a monster! Those are those fantastic beasts, right?

So please, do it for me. Depose J.K. Rowling and write me a book that invites me to finally be myself.

[your-bigender-big-brother]

The Recontextualization and the Disidentification of Gender

(essay under the cut)

Maverinity is an autonomous gender quality that lies outside of masculine, feminine, neutral, and null - this makes it an outherine identity. While it is obvious that the intrinsic categories that maverinity falls into are autonomous and outherine (both at the same time), there are two very distinct features to this autonomy that are specific to the maverine experience: The recontextualization of gender and the disidentification of gender.

Autonomy starts with a separation from any governance, which is why maverique - a “maverick-like” gender - gets its name from being a maverick of sorts. It stands out, existing separately from any pre-established gender category. It isn't masculine, feminine, neutral, or null but is a distinct gendered feeling based on the “personal inner conviction” of one's gender. What this means is that our gender is defined by ourselves with none of the stringencies that come from conventional gender. Maverinity, the gender quality tied to being maverique, exists outside of the norm just the same.

When we recontextualize gender for ourselves, we reshape what it means to be a specific gender and shake up the expectations connected to it. If I were to use my own gender as an example, I would say that my malehood is of a maverine quality. While it may look like traditional malehood from someone else's perspective, its experience is far outside of the binary and is more comparable to abinarity. But it is the reshaping of my malehood that makes this gender experience an autonomous one, not simply an abinary or outherine one.

Maverinity is also the recontextualization of gender itself, rather than relying on existing genders as the context. Most people might think of gender as binary, nonbinary, multigender, neutral, and genderless (as very broad terms for several corresponding genders.) A maverine gender does not fit in with any of these terms, giving us a brand-new category for genders that doesn’t look like typical genderedness. This means that maverinity can recontextualize existing genders as well as gender as a whole: How this manifests will change from person to person depending on what maverinity means to them.

Disidentification is the other part of gender autonomy. It is the rejection of gendered expectations and of the rigidity that comes with being forced into a box. For example, one might have a gender that is not binary, but they may elect to not call themselves nonbinary or abinary either. Just because that person technically fits the definition of nonbinarity or abinarity doesn't mean they should feel obligated to use those terms - they are removed from the categories they would normally be forced into that would correspond with their gender. As for myself: I'm a transgender man but I reject “transmasculine” as an identifier. I am not transmasculine even though the general consensus supports that trans men automatically fall under that category. My transgender identity - my masculinity - is maverine-in-nature, which is why I call myself transmaverine instead.

Disidentification is what makes maverinity not feminine, not masculine, not neutral, and not genderless. It is defined, in this context, by what it is not. It establishes itself as a quality that cannot be forced into any one of these categories and is often not comparable to such. It is removed from specific identifying categories and is, instead, within its own category. Disidentification does not start and end with breaking expectations of specific genderedness, but extends to the idea that maverinity by default and on its own cannot be categorized using conventional means.

It's important to note that maverinity doesn’t just exist as a way to transform or transcend gender conventionality. It is very much outside of existing genders and of any comparison to such and because of this, it doesn't have to use midbinarity to establish itself nor does it need to even be compared to abinarity. When someone is maverine, that more than likely means they have an outherine identity with no proximity to the binary or binary-related concepts. There are plenty of singular maverine genders and specific maverine qualities that are simply based on one’s personal belief of their own gender that can’t be compared to any other gender. The variability of the maverine quality is why it works so well for so many people. Recontextualization and disidentification is only one fraction of how that quality presents itself.

[rainbowsforbeginners]

Rainbow 101: 001

Today’s topic, as voted by you: What is LGBTQIA+?

Hello, class!

Welcome to Rainbow 101!

To start us off, today I’ll explain the acronym LGBTQIA+:

It stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, and A-spec - And the little “plus” at the end stands for any other queer labels that don’t fit neatly into the main acronym!

You may also see it shortened to LGBTQ+, LGBT+, LGBT, as well as a few others - But, they all refer to the same community!

Now, as this is a beginner-friendly lecture, I’ll also give a brief explanation of the main “flagship” identities - Though I highly encourage you do your own research of any terms you find interesting, as I will likely not be able to cover all nuance here!

Also, if anyone has any comments, questions, corrections, or kudos, please put them in the ask box after class!

Alright, let’s get started:

Lesbian:

Someone who is a lesbian is a women who is attracted to other women - Non-binary people can also use this label if they wish! The term Lesbian is also related to the terms WLW and Sapphic - Though I recommend finding sources who are more well-versed in those labels to understand the nuances/differences!

Gay:

The “proper” definition of gay is similar to lesbian, being a man who is attracted to other men - And non-binary folk can use this one, too! - However, you will also find many people use “gay” as a broad blanket term similar to “queer,” so context is useful here! Gay is also sometimes called MLM (men-loving-men, not multi-level-marketing :) )

Bisexual/Biromantic:

Someone who is bisexual/biromantic is attracted to multiple genders - Commonly interpreted as simply “likes both men and women.” But, as with many of these labels, there can be nuance that is different for every person; Such as having attraction for multiple, but preferring one over another. You’ll often see Bisexual/Biromantic shortened to Bi!

Transgender:

Someone who is transgender doesn’t fully identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. For example, someone who was born as a girl named Jane and later transitions to a man named John. (Something to note here: While many transgender people do fully identify with the “opposite” gender, and undergo various visual/biological transformations (ha!), there are many who don’t do either! Some people only change their pronouns, and some may not change anything!) Non-binary people are also under this umbrella term - though not everyone identifies with the label! You’ll often see Transgender shortened to Trans!

Queer/Questioning:

From what I’ve seen, “Queer” is a pretty broad label, often used as a collective term for all LGBTQIA+ people - But, I’ve also seen some people use it as a catch-all personal miscellaneous label, when they don’t care to explain or define the details! “Questioning” is pretty simple - It just means the person is figuring out some aspect of their identity, but hasn’t quite gotten there yet!

Intersex:

This one I don’t know as much about as I could, but my understanding is that an intersex person falls between or outside of the biological sex binary - And it can be as drastically obvious as physical organ differences, or more often, as subtle as having unusual chromosomes!

A-spec:

A-spec, or the A-spectrum, is a wide category for those who experience little, no, and/or specifically-parametrized attraction! Aromantic (or Aro, little-to-no romantic attraction) and Asexual (or Ace, little-to-no sexual attraction) are the more popular, “flagship” labels, but the A spectrum also includes Aplatonic, Agender, Afamilial, Asensual, and probably a few others I don’t know of! To oversimplify for the sake of comedy, the A-spec is for those of us who look at everyone else and go, “No thanks!” with varying degrees of intensity.

Plus (+):

And the + is for everyone else who might not fit within the above!

…And there you have it - That was a lot, and I’m glad you stuck around to the end!

I want to note here that many of these labels have more sub-labels nested under them, and/or have more nuance than we covered today - So, if any of you have questions or clarifications, or have a correction to make, please feel free to drop a note in my ask box!

Also, any ideas for future topics to cover would be much appreciated!

Batteries and Bars,

Neon

[cnjosephs]

POLARIS TRANS*

A poem for Pride. Continued under the read more.

As I grew from a little girl to a teenage boy, They said I should call myself trans*, with a star at the end: A star for something unfinished; a star for possibility.

As I grew from a teenage boy to a femme young adult, They said I should call myself trans, with no star at the end: That the star’s sharp points only served to cut and divide.

As I grew from a femme to a gloriously butch dykefag, I thought again about the star of my youth And about all the things it can stand for:

Trans* is for transgender— It’s for language that grows and shifts Like a living being; like a tree; like a child; For Sylvia’s Transgender Action Revolutionaries And for the kids at their high school GSA Walking into the club with their hearts in their hands.

Trans* is for transgressive— It’s for shattering expectations Shattering societies, boundaries, and binaries Like panes of fractured glass; The glass was breaking already, you know, But now we can turn it into a mosaic.

Trans* is for transsexual— It’s for those who pick up an old word That they’ve been told is “outdated” And brush the scorn off of it Like dust off of fine China To display it with pride on the shelf.

Trans* is for transformation— It’s for the little girls who became men, For the little boys who became women, For everyone who became everything, For everyone who became nothing, For everyone who became.

Trans* is for transvestite— It’s for shedding the skin you were forced into Like a snake shedding too-tight scales And growing something that fits you better; Making something new and beautiful, Wearing something beautiful and yours.

Trans* is for transitory— It’s for those of us whose gender shifts Like the phases of the moon; For people who fall asleep a femme fag And wake up a butch dyke And repeat the process again in a week.

Trans* is for tranny— It’s for picking up the stick they beat you with And sharpening it to a spear; Holding it up to defend yourself, To defend your kin, and saying: “You really wanna mess with us?”

Trans* is for those who reject the New Queer Binary— Who answer “Are you transfem or transmasc?” With an annoyed “Neither, actually”; Whose gender is not silence, but absence of noise; For men who are also women, For lesbians who are also gay men; For people so outside the binary That “nonbinary” feels like a chain around their throat; Maybe you can’t be cis and trans But I know you can be cis and trans*, And I know that you can’t draw a line between genders Like the respectable queers pretend you can.

Trans* is for all of us— For boydykes and girlfags, For queens and kings and crossdressers, For masculine women and feminine men, For my oft-excluded intersex darlings; For FTMs who wear suits and MTFs who wear gowns, For MTFs who wear suits and FTMs who wear gowns; For those on hormones and those who eschew them, For those who change their name and those who don’t; For those who want surgery to get a penis or a vagina, And those who want surgery to get both, And those who want surgery to have nothing.

Trans* is for everyone who marked the path we walk on now— It’s for Lili and Dr. Barry, For Roberta and Christine, For Marsha and Sylvia, For Stormé and Miss Major, For Leslie and Lou; And for so many others whose names we do not know Because they were blessed with the safety of privacy Or cursed with the violence of erasure.

If you asked me to name trans-with-a-star I’d tell you to call them Polaris Trans* The gender-variant community’s guiding light.

Trans* tells us where to go— To follow the paths cut by our predecessors, While keeping their drive to explore untrodden ground. To offer our hands for each other: Both to raise each other up when we fall And to fight when we’re under attack.

Trans* tells us who we are— We are faggots and dykes and sissies and queens, We are a bunch of rowdy queers who won’t shut up; We are armed with bottles and glasses, With bats and pens, with guns and paint; We are the people who have only survived Because when nobody would take care of us, When respectable queers treated us like a stain on their flag, We took care of each other.

Trans* tells us who to be— It tells us that we must be so brave and so strong, And so scared and so soft. That we must save our anger for those who hurt us, And not turn it on each other. That we must hold each other accountable for harm, But understand we are all flawed humans, And that mistakes are not unforgivable. That we must not hurt our trans* siblings For daring to be trans* in a way we cannot understand, And that you don’t need to know exactly what stars are made of To love how they shine in the sky.

Historical Notes

The figures referred to in the thirteenth stanza are, in order: Lili Elbe, Dr. James Barry, Roberta Cowell, Christine Jorgensen, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Stormé DeLarverie, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Leslie Feinberg, and Lou Sullivan.

Sylvia Rivera is the same Sylvia mentioned in stanza four. In the 1970s, Sylvia and Marsha founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries together. They provided housing and care for homeless gay and trans* youth while working towards broader goals of achieving trans* liberation. Sylvia and Marsha kept their kids fed and housed through funds they raised via sex work. 

Sylvia would later say that the death of STAR came at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, where trans* activists were told they couldn’t speak on stage. Sylvia and drag queen Lee Brewster physically fought their way to the stage and criticized the gay community for abandoning the trans* community after the trans* community had spent years fighting for rights for all of them. Lesbian activist Jean O’Leary verbally attacked them both, claiming that drag was “misogynistic” and “demeaning”, and that trans* people had no place in the gay rights movement. Receiving such a devastating rejection from people Sylvia had considered friends pushed her out of working in activism for many years. 

Marsha was tragically murdered in 1992 at the age of 47. Eight years later, in response to the murder of trans woman Amanda Milan, Sylvia resurrected STAR as the Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries. While Marsha and Sylvia were both integral to the initial work of STAR, I refer to it as “Sylvia’s” in the fourth stanza to make it clear I’m referring specifically to the later incarnation, which used “transgender” in their name. You can read more about Sylvia’s life in her essay “Queens in Exile, the Forgotten Ones”, written just before her fiftieth birthday in 2001. The closing paragraphs of the essay are, in my mind, both a profoundly valiant rallying cry and an agonizing indictment of our community’s failures:

Before I die, I will see our community given the respect we deserve. I'll be damned if I'm going to my grave without having the respect this community deserves. I want to go to wherever I go with that in my soul and peacefully say I've finally overcome. Editor's Note: Sylvia died on February 19, 2002, from complications of liver cancer. She was 50 years old. 

[transread]

A Beautiful Journey Through Love and Identity

Blossoming True: Transgender Romance Tales

In Blossoming True: Transgender Romance Tales, readers are invited to traverse though vibrant love stories that redefine romance and celebrate authenticity. This collection breathes life into Trans experiences too often overlooked, painting an evocative picture of the courage, passion, and joy that flourish when love is allowed to bloom without boundaries.

Celebration of Diversity

Every tale in this collection is a heartfelt exploration of connection, identity, and the transformative power of love. The characters are beautifully nuanced, their journeys resonate with anyone who has ever yearned for belonging or dreamed of a love that sees them for who they truly are. Each narrative is a testament to the strength found in vulnerability, the joy in self-discovery, and the nature of love.

Why Blossoming True Stands Out

What sets this book apart is its ability to balance intimacy with universality. While the stories focus on transgender romance, the emotions they evoke—hope, fear, exhilaration, and acceptance—are universal. Each tale is an example of empathy, bridging gaps and challenging readers to see love not as a construct but as an unbounded, transformative force.

Unbound Love

The narratives within are mirrors, windows, and bridges. They reflect the diverse ways love manifests, offer glimpses into lives rich with complexity, and build connections that transcend labels. Whether it’s a tender first date, a moment of self-realization, or the quiet triumph of being seen and loved for who you are, Blossoming True is a reminder that love is as diverse as the people who experience it.

A Must-Experience Collection

Blossoming True: Transgender Romance Tales is an experience, a celebration, and an invitation. These tales of love, courage, and authenticity are bound to linger in your heart, sparking conversations and reshaping perspectives. If you’re ready to explore the transformative power of love, this collection promises to be an unforgettable journey.

[connyscomics]

Until I Become Me by Satou Hatsuki

Trans rep: 8/10

General enjoyment: 8/10

Okay so this will be the first of my longer reviews that I post, and so for readers that don’t want that I’ll first say some words about the comic (in summary or smth). Basically the comic is good but oddly executed and is built around a sort of stupid gender swap premise. Okay so uhm yeah heres my goliath of an essay (actually its just like 600 words, but yk this is tumblr not a newspaper… oh whatever):

I started writing about Trans comics almost three years ago because I noticed that there was not one single thorough guide or reading list for someone trying to find comics about Trans people. There are a few guides out there that allow you to search under the tag of “Transgender”, but every single one has the same five or ten entries that barely have any Transgender representation.

The genre of Transgender comics may seem small, but once you start digging you’ll quickly find that there are so many great comics to be found, if only you just look hard enough!

It took me three years of searching to find Until I Become Me by Satou Hatsuki in the footnotes of a poorly written article about another Trans comic I was researching, but boy was it worth the wait. Until I Become Me is a not-so-classic twist on the classic manga trope of “gender benders” or “gender swap,” in which a character (typically male) magically Transforms (typically overnight) into the opposite sex. This trope generally plays into outdated understandings of gender and sex and the intersection of the two to create what has historically been seen as a humorous plot point.

Gender swap tropes are rooted in a gender-essentialist perspective that there is something inherently “female” about some bodies and something inherently “male” about other bodies and that only a magical binary “switch” could turn a boy into a girl. In reality, gender and bodies are not so completely binary and not so completely set in stone, and furthermore if someone wants to change their body, modern medical transition options are very effective for changing someone’s “sex”.

Normally I can’t stand comics like this because they are full to the brim with Transphobic rhetoric, gender-essentialism, and usually a good amount of oversexualization. However, Until I Become Me is different, because the gender swap mechanic is not seen as a funny joke or a one-off bit but instead as a serious and confusing emotional experience for a character with a lot of internalized self-hatred and Trans desires.

The main character, Akira, hesitantly explores what it means to have a feminine body while simultaneously coping with her growing enjoyment of this experience: she didn’t magically become a girl overnight (mentally speaking) but the “girl” might have been there all along.

This strikingly fresh take on both the Transgender experience and the gender-swap trope is as fun as it is heart wrenching. Before her body changed, Akira regularly harassed and bullied girls in her class, and then after changing ends up facing much of the same treatment from boys in her class. Watching Akira reflect on her own past behaviors towards girls when she was a “boy” hits deep into the real-world challenge of many Trans people to balance internalized prejudices with learned experiences.

Although overall I found the comic really enjoyable and its storyline surprisingly poignant, there were definitely some moments that were hard to read.

The way in which her parents treat her, as a freak of nature that desperately needs “fixing,” and the way that boys in her class (particularly early on when they knew her before the change) treat her, as a subject of ridicule and regular sexual harassment, its all quite difficult to read. But this does not make the story any less valuable as a Trans narrative, in fact the balancing of the softer internal exploration with the harsh outside world is exactly what makes Until I Become Me one of the most harshly realistic comics I’ve ever read.

Admittedly, the gender swap mechanic is a bit cheesy at first, but I think Hatsuki did a good job separating the brain from the body and allowing the Transgender themes to come front and center. The comic is on chapter 63 currently and regularly updating, already having cemented itself as one of the greatest Transgender texts, comic or otherwise, that's ever been written.

[nerdygaymormon]

Exodus 10: 7-11, 24-26 - Passover is an annual reminder that we do not leave others behind

Moses and Pharaoh met together several times to negotiate the terms for the release of the Israelites. Pharaoh initially agrees to just letting the men go, then just the adults, then all of the people but not the animals. In the end, the Israelites young and old, and their animals, leave Egypt.

Moses never caved to Pharaoh's counter offers. It was to be all Israelites & their animals or none. In a stirring moment, Moses states, "Not a hoof shall remain behind."

Passover celebrates the events surrounding the Israelites leaving Egypt and is an annual reminder that we don't negotiate for our benefit at the expense of others. In our journeys toward freedom, we don't leave a single hoof behind. Civil Rights and freedoms aren't to be doled out sparingly but are to be obtained for everyone.

The Passover story has served as a prototype of liberation for centuries. The Passover is a reminder that peace, justice and liberation are not fantasy but a reality that can be obtained. Passover arrives in the spring, a period of new growth and hope.

One lesson of Exodus is that when you have privilege, it's easy to become blind to the fact you hold privilege. Initially Moses didn't recognize the privilege he had, it seemed like the natural order of things. When he learned the truth of his background, it transformed his understanding of things. As a consequence, he was willing to stand with and for all Israelis.

It's not a coincidence that in the United States and Europe, straight, white, able-bodied, cis men are the least likely to use the word "privilege" to describe their situation. They are the least likely to know and understand the privilege they hold. It seems normal and natural to them.

Sadly, some in the LGBTQ community are at times blind to the privileges that we hold, and are too willing to wield them in a way that harms others despite our own status as second-class citizens. We are too often a movement that favors white, cisgender, middle class gay men. Our most visible advocates portray our cause using traditional family structures — monogamy, marriage, and kids — while leaving behind people whose ideas of love and family make us uncomfortable or push our limits. Some gay and bi people fear losing the progress made for themselves by the backlash occurring against our transgender siblings, and consequently some speak of removing the T from LGBT. This is not a queer ideal. Nor is it a Passover ideal.

Transgender rights are human rights, we're all in this together. When the more vulnerable are taken care of, the rest of us are also taken care of. When transgender rights are secured, the rights of other queer people are secured.

There's a famous example of sidewalk cutouts, the curb ramps which make moving onto or off of a sidewalk less difficult. Kalamazoo, Michigan installed curb cuts in the 1940's as a way to aid veterans with disabilities. In the 1970's, Berkeley, California installed curb cuts as a way to help the disabled to better live independently.

Although these were intended for the benefit of people with a disability, such as people using a wheelchair or crutches, they are used by walkers who may be a little unsteady, by people pushing a stroller, by those pulling a cart, by children riding a bicycle, roller skate or skateboard. By making accommodations for a small group, we all benefited.

This is a vibrant illustration of how laws and programs designed to benefit vulnerable groups, such as the disabled or people of color, often end up benefiting all. We are all humans, we rise or fall together. If gender-affirming care is protected for trans people, such care is protected for all people, including a breast reduction for a male with gynecomastia, hormone blockers for young people who enter puberty too early, hormone replacement therapy for people experiencing the effects of age, hair removal, and so on.

[journeytothewestresearch]

Is Sun Wukong Trans?

The notion that Sun Wukong (孫悟空) is transgender became popular on English-speaking social media sometime around 2022. The central idea appears to be that the Monkey King, or I should say “Monkey Queen,” was originally born a cis-woman but magically changes to a trans-man sometime after learning the art of transformation. Whether this is true or not has two possible answers:

If you or a loved one are trans, identify with Monkey’s ability to transform his body, and choose to personally interpret the character or portions of his story as an allegory for transness, then yes Sun Wukong is trans. 

Historically and canonically speaking? No.

In this article, I will present common arguments in favor of a trans Monkey King that I’ve seen on social media. I will also introduce counterarguments supported by historical oral, published, and pictorial evidence that calls any claims of canonical proof into question. If I don’t have a particular counterargument in mind, I will simply post a comment.

Before continuing, I want to expressly state that this piece was written for two kinds of people: 1) Those who might openly claim that Sun Wukong is canonically trans; and 2) Those who don’t know enough about the character’s history or JTTW in general and might be swayed by seemingly knowledgeable online comments. It does not pertain to those who already personally interpret Monkey as trans and don’t care about canon because they were first exposed to him via movies, TV shows, video games, comic books, etc.

General readers will certainly find this article interesting as it features a lot of lesser-known historical information about the simian immortal.

An accurate Sun Wukong standing in front of the trans flag (larger version). The base drawing is by my friend Alexandre Palheta Coelho (instagram and deviantart). It was originally posted on this article.

[sapphicdib]

Before you stands a magical girl. his name is Robert Dunning. When it is time for him to cook, he does a magical girl transformation into Gordon Freeman. When the apprentices fail to appease, he yells "where is the gun sauce?". a strange quirk, don't you think? see in this part of town gun violence has gone down by 6.2% so during the day Robert Dunning collects guns from homeowners, and at night he cooks them into sauce. What does this sauce taste like? metallic. like blood. He puts them on pancakes. It reminds him of the blood pancakes he had when he was a little girl growing up in finland. That's right, he's transgender. Unfortunately the publishing company thinks it'd be weird to call it a magical boy transformation so the name has to stick around for now. One day when he does a magical girl transformation into Gordon Freeman, he intends to plant a bomb tree outside the publishing company as revenge. Strange, don't you think? Gordon Freeman is a famous chef from Limbo's Kitchen, why would he know gardening? Well it's a side biz he picked up when he was a teened ager in finland. See, in finland, they plant trees that eventually grow into bombs. This is done because by the time the bombs go off, years will have passed and it is impossible to trace the tree back to the planter. The Fins are in for the long game Revenge is a dish best served with some gun sauce.

those certainly are words. also i love half life but know fuck all about it so trans gordon freeman ftw

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Paul Steger

Published: Dec 20, 2024

Having banned puberty blockers, UK paediatric gender transition is largely a thing of the past. But what about the wider state of gender medicine? NHS statistics show it is still on the march.

Summary:

Despite critical wins in the fightback against the institutionalization of gender-identity ideology in medicine and law, trans-related genital surgeries in 2023 in the UK have more than doubled since 2015

Although surgeries are minors are not legal in the UK, there is still no evidence that genital surgeries improve the well-being of transidentified individuals at any age. Given their irreversibility and the dishonest public framing, this is still a highly unethical medical practice despite the patients being adults.

Particularly concerning is the dramatic uptick in ‘female-to-male’ genital surgeries increasing from 25 (2022) to 87 in 2023. Also, female patients undergoing surgery are on average much younger than their male counterparts (i.e. 23 years vs. 44 in 2015)

With 5,627 diagnoses in English NHS clinics, gender dysphoria diagnoses reached an all-time high in 2023. Over the last 11 years, there has been a significant decoupling of gender dysphoria being the primary diagnosis or it being part of a diagnosis bundle. In 2023, only 2,000 of 5,627 diagnoses of gender dysphoria were the prime diagnosis suggesting a more complex patient profile. If the “diagnostic overshadowing” of gender dysphoria remains, this implies that more and more mental health issues are not accurately treated

Data on gender medicine is severely flawed as the patient’s gender identity is recorded, not sex. For instance, almost all patients of the surgical procedure “Sexual Transformation from Male to Female” are recorded as female. Moreover, there has been a severe censoring of information by NHS England as unlike with other surgical procedures age and other patient characteristics are no longer published after 2015.

-

On the various battlegrounds of the gender wars, the UK stands out: After precedent-setting legal wins to protect ‘gender-critical’ belief in employment and the landmark Cass Review largely finishing off paediatric gender transition, the country seems to have a good shot at containing the most harmful impacts of gender-identity ideology.

But what’s the overall situation in Britain’s gender clinics like? How often is gender dysphoria, for which the main ‘treatment’ is still cross-sex hormones and potentially surgery, still diagnosed? And how prevalent are transgender surgeries? Official NHS hospital statistics from England and Scotland between 2000-2023 allow insights.

As expected, genital surgical procedures and diagnoses have steadily risen since data is available and may be somewhat surprising, reaching their highest levels in the financial year of 2023-2024. Particularly troublesome is a sharp spike in so-called ‘female-to-male’ genital surgeries in recent years which involves the ineffective and complication-ridden practice of phalloplasty. Adding to that is that the female patients are often very young, with an average age of 23 in the last year of available data. Moreover, gender dysphoria also for children and adolescents is diagnosed more often than ever before. Certainly, gender clinics are working through the long waiting lists but if the NHS gender services have not undergone substantial de-programming and prescribe cross-sex hormones and surgeries to a much lesser degree than before, the unevidenced practice of medical transition is performed on more people than ever before. On a positive note: It’s much less prevalent than in other countries.

Not to mention the fact that statistics on medical transition practices have been corrupted: ‘Male-to-female’ patients are recorded as female and vice versa. To protect patient confidentiality, age statistics are censored after 2015. Ironically, no other surgical intervention (as intimate and rare as it may be) has been subject to this type of concealment. Breaking statistics is no trivial matter. It always suggests that there is something to hide and, crucially, it limits the full accountability of those in charge.

Medical transition at any age: Always unevidenced, often irreversible

There is no need here to extensively recite the main insights of the Cass Review. In short: there is no credible evidence that puberty blockers alleviate gender-related distress. Given the very serious side effects, prescribing them as the state-of-art treatment for minors is highly unethical.

It is important to note that up to today no such evidence neither exists for the prescription of cross-sex hormones for both adolescents and adults nor for transgender surgeries. Transactivists, allied doctors and large medical associations disagree. But the studies they cite rely on, small samples and simple post-intervention comparisons stating that (self-reported) gender dysphoria symptoms abated significantly when patients (adolescents and adults) started taking cross-sex hormones and underwent surgery. This is taken as proof that medical transition improves the mental health of dysphoric patients. It’s science-y enough to convince empathetic liberals and politicians alike but in truth, it’s a deeply fallacious statement for various reasons.

The first being: We do not know the counterfactual or hypothetical scenario. To judge whether an intervention is effective, you need two groups of patients, ideally very similar but different in one aspect: One group (treatment group) receives the intervention and the other group, similar in age, socioeconomic, and health background, does not constitute the control group. If you detect sizable improvements in objective mental health parameters and sufficiently large sample sizes, medical transition could be deemed an effective medical treatment. Second, the mental health parameters should not be self-reported because treated individuals could always have an incentive to bias results upwards. This would be a massive undertaking and ethically questionable because medical transition involves the unknown health effects from cross-sex hormones, inevitable sterility and possibly drastic side effects from surgeries. This site lists the most important pieces of research claiming benefits to medical transition. I challenge you to find a study that fits high standards of evidence-based medical research. And remember, medical transition is not akin to other medical procedures: Often it involves sterility and unknown health effects and thus should be under the highest scrutiny possible.

In the politicized world of gender medicine, this is hard to achieve because the social framing mainly emphasizes and highlights stories of happy transitions. While the devastating stories of detransitioners gain traction, they rarely penetrate the liberal bubble in which most transition candidates find themselves. At this point, it seems impossible to conduct counterfactual studies and it remains clear that besides individual reports, there is no established evidence that medical transition improves outcomes. This applies to every age group and even if you are an adult-transition libertarian, it remains an unethical procedure to be conducted given the lack of the evidence and its irreversibility. From German hospital records, we know that nowadays it is the cohort of 18-25 year olds who undergo genital surgeries most often.

What is never reported are studies that hint towards potential harms of medical transition including surgeries. A study of trans-identifying individuals in the US from 2003 to 2023 showing up at the emergency room found that those individuals who underwent genital surgeries had a 12.12-fold higher suicide-attempt risk than the general population and still 5 times higher risk than patients who underwent sterilization for other reasons. A study on Californian individuals between 2012-2018 found that suicide risks shot up for individuals undergoing “male-to-female” genital surgery. This does not prove harm but suggests that people are not flourishing and living their best lives having undergone the whole transition process. These operations come with massive side effects: In August 2024, it became public that a 24-year-old trans-identifying female died due to the complications of phalloplasty, and Ritchie Herron’s story of a botched surgery was viewed 1.8 million times on YouTube. As to the effects of cross-sex hormones, it’s puzzling why nobody looks at the most obvious historical precedent in which young women were put on testosterone (or testosterone-derived anabolic steroids). Thousands of sporty girls were drugged with male sex hormones in communist East Germany to increase strength and gain a competitive advantage. It brought home many gold medals, but the health effects are horrifying. Doped athletes (that includes men and women) had a 2.7-fold higher risk of getting (physically) ill compared to the general population and died on average 10-12 years earlier than comparable non-doped counterparts. Tragically, female athletes saw disproportionately many birth defects in their children and as Elaine Miller, a Scottish physiotherapist and gender-critical feminist explains here so succinctly, this can be traced back to the use of testosterone.

While the (adult) pro-medical transition research is very poor, it has to be said that the ethical circumstances and the current environment make unbiased research to prove definitely that it is not beneficial or even harmful immensely difficult to implement. It exceeds my imagination how a controlled trial on all aspects of medical transition could be implemented, so we might never really know what the hypothetical outcome (mental and physical health) would have looked like had a trans-identifying individual not been offered medical transition.1 However, it remains that there is no evidence of the benefits and purporting there is medical negligence and quite possibly part of the unfolding medical scandal. While banning adult transition is also difficult and potentially questionable, the common middle-ground argument of “adults can do what they want” comes with problems, too. It affirms bodily dissociation when you’re just old enough with an ultimate lie at its core: This surgery will turn the patient into the opposite sex. Also, the rationale for paediatric transition was that it makes passing much easier and was a product of more widespread adult transition. That is, if we let adult transition go unchecked there will be always a demand for childhood intervention.

The corruption of statistics: Self-ID and the concealment of data

A particular feature and not a bug of gender medicine statistics is that official statistics are often seriously flawed. For instance, patients’ sex often does not reflect the actual sex but merely what patients say about themselves. The data source used for this article is the NHS Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity. While few may have indicated their birth sex, many might just have ticked the sex they wish to be. This is not a minor issue because any stratification by sex is not reliable. Sometimes it can be inferred from the statistic itself, for instance, a “female-to-male sexual transformation” surgery is done on a female patient. This could apply to gender dysphoria diagnoses, so any breakdown by sex needs to be somewhat treated with caution.

The next problematic point is a very trans-exceptionalism style concealment of important data in the NHS Hospital Admitted Care Activity. That is, after the financial year of 2015-2016, the age profile is no longer reported. Censoring the data to the public creates a lack of accountability. It was justified due to patient data protection. Interestingly this only covers trans-related medical procedures. Even though all patients are by law required to be 18+, it makes a difference whether the average age is continuously declining or whether it’s mostly 50-year-olds who are undergoing these procedures. This is particularly important for the vast increase in phalloplasties in recent years where the last information about age profile reveals a patient mean age of 23 years (see below). Also, for a every trans identifying individual undergoing genital surgery, there is a multiple of individuals ‘only’ taking cross-sex hormones or having other trans-related surgeries (such as mastectomies). Having some information as to age differences between the sexes seeking medical transition could tell us more about what drives people seeking such extreme measures.

Trends in gender dysphoria diagnoses

[ Figure 1 ]

On a yearly basis, NHS England publishes detailed data about diagnoses according to the ICD-10 catalog. Every diagnosis and procedure is given a distinct code allowing to compare trends across time. When we look at Figure 1, we can see the very common picture of a diagnostic increase of ‘Gender Identity Disorders’ (ICD-10 F64) which contains subcategories for instance transsexualism and gender identity disorder of childhood. It is important to note that also minors were sometimes diagnosed with transsexualism such that gender identity disorder of childhood does not cover the whole array of gender diagnoses of minors. To economize on words, this will be simply called gender dysphoria from now on. We can see the familiar shift of sex ratios with females being diagnosed with gender dysphoria relatively much more common than males with an almost balanced ratio in 2023. What’s probably the most striking is that the number of diagnoses seems to continue increasing reaching its highest level in 2023 with 5,627 diagnoses. The increase in 2022 was much more pronounced for male than for female patients. A word of caution: Diagnoses by private providers such as GenderGP are not included so the overall number is likely higher. Also, this is English data only, the Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish data did not allow us to look at gender dysphoria diagnoses.

[ Figure 2 ]

When we look at minors (ICD-10 F64.2) (Figure 2), we see a very similar picture to the famous referral graph that made its way around the world and motivated many activists and researchers to give this more attention. Figure 2 indicates as to what happened to the children referred. It shows the annual number of minors receiving a gender dysphoria diagnosis and given what we know about the ideological capture of NHS gender services and the lax prescription practice of puberty blockers, it is likely that many of them received some sort of medical intervention. Interestingly, these diagnoses seem to have peaked in 2022 and declined substantially afterward. To what extent this could be the effect of supervising authorities taking a closer look, parents taking their children to private providers or a combination of both is unclear. While puberty blockers are now banned indefinitely, cross-sex hormones are still available at age 16. From an economic point of view, private providers might likely ramp up the prescription of cross-sex hormones if demand for this medication does not severely slow down. Since there is no evidence to suggest the latter, the move towards cross-sex hormones in the NHS and private clinics is something to keep an eye on. TransgenderTrend recently highlighted a court case in which a mother of a trans-identifying child wants to extend consent of both parents to medical treatment outside the NHS beyond 16 years. If she fails, children could decide to access cross-sex hormones without parental consent once they reach the age of 16.

It is not clear what fraction of individuals receiving a gender dysphoria diagnosis are put on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or eventually surgery. But given how deeply gender-identity ideology has captured institutions like the NHS and in the absence of large-scale ideological deprogramming, it is likely that a high share of those receiving a diagnosis will eventually be undergoing any form of medical transition. With gender dysphoria diagnoses reaching their peak in 2023, there is no indication that fewer people undergo this unevidenced treatment.

[ Figure 3 ]

As a final remark on trends in gender dysphoria diagnoses, Figure 3 reveals an interesting pattern. Patients with mental health problems typically do not present with a single issue but present a cluster of diagnoses. We know from the Cass Review that many of the children turning up at NHS Gender Services often had eating disorders or traumatic experiences besides gender distress. Hence, gender dysphoria might be the primary diagnosis or not. In 2012, for 50 % of all gender dysphoria diagnoses (including primary, secondary, and tertiary ones), gender dysphoria was the main diagnosis. In 2023, this share shrank to 35 % suggesting that patient profiles are more complex. If the diagnostic overshadowing of trans prevails, more and more mental conditions are not accurately treated.

Trends in Transgender genital surgeries

Retrieving data about what some coin the “last step of medical transition” was somewhat more challenging. As with diagnoses, surgeries are also assigned a code. For English clinics, genital surgeries as a part of medical transition are given the ominous code “X15. Combined operations for sexual transformation” in the NHS Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity Statistics. This code is then broken down into “X15.1 Combined operations for transformation from male to female”, “X15.2 Combined operations for transformation from female to male” and “X15.8 Other specified operations for sexual transformation”. Even after extensive research, it was not clear whether or not these refer to genital surgeries alone or whether other surgeries such as mastectomies are included. However, when looking at data from a Freedom of Information Request to the Scottish Government (Scottish data is only available from 2014-2023), there are vastly more mastectomies in Scotland than “X15.2 Combined operations for transformation from female to male” in England (which might include mastectomies). Hence including mastectomies into X15.2 seems unrealistic given that England is about 10 times the population of Scotland. It is still possible that X15.2 includes hysterectomies because phalloplasty often involves a preceding hysterectomy. With a remaining degree of uncertainty, operations under X.15 done on male patients (self-identified female) can be roughly summarized into vaginoplasty while for female patients, it means phalloplasty and possibly the removal of the uterus.

[ Figure 4 ]

In general, the number of genital surgeries in England has roughly increased by a factor of 5 since 2000 (Figure 4). Especially pre- and post-pandemic, the surge is very strong. In Scotland, genital surgeries are performed less and less although it is unclear whether some activity might be shifted from Scottish clinics to English clinics. Wales and Northern Ireland do not have surgical services, so from 2014 onwards the sum of England and Scotland is the UK-wide number of genital surgeries. Note that the number of surgeries does not necessarily match the number of patients.

[ Figure 5 ]

When we break it down by sex (Figure 5), we see that ‘male-to-female’ surgeries are much more widespread, there is a dramatic uptick in ‘female-to-male’ surgeries in recent years. This is deeply concerning since the complications are numerous and surgical outcomes are often very poor. Given the long waiting lists, this seems to be only the beginning unless more public attention is directed at these procedures.

[ Figure 6 ]

Another reason why particularly the uptick in phalloplasties should ring alarm bells is that the average age of patients (Figure 6) undergoing this procedure is much lower than their male counterparts. In the last year of available data for NHS England, the average age of female patients was 23 while being almost 20 years below the mean for males. In Scotland, there also seems to be an age difference although less pronounced than in the English data.

With all this data, it should be kept in mind that when we look at genital surgeries, we only estimate the tip of the iceberg of gender medicine. A minority of trans-identified individuals undergo genital surgery. More might ‘only’ do what is euphemistically called ‘top surgery.’ Many more will take cross-sex hormones.

Ending on a positive note: Others do worse

[ Figure 7 ]

If you care about the damage medical transition does, the situation sometimes might appear bleak. But it needs to be said that the UK still does a decent job of containing the impact, much better than other comparable countries. While the US and Canada are known to be the Wild West of gender medicine, another maybe unlikely candidate shows that medical transition in the UK might be less widespread than commonly thought. Gathering official data from Germany’s Federal Statistical Agency on transgender genital surgeries and normalizing the data to the population size of the UK (England respectively) and Germany, we see that genital surgeries in Germany are more common by a factor of almost 4 relative to the UK in 2023. While in the late 2000s, numbers were somewhat comparable, the increase in the UK since the 2010s is nothing compared to the explosion of interventions taking place in German gender clinics. Capacity constraints or an inert NHS not catching up to demand might be a reason. In this area of medicine, this is a good thing.

-

1 The only thing that comes to mind would be to compare objective outcome parameters of patients who have been granted medical transition to ones who were refused it for some random reason.

[chrissy-kaos]

🏳️‍⚧️

[dwarf-vader-of-middle-earth]

I HC'd screamour as bigender just because I'm projecting. But then I realised "oh he would play both genders to always come out on top wouldn't he?". Listen my knowledge of TF lore is extremely lacking, and I just got into TF about 2 weeks ago, but I wanted to let out this thought anyways xdxd

Anyways what'd you reckon about this? I don't mind criticism and loredumping, please, I actually encourage it.

Holy fucking hell you're SUPER RIGHT and I'm not even kidding omfg!!!!

Cybertronians are canonically nonbinary/agender upon creation, they canonically are capable of choosing forms that suit them regardless of what gender that may be as. Arcee herself had a masculine form at first, but she knew this wasn't fitting, and took on a female one, changed herself, and became the Arcee we know and love today. She's such a badass and so epic, she was the first canon transgender Transformers character, and since then, the canon has spoken about and shown other Cybertronians who are trans, GNC, and nonbinary.

So Starscream, he is TOTALLY capable of being bigender. He uses he/him pronouns, but you can't look at this motherfucker and tell me he ain't some kind of gender fuckery. I mean JUST LOOK AT HIM!!!! He's got the range!!!!

And, it's exactly what you said. He almost certainly is bigender just to come out on top every time in every relationship. He actually is bigender, but like he'd go on a date with someone who says, "Oh, I only like girls." And Starscream would say like, "I can be a girl." Then his other partner would be meeting this one and say, "Yeah I like guys." And Starscream would give like finger guns and say, "Yep! Whatever you like, I am." And before anyone knows it, Starscream is just stacking partners up like collectables, gathering dozens of different folks of different gender, and they all love and accept him for whatever gender he wants to be at any given moment.

Starscream, I imagine, doesn't stand for any sexism, or transphobia, because of this. If ANYONE is a gender bigot, he's the first to jump on them and threaten them, with Soundwave and all his little bot kids to back the dude up.

Imagine Starscream wearing a dress!!! I need this NOW!!!!! He would look so perfect in one holy shit!!!!! For a wedding, I imagine he would literally take one half a suit, one half a dress, and poorly sew them together with jagged stitches, then wear this while carrying a bouquet.

[sapphire-heart-tippy]

Beleza "Bel" Muscadine Lore (clean version)

Gender: Genderqueer trans man

Sexuality: Gay (mlm)

Pronouns: He/Xe/They

Height: 6’2

Age (in 1989 and after “The Big Bloop”): 25/26 (one year younger than Vanilla, “one year older” than Tippy)

Star sign: Aries

Backstory below!

Bel’s backstory: clean version

They were born into a wealthy family who cared just a little too much about reputation and appearing perfect. His mother and father had met in Mexico, when his rich father decided to take their family back to Portugal. (His mother is from Mexico, his father is from Portugal) Bel was born intersex, but forcefully raised as his parents’ daughter. Throughout their childhood, they were preened to be a little princess for their family. They were forced to be dainty, proper, and most of all perfect. Beleza’s parents put a ton of pressure on him and would scold him if he strayed away from pure perfection. 

If xe cried, xe would be scolded. If xe did something impolite, xe would be scolded. If xe wasn’t smiling, xe would be scolded. If xe dared to stand up for ximself, xe would be scolded.

So Bel did the only thing he could do… learn how to lie and manipulate. He would turn out to be a master manipulator and a pretty convincing liar. He would be so convincing in fact, that he even tricked Dio into trusting him. We’ll get to that in a little bit though! 

Over time, Bel had come to realize that he hated being a girl. He felt like a man, yet at the same time there was something else alongside the masculinity he felt. Bel knew better than to tell his parents that… but of course they found out and scolded him for it.

It was the final straw for Beleza… They had planned an escape for years. Playing pretend with their family, putting on a facade of being a perfect, demure, darling little princess. Then one day…

He decided to run away. His parents would never see him again. Their hearts were broken and they mourned the loss of their poor perfect little daughter…

Beleza stole money from his parents and left to start a new life as the person we know today: Beleza Muscadine. His birth name will never be shared because that is not who he is anymore, and it is rude to ask. Bel was able to get top surgery, but couldn’t get the exact body he wanted. 

One day, they found that there was somebody with a stand who could enchant transgender people to be the exact gender they want to be. The only problem was, that person lived very far underground. The only way you could get to them was if you knew somebody who knew somebody who knew how to guide you to their exact location. It was a very well kept secret, but a life saving one at that.

Bel was able to convince those people to tell him how to get there. It was a long and exhausting journey, but he was able to find this mysterious underground stand user. He was in awe at this person. They had their face covered, they were blind, they were kind to him. They were old and wise, asking Bel everything he wanted to be. Bel told them everything as they took off their face covering, revealing how ancient and how beautiful they were. 

Bel was granted the transformation he always wanted; masculinity with a pinch of femininity, androgyny mixed in, salmacian/sex neutral (no longer intersex), a masculine jawline, and toned muscles. When they got to his chest, Beleza stopped them… he wanted to keep his top surgery scars. They really meant a lot to him, he was able to grant that for himself. The wise old stand user understood and continued with the rest. Bel awoke and looked in the mirror.

Beleza was everything xe ever wanted to be. The joy, the euphoria, xe had never felt so pleased in xis life! Unfortunately, nothing is free…

Beleza had to give a few years off of their life for this joy. The old stand user has been alive for quite a long time doing business with people. 

Later on, Beleza got a job as Dio’s right hand man. Dio adored Bel and so did many of the other servants. They’re very outgoing and care a lot about their appearance and what other people think of them. Dio would whisper to Bel in their ear, “Don’t forget… you’re my favorite.” 

Not only was Beleza Dio’s favorite servant, but he thought their stand, Gilded Cobra, was one of the most amazing stands he’s ever seen. 

(copy and pasted from one of my rambles)

Bel was one of Dio's servants way back in the day. He was actually his first second in command before Vanilla came along. Bel immigrated from Portugal to Egypt and got a job as Dio's servant for some extra cash and a luxurious place to stay. Vanilla was taken in by Dio, fed, bathed, and given a place to stay under the condition that he will remain his servant for the rest of his life. It was Bel's responsibility to teach Vanilla the ropes and prepare him for being a servant. Vanilla learned all of the things to do, the chores around the mansion, and the daily/nightly routines to follow.

Bel was even the first to introduce Vanilla to Jonathan's head. Vanilla was horrified until Bel had explained everything. He explained to Vanilla how to care for him, what to and not to do, how to pick him up, how to place him back in his resting tank, and everything. However, Vanilla was the one to discover that Jonathan could eat food and it would disappear.

Soon he felt like he was competing for Dio's affections and praise. Bel was always the first to be praised for a job well done. Xe was well liked, xe was popular, xe had the ability to smoothly persuade the other servants beneath him to do his bidding, and most of all, xe was Dio's favorite servant. This tore Vanilla up inside. He wanted so badly to have that love and praise he was deprived of for so long.

Bel found out that Vanilla was jealous of them rather quickly. They absolutely relished in that fact, and would hang it over Vanilla's head. Bel and Vanilla would hurl childish insults at each other and make fun of each others' sense of fashion. Every now and then, they would piss each other off so badly that they would physically attack one another.

Dio, being kind of a jerk, would actually enjoy seeing these men fight over him. However, he knew that the two of them hating each other wouldn't do any good when it came to getting work done around the mansion. Dio scolded them both and told them that they needed to at least get along in public and in front of the others. Vanilla was still extremely jealous of Bel and wanted to be the center of Dio's attention. Unfortunately, his fixation on Dio's affection took a toll on his mental health as a whole.

Bel was still very popular, especially with the gentlemen. Bel could have any fella he wanted, but for the sole purpose of messing with Vanilla, he always stroked Dio's massive....... ego. Vanilla would suck up to Dio so much that the other agents and servants really disliked him. In their eyes, he was pathetic and served no other purpose being there aside from being yet another one of Dio's boy toys.

One day, something strange happened with Bel. He just... suddenly stopped caring about tormenting Vanilla. Bel started developing more of an interest in money, flashy items, and gaining power over others. Dio praised him for being greedy and prideful, but told him not to let all that power go to his head and remember who the real king is.

"Remember who the real king is..." Those words rang in Bel's ears and made xim very upset. Xe stewed in his thoughts for a few days, looking around the mansion and taking note of all the treasures. Vanilla followed xim around as stealthily as he could. Of course, Vanilla is very clumsy and trips over his own feet. Bel heard Vanilla and gave him a scolding for knocking over expensive items.

That morning, Bel waited until Dio was asleep in his coffin. There are several booby traps that they have bypassed many times before. They snuck their way into Dio's true slumber chamber. Ever so carefully, they opened the lid to his coffin. With wooden stake in hand, Bel plunged the weapon into Dio's-!!!

Hand! Dio had stopped the wood would-be vampire slayer with the palm of his hand. Dio awoken from his vampiric slumber as soon as he heard the lid to his coffin open. He had pretended to be asleep to see what would happen. If Dio hadn't been quick enough, Bel surely would've slain Dio.

They both stared at each other for a while. Bel, completely wide eyed and stunned that his plan didn't work... Dio, glaring with his glowing amber eyes straight into Bel's soul... After a few long moments of staring at each other, Dio uttered the words,

"Get out..."

Bel released their grip on the wooden stake, still stuck in the palm of their once-master's hand. They knew he didn't mean "get out of my chambers"... he meant "get out of this mansion."

Instead of killing Bel, or having the rest of his minions tear him apart, he decided to have Bel exiled. Bel was to never return to the mansion for as long as he lived. He was no longer welcome there. Not as a servant, not as a guest, nothing. Bel had very little time to get all of his things and leave. He was gone before Vanilla even woke up.

After that, Vanilla became the man everyone knows today. He picked up the slack Bel left behind. Although he is not as charismatic, attentive, or persuasive as Bel was, Vanilla still got a lot done around the mansion and then some.

Links:

Beleza

Dream about him

Full body Bel

Full body uninfluenced Bel

[mexicanegbert]

trans jade thought post

cw: use of the word queer

figured i'd try to put my thoughts somewhere since i've been asked before about it! disclaimer though: i want to get into my feelings/considerations with the context of jade's canon, but this by no means is "definitive" or anything. trans experiences are all different, so this is just me having a bit of fun. ok jumping in!

jade's character is all about isolation from her own life and her relationship with it. this is reflected in literally every inch of her experiences, so naturally, it will heavily influence her identity. she grew up "knowing" what the future would hold, both from her dreams and in the life laid out by her grandfather. she knew what she would become (her own thirteen-year-old corpse was right there) and her image was literally cast in metal (jadebot). to be honest, the simplicity of being what she already knew was likely comfortable. additionally, she spent half of her time asleep and literally removed from her "real" body.

the moment she didn't have the comfort in a predetermined path and had to face herself (literally her reincarnated thirteen-year-old self) head on; she could hardly stand to offer any patience. from here on out, jade is regularly faced with the actions of her physical self, both in the quiet of her free time (less asleep) and socially with her friends. she has to learn who she actually is and wants to be is while also balancing everything else. to me, this is the open door into a world that jade is just now getting around to (the transgender door........ ?)

The Werewolf Trope Thing: for starters, this trope is both problematic and also something that gets sort of reclaimed actively by queer & trans ppl due to the implications of "becoming/being a monster" in society's eyes + a specifically dysphoric time of the month. jade doesn't become a monster (and is not a werewolf lol), but the physical transformation into something dog-like feels similar. her feeling on the change is something she doesn't discuss too heavily, but the moments of her struggle with newly heightened senses, her new "aggression," and her overtly animalistic behaviors during the grimbark phase just feel sort of reminiscent of this trope. (some more stuff on this since i suck at summarizing: x, x, x, x )

what makes this interesting to me is that jade is established to like dog people (+ is a furry), and on several occasions expresses joy about her new body. she also takes offense (rightfully so) when she is othered for it. there is a lot to say on that in relationship to this trope.

^NOTE: not talking about anything in the epilogues here, but i do believe, in general, there is a lot you can say about her experiences during that time and its connection to a trans identity. i will go insane if i have to reread the epilogues sorry :[

The Wizard of Oz Thing: so, jade has one million references to WoO in her canon, including her ruby slippers, her title as witch, emerald city (the green sun), and the yellow (brick) road sequence in callie's void. there are so many more, but for this purpose, i'm just going to focus on jade getting removed from the small, isolated life she once knew and thrown into a journey of self-discovery as a young girl. i won't lie, there's so much that can be read into this, it's like impossible to summarize it. here's some texts just so you can see what i mean: x, x, x.

Exposure to genuine queerness through Davepeta: this one is kind of short and sweet, but jade's isolation (as previously mentioned) is something that limits her exposure to casual queerness in person. davepeta, among lots of things, is most definitely intended to be read as nonbinary (even if this is far from perfect lol). seeing that davepeta is a much happier implicitly transgender version of someone she once knew to be struggling with their identity is the kind of direct 1:1 "aha!" butterfly effect moment a lot of isolated trans ppl experience.

final thoughts for now: to say that jade is transgender is just like saying the sky is blue or that we need oxygen to breathe. there are so many other smaller nuances here i haven't even covered but, very personally, i read jade as transmasculine. no matter what though, i believe with all my heart that jade is transgender <3

also note: i skimmed a lot of the linked texts but pls read them with the understanding that they're here more for thought than to be genuine citations.

ok thanks for reading ^^ sorry if none of this makes sense, i am not a deep thinker, but its still been on my mind. i just figured it put this out there since i want to be able to reference back to it + ill probably add more as time goes on.