#there's literally no one in my class with my deadname

[messrsrarchives]

last sunday i was feeling very melancholic and had spent the night on call with my nan for hourssss talking about my transition. she stayed up with me for hours, we spoke about everything from my childhood signs, to my discovery, to my exploration and starting hormones etc etc, we spoke about everything.

but really it felt a bit like a funeral, that's how she described it. she said it felt like a eulogy of what it could have been because that entire phone call started with me saying i need to Stop. she got a random message from me asking if she'd be by my side if i detransitioned, so she called me and we spoke about so many things i hadn't told her before - all of the harrassments, the comments, the friendships that ended that i've pretended haven't for years. literally everything from the stabbing attempt last year to the friend that blocked me when i posted about my first day on T.

literally my entire life in this one phone call and she ended it with "just give it one more day". there's a small dent in the wall from my phone now because,,, what an infuriating reply, right? one more day. one more day??? no, i need to make a choice now? i'm so tired of waiting for things to make sense, i did that for years and then it Did and then it all fell to pieces because even One More Day is one more than they want me to have.

and then the next afternoon i set off to go to my seminar, and i'm walking along listening to a voice note i recorded over and over and over. one to be sent to my friends so that i don't have to type it. one that said it will take a while until i look like "myself" again, and i know this makes no sense to them and i'm glad it doesn't, but that they need to stop calling me robyn. a voice note, because it's easier to say my deadname than to see it written down. i don't know, it feels more official in letters. like maybe if i hear it enough it will blend in with every other sound. and i'm listening to this over and over in the hopes that i can build up the courage to send it.

and i step onto the bridge towards class, not looking where i'm going and i walk straightttt into someone and i'm all apologetic and i'm crying from the voice note and i'm a wreck but i walked into someone else who was typing on their phone

and there's a lil trans sticker on the back of it. and i've never seen this person before ever but they adjusted my tote bag on my shoulder because i was still apologising profusely and i said "i'm sorry" and they said "me too"

and i know we were talking about the crash. i know it's not what they meant because that's not what we were talking about but. idk. it's dumb and there's probably something poetic about us stepping onto the bridge at the same time and managing to bump right into each other but all i know is that they had a trans flag sticker on their phone and they smiled and they said "me too" and,,, idk. rambling.

but sometimes it really is just one more day. that's all you need sometimes. and sometimes you have to tell yourself that everyday, and that's okay. because other times you'll literally and physically bump into another trans person and they'll say "me too" for something entirely unrelated, but it makes you feel a little less alone regardless.

anyway, i'm saved in their phone as Robyn now and i think that's pretty cool actually, we're getting lunch together soon

[youdontknowhowtodiequietly]

being passive aggressive with my professor 🤪

[knifesxedge]

so i can find this again. finally bit the bullet and changed my kjs city names to differentiate them from my ocs so:

party — ash london coleman (ooo lady fagita)

kobra — james “jamie” eric coleman

jet — danielle “dani” camila reyes-yoon

ghoul — edward “eddie” maxwell mochizuki ii

[sammygender]

things no one tells you abt growing up number one: you start to get inexplicably mad at your dad all the time

[graciousdragon]

first lab period for my pythom programming course and its already shitty as hell because my deadname is on the roster for some reason (this has never happened before) and the teacher is making us do some activity that we were never taught how to do

[devotedlystrangewizard]

getting deadnamed for the first time in 2 years is so weird

[renthony]

Me most of the time: "Obviously Arcane is a fantasy story, based on a video game, with a plot that includes magic and made-up situations. As a mainstream television show, it was never going to be a nuanced narrative of police brutality and the prison-industrial complex. That said, I do really hate that Arcane decided to make their canon queer rep the cop characters, instead of literally anyone else. More queer rep is important, but cops have historically brutalized queer communities, and making cop characters the queer ones is incredibly insensitive at best. Overall, I'd compare Arcane to The Legend of Korra, which I also love despite its infamously wonky political messaging."

Me, whenever I see praise for Vi as a lesbian icon: "Vi is a class-traitor cop who deadnames her sister and sold her out to the government, and Jinx is my precious baby angel who should be allowed to hunt cops for sport. Silco was right, and I wish drugs in the real world turned you into a super-powered behemoth who could rip a man apart with your bare hands. ACAB includes the gay ones. In fact, ACAB applies to the gay ones even more, because they should fucking know better. If one more person tells me I should be excited about gay cops, I swear to fucking god I'm going to start slapping people."

[trans-ralsei]

I came out as trans this Lunar New Year, after two years of practically boymoding around my extended family.

It's not that it wasn't obvious; I was fairly open on LinkedIn because of my work with the city-wide movement for trans rights, and they could have peered in at any point.

We lived around the same neighbourhood, too, and once or twice I did walk by a cousin around the local mall. (I girlmode virtually everywhere else.)

But I've never gotten around to telling them, largely because of how my family has been very traditional. I'm fourth-generation Chinese. A huge number of us went to the same Chinese school, and while there was nothing in our cultural values that stated otherwise, the traditionalist life track (as espoused by the center-right State) was always to get married, buy a house, and have two children.

Being my father's eldest 'son' compounded this problem. My mother was constantly belittled for not bearing a heir until I was born, and I distinctly remember her sister-in-law gloating about how her first child was a boy.

Coming out was a relief, but I was met with confusion. Like my crossdressing was merely a phase. My would-be marriage with my partner (largely legal, because we are legally heterosexual) was still on, and so nothing changed, except for me.

My grandmother — usually her beaming self — soured a little, and I could sense her being baffled, even though we practically couldn't communicate.

She can understand Mandarin, but she spoke a dialect, and as such, I could only understand her through my eldest sister, who acted as my interpreter. The eldest aunt offered to 'explain things', but that felt incredibly awkward; my grandma reportedly ‘threw a fit’ afterward.

(When they say 'dialects' are language subordinates, understand that Mandarin dialects like Hakka and Cantonese are literally languages of their own and can be mutually unintelligible. I wish I wasn't kicked out of Cantonese class when I was on exchange!)

My cousins were also concerned; or they passed down the concerns my aunts had to me.

One asked if it was the pressures of being the eldest 'son' that made me transition. (My 60ish year-old trans ex-boss dryly suggested a reply: "Well I only did it because it was what the cool kids were doing." To which I would have suggested something funnier: "You were the cool kid, by the way.")

Another asked if HRT was safe. All of them asked if we intended to have kids.

I didn't explicitly request for how I was referred to — auntie instead of uncle, little sister instead of little brother, my pronouns or my name — to change.

I'm actually fairly comfortable with my Chinese name if it was pronounced correctly (no one ever does; I consider its English pronunciation my deadname). But I also think wanting change would have set me up for conflict.

When I first transitioned and thought of this moment, I wanted it to feel more gradual. I knew of the confrontation it would set up, of the feeling of abandonment towards a duty I had towards my family that it would cause.

But I'm beginning to see that duty as something that isn't gendered. I'm supposed to be there with my kin, regardless of who I am. We did, after all, grow up together.

Maybe it'll all be fine after all.

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

Funnily enough, I never really identified with my deadname that much in the first place. From elementary school all the way through high school basically all of my peers referred to me by my “nickname��� that was literally just my last name. Idk if it was because my deadname was stupidly common so I was rarely the only one in the class, or what, but they were the same number of syllables anyway so everyone just called me my last name

[robbie-verse]

so I'm in japan rn as an exchange student and the one class that i have with only fellow exchange students is literally japanese class . right.

so ive introduced myself as 'robin or rob, either is fine' and politely said 'yeah im not a girl i use they/them' when necessary, my teacher the first day was vv confused when i said my name was robin and she checked the list of attendence in confusion till i explained it to her and she made a note beside my deadname with my actual name and she lets me use my name on exams and everything (i love her <3)

last tuesday (same class, different teacher than described above, she was covering for our teacher) when taking attendance she got to me and said my deadname repeatedly but i quickly said 'oh it's just robin yeah' well THIS ONE GUY (who i had introduced myself to as robin and had been calling me that for over a month) immediately caught on that it was my deadname and decided to switch it

the thing is my deadname (and last names for that matter) are well to put it plainly very difficult to pronounce for english speakers so i just got vv quiet and didnt reply to him when he called me by my deadname till i just went up and said 'you can't even fucking pronounce it, give up' and he hasn't spoken a word about me since <3

[wronggalaxy]

The urge to cut off like 99% of my friends is constantly growing.

1) They keep calling me slurs(I'm literally OK with being called a faggot and tranny by the ones who also fall under those slurs, but somehow not wanting to be called a cripple, by able-bodied people no less, is somehow toxic???)

2) They make fun of me for having to have my phone on 'light mode' even though I've explained a billion times I literally CAN NOT SEE THE TEXT OR PICTURES OTHERWISE

3) They constantly mix up my lazy eye and strabismus and say it makes me look like a token idiot from movies(I wonder fucking why?! Could the answer maybe, possibly, be ableism in the film industry?!)

4) They take my cane without asking which I don't really mind when I'm sitting down but they'll literally take it while I'm standing and leaning against it, knowing I'm a severe fall risk and that falling is extremely dangerous for me, which they also make fun of

5) They treat me like I'm being ridiculous because I'm upset that after 13 years of modern, contemporary, and classical ballet and 2 of tap and hip hop I can no longer dance at all(not even with my arms as they tire easily or my head cause moving it too much triggers tic attacks)

6) They refuse to slow down for me when walking to class, even on staircases, but also get mad when I don't walk with them(not to mention walking alone is dangerous for me for multiple reasons)

7) They treat my absence seizures as if they're not serious because they don't involve shaking on the ground and said it's basically just dissociation(which they also get mad at me for doing)

8) They call me dramatic for having trauma responses to things like cars back firing and plastic water bottles popping even though they know I have untreated PTSD from my house being shot up by my neighbor when I was 11

9) One of them gets angry at me if I'm upset about being called a slur because "they're just telling the truth"

10) I told them that I want to go by Nora-Zachary and They/Them this year instead of my old 'preferred name'(it was never my preferred name I just had to pick the first name that came to my head the first day freshman year so I wouldn't be called my deadname) and He/They, but only one has complied on pronouns and no one has on my name

11) They laugh and call it 'cute' on days where my rhotacism, struggle to verbalize, and/or accent(both regional and autism accent)are more prominent

12) A couple have said I don't have a lisp, which is true, but what they actually meant is that I don't have a speech impediment(literally why do able-bodied people think only lisps and stutters exist, I'm pretty sure rhotacism is one the most common articulation impairments along with lisps and lambdacism, yet not even my parents know what it's called)

And like a billion other things too. Being around them is quite literally making me more suicidal. But IDK. Do I just need to suck it up? Is this as good as it gets? Before literally a year ago I only had 3 friends, and before 2 years ago I had 0, so I don't know what's acceptable.

[godfrey-the-chaos-duck]

this just in: Irish loser is Sad™ because all my friends can go and do shit but not me apparently

Vent under the cut, I'm really sorry about this but I have to get it off my chest (it's nothing too serious but it is kinda long)

I'm eighteen. I've voted twice. I've finished secondary school. People my age are planning holidays and going to college and moving out and actually living life, and I feel like I'm falling behind so so much.

I don't have a bank account. I don't have a passport or any form of photo ID with a date of birth. I don't even have (or want!) a driver's licence, I will circle back to that later though.

My parents (particularly my mom) keep saying they'll help me get set up with all the above but because Mom's busy with work and Dad's really forgetful, it never gets done.

It's gotten to a point where I don't actually see a point in getting these things set up, for the following reasons:

I haven't had my name legally changed yet so everything would be set up under my deadname. Which. Fuck that.

For a bank account to make sense I would need money and I live in literally the textbook definition of "rural ass farming town" so the only jobs around that don't need experience are working in the supermarket or food service. I would, and I'm not exaggerating here, rather launch myself into a black hole than do those jobs because I've heard from my neurotypical peers how hard they are so I can only imagine how awful it would be for someone with autism like myself. My only other option is to try and get unemployment benefits but like. What would I even be spending the money on? Certainly not a house (the housing market in Ireland is literally impossible) and not a holiday either.

For a passport to make sense I would need to be able to travel, and quite aside from the No Money thing (see above) I've been fucked over by fate yet again because Mom doesn't trust me to go places on my own. She's only quite recently started letting me take the bus to a town half an hour away with friends. I don't even see the use in asking her to go on a train/plane/ferry unaccompanied because I know for a fact she'd say no. She'd say something along the lines of "we should do this together a few times first" which, understandable, but then she's so tired from work and busy with housework on the weekends that that never ends up coming to fruition. Add to that my crippling anxiety, catastrophic thinking and fear of the unknown, and I have basically conditioned myself into thinking I can never go anywhere more than a half hour's drive away without a parent.

I do not want to learn to drive. My dad keeps telling me I should because it would give me freedom, except no it wouldn't. It's not like I could use his car because he needs to go places too, and I could probably never afford my own car cause that shit is expensive as hell to run and maintain, so I really see no sense in learning. Also, I have the navigational skills of a teaspoon, so I would be basically guaranteed to get lost.

All of this has come to a point where I'm super hesitant to ask for anything because I know that either my parents will outright say no, or I'll end up chickening out because they'll remind me there's probably something I haven't thought of. (Mind, they don't often fully explain what)

And this was fine a few years ago when I had no friends and couldn't see how people actually lived their lives, but as my friends are all telling me about things they plan to do, I guess I'm having a lot of realisations.

The first time a classmate of mine said she was going on a holiday independently with some friends of hers, my first immediate thought was, "Do her parents just not care?" This would've been a little over two years ago, when I and all my class were around 16.

Now, though, I'm realising that teens going places on their own is actually NORMAL and that, big surprise, I'm once again the weird one. I told Mom about this and her response was "there's no right speed to do life at" which is right, you shouldn't do things if you don't feel ready to do them, but I don't know, something about this whole situation feels kinda wrong to me.

Here's the thing that's made me emotional today though.

The big Pride festival in Ireland is on June 29th. I wanted to go last year with my friends but Mom said no because it would be "too crowded" and "what if something goes wrong and I can't be there for you" and all that. And the worst part? She's right. It would have been very overwhelming.

Anyway this year, my friends aren't going, so even if by some miracle Mom's answer was going to change, I would feel awkward not being able to go with anyone I knew. So I'm not even gonna ask.

The way I see it, I can't move on with my life in any way as it stands. I can't release music, or publish books, or sign up to act in anything, until I get my name changed, because I do not want to be renowned under my deadname.

But I also feel like I can't change my name until I move out. My parents say they need to know where I am all the time, to the point where I once had an outing with a group of friends interrupted by a call from my father because I had left with the group from the coffee shop he'd dropped me off at, to a different shop somewhere else, two minutes' walk away.

I don't know. I feel like I have no freedom or independence and I'm genuinely unsure whether this is normal for people my age, or if it's an autism thing, or if my parents (again, particularly my mother) are being weird.

Basically what I'm wondering is

Is it healthy to be in this situation? And if not, how can I get out of it?

Again, I'm really really sorry about this, I know I don't usually get all personal on here but just. I feel weird about this and need some advice or at the very least a virtual shoulder to cry on

[completely-real-and-normal-human]

i’m getting real fucking tired of being ignored. of having to tone everything down. can’t be ‘pushy’ about my gender in school bc the teachers either can’t or won’t do jack shit about gendering me correctly. ‘oh but we can hardly expect the teachers to remember to call you aubrey in class and [DEADNAME] when talking to your parents—‘ literally why not. it’s a matter of my goddamn safety. it’s a matter of my fucking human rights. but i have no right to scream and rage and so i have to nod and smile and say nothing when teachers call me ‘she’. everyone just thinks of me as a girl with extra steps. ‘oh yeah we call her aubrey now and she’s nonbinary or whatever and uses they but it doesn’t matter’. no one fucking bothers to remember. i correct them and correct them and correct them and if i’m ever angry about it i get a ‘jesus, okay’ and an eye roll and when i inevitably stop correcting them because there’s just no fucking point anymore, they call me ‘she’ and my blood boils and i can do NOTHING. they’ll only tolerate trans people if we’re fucking nice about it. we cannot be loud, or gnc, or pushy and god forbid we ever get angry. god forbid we ever say, this and no more. god forbid we dare to demand respect that has always been grudging at best. i get called hysterical, overreacting, pushy, bossy, and the worst part is that when i snap no one will take me seriously. no one will actually recognise my rage for what it is because i’m just a confused little girl and i couldn’t possibly be angry at them.

there is a fucking rage in me and i want to hurt.

[someones-here-for-sure]

I hate when my hatred for myself and my body is starting to get worse, I can’t be as silly with my friends because I’m worried about my double chin. Had to stifle bouncing my leg in class because I felt my stomach jiggle. Couldn’t make a silly over-dramatization of my voice because my voice sounded weird. Can’t look at ANY. pictures or videos of myself becasue of how I look and sound. Deleted everything on my YouTube channel because I hated my voice. Can’t look at anyone skinny without thinking horrible horrible shit. Can’t hug or touch my friends without feeling like I’m disgusting. I genuinely don’t want to go in public ever again because then I’ll be perceived. Can’t be called my deadname without cringing internally, even though before it was whatever. The feeling of my female chest makes me sick. Imagining food in my throat makes me gag. Looking at the number of calories in anything makes me want to vomit. I am so insecure that I was gonna nap in math(something I do all the time) but couldn’t. Any comment about my looks makes me spiral internally. My best friend, my number one, said something today and I almost cried. It wasn’t even bad and i can’t even remember what it was. Just made me feel sick. I’m insecure about being pale now, something I never even thought of. I’m insecure of my hair now, something I liked before. I’m just getting worse and worse and I almost cried while eating dinner but I kept eating and it makes me want to rip my throat out. I can’t cry in front of anyone because I know my face gets all swollen and gross. I am LITERALLY asked almost once a week now “am I Asian” because my fat cheeks make my eyes look small. My hands make me insecure. My Forearms make me insecure, something I used to not even think about. If I say something, I think about it for the next hour. I can’t even function anymore because I’m constantly think about how I look. Is this how every teenager is???? Is this the normal? Am I supposed to get like this? Do I have to live like this for the rest of my life? I’m tired of this shit. I don’t want to fucking live is this is how it’s gonna be.

[rosyronkey]

my fav teacher came up to apologize for deadnaming me in class (it was on the roll and no one noticed and everyone knows so idc) and i was like dude i literally want to suck your dick from the back its fine

[dragonmistressivy]

I have decided that i am going to drop out of high school as soon as i know how to. I have been completely burned out and i am literally getting worse because of school. Also I don’t feel safe being in public(already didn’t but this election has made it very obvious that I can’t trust anyone and so many people are out to get me). My mental illnesses are getting worse as the days go by snd school is making it impossible for me to recover and actively causing them to get worse. I went from being near the top of all classes before high school but ever since i have been slowly slipping until just year where i completely fell to the absolute bottom and am now failing everything with low f’s. I hate how much stress my parents put on me. They literally blame me for my bad grades and are like just do the assignments. I wish i could force myself to but i can’t for so many reasons. I am actively getting worse day by day and i can feel it. I am slipping away faster and faster as the days go on and if i don’t slow it now there will be no future me so either i destroy my future and possibly have a better life or i end myself snd suffer every single second until i do. I am not getting into college and haven’t even tried to apply because i don’t have the energy to and have crippling anxiety that i will fail and just waste even more of my parents money. My parents won’t pay for like hrt or any of the gender affirming surgeries even tho they would make me suffer less snd it isn’t like we can’t afford them. My dad makes enough to afford them multiple times over in one year even with the more expensive ones. I am pissed. Also like my mom comparing me wanting those stuff to that one person who got tons of surgeries to look Korean. And neither my parents call me by my name. They both call me my deadname even tho it very clearly makes me suffer. They will have a dead daughter if they continue their stuff. The insane thing is they are completely supportive of other trans people just not me. I am fucked. I don’t have a future and have even less of one as the days go by. I am going to try and drop out as soon as i can and try not to tell my parents until i have to because they will l be mad at me and angry that i am “destroying your future”. My future is already destroyed