#this tim is a trans girl to ME

[lemonlimestar]

anything can be yuri if u read enough random 90s elseworlds comics

bonus doodle

[junespriince]

Pride month

Bruce: Alfred, it's time.

Gotham City media: Batman has been seen in his pride month suits, it's wonderful to see Batman support the lgbtq+ community.

Jason: glad you support the gays, but when are you gonna lose the underwear over those suits? It's embarrassing.

Dick, stitching up Wally's suit again (he's inpatient y'all): he won't, the underwear is for the gays.... Don't look at Meower (Twitter but own by our queen Catwoman), my eyes can't unseen the thirst traps

Bruce: I'm just supporting my gay kids, is that so bad?

Tim: yes, mixing Brucie Wayne and Batman thirst traps, horny comments, and the league and villains blowing up your work phone I use is horrible... Aunt Diana shouldn't be calling you baby girl in front of my own eyes.

Steph: also homophobic you wearing that, nah, not on my watch I'm going to make suits so gay so cunty you will serve so bad joker will go to jail without fuss.

Cass: thank god, if I have to see those underwear again I will unadopted myself from embarrassment.

Bruce: the first suit was a good suit, haters gonna hate.

Them: ew... Stop

Duke: hey steph of not too overwhelming, think you can make all of us pride suits?

Steph: on it. Excuse me loser I have a job to do.

Dick: do you want to fix dipshits suit for me?

Steph: your boyfriend your duty to fix his shit.

Dick: he's lucky he's pretty.

Damian: Stephanie, a word on my suit colors... I think I want the trans flag.

Steph: is this you coming out or supporting trans kids?

Damian:... Both.

[peachcandiz]

can tumblr handle my highly specific timkon headcanons (t4t bi4bi trans girls) and highly specific references to running jokes with my irl girlfriend or is this one too much

[starpunchsteria]

trans girl courtney whitmore btw if you care

Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #5

[squarebracketsmileyface]

*takes S,IL Jay and Alex and put them in that "I wish you were a girl" scene from that one movie*

*then trans' their genders*

I don't know what movie you mean, but absolutely. But also like... What if Jay was a girl and he just didn't know it yet. Why couldn't he have figured that out back in uni, so he'd have had a real chance with Alex. Instead he doesn't even get it fully worked out before he dies, he doesn't even get to the point where he's comfy changing his pronouns, all he manages with Tim is forced femme scenes, because that feels safe, that's not as much of a commitment as saying "yeah, I might just actually be a girl" or "yeah I might actually not be a girl or a guy"

I make myself sad every time I remember I've made Jay trans with no hope of actually fully figuring it out and living truly comfortably before he dies.

It's even sadder when I factor in the idea about Tim ending up having Jay's kid after Jay dies. He's forced to see a girl version of Jay every time he looks at his daughter, to kind of see how Jay could have looked similar to their kid. And he's also forced to remember over and over again that Jay isn't here to be Mum to that kid. (I know pregnancy isn't the trope for everyone. But goddamn the angst potential with it is incredible)

[transgnckon]

Idk why I’m suddenly seeing yuri timkon often but I hope it continues

[icelogged]

hello one more bitch for the road 😔✌🏾terf is not a synonym for transphobe. terf is an acronym. tme trans people can be terfs. next scheduled bitchfest is between me our heavenly father amen or to annoy you specifically ❤️

[milkshakeworm]

YES THANK U

tim being the only bloke in a group of girls named Batgirls i love him hes so trans coded

Jason Todd's not-Robin vigilante names

[periru3]

Like. I KNOW it isn’t silly to be nervous about wearing a binder in public for the first time in like 6 years. Especially when the last time was in college. And I had a bajillion queer friends. And this time is to a not specifically gay bar where I vaguely know a couple people. And I’ve historically presented as really femme in this setting. But it still FEELS silly to be nervous about like…. Conspicuous GNC presentation when I came out as genderqueer like 12 years ago.

While trying to explain this to my partner every explanation of what felt silly was just the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. I was like “it’s that I feel so good when I look like this I worry other people will look at me and be like………… ‘they look happy, how embarrassing?’ But like… that’s so dumb.”

I feel like I’m playing dress up and everyone around me is going to simultaneously call me on it.

Which is ridiculous. No one’s even gonna comment on it.

So I’m simultaneously like there’s no actual need to feel anxious but also it’s STILL a super normal and reasonable thing to feel anxious about and guilting myself for feeling anxious or saying I’m too old to feel that anxiety is just…. Not making the situation any better.

[thaoworra]

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association recently released the poems that made it to the finalist stage for consideration for the 2024 Rhysling Awards for Short and Long Speculative Poems of the year. Congratulations to all of the nominees! This will be the 46th year these awards have been conferred!

Short Poems (50 finalists)

Attn: Prime Real Estate Opportunity!, Emily Ruth Verona, Under Her Eye: A Women in Horror Poetry Collection Volume II

The Beauty of Monsters, Angela Liu, Small Wonders 1

The Blight of Kezia, Patricia Gomes, HWA Poetry Showcase X

The Day We All Died, A Little, Lisa Timpf, Radon 5

Deadweight, Jack Cooper, Propel 7

Dear Mars, Susan L. Lin, The Sprawl Mag 1.2

Dispatches from the Dragon's Den, Mary Soon Lee, Star*Line 46.2

Dr. Jekyll, West Ambrose, Thin Veil Press December

First Eclipse: Chang-O and the Jade Hare, Emily Jiang, Uncanny 53

Five of Cups Considers Forgiveness, Ali Trotta, The Deadlands 31

Gods of the Garden, Steven Withrow, Spectral Realms 19

The Goth Girls' Gun Gang, Marisca Pichette, The Dread Machine 3.2

Guiding Star, Tim Jones, Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, ed. Lee Murray (Clan Destine Press)

Hallucinations Gifted to Me by Heatstroke, Morgan L. Ventura, Banshee 15

hemiplegic migraine as willing human sacrifice, Ennis Rook Bashe, Eternal Haunted Summer Winter Solstice

Hi! I am your Cortical Update!, Mahaila Smith, Star*Line 46.3

How to Make the Animal Perfect?, Linda D. Addison, Weird Tales 100

I Dreamt They Cast a Trans Girl to Give Birth to the Demon, Jennessa Hester, HAD October

Invasive, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Polar Starlight 9

kan-da-ka, Nadaa Hussein, Apparition Lit 23

Language as a Form of Breath, Angel Leal, Apparition Lit October

The Lantern of September, Scott Couturier, Spectral Realms 19

Let Us Dream, Myna Chang, Small Wonders 3

The Magician's Foundling, Angel Leal, Heartlines Spec 2

The Man with the Stone Flute, Joshua St. Claire, Abyss & Apex 87

Mass-Market Affair, Casey Aimer, Star*Line 46.4

Mom's Surprise, Francis W. Alexander, Tales from the Moonlit Path June

A Murder of Crows, Alicia Hilton, Ice Queen 11

No One Now Remembers, Geoffrey Landis, Fantasy and Science Fiction Nov./Dec.

orion conquers the sky, Maria Zoccula, On Spec 33.2

Pines in the Wind, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, The Beautiful Leaves (Bamboo Dart Press)

The Poet Responds to an Invitation from the AI on the Moon, T.D. Walker, Radon Journal 5

A Prayer for the Surviving, Marisca Pichette, Haven Speculative 9

Pre-Nuptial, F. J. Bergmann, The Vampiricon (Mind's Eye Publications)

The Problem of Pain, Anna Cates, Eye on the Telescope 49

The Return of the Sauceress, F. J. Bergmann, The Flying Saucer Poetry Review February

Sea Change, David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Ann K. Schwader, Scifaikuest May

Seed of Power, Linda D. Addison, The Book of Witches ed. Jonathan Strahan (Harper Collins)

Sleeping Beauties, Carina Bissett, HWA Poetry Showcase X

Solar Punks, J. D. Harlock, The Dread Machine 3.1

Song of the Last Hour, Samuel A. Betiku, The Deadlands 22

Sphinx, Mary Soon Lee, Asimov's September/October

Storm Watchers (a drabbun), Terrie Leigh Relf, Space & Time

Sunflower Astronaut, Charlie Espinosa, Strange Horizons July

Three Hearts as One, G. O. Clark, Asimov's May/June

Troy, Carolyn Clink, Polar Starlight 12

Twenty-Fifth Wedding Anniversary, John Grey, Medusa's Kitchen September

Under World, Jacqueline West, Carmina Magazine September

Walking in the Starry World, John Philip Johnson, Orion's Belt May

Whispers in Ink, Angela Yuriko Smith, Whispers from Beyond (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Long Poems (25 finalists)

Archivist of a Lost World, Gerri Leen, Eccentric Orbits 4

As the witch burns, Marisca Pichette, Fantasy 87

Brigid the Poet, Adele Gardner, Eternal Haunted Summer Summer Solstice

Coding a Demi-griot (An Olivian Measure), Armoni “Monihymn” Boone, Fiyah 26

Cradling Fish, Laura Ma, Strange Horizons May

Dream Visions, Melissa Ridley Elmes, Eccentric Orbits 4

Eight Dwarfs on Planet X, Avra Margariti, Radon Journal 3

The Giants of Kandahar, Anna Cates, Abyss & Apex 88

How to Haunt a Northern Lake, Lora Gray, Uncanny 55

Impostor Syndrome, Robert Borski, Dreams and Nightmares 124

The Incessant Rain, Rhiannon Owens, Evermore 3

Interrogation About A Monster During Sleep Paralysis, Angela Liu, Strange Horizons November

Little Brown Changeling, Lauren Scharhag, Aphelion 283

A Mere Million Miles from Earth, John C. Mannone, Altered Reality April

Pilot, Akua Lezli Hope, Black Joy Unbound eds. Stephanie Andrea Allen & Lauren Cherelle (BLF Press)

Protocol, Jamie Simpher, Small Wonders 5

Sleep Dragon, Herb Kauderer, The Book of Sleep (Written Image Press)

Slow Dreaming, Herb Kauderer, The Book of Sleep (Written Image Press)

St. Sebastian Goes To Confession, West Ambrose, Mouthfeel 1

Value Measure, Joseph Halden and Rhonda Parrish, Dreams and Nightmares 125

A Weather of My Own Making, Nnadi Samuel, Silver Blade 56

Welcoming the New Girl, Beth Cato, Penumbric October

What You Find at the Center, Elizabeth R McClellan, Haven Spec Magazine 12

The Witch Makes Her To-Do List, Theodora Goss, Uncanny 50

The Year It Changed, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Star*Line 46.4

Voting for the Rhysling Award begins July 1; a link to the ballot will be sent with the Rhysling Anthology, as well as with the July issue of Star*Line. More information on the Rhysling Award can be found here.

[strawbuddy-luv]

"Omg all you guys forget Tim used to be misogynistic-" no, I didn't, but what I did do was make Tim transmasc. Does that mean he's not still misogynistic? No. It just means it's now more self inflicted.

Imagine a younger Tim convinced that he's not supposed to be messy, or go out at night, or be loud and assertive, that he can't like "boy things" like cars and skateboards. He has to do all the laundry in the house, and learn how to cook and clean, and how to take care of himself, because he has to be a good wife in the future and if he doesn't do all of this prefectly at the age of 6 he's a failure. Imagine Tim having this hammered into his skull for 7-8 years of his life until his parents decide to give him unlimited internet access, or he gets a hold of more adult books at the library, and his parents have been leaving him home alone for months at this point. Imagine Tim being so genuinely confused and upset about the fact that so many girls are able to do "boy things" but he can't. Imagine him going "We'll then I'm going to be a boy! I like being a boy more anyways" and thats how he learns he's Trans. Imagine him going through all of this but still liking "girl things", he still likes dresses, and pretty pictures, and dancing, and barbies. Imagine how confusing that'd be. To go "Well I'm a girl and girls have to like girl things, except I like boy things and I feel more like a boy...but I still like the girl things but I'm really not a girl". Imagine how wrong it'd feel, to not understand what you are and think you're just more of a fuck up because you can't be a boy or a girl right no matter how hard you try.

Transmasc Tim Drake-Wayne truther btw fight me

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Bring Back the Bombshells Batgirls!

In helping a friend of mine map out who all has been Batgirl across various DC continuities, I remembered a little jaunt to TVtropes where it mentioned that in a charming little number called Bombshells, the batgirl identity is shared by a baseball team.

This reminded me to actually go READ Bombshells, and oh. My. GOSH. It is the BEST FUCKING THING EVER!

What is Bombshells?

Basically, almost every male superhero got yeeted from the story or relegated to side character/civilian, while every female superhero takes the spotlight and gets to KICK SOME NAZI ASS (it's set during world war 2). Plenty of people get spotlight, but I'm gonna argue that the MAIN characters are probably Kate Kane's batwoman, Diana of Themyscira's Wonder Woman, Mera's Aquawoman (she hates that name, lol), Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, Zatanna, and Kara Starikov's Supergirl. All the storylines tend to revolve around them.

Oh, also it's super gay. Like, every single character is a lesbian or bi, there's tons of ladies kissing and dating and having implied sex, and at least one character---one of the batgirls actually---is trans.

In summary, go read bombshells it's really good, but today I'm here to specifically talk about:

The Batgirls (and boys)

"One for the ribbon, two for the pearls! Three for the crimefighting---

So first off, Bombshells is an elseworld, so it can do whatever the fuck it wants with backstories and shit.

Subsequently; this version of Kate Kane is a major league baseball player, and her Batwoman costume is literally just a pallet swap of her baseball costume (plenty of people figure out her "secret" identity because of this, but she's not super concerned about it). She uses an actual bat as her main weapon as Batwoman, and it kicks ass. More fanfic writers, and hell, comics writers need to hand the Batfamily some baseball bats, because it gives us scenes like this:

Or this:

(Yes her bat has a gun, it's supplied by Amanda Waller through goverment money, don't question it. Her baseballs are also explosives).

Oh, and also this:

Anyway, point is, Batwoman has a bat and it's great. But this means when Gotham's bat-weilding protector gets drafted into the Bombshells to go fight Nazi's, some new faces have to pick up the slack in Gotham.

And so:

Inspired by their vigilante/baseball hero, Harper Row, Kathy Duquesne, and Nell Little pick up some bats of their own and start busting up crime! The three of them are mechanics, that old car is their batmobile, and they're the best of friends!

Of this original trio, Kathy is "the brass" or the leader, and she remains nominally in charge through the whole thing. Nell is "the brawn" and while every batgirl is good in a fight, Nell is a bit of a demolition specialist. Finally you have Harper, "the brain" who invents their gadgets, works on their batmobile, and also jokes that she's the mascot, as this whole thing was her idea.

They don't stay a trio for very long though! They're quickly joined by "the beauty" Alysia Yeoh, an old friend of Kathy's, in an effort to break Cullen Row out of a prison-like orphanage (she's the t-girl btw):

You may notice another girl crouched in the corner up there too! That's Bette Kane, Kate's niece and the rightful owner of Kane Industries who will forcibly take it over, clean it up, and use it for good on her 18th birthday in like a week!

In the meantime though, she heard about the batgirls and decided she wanted in! She crashes their jailbreak and helps them wreck shop! She mostly shares the "brass" role with Kathy---a leader in her own right.

Anyway, their now quintet quickly finds the awful headmistress of the Pinkney orphanage berating one Tim Drake, who still has a living dad somewhere, but was snatched up by a dirty cop because this whole city runs on Newsies rules (not even kidding, I'll get there in a sec). Turns out Tim and Alysia are old best friends. Anyway, Tim fills them in on the sitch: the headmisstress has been using the orphans as slave labor to build war robots for the nazis.

The batgirls (now including Tim!), bust up the basement and the robots, free all the orphanage kids, including Cullen, toss the awful headmistress and the dirty cop helping her to one Detectice Maggie Sawyer---Kate's wife---and the day is saved!

In the subsequent week, Bette takes over Kane Industries, starts funneling funds into housing for immigrants and refugees and relief and aid and all that good stuff, and also recruits the final batgirl of the team: Felicity Smoak (the chick in braids)! Thus we have a full team!

Who's who in the alt text

I'm only halfway through Bombshells, but the batgirls and their adventures are a recurring plot thread, since protecting Gotham is entirely up to them while Kate is away. They gain lots of other allies and enemies (including one hispanic immigrant Lois Lane who does straight up help them pull a newsies and make their own newspaper with the real news in it at one point), and their sections are probably one of my favorite parts about the comic. It just feels so sweet and high school, while still feeling Batman-esque/Gotham-typical.

Why You Should Care:

Now. I may only be halfway through Bombshells, but I am in LOVE. With the story and the characterizations and everything!!! And the batgirls are a personal fave of mine cuz I'm a sucker for found family and teens fighting crime and bat-weilding superheroes!

But my point is: for all that fanfic loves these tropes too, there is NO fanfiction for them (or at least not on ao3). There's practically nothing for the Bombshells continuity PERIOD, which is a shame, but also to be expected for an elseworld.

But that's why I'm here and telling you about it!

You guys! This is fanfiction! We love flinging the batfamily through alternate universes and making lots of different characters take on the familiar Batgirl and Robin roles!

Why not bring forth the Bombshells Batgirls?

If you're writing your own elseworld, I suggest you nab this adorable team, or something like it! If you're writing an alt universe crossover, feature these guys!

They are the Batfamily found family you want! They CALL THEMSELVES a Bat-family! They all move in together! They loooooovvveee each other! And, as is the nature of the Batgirl mantle, they do what they do largely as independent operatives without adult supervision!

I would really love to see these guys yeeted into an alternate universe and have to cope with just HOW different their continuity is. Not only will they inevitably be flung way into the future, since they're around in the 40s, but in most continuities they're completely unconnected from each other and are absolutely not a team of bat-weilding crime fighters! It would be so baffling for any mainline batgirl and robin to meet a team that is so disconnected from them and so unconditionally supportive of each other and so Badass Adorable!

In Summary:

I may have lost the plot a little with this, but my points are:

Bombshells is really good and you should all go read it

Bombshells has a team of adorable bat-weilding batgirls that has all the found family crime fighting tropes you could want without the bad blood of the mainline batfam

More people should write fanfiction for Bombshells

The Bombshells!Batgirls in particular I think are a great place to start with that. Nab the premise of a baseball team being crime fighters, or Gotham being protected by a group of scrappy children whenever the big bad vigilantes are away, or give these colorful kids their Bombshells!backstories.

Also use the Bombshells universe in particular when you're flinging bats across the multiverse. Yeet these babies into a mainline comics verse and let the juxtaposition and chaos run WILD! There's a million and one of these fics for the Young Justice cartoon, I know ya'll can do it for Bombshells

Also. Take every opportunity to give your Batfamily, and your Batgirls in particular, an actual bat. It'll be so much fun, I promise

Anyway, I'll probably be back with another Bombshells rant later, PEACE!

[tarotphil]

titronto recap!! spoilers below the cut !!

before I get into I just want send the biggest good vibes to all of the Americans out there, and also everyone else feeling really discouraged about the election. ily, take care of yourselves <3

- we all did the hot to go dance together during the pre show playlist

- everyone dressed so to theme it was so crazy seeing the streets of toronto filled up with phannies it was lovely

- dan started the show by saying he was glad they were in Canada instead of America that night :,))

- phil said he was gonna be extra annoying bc he had 3 birthday cake flavoured timbits before the show

- someone threw a trans flag down from a balcony at one point it was so good

- phil accidentally slipped up and called us “phersons” at one point and they both laughed about it. we are phersons thank you 🫶

- our random talking point was “moose” but the boys weren’t sure if we actually said “goose” so the topic was “meese”

- lawyer dan wrote erotica about tim bits. at some point whoever was typing backstage changed that answer to “phim phits”

- when giving the traits of real Phil, the audience was obviously made up of Phillies and we were just clapping for him until the card that said “loves capitalism” and then it went a little silent and people started doing this 👎👎 and dan was like. “we got him boys. we got him”

- we ended up killing real dan and linguist phil

- dan verbally called out someone videoing or taking photos with their phone fhsj

- idk if he does this every show but dan said “I’m just a girl’ at one point and me and my friend went crazy

- while they were boxing and doing their trash talk and dan was like “scared?” And phil said “just scared of my life without you after I kill you” Iris and I were both like. 🫢🫢 so what do you mean by that

- stage manager cleaning up the boxing while they monologue. hey 🫶🫶 you are my hero 🫶🫶

general thoughts!!! phil is so beautiful. He is so so beautiful. every time he looked up at us me and Iris felt a little faint. dan and is also gorgeous oh my god. he’s also so kinetic and he moves around doing weird poses the whole time

their chemistry is so good!! like the comedic timing and the way they play off each other. all of it sounded very natural, I couldn’t really tell what was improv or scripted for a lot of the show

when sister daniel came out iris and i lost capability to speak. like wdym. she is so beautiful in person

@aterribleinfluence + Hayley @sisterdaniels @kettle-on it was so so nice meeting you!! and it was great handing bracelets out to people that was so cute. mwah mwah mwah

[deaddovedecadence]

(Guess which fucker is suffering from his uterus again? ME! Bevcucase I am suffering you get to hear how I think each member of the batfam (sibs only cause im mad at bruce rn for something he did in another story)would deal with you aggressively swearing at the Universe)

*Transmasc Reader on their period headcanons*

Dick Grayson

“I am going to stab a motherfucker in the throat and sacrifice them to the sun god if means he’ll end my pain”

surprised af, looks at you like you’re crazy

mildy concerned that you’re muttering under your breath swearing vengeance at the universe for giving you a period (apparently the uterus thing is fine but the period thing isn’t?)

Eventually asks what’s wrong and when you tell him that everything hurts, he’s very much going ooh and calling up babs to ask for some help with managing your pain. Once that’s happened he takes you to his room because his mattress is heated and wraps himself around you for a nap

Jason Todd

“If one more person tests me I’m telling Damian that they pissed me off”

He’s surprised with the viciousness of your throat and then pissed when he realizes that you have his favorite hoodie

you have to give him all the puppy eyes in the world to convince him that you need it and it smells like him and that makes it safe.

He understands better then a lot of people because his working girls complain to him when they see him.

helps your make even more creative threats because it’s funny to watch the horror on dick’s face when he hears them.

Cassandra Cain

“I’m going to rip out my uterus and feed it to the ground”

Dies laughing to herself at the absolute violence you threaten yourself with too make the pain stop then scolds you for threatening to hurt yourself

you explain to her that you aren’t actually going to hurt yourself and that you’re just in pain and severely dysphoric.

To combat this, Cass calls you brother (well signs it aggressively) while she cuddles with you in Dick’s bed (it’s the best bed okay!)

Tim Drake

“I hate my everyone and everything”

Finds you crying, and swearing at your body in front of the mirror. Immediately goes into damage control mode, bundling you away from the mirror and calling bart, because Bart’’s also trans and ergo he might know how to help with your freak out.

Bart has to stop Tim from freaking out and very patiently explains to him that sometimes bouts of dysphoria happen and there is nothing that anyone can do about them. Tim ends up asking again if you want to start t and when you say no, he just sits with you on the ground while you come back to yourself

Duke Thomas

“Fuck these motherfucking cramps,”

As the only other trans person in the manor (though Duke is agender to your transmasc) you feel a special kind of bond with him. He makes you feel comfortable and safe when your skin is itchy and all you want to do is explode

Laughs at you swearing at your cramps, and offers you some aleve and a heat pad. The two of you watch an anime together and argue about ship wars. It’s great!

Damian Al-Ghul Wayne

“I am going to rip out the universe’s entrails and give them to damian as a gift”*

Thinks that it’s perfectly reasonable to be angry at your body for failing you.

Makes you spar to get all of the anger that lives inside of you out. It’s very funny to watch the two of you. scream in different languages as you attempt to beat dummies into a pulp

He of everyone understands that it’s hard to keep control of anger and keeps you start to notice when your hold on it is fraying

*(the line that inspired everything)

[obsessioncollector]

Hi friends! Inspired by @librarycards I wanted to make a post celebrating Women in Translation Month! Anglophone readers generally pay embarrassingly little attention to works in other languages, and that's even more true when it comes to literature by women, so I will jump at any chance to promote my faves 🥰 Here are some recs from 9 different languages! Also, I wrote this on my phone, so apologies for any typos or errors!

1. Trieste by Daša Drndić, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Croatian): An all-time favorite. Much of Drndić's work interrogates the legacy of atrocities in Europe, particularly eastern Europe. Trieste is a haunting contemplative novel centered on an elderly Italian Jewish woman whose family converted to Catholicism during the Mussolini era and were complicit in the fascist violence surrounding them in order to protect themselves.

2. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, trans. Anton Hur (Korean): A collection of short stories that are difficult to classify by genre–speculative fiction in the broadest sense. The first story is about a monster in a woman's toilet, which sounds impossible to pull off in a serious, thought-provoking manner, but Chung does so easily—these are the kind of stories that are hard to explain the brilliance of secondhand.

3. Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy, trans. Tim Parks (Italian; Jaeggy is Swiss): Another all time favorite! The cold, sterile homoerotic girls' boarding school novella of your dreams.

4. Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories by Taeko Kono, trans. Lucy North (Japanese): I think I read this in one sitting. Incredibly unsettling—these stories will stay with you. They often focus on the unspoken psychosexual fantasies underscoring mundane daily life.

5. The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector, trans. Katrina Dodson (Brazilian Portuguese): I think Lispector is the best known writer here, so she might not need much of an introduction. But what a legend! And this collection is so diverse—it's fascinating to see the evolution of Lispector's work.

6. Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga, trans. Melanie L. Mauthner (French; Mukasonga is Rwandan): Give her the Nobel! Mukasonga's books, at least the ones available in English, are generally quite short but so impactful. Our Lady of the Nile is a collection of interrelated short stories set at a Catholic girls' boarding school in Rwanda in the years before the Rwandan genocide. These stories are fascinating on many levels, but perhaps the most haunting element is seeing how ethnic hatred intensifies over time—none of these girls would consider themselves particularly hateful or prejudiced, but they easily justify atrocities in the end.

7. Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962-1972 by Alejandra Pizarnik, trans. Yvette Siegert (Spanish; Pizarnik was Argentinian): Does anyone remember when my url was @/pizarnikpdf... probably not but worth mentioning to emphasize how much I love her <3 Reading Pizarnik is so revelatory for me; she articulates things I didn't even realize I felt until I read her words.

8. Flight and Metamorphosis: Poems by Nelly Sachs, trans. Joshua Weiner (German): Sachs actually won the Nobel in the 1960s, so it's surprising that she's not better known in the Anglosphere. Her poems are cryptic and surreal, yet deeply evocative. Worth mentioning that this volume is bilingual, so you can read the original German too if you're interested.

9. Frontier by Can Xue, trans. Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (Chinese): Can Xue is another difficult-to-classify writer in terms of genre. Her short stories are often very abstract and can be puzzling at first. I think Frontier is a great place to start with her because these stories are interconnected, which makes them a bit more accessible.

[butchhazard]

my trans to radfem story. started off as a response to another post i saw but i kind of just kept rambling and now it’s its own thing lol. i was always a bit nervous to share my personal experience out of fear of being judged but i think a lot of people will be able to relate to my perspective. or keep sending me hate if you want it’s all the same to me atp 👯

in the same vein of always seeking out arguments against my own views i frequently look at trans blogs and the amount of projection they do about “TERFs” is astounding. especially claiming that radical feminists have no sense of “kinship” with other women and that we think being a woman is all about suffering and hating yourself. they literally only believe this last part because we’re the only group of people who are honest about misogyny. the “kinship” thing is especially crazy because i WAS trans for *8 years* and during that time almost every single one of my friends was trans as well. i had zero solidarity or kinship with other women and believed them to be completely unrelatable because i was “different”.

the one time i felt brave enough to confide in my closest friend of 10+ years (who later dumped me like trash for becoming a feminist) that i was uncomfortable with penises and only wanted to be with “people with vaginas” she looked at me like i was crazy and told me, “that’s weird. I don’t feel that way. You probably shouldn’t say that.”

eventually i did cave into the pressure of being “inclusive” and put myself in many dangerous situations where men were able to take advantage of me and abuse me. at one point i truly believed i had more in common with TIMs than with “queer cis women” and had come to the conclusion that cis women were dangerous. did this MRA rhetoric serve to strengthen my female friendships like TRAs are somehow claiming it did or did it just make me the perfect victim??? (being male-identified in this way made me a horrible friend not only to other women but to myself as well.)

meanwhile i peaked as a radfem towards the end of 2021, when i was 22. i was staying at a women’s college w/ my ex. for 2 weeks we both felt completely insane and like we had just stepped into another reality. suddenly our lives became so much clearer. we were sobbing constantly just reflecting how misogyny and male violence had affected not only our lives, but the lives of our mothers, sisters, and friends. i was horrified to speak to any of my trans friends about feminism because of the “TERFs are nazis” shit we had been conditioned into believing, but i literally believed that i owed them the truth as a friend who cared and was concerned for their safety. i also naively believed that since *i* realized the TERF propaganda was a complete lie and that radical feminism was not only empowering but life-giving, they would feel the same. nope! they called my ideas brilliant and “galaxy brained” to my face and then turned around and told everyone else i was now dangerous. everyone cut me off from their life as punishment for daring to think differently. i was completely devastated. the friendships that i held so close to my heart for years and years meant nothing to them. this hurt especially because i was starting to realize just how easily they would forgive their male friends for worse, including things like disrespecting them in public or physically assaulting a woman. these were lesser crimes than being a female-identified woman.

meanwhile, around the same time, rumors of our cancelation had been going around the college and another feminist actually reached out to us. she called us her sisters and introduced us to other likeminded women who were so intelligent, supportive, gnc but proudly female. we were all the same yet so different, and different viewpoints were encouraged instead of suppressed. i was learning more about the world and my place in it every single day. for the first time in my life, i felt purpose. every since i was a little girl i had this foreboding sense that other people knew something i didn’t and that i was always “missing a piece of the puzzle”. that feeling disappeared after i became a radical feminist. 

since then, almost every feminist woman I’ve met has been such an inspiration to me, regardless of whether i like her or not. it’s actually funny that TRAs claim we have no sense of “kinship” as if women’s lands and festivals aren’t the ultimate expression of friendship and solidarity lol. i’m constantly floored especially by how kind and generous older women are to me, and how easily women my age accept me if i just allow them to. i love being a woman, i love other women, and i know that other women love me.

women in general do have a solidarity/kinship problem but this is simply not true of lesbian feminists and other radical feminists as a community. other women are our strength and lifeblood. after my ex and i broke up (it was messy girl) i wanted so badly to hate her but i literally couldn’t because i still loved her as a woman even if i didn’t love her as a partner anymore. to this day i would probably struggle to come up with a woman i actually “hate” bc it’s just not in my nature any more. my anons literally can’t relate lol 

yes radfems as a group aren’t perfect and we are generally “angry” but so are TRAs. the main difference is we direct our anger outwards rather than inwards. when i was 23 i submitted a letter to Lesbian Connection that included this paragraph that still sums up my views of being a TIF vs radfem completely:

“Realizing that my femaleness was the only thing that determined my gender– that I was born a woman and would die a woman despite not conforming to made up standards created by and for men, liberated me from the chains of believing I had been “born in the wrong body” and needed plastic surgery to fix myself. I was never born wrong and the fault never lay with me– it lay with the patriarchal society we all live in which forces females and males into incredibly limiting boxes.”