#trans advice column

[withbroombefore]

Pronoun Island has been gone for a while and I don’t know if it’s ever coming back, so I’m adding a page to the Trans Advice Column site to fill that gap. The purpose is to lay out the conjugation and example usage of as many different pronoun sets as possible, so that people can link directly to show how to use their pronouns. It’s live but I know I’ve missed a lot, so please reply or DM me with pronoun sets that aren’t shown yet!

[hellyeahscarleteen]

As a trans person, how can I navigate authentic gender expression and avoid the identity police?

Being part of a caring queer community means helping each other find and celebrate our authentic selves – NOT taking part in gender policing. In this advice from the archives, Mo demonstrates how to do exactly that.

A user writes,

“I’m a 17 year old transmale and I’ve identified as male for about 2 years now. I am 100% confident that I am a boy, but I am also fine having breasts and a vagina. I don’t think of them as female. They’re just my parts! I like wearing things like dresses and skirts as well and I enjoy makeup, none of these things make me less of a boy in my eyes. However, I fear that people will not take my identity seriously because of this. Even in the LGBTQ community, I feel like people will say I’m not "really trans.” Dressing the way I want to really boosts my self-esteem (and I have struggled with horrible self esteem my whole life, so I really need it) but being called “girl” and “she” really hurts. I guess my question is, how do I deal with wanting to present a certain way but hating how it makes others perceive me? I will be going off to college in a few days as well, and I know that could be a time to show how I really want to be, but I’m scared of how people will react or treat me.“

Mo answers,

"I’m going to make probably the biggest understatement of the year: gender⁠ is complicated. As obvious a statement as that is, it’s still true, and I think it’s worth repeating.

I think one thing a lot of people - even many gender-savvy folks or fellow trans people - sometimes forget is that there are a lot of components to gender and that knowing someone’s gender identity⁠ doesn’t provide much information about what their gender expression⁠ or presentation will be. Plenty of people, whether cisgender⁠ or transgender⁠, have gender identities and expressions that don’t fit neatly into a rigid and binary⁠ system of gender norms.”

You can find the rest of Mo’s response here!

[bynux]

Hey everyone!! My blog is up at https://blog.brynmiller.me! I copy-pasted one of my old Medium articles there, but expect more regular journaling and Q&A-style advice articles in the near future!

If you have a queer and/or non-monogamous relationship and would like advice on how to approach some part of it, please send me an ask or DM here, or you can email your questions to bryn@brynmiller.me ^^

[badlywritingmagazine]

Wanna help a by-and-for transfem journal?

Wanna get involved?

Thank you everyone for your interest so far! If you have a sec, I’ve written a quick post about a few ways you can help. 

Lili Elbe, painted by Szív királynő, serving “journal reader” realness Do you have trans female mates?

Let your girl friends know. Share it amongst your networks. 

Can you read? 

Wonderful. Subscribe to this substack to be notified when an issue is released. 

Can you think?

If you’re a trans woman and you have feelings about something, send it to us. If you’re developing an idea, come chat with us over email (or arrange a phone call) and let’s figure it out together. 

Do you sell books and zines? 

Wonderful. Email me. Stock it. Perfect. I can also send you a poster version of our invitation to submit to print out. 

Have you written?

If you’re a trans woman who writes about things relevant to our lives, send it to me. If it is online and you worry that it won’t stay up forever, it’s affecting your job and life prospects, or that it is a reflection of its time and not 100% wise anymore, send it to me and get it archived. Archiving is part of the goal here. We’re not uncurated, but that doesn’t mean you should shrug and let the internet, time, transmisogyny and linkrot eat your hard work. 

If you’re a trans woman with jobs and obligations and you don’t like having your essay ‘Why dickgirls should commit more assassinations’ or ‘transgender materialism: towards a de/coterminous understanding of post tipping point transmisogyny’ or whatever attached to your name then send it to me and get it re/published under a pseudonym.

If we get a large number of submissions like this we will publish it as a separate supplement, but else it will come as a section within WBM.

Do you know grants?

Rates for unfunded zines and pamphlets suck. We want to pay the women well. Let us know if you know of funds or grants you think we fall under. We’ll be sending off applications. 

Can you help us host a launch party in a major city?

We envision low-cost evening events with discussion, trans women, and piles and piles of essays to talk about. (Can we crash on your couch?) We’re based in the UK, but are happy to come anywhere Ryanair goes where there’s a willing audience. 

Got an idea I don’t have? 

Ultimately, I want to keep this dirt simple. Essays come in, paper goes out. No columns, shite graphics. Couple core editors. Schedules loose enough to spend half the year depressed and still get it out. Stolen printer paper. Something that won’t collapse after two years. Posterity. 

That said, if you have an idea (and maybe if you want to do it), email us. Think you know enough people to get this translated and shipped somewhere else? Can you translate and know of a non-English language transfeminist text that’s not got much attention in the anglosphere? Maybe we can submit an application for a grant and distribute your translation? Understand distribution better than me? Do you have the wherewithal to manage a personals board? Something else? Anything except an agony aunt section. I’ve called dibs on that one. 

Do you have agonies? Issues? Want bad advice?

Write to the agony aunt. writingbadlymag snail symbol gmail dot com.

Do you have something to say which won't make a whole essay but is still worth saying?

Write a letter to the editor. Same email.

Addendum: Can you help us set up a website?

Websites we think are beautiful are dirt simple. Low-tech Magazine has a beautiful low-energy website. Filmmaker Margot McEwan has a lovely fitting website. Any thoughts or suggestions should be sent to the same email.

(update: we're all set now! Check out badly.press!)

See a good stack cutter?

If you see a cheap paper stack cutter for cheap, let me know. :)

Thanks all!

Forthcoming posts: information for writers, extracts from the issue.

[peppermint-cardboard]

hey. hello my friend. i am grabbing you by the shoulders oh so gently. do not become hopeless. that is exactly what they want. blue state governments will give them hell over the next presidential term, and you can rest assured there will absolutely be people in our government fighting for democracy.

the thing we can all do that will have the most direct immediate impact and will lay the groundwork for cultures of help, creativity, and love is to get involved at the local community level.

i’m talking especially to my fellow teens here!!! may not be able to vote but that doesn’t mean we’re not able to help.

for my fellow Angelenos!

Hollywood Food Coalition - free food! you can sign up to volunteer and do meal prep (cooking), meal service (serving food), or help at their food bank. locations are on their website. thanksgiving is coming up and HFC will need volunteers!

My Friend’s Place - free aid for youth homelessness, especially queer youth homelessness. volunteering is for 18 years and older

Los Angeles LGBT Center - exactly what it sounds like. offers a wide range of wonderful services and opportunities for volunteering. also works with school GSAs!

Moonwater Farm - a community farm in Compton with great opportunities for education and sometimes paid fellowships

for people everywhere else! just some general recommendations:

The Trevor Project - queer youth services that have saved my ass a number of times. i don’t know if they call the police as part of their responses or not (offers a single-click-to-leave button in case of emergency)

TrevorSpace - a great queer youth-centered website and a very safe place for queer community and discussion

Debate Me, Bro - a great anarchist newsletter/advice column run by a friend of mine!

The Child And Its Enemies - anarchist child rights-focused podcast also run by that same friend of mine :)

Neocities - make a website! learn some HTML! it’s fun, it’s pretty simple, and it’s a way to get a message out if that’s what you want but it’s also just a great de-stresser

Queer Liberation Library - need i even elaborate on the importance of libraries and access to queer media over the coming few years? (offers a single-click-to-leave button in case of emergency)

American Civil Liberties Union - an activism and aid organization that gave the Republicans absolute hell last time and will continue to do so this time

Blackline (800-604-5841) - a crisis and help hotline prioritizing BI&POC and black queer people. will not call the police!

Trans Lifeline (US: 877-565-8860, Canada: 877-330-6366) - a helpline run by and for trans folks. has a quick escape button and will not call the police!

Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line (888-407-4515) - a warmline to chat with trained therapists and professionals. will not call the police!

StrongHearts Native Helpline (844-762-8483) - a domestic and sexual violence helpline prioritizing Native Americans and Alaska Natives. has a quick escape button and will not call the police!

Thrive Lifeline (313-662-8209) - a live crisis warmline prioritizing marginalized people. also offers text messaging! will not call the police!

LGBT National Health Center (888-843-4564) - exactly what it sounds like! warmlines for queer people if you need help. has a quick escape button and will not call the police!

Transfeminine Science - a fantastic resource for... transfeminine science. exactly what it says on the tin.

Planned Parenthood - an incredibly prolific and important organization that offers a very wide array of vastly important services. if you live in an at least semi-urban city in the U.S., Planned Parenthood probably has a clinic near you. you should find out if they do!!!

please feel free to add more resources if you know any!!

other recommendations: say hi to a neighbor. bake someone a pie. start a garden. treat homeless people like your neighbors (because they are). propose a community movie night. have a party in your apartment building. call a friend. text a friend. draw something. cook something good. go to a restaurant you like. buy some DVDs. get a new stuffed animal. compliment a stranger’s shirt. ask for a hug. offer someone a hug. listen to music. KEEP LIVING!!!!!!!!!

don't just survive, keep living <3

[scriptlgbt]

How should I show that a character's nonbinary when they themselves don't know? Should I even do it if they'll just be misgendered the whole story?

They're born in the early 70s (when the main story takes place they're 22). They have trans relatives but I don't think they know there are options beyond (a) staying their AGAB, (b) transitioning to the other binary gender, or (c) drag, which isn't really their thing.

I want to make it deeper than "they think gender roles are stupid" but I don't know where to start in portraying an nb egg.

[I'm assuming a lot about the culture of the particular 70s you're referring to. My POV is that I am "canadian" and much of my own personal knowledge of transness in this era comes from research in US archives. YMMV when it comes to places outside the heavily American sphere of cultural influence.]

So first of all, the 70s had a bit of a renaissance of androgyny. A common thing I'll see in advice columns of the era is someone asking what to do as a customer service worker when they "can't tell" what gender they think someone is, because of their hairstyle and the way they are dressed. I imagine there probably were a lot of people who took refuge in that ambiguity. A fro, a pageboy haircut, all these are something that people of any gender (not necessarily every texture but I digress) could wear.

Secondly, I figured out I was nonbinary before I knew it existed, before I had the words for it. (Though the term genderqueer was the in vogue one in the community at the time I figured my stuff out.) It's just that I sort of saw it as, "hmmm, well, I feel kind of between these things." And I think I'd seen it as sort of "half-trans" until I really understood transness better. (Note: this was for like a week tops.) I also went through a period of time a few years before this where I just sort of saw myself as a crossdresser (not drag - just someone who chooses to dress and cut their hair as they are comfortable and feel happy), but like, that as my gender identity, if that makes sense. I didn't have access to community of other people who felt like I did in order to compare to. But at the time, this also meant that when I talked about my feelings with others, they wouldn't have the same hangups about what it would mean for them if they said they felt the same. There were a lot of people I talked to in 2011ish who basically said they experienced gender as I did, only, I don't think most of them would understand for another 4 years at least.

One day I'd like to post more info about nonbinary history (especially in the 70s), but I'm just dumping info at this point. Something I will suggest for more on the topic is reading Lou Sullivan's diary, and reading autobiographies from trans people who were alive then. Even when they weren't out, they still existed, and lived in a world where they were carving out spaces for themselves.

To my understanding also, a lot of trans culture at the time sort of distinguished "transvestite" (trans people generally? but who haven't accessed medical transition) and "transsexual" (trans people who have or are intending to transition medically). Trans people of every variety might change gender expression based on their outness or the safety they had, and this didn't make them less seen as trans per se. A lot of people who ID'd either way (though more for "transvestite") would have a variety of approaches to things like name and pronouns. If this were the dominant terminology of the time that I were figuring things out, I'd probably have called myself a transvestite, though I would have likely been questioning the transsexual label for a while and ultimately not been able to access medical transition. (Though it depends on when in the 70s iirc - there was a time earlier on where it was easier to access I believe, but I'd need to fact check.)

In terms of general nonbinary egg mode stuff, or at least egg for an era where being nonbinary is not widely known to be a thing, here's some 'signs' (some are just straight up "that's canon if you put that in") I've brainstormed.

admiring specific fashion trends and looks that are gender nonconforming or androgynous (especially celebrities - maybe glam rock musicians, Joan Jett) (Joan Jett was huge for egg me personally...)

finding a lot of different ways to express how they feel in words (the "man/woman in a woman/man's body" phrasing is something that has historically bugged me, but people have used it throughout history) (more examples, dependant on the person, "I feel just as un/comfortable in my body and the way people see me as I would if I'd been born differently." "It's not a wo/man's haircut, it's mine." "I feel like a guy among my guy friends and a girl among my girl friends." "I feel uncomfortable when I go out with my partner and we are assumed to be straight/gay, though I don't know why." "I really enjoyed breeches roles when I did theatre in high school." "It felt good when I was mistaken for a woman.")

referring to themselves in their head with neutral terms

having dreams where they are recognized as themselves

feeling at home around trans people and queer people in general

watching or listening to certain songs/movies/etc that feel Gender for them over and over again

some kind of fixation on facial hair/other body part or lack thereof

it feeling different when different people use gendered terminology for the character (ex: a conservative Girl Guide leader calling everyone "ladies" vs a gay man saying "hey girl"). this is usually to do with what it's assumed the speaker's assigned meaning to the word is.

Re: misgendering through the whole story. A really convenient way to curb this would be to just have the character feel like the way they are (mis)gendered is also a part of their identity, it just isn't the whole picture. Another thing I sort of thought of in my early years was like, if people think I'm a woman, at least they understand there is something off about it. Whether they think I'm a butch lesbian or intersex (which was very regularly assumed throughout my life, at least until the general public started to catch wind of genderqueer identities). It matters to me that they at least understand my approach to gender is queer.

Another approach would be to have the story written from a distant past tense where the reader knows the identity of the character, because everything is told in distant hindsight. This is my favourite approach personally.

-mod nat

[plaidos]

since your asks appear to be trans girl advice column id like to ask abt something related to a friend of mine who is a trans girl (i am not, for reference). basically its a pretty common girlissue but like. her boyfriend doesnt respect her. hes frequently dismissive of her and not appreciative of her and in general just seems to be kinda annoyed by her?? and this sort of dismissiveness and subtle meanness is something she experiences a lot and i dont want that to be the case with her bf as well :(. its not really my business but she comes to me for advice a lot and im always fighting the urge to say break up with him!!! what do

i think you should be honest with her. obviously a lot of people respond pretty badly to “you should break up” so i’m not necessarily saying you should say THAT, but you should tell her that he doesn’t respect her, straight up. describe his behaviour as obviously sexist, and ask her what she would think if one of her girl friends’ boyfriends treated them like that. i think above all you should just make it obvious that she doesn’t have to put up with mistreatment and she absolutely deserves better than that. like hey who knows if push comes to shove maybe she’ll talk to him and he’ll change his ways (#doubt)

[cyberdragoninfinity]

hey just curious do you have any thoughts on blair flannigan? I don't see much posted abt her sadly

BLAIR MY FRIEND BLAIR.... I LIKE HER one of my pals really likes her so i always think fondly of her. she isnt one of my tip top GX favs or anything, but she's really fun and silly and god knows gx needed more girls, she's really holding the line with alexis. her whole personality being Girl in Wuv uwu is. maybe not the best. it could be (😬😔) but i love that come season 4 she (and hassleberry, i really like their friendship!!!) have to grapple with so many of their friends graduating and leaving... it feels like such a Real down to earth high schooler problem to have amongst all the insane shit that happens in GX. blair's so young!!! younger than most of the cast!! I WANT HER TO BE OKAY

I wish she got more of her own specific deck archetype (story of a yugioh girl's life sometimes. sigh.) but her brief egg gimmick is charming, wish they did more with that! it is pretty badass that some video games give her lightsworns though <-- lightsworn liker. AND UNFORTUNATELY I DO THINK HER CRUSH ON MARCEL IS CUTE.... IF YOU DONT CHEER AND CLAP FOR MY LAME-ASS FRENCH BOYFRIEND I'LL BLOW THIS WHOLE PLACE UP

I WISH THE SHOW DID MORE WITH HER though i do really like that tag force 3 gave her a whole story route where shes an in obelisk blue like GOOD FOR HER!! IT RULES 🥺 i think shes gonna come out as trans masc nonbinary in a couple years. i think she likes to read dating advice columns and scoff at the hokey advice. i think she could drink bastion under the table when it comes to spicy hot sauces. i think she'd love webkinz

blair :)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

I don’t usually dedicate a whole newsletter to one issue, but what’s happening with anti-abortion strategy requires as much today. Despite their November wins, Republicans know that they’ve lost Americans on abortion rights—and that the issue continues to be Democrats’ most powerful weapon. It’s not just that 81% of Americans believe that the government shouldn’t be involved in abortion at all—which is incredible enough on its own—but that support for abortion is spiking in Republican stronghold states like Tennessee. Conservatives know that these kinds of numbers will make it very, very difficult for them to enact their anti-abortion agenda under the new administration without voter backlash. Whether it’s federal policies like Comstock or just run-of-the-mill anti-abortion legislation in the states, Republicans need to tell Americans a new story that goes beyond ‘abortion is murder.’

Enter conservative strategist Heather Higgins, CEO of Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), and her latest column at Fox News. As much as I hate linking to Fox, the piece is actually a super helpful look into what we can expect from anti-abortion messaging in 2025.

First, what’s important to know about Higgins is that she works specifically on making Republicans’ misogyny more palatable to women voters. If you go to IWV’s website, for example, you’ll see things like an anti-trans petition framed as the “Stand Up For Sisterhood Petition.” And after Roe was overturned, internal IWV memos were leaked outlining a strategy to use feminist language to downplay the negative impact of abortion bans. (Remember this absolutely bonkers ad? That’s her.)

Higgins is also a powerful player who Republican politicians listen to. You may recall that GOP leaders like Mitch McConnell considered moving away from the term ‘pro-life’ after being presented with polling that revealed it no longer resonated with voters. That, too, was Higgins. All of which is to say—she’s worth paying attention to. In her Fox column, Higgins digs deeper into the idea that ‘pro-life’ has a “toxic brand/perception”—largely because Americans see it as “support for only the fetus, not the woman.” Which is…correct! (I mean, really, it’s hard to claim otherwise when you have Republicans arguing in front of a federal court that women should be legally forced to lose limbs and organs before getting an abortion.) Higgins also suggests that part of the reason Republicans won in November is because they listened to her abortion messaging advice: She lauds Donald Trump for talking frequently about ‘exceptions,’ and other Republicans for claiming to oppose a national abortion ban.

[...] In other words, she wants Republicans to sound pro-choice. Otherwise known as lying. This is exactly what I’ve been warning about for months: That conservatives’ abortion messaging strategy for the new administration would focus on pretending to be as pro-choice as possible. We’ve already seen what this looks like in action. It’s Republican politicians framing their funding of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers as “support for women and families”—a way to feign caring about women even as they strip away our rights. Or conservatives’ cultural campaign against birth control, in which they dispatch ‘wellness’ or ‘tradwife’ creators to weaponize the very real issue of medical sexism to sow distrust in hormonal contraception. [...]

To be clear, conservatives co-opting feminist language is nothing new. You only need to look at organizations with names like “Feminists for Life” or “Independent Women’s Forum” to know that. And in some ways, this strategy has been a long time coming: Over the last ten years or so, anti-abortion activists have gone from calling women murderers to saying that women ‘deserve better’ than abortion. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of them still call women killers, but that’s not where the mainstream groups are anymore. At least, not publicly. These organizations may be working hard to sound feminist and woman-friendly, but they haven’t changed their beliefs, policies or extremism. They’ve simply dressed it up nicer. That’s why this strategy is an easy one to dismantle, if we’re willing to do the work. It’s easy to make fun of anti-abortion groups using feminist language. Because they are, of course, ridiculous. But we need to stop taking for granted the idea that everyone else understands the same.

Love this column from Jessica Valenti reminding us that there is no such thing as “pro-life feminism.” Certain anti-abortion activists are deceptively using feminist-sounding language to soften up support for regressive abortion bans.

[galadriel1010]

Column | Carolyn Hax: Parent of trans teen is exhausted by constant protective alert https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2024/10/29/carolyn-hax-parent-trans-teen/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2024/10/29/carolyn-hax-parent-trans-teen/

[northwalestransintersexnonbinary]

The Next meeting of the TINN will be comming up in Wrexham soon, if you are interested in attening send us an Ask, DM or email and well send you the details, and please feel free to share this around, either online or by printing out these posters for your local area!

image description under the read more

[Id: a poster for the North Wales Transgender Intersex and Non-Binary Network, across the top of the poster the Networks logo sits accros the Nonbinary Intersex and Transgender Pride flags, boardering each side of the poster are columns of pride flags representing different genders, the Centre of the poster has 4 White test boxes the contents of these boxes read:

Who are we? We are the North Wales Trans, Intersex and Nonbinary Network (TINN) , a Mutual aid, Support and social network, formed in May 2022, we offer monthly meetings to socialise share resources, support each other and offer advice

What do we do? We build bridges, connect people, and create community by providing mutual aid, resource sharing and spaces to be true to ourselves So far in our meetings we have been able to offer:

Social meet ups

Transition related help

Clothing swap events

Advice on getting HRT

Advice on updating Legal documents

With your help we can do even more!

When is the next meeting? Our next meeting will be coming up at the end of this Spring, in Wrexham! If you’d like to know the Date Time and Location, get in touch through one of the contacts below How to get in touch? Email: NW_TINN@protonmail.com Facebook: @Tinn Cymru Instagram: @northwalestinn Tumblr: @northwalestransintersexnonbinary Twitter: @NW_TINN

END ID]

[gothicprep]

something was published in one of slate magazine’s advice columns that which said. uh. this. you may or may not have seen this already.

basically the write-in here is allegedly from a trans dude who started taking testosterone recently and hasn’t disclosed this to his sexual partners yet.

people are understandably discoursing about the ethics of this, but I’d encourage them to remember this is a fucking slate advice column. they answer obvious troll emails like “I’m worried my 2 y/o isn’t antiracist enough” and someone wrote a whole personal essay confessing to sending multiple fake submissions to dear prudence. this department of this magazine cannot vet the stuff they’re sent if their life depended on it.

[orchideous-nox]

idk if you're jewish but if you aren't, let me offer some perspesctive.

From an Ashkenazi jew, we inherently have curly hair. Even when we include generations of breeding with flat-haired people, our children have wavy hair. That's how strong it is. Acknowledging our curls and waves is acknowledging us. Erasing it is erasing us. Mizrahi (Asian) jews may have flatter hair, but Severus is canonically white, so it is safe to assume that he would be Ashkenazi--also because Rowling probably does not know that multiple types of jews exist. Jews everywhere are mocked for their Jewishness, especially in the 1970s, and when they have more obvious Jewish features, those features become tied to them. More than that, but jews are historically Middle Eastern--that's why we have that hair. You mentioned how everyone's hair is different and, yes, it is. Ours is different. For those of us who do not have the tight curls that cooled our ancestors, we have waves. And what helped cool our ancestors was oil. When that oil does not have the coil pattern it is used to, it does not know what to do, and will stay at the crown, making it appear oily. This is one of the reasons that there are so many hair products, methods, etc. targeted towards wavy hair that are used among us--we are tired of it and want to know how to care for the oil that will invariably collect. We have oily hair and we know it. That is why hair is important to us.

It is so important to have his Jewish features be Jewish, and it's fine if you don't headcanon him as anything. Obviously, that's totally fine. But you're using a version of Snape that is Jewish, that follows that headcanon for Alex, and it's disregarding the actual Jewishness of what his character would be. That is so disrespectful. That is like having a gay character never have any queer interactions or experiences. That is like having a transgender character never have trans experiences or even question identity. That is like having a black character be treated like they're white--especially during a time where jews were freshly out of the "not white" column. This is not to say that you had ill intentions, but please find a way to consult a jew next time you discuss jews, especially when you're talking about their Jewish features. If you don't, you speak over us and rob us of true representation.

Hi. I really appreciate this information. I have never presented headcanons myself that have said or implied that Severus is Jewish. I would not say I am Jewish myself but I guess I have Jewish heritage (my great grandmother was Jewish which I only learned recently) but I know I have limited knowledge and would never pretend to be an expert or have any experience of being Jewish or identifying with Jewish characters.

I mentioned Alex because I was quoting him when I asked about an ask I had gotten, and he asked me to make the edit that was initally brought up when discussing my use of Rory Culkin. Alex does speak to Jewish people when making headcanons, I can vouch for this, I know he does. I don't make headcanons about him being Jewish.

I only spoke from my experience of someone with a not-straught hair texture, I used a white man in an edit and did not mention any hc about race, religion or culture, I was just saying why I did not use a man with straight hair. I rarely talk about Severus that deeply in my headcanons, I never have, and especially when it comes to his race or if I think he is Jewish or not because I do not have the knowledgeto makethese headcanons. I will occasionally ask Alex for advice on hos character in general such as mannerisms, speech etc, but this was a one off edit that never stated if any character in it was Jewish. It was a ship edit to a song from a tv show.

Again, I do really appreciate this information, I have passed it on to Alex but I'm sure other people will find it useful to.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 Perfect on Paper Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD What's the best advice you've ever received or given? ❓ 🦇 High school junior Darcy Phillips has a secret identity as the relationship advice expert behind Locker 89. Leave a letter along with $10 and she'll provide the perfect solution to your relationship woes. So far, she hasn't been caught...that is, until Alexander Brougham catches her collecting letters. He'll keep her secret...if she can fix his relationship post-break-up, that is. Can Darcy help Brougham win his girlfriend back (without strangling the entitled, rich, yummy-Australian-accent-slinging swimmer) in the process?

💜 Perfect on Paper was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award (Best Young Adult Fiction - 2021) and it's no wonder. This was the exact book bisexual baby me needed a decade ago. Though I've read a multitude of books featuring bisexual FMCs, Sophie Gonzales is the first to capture the authenticity of internalized biphobia. I'll admit I was sheltered enough that it took me a while to realize bi was even an option for me. Bisexual erasure didn't help; once I self-identified, I was given the oh-so-cliche, "that's not real," and "it's just a phase." Bitch, I'm a moon goddess; I'm in a new phase every day of my life. ANYWAY. Darcy is authentic in her concern that a crush over a guy invalidates her bi-ness. The Queer & Questioning Club scene where Darcy's community validates her was everything (and truly got me misty-eyed).

💜 The advice column aspect of the story was brilliant. Darcy's letters are written in a tone that's patient and empathetic yet informative and encouraging. She'd obviously done her research and it shows, but you see her mentally unravel the moment there's personal bias and it's BEAUTIFUL. Darcy isn't perfect. She's a high schooler, still figuring herself out. Yes, she's flawed, but she's also self-aware, willing to grow and change and take her own advice (or the advice she gets from her AMAZING trans big sister, who I adored).

💜 While this is a queer YA romance, there are so many layers beyond that. There's a mixed bag of diversity and personal trauma (and with that, potential for growth) to explore.

💙 The story DID take a minute to pick up speed, so the beginning left me waiting for a catalyst for momentum. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm no a fan of the miscommunication trope. HOWEVER, it does fit here, and proves how easily a tiny moment of misunderstanding can completely alter the course of a friendship. I did have to put the book down at one point, when Darcy's best friend outs her (I was super frustrated on Darcy's behalf because that betrayal was intense). I was disappointed that no one stepped forward and THANKED Darcy for her advice when she was getting attacked as the person behind Locker 89. People were upset BEFORE their letters were taken, but no one thanked Darcy until LONG after the situation cooled. Given Darcy's self-proclaimed success rate (was there a mention of HOW she knew she was successful, beyond the lack of refunds?), I expected a lot more praise for her abilities beyond one person.

🦇 Recommended to fans of Leah on the Offbeat and Imogen, Obviously, with a hint of To All the Boys I've Loved Before and Netflix's Sex Education.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 💌 Bisexual FMC (w/ Internalized Biphobia) 💌 Queer Young Adult Rom-Com 💌 Lots of Rep 💌 Hate-to-Love 💌 Friends to Lovers 💌 POC Sapphic Side Ship

💬 Quotes ❝ "Do you think there’s a chance that [...] you’re intellectualizing things so you don’t have to, you know, feel them?" ❞ ❝ I was sitting in the space between a sound and its echo. Brougham had asked a question, and I had to answer it. It was that, or keep dreaming about love, and working toward helping others find it, while never letting myself risk it. ❞ ❝ In some ways, we mirrored each other. We shared cracks in complementary places. ❞ ❝ Bi people are part of the queer community, and their identity does not change depending on who, if anyone, they happen to have feelings for or date at any given moment. ❞