#trans allies

[newbabyfly]

Back in 2015, some people started the #IllGoWithYou hashtag. A way for allies to show trans people support by wearing a pin to let them know they're available to go with them to the public gendered bathroom that they identify as.

I haven't seen the founders of this post in over two years and with how much vitriol there's been against trans people lately, I felt the need to revive this, so I designed some new pins for all people to wear to show support of trans people in public spaces.

These will be pay what you want, all proceeds going to the Trevor project. Pick the pin that aligns with what gendered bathroom you're comfy with accompanying someone into.

More info writen up by the founders here!

#IllGoWithYou

[fixing-bad-posts]

im a trans ally

[ashe-yname]

I laugh at the radfems who say i transitioned to avoid sexualisation.

Yes, east asian cis women are sexualised and fetishised.

I am a feminine east asian trans man.

I cannot step 2 toes into any dating space (even t4t) without reading about 15 rape fantasies, all including the terms 'boycunt', 'boypussy', 'tboy', 'puppyboy', 'ftm breeding', 'ftm humiliation' and god knows what else.

Is it any surprise that i also laugh at 'trans allies' and even some trans people, when they deny transmasc fetishisation and sexualisation, especially in terms of assumed submissiveness.

[andy-wm]

On a personal note...

This is a personal story, so feel free to scroll on past (if you're only here for the Jikookery I can respect that).

I'm posting this because it's connected to what Jimin and Jungkook (specifically Jimin) may or may not be doing with this album and their travel series "Are you sure", and by that I mean coming out publicly as queer and as lovers. If it sounds vague, it is, because I don't know what they're doing yet. I don't know how far Jimin is taking this or what direction he'll go. But if he is going to make his private life public, then my post is relevant even though my experience is a microscopic spec 0f what he will encounter.

I live in a conservative little town on the edge of a big city, we're almost the last stop on the metro train line. This place has 10 000 residents and a reputation for being a little on the rough side. It's not a bad place and the people are not bad people but they won't step aside if you pick a fight, lets put it that way.

There's one high school in our little town, and I am the school librarian. I also run the school's pride club and when I started it 5 years ago (that's when I joined this school) it kicked up a bit of a stink. The community had mixed feelings. I wasn't out as trans at that point, only as queer. The school principal supported the club but wanted me to keep it quiet (I didn't). She wanted me to be appeasing (I wasn't). And when we had challenges from homophobic students, she wanted me to 'let her handle it' ( I didn't).

I responded to bigotry with patience and kindness, modelling the behaviour I expected and having many many conversations about prejudice, the patriarchy, learned behaviour, fear of the unknown, and minding your own damn business....

When I came out as trans to the school community - changing my name and pronouns - I faced some real push back from both staff and students. Students were less openly hostile but sometimes the subtle attempts at bullying are worse. My line manager was really difficult about it. I was a hot topic of conversation. It wasn't a good time. But I stuck with it, partly because I couldn't go back and partly because the Pride Club students were so empowered by what I was doing. They thought I was really brave. I couldn't let them down.

It was a tough time for me personally. Every day was a struggle as I navigated my wavering sense of identity and tried to be true to myself. Most of my family and friends were okay with it but some were not. Some flipped back and forth, some thought I had lost my mind. I had to let a few people go from my life, including one of my closest friends. I've lost a few more since then. I've cried more in the past few years than I have in my whole life and I am pretty tough, so you gotta know - it was a lot.

Fast forward to now. The pride club is well established, homophobia still exists but it's less overt and it's no longer ignored, and we have staff who are active allies. It's definitely a success. Our students to have a safe place where they can be themselves, and slow change is coming to the culture of the school.

It has come at a personal cost though. Not a HUGE personal cost but enough for it to matter. I am recognised and known around town because, well, most people in small communities know each other. But more so because of my role in the school, and because I am the only out and vocal queer person on school staff (yes, there are other LGBTQIA+ staff but they keep it quiet, and I don't really blame them).

At school i still have to correct people on my pronouns on a daily basis, and occasionally a student will throw a comment my way but it's not often these days. I have to come out to all the new staff pretty much as soon as I first meet them otherwise it's awkward. It's just an everyday thing. It's not a big deal but it's tiring, and it's something cis/straight people don't ever have to think about.

What is tough, though, is sniping from the community at large every now and again. I have been targeted on community socials and I've had had some pretty brusque service from local shop owners and service personnel in local businesses. Sometimes I see kids from school at the shops and they point me out to their parents. I pretend it's because they're happy to see me (what the fuck else am I going to do - hide in the apple crate?) They may say a friendly hello... or they may following me through the aisles of the supermarket trying to menace me - yes, that has happened - I just have to wait and see.

I do have allies in the community too - like the gorgeous pharmacist who always gets my name and pronouns right and compliments me (on whatever he can think of) every time I collect my meds. There's a stern woman in the hardware store who makes a point of loudly correcting herself when she uses the wrong pronouns (often). I appreciate this, I really do, but honestly it would be great if she could be a little quieter.

I am not a celebrity by any means, just a small town school librarian. But wherever I go in my small town - to the doctor, the supermarket, the park, or the gym - there's a chance I'll encounter someone who knows my face. Sometimes that makes me nervous.

The point of this long and boring post is to give people who may not know what it's like, a bit of insight into the experience of a regular, everyday person who lives in a conservative place and who is both recognisable and queer. It can be exhausting, and from time to time I struggle with mental health issues. So I have no doubt that for people who are really well known, it would be much, much worse. They would be the subject of public debate on news sites and TV. They'd be tossed into arguments by politicians on both sides of the divide. They'd encounter hostility in person too, and that's really frightening.

So please remember that if the celebs you admire choose NOT to come out, it's because they've weighed up their choices and that's the safest option for them. Support them where they're at, so they can live their best life under the circumstances.

If they do come out, they'll probably need even more support. Please love them, defend them, celebrate them, and validate them. They need you more than you know.

And above all else, be a good human.

PS, no need to comment here, this is purely a PSA <3

[genderqueerdykes]

an addendum to my post about allies- assuming that every cishet person you meet will be queerphobic is judging someone else for their identity, whether or not you want to admit this, that is what is happening, here. you are making a knee-jerk reaction to someone else's gender and sexual identity and assuming things about them based off of that. let that sink in.

every cishet person you meet is not a queerphobe.

i have a lot of neighbors that i talk to. all of them are older than me. they are all queer allies. they gender me correctly. after they found out i'm a trans man, nothing changed, they still call me the right name, they still call me the right pronouns. no one gets pissy about the fact that i dress femme. my neighbors have literally never once given me any shit about how i dress. one of my neighbors is an older man with salt and pepper hair who identifies as straight and has told me so, but loves my dresses. he has literally complimented me on wearing dresses and how good i make my outfits look. most of my neighbors are middle aged to older people who don't identify as queer but also don' treat us like garbage

my neighbor who just left whom i love dearly was a woman in her 60s with white hair. she was a librarian, and lobbies for civil rights and advocates for queer people, homeless people, prisoners, and other vulnerable people in our society. she was so open and welcoming when i told her i was queer. i felt totally safe talking about my struggles as a queer person with her

there really, genuinely, are allies out there. please don't ignore them. please don't treat them like shit. we desperately need them. we have to stop turning literally everything into us vs. them. a cishet person who never gives you flak for your gender is such a wonderful person to have in your life. don't push away that opportunity for a connection with another person just because you want to judge them for their identity.

we don't do that here.

[mollyringle]

I am perhaps extreme on this, but I don’t think there’s a good excuse to stay in HP fandom, unless one does agree with Rowling's infamous tweets of recent years. Separating art from artist is debatably all right when the artist is dead and no longer collecting royalties, but when the artist is still on Twitter bragging about her royalties, and there’s so much queer-friendly fantasy that could be talked up instead…yep, nope, trans/genderqueer/NB allies should jump ship.

I admit I look askance now at HP cosplayers and anyone still putting their Hogwarts house in their social media bio. I know, I know, a fandom that meant so much to a person for a phase of their life is going to claim a special place in their memories. But you wouldn’t (I hope) continue celebrating the birthday of a toxic ex-friend because you liked them two decades ago, so why stay with the fandom, when by so doing you’re keeping Rowling culturally relevant? We can support the innocent actors from the HP movies by supporting the work they’ve done since the series—I’m sure they’d rather have more focus on those newer projects anyway.

I practice what I preach: I could be continuing to lure in potential readers with my HP parodies, but instead I have taken them all down, all the places I can still reach, because I don’t want to give her any airtime, even obliquely like that.

I think if y'all knew how very, very little the vast majority of us writers make, and how hard we try to reach readers, and how much we'd appreciate a smidgen of success, and how hard some of us are trying to help and protect our fellow queer folks...you would better understand why this is a big deal, to someone who is also a writer of urban fantasy. I’ll stop there. Apparently I could go on and on about this.

[ineffablemossy]

Thought we needed a more Scottish version of David's now legendary shirt.

Specifically a Weegie* version.

So I made one!

In case you're not familiar with Scots/Weegie:

Wains = children/kids

Alaine = alone

Wee = small/little

Gobshite = untranslatable insult

*For Americans and other aliens: 'weegie' is a word denoting a person from Glasgow. Shortened from Glaswegian. The Glaswegian accent and slang is renowned for its humour and warmth. The type of warmth you get from the single candle attempting valiantly to light your entire flat at 5pm on a dreich Winter's day.

[dearlittlebuttercup]

I know I have like zero followers, but as one of the few cis heteros on tumblr I fully love and support my trans brothers and sisters, and value their presence here. They enrichen the experience and the site is poorer without them and makes me want to leave. Please support our trans siblings.

[profeminist]

"In Parkhill, Ontario, just a few miles east of the Michigan border, the Wind Sisters motorcycle club has been riding the roads in this southernmost Canadian province since 2011.

“Our role in the community has always been one of the great protector,” said Patricia Ginn, a self-described “butch” and longtime member.

Ginn and her fellow Wind Sisters, clad in denim and leather, formed a human chain and kept the two groups apart."

Read the full piece here: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/05/womens-biker-club-protects-kids-from-conservative-protestors-at-drag-queen-story-hour/

[mywingsareonwheels]

Say what you like about celebrity culture (and I really do), but right now as a queer (and disabled) trans person in the UK, there being some cis celebrities being loud in their support for us is really fucking valuable and gives me a lot of hope.

Above all they keep reminding me that the transphobia movement, however politically powerful and well-funded and however much they seem to be winning at the moment and fucking up legislation left it too late to get all or even most of the cis people on their side. That's a mistake that I hope eventually they will pay for. And celebrities being loudly allied has a real and powerful impact.

I'm thinking above all of David and Georgia Tennant, Neil Gaiman, Russell T Davies, Ncuti Gatwa, Rhianna Pratchett, Jameela Jamil, most of the cast of the HP films, etc., but very definitely not only them. <3 Less well-known people like the glorious archaeologist/historian/anatomist/author Dr Alice Roberts and the wonderful art historian/goth/author Dr Janina Ramirez are also beautifully loud about things when they can be, among so many others.

(And when Georgia Tennant sends love to us all on her Instagram account, damn it helps my brain. <3)

[crazycatsiren]

If you want to fight me on trans rights, you're going to lose. I may be a cripple, but when it comes to protecting my friends and people I care deeply about? I will fucking rip your transphobic self to pieces with my bare hands and teeth. Fucking try me, twat waffle.

[panicatthebookshelf]

Get yourself an ally like David Tennant. Don't ever settle for less.

[love-takes-work]

If y’all haven’t heard about this, Aivi and Surasshu are going to perform “Love Like You” as part of a trans charity event in Tennessee. And they need a crowdsourced choir to sing the song with them!

You can submit YOUR RECORDING with the easy steps listed in Aivi’s tweet. And then your voice can be one of the many in the choir! It’s going to be beautiful!

(I already sent mine in. ❤) 

[tinkerbitch69]

Cis people who are buying tumblr staff’s little bullshit apology post pls, pls, pls just stop and do what us trans fems have been asking you to do since day one:

SPEAK UP!!!

Listen to us when we talk about transmisogyny! Spread the word so people understand what it looks like! Support that doesn’t go beyond

‘✨trans fems are welcome on my blog! <3 <3 <3✨’

Is just token support. A post where staff claim to be upset about matt’s actions too is irrelevant when transmisogyny continues to run rampant and unchallenged on this hellsite and they don’t do a. God. Damn. Thing!

The personal fweeings of staff don’t change the fact a trans woman was

Harassed. Smeared. Unfairly Suspended and Outed! By the CEO!!!

If you’re really an ally and not just someone who wants to appear as one

SPEAK. THE. FUCK. UP!!!

[this-user-is-always-bored]

recently, i had a conversation with my family about trump’s first executive orders. when we got to the parts targeting trans people, i’d expressed how worried i was over some online trans friends i had over in america (i’m closeted to everyone irl except the few queer friends i came out to years ago) that would be even further discriminated against by these policies; both my mother and grandfather then claimed that trans people in the us have nothing to worry about, actually, because they’ve been gaining more rights as time goes on & that they’ve popped up everywhere ever since the 2010s and has gained more power because of that.

i couldn’t really say anything in response to that. her words were so, so incredibly similar to the same rhetoric used by transphobes to justify their thinking that it genuinely shocked me to hear them— because neither my mother or my grandfather are transphobic (not in a stereotypical way, at the very least. i’ll try to explain this.) they support trans celebrities, they scoff at the thought of transphobia, they judge trans pop culture figures here the same way they judge cis ones. in their understanding of the term, they could even be considered ‘allies’. but they carry this distinct refusal to even acknowledge that trans people are oppressed, that even the thought of something they thought of as the ‘majority’ being a ‘minority’, and being so for a reason, is something to be denied. in that way, they also have to deny the thought of having a trans person even adjacent to their social circle (there was this transfem who called it ‘wine mom transphobia’ and i think that’s a pretty apt description.)

i remember being 15, coming out to my mother, not even daring to say the words “i’m trans” and handing her a letter instead, one i almost chickened out of writing. i remember her looking at me, then at the letter, and then folding it back in, telling me to ‘stay normal’. i remember casually talking to her years earlier, testing the waters with her on transness: how would she feel if i had a trans friend? she immediately freaked out, asking if i did. i changed the subject, and never asked about it again. she’s completely forgotten these incidents, but i remember them, and they creep up on me everytime i talk to her about anything relating to transness, or even queer adjacent. whenever i see her clap for trans celebrities on the big screen, i have to wonder if she would be so for them if they had been her colleague, her neighbor, or even her relative instead of an amorphous figure she can choose to disassociate from with little trouble.

[vagabond-starsong]

Good Ally-ship; some stories

Shortly after coming out as trans, I was due to give a presentation for work. I was anxious as to how I would be introduced. My coworker, whom I was giving the presentation with, introduced me by my chosen name and used my pronouns correctly. After the presentation was over and we were back in our office, I thanked him for doing so. He responded by saying, "Of course! It's your name, and it's who you are."

After coming out as trans to friends, whom most of are cis, one in particular would send me trans memes in addition to the normal batch of funnies. Not the kind that make fun of trans people, but the kind that are made by trans people about being trans. He would ask about how I was doing and he even gifted me a money card on my birthday with the explicit message that he hoped it would help me rebuild my wardrobe the way that I would find aligned with my gender more. Anytime I show up with a cute outfit, even before that, he remarks on it.

Another friend, one whom is a cis girl, immediately folded me in on conversations about being a woman before I even felt myself. She gives me tips on various aspects of womanhood to help catch me up- a thing that continued to increase in frequency as I went through HRT, and something that was invaluable as I eventually came out to my family and was not particularly supported by my mother- the person I thought I would learn these things from. My friend told me once, "As far as I am concerned, you are just like me! We're both girls who weren't allowed to be girls when we were little. I'm so glad we can do that together now."

Another cis afab friend of mine works in a different department from mine. She encouraged me to use the bathrooms at work that would make me feel the most comfortable. She also sends me resources when she thinks that I could benefit. When the USA election happened, she researched certain laws I was afraid of and consoled me, assuring me I was safe, at the very least, here.

A random coworker from elsewhere in the building, whom I almost never interact with, made an effort to come see me one day at my department. After exchanging a short hello, he said, gesturing up and down at me, "Hey, I presume you are no longer going by 'other-<DEADNAME>'?" I replied, yes, and said that I go by Ayla now, and that I am a girl. He responded by smiling, putting a hand out between us to shake, and saying, "Well, Ayla, then it is a pleasure to finally meet you."

During a 1 to 1 meeting with my boss, I mentioned how my picture on the website was horribly out of date, and that it concerned me. His response was to assert that if I wanted to, we could easily take a new headshot of me and replace it along with my name. Then he proceeded to mention that "Actually, since we are on the subject, you know the building has a board displaying all of the women in STEM who work here? I want to get you on that board when you're comfortable." Throughout my transition, my boss has been the one to stand up for me when I get misgendered, has continued to write me into presentations as I am, and has made sure that any steps he takes are at the pace that I wanted. As long as I feel safe and comfortable. Always.

This is just a handful of the people that I have to thank for their support in my transition. When I think of good allies, these are the people that pop into my head.

If you are wondering how you can support the trans people in your life, then I encourage you to look at these examples. We are just people. We love, cry, feel anger, and joy just the same as you. And even if you just go out of your way to write the correct name on their coffee cup, then I guarantee you will have the opportunity to experience the joy that comes with seeing them happy.