#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.

[pawsome-queerantaine]

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!!!

[i-wear-the-cheese]

trans (and allied) community of tumblr! I need your help!

a friend of mine who is a cishet guys is desperately trying to be supportive of his trans loved ones but he just Doesn't Get It because he himself has never viewed his gender as separate from his physical form or his presentation (which are all 'default' to him). We are talking vanilla settings, no mods, only had tattoos because he has easy access to them

so does anyone have any food resources for explaining gender as a concept that is intangible? or even any good metaphors. I told him it was like gravity and I think it started to click (you can't see it, you can only see its effects, and if it's not disrupting you you'll easily forget it is there) but I don't think it was the full eureka moment for him

essentially i need to help this cis guy unlock the part of his brain where the gender is stored so he can gaze at it in awe and that he feels confident in supporting other people without putting his foot in his mouth

[inaturalist-propaganda]

I love you trans people and I love you trans allies.

This original post will keep being updated!

tumblr made it so indented text removes line breaks so they're not all going to be indented.

some of the comments so far, June 10th 2023:

Pretty uncool to publicly support pride month after your PR disaster on the forum. Banning a user who was trying desperately to get you to understand that they were being misgendered, then rainbow washing on top of that? Come on, guys, this is shameful.

= = =

CAoS: Please do something about your child organisation, iNaturalist, for their continued and repeated attacks on myself and my fellow queer/trans/nb people. All we asked is for pronouns to be used as a part of their rule of "be respectful". Initially, Tony, paid Outreach Coordinator, denied this request, essentially saying being respectful does NOT mean you have to use someones correct pronouns. After almost a week, it was backwalked, to you can say you will not use but that is "not actually missgendering" becuase it "is just threatening it" instead of "actually missgendering". It has gone even worse now, with the person being missgendered being BANNED for continually asking for this basic respect. Now, our posts get hidden, or outright deleted. We need someone above iNaturalist to step in and do the right thing. I ask that you remove Tony from his Paid iNaturalist Staff position. A person who is literally the paid Outreach Coordinator should actually understand inclusion and diversity. I ask that you hire a queer bipoc person to replace him. This would be the first step in reconciliation that would show you mean what you say, and are not simply rainbow washing.

= = =

It's a little difficult to take this seriously when CAoS is the parent organization of iNat, whose PR team decided threats of misgendering trans people are not actually that serious. And, then, to make matters worse, removed a trans person receiving those threats from their forum, not the bully. It's easy to post a rainbow photo and say you support the LGBTQIA community, but the actions of iNat show otherwise. It's our actions as allies that matter most every day, not once a year pride posts.

= = =

I implore the California academy of sciences to admonish your child organization, iNaturalist for their repeated attacks on trans and non-binary folks in their forum. Their pride month posts are revolting when their staff is actively engaged in blatant retaliatory attacks against trans and non-binary people.

= = =

It would be great to see Inaturalist posting Pride month icons..... if it weren't for the disasterous behind-the-scenes transphobia that's rampant in the forums!

If this is your first time hearing it, paid staff on the inatrarlist official forums went out of their way to create a huge incident that alienated a good 90% of the queer community that was on the forums, by banning a trans it/its user who was being misgendered and refused to back down when staff refused to remove the 2 offending posts, despite multiple, *multiple* queer users telling staff all they had to do to resolve the issue was remove the two misgendering posts.

It took a full WEEK for anything to actually be concretely done, and that was only when the OP of the posts had to ask *permission* from staff to delete her posts because she realized what she'd done was wrong and hurtful, especially when the paid staff kept digging their heels in and insisting it wasn't *technically* misgendering..... somehow.

Staff kept digging their hole deeper, acting as though everyone was demanding they "police every single thing posted on the forums" and "act like a surveillance state" when literally from day one, alllllllllll they had to do was remove exactly 2 offensive posts that had been reported by multiple queer users. They staunchly refused to remove the posts or take *any* action other than to attack the very people who were the ones under attack, culminating in them literally banning the trans it/its user who was being misgendered all because, get this-- it refused to sit quietly by and have the posts remain up, and kept telling staff "leaving the posts up for everyone, myself included, the literal target of these posts to see with zero visible response from Staff for the blatant violation of TOS, is completely unacceptable".

Did I mention this happened in the forum thread DEDICATED to queer and LGBTQ Inaturalist users?

It was a forum thread DEDICATED to celebrating pride and queer identities?

And that the very Inaturalist staff who refused to do their jobs and remove two posts that violated their TOS because they didn't think it was a big deal for a trans user to be misgendered even after multuiple users explained exactly why that's so hurtful, the very Inaturalist Staff who acted like being asked to remove 2 posts was the equivilant of us demanding they police every single word posted on the forums-- were the very same ones asking queer Inaturalist users to volunteer for their Pride Month showcase.

What a joke.

If Inaturalist and the other paid staff behind it are TRUELY serious about diversity, inclusion, and welcoming their queer and LBGTQ users with open arms, then someone from higher up needs to take a SERIOUS look at the paid staff of the forums and how they ACTUALLY treat queer users when push comes to shove; they're more than happy to hide even the slightest, most mild critism of their moderation (or complete lack thereof) but refused for over 168 hours to do the most basic thing of hiding two posts containing hate speech and transphobia. That were in the LGBTQ thread, and had been flagged by multiple LGBTQ users, *including the it/its trans user who was the target of that hate speech to begin with*

but what did the forum staff do?

Did they remove the 2 posts that violated TOS?

Did they apologize for their mishandling of the situation?

Nope, they literally told us "if you don't like how we moderate, you go somewhere else" -- as though the literal LGBTQ thread was not EXACTLY where we were supposed to be protected from this crap.

Tiwane needs to be removed as paid Forum staff, and astra the dragon needs to lose moderation privileges, and ALL forum staff, be they paid or volunteers, need to go through a MANDATORY inclusivity and sensitivity training to properly handle the most basic aspect of their jobs., if you want your huge queer userbase to trust you again.

= = =

Wow. That's rich, given how you've treated LGBTQIA+ folks in your forums. If you want to be supportive of pride month, fire the team that's perfectly fine with misgendering people in comments. If not, this is just an ugly facade you're presenting to seem as though you support minorities without actually following through.

= = =

iNaturalist: you are NOT allowed to celebrate Pride Month because you continually create policies to harm queer/trans/NB members of your community. You allowed missgendering, saying it does not go against your rule of "be respectful". Then you back-walked it to it's okay to say you *will* missgender, or *will refuse to* use someone's pronouns, because it hasn't happened yet. Now, you are hiding or deleting all the callouts we are making of this issue.

iNat: STOP pretending to be an ally, when you are NOT. You are NOT an ally to the entire LGBTQIA+ community, only the ones you seem fit to bolster your public appearance during Pride Month, while all this goes on behind the scenes. Now we are no longer allowed any "political" posts - but we are only political in our existence because politicians and others would like us literally dead....If your "politics" denies people their personhood, your "politics" are utter shyte. The *person being misgendered* was *BANNED* for being rightfully upset about it while you sat back and did nothing other than, banning them, and allowing the continued transmisia/transphobia while *many of us* stepped up to say how wrong you were, and how wrong the entire situation was. Yet, you never stood up for us, and you continue to simply squash us.

Original LGBTQIA+ thread where the misgendering starts, followed by staff tone policing and pretending both sides are equally wrong: https://forum.inaturalist.org/.../lgbtqia-and.../23565/268

New thread to "discuss" the moderation issues, which is still just transmisia, tone policing, and bad-faith arguments on the part of the staff: https://forum.inaturalist.org/.../moderation.../42122 (pretending that asking them to remove exactly two (2) posts means we want them to become a fascist surveillance state and judge literally every post anyone makes...but now they just delete & hide our posts...hmmm.....)

= = =

As part of pride month you are actively discriminating against and attacking LGBTQIA+ members on your forum, in direct violation of your supposed policies. Despicable. Pretending to be an ally when you are actively attacking such people is an affront to the entire community.

= = =