#trans binary and nonbinary

[enbycrip]

I'm sorry I've been quiet recently. I've actually been doing big things offline while still right in the middle of symptom management for flare- ups.

Firstly - I'm working on my History postgrad (Masters) dissertation, exploring how the emergence of capitalism affected disabled lives in early modern Britain and Ireland. I'm currently getting a draft chapter on intellectual and learning disability in some shape for my tutor to go over, and also feeling like the wrath of several angry gods while buried in articles about Tudor professional fools.

Secondly - I ran an experimental LARP, a live action roleplaying game, with a friend of mine. If you don't do live roleplaying, think about something a bit like a cross between playing D&D but fully acting all the parts rather than sitting around a table and narrating, and experimental improv theatre, but focusing more on storytelling as experience between participants than performance.

Ours was set in a post-apocalyptic society after a pandemic-related societal collapse and featured a meeting between a group of people trying to survive as a collective on a self-sufficient croft and a bunch of refugees from a collapsing state-run camp. Given I'm a queer disabled person, the game was actively queer including trans inclusive. We had a *lot* of queer, including trans binary and nonbinary, and disabled participants, and I'm so chuffed at how people leaned into and explored how their marginalisations affected these stories and their experiences of telling them. It was really important to us to put a particular focus on accessibility and inclusion, which I'm really pleased to say seemed to come off really well.

Big things that are really important to me, and of course my body has taken the opportunity to react and has stuck me on the toilet for a lot of the last couple of days. IBS is part of my hEDS, but given how much codeine I need to take it tends to affect me the other way much more these days. I can't say I enjoyed revisiting a big feature of my pre- opioid life all that much, tbh 😜

I am a huge believer in both history and art of all kinds as a site of resistance. They are how we understand our past and our present, and how we conceptualise our future. Humans are narrative animals. We need to tell stories to understand ourselves, our lives, our societies, our pasts and our futures. The skills to deconstruct stories and understand how they affect us are vital and essential ones. These are part of my work in the ongoing revolution; the one to build the world we *need* as our current world is crumbling.

[raqualswonderfunblog]

[shutinthenutouse]

[transmhyra]

[genderqueerdykes]

listen to me: you can love and support trans men and trans women at the same time. you can love and support transmasc and transfemmes at the same time. you do not have to make things into this-or-that decisions. you do not have to turn everything into us-vs-them, friend-vs-enemy, sports team ass dynamics. transfems and transmascs are not at opposite ends of ANYTHING, and we will never, ever be enemies or polar sides that cannot intersect or co-exist peacefully. you can support more than one type of trans person and distribute that support equally. i promise you fucking can.

[milomilesmib]

Quick reminder that you don't need a solid sexuality! You can just be in love! Or not be in love! Or have a gender! Labels are a choice, not a requirement. All you need to do is be someone you like being! If labels help with that, great! But they are not required. You don't owe it to anyone, so don't feel pressured to choose labels if they aren't your thing!

[xx-invadr-ellie-xx]

Absolutely evil beyond words. When asked about the murder of Nex Benedict here is how the state's senator responds, calling them filth that needs to be kept out of the state, while audience member's cheer.

These monsters not only don't care that a child was murdered because of their hatred, they outright celebrate it. Christian's are soulless monsters, when are we gonna get the chance to vote to strip their right to exist away from them, like they do to us? Why do we allow these hate filled cultists to have power in the government and spread their murderous hatred.

This is why the school never called an ambulance for Nex instead just suspending them, this is why the coroner and police are currently trying to cover up the murder, because the whole goddamn system is working exactly as they intended, accomplishing their goals of murdering us and getting away with it.

[masculinerose]

A study just came out from Harvard about how gender affirming surgeries are more commonly performed on "cisgender men/boys" than transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people.

But these men/boys have gynecomastia which, if they were born with it (and the study doesn't specify), they're not just "cisgender".

They're intersex.

How many times now have intersex people told us perisex (non-intersex) people to stop using the statistics of their surgeries just as trans talking points, while erasing intersex people on the whole?

We have no idea how many of those surgeries were forced, or coerced, onto these intersex people. Either from doctors, parents, or even societal pressure.

Perisex trans people need to do better. We have to be better allies to intersex people than this. It disgusts me just how much we have failed our own community, time and time again.

UPDATE

The study actually specifically excluded intersex people.

"Importantly, all surgical procedures among patients with indications of differences in sex development or patients with other medical indications for surgery (eg, cancer, injury) were excluded..."

I'm happy to see this particular study has taken care to exclude intersex people, since surgeries done on them cannot be compared to transgender surgeries, but please bear in mind that this is still just one study.

The horrible truth is that medical abuse against our intersex siblings is still heavily normalized within the medical industry. From using terms like DSD, to forcing kids and even BABIES into sexual binaries with non or dubiously consensual surgeries or HRT, these horrors that intersex people have to go through are all too normal for them. That's unacceptable.

If you have reblogged this post without this update, I urge you to delete that reblog and reblog this version instead. We can fight for intersex rights and (if you're also perisex) show our solidarity without spreading misinformation.

[gor3sigil]

Before starting T, when I socially transitionned, I was surrounded by radical feminists who saw masculinity as gross and inherently evil, something to avoid, something to make fun of, something to destroy. The other transmascs in my friend group, sometimes, told me that they didn’t knew if they really were non-binary or if they just were scared shitless of saying “I am a man”. Because they saw this as a betrayal to their younger self who had been SAd and abused.

I saw many of my masc friends and trans men around me hate themselves, not outing themselves as men because it would imply so so much, it was like opening the Pandora Box. Even when we were just together, talking about our masculinity was always coated with bits like “I know we’re the privileged ones but…”, “I don’t want to sound like I have it bad but…”, “Women obviously have it worse, but last time…” and we were talking about terrible traumas we experienced while taking all the precautions in the world in the case the walls were a crowd of people in disguise waiting to get us if we didn’t downplay the violence we faced, or like crying and being upset and being traumatized and afraid and scared and to say it out loud would make us throw up the needles we were forced to swallow every second of every day living in our skin.

Most of us weren’t on T yet, some of us were catcalled every day and harassed in the streets or in abusive relationships nobody seemed to care to help them get out of because they were “strong enough” to do it by themselves.

I was using the gender swap face app and cried for ours when I saw my father looking back at me through the screen. The idea of transforming, of shedding into a body that would deprive me of love, tenderness, and safety, was absolutely terrifying. I knew I couldn’t stay in this body any longer because it wasn’t mine, but I also knew that if I was going to look like my dad, my brother, my abusers, it would be so much worse.

5 years later and I’m almost 2 years on T, and almost 2 months post top surgery.

I ditched my previous group of friends. I was bullied out of my local trans community. But let me tell you how free I am.

I was scared that T would break my singing voice: it made it sound more alive than ever.

I was scared that T would make me less attractive: it made me find myself hot for the first time in my life.

I was scared that T would make me gain weight: it did. But the weight I put on is not the weight I used to put on by binging and eating my body until I forgot that it even existed. It’s the weight of my body belonging to me, little by little. The wolf hunger for life.

I won’t tell you the same story I see everywhere, the one that goes “I started going to the gym 8 times a week, I put on some muscles, I started a diet and now I look like an action film actor”, in fact if you took pictures of me from 5 years ago vs now I’d just have more acne, I’d have longer hair and still look like I don’t know what to do with myself when I take selfies.

But the sparkle in my eyes, my smile, tell the whole story way better than this long ass stream of words could ever.

I want to say some things that I wish someone told me before starting medically transitionning.

It’s okay to take your time. It’s your body, it’s your journey, if you don’t feel comfortable taking full doses and want to go slow, the only voice you need to listen to is your own. Do what feels right.

If you feel overwhelmed, it’s okay to take a break, it’s okay to ask for support.

Trans people are holy. Everyone is. You didn’t lose your angel wings when you came out because you want to be masculine. You are not excluded from the joy of existence, from being proud of yourself, from being sad, from being scared, from being angry. The emotions and feelings you allowed yourself to feel while processing what you experienced when you grew up as a girl and was seen as a woman are still as valid as before. Nobody can take that from you. If someone tries to, don’t let them.

It’s perfectly normal to grieve some things you were and had before you started to transition, like your high soprano voice or even your chest. Hatching is painful. You can find comfort in things that don’t feel right, so making the decision to change can be incredibly scary and weird and you deserve to be heard and supported through this. Wanting top surgery doesn’t make the surgery less intense, less terrifying, less painful to recover from. When it becomes too much you have the right to take a break and take some deep breaths before going on.

You don’t have to have a radical, 180° change for your transition to be acceptable or valid or worthy of praise. Look at how far you’ve come already. It doesn’t have to show, you’re not made to be a spectacle, you’re human and it is your journey.

Oh, and last thing, you know when some people say “Oh this trans person has to grow out of the cringy phase where you think that you can write essays about being trans or transitionning or just their experience because it’s weird” ? If you ever hear this or see this online, remember all the people whose writing you read and, even if they were not professional writers, helped you more than any theorists did ? If you want to write, do it. It won’t be a waste. It can help people. Or it won’t, and even then, if it helped you, that’s enough.

Love every of my trans siblings, take care of yourselves. You deserve the world.

[alienbycomics]

Content Warning: religion and transphobia⚠️

Happy Trans Day of Visibility 🏳️‍⚧️ I made a comic reflecting on my church upbringing as an eXvangelical trans person. The Jesus conservative Christians claim to represent looked lot more like many of the LGBTQ+ friends I know and love. Just some food for thought 💖

Here’s a link to a supplementary post: Jesus and Gender Non-Conformity in Christian Art

[chanceofwhat]

I created a pile of cats and then I colored the pride flags into it. Idk, enjoy. Don’t “steal” them ig, but like, you can share them, just don’t say you made ‘em. Whatever, my signature’s on it.

Yay pride month!

Update: there are more! I reblogged with the extras but I don’t think many people have seen, so here: https://www.tumblr.com/chanceofwhat/753498899252150272/dang-yall-love-this-thanks hope that link works lmao

[enbycrip]

“Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography” (2021) is now fully available in free open access. The book is an interdisciplinary examination of trans and genderqueer/nonbinary subjects in Medieval Saints’ literature.

The book demonstrates a lineage linking modern trans and genderqueer/nonbinary individuals to our Medieval ancestors, providing models of queer identity and non-normative gender in history. The book has an appendix with a Trans and Genderqueer Studies Terminology, Language, and Usage Guide.'

https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/61200

The Amsterdam University Press book will also be released in a paperback edition later this year.

[raqualswonderfunblog]

[prideknights]

We are the Pride Knights, and this is our battle cry No enemy can shake us, as hard as they can try There’s a fire in our eyes that no hatred can kill A passion in our hearts that’s as strong as our will To our fellow queers who fight their battles on their own We promise to fight with you, you are never alone To our fellow queers who have fallen with the pain We thank you for your courage, your fight is not in vain We are defenders of the right to be proud of who you are To love who you love and to accept every scar We are your knights, protectors of our pride Together we stand, together we ride

The Pride Knights Playing Cards are back in stock! Shipping to the US, UK, EU, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada!

prideknights.com ⚔️🌈

[traaansfem]

Reblog to Estrogenize Prev*

*Cis men are welcome to reblog this, but be aware that those labels may not last :3

[genderqueerdykes]

i got to thinking about something i said... going to turn these into prints, stickers, shirts, buttons, etc. soon. thought folks might like this, i'm way more pleased with the design than i thought i would be (: consider adding more flags too!

happy pride to everyone who refuses to be cisgender (or cissexual!) in the face of a world that demands we bow to their needs. we do not owe anyone cisgenderism or cissexuality- we owe it to ourselves to be who we are instead.

you can buy these prints here on a variety of items!