#trust me if i had the room to add intersex i WOULD

[underwhelmingalchemist]

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[thetravelerwrites]

Heat (Part 1)

Rating: Explicit Relationships: Female Tabaxi/Male Human/Fem-Intersex Tiefling Additional Tags: Exophilia, Babies, Mention of Pregnancy, Children, Kids, Tabaxi, Tiefling, Intersex, Pregnancy, Fatherhood, In Heat, Mating Cycles, Contraceptive Words: 4311

Rings goes into an intense heat and decides to isolate herself to prevent conceiving a child, whereas Ebert goes on a quest to find rare components to create a stronger contraceptive for her. Commissioned by @ocsmutpocalypse!

Rings had been acting weird. More weird than normal. And her normal weirdness was… pretty weird, by anyone’s standards. She spent a lot of time camping in the woods and snapped at anyone who came near her, including Ebert, Reverence, and her sister. Buttons couldn’t be in the same room as Rings, hissing and spitting at her before scrabbling for the door in a frothing rage.

Ebert hadn’t realized the change in her behavior at first, since Ethrik was a year and a half old, and Ebert’s second child had just been born a few months before, which took up all his attention. The child was like Reverence in that they were between genders and were not old enough to decide which gender they most identified with. Ebert and Reverence decided to name them Evo, short for “evolving,” and figured that they could change their name when they were old enough to choose.

So it was a few days before Ebert noticed her odd behavior and pointed it out to Reverence.

“Ah,” Reverence said, breastfeeding Evo. “Maybe she’s in heat.”

“Heat?” Ebert said, confused. “She’s never gone into heat before.”

“Well, not since you’ve been here, but that’s only been two years. It’s happened twice before, and they were random. Her sister says that Rings normally takes some sort of suppressant which works well enough typically, but every once in a while, the urge gets too strong and her body rebels against her.”

“Huh,” Ebert said. “Well, she takes the birth control medicine that I make, so she should be alright, right?”

Reverence shook her head, patting Evo’s bottom as they suckled. “Biological imperative in her species can be pretty strong, and no birth control is 100% effective. Rings hates the idea of having children more than anything, so the possibility that she might conceive is something she simply cannot tolerate. It’s why she normally secluded herself during her heats. Which is unfortunate for her. The last one was two months long. She came back in very poor shape; it took weeks for her to recover.”

Ebert frowned. “That’s disconcerting. Can nothing be done to help her?”

“According to Spring, if she copulates, the heat passes in a matter of days, but Rings won’t risk it. The idea of motherhood repulses her.”

“I know that all too well,” Ebert said. “I’m going to go to the cottage and see if I can work on something for her. I don’t like the idea of her being isolated for two months, especially since winter is coming soon.”

Reverence nodded and kissed him goodbye, and Ebert trekked into the woods and to the cottage where he did is magical work. As he was walking up, he heard glass break inside the cottage.

Taking out a short sword he’d been given and preparing a fireball, he called out, “Declare yourself!”

“Fuck off!” He heard in response, Rings’ annoyed voice loud enough to rattle the windows in the frame.

“Rings?” He said, dropping his sword and letting the fireball spell fizzle out in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing in there? What did you break?”

“Who cares? Go away!”

“I need my workspace!” Ebert said, putting the key in the door, but it refused to open. He had a feeling Rings was sitting in front of the door. “Reverence told me you’re in heat! I’m going to try and make a new contraceptive for you!”

“What do you know?” Rings yelled, banging against the door as he pushed on it. “Go ask Cassandra! She knows more about herbs and medicine than you do, you quack!”

Ebert grimaced, but he knew she wasn’t wrong. Cassandra was an aasimar and alumnus from his old academy, one who actually graduated and hadn’t committed a crime against nature, like he had. She and her lover had settled in the village less than a month previous.

Her specialty was prophecy and soothsaying, but she was also well versed in magical medicine and herbalism. Ebert was a good physician, but he wasn’t much of an apothecary He’d deferred to her expertise on several occasions, including the production of the original contraceptive. He was lucky she was more interested in working as a fortune teller and not as a medicine maker, or she could have taken half his business, if she’d had a mind to it.

“Yeah, I love you, too!” Ebert retorted, stalking off.

Cassandra lived with her lover, a minotaur named Bigby, near the temple and she did a lot of her business with the visitors. Getting your fortune told right outside of the temple was lucrative for both parties, so Reverence had allowed it as long as Cassandra agreed to support the temple and donate a small percentage of her earnings to the temple every month. Despite being a holy woman who lived a modest life in a small, two room house, Reverence was remarkably business savvy at times.

On the other hand, Bigby loved kids, and he often babysat for the villagers when they made their trips to the temple for a small fee. It was a good way to earn himself income and keep the littler tots out of trouble while their parents did their worshiping, so everyone got something out of the deal.

Cassandra was sitting at a booth that she had set up at the feet of Fysy’s statue outside of the temple. She was in the process of giving a reading to a parishioner, so Ebert waited awkwardly a small distance away for her to finish before approaching.

“Hello, necromancer,” Cassandra said pleasantly, her dark skin shining like bronze in the sunlight. “I’ve been waiting for you to come and see me. You certainly take your sweet time. I was wondering if I’d have to come and seek you out instead.”

“Yes, well,” Ebert said. “Rings is in heat.”

“I know,” She said, smugly magnanimous. “You’ve come to get medicinal advice, yes?”

“I suppose so,” Ebert admitted. “Rings and Reverence implied that the current contraceptive recipe will not be enough to override her body’s biological imperative. I need something stronger.”

“The recipe you have is pretty strong,” Cassandra said. “It would work for most mortal beings. Though, I will admit that Tabaxi bodies are very hardy and can expel most poisons with no effect to themselves. It’s no wonder that a normal recipe wouldn’t work for them.” She rubbed her chin. “There are a few herbs I know of that are effective. Bloodwort is one, and the bark of the red cedar is another. Bloodwort isn’t too hard to find, but red cedar isn’t native to this region. To find it, you’ll have to travel northwest for at least a week.” She stood up and came around the table, motioning to him to follow her. “Come.”

She led him to her home, where Bigby was chasing a passel of children around in the yard, pausing momentarily to raise a hand in greeting only to be set upon by many tiny hands, pushing him on his stomach and piling on.

“Here,” Cassandra said, pulling down a book. “This is a picture of the herbs I mentioned. When you find them, combine it with fennel seed, chasteberry, raspberry leaf, thistle, and red clover flowers. Boil on a low setting in clear water for at least three days, and add the decotion to a berry wine. Three tablespoons per day until the next cycle starts.”

Ebert pulled out his notebook and began to draw copies of each of the plants, writing down the recipe underneath the sketches.

“There’s an unusual symptom of this decotion, however,” Cassandra continued. “It doesn’t happen in humans, but in beastfolk, like tabaxis, it can cause an increase in sex drive. It’s still effective as a contraceptive in beastfolk, but it forces them to experience the worst of the heat in order to surpass it. I’d advise you to discuss it with Rings before making the trip. She may not appreciate the side effects.”

“I’ll do that,” Ebert said. “Although… Rings is usually my partner on these types of trips… I can’t imagine--”

“Going alone?” Cassandra said, finishing his sentence. “Then don’t. Certainly, Rings is a capable woman, but she’s not the only one. Her sister is also quite capable, and she would understand the urgency, especially considering she’s gone through a heat herself.”

“That’s true,” Ebert said. “I’ll ask Rings. Thanks, Cass.”

“It’s no trouble,” Cassandra replied pleasantly. “Give the children a kiss for me.”

Ebert waved and set off back to the cabin.

“Rings,” He said once he returned. Rings was still sitting against the door and refused to let him inside. “I spoke to Cassandra. I have to take a trip to get the ingredients she told me about. I’ll be gone for a few weeks.”

“Okay,” She said. She sounded much more subdued than normal.

“Listen,” Ebert started, sitting awkwardly on the steps. “Cassandra said that the herbs have a strange side effect on beast people. It forces them to the peak of their heat and makes them more… needy. The heat passes faster, but… the urge to… procreate… gets stronger. Uncontrollable. I just wanted to be sure it’s something you’re willing to deal with.”

“I don’t know,” She said after a moment. “If that’s the case… Will you and Reverence shelter with me until it’s over? If I’m going to end up in the family way… I’d prefer it if the kid belonged to you or her. I trust the two of you more than anyone else. I know me; it’s just not in me to be a parent. I won’t care for the kid. But you two will. And that’s good enough for me.”

“We can do that,” Ebert said. “I’m sure Reverence would agree. I’ll discuss it with her before I leave, to be sure. I’m going to see if Spring will accompany me on this trip. She understands this better than me, after all.”

“That’ll be good,” Rings agreed. “She hasn’t been out of the village since we came here.” Ebert heard her laugh. “Make sure Flicker doesn’t get the wrong idea. Unless you’re planning on seducing Springs on the trip.”

“Gross. I’m not into sisters, thanks. And Flicker could rip me in half, so I’m not risking it.”

Flickering Flame was a Bengal tiger tabaxi soldier from a far off desert country and was in a relationship with Spring. He worked as a guard, protecting the village from hostile outsiders. Though Spring was monogamous and had chosen not to follow Fysy, Flicker was a disciple of Fysy and worshiped at the temple, an arrangement they had agreed on when they decided to become engaged.

“Yeah, that’s true. He would rip you in half. It would be funny,” Rings said, laughing in a subdued way.

“Are you okay?” Ebert asked in concern.

She sighed. “I’m anxious. I’m never anxious, and I hate it. And I’ve never had to worry about who I had sex with or when. I don’t feel like myself and I don’t like it.”

“We’re going to fix it,” Ebert said softly. “Even if I have to go alone. As fun as it is to see you squirm… I miss you. The real you.”

“I miss me, too,” She said. “When are you leaving?”

“As soon as I talk to Spring,” He replied. “Probably tomorrow morning. I don’t want to delay too long.”

“Reverence is okay with it?” She asked.

“I haven’t talked to her yet, but I don’t imagine she’d be opposed to it. She’s not exactly restrictive or controlling.”

“True. And she can’t leave the village. She hasn’t set foot outside of the town’s boundary since she became the priestess decades ago.”

“I keep meaning to ask her the story behind that, but I’ve never had the opportunity. I heard she came from some place far away. I wonder how she ended up here.”

“I’ve never heard the full story, either,” Rings said. “Let’s ask her when you get back. It seems the three of us will be spending several days together, after all.”

Ebert struggled to his feet and brushed off his trouser. “I’m going to get going. I want to make arrangements before sundown.”

“Hey.”

“What?”

A heartbeat of time passed before she said, in a very quiet voice. “Be safe, okay? Don’t get killed, or I’ll be very angry with you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” He said, chuckling.

“I’m serious,” She said, banging the door. “You’re useless without me.”

Ebert began to set off down the trail. “Don’t forget to eat.”

It didn’t take much to convince Spring to go with Ebert on his sojourn. She asked Bigby to look after Candle until she returned, and Bigby was happy to comply. Ebert also discussed having Bigby watch his tots when he returned and sheltered with Rings during her heat, and he was amiable.

Reverence was sympathetic to Ring’s plight and immediately agreed to help, offering to go to Rings at the cabin while Ebert was gone and satisfy her in ways that didn’t lead to children in the meantime. It wouldn’t be enough to end her heat, but it would keep her from losing her senses in the midst of an uncontrollable influx of hormones.

Spring met Ebert outside of her house the next morning wearing a practical traveling outfit with a sword strapped to her back.

“I wasn’t aware you owned a sword,” Ebert said, impressed.

“It’s Flicker’s,” She said. “I’m just borrowing it. I’m only glad he had one that suited a person my size. Of course, he calls it a letter opener.”

Ebert snorted. “You’re ready, then?”

“Yeah,” She replied, hitching up her pack. “We should follow the river until we hit open terrain. I’m familiar with the smell of red cedar, so finding it shouldn’t be as difficult as it would be without a tracker.”

“That’s definitely useful. Have you said farewell to Rings?”

“No, but I don’t think she’d welcome my company at the moment. I’ll greet her when we return.”

Fair enough. “Let’s head out.”

Traveling with Spring wasn’t as awkward or unpleasant as Ebert worried it could have been, especially considering the two of them weren’t necessarily close, despite his having lived in the village for several years by this point. The only time they really spoke was when he accompanied Rings or Reverence to dinner at Spring’s house.

He discovered that Spring was a good conversationalist and knew a lot about wilderness survival techniques, perhaps even more than Rings, which was reassuring, because Ebert knew fuck all about that.

Though she reminded Ebert of Rings in a number of ways, she was more even-keel and mellow-tempered than her sister. Whatever affection he might have developed for her during their trek, it definitely wasn’t attraction. More like a close friend or sibling, which actually relieved him. He hadn’t been close to any of his siblings, so having a familial relationship with someone was both unfamiliar and refreshing.

“The air is getting colder,” Spring said, pulling her scarf around her more tightly as they walked. “Another day, and we should be in the right area.”

“Great,” Ebert said in relief. “I hate camping.”

Spring snorted. “Yeah, I kinda figured. You do most of your grumbling right before bed.”

“I don’t mean to grumble,” He said, slightly embarrassed.

Spring laughed again. “You do it mostly under your breath, but I have good hearing.” Her feline ears flicked back and forth. “I honestly find it rather amusing. You remind me of Candle sometimes.”

“...thanks?”

“I just mean you like things a certain way. Candle is like that, too.” She hacked a branch out of her way. “Most children are.”

“Insinuating that I behave like a child?”

“I don’t mean it in a negative way. Rings is very similar. I think it’s just a side effect of not having a very good childhood. Rings hasn’t told me much about your childhood, but it’s easy enough to assume that it wasn’t a happy one, and you already know hers was terrible.”

“That’s true,” He admitted.

“We all need certain things when we’re children, chief among them is attention,” She said pensively. “Children grumble and gripe and make a fuss, and it seems irritating, but what they’re really asking for is attention. If you don’t get enough when you’re young, you grow up desperate for it. Rings acts out because she likes attention. I don’t think you necessarily want people to pay attention to you, but I think you do want people to listen. If you didn’t, I think you wouldn’t grumble out loud. People only make noise when they want someone to hear it, after all.”

“What are you, a philosopher?” Ebert laughed.

“Aren’t all mothers?” Spring replied, laughing herself.

The next day, as they were trekking near a treeline, Spring stopped and sniffed the air.

“I smell bloodroot,” She said. “It’s not far away. A few hundred meters, maybe.”

“Any whiff of red cedar yet?”

“No, but it likely won’t be long now. Bloodroot and red cedar are native to the same region.”

“Well, let’s collect as much as we can carry while we’re here. I don’t want to have to make another trip any time soon.”

They spent most of the afternoon plucking bloodroot plants, hoping there were seeds they could sow when they returned to the village. Another few hours travel before nightfall brought them to a grove with red cedar.

“Fucking finally,” Ebert sighed. “I was worried we’d have to travel another day to find this.”

“It is getting late, as it is,” Spring said, looking toward the setting sun. “It’d be best to set up camp now and harvest what we need in the morning.”

“Uuuugh,” Ebert groaned, throwing his head back dramatically, and Spring smiled at him in a fond, maternal sort of way.

Spring set about building a fire pit while Ebert looked for firewood from the nearby brush. He found valuable mushrooms and some lichen that would be useful as components and harvested those while he was at it, then returned to the clearing where they’d made camp.

“It doesn’t smell like rain tonight, which is good. I don’t feel like putting up the tent.”

Ebert groaned. “I don’t like sleeping in the open air.”

“Then you set up the tent,” She retorted.

Ebert’s groan deepened. “It’s not so bad, I guess.”

“That’s what I thought.” She sat down at the newly built fire and put the cooking grate over it, setting a small pot on top of the grate and pouring water into it from her canteen. “Wanna cut up the onions and potatoes for the stew? I still have some jerky left, but I should hunt tomorrow for the trip back.”

“Yeah, sure,” Ebert said with a heavy sigh, settling himself with difficulty on the ground, setting his cane down next to him, and opening the drawstring pouch that contained their food supply. “One each, eh?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” She said.

“So, has Rings ever gone through heat like this before?” Ebert asked as he peeled the vegetables. “I’ve been meaning to ask, but I keep forgetting. This one seems severe.”

“She’s had a couple of heats since reaching adulthood, but not this bad,” Spring replied, tearing the jerky into small strips and throwing it into the pot. “It’s only as bad as this because Rings isn’t used to suppressing her urges. She’s always been impulsive and opportunistic. If she wants something, whether it’s food, money, sex, or whatever, she either takes it from wherever it’s most readily available or finds someone willing to give it to her, and she never hesitates. It’s why Fysy’s village suits her so well. Ordinarily.”

“True,” Ebert mused. “So stubborn. You’re older than her, right?”

Springs snorted. “By, like, three minutes. We’re from the same litter.”

“You two have such different personalities,” Ebert remarked.

“She’d hate to admit it, but she takes after our parents in temperament. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons she has no interest in having children; she hates the idea of turning out like them. That and she hates kids.”

“Yes,” Ebert replied. “Honestly, so did I, before I met Reverence. I mean, I still hate kids, but I like my kids. I guess I expected to turn out like my family. They were not in any way affectionate or sentimental, and up until Ethrik was born, I was the same way. I’d never have believed being a father was a possibility for me, let alone being a good father or enjoying my time with my children. Life has taken quite the unexpected turn.”

“Do you think Rings should have children, then?”

“Oh, Gods, no,” Ebert laughed. “Granted, I love my children, but I will admit it’s not an experience everyone needs. You know as well as I that suddenly being responsible for a living, breathing life you created is terrifying and not something every person wants to or is capable of handling. Rings is right to think that she wouldn’t raise the kid. She can’t deal with that level of responsibility. Her freedom and autonomy is too important to her, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I agree,” Spring said. “It’s one of the reasons I accepted you invitation to come on this journey. I thought of anyone, you would understand her best and not attempt to sway her opinions or plans for the future. You get her. I appreciate that, as her sister. Not many people do. I’d say even Reverence doesn’t understand Rings as well as you, for all they’ve known each other longer. It’s simply a fundamental difference in their personality.”

“You mean Rings hating kids and Reverence having so many?”

“Not just that,” She mused. “Reverence is the priestess of the goddess of love and fertility. Rings is fine with the first part, not so much the second. Though Rings loves Reverence, their difference in philosophies will always be at odds with each other. That’s why I think you’re good for them. You get them in different ways, and you can mediate if they ever argue.”

“Have they ever argued?” Ebert asked, surprised. “I’ve never witnessed it. Which is strange, because Rings loves to argue.

Spring snickered. “Typically, Rings respects Reverence enough to keep her criticisms to herself, but they had a brief falling out a few years back. Reverence was pregnant, again, and Rings got tired of it.”

“But Reverence never keeps the children, except for mine, and those were special circumstances.”

“Rings didn’t care; she felt like Reverence saw herself as nothing more than a brood mare and had no self-respect. Reverence, on the other hand, feels like making children is her sacred duty, and thus felt as though Rings was insulting her calling in life, and Fysy by extension. The parted ways for almost two months.”

“Oh, gods, it must have been serious,” Ebert said, surprised. “What happened?”

“Rings and I had a discussion about why I decided to keep Candle, even though he was conceived in the throes of an unplanned, unprepared-for heat with a deadbeat, what being a mother means to me specifically, if I wanted more children, that sort of thing. I think it helped her understand Reverence a little better. It’s the one and only time I ever heard of Rings apologizing.”

“I’m glad they made up,” Ebert replied. “I don’t know what my life would be like without both of them, and it’s not a thought I want to entertain.”

Spring smiled fondly. “Me, neither. Reverence is like a sister to me, as well. She gave me and my family a home and helped us start a new life. I owe her a lot.”

“As do I,”  Ebert said softly with a sigh, reaching for a spoon to eat the stew right from the pot. “Let’s eat and go to bed, I’m exhausted. I want to get out of here as early as possible.”

Now that they had what they needed, the trip home took much less time, and they arrived back within the town proper in five days. He stopped by Reverence’s house, only to find that Bigby was keeping the children, with all of them on the floor passing a leather ball to each other in turn. Tiny little Evo was sandwiched between Bigby’s legs to keep them upright, squealing delightedly when the ball came close only to kick it out of their reach. Buttons sat in the very center, swatting lazily at the ball as it rolled past her.

Ebert realized from Reverence’s absence that she must be keeping Rings company. Spring collected Candle and excused herself, inviting Ebert and the women over for dinner once Rings was back to her old self.

Ebert went out to the cabin that was well away from most of the town, one of the reasons he liked it so much, and heard moaning issuing from inside. Ah. He’d guessed correctly. He reached up and knocked.

“Fuck off!” Rings cried out.

“It’s me! I’m back!”

“I don’t care! Fuck off!”

“I have a key, you know!”Ebert shouted. “I can let myself in at any time, I was just being considerate!”

“Then let yourself in, the fuck if I care!”

Ebert rolled his eyes and sighed. “I can’t work with the two of you going at it. I’ll start the medicine at home. I’ll be at the house when you’re done.”

“Whatever, go away!”

Snorting derisively, Ebert set back off for home.

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

[a-room-of-my-own]

This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.

For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.

My interest in trans issues pre-dated Maya’s case by almost two years, during which I followed the debate around the concept of gender identity closely. I’ve met trans people, and read sundry books, blogs and articles by trans people, gender specialists, intersex people, psychologists, safeguarding experts, social workers and doctors, and followed the discourse online and in traditional media. On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it’s intensely personal, as I’m about to explain.

All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.

Months later, I compounded my accidental ‘like’ crime by following Magdalen Burns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.

I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.

What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.

I’d stepped back from Twitter for many months both before and after tweeting support for Maya, because I knew it was doing nothing good for my mental health. I only returned because I wanted to share a free children’s book during the pandemic. Immediately, activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into my timeline, assuming a right to police my speech, accuse me of hatred, call me misogynistic slurs and, above all – as every woman involved in this debate will know – TERF.

If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.

But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground. ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’ What next, they’ll say you’ve got fleas? Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren’t a dimorphic species).

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

Firstly, I have a charitable trust that focuses on alleviating social deprivation in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on women and children. Among other things, my trust supports projects for female prisoners and for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women. It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.

The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.

Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’

Her paper caused a furore. She was accused of bias and of spreading misinformation about transgender people, subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work. The journal took the paper offline and re-reviewed it before republishing it. However, her career took a similar hit to that suffered by Maya Forstater. Lisa Littman had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person’s gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.

The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not ‘align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.’

The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.

When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’

As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.

I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.

We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.

I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much. It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.

But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.

Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember. I also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn’t want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too. However, a short while ago, I asked her how she’d feel if I were publicly honest about that part of my life, and she encouraged me to go ahead.

I’m mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces.

I managed to escape my first violent marriage with some difficulty, but I’m now married to a truly good and principled man, safe and secure in ways I never in a million years expected to be. However, the scars left by violence and sexual assault don’t disappear, no matter how loved you are, and no matter how much money you’ve made. My perennial jumpiness is a family joke – and even I know it’s funny – but I pray my daughters never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven’t heard them approaching.

If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.

I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.

Late on Saturday evening, scrolling through children’s pictures before I went to bed, I forgot the first rule of Twitter – never, ever expect a nuanced conversation – and reacted to what I felt was degrading language about women. I spoke up about the importance of sex and have been paying the price ever since. I was transphobic, I was a cunt, a bitch, a TERF, I deserved cancelling, punching and death. You are Voldemort said one person, clearly feeling this was the only language I’d understand.

It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags – because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter – scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow. There’s joy, relief and safety in conformity. As Simone de Beauvoir also wrote, “… without a doubt it is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one’s liberation; the dead, too, are better suited to the earth than the living.”

Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They’re afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence.

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces. Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

The one thing that gives me hope is that the women who can protest and organise, are doing so, and they have some truly decent men and trans people alongside them. Political parties seeking to appease the loudest voices in this debate are ignoring women’s concerns at their peril. In the UK, women are reaching out to each other across party lines, concerned about the erosion of their hard-won rights and widespread intimidation. None of the gender critical women I’ve talked to hates trans people; on the contrary. Many of them became interested in this issue in the first place out of concern for trans youth, and they’re hugely sympathetic towards trans adults who simply want to live their lives, but who’re facing a backlash for a brand of activism they don’t endorse. The supreme irony is that the attempt to silence women with the word ‘TERF’ may have pushed more young women towards radical feminism than the movement’s seen in decades.

The last thing I want to say is this. I haven’t written this essay in the hope that anybody will get out a violin for me, not even a teeny-weeny one. I’m extraordinarily fortunate; I’m a survivor, certainly not a victim. I’ve only mentioned my past because, like every other human being on this planet, I have a complex backstory, which shapes my fears, my interests and my opinions. I never forget that inner complexity when I’m creating a fictional character and I certainly never forget it when it comes to trans people.

All I’m asking – all I want – is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.

[koncreates]

this is a real question and not trying to be mocking, feel free to not post if u dont want and discourse ((if this counts as it)) but is it transphobic to not want to date//have a sexual relationship a, lets say a transwomen, while being a lesbian because youre not... attracted to dick? if that makes sense? not that youre denying shes a women, but u dont like dick? im sorry if this is wrong. im just wondering

I am extremely not an authority on this since I neither have a penis nor am a lesbian, and I will be honest that this ask sounds a fuckton like bait to get me to say something transphobic or lesbophobic.  But, like a fool hoping that it is a genuine question and giving you the benefit of the doubt, I’m going to do my level best to answer it for you!

Just to set the record straight: i’m a transmasc dude who does not experience sexual attraction or desire, in a relationship with a nonbinary person who DOES experience sexual attraction and desire.  While that’s... almost the exact opposite of what you’re asking about, I think there’s potential that i can offer a little insight.  

First of all: People should be romantically (i.e. wanting to date, if you experience romantic attraction) people to you first and foremost, not genitals.  Personality traits and hobbies and quirks and favorite colors and the sound of a laugh and the look of a smile, not a penis or vagina.

If you meet a girl and you like to hang out with her, and want to date her, but learn she is transgender and immediately recoil and lose all the attraction or positive feeling you had for her based on her personality, looks, interests, ect before knowing intimate details such as her genitalia or medical history, then yes, I would say that is transphobic. (Bolded for ease of TLDR)  

She wasn’t fooling you with being trans.  You were attracted to her just the same way you would be attracted to a cis person.  The fact that she didn’t start a conversation with “Hello, I have a penis actually” is exactly the same as how you don’t start conversations with “Hello, I don’t shave my pubic hair actually” or “Hello, I have a genetic predisposition to strokes from my mother’s side of the family.”  It is intimate information that you don’t usually share unless you are close with someone and believe you can trust them.  

HOWEVER.  The act alone of not wanting to have sex with a penis does not make you transphobic.  I will talk more on this a bit further down.

Now here’s a pitfall I think people fall in to a lot: If you find someone unattractive because of their looks, personality, politics, or whatever reason you are not attracted to them, you aren’t required to date them.  You don’t have to give a reason why you don’t want to date them, and it’s generally seen as the right thing to do that if someone who does not fit your standards of attractive asks you out, you politely turn them down.  You should never feel pressured into any relationship, and if anyone hounds you for an answer as to why you don’t want to date, that’s on them.  If you don’t know someone/don’t like their personality/don’t feel romantically attracted to them, you are not required to date them!  

Nobody is required to find any one thing attractive, but boiling a person’s entire identity down to what is in their pants is in essence dehumanizing.  An intersex girl might have a dick as well, would you feel the same way when you found out, or is it the transgender title that gets to you?  I’m not trying to be accusatory, but it’s a very important factor to think about.

If your only reason to not date someone is “she’s trans” it does still make you transphobic.  If this is the case, I really encourage you to think about why exactly you believe this.  If, according to all your other standards, you would date her, why does her being transgender matter to you?

From the letter of your ask, it sounds like you would be fine dating a girl if she had bottom surgery.  That’s intimate knowledge that you would probably only learn after dating her for a while or at the very least being friends with her for longer.  Would her status of having had surgery or not having had surgery affect your feelings for her?  I’m not saying that she would or should keep being trans a secret from you for a long time during dating, but the main takeaway here is “Would you feel revolted immediately just by hearing her say she was trans?  Would you be constantly wondering about if she had or hadn’t gotten surgery?”

I Hope this next section will be very helpful to answering your question and hopefully easing some of your fears about dating a trans person.

There is a lot more to dating than having sex, and there’s a lot more to sex than genital on genital contact!  You can go on dates and can enjoy each other’s company, you can have long talks and get sentimental, you can go out to dinner and watch lights on the water by the beach.  There is plenty to a relationship that is not sexual, and even without being asexual I think it’s an important thing to make sure you don’t form a relationship souly on the basis of sexual actions.

With that being said, there are plenty of sexual things you can do that don’t require penis-in-vagina contact?  If her penis makes you uncomfortable by existing (and if she’s dysphoric, she might feel similarly), it’s a conversation that you should have when you get to that point in your relationship.  If after dating her for a while yall decide to have sex, you should discuss ways that don’t involve penetration and don’t involve you giving her oral and, just like in any other relationship, it’s important to express boundaries.  You can figure out toys that you enjoy using on her, you can find toys you enjoy when she uses on you.  You can figure out plenty of ways to satisfy each other that do not involve touching her penis and either making you uncomfortable or her dysphoric.  It just takes communication.  

Most trans people (including myself) are ready and open for conversations like this from our significant others.  We want happy relationships, and we know that requires communication.  I don’t think your girlfriend is going to react to you saying “I’m uncomfortable with the idea of penetration/touching your penis” with rage and vitriol.  She shouldn’t, in fact.  It’s the same as if I said to my partner “I’m uncomfortable with the idea of you eating me out”.  It’s a boundary that you should share and that she should listen to.  

If you’ve been together for (however long it takes you to want to sleep with someone you date) you should both be comfortable enough with each other to act like the adults you are and have a conversation with one another.  

If any transwomen following me have something to add on or correct me on, please feel free.  Like I said, I’m a transman, and my experiences are vastly different from what theirs might be.  I am absolutely not a scholarly source to get information from.  I’m just, quite literally, some guy.  These are just my opinions based on what I’ve seen said by transwomen and lesbians.  To get a better perspective on this, you should really find a transwoman to ask off anon.

I tried to be general and think about this from the perspective of if it were “My boyfriend is uncomfortable with me having a vagina”, but there is a lot of room for error there as well.  So again, transwomen and NB people with dicks and trans lesbians and cis lesbians with trans girlfriends please feel free to add on your take and personal perspective!!

Also TERFs/SWERFs/RADFEM/Transphobes do NOT fucking touch this post or get blocked on sight.

Trumeds should also watch their step because i do not take kindly to your exclusion.

[nevermindirah]

I read the post you recently reblogged about the practice of [cis]gender swap fan works being necessarily transphobic, and I was thinking about it wrt the gender swap I wrote in several past fandoms and the gender explorations in the Hobbit fandom, which canonically had a very small number of female characters. On the one hand in current fandom, "Think about what you're doing" seems to carry a silent corollary, "and you'll decide not to do it," but on the other...[to be continued]

Not least coming from a group that tends to get one single story told about us, I don't want to write trans people like that, which is one of the reasons I only wrote a couple stories about trans characters so far instead of writing all my sexswaps (a more accurate term, I think) about trans women. Which statement brushes up against another thing people often say, "I don't want to get X group wrong so I'll never write them," which is NOT what I want to say here. [third part will be last]

At any rate, your reblog reminded me of my ongoing self-debate about whether or not I should take those stories down, and since I think I can trust you to take my thoughts in good faith, and you have clearly thought about this subject, I wanted to ask you for your perspective.

I love a good-faith question like this! I also love fic that explores how gender affects the characters we love. I think it's possible for genderswap fanworks to be trans-affirming and add to the richness of fandom. It just takes a broader understanding of what gender means than the average cis person often has, so, education!

My favorite examples of this are Known Associates by @thingswithwings, which explores Steve's experience of being femme both before and after the serum and goes really deep on what it would be like to be genderqueer in post-serum Steve's body and with that set of Captain America cultural expectations, and the Boy with a Scar series by dirgewithoutmusic, a bunch of Harry Potter "what if" stories including two different versions of what if Harry were a girl (a version where she was assigned female and another where she was assigned male).

Both of these works are beautiful examples of what can be good and great and important about genderswap because they get into the nitty gritty of these characters' internal experiences of their gender and the weight of other characters' gendered expectations of them. And crucially, they show these characters as well-rounded people including in their authentic sexuality but they don't sexualize them on other people's terms (either other characters' or the author's).

Within the trans community there's disagreement about whether sex and gender are the same thing or different things. For me, making a distinction between sex and gender feels like a profound discounting of my experience. I'm nonbinary, and I was assigned female, and I have boobs and a uterus but I don't know what my chromosomes or hormone levels are so I could be intersex for all I know! Either way, somebody telling me that I have a "female body" is both misgendering and not actually based in science, just assumptions based on how I look. Some trans people feel differently about this, and it's not a conversation for cis people to weigh in on.

A genderswap fic that seems to just be the author wondering What If Popular Cis Male Character Had Boobs feels shitty to me personally because it reminds me that there are so many people I'm forced to interact with in order to function in the world who think that because I have boobs I'm therefore a woman, or "at least" "female-bodied". It's a way of understanding gender that leaves no room for me as I am. I think that "female-bodied" people are people who (1) identify as female and (2) have bodies. I have a nonbinary body. Steve Rogers in Known Associates has a body, and in the '30s fairy is an identity term he uses, and in the 2010s genderqueer is an identity term he uses, and his identity words change because the linguistic culture around him changed not because the serum changed his body. In The Girl Who Lived and The Girl Who Lived (Again), Harry has a female body because she's a girl, and in one of those stories she's a girl with a vagina and in the other story she's a girl with a penis.

I've never been in LOTR fandom but I do remember that line in one of the movies where Gimli says something about dwarf women having facial hair. There's a lot that's rich to explore there! How do we know most of the characters in LOTR are men anyway? Looking from the outside, it's because JRRT was coming from a harshly cissexist and misogynistic cultural context, but within the canon itself what information is actually present about characters' gender experiences? Maybe Gimli is trans and his transition didn't involve the years of waiting for a beard to grow in that many human trans men's transitions involve! Maybe dwarves are like bees and have multiple genders (queen, worker, drone, etc) and JRRT who came across and translated all those primary sources just did the same thing that other British historians of his era did when translating primary sources from human cultures that had more genders than Imperial Britain allowed.

Bottom line, here are a few questions you might find helpful in measuring whether a fic you want to read/write/delete/etc is using genderswap in a transphobic way:

1: Is this fic thoughtfully exploring what gender means for this character and the society they're in?

2: Is this fic assuming that my society's normative understanding of gender is The One Right Way that all beings experience gender? (And to specify the most common form of this among Westerners: Is this fic assuming that someone's body parts necessarily tells us anything more about them than that they have those body parts?)

3: Is the genderswap element just there to turn me on?

If you answered Yes to 1 and No to 2 and 3, go forth with my cheers! If you got different answers or you aren't sure, I'm not going to police you, but if you're considering policing yourself it's probably worth thinking about it harder, and if you're the author maybe rewriting. In the specific case of these fics you wrote a while ago, you could update your author's notes to say these works reflect an understanding of gender that you've since evolved on, and you could even link to this or other commentary! If you feel like your past works are atrocious in light of new-to-you information about trans experiences and deleting or unpublishing them feels best to you, go for it, but I think leaving them up and adding an author's note does a lot more to educate our fellow fans and show healthy call-in culture and growth.

[cassolotl]

Gender and sex are [not] different

Content note: Article refers to transphobia, TERFs, sex essentialism.

~

I have recently seen nonbinary people, even high-profile nonbinary people like Asia Kate Dillon, saying that gender and sex are different. This is bothering me a lot, for reasons I’ve struggled to articulate, but I’m gonna try anyway damnit.

Disclaimer: This is just the way I see things. I’ll back up my assertions where I can, but please do understand that I am the internet equivalent of some dude you met in the pub last week.

~

AN OVERVIEW / SOME CONTEXT

Sex and gender are both social constructs, which basically means they’re ideas that humans created. A penis is just a penis, but only a human would say that a penis (or a person with a penis) is inherently male.

The definitions of sex and gender are broadly agreed to be subtly different: sex is purely anatomical, whereas gender is an experience, a combination of physical, behavioural and psychological things that no one is really able to pin down.

I live in the UK, and here there is no legal difference between sex and gender.

The “sex” marker on your birth certificate can be changed with a gender recognition certificate (hormones and surgery not compulsory), and birth certificates are not connected to medical records at all. Getting that sex marker changed is very difficult and expensive.

You can legally have a different gender or sex marker on all your state-issued IDs and at most it’ll cause some bureaucratic confusion.

You can put any title on any record and some people will probably frown at you if you put Mrs if you’re an unmarried person but those people are legally speaking in the wrong.

Basically anything is legal as long as you’re not doing it to deceive or commit fraud, and the Gender Recognition Panel is way outdated and about to be dismantled anyway.

To put it another way, what the UK calls “legal sex” is actually just legal gender, misnamed. Even the sex marker on medical records is a gender marker misnamed.

To add to the confusion, linguistically speaking sex and gender are generally described in the same way - because until very recently, English-speakers have largely been unable to change their bodies and therefore unable to change the way the world treats them. Words like “female” can describe someone’s body and/or someone’s gender, while also describing the reproductive capacity of non-human lifeforms, the shape of the connecting end of a computer cable...

Because of the body/mind distinction, people who say that only we can define our genders will often comfortably say that sex can be objectively determined by an educated professional.

Doctors generally agree that sex is defined by:

the number and type of sex chromosomes;

the type of gonads—ovaries or testicles;

the sex hormones;

the internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus in females); and

the external genitalia.

Since finding out someone’s sex chromosomes takes months and is very expensive and largely unnecessary for most people, unless your doctor has found a pressing reason to test your chromosomes (such as signs that you may be intersex and it may affect your physical health in some way), you do not know your own sex. Yes, you. You have, at least, a (probably but not necessarily accurate) guess based on the information you have unequivocal access to: external genitalia.

This blog post assumes that misgendering people is harmful. It may not harm everyone, but it harms enough people that it’s a good idea to behave in a way that prevents that harm.

~

SEX AND GENDER ARE THE SAME

1: Sex --> gender

The idea that gender is defined by sex is an obvious wrong thing, so it seems like a good place to start. That’s the idea that your gender comes from your body. If you were born with a penis and testicles, you are a man, whether you like it or not.

Who does it: Some people (eg: TERFs) say that hormones and surgery simply “mask” your “true” sex/gender, and you can’t change your chromosomes or the way you were born. Some people (eg: some outdated gender recognition systems) say that your body must be changed in order to change your gender.

Why it’s harmful: It sucks for trans people. Either you can never be correctly gendered by other people, even when you pass, or you can only be correctly gendered by other people once someone has inspected your genitals or judged your facial hair or whatever.

What to do instead: Don’t say that gender is irrevocably tied to one’s body. Support the idea that people know themselves better than anyone else can, and trust them when they tell you what their gender is.

2: Gender --> sex

Who does it: If you’re on Tumblr you’ve probably read blog posts that say things like “I am female, therefore my penis is female.” A lot of us feel this way about our own bodies, and taking ownership of the language used to describe your body is a very positive thing. In the UK it’s supported by the medical system, which lets you change the gender/sex marker on your medical records just by asking the receptionist.

Why it’s harmful: It’s not - unless you start to impose it on others. It’s not universal. Some of us strongly feel and identify with the sex of the body; for example, Asia Kate Dillon is nonbinary but strongly identifies their body as female.

And then there’s Big Freedia, who says she’s a man because she has a man’s body. Her name and pronouns and presentation, everything that we use as gender cues, are decidedly feminine - but she is very open about her body being male.

What to do instead: Don’t assume stuff about people’s bodies or the language they use to talk about their bodies based on their gender, pronouns, presentation, etc. Don’t say that in general, for example, a body is female if it belongs to a woman. Respect everyone’s right to bodily privacy. Support the idea that people know themselves better than anyone else can, and trust them when they tell you what their sex is. But like, don’t ask, okay? Don’t even hint. It is none of your business.

~

SEX AND GENDER ARE UNCONNECTED

This is the one that’s been bugging me lately.

Who does it: I’ve seen nonbinary people go out of their way to correct people who equate gender and sex (or man and male, woman and female), and in doing so they state that sex and gender are never connected.

And it’s understandable! The idea that someone can be born in the wrong body has been central to the campaign of visibility and understanding aimed at cisgender people for quite a long time now. It counters the idea above, that sex defines gender, that has been socially prevalent for basically all of living ciscentric memory. A lot of us probably learned about what being transgender is by hearing the idea that your mind can be one gender while your body is another, and said, “damn, that could explain a lot for me.”

Asia Kate Dillon takes this to an extreme. I mentioned above that their gender is nonbinary and their sex is female, but they have also stated that sex and gender are entirely unconnected, for everyone. They insist that male and female are words used to describe sex only, and that it harms them when trans women call themselves female. They said that sex is defined by those five characteristics I listed in the overview, and if any of those characteristics doesn’t match the others then your body stops being male or female at all; a person who’s had a hysterectomy can no longer be called female in terms of sex.

Why it’s harmful: When people say to a trans person, “well you might be a man but your body is not male,” they are implying that someone’s biology would be relevant to anyone but themself, the people they may be physically intimate with, and maybe their doctor. On this level alone it’s personally very intrusive, in a way that no cis person would have to tolerate.

On a practical level, it allows people to exclude trans people from gendered spaces in which they belong on the basis of aspects of their body that may never even be visible, because their body is somehow more relevant (to gendered spaces like toilets and changing rooms) than who they are, and cis people can’t possibly cope.

There are two common excuses for excluding trans people from these spaces.

Random cisgender humans will accidentally see a weird body and be needlessly alarmed or frightened. (Frankly, not our problem?)

Some people are incurably violent or harmful because of their bodies; even someone seeing their bodies may cause harm. (That’s, at very generous best, insulting. In reality, if you are perceived as a serious threat when you walk into a room you become a target.)

What to do instead: Don’t make sweeping statements like “trans people were born in the wrong body” or “gender and sex are different and unrelated.” Support and respect people when they tell you about their own experiences of their body and gender. Encourage cisgender people to take responsibility for their emotional issues, improve and increase resources for victims of sexual violence, advocate for partially gender-neutralising spaces, and welcome trans people into gendered spaces where possible - and it almost always is possible.

~

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS

Always respect people’s right to bodily privacy. Always.

If you feel like your sex is defined by your gender then great but it’s not true for every trans and/or nonbinary person. Similarly, if you feel that your gender and sex are independent of each other then that’s fine but don’t impose that on other people.

Barring unusual phobias, there is no need to ever consider the impact of someone’s sex on you personally. Unless you’re a doctor or you’re about to have sex or something.

In reality, there is a relationship between one’s body and one’s gender for a lot of people, otherwise gender dysphoria wouldn’t be a thing. What the connection is we may never fully understand, but that doesn’t matter. There is a connection for many people and it feels different for everyone, and that needs to be acknowledged and respected. At the same time, for many people there is no apparent connection between their gender and their body, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be one or that deep down everyone else is just wrong about themselves.

Gender and sex are complex individually, and their relationship to each other is complex too. Trying to logic it and sort it into boxes and make a flow chart of it just isn’t going to work. We can stop trying to teach each other, and start supporting each other instead.

[cmpfmp2018]

10/2 - Chris Interview

We arrived at Chris’ house around mid-morning to set up where we would like to film. I was used as a stand it to test where the light would hot Chris the best.

During the interview, I was sitting behind behind her on the other side of the living room, and monitoring the audio levels to make sure she didn’t exceed the peak. We had to turn off the fans and the fridge as the sounds were turning up on the audio. We had to wait for about 15 minutes before we could start filming because there was someone outside sweeping, and during the filming there would be the occasional sounds of cars passing or her pet parrot in the background that we couldn’t help. Other than that, the audio went fine and so did the recording.

After filming was done, Andrew took some b-roll around Chris’ house while I discussed the website with Chris and Francis. We changed the email to the Trusts email address, and I showed them the different pages we have added. I explained how we needed some information from them, mainly for the About page, the History page and the Donate page. I also told them about an idea we had which was to add pictures of the two of them with their names, titles, and a small description, which they thought was a good idea. They gave a suggestion to add a faded translucent rainbow flag in the background of the page, which I said I could do.

As me and Andrew decided to make the website on Wix, which meant working off the website I made, I showed them his website that he made on Wordpress, which included a slideshow on the front cover that they really liked. I also asked how they wanted to receive donations, which they said through bank transfer. As the only option I could find was for Paypal, I will have to find a solution for this.

They also told me about a film festival that had happened the month before where a film following an intersex individual was shown, and was followed by a talk with a member of the GRT, which they showed me a clip from. This is definitely something that I should research into more, as it was a shame that we just missed out.

Overall the Interview went very well, we have more than enough interview footage use, and got extra shots around her place. We plan for next Sunday to Interview Francis, the location is still undecided but Chris knows a place we could potentially film, as we can’t do it at his house.

[probably-lucifer]

Scenes I've written to fics I'm trying to write

Draco stood there next to his mother, both covered in dirt, grime, and blood. He was still in mild shock at bring hugged by The Moldy Egg, could you blame him? It was then however that he would find out that life doesn't wait for the shock factor to fade, she doesn't give a singular flying fuck in any honest observation. So when he notices his mother trying to gain eye contact he's really not as surprised as he should be when his mother uses her legillmens to say what she does. It does surprise him though, that he's being given a choice, to be given a chance to do what he, in proper hindsight, really should have done ages ago. Probably would have if they didn't have mother, but alas, they did, and he didn't. At least, not before. It wouldn't be hard to put the wand where Harry can see it, and get to it. As a matter of fact, if you were to ask Draco Lucius Malfoy he would very honestly tell you that if you where to hold this wand where Harry could see it Harry could leisurely stroll past The Moldy Egg and make polite small talk he could still get the wand in time because in all honesty there is nobody more prone to bragging without having anything to even brag about then The Moldy Egg. It's actually a bit of a running joke between the not entirely terrible death eaters, who funny enough, are none here by choice this war around. Perhaps though this is what will surprise you, his mother, Narcissa Malfoy has broken a vow, and unless that creature that is... 'Still ranting oh my Morgana x Merlin!' unless it, because it has certainly lost even that way of identification, if the fact that he never went to the bathroom or even around it is anything to go by. 'I wonder why anyone would- wait wrong thought process. To help the guy who is obviously going to win, or not to help. Hmm, well that's a hard one. Ah look Harry's dramatics would make Salazar Slytherin himself proud. Godric to if I'm honest.' Harry isn't as surprised as he should be when he notices me, matter of fact when I shout his name it seems he already knows my plans. When he catches the wand there is a barely noticeable smile, probably meant for reassurance, but it's entirely to soft to be such. The Moldy Egg is in shock when I sit on the ground and watch as my friend that I'd been very secretly, and quietly reporting to for his sanity, shows the, or nearly the wizarding world that Tom Marvalo Riddle Jr. is just that. A name, and a man. When it's done, when he's probably, hopefully, dead I stand up, get closer, and poke him with my boot. "I hope no one is surprised you did it, honestly it should be expected by now. Should've been expected in 4th year really." I say to the calm, yet powerful presence behind me. I can always feel Harry's magic when he's near, must be a result of our "loving" relationship previous to That Night at The Manor when this all really began. "Fair enough, do you know any hiding spots Remus won't find us in, I think the four of us should have a nice, long sleep. And you're still unnaturally comfortable for such a pointy git. Hey where's Pansy, I heard she actually used her acting for good." I point to the girl who is leaning into a Luna, Ginny, and Neville pile on like she's passed out. Come to think of it she might have. Their problem. When we start walking back into the castle she's already began repairing herself, and me and Hermione are not at all surprised, because we read. 'I mean Harry got an excuse, sort of, but Ron doesn't, he should read more, I bet I can challenge him to it.' Honestly it's in the first chapter of Hogwarts A History. Regardless of my musings I lead Harry to the room we got trapped in for an hour last year that was probably the actual turning point just before school let out. Harry nods when he gets it, and hisses out "Open" in parsletongue, probably one of the only words I know, and that's only because it's obvious, and he told me. It'll be nearly three days before we wake up longer then it takes to eat, and use the bathroom, and by then we've all been given nutrition potions by madam Pomfrey, and strict instructions to rest by McGonagall, which means our families know we're fine. Fred and George dropped off clothes as the only ones they told about the room, Pansy and Blaise have brought me my dragon chess set, the only ones I trusted with the location of our safe place. It became as such after That Night at The Manor, he sent me a recording of him hissing open and I started furnishing the rooms past just the library's entrance. If anyone is surprised Salazar created several hidden rooms, some that you don't even need parsletongue for, they're not that intelligent. We've all been laying around in a bed roughly the size of a dormitory for days on end, exhausted, though I tend to wonder why I'm so tired, i barely did anything I'm sure of it. Harry and Ron say it's just what happens after saving the day, and it's best not to question it. Me and Harry don't talk about the barriers put on him by Dumbledore, nor that they were broken by the currently comatose Severus Snape, nor do we bring up my father locking away my veela instincts this summer. We just lay in bed, and rest, and make random observations that one would think means we're high. We're not. Trust me I'd know. Once three days pass, we take turns showering, and then I run the bath, big enough to be a pool, and add the infinite bubbles specifically designed for intersex bathing, or in our case splashing, I've teamed up with Hermione to charm the bubbles to hide "those bits" so we can relax and splash each other, we've done so good even underwater they stick. When we're done making a mess we get dressed, and I send for Crabbe, and Goyle. Goyle, gentle soul he is, is so happy to see me he nearly squeezes me to death, I'm not surprised, I missed him too. They're not the most intelligent, or cunning, or ambitious really, but they're still some very close friends of mine, we did after all grow up together. "How was the infirmary then?" Ron asked slight awkwardness to it, not surprising all things considered. Crabbe was as oblivious as always as he said "The only difference is the amount of people there, the headmistress wants you in her office by the way." Things from there went by easily, me and Harry got married with a one month difference, him to Ginevra (if I can't call her the Weaslette then I've got to annoy her somehow), me too Astoria. He had two kids before I had my first, which he quickly followed by a third, James and Lily were certainly the devil incarnate. Remus on the other hand was an angel. I sometimes wonder if that's literal. Him and Scorpious grew up together, and finally attended Hogwarts together (though me and Harry nearly wanted them sent off to Beauxbaton, Durmstang is just to military minded for them. Now James Sirius Potter on the other hand, let's just say his mother is the only reason Harry was convinced not to send him there.) which means the only child left for us to spoil new exactly how to milk it. Lily Luna Potter will rule Slytherin mark my words. Even I spoil the girl. Life was good as a curse breaker for me, and an auror for Harry, we ended up working together very often, though it does take a toll. It wasn't until after we'd been divorced by the girls "It's nothing personal love, we're just better as friends is all." and Harry had been told to quit his job a month after we moved in to our condo that McGonagall came to us with a proposition. We'd work at Hogwarts Harry as the DA professor, and me as the ancient runes professor. It wasn't difficult for either of us to say yes, though it was surprising that I'd end up as Head of Ravenclaw considering I was only there for a year, more surprising that Harry ended up Head of Slytherin actually. Our sons all blanched at seeing us in class their first day (James bought charmed beans from a fellow classmate and long story short they all spent the first weekend speaking various animal sounds, though Remus and Scorpious were fine talking to each other in Snake tongue, Harry said it was about whether there was a way to make it permanent without taking away the ability to speak in human tongue. The student who made it was incredibly enough the offspring of Greg, his nack for potions makes him very popular, Greg's son Henry is a very brilliant Hufflepuff, and me and Harry are determined to introduce him to Severus, the man needs an apprentice whether he admits it or not.) It was magnificent. A few years passed, Harry and I were enjoying our jobs, but we'd come to embrace our summer break with love.