#we've got places to go | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tinystepsforward · 2 months ago

Text

ngl it makes me want to die a little bit that it's so often trans people who feel that sex is mutable but oppression is always-forever based on asab in ways that allow them to demand that information from other trans people. like it feels fucking bad. it feels bad when it's people holding up someone who posts a lot of selfies as transition goals to a degree they have to clarify what they have or haven't done or what "direction" they're going in, it feels worse when people are out there like "caster semenya is not tma" or whatever the fuck. i am, as always, not a trans woman, but here's a sentiment echoed by many of the trans women around me who log the fuck off, quoted directly from one: "people who draw a clear line where they say that semenya or khelif are tme and then call me tma are just calling me male at this point".

like i get it. i really do. we seek community and shared experiences, and we feel betrayed when people have less in common with us than we thought they did. [*more on this later.] but that's not those people's faults and my god in the case i'm seeing play out on twitter rn this poor person did absolutely nothing to intentionally mislead people, just posted pictures of their actual kid self. who looks a lot like i did, because shockingly enough "we can always tell" doesn't fucking work for trans people either!

on the one hand i move in intersex circles which are unapologetically welcoming in cis "dyadic" people with pcos, because it serves nobody to draw a clear line where mutilation or genetics or some ineffable childhood suffering are what make somebody intersex, especially when most of us (esp in places like nz) have never been karyotyped and are being treated for symptoms without a pinned-down cause anyway. the more of us there are the stronger we are, the more pressure we can exert on a medical profession which doesn't like to consider how common outliers are, how uneasy sex is at all. and then on the other hand there's dyadic trans people on the internet who've yelled me out of spaces because a couple of traumatised incarcerated trans women i worked with as a prison abolitionist assumed i was also a trans woman and i didn't immediately tell them my entire csa-involved history of being sexed in varying ways as an infant and child and/or exactly how big my phallus was at birth or where in my junk config my urethra lives so they could decide i was tme or whatever.

returning to the * for a related but not identical thought: i think presuming shared experiences leads to some fucked shit in general! "oh we all had a radfem phase" or "oh we all were channers" no we fucking weren't and it's particularly obnoxious when me & mine are trying to build trans community locally to organise and resist the growing wave of far-right backlash against our existence, and there's just white people in there on a spectrum from "straight up being antisemitic and trying to get the n-word pass" through "handwringing about how they need to make space for people who aren't politically correct" to "handwringing about how brown people are right to be mad at them but doing shit fuckall". and then the other fucking brown people in the space are on some identity politics shit where they're like "trans joy inherently excludes those of us who could get deported" or "big city white queers are killing us by being visible instead of going stealth bc it stirs up the discourse" or whatever the fuck i've heard pulled out this year. there's a bunch of reasons i primarily organise outside of trans spaces and that's one of them. i've never felt more alone in spaces where people claim we're all the same than being left as the brownest moderator or organiser in a space full of people to whom "this is a safe trans space" apparently means they get to abdicate all other responsibilities not to lapse into presumed shared patterns that are fucking racist or otherwise alienating. i've never felt more alone than surrounded by exclusively trans people who sort people into boxes and assume everyone in those boxes has the transition goals they have. like i was on cypro until it disagreed with me to the point of endocrine crisis and now i'm on t and at both those points people were so fucking presumptive or entitled to my reasons or journey or personal relationship w my body

literally just submitted on (and was invited to consult on) the nz law commission's review of the human rights act and like. it's straight up fucked how many nz trans people fully do not comprehend that any "sex assigned at birth" type definitions fundamentally exclude migrants who have no way of proving it and many intersex people who happen to have been reassigned later or many times or never assigned at all as a baby. we can't make law with this shit and that's why we have to have symmetrical protections for all genders/sexes/expressions/presentations, bc naming and defining a protected class here often leaves the people who already are left out from those shared experiences of marginalisation out in the cold when they face violence

#reblogs turned off because obviously i'm already bracing to be pilloried for saying one thing not quite correctly or whatever #and also bc i have zero interest in having this be boosted by trans dudes on their own transandrophobia agenda either #i'm just venting #but frankly the first time i got yelled at for saying that as an intersex person some of the immense violence i experienced as a child #was motivated by transmisogyny #i was a teenager and it was someone a fair bit older than me with more local clout so like. it's been a decade. how is it worse now.#intersex spaces have made SO much progress and yet #also yes i'm femme! i'm femme in a trans way! many dykes who aren't women are!#many of us got more comfortable w it as adults who had gender agency!#in literally the same way it took my wife ages after transitioning to work out she's also butch and doesn't actually want to do femme thing #bc that's a shared experience in how we've navigated the expectations of womanhood before opting out of the parts we don't want!#anyway the lawcomm shit was fucked bc honestl i don't give a shit if someone lost their gonads as an adult in an accident #they should be protected even if they don't consider themselves intersex #and we know that gender as an axis of oppression comes back to the reproduction of the nuclear family #and that cis women who can't have kids sometimes become the political football though ofc not as much by far and like #idk. y'all ever heard about solidarity? sometimes i feel like i'm back in the place where the loudest traumatised person at the party #is yelling at another young woman like “you'll never understand what it's like to be a victim”#when said young woman was assaulted the week before.#a politics that starts by defending and defining oneself w oppression kinda fucking sucks actually #and intersex people stopped policing intersexness by who got mutilated a long time ago #bc actually we want the generations ahead to not get that treatment #and when i see “trans elders” going on about how “if you pass and got on hrt before 18 you're not trans like i am” i'm like. why! what!#anyway. tired.#may regret this. we shall see #tony muses

28 notes · View notes

iffeelscouldkill · 1 month ago

Text

Lost in a Familiar Place pt. 5

(Aka the ‘Nicholas never applied to Kings Row’ AU)

A/N: I'm kind of on a roll with this fic??? Idek how, but I've already written the next chapter. There'll be at least 2 more instalments after this, and possibly a small epilogue depending on how the last chapter plays out.

Anyway - when I originally wrote the concept for this fic, there were two things I imagined playing out differently: Nicholas would take a different path to Kings Row, and Aiden would have a wake-up call when it came to his participation in the team. We've spent a few chapters on the first one - now it's time for the second.

(But don't worry, we'll be coming back to Nicholas!)

Or: in which Harvard and Aiden have A Conversation, and Nicholas and Seiji are misinterpreted. (Or are they?)

Previous chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

---

After fencing practice officially ended, the students hung around chattering in groups, dissecting the unexpected match that had taken place between Seiji Katayama and a complete fencing nobody.

Harvard was impressed that Nicholas had scored a point on Seiji at all. The holes in his technique were huge and evident, but there were times when he could strike at an opening before you even knew what was happening. Harvard had noticed Seiji watching him during drills; he knew that his teammate was turning the contradiction over in his mind, trying to make sense of it.

And Nicholas had beaten Aiden. That couldn’t just be put down to left-handedness and the element of surprise.

Harvard sought Aiden out in the middle of the throng of students. He was talking to two of the boys that Harvard thought of (a little uncharitably) as Aiden’s groupies; they grudgingly made way for Harvard, shooting him looks. “Hey. Good practice today.”

Aiden arched an eyebrow. He seemed back to his old self, more or less. “You don’t need to coddle me, Captain. I lost to a total rookie.”

Harvard shrugged. He could say, ‘Maybe you should come to practice more often, then,’ but this wasn’t how and where he wanted to have that conversation. “Do you want me to make you feel better about it?”

Aiden snorted and put his hands behind his head. The groupies drifted away, losing interest when Aiden’s attention wasn’t on them. “No, a night of drowning my sorrows in the nearest warm body and I’ll be back on form.”

Harvard normally shrugged off Aiden’s jokes about sleeping around, but this time it didn’t land quite right. Aiden noticed his expression and smiled wryly. “Ah, too soon.”

“Aiden-” Harvard began, but just then, Coach Williams called them both over. She threw Aiden a set of keys and handed Harvard a stack of orange field markers. Some poor sap had been made to run suicides that morning after he forgot his mask.

“Do me a favour, and run these back to the supply cupboard,” she instructed. “And this-” She handed Aiden the épée that Nicholas had borrowed for practice. “And if you see Nicholas, make sure he doesn’t accidentally walk off with those fencing whites he borrowed.”

That was a good point. Where was Nicholas? Harvard couldn’t remember seeing Seiji leave, either.

An awkward silence hung between them as they set off along the corridor. Harvard was suddenly sick of this. “Aiden, listen,” he said. “I’m not about to get on your case about sleeping around. It’s your choice, even if I wish you’d be less… harsh about it most of the time.”

Aiden acknowledged this with a wry twist of his lips. “But?” he prompted Harvard.

Harvard stopped in the corridor and turned to face Aiden. “But I need you to commit to one thing, at least, and that’s the team. You know as well as I do that one exceptional fencer doesn’t make a winning team, and we need everyone to be on form if we’re going to have a shot this year. I can’t just keep subbing in Eugene every time you don’t feel like showing. He’s a solid fencer, but you made the team, and you need to show up for it.”

Aiden put his free hand on his hip. “And what are you going to do if I don’t?” he asked Harvard, almost taunting. Harvard wasn’t often on the receiving end of his best friend’s cutting tongue, and he didn’t enjoy it. “Cut me from the team?”

Harvard swallowed, but he couldn’t say this if he wasn’t prepared to back it up. “Yes, if I have to.”

“Then you’ll be a fencer down.”

“I’m a fencer down anyway, Aiden!” Harvard exclaimed, gesticulating and forgetting that he was holding a set of field markers. “I never know if I can count on you or not! What’s the point of making the team if you don’t act like you’re a part of it? Why do you bother to try out if you’re just going to make a show of being too good for us?”

Aiden’s cheeks flushed, and Harvard wished he could walk back his outburst, but part of him felt lighter for getting it out into the open. It was everything he should have said last year, and hadn’t. They’d treated it as a bit of a joke, laughing about being the worst team, and Aiden had shown up for some matches, for the bake sale – even if he’d been on his phone the whole time.

But this year felt different. Harvard wanted to take things seriously, and it felt jarring how little Aiden did.

“You’d really do that to me?” Aiden asked him, his voice taut like steel wire. “Cut me out because I’m no good to you any more?”

Harvard exhaled. This was treading dangerously close to Aiden’s many complicated issues stemming from his family, something that Aiden would never, ever so much as hint at in front of anyone who wasn’t Harvard. But Aiden also wasn’t being fair.

“I’ve defended your spot on the team for a long time,” he said. “Because I know what you can do, and I’ve always believed you come through for us when it matters. But – it goes both ways, Aiden. How can I treat you like a member of the team when you don’t act like one?”

He kept his voice low, trying to stay calm and reasonable. “At this point, I can’t help wondering why you try out for the team in the first place. What are you doing this for, Aiden? Who is it for?”

Aiden gave Harvard a long, steady look, long enough that Harvard wondered if he was meant to be reading something into it. What was he missing?

“You remember when we both made the team for the first time, back in sophomore year?” Aiden said suddenly.

“Of course,” Harvard replied, a little surprised at the direction this was going. “The captain was Elias Ortiz, and he was so inspiring. I really looked up to him. I wanted to do what he did.”

Aiden nodded. “You wanted to be team captain one day,” he said, fondness in his voice. “And you persuaded me to try out with you.”

Harvard had forgotten that part. “You practiced with me all the time,” he said. “There was no reason you couldn’t make the cut too – and you did. You made the cut ahead of me, even.” Aiden had handily won enough matches to be accepted as one of the fencing team’s ‘main three’, while Harvard had endured the heart-in-mouth wait to find out who had been selected as reserve. Aiden had threatened – promised? – to give up his spot on the team if Harvard wasn’t selected. Harvard had assumed he was joking.

“You were a shoo-in for reserve,” Aiden said, waving a hand. “There was no question about it.”

Harvard wasn’t sure about that, but Aiden was biased on his behalf. “Still – where are you going with this?”

Aiden sighed, looking away and resting the point of the épée he was carrying against the ground. “Before we started practicing together, fencing was just this dumb thing that my dad made me do,” he said. “I would have quit years ago if not for that. But you loved it, and that made it not suck for the first time in ages.

“I tried out for the team because I knew how much it meant to you for us to both make the cut. And I like being good at things.” He shrugged and smirked diffidently, but Harvard could see more vulnerability in Aiden’s eyes than he’d shown in a long while.

“I like to win, but being in the fencing team together is our thing. That’s why I’m on the team.”

Harvard’s heart lurched. He would never in a million years have expected himself to be the reason that Aiden tried out for the team. Winning, sure – showing off, even – and schooling upstart fencing newcomers who thought they were hot stuff. But doing it all for him?

“But… why don’t you try properly, then?” he asked, because that part still didn’t make sense. If being on the team was important, then why act like it wasn’t?

Aiden’s eyes flicked over Harvard’s face and he smiled. It was a sad smile. “It doesn’t do to go getting too attached,” he said, barely loud enough for Harvard to hear him.

Then he turned and strode away down the corridor, calling back, “Coach is going to wonder where the hell we’ve got to.”

Harvard was left blinking at nothing, wondering what Aiden could possibly mean by – “Aiden? Hold on, what do you-”

He jogged to catch up with his best friend, but Aiden was already opening the door to the supply cupboard – throwing light onto two figures inside.

Nicholas and Seiji were standing nose-to-nose, Nicholas gripping the neck of Seiji’s uniform. Both boys looked flushed. Well, that explained where they’d both disappeared to, at least.

“Oh. Are we interrupting something?” Aiden asked, and Nicholas instantly let go of Seiji.

“No.” “No.” Both boys spoke in unison, Seiji turning away from Nicholas as if to reinforce his denial. Harvard raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, no judgement,” he said, and Aiden snorted as he walked past to put the épée away, then reached back for the field markers, which Harvard handed to him. “Just be aware that the supply cupboard does get some use around this time of day. In case you wanted to find another location.”

Nicholas turned even redder. “That’s not – it’s really not like that,” he said, rushed.

Harvard shrugged. “Like I said, no judgement. Oh, and Coach said to make sure you don’t forget to return your fencing whites.”

Nicholas looked down, apparently realising that he was still in his borrowed uniform. “Oh, yeah.”

Seiji nodded formally to Aiden and to Harvard. “Captain,” he said, and then strode out of the cupboard. Nicholas scrambled after him.

“Seiji!” he called after the other boy. “I meant what I said.”

Seiji paused, then looked back and gave Nicholas a nod before disappearing in the direction of the changing rooms.

Riiight. Harvard turned to Nicholas. “If you need someone to walk you out after you get changed, I can show you the way back into town.”

At that moment, Bobby and Eugene emerged from the door leading off to changing rooms, Bobby beaming as he caught sight of Nicholas. “Nicholas! We were looking for you!” he enthused. “Do you want to come and get smoothies with us?”

“Uh, sure,” Nicholas said, seeming surprised, but pleased.

“Oh – Harvard! And Aiden! Would you like to come too?” Bobby asked, as he spotted them both.

Harvard glanced at Aiden, then smiled at Bobby and shook his head. “Thanks, but we’re okay – you guys go ahead.”

“I just need to get changed and give these back to Coach–” Nicholas said, walking quickly towards the changing rooms. The three of them disappeared, and Harvard and Aiden were left alone again.

“Well,” Harvard said. “I guess that means Nicholas isn’t hung up on you, at least.” He was wearily accustomed to the pining looks thrown at Aiden in the corridors, the guys showing up at their dorm room door with flowers and heartfelt notes that Harvard always promised he’d pass onto Aiden (who was more often than not already out on another date). And, sometimes, the uglier responses – a graffitied locker, a malicious rumour, damage done to Aiden’s things while they were both out of the room. Aiden always forbade Harvard from going after anyone on his behalf, even if they could work out who’d done it. “It’s nothing, Harvard. I can handle it.”

Aiden snorted. “Nicholas stopped being hung up on me the second he laid eyes on Seiji Katayama.”

Harvard smiled as they both stepped out of the cupboard, Aiden pulling the doors closed and locking them. It was fun to gossip and trade theories about their fellow fencers, something they’d indulged in at many a practice match and regional or state competition (when Aiden was present, of course). But Harvard quickly remembered the conversation they’d been having before they happened on Nicholas and Seiji.

“Aiden?” he asked. “What did you mean when you said, ‘It doesn’t do to get too attached’?”

“Nothing,” Aiden said quickly, flashing Harvard a quick and (to Harvard’s expert eyes) insincere smile. “Forget I said that.” He tried to start back towards the fencing salle.

“No, come on-” Harvard objected, catching hold of Aiden’s arm – gently. “I know you meant something by it. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” He frowned, suddenly worried about what Aiden might not want to say. “You can trust me.”

Aiden gave Harvard that rueful smile again. “I think it’ll be better if you figure it out yourself. But if you haven’t figured it out by tonight, then I’ll tell you,” he said, then slipped his arm out of Harvard’s grip and walked away.

15 notes · View notes