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trans-axolotl · 2 months ago

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my gendered experience growing up as an intersex person was overwhelmingly defined by my responses and resistance to everything that got me labeled as a failure: failure to quickly get a gender assigned at birth, failure to go through a normal puberty and grow up into a woman, failure at meeting the standards for "complete womanhood" because of my intersex sex traits, and yet simultaneously failing to ever be acknowledged as a "real man" and being treated as a threat when I expressed I wanted to transition.

before i realized i was a man and came out as trans, the ways that girlhood was denied to me was very often humiliating and painful. locker rooms filled with other girls were a frequent source of shame. there were many big and small ways that i was told that my intersex body made me insufficient, incomplete, broken. i was forced onto estrogen, forced into shaving my body hair, and was constantly being told to change myself to better fit this mystical idea of a "normal woman." and even though I ultimately ended up becoming a man, the denial of girlhood was painful.

but i think that these things would have been even more difficult to navigate as an intersex girl if on top of everything I already said, i was having to cope with the denial of my girlhood while i was forced into boys locker rooms. if my doctors were forcing me onto testosterone hrt and refusing to even discuss estrogen, if all my legal paperwork had "M" on it and was a logistical nightmare to change, if every support group for my intersex variation labeled it as a "men's support group," if the LGBTQ community spaces i tried to join were misogynistic towards me often to the point of exile, if my self determination as an intersex girl was denied in most spaces of my life, and on and on and on. while listing all these things out i also don't want to make it seem like it's all about suffering and pain--so much of transition for me has been about joy in my self determination and how much it feels like a reclamation of autonomy to decide what I want my body and self to be like--i know this is an experience i share with so many of my trans intersex friends.

as an person who was AFAB, although there were many ways that trying to grow up as an intersex girl were a painful, logistical nightmare, many times and places that i was excluded from woman's spaces, etc. however, there was a simultaneous affirmation that i was right to strive for that in the first place. which is logic rooted in some fucked up compulsory dyadism, but also which would have made some things slightly easier or even possible at all if i had wanted to embrace being an intersex girl within this fucked up system.

pretty much every time i've seen people on tumblr talking about "afab transfems" in an intersex context, people seem happy to collapse these experiences and act like there's no meaningful distinction or point in distinguishing between different types of intersex embodiment. it seems incredibly extractive, to be perfectly honest with you--taking terms already used by a community to make meaning of their experiences and to expand and dilute that term enough that it means something pretty different than the original.

it's making me think about the concept of epistemic injustice, which is a term coined by Miranda Fricker to describe oppression related to knowledge, communication, and making meaning of the world. There's two subtypes of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice refers to the dynamic where marginalized people are labeled as not credible, excluded from conversations, and their testimony and knowledge is labeled as unreliable, even when they're the ones who are experts and have first hand experience of what people are talking about. (this is why i probably won't make this post rebloggable--i've noticed this pattern on tumblr many times where trans men speaking about transmisogyny get lots of notes and are given a lot of grace, where trans women are silenced, attacked for not having perfect wording, and otherwise delegitimized.)

the second type is called hermeneutical injustice. it describes how marginalized people are denied the right to make sense of the experiences in their own lives. this can look like preventing people from building community, terminology, a political understanding of themselves, and the interpretive resources needed to process how you live in the world.

this is a form of injustice that I think almost all intersex people are very familiar with--we are denied community and interpretive resources to the point that we're told we don't even exist, that intersex isn't a real word, and so many more examples that leave us isolated and with very few options for understanding what we're collectively experiencing. as an intersex person i really intimately understand how frustrating, confusing, and painful it is to not have words for your experiences, your identity, your life.

so it makes me really sad and pissed off when it seems like intersex people seem to be replicating this exact same type of epistemic injustice towards transfems and specifically towards intersex transfems. pretty much every time recently i see people talking about "afab transfems" they're doing so in a way that seems to deny that trans women even have the right to make sense of their own experiences in the world. there seems to be this mindset that these political frameworks, these interpretive resources that transfems have built up are just up for grabs for anyone. and then on top of that has come with it a lot of cruel, hateful language and direct attacks towards many intersex transfems who are facing so much harassment right now.

an important value to me is this idea of reciprocity as a foundation for solidarity. to me reciprocity means that we're prioritizing the ways we care for each other, we're thinking about how we can uplift each other, and we're watching out for extractive or exploitative patterns where one group is constantly expected to be in "solidarity" with another group without getting the same respect and care back toward them. i think that there could be so many ways that intersex people of all genders could share our overlapping experiences and actually be in true, meaningful solidarity with each other, but i barely ever actually see that happen on tumblr. and that pisses me off, because i do think that there's so much we have in common that we could celebrate and support each other with. i feel so much kinship with so, so many of my trans intersex friends, and ways where i see our lives converge. but i don't think that can happen in an environment where there's no acknowledgment of the ways that our experiences will sometimes (often) differ from each other, and the ways that we have unique needs.

another frustration i've had based on this most recent couple months of transmisogynistic intersex posting on tumblr is how intersex people have been mostly ignoring intersex community resources and devaluing the existing intersex terminology that people created to try to meet our needs. so much of what i've seen people describing on tumblr seems to really line up with the term ipsogender. Ipsogender is a term coined by an intersex sociologist Cary Gabriel Costello, and is used to describe intersex people whose gender matches the gender they were medically assigned at birth, but who might not feel like cis or trans fits them, might experience dysphoria, and who might feel like they've ended up transitioning medically or socially in some ways. this is a word that exists that an intersex person put time into coining because they wanted other intersex people to feel seen, embraced, and have ways of understanding themselves and communicating to others, and that's something that's super meaningful to me! and yet, i've rarely seen anyone reference it, and also seen multiple people making fun of it in other spaces online.

there's also intergender, which is another intersex specific gender term used to describe when your gender is inseparable from your intersex traits, and that your intersex identity is intertwined with your gender identity in some way. some people just identify as intergender, others use it as an adjective and exist as an intergender man or woman. intersex terminology like this is really important to me, especially because we're so often denied the right to make sense of our own experiences.

i think ultimately what i wanted to say with this post is just that when i think about intersex community, some of the most important values of intersex community for me are solidarity, care for each other, and affirming our right to define our own existence. and i don't think that can happen in a community where people are acting in extractive ways, harassing and attacking their fellow community members, and being dismissive of the realities of other intersex people's lives.

#personal #actuallyintersex #intersex #actually intersex #transmisogyny tw #this post is not going to be rebloggable for now but if any intersex mutuals want to reblog it i might turn reblogs on #this just feels like an intersex conversation in a way i would prefer not to do with an audience of spectators.#also a tangent: i do understand that agab is not a body descriptor. i think that agabs are a form of curative violence perpetuated onto us #this is something i've been consistent about expressing for years. if you go back to old posts you'll see that there's many times i've said #over the years that agab is messy. that i know people who were assigned one gender at birth and another gender as a toddler #who identify as cis and trans and a million other things. i understand that and im not interested in denying their existence #so. don't take this as a universal statement from me about every single instance of “amab transman” or “afab transfem.” but rather in the #context of the current dynamic i'm seeing on tumblr of widespread transmisogynistic harassment #that i think much of the way people are talking about this is exploitative and harmful #also i've made many posts before talking about how like. many things would change and become intelligble in a less compulsorly dyadic world #but we aren't there yet. and so there are many terms that are still meaningful and relevant for us right now #and as always: i am one intersex person with one perspective i like to hear from other intersex people including intersex people #who think differently from me

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kenobers · 2 months ago

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tremble & shake | jason todd x sionis!reader

but first free palestine !! Jason doesn't show up for your hook-up. You don't think much of it until he comes barreling through his window in a distressed state. He's desperately in need of your comfort and you don't have a clue why, but you can't stand to see Jason Todd hurting. tw: angst, hurt/comfort, could be read as a panic attack, mental breakdown, slightly dubious attempts to initiate sex, non-sexual intimacy, uhh fear, self deprecating thoughts (i swear, one day i'll write something where neither you nor jason have anything bad to say about yourselves). jason todd needs a hug, reader was previously not very good with emotions. or empathy. fem!reader. a/n: happy batman day! here's jason crying <3 this comes after magic hands & is this love?

Slam.

You jolt awake from your sleep, immediately reaching for a blunt object. Blinking hard, you squint at the door. Jason's door.

That's right, you're in Jason's apartment for one of your regularly scheduled hook-ups. He hadn't shown up, his phone abandoned on his bedside table. You figured he must've had to patrol tonight and forgot to give you a heads up. However, it's been pouring rain all night, so you decided to stay. You must've fallen asleep waiting for him.

"Jason?-"

No sooner does the man's name leave your lips than he practically tackles you on the bed. He's still in his costume, the red bat on his chest heaving heavily. His red mouthpiece hides the bottom half of his face as he looks down at you from behind the white of his domino mask. He's absolutely drenched. Cold clings to him and sends a shiver down your spine.

You furrow your brow. Something's wrong.

"I thought you weren't patrolling tonight," you whisper. He says nothing.

Pursing your lips, you ran your hands along his bare forearms. He's shaking. He'd gone out without his jacket. Jason's tough, almost inhumanely so, but if he'd gone out without his jacket in this rain...he must've been in a hurry.

"Did something happen?" Your eyes search his unbroken skin for injuries. Still, he says nothing and the empty whites of his mask are starting to freak you out.

You push his wet hood back and comb your fingers through his soaked hair until they find the buckle of his mask. You undo it and pull the mask from his face, peeling the domino along with it. His expression underneath is just as blank, like his mind is somewhere else.

Before you can say anything, he's kissing you hard. Almost violently. A shaky hand grips your shoulder with a ferocity Jason hasn't previously had with you, even when you've really gone at it.

"Hey," you say between harsh, wet kisses. "Jason, stop."

As if he doesn't hear you, Jason moves to your neck. The hand on your shoulder drops to your hip.

"Jason."

It starts to paw underneath your satin hem.

"Jay!"

The fear in your voice makes his head snap up. He stares at you with wide eyes, like a deer in the headlights. You shake your head, "I don't want this. I don't think you want this."

He moves off of you, staring at his lap.

You sit up slowly, mirroring his position on his knees. Panic chews at your insides as you try to assess him. He needs help, needs comfort, maybe. You have no experience with comfort, no clue what to do. You can't do this, you're not the person he needs, this-

This isn't about you. The man that has been at your every beck and call for the past several months looks like he's fighting for his Goddamn life. You don't hate the possibility of making a fool of yourself as much as you hate the sight of seeing Jason Todd in pain.

Somewhere, in the very back of your mind, there's a vague memory of a hand cupping your cheek, wiping away your tears. You copy it, reaching out to him hesitantly, terrified of making things worse.

Your fingertips brush his cheek with an almost non-existent touch, just heavy enough to wipe away the remnants of rain. He leans into your touch and you take this as permission to hold his face in your trembling hands.

His own hands find your hips again, drawing you between his thighs as his head comes to rest in the crook of your shoulder.

"'just wanna feel you," he mumbles against your skin, making your shoulder vibrate.

"I'm not gonna fuck you like this," you card your other hand through his damp hair. "You're going to wake up and realize it wasn't what you needed."

He says nothing, but clutches you as close as he possibly can. You tense as he presses against you. His armor digs into you uncomfortably, the buckle of his holster poking at your thigh. Water from his soggy clothes seeps through your satin nightgown. The hand on his face begins to cramp at this bent angle.

You've never seen him like this. Neither of you ever really come to one another for comfort, sans the time he brought you pads. Or the other time he calmed you down from a fight with your father. Or came to your rescue when your friends got you greened out on some fucked up weed. Okay, so you come to him for comfort, but he is...much more reclusive about his emotions. Complaining to you, sure. He often pulls to your sessions pissed and fucks you until he felt better. Sometimes he's so hungry for your body that he doesn't speak, except to check in with you. This was neither of these things. But this would mark the first real emotional emergency of whatever this relationship is. This was sad, desperate. Fearful.

"Please," he breathes in a broken voice. You...relax.

Without thinking about it, you hug him. You run your hand between his shoulder blades, supporting the back of his head. You cradle him like he might break. The same way he holds you when he sleeps.

"Nothing's gonna hurt you. I'm not gonna let 'em," the memory in the back of your head says.

"It's okay," you soothe, pressing your lips to his wet curls, feeling them tickle your cheek. "I'm not gonna let anything hurt you. Nothing's gonna touch you here, Jaybird."

There's a slight shake of his head as he clings to fistfuls of your dress. Your stomach clenches at the thought of whatever was bad enough to puncture his mind like this. You pull back just enough to look at him. Only the bottom half of his face was visible. His lips quivered, silently forming "no" over and over again.

You momentarily retracted your hand from his back to rest your palm to his cheek.

"Baby, I don't know where your brain is telling you or what it's telling you is happening, but I swear to you, you're safe with me in your apartment. Nothing is coming for us, I won't let anything happen."

His breath shutters and he buries his face completely into your shoulder. You squeeze your arms around him, rocking the giant man back and forth. He defeatedly sags against you with a single sob. Your heart drops even further at the sound. You shush him gently, resting your chin on his head.

"It's okay, you're okay. You're here with me. I've got you, baby. I've got you."

The next however many minutes go on like this. You cradle him, praying he doesn't shatter in your lap. You coo any sweets words you can think of until the tension in his muscles eases at your touch. His weight grows heavier in your embrace. For a moment, you think he fell asleep.

"Jay?" You call out softly. He lifts his head and rests it against your forehead. His gaze is still lost in space, but at least they look exhausted. That's better than nothing.

His skin burns against icy hot yours. Sweat starts to replace the rain. He needs to sleep, but he needs to properly warm up first.

You frown, "Jay, you should take a shower. You'll catch a cold."

He tightens his grip on you, not eager to let you go. You tuck your hand under his jaw, "I'll come with you."

This is a good enough promise to sway him. He nods, reluctantly pulling away from you. You slip off the bed, then shyly grab his hand. He intertwines his fingers with your own and follows you into the bathroom. It hits you that this is the first time you've held hands. Under better circumstances, it would feel nice.

You eye him up and down, taking in the damage under the bright bathroom fluorescents. His cheeks are flushed and newly decorated with tear streaks, but otherwise, he really doesn't look hurt. Just incredibly lost. Like he's not quite sure where he is. Green irises burn holes in you, golden flecks incinerating your skin, as if he's trying to figure out if you're real. The gaze is so intense, you have to look away for a minute. You conveniently make note of how funny of his scuffed up black boots look compared to your pedicured toes, bare against the checkered tiles.

He needs to get out of his wet clothes.

Sliding your hands under the shoulders of his sleeveless hoodie, you ask, "Can I undress you?"

He blinks. You hold your breath, praying you didn't just trigger something else. Then, wordlessly, he nods. You let out the breath as inconspicuous as you can and make quick work of the damp hoodie. His shirt follows. All scars, bruises and beauty marks look present and accounted for. Nothing new in the inventory.

It's when you tug his gloves off that you finally locate any kind of laceration. Pebble-like imprints litter his palms; he must've been clutching something concrete like a stress ball for hours. He hadn't bothered with his usual red wrist wraps either, another sign he'd left in a hurry.

You don't pry, however. Instead, you kiss his reddened palms. Then, as your father taught you to do, you turn his still trembling hands over in your steady ones and kiss each knuckle gently. Unlike his forehead, his skin here is frozen until warmed by your loving lips.

Something about this interaction seems to ground the man a little more. You kneel to untie a beat-up boot, reminiscing about how your father used to let you take his loafers off for him when you were little. However, you've only managed to undo the other knot when Jason stops you.

"I can get the rest."

You're thrilled to hear him speak and nearly pop a kiss on his lips like it's a gold star before thinking better of it. You leave him to it, redirecting your focus on turning the shower on and picking out two fresh towels.

When at last he's naked, you make to shed your own minimal clothing. However, Jason stops you yet again, with time with an unsure hand on your bicep. He takes a moment to simply examine you once more in the good lighting, this time letting his eyes wander from your face. A hint of adoration crosses his drained features as his gaze combs your body, lingering on the curves and swells highlighted in baby pink.

Jason's index hooks around the thin strap of your slip. His thumb skims along the satin material before caressing your collarbone. It's a classic Jason move, but now it feels more akin to the way a child might grip a blanket.

"...Can I?" It's the shyest you've ever heard him speak. You nod and he brushes either strap off your shoulders, watching as the item pools at your feet. You give him a moment to admire the matching pink thong underneath before it joins the fabric puddle on the floor.

The shower is quiet, save for the dulcet sound of the running faucet. Jason winces when the hot water stings his frigid skin, however you can physically see the tension in his muscles melt away. His shoulders are much more relaxed beneath your washcloth, the rise and fall of his chest is becoming less stagnant. You take turns washing each other, like it's some kind of game. You touch him tenderly, still gauging for any kind of pain. He touches you with an intent that doesn't meet his drained eyes, still just gauging you.

When the silence is broken after who knows how long, it's by Jason.

"I don't deserve you."

His voice cracks like a 15-year-old.

"Don't talk like that," you chastise. He doesn't elaborate as his hand continues to rub body scrub along your back. You turn to him, both of your hands finding his face and holding it in place, the way he loves to do to you. "Don't talk like that."

You don't know what else to say. Neither of you are wordsmiths. You're afraid if you try to keep him talking, he'll just be self-effacing. You don't think you could handle hearing him talk about himself that way, not with him being as stubborn as he is. So you press a soft kiss to his lips. It isn't long, it doesn't invite more, but when you pull away, there's more green in his eyes. He envelopes you into his chest and holds you there. You return the embrace without hesitation, arms sliding around his waist while water taps the tops of your heads. You think you could stay like this forever; wrapped in each other's arms under the sanctuary of warm water, as the sound of his heart beat lulls you somewhere far away from the world outside the fogged up glass.

You do stay like that until the shower runs treacherously cold. Until one of you has to shut the faucet off, until the other is swathing each of you in fluffy wine colored towels. It's just a series of tasks you wordlessly complete so you can earn the reward of collapsing into bed, just dry enough to avoid waking up to a still damp pillow. You're both too tired to be bothered with pajamas. You aren't sure you're so wiped. Maybe you're just desperate to hold your lover again. He seems to feel the same way as he wastes no time reaching for your waist once the comforter is pulled up.

He slides down to kiss your shoulder and appreciate the warm scent of your body scrub. Much to your surprise, his head stays there. Even more to your surprise, you find it's because his eyes have fluttered shut. Jason never beats you to sleep, even at his most tired. But the relaxed weight of his body on your tells you he's winning this round.

You stroke the nape of his neck, grazing your fingernails through the tapered patch of hair. You'd been so focused on everything else that hadn't even noticed he'd gotten the haircut you'd asked him to. The request had been a joke really, something snarky to remark when he'd said something too nice about your appearance. It looked good, even from this angle. He must've just gotten it today. He must've gotten it for you.

Not everything's about you.

You try to push the thought out of your head as you admire the way Jason's cheek is smushed against your chest. If you lingered on it, you'd just started ragging on yourself, making it even more about. Earlier tonight had been the first time may be ever that someone with the last name Sionis had dared to consider something might not be about them. But what, did you want a cookie or something? A key to the city for your basic empathy?

Jason's earth rattling snore yanks you from your tailspin. You giggle quietly, no wonder he waits to fall asleep second. Your fingers resume wandering their course through his hair and a tremor runs down his back. He lets out a satisfied snort, his red lips parting. With a deep breath, he nuzzles into you. His usually hardened face is the softest you've ever seen it. Even the scars seem to fade. It's the complete opposite of the stony picture you woke up to. Despite the circumstances, you wouldn't trade the world for the sight before you.

You smile drowsily, ready to follow his lead and doze off when your phone vibrates rudely on the bed stand. You swear mentally, first at yourself for jerking so suddenly, then at whoever the fuck just had to send you a notification right this very second. A string of potential threats crosses your mind as you clumsily reach for the phone, gritting your teeth at the awkward way you bend your arm. It isn't easy to reach when a 225 pound man is slumbering (thankfully) unperturbed on top of you.

It takes you a few seconds to recall how to read as you glare blearily at the too bright screen. Your eyebrows knit when a message from an unknown number at last comes into view.

'Is he okay?'

You inwardly rescind your threats. It doesn't take a genius detective to deduce the identity of the sender.

'He's okay. He's sleeping now.'

The reply is instant.

'That's good. Moderate case of fear toxin, it should wear off all together by the morning.'

Ah, that will do it. You frown at Jason. A sick feeling creeps in at the thought of how terrified he must've been. That's why he seemed so unsure of you; you weren't the only thing he was seeing. Your poor baby.

When you glance back at your phone, there's another text.

'Are you okay?'

You blink.

'Yes, thank you. We're all fine here.'

There is one more response before you shut off the phone.

'I'll check in in the morning. I'm glad he's with you. Get some sleep.'

You're glad he's with you too. You're glad he came to find you. You're glad he wanted your comfort.

You're glad you would do anything for this stupid boy.

Jason sighs into your now dry skin. For just this moment, he knows nothing but peace. You'll fight off anything else.

Finally, you succumb to your exhaustion, knowing better than to disobey the Bat. The last thought you have is how warm Jason is wrapped safely in your arms before dreams of his shit eating grin take over.

#jason todd needs a hug #and who am i to deny him #i'll write something happy soon i promise #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #jason todd x you #red hood x you #jason todd angst #jason todd #red hood #sionis!reader #jason todd x sionis!reader #kenobers poetics #also yes you keep body scrub in jason's shower

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