#yes people who don't want to transition are still trans

[velvetvexations]

musing on the "you don't have to get gross hormones or surgeries to be trans :)" form of transphobia, you're right that it's extremely not a christofascist thing, but funnily enough, while i've seen it a little in liberal parents, i've seen it much more commonly that transphobic parents are conservative and simply don't accept trans people as our actual genders, period, no matter what. plus, liberal parents who have transphobic tendencies tend to go more for "wait until you're 18 to make irreversible decisions" rhetoric. where i've actually seen the phenomenon the *most* is lesbian partners of transmasculine people coercing them into not using testosterone because it would make them "gross" and "unattractive" and "you can just be a nonbinary lesbian or a trans man without trying to look like a cis man," usually with the addition of "i wouldn't want to date you anymore if you looked like a man."

which i also think makes those posts we're talking about even more disingenuous. those posts often focus myopically on transfemininity and don't even mention that transmascs are a primary target of this kind of transphobia. it's very disingenuous because the phenomenon is specifically rooted in the idea that testosterone is "ruining your body," and trans people who use testosterone are "taking poison." the idea is much less common about estrogen, and discouraging trans people from taking estrogen while still encouraging them to identify openly as trans isn't really as much of a thing--i can say this from experience. it happens sometimes, but usually it's "you shouldn't be trans at all, you have such an attractive body and it'd look so ugly if you grew boobs," without even a hint of "you can still be a trans woman, i'll call you she/her and everything" added on.

and finally: these posts started cropping up right after i started seeing a lot of positivity for trans men who transition while keeping their boobs, trans women who transition without voice training or shaving, and nonbinary people of all genders whose appearance combine a lot of different sex traits and look "visibly trans" as their actual transition goals. it's really hard to not view them as a reaction to that positivity phenomenon, because i really do not see the things they're claiming to refer to happening.

Yes to both of these! It's so obviously just people who have a major issue with other trans people that are GNC.

[momett]

i think too many people on the trans discourse side of this site forgot the tucute vs. truscum debate and how it's a bad thing to use someones willingness/desire/capability for transition as a yardstick for whether or not they're "really trans"

[uncanny-tranny]

Social transition being seen (by some) as this super easy thing that isn't as hard as real transitioning (medical) is bullshit. Be critical of the idea that there are some trans people who just "have it easy" because they are trans or because they are trans in ways you may not be.

Social transition is just as difficult, hard, and rewarding as medical transition. Maybe it is not as hard for some, sure, but that is not the same as thinking that social transition is inherently easier or lesser. If you're socially transitioning, your voice still matters.

[ugly-anarchist]

I don't think you're a trans ally until you accept trans people who don't want to transition. And I don't just mean medically.

I mean trans men who look indistinguishable from cis women and trans women who look indistinguishable from cis men and they're happy like that. Who have no intention of changing their style, presentation, or even pronouns.

Some women don't look like the stereotypical idea of "woman" and it's the same for men. But they're still men and women. I need you to understand that gender has no bearing on appearance and people's comfort in their own bodies is more important than the fictional idea of what manhood and womanhood looks like.

And, yes, some people can't transition due to disability or funds or whatever and they're included in this, yes. But you need to accept people who don't want to either. Who willingly make the choice to not transition in any way because that's how they're the most comfortable.

A trans person who doesn't transition is just as much their gender as anyone else of that same gender. Please get that through your head.

To any trans men who don't want to transition or change their appearance in any way: You're a man. You've always been a man. You will always be a man.

To any trans women who don't want to transition or change their appearance in any way: You're a woman. You've always been a woman. You will always be a woman.

The way your body looks doesn't matter in the slightest, your gender is real and legitimate and valid regardless of any other factors.

[euniexenoblade]

tl;dr version: a very frequent and more recent flavor of trans exclusionism, transmisogyny, and transphobia at large has started to bubble up as an overpowering, overwhelming (and fake) acceptance of gnc cis people.

The actual long version:

Trans people, especially trans women, when they want to come out or explore their gender are often met with loved ones, family, or friends telling them "you can just be gnc, you don't know you're actually trans, men can be feminine, you should try that before scary life changes" we often talk about how this is a move by abusive, transmisogynistic people in our lives, who pretend to to care about gnc people, but in reality it's just transphobia manifesting as a false support. They often manipulate trans people into not pursuing transition and then lay on all the manipulation to convince us we were so silly to think we're trans afterwards.

Though there's a lot of people who still see it as honest support for the gnc, most of us are pretty clear that it's transphobic. But, another way this takes form is from other trans people, there are a lot of trans people with internalized transphobia who only view the existence negatively and when you talk about people potentially being trans, you activate their rapid internalized self hate: how can you say that? You can't know someone else's gender! You're forcing them to be trans! Men can be gnc! You're actually the transphobic one!

You also see it take form as things like "egg prime directive." "You can't tell the egg they might be trans!!!" Yes, you can. And you probably should. Trans people are not some mythical once in a blue moon thing. We are everywhere. There's lots of us. Being trans is not a bad thing, it's simply just a thing. Acting like you can't tell people they're trans is treating trans people like we're dirty secrets, a thing to be ashamed of, you're treating it like an insult. The truth of the matter is, telling someone they're exhibiting things associated with trans people can help speed up the process, less dysphoria to agonize over, less confusion as to what's going on, you can help kickstart a path to happiness.

But these people don't. Cuz they don't *want* people to be trans, and very specifically don't want people to be transfem. I don't need to get into the polls that showed most transmascs think telling a friend they might be a trans woman is morally wrong, you've seen it already. I don't need to tell you about how a transfem mentioned a specific person in the media seemed transfem, just for people to harass them (idk pronouns) off the site, just for people to confirm that yes - the individual in the news was likely transfem. And with that realization didn't come an apology, didnt come a new understanding, the trans and "pro trans" harassers stuck to their guns "recognizing transhood in others the way you see it in yourself is the same as transvestigation, the right wing transphobic conspiracy theory!"

This topic has been talked about a lot this past year, with the egg joke discourse, people getting harassed and ran off the site for correctly mentioning someone seems transfem, the constant harassment and blog deletion of trans women, the onslaught of harassment from the transandrodorks and terfs, etc etc. but I feel like it never gets correctly classified as a form of exclusionism. We easily recognize truscum exclusionism as what it is: "youre nb? You don't try to pass? You don't shave? Lol fake trans" it's the blue hair with pronouns schtick. It's gatekeeping the community. But, in the same respect, the "you can't just say people are trans" "it's ok to be gnc!" anti egg joke types of people are just as exclusionary. One end it's "you aren't a true transexual" and the other is "be gnc instead, being trans is a bad thing."

It's the projection of internalized transphobia into a policy. You can't tell anyone they're trans because you don't see trans people as anyone, you see them as weird monsters. That's a really depressing form of exclusion, but exclusion all the same.

[teaboot]

Do you think that cis men feel the same way as trans men do? Like with how men get treated by society as being inherently evil and as predators?

I think maybe both cis and trans men experience these issues but it's easier for a trans guy to point it out because he gets to see people so quickly turn on him for being a man while transitioning

oh yeah definitely

I find "meninists" fucking obnoxious, especially as any of their VALID concerns fall under the bracket of feminism, but there does exist a presence of radfems and terfs that are scarily eager to lash out at anything resembling masculine that. Definitely needs to be addressed somehow

Like. There's a mile of middle ground between "Um yeah women have problems, whatever, but what about ME and MY FEELINGS 😢" and "I am genuinely trying my best to be thoughtful and considerate of others, and everything I do is being met with bad-faith interpretations and dismissal"

And I think the best advice I have for anyone else getting bogged down by this is that. like.

If someone is determined to see the worst in you, nothing you can do to prove otherwise will be enough. You will never change that person's mind. They don't want you to change their mind. So like... just focus on you, and keep doing your best, and learn, and know that people determined to find something nasty don't really have an issue with YOU- they have their own experiences and traumas coloring their worldview.

Someone who is determined to see you as a monster will only ever see a monster. So it's better to ask yourself, "would a monster do what I'm doing?". If the answer is yes, take steps to change that. If the answer is no, then it's not about you, and you can give yourself permission to move on.

So... yeah, I imagine cis men probably do feel the way I feel about this sorta thing sometimes.

Except, like. After a lifetime being a girl, living as a girl, fighting for equality as the only girl in a lot of men's spaces, being a feminist girl and an Eldest Daughter girl and calling out the bullshit only to later realize I'm not a girl... and that Im actually mostly a dude, still a feminist... at least when people call me a mysoginist, I know they're talking out their ass

I can kinda see where young men encounter their very first radfems calling themselves feminists and immediately become radicalized right-wing conservatives cause like. If I as a teen thought feminism meant Radfems and Terfs, I'd probably start running too

It's all just so exhausting

Any one group being wholesale grouped as "100% helpless gentle victim" or "100% selfish malevolent monster" is doomed, imo

(Now watch the notes blow up with "this is just 'not all men' rhetoric, lol)

But anyways I hate nuance I hate interpretation I hate implication and symbolism and context and I wish everything in the world was simpler so we could all blow a collective joint together and invent some new soups

[lgbtlunaverse]

Considering wwx's canonical breeding kink and his general fondness for dubiously safe scientific experiments it is technically within the realm of possibility that a few years post-canon he just invents cultivation hrt and transition surgery by accident.

He just rocks up to a cultivation conference one day 5 months pregnant like "I turned my body into that of a woman! Yeah the boobs too we travel a lot and don't want a wetnurse. I'll reverse it in two years or so." And every single trans person and egg in the culivation world simultaneously sits up and goes "wait what?"

Imperical to understand that wwx still fully identifies as a cis man and does not know trans people exist. He did not know he was gay while actively being in gay love, this man is very smart but he doesn't know shit. Just a few weeks after the conference people start coming over like "hey... that thing you did... can you do that to me?" and he's like damn sure are a lot of dudes who wanna get pregnant. One day a "female" cultivator comes and is like "so you said you're going to reverse it... you think you can do that on a body that's already female? Turn my body into a man's body?" And he just goes well probably, let's find out!! It's so great all these people wanna help him perfect his techniques, isn't it lan zhan?

Years later they run into one of the trans women he first helped and doesn't even recognise her as she's thanking him and after the clarification just goes "wow! haha damn you're even wearing women's clothes! Should I start calling you guniang?" sort of as a joke but she's like yes please and he just says alright nice to see you again ma'am (still doesn't get it)

[gin-juice-tonic]

As long as I'm still in this weird mood, there's a post I saw going around on this site a bit back that I'm not going to actually quote, because I think it sucks and is bad

But if you don't respect trans people who do not transition medically, if you don't acknowledge the pressures they face as a trans person to transition, if you think they have it easier, you deserve a kick square up your ass

And yes I did say pressure to medically transition. Yes its true cis people often pressure trans people to not transition, and currently the government is working on more and more laws to prevent us from doing so. But that's because they don't want us to be trans at all. They do not want trans people to exist, end of sentence.

Someone who steps forward and says "I'm transgender still, but not in the way people generally think of" is still going to catch a wave of shit from cis people, because they're still trans. With the added bonus of being something cis people aren't used to, which means their identity gets called into question constantly.

This is just the US, but:

States in light orange are those where proof of reassignment surgery is required to change the gender on your driver's license. A legal bar pushing trans people towards transitioning.

Even without legal obstacles though, I know plenty of trans people who lamented how they were not able to be taken seriously before they were able to get on hormones, or before they were able to pass. Even how it put them in danger.

It should not be hard to connect the dots then, that medical transition often feels like a requirement for trans people to live their lives, and that people who do not go through with it have a rough road ahead of them

They don't need an added wave of shit from other trans people who are supposed to be by their side.

[befemininenow]

My coming out as a trans lesbian. (A message to my followers.)

Yes, everyone. I am "gay", or should I say, I'm a lesbian.

This may come as a shock to some of you since I would talk about "hot men" and even make captions about attracting hunks and whatnot. If you notice an absurd amount of those kind of captions surfacing this past week until now, that's because I was dealing with comphet, short for compulsive heterosexuality. In reality, I do not like men nor am I attracted to masculinity.

Why until now? One, it’s because I wanted to wait for the right time to come out and it was coincidentally on Lesbian Visibility Day. Two, it’s something I've been questioning ever since I found out I was trans. This didn’t happen in a day or two. It’s been years and I would have thought I was just pansexual. However, I was not sure whether I genuinely liked boys or if I just liked their validation. It turns out it's only the latter and I was questioning whether I was really gay or just gynosexual. I admit that getting positive reception from them turned me on and I could see the kindness and affection they displayed towards other women (something that really made me euphoric). But the moment you would place me next them for more, say, intimacy (I'm trying to keep it PG), I felt that spark turn off. Don't even get me started when they're bare or worse, send me D-picks (it's so nasty).

Now, I've never did any of that IRL. But, I've tried to interact with them through social sites. Not just in Tumblr, but in other sites like Grindr. If you ever think of creating a Grindr to meet, don't bother. It's hot garbage! All of them were chasers and not a single one was attractive. Only one "guy" seemed to be "cute"; it was a femboy, who was commencing their transition into a woman. Those were the only men I thought I was attracted to, but the reality is: I was only attracted to their femininity, but not their body or intimacy. Femboys are still men and I'm not attracted to men.

That got me questioning: Am I really only liking people for their femininity or do I genuinely only like girls? To make a long story short, I've never felt so much better than imagining myself being the lovely girl... of another girl! I always loved women as a guy, but now that I'm about to transition, being into women as a girl feels so right for me! No more comphet for me!

I know this is not the norm on these kind of blogs as the majority tend to be attracted to masculinity. However, I do want to say that even trans lesbians exist on the feminization scene. That leads me to tell all of you for the next update: You won't be seeing anymore new straight trans girl captions after the first few days of the next month. That's why you saw those kind of captions bombard my blog these past few days. It's just my way of saying "Let me just get it done with". I'm actually glad you enjoyed them, but I just don't feel any connection to those kind of captions anymore. I'll try to upload them when I can since I've been busier than usual.

Anyways, I'm happy you read this very long post. Even if you're not a lesbian, I hope this note at least gives you an insight on not keeping your true feelings locked any longer. Everyone deserves to be themselves. You should too.

Sincerely, Nikki.

[my-castles-crumbling]

I am sorry to be a burden,

..

I don't want to come out anymore, I don't want to have surgery anymore, I am scared, and being a girl will only make my life harder, but, I need someone to ask and, my family hates lgbt...

Am I a girl if I didn't pass? If I look like a boy still? I am sorry, I am sorry but I just want to know, if everyone uses he/him still, do I still count as a woman?

YES

I need all of the trans, queer, lgbtqia+ people to read this and be very clear:

Whether or not you are accepted, whether or not you are able to be loud about who you are, whether or not you feel safe transitioning or coming out: your identity is true and valid. Nobody can take your identity from you, even if they physically force you into the damn closet, and you need to remember that you are perfect exactly as you are.

It absolutely is infuriating to have a country that is against your identity. But don’t let anyone take your actual identity away from you. You are so valid, no matter what some dickhead in power says, and I love you and am so proud of you.

[molsno]

I don't think there's enough discussion of the transmisogynistic voyeurism that's extremely widespread in online spaces. it's definitely a problem offline too but it's become significantly more pervasive and inescapable online.

transmisogynistic voyeurism is an obsession with trans women's internal lives. while traditionally it's usually been focused on our bodies, hormones, sexualities, transitions, and other such aspects that portray us as exotic, artificial, hypersexual mimics of "real" women (this is still largely the case among conservatives), it's taken on a new form in the past several years as society's understanding of transness has slowly improved.

in more recent years, the fascination with trans women and transfemininity, particularly in purportedly progressive spaces, has shifted to focus on the "artificiality" of our womanhood from a sociocultural perspective, rather than from a biological and sexual perspective.

it's become common to see screenshots from 4chan and other similar communities of trans women or transfem eggs posting about their unusual kinks, often with racist or antisemitic undertones. screenshots of ostensibly closeted trans women being transphobic to openly trans people have become commonplace. whenever a trans woman is revealed to be racist or a sexual predator, she becomes the new topic du jour, where everyone has to weigh in and publicly disavow her actions.

you might be thinking, what's the problem with this? after all, shouldn't we be holding racists, antisemites, transphobes, and sexual predators accountable? and while the answer to that question is an unambiguous, resounding "yes!", the problem here is the unusual focus on trans women in particular, and the fact that what's happening doesn't even remotely resemble accountability.

bigotry is not a uniquely transfeminine trait. anyone can be a bigot. however, by and large, even supposed trans allies, people who put "trans women are women" and "terfs dni" in their bio, still secretly see trans women as fundamentally male, due to having been "male socialized" (a notion which very strongly contradicts our own lived experiences). thus, when they see post after post after post of trans women being bigoted, it reifies tme people's beliefs that we are all holders of male privilege who have never had to face oppression before coming out as trans.

this idea is problematic for a number of reasons. first, it denies the experiences of trans women who have been oppressed by other systems before coming out as trans. for example, multiple times in just the past few weeks, I've seen trans women of color accused of being racist, even against people of their own race; as if having to face racism all their lives wasn't bad enough, now they're assumed to be perpetrators of it. however, this idea also ignores the very real effect that transmisogyny has had in shaping our lives, even when we didn't know we were trans ourselves.

when we attempt to talk about this topic - the perception that tme people have of trans women being uniquely bigoted, we are by and large brushed off as seeking to "excuse the actions" of bigoted trans women so that we can be bigoted ourselves. this abject refusal to actually engage with what we are saying to instead paint us as the very people we're constantly made to publicly disavow lest we face social ostracization (even if we have no idea who said people even are) further reifies the stereotype of us as privileged men.

I want you to imagine for a moment if trans men were subjected to this kind of voyeurism instead. on an average day scrolling through tumblr, you'd see a post of a trans man's nsfw blog where he shares posts about how rape should be legal, right alongside his bloodplay and cannibalism kink posts, accusing trans men of normalizing rape and murder. another post would show a screenshot of the trans guy who proclaimed to have been hitler in a past life, accompanied by comments demanding trans men take responsibility by purging their community of people like him. you'd scroll down a little further and see a screenshot of a terf blog with "dysphoric female" in bio where they complain about how a trans man they know has been brainwashed by "gender ideology" with all of the comments hoping they figure out their gender identity but still vehemently disavowing them and asserting they would feel unsafe around such a person even after coming out.

the reason that doesn't happen is because biological essentialism runs rampant even in queer spaces. trans men, who were afab, are often presumed to be incapable of harm due to having been "female socialized". trans men don't have their kinks publicly shared to paint them as dangerous because they're generally assumed to be victims of sexual violence, not perpetrators. trans men aren't collectively held accountable for the actions of one trans man they don't even know because a trans man doing harm is believed to be an anomaly, and thus can be dealt with on an individual basis. that last example is especially laughable, because trans men who were formerly terfs are often lauded as heroes for sharing their stories and offered condolences for having been victims of "cult brainwashing".

the fact that this kind of voyeurism does happen to trans women is because, having been amab, we are presumed to be the perpetrators of harm rather than victims. that's not to say that trans women can't be bigoted or dangerous; clearly they can, or else this kind of voyeurism couldn't exist in the first place.

trans women can be racist, trans women can be antisemitic, trans women can be transphobic, trans women can be sexual predators, and so on. these things are all true. however, they are not more likely to be true of trans women than of other demographics. that's the point I'm trying to make here.

stop and consider for a moment, what accountability actually means. are racist, antisemitic trans women being held accountable when you share screenshots of the bigotry they post anonymously on 4chan? does that screenshot you reblogged of an assumed transfem egg being transphobic to an out trans person hold them responsible for their transphobia? is that racist trans woman who's a convicted sexual predator sentenced to prison being held accountable when you share detailed documentaries about her crimes? are they facing consequences for their actions because of you raising awareness about them?

in the vast majority of cases, the answer is no. what's really happening is that you're raising outrage about trans women, and demanding that all of us publicly disavow and distance ourselves from them, even when we have no idea who they are, so that you won't come after us next. you're upholding the idea that trans women hold a "male privilege debt" that we can never fully repay but must endlessly strive to repay regardless. this obsession with our perceived socially male traits has got to stop.

[theabigailthorn]

Hi Abby! I have a question I’ve been wondering for a while, and I really hope it’s okay to ask. I’ve been a little worried about it because, idk…it’s a tough topic, and I know a lot of trans people get a bunch of bullshit flack, and I don’t want to accidentally contribute to that. That being said— do you miss anything from before you transitioned?

I’m definitely some flavor of trans, but idk what exactly 😅 and you’ve been a major hopeful figure to me. I just can’t help but wonder…is it…worth it? So many people say it is. But I’m so scared. I don’t want to lose my family or their love, even if it’s conditional. And sometimes I’m scared that I’ll miss aspects of myself as who I am now. So I wanted to ask you, because I look up to you and respect you a lot!

Sorry that this ask is a mess, I’m kind of all over the place. And obviously you don’t have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable or if these are shitty questions to ask. However! If you’re comfortable, I’d love to know your thoughts. Thank you so much for all you do — it’s more than you know.

In my experience yes it's absolutely worth it because the alternative for me was dying, so it'd have to be pretty rotten not to be worth it! But in addition to that quite grim baseline, yes I think it's the best thing I've ever done. It's allowed me to experience so much more of the variety and wonder of being a person in a way that I couldn't have imagined when I was in the closet - it's made me more intelligent, more moral, more compassionate, and closer to the people I love than ever before. There are challenges that come with it, sometimes huge challenges - especially in this time of transphobic backlash - but if you gave me a magic wish I really don't think I'd choose to have been born cis. In terms of worrying you'll miss aspects of yourself, I had that worry too - I discussed it with Mia Mulder when my egg was cracking and she said, "You will change, but you keep the good bits."

At the same time, it's important to be realistic: transition won't solve your problems and there are no consequence-free transitions. I was lucky in that there was only one person in my old life who couldn't accept me post-transition, but it was someone I loved very much and it still hurts a little - I still hope that one day we might find a way to be friends again. Transition also comes with tradeoffs and compromises, much like life!

[whatdoinose]

Hey, I know your whole take on take on transadrophobia, so I have to ask

You know that lot's of trans men are in spaces where they are perceived as men, and some of them are even perceived as men by MOST people they met, and that's what they want to happen

Don't you think these men will experience the privilege of being a man?

do you think non-out trans women experience male privelege?

like yes you can get a happy accident of being precieved as something by someone, but systematically you will still be oppressed. through social means the moment you are out or suspected in any way you are in danger. there is no transitioning to privelege, it doesn't work like that. you can be stealth and pretend to be that way but thats as protective of you as someone who chooses not to come out for safety. like yea theyre not PRECIEVED as trans, but the bigotry still hurts.

i think regardless of your presentation, if you are trans both transphobia and specifically targeted transphobia will affect you. additionally, did they not live those years of their lives without that? like in a perfect world where trans people culd go entirely stealth even in settings where you interact with the medical system or institutions that have your government shit inherently, did they not experience all thats shit before they went stealth?

additionally, regardless of situation the demonization of masculinity in trans communities harms all trans people. especially if theyre of a darker skin colour. it is taking away community from queer folk who SHARE EXPERIENCES WITH YOU!

[i-like-forcefem]

Minors look away!!! This is a somewhat horny blog!!! The name tells ya all that you need to know!

But more details under the cut

But if you insist: I’m an 18 year old Aro/Ace gal who wants to make some casual posts and maybe have some kinky fun

Go to our alt @i-like-extreme-forcefem if you want more horny stuff! This blog is generally about trans positivity

asks are lovely and encouraged! BUT please stay on topic! I'd love to help crack some eggs! I'd to hear some fun forcefem or transition stories! Light hearted kink and gender advice! BUT I won't be a crutch for your mental health! I'm still 18! I got my own life to worry about! (My friend made me copy paste this in here, sorry cuties! There's other places if you need help! I suggest the "The Orchard" discord! It's filled with nice folks who not only want to help, but can help well!) (oh and I won't respond to all asks! I'll read them! But I sometimes I feel bad about spamming my dear followers dash board with responses, so if I don't think I can play of your ask it might be deleted! Sorry! Do still send it! Each one has made me smile even if I didn’t have a post)

DMs are open! But I’m sadly quite bad at responding to them, and unless you’re also from the Netherlands (I’d love to do irl stuff one time…) there’s sadly just too many girls here for me to forcefem everyone! Feel free to shoot your shot but i might not respond!!!

Know at least that I never find any DMs annoying! Same as asks they put a smile on my face even if I’m sadly too busy to answer (I’m down for everything from: talking about what you love about forcefem, to talking about gender, to giving you board game recommendations! (Assuming I read your dm when I’ve got time to respond!) (also nothing wronged with shooting multiple shots!!!)

Tags: I tag everything! they should be mostly self explanatory and pop up as you start searching in the blog, though I'll explain some just to be sure it's clear: i-like-talking: Original posts Gentle: if you want someone to take you by the hand, tell you it's all going to be okay, and feed you some estrogen, that's the vibes I tag this with! Force: If you want someone to lock you in the basement, deprive you of food until you put on a maid dress and explain how you're a little maid, always have been and want nothing more then to serve your new master, this tag is for you (These are normally tagged like #Force #Gentle #Forcefem, oh and there are posts that have both Force and Gentle! They're quite fun!)

Oh and I always remain the right to block people! I don’t really use it, but ye I might block you!

Alright that’s all cuties! Have fun exploring the blog :

(Banner by: @not3catsinatrenchcoat, check her out!)

[demilypyro]

Okay since this doesn't seem to want to go away here's me addressing every single "allegation" that I've heard about. I hope to have at least given a good explanation where the horrible things being said about me came from, and why I consider them either just totally not true or badly misconstrued. Some of my friends have recommended I don't say anything at all, but I've always preferred openness and honesty, so I hope that's appreciated.

I understand that some people will still dislike me even though the things being said about me are not true. That's fine. I don't need everyone to like me, but it's when I'm being consistently harassed and lied about that it interferes with my mental health and ability to work. So I'm gonna try and end things with this.

"She's racist"

From what I can tell this is about one time when I said I keep my interest in anime to myself around new people. I do this because showing you're a Huge Fucking Nerd right off the bat can make a bad impression. I could have said the same thing about Star Trek or comic books, I just happened to be talking about anime in that moment. Someone seems to have misconstrued this as me finding Japanese culture something shameful and lesser than other cultures?... Which I would call a total willful misinterpretation. The rest of this seems to stem just from being Dutch, because the Netherlands is a country that has a problem with xenophobia. This is true, but uhhh I'm mixed myself so I'm pretty well aware of that, and I obviously don't support our infamous "blackface holiday." Just because I live here doesn't mean I agree with everything this country does, be that historically or in the modern day.

"She's friends with racists/misogynists/transphobes"

The only thing I can guess this is about is when I was mutuals with a user called porko-rosso at least 5 years ago and didn't really believe it when people told me they were a bigot. I haven't interacted with this user in over 4 years but people still claim we're like best friends, which was never true in the first place, we just knew a lot of the same people. Most of the resentment from the people who repeatedly spread these rumours about me seems to have started here. So for the record: no, I am not friends with any racists, misogynists or transphobes.

"She thinks she's better than other trans women because she passes better"

This is just not true. This idea seems to pop up just whenever I post about enjoying the benefits of HRT or surgery, but most recently this was misconstrued from a post where I said being trans is about being yourself as much as possible. Since this was in response to someone saying that me trying to pass is "erasing my identity", people thought I meant trying to pass is the same as being good at being trans, which was not what I meant, but some people didn't seem to want to believe me when I clarified. My apologies for the misunderstanding I guess, but that's all it was. So no, I do not hate people who don't pass as well as I do, nor do I think all trans people should be transitioning medically, and I resent the implication.

"She has a secret discord server where she makes fun of pictures of other trans women and calls them slurs"

I had absolutely no clue what this was about when I first heard it. I was sent screenshots that supposedly prove this but all they show is me being rude about someone's appearance one time in january of 2022. I actually thought these were faked because I don't remember this happening and the things said confused me, but one of my friends says she found it was in her server, where she had showed a picture of someone and asked everyone present (mostly other trans women) if they were hot. Apparently I did not think they were hot. So yes, I did insult someone's appearance back in january 2022, but it was an isolated incident. Frankly even I find my remarks in these screenshots distasteful, I don't know what I was on when I wrote that stuff. I'm sorry to that person specifically. What I said has weighed heavily on me and I apologize for it. It's not something I approve of, and don't intend to repeat that mistake. Still, to say it means I hate trans women and I love to make fun of them in my secret discord server and call them slurs is just... a super-villain level of exaggeration. I didn't even know about the word that was named as an example. It's not true.

"She's often rude"

I can't deny this one. Autism gonna autism. I've seen many therapists, doctors, experts, what have you, to try and help me with this, but it seems my particular brand of autistic in combination with the cultural differences between mine and other countries just really often ends with my foot in my mouth when I speak English. I apologize! I have never meant to personally offend anyone. It just keeps happening and I can't stop it from happening.

If after reading all this, you still consider me bad enough to hate my guts, I can't stop you, but I wanted to have at least had my say. I swear that everything in this post is the honest truth as I understand it, and that I've never acted with purposeful malicious intent.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/768756274786631680/what-are-some-less-gendered-ways-of-talking-about?source=share you didn't answer this ask, but i (not anon) kind of wish you had because i know you've talked before about the broad patterns you've noticed in terms of communication among AMAB vs. AFAB people, regardless of their actual genders. and i was wondering if you had suggestions in general for how one can talk about that and other gendered-socialization broad patterns (not universal - i'm a cis woman who had a more "male" socialization in some ways along some of these parameters, just bc of who my parents were, and obviously gendered socialization varies a lot from culture to culture) without suggesting that trans women aren't women or trans men aren't men. i get that terfs have completely poisoned the discourse by using socialization to suggest that trans women lack some Essential Universal Female Experience (TM), but i feel like someone should be able to talk about how socialization affects people without using it to invalidate their identity. and before people point out that a lot of trans people don't have a typical AAB gender socialization because they always know that they're their true gender - yes, i know that. but plenty of trans people don't know they're trans until later in life, too. that's not a universal. nothing about socialization is a universal, but there are broad patterns. it also requires you to consciously recognize particular aspects of your socialization as "male" or "female." i have a lot of trans female friends who have talked about how certain ways they talked and acted that they never even registered as "female" were things they were rewarded for pre-transition and punished for after. also, it just feels like denying reality to ignore that some trans people continue to act in patterns that correspond to assigned-at-birth gender socialization even when they figure out their identity, especially early in transition. it's not like the realization comes with a magic pamphlet. i feel like most people who've had sufficient trans friends have noticed that some newly out trans women are still a bit mansplainy toward other women (both cis and trans), for instance. and i've noticed in spaces that are heavily AFAB, there's a big premium put on communicating with extra attention to everyone's emotions and a tendency to judge people more harshly for being blunter or more matter-of-fact and not constantly checking in on feelings, and IME there hasn't been any distinction between cis women vs. transmascs in terms of who enforces that the hardest. And as an autistic cis woman who struggles with that stuff, some of my biggest defenders were trans women. to be clear, I don't think that this anon should go around using terms that reference socialization to this trans women they know. but it also just seems weird to act like you don't think that that could've played any factor in why this person's behavior is reminding you of the way cis men have talked down to you!

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I didn't have a good answer for them because when I talk about it, I do put it in terms of AFAB and AMAB.

I think it's far easier to talk about this in generalities than to address a specific friend.

People usually freak out or blow their tops when forced to notice that their behavior patterns resemble those of some group they don't like or don't want to belong to. It's true of trans women upset that they're not fitting in socially due to talking down to people and not understanding a bunch of unspoken social rules about being the feelings babysitter. It's true of ex-fundie types when they're told that their nominally pro-queer but toxic views still stink of the bad flavor of Christianity. It's true of women who think of themselves as feminist but who pull NLTOG crap, nominally pro-trans fans who engage in the fujocourse, US freshman year socialists who wouldn't know socialism if it bit them on the ass, etc.

Nobody likes being told that their stated ideals and/or identity clash with their actual behavior. You can say it in ways that are less "You're a man, hur hur", but it's only going to hurt a little bit less.

True, you can try to address it in complete isolation and just say "When you did X, I felt like you were assuming I'm an idiot instead of wondering if I had already looked up those statistics rather than guessing." (If I had a nickel for every time some dude looked up said statistics and then was shocked, shocked to find out that my "guess" was backed up with data...) That might work for a limited set of specific situations with a friend.

But even with a friend, if the pattern is constant and widespread and highly gendered, it's going to be hard to talk about it without referring to unconscious assumptions that exist in society along gendered lines. Mansplaining is often not really different from autistic nerdsplaining. (Let's be real: every member of every one of my social circles is bad about lecturing.) But a lot of "Why am I not gelling with this group?" stuff really is hard to talk about without this element.

There are also things that a person can easily absorb from the culture around them—like the massive quantities of body hate imposed on women—but there are others that usually come from an active teaching process. A lot of the feelings babysitter stuff is the latter. Learning to constantly monitor and manage the social scene is a pain in the ass, especially for the sorts of nerdy weirdos I know and am. Those hard-won skills didn't come from knowing we were women internally (if we even did think that): they came from family members very actively rewarding and punishing specific behaviors based on perceiving us as women. And because these learning processes are a pain in the ass, people who didn't have that inflicted on them in the past (or who weren't able to learn it back then) often don't go out of their way to conform as adults. That's the piece that I find most often creates drama around who's acting enough ~like a woman~ in some social space. Maybe this would be different if I mostly knew super socially savvy people, but I mostly know awkward nerds.

As you say, female social expectations are not kind to the cis autistic woman either.