tarrodetaro

[tarrodetaro]

nobody really drops anvils that make people have funny birds and stars spin around their head anymore… they should do start doing that again

[tarrodetaro]

[tarrodetaro]

[tarrodetaro]

It is genuinely fascinating how many feminist cis women, including those who are on paper openly supportive of trans people, struggle to actually think about trans men as a concept.

A few months ago I ended up having a very long talk with a friend of a friend. She told me that she'd never really spoken to a trans man before, the only trans people she knew were trans women. There was a point, after the third time I reminded her that I was a man, that she just sorta of slotted me into her mental box of "man", and I could tell that happened because after that point she started trying to explain things to me as if I was a cis man.

I categorically do not "pass" and likely never will. I'm very short, my hips are prominent because I'm fat, I keep my hair long, charitably I could be said to have a baby face, I have D-cups and cannot bind due to spinal problems. To the majority of cis people I do not "look like a man".

But for the rest of the conversation I had with this friend of a friend I had to keep reminding her of how other people are going to view me, because there was no room in her mental idea of "man" for a man who is not treated as one. This was not malicious on her part, she was very nice to me, and I believe her when she says she wants to support trans people. I do not think she was lying when she told me how horrified she was to learn about how her trans woman friends were treated.

She said she was envious of me going out alone and how I need to understand that's a facet of male privilege and I asked her to look at me and explain why I'd be any safer. She was shocked to learn that I've been catcalled, been assaulted, that I regularly get spoken down to by cis men, shocked to learn I don't have a single transmasc friend who hasn't. She couldn't understand that I'm going to be treated the same by misogynists as any fat cis woman who doesn't wear makeup. There was no room in her feminism for trans men, because there was no room in her understanding of gender for men who are not cis.

We ended up talking about politics. She told me she was terrified of abortion being banned, and that this would never be a threat if men could get pregnant.

[tarrodetaro]

[tarrodetaro]

Kanzi the hyena gets a watermelon 🍉

[tarrodetaro]

we'll jump off that bridge when we get to it

[tarrodetaro]

Kitty Kitty was begging me to turn the sink on, but I was running so hard on autopilot that I didn't register that she wanted the sink to be Just A Little On, and I ended up turning it on full blast while her head was right under the faucet. Luckily she, like me, only possesses 3 brain cells, so she didn't consider getting upset, and instead just stared at me while purring as her forehead became increasingly drenched and I realized what I had done.

[tarrodetaro]

springtime in the castle gardens

[tarrodetaro]

[tarrodetaro]

was told to straighten my posture and align my heels. i now stand corrected

[tarrodetaro]

No more apologizing for being horny on main. No more horny jail. We’re horny prison abolitionists. No gods, no masters! Wait. Okay maybe a few masters. Alright but no bars will hold us! No whips and chains will — fuck, hang on, let me start again.

[tarrodetaro]

I know that HRT gives you secondary sex characteristics in one direction or another, but we HAVE to stop telling nonbinary people that they “can’t pick and choose.” Of course, you can’t tell your testosterone that you’d rather not grow chest hair, but there are things you can do!

You could go on T so your voice drops and start shaving so you don’t grow a beard. You could start HRT and then stop once you get the permanent changes you like. You can pursue sterilization instead of bottom surgery. You can get top surgery without being on T. You can go on E and work out a bunch to bulk out your muscles. You can pursue laser hair removal or electrolysis to remove unwanted hair, with or without HRT. You could even just start hormones to see if you like it and then stop if it isn’t to your taste.

Obviously, you can’t order secondary sex characteristics a la carte, but we have to stop being so awful to nonbinary people. We should discuss the options we have, not shut down the conversation with “that’s what you get.”

[tarrodetaro]

[tarrodetaro]