#because now i dont feel comfortable talking about my own experiences with misogyny when its something that should be talked about

[sketchdeath]

I’m comfortable in my body like I’ve never had gender dysphoria about being born a women. But I don’t really get jealous of other women and sometimes when I’m looking at pictures of men I just feel really sad bc I wish I looked like that. Like I really wish I was born with a dick and masculine features. But also I love my femininity. I guess I never really let myself think about my gender so now idk what the fuck is going on.

well. im not really sure what you wanted me to say in response to this ask, but i can try and give some advice.

trans experience is different for everyone. not everyone (and truly, most do not) fit along the neat lines of what is supposed to be a trans childhood/teenhood/internal knowledge/timeline/etc. i do and dont fit some of those. i always "knew." but at the same time i was always very much a little queen. (and i still am!) and i transitioned into an ~effeminate man~ (that's an option!)

gender dysphoria doesn't always manifest itself in bodily discomfort. in the beginning stages of my coming out process, a large part of my gender dysphoria was grief, longing, and homesickness for the life i was "supposed to" be living. of course, there were bodily things as well... (a lot of which i don't feel comfortable talking about it publically.) but body isn't all there is, not for everyone at least. and, importantly, gender dysphoria is not hating your body. in my experience... it's a lot more innate. instinctual. like a phantom limb (sometimes literally lol) you don't have to have a set bullet checklist of things you do/feel to be trans. it just is what it is.

i wanted to share my personal experiences to give you a wider picture of what trans people experience, of course, i have a biased opinion because i only know what i know/have experienced. i know what wishing to be born with a dick/masculine features feels like, so... of course im going to want to say i relate to you in *that way,* but…that still doesn't mean anything for you.

…for my REAL real advice, and maybe this isnt what you wanted to hear: but only you know what you are. no one can tell you otherwise how you "really" feel. there is no (in my worldview) higher power or universe controlling the narrative of your life. no path leading you to an ultimate happiness destiny. you are at the steering wheel of your own life. (repeat that last sentence like 10 times in your own head.) if you are looking for permission, you already have it. you have that power, and more power than you know. you are allowed to be whatever you think will be best for yourself long-term. (or short-term. or whatever. its your life.) if you want to be a guy, be a guy. try thinking about yourself as both, or neither, or "sometimes" for a while. its okay to say nah, im a chick whos more masc than i allowed myself to be before. think about misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, and all that. seek out a varied amount of experiences. throw some spaghetti at the wall. it's okay to think long and hard about these things. you're literally switching around the entire idea you have about yourself in your head and all by yourself, its a difficult thing. it takes time, there's no rush.

if you have any big takeaways from reading this just know that you, and only you, have the power to drive your own life trajectory and that you, and only you, have the power of knowing who you are. even if no one in the whole wide world knows but you. and no one else has the power to tell you otherwise.

this is just my personal philosophy/spiritually (or i guess, lack of.)

#ask

[cruelsister-moved2]

I love your blog soooo much!!! everything you say is just soo true. The thing about focusing on what we enjoy is so liberating. I focused way to much in trying to understand my undesirability to men, when I can just forget about men and not give them my imaginary time and just enjoy my attraction to women <3<3

aw thats sweet im glad that sentiment is helping u to find comfort and enjoyment!!<33 its so sad to me how many ppl think ur identity designates what u enjoy rather than vice versa...

as a lesbian talking abt it always feels like ur opening urself up to that judgement so i always immediately want to be like 'but i am personally really disgusted by men and the idea of having anything romantically or sexually to do with one is hideous to me!!!' but i always stop myself bc its like well... it wouldnt actually matter how i feel towards men though, because my autonomy is absolute on its own and if i know that i WANT to be involved with women and not with men then like.. the conversation can end there! in the mainstream imagination i feel like so many gay men's stories start w the realisation of their attraction to men, but lesbians' with the realisation of their non-attraction to men. my moment of absolute clarity was the first time a girl asked me out & i had the rapid realisation that like, oh i would ENJOY that, i WANT that, when i had been saying yes to guys who asked before just bc i was like idk...ig i dont have a reason to not. it sounds funny but like until that point i had literally never thought about what i might want, only like.. if id be able to stomach a serious relationship with a guy. so even though i kind of felt by then that the answer might be no, it hadnt really brought me any answers & it wouldnt have mattered if i had decided i could, because it was immediately obvious at that point that a heterosexual relationship with a man wasnt something i wanted for me in my life when i could have a gay relationship w a woman. i felt sooo free in that moment, not bc my feelings abt men had been conclusively revealed to me but actually bc i realised i didnt even gaf.

its kind of a double bind for us between the fact that heterosexual people need to be reassured that gay people are ontologically so in order to respect us (and not feel threatened by us😳), and the various layers of misogyny incl the expectation that we are passive participants in the equation of desire, which alienates us frm our desires & the very experience of desire itself, and also fosters the assumption that any ability to experience male desire will supersede anything else if at all possible so therefore it has to be completely ruled out to be allowed to ignore it. we need to prove that we are not CAPABLE of having a relationship with a man in order not to want one, whether right now or ever. so the fact i personally do feel genuinely unable to experience that without like genuinely wanting to kill myself feels like its basically irrelevant to anyone but me, and only self-determination matters to anyone else. i feel like im more interested in defending the right of other women to want&seek&enjoy sexual&romantic relationships with other women, regardless of why, rather than proving that i personally have done all my homework and can prove that i wouldnt be happy with a man. like wtf, women are hot and dating a woman is the most beautiful experience of my life, who wouldnt want to seek that out !! its irrelevant what the alternatives are bc none of them are preferable. the continued survival of this rhetoric in lgbt spaces only really reinforces that being gay is a bad thing to be and gay relationships are worse than heterosexual ones and no one would ever want that unless they had no other choice and i just soo strongly do not feel that!!

#ask #anon #um sorry..long-_- #always fascinated w how no1 bats an eye at the way gay men idolise divas for example #whichh ive talked abt in detail before so i wont ramble abt that too

[headofhelios]

Ok I am a single follower but I like hannibal tv but would enjoy ur movie thoughts I like some of the books too and have been meaning to get around to the movies 😳😳

OKAY I'M EDITING A READMORE ONTO THIS LOL I REALIZED THATS SOMETHING I CAN DO! so now my incredibly waaayyy too long answer abt my thoughts on 2002 will is under there. apologies bc this is less "movie thoughts" and more "2002 movie will thoughts" but well thats how the chips fell

GOD okay sooo for the record i am reading the red dragon book and am like 7 or 8 chapters in and full transparency im not like. enjoying it lol. the book pisses me off with its misogyny (all the women in it are either dead or it feels like you're supposed to think theyre Selfish Bitches or theyre just there for like. bizarre and uncomfortable sexual moments like the guys talking abt that woman in the elevator, or that one part of mrs. leeds diary which is like. i guess could be there to Show Her Humanity or whatever but 1. there are more ways to do that 2. the book doesnt seem particularly concerned with her humanity considering she's barely even given a first name and so far the novel hasnt seemed to disapprove of how will thinks of her as a possession of her husband) and its inconsistency with will's most important character trait or whatever (he's so intensely, extremely empathetic towards EVERYONE, even serial killers, which makes him really good at finding them! and he can never turn this off, to the point where every time he has a conversation with someone, he ends up mimicking the way they talk, even if he tries to stop! but also he never empathizes with the victims or HIS OWN FUCKING WIFE? HELLO? so it really feels less like "extremely strong empathy for everyone that he cant control" and more like "he can empathize with serial killers extremely well and also other people if we want to Make A Point in one scene instead of letting the point show through the whole book") BUT UHHH ANYWAY. MOVIE THOUGHTS. THE MOVIE THOUGHTS YOU ASKED FOR COMING RIGHT UP!

okay this is what i am worried will either 1. draw annoying tv will graham stans to my blog like flies or 2. end with me being hanged in the town square BUT. it must be said. i prefer 2002 red dragon will graham to tv will graham. and quite frankly? so far? i think 2002 red dragon will graham is better than book will graham. i cannot lie.

my reasoning: because 2002 will actually empathizes with more people than serial killers and his boss! y'know! like you'd assume someone with constant extreme empathy would! the difference between the first scene with molly in the book vs in the movie are SO striking to me now that i've read that part of the novel. in the novel he seems very... rough, i guess, and like he doesnt care about molly's worries. he doesnt seem to see things from her perspective, which especially feels like a kick to the gut because MOLLY! SEES! THINGS! FROM! HIS! PERSPECTIVE!!! she literally empathizes with him more than he does with her! what the fuck! MEANWHILE in the movie, he does seem to care about her. his assurances that he wont get too involved seem like assurances rather than him trying to get her off his back. he hugs her and tells her he loves her and i actually believe that yeah, he loves her, he knows she's worried about him, and he wants to comfort her and ease her worries. and the victims! AGAIN such a stark difference to me! in the book, will is like... uncomfortable empathizing w the red dragon, of course, but he doesnt seem to empathize with the victims all that much, ESPECIALLY not the women. he doesnt care about them. he sees them as possessions belonging to their husbands and its so fucking gross. despite already suspecting that the red dragon chooses families based on the women, he decides to waste time focusing on the husbands as a way of "asking permission to look at [their wives]." what the fuck? meanwhile in the film, he feels for the victims so much that he can barely even say that the kids were shot in bed! when he watches the tapes, he focuses on the women! because that's his fucking job!!! and we see him empathizing with them! wow!!

siiigh okay im gonna stop talking abt the book vs the movie now bc again im only like 8 chapters or so deep. but now we come to tv will vs. 2002 will, which is admittedly gonna be more subjective and part of that it bc i cant remember a whole lot of specifics from the show bc my memory is Very Bad. but anyway

let's get the shallow stuff out of the way. yes i prefer ed norton's face to hugh dancy's. call hugh dancy "gender" or whatever have your fun i support you and your right to call any blood covered man a gender but by god is that not even REMOTELY my experience. next shallow thing to get out of the way: ed norton's line delivery is like music to my FUCKING ears compared to hugh dancy's i am so sorry. like the jokes about will shaking like a damp chihuahua before taking 5 minutes to stutter out "he's killing them....... On Purpose, jack." are funny and all but christ i had SUCH a hard time watching the show bc of that im not lying. literally hearing 2002 will just say "he's not keeping them. he's eating them." nice and quick, matter of factly is better than well im actually gonna end that sentence there but you get the idea. like YESSS you little blonde bitch get to the point i love you!!!

OKAY NOW less shallow points but also less uhh idk man i just dont remember a lot of hannibal. but basically: after seeing how caring 2002 will is, i'm kind of... idk i'm just so over tv will and how abrasive and harsh he is in comparison. like i fell in LOVE with how vulnerable 2002 will is, how he feels like he cares deeply about the people around him (and honestly... idk i cant remember a moment in the hannibal tv series that made me feel the way i felt when 2002 will can't say "the kids were shot in their beds". it's like... yeah this is a guy who feels so deeply for everyone around him at all times. i believe that.) and i just dont remember getting that same feeling from tv will. i have been gently spoon fed the most excellent chocolate pudding and everything else in my memory is just a snack pack. i guess tv will has those moments (what comes to mind is when he brings gideon to hannibal's house and is crying and he says "please dont lie to me") but idk they just didnt really do for me what 2002 will does. and then their scenes with reba! wow! i rewatched the tv version after watching red dragon, bc the film version made me tear up, meanwhile the tv version i barely remembered and i wasnt sure if that was just bc of the different mindsets i was in while watching them or what. and ok i just rewatched the tv version again and like... yeah. it's the wills lol. i LOVEEE tv reba SO much she is giving everything in that scene!! she sounds so like... broken, both bc of dolarhyde's apparent suicide and bc of finding out who he was + what he was doing, she sounds so fragile and guilt ridden! she's amazing!! but will. idk. tv will's delivery just seems... idk this feels dumb to say but it sounds like writing. i admittedly LOVE the line "people who study this kind of thing say that he was trying to stop because you helped him." and his delivery there is good. but between tv "you didnt draw a freak, you drew a man w a freak on his back" and the 2002 version, the 2002 delivery seems more genuine while the tv delivery sounds rehearsed. idk overall the 2002 version of that conversation just makes me feel more? its like. idk i can feel the 2002 version gently holding my heart while the tv version is a scene that is nice in h/nnigram gifsets or w/e.

umm ok this is already suuuper long and my brain is getting a bit mushy so i'm gonna start wrapping it up lol. i'll probably compare book will and 2002 will again after i finish the book, and then i miiight rewatch hannibal, or at least parts of s3. but right now my thoughts are basically: book will is a fucking dick who has an easier time empathizing with serial killers than with his wife. tv will is a nothing girl after being so completely catered to + also idk he doesnt have the same fragility that i want from my wills now. and 2002 will is my little caramel apple. he has this delightful vulnerability and feels like he cares so much and empathizes with more people than serial killers and his boss and 4 people in a diner for one scene! 2002 will made me care about will graham! which is honestly kind of a feat!

#long post #like so so so long #my condolences anon and also anyone following me who doesnt want this on their dash #but yeah 2002 will is my booboo bear my cinnamon swirl coffeecake my little heavensent angel #and ed nortons performance made me feel more than hugh dancy's #i think ed norton does a really good job at giving his characters that kind of vulnerability and i LOVE that!! #like yeah whatever 'you're gat arent you dont you just think hes hot' sure say that but also like #have you seen him in primal fear? its a movie thats a firm Its Complicated for me but his performance is so good and he feels so vulnerable #and even in fight club and kingdom of heaven i think he gets that in there! idk i genuinely think he's a good actor #personal #red dragon #if im writing an essay i may as well put it in my tags #asks #anonymous #<- FORGOT TO ADD THOSE TAGS. anyway #EDIT: NOW FEATURING A READMORE LOL.

[smallnico]

your gender thing struck a cord with me in a way-in middle school i felt like i didnt want to be a girl, or that i wanted to be a girl and a boy (didnt know that was a thing at the time) bc i felt like being a girl was too limiting. i didnt identify with what i thought a girl was supposed to be. as i got older tho, i realized that i didnt have to be a certain way to still be a girl (part one)

(part two) and that all being a girl meant was identifying as one. so now i id as a woman, but recently still struggled with my gender identity. i realize after much analysis its not bc im trans, but bc gender roles are just SO limiting and there's still outside pressure and expectation to present and behave in ways that dont suit me, so being perceived as a woman, even tho i AM, makes me feel burdened.

(part 3) its not being a woman thats the issue, its what society thinks that should mean is so limiting and untruthful to who i am, that it sometimes makes that identity itself seem repellent to me. for me, i find a struggle to take back my womanhood and defend it from my own skewed views due to society. i dont need to perform my gender to be valid. so i dont see myself as "gnc" so much as gender role irreverent. I am who i am

part 4- i by no means mean to imply that people who feel uncomfortable with their gender are just struggling with internalized misogyny- i'm no terf, and hope i don't come across that way. This is just about my OWN very personal experience with struggling with feeling weirdly at odds with my gender despite being cis. and i'm sure me being queer has impacted this disconnect as well (u can post these if u like)

i think i will post these, because it also pretty much resonates beat for beat with my experience. the way i interpret “gender nonconforming girl” as a label is really also just “gender irrelevant”, i just prefer it for myself because it allows me the freedom of expressing comfort with my body and the way i was born while also dismissing the notion that i feel any sort of obligation to conform to the expectations of that gender. i am a girl, objectively, in the same sense that a trans girl is objectively a girl, because it’s how i’m comfortable identifying. i’m just not a Girl™. and that’s not like, a “i’m not like other girls” sort of internalized misogyny thing -- i have absolutely nothing against girls or femininity, traditional or otherwise, and i celebrate and support people who find it empowering -- it’s more a discomfort and resentment toward a flawed and limiting mode of human categorization.

but yeah, in middle and high school, it was kind of a thing i held against girls and femininity. i went out of my way to avoid wearing skirts and dresses and bright colours, i stopped shaving, i kept my hair short, all because i didn’t want people to think i was Trying To Be Feminine. i was torn between wanting to try wearing makeup and never wanting to touch the stuff because of its association with feminine expectations. i experimented with my gender identity because i didn’t know what i wanted to be, all i knew was that i didn’t want to be stuck performing femininity my whole life because as soon as i started doing it, it was what people expected me to keep doing. nowadays i sort of associate that internal conflict with choosing a life path when applying for university -- i didn’t know what i wanted to do in particular, all i knew was that i never wanted to be asked to do math again. i didn’t know how to feel about my gender, except that i was tired of being asked to Do Woman, because i wasn’t good at it and didn’t think it was worth the hassle. 

(sidenote, i agree that this is inalienably linked to my queer identity, and the other and better meaning of “do woman”. i’m bisexual, but i was first driven to consider queer sexuality as a part of my identity because i So So Badly did Not want to fill the role of “woman” in a relationship with a man, and realized that actually, maybe i don’t have to, because i’m also attracted to women and nonbinary folks. it’s taken me the better part of 7 years of sexuality questioning to accept that i’m also attracted to men for this reason.)

of course, it’s not like that anymore, my life’s gotten a lot better since i decided to stop putting any energy into gender performance and start putting energy into “just doing what i want with myself”. i wear skirts and dresses now, because i just decided to stop associating them with feminine presentation and start associating them with things like “cute stylish outfit” and “i don’t have to wear pants and nobody will care”. i haven’t shaved since high school, not because i’m rebelling against the concept of femininity, but because i just don’t like shaving. i don’t bother with makeup because i’m bad at it and don’t feel like any reward i get from it is worth the strain it would cause me, financially or energetically. i can’t stress enough how little gender (consciously) factors into any of the decisions i make about the way i present and socialize, to the point where if someone accuses me of being “unladylike” or whatever, my first emotional response to that is confusion, because i wasn’t considering gender as a factor in my behaviour to begin with. it’s not very exciting, but i dress and present and perform as androgynous mostly as a coincidence, cus that’s just what happens when i don’t care about filling the requirements to qualify for a certain identity. as always -- no shade to people who do find comfort in doing so. you’re valid, i love you, and i admire your resolve.

this of course, again, isn’t meant to discount or dismiss the experiences of anyone who doesn’t feel this way about gender. i’m also not unaware of the privilege i hold to not be given shit for the way i present -- i am white, slim, nonreligious, middle class, and afab, all things that factor into society’s general acceptance of my deviance from gender performance that may not factor into others’ experiences. i’m not here to tell anyone that they should be like me and also eschew gender-related identity concerns (though feel free to give it a try, if you think it’ll empower you to live your best life), and i’m aware that it isn’t as easy as just deciding not to care anymore. this isn’t advice, nor is it a guide to any sort of universal experience. it’s just my personal experience. 

but if it resonates with you, i’m always glad to help people feel like they’re not the only one. thanks for sending this in, anon! i hope it doesn’t seem like i’m trying to talk over you, or anything, i just wanted to expand on my earlier point, given that it struck a chord :>

#anon #the askbox

[not-tryin-2-have-a-debate]

Not to complain abt lateral aggression online but you know that cycle of transphobic women severely misunderstanding the experience of trans men and their complicated relationship with misogyny despite not being women but then also trans men severely misunderstanding misogyny becuase of their complicated experience with having to deal with the fallout of it despite not being women

Yknow that circling piss pool

It seems like whenever i see a discussion of misogyny and like...how children are taught to live under and emulate it. Theres this disgusting mess of transphobes and terfs extrapolating reality out to their theories on "socialization"...but then there are also like 20 transmasc weirdos who are like trying to distance themselves from it and end up essentially saying misogyny or the aspect of it being discussed is fake and all these women are lying bc 'well I grew up as a gurl and it wasnt like that for ME' as if 1. Feeling disconnected from being a girl because you werent one had No Effect on how you viewed girls and how you were treated bc people assumed you were a girl??? Are you fucking sure????? 2.just like...lol at men thinking its progressive and good for them to deny misogyny generally? Lol @ men trying to distance themselves from their role in misogyny...especially men you would expect to have more compassion since they were like a mistakeb target of it...but nope! That just becomes a new excuse to say they cant do a misogyny that goes largely unchecked

Like....if you are aware that your trans or your not

A starting point is feeling a kind of disconnect from the group youre "meant" to be part of

When that group is women, youre inevitably going to also be disconnected in some way from the pain that comes from misogyny, bc on sone level it doesnt feel "meant for" you. Thats someone elses experience. When it happens to you its a mistake.

But then when these discussions come up now were "generalizing". It becomes "oh well this didnt happen with me, one example of a person, and furthermore a person who WAS NOT A WOMAN, so therefore you argument that x is a societal problem is bunk i guess" and its.....just.....So...like peak boy logic idk

When my brother came out so many things immediately made sense for better and for worse. For worse in that i realized why he never fucking helped with chores, he didnt seem to feel any empathy for my mom having to do everything for him, and i had to pick up the slack. It made sense that i didnt have an older sister, and it made sense that all that shit about the plight of the oldest daughter had always made me so like actively angry because it was the opposite of what i thought was my experience. But actually, I was the oldest daughter...for however much of a girl i am yknow but. Different convo.

Biological sex isnt a thing and there isnt really some deeply ingrained set of gender genes ir whatever. Its just feelings. But when youre born into a binary culture where you learn even subconsciously that x is how women should be and z is how men should be...when you dont idebtify with women, you dont idebtify with x. You tend to go toward z bc thats the only other option youve been given.

So even if x is expexted of you, its like completely expected for youre behavior to start shifting before you come out. A lot of people relate to that either bc they were realizing who they were or becoming more comfortable with being that way outwardly. Its not a negative thing. But when were talking abt being a guy...an unavoidable part of that list of guy thongs is misogyny. And entitlement. And sadly the transphobia these men face seems to push them into like grabbing onto these parts ofbbeing a man a lot stronger, and using their unique perspectivw and """insider info""" on what its like to be a woman (even though...again...they arent...so um...) as a tool to discredit them

this is really messy and like Ironically PMSing phone complaining and im sorry but like ohhh my god it annoys me so god damn much. boys annoy me it especially annoys me bc that boy is like saying its transmisogynist to talk abt an actual aspect of misogyny. whne like...no...trans girls are also victims of this. these expectations of women effect them as misogyny. directly. its so fucking stupid like yes a terf can will and often does take real issues and conspiracy theory connect them to making it trans women’s faults...but that isnt the same thing as trying to talk abt the misogyny faced by all women. like. obviously. and a man getting holier than thou abt it and trying to shut down that discussion as something transphobic makes me want to pull my hair out.

this is probably rude but it comes off like he’s trying to make it about him when its not. like ‘this is transmisogynist which is a kind of transphobia and that effect ME!!!” when in reality he’s just...a man complaining that women are talking about their own oppression. it isnt misogynist to talk abt fucking misogyny

and at the end of the day the thing being talked about was the INCREDIBLY WELL KNOWN IDEA that women are specifically put-upon by men and society at large. that women have to do all this extra shit just to exist, then more to not be ostracized, then more that the ‘normal’ expected amount of work that ‘everyone’ has to pitch in, then ‘’’women’s work,’’’then more to keep the men around them from falling to pieces and throwing temper tantrums...and after women do and have done all that, for thousands of years all around the world, we’re still the weak and lazy and simple and childlike ones that have to be protected by manly man who, as we all know, totally do All of The Work. that not being the experience in your family doesn’t make it suddenly dissappear. that not being your experience as a woman, because you AREN’T a woman, doesnt....make women’s experiences...different. but im just gonna unfollow that person and hope someday theyll learn ad well all go about our days bc it would be too much of an unneccessary and pointless effort for me to argue with a man about how women apparently don’t have to put tons of unneccessary pointless effort into dealing with and placating men and how saying so, apparently, hurts women?????? Ok