#in fact i could even see myself letting other trans people call me feminine terms at some point in the future. when i've healed more. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inter-bellum · 1 year

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to parents

My parents were almost as kind and accepting as any lgbtq-kid could wish for. When I came out as non-binary, my mom gave me a hug and my dad a pat on the back. That however did not mean they started using the right pronouns, or later when I told them about a new name that I wanted to try out, they did not call me that. There was never really rejection/unacceptability, but rather a lack of awareness and the actions that came with it, sometimes felt like rejection.

For my generation, when you tell someone about a new name, the next obviously logical step is for them to start calling you by that name, it’s like a built in habit. But not with my parents, like i said, there was just a lack of awareness and knowledge and so they just continued referring to me by my old name. Only when I explicitly told them that I wanted to be called by this new name, they actually started using it. Though my father didn’t at first, his reasoning being ‘but she also listens to her old name, so why should I?’ Now that feels like rejection. But that was just from the lack of awareness, he didn’t not realise how important it was for trans people to see the new name get accepted (and with that, eventually being used as well)

So to parents, regardless of the fact if your child is out, or part of the lgbtq-community, please educate yourself. Get some basic knowledge, groundwork so to speak and know the meaning of ‘standard’ lgbtq words like homosexual/heterosexual/bisexual and cisgender/transgender.’ My parents didn’t even know what transgender meant precisely, let alone the meaning of a more specific term such as non-binary, that alone adds a whole new layer of difficulty, that combined with that everyone expresses their label(s) in a different way, like I’m a very masculine non-binary person whilst others are more feminine or more androgynous.

My parents didn’t understand me, they still don’t understand and I don’t think they ever fully will because cause this is such a unique, personal experience

(Even as fellow non-binary/trans person, you will probably understand the most out of everyone but still it’s slightly different from person to person) but they understood even less because of that lack of awareness and knowledge. So to parents, please educate yourself on themes like these as they are becoming more prevalent in todays society, keep up with those things, like one would keep up the news.

There will I think always be this gap of understanding between generations, later in life I might find myself in a similar position like my parents now, but I hope at least that with every generation, the previous one will be outfitted with more tools to gain understanding and knowledge and have the knowledge lead to acceptance. Because giving a hug or a pat on the back isn’t enough, with acceptance must come action.

#i wrote this mostly to get my thoughts in order then figured it could also maybe help someone else #feel free to add your own things to this (opinions/experiences/etc)#lgbtq #transgender #non binary #lgbtq community #acceptance #queer #bisexual #pansexual #gay #its so difficult to talk about this #then with this also comes this language barrier #most of these more specific lgbtq terms dont even have a Dutch translation #its soooo more common/regular in english #so yeah even more difficulties #yay #soral's shit #personal

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themollyjay · 3 years

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The Myths of Forced Diversity and Virtue Signaling.

In my novel Mail Order Bride, the three main characters are a lesbian and two agendered aliens. In my novel Scatter, the main character is a lesbian, the love interest is a pansexual alien, and the major side characters include a half Cuban, half black Dominican lesbian, a Chinese Dragon, a New York born Jewish Dragon, and a Transgender Welsh Dragon. In my novel The Master of Puppets, the Main Characters are a lesbian shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborg and a half black, half Japanese lesbian. The major side characters include three gender fluid shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborgs, and a pansexual human. In my novel Transistor, the main character is a Trans Lesbian, the love interest is a Half human/Half Angel non-observant Ethiopian Jew, and the major side characters include a Transgender Welsh Dragon (the same one from Scatter), a Transgender woman, a Latino Lesbian, an autistic man, three Middle Eastern Arch Angels, and a hive mind AI with literally hundreds of genders. In my novel The Inevitable singularity, one of the main characters is a lesbian, another has a less clearly defined sexuality but she is definitely in love with the lesbian, and the third is functionally asexual due to a vow of chastity she takes very seriously. The major side characters include a straight guy from a social class similar to the Dalit (commonly known as untouchables) in India, a bisexual woman, a man who is from a race of genetically modified human/frog hybrids, and a woman from a race of genetically modified humans who are bred and sold as indentured sex workers.

Why am I bringing all of this up? Well, first, because it’s kind of cool to look at the list of different characters I’ve created, but mostly because it connects to what I want to talk about today, which should be obvious from the title of the essay. The concepts of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’.

For those who aren’t familiar with these terms, they’re very closely related concepts. ‘Forced Diversity’ is the idea that characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are only ever included in a story because of outside pressure from some group (usually called Social Justice Warriors, or The Woke Brigade or something similar) to meet some nebulous political agenda. The caveat to this is, of course, that you can have a women/women present as long as they are hot, don’t make any major contributions to the resolution of the plot, and the hero/heroes get to fuck them before the end of the story. ‘Virtue Signaling’, according to Wikipedia, is a pejorative neologism for the expression of a disingenuous moral viewpoint with the intent of communicating good character.

The basic argument is that Forced Diversity is a form of virtue signaling. That no one would ever write characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males because they want to. They only do it to please the evil SJW’s who are somehow both so powerful that they force everybody to conform to their desires, yet so irrelevant that catering to them dooms any creative project to financial failure via the infamous ‘go woke, go broke’ rule.

What the people who push this idea of Forced Diversity tend to forget is that we exist at a point in time when creators actually have more creative freedom than are any other people in history. Comic writers can throw up a website and publish their work as a webcomic without having to go through Marvel, DC or one of the other big names, or get a place in the dying realm of the news paper comics page. Novelists can self-publish with fairly little upfront costs, musicians can use places like YouTube and Soundcloud to get their work out without having to worry about music publishers. Artists can hock their work on twitter and tumblr and a dozen other places. Podcasts are relatively cheap to make, which has opened up a resurgence in audio dramas. Even the barrier to entry for live action drama is ridiculously low.

So, in a world where creators have more freedom than ever before, why would they choose to people their stories with characters they don’t want there? The answer, of course, is that they wouldn’t. Authors, comic creators, indie film creators and so on aren’t putting diverse characters into their stories because they are being forced to. They’re putting diverse characters into their stories because they want to. Creators want to tell stories about someone other than the generically handsome hypermasculine cisgendered heterosexual white males that have been the protagonists of so many stories over the years that we’ve choking on it. A lot of times, creators want to tell stories about people like themselves. Black creators want to tell stories about the black experience. Queer creators want to tell stories about the queer experience.

I’m an autistic, mentally ill trans feminine abuse survivor. Every day, I get up and I struggle with PTSD, with an eating disorder, with severe body dysmorphia, with anxiety and depression and just the reality of being autistic and transgender. I deal with the fact that the religious community I grew up in views me as an abomination, and genuinely believes I’m going to spend eternity burning in hell. I deal with the fact that people I’ve known for decades, even members of my own family, regularly vote for politician who publicly state that they want to strip me of my civil rights because I’m queer. I’m part of a community that experiences a disproportionately high murder and suicide rate. I’ve spent multiple years of my life deep in suicidal depression, and to this day, I still don’t trust myself around guns.

As a creator, I want to talk about those issues. I want to deal with my life experiences. I want to create characters that embody and express aspects of my lived experience and my day-to-day reality. No one is forcing me to put diversity into my books. I try to include Jewish characters as often as I can because there have been a number of important Jewish people in my life. I include queer people because I’m queer and the vast majority of friends I interact with on a regular basis are queer. I include people with mental illnesses and trauma because I am mentally ill and have trauma, and I know a lot of people with mental illnesses and trauma. My work may be full of fantastical elements, aliens and dragons and angels and superheroes and magic and ultra-high technology and AI’s and talking cats and robot dogs and shape shifters and telepaths and all sorts of other things, but at the core of the stories is my own lived experience, and neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are vanishingly rare in that experience.

Now, I can hear the comments already. The ‘okay, maybe that’s true for individual creators, but what about corporate artwork?’. Maybe not in those exact words, but you get the idea.

The thought here is that corporations are bowing to social pressure to include characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males, and that is somehow bad. But here’s the thing. Corporations are going to chase the dollars. They aren’t bowing to social pressure. There’s no one holding a gun to some executive’s head saying, “You must have this many diversity tokens in every script.” What is happening is that corporations are starting to clue into the fact that people who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males have money. They are putting black characters in their shows and movies because black people watch shows and spend money on movies. They are putting queer people in shows and movies because queer people watch shows and spend money on movies. They are putting women in shows and movies because women watch shows and spend money on movies.

No one is forcing these companies to do this. They are choosing to do it, the same way individual creators are choosing to do it. In the companies’ cases the choices are made for different reasons. It’s not because they are necessarily passionate about telling stories about a particular experience, but because they want to create art to be consumed by the largest audience possible, which means that they have to expand their audience beyond the neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white male by including characters from outside of that demographic.

And the reality is, the cries of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ almost always come from within that demographic. Note the almost. There are a scattering of individuals from outside that demographic which do subscribe to the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ myths, but that is a whole other essay. However, within that demographic, lot of the people who cry about ‘forced diversity’ see media and content as a Zero-Sum game. The more that’s created for other people, the less that is created for them.

In a way, they’re right. There are only so many slots for TV shows each week, there are only so many theaters, only so much space on comic bookshelves and so on. But at the end of the day, its literally impossible for them to consume all the content that’s being produced anyway. So, while there is, theoretically less content for them to consume, as a practical matter it’s a bit like someone who is a meat eater going to a buffet with two hundred items, and then throwing a tantrum because five of the items happen to be vegan.

The worst part is, if they could let go of how wound up they are about the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ they could probably enjoy the content that’s produced for people other than them. I mean, I’m a pasty ass white girl, and I loved Black Panther.

So, to wrap out, creators, make what you want to make, and ignore anyone who cries about forced diversity or virtue signaling. And to people who are complaining about forced diversity and virtue signaling, I want to go back to the buffet metaphor. You need to relax. Even if there are a few vegan options on the buffet, you can still get your medium rare steak, or your chicken teriyaki or whatever it is you want. Or, maybe, just maybe, you could give the falafel a try. That shit is delicious.

#writing #original fiction #media #representation #diversity #the war of souls #the hearts of heroes #The Master of Puppets #scatter #transistor #the inevitable singularity #mail order bride

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a-gender · 3 years

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Clearing out the askbox!

Anonymous said to a-gender: Idk if you'll even answer this but how do you know if ur agender cause I'm so fuckin confused about gender and this is the one option I haven't explored much yet. Like how do u know??????

Anonymous said to a-gender: How do u know ur agender. I assume is different for everyone, but I'm currently questioning and have no idea what I'm doing.🙃

Anonymous said to a-gender: Hello, TrevorSpace brought me here. I’m really confused about my gender right now and I’m going through a crisis. I feel agender but I still feel like a girl. If anyone can help me, I’d appreciate it greatly :)

Anonymous said to a-gender: Hey. Is nonbinary for specific for trans people? And those who don't feel like they have a gender is agender? Sometimes I feel they/them but okay with she/her. Does that mean I'm agender?

Anonymous said to a-gender: Hi, recently I've started identifying as agender because it feels exactly right for me. I have a very fem presentation just bc I like that style, and I've spent 6+ years calling myself a lesbian too. Can I possibly be agender and a lesbian? I don't know how to understand my sexuality outside of 'lesbian' bc that's what it's been shaped by so thoroughly, I like women and use they/she pronouns. Confused what I should do.

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Hi there! My apologies for the long wait--I've been very busy. I decided to group these together since they all deal with a very similar theme.

As far as how I personally realized I was agender--like I've said previously on here, a lot of it was realizing that any idea of gender as far as how it related to me, myself, and I was very little more than a wiggly hand-gesture static noise. 'Gender' has meaning when I think of other people, but not when I think about myself.

You can also explore terms like gendervague, gendervoid, and genderless, which are related terms but not necessarily quite the same as agender (your mileage may vary).

As far as feeling agender but also like a girl, assuming that 'girl' is gender-based and not presentation based--there are terms like girlflux, genderflux, etc. that might help! Those are more along the lines of a spectrum between 0 and "girl" that your gender might fluctuate up and down along.

Nonbinary is an umbrella term, as well as a specific gender! Agender falls under the nonbinary umbrella, and an agender person is both agender and nonbinary, but a nonbinary person may not be agender (and very well might be "just" nonbinary!).

It's important to remember that pronouns don't equal gender. If you like they/them and she/her, it doesn't mean that you're necessarily agender. You could be a whole host of things. For example, I use she/her, they/them, and ey/em and I'm agender, but my best friend uses she/her and they/them and is not agender. I wish I could be more help here, but unfortunately all your pronoun set "means" is... that you have a pronoun set.

The fact that you say you feel like you don't have a gender could certainly point to being agender, however!

Gender also does not equal presentation! Having a feminine presentation doesn't necessarily mean anything as far what your gender is (and don't forget about butch/masc lesbians!). However! The whole 'lesbian and now agender lesbian' thing is very familiar to me, because I went through the same thing! You can absolutely be agender and a lesbian, if that's what jives with how you see yourself.

If any of you have any followup questions, don't hestitate to let me know!

---mod Ama

#mod ama #anonymous #answered #questioning

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werevulvi · 3 years

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I hope these show up in the right order. This kinda stuff is exactly what makes me feel lost about my transness. Like I was just trying to be nice and agreed with this person's post. I had no interest in being an asshole or arguing what bio sex, or even what butch, is. I was just declaring myself as a bio female because it felt relevant to the topic and how I relate to it. It amazes me how even the pro self-ID types are against self-ID when someone identifies in a way that doesn't suit their narrative, even when it's a trans person whose identity they deny.

They blocked me and I don't want anyone going after them, I just wanna rant. And not even about this specific post or person, but more so about trying to exist as a gender critical trans person in general. I've been thinking about that for days, weeks, perhaps months or even years already, so it's really not about this specific person. I guess it was just what triggered me to finally start writing.

I guess I feel like both most other trans people and most other gender critical people, view transness as incompatible with gender critical opinions, and like that makes me feel pulled in two opposing directions. But anyone of any ideology can be dysphoric and transition because it helps them cope. I don't think that my opinions, or my choice to hang out with radfems, means that I'm self-hating, or even that I'm going against the needs of my own trans demographic. My own trans demographic is just all too good at confusing wants with needs... generally speaking. I see sex and gender the way I do because it makes sense to me personally, and I don't even argue that it's necessarily the objective truth. I don't think there is such a thing. It's just my truth, my perception of the world.

That I can't make myself see myself as a man for real, despite my dysphoria and transition, doesn't mean that I think it's wrong to transition, or that my body is damaged by it, or that transitioning is useless. Because it's not. I love my transition and everything it has given me. I'm comfortable with my transitioned body. It deserves love, especially my love. And although I still struggle with some insecurities, I feel like I love my body. It's been... incredibly good to me. It's stayed very healthy, and even keeping up a strong immune system despite my smoking, self harm, careless sexual escapades, etc. I may still have a fraught relationship with being female, but as long as I transition, I seem to be managing it fairly well. Except then I have a more fraught relationship with society instead. Can't win, but that's life, innit?

I don't think either my transness or my political opinions are my real problem or ever was. I think it's society's constant fighting about trans people's genders, lives and choices, that makes me constantly cave in on myself. Can't handle the pressure.

It feels like it's only ever getting worse. Ten years ago my biggest concern was people not ever finding me attractive because I was turning myself into some kind of a freak, which luckily I was proven to be wrong about. Five years ago my biggest concern was nonbinary people trying to normalize asking people their pronouns, which made me fear that people would never leave me alone about my gender, unless I forced myself to be hyper-masculine, which I still worry about. Three years ago my biggest concern was having been stripped of my sex-based rights and dehumanized for how I had chosen to treat my dysphoria, which I still worry about as well, and now...

...my biggest concerns are being treated as a third gender, fetishistic predator who should be shoved away into gender neutral spaces, and I fear that one day medical transition will be taken away as an option to treat dysphoria if transness is continued to be rejected as a medical condition. My heart rate is ever increasing. Can I even realistically "just go on with my life" anymore? I feel compelled to do something, but I also feel like there isn't anything I can do. No matter how many people I try to "educate" about dysphoria and why transition is incredibly important, all the while being as humble as I can, I am seriously lacking behind the much faster spread of harmful misinformation.

Thing is, I do not blame gender critical people for spreading some of that misinformation. For example of trans women as fetishistic predators, which people apply to trans men when they still fail to understand that MtF is not the only kinda trans there is, or when we dare to be just a little bit feminine while passing as male. If anything, I blame the true sources of such harmful claims, which slowly increase my anxious heart rate, over years, turning into decades, of living as openly trans. I blame opportunistic men who pretend to be trans women for gaining access to women's spaces, be it prisons, spas, shelters, sports, what have you, when they cannot possibly be dysphoric judging by how happily they swing their dicks around women as if it's no big deal and make no attempt at transitioning, but also who cares if they are dysphoric, no one should behave that way either way. I blame the trans rights activists who say lesbians have to suck dick if it's attached to a trans woman, and those who say that gay men have to be into pussy and date trans men. I blame those who say that trans women are bio female by virtue of identifying as female, and claiming that they can get periods, by virtue of... bowel cramps?! I'd also blame those who try to change female specific language on behalf of shielding trans men from our own dysphoria, in the rare cases we'd end up getting pregnant or manage to drag our asses to the gyno office for a pap smear, which... most of us really don't, regardless of if you call us women or uterus-havers, sincerely, please stop. It makes people think trans women are trying to take over the term "woman" entirely for themselves, which of course they don't.

I could go on, but I won't, as this post is not about these things. It's more so about how estranged I feel from the people who spout these things, knowing that they think they're speaking for me and my supposed needs as a tranny. But I see no point in trying to educate them, as they won't listen any more to me than they would to a radfem, and again, I think this post in my screenshots shows just how unwilling they are to listen to me.

I guess living with my transition on constant display is what's hard, and I guess I just need to vent about that, as it's always judged one way or the other; as either me having made myself into a man, or that I'm a delusional woman who mutilated herself; and it's kinda hard to find a kind and sane middle ground, that perhaps I'm just a victim of circumstances, and trying to make the most of my own life, regardless of what the fuck I am. That social shit, on top of dealing with dysphoria, makes it really difficult to not hate myself, I guess. But I have tried to live stealth and that made it if possible even worse, as it felt like I was lying, keeping a huge secret that grew in me like a spreading virus.

What I want is to just live my life, and for neither my bio sex, nor my transition, to stop me from doing that. I want to work through the worst of my autism, enough to be able to pursue a career in some low-paying labor, blue-collar job; get a car and driver's licence, find a suitable husband to have a child and cats with; I want my own garden, an art studio; I want to build muscle to become strong and even more independent (and perhaps strong enough to carry that husband, but at least to carry myself), and so on. When I picture myself in that potential future, it is with this male-like appearance I transitioned my body into, but it is also as a mother and wife.

And thinking about all of that makes me happy, it makes me smile and feel joy, meaningfulness, hope... While thinking about arguing online with some miserable fuck, who's deadset on arguing semantics and calling me a terf, when all I wanted was to show a little bit of kindness, that "hey, I agree with you, you make a good point here, and I'm not here to fight" only to be spat right back into my face... just makes me feel sad. Whatever happened to diversity of opinion? It's gone, it became labeled as bad, and left people like me with no place to be.

There is no point in arguing with such people, or even trying not to argue. There's no winning in that, there's no reward, no accomplishment. It's better to walk away.

I know I just have to get over this, this inner conflict of going against my transness with my gender critical opinions, and that I'm going against my womanhood with my transition - and be stronger than the political climate that's pulling me into pieces. But if it's peace that I want... I can just forget about it. There's no road there. But I have trouble letting go of that simple dream. The internet is constantly manipulating me into thinking I have an exciting social life, when in fact it's non-existent, and the lie is destructive. With internet vs real life, I'm living a double life. One of those lives has a future, the other one does not.

I'm glad I made this rant. It actually made me feel better, and reminded me that it's still worth it. Being trans, moving forward, focusing on what is good and what can become good in life. And it reminded me that the internet is merely an imitation of life, a substitute for human connection, and can... as with much else, be both good and bad.

#discourse #venting #tired of being pulled in opposing directions #because im not the right kinda trans #or the right kinda feminist #i have to live with myself and i dont know how #focusing back on what actually matters in life #just thoughts #gender politics #ok to rb

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lesbian-vmin · 3 years

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The Topic of Gender Identity - JM Focus

So. This is something that I’ve gotten asked about a few times since people became interested in my analyses. And it’s something I’ve always avoided answering because it seems to me that the topic of gender is way more touchy than the topic of sexuality.

I’m also the sort of person who doesn’t like people talking about things without some form of experience on the topic. I can talk about how I see the potential of someone being gay because I’m gay. I know what it’s like to be gay. I know what it’s like to be afraid for people to find out that you’re gay (passed that, but been there). Someone who isn’t gay and never questioned it wouldn’t have any idea what it’s like.

As someone who has struggled with gender identity myself, I’ve decided that I’ll talk about this. I’d say that I have a controversial opinion on this topic, but no matter what you say about gender identity, one person or another is going to think it’s controversial. So, really, everyone has a controversial opinion on the topic. As it is not my intention to offend anyone, I decided to share that controversial opinion. Anyway. Read on if you can handle someone talking about their opinion without getting riled up that it might be different than yours, and if you’re curious about my thoughts on the topic. If not. Move on. (BELOW THE CUT)

So. Let me start by putting in the “short story” of my gender identity, so you kind of get the idea where I’m coming from when I state my opinion on this topic. You can skip this to the part where I start talking about Jimin, but I just wanted to add this in here so you have an idea of where I’m coming from.

Currently, I identify as a cis-female lesbian, but it took me a long time to accept myself as a female. Honestly. When I was a child, I was more okay with the fact that I liked girls than the fact that I was a girl. Liking girls never felt wrong to me. Liking girls as a girl is what felt wrong. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I know how I felt.

I was what they called a “tom-boy” back in the day. I’m not sure if that term is offensive now? But I always related with the label for some reason.

My parents have a lot to do with my current view on gender identity. My mom told me when I was a little baby, my favorite color was pink. It’s currently pink. She said that once I started learning the names of colors and that they had “genders”, I took a hard turn to the color blue. I pretended that blue was my favorite color for a big part of my life, throughout high school, because I didn’t want to be associated with the “girly” things.

I also liked Hotwheels as child. I was obsessed with cars. This is something I was genuinely interested in, and not just because I wanted to distance myself from girly things. At McDonald’s they often have “boy toys” and “girl toys”. I also have one brother and two sisters. When my mom took us to McDonald’s, she’d always say she wanted “two hotwheels and two barbies”. If the checker ever said “girls and boy toys” my mom would again specify hotweels and barbies. Because she didn’t understand why they were “girl and boy toys”. As a child, I was changing her perspective on gender.

We used to go to Christmas parties when I was a kid, and Santa would always hand out presents to the kids. It always seemed they gave the boys certain toys, and the girls always got dolls or doll related things. So I started to hate going to these Christmas parties. I also question why Santa didn’t buy me the gifts I wanted. He was supposed to know what every child wanted. One year, my mom talked to the people who decided the gift buying, and they got me a giant collection of hotwheels. This Santa became my favorite.

Anyhow. I always wanted to be my dad’s son. I wanted to him to play sports with me and grill with him like he would do with my brother. When I showed more interest in those things than my brother did, he started doing them with me instead. I’d help him build things. I’d play sports with him. And we always grilled together. Until I got older and started going through the inevitable changes that every girl goes through. He stopped treating me like a son and started treating me like a daughter, and it really upset me that my dad’s whole attitude toward me would have changed like that. So I started hating being a girl even more.

Anyway, long story short (believe me, there’s a lot more to this story, but this is a Jimin focus. Not a Koala focus). I eventually came to accept that I was a girl, and actually like feminine things. But, at the same time, I actually like masculine things, too. Coming out to my family as gay really allowed me to express my gender identity more. And I think it’s funny because they often point out how I became more feminine after coming out when many females do it the opposite. I explained to them that I always wanted to be “straight” and like girls, but when I fully accepted myself as gay, I fully accepted myself as female, too.

That being said, I didn’t give in to gender norms or anything like that. I just stopped pretending to hate all feminine things for the fear of being “too much of a girl” to like girls. Pink is my favorite color, but I’ll take the whole fucking rainbow any day. I love hotwheels, and I know more about cars than most modern boys do. I know about computers, and I love math. I absolutely love playing sports (I don’t like watching them so much). I love high fantasy, and I love playing d&d with my friends. But I also love sitting down to a nice romantic movie every now and then. I play all kinds of video games from fps to dress up games, and I love the fact that I don’t have to be apologetic about any of it. I can fix my own kitchen sink and give you tips about how to get stains out of the carpet. I still hate dolls, and they are fucking creepy to me.

I can accept the term bigender for myself, but I label myself as cis-female. Because I don’t want society to tell me that “feminine” things are for girls and “masculine” things are for boys. And tell me how I need to identify because of my like or distaste for either. I don’t mind “feminine” and “masculine” labels, but I don’t think it should determine how much of a “boy” or “girl” you are. I know that people identify as trans and anywhere on the spectrum for reasons that go beyond that, and that’s fine. My story goes far beyond that as well, but that’s pretty much my main focus that brings me to this point.

So. Let’s talk about Jimin now.

IN RELATION TO JIMIN

So, I’ve had exactly one ask that wanted to know if I would refer to Jimin as “they” instead of “he” because we don’t know how he identifies, but I think that can be true for anyone. Just because JK presents himself as more masculine with the fact that he works out and is a “boy” boy, we can’t presume that he identifies as a cis-male. Even if he likes all masculine things, and there’s nothing feminine about him (which isn’t true, but even if it was), we can’t just assume that he identifies as cis-male and is totally comfortable in his 100% male role. So the fact that this seems to come up mostly in relation to Jimin kind of proves how it’s a societal “masculine” and “feminine” thing when it comes many people’s view on gender identity.

I’ve also had a lot of people come to my inbox and talk about how they don’t see why people question Jimin’s gender. “He’s not feminine at all.” And, let me just say that he really is, and I don’t think it would offend him for me to blatantly state that. When he first debuted, he really tried to present himself as masculine, and he wanted to be seen as a “strong/real man.” But he’s eased himself into what he’s more comfortable with, and he, himself, talks about this transformation. How he doesn’t have pretend anymore, and he can just be who he is. And that’s a wonderful thing. And him talking about it the way he does (I’d love to go back and find examples, so people share links if you have any otherwise it’s going to take me ages to source this) kind of tells me that he wants people to realize his transformation. That he is so unbothered by both his feminine and masculine traits that he isn’t bothered if people see him more one way or the other.

Let me bring up Jimin’s bigender tattoo, if you will. (x) Well, it’s not really a tattoo, and more of a drawing. It wasn’t permanent, but still. I’ve had a few people argue that it’s not the bigender symbol because of both extensions pointing straight instead of the masculine symbol being at an angle (x), but seeing as how I don’t know of any other symbol it could be, I’m going to assume that it was meant to be the bigender symbol.

Does this tattoo mean that he identifies as bigender? I’m leaning toward yes, but I’m also going to have to say that it doesn’t confirm anything. We don’t know the reason behind the tattoo unless Jimin tells us himself, and we don’t know the reason it was altered with both extensions being aligned instead of the way the actual symbol looks (if that detail is significant in any way).

Again, I’m leaning toward a strong possibility of him identifying as bigender because BTS are pretty socially aware, and I’m sure he knows what the symbol means. There could be a list of other reasons as to why he decided to use the symbol, so we’ll never know the truth unless he tells us.

I will say that, similar to how I think TH mentioning the Christmas song to us was to see how we’d react to the idea of him singing a romantic song with a boy, I think that Jimin putting that tattoo on his arm was to raise a similar kind of topic. I think he wants people to discuss and question his gender identity. And I think anyone who has come out to their family, friends, and societies would get the same idea. Because it’s a process, and this seems like a step in the process.

I’d often talk about how I loved it when people would mistake me for a boy, and how disappointing it was when someone would be quick to correct them. I’d talk about how being a “girl” is exhausting and how I wish I could flip a switch and be a “boy”. I’d question my parents about how they’d feel if I brought a girl home. I’d use gender neutral pronouns while talking about people I was interested in. I’d question if it was weird to want to hold hands with my best female friends. And the list goes on.

The tattoo seems like a step in a process. Maybe he’s not trying to come out, but maybe he wants us to be talking about it. I don’t think we should just assume that he’s bigender because of it (the same way we shouldn’t just assume TH is gay for Christmas song talk), but I don’t think people need to be so quick to shut the idea down. Because it’s possible that he might not identify as cis-male, and to shut down a piece of evidence like a bigender drawing on his arm is to shut down a pretty strong piece of evidence. That tattoo was drawn on Jimin for a reason because it’s supposed to mean something. Until we know what that something is, there is absolutely no harm in us fans talking and wondering about his identity. As long as we don’t shove it in Jimin’s face and demand that he talks about it. Let’s wonder together. Among ourselves.

As for which pronouns to use when talking about Jimin, until he says anything official about his identity, I think “he/him” pronouns are fine. If you want to call him “they/them”, I think that’s fine, too. I won’t simply because I only like to use “they/them” if I’m intentionally trying to be neutral or if an individual specifically requests to be addressed as such, but I don’t see the harm in anyone else doing it. I think going as far as using “she/her” could be a little too much and a little too presumptive. I’m not the sort to get offended by any type of pronouns. I identify with them all, but that’s not true for everyone. And it might not be true for Jimin. So I think it’s best to stick with “he/him” or “they/them” because they’re the most gender neutral terms.

And yeah. “He/him” is more gender neutral than “she/her”. And, even if you don’t think so, “he/him” are the terms we use to refer to biological males without knowing anything about their personal identity. I don’t think it’s “assuming he’s cis until he says otherwise.” This is just as harmful as “assuming he’s straight until he says otherwise.” Because, for me at least, “he/him” is referring to the only thing I know about his gender/sex until he confirms otherwise, and that’s the biological part of his gender/sex. It’s not me saying “Oh, I think he’s definitely cis unless he says he’s not”. Because I’m leaning more toward the “not” part of that, but the only thing I can confirm is that he is biologically male. He wouldn’t be in BTS if he wasn’t.

Bringing it back to the first point I mentioned, we can’t assume a gender identity onto any of them. Jimin brings up more questions not because of his “feminine” side, but because of that bigender symbol. But it doesn’t mean that he identifies that way, and it doesn’t mean none of the other members do.

Like I said. I was hesitant about making this post and avoided asks about this topic for a long time because people get more defensive about gender identity than sexuality, but I wanted to talk about this. Because regardless of how offended people get about this topic, I think it’s something we shouldn’t be afraid to discuss.

#gender analysis #needs source #might delete...

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fox-steward · 4 years

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hi, not sure if this blog is active bc im on mobile but you seem v knowledgeable so i hope you are. i have a question if thats ok. ive been id'ing as ftm trans/nb for about 6 years now but havent rlly been able to come out to many ppl or transition at all so im still largely presenting as female. i wouldnt rlly call myself gender critical or anything like that, but i know transitioning is a long & difficult process and im wondering if there is a way to alleviate my dysphoria without going (1/2)

“thru all that. i dont want to transition only to realize that i dont feel better and there was an easier way. in other words, id like to rule out any possibility that im not trans before medically investing in being trans. any chance you have any advice for me? (2/2)”

hey there—still active, if sporadic.

when it comes to healing from dysphoria, there’s no cure-all, no hidden path to healing that you’ve simply yet to uncover. just as there’s no way to guarantee transition will make you happy, there’s no opposite guarantee either. i can only share some of the stuff that has worked for me and some of the hardships i uncovered about living as trans, which i hope you find helpful.

what helps me?

get clear with yourself about what you believe about gender, ideologically. i personally feel, if my beliefs do not stand up to critical thought, if they cannot be supported by rational arguments, then those beliefs are not worth holding on to and i need to let them go. this is what happened to me WRT transness, gender, and all that.

start small—what is gender? is gender innate? do we have gendered souls? how could we have gendered souls if gender is a social construct? okay, so we can’t have gendered souls, so what is gender, if not innate? is gender the social expectations and norms attached to the two sexes? is it possible to break those roles and expectations? does breaking those roles and expectations change anyone’s sex? no—males can behave in typically feminine ways and females in typically masculine ways and that does nothing to change their sex. so what would conceivably make someone (or myself) trans? inhabiting the social roles and expectations of the gender associated with the opposite sex. since we already established that gender isn’t innate and we don’t have gendered souls, there’s no merit in the “born in the wrong body” narrative; it is not possible to be born in the wrong body. we each get one body, no matter how we change it. but if i wasn’t born in the wrong body, why do i feel so uncomfortable with mine, especially with the sexed aspects of it? if you’re female, the likely culprit is misogyny. you don’t actually have to hate women on a conscious level to be suffering from internalized misogyny. we live in a misogynistic world, it saturates everything. if you’re female, it affects almost every factor of how you move through this world—how people treat you, what opportunities you’re given, which behaviors are encouraged for you and which are discouraged, etc. if you are inclined to prefer masculinity—for whatever reason—society will encourage this in males and discourage it in females. having your way of being subtly discouraged all the time can easily lead to feeling disconnected from your body, perhaps even hating it, especially since you know that your way of being would be ENCOURAGED if only your body were male. and that’s when many of us encounter trans ideology that tells us we CAN be male—in fact, we actually were all along! all we have to do is change our bodies drastically with lifelong medication and surgery, all we have to do is trade money and time and health to convincingly imitate the opposite sex—THEN society will finally recognize that our way of being is okay—because we were actually masculine MEN all along, it was simply our female bodies obscuring that. does this feel like a good or healthy trade to you? it doesn’t to me, but i can’t make these decisions for you.

there IS an important caveat, a shortcut that bypasses this bad trade entirely—and that’s realizing that your way of being is ALREADY okay. masculine females and feminine males are healthy and good. it’s not always easy to comfortably BE that way in a society that does not embrace masculinity in women and femininity in men, but the solution is not to change your self, it’s to change the society. and the only way you can do that is by carving out that path—BE a masculine female/woman and you’ll show little girls today that there’s a place for them in this world.

i did try out the trade for myself, however, and i learned a few things you might find useful—maybe these lessons i learned can save you the time and money and pain i’ve already spent.

1) you never actually change sex. you’re always chasing the aesthetic imitation of the opposite sex with transition, but never becoming the opposite sex. in this and so many other ways, transition never ends.

2) passing is conditional. when your sense of self is predicated upon others seeing you a certain way, it can be taken from you in a second. i could be treated like one of the guys for a year, until one of them finds out i was born female. now that he knows, he cannot unknow. now my experience is tied to how he sees me—does he see me as a woman now that he knows? is he comfortable with me in the locker room? it was stressful and uncomfortable for others to have this level of control over my experience of the world and of myself. it’s also out of my control whether he decides to lend manhood to me now—will he use male pronouns with me? will he call me a woman? will he out me to the others? will he sexualize me or sexually assault me based on my female body?

3) as stated above, transition never ends. no matter how well you pass, transition always requires maintenance. you’ll need bloodwork as long as you’re on hormones—that’s time and money you wouldn’t have otherwise spent. you’ll need supplies for your hormone shots—time and money you wouldn’t have spent. there will be instances where you need to disclose your trans status, thus repeating the coming out process infinitely—doctors or EMTs, new intimate partners, friends. this process is exhausting and othering, it’s an ever-present reminder of the fact that you’re trans.

4) medical transition is expensive in terms of money and heath. taking hormones is always a risk. there’s potential for: cardiovascular risk associated with testosterone, vaginal atrophy and sexual side effects, changes to mood (some for the better, some worse), not liking how hormones change your body. then there’s the financial aspect. in the USA at least, this costs money—money for doctor’s visits, money for the hormones themselves, money for the supplies to administer them. there’s risk in any surgery—risk of death or serious complication, loss of function and sensation, improper healing, chronic pain. and of course, the monetary cost associated with surgery. removing the uterus can have lifelong consequences—early onset dimentia, lifelong need for synthetic hormones, osteoporosis.

5) there is no “actually trans.” there’s no meaningful distinction between “true trans” people and others. trans people transition and identify as trans. their dysphoria isn’t any different than mine was. there’s no method for parsing “real dysphoria” from something else. transness is an ideology. i liken it to religion. there are no “real christians” and fake christians, there are only people who believe and those who don’t. that’s the salient difference between myself (detransitioner) and trans people—belief. and if something requires me to believe in it to be real...well that’s a good indication it probably isn’t.

good luck out there. these are heavy questions and weighty struggles. there’s no harm in focusing on other aspects of your life when you’re having trouble answering Big Gender Questions. rooting for you.

#detrans #detransition #radfem #radical feminism #transgender #ftm #non binary #just talkin #gender #asked #answered #anon

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bi-dazai · 3 years

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honestly i think i have a weird anger or cultural confusion where other gay and trans ppl are like much happier and comfortable to come out and shit and be open, but I've always had an extremely complicated relationship with it because it's always made me feel so isolated and lonely, even with other gay ppl around. and younger ppl especially will like go around coming out so frequently and meanwhile if I'm going to even tell you that I'm attracted to women I have to trust you 110% and that isn't something that comes easy.

I'm terrified of like. Wearing even rainbow goddamn socks because I'm scared shitless of getting bullied, or harassed, or even assaulted. Which is ironic considering I try to be quite fashionable in public but with being openly bi (let alone being openly TRANS) it's a complete no-no.

Like I think as much as I love being bi and nb at the same time I still despise it, I still think it's ruined my life. I have gender dysphoria about my chest whereas if I was cis I would be so happy with how feminine my body is. My first ever relationship with another girl at the moment being cut short by abusive homophobia fucked me up in innumerous ways, leading me to like...severe issues with the way i feel about sex and emotional attachment and touch.

And ofc there's the homophobia, like at this moment I'm probably leaning towards getting a fuckbuddy or smth over tinder but like a romantic relationship with another person is terrifying, like I'm insanely private w relationships even w men, I won't let us hold hands if I think too many people might see bc i have this stupid complex

There's more and more but my relationship with being Out is one where it's something that I simultaneously desire and despise, being Out is one of the most terrifying concepts I can think of and to me having someone refer to me as "they" and not as a woman is simply not as important as being safe, as not living in even more fear of assault.

And then all around me ppl my age (although usually younger) are all coming out to anyone and everyone like it's just casual, saying their pronouns like it's nothing. And first it's disbelief and shock because holy fuck, has everyone gone fucking mad?? Are we all so fucking stupid that we just forget the everloving fear homophobia strikes into you?? And then it's the jealousy, that these people have this comfortable relationship with their own gay/transness and enough trust to actually open up and tell a room full of strangers "please call me they not she". It's disappointment and anger in myself that almost 7 years after forcing myself to whisper "I'm bisexual" to the bathroom mirror in the middle of the night and then cry my eyes out because it felt like I'd been cursed, and probably over a decade since I'd started having sexual feelings about all genders, and an entire lifetime of having feelings for men women and others, after so long I'm still just a coward who sits and hates it all, who fears it all.

But then recently I've come to the realisation that the way I realised I was gay was a way that's kind of...dying out. That being the mostly offline way.

Don't take this the wrong way but I've found a lot of people go online and find this overwhelming amount of support and representation for gay and trans identity. You can argue validly this statement, but the context I use this in is comparing it to like. 2013. People were way less online. Being an online celebrity was a novelty.

At school there were dyke, faggot, tranny, etc, thrown around as if they were confetti. Jokes about "lesbos" and "lesbihonest" humiliated any girl who was too close to another girl. I grew up not just in Brisbane Queensland but in a town that was connected to the mainland only by two bridges - a landbridge and a humanmade bridge. The school was overwhelmingly anglo. Overwhelmingly right wing.

I realised I was bi with minimal help from Tumblr. I realised I was bi because I fell, hard, for my best friend. And then she liked me back, and our relationship was amazing. But the school found out. We held hands under the table, we found a quiet moment to kiss and everyone pointed and stared. We made out in the shadow of a building and turned to find twenty people watching gawkeyed, pointing, fascinated.

The entire time her mum was abusive, and massively homophobic. She blamed me for turning her daughter gay. She forced us multiple times to break up at the threat of violence. Eventually we did. We never talked about it. Our friendship never returned like it used to. It was awkward, tinged with sadness, regret, yearning and young love cut short.

It was traumatic, to say the least.

Tumblr in 2014, despite the cringe screenshots, wasn't actually mostly about LGBT positivity or whatever. I first saw the term bisexual on, if you can believe me, a quotev story in 2011 about a cheerleader and an emo girl who get together in a secret relationship. You were either gay or straight, or you had an exception. Bisexual felt right, though, for me, felt accurate, was accurate.

It was years of confusion and secrecy and guilt, peeks at other girls in the changing room that I couldn't help and I didn't understand why. Then it was months and months of anger and frustration at myself that I was feeling this way and confused about myself, and then when I said those words it felt like I was being torn apart. It felt like my life had fallen apart. I cried every goddamn night, I felt awful all the time.

At school the kids noticed. They noticed before I started dating my friend, they noticed the way I looked at her and they interrogated me about it. I'd claim up and down I had a crush on another boy - true perhaps, but it was a passing interest - and then they said they told him and analysed how I reacted. And then the interrogations continued for months because the gay girl was entertainment for them. Around me, as I walked between classes, had lunch, walked home, dyke dyke dyke faggot hahaha.

And then the relationship happened and then leelah alcorn happened and I learned what a trans person is. And sometime when I was fifteen I saw nonbinary begin to pop up, terms like genderfluid and nonbinary and they rang true like bisexual did, but the last time I went down a rabbit hole like that it ended in trauma, and another person got hurt. I didn't throw homophobia at her, but I felt and still feel responsible for it. I didn't turn her gay, but I made it obvious. I don't quite know how to say it.

I knew I was nonbinary, deep down. One day I decided to add that to my tumblr bio. Nobody gave a shit, just like nobody gave a shit when I said I was bi. But that was because I wasn't open about it even online. I couldn't talk about that stuff or I'd curse myself.

Time went on, I got more comfortable, collected fresh new traumas. My brother came out as trans. Around me, friends came out as gay and trans. But they kept coming out. They didn't stop at close friends and trusted family, they told teachers, their entire class. I didn't understand. Why the fuck would you put yourself at risk like that?? And I still don't. I said it was jealousy and anger at myself before, and maybe it is still a little bit, but now, it's just concern.

As I said, the way I realised I was gay is the rather old fashioned way - offline, through trauma, and almost entirely unenjoyable and traumatic. A lot of kids still go through that for sure. But the ones I see telling everyone over that they're gay or trans are, in my experience, not those ones. As the internet began to become more of a general use thing and less of a "only recluse weirdos" space, the online LGBT safe space began to expand into an audience bigger than before. Online, you were safe. Nobody knew your name, you were behind a screen. Homophobia was veiled, you could just delete a hateful anon, could just log off. You could put up your pronouns and people would use them because, well, ppl didn't really have any other identifier someone might use for your gender. So this positive uplifting atmosphere spawned for the most part. And instead of learning through confusion and rare chance encounters with random words and crying into the sink every night that you're gay, you much easier come across this content that tells you indepth what this is and that it's okay. And you think, well wow, that's me, and then...you know, I guess. Not denying there's some of the classic self hatred etc but...you have this safe space online to fall back on, and I cannot emphasise how much that has pushed the acceptance and widespread knowledge of lgbt people in the past 5 years. I didn't exactly have that space, and my realisation was through mostly real life channels, which were swamped at all sides by homophobia, at worst, abusive, at kindest, it would treat you like a sideshow attraction.

Being someone who arguably isn't old enough to brush this difference away with being an "older gay" but still having had a gay experience quite different to the majority in my generation (applying this to area as well) I have to say I'm confronted with this comfortableness other days have a lot and it's always jarring. I think also that while it's important and I'm happy that "younger" gays and transes have at least one good support network/space to fall back onto online, I do think it creates this kind of...dangerous other side, especially for those who go to schools that are LGBT positive and have families who are also friendly to that sort of stuff. I find that young gay teens are totally unprepared and unhardened for the fact that most people you run into in real life despise your guts for existing as who you are. And while we can make as many soppy gay narratives as possible about being honest about who you are and losing shame, we need to face the fact and teach young lgbt kids that being Out isn't just something you do as a ritual in being gay or trans, it's a brave thing and it's completely optional. And furthermore, most importantly, it's insanely dangerous.

I don't think that teenage, raw fear of the consequences of even the very concept of being Out has ever left me. Perhaps I have to thank the homophobic 14 yr olds who swamped me in slurs and trauma, because it's given me a survival sense that's kept me closeted so far you'd never get in.

But occasionally I'm tempted, particularly with my transness which I am only out to perhaps 3 people about, to venture into the world of telling people about yourself. I started a new uni semester and in a tutorial, the teacher handed out cards. We were to use it as a placard to write our names on it so the teacher would learn our names over the next few classes. And, if we chose...our pronouns.

I stared at that card for what felt like a million years. This has always been an ordeal. People don't know how to pronounce my name, even though it's a rather simple one. But pronouns? I'd never really told anyone those. Online, yes, and once when I was asked by a friend i was brave enough to say "any will do" but this - this wasn't the curated safe online space, this wasn't a one-time phrase to a friend. This was an open, permanent thing that would sit below me every class, declaring me to 18 other people. I wrote down "NATALYA", then beneath "she/". And then I stared some more. I felt like I was going to die. I felt like I was the biggest fool, because before I could stop myself I wrote "she/they". No "he", not yet. But...it was there.

At the end of the class the teacher collected the placards. I wanted to run back screaming, wanted to ask her for a new card so I could be safe again. But I didn't because I would look like a freak and a coward.

I still think it's stupid. I still think I've put some petty gesture that no one will ever respect (if they can call you she they won't ever call you they) above my own safety. The thing that really struck me was that it didn't feel good. The reason I wrote it like that, I believe in hindsight, is that I was curious what those other kids feel like, because it must feel good to declare that you're a tr*nny d*ke in front of the entire class, good enough to beat the stomach-lurching dread that precedes such an action. But it didn't. It just felt like an unnecessary risk. And it made me feel worse, like there was a target on the back of my head.

I think I could talk about this forever, about how so many kids believe coming out is this thing you're required to do to be a good gay, but it's not. It's stupid stupid reckless, and in my case it ends with you getting fucked over.

But Ive written for ages and gotten prosaic halfway through so I'm gonna shut up. Basically why the fuck do you guys come out to everyone like please stay safe instead of this it isn't worth it.

#tw d slur #tw f slur #tw homophobia #personal #i didnt hear much transphobia in my grade until towards the end of highschool #because nobody back then rly knew what a trans person was #also #long post #like REALLY long #t slur

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genderfluid-existence · 3 years

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Hi, I’ve been questioning if I’m genderfluid on and off for some time now, and so I thought I’d ask for advice from someone who knows that they’re genderfluid

1. Before you knew for certain that you were genderfluid did you feel like there were possibly other people in your head besides you? Not in a dissociative identity disorder kind of way, but something else? (sorry for the bad wording there)

2. What were some more obscure signs you were genderfluid?

3. Part of the reason why I don’t want to say I’m genderfluid is bc I’m worried actually cis, and that I’m just pretending to be genderfluid due wanting to fit in w/ my friend who is trans/wanting to be more queer than I already am (I already know I’m somewhere on the bi+ spectrum), it’s a coping mechanism for my semi-not-good mental state. (sorry again for the bad wording), do you have any advice regarding this?

Sorry a third time for the bad wording, but I need advice, and this seems like a good way to get it.

Howdy 🤠

I'm always very happy to help, but as always, keep in mind that you are the only person who can say what your gender is, what will make you happiest, and what is the right choice for you. I can only speak from my own experience.

1. Oh boy, quite a question right off the bat. The answer is kind of, I guess. I've actually wondered if I had DID for a long time. I almost certainly don't, but it's definitely very easy to worry that you've confused the two.

It's sort of hard to answer because I don't know specifically what you mean, if not in a DID way. But I'm curious, so do elaborate if you'd like.

I am not a different person when I am a different gender, but it's possible to think of my gendered selves as "personas" in a way, so in that way, I suppose you could explain it like that.

I also engage in a lot of self-dialogue and self-reassurance, which often manifests in my thoughts being formed in a conversational way (including the pronouns you. And yeah, I feel a little weird about it this, but it doesn't seem to cause any issues). There's nothing that indicates that I feel that there is another enitre person on the ends of these mental conversations, let alone that the two ends are different genders. However I still have yet to understand a lot about my inner workings. Some may judge this as a disorder.

Finally, I think I have some identity-formation problems. Including the fact that I often feel like my mental understanding of how I present to people changes a lot. Not strictly in a gender way, nor in a DID way (at least I hope not). I just have trouble forming a stable image of "me", so sometimes it can feel like I'm different people.

2. Hmm, interesting. I'm sure there are many that I have yet to identify since they come with time.

When I was a child I remember having a minor fascination with having a male version of myself. I've found an old drawing of myself next to an imagining of a male version of myself.

Also, I imagine that if questioning is especially long and difficult, it could be a sign of fluidity. I say this because if you feel one way for a period of time and another way for another period of time, it can feel like these experiences contradict each other, and it's abysmally confusing. Like, why don't any of my feelings line up??? If I'm a man, shouldn't I feel like a man all the time? Yesterday I didn't feel that way.

Grain of salt: questioning can be long and confusing for anyone, and dysphoria can fluctuate even for gender-solid folks.

Also, there are some indicators of being trans in general.

For example, dissociative dysphoria is a less discussed manifestation of dysphoria in which you just don't feel real/your surroundings don't feel real.

Also, irrational avoidance. When I was younger, my sister used a lot of highly feminine pet names and terms of endearment, it was just her style. But being around her made me incredibly dysphoric because of these reminders of how she saw me. So eventually I came to associate her with those bad feelings, even though I had no explination for the feelings, since this was before I even knew of transness as a concpet. It took me a while after she stopped to realize Oh shit, that's what it was. Now we've been on much better terms for years.

Also, there are signs that can be indicators of any number of psychological distress (so they could be explained by other mental health issues) like extreme escapism, sleep issues and other depressive symptoms, dissociation, aggression, anxiety, avoidance of social situations, etc.

3. This is common. Firstly, nothing is stopping you from claiming a label. Absolutely nothing. Coming out to yourself doesn't mean you have to come out to others, transition, or take any other steps. So if you're wrong, so what? A label does no harm.

What can have the potential to do harm is transitioning unnecessarily. If you think it's a maladaptive coping mechanism, my only advice is to seek counseling before taking any steps that you think you might regret.

I've never heard of a person worrying that they want to be more queer than they actually are. And indeed I've never heard a detransitioner point to this as an issue. The only thing I could think of, is perhaps a sort of munchausen syndrome where you would theoretically try and gain """ oppression points.""" To be clear, I don't think this is very likely, but not impossible. In that case if it really worries you, I would again seek counseling, since that sounds like a symptom of a larger issue.

I've not quite cracked the nut of what if it's social pressure??? to be honest. And immitation is certainly a common trait among young people (assuming you're young). So, quite honestly, is it possible that you (and I) have tried on the trans label out of imitation of peers? Yeah.

I don't know if there's a solution to this (except of course counseling) other than careful trial and error. Trying on aspects of the male (or female) role and testing to see if it makes you uncomfortable or comfortable. Indeed, many aspects of social and sexual dimorphism can be very evocative of euphoria/dysphoria. Like, being called she/her might elicit relatively minor euphoria/dysphoria, but (cw: AFAB dysphoria) the idea of being vaginally penetrated? Yeah, most people will have a pretty strong reaction to that one (cw: end).

In short, sometimes these worries about "What if it's X?" don't always have an easy answer, and I don't think any trans person can solidly eliminate the question forever. I have a friend who's more than 2 years on T and still occasionally worries that he's secretly cis. But the fact that doubt lingers doesn't stop trans people from transitioning.

I want to be careful here to not seem like I'm saying that you should run right into transitioning with no caution. I just want to frame your doubts in perspective. If gender affirming steps feel uncomfortable, and you find yourself surrounded by doubts, then it's important to listen to that and take a step back. But if you're 90% certain that transition is right for you, but that 10% of doubt is scaring you away, try and put it in perspective. There's a 10% chance you'll regret transitioning, and 90% chance that you'll regret not transitioning. And sometimes only time and experience can close the gap between 90% and 99%.

Gahhh, I seem to be infinitely apt at bloviating; sorry 🥴. Hopefully something in my essay of a response can be of use to you.

#ask #no i have no shame in writing such a longer answer 😤#ok maybe a little lol #but i find externalizing my own advice actually really helps me resolve my own doubts because i share much of this #anyways thanks for coming to my ted talk lmaooo #long post #cw: dysphoria #cw: dissociation

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aspiringwarriorlibrarian · 4 years

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Alright, I didn’t want to make this post, but here we are.

A few days ago, JK Rowling released what many are already calling her TERF manifesto. Skillfully blending TERF dogwhistles (trans activists, double think, censorship, dysphoria) with meaningless concessions towards the trans community, it was designed to strike like an arrow, to muddle her claims and soften her views enough for transphobes to call it clear-headed, rational, and right while trans people saw her disdain within and reacted accordingly, letting her supporters paint them as irrational and thoughtless.

Chief among her grievances with the trans community, besides an outdated, highly offensive claim that trans women are sexual predators and that they were too quick to condemn her for accidentally liking a transphobic tweet (funny, your excuse back then was that you were simply tired that day, not that it was an accident in research) is that girls will inevitably transition or be forced into transitions simply for being empowered women and that feminism will collapse. After all, she felt "sexless” in her youth, and this other woman felt sexless, and if she could have become a boy she would have to escape the pressures of femininity. If children were allowed to transition, EVERY girl would no doubt try to escape.

Well, I’m a cis woman, who used to think I was nonbinary or perhaps even a trans man. I’m the poster child TERFs long for, a woman who was unfairly pressured by the trans community into denouncing her femininity, the picture of everything they fear could happen if the evil transes had their way.

Except for the fact that that wasn’t how it happened. At all.

Like most kids, I started off as a genderless little sprout. Unlike most kids, I got to stay that way for longer than most, since my autism barred me from fully understanding the meaning of “boy” or “girl” long after my classmates quietly began performing one or the other in accordance with social norms. It didn’t make any sense to me. My mother had short hair, but me having short hair meant I was half boy half girl. Things like playing in the dirt or the color pink or talking a lot or reading weren’t just things, they each had a gender to them, and whatever gender that was changed daily. I thought I got it when I came across the term tomboy, but then my sister gave me a list of things I had to do to be a tomboy (ride skateboards, wear a certain brand, be dumb) and I noped out of that real quick. The other girls knew I was not like them and they never hesitated to remind me of that fact. All things considered, I’m surprised it took me until seventh grade before a guy bluntly accused me of secretly having a penis, along with other insults I don’t see fit to repeat.

(A few months later, I accidentally slapped him so hard he blacked out during P.E. And I got away with it too, since the teacher saw it wasn’t on purpose. It’s one of my better memories of that school.)

Fast-forward a decade of unlearning prejudice, creating my soul, finding myself, and some serious growing up, and I started to get the idea that I could be another gender. After all, I had felt genderless for a long time, and I kinda liked masculine things. So I experimented. I tried on new clothes, new pronouns, new expressions. And at every step, the trans community encouraged me. For the first time in my life, there were no rules attached to my gender, no boxes except the ones I stepped into or made for myself. “Whatever fits!” They answered, at any question. Every time I got the idea that I had to be x or y or z, it would be gently dissuaded. Labels were just that: labels, not lists, not requirements.

At the end, I decided that I liked being a girl. My own version of a girl, to be sure, autistic, rebellious, kinda burgundy, kinda “too tired to perform”. And of course they closed ranks, locked me in a room, chanted about my internalized....ha ha, nah, they did as they always had. “Good for you!” “Well at least now you know!” “Come back anytime!” Shockingly, it seems that trans people are just fine with cis people as long as we don’t turn around and try to brainwash/abuse/murder them immediately afterward on the incredibly poor grounds of “well I wasn’t trans so none of you must be either!”. My time with the trans community didn’t “tarnish my womanhood” or whatever TERFs like to claim, but reaffirmed it as something my own rather than something someone else decided for me.

In the end, gender presentation is just another way to wear a soul so that others might see it. And no matter how dearly other beings, in our selfish ways, wish we could make souls to factory standards and remold them in the images we find most pleasing, they revolt against all attempts at pruning, sculpting, and boxing them into any shapes but the ones they are. Only the soul can create itself. A person wearing their soul so that you can see is a privilege, and throwing it away based on fear, bigotry, and ignorance is a tragedy. I have been cruel in the past, and I hope to never be so cruel again.

We as a species aren’t capable of telepathy, but it doesn’t stop us from trying, from writing and reading endless stories of what goes on other’s heads. Radfems have their own stories, their martyrdom, their denial of soul and choice and power, and they will tell them again and again, writ large across the entire human race. Well, here is my story, only my own, but true all the same. A cis woman who experimented and not only wasn’t harmed or traumatized, but enlightened. Who came out of the experience better, not just in my own identity, but in increased empathy with those that chose other paths.

Burgundy really is a lovely color.

#transphobia tw #terf tw #i'm seeing a rise in detrans bullshit so i'm gonna offer a counternarrative #surprise trans people are fine with you leaving as long as you don't turn into a bigot right afterwards

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inter-bellum · 1 year

Text

I posted 304 times in 2022

26 posts created (9%)

278 posts reblogged (91%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@its-tea-time-darling

@not-your-typical-jay

@persnickett

@itsthemxze

@anaisanais-stuff

I tagged 222 of my posts in 2022

Only 27% of my posts had no tags

#fic rec - 18 posts

#!!! - 8 posts

#tmr - 7 posts

#lol - 6 posts

#soral's shit - 6 posts

#gif tutorial - 5 posts

#skam fic rec - 5 posts

#incorrect tmr quotes - 4 posts

#tmr fic rec - 4 posts

#personal - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 107 characters

#this is giving me soo much nostalgia and reminding me of the pictures in the books i used to read as a cild

My Top Posts in 2022:

to parents

My parents were almost as kind and accepting as any lgbtq-kid could wish for. When I came out as non-binary, my mom gave me a hug and my dad a pat on the back. That however did not mean they started using the right pronouns, or later when I told them about a new name that I wanted to try out, then did not call me that. There was never really rejection/unacceptability, but rather a lack of awareness and the actions that came with it, sometimes felt like rejection.

For my generation, when you tell someone about a new name, the next obviously logical step is for them to start calling you by that name, it’s like a built in habit. But not with my parents, like i said, there was just a lack of awareness and knowledge and so they just continued referring to me by my old name. Only when I explicitly told them that I wanted to be called by this new name, they actually started using it. Though my father didn’t at first, his reasoning being ‘but she also listens to her old name, so why should I?’ Now that feels like rejection. But that was just from the lack of awareness, he didn’t not realise how important it was for trans people so see the new name get accepted (and with that, eventually being used as well)

So to parents, regardless of the fact if your child is out, or part of the lgbtq-community, please educate yourself. Get some basic knowledge groundwork so to speak and know the meaning of ‘standard’ lgbtq words like homosexual/heterosexual/bisexual and cisgender/transgender.’ My parents didn’t even know what transgender meant precisely, let alone the meaning of a more specific term such as non-binary, that alone adds a whole new layer of difficulty, that combined with that everyone expresses their label(s) in a different way, like I’m a very masculine non-binary person whilst others are more feminine or more androgynous.

My parents didn’t understand me, they still don’t understand and I don’t think they ever fully will because cause this is such a unique, personal experience

(Even as fellow non-binary/trans person, you will probably understand out of everyone but still it’s slightly different from person to person) but they understood even less because of that lack of awareness and knowledge. So to parents, please educate yourself on themes like these as they are becoming more prevalent in todays society, keep up with those things, like one would keep up the news.

11 notes - Posted November 12, 2022

Gally: youre very annoying

Thomas: what can I say, its a lifestyle

13 notes - Posted May 29, 2022

Gally: *begrudgingly hands Thomas his jacket, as his complaining about being cold annoys him (or so he tells himself)

Minho: why'd you do that? Thought you hated him *eyebrow wiggling ensues*

Gally: there's a fine line between hate and-

Minho: *crows* LOVE

Gally: *deadpan* vague feelings of affection

@its-tea-time-darling in light of the thomally week, of which I only see snatches, here's my humble contribution

51 notes - Posted April 30, 2022

Minho: *eyeing Thomas*

Newt: Oh, for bloody god's sake, Minho, at least make sure he can still walk once you're done with him.

Minho: What do you mean, still walk?! They can always walk

Newt: *tsking* they hobble, Minho! They ho-

Minho: *loudly speaking* they can get from point A to point B!!

86 notes - Posted February 28, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Thomas: *presenting some wild, dangerous plan*

Gally: what's he on?

Newt: some highly addictive drug called idiocy

95 notes - Posted August 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #hehe lovely angel number there #222 and 2022 :))

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shinra-makonoid · 3 years

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"How is gay FtMs any different than heterosexual transitioned females exactly? " How would you answer your own question?

I'd say it's the incentive/ if they actually have gender dysphoria or not (assuming the diagnoses would be always correct).

I mean to me labels are functionable so it depends on the setting and what you’re looking for etc. To me it depends, all gay FtMs are technically people born with XX chromosomes capable of creating ovum (female) attracted to the opposite sex (male looking people). But in reality, any passing trans man calling themselves a straight woman would be called a creep and/or a trans woman by other people, so gay FtM or gay man makes more sense to call oneself in that situation.

So I would say it solely depends on passing, not especially about gender dysphoria. Some detransitioned female who didn’t actually have gender dysphoria called themselves gay men because they were passing/living as a gay man in society.

But I suppose it’s not exactly answering the question, because your question is about “being” rather than “calling ourselves as”. And to this I have no answer because in a way, it is kind of “made up”.

“Heterosexual female” as in XX chromosome person attracted to XY people is incomplete as a definition even by scientific standard, because it’s not a clear cut on anything. What if a "heterosexual female” is attracted to a male who has a DSD that makes him XX, or what if a “heterosexual female” has a thing with another woman one night, or dates a pre-T trans man? To various people, those “heterosexual woman” will no longer be a “heterosexual woman”.

So the definition of “heterosexual woman” is, to this day, pretty much unclear by a scientific standard. If we go by the definition of “attraction to the opposite sex” you have to prove that the woman has been/is attracted to the people she dated and/or slept with. It is a whole mess, because that means we have to rely on the testimony of the person claiming that she indeed was attracted or not to those people, that is biased as fuck. And since we know genital reaction is not always accurately related to sexual orientation especially in the context of a study (stress, being watched, other biases I don’t know about that happen), it is even more difficult to study.

In some scientific models, I am a heterosexual female. In some scientific models, I am a gay female-to-male, or even a gay male. But what I am is not really interesting in your everyday life, no one cares if I am this or that. I look male, I wouldn’t date a woman (I’m not attracted to women but again that’s my own personal testimony of that) and exclusively date males (I’m attracted to males but again that’s my own personal testimony of that), I “am” gay.

It doesn’t mean that those models should be casted away or erased like some people claim they should, or that they’re untrue or unreliable, because they are true and they are reliable for a group of people that you’re trying to study. They are reliable and true to study a large amount of people, or a group. But to one specific person, it isn’t always.

That doesn’t mean no one is a specific sexual orientation or that sexual orientation doesn’t exist. But that does mean that we all have our different viewpoint on what is a specific sexuality and that not all people will fit the boxes in our eyes (or agree with said boxes) no matter how much we try to make them fit in. That’s the reason why so many bullshit identities came to be.

One of my best friend is a woman who claims to be a lesbian, has been exclusively dating women for 25 years, never had anything with a male, never wanted to touch a penis, who is currently dating and having sex with a male. Let me tell you how weird and uncomfortable it was for me to see that she doesn’t fit the box of what I feel about what “lesbian”/”homosexual female” should be, but still she doesn’t call herself anything else but lesbian today. Am I supposed to screech about it? Telling her she can’t say she’s a lesbian because she fucks one male? What good will it do honestly, and who cares in the end, she’s not representative of lesbians, as I’m not representative of homosexual gay men. We are complex individuals with a story and personal beliefs about our existences and personal biases and ego.

Scientifically, those things could also be explained with various hypothesis. For example: loneliness? Companionship gives hormones that make someone feels good, could create chemistry without it being attraction. Biological clock? Around 25 females sometimes have a drive to make babies and it could influences their decisions in some ways to the point of someone being exclusively attracted to females go on and have a relationship with a male. It is incredibly difficult to study and understand, so I have absolutely no idea, but that could explain it or part of it, without requiring to claim that “sexuality is fluid” or that “she’s actually bisexual” or other things like that. In truth, I don’t know, I’m just throwing things out there, maybe she’s bisexual, maybe one or several hypothesis is true, etc etc. Functionally speaking I would call her bi, but she wouldn’t, and it’s her right and I like her too much to be against her for that, again, what does it changes if I believe she’s wrong and I’m right. It’s her life.

Anyone basing that experience of her or me, as being “representative” of a whole group of people based on our own testimony and personal beliefs about our identity, is dumb as fuck and need to understand people are individuals first. Anyone who is, upon knowing me, regretful that I am not representative of what the majority of people claiming to be gay men are (or a trans person is, or a man is), are not people I want to associate with, because they don’t see me as a person, but as a group. Whether it’s because I’m not feminine enough, or because I’m trans, or because I don’t like Beyonce or because I don’t subscribe to the one night stand culture that is prevalent in dating apps, I don’t care. None of those things change the fact that I’m a male-passing person looking for male-passing people regarding romantic and sexual long term companionship, which is my “personal” definition of what a gay man is.

People can have issues with it, and have their own beliefs of what the definition of gay man is, it’s their rights. We can take a coffee or a tea together once covid end, and they can call me a (heterosexual) female, and see how anyone else around react to that considering how I look and live. They might be surprised by the fact that no one normally constituted would believe calling me a heterosexual female make any sense whatsoever for it to be functionable in society. So I “am” not a heterosexual female in that sense, I “am” a gay male in the most functionable definition existing in society. And I think that’s what should direct someone to use that word for me rather than heterosexual female. But in the end, I “am” both dependently of how you look at it, and anyone can call me whatever.

The funny thing is that since I base my definition on the functionalibility in society, if one day people are not considered by how they look but for example, by their DNA, and that it’s only between X and Y individual (let us imagine that), I would call myself a heterosexual female without any issue too. So it’s to them to change society so that me calling myself a heterosexual female makes sense, not me to stand out in society just because they feel I should.

I got carried away, but it is such a complicated thing lmao

#anon #ask #long post

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no1trash2003 · 4 years

Text

Identity crisis 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♂️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♂️

It's late at night so its 🧚‍♂️crisis time🧚‍♂️. If you want to skip this is going to be a convoluted gender identity post.

I think before getting into this I should info dump about my history with gender identity as a preteen:

I've always been somewhat uncomfortable with being referred to as a female. Other than a brief few years of hyper femininity as a very young child, I've always rejected the idea of being referred to as feminine in any way. Things I've assosiated with femininity i rejected, regardless of how much I liked them if at all. As a teen I'd later say this was a rejection of femininity as a weakness, as it is commonly portrayed in pop culture. In order to be strong I must reject femininity. This is probably still true to some extent but the fact remains I've always been uncomfortable with femininity and, to this day, prefer tomboy looks.

This also manifested in a strong distaste for being referred to as gendered terms. Of course I was only ever referred to as female. It always has made me incredibly uncomfortable. I used to day dream about calling myself he in my head and imagine how nice life would be had I been born with the superior genitalia (at least it was in my adolescent eyes).

I both longed for and hated a large chest, which I eventually got. And hated. Dont get me wrong I like the look of it somewhat now. But I'd prefer if it was... flat. Maybe I could arrange to rent it out? I'd like the look of them on others I'm sure.

When I reached puberty my nebulous relationship with all things LGBTQ+ began.

Of course, being a teen without acess to the internet I'd only ever heard of lgbt through word of mouth and vuage comments about crossdressers. When sexuality became a prime topic of discussion among my peers I was keen to label myself- and after analysing a common distaste for most people around me with the exception of a small select few, labelled myself a bisexual. While I've doubted this at many points I believe it still holds true today. I got a few odd questions, but I was used to being different due to my learning disability and odd disposition, so I wasnt too put off by a little bullying.

I did, however, finally get internet acess. And this, unfortunately, did not help.

As I got a clearer and clearer image of what a woman was supposed to be, I found myself more and more unable to connect with it. I didnt appritate clothes in the same way as my peers, nor makeup, music or fandom. I only really showed interest in those things to make my friends happy and spend time with them- they enjoyed it and I enjoyed their company. But this did lead to me scouring through multiple gender identity quizzes, coming to the conclusion I had some unresolved attention seeking issues, and suppressing it for the foreseeable future.

Eventually, I gained a political interest. For some reason I couldnt quite understand, I was drawn to the politics of trans identity. Of course at this point I was still firmly in the binary, being a transmed. I was overly interested in the politics of it all, at one point being briefly pulled into some more conservative media. It made me uncomfortable to listen to, and I thought that most things were uncomfortable to listen to so it was probably right.

It was at this point my friend came out as non binary.

I wanted to be supportive. I was their friend, and it was my duty as such to help them figure out themselves. I got some shit off my goth friend for using their preferred pronouns at the time, even when referring to them, as well as their new name rather than their dead name. But overall it went quite well. At the same time, though I hid it, their non binary gender made me somewhat uncomfortable. I think, looking back, that openness and bravery intimidated me. They could admit things to the world that I couldnt even admit to myself.

Later they would come out as a he. I made a gender fluid friend- who was unfortunately a pathological liar, not really helping my binary view of the world. I respected their pronouns whenever they asked me to change them of course, but again I was uncomfortable with their bravery.

At this point I rejected any gender nonconformity I may have shown, and kept myself firmly in the window of a mildly unfeminine women.

And then, I was plunged into leftist ideologies.

This is the point where I decided to go for gender abolishment as something I'd support- through finding creators like contrapoints, and lots of non binary creators who were very eager to explain it all to me in a way that wasnt ripped out of the sour lips of a terf. My interest in politics, the role of gender in society as a concept, its role in capitalism, made me reject it. I still firmly identified myself as a woman, despite the massive discomfort about my female sex characteristics, and being referred to as such.

But I suppose, through accepting others I was forced to analyse myself more closely. Yes, I'd grown attached to many feminine things. Yes, I'd grown attached to many masculine things. Yes, I'd love- AND I MEAN LOVE- to look like a full on boy- to be recognised as such also.

But why would that make me anything less than female? Surely, I could just be a masculine woman. Gender roles after all mean nothing in reality.

And yet, does my love for makeup, and the occasional dress, discount other identities completely? Cisgender men could like all those things for gods sake! And so could masc presenting non binary people, and trans men, and anyone else for that matter! Why would those things have any bearing on my gender identity?

I know I hate how I present at the moment. But unfortunately that's all I know. I'm a coward i guess- I dont know what to do or how to do it. I don't have the bravery to come out and say I'm this or that or anything other then female. I dont have the courage to get more stares in the street than I normally do or explain this to my school. I don't have the balls of steal to let anyone see me as anything other than a cis woman in real life. I dont know what or who I am.

I do know I dont like being referred to as female pronouns. I know I dont identify with femininity in the same way as cisgender women seem to do. I know being called anything feminine makes me cringe. I know I hate my breasts and my hips and my thighs and my vagina. I know I hate not looking masculine. I know I hate my fucking name.

So I dont know what I am. But a lot of things seem to be pointing towards not female.

#idenity #gender questioning #lgbtq #lgbtqa #identity crisis #trans #afab #afab dysphoria

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silverjirachi · 4 years

Note

Do u rly 100% believe ur not a woman? If u dont mind sharing how did u figure that out? How can u separate urself from ur body like that? We r our bodies! I cant wrap my mind around it even tho I have dysphoria. Also women are the most oppressed class of people 2 this day so it seems really really stupid 2 let our oppressors claim womanhood. We r all born from vaginas. How do people ignore history & reality? Is pretending ur not who u r a coping mechanism? Wouldnt accepting ur body b healthier?

Hi there! I considered not answering this because I don’t want to fan flames or stir discourse because I don’t want other people to get wrapped up into something that is 100% about me. I try really hard to cultivate a positive, lighthearted environment in all of my online presences. But honestly your ask isn’t worded hatefully, and I think what I have to say is important and might help someone else, so I’m going to answer it. But I probably won’t answer anything else and there better not be any funny business in these notes. If there is, I would like to politely ask people not to engage with it. Please leave me, and everyone else in these notes, alone. I am writing this for me, to answer your question about me, and I’m writing this in case there’s a baby enby out there who is exactly like me who who needs to read this today.

With that disclaimer aside...,

Yes, I really do 100% believe I am not a woman. I unfortunately cannot easily explain how without falling into the traps of words like masculinity and femininity. But it’s the same as any other identity. How do you know you are a woman? Is it something that you identify with, feel a personal relationship with? Or does it ultimately only come from your body alone, and you feel absolutely no connotations or connections to it whatsoever? Did it come to you through your body? I know people who 100% identify with their assigned gender, but can’t really articulate how or why without falling into these same binaries. And I know people who 100% DON’T identify with their assigned gender and cannot truly articulate how or why. It doesn’t even have a lot to do with masculinity or femininity. A lot of our language just doesn’t have the words to describe such an internal experience.

It is true that there is a very specific type of oppression that comes with being born in a female body- or a body that would otherwise assign you female at birth. From what I can tell, that’s what a lot of this really relies on. I don’t think anyone who is AFAB and nonbinary or ftm is really denying that, at least not from my experience. I’m sure they’re out there. But we, by and large, HAVE had the experience of discrimination in some way or another because of our “femaleness-” our ASSIGNED femaleness. (Something that got thrown at me was the idea of female socialization- it’s true, I was socialized as a female bc that’s what my body “looked” like and that’s just what our society assumes). But just as there is a very specific kind of oppression that goes along with being AFAB, there is also a very specific kind of oppression that goes along with being mtf, and there is a very specific type of oppression that goes along with being a poc and any of those other categories. That’s at the core of intersectionality. Different parts of our identities interact with each other in different ways. People experience oppression and privilege in different ways and at different times depending on where they fall in this mix of race/class/gender/ability etc.

I also have body dysphoria, and it’s true our bodies can define a lot of our human experience (after all if I didn’t have a body I wouldn’t have dysphoria, right?? Godddd what a life). But also because I have dysphoria, I do not think that our bodies should be the defining characteristic of our identities. Bodies and presentation can cause a lot of our social interactions- including oppression- but I think to say woman and woman’s experience = female body is quite a limited summary of the issue with little nuance, and it’s also quite limiting with the way our society is changing. This is why I heavily prefer terms like assigned female at birth. This can imply that such a person may have had a socially female experience (like me) in part due to their body, and thus was socially assigned to be a female, but just... also isnt a woman for some reason or another.

I also think that what we strive to do is not to ignore history (I think very few people are denying the way women have been treated in history, and are still treated to this day) but we hope to build from it. I think that’s why feminism and gender studies get lumped together. A lot of feminist activists/scholars (many were both at the same time) led our current strides into gender constructivism. I studied a lot of gender essentialism when I started my thesis, and to be honest, I saw the point behind it in the context of the time, but we’ve shifted in understanding and context since then.

And, in full disclosure, at the start of this whole adventure, (and i am SURE this will be used against me) I really did identify with being a woman. I thought it was awesome to have the body I had and when I started witchcraft I did actually fall into that really easy trap of tying the female experience to magic. (Honestly because I HATED my body and looking back that was probably a way to cope with DYSPHORIA and not the other way around). And isn’t inherently harmful to have a working magical relationship with your body like that, but it is harmful when you think and say that’s the only way people can exist and the only way people can be magical. But over time, I just started to change. Nothing traumatic happened, I’ve been incredibly fortunate and privileged my entire life, it’s not a coping mechanism, I just started to identify with womanhood less and less, for no real particular reason- nothing about me personality or preference-wise changed. Just my own internal view of myself.

I also got the words for gender euphoria. And I noticed more and more that, if I was being honest with myself, that that was always how I had truly felt. While it’s true gender roles shouldn’t exist, just like any other role or label, it’s different when someone chooses that role for themselves versus when they have it thrust upon them. As a child, like many other AFAB children, I had the idea of womanhood thrust upon me, with all the roles and stereotypes that went along with it. It’s fucked up in the first place, don’t get me wrong, but I knew people who embraced these fullheartedly, I knew people who didn’t. But some people who didn’t still identified with womanhood, others became ftm, others became mtf. I had “woman” thrust upon me, didn’t identify with it, rebelled against it, tried to rationalize it by accepting that I could be a “woman” without falling into gender stereotypes because there is no ONE correct way to be a woman (which there ISN’T), still didn’t feel right, did a full 180 and started buying pink lingerie and worshipped Aphrodite, that worked for a while and was overall a positive experience that helped me hate myself a little less, but at the end of the day, no matter what I did, I still did not identify as a woman. What does happen to me, however? I get a burst of euphoria when I am called a boy. That makes me feel like I’m being really seen. I actually resonate with that after years of not resonating at all with womanhood no matter how I sliced it, and that’s why it feels so fucking good. I tried to identify as a woman. Believe me, I tried like all fucking hell. Even though my presentation is still read as mostly female (I would disagree strongly with it but alas society and their fucking gender roles), I am quite the feminine boy-something to me, and I don’t have to justify that to anyone.

So TL;DR no it’s not a coping mechanism, I have lived a life full of very accepting, open-minded people and I won’t deny that I have that privilege, but in spite of that i STILL did not view myself as a woman, no matter how hard I tried. I’ve actually generally accepted my body except on the days my dysphoria makes me want to throw my boobs across the room, I don’t think it’s denying history if we’re building from it, gender roles are fucked up. I recognize that my experience being AFAB- and others who are AFAB- comes along with a particular type of oppression, but that’s why I prefer the term AFAB because it indicates the experience you’re talking about while also leaving it open to considering other experiences like my own and the experiences of other trans and nb folks. In a few years AFAB might be outdated as a term and then we’ll find more terms to help figure this whole mess out.

TL;DR;DR no it’s not a coping mechanism and anyone is welcome to think that this is simply part of the horrible fallout of female socialization, and anyone is welcome to think that i’m mentally ill for identifying like this. people can think or say all they want about me but it won’t change the fact that I’m a boy-something and it won’t change all the years I struggled trying to figure that out.

Thank you for allowing me to write this all out, I think I really needed to. This is something that had been floating in my brain forever, and explaining it all to you actually made my thoughts that much clearer.

Now everyone who sees this- please respect my wishes and please don’t clown in these notes if it spreads. I’m tired enough about this as it is today. I’m tired enough about fucking gender as it is. We’re all fucking tired. What I’ve shared today is about me and me alone and I want to keep it that way.

#gender stuff #discourse #seriously i know people are gonna comment on this but i wanted to share it bc i thought it was important to say #but i REALLY don't want other people wrapped up in MY OWN issues and identity #anon #asks

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slayershaw · 4 years

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Something to get of my chest (literally)

Over the course of my life I've given a lot of thought to the person I would have been if I had been born and raised as a boy. I've considered how every step of my life would have been different or the same, tried to figure out exactly where I would be right now. Long story short, I've come to the conclusion that I wouldn't like him much. He might have been a lot happier than me, but boring as hell.

Still, I can't help being jealous of him.

When people call me a girl, I honestly don't care much. Then there's "woman" and "ma'am" that I'm not particularly fond of. But I've never cared about being called she and her.

Yet when strangers call me a boy or sir at first glance, I only feel satisfaction. I know how I look, I do my best for it. I just hope they don't realize their mistake and take it back.

I love women. Not just sexually and romantically. I love our history, our resilience, our minds, our voices, our strength, our souls. I am so proud of women, it makes me a little sad I can't say I'm proud to be one.

I've never liked myself much at all, even as a kid. I was never satisfied with what I saw in the mirror, I didn't like people looking at me, I was so insecure that I could barely walk with my back turned to people. I always thought this was perfectly normal. But looking back, when I add that to memories of throwing a tantrum at being made to wear a dress on my sixth or seventh birthday (the only tantrum I ever threw), the pride I took in my more masculine hobbies, the constant discomfort with my body when it grew into what it is, it's starting to make a little more sense.

The thing is that aside from my dad and members of my family that were added in later, I have no connection to men or their culture whatsoever. I don't have brothers, I didn't have male friends until late in high school, and I wasn't that close with them. I don't genuinely know any men outside of my family. I never gave men much thought in general. I wasn't interested in them, I didn't need anything from them. Men were always kind of alien to me, far removed from my galaxy of women.

Maybe that factors into why it took me 24 years to start having these revelations. That, plus having actively avoided even thinking about it, at least the past couple of years. I've really only recently admitted to myself that these thoughts aren't something I can just ignore.

I remember my mom asking me just last year, when we were talking about trans people, if I didn't sometimes want to be a boy. I can still hear myself answering regretfully that "it doesn't work like that." I told her one doesn't choose to be trans. You either are or you're not. It was quite easy for me to ignore the fact that I obviously wanted to be a boy sometimes, even my mom knew it. I just knew for sure that I didn't want to be trans.

It took me seven years after I found out I liked girls to vocally admit to myself that I was a lesbian. And I was proud to like girls. I love everything about them. But coming to terms with that label, the only one that ever made sense to who I was, took me until the big age of 22.

When I came out initially, I made sure to stay the same as I was before, so that anybody who changed their mind about me would be in the wrong and it wouldn't be on me. I guess that's why it took me those seven years to realize that the image of myself I was clinging on to, the one I knew people around me were comfortable with, wasn't comfortable to me at all.

I think people really underestimate the power of a haircut. I mean, the straight people I grew up around certainly knew how they felt about lesbians with short hair, and managed to imprint on me that that wasn't the way to go. But the moment my hair was off, I was a new person. It felt right, immediately. I was already wearing men's clothes, but shortly after the haircut I got rid of every piece of feminine clothing left in my closet and I was practically born again.

Everything in me changed. I was checking myself out in the mirror. I dressed to impress. I got pretty close to comfortable in social settings. I was content with myself for the first time ever.

But I also started feeling a distance between myself and other women. I felt that they didn't see me as one of them anymore, like that safety of similarity you find in a stranger like you on the train, I felt that was no longer there for them when they looked at me. I didn't mind that, but it felt significant, especially now.

I was also accutely aware of anyone that perceived my being able to tell that I was gay, and that brought, still brings, as much fear with it as it does peace. I don't look like the gay person a subtle homophobe, like the ones that used to live in my head telling me not to cut my hair, can tolerate. Of course that scares me. But it also comforts me that I have nothing to hide behind anymore, and neither do they. It's the first thing people see about me, and every kind thing they do and say to me comes after acknowledging and accepting who I am.

But somehow, after all of that, being trans still wasn't something that I let cross my mind. And when I think about it now, all I can see is the strain even only the social part of potential transition would put on my depression and anxiety. I'm not in a place right now where I can manage to deal with any of that. And I can live with that, the less active evil overshadowing the other, but it does beg the question if that is all that is holding me back.

It's not, at this point in time. Because even though I'm not a proud woman, I am a very proud lesbian. And I know enough of our history to know that butch lesbians have considered themselves the third sex since the 50s.

Most of the time when I used to think about non-binary identities I saw it as a lack of commonalities with either women or men, even when I applied it to myself. This feeling of not quite fitting in with either. But I'm starting to see it in a different light.

I've realized this "if I were a boy" scenario doesn't really work when you approach it from a from birth situation and essentially erase everything that has made you you over the years. I've always had this male voice in my head, that questioned me and answered me and kept me company, and I never understood who that was until now.

The thing about not truly knowing any men aside from ones I am on good terms with, is that everything I love about them is already a part of me. I don't truly know a man that I don't already am. Every ideal I have of manhood, I have already absorbed, the same way I modeled parts of myself after every woman I've ever looked up to.

So I can't say that I'm not connected to either. I value having grown up knowing my worth as a girl, even though I didn't believe it was much, and I value all the masculinity I get to channel in my lesbian self. Gender is a social construct anyway. That is not to invalidate the struggles of the trans community, obviously. It's a very solid construct and dictates everything in our lives. But I've decided to take off the pressure of choosing one, the other, or a place outside of the binary. I'm both and I'm all.

Thank you for reading and happy pride month 🌈

Tl;dr: I'm coming out as whatever

Gender: dyke

Pronouns: yes

#ps if you know me irl nothing has changed #i have a name im gonna be using if i ever publish anything i write but yall can just keep calling me as or ash #none of this is really new either jdjsjdjjs #i just wanted to officially address it #it's still she/her to anyone who speaks to me #just that i dont care if strangers call me he/him #there is no such thing as misgendering me now!#personal

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portable-wing-wang · 4 years

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Gender, Sexuality & Me

Right, here goes.

I've never properly talked about my gender or sexuality on here and feel as if I need to clear things up for friends, family and even myself.

Of course I'm very gender positive, I think everyone should explore themselves thoroughly in order to better understand their place in this world. What I experience will be different from other people and I may even disagree with others who share my experience as everyone is different. Just good to clear the air before we continue.

My name is Will(iam) Kirton. I was born at 1:04 AM on the 10th of April 2000. I was born with male attributes and was such designated a "boy". I have little problem with this. A baby knows itself very little and cannot comprehend itself properly and so adults assign labels which, for the most part, do help with development as a child is introduced to social spaces (schools etc.).

When young, gender means little and so I thought little of it. I never felt apart or different from my schoolmates. I did however feel uncomfortable and didn't know why. Constantly feeling as if I wasn't explaining myself properly and getting confused easily. I was bullied for this by many of the other boys and when trying to defend myself, I was made an outcast. This led to me to very female dominated spaces.

I tried my hardest to join the other boys (as I thought I was supposed to) but time and time again, I'd be pushed away. I did, however, make good friends with a few boys a couple of which I'm still friends with today. But my fondest memories come from my friendships with the girls and how they shaped me as a person.

I didn't know it then but through them I began to question myself, sub-conciously at first but very soon after it started to dominate my thinking. By the age of 14 I knew something was off for sure, but I didn't know what, so I started researching to find an answer.

First, I started to look at trans-folk and see how they saw it."Trans," Such an illusive word. To me it seemed so simple to begin with. Someone wanted to be something else because they felt uncomfortable. I felt uncomfortable. "Maybe there's something in this?" I thought, so I kept digging here and there with little motivation until I was about 15 when GCSEs took over and I didn't have time to think about it much until the summer of 2016. The thoughts came back in a big way. Why? I started going to parties.

Now it may seem a little silly but getting drunk and forgetting to hide myself allowed me to express myself in ways I'd never had the chance to before. Mannerisms began to appear that I wasn't controlling intentionally. I started speaking differently, stopped feeling like I had to explain myself and started having fun. This was the next big step of my self-discovery.

I then started playing DnD. Now, laugh if you wish but I had a human bard character names Steve who I categorized as a projection of myself if a little exaggerated. While playing as Steve, those mannerisms I gained started to take over even when sober. This was the last proof I needed to know I was queer but I didn't know what labels to use. I settled with saying I just had "queer tendencies" and left it at that but I still felt uncomfortable when I wasn't playing Steve.

So, I'm definitely queer, that's for sure but what kind?

I'm researching properly now. And not just gender, but sexuality as well. Bi, pan, gay, ace, etc.. I looked up everything and kept finding new labels. To help ease my brain, I focused on sexuality first. I knew I liked girls but I also liked boys however both in different ways. I timidly said I was bi for a couple years and then came out properly soon after my 18th birthday. I felt comfortable. For now . . .

I was still, however, confused. I couldn't work out whether I was a boy or a girl and it kept making everything else seem so confusing. At this point (16 or so) most of my good friends were male, I was decent at sports and I had a big ol' bass voice. BOY, right?

But there was something still bugging me.

I couldn't figure it out. Not until the summer before Uni, something slipped into place. I had completed my A Levels, I was out as bi, my shitty friends had left me, all was good. Wrong. I was more tense than ever. All I could think about was gender. Gender this, gender that. Constantly thinking, even with the distraction of the Edinburgh Fringe. I was also listening to a lot of Steam Powered Giraffe who, of course, have a trans woman playing the "Rabbit" character. I was obsessed. I wanted to find out everything about her and luckily, she posted a whole set of videos cataloguing her transition and thoughts all the way through. Finally, someone was essentially saying to me clearly what "trans" actually meant. Things began to make sense. I knew then that I was probably not cis but i didn't really feel comfortable saying I was "fully" trans, if you get my meaning.

But then I went to Uni. I finally had a chance to express myself freely and boy oh boy, did I do just that. I became so much more feminine than I ever had been in my life. It was so freeing. But I still didn't feel trans.

Then, someone introduced me to the concept of being "non-binary". A new term. I hadn't heard of it before. Is it like being trans? Or something completely different. I dived in head-first and came out the other end with even more answers but so many more questions.

Finally, I took the plunge (I'm sorry for so many swimming metaphors).

One evening in February 2019 after Uni I was in the loo before a musicals rehearsal. I hadn't felt well all day and was wearing something particularly feminine and caught myself in the mirror. I studied myself for a good few minutes. Each detail, each curve, how my body felt and looked in the clothes I was wearing. I stood there staring. Luckily no one walked in on me.

And something just clicked. After so many years of worrying and tensing, I finally understood. I was genderqueer.

Now, I should explain (here I go again), I didn't just decide then and there. I few months prior, my new uni friend "tom" (she goes by a different name now) had introduced me to a youtuber called Contrapoints. Before anyone says anything, I know she's caused a lot of discourse but I don't feel as if this is the right time to make any cases. Anyway, she didn't used to be openly trans and used to go by the label genderqueer. At the time, she made a very comprehensive video explaining what is and what it meant for her.

It intrigued me so, naturally, I did some more research and found that it fit my situation quite adequately but I didn't feel comfortable falling myself "genderqueer" yet either.

For those who don't know, genderqueer is an umbrella term for a wide range of traits which are either predominantly female, male or androgynous. It doesn't necessarily have a perfect definition and can be different for anybody who identify themselves as such.

My own genderqueerness could be described as a complete rejection of the male binary and so I carry more female and androgynous traits. This affects the way I speak, move my body, dress and my perspective on greater society. I also experience gender dysphoria. Now, to some, this would mean I was most likely just trans and using this a stopping-point before going further. This I feel is not the case. Whilst I am made uncomfortable by my flat chest, copious hair and broad shoulders, I do not feel the same about my genitalia or Adam's apple.

There are also more political connotations with the term genderqueer over non-binary. Genderqueer is a lot more aggressive but it gets the point across more clearly but I wouldn't say I wasn't non-binary. In fact, I think they're one and the same in practice but I do use my identity as a statement and so the genderqueer label feels more appropriate.

So yeah, I came out as genderqueer that February evening. First to my partner, then my friends and only now, almost a year later, am I attempting with my family.

I am so much happier for it too. I kept myself hidden for so long and have only now started to just accept myself and give in to the voice in my head telling me to let go. I'm much more relaxed too. Since coming out and using more neutral and even feminine pronouns, my dysphoria has become less of an issue. I still get it and I have bad days of course but for the first time in a long time, things are looking up.

I can't change the world, but I've been able to find myself in it more clearly and that helps a bunch.

TL;DR: I'm genderqueer. I'm bisexual. I've been out for a considerable time now and feeling better because of it.

Anyway, if you did read the whole thing, thank you. I'm not saying this'll be the same forever but this is me now and I'm still breathing so come get me world!

Feel free to reblog this, I hope it helps others realise themselves too.

#me #portable wing wang #queer #genderqueer #nonbinary #bisexual #lgbtqia+#rant #sorry it was long

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