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pizza-is-my-buziness · 1 year

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Another Sam/Deena prompt to write out your emotions-Doubt

Thank you because I really have so many emotions and I need all the help I can get.

It’s not like she’s hiding from Ms. Fraser or anything. It’s more like she’s just…waiting. Biding her time. Totally different.

There’s a stupid and stupidly expensive gift shop teddy bear in her hands and Deena nearly strangles the life out of it when she finally sees Ms. Fraser leave the hospital room that Deena has been lurking outside of for so long the nurses on the floor have stopped glancing in her direction. Thankfully, Ms. Fraser also fails to glance in her direction, disappearing down the hallway and out of sight with a clicking of her heels and Deena exhales, her grip loosening on the unfortunate bear’s neck. She has no idea how long the room is going to be empty, how long she has before Ms. Fraser returns and sees her and does God only knows what, but still Deena finds herself rooted in place, unable to step closer to the hospital room.

It's ridiculous, the hesitation that creeps over her, sinking its claws into her muscles and making them useless. All she’s wanted for hours -nearly twenty four of them, but who’s keeping track- is to be in that room. And now Deena can’t bring herself to take even the first step in that direction. Because what if…what if…what if.

There’s a distinct possibility that she’ll just sit outside in the hallway until Ms. Fraser returns and sees her and makes the decision for her and it’s that idea, the idea of being banished and turned away, that finally makes Deena stand. The stitches in her side protest the sudden movement, tugging against the fabric of her shirt with every step but Deena presses on, undeterred now that she’s in progress, that she finally has one foot moving in front of the other.

The hospital room smells exactly like the one Deena had sat in yesterday, perched on the edge of an examination table and waiting for the nurse to return with the needle and thread to put her back together. It smells exactly like the one that Josh had been in, wobbly from painkillers and sporting a cast in the most annoying and garishly ugly color possible and when Deena had finally seen it, seen him, she’d teased him about it until their laughter had suddenly turned to something else and she’d had tears tracking their way through the grim and sweat and blood on her cheeks. And it smells exactly like the hallway Deena has been waiting in for the past few hours, and the one where she’d met Ziggy and Martin yesterday, stunned to see them hanging around and waiting for her and Josh to be discharged.

And it smells like the room she’d walked into a few days before and seen Sam, fragile and pale and small, propped against a mountain of pillows that seemed to be the only thing keeping her upright. It’s a little bit like how Sam looks now, except this is almost worse than that, because this Sam now has cords and wires connecting her to an impressive array of machines on other side of the bed and a bandage against the side of her face about the same color as her skin. With her eyes closed and her hands settled across her stomach, Sam looks exactly as she had there on the floor of the supermarket, lips parted but still, skin already growing clammy and cold beneath Deena’s hands.

The sight is startling and it makes Deena want to run to her, to shake her awake, to press a hand to her chest until she can feel the beating of Sam’s heart beneath it.

Or, worse, it makes her want to turn around and run and never stop, until she gets somewhere the panic and fear and desperation can’t follow.

Deena forces herself to take a step forward and it seems like a terrible idea to wake Sam, when she so clearly needs all the rest she can get, but the shuddery breath that passes through Deena’s clenched teeth is enough to do that anyway. Sam’s eyes flutter and she squints against the blare of the fluorescents overhead and when she turns her head in Deena’s direction, the relief that crosses her features is enough to make Deena regret ever having considered leaving.

“Deena.”

“Hey.” She steps closer, tentative and cautious, like Sam is the dangerous one when Deena knows full well that isn’t the case. “I…brought you this.” She holds up the teddy bear, which is looking more and more pathetic by the second, and she crinkles her nose. “It’s…dumb.”

“No,” Sam says and there’s a smile at the corner of her lips and she holds out a hand and Deena can still see the marks around her wrist, the raw red impression of the plastic bindings. “Let me see.”

Deena hands over the bear, trying not to stare at Sam’s wrists, at the proof of what she’s done, watching instead as Sam’s faint smile seems to grow as she brushes her fingers lightly against the bear’s fur, the button eyes, the stupid red ribbon. “Thank you.” She looks up, eyes finding Deena again. “I was wondering if you were going to…stop by.”

There’s a question in Sam’s words, in her tone, that Deena couldn’t possibly miss, even though she can tell that Sam is trying not to ask it. It would be easy to assure Sam that she’s been desperate, wild, to get here ever since confusion had descended upon Sunnyvale and a pair of briskly efficient EMTs had whisked Sam away in an ambulance and out of sight. That every second without being able to reassure herself that Sam was fine and here and stable had been making her nearly crazy. But there’s enough doubt, enough weight crowding its way through Deena’s chest, that she can’t bring herself to say the words, to admit to the panic that has made her nearly feral over the past twenty-four hours.

So, she says the only other truth that she knows, the other part of it that has been turning over in her mind, making it hard to breathe, to sleep, to think. “I…wasn’t sure you wanted to see me.”

Sam looks at her like Deena is a perfect stranger, almost like she’d looked at her that night when Deena had broken up with her, lie after lie twisting itself out of her mouth with a startling efficiency. And it’s enough to twist Deena’s heart up now, just like it had been then, enough to lend truth to the worry that has been crushing the breath from her for hours. “Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

Deena swallows and it would be easier to look somewhere other than Sam, except everywhere else there’s a reminder of where they are and how they got there. “I…” Deena gestures toward her, the wires and machines, the bandage and the bruises. “This is my fault.”

The words are soft, as loud as she can make them around the panic threatening its way inside her once more, full of the reassurances that this is her fault. That voice in her head, the one that never hesitates to point out all the worst parts of her, is reminding her of the way it had felt to press a hand to the back of Sam’s head and force her beneath the water and to fit her hand to that spot again and force Sam’s head against the unyielding rocky floor beneath the Shadyside Mall, how easily Sam’s body had seemed to give way against the stone.

Sam exhales, closing her eyes and letting her head rest back against the pillows. “You know…this whole time I’ve been sitting here thinking that you didn’t want to see me because you blamed me for what happened. That you thought that I…that this…that it was my fault and-”

“Sam.” Deena shakes her head, closing the distance between them without even thinking about it, and the incredulity that she’d seen in Sam’s face moments earlier seems a lot easier to understand now. “None of what happened was your fault.”

Sam opens her eyes, lifting her eyebrows. “But it was yours?”

Deena’s fingers shake slightly as she reaches out to brush Sam’s hair back from her face, brushing against the bandage there on the side of her face, proof. “I did that.”

“I tried to kill you.”

“That wasn’t you.”

“Well you only did what you had to do. I was-”

“But it wasn’t your fault, you-”

Sam reaches for Deena’s hand, twining their fingers together. “This is kinda stupid, isn’t it?”

Impossibly, Deena wants to smile. She does, can feel it tugging up the corners of her lips the way the stitches on her side tug at the skin as she shifts, moving closer toward the bed. “Kinda, yeah,” she admits. “I…I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I wanted to…but I wasn’t sure…”

Sam shakes her head, just once, before she seems to reconsider the gesture. Instead, she just gives Deena’s hand a faint squeeze. “But you’re going to stay, right?”

“Yeah.” Deena doesn’t even have to think about the answer, doesn’t need time to consider it. It’s the question she’s always wanted to be asked, the one she’s wanted to ask in turn, and it feels good to have the answer now, to know it. “I mean, if you think your mom isn’t going to…”

Sam grimaces, sighing. “Somehow my mom is a lot less scary now,” she mumbles. “Besides, I want you here.”

Really, what more could Deena ask for?

The hospital bed isn’t built for two, but they make it work anyway, and with Sam’s head on her shoulder and an arm draped gently across her stomach, Deena knows there isn’t anywhere else for her to be.

#sameena #one word prompts #I've written a variation of this story like three times without ever really posting or finishing it #so finally #I just have so many...wait for it...emotions #sam/deena #sam fraser #deena johnson #please I just love them so much

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endusviolence · 2 months

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Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

#transgender #trans history #transsexual #transphobia #Magnus Hirschfeld #holocaust #holocaust denial #book burning #j.k. rowling #jk rowling #just in case you missed what i mean by all this: go fuck yourself anon :)#trans people have always existed #and we will always exist #if you really wanna pick a fight with me over well-documented history then you better bring in some sources to back your shit #queer history #queer #lgbt+#lgbta+#lgbt #lgbt history #edit: i finally got around to those damn image IDs. i am so very sorry for totally forgetting that's my bimbo moment of the month #also real quick i thought about adding an image of the actual building but the only one i can find has a Nazi parade in front of it #it was taken the day of the book burning raid and honestly if i were to include it then i'd add it to the first few paragraphs #and i think the story's better told when you uphold the hope Magnus Hirschfeld and all the researchers he worked with had #also keeps being brought up: yes Hirschfeld was a eugenicist. it was a popular belief set that was only discredited after WW2 #Hirschfeld died in 1935. he literally didn't live long enough to see science turn against those beliefs and practices #considering how he changed his mind on transitions i like to think he would've changed his mind on eugenics too if he'd lived

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