#trans or cis or woman or man like honestly fuck you and grow up

[nyanto5]

seeing that one pic of the person in a bikini with hairy upper thighs and reading the comments where everyone speculates that the poster must be trans or like a man is still rolling around in my head. thats literally just what happens when you have black coarse hair. or even brown hair. its not unsanitary but the way people have coddled the general populace about feminine bodies they literally could not believe that a body could look like that. how is this supposed to be safe for anyone, trans or cis, if literally a beach day pic has people spiraling because of body hair

#like no one should have to shave to be considered a woman and no one should have to shave to not get that kind of invasive speculation #trans or cis or woman or man like honestly fuck you and grow up #and specifically the way that this comes down so hard on black and brown people bc theyre not gonna have blonde peach fuzz yk

[molsno]

hey, sorry if this is out of line, but I'm a "theyfab" (pre-everything guy, waiting for top approval, rly sensitive to hormones so worried about t) dating a transfemme. I want her to feel loved and seen by me - she's also early in transition and I want her to know that me loving her as she is DOESNT mean I won't continue to love her as she grows and changes. She's pretty shy and her only trans girl friends are online. Anyway, I want to learn how to NOT be like the tme people you've interacted with. U can ignore this, but if u do have advice I'd love to hear it!

Also, I'm really sorry about the abuse you've endured. It's not fair. It's not acceptable.

hi, I honestly appreciate you asking for advice! that to me shows that you do really care about her and want to be good to her

I think the most important thing is to keep in mind that she's in an incredibly vulnerable and precarious position. it sounds to me like she doesn't have a big support network. it can be very hard to build something like that as a trans woman (especially early in transition) but it's something that's absolutely vital. a big problem that I think a lot of us face is becoming overly dependent on a tme person (or a few of them) which can be completely devastating if that person leaves. I think the best thing you can do to help her is to encourage her to make more friends of her own. ideally, they should NOT just be your friends that you're introducing her to. she needs to have friends and allies completely separate from you. you cannot do everything for her, nor should you be expecting/expected to - that's a fast way to make sure your relationship falls apart. above all - and this is key - is to understand that you don't own her. she's an independent person, and she deserves to have her own life and make her own choices about it

I feel I should also warn you that this is going to be a very tumultuous time for her. she is literally starting to undergo a second puberty, and it will be just as distressing, hormonal, and emotional as the first one. cut her some slack if she seems irritable or upset for seemingly no reason. for me and a lot of other trans women I know, this was one of the most dysphoria-inducing periods of our lives. it very well might be for her too. it's easy to be upset that the hormones aren't working, or that changes aren't happening fast enough, or that you'll be ugly or not feminine enough, etc. she may express doubts like this. offer her reassurance! it will take time for her to see the changes she wants to see, but they'll come. in the mean time, let her know whenever you notice changes in her. maybe you'll notice her skin is softer, or her hair looks more lush, or her face is rounding out, or her hips are getting wider. let her know that you see these things and compliment her. early transition can very well be a source of joy, if she's able to take pleasure in the little changes, and you can absolutely be a part of that process!

I don't know if your relationship involves sex, and I don't want to make any assumptions about how you two engage in it if so. however, this is a common experience I hear about, so I feel like I should tell you this. don't expect her to have sex with you like a cis man. not only can it be dysphoria-inducing to always have to top, her body will possibly not even be capable of that soon due to the effects of estrogen. if that's how you've been having sex up until now, you'll have to really reorient how you two do things. I haven't read it myself, but I've heard the zine "fucking trans women" by mira bellwether contains a lot of good information on this topic. you may find it useful! I think you can read it at this link, but I'm not sure. if any of my followers have a better link, go ahead and put it in the replies!

finally, and this is honestly just a good tip for relationships in general, listen to her. if she's upset about something, take her seriously and don't pass judgment on her. don't immediately jump on the defensive if she's upset about something you've done in particular. try to put yourself in her shoes and see things from her perspective. show her that she can talk to you about anything and you'll be receptive, and you'll be able to have open, honest communication much more often, which will lead to a much stronger and healthier relationship

thank you for sending this, and thank you for your reassurance about my own trauma as well. it really means a lot to me! it really helps me feel more optimistic to know that there are tme people who are willing to listen to us and be better allies to us. I think your girlfriend is very lucky to have you, and I hope you can both be happy together!

before I go, I know I'm not that knowledgeable about your personal situation, but I would say that if you think testosterone would make you happier, you should pursue it! if you can obtain it, there's nothing wrong with taking it for a week or two, seeing how it makes you feel, and then deciding whether or not to keep taking it based on that. either way, I wish you the best!

#ask #Anonymous

[gaz-light]

CW: Me but ugly

Ya know what fuck it. I don't intend to this mid week. I wanna do it now while I've got the time and honestly I'm a bit excited.

This is John. He's the guy I used to be. I don't have many other pictures of him but I saved these ones for this purpose. They're some of the few I could stand for some reason.

It's hard to think I ever used to look like that. Think or act the way I did. You could go back right now and tell him the events of the past like year or so and honestly he'd probably understand it. Would be too scared as shit nervous and doubtful to ever believe it. Hated himself too much to imagine it being this way.

This is how I started off on Hormones 1 year ago. 5/31/22. Somewhere between 11/7/21 and 4/9/22 everything went to shit. I crashed my motorcycle and broke my arm, ended up broke, didnt get into grad school, the girl I was madly in love with just let me know I was being replaced by someone with a pussy. It took about everything happy in my life turning to shit over night to finally crack the egg that I had been growing in for so long.

There were signs before. Things I always knew. Always hung out with girls. Liked sapphic content. Felt detachment from peers of my agab, enjoyed pretending at being an internet femboy. Horribly autistic. Fucking hated my body. Hated hated hated hated hated. I had a closeted sissy kink and dressed up FOR YEARS. So much more. Eventually I started hooking up with trannies the same way I hooked up with lesbians and things began to click. Something in me thought ya know what, I don't have to just admire and adore and yearn for them. Then a good friend of mine consoling me one April night more or less extended an invitation and I didn't look back.

And then she was born. I think these photos are from maybe a month post starting HRT. Would you believe I hadn't seen myself without facial hair in like 10 years before this point. I hadn't shaved it all off since I was 13. I'm hispanic. Greek and Cuban so I've had this accursed facial and body hair for fucking ever. I was so afraid the first time I picked up that razor. I didnt know if I'd like what was on the other side. I felt safe and secure in the validation I got from other people that I thought it'd be ok if I was just unhappy with myself forever. I hated whatever I was so much that I didnt have the energy to care for her.

Then I shaved.

I looked in the mirror and I thought that girl looked kinda cute. For the first time I really didnt think I looked so bad. My friends were very supportive thankfully. Not everyone was. Certainly not dear old dad who still wont call me by my name or gender me properly. The man who told me god had cursed him with 2 faggots. My little trans brother and I. The man who let me know I was a disappointment and that neither I or anyone of us were real women. I still havent forgiven him for so much. But I am trying to let it go. Even the cis people were kinda nice. I lost some who were kinda edgy friends from highschool. Nothing of value was lost.

Since then I've worked to navigate the professional world as a woman. My first boss at my first real post college job was this British woman from England who made my life kinda hell. Preyed upon and picked on me and embarrassed me professionally. One of the 2 other women at the office. She never would admit to it but I think she resented me for it. I was also the only tranny there. Well sorta. There was 1 other who worked down in facilities doing the trash and dishes for the labs. But not up there. Not on the 8th floor with us in the "war room".

And this is where and who we are now 1 year later. Same eyes. Same 5'0 looking ass. But happier. Smiles when she looks in the mirror. Can actually do things for herself. Set boundaries. Care. Maybe she can even love too. I've placed myself into countless lesbian romance fantasies and I feel like I have a shot at living them. I used to be like 200 pounds. I'm down to 128 and also built like a brick house full of muscle. I was horrified of being trapped in that body of mine forever and the fear and doubt that I'd never make it even this far scared me into doing nothing until i had little else to lose.

Let me leave you with some wise advice that friend who cracked my egg once gave to me: The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now.

Transitioning was the best decision I ever made for myself. Happy birthday Morrigan. I love you.

#pin #anniversary #morri posting

[trans-wojak]

I just wanted to say I saw your response to the ask about Nex and I wanted to say that the way you explained your stance is very well thought out…

I hold the same beliefs as you, and I would like to not be on Anon but I fear if my friends found I hold these beliefs that they would call me transphobic and hate me (it is a kinda complicated situation…)

I just want to say I admire your bravery to speak your thoughts and opinions so openly and seemingly without fear of being rejected because of them. I hope one day to be able to have the confidence to speak my thoughts on subjects without fearing to be criticized.

-A shy anon 🪼

I have been criticised a lot for my stance because it creates conflict and many people just dislike conflict in general, which I understand. I just avoid trans spaces online and irl these cause they are predominantly filled with trenders and “non binary���. I prefer LGBT mixed spaces cause atleast those are not just a group made up of women who ID as non binary. Since it’s LGBT and not “trans”, there is less room for radical feminist man hating bullshit cause gay men will tell them to stfu.

Non binary in my experience and research is really just radical feminism lite, it reminds me of “political lesbians” who were straight femcels out of choice. All core beliefs of non binary activism heavily align with radical feminist theory more than it does with anything about trans rights. Contrary to popular belief, many radical feminists believe that medical transition is fine aslong as you retain that you’re a masculinised female or feminised male and don’t assert you are changing your sex or try to be in any of your group’s gendered spaces. Though, this treatment is mainly only directed at trans women - they rarely care about trans men sharing spaces with cis men cause they see it as “rebellious against the evil patriarchy” and benefiting.

This is why most “detrans” TERFs you find will have identified as non binary but then switched, usually after trying testosterone and ACTUALLY getting dysphoria. If you go to non binary subreddits, there’s countless posts about being scared to start T cause “I don’t want *insert literal male sexual characteristic*” or even worse “I don’t want to be perceived as a cis male”. The comments are filled with encouragement to start T anyway, saying you can microdose to control effects (a lie, it just makes it slower), suggesting taking certain hormone blockers to literally block male sexual characteristics but get very minimal ones that could be achieved through diet, exercise and voice training. Or worse, suggestions that laser hair removal isn’t even hard or expensive, it’ll work blah blah.

These retards then go on T, get side effects that cause actual dysphoria and then go full blown radical feminist.

At this point? I think anyone who identifies as non binary should be banned from transitioning medically. I don’t think you should qualify for a gender dysphoria diagnosis unless you want to be the opposite sex; not some magical androgynous being to get out of misogyny in society.

Though I do keep my beliefs to myself in many situations to avoid conflict but I also play heavily on my autism as an excuse for things, if the government and society wanna deem me as retarded then I’ll play into it. So, no I struggle with singular they cause I’m autistic. Honestly, I actually do struggle with singular they especially if they look entirely as their birth sex. I just don’t bother putting in effort cause I don’t care about how they feel. The worst woman I ever encountered who got mad at me for this was self diagnosed autistic, had a fucking child and was raising him “as non binary” so she got mad if you used he/him. I’m all for not raising kids with no gender roles or stereotypes but doing that is gonna fuck up the kid.

I also know a woman who started T cause she thinks she’s non binary and immediately stopped cause of body hair growing. Now she complains about her slightly deeper voice and says she wants to get pregnant again but worries that T hurt her. Oh she still retains she’s non binary tho, just that she likes living as a female “cause its way more comfortable” - yeah cause you’re a cis woman!

Anyway sorry for the rant, I’m glad that my opinions aren’t all seen as me being uwu disrespectful and mean cause my intent isn’t to be “mean” it’s to use critical thinking. If you want, you can privately DM me to discuss more on this so you don’t feel so alone in your convictions. It’s one of the reasons I have stopped showing my face online publicly cause trenders tried to doxx me, dangerous at times to not believe in non binary.

#thanks nonnie #thanks for the ask!

[white-chalk-sapphomet]

Hey you're like, super fucking pretty and just everything about you is soooo fucking cute, do you have any advice for like, presenting more like, not-man

Tysm ur so so sweet. I'm gonna kind of talk from my own experiences but like

I think one of the biggest alleviations of like. Dysphoria or worrying about my presentation has been like. Figuring out that when you take away the shaving, everyday shapewear, makeup, filter lenses and photo touch ups, etc etc, the whole world becomes a lot more androgynous. I've met a lot of cis women who grow facial hair just like me or have wide shoulders or a flat chest, small hips or like. Similar face structure etc etc etc. Everybody wearing the same clothes and haircut would have more similarities than not, and what isn't the same after that is all fun and unique, but not necessarily gendered

I think almost all of my pants are women's which basically means usually less pocket but it makes my butt look nicer. They way they fit is basically shapewear. A lot of women's tops honestly have a similar effect, barring a lot cleavage tops/dresses don't fit me right, but plenty of cis/nb people have that same problem so I don't worry so much about it. All clothing is unisex tbh, but I like to have incorporated at least some fem into my outfits even if it's like. Smaller flourishes. Honestly play hot and cold with different styles to see what you find personally flattering. I found out I rlly enjoy how headbands frame the hair around my face. In my headband era now.

I think one of the things that does helps me a lot with like. People not seeing me as just some alternative guy with long hair is when I get cute kinda fringy bangs. I feel a lot less pressure to do like eyeliner for ppl to pick up on 'ohh they're trans not just a gnc guy' or whatever. Which. There's practicality to passing in a way that makes sense to everyday cishet coworkers or strangers, but I think you can absolutely look not-man while exploring masculinity or just general nonconformity as a woman too. I think accessories can go a long way in flagging what you're going for too.

Truth is though, I still get misgendered pretty regularly by ppl offline. It can be disheartening, and even feels super shitty sometimes, but I'm like. I'm not a woman for them and I'm not gonna force myself to wear makeup everyday or like. Feel like I have to do enough for them to get it. I'm satisfied with the people that do get it kind of thing.

N I think that kind of self-security can go a long way for like. Confidence in how you carry yourself and present your gender to others. Self love can have your back when others don't, but as an added bonus, ppl find it attractive when like. Whatever you're doing, you're owning it.

I hopefully haven't lost the plot, but hopefully some of this is useful for you

#answered

[vixenscratch]

I’d honestly been wondering how long it would be until this happened, ever since I explicitly put my gender and pronouns into my Twitter profile.

If you’re not with the TERFs, you must be AMAB. No other possibilities exist.

I had been trying to good-faith explain to her that there is no way to “compromise” on trans women’s access to women’s spaces without harm coming to both trans and cis women. Because if you do any less than honor self-identification, you open up to women being clocked as trans (whether or not it’s actually the case) and at absolute best confronted about being in “the wrong place” by some busybody. You also create a situation that actively increases the vulnerability of trans people, because any other solution short of turning everything into single-occupancy unisex units (imagine the massive changing room complexes!) will directly or indirectly force them to out themselves. It’s not exactly a secret that there’s plenty of places you’d probably not want to be outed as trans, even in “LGBTQ+ friendly” countries.

And, like… TERFs are just… vile. They perceive a risk to themselves if they have to share a restroom with a trans woman, and find that perceived risk unacceptable. But they have no qualms about forcing a passing (I understand that the concept of passing is problematic, but don’t know how else to address this particular point) trans woman to use the men’s room.

It’s not about removing any risk, it’s about shifting the risk onto trans women.

Thing is… this actually hurt more than I expected it would. It’s not about the assumption itself. It’s about everything surrounding it. It’s about being told that the only way I could be supportive of trans women is if I was AMAB and wanted access to women’s spaces for unsavory purposes. It’s about being told that I “can’t understand a woman’s desire to not [be in the presence of an AMAB individual when in a vulnerable state].” Which, okay, maybe I can’t, in the sense that I think it’s nuts and in 9/10 cases would probably prefer to be examined/treated/frisked by a man, but I know full well that’s not how she meant it.

It was 100% pulling the universal female experience nonsense that I cannot stand. I have no fucking born duty to fear Y chromosomes, thank you very much. That I don’t has zero bearing on my gender identity, and my gender identity has zero bearing on how much I do or don’t worry about bogeymen in wigs walking into public restrooms to do a violence on me. (I don’t. Because it’s a silly fear with no basis in reality.)

It’s vexing to me that this woman even floated the idea of “compromise,” seeing as she was consistently referring to trans women as men and categorically against allowing them into “women’s safe spaces.” What fucking compromise could you even be thinking of at that point? Is it a compromise to you if you agree to use someone’s chosen name and preferred pronouns in exchange for them misgendering themselves every time they need to pee outside of their home?

But hey. I’m sure all the trans men in the house will be delighted to know that you can retroactively grow bait and tackle by telling TERFs that trans women are women and just want to fucking pee.

#oh god stop babbling #screenshot #transphobia #TERFs TERFing it up misogyny style

[emissary-of-dog]

humbly asks your for your geara hc.......

MEL U A REAL ONE !!!!  🙏 🙏 OKOK HERE GOES.

headcanons for my favorite little emo beast! [ DOES A SPIN ]

MY (VERY LONG) ANSWER IS RIGHT BELOW...

Sexuality Headcanon: You take one look at this man and tell me with the straightest face you can possibly muster: “Geara isn’t gay. He’s not into men.” This motherfucker wears eyeliner, has the full MCR fit, constantly talks about Zetta in ways other men in-game have not, he literally SENT Giratina to Zetta on Terajuma Island so he could pick him up like a prom date. THIS MAN??? 🌈🌈 WOULD KISS ANOTHER MAN. AND WOULD ENJOY IT. CHECKMATE BITCHES.

Gender Headcanon: He is the most cis-acting motherfucker ever and yet they are, simultaneously, one of the most trans-looking characters too. Truly a paradox!

AMAB. Transmasc as fuck. But DEFINITELY nonbinary. This guy screams “He/They.” Madame X gives her gayest battles (Valor Mt) to her trans-est soldiers.

A ship I have with said character: Valorshipping VALORSHIPPING VALORSHIPPING V A LOR SHIPPGINGF VALORSHIPGFGFMGHMHG ZETTA X GEARA!!!!! AAAAAAAA UAUA UA GH HG UAUGJJF J GFHGFH GH RGUUHHUGR

( In other words they are SO much to go into, narratively-speaking, and I can’t get all of my words out here but just know I’ve been unabashedly autistic about their dynamic since December/January of this year. GODDD. )

A BROTP I have with said character: I’ve NEVER played Insurgence in my life but I know for a FACT that Zenith and Geara would be best friends/brothers. But I’d also say that it’s probably a good thing they’re in separate games... I can only imagine the opposite, honestly. And what I imagine is pure hellfire. Don’t put these two in a room together they’ll probably bond over their sick-ass legendaries they’re weirdly religious about; explosives and hating children. And dick jokes.

Madelis + Eli are also characters I’d say have a funny dynamic with him... Eli in previous versions used to interact w/ Geara and Geara would treat him with more respect than Sharon so SDHGJFGH that’s definitely something I think about often!

A NOTP I have with said character: Honestly any ship that involves him and a woman. Not only because he’s straight as a swirly straw but because I personally think she could do way better. I think every single girl forced to look at him at least once in their lives deserves financial compensation. Sariah I’m giving you all the therapy money you need once you grow up and have to confront your previously poor taste  🙏

A random headcanon: HEADCANON SPEED-ROUND! 🎇 (woo!)

Geara wears so many cosmetics it’s insane. Earrings, eyeliner, foundation, hair gel, dude definitely uses a hair ironer, SOOO much cologne THIS GUY STINKS, aaand glitter. He puts glitter in his hair, yes. He claims it’s the manliest shit ever.

He enjoys EVERY single Ghost Pokemon. All of them. Not a single one he dislikes. Ask him if he hates one and he’ll punch you in the face and spit on you.

He smokes. Why? Because he thinks it makes him look cool.

He owns a bass guitar, and it sits right in his room! Does he know how to play it? No. He owns it because it makes him look cool... Or so he believes.

He is 5′0′‘. He’s so short you could pick him up.

And finally... He’s actually an AMAZING singer. I’d compare his vocal range to that of Devin Townsend’s. Operatic, can hold notes -- but can also SCREAM like he’s in a metal song. His voice is relatively deep too, so he surprisingly has a pretty silky singing voice! Will he ever sing? No. That’s embarrassing.

General Opinion over said character: i kinda think i’m in love with him but i also wish he’d die

#rain patters #chaotic-demacle #rejuv #tysm for asking again mel!!! :DD i'm rly glad i could spill my thoughts abt him A AAA #pokemon rejuvenation #geara

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Shame

So here is a rough concept for me. Why the fuck are we telling people to be ashamed of their biological sex? No really I don’t get it. Why the ever loving shit does EVERYONE have to be trans? 

I’m honestly concerned about it. Since when have men and women had to be always feminine or always masculine? We are quite literally telling people to be ashamed of their bodies all the time and promoting that very idea that if you are uncomfortable with your body EVER you are magically trans. Except here is an idea. Maybe learn science and psychology. Because if you did, you’d realize that more or less everyone experiences body dysphoria as they grow up. And if left along to live with it, and not just pushed to believe they are in the wrong body, they would grow out of it. 

And frankly it bothers the hell out of me because we are teaching today’s youth to mutilated themselves. Both physically and chemically. And for what? Because if you don’t act “manly” enough you’re somehow a woman and if you don’t feel feminine all the time your either a woman or nothing at all. What is the point of it? It’s this really strange concept where we are telling 14y/o boys and girls to cut off body parts and chemically castrate themselves. There’s even been cases of girls coming out while detransitioning (while still a teen and after top surgery) asking if their breasts will grow back. If that’s not a wake up call for some of you it should be. It was a wake up call to me when I saw a friend of mine say they were going to grow a “t penis” as an autistic woman who wants to be a man who loves their “bottom bits” but hates the top. But also, wants to “grow a penis using t”. People don’t realize what all T does to you, the same way most people don’t know what Estrogen does to a male body. And you don’t GROW a penis. It’s not fucking magic. The clitoris might get a little bigger but it isn’t a penis. And you might gain muscle mass sure but you might also swell up like a balloon and develop hair loss. Meanwhile growing hair on your ass and back. Which is uncomfortable as FUCK. Ask any guy that deals with it. Because men tend to hate that about themselves. Especially strait men that have to deal with women that hate body hair. Who call it gross. 

Moreover, I don’t agree with the general modern trans sentiment. “Oh well you act more like a boy, maybe you're a boy. Oh well don’t rush just ya know, cut your hair. OH IT LOOKS SO GREAT! SEE you look good as a boy. OH NO I’m not pushing you into it. I’m just saying don’t you hate parts of your body. It’s normal for trans people to have body hate. CLEARLY you are a boy”. It’s indoctrination. Plain and simple. Stop teaching men and women to hate their bodies. Stop telling men and women to have surgeries when they don’t need them. I’m sick of all of this. And stop saying “You can’t convince a cis person to be trans because it doesn’t work”. Because that’s dishonest as fuck. You can actually. More over when you do it from a super young age and EVERYONE affirms it. Right up until it doesn’t catch anymore then all the activists are nowhere to be found. Because once they have outlived their “ally” usefulness you abandon them. Right up until they speak out about falling through the cracks, or being fast tracked through the process. Then you just call them bigots, transphobes or traitors. And all the family and friends who ACTUALLY cared about them and might have warned them, are left to pick up the pieces. Assuming that they didn’t burn those bridges when they were in the process. Then they have to live however they ended up after the hormones. Even if it destroys their bodies. 

More than that though. Stop hyper enforcing gender norms. Let a girl BE a girl and wear jeans. Let her have a pixie cut and still be feminine. Let a man wear a dress if he REALLY WANTS TO and still be a man. And stop trying to convince CHILDREN to transition or that they are trans. You are no better than sexual groomers. And certainly no better than people that turn their children into drag queens that strip in gay bars in front of grown men, Fake doing coke, and hanging on the leg of a naked man JUST because he’s a drag queen. I hate so much about modern “norms” because they are not normal. They are bastardizations of normal being used to harm people. Frankly speaking I’m done with it. If a person is trans they can be trans I don’t give a damn. But they should go through the therapy first for years. And if they therapist or a doctor tries to fast track them, they need to be fired and have any license or certifications removed. End of story. 

[botanyshitposts]

is that why you think mammals have more than two sexes

idk if this was supposed to be like, a bizarre transphobic jab, but partially, actually. in biology very, very few things actually occur in binary groups; i prefer to imagine biological sex, as well as gender, by imagining two overlapping bell curves. there’s an average that we expect from gender and sex matching up at birth because most people will fall within the first quartile of the curves where all the most average genes were turned on and all the non-genetic factors surrounding that turn out in an average expected way, and there are more people who still are just as male or female but have different genes turned on and off or whatnot and wouldnt check every single box if like, The Chromosome Police showed up and made them do a cheek swab or whatever, and there are people who are intersex, which covers a wide range of different expressions of the genome.

but! we don’t have The Chromosome Police and we don’t need them, because we have gender to do this for us, which is something that has much more to do with a mix of genetic and sociological factors. in my opinion, gender makes it so that even if you’re a cis man who doesnt have like, idk penis gene #435 on the Y chromosome, youre still a man, and even if youre a woman who doesnt have vagina gene #874 turned on, youre still a woman. hell, some people go their entire lives without knowing that they have full extra chromosomes. it just....it just doesnt matter.

to expand on this, my theory is that gender serves the function of convenience more than like, a law or whatever; we have a system where there are usually a small set of things that happen as a result of a wide range of thousands of different things that turn off and on during development, and a lot of different moving parts are going on in that department that help mitigate disaster if one deletes itself or whatever, and not all those things are guaranteed to turn on or off, and as a result we’ve developed a system where regardless of whats in your pants- because anything could be there, honestly, evolution works in systems and as a result doesnt know or care- there’s a social thing that functions differently on another level thats more elastic, so no matter if you’re a woman who was born with one singular penis gene turned on or a woman who had a lot of them turn on, you both can kind of be in the same clump of ‘people who are this’. not ‘people who look like this’ or ‘people who do this thing’ or ‘people who have x combinations of chromosomes’, but ‘people who, for whatever multitude of reasons and results or relationships with themselves, are this way or another way or are existing successfully in some distant combination of ways’, and having those people around- if we follow this theory- apparently was not at all disastrous enough for evolution to pump the breaks and start killing people who never activated Penis And Vagina Gene #1456. in fact, trans people have been around as long as humans have, and that includes nonbinary people, intersex people, and cis people with different gender expressions. ancient societies had us around, there are just as many of us now as there always was, and biology just. it does not care.

think of all the things that go into a person. there is a whole lot of stuff that we do not understand. there are so many things that could change, or differ from individual to individual, and having a lot of moving parts like this with millions of different viable combinations of biological and environmental things works, because it means that the entire system doesnt break like a fucking twig if both a penis and a vagina gene turn on at the same time, or if little grog in the forest grows up hunting mammoths with his 8 moms and no dads in a nomadic tribe in prehistoric france. it also means that even if someone ends up as another combination, they dont immediately collapse into a heap of dust! great system, for the most part.

now, this is all contentious. first of all, this is my own set of theories on why this exists, and second of all i have complex feelings about the science surrounding this itself; as a biologist im fascinated, but as a trans queer person it’s terrifying. the reason this is is because there are two groups of people who want to learn things like this: people who actually want to study the details of human sex and gender, and people who want to find The Ultimate Queer Gene to ‘fix’ us forever, which like. as ive covered before. egregious moral, ethical, and basic human rights reasons aside. not something that actually would improve us as a species even if we did go to the farthest ends of the bell curves i mentioned and manage to transform the entire human race into two massive homogeneous supermale and superfemale groups with only the the most Epic And Extreme big dick and boob genes selected for (or, if were going off TERF logic, femurs of a bizarrely specific length or like, a skull shape or smth, you can see where this goes very quickly).

like. this shit is complicated. it is. sometimes, things in biology- especially when it comes to real people of our own species- are best left as enigmas, you know what im saying. but in the meantime, we can take estimates, we can say ‘we can make an educated guess about the biological sex of a skeleton by looking at their pelvis’, but we cant say ‘all cis women have femurs of exactly x cm, which is absolutely a normal and not creepy thing to obsess over’, and we cant say ‘all human beings are either male or female and that looks one of two ways’, because as we know from intersex people and all the other caveats in this subject, this is not true.

we can say with confidence that most human beings have a gender that matches what is average for their biological sex (which doesnt always define itself as the exact same set of characteristics to begin with) but not always, and most human beings have have a gender which falls vaguely under the umbrella of two vaguely defined existences, but not always, and most women have a femur length between x and x cm long, but women come in all shapes and sizes and therefore it isnt a good way to define what being a living breathing person of a particular circumstance means or looks like, holy shit, etc, and we can use this knowledge to make educated guesses about the world, but we can also use knowledge of what isn’t the majority of people to make educated guesses about what those guesses mean, and what roles they play (and hopefully will get some more rights in the meantime).

so yeah like. most people are one of two biological sexes, but its more complicated than ‘peepis or vagornio’, you feel.

#idk what anon is referring to here either lmao but you know #the usage of 'sex' here tells me this is either a HARD terf or someone who does not know that there is a difference #transphobia / #mildly i suppose but im not sure of anons intent #not plonts #asks

[scriptlgbt]

Hi there!

So for a little backstory, I wrote a short poem that was loosely inspired by The Danish Woman (2015).

After searching for a still from the movie to go with my poem, I found out that the movie was NOT received well by the trans community. I read some of the reasons why and after looking over my poem and found that it might be......problematic...

I'd like to let some trans women read over it to see how they feel but I honestly think it might be triggering.

So what should I do???

This depends on your goals here. Some questions to ask:

What are you hoping to gain? Is it your own education?

Are you hoping to publish the poem? (Post it online, etc?)

What was your reason for writing the poem?

Would you be able to pay sensitivity readers?

But honestly, it strikes me that you've already figured out that it's problematic. I'd say the matter of the poem is mostly resolved. You wrote something and then you learned better. This isn't something that needs to go any further.

I also want to corroborate that The Danish Woman (2015), as well as the book it was based on (which was extremely fucked up, misgendering, etc) was an atrocity. Casting a cis man to play a trans woman was never something we were comfortable with, despite what some cis actors seem to claim. (There's this idea that it was "acceptable then" which was used to excuse things. That's absolutely not true, and there is no shortage of evidence to prove that.)

The movie and book are pretty much a dicey transmisogynist tabloid version of Lili Elbe's life.

She was a real woman, and a very important figure in trans history. She also has an autobiography.

I'd recommend trying to unpack the facts from fiction, and the impact of those things, on your own. If your poem hasn't been published or posted anywhere, I don't think you need to worry about making amends with anybody specific, but it always helps to make an effort to understand how we can better grow forward.

- mod nat

#mod nat #lili elbe #transmisogyny #the danish girl (2015) #the danish girl

[c0rpseductor]

i also dont think its talked about enough that when you are gay & trans at the same time you still grow up with internalized homophobia and it can make it more difficult for you to come to terms with being trans

like even without consciously realizing i was a man i spent a lot of my life really disgusted and uncomfortable with my attraction to men because i had the pervasive sense it was morally wrong, “gross,” and unacceptable. i tried for years to distance myself from men and being fucking weird about men because like even without being able to consciously say i was 100% just a gay man, i hated myself for being a gay man. a lot.

and that was on top of being afraid to admit to myself i wasn’t a girl, too. i would make a lot of concessions to myself - “well, you can still be a girl SOMETIMES, you’re just a slightly weird cis person, you’re not a TRANS MAN you’re BIGENDER and also NEVER a man, you’re only a gay man when it’s funny, honestly it would probably be more progressive if you just decided to be a lesbian,” like i was completely fucking insane about wanting to avoid this one specific aspect of myself because the shame i felt about being a man and liking other men was like...immeasurable, and it was much easier to just “force” myself to be “right” by trying to simultaneously quash my manhood and my attraction to men (and in doing so pretending to be a lesbian). like it was this ridiculous mental balancing act for me bc if anything it was like i was simultaneously trying to pretend to be a woman with no sexual identity and a heterosexual man, totally divorced from each other.

like i dont think this is something i see discussed very much, the idea that compulsory heterosexuality can manifest in this particular way when you’re trans and end with you trying to mimic a gay person of the opposite gender in order to avoid your shame about being not cis and ALSO not straight. (i know there’s a whole controversy about using the term outside of discussions of lesbian identity but i would not know what else to call this.) 

[falconemuses]

Disclaimer: Everything below is just my own personal experience, it in no way invalidates anyone else’s experiences or identities, you are all valid, please don’t mind a random idiot wondering aloud into the internet. Have a good day.

sometimes i wonder if i’m trans.

such a weird thing to wonder about, i know. a lot of people seem to already know since they were little. and even the ones that don’t, from what i can gather on the net, it’s like, because they grew up in a super conservative society and once they got onto the internet they had an epiphany moment. i’m.....still /mimes floating/.

i just saw a tumblr post about some lady having watched birds of prey and feeling super empowered and hyped up and then being mad about the fact that men get to feel like this all the time because most stories are made for them. and that she had a discussion with her boyfriend and he was like “eh...it’s alright but it wasn’t made for (someone like) me so it’s difficult to enjoy it” and she was like yeah that’s how (she) feels all the time because most media is made by and for men and she (and many other women) have learnt how to see the world through a man’s eyes in order to like, partake in stories and shit. i’m not paraphrasing it very well, here’s the link. and....yes of course it’s a very valid take except.....why......do i completely sympathise with the bf. x_x even though i’m ostensibly a “woman”. like all the shows she listed, made by women, starring women, for women, i just - have that feeling of - what she said, “it wasn’t made for (people like) me”. but i do like a lot of shows/stories made by guys for guys starring guys! and guy characters! and i don’t think it’s a lack of well-written ladies, like, all the shows that are praised - not by media conglomerates, by actual women - for having good female leads, i’m like, ehhh, can’t relate. and i somehow enjoy mediocre guy-centric shows and guy characters??? like potc, and merlin oh my god. (gawain is super cool) and my PoE duellist. such a showy arrogant asshole. omg.

and there’s other pointers, too. like i first started contemplating the possibility when my friend complimented my boobs while trying on dresses, and then i had a BSOD and ended up crying in the dressing room, which is not a normal reaction to people complimenting your body. and then she was like, maybe you’re trans. and i was like, am i?? :O and then there’s the fact that i, as a child, for some reason thought i would magically become a MAN at puberty. this doesn’t even make sense but yeah, i just thought, somehow, the sheer force of my personality would bend nature to my agenda, or something, because people’s looks always match their personalities in fiction. imagine my disappointment. xDD but then i thought this was a thing like all women wanted to be men at some point because of patriarchal society and “manliness” is a thing to be aspired towards.....this sounds so much like i’m digging myself into a hole, doesn’t it.

BUT THEN!! i don’t want to transition. okay, this is mostly like, a monetary and practicality and just me being shallow problem. like, hormones and surgery is expensive as hell. i can’t even get a decent counsellor, LOL. and then there’s the whole - how the fuck am i going to find a job when all my educational transcripts have <feminine name>  on them, and then i show up like..??? will anyone even HIRE me?! and the last thing, which is honestly just me being shallow - i think i look okay as a girl. i don’t think i would look okay as a guy. i think i would probably look below average. for one i am short. for another i have attempted all those face-changing apps and oh my god. i mean if somehow magic happened and i could pick my ideal body without the pain and cost of surgery then yes i would become a cute guy immediately but since magic is NOT happening, then - if i don’t want it enough to at least work towards it, then.....can i really be so considered?? and like, i probably present even more feminine than most of my actual cis female friends, who nearly to a one chopped their hair off in university. i on the other hand am attempting to grow it to my waist. and i like skirts and jewelry. so....it’s more convenient to just continue being a girl, right?!?!! 

ughhh. i’m CONFUSED. i feel like a traitor for not liking the Stronk Women shows. but on the other hand. ?????? 

#text #personal #gender identity #gender #confused

[goatsandgangsters]

7, 32 and 36 for the trans ask meme! (also for future reference: if you ever want to chat about gender stuff, my inbox and messages are open, jsyk)

7. What is your favorite part of being transgender?

It really opened up such a world of choice for me. Everyone is given a particular script about who they’re supposed to be, how they’re supposed to do relationships, what we’re supposed to look like and be interested in and how we express ourselves and what we do with our lives and who we do our lives with and what we prioritize. My opinion has always been that the business of queerness is rooted in identifying what these scripts are and actually asking, Is this what I want and does this work for me? Questioning my gender is what opened up this whole world of questions in the first place. And if I had gone my life without asking those questions, trying to be “good” by following the script perfectly, I would have been so much less happy, so much less whole. Part of myself would have always been shoved aside and buried. 

I love that I had the opportunity to metaphorically dump everything related to gender and bodies on the floor—both big things and small—and finally start to ask, But what do I actually want? 

32. How do you see yourself identifying and presenting in 5 years?

On the one hand, 5 years is a ways away and we’re always changing and evolving in ways we couldn’t have predicted. So I expect some things will be different in 5 years—probably in ways that I don’t expect now, but with hindsight will make so much sense. 

For comparison, 5 years ago, I kept telling myself it was pointless to be out as nonbinary, because that would just “invite scrutiny and harassment.” 9 years ago, I was sitting in my dorm room panicking because I realized I wasn’t a woman but didn’t know what the fuck else to do about it. 

But in the grand scheme of things, I don’t honestly foresee my gender identity changing much or drastically in the coming years. Honestly, my understand of my gender has been pretty consistent since I first began questioning it. The difference is just that I have more information, I can articulate it better, I’ve answered a lot of those questions for myself. But when I look back on that point in 2012–2013 when I was first drowning in my own questioning process, I can see a very clear line between then and now. My first question was over whether I was a trans man or genderqueer, and I’ve settled in a place of nonbinary transmasculinity that feels like the natural middle point between those two options. I expect that my understanding of myself and my gender will continue to grow and evolve, but I really don’t think it will drastically change. My process has been a long and drawn out one, for sure, but it has never been one of drastic change—it’s more been about gradually allowing myself to accept and be what I already knew I was. 

THOUGH, IN TERMS OF PRESENTATION, THERE IS ONE CHANGE I EXPECT: I am going to have a totally new relationship with shirts. I’ve told myself to put shirt-buying on hold until I have top surgery expressly for this reason, because the way that I choose shirts is going to change—not in terms of style, per se, but in terms of fit. I cannot WAIT until “how well does this minimize my chest” isn’t a major factor in my choices for shirts and jackets. I’ll still prefer a masculine-cut shirt, but I might even end up going a size down, because if it fits tighter across my chest, that will no longer be a bad thing!!!! I’m overjoyed at the prospect, tbh. I’M GOING TO HAVE A NEW RELATIONSHIP TO WEARING SHIRTS AND IT’S GOING TO BE SO GOOD!!!!!!

To memeify it a little bit, once I can wear a tight men’s shirt, it’s over for you hoes. 

36. What, if any, is the difference between your gender identity and your gender expression?

For the most part, I would say that my gender identity and gender expression are pretty congruent. It’s been a gradual process, but I do feel like my wardrobe and grooming choices by and large reflect my identity to me. 

Although, because I’m working with a canvas that people incorrectly perceive to be ~~feminine, I do need to overcorrect my gender expression to be more masculine to counterbalance it. (Not that it even works most of the time. Cis people will ignore blatant cues like short hair and 100% masculine clothing from the men’s section but still be like “hm but I’m going to confidently call you ma’am without any hesitation”)

In unfortunate reality, most of the people I encounter in life probably view me as a masculine woman. But in truth, I’m less of a masculine woman and more of a soft man. (Not that I’m either binary, but you get my point.) I still prefer masculine dress and masculine style overall, but if I didn’t have to overcorrect for how people interpret my body, I might have more freedom to play with a little more flamboyance in my gender expression sometimes—to be “man androgynous” instead of “woman androgynous.” 

[Trans ask game! What has been your gender journey?]

#waltzingtostars #big gender mood #putting all of my answers in there because that's where the Very Specifically Me gender posts live

[lavendulaconminatio]

Years ago I ran a blog on ace discourse: @asleepingwindow As a lesbian raised in the Catholic Church, where you can be gay just don’t act on it, I knew asexual activism had nothing to do with being gay. I know an asexual gay person is the church’s fucking wet dream. I always insisted I don’t care whether people identify that way but stop trying to say you suffer as I do as a lesbian. Stop fucking invading lgbt spaces too and making them unsafe for us! But that was a losing battle. I wonder how this time period will be seen 20-30 years from an lgbt history perspective.

Anyway, besides knowing asexual gay people are the kind of gay people straight people want, I also hated this idea that seemed to be gaining popularity about people being more oppressed simply because they weren’t seen as valid. Validity didn’t mean laws meant to protect their population, or having police see your body as human and worthy of life; they merely meant existing in popular media so people see them. There was never anything deeper than that to so called asexual oppression, which I will never think is a thing. I mean asexuality is a thing but people don’t actively hate you for not having sex, that’s a fact of fucking life. My people died by the thousands in the 80s, sometimes with only lesbians to give a shit, and some straight person says their totes oppressed because they don’t want to fuck? Yeah ok. Or if there was a basis in oppression, it was often just blatant sexism and homophobia. All men say you’re a prude for not having sex, this is nothing special, Jan.

Now years later after arguing my heart out, making a master post and closing up shop, I find myself with another side blog to combat an issue that I once again feel harms lesbians and women. Instead of being more concerned about the men that berate, beat, and kill trans women, activists are literally attacking women, especially lesbians, for not validating trans people. The level of vitriol leveled at a woman for talking about her vagina is so above and beyond any hatred for the men who have murdered trans women.

Then in some perveted irony, those same deaths are propped up as reasons to shut down women talking about sexism. Meanwhile, more women than anyone can count die every day because they are female. We don’t get the luxury of our deaths being marked a hate crime. Instead it’s domestic violence, or maybe FGM gone wrong amoung the countless other things that needlessly and horrifically kill women. And I haven’t even talked about rape.

I knew the ridiculous activism of the asexual movement would have lasting consequences but I honestly never thought the concept of validity would be taken and warped so far to try and pretend biological sex doesn’t exist and that women aren’t female just to make trans women feel better about their dysphoria. I feel immense compassion for anyone with dysphoria, I have it and struggled for a long time to figure out if I was trans or a butch lesbian. There is such an immense disconnect here about the importance of validity and what real oppression looks like. Especially when you refuse to even discuss detrans people for fear it will make you seem less valid. So their struggles don’t exist to make you feel better. Once again, all about erasing females to stroke the egos of males.

This is not the biggest issue on my plate, but it’s a recent small example of tangible consequences to prejudice. The other day I was trying to refill an opioid I have a legal prescription for but the pharmacist refused because they couldn’t find it. Despite having going through this before this woman refused to look where I suggested, and I suffered in pain for 3 days before my doctor’s office was able to tell them they had it for sure. I mean this isn’t about sexism and more about ableism (though women’s pain is often discounted more, black pain even more) In that moment, I didn’t want to be validated. I didn’t want the pharmacist to know who I am, my identity, my disabilities, I wanted her to stop judging pain patients as a whole and give me my fucking legal prescription. Every single legislation and guideline that limits opioid prescriptions are born of a prejudice against addicts and a indifference to people in pain. That pharmacist didn’t give a shit about my pain, to bother even looking, because the rules made her right and I was probably an addict anyway. That is a real tangible feeling of oppression, and like I said it’s nothing compared to other examples I just didn’t want to dig up anything more upsetting.

That is how I feel about oppression. Validity matters, representation matters, but it is not the nitty gritty of what oppression is. It’s screaming at the walls, throwing your phone, because someone with the power to judge and fuck up your life, did exactly that. And worse they feel righteous for what they did because to them you’re just a “insert slur here”. And that’s just a small nonviolent and nonlethal example.

Now unlike asexuality, I know to be trans is to be oppressed and to suffer. But you cannot lift yourself up by putting others down, you will be on a tower of dominos that can fall the moment some other group does it to you. I always said trans people obviously belonged with LGB groups because obviously bigots didn’t care if a couple was two gay men or a man and non-passing trans woman. To me it spoke to a shared history and understanding. But maybe I was wrong, maybe that doesn’t exist. I think at least the one major difference now that I can definitely see is it’s ridiculous to infer female privilege by calling us cis. One thing is for sure, LGB and trans history are not as simple as I had ignorantly assumed in the past.

I don’t want to dictate what trans life is like, I don’t want deny any adult the right to transition, I don’t have any interest in misgendering, I believe there is a difference between sex and gender. But by fucking god I will not let anyone trample on my rights, call me bitch, cunt, terf, cum dumpster, deny my oppression as a female, deny my suffering, deny my reality as a female, just so You can feel better about your body. I will not sacrifice my body at the alter of your perceptions of your body.

Society loves to say otherwise, but women don’t exist to make you feel better. We don’t exist to make men feel more like a man or for trans women to feel more like a woman. We exist for our fucking selves, leave us alone! I’m not sorry if it makes you feel less of a woman because you need to address the misogyny you have been socialized into as a male. You all reek of sexism and think being trans means you magically cannot be affected by male socialization. That is some first class Bullshit. I’m a poor disabled lesbian, and none of that erases the racial bias I was taught and raised in as a white person. I always need to be willing to confront that, and it’s no different with males. Trans or cis, all of you were raised to hate women. Own it so we can fucking get past it.

Furthermore, our society only does better when we foster discourse. Disagreeing can be enraging but it’s how you learn if your own beliefs are worth keeping or discarding. It’s how you grow. Only insecure bullies feel the need to demand loyalty, stamp out dissent, and mock their opponents than actually argue. Don’t give into this intellectual dishonesty that might be easy, feel good, gain you a moment of praise, but ultimately throws women’s liberation and equality under the bus and into a raging inferno. How dare you think your right to feel valid is more important than my right to live freely and without shame as a female.

I’m very much open to good faith discourse on this topic, but do not mistake me. I have suffered for being born with a vagina, and no male will ever get to shut me up. So the next time you want to say choke on a dick, choke on your own.

#misogyny #sexism #feminism #trans activism #radical feminism #gender critical

[a-woman-apart]

I am Bisexual

I am a black, bisexual ciswoman dating a white, straight cisman, and the fact that he is male and straight are not the reason I am dating him, nor are they a reason NOT to. Pretending though, that his labels don’t factor into who he is as a person would be completely idiotic. 

At the end of the day, though, we are dating because we share similar values, we are compatible in multiple ways, we respect each other, and we love each other and are committed to making this work. It is true, that as a straight man, he wouldn’t be open to dating me if I were a man, but it is also true that if I were a man, certain aspects of my personality would change, due to a complex combination of nature and nurture that scientists still haven’t figured out.  

Also, there are people from both our “communities” (said very loosely) that aren’t down with “The Swirl” which is only something you get to celebrate if you are extremely privileged and quite a bit into eugenics. We each have racist people in our families, and we both get dirty looks on the street when we’re together for different reasons, but hatred is always at the core of the discrimination. 

Loving vs. Virginia was passed in 1967, and it is important to note that The Lovings wanted to be left alone and to live in peace, even though their marriage wasn’t recognized by law and it was a crime, even for white women, to give birth to interracial children. The Lovings only took their case to court when they faced racialized harassment. 

To me, it is absolutely terrible that in roughly 10 years, we went to celebrating “love is love” to now criticizing people for who they choose to date or how they identify. I can’t tell you how many times on this site I’ve seen bisexual women pressured to identify as pansexual to be “less discriminatory” or told in disgusting tones, “Why date men if you can choose to date women?” as if bisexual and/or lesbian were just things you can turn on and off like a light switch. 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rise of radical feminism and AFAB-nonbinary/transmasculine culture has coincided with poorer mental health for women in our community and also with a HUGE uptick in misandry and biphobia. Even gay men aren’t above being “canceled” for so-called “transphobic” caricatures of women, even though men have been playing women in the theatre for centuries, and now, women can play men, too. #Progressive  

Honestly, one thing I will say that guys do better than us women (in general, there are always exceptions) is comedy. Yes, men, as a a general rule, are funnier than us. Men are more likely to make fun of themselves, us, and other people, with no mercy, and I honestly think the women/AMAB non-binary in our community-- either the black or the LGBTQ+ one, take your pick-- need to learn to take a fucking joke. It’s not that fucking serious, but the one thing that ISN’T funny is the hideous biphobia, racism, and backbiting I’ve witnessed online and offline this year. 

What makes it even more disgusting, is that while I am including AMABs in my roast, I have actually seen MULTIPLE stories of AMABs being excluded from AFAB offline gatherings (DOCUMENTED ON THIS HERE VERY SITE) in the name of “safety” because they are seen than nothing more than a man in a dress. 

So, here’s where I lose some subscribers...if a so-called “man in a dress” is unwelcome in your circles, do you REALLY think you have room to fucking talk when a huge portion of you you skirt the line between male and female because you can’t accept your own femininity? So really, are you really “non-binary” or are you just a scared little girls who can’t grow up?

Of course, that isn’t ALL of you, but when the country (as pointed out by J.K Rowling) sees a 4400% in female to male transition (a lot of it with very young girls becoming AFAB/non-binary, many of whom are taking testosterone) while male to female transition rates remain UNCHANGED, suddenly this isn’t a “trans” or a “non-binary” problem, this is a FEMALE problem. Trans people, prior to this huge upswing, made up less than 1% of the population, and that included MtF and FtM transition rates. These rates had remained steady FOR YEARS, so from a purely mathematical perspective this uptick is a huge statistic anomaly. 

For years people on the Right have decried the so-called “feminization of boys”, when in reality the “masculinization of girls” is statistically a far more pressing societal issue. 

I didn’t want to get this harsh, but this is concerning as a medical health issue, especially because research from the Scientific American reports that lots of young women who report having gender dysphoria end up not being dysphoric about their gender at all, but uncertain about their sexuality [click link]. If I had a quarter for every time a girl who never felt comfortable with her femininity or identified as asexual or aromantic turned out to “just be gay/bisexual” then I would be pretty fucking rich. 

I felt the same way. I felt like I was “Not Like Other Girls” and even though I never felt like a man, I often didn’t quite feel like a woman. It turns out that bisexuality, especially in women, corresponds with certain personality traits (aggression, assertiveness, high sex drive) that have been “coded male.” Gender bias in medicine is still responsible for why we don’t have more studies on lesbian and bisexual women, or on women IN GENERAL. As someone who is concerned about women’s rights and the safety of young girls and women, I think it is a HUGE DEAL that modern medicine still sometimes operates on the false assertion that women are just men without dicks and added baby-hosting parts. The effects of testosterone have been heavily studied, but there is SO much we don’t know about estrogen, including why different amounts of it don’t factor into PMDD, PMS, and other reproductive issues, as much as certain women’s brains and bodies responding to it DIFFERENTLY for reasons not fully understood. 

To make matters worse, while disparities in treatment based on race are less marked in other areas of medicine, black women still die in childbirth-- especially in the Southern U.S.-- at much higher rates than other demographics. Bisexual and lesbian women are also more likely than straight women to fear childbirth, which can be a huge source of anxiety for us. Even if we choose to undergo it, our anxiety is often downplayed by health care workers. This fear of childbirth can be seen even in bisexual and lesbian women who love children and strongly desire to be mothers. This, as well as the cost of surrogacy/IVF treatments, has been a reason that same-sex female couples often opt for adoption. 

Bisexual women, in particular, are also more likely to suffer mental health conditions and be the victims of male-perpetrated domestic violence than straight women and lesbians are. “Straight-passing” doesn’t really seem to provide a shield from that, I hate to tell you. 

The very concept of calling someone out for “passing” in an attempt to insult them actually reeks of jealousy and amazing privilege. In the case of bisexual people, it assumes that hiding an entire facet of our identity doesn’t matter and doesn’t take an emotional and psychological toll, because we can “choose” an opposite sex partner. This ignores the fact that falling in love isn’t based on choice, and that the moment we pursue a same-sex partner, we still have to “come out” if we want to maintain a healthy, open relationship with them. 

In the case of trans individuals, it assumes that “passing” erasing the fact that you have biological differences (such as typically being unable to parent children) from cis people that might make you undesirable to certain partners. Also, if you are also “stealth” you risk the chance of experiencing discrimination and/or violence if your identity is “discovered.” 

As far as being “white/European passing” this also does not erase the genetic and geographical ties you have to your ethnicity and/or country of origin. It doesn’t change the fact that if people start making racist comments about any of your racial demographics, it still hurts, even if you try to hide it. 

#i am bisexual #bisexuality is not a choice #love is love #women's rights #end biphobia #tired of apologizing #hate is hate #no more racism #loving vs virgina #exile #cancel me please #gender dysphoria #AFAB #AMAB #no I'm not pan

[eveninglottie]

write what you want regardless of the genders. it's better to spit the story out and then go back and revise then get hung up on whether or not every interaction or plot point could be part of an 800 word call-out tweet-longer that briefly trends on fanfic twitter. everyone comes at fiction from their own distinct background. you could write the most 'pure' romance ever, regardless of the genders, and it could still inadvertently trigger someone or raise concerns. comfort can be misleading.

so I don’t want you to think I’m disagreeing with you here, because you’re right. people spend way too much time thinking out the possible doomsday scenarios of what they might do instead of just doing it to see what happens. I am one of those people, for sure, it’s stopped me from doing pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted to do my whole life, so we’re on the same page here with both the concept of not worrying about what other people will think and also how no one holds the magic gatekeeping key which dictates what is problematic or not. every person is different and some things will upset people in a way that doesn’t upset you. that’s just a given. 

but I think that’s not really helpful when you’re trying to figure out your own motivations for doing something. 

like, yes, is a lot of this affected by how I think other people will react to things I create? of course. everything i do will be affected by how I think other people will react. that’s just how my brain works, and it’s my job to keep growing more confident in myself to counteract that (because the older you get you really do give less of a fuck and boy it’s so nice!!) what I was trying to bring up in that post was my own reasons for feeling more comfortable writing one thing than another. 

because I just think it’s fascinating and complicated and I’ve mentioned more than once to friends that it really just surprised me how freeing writing m/m has been vs m/f. it’s like my descent into sk was this moment of enlightenment when I realized “hey this is a hell of a lot easier to talk about when there are two boys involved!” like I realize that the majority of my writing the past two years has been on my own, and even though I can tell you’ve I’ve written well over 500k words and only posted maybe a fifth of that I can’t prove what I’m about to say so you’re just going to have to take my word for it, BUT I’ve included so much more discussion about sexuality and how characters express it and grow with it and figure out for themselves what they are. like it was never a thing I thought about a lot when I was writing my m/f fics (even tho all the women were still bi but that’s a whole other barrel of monkeys). it was never me sitting down and interrogating my choice for writing that pairing the way I did. I just did it. (I didn’t stop to consider the gender is what I mean, I thought about literally all the other things but gender and sexuality were not included in that) but now there’s a whole other sphere of characterization that I keep finding myself drawn to, and even without realizing it, it becomes a big part of how I write certain characters. (like deciding to write keith as demi while still being sexually and physically attracted to shiro has been really eye opening for me as someone on the asexual spectrum.)

because like, for example, I wrote a fem!bilbo fic, right? so clearly I was thinking about gender a bit, but most of that had to do with me having always reimagined that story (and lotr) with female protagonists. that’s what I did with a lot of childhood faves, actually, eragon, harry potter being two of the most prominent, and thinking about fem!bilbo and how that would change the story especially if she was in a relationship with thorin and the shire was maybe a bit more stifling for a woman, etc. - BUT that was one of those pairings that I’d never been drawn to when it was m/m. I couldn’t really get into it, and I was not a fan of the hobbit movies at all, honestly, and I tried, and it was only when I switched things around did that fic click for me, but I wonder a lot if I were to have come to hobbit fic later, after I’d gotten over my aversion to m/m (not in general, just me writing it, because reasons), would I have written it with bilbo as a boy? would I have been less likely to imagine bilbo as a woman? or was it a number of factors that led me to write that fic which really couldn’t have existed in any other incarnation, and would it have been a different fic entirely?

(the hp thing in particular is SO WEIRD to think about now because a lot of what I’ve been grappling with in my drarry fic is very male-centric? not like in a bad way, just thinking about the rivalry and bonds between boys and how boys look up to their male mentors and authority figures in very different ways than they do their female counterparts and also what does being interested in other boys do to one’s internalized and very misogynistic/homophobic ideas of Legacy and Family and Proper Gender Expression specifically when it comes to sex with other men like it’s Very Gendered in my head and it’s hard to separate that from what I used to be interested in which has expressed itself in other ways, specifically roslyn as chosen one in ascendant which I’ve said before was the result of a decade of rewriting those boy heroes as girls because I felt so connected to them and wanted girls to be every bit as important as boys, like I could draw a straight line from me writing bits and bobs of girl!harry as a fourteen year old and me writing roslyn in ascendant and wow I kind of want to punch myself in the face for how long I’ve rambled on about my own stuff but you know what no this is my tumblr and I get to obsessively and exhaustively talk about my own fictional worlds if I want to)

so it’s been a bit of a mindfuck trying to reconcile this shift in my own interests with the fact that I am a woman who identifies as largely asexual. and I think it’s important to sit down with yourself every once in a while and really look at the things you produce and do some self-examination. because I do wonder a lot if my comfort writing m/m now is because of this lack of pressure I normally feel when writing female characters or if it’s because I don’t have to interact with Me As Author so much when I write about boys because I am not a boy or if it’s because I feel a lot more comfortable identifying as queer when for the majority of my life I’d forced myself to be straight even though it didn’t feel right. 

then there’s the whole conversation about women writing m/m and how a lot of queer men feel they’re being fetishized or that their stories are being appropriated by women, in the same way that white people writing stories about people of color can be appropriative, men writing about women, straights writing about lgbtq+, cis people writing about trans or genderqueer people, et cetera with literally any minority being written by someone not from that minority, right? 

and I think it’s a bit reductive to say that it doesn’t matter. because it does matter. you’re right in saying that it matters to someone and I think the job of anyone who creates any kind of content is to think about that and be mindful that you don’t create in a vacuum. your art has power even if you don’t think it does, if you don’t want it to, and that’s something no one should take for granted.

now, I am not saying that certain people do not have the right to write certain stories. no one has the right to write anything, just as no one is forbidden from writing anything. and no one writing anything should be harassed for writing something that people perceive is out of their wheelhouse (because a lot of marginalizations are not visible! abuse, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, whether you’re neurotypical or not! and there’s no requirement that you make public your trauma/identity to provide cred! in fact it’s kind of horrific that anyone thinks this!) it’s a complicated dynamic but the more we talk about these things the easier it is when a marginalized person says, “hey this thing you wrote is kind of bad,” the writer can go “oh man I’m sorry, let me think about it and see what I did wrong so I can do better in the future” OR “oh wow I see what you mean, but this is important to me” and the reader can go “I respect your right to write what you want and in the future I’ll do more to shield myself from this kind of content” instead of Cancelling someone because they didn’t effectively prostrate themselves before the ultimate judges of problematic content, a bunch of randos on the internet.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, yes, I agree with you that it’s not necessary to worry about this stuff, and that a lot of it is energy wasted especially when you’re worrying about theoretical responses from people who read your stuff, but that’s not helpful to me, because I think that’s disregarding the fact that we live in a society with weird power dynamics that are constantly shifting. I think it’s my job as someone who is mentally capable of dealing with this kind of self-examination to push back on some of these things when I can. because if I didn’t challenge myself every once in a while, I wouldn’t grow as a person or a writer and if there was one mantra I would live my life by besides the assertion that I would be blissfully happy if I downloaded my consciousness into a robot body, it would be that You Have To Be Okay With Critique and It’s Good When People Call You Out In A Safe Setting, like everyone is a dick and an asshole and a Bad Person and pretending you’re not is the most useless battle you could ever fight. we contain multitudes and some of those tudes are downright ugly.

quick sidebar: I would not have been able to have this kind of conversation with myself four years ago, and something I have not even talked about is how my shift toward more m/m content began at the same time as I was getting used to getting medical treatment for my grab bag of mental illnesses, like it’s pretty obvious that I got into sk right about the time I settled into my meds so what does That even mean?? so many THINGS to consider!!

idk. I know when I write stuff like this people think I’m beating myself up over it, but I’m really not. I just like talking about it sometimes and this tumblr is where all my neuroses go to live forever more in the annals of this blue hell until I chicken out and delete them the next day. I guess I know that when I read other people talking about things I’ve also been thinking about, it’s nice to hear. and as this is something that is still new to me, fandom in general is still bonkers to a part of my brain because I came into it as an adult, the whole conversation (if there even is a conversation because there might not be but there’s one going on in my brain) about women writing m/m is interesting complicated and something I think about a lot. clearly without any real focus or conclusions to be drawn, because I dropped out of college and never learned how to make my point in a concise and understandable manner. 

anyway I hope you don’t read this as me arguing with you nonny, I just wanted to clarify what I mean in the original post

#oh boy this got very long #anonymous