#//don't @ me about that and the differences between transsexual vs transgender

[troublewithvampires-a]

@bxtsence said: 1 (sexuality asks)

(sexuality asks - open)

what do you label your muse as, and how do they label themselves? is there a difference, and if so, why?

//thank you for asking this one, because this is one i actually was kinda hoping to talk about, haha!

so, i label salvatore as a polyamorous greyromantic bisexual trans man (i did originally list him as pan, but i think bi vibes a bit more with him specifically as a label, but honestly i'm not really gonna get into all of that right now because to me personally the minutiae doesn't matter too much. point is, he's attracted to all genders.)

sal labels himself, however, as nothing. he doesn't use any labels for himself for the most part, and in fact he barely understands what any queer labels actually mean. i think he'd call himself queer eventually after he comes to accept himself a lot more down the line, and he may even finally actually consider himself transsexual, but until then if you ask him he'll probably say, "what are you, a cop?"

and this is a bit twofold for salvatore in my intentions. for one thing, i love writing a queer character who doesn't know *shit*. i was joking with a friend recently that there's a good chance that salvatore, at least for a time, thought he was the first and only trans man to exist. that's how much he doesn't know shit. like characters who know themselves super well are all fine and dandy, but i think it's interesting to have a character who doesn't know how to put words to his experiences.

and my other thought is that salvatore gets to be the reflection of the part of me that's kinda tired of trying to label every part of my queer experience. to be clear, there is *nothing* wrong with having a lot of labels or microlabels or anything like that. at the end of the day, if the label serves you and your experiences, that's what matters.

but like........ i'm kinda tired, y'all. part of me likes to joke about being a label hoarder and that's fun, but i'm also like. i just kinda wanna be Just Some Guy. my gender is both complicated and simple and so is my orientation, and sal can be like that too. for me personally, it's not really that useful to stress about finding the perfect labels to define me. i'm just a guy! i'm here, i'm queer, and i'm just a guy.

guess what i'm trying to say is. oh he's just like me fr.

#❝ i'll talk your ear off‚ kid ❞「 answered 」 #❝ there i was‚ a gangster turned vampire on the loose ❞「 headcanons 」 #bxtsense #//feel this is probably more than i meant to say haha #//but yeah idk i think about this a lot #//but also yeah. it's kinda fun to write sal as someone who uses quote-unquote 'outdated' terminology #//if he uses any at all #//i find it kinda refreshing in contrast with my more quote-unquote 'correctly labeled' muses #//i think queer discourse and exclusionism has just exhausted me lmao #//(also i've been trying to find a way to phrase this that doesn't shit on people who *do* enjoy and find use in having a lot of labels) #//(genuinely if that makes you happy more power to you) #//(but i'm like. idk man) #//wanna be more like salvatore someday and just make my identity other people's fuckin problem to figure out #//also re: sal using transsexual for himself #//don't @ me about that and the differences between transsexual vs transgender #//trust me. i am aware. i am trans myself #//that's the term i think he would prefer though

[fandomsandfeminism]

So, this is going to be a little meandering and all over the place. But I'm trying to express this...web of thoughts I've been having lately around this issue of queer, and labels, and the way we talk about our history and the way the community conceptualized itself in this very digital age. And it's still kind of half formed, so...let's see.

So. OK.

One thing I see a lot online, especially with people who are just now coming out, is a sort of...overfixation on increasingly niche labels. Im not saying that having a very specific or newer label is bad, to be clear. Labels are rhetorical tools, use what is useful. They help with visibility and discussing specific issues. No issues there.

But watching people quibble over bi vs pan vs omni vs abro or non-binary vs genderqueer vs demigender vs genderfluid vs agender vs xenogender vs bigender vs gnc. Asexual or gray ace or demisexual or queerplatonic. And whether they are a biromantic lesbian demigirl or bisexual greyaromantic genderuid. And it's always just a little exhausting, ya know? Again, if those labels are meaningful and useful, that's great, but I see people *agonizing* over which they "really" are. Like if they pick the wrong word to describe themselves, they are coming out the wrong way, like they are wrong about themselves if they can't find the exact correct word on an FAQ list of lgbt vocabulary.

And how I think that relates to the way people talk about our CURRENT labels as though these labels have always been there and like the people described by these labels now have no common experiences with other labels. Like lesbians and bisexual women have absolutely nothing in common. Like butches and trans men have no shared history. As though trans women and drag queens have always been completely separate and unconnected groups. As though ace folks and nonbinary folks are somehow new to the scene, and not community members who were always here and just didn't have a separate label until more recently.

I *remember* watching the community make the switch from transvestite and transsexual, to differentiating between transsexuals and transgender, to basically just using transgender/trans. Those labels are not stagnant. None of our labels are some ingrained biological unchanging objective truth. Labels are rhetorical shortcuts to summarize this facet of our identity and lives and experiences- but they are just words.

And maybe this connects to the way people get really...weird about historical figures too. Like whether Sappho was a lesbian or bisexual, as though either of those words would have had any meaning to her. About whether Shakespeare was gay or bi, like he would have conceptualized his own identity that way. About what modern label Dr. James Barry would have used for himself if anyone could travel back in time and ask him.

And then I think about why queer feels so much more affirming, so much more a place of strength, than LGBT+. Not that LGBT as a label is bad, and I honestly probably prefer it for allies and outsiders to use. But as a community label- Queer, to me, says that all our experiences are queer experiences. Queer can be many things, but they are all queer. Regardless of how many genders or which specific genders you like, whether you have a romantic and or sexual attraction to whatever collection of genders, whatever thing your gender is doing today- all of it, ALL of it, once you step outside that cis, straight mainstream sexuality and gender norm- is queer. Equally queer.

Lgbt+ feels like we are still keeping all those labels separate, little boxes all lined up next to each other- different but a coalition. And while that isn't bad, I also think it isn't totally true.

[A caveat here, that there are times when more specific labels are very helpful. We don't want any specific kind of queer experience to be overshadowed or erased, and having more specific labels facilitates those discussions. Again, I'm not saying that we should eliminate or erase our more specific labels.]

But I think imagining our community as a collection of wholly separate groups that are just allied together, instead of one group that we are all equally in, can make it far too easy for exclusionists to sneak up and say "well ___ isn't REALLY lgbt. THEY aren't REALLY one of us. ___ dont belong."

If we take all the labels off all the crayons- red and pink and purple and blue and teal and green are not hard and fast divisions. They are artificial distinctions we have made- all of them are light, all of them the rainbow.

Anyway. I just think that, while everyone should use whatever labels bring them joy and are useful for them, we might be better off if more folks were ok with ALSO accepting the vast ambiguity of being queer.

#queer thoughts #queer rambling #maybe Im off here or missing some nuance #but Im bi AND queer #Im bi and genderqueer AND queer #and I think theres strength and beauty in seeing our diverse experience and saying YEAH all of us are in this together

[replaybf]

i know. i know Very well "under my skin" is not about transsexuality. i know it is not about t4t love. that being said, if the shoe fits…

I'd like to preface this by saying, it's just my interpretation of the song, and how *I* personally see it as a transgender gay man. This doesn't mean it's true, nor real, nor most definitely, does not mean I think any of this reflects who Lee Taemin as a person is. I am not making any assumptions and will be treating the lyrics as a seperate line of work.

ok now insanity begins. this is the translation i'm basing this on.

The title itself.

The title itself always stood out to me and spoke to me. It is such a common feeling, for growing up transgender, to always feel like there is something hiding inside of you. How it's all literally just under your "real" skin, how under your skin lives a different you that cannot be showed. Just a brief mention of this, I just Really enjoy the title itself <3

Verse 1

the constant feeling of wrongness, the crawling under one's skin that never seems to go away, how often we internalise the transphobia around us to paint our true self as something worse, something ugly. how it makes us feel so uneasy to live a lie, when a lie we don't want to live but we are forced to.

Pre-chorus 1

This is more subjective, but well, this whole thing is. This pre-chorus always hits me the hardest. How it's such a simple truth… how if you are raised with a view of your gender not being right, it becomes such an obstacle to truly loving yourself. How our "ideal self" becomes twisted through the layers and layers of acceptation we must go through. And the last line here… how at some point, it just becomes unbearable. You have to break away. You *have* to do something or it will kill you.

Chorus 1

Here is where my T4T part of this song comes in. The lyrical subject is finally able to bare their heart, they reach out, and they find someone who doesn't reject them. The theme of hiding, of it being under my skin continues, and yet this time… there is hope. That maybe hiding will be no longer necessary.

Verse 2

Verse 2 is where my theory falls apart LMAO. The line of "someone who left me" points clearly to this being a break-up song, but fear not, this won't stop a transgender warrior like me. The first line of Verse 2 strikes me always, though. A side "you can't let out anywhere" and how only the subject's lover is their only safe place. How each previous hurt left them more inside their shell than before. But what would it be to show, something that "can't be let out"? This again just makes me feel like it's a call for love like yours, a call for love from a person who will understand exactly what you feel, in detail.

Pre-chorus 2

This… I interpret as dysphoria. The mention of a mirror makes me imagine the lyrical subject looking at themself, asking these questions, and the snickering being exactly dysphoria, telling them whatever they imagine their looks to be, it will never be what they want. It hurts, because it's your own mind turning against you. It is such… an evil way of your own mind to turn you against yourself like this, too. The lyrical subject now sees what it feels like to be away from their lover, from the one that melts their heart and worries away.

Chorus 2

First thing that comes to mind is the difference between "So now I reach my hand" in Chorus 1 vs "So now I take your hand" here – I think we can assume this takes place at a different space in time, where the lyrical subject and their lover are now a more stable thing, where the subject can take their hand, and "touch their love". Here again, as with previous chorus, is where I imagine most of the T4T narrative. This love makes the subject understand slowly that whatever is going on with them, it's okay. They see it as weakness, yes, but we know from Pre-chorus 2 they've been hurt before, so it doesn't come as a shock too much. The love the lyrical subject experiences can become their safe space.

Bridge

A side-note... I find this bridge to be so beautiful. The lyrical work, the delivery in the actual song too, it makes my heart sing, a bit. Here, we see how the love, the safe love now, transforms the way the lyrical subject is able to think about their life now. Their whole perspective shifts, now understanding maybe, that there was no "old self", that there is no "before and after" of a transition.

Chorus 3

For Chorus 3 only a brief mention will be needed, given that it is almost the same as Chorus 1, but I think it's interesting to compare "Only your warmth can melt my cold heart" to "Only your warmth melts my cold heart" – I think this again solidifies the passage of time in the song and how the subject's lover is now a constant fixture in their life.

Post-chorus

The post-chorus is simple, just repeated lines from Verse 2, but I want to mention it still. How it is so important here, that this thing, whatever it is that troubles the subject, their gender, their presentation, their worries connected to that, how hidden they've been, how lonely they must have felt. They are asking for something so simple, just for holding, but it simply speaks to me, how little they would need for comfort.

Closing thoughts

To be honest, I have no idea if this makes much sense. I just wanted to write something for myself to put myself in a good mood and something I could look back on, hah. If anyone read this far… hi! What did you think? <3 hah "Under my skin" is definitely a Taemin song that didn't click with me at first, as most his Japanese stuff, but I'm so glad I came to appreciate his music in both languages. I simply… ah… love his music a lot. And this is my little love letter about it :*

#txt #taemin #tl;dr i'm crazy but i'm free #btw wrote this when listening to not over you on loop lmao #i love writing ~900 words for this to get one note. but that's okay that's the beauty of being Sooo normal about music

[rfidblocking]

I don't know about the hatemail asks and I'm sorry you're getting them :/ but I genuinely wanted an opinion on these things. I feel like my brain sex ask was callously brushed off in favor of a semantic joke but I'm really wondering about the issue. Please give me an actual answer. I was told by one source to read Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender but I was told by another that it's TERF propaganda or something.

Sorry for the bad timing you got saddled with. I’ll be updating the FAQ to mention what to do if your ask is treated as trolling when it is actually genuine. (But it’s basically just, “resend it with, ‘no I was serious.’”)

“Brain sex,” or neurological gender, and its many related theories of transgender identity, such as Harry Benjamin Syndrome and True Transsexuality, are, basically, complete nonsense.

The human brain has a high level of what is called “plasticity.” What this means is that while the general structures of the human brain are similar between various humans, the unique configurations of neurons changes radically between individuals or over time.

Even very small things can have large effects on how a person’s brain looks. For example, the amount of music you listen to on a daily basis can dramatically alter certain structures in your brain.

When you look at the absolutely massive impact that gender roles have on day to day living, it is no surprise that certain gender roles and expectations would have effects of brain structures.

And that is the causal order: the environment creates the brain structure. 

What this results in is, people who occupy similar social roles have similar looking brains. Play the role of “woman” for a few weeks- as little as two months- and your brain will begin to look “like a woman’s.”

But what does having a “woman’s brain” even mean?

Well, not much. The few differences that actually exist in “gendered” brains are all interconnected with the social behaviors we discussed about. All the “in born” structural differences simply cannot actually be found consistently to conform to gendered lines.

The only structural difference that seems to be consistently identifiable is differences in volume of grey vs white matter. However, these differences do not, as far as current neuroscience is capable of determining, have any meaningful behavioural impacts.

And the difference exists only as a state of averages and medians: both men’s and women’s brains overlap with each other far more than they differ, and plenty of men have brains that conform more closely to women’s averages and vice versa.

In short, your brain’s sex will conform to whatever sex you, as a person, think of yourself as having.

XOXOX

💮 Yazminx 💮

#Anonymous #Ask #Yazminx #🌸