#(although like. i've reached for 'we' twice in this post and substituted 'many of us' so as to be making slightly less blanket statements)

[aeide-thea]

thinking a lot lately about the desire many of us tend to feel for validation through community that not only respects but reflects us, and the way normie* men have been generally been happier to let me join them in their gender than normie women have been to let me leave it (them)...

#* not totally sold on 'normie' here but like. what i'm getting at is that the women i actually *know* are allies #(though of course it's like. how much of that is drawing on regard built thru homosociality...) #but like. when i get out in the world i find that women are the ones who really hate it #when they realize i 'could' be a woman but i'm Doin It Wrong #anyway it just does all feel tied to the thing i posted recently #about like. the ways many of us project our experience onto other people‚ looking to have them mirror it back to us #that post was about language and this one isn't so much #(although like. i've reached for 'we' twice in this post and substituted 'many of us' so as to be making slightly less blanket statements) #(and even then—that's still a claim both abt the world and abt how i'm grouped in it) #anyway i guess what i want to take away from this is the courage to be myself even unvalidated‚ whatever 'myself' even means #it's *hideously* hard bc i so often got invalidated growing up that i'm still horribly desperate for it #and i'm SO sensitive abt almost everything. but. at the very least a good goal for me‚ i think. #(also like. validation is great‚ or can be! i just think—when the desire for it leads us away from our truths‚ or towards fear and hate...) #(time to be wary then of its seductions and promises.) #anyway the cat is sitting on me so i haven't wanted to dislodge her in order to go make coffee #so instead: you get this