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strawby-jelli · 3 months

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Okay so I just watched a video of a boy who once identified as trans still got bottom surgery after he realized he was cis and people were so fucking rude? Like just because this cis dude has a vagina people were calling him transphobic and wishing death upon him.

So this is a reminder that when we as a community advocate for bodily autonomy and gender surgeries that means everyone regardless of gender can do whatever they want with their bodies.

If someone who is cisgender wants top/bottom surgery THEY CAN GET IT. If someone wants facial plastic surgeries that we usually find creepy like buccal fat removal or eye lifts THEY CAN GET IT. And here’s the really controversial one but if someone wants to do things that harm their body like hard drugs or diy mods THEY CAN DO IT!

Because body autonomy isn’t just “I can get bottom surgery to pass” or “I can get an abortion” it’s also all the wild stuff that makes us uncomfortable and that’s okay.

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genderqueerdykes · 10 months

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in order to remove the sexual stigma placed on breasts, we must move past the act of shaming people who are brave enough to go topless in public. myself and another transfem friend went topless at our local pride parade not because we were trying to be "sexual" at pride, but to protest the idea that some chests are viewed as inherently sexual and illegal to be viewed publicly, while some are not. it's not a sexual act for someone with breasts to take their shirt off.

i did not have anyone give me rude or sexual comments. i received a lot of approving nods, thumbs up and polite compliments, people were even reminding me that that's the spirit of pride, and hoped that they were brave enough to do the same in the future.

sometimes it's nearly 100 degrees and people with breasts get dangerously overheated. sometimes people with breasts just don't want to wear a shirt. their breasts are not an object for you to get upset about. their breasts are not an object for you to make a moral argument about. their breasts are a part of their body, and they're not scarring or hurting anyone by existing, they are another organ on the human body and someone else's breasts are not up for you to debate about.

#our writing #body autonomy

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intersexfairy · 4 months

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having breasts does not make you a woman. having a vagina, vulva, or ovaries does not make you a woman. having XX chromosomes or an estrogen-dominant body does not make you a woman. having a period or the capability to have children does not make you a woman.

having or not having these things can affirm your identity and make you feel more like yourself, for sure. but the point is your body does not decide who you are - you do. you are in control of your own gender, your own identity. you are you no matter the body you inhabit. and i hope that if you dont feel it now, someday your body feels truly like home.

💜 this post includes intersex people. don't forget your intersex peers! 💜

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liberalsarecool · 11 days

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Bodily autonomy begets rights to privacy.

#body autonomy

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hyperlexichypatia · 3 months

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This post reminded me of it, but my partner has observed that in contemporary gender discourse, maleness is so linked to adulthood and femaleness is so linked to childhood, that there are no "boys" or "women," only "men" and "girls."

This isn't exactly new -- for as long as patriarchy has existed, women have been infantilized, and "adult woman" has been treated as something of an oxymoron. Hegemonic beauty standards for women emphasize youthfulness, if not actual neoteny, and older women are considered "too old" to be attractive without ever quite being old enough to make their own decisions. There may be cultural allowances for the occasional older "wise woman," but a "wise woman" is always dangerously close to being a madwoman, or a witch. No matter how wise a woman is, she is never quite a rational agent. As Hanna K put it, "as a woman you're always either too young or too old for things, because the perfect age is when you're a man."

But the framing of underage boys as "men" has shifted, depending on popular conceptualizations of childhood and gender roles. Sometimes children of any gender are essentially feminized and grouped with women (the entire framing of "women and children" as a category). In the U.S. in the 21st century, the rise of men's rights and aggressively sexist ideology has correlated with an increased emphasis on little boys as "men" -- thus slogans like "Teach your son to be a man before his teacher teaches him to be a woman."

Of course, thanks to ageism and patriarchy (which literally means, not "rule by men," but "rule by fathers"), boys don't get any of the social benefits of being considered "men." They don't get to vote, make their own medical decisions, or have any of their own adult rights. They might have a little more childhood freedom than girls, if they're presumed to be sturdier and less vulnerable to "predators," but, for the most part, being considered "men" as young boys doesn't really get boys any more access to adult rights. What it does get them is aggressively gender-policed, often with violence. A little boy being "a man" means that he's not allowed to wear colors, have feelings, or experience the developmental stages of childhood.

This shifts in young adulthood, as boys forced into the role of "manhood" become actual men. As I've written about, I believe the trend of considering young adults "children" is harmful to everyone, but primarily to young women, young queer and trans people, and young disabled people. Abled, cisgender, heterosexual young men are rarely denied the rights and autonomy of adulthood due to "brain maturity."

What's particularly interesting is that, because transphobes misgender trans people as their birth-assigned genders, they constantly frame trans girls as "men" and trans men as "girls." A 10 year old trans girl on her elementary school soccer team is a "MAN using MAN STRENGTH on helpless GIRLS," while a 40 year old trans man is a "Poor confused little girl." Anyone assigned male at birth is born a scary, intimidating adult, while anyone female assigned at birth never becomes old enough to make xyr own decisions.

Feminist responses have also really fluctuated. Occasionally, feminists have played into the idea of little boys as "men," especially in trans-exclusionary rhetoric, or in one notorious case where members of a women's separatist compound were warned about "a man" who turned out to be a 6-month-old infant. There's periodic discourse around "Empowering our girls" or "Raising our boys with gentle masculinity," but for the most part, my problem with mainstream feminist rhetoric in general is that it tends to frame children solely as a labor imposed on women by men, not as subjects (and specifically, as an oppressed class) at all.

Second-wave feminists pushed back hard on calling adult women "girls" -- but they didn't necessarily view "women" as capable of autonomous decision-making, either. Adult women were women, but they might still need to be protected from their own false consciousness. As laws in the U.S., around medical privacy and autonomy, like HIPAA, started more firmly linking the concepts of autonomy with legal adulthood, and fixing the age of majority at 18, third-wave feminists embraced referring to women as "girls." Sometimes this was in an intentionally empowering way ("girl power," "girl boss"), which also served to shield women (mostly white, mostly bourgeois/wealthy) from criticism of their participation in racism and capitalism. But it also served to reinforce the narrative of women as "girls" needing to be protected from "men" (and their own choices).

I'm still hoping for a feminist politic that is pro-child, pro-youth, pro-disability, pro-autonomy, pro-equality, that rejects the infantilization of women, the adultification of boys, the objectification of children, the misgendering of trans people, and the imposition of gender roles.

#youth rights #ageism #feminism #sexism #intersectionality #capitalism #body autonomy #bodily autonomy

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bakuliwrites · 8 months

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Just to Be Held- Astarion x Reader

I’ve had this condition for two centuries, but truth be told? You were my first.

Rating: Mature

Fandom: Baldur's Gate III

Pairing: Astarion x Tav, Astarion x Reader

Tags: Discussions of sex, blood, fluff, hurt/comfort, emotional, body autonomy, Baldur's Gate III spoilers, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Affection, Gender-Neutral Tav, Astarion's POV, Tiny Kisses, In this house we cherish and love Astarion the way he deserves to be cherished and loved

Summary: Astarion and Tav share a quiet, peaceful moment together along their journey. Astarion learns that he is valued and loved. Read here or over on my AO3.

Sometimes, when Astarion drinks from you, it's overwhelming. The sensation of his teeth piercing your skin, pin-pricks in your tender flesh, warm blood welling up to greet his lips. He can feel himself drowning, every nerve ending in his body lit aflame. It's almost too much as iron bursts across his taste-buds, flooding his throat with the heat rushing through your veins.

He drinks to sate and never in excess. He's certain that if he let himself partake in too much of you, his mind might never rest, though it is tempting at times. All the years he's spent in darkness, forced to consume the blood of pests and creatures far less appetizing than you, have left him longing for sweeter meals. But he hadn't accounted for how utterly overwhelming that might be.

When he's finished, he pulls back, breathless and overheated. It's as if he's febrile. Sometimes, he's filled with a clarity, a strength unlike anything he's ever felt before. Other times, his skin feels like it's on fire. Like with the slightest coercion, he might combust. In these moments, all he really wants is to rest. But he’s never known rest, and he’s not quite sure how to ask for such a thing. So he resorts to what he knows: teasing you with tantalizing promises of illicit rendezvous’ or making some sort of snide remark before stalking off into the night.

Sometimes, his encounters with you end in said trysts. Most often, however, they don’t. It’s almost frustrating how unbothered you seem when, after he’s done feeding from you, he doesn’t initiate anything further. You sit almost passively, waiting for Astarion to make a move, seemingly content either way the night ends. If you’re not doing this for sex, he wonders, then why the hell are you helping him at all? Surely, no thinking creature would want something so important as their blood to be taken from them without getting something in return. At least, that’s his logic for it. It almost makes him trust you less for not demanding recompense.

So, no stranger to confrontation, Astarion decides it’s high time you gave him some sort of explanation. As you enter his tent that night, he greets you with a steely gaze, a frown deepening the lines of his face.

“Are you alright, Astarion?” you quietly venture, boots crunching over gravel. A small branch snaps under the weight of your steps, causing you to flinch as if the rest of your party is going to hear it from where they slumber. When they don’t come bursting through the tent flaps, your shoulders relax once again and you turn back to the pale elf before you. Your furtiveness is almost endearing, Astarion realizes, and irritatingly so.

“What are you getting out of this little arrangement of ours?” he blurts, crossing his arms over his chest and passing you the most petulant gaze he can muster. He watches a look of shock pass over your face, before it settles into something pensive.

“I- I don’t know,” you mutter, “I guess- I haven’t really thought about it as something I would ‘get anything’ out of. It’s just- you need to feed. And I’m happy to provide.”

“You know, most people would expect something in return,” he reasons, dissatisfied with your answer, “It’s not as if what you’re doing is a minor inconvenience for you, like letting me borrow a hanky or something. I’m draining you of something rather necessary for you to live.”

“I mean,” you return with a shrug, looking rather flummoxed by his outburst, “It’s not like you’re taking a lot.”

“Tsk,” he huffs, realizing he’s not going to get anywhere with this line of questioning. Perhaps asking you was a fruitless endeavor from the start. Astarion drops the subject, pouting as you settle in to let him take what he needs from you. You bare your neck to him, relaxing on his bedroll as he leans down to sink his teeth into you. It’s always the same each time: your involuntary gasp as his teeth pierce your flesh, the combination of both his and your relaxed exhales as he drinks.

Maybe it’s the humid night air or maybe it’s his own frustration, but Astarion feels the fever in him build with each sip he takes from you. A pyretic euphoria, born of longing for blood more nourishing than what he had to resort to for two whole centuries. He feels satiated by you and it’s almost- embarrassing. He feels mortified to react so viscerally, so enthusiastically. He pulls back suddenly, watching you wince as he roughly removes himself from your neck. But the irritation on your face dissipates when you meet his gaze.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” you offer, your voice so gentle, it hurts him, “You seem preoccupied.”

Astarion hardens his gaze, gritting his teeth and opting to remain silent. Of course he’s preoccupied, but it’s nothing he wants to delve into. Least of all with you. But instead you decide to pry, speaking up with a tender, “Want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly, no,” he returns, glancing sheepishly away and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, crimson smearing his pale skin. He bites the inside of his cheek, snagging it with his sharpened canine, hoping it’ll stop the stinging threat of tears in his eyes.

“You can go now. I’m done with you,” he coldly spits, avoiding your gaze. He hears the rustle of fabric as you obediently lift yourself from his bedroll and make your way to the tent flap. But instead of opening it and leaving like you normally would, you pause, your hand grasping the fabric.

“I like being with you,” you quietly explain, turning to face the vampire spawn, “You asked me what I get out of this arrangement of ours. Well, I just- I guess I just like you.”

Astarion frowns, arms still crossed and posture stiff as a board. But he can’t hold his silver-tongue, despite his upset.

“Unfortunate, really,” he murmurs, unable to help the smile tugging at his lips when you laugh.

“I don’t need to ‘get anything’ out of this time with you,” you go on, letting go of the tent flap and striding back towards him. You kneel down, eyes filled with a brightness Astarion can hardly believe is meant for him. A silence passes as you wait for him to respond. He fidgets with his hands, clenching and unclenching his fists before he finally allows his shoulders to slump and an exhausted sigh to escape his lips. His body still feels overworked, heated and unable to settle.

“I assumed that sex was what you wanted from me,” he starts, still unable to look you in the eye, “Stupid assumption. It’s the only thing I’m-”

It’s the only thing I’m good for, he wants to say, but stops himself.

“Well, let’s be honest,” he chuckles ruefully, trying to divert your attention from his unfinished statement, “I wanted that, too. I mean, how could I not.” He says this with a sly smile, something impish twinkling in his eyes as he sweeps over your form. But then his face falls and he casts his glance to the ground again.

“It’s just- sex isn’t always what I want,” he finishes, “And I assumed that it’s what you wanted. So I guess I was- I don’t know- worried that you would be disappointed when we don’t tear each other apart like animals every time I feed from you.”

Another pause, this time filled with anticipation. With anxiety. For some reason, when Astarion has been around you lately, he’s found himself incapable of holding his tongue. He spills his thoughts left and right to you. It’s terrifying, the effect you seem to be having on him. It’s taken him a long time, but still, he isn’t sure he should trust you. Yet here he is, regurgitating deep-seated fears that are better left buried in the rot that’s bloomed in his mind.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he hears you whisper, pulling him from worry, coaxing him from the tendrils of self-hatred and disgust that have entangled him for two hundred years. He glances at you, disbelief in his crimson eyes before a rueful smile breaks his shock.

“You are far too kind to me,” he chuckles, a cocky smile on his face.

“I mean it,” you return, brows crinkling your forehead, “We don’t even have to touch if you don’t want to. And if you don’t want to keep this arrangement anymore, that’s totally fine. I’d be happy to help you find another source of food. I won’t be hurt.”

He eyes you suspiciously, scanning you for any hint that you might burst out laughing at some sort of cruel joke you’ve made, or some sign that you’re absolutely bullshitting him. The look you’re giving him is almost naive. He scowls, nauseated by your sincerity.

“Well, I don’t mind physical affection,” he mutters, desperately trying to hold on to his air of indifference, “Just-”

His shoulders slump as he releases a heavy sigh. He’s been worn down by your patience, worn down by years of keeping everything to himself. Here you are, offering up companionship without any expectation. Here you are, sitting in front of him, telling him that you actually, for some gods’ forsaken reason, like spending time with him and you’re not expecting any sort of compensation from him. So why is he trying so desperately to push you away?

“All I’ve ever been is used,” Astarion admits, wondering if he’ll regret this admission later. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, like it always does. “I don’t get a say in what happens to my body. I don’t get a say in what happens to me at all.”

“Astarion,” you breathe, gently cupping his face and turning his head so he can meet your gaze. His eyes are filled with a deep sorrow, the desolation of two hundred years scarring every crimson facet of his irises. In you, he sees no ounce of malice, no smarmy flattery, or deceit. All he sees is you, offering him your kindness, offering your companionship, expecting nothing in return.

“What do you want?” you go on, “Right here. Right now.”

Astarion’s mouth goes dry. His blood, your blood, threads through his veins like white hot needles. His nerves feel open to the air, every brush of the wind on his skin like lightning shooting through his body. Overwhelmed. He’s so overwhelmed.

“I just want to be held,” he finally whispers, and the absolute devastation in his voice threatens to break what little composure is left in that tent.

“I think I can do that,” you return, smiling softly. You let him take the lead, laying back on the soft bedroll beneath, waiting for him to decide what he wants to do. He sits beside you, cautious. He is raw and he is new, shivering from his overworked nerves, cold from the overpowering feeling of sweet blood in his body.

Gently, Astarion lays his head down on your chest and tenses, unsure of what to do. When was the last time he was gifted a moment to just rest? To just lay in the arms of another? He can’t remember, and thus, he can’t even remember how to relax. He shifts uncomfortably where he lays, trying to find some position where his arm isn’t falling asleep. You give no protest, patient as he rearranges himself. Finally, he finds something suitable and goes back to resting his head on your chest.

“I can stay as long as you’d like me to,” you offer, your voice reverberating through your body, before you both fall quiet.

In the silence, Astarion listens to the powerful thrum of your heart, the way it beats in rhythm to an unsung tune. He hears the air constrict in your lungs when he first rests his head upon you, before you let out a deep, comforting sigh. Crickets chirp in a jovial dissonance beyond the fabric of the tent and a wolf howls sorrowfully somewhere in the distance.

Astarion can still taste the metal of your blood on his tongue. He can smell it rushing through your veins, nourishing and enticing. It mingles with the faint smell of whatever makes you you, whatever pleasant natural musk you have that has become so comfortingly familiar over the months. The curling smoke of the fire outside has woven itself into your clothing, though it is not unpleasant in scent.

Astarion glances up at you from where he lays, studying your serene face. Your eyes are closed, eyelashes feathering shadows on your cheeks. Your mouth is parted ever so slightly as you doze, lips evoking pleasant memories of the way they’ve felt against his skin in nights past. He lets his eyes rove for a moment, searching the tent ceiling as if he’ll find something particularly interesting up there. He doesn’t, except for a small hole he’ll have to patch, come morning. Though, it is nice to see a couple twinkling stars peeking through the broken fabric.

As his eyes flutter shut, Astarion feels the heat from your body, cozy and benevolent. He presses further into you, wanting desperately to feel your closeness. In response, your arm wraps around him, pulling him nearer. Your nails tickle his back as you rub small circles into it. Snowy ringlets caress his forehead when a breeze picks up the fine strands of his hair. The earth beneath him isn’t terribly comfortable, but between you and the bedroll, he doesn’t much care.

For the first time in two centuries, Astarion thinks he might feel peace. It’s very possible, he decides, that in this quiet moment, he feels safe. In your arms, he could let down his defenses. Wrapped in your warmth, Astarion could allow himself to be vulnerable.

He slips his hand into yours, intertwining your fingers, quietly whispering that he’d like it if you stayed the rest of the night.

"Also, if you could possibly not tell the others about this?" he adds, somewhat jokingly, "Can't let them think I've gone soft."

"Your secret's safe with me," you chuckle, before smiling softly at him and pressing a tender kiss to the top of his head. He lets the feeling wash over him, calm and comfort him. When his body settles, when his mind finally manages to quiet, Astarion lets his eyelids fall shut. He lets you envelope him in your embrace. He lets himself sleep, knowing he’s safe with you. Astarion lets himself dream, and they’re the first pleasant dreams he’s had in centuries.

A/N: I normally do a banner for my fics, but I really wanted to use this gif I had made of one of my favorite Astarion cutscenes. It's where he admits to Tav that they're the first "thinking creature," as he puts it, that he's ever drank from. The line delivery is incredible, the way Astarion looks away is so heartbreaking and endearing. This small moment of vulnerability is one of the first ones we see from him and it just feels so special. I wanted to write a fic exploring how he might feel in regards to Tav letting him have the freedom of feeding from them. And I wanted to explore the idea that Astarion might find it odd if Tav doesn't expect anything in return. There's a later line in one of his cutscenes where he's very obviously self-conscious about the fact that he and Tav haven't been intimate in a while. His sense of self and value is so contingent on the fact that his body has been used for two hundred years. I wanted to write something for Astarion that would give him a peace, gentility, and rest, without sexual intimacy. Anyway, I could ramble on and on about this forever. Perhaps I need to make a longer post about it, so I'll get on that.

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onenakedfarmer · 9 months

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Daily Painting [Summer Bathers Edition]

Henry Scott Tuke THE SUN LOVERS (1923)

#bathers #body autonomy #daily painting #painting #skinny dippers #1923

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mywitchcultblr · 2 years

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Why Vatican is still exist? Knowing all kind oh horrible things they have done through the centuries? Why? Seriously

#roe vs. wade #roe v wade #abortion #human rights #intersectional feminism #trans rights #gnc #lgbt #women rights #body autonomy #vatican #why #anger #memes #social justice

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genderqueerdykes · 7 months

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being cisgender is just not an option for a lot of intersex people.

i was never given the option to be cisgender anything. every part of me that deviated from what a girl or boy "should" look like spelled trouble. because i dressed and acted very masculine, before puberty, people called me a bulldyke, a butch lesbian, a "girl pretending to be a boy" and "not a real boy". i was never "feminine enough" to be a woman.

after puberty hit, i started growing a beard, and my shoulders and chest got broader and more square. my body became more "masculine", so suddenly, i was labeled as a "boy pretending to be a girl" and "not a real girl". after I started testosterone, i haven't stopped being called a faggot, a fairy, a sissy or a pansy because i'm not "masculine enough" to be a man despite being a bear.

there's no winning in the eyes of a society that's so focused on binary this-or-that choices. i had no hand in the matter, this all happened way before I started testosterone HRT. in fact, even when i was placed on estrogen HRT to try to "correct" my intersex traits and symptoms, i still wasn't gendered or seen as a cis woman. i was still the same tranny bulldyke. no matter what i do, my intersex and transsexual traits will always be weaponized against me; whatever sounds the "worst" at the time, or whatever invalidates what i want.

in order to liberate trans people from this struggle, we must also liberate intersex people, for our struggles are virtually one in the same. our fight for body and identity autonomy is shared. it will always be impossible for me and other intersex people to be viewed as cis anything while white American society remains focused on pointing out the "differences" between men and women, instead of embracing the similarities we all can and do have.

intersex and trans people owe it to one another to disassemble these dangerous attitudes and shut them down when and where possible. it's not only trans people who face this struggle- intersex people deal with never being able to pass or be clocked as their actual gender from birth a lot of the time. people MUST understand that women and men come in all types of bodies, shapes and sexes, whether or not they chose to look like that. and whether or not they chose doesn't matter, they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, which means being gendered correctly despite how they look or sound.

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intersexfairy · 1 year

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when i think about getting top surgery, i feel guilty about the idea of no one ever seeing my boobs. i feel almost selfish for not wanting anyone to ever see them, and just wanting to let them fade out of memory. but to myself and anyone who feels the same way:

you don't owe anyone your body. you don't owe anyone an action that would make you feel violated and ashamed. you don't owe anyone anything just because you have boobs. you are allowed to do with your body what you wish. it is your body. it belongs to you. it does not belong to someone else. nor does it exist for their pleasure or comfort.

you are not wrong for wanting bodily autonomy. because that's what this comes down to. bodily autonomy. a human right. your right. grow and heal and blossom in whatever way you need to, friend.