#I don't know who I am or where I belong | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fawna12 · 4 months

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Things I remind myself of as a queer neurodivergent teenager who's still trying to find their place in this world:

It's okay to not know who you are yet

It's okay to not know what you like to wear yet

It's okay to not know how you want to be perceived

It's okay to not know your name yet

It's okay to still be finding yourself

It's okay to learn where you belong

Being cool doesn't matter, but if you feel like it does? What would child you think of where you are now?

Would they think you're cool?

My child self would. They'd be so happy.

It's okay to make new friends

It's okay to not want to lose the old ones

It's okay to be unconventional

It's okay to not care what people think

It's okay to care what people think

It's okay to unmask, if it's safe

It's okay to not feel safe enough to unmask

It's okay to still be learning

It's okay to learn, and to watch, and to observe, and to perceive

It's okay to try new things

It's okay to fail, even if it doesn't feel like it.

It's okay to have a goal.

It's okay to still be finding your place.

It's okay to wait

It's okay to want

It's okay to be happy

It's okay to just be

It's okay to want to be like cool people

It's okay to be excited

It's okay to want to be inspiring

But it's also okay to not.

You'll figure it out eventually

You'll learn and find your place

But even if you don't? Even if you still feel lost?

That's normal, and that's okay.

Even if you aren't a teenager

Even if you're an adult.

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evenstarfalls · 19 hours

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I MISS MY HOUSE I MISS MY FUCKING HOUSE

#looking at Zillow and Google maps trying not to cry that was my house for the first 10 years of my life #and now it doesn't even belong to the people that bought it from us. I don't know who they are!! they're nobody for all I know #like does it ever just hit you. that was my clibming tree and the big limb is gone. that was my dad's pecan tree #that was my butterfly garden and there aren't even roses there anymore #I miss my house so bad the one with the crepe myrtles in the backyard and the blue shed and the ash tree in the front that's gone now #it's not even my house anymore #this is just me rambling and being sad because it's 3 am and I'm so stressed and tired and I need to be. writing.#but I'm sad I just miss it yk even the parts where it was bad. I miss my house I want to go back

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nostalgia-tblr · 8 months

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okay i'm gonna do a thing

I have been doing monthly fic recaps Elsewhere for a good while now, and it's not so much a thing on tumblr but fuckit I shall do it anyway.

So anyway, here's all the fic that I wrote in the month of August. (Be sure to heed the tags on these things, some of them are more fucked up than others but this wasn't really the most wholesome of months for my fic output.)

The main thing was that I finally finished my longest ever fic, hurrah! I started posting it in I think December of last year so it took A WHILE and then the final chapter was written surprisingly quickly, accidentally in time for it to be posted on the anniversary of An Historical Event that I can't specify because it'd spoiler the ending but like. I think we should all clap for that achievement anyway.

An Heir And A Spare (The Extended Version) (MCU, Loki/Sylvie, Explicit, 46,261 words)

The second fic of the month was Elementary fic, the one thing that isn't MCU fic this month so Come On, Eileen WELL DONE, IRENE.

Victory Lap (Elementary, Holmes/Moriarty, Teen And Up, 500 words)

Then I returned the MCU and wrote incest fic. Obviously. I can't really blame the selfcest-is-incest people for this, though they did slightly encourage me to just go ahead and write it if I was going to get accused of writing incest fic anyway. So well done them, I suppose.

but your lips are venomous poison (MCU, Loki/Thor, Mature, 1202 words)

Then, having missed Sifki Week by a month, I belatedly posted this thing that I wrote for Sifki Week:

Bitter/Sweet (MCU, Loki/Sif, Explicit, 3723 words)

Final fic for the month was 'frostmaster' (see, I am getting better with remembering the pairing names!), which I insist is not more problematic than most of the fic that already exists for this pairing.

Entertain Me! (MCU, Loki/Grandmaster, Mature, 1802 words)

So there, now I have done this thing and hopefully I will remember to do this thing in future months when there has been fic production on my part.

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erstwhile-elster · 4 months

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Oof

#yeah not going out again by myself any time soon #wound up coming home and just crying myself asleep after getting overwhelmed by an oppressive sense of loneliness #i just don't get why it anymore #why is it so hard for me? why do I seem to be so out of place everywhere i go?#i know to some degree i do it to myself but even when i try #it all just seems to not be enough #I'm just left feeling like I'm something so wrong #sometimes i feel like I'm being punished having a good day just for the next to hurt #and I'm hardly good in any way but i can't imagine I've done anything to deserve to feel like this so often #i just don't understand why I seem to have to feel so alone no matter where i am what's happening who I'm with #a constant outsider even when surrounded by people I've known for so long who call me their friend even #i just want to feel like i belong somewhere

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textualviolence · 4 months

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well. i DO know how joan of arc felt.

#read souriau's the work to be done and the portion where he talks about how when an individual realises he has been called upon by a work #which he must realise in the time he spends with it he is not alone #and the work is not alone either they are in intimate whispering union with one another #& i have had this many times but this week has been the experience of trying to get the work its proper due realization while someone #(assigned classmate for group project) is actively insulting me & thwarting me at every turn #he doesn't get what im trying to do or why i must do it and as a result thinks i am an insane idiot and hates my guts #insults everything i do and tries to get me to drop the insistence on what i know is the right way to proceed #& it is objectively awful but also the whole time the work itself is there saying i am the one who matters and if you do anything except #ignore him and get on with my realization you are betraying me #and people don't get it they're like why don't you just drop it & let this guy have his way. or alternatively why don't you tell him #to fuck off & drop the project. it's clearly taking a lot out of you you're letting this guy ruin your life etc #and its not the guy its the work. the work demands #and im so oddly at peace with it. he sent me like 9 messages nitpicking every portion of my section & it was so strange #bc i was like yes this hurts my feelings at the same time the work itself is by my side like the angels speaking to joan when she was #being tortured. you say i am of the devil i have none to defend me #but the angels are there by my side and i know i belong to them as they belong to me

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intersex-support · 2 years

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Hi! I know this might be kind of a weird ask, but I just needed a space to talk about this and your blog appears to be safe.

So I have what has been diagnosed previously as PCOS. I'm seeking genetic testing for various reasons, but the symptoms are relatively consistent. Anyway.

One thing I never see talked about is how people with PCOS can and do face medical abuse and "correction". I was put unwillingly onto puberty blockers - ones not even intended as such, it was a common off-label use that came with potential long term side effects. I'm also trans, but didn't know it at the time. Had I known, I may have chosen puberty blockers, but it was still very much a nonconsensual attempt to "correct" my "precocious puberty".

Then as an adult, due to, well long story, but abuse from my mom, I was convinced to take estrogen-based birth control that in all likelihood contributed to my worsening dysphoria, to "manage" the huperandrogenism I'm now actively encouraging with low dose testosterone. Without constantly being told it's ugly, I love being hyperandrogenous! It makes me euphoric!

Related to this, I also got told I was appropriating intersex experiences for wanting my (already intersex body) to more closely match my being intersex. I admittedly said it poorly, in a way that made it seem like I was generalizing all intersex bodies into a common misconception, but I was trying to say that me being altersex (or another word, I've heard that term can be intersexist but don't have an alternative, if it is I'm happy to change the term I use) is a direct result of me being intergender/intergender (again, don't know which terminology to use, sorry!). I was accused of fetishizing intersex conditions by someone who admitted that PCOS should be considered one.

I don't actually know whether I had any coercive surgery in infancy due to a lot of crap with birthfamily and being removed at nine months and adopted at 14 months. But every other experience I've had has been (mostly perisex and a few bad faith gatekeeping intersex) people coercing me into fitting more neatly into a binary sex, often medically, and often with transphobia on top. I've had people deny that I can experience transness in multiple ways (I use transfem, transmasc, and transneutral/transandrogenous, particularly because I also am plural which just further complicates things.

I just... I wish people understood that I have faced many of the struggles typical to the intersex community. I have never experienced gender like a perisex person. I have always been cautious about speaking to my own experiences because I've tried to be aware of privilege where I have it and to uplift the voices of others with different experiences than mine, even where there are no dynamics of privilege/oppression.

Having people like you say "yes, people with PCOS can use the intersex label, we have shared experiences, you belong" has also been incredibly healing. It's like... I feel like people can often innately recognize when they have shared community in regards to innate identity. I felt drawn to the queer community before my gender/sexuality eggs cracked, for example. I feel like exclusion only hurts people because it- well, essentially is a form of gaslighting. "No, your experiences in this specific aspect are fundamentally so alien to ours that we couldn't possibly talk about commonalities in any meaningful way, and will deny you a belonging that is already yours." Does that make any sense?

I'm not perfect in the way I say things, so I do wanna say that I'm absolutely willing to be corrected if something I have said is harmful.

Just uh,,, thank you for listening to this long vent.

(In case I interact via anon in the future, can I sign off with "starry anon"?)

Hey, anon 💜

I'm so sorry that you've had to put up with so much judgment, abuse, and coercion from so many people and places that you expected to be safe. You did not deserve any of that. You have PCOS and hyperandrogenism, and you are intersex. You belong in intersex spaces and anyone who says you doesn't is being a complete asshole. There's so many reasons like you've listed here, where you have so many commonalities of experiences with other intersex people, and deserve to be able to find compassion and solidarity. I'm so sorry that you've faced medical abuse, and I think you're brave for speaking up about it and talking about the fact that intersex people with PCOS can and do face medical abuse. You are not alone in that, and it absolutely wasn't your fault.

You are intersex, and there is no way that you can appropriate your own experiences. I sort of do think that altersex is a label that's used in an intersexist way a lot of times and I personally tend to be uncomfortable with it, and I tend to stay away from altersex because of my issues with it. I think altersex is really only being used by people who aren't intersex, so I could see why people might have thought you were fetishizing or appropriating intersex experiences, as if you say you are altersex people are going to think you are saying you are dyadic. You can just say that you're intersex and intergender if that's language that makes you feel comfortable, although I'm not going to tell you what language is and isn't right for you to use--that's a personal choice.

I don't know you and your story and I'm also not going to tell you what ways of experiencing your gender and what labels are okay for you to use--I know that it can get very complicated when we're intersex and we're sometimes reassigned gender or sex in childhood, or at puberty, or undergo certain types of transition that's unexpected for our AGAB. I don't think that it's a free-for-all that any intersex person ever can just claim to be transmasc or transfem or both or that every single intersex person has a claim to every label, but my policy is to trust intersex people when they tell me their labels and trust that they know what the most accurate and affirming language is to use based on their own lived experiences. I think this is something that individual intersex people have to really think through and decide what labels are appropriate for them to use, and be thoughtful about what times we need to stay in our lane and when we follow our instincts. It does get complicated and my approach is to just trust that people know what labels are actually accurate to their life, and I only bring things up if it is an issue. If people are appropriating labels, if they don't have a certain type of lived experience but they are claiming that they do, if they are perpetuating oppression, then I will call people out and deal with whatever they are actually doing. I'm not going to tell you that you can't use labels or not when I don't know your life and story, or say whether you should be doing things or not, and just trust that you have thought through what is appropriate and what is right for you and listened to what the communities you are a part of are telling you.

Even though you did use altersex language, or if you were confused and couldn't figure out the best way to phrase things, you still are intersex and have an intersex body. And I completely understand wanting intersex affirming and gender affirming things to feel more comfortable in your body. I think that a lot of intersex people do have dysphoria and I know a lot of us who really have strong feelings about wanting to return to our natural intersex bodies before medical abuse, or returning to a version of ourselves that we were never allowed to be. I think that's something that makes so much sense, and even though I can see why people would react badly if they thought you were dyadic and using confusing language, know that you are not doing anything wrong by being intersex and having these feelings, and you cannot appropriate your own experiences. You belong in intersex community and are allowed to share your own experiences.

This blog is a safe space for you, anon, and feel free to share your story or come and vent if you need it.

💜💜💜

-Mod E

#asks #actuallyintersex #intersex #to clarify bc we've been having a lot of discussions on and offline about this lately #i don't think that every intersex person ever. can claim to be transmasc or transfem #like for instance i think it would be entirely inappropriate for me to claim to be transfem. i was afab raised female #and even though I went through medical abuse and hormonal conversion therapy #I don't think i live in any meaningful way as a transfem person. because i am a trans man #so im like in my case it would be weird if i started claiming i was transfem u know. bc im not #but i do think that with intersex people. birth asssignment gets tricky #i have a friend who was amab. but then was raised as a girl from the age of 5. and than at puberty transitioned back. and he considers #himself a trans man #so im like okay i think there are times where people's birth assignment doesn't line up with the dyadic birth assignment for a trans experi #so it does get complicated when you are intersex. or when you're intersex and like #you're transitioning one way. in a way that isn't usually expected of your birth assignment #and i dont' think i get to make all the rules for who is what. i think that would be silly #i think that's something that we all just need to think about what labels are right for us to use and what our experiences are #and if we think we're overstepping then we totally might be! if we think we belong in a certain community or certain label #and the community accepts us! that can also be true #so basiaclly long story short: i dont think that being intersex means that now you can just say that you r whatever trans label you feel #like. if you don't have the lived experiences #and i think it's good for us to be aware of that. but i do think its complicated #and that if you do have the lived experiences. if a certain label you use is right for you. im going to trust you #bc i am not in charge and dont feel like you know. telling people what they can and can't do

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chamerionwrites · 2 years

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I was going to write a whole post but tbh I don’t have the spoons right now so I’m just doing bullet points

1. The ~universal female experience~ is NOT universal, because (ofc) women are an enormously broad category of people with an enormously broad variety of life experiences.

2. Misogyny is a very real thing that deserves to be discussed and confronted on both individual and structural levels.

3. However it is my personal experience that in a lot of spaces/situations where people are really invested in Celebrating Women, what they are actually celebrating is femininity.

4. There’s nothing wrong with femininity, it’s even true that femininity is stigmatized in certain contexts (and ofc it’s worth pointing out that liking romance novels or fruity drinks or the color pink or whatever arbitrary thing people have decided to invest with an absurd amount of Gender Identity doesn’t make someone shallow or silly or Bad At Science or whatever idiotic stereotype), but this can be pretty alienating for women who don’t perform femininity to whatever arbitrary standards are considered worthy of celebration in that space.

(4a. I have actually heard people go so far as to say that gnc or just nebulously “unfeminine” women have some sort of privilege because they Fail At Gender, which like...lmaoooooooo. LMFAO)

5. The upshot is that I am not-infrequently kind of politely bored and bewildered if not deeply uncomfortable in “women’s spaces,” especially ones that actively conceptualize and refer to themselves that way. And I say this as a basically cis (I think???), basically-gender-conforming, not-self-evidently-disabled-or-neurodivergent straight slim afab white woman.

(5a. I’m mostly speaking to my own experiences right now but WHEW the posts that could be written about that really irritating essentialist way of talking about ~the universal female experience~ in the context of race or disability or queerness etc etc.)

6. Sometimes this is a me problem! Competing access needs are a thing and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with celebrating femininity. However I also don’t think it’s too much to ask that you do it without straying into that really sappy romanticizing and universalizing language, or recognizing that some significant percentage of women are going to feel unwelcome in spaces that place extremely high social value on the ability and/or willingness to perform femininity and it’s not because they’re just suffering from internalized misogyny. (In the most egregious cases it’s always like...okay, congrats for finding a progressive-sounding way to say that people with two X chromosomes come out of the womb liking makeup and frilly pink dresses and anybody who disagrees is just in denial, I guess.)

7. I feel like more people need to recognize that misogyny is very damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t? A lot of women experience the kind that’s like “you enjoy [makeup/romance novels/pink frilly dresses/pumpkin spice coffee/whatever feminine or perceived-to-be-feminine interest], therefore you are a silly shallow sex object who should stay in the kitchen.” A lot of women also experience the kind that’s like “you aren’t sufficiently feminine in your [hobbies/preferences/appearance/mannerisms/etc], therefore you are a stupid unfuckable failure who should know your place (in the kitchen).” Being too feminine is socially punished and not being feminine enough is socially punished. Frequently both versions overlap in bizarre ways! This seems pretty obvious to me! But a lot of people seem to get really caught up in their own experiences and fail to recognize or sympathize with others.

8. TL;DR I consistently feel turfed out if not downright unwelcome in “women’s spaces” thanks to failing at gender in a variety of subtle and unsubtle ways. This does not make me any more of a full human being to sexist men. Sometimes it’s just a competing access needs thing, sometimes it’s because women are actively being cruel either intentionally or unintentionally, but regardless it’s. Distressing.

9. I’m sure this experience is not unique to me, in fact I’m willing to bet a lot of other people have also experienced this, but that does not make it any less distressing.

#DON/T RE/BLOG PLEASE #gender stuff #my posts #reasons i will probably never be able to sort out my low-grade lifelong gender confusion in a nutshell #how much of the alienation is about misogyny and/or inability to fit in w women and how much is actual genderfeels? we just don't know.#frankly i'd MUCH rather deal with a space where some percentage of people don't see me as a full person #than a space where everyone says I am supposed to Belong and Feel Safe and I absolutely do not #much easier to be like ''lol fuck you and the misogyny you rode in on'' than to sort through the circular guilt trip mindfuck #of ''this is a safe welcoming space. anyone who expresses that they feel unsafe or unwelcome is a bad person to be attacked and shunned.''#''what do you mean this doesn't make you feel safe and welcome?''#sorry i'm feeling a bit bitter tonight #(in that last respect i would say that many ~women's spaces~ just poke the fundie damage bruise in a v unfortunate way)#(but i have had this problem since well before i had walking away from omelas trauma so. who the hell knows)

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