#Not every non-binary person wants to look androgynous

[royalberryriku]

Unfortunately, I am thinking again and am reminded again how heterosexual TERF women continually steal shit from lesbians and try to erase butches because they hate them so goddamn much. ESPECIALLY he/him butches and queer women and non binary dykes. Hell, even bisexual women, non binary people and he/him folks who are dykes in some way or another.

In fact, as a bisexual bigender trans man dyke, this'd be me. For real, we were here before you all decided to be offended by lesbians who dare to even use a strap because that scares you! Or call themselves men! And no not "because of safety reasons" but because we've always done it and still do it regardless. Because it's part of who some of us are. We have loved tits, pussy, straps (plastic or bio) way before you all decided to use lesbian to mean "we hate men". It's the "we fucking love women and wanna kiss women" club. It's not hard, lesbian means we kissy kissy women in a way the hettys don't like.

Because they think only gender roles abiding men can kiss gender roles abiding women and anything that's different is a sin or yucky, that's what offends them! That's why when lesbians are a femme that looks very feminine and womanly and such OR a butch that looks like a man people get pissed. That's why a woman with a beard makes people pissed. That's why a man who has breasts who kisses women makes people pissed. Because it denies all the gender roles that are defied here. It doesn't matter if a woman has a pussy or a dick, because it's already against the damn rules if she kisses girls and no one's gonna care when they call her a sinner like the rest of us.

They don't care that I'm a dude who looks cis, because I act too feminine, yet dress masculine and androgynous, and I have breasts and a pussy and like people with breast and a pussy as well to boot plus I like men and that's all against the bloody rules so I'm a freak of nature them who they want to legislate against. Hell, even in the community (esp among people who refuse to learn what older queers have lived through or anything about our history) being non binary to the point you aren't able to fit cleanly in any single clean label makes you really easy to hate. It doesn't matter that my love of women and my love of men makes me hated as a man who loves men and a woman-like person who likes women, because god forbid I call myself a dyke because my gender relates deeply to being a he/him butch. And the thing is, we've always been around since always but people get pissed when things aren't neat, tidy and easy to digest for their convenience and personal ease. When our existence is actually broad and vague, that makes people puzzled and scared, despite us all being fluid as people. It's our species whole thing to not be consistent or always the same or easy to understand. We're complex. But I digress...

There's just so much to this I could delve into but the biggest thing here is that regardless of what TERFs think, so much of it is borrowed from queers. So much is just stolen shit they rebranded and repurposed but made for hets. So much of feminism was built from queers, hell, from gay men. So much of feminism was built from lesbians and bisexuals and trans people. So much of the terms that TERFs use and the rights they have were built off our backs and now we're the fucking enemy? Lmao okay. Who do you think helped you all fight against abusive cis men? Not cis men saying you all need to join up with their anti trans groups that for sure. It was the gay men who look down on and lesbians you all call predatory and the drag queens who pushed to normalise the idea that femininity isn't just for women but men and, for you all, that it doesn't define a woman. Who stood by you all this entire time? And now we're all expendable, us queers.

And hey, we don't want you in feminist circles either since you've all proven yourselves to be sexist as hell. But I'm still pissed that so much of queer culture and our efforts have been used, borrowed, taken for granted and repeated as if it came from you all when a lot of it came from us. Like, sweetie, no. You all really think heterosexual women built feminism without us? You all think when you say "all men are gross perverts to women" you're not realising you're forgetting the gay men who aren't fucking attracted to women and have been treated like shit for being attracted to men? You think banning drag queens are some sort of thanks to all the times they've pushed against the idea that dresses must only be worn by women and pants can only be worn by men? Are you all fucking kidding me?

Everything about TERFs are borrowed and stolen, but hey, can't be surprised. It's the same for all bigots, they're never original aren't they?

#sort of a vent #personal #politics and such #writing #tw TERFs #tw transphobia #cw lots and lots of swearing #vent #thoughts about being non binary and visibly gay in every way #ngl it's kind of a miracle I haven't been beaten yet for existing since I really am visibly... yeah #like the way i hold myself is very very much unorthodox in how i entirely exist #I'm so freaking queer regardless of how I dress because I don't act according to gender roles at all and it's very obvious #The way I dress sort of lessons it because I dress in a way that may put me in slightly less danger #and by that I mean not wearing a dress like I want to #but even then I'm also androgynous so the opposite is alao true with dressing masc #It just slightly works better because I wear a binder #pretty sure if i didn't wear a binder I would have been stalked at this point #I can get away with looking cis when I put in effort to Blend In™ when I leave the house #but like #bro #“I can put effort into making myself look different so I'm not killed by strangers” isn't exactly the best bar to set #And of anyone reads this and is like “oh but you chose this” then #society being sexist isn't a good thing #and being attacked for not confirming to gender roles is alao Very Bad Actually #I wouldn't be taking the side of that and if this you then congrats you're the problem #aka the one making it hard for actual feminists to adress the above issue

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

like honestly just give your non binary characters traditionally "gendered" features. just do it. it's not like being androgynous ever stopped non binary characters from being misgendered.

frisk undertale and kris deltarune were androgynous and are only ever referred to by "they/them" and ppl are still arguing over how the "main character is not the player but their own person" message didn't apply to their genders bc they refuse to wrap their head around different pronouns. raine owlhouse was paraded around as "disney's first ever nb representation" by everyone and their mother but bc they have short hair other countries dub them as male. this also happens to most anime nb characters bc of how japanese pronouns work. halara raincode literally has the color scheme of the non binary flag AND their in-game profile says that they, and i quote "have no specified gender" AND several characters remark on it in the actual game but bc theyre voiced by a female voice actor ppl still call them a woman.

like literally at this point just give your nb characters huge tits and a massive beard. if ppl refuse to accept the existence of non binary characters in media, then there is no way to make a character non binary "enough" to convince them otherwise. no matter how much you hammer in their androgyny in an attempt to detach them from "male" and "female," there will be people determined to assign gender roles to any trait you give your character.

creators being hesitant to give their non binary characters traits that could be associated with a binary gender is why every goddamn genderqueer character that the creator wants you to take seriously in popular media has shoulder length hair and a board-flat figure and a perfectly neutrally pitched voice. like. just do what you want at this point. the character is non binary because your story said so and people who misgender them would have done that no matter how androgynous they look.

#shut up pandora #frisk undertale #kris dreemurr #deltarune #undertale #raine whispers #the owl house #halara nightmare #master detective archives: rain code #nonbinary #representation

[blubushie]

Are there some things you dislike about fans' interpretation of the other mercs?

Yeah uh. This is long so it's under the cut. Whole TF2 fandom boutta be like 2Fort on my arse.

I hate how people make Medic "evil". He's fun and goofy and likes doing experiments and he'll betray the people paying him for the sake of his long-time coworkers who he's mates with. He's not evil, he's not manipulative, outsmarting the LITERAL DEVIL doesn't make you a bad person. There is literally nothing in canon to point to Medic being evil except MAYBE stealing a bloke's spine (coulda been dark humour for all we know) and turning a criminal into a sentient pumpkin, which is something that Engie HELPED HIM DO but no one goes around calling him evil. Medic is chaotic good or chaotic neutral, he is not evil.

The amount of people who are downright racist about Demo, or the amount of people who reduce his addiction to the butt of a joke. There's a lot of shit that I notice. They act like Demo isn't fiercely loyal—look at his relationship to his mum). They act like he's lazy because he's an alcoholic—HE HAS 3 JOBS AND WANTS MORE, HE WASN'T LAZY IN THE COMICS HE WAS DEPRESSED BECAUSE HE LOST ALL HIS MATES. On the other end of the coin, you have people insisting that Demo's alcoholism isn't as bad as it actually is, as if substance abuse is a fucking moral failing and they can't have their blorbo be a bad person by just letting him be the alcoholic he's shown to be in canon.

As an intersex man: do not get me fucking started on the amount of intersex+NB headcanons I've seen of Pyro. People need to realise that like the rest of the human population, most intersex people are cis, that gender is not equivalent to sex, and that EVERY intersex character being non-binary promotes a harmful stereotype. Actually I'll be honest—I side-eye EVERY intersex Pyro headcanon what's made by a perisex person. Most the time they give off massive virtue signal vibes and I really don't like how the second you can't clearly determine someone's gender people immediately go "ah, intersex" like we're all visually androgynous. I also don't like how the person MOST OTHERED ON THE TEAM is always given the intersex headcanon. It doesn't make me feel represented, it makes me feel like everyone already seems me as an other and that's all I'll ever be.

People who act like the pronoun police and insist Pyro's pronouns are they/them. Canonically Pyro is always and consistently referred to as he/him except when he's being dehumanised by his own team and called it. It's cool if you headcanon Pyro as using they/them, just remember it ISN'T CANON and you shouldn't be getting on people's arse about non-canon pronouns. What are you a cop?

On a similar vein, the amount of people who infantilise Pyro. Pyro was literally the CEO OF A COMPANY who was responsible for RECORD PROFITS OF THAT COMPANY. Pyro is an adult. People assume that because Pyro hallucinates or enjoys "childish" things that it means Pyro's a child. Please be fucking normal about mental illness, my god.

People who make Scout transfem for the sole purpose of shipping Scout with Pauling, worse even if they outright make it so that Scout transitioned SPECIFICALLY to hook up with Pauling. You realise that you're enforcing TERF "all transfems are predatory and transition just to get chicks/transfem lesbians are just straight men" rhetoric right? Please tell me you're aware. People who make Scout transfem for reasons beside this (ie you just like transfem Scout) and still hook her up with Pauling for fun, I love you and this post is not about you. <3

People who ignore Medic's likely bisexuality in favour of writing him as a strictly gay male. Bi erasure is fucking real lads. If you have the view that Demo was talking out his arse and didn't actually shag Medic's wife cuz he's not even married, cool ok. I'm talking about the people who insist Medic's wife was his beard.

People who act like the ship police with Pauling's sexuality when her being a lesbian was something mentioned in one tweet on Twitter by Jay, not approved by Valve, and never referenced in the source material (outside of MAYBE how she stared at Zhanna while she was fighting robots, but that facial expression could also be interpreted as impressed or "so horrified she can't look away". Especially when she outright agreed to go on a second date with Scout in Expiration Date. If you headcanon her as a lesbian, cool! Just don't enforce it on other people and give them flak for shipping her with non-women characters. This applies to people aggressively enforcing Medic's sexuality as well. What are you a cop?

How the character people trans the most is the white skinny twink, white skinny otter, or white wolf. Why not Demo? Trans people of colour exist too. I can count the trans Demo headcanons I've seen on one hand. Why not Heavy? Why not Heavy? You know fat trans people exist too right?

My family is southern and half the time people don't know what the fuck goes on down south. Tell me you've never been to a cookout without telling me you've never been to a cookout. They either write him as too northern/coasty and only enforce the "stereotype" southern aspects of him, or they write him as racist/homophobic/transphobic/etc because he's southern. Luckily the latter gets a LOT of pushback on Tumblr so I haven't seen it much, but it's more prevalent on Twitter and fanfic sites.

People conveniently ignoring how Heavy's father was killed and his family was imprisoned by the USSR so they can call him a communist. Lol what. I get that you hate capitalism but you realise there's more options than just capitalism vs communism vs socialism right? That you can hate/dislike communism without also being a capitalist? Heavy would not support communism after what the USSR did to his family in the name of communism because his father was a counter-revolutionary. Also people ignoring WHY Heavy's father was killed, and how his father having different politics got his whole family, including innocent children chucked to a GULAG IN SIBERIA where they were starved and constantly abused by the guards, and how even after their escape the government continued to hunt them with the intent of killing them. He would not be a communist. He probably sees a hammer and sickle in his fucken nightmares.

Spy being evil and an arsehole. You know his schtick is the suave gentleman right? He's cool but he also has to be cringefail. And arsehole is a far cry from a gentleman.

People making Soldier a bigot. Har har I know it's funny to joke about the bloke obsessed with America being a bigot, but do you honestly think he cares enough? He's xenophobic at worst. Everyone is assumed to be American and his best mate is a black Scottish cyclops. Half the time I'm convinced you people want Soldier to be a bigot so you can write bigoted shit and not cop shit cuz it's coming out of his mouth.

Carrying on from prev, the amount of people I've seen use the time setting as an excuse to be bigoted towards the characters. This is ESPECIALLY prevalent where it seems like every story-focussed fic of Demo has a scene where someone is being racist to him and he Heroically Sticks Up For Himself or someone else sticks up for him to show How Much They Don't Care About Being Seen With A Black Man (usually it's Soldier, sometimes it's Sniper). You realise everyone knows racism is bad, right? That that's really not necessary? It wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't in EVERY FIC but it's like the author always needs to proudly claim themselves Not Racist while writing REALLY RACIST SHIT directed at the ONE CONFIRMABLE MAN OF COLOUR on the team just so they can yell "RACISM BAD but here's me jumping at the opportunity to call a man of colour a racial slur".

Well, reckon that about covers her...

#blu whos #abad #tf2

[questiontocertaintyofreality]

Do you ever realise Owl House's acceptance's naturality and how great that acceptance was. For example Raine is non-binary. Yes, thats all, they wouldn't act different to them because of that or they wouldn't say "Don't ne afraid I'm not minsgender you" because thats it, they are non binary and its reflected as totally normal. No need to worry about every experience they had or how it effect Boiling Island's youth. They wouldn't have a privilage, agree or not, this is normal behaviour. This is how it should happen. When i was a kid i don't know a cartoons main characters gender because Turkish is a genderless language, character have English name and i don't know English name genders also their (still don't know i remember this memory few days ago and i think i don't need to know their gender) voice is androgyn. So, this isn't change anything to me because i saw them as a people. Really, after i can't understand i totally forget about it because it doesn't matter. Trust me, it doesn't matter. Another example Odalia's words "No Amity we find you a New girlfriend" yes she maybe gross but at first place Odalia see Luz and Amity's relationship as normal. Why wouldn't she ?, it is normal due to Boiling Island's society. This is natural behaviours and this make me so much happy especially i want to see Camilla try to understand Boiling Island's society. No judgement, just try to analyse it at her own head. Yes they have a awfull group system but at least society's persons try to understand each other and try to look at different perpectives, seem to me they somehow have to look at different perpectives maybe years ago witches aren't a member of the society than they try to fight with demons but why this happen at first place ? They understand they have to understand each other

#lumity #raine whispers #the owl house #toh

[eleiyaumei]

Poll response: Gender in Hakuōki

A few months ago I made a poll asking about how you feel about how Hakuōki portrays/handles gender and this is my response to it.

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who voted. This was intended as a poll about your feelings, i.e. personal impressions, and not meant to find out the “truth”. I’d like to encourage everyone who wants to elaborate on their impressions to do so and for those knowledgeable about topics like Historical Accuracy, to publish posts about these in order to spread knowledge and potentially clear up misconceptions.

Secondly, to the person who asked/chose the option: “Why do you care about this?”

I care about this because every person has their own relationship to gender – indifferent or not – and my relationship to it clashed so hard with Hakuōki’s in KW/EB that it gave me gender dysphoria. I wanted to know how other Hakuōki players/fans reacted to it – not to judge them, just to understand them better.

Thirdly, I want to lead the way and tell you about what I feel in regards to how Hakuouki treats gender. To be exact, I’d like to discuss the appeal of the franchise’s fem MC with the leading question:

Whom is Chizuru for?

Oh, and before I start:

Please don’t judge people for (not) being okay with Hakuōki’s treatment of gender. Everyone has their own experiences and reasons for feeling these ways. Reducing it to “internalized misogyny” is generalizing and redundant.

(BTW, internalized misogyny (or sexism) can influence both sides of the coin:

PROs can be okay with the conservative gender roles in Hakuōki because they were taught this is the way men and women are and should be and they’re comfortable in these roles.

ANTIs can be not okay with them because they were taught femininity/womanhood was inferior and weak and they don’t want to be seen that way.)

Now, I hope I can illustrate the ways that make us feel what we do in regards to gender.

1) Chizuru is for “Not Like Other Girls™ but also kinda still like other girls” girls and women

Snappy (and provocative to some) way to say:

Chizuru is for girls and women that struggle with their femininity/girlhood/womanhood but still identify with it.

Perhaps they don’t like makeup or feminine clothing, perhaps they don’t like hyperfemininity (i.e. wearing pink, skirts, dresses, accentuating their fem* body characteristics, going shopping etc.). In some areas, they might think of themselves as unfeminine but in others, they’re able to fulfill what’s expected of girls and women (e.g. having sex only in romantic relationships, marrying a man, starting a family, being a housewife or stay-at-home girlfriend).

Despite not matching with 100% of their gender’s expectations, they still want to be seen as a girl or woman and not as man or stereotypical lesbian or whatnot. And they want to be desired and respected specifically as a girl or woman.

Most Hakuōki guys, especially Harada and Hijikata, acknowledge that and that’s appealing for girls and women as described above.

And then there’s...

2) Chizuru is for people that don’t care about gender roles and expectations

Androgynous-looking, cross-dressing, sword-wearing, living-in-a-men-dominated-world Chizuru is appealing for Gender-Non-Conforming, trans*, non-binary, genderfluid, genderqueer people and others.

I was raised by a gender-non-conforming woman who builds sheds and does housework, whose income feeds the family, who wears colorful but gender-neutral outfits, whose arms are muscular, chest rather flat but body still feminine, who did karate and handball, who likes women like Whitney Houston, Sigourney Weaver/Alien’s Ripley and Downton Abbey’s Dowager Countess of Grantham, who loves the military not for the “hot masculine men” but for the discipline, weaponry and combative prowess... (I don’t like the military but I see where she’s coming from.)

What I meant to say was: The way I grew up influenced my view on gender. My education lacked a focus on gender roles and expectations, with my mom constantly defying them and my dad not being fond of (hyper)femininity. I wasn’t told that fighting was only for boys and men so I never felt bad for being interested in it. I never questioned my gender identity because no one seemed to care about how feminine or not I was.

The game developers did not include the wishes of players who wanted to fight in a samurai visual novel. They added a singular training scene with Kondo, not to teach Chizuru swordfighting but for the player to develop sympathy for Kondo so that they’ll feel bad once he’s executed.

They could have fixed this easily by including the options to fight so every player that wanted to could do so and those who didn’t could have not done it – and accompanying both options should have been no or neutral consequences so as to not tell players that they are wrong to choose one option over another. Or if they are positive/negative consequences, make them adhere to the respective love interest. (Like how saving Harada at the end of KW does not give you affection because it hurts his masculinity/does not fit with his preferences for his future wife.) Easy fix to make everyone happy, no? Instead of hating the game (experience), we can instead come to the conclusion that we like one love interest less or more.

Also, I want to address this statement I saw:

“The way Chizuru is portrayed is nice to see because women should not have manly qualities in order to be seen as strong.” (*This is no direct quote.)

Yes, you’re right. Feminism is about not forcing roles and behaviors onto people depending on their gender, physical attributes etc., and it’s also about not privileging one gender (expression) over another.

But, do you know that a lot of people in the manosphere and other patriarchal spaces use this sentiment to enforce traditional gender roles and exaggerate the masculine attributes they see in popular media (like Shadiversity sees in Princess Peach in the new Mario movie) and claim that popular media only portrays “strong women” as having masculine attributes, often without convincing arguments? I just say this here to spread awareness so that you don’t fall for manosphere conspiracy theories and such.

Especially when we look at otome games, most fem MCs adhere to traditional fem gender expectations and this is okay (while also often criticized in reviews) but this makes any strong feeling you have towards not wanting Chizuru portrayed in ways you associate with masculinity seem over-the-top. Like, don’t you think that there are otome game players out there who want their MCs to be different from the majority – for whatever reason? It’s great you can see yourself in these fem MCs or you just like seeing such fem MCs but please acknowledge that you are not the only otome game players out there and others might feel differently from you.

(I hope you’re not coming from a place of seeing otome games as ‘one of the last bastions of traditional femininity/gender roles’ because gatekeeping this whole genre of games and forcing each game to adhere to certain standards relating to gender is not fair to anyone [and arguably sexist].)

Another reason why some people are frustrated with Chizuru or with the treatment of her by characters and the franchise as a whole has to do with what X talked about in their critique of the Hakuouki anime series:

Set-up and pay-off.

KW sets up Chizuru as a cross-dressing young woman with a sword, who has basic knowledge in sword fighting, proves herself to be able to protect herself sufficiently (in the test by Saito and Okita), wants herself to be useful and not a burden on others.

So it feels forced, illogical, maybe even ill-willed whenever KW/EB puts Chizuru in compromising situations where she does nothing but scream and cry and has to be saved by others which fuels her self-loathing and feelings of being a burden but she never asks or is being offered to be trained nor does she become able to defend herself in the long run. There are singular scenes of her training but it never pays off. (If she was never set-up to be swordfight-savvy enough to protect herself, her always not being able to protect herself would be justified and not (as) frustrating.) And even in Okita’s EB route, Chizuru wants to fight, Okita allows her to, she kills a man, then has to be saved from another and what does Okita say to Chizuru, who clearly wants to fight by his side? That she has to leave everything to him – without offering her to teach her even though he is a kenjutsu prodigy and instructor. Set-up: Chizuru wants to fight. Pay-off: She fights and kills a man ONE SINGULAR TIME. Like, at least adhere to the Rule of Three... (Or do you think this adheres to this rule: 1) Chizuru proves herself to Saito and Okita, 2) she saves Okita from Kazama, 3) she kills a soldier? Well, it’s at least not enough pay-off for me.)

EB especially spends a lot of time describing in excruciating detail how much Chizuru suffers from guilt and self-loathing, thinking herself a burden on anyone, and how is this resolved? By the love interests saying some phrases about caring about and loving her, needing her (as emotional support...pet, tbh), kissing, sometimes sleeping with her and/or marrying her. She is never given a character arc for growth/change because the love interests are always prioritized over her.

(And she is so goddamn passive in 'her own story'... I would argue that Hakuōki is not about Chizuru, it's about the love interests. She is the Watson to the Sherlock Holmes.)

#hakuouki #hakuoki #hakuōki #kyoto winds #edo blossoms #my polls #gender #discussion about gender #analysis #hakuouki analysis #just my opinion though

[fandomblr]

T4T Kiliel Headcanons

Trans! Kili Headcanons

Kili knew he was trans during his early teens and came out to his family, all which were extremely supportive. He realized he was trans since AFAB dwarves often get read as male due to their facial hair, and found that he was so happy when people thought he was a boy, and then he realized he IS a boy!

Dís was extremely proud of him when he came out and made him his first binder. When he told her she shouted to the rooftops, “THANK DURIN, I HAVE TWO SONS NOW!!!”

Fili was OVERJOYED since he had always wanted a brother. He becomes extremely protective of him, and he and Thorin will fight anyone that is transphobic to him and misgenders or deadnames him.

Having a queer family member (Thorin) was extremely helpful since Thorin had an idea of what Kili was going through as a queer person himself (although he obviously can only understand so much as a gay cis man), so his uncle takes it upon himself to be the one to educate everyone on trans issues and on how it’s so important that everyone uses Kili’s correct name and pronouns.

Contrary to popular belief, he is not on testosterone and doesn’t want to go on it. AFAB dwarves already have higher levels of testosterone than non-dwarf AFAB people, so he can easily grow his facial hair and his voice is kind of androgynous, which he is okay with.

He’s non-dysphoric, so he doesn’t feel the need to medically transition at all, but everyone in his family and in Thorin and Co sees him as the man he is regardless.

He binds on certain occasions, and when he does he binds safely and never binds for more than 8 hours a day, and makes sure to not bind while he is in battle or doing any sort of strenuous physical activity that could hurt him while binding.

Again, Kili is non-dysphoric so he doesn’t want top surgery. He gets euphoria from how his chest looks like when he binds but he is okay with his unbound chest too. Besides, top surgery involves recovery time which he doesn’t have as he’s constantly fighting orcs and is on the move ever since the dwarves lost their home in Erebor.

He LOVES to pack. He doesn’t have bottom dysphoria but he gets euphoria from packing, which he does a lot. His prosthetic packers are made by other dwarves so they are incredibly realistic and let’s just say they do their job pretty well. He also likes his packers to be really creative and come in a bunch of funky colors and designs, and he prides himself in that since that’s something that cis men won’t ever get to experience

Al of his community and the dwarves around him are supportive of his gender, the only transphobia he could ever face would be from non-dwarves, but that rarely happens since Thorin and Fili have a reputation of stabbing people that are transphobic to Kili.

He’s very openly trans. He doesn’t want to go stealth and he proudly wears the colors of the trans flag whenever he can. Dís always makes sure to knit him trans pride stuff. He loves being trans and would never want to be cis.

His gender presentation is pretty masc, but he likes dressing in an androgynous way sometimes. Every once in a while he’ll also want to try the pretty boy aesthetic and paint his nails and wear makeup more feminine clothing such as dresses and skirts, but in his day to day he is mostly masculine.

There are definitely more trans and non-binary dwarves, but he doesn’t know them very well, since the ones that he knows of live in the Iron Hills with Dáin, so he’s only ever heard of them.

He passes pretty well when he binds, but like I said he doesn’t bind all the time since he’s constantly fighting orcs and doing strenuous physical activity. So he only passes when he binds, and that’s okay with him. He knows he doesn’t need to pass to be valid, and he always corrects people when they misgender him. He wishes he would get read as male more often even when he doesn’t bind though, but being misgendered doesn’t give him social dysphoria (although it is certainly annoying).

Kili is a straight trans man, he’s only into women, but there were not a lot of dwarf women around him besides Dís (his mom) when he was growing up so he never really got the chance to date until he met Tauriel.

Trans! Tauriel Headcanons

Unlike Kili, Tauriel didn’t realize she was trans until she was well into adulthood. Similarly to Kili, she realized she was trans when mortal men gendered her as female, and realized that being read as female felt so much better than being read as male. But even after she realized she was trans, she spent a long time trying to repress her transness.

All of that changed when she met Legolas and became his friend. Legolas is agender (they use any pronouns but don’t mind when people call use he/him for her), and he taught her that there was nothing wrong with who she is.

Tauriel had a rough childhood. Her parents were killed by orcs so she was on her own until she met Legolas, and Thranduil basically took her in as his adoptive daughter. That’s why Legolas says that he would forgive her if she came back after helping the dwarves.

Although Thranduil did not approve of her as a partner for Legolas, that does not mean he does not respect her. Having a trans kid himself, Thranduil knows how important it is to be a trans ally. He’s also very very gay for Bard, so like Thorin he has experience with the queer community and educates his subjects on trans and non-binary issues. He does not tolerate any transphobia towards her, and he banishes any elf that purposefully misgenders or deadnames her.

Also, Thranduil was DEFINITELY wrong about Legolas and Tauriel ever being a thing. They’re pretty much siblings in every sense of the word, and have never been romantically interested in each other. Plus, since Tauriel is kind of Thranduil’s adopted daughter, that would be incest so no thanks. That’s precisely why Thranduil was so against them as a couple.

At first she identified as non-binary, but as she kept talking with Legolas about gender she realized that she’s a binary trans woman.

Legolas was obviously the one that helped her with her transition since she knew what it was like to question their gender and explore gender presentation. They helped her get feminine clothes, tested out pronouns and names for her, got her breast forms, and talked to her about trans and non-binary issues.

AMAB elves are already pretty androgynous due to their long hair, so that was certainly an advantage to Tauriel’s transition. Sometimes people (especially mortals from Lake Town) had a hard time figuring out her gender before she transitioned, and now that she presents more femininely these mortals are even more confused about her gender, as she looks very androgynous. She doesn’t mind and sometimes finds it amusing when she confuses them, although she does wish she would get read as female more often.

While Kili is non-dysphoric, Tauriel is EXTREMELY dysphoric. Looking back at it, her dysphoria was always there even before she knew she was trans. She just thought that everyone felt like she did. But her dysphoria continued to get worse over the years, and once she realized she’s a woman it actually increased.

That’s why Tauriel had FFS, or facial feminization surgery, (since elves are skilled healers after all, so they would know all about gender affirming surgeries). She has also been on estrogen for about a 100 years. Her dysphoria is a lot better now because of it, but she still has some body and social dysphoria.

At the start of her transition she felt like she needed to be hyperfeminine and overcompensate for her transness. She felt like she was never “female enough” and since she came out later in life, a lot of elves around her would accidentally misgender her and that really hurt her since she has social dysphoria. That made her feel like she had “failed” at being a woman.

Legolas had to explain to her that she hadn’t “failed” at anything, and that other people’s perception of her does not define her. Still, he would ALWAYS correct people when they misgendered her, and anyone that is transphobic to her faces their wrath (and arrows!)

They also told her that she didn’t have to be hyperfeminine to be valid. After Legolas explained this, she became more comfortable not being hyperfeminine 24/7. That’s why her gender presentation today is very fluid. She can be very feminine in some days, dress more androgynously in others, and sometimes she can even present more masculinely.

Legolas has helped her voice train for hundreds of years, so she’s a master at it. That’s why her normal voice today is pretty high pitched and similar to a cis woman’s. However, she can still speak in a deep voice if she wants, and on certain occasions she will use it to surprise people, especially when she needs to startle and distract orcs and giant spiders.

She refuses to tuck even though she has bottom dysphoria. Legolas taught her how to tuck once but it was extremely uncomfortable for her so she never did it again. Besides, she’s not okay with the possible risks tucking can have.

She doesn’t know if she wants bottom surgery or not. It would help her dysphoria, but she’s afraid of how the recovery may go and what the results will look like. And again, surgeries include recovery time and she’s captain of the guard and there are a lot more orcs and spiders to fight than earlier when she had FFS. Although Thranduil and Legolas would 100% support her if she chose to have the surgery and would cover for her in her job, she still feels an obligation to Mirkwood and would not want to take that much time off. So she’s thinking about it. Which is fine, considering she’s an immortal and has all the time in the world.

Pretty much everyone in Mirkwood knows she’s trans since she came out later in life, so it’s nearly impossible for her to be stealth there. However, she does like to go stealth whenever she’s around people that only know her after her transition, and she goes stealth whenever she’s in Lake Town since she transitioned before the mortals there were even born.

Elves have a very accepting attitude towards trans, non-binary, and gender diverse people since most of them are already androgynous. That’s why Mirkwood has a vibrant queer, trans, and non-binary community, so she knows several other trans and non-binary people besides her and Legolas. She feels at home in her community.

Tauriel practically faces no transphobia in Mirkwood at all, considering how Thranduil would banish anyone that disrespected her and Legolas would most likely shoot arrows through them.

However, she has faced a lot of transphobia when she is around Lake Town. The mortals are not as enlightened as elves when it comes to gender stuff, and so many mortal men will purposefully misgender her or not trust her when she says she’s female. She used to get this a lot when she was at the beginning of her transition. She still gets transphobia every once in a while, but not as much now that she has transitioned.

Tauriel never had time for dating since she’s been very busy as captain of the guard. She doesn’t label her sexuality though, as she doesn’t really think about the gender of the people she would date if she wasn’t with Kili. That’s why she jokingly refers to herself as “Kilisexual.”

T4T Kiliel Couple Headcanons

They obviously immediately bonded over being trans, and seeing Tauriel as a visibly out trans woman meant the WORLD to Kili considering that she was the first trans person he’d ever met.

Tauriel actually made Kili have a sexuality crisis for a second, since she is very androgynous and he wasn’t 100% sure if she was indeed a woman. Of course, that other androgynous elf in Rivendell that he said “isn’t that bad” didn’t help this crisis either. But once he confirmed that Tauriel is female, the sexuality crisis was averted and he was sure once again that he is straight.

Tauriel used to hate being trans for a long time. She would envy a lot of her cis female elf friends and wish she could be cis too. She would often tell Legolas that she would give anything to be cis, so she could feel like a “real girl.” Legolas explained to her that that is internalized transphobia, but she couldn’t help how she felt. However, all of that changed when she met Kili.

Seeing Kili be so happy as an out and proud trans man made her realize that being trans isn’t just pain and suffering. She already knew that there are trans people that are happy being trans and loved that about themselves thanks to Legolas, but she couldn’t imagine ever being that way.

Kili helped her be proud as a trans woman, something that she had never felt before. He helped her realize that she is beautiful BECAUSE of her transness and not in spite of it. She had felt ashamed about being trans for so long, but that shame went away after she hung out with Kili during his imprisonment. He taught her that she IS a real girl, and that no one but her can tell her what her gender is.

He also helped her unlock gender euphoria. Tauriel’s trans experience had mostly revolved around her dysphoria, while Kili’s had revolved around his euphoria. One way he did that was by dancing and spinning her around so her skirts would soar in the air. This gives her so much euphoria, and it’s something Tauriel will never forget.

Tauriel teaches Kili how to voice train with the help of transmasc elves in her community so he can make his voice a little deeper since he’s not on testosterone. They voice train together!

Together they discover trans joy and trans love. For instance, she will compliment his packers and he will endlessly woo her about how she is so beautiful that she walks in starlight.

They go to pride together! They go to the pride parades in Erebor and Mirkwood, and when Bard starts the first Lake Town pride they go there too. They also go to the pride Bilbo and Thorin organize every year in the shire.

Thanks to Kili, Tauriel now wears her trans colors proudly. She only does that in Mirkwood, since like I already said she wants to go stealth when she’s outside of it. Kili respects that decision 100%. And Dís always knits her stuff with the trans flag as well.

They do their makeup and paint their nails together too! Tauriel will do his makeup and nails when he has his pretty boy days, and Kili loves to help her with hers when she presents femininely.

Although Kili doesn’t relate to Tauriel’s dysphoria since he doesn’t have it, he is always there for her when dysphoria gets her down. He reminds her of how beautiful she is and affirms her gender constantly. Tauriel also affirms his gender all the time.

Also, Kili never dies, PERIOD. No dying is allowed here. Thorin and Fili also don’t die either, and Bard takes limpë and becomes immortal because I ship Barduil and I make the rules.

Ultimately, they both have very different trans experiences. Kili is non-dysphoric, came out earlier in his life, didn’t know a lot of trans people, hasn’t faced a lot of transphobia, doesn’t want to go stealth, and is not transitioning medically, while Tauriel is dysphoric, came out later in life, has been in community with other trans people, has faced a lot of transphobia, goes stealth when she can, and has medically transitioned. However, they both respect each other’s trans journeys and acknowledge that even though they have different experiences, they are both still trans enough and 100% trans. Because transness isn’t a monolith, and there is no one way to be trans.

#my posts #kiliel #kili x tauriel #kili #fili #bagginshield #bilbo baggins #thorin oakenshield #thorin x bilbo #bilbo x thorin #tauriel x kili #barduil #thilbo #bard x thranduil #thranduil x bard #bard the bowman #the hobbit bard #the hobbit #the hobbit an unexpected journey #the hobbit the desolation of smaug #the hobbit the battle of the five armies #the hobbit dos #the hobbit botfa #botfa #tolkien #jrr tolkien #thranduil #thranduil oropherion #Legolas

[trans-wojak]

Hi! I was just wondering, what are your views on non-binary people who actually experience dysphoria and choose to medically transition? I've seen you sorta condemning AFAB enbies who only identify as such without transitioning medically or even just socially, and got genuinely curious, what's your overall opinion on non-binary people. Just in case - I did choose to transition, I've got my top surgery scheduled this year.

I think people can do whatever they want with their bodies cause it’s their body. Buttt being a flat chested female isn’t changing your sex to a third sex, it’s just making you look more or less like a breast cancer survivor. Even in trans guys most top surgery results look terrible. It doubles in awfulness when the person is overweight… Because a male chest doesn’t look flat or even caved in. And most of the time, I don’t think it’s wise to do such surgeries unless you have actual dysphoria - which is, problems with your sex AND wanting to be the opposite sex, not some mix or made up version of the two sexes. I also think a good portion of women who self ID as non binary and want top surgery only want it so (mostly imagined) men won’t see them as sexually attractive and available, because more or less - potentially denying they are lesbians. then again, most enbies I come across are “T4T” but rarely date each other & only go after trans women and trans men who have actually transitioned.

I also want to emphasise that most women who ID as non binary are also mentally ill, with a diagnosis like borderline or bipolar which has identity disturbance issues as a symptom. Do I think that this should stop them from getting surgery or hormones? It’s hard to say: in a perfect world I would like transsexual healthcare to be accessible without threat of removal due people misusing it and regret and I would want non binary people to get their hormones and surgery by paying for it, like anyone else does for cosmetic procedures. Just because you really want something doesn’t mean it’s a medical need, I really would like a nose job because I hate the shape of my nose but my need for testosterone and potential surgery (I may/may not need top surgery due to my chest size) is vastly different. Living socially as a woman is painful but not just that, feeling immense disconnection with my body’s sex is extremely uncomfortable. The nose job would just make me feel satisfied and happy, whereas transition has made me feel content and a sense of ease.

I think all body modification is fine cause it’s their body, what I disagree with is people using trans healthcare coverage for their body modification needs. These days the ‘progressive’ climate allows anyone to be given a diagnosis of dysphoria even when they don’t. Removing breasts while retaining every other female sexual characteristic won’t make people think you’re androgynous, so if it’s just for your satisfaction, then that’s great but if you’re doing it in hopes that people won’t see you as a female, it’s the wrong choice.

#personal #thanks for the ask!

[whyyoualwayssoradical]

Idk how much experience you may have with this but lately I've been thinking about how most men I know somehow can't clock transwomen as fast as I can and I'm wondering if male's like don't have as strong of a recognition of sex as women do? And maybe that's part of why a lot of transwomen think they pass when it's very obvious to us 🤔

personally i've been able to clock just about every trans person i've come across, either IRL or online just from something as small as a reddit post. most of them are pretty obvious. there's like probably 30-50 trans people at my work and i can clock all of them at first glance (there's two people I am unsure of) and only one of them knows i'm trans because i told one transman that i trust, when i told him he asked if i was transmale or transfemale.

from what i've experienced, males are atrocious at pattern recognition when it comes to people because they literally just have "man, boy (potential man), woman/girl" is how they categorize people it seems. i've heard radfems talk about how part of the reason males are worse at it might be because they don't need it to survive as much, but girls and women need to be able to accurately ID a male, in any circumstance, to survive in modern society.

for me, again personally, the only people that have really clocked me have been lesbians and gay men. most straight people seem to be completely clueless, more so men than women. i do claim i pass but when i say that i mean like in most everyday situations like going to the grocery store or to get food or something almost everyone will assume i'm a "woman" even though i'm not one. i definitely think there are plenty of women who have clocked me and just not said anything/played nice. i think any woman that spent any amount of time talking with me or hanging out with me would figure it out sooner or later, but i generally tell any close friends if we're actively talking/hanging out that much because i don't want to and don't mean to deceive them.

some anecdotes from personal experience:

i have been targeted by powerful men before because they, for some reason, legitimately thought i was female. a woman who "worked" for them also thought i was. that situation made me legit fear for my life.

the most common question i got asked at whole foods anytime i mentioned i didn't feel well, multiple women would ask if i was on my period, to which i would say just no it's just stomach cramps or w/e was making me feel crappy.

most women that do suspect me to be not what i appear usually think i'm non-binary or a transman if they ever want to ask anything.

i was disallowed from doing something at a different whole foods because they said it couldn't be a woman doing it if the other person was a man (overnights require min 2 people present). this rule miraculously disappeared after the pandemic hit and we didn't have the staff to do otherwise. i had volunteered to be the second person since i already came in early so it was no big deal to come in earlier, but they were like no it cant be a man and a woman if there's only 2 people.

this isn't me trying to say "oh i pass sooo much better" or anything like that, because i doubt i pass that particularly well but also at the same time i often struggle to make sense of what i do experience. i can't imagine this many people doing all of this just to validate me and i don't go around telling people i'm a woman, however my documentation all reflects "F". these experiences are generally why i will say i "pass" and also why i use the term "assimilated transsexual".

i think being bullied so much by boys and men plus getting into radical feminism drastically improved my human sex pattern recognition. i definitely used to not be as good at it as i am now. i can look at myself and pick out my male features fairly easily. i have had more androgynous features most of my life than anything else.

it does blow my mind when i see quite clearly men wearing makeup saying they pass and are hotter/sexier than women, because i feel like any look into the mirror would reveal otherwise... which the same could totally be said about me, maybe i look like a clown too and everyone is just nice to me who knows, but i almost never wear makeup, i've only worn it on special occasions and it's usually just eye makeup, nothing else.

#this got way longer than i expected #sorry

[spookberry]

This might sound rude of bad but I don’t like that they choose to make the one character that was physically built to be no binary. It’s a trip that I don’t like in media where usually the robot or man made character is always non binary. I feel like they should have picked another character like  Ghoulia instead of another man made character.

Yeah I know it’s stupid and at the end of the day reparation is all that matters but looking at the original web comic it seems the only reason they are non binary was because they are a Frankenstein.  especially since they have always been feminine in the webasodes and movies where they are constantly trying to be a teenage girl. Sorry for the rant I just wanted to get it of my chest. And I’m glad that there is more non binary representation in media. Even if the like action reboot looks  aesthetically bad.

Tho I would like to here your feed back to give me your point of view on the subject.

i kinda get where you're coming from. I personally dont have a problem with it, but also I guess in my head I imagine it less as Frankie having been made nonbinary and more that Frankie was made and then decided for themself that being nonbinary is what felt right. Just like every nonbinary person. Though I admit thats not like the canon backstory as far as we know(and we dont know a lot)

Also I don't know if that is a trope in media?? Like there is certainly a trope of the one nonbinary character being nonhuman compared to the rest of the characters. Like double trouble in she-ra or how a lot of robots/aliens wind up androgynous because its an easy way to code them as something Other to a cishet audience. But even then if you go look up a list of canonically nonbinary characters in media most of them are just normal human people. And this trope holds no meaning in a world like monster high because none of the monsters are human. Anyone who falls within the binary is just as monstrous as Frankie is.

#ask #monster high

[hammity-hammer]

another non steddie post BUT has to do with gender shit and being a queer recognizably and existing in my skin--

i went to a friday the 13th party last night with one of my platonic partners (whom i will now call pp because shorthand is easier) and we both are very fem presenting afab people who use pronouns that don't match our outward expression. i personally use he/him exclusively, unless another trans person is referring to me in which they can use it/its because they get it in a way that cis people i don't often trust to be able to get. pp uses they/he/(it) in the same kind of way. i had my tits OUT and i am comfortable like that, because i know that the people who know me and love me and understand me know deep within themselves that i am not a woman. they see me for everything that i am and they love me. we re-met someone that we had seen the last time at the party, who was a fucking angel and so sweet! he offered us drugs to which we both declined because i was DD and pp strictly drinks, and we had good conversations! i gave him chocolates i had brought with me, we complimented each other's costumes, and overall just had a good fucking time vibing together! we started talking about gender, because i have a more androgynous sounding voice because of my testosterone, and pp referred to me using the correct pronouns. our new friend got so fucking excited that someone who was like him existed-- he tells everyone that he uses any pronouns because he doesn't want to have to repeatedly explain to people that he's not a woman, that he exists outside of the gender spectrum. he told us about the immense euphoria he gets when his partner refers to him using the correct pronouns, and i got so excited for him! it's been really fucking hard lately existing as such a feminine presenting person in spaces that aren't full of me-- and he helped re-light that spark of wanting to tell every person that tells me i'm a woman/too feminine to be a man/too xy or z to be trans and live my life peacefully to fuck right off. he was so fucking happy to meet people whose perceived genders didn't match their identities because people like us are so fucking far and few between. i have dysphoria-- i have it so fucking bad some days and didn't even realize that's what i was feeling because people that look like me/feel like me don't talk about it! transness is always seen from such a binary point of view, and even when people try to go outside the binary it just ends up like a third gender of androgyny and i personally just don't fit that! i am a guy. i am a dude. i'm a girl. i'm a person. i wear dresses and skirts and pants and proudly display my body because it's the only one i have and my mother did a very good fucking job in raising me to believe that i'm beautiful, and that anyone can be beautiful regardless of their gender identity. she taught me that people are people at their cores and that is what makes them beautiful. she also taught me that as long as i'm happy with myself and with the people i surround myself (who love me unconditionally, might i add) then it doesn't fucking matter what the world thinks of me. she let me play with whatever toys i wanted as a kid, she dressed me in the most neutral shit, in boys clothes, in girls clothes, because she thought they looked cool and they made me happy! she took the gender out of things that society and my peers and the other adults in my life kept trying to force gender into. she reminds me daily that as long as i'm happy, i'm beautiful. i know that i come from a very unconventional upbringing when it comes to gender expression and identity, and that i'm so fucking fortunate to have such a supportive family, and i am so fucking grateful for that. i spend every day at a job that i hate because i'm surrounded by people that don't respect me because they see me as a woman because of the tits on my chest and the clothes that i wear and that fucking kills me. i still fight them every day on it, because i have to. because if i don't then the next trans person that interacts with them will have to deal with this shit. and hopefully exposure therapy helps or something because jesus fuck.

#i.....maxed out the text omg #how the hell #i don't even know how many words this is #ham thoughts #i rambled about gender #it rly has no like #rhyme or reason #it's just me rambling and trying to sound inspirational or some shit idk #just been thinking a lot ab gender expression and stuff lately & last night really hit home #finding family in people that share experiences with you is fucking crazy #and like i could cry #anywho! #thanks tor reading or something

[4uru]

My experience with pronouns.

English is not my first language. Its bangla. Funfact: in bangla there are gendered nouns. But not pronouns.

Pronouns in bangla is classified in three types

Respectful: elders and respects ppl of society/ history

Formal: friends and peers of same age and youngers

Informal: you use informal pronouns with ppl you are insulting in a road rage, your friends and younger siblings too. Hence, informal. Basically you choose who u want to use this with. (Its weird wjen i try to explain it)

So I did not have any problems with pronouns until i was older and had to engage with english more, before that, i wasn't worried about my gender or the way i was percieved. Ofc everybody thought i was a girl, i looked like a girl. But i wasnt reminded of it until english pronouns came into the picture.

And i had to sit down and grapple with the fact that i didnt like she/her. I told my friends i want to go by he/him and i told them to call me aurun (masc vers of my name and an old nickname from my aunt). But it still felt wrong. Someone else except my aunt calling me aurun felt weird but i felt like i had to be more masc. Bc i was i identifying with transmasc identity. But it just felt wrong. So i told my friends to stop calling me aurun and go back to auru. They were okay with that too. At this point i didnt identify with masc or femm. Nothing fit me.

I was a weird blend of both and evethough i knew i was non binary and allowed to be androgynous. The androgynous fashion and identity seems so western to me. It didnt fit me. It wasnt made for a person like me. I stuggled with feeling like i had to overcompensate with masculinity to prove my worth as a transmasc person or else im faking it.

Now im at a point in my life that i know i am agender. And i recognize that i assign more with feminity as an expression, and i feel more transmasc/androgynous in my rawest form. I treat feminity as a culture(?) to be celebrated and which deserves to be seen in all its beauty. I wear the sarees and put on the kajal as an expression of LOOK HOW PRETTY THIS IS. i feel more beautiful in feminine clothes and i feel more comfortable in masculine ones. Neither invalidates my indentity as an agender person.

The only queer culture that i witnessed for years was western and i knew i didnt fit into that narrative either. I cant wear fashion like those outside (im not rich enough to not care about creepy uncles oogling me in the streets) i dont want to fit into western culture's idea of androgyny and gender presentation. And i cant either. I wasnt brought up with the reminder of my gender in every sentence they spoke of me. My pronouns didnt matter. And it does not either right now.

Thats why i have no pronouns in my bio. I will never be comfortable with she/he/they. Those will never apply to me, thats not my language, thats not what i was born as. Other ppl who dont speak my language can never use the pronouns i grew up with. So just use my name. At least thats in your area. Thats why i say (no pronouns only auru). Bc im just that. Just auru. I present transmasc on the internet bc its closest to what i am.

#trans rant #desi tumblr #desi trans rant #auru vents

[odaatlover]

hi! how long did you know you were trans? I think i am, it’s been on my mind for about 7 years now, and me pronouns feel right, (born female) but i also don’t know how to ask people to start changing what they refer to me as? i don’t know if you have any advice for me, or if any of this is too prying/personal but i could use some guidance if you could offer it. :)

Hey there! It’s hard to pinpoint an exact moment when I knew I was trans because it was a lot of different moments - both big and small - that led to my decision to transition. From an early age I wanted to be a boy, literally as long as I can remember. I would make birthday wishes to wake up the next morning as a boy. I would choose boy avatars and video game characters anytime I had the option because it was the only time I got to be one; in a pretend world. But at this age I didn’t realize this meant that I was trans. I thought everyone felt this way and did these things…which I now know is not the case 😂

When I was around 20 I started to question my gender identity. I knew I didn’t feel like a woman, but I didn’t realize that I was a man. I was still stuck in the mentality of what had been engrained in me my entire life - I’m a female, therefore I’m not a man. Also this was 2012 so there wasn’t that much trans representation out there. At least not like there is today.

At 27 years old I started binding. I still had long hair though, but I gradually cut it shorter and shorter over time (every couple months I’d cut it). At that time I started to look into testosterone to become more androgynous looking. I identified as non-binary because I didn’t feel like a woman, nor a man.

And then about 9 months later a month before turning 28, I started testosterone. My voice changed rather quickly. There was a noticeable difference within the first week. My face also started to change too. As all of these changes happened, I became more and more excited. The more people read me as a man, the more I felt seen. I didn’t want to be gendered as a woman or anything that wasn’t a man because it felt wrong and I hated it. This was when I realized I’m not non-binary, I’m a trans man. So about 2 months after starting testosterone I changed my pronouns and started going by a more masculine name - which I have changed legally since then! All of those moments growing up suddenly made sense. The whole reason I didn’t feel like a man before was because I was trying to relate manhood to the experiences of the men I knew - cisgender men. But obviously as someone who is AFAB, my experiences won’t be the same. It took me a long time to figure that out, but the more my body because more masculine and matched who I am on the inside, the more everything clicked. I don’t think I ever would have discovered that if I hadn’t started testosterone.

So that’s my story! As for advice on changing pronouns, just start telling people. That’s what I did. I also posted it on social media so people knew. I don’t have much advice on how to change your pronouns when you are around people who refuse to use them, as I’ve never come across that issue luckily. I’ve only ever worked at places that were accepting and encouraging/supportive of my transition, and all of my family members who weren’t supported I cut ties with…which was basically all of them lol. I realized I deserved to be happy, and chose myself over them. Plus, the thought of having only one life to live and spending it pleasing others at my own expense gave me a ton of anxiety, so cutting off those toxic relations also helped my anxiety tremendously. I haven’t had a single panic attack since!

At this point I’m rambling, but I hope this was at least somewhat the answer you were looking for! Best of luck to you, and remember to just do the things that make you happy, because you deserve that 😊

#asks #gender stuff

[tf2fansderogatory]

My queer tf2 headcanons because look at them. That is not heterosexual.

Scout: defiantly bisexual but is in total denial about it, and unironically say's stuff like "it's not gay to find men attractive" and "all dudes check out other guys, it's normal".

Sniper: gender apathetic, doesn't care about what gender is or what gender people see him as, or what pronouns people use, and is biromantic, asexual, but not currently interested in relationship. I imagine him to be sex-neutral, not particularly interested in it, but not repulsed.

Medic: multigender and genderfluid, mostly identifies with masculine, neutral and androgynous genders, and if pronoun fluid. He mostly uses he/xer pronouns, but occasionally she/her. Xer's gay and bi-lithsexual (he's romantically attracted to non-women, and sexually attracted to all genders, but doesn't want his attracted to women to be reciprocated; lithsexual to women and fem-IDing people). Non-monogamy is the only thing he's ethical in.

Demo: genderflux non-binary man; he fully and always identifies as a man, but how he identifies as a man changes. Sometimes he's an androgynous man, sometimes he's agender but socially a man, sometimes he's apathetic about his identity as a man, and so on. He's pansexual and polyamorous, and loves the idea of having as many partners as he can.

Spy: super straight and Fr*nch /j

Heavy: orientated aroace and gay. He's demi-graysexual and demi-grayromantic, and doesn't like the idea of a traditional romantic relationship, but enjoys having deep and intimate connections with other non-women. He's sex-averse, but enjoys non-sexual forms of physical intimacy such as kissing, cuddling and holding, sleeping together (like actual sleeping), etc.

Engie: binary trans man, bisexual and placiosexual. He doesn't have a gender preference, but he prefers to be with other ace-spec people. Being placiosexual, he enjoys preforming sexual acts to his partner, but doesn't want any sexual acts done to him, which is why he'd prefer an ace-spec partner. He'd rather have no sex in a relationship then to disappoint a partner who wants to preform sexual acts on him.

Soldier: Soldier has a gender for every occasion. He feels like his current situation requires a man? He's a man. Does it require a woman? He's a woman. Someone just asked what his gender is? Gender is for cowardly Europeans. His gender is sort of fluid, sort of indescribable, but defiantly not cis. Also, he lowkey doesn't know what pronouns are. He's generally uninterested in sex or relationships, but if he were approached by someone for a one-night stand or to go on a date, he'd probably say yes.

Pyro: trans masc, non-binary, genderfluid, enboy, girlby, carnelian, opalian, panromantic, hypersexuality (caused by it's depression), aegosexual and objectum. It uses all pronouns, but prefers it/they and neopronouns. Their gender identity changes, sometimes it's more masculine, sometimes it's more feminine, sometimes it's genderless, etc. They have a strong sexual preference for men, masculine-aligned non-binary people and neutral non-binary people, but romantically likes all genders. They developed hypersexuality to cope with their trauma and depression, though are aegosexual; never wanting to act or preform their attraction or fantasies. Xe also loves objects, seeing different objects with different personalities, names, genders, etc. and has a deep emotional connection with cute and "childish" things, like it's massive collection of plushies, figurines and toys.

Sorry that this was so long, I just really love the TF2 team >:) /g

Wonderful.

Also I appreciate the spy's gender is french. Be proud of yourself 🇫🇷

#answered by heidi #scout #medic #spy #engineer #soldier #pyro #demoman #heavy #sniper #s42isrotting

[ehlessandraspsyche]

Blog Post 2: sex, gender, and trauma-dumping

Sex and Gender Stereotypes

The lessons this past week focused on the concept of sex and gender, as well as the concepts of brain and personality. It was important to distinguish sex and gender as these two topics are often confused with one another. Sex is the genetic and biological characteristics of a person, while gender is the socially constructed behaviors and roles that are associated with a person. Sex has an influence on gender as this is the basis of gender constructs. The fundamental physical difference between men and women is directly correlated to how gender constructs are created. For example, men are physiologically stronger than women. This ties into the social stereotype that men should do physical labor while women should do less physically demanding work. Gender stereotypes can be harmful to both sexes. Men are expected to be stoic which in turn causes men to repress their emotions. This lack of emotional stability makes men more volatile and less likely to seek help. This can be seen in the statistics concerning suicide as men are more likely to successfully commit suicide than women. For women, the gender stereotype of them being more emotional works against them. Their perceived emotionality prevents them from getting jobs that require a level head. 

Gender Identity and Presentation and my sexual orientation (??)

Coming from the “woke” generation, I try to use the correct terminology as much as possible. We learned in this lesson the difference between assigned sex at birth, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. My first encounter with these terms was when I was scrolling through Tumblr searching for my favorite characters. I encountered a headcanon about their sexuality and I recall being confused by gender identity and sexual orientation. I thought the terms were interchangeable and I’ll admit I often forget the differences between the terms. Reading about a topic is very different from actually discussing it, so now I can recall the difference between the terms. Gender identity is the perception of being male, female, or neither. As a person, I am cisgender and I identify with my assigned sex at birth. One of my closest high school friends identifies as non-binary and they use she/they pronouns. My gender presentation is very feminine. I enjoy wearing skirts and dresses and whenever I wear other outfits my only requirement is that 1) it looks good on me and 2) it’s not masculine. Sometimes, I would wear androgynous clothing whenever I feel less girly on that day. My sexual orientation is… still up for discussion. I don’t really want to place a label on myself because I still haven’t come to terms with it yet. But if I were to place a label, I would be bisexual with a preference for men.

I'm psychologically androgynous (again, ???)

An interesting term that was brought up during the discussion was psychological androgyny- which is where a person displays both male and female gender role characteristics. It resonated with me as I feel that it is how I would describe my personality. As the eldest child and the only daughter, there were certain expectations for me that shaped my personality. As the eldest daughter, I was expected to care for my younger brothers. I was gentle, nurturing and emotional. I was basically an on-call therapist who was ready to hear whatever problem my brothers were having and solve it. As the eldest child, I was expected to be disciplined and set a good example for my baby brothers. I was stoic in the sense that I never showed my weaknesses to them. How could I, when every action that I do influences their decisions for their lives? Since I decided to study in Manila, my brothers also decided to study in Manila as well. I couldn’t openly show signs of distress in fear that they might fall apart once they see their ate crying. I had to be strong. Which is why I identified with the term psychologically androgynous as what my outer gender expression is not reflective of my psychological gender expression. 

Word Count: 665 words

References:

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, March 22). androgyny. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/androgyny

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, March 23). gender identity. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/gender-identity

Date Written: March 25, 2023

[demigirl-demigod]

I’m really trying to work on seeing myself as a real non-binary person because I’ll look at other non-binary people who seem confident in their identity and use they/them pronouns and look androgynous and talk about dysphoria and I feel like they’re the real non-binary people and I’m just like a cheap girl knock off or something like I’m mostly a girl who sometimes masquerades as non-binary. And I think one of the reasons for this is because my dysphoria is mild to non-existent most of the time.

I was happy living as a girl. Sure I was a little weird and tomboy-ish but I wasn’t miserable. I didn’t necessarily feel like anything was wrong. I simply enjoy being non-binary. I feel happier that way and like my gender better matches how I’ve always seen myself but that doesn’t mean I was miserable before and so I think the fact that I wasn’t miserable and that sometimes I don’t mind being seen as a girl and stepping back into that role when I need to makes me feel like I’m not a real non-binary person™. But I want to be non-binary. It’s not really about dysphoria for me. It’s about the way I’ve always seen myself internally as gender neutral. It’s about the flutter in my chest every time someone uses they/them for me. It’s about looking in the mirror and seeing the best me I’ve ever been.

Just because I was okay with womanhood doesn’t mean I owe it anything. I’m not under any obligation to use she/her just because I don’t feel horribly distressed when people do use it. I can use they/them just because I feel like it. I can dress androgynous whenever it’s safe. Gender isn’t real and I can do what makes me the happiest and if that changes from time to time it doesn’t mean I’m stuck with what I liked before. That’s what I’m trying to keep reminding myself.

#non binary #trans #lgbtq #gender #internalized transphobia

[genderqueerq]

Do cis people have a sense of gender / “feel” their gender somehow or do you only notice when something’s “not matching up” or when it’s fluid and you can actually compare?

I’m mostly just curious, because being afab and kinda feminine/more androgynous/definitely not masculine and having no gender dysphoria, I always thought, obviously I’m cis (and I still think that).

But since identifying as queer in terms of orientation, I’ve been learning more about gender and noticed: I don’t actually “know” I’m a girl or “feel” it somehow. It’s not a big part/not any part of my identity as a person. But I also don’t “feel” non binary or male or anything else. I just don’t or don’t care about it if that makes sense. I’m equally comfortable with she/her and they/them, my style is pretty androgynous, I have short hair, etc. If someone assumed I was non binary and used they/them I probably wouldn’t correct them. It’s not important to me to be perceived as a girl. Though I don’t like he/him or being/presenting masculine, that might just be my personality/style preference and me being very used to being a girl. I think if the choice is “typical” girl or “typical” boy, then I definitely fit better into girl, but that might just be being raised as girl with mostly female friends?

Sorry for the long ask, basically the question is: Does this mean I’m agender, something else or just cis and not stereotypically female and looking too much into it? Am I supposed to “feel”/“know” I’m a girl or is being afab and being “fine with it” enough?

I would be very grateful for any tip or thoughts or if you’ve heard about similar things from other cis/not cis people. Thank you! <3

to address your first question, i think cis people experience a range of feeling into their genders just as much as trans people do; i think for some people their strong commitment to their gender leads them to experience transphobia and homophobia - prejudice against those they perceive as "not doing gender correctly". others may feel more neutral or apathetic about their gender - going along as they were assigned because it's comfortable enough that they don't feel any strong desire to change either way.

sometimes cis people do think deeply about their gender and come to the conclusion that yes, the one they were assigned does feel best to them. one of my partners, a cis man, went through a period of questioning when his wife began her gender transition, and ultimately found that he felt right at home in his masculine body. cis people can learn a lot about themselves from these kinds of experiences just like many trans people learn from the same kind of introspection and trying new things.

judith butler writes a lot about "doing gender"; you might be interested in reading some of their work (i'd recommend gender trouble (1990)). i'm no butler scholar and haven't honestly read them in years, but one thing that stuck in my mind from the time i studied them was the idea that all of us, cis and trans alike, are performing our genders. since gender and sex are both socially constructed ideas, gender presentation is a choice we are making every day about how we want to show up in the world.

having a neutral/feminine gender presentation as a woman is just as valid as having a neutral/feminine gender presentation as a nonbinary person. a she/they woman is just as valid as a she/they agender or genderqueer or non-gendered person. women can be androgynous and masculine and nonbinary people can be feminine! the label you choose to use is less important than expressing yourself in a way that makes you happy and comfortable.

(this is getting long and i'm not sure i actually answered your question; definitely hop back in the ask box if you have any other thoughts to share on this or if i can explain something better lol)

#ask #anonymous