#but like. what kind of nonbinary. that is the question

[iamthemaestro]

I realize I think a lot about my life in terms of “maybe when I’m a boy…” my brother in christ. maybe you are an EGG

#idk. idk! #I’m not a Man. but I do resonate with Boyhood a lot #that’s the thing #I’m still nonbinary either way #but like. what kind of nonbinary. that is the question #and more and more it feels like Boy Nonbinary #but idk what to do about that. you’d think I would after like four years of being out to people #but I don’t. like what else can I change. I’ve already got the pronouns #I think I’m like… More Trans than I give myself credit for #(that’s a joke you can identify as trans however you want) #but my ocd brain is always like well you’re not trans you didn’t trans anything #which is not true but I mean it like. if I had the chance would I? #I might. but at the moment I don’t have the chance #so I’m just. confused #constantly #it’s exhausting #I don’t feel comfortable for the most part #also intrusive thoughts go brr right now I’m trying to Think #whatever tag ramble over #gender #mine

[uncanny-tranny]

I decided to go through my old warm-up notebooks from my honours english class and in one of the warm-up prompts, I said I wanted my superpower to be "controlling the effects of [my] puberty," and I'm glad to say that I've gotten that superpower. It took a very long time, but that's a superpower I can check off my list

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #ngl though i felt my very soul wince while reading some of them (including that) #in my old self's defense: i was incredibly dysphoric and had Many Unresolved Issues #i also wasn't really masking in that class and didn't know i should probably not be honest with my notebook #my teacher said that she'd only grade warm-ups we wanted graded and she'd only *potentially* read others 'for fun' #also i always didn't like the 'what superpower would YOU want?' question because. it just annoyed me to know it's impossible to have #(besides the puberty superpower lmao) #as much as i believe in being kind to your past self/selves that doesn't mean i'm not cringing about it 😭 #just so long as you don't turn the cringe into self-hatred i suppose #you cannot hate yourself into being better♡♡ #WAIT I JUST REMEMBERED THAT IN ONE OF THE WARM-UPS I WROTE ABOUT A LESBIAN ROBOT #NEVER MIND I'M DONE CRINGING #man i should make that into a proper short story like. what a concept

[cypric-rat-hyperfixation]

As my following grows and as I meet more and more people who have rats, had rats, know someone who has/had rats, and love rats...

increasingly I wonder if/when a day will come... a day that I'll express rat enjoyment to someone and they'll enthusiastically ask me if I've heard of This Funnie Little Rodent Blog they like, figuring I may already know it or will enjoy it if not...

and it's.. my blog... and then I have to come out as popular Rat Tumblr blogger that they follow and now know IRL.......

#/lh #I'm saying this like it's some big deal but I'm just exaggerating for comedic effect adjfgsbkdfj #no idea what the likelihood on that looks like. based on statistics of people estimating statistics? probably likelier than we all think #anyway that time I posted a survey for a university research project here and you all wound up comprising 2/3 of our sample was so funny #I had to actually say in an academic research paper that one possible flaw in our study #was bias that may result from 2/3 the sample having come from a niche and extremely specific demographic of people #due to the fact that they flocked in from One Of The Researchers' Substantial Online Following Centered Around A Particular Theme #And Selected Specifically To Have Only A Certain Kind Of Person On It Via Boundaries And Blocking #literally you all made up 98/150 respondents (but that's assuming all digital responses were from y'all-- we had 52 paper responses) #ah but the research symposium was the best. in the paper I was able to remain that generic about it #but at the research symposium. well it's a glorified science fair. so participants have their own stations set up and observers tour them #as the participants speak to their audience; directly providing a summary and then answering any questions #some of the audience/observers are faculty and most are fellow students #so real scholarly scientific types yeah? so they had questions. thoughtful questions #long story short I confessed to numerous listeners throughout the day that the sample's bizarre gender ratio is probably my fault #around 57% women; 21% nonbinary adults; 17% men-- an unusual proportion #so I had to academically tell my professors... underclassmen..... my classmates....... acquaintances.... foes.......... #... that I'm big famous in Rat #and it was so. djkjSBCJXHQKRIGAJFSHF

[mythicalcoolkid]

"Noooo what if this person is actually cis and only using they/them for clout???" CIS PEOPLE ARE ALSO ALLOWED TO USE THEY/THEM

#m/cc #just found out Demi Lovato went back to using she/her and people are saying she was lying #like. a) nonbinary people can use she/they or just she/her #b) people can have fluid identities or pronouns or experiment with their identities #c) if she's in the spotlight we have no idea what all reactions or pressure she might've gotten to go back to she/her #(including being denied work or just being misgendered all the time anyway) #and d: CIS PEOPLE CAN STILL USE THEY/THEM #like I GET it the concept of 'queer tourism' sucks (though for the record SHE STILL IDENTIFIES AS NONBINARY!!) #but also like even if she was cis the whole time SHE STILL WOULD BE 'ALLOWED' TO USE THEY/THEM #I had a cis woman prof who used they/them to avoid misogynistic biases in academia! #I've known cis male drag queens who used they/them to avoid the question of pronouns when switching in and out of drag! #I've had friends who identify as fully cis but 'my gender/sex/identity is none of your business screw off' they/them #not even mentioning the litany of people who are binary because they don't feel extremely Not Binary (the 'eh sure' cis folks) #the gender nonconforming people for whom not conforming extends to not using those pronouns #the people who use they/them as a personal or political statement #the folks who are questioning and are 'tentatively/theoretically cis' #yelling that cis people aren't 'allowed to' use neutral pronouns is the opposite of 'abolishing gender' #like congrats you're making this space less safe for cis AND nonbinary people! you've helped neither group #anyway. cis people are allowed to try out pronouns and change their mind and use multiple pronouns and do any kind of combo they want #I understand why it's frustrating to see a celebrity 'try out' they/them and go back to she/her when she got tired of it #but that's not a reason to put up this weird gate that makes EVERYONE less safe as a result #it's 3 AM and I'm tired

[cruelsister-moved2]

you said you weren't gonna elaborate but ifyou have time could you on that point that most cis women will only give their genitals as what ties them to womanhood. not sure I understand the implication bc in my experience that's true and I've also wrestled with the same idea a lot bc of being in that space between cis and nonbinary where it's like well I don't feel like what society says a woman is but to pretend that all cis women do is misogynistic. jw your thoughts because i think abt it a lot

yeah I think about it too... obligatory The Quote:

anyway yeah I just I don't know how to say this without coming off dismissive to people who find other frameworks useful to understanding their existence but there really is only how you want to live in reality and what gets me is the... assuming people who don't use certain labels dont have the same interior complexity as you(ie the pansexual effect). no one can ever see your internal Experience of Gender and you can never see anyone else's so it feels like there might actually be an upper limit to how useful it is to engage with. idk maybe I'm just too autistic for all this stuff but I feel like on the internal level you, to yourself, are just you. gender is literally a relational framework that we use to categorise OTHER people so we are all going to feel some amount of awkwardness about the attempt to apply it to ourselves internally. I think some people, upon discovering this, are a little too hasty to assume everyone else (esp cis women) has an easy time doing that. So i guess THAT'S what i mean, like a lot of people are just straight up NOT doing that and just not considering themselves as having a say and therefore not thinking about it. which isn't to say that they don't have complex feelings about themselves as individuals in a gendered society, or even that they might not hypothetically feel equal or better about existing in the opposite category, if they were able to consider that for themselves.

Like im femme4butch I'm obviously a big enjoyer of fun with gender performance but I do feel like ultimately your options are like "I'm expected to be in group A but group B feels at least somewhat less terrible to me" or "neither group A nor group B feels at all comfortable for me" or "existing sometimes in group A and sometimes in group B depending on the context is preferable to me" etc. and each of those encompasses a host of internal experiences of gender but it just skips feeling like that is something fundamental that we automatically owe each-other and require to understand each-other and decides that actually in terms of interactions with other humans our efforts are best placed in facilitating others moving through the world in a way that's most frictionless for them. and internally within the LGBT community who even cares because its only recently that cis gay people have even had a category resembling cisness open to them bc previously manhood and womanhood were so inherently contingent upon heterosexuality (spoiler: they still are it's just you can at least theory cut out the gender of attraction and replace it). i think this is why people are increasingly identifying with terms like transsexual again because it DOES feel relevant to their identity that much of their lived experience is organised around moving through the world as other than their cagab. ithink once you acknowledge that gender isn't defined for you (either by your genitals or like your Male Brain or Female Soul or whatever) then it kind of turns the concept of what even is gender into soggy cardboard anyway, and trying to articulate the specific qualities of ur handful of soggy cardboard is largely pointless in comparison to what container youre going to put it in. and if that begs the question of why we're putting soggy cardboard into all these different containers anyway, well then there you go

#ask #anon #i feel like you already know how you feel bc like #yeah i dont feel like what society says a woman is > who the hell does though > what does this mean for whether we accept the category #(on the condition that we modify/recreate it on our own terms) #or reject the category to create a new one that accomodates us #is that actually a meaningful binary #etcc #anyway i would read kadji amin if ur having these questions #i dont always agree w how scathing he is but he kind of critiques the nonbinary-as-political-statement-as-identity thing #his book is called 'we are all nonbinary' if that gives u an idea lol #i have like.1001 thoughts about lesbian relationships to womanhood in particular but thats one for another day bc this is already too much #i feel like attempting to inhabit the brain of a cishet women in order to write this response has drained me so much

[unproduciblesmackdown]

it's not about that you "have" to get to exercise your autonomy. b/c like, yes you do, but not in the way that "if i don't get to do that Now i will explode & evaporate (& die)" which is what people keep leveraging to be like "so you don't have any valid argument for getting to act out your own choices"

therein is another issue of "why do you need a 'valid argument' to get Exceptions as ruled by this person to exist autonomously, unpunished" like why's this person an authority who gets to punish you. nonrhetorically, why do you have to appeal to their maybe possibly deciding to Let you be a person. should you "have" to.

and if you don't get that Permission that you supposedly "have" to get, you also will not immediately explode and die if you do that unpermitted thing, but shocking how "you don't Haaaave to" is only invoked re: things you want to do for yourself, and not what they want you to do for them....because it's Not Really About "Literally literally Haaaaving to"

the alignment between people getting on one for years about asexuality, and while doing so maxing out the saturation on their bullshit on any & everything, b/c you're just getting into anti autonomy, so ofc you're also just stoking & expressing "arguments" against autonomy that are deployed in plenty of other contexts, including against other queer identities....and that particular resonance with biphobia & transphobia, and how either groups are theoretically thwarting the Truest Gays because how will we have a valid argument against the truest cishets agenda if we can't convince them we haaaaaave to be like this instead of that no, we won't explode & die if we have to be repressed or at least closeted another day, and another, and you won't explode after another, either, etc. rather than thee point of "asexuality autonomy = queer autonomy = Your queer autonomy = Anyone's Autonomy" and "why do we 'have' to Convince anyone to go 'oh alriiiight' abt one's choices about how they express their identity, what decisions they make about having sex"....it's about anyone having the power to preclude & restrict others' autonomy & constrain their existence between one kind of more imminent, immediate harm/death & a more drawn out one where you exist as a resource for others' use but at least you aren't Literally dead today. so what if someone's saying "well i don't think your gender/sexuality stuff is Real" so long as they can't get in the way of other people living that out anyways. so what if someone's supposedly like "well, but everyone could be bi" (which they don't. just like ppl were never 'pretending' to be asexual to nefariously stand around in the queer space that never rigorously vetted everyone anyways? Making Up A Guy To Get Mad At) to supposedly argue that if all of you are bi you can just restrict yourself to the Cishet Appearing manifestations (which they don't) where what's that even matter if this [guy to get mad at] can't make that anyone else's problem? if he can, why can he. should he be able to. that's the problem, not "have we all tried the constant biphobia wherein they're always thwarting & sabotaging the rest of us?? like how trans people are keeping us from being legitimate?? with the opportunity for some trans people to also try declaring other noncis people Not Legitimately Trans?? well the cishet agenda loves asexuals, actually, they want everyone to never have sex ever (they don't want that, and that's not what being asexual is)"

using the "you can't Know through Direct Perception or extrasensory phenomena what someone else's Thoughts And Feelings are" both ways; wherein their assertion of their intentions, true or not, gets to be treated as an assertion of Reality, meanwhile b/c Your intentions/thoughts/feelings can't be directly observed, you're just lying or exaggerating or misremembering or failing to Express yourself correctly b/c they would've surely interpreted it correctly otherwise, or [anything else] re: your inner experiences that you can't "prove" are one way or another, so this other person gets to always decide for themself what they must be (why?) and if they just so happen to decide they Must be in alignment with what they want (good) or unacceptably, evilly, incorrectly Against Them, they also get to flex their control over the entire situation via their Authority / control over resources / the person's lack of other options b/c of isolation & that, say, breaking away from a family, job, marriage or just deemed correctly romantic relationship, is punished by the larger system of How Things Are, through a lack of resources that makes you more vulnerable in general as well as vulnerable to further punishment in how you might try to respond to that situation, through the general stance that maintaining cohesion of a Unit like the nuclear family, the "romantic" "man"/"woman" couple, is good, so breaking from it is deviant........anyways it's like. if you're like "well i'm having sex b/c i want to" and someone is like "well i say YOURE LYING" like, what? "isn't there someone you forgot to ask" shit. why should that get to affect things. whether you're like "oh no. what if they could say 'you're lying...b/c how do i knowwww you're not BI. where you could want to have sex with someone BESIDES this one person rn?? or ACE??? if you Don't have sex rn and you Don't explode and die 5 min later we will Know you Could Be Asexual" like, this isn't how it works anyways obviously but theoretically if it did: we would not be like "oh sorry guess that's what matters" unless what mattered was some people's being lower on a hierarchy and at the quite literal disposal of those with more power than them. what would the crisis be of someone going "well i think. every gay person? is bi" or someone going "you've just told me your name is gloria but i think your name is actually tetris...." or "i'm so embarrassed i wish everyone but me was dead" if none of these things can hinder the existence of people having sex w/autonomy for all involved or people getting to tell you their name or all other people being alive

the banger quote on my imdb page was saying "no, i don't 'Have' to, but i'm going to" to an authoritarian in my life, concluding several minutes' "negotiation" of [i 'have' to hang up on this call now b/c the movie i'm standing in this movie theater to see is about to start. no i won't explode and die if i don't. i also won't explode and die if i don't keep "talking" to you (being Talked At / lectured & upbraided from afar)] funny how that works. i also Know this was a checkmate b/c that person gave up on responding (or, technically, switched to The Silent Treatment, which worked even worse via phone than in person) and i did hang up rather than miss the movie i showed up for and then they had to resort to Other Methods: telling someone willing to take on the enabling cop mode that i had Essentially said Go Fuck Yourself. like well that's right, and the fact that it's a "go fuck yourself" to get to say "i am going to end the call b/c i choose to do something else" and then actually do so is a real testament to this relationship. and if one had said "i can't keep talking, i have to go" and someone's like "sldfj you mean thou MAY not keep talking" teehee i don't know, CAN you have the peas????? it's like this obviously doesn't matter. i can choose to do shit and choose to not do shit without exploding and dying right this very second, except for taking 5 sec to eat a deadly bomb with a timer set for 5 sec. This Is Not The Point. why is autonomy off-limits to Anyone.

#authoritarian parent whose silent treatments fail: anti crossdressing household law will get everyone to stop inconveniently Being People #spoilers: i continue to be a real life person; nonbinary; autistic; i continue to not engage in a relationship w/that parent b/c #Their choice was to have that relationship be the authority & the property. so the response to that: not being in that situation. #creating that kind of relationship & then being like ''why don't i get the Benefits of a different kind of relationship that is defined by #everyone being recognized as people and having actual positive experiences and legitimately Wanting to interact :('' #the autonomy to Not do something b/c you don't want to = the autonomy to Totally do something b/c you do want to #hence the idea of the True / Ideal Homosexual being ''but i Must Only have gay sex or i'll explode & die'' vs ''i feel like having gay sex' #yeah we ''could'' all be forced into binary genders & nuclear family units & be miserable & isolated but not literally explode. #but why should we. why would we. why can't we Not do that #hence as well that queer autonomy=everyone's autonomy. ppl who id as cishet? don't need to be Forced into that or into Awful Marriage Asap #but they do if we wanna isolate everyone / eliminate broader social support networks / restrict the autonomy to do anything else #asexuality handshake bisexuality. parallel to aromanticism handshake polyamory #and the backup to ''well but you won't literally die'' is to preclude Choice entirely by diverting the focus from [questioning ur choices] #to [questioning whether you have the capacity to make choices] as an extension. lens on ableism / disability justice is in Everything #not in like a ''huh. who'd've thought that overlapped'' Fun Fact way but in [you don't Understand that issue fully if you don't see ableism #someone's always getting to justify their authority by their Superior Ability vs others' Inferior/Absent Ability #saw that zany ''radical queer theory based on vibes is now that asexuals aren't queer'' streak definitely manifest ableism #a good ol fashioned ''asexuals won't consider What's Wrong With Them / try harder to seek some conversion therapy'' great stuff gang #or even more useless declarations of ''haha but most people Aren't ace. it's not Normal to not want to have sex. checkmate?'' #and what is your conclusion to that logic? ended up in ''ace ppl. are cringe!! & maybe not real!!!'' aaand what do we do with that? #what praytell do you suggest change based on that. how has that exclusionist analysis served queer lives. how is it continuing to do so. #versus like and who cares if everyone Could possibly all be labeled bi if what is In Practice anyways is ppl getting to have sex or Not how #they want to anyways. recognizing that Any trans person's existence is a testament to Everyone's autonomy #any ''threat'' to children is always guaranteed abt the Threat to [parents' control to decide Who & What a child gets to be] #that is; ''protecting'' children is abt the child being the property of parents. gotta protect That by withholding all info about trans ppl #even existing from kids b/c Property can't decide their identities for themselves so Children can't be allowed to either #their even knowing that some people Do get to exist autonomously is; indeed; that ''threat'' to the [child is property] order #and Language as Possibility. it's the 2010s & you can only go ''that's me i'm nonbinary'' when you learn abt the word ''nonbinary'' #even though you can then know you always knew but you didn't have the word so you had to keep on using other; more inaccurate words.... #discovering the tree trunk of [word: Autistic] that roots all these branches of ppl talking abt Experiences & now Realizing Things....

[saebaragi]

me: *opens random personality test*

the first question, for some reason: "are you a boy or a girl?"

me: *closes random personality test*

#random stuff on my account like usual #they dont make nonbinary/gender confused friendly 'what kind of dragon are u?' tests anymore #i hate gender #gender #stupid gender #gender identification #what is gender #gender identity #my gender crisis #questioning my gender #my gender confusion #gender confusing #gender confusion #gender crisis #nonbinary #personality tests #random personality tests

[inlovewithobsession]

bro i think i might be nb

#ive honestly been questioning my gender for a loooooooooong long time #since i was in my early teens tbh #and it comes up again from time to time #never really fit in with the girls. never really fit in with the boys. ynow how it is #i was always kind of just.. in the middle #i often feel like people are looking down on me when they refer to me as a woman #and i get kinda dysphoric when they refer to me as a man. even tho i use male pronouns for myself sometimes #like.. no..? im none of those..? #for a long time i thought i was genderfluid cause that was the closest thing to what i was experiencing but i think that wasnt it either #i never really 'vibed' with that term. it just didnt feel right #so lately ive been considering the possibility that i might be nb #i think i only know one or two other nb people irl #so im constantly thinking 'but how do i explain that im nb?' #'but i dont even look nb enough' #which is making me realize i may have a lot more.. prejudices? than i thought i had #maybe im not as open minded as i thought i was.. it kinda makes me feel disappointed in myself #but yea.. #i hate questioning my identity all the time and not knowing exactly who i am #nonbinary

[honeycordials]

gender ramblings below the cut feel free to ignore

okay I recently realized that I really really like the idea of using it/its pronouns but I'm very attached to womanhood and im not really thinking of myself as non-binary but I agree with their beliefs ya know? and i still really connect with she/her and i know i could use both but also even if I use both i don't think anyone would bother using it/its for me when she/her is right there and it's so much easier and more convenient and I really really want to be an it/its but I also love being a she/her cause I feel like a woman but also I want to be a little creature? its like I'm some kind of beast in the shape of a woman but not in a way that makes me feel trapped in my body or anything its like I'm a beast who has made the decision to be a woman also. is this even making sense? does this even count as anything related to gender expression or am I just weird? more than that, what if I find it very hot to be regarded that way in a sexual context? does that make it a kink/fetish thing instead of a gender thing? can it be both? furthermore, is this autism related? im almost certainly overthinking it but i can't stop thinking about this its like im stuck on it.

anyways if you read all of that I appreciate it and if you have any words of advice please share thank you

#personal #okay to interact #gender identity #gender expression #nonbinary #questioning gender #it/its #she/her #tbh im kind of looking for validation but also I want to hear from people who have felt similarly #xenogender #i added the xenogender tag because my research led me to that term and it sounds kind of like what I'm feeling

[rthko]

Earlier I talked about people who don't neatly fit within a cis/nonbinary/trans paradigm. It's an expensive, sensitive topic a lot of academics and activists are already talking about. Here's an inconclusive list of people to whom this may apply:

-Lesbians with no particular affinity to womanhood beyond being lesbians

-Same but for gay men

-Same as the first two points but with a big emphasis on butch lesbians and drag queens

-Cis people who have trauma, even dysphoria, with their AGAB, but can't find another gender or label they'd like any better

-Cis people of color who are excluded from eurocentric norms of what it means to look, act, and be cisgender

-Immigrants who had different gender norms in their country or origin who no longer fit in

-Neurodivedvent people for whom gender is just another set of confusing social cues

-Nonbinary people who refer to themselves as their AGAB as shorthand in day to day interaction (similar to choosing a "Starbucks name")

-Nonbinary people who partially identify with their AGAB

-People who view their gender, not as something essential to them, but as imperfect language to refer to a complex range of expressions and experiences

-People who change labels over time but have overlying experiences that transcend these changes

-People who grew up before nonbinary identity really proliferated and still use the nomenclature theyre used to (even if they're not considered cis by contemporary standards)

-People questioning their identity

-People who don't relate to western philosophical notions of "the self."

-People for whom their gender is, well, kind of hard to explain.

Cis is still an important term when denoting power dynamics, especially on a broad sociological level. But on a personal level, this category very often falls apart. Language can only do so much. Anyway, there's a lot I still don't know but I just listened to an excellent episode of the Gender Reveal podcast with trans historian Jules Gill-Peterson where they discuss they question what it means to be cis (and how it applies to institutions vs individuals), along with so many other topics that I found fascinating. Give them a listen!

[transmascrage]

Video by ErinInTheMorning on TikTok

[Transcript (there's captions on screen but in case you can't turn on audio):

Erin: "File this one away for the transgender history books, whenever they write about our history; today Lindsey Spero, a trans man, stood in front of the Florida Board of Medicine, which was about to vote to medically ban all gender affirming care for trans youth.

He stood there to deliver his testimony, he delivered a little bit of it, but then he took the remainder of his testimony time to stand there and inject his hormone therapy in front of all of them in stunned silence, and then he turned around and raised his fist. Watch this."

Lindsey: "My name is Lindsey Spero, I'm 25 years old, I'm a resident of St. Petersburg, Florida. I'm also transgender.

I am someone who was subjected to treatments that have been questionable, that were mentioned by people like that woman who came up and spoke, I can tell you for a fact that her child is going to grow up hating her.

I'm sure you've heard many stories that sound like mine already, over the last few months my trans siblings and family members have stood before you, put their hearts on full display and vulnerable pleaded with you to listen to our stories and perspectives.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has condemned your actions and our federal government has spoken out against the actions you seek to take regarding the necessary health care for trans youth.

I could stand here and tell you about the times I attempted to end my life because I didn't have access to gender affirming care but I know, I know you don't care. I see you sneering at us while we come here and talk to you.

Instead I'm going to take the rest of my time to demonstrate the sacred and weekly ritual of my shot in front of you, in this body.

My medication is life saving, I will use HRT for the rest of my life, your denial of my need for this medication, doesn't make my existence as a trans person any less real.

I will be giving myself my subcutaneous shot in my stomach. If you have a needle phobia, please look away."

Lindsey injects his T-shot in silence, helped by another person who passes him a needle and the testosterone in its vial.

After finishing, he raises his fist and turns around to the audience.

Lindsey: "Tomorrow and forever."

The crowd cheers and a few people get up to clap.

Erin: "That, that is what I'm talking about! Good job Lindsey! This is the kind of resistance that matters!"

End transcript.]

(As a sidenote, it seems that Lindsey identifies as nonbinary, not necessarily (or exclusively, anyways) as a trans man. Some articles identify him as transmasc but all of his socials state nonbinary.)

#lgbtq #queer community #trans ftm #transmasc #transphobia #trans youth

[strawberry-crocodile]

I notice that a lot of tme trans people walk into transmisogyny discourse talking about the obscurity or contradictory nature of their identity (theres the classic misogynist with Fagdyke in bio) and I think it's mostly because that's the primary form violence and bigotry between tme trans people take? Nonbinary identities and questions of who can use what slur, stuff like that. The kind of thing that truscum start harassing people over. To these people, that's often the shape of intra-queer violence? But transmisogyny is just an entirely different axis.

And this disconnect manifests in a few ways. For one, the symbols of safety against truscum types (fagdykery, a pet cis guy) do not signify anything of the sort to trans women, so we get puzzling posts like "a pet cis guy is proof there's no TERFs", meanwhile TERF groups can be over half cis men, because TERFism's primary focus is trans women. We get people showing up to discussions of transmisogyny flashing their seemingly-contradictory identity as something like a badge of Queerer Than Thou. At its worst, its using the language of this kind of identity discourse to attack the language transfems use to describe ourselves and our oppression ("tme is rebinarizing me!")

All this, of course, is ignoring that one of the ways transmisogyny manifests is the assumption that tma people have a more simplistic relationship to gender than other queer people do.

#dalucaray #tme ppl

[uncanny-tranny]

The trans experience of getting lucky with a new primary care provider who doesn't care about your transness or transition so long as you're getting the proper care

Manifesting this for every trans person because I finally felt like a normal human being going to a doctor

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #transphobia #transphobia tw #i have avoided doctors for like... four years now because of how awful they are toward trans people 🤩 (sarcastic star-eyes emoji) #i thought i didn't have anxiety anymore until i made a first appointment with this new primary care provider i have... #...and when they were doing my vitals and got to the blood pressure screen i was shaking (which i normally am tbf) #i will be fair and say i have had more negative experiences with mental health providers though #but since i've avoided doctor-doctors i haven't had the time TO have negative experiences #my dad was actually really kind and asked if my doctor tried being transphobic and i realized... NO! he didn't even try! #my dad's first question was if dr. [redacted] tried to talk me out of testosterone and i was like shit... no he didn't!! #and i felt like a normal person seeing the doctor albeit with a lot of anxiety but i was treated normally :) #it feels SO nice after feeling like a lab rat or like in the movies where a psychiatrist comes out to explain what transsexuality #explain what transsexuality is*

[thehmn]

I’m intersex and I’m very hesitant to make this post because it could very quickly turn into a shitshow if I don’t word my thoughts correctly, but I’ve noticed a small, slowly growing trend and I think it’s important to talk about this before it gets out of hand.

I’ve seen a couple of posts with a lot of likes and reblogs where trans people accuse intersex people of being transphobic when they want hormonal treatment or surgery for themselves to look more female or male. It’s never about forced surgery on intersex children, but specifically about adult intersex people who want treatment for themselves. In these posts people see it as subconscious transphobia because they think this mindset is supporting the gender binary and harms trans and nonbinary people who technically get intersex bodies once they start to transition with hormones and surgeries. In their eyes not only are intersex people who use hormones/surgery to visually get out of the intersex sphere abandoning trans people, they’re also working agains nonbinary people who use intersex people as proof that there are more than two sexes which justify the existence of more than two genders.

The fact that there are a lot of similarities between trans and intersex people should be obvious. Both groups are saddled with bodies that doesn’t necessarily represent their gender and both can experience severe body dysmorphia, but at the end of the day the biggest difference is that the bodies of intersex people change on their own.

If you’re trans, imagine if you were assigned your preferred gender at birth and was perfectly content and happy in your gender experience when you suddenly hit puberty and start developing sex characteristics that goes against your gender and suddenly people around you start telling you you’re not actually the gender you think you are. Basically, imagine the way you felt before you came out/transitioned, except reversed.

I can for the life of me not understand why a trans person who thinks hormones and surgeries are acceptable for trans people can’t extend that mindset to intersex people.

It’s an ongoing debate among intersex people wether we belong in queer spaces and I can see both sides. A lot of intersex people consider themselves cishet people with a birth deformity who aren’t any more queer than people with dwarfism. Other intersex people feel more at home in queer spaces because there’s generally more acceptance of people who fall outside the norm.

But at the same time, in my experience, you get a lot of the same questions in both spaces. Both queer and cishet people often assume intersex means nonbinary, and I’ve been asked more than once how intersex people can call themselves cis or trans when their bodies fall outside the two majority sexes, forgetting that it’s all about what gender you were assigned at birth.

This leads to situations where you’ll meet trans men with functioning penises and trans women with natural breasts. A child might be born with something that looks like a vagina with a big clitoris and be assigned female but once they hit puberty the big clitoris becomes a small penis.

And even if they’re trans and start developing sex characteristics more in line with their true gender they might not be ready for it yet. As a teenager you become a target if you stand out so if you’re a trans girl living as a boy and you suddenly develop breasts that can be horrifying.

I personally experienced a much milder version of this. As a child I was perfectly content with people calling me a girl but I also felt like a different kind of girl. Not in a “not like the other girls” or tomboy way. More like a girl with something else in the mix. It was a very physical feeling because I was naturally stronger and more boyish looking than other girls and I didn’t really feel like I fit in with either boys or girls but at the same time it didn’t bother me when I was grouped in with the girls during school activities. I’d play around with makeup in my room, giving myself a beard and chest hair without wanting to be a man. It just felt like the right mix. Then I hit puberty for real and developed breasts and hips but also a full beard and chest hair. Despite all the times I had done it to myself I was mortified. This wasn’t something I could take off. I stood out wether I wanted to or not. Shaving left me with stubble. People looked. People commented on it. And my breasts didn’t grow super big and a lot of my body fat sat on my stomach like on a man, which meant if I didn’t wear a very flattering bra and feminine clothes I was sometimes mistaken for a chubby guy with manboobs. I was NOT ready for that. I was already struggling to fit in at a new school so this was like a social death sentence, not to mention I wasn’t sure about my own gender yet. It was something I should be allowed to work out on my own in peace when I was ready for it without people constantly asking what I, a child, had in my pants.

So hormones was a gift that allowed me to “transition” when I was ready for it at a later age. I’m off those hormones now and live as a “woman with something extra” like I always knew I was, but the things I had to go through as a child makes me very sympathetic to intersex people who does not feel that way and just want to be a man or woman with nothing extra because that’s their gender and like everyone else they want their gender and gender expression to align.

I don’t think it’s fair to expect people to be a martyr for other people. Most intersex people think trans rights are important but that doesn’t necessarily mean they belong in that debate. I know a lot of trans people who think women’s rights are important but feel no obligation to help the cause by sharing their experience of what it was like living as one gender and then another and how much respect and dignity they gained or lost after they transitioned.

So while I understand the natural instinct of wanting intersex people be part of a lager cause I also think it’s unfair to call intersex people who want to look like their preferred gender transphobic.

I really hope I made myself understood and that this isn’t an angry post. I just saw this “intersex people are transphobic for taking hormones” opinion with little to no understanding of the intersex experience and I’m hoping to shed a bit of light on that ❤️

#long post #very long post #intersex #trans

[catboybiologist]

Be honest: do you think there are femboys who aren't just eggs?

Yes, and tbh I resent that their existence is questioned so much. And I know this is gonna be considered a Bad Take by many people I've fostered a community with, so uh. Yeah.

As a former femboy, and current dykey/tomboyish trans woman, gender nonconformity within your actual gender is an essential part of a trans or genderqueer identity. In a lot of ways, my transition goals are the inverse of being a femboy- I'm going from a feminine man to a masculine woman. And yet, the trans community doesn't question my feminimity as a masculine woman in the same places where many people would question the masculinity of a feminine man. And don't even get me started on where NB identities fit into all of this. This is largely coming from the same place where people are okay with women wearing pants, but men or AMABs in general wearing skirts is Bad (tm).

Like don't get me wrong. The caricature of the Bad Trans pushing all the femboys to become eggs is a wildly overexaggerated, and I've met many, many femboys online that used that caricature to excuse rampant transphobia. But. I hate that there's a but. But.... I literally experienced it myself many times during my femboy days, especially online. Here's a short list:

-Had a transmed bombard me with harassing messages and comments on reddit telling me that I was a "fencesitter" and I just needed to "fucking transition already and stop making trans people look bad"

-Had a trans woman I knew irl shove an estradiol pill in my face, and try to order me to take it, in front of a group of people I wasn't even fully comfortable presenting as a femboy to, until she was eventually asked by someone else to stop.

-Had several comments indicating that I should be force femmed in femboy subreddits

-Had many, many DMs trying to tell me I was a "failed man" that should just transition already

And to clarify- all of this is so, so mild compared to transphobia that myself and others face. But it is a very real thing that happens. To many femboys, I think this is the first time they've received any kind of queerphobia or questioning of their identity, so it feels far worse in their heads than it really actually is. And, to be fair, I think it mostly happens from the more gender binary minded cis community than it comes from trans people- but as I've said, I've had it coming from trans women both irl and online.

I've also tangentially noticed that it seems to be transmed adjacent. Not saying that this anon is, or others who try to encourage femboys to explore their gender, but there certainly is a correlation. If its difficult for you to acknowledge cis gender nonconformity, then its easy to see that extending to a lack of understanding of nonbinary people or others with different trans experiences.

Every time one of these things happened, it didn't put me any closer to transition. It made me feel unsafe. It made me feel on the spot, and scared, and almost outed.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again- if you want historical parallels to femboys, we have a perfect example in drag. Drag is performative, over the top femininity that has become its own artform, style, and means of expression in a way that is intrinsically tied to gender nonconformity. Being a femboy is also all of those things. And guess what? Many drag queens have used it as a way to explore their own gender and realize that they're trans. There are also many who are cis, and remain confident in that identity. Is the percentage of trans people among people who have done drag at some point higher than the general population? Of fucking course- its one of the few places where exploring gender is encouraged and celebrated. Of course trans people flock to that. And the exact same thing is true of femboys. Are a higher proportion of femboys trans or eggs than the general population. Of course. It's a great venue for trans people to explore their identities. But even more of them are

Am I saying you're a bad person if you encourage femboys and gender nonconforming people to consider the possibility that they're trans? Of fucking course not. It was the gentle, affirming pressure with respect and care for my comfort levels from several incredible trans women I know irl that eventually made me confident enough to start HRT. Their continually support is a key factor in my social transition plans for the future. I needed that pressure, and I think everyone, including people who aren't actively engaging in gender nonconformity, needs some push to question their gender and start unlocking cis+. But to be blunt, questioning whether cis femboys even exist is not gentle, comfortable, and affirming pushes.

#trans #transgender #femboy #gender #gender discussion #egg

[canyourfavesurvivecastledracula]

Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors?

ooooOOOooooooh

Does it make a difference whether ut's Audrey II from the original movie, from the stage musical, or from the film adaptation of the musical? I think their (her? its?) character is largely the same in all three, but I believe only the third text provides any mechanism by which the plant can be destroyed: electricity. And there is no electricity in Castle Dracula (presumably just one of many reasons he's looking for a new house).

The trouble with Audrey II is that she and Dracula are two of a kind - obligate hæmovores bent on conquest who exert a mesmeric power and have satanic/demonic coding (Audrey II as a Tempter, Dracula just for funzies). Who is playing whom? Is Audrey II there as Dracula's invited guest? Or did this Strange Plant just appear in the Castle during a TO-TAL E-CLIPSE OF THE SUN (da-doop).

[I looked it up, there was a total solar eclipse on April 16th, 1893 - the date on which, according to Stoker's notes, Jonathan Harker visited Mina at her schoolroom before departing for Transylvania - probably for the purpose of proposing. This is a convenient moment for Audrey II to have arrived on our planet. Unfortunately this eclipse was off the coast of Brazil, which is a bit out of the way for our purposes]

Okay it's bothering me - what are Audrey II's pronouns? The human characters refer to the plant as "it." Or should it be "she," because Audrey II self identifies as a mother (specifically, one that is mean, green and from outer space). Is there any clue botanically - Audrey II reproduces both sexually and asexually (that is, both via flowers and via cuttings - and possibly spores? As in "I swear by all my spores" - but Audrey II at least appears to be an angiosperm why are there spores?? But Audrey II is also an alien so maybe the question is "why not") I... yeah I dunno. You guys decide:

So okay. We know Audrey II can fake being in distress to basically beg for treats. Like Dracula, feeding seems only to increase its hunger (and power). All plants will happily drink blood (they sell blood meal fertilizer, it's a good source of potassium) but Audrey II seems to actually require it. Does this mean she doesn't require normal Plant Things like water and sunlight? Seymore initially cares for it like an ordinary plant and it doesn't help, but it remains unclear whether the blood is sufficient as well as necessary. Like, it's not like he stops watering it, right? Although given that the plant travels through space and arrives during an eclipse, it might well not require things like sunlight and rain.

Does Dracula want a houseplant that is going to be competing with him for nourishment? Or is it convenient that he doesn't have to go for groceries twice, as it were? Since Audrey II frequently eats people whole, is this a good waste disposal unit to avoid vampire toddlers clogging up the Castle? Will Audrey II be content being tossed the scraps and leftovers of the Castle's humanoid residents. Does Dracula really want a fourth thing in his Castle incessantly demanding to be fed? Audrey II is not particularly solicitous about her needs - and very much does not do as she's told.

Audrey II is fundamentally a Tempter - what can they offer to Dracula that he can't already do for himself? There's a reason that Audrey II textually preys on a desperate impoverished orphan - just as Dracula does. I want to say Audrey II is a master manipulator but... really all they seem to do is find a poor schmuck with nothing going for him, give him a taste of success, and then browbeat him into submission. Dracula will not respond well to this approach. Dracula is not really the right kind of Mark for the Mean Green Mother from Outer Space - until or unless he actually moves to London. It's no Cleveland, but it's still extremely edible.

I guess what I keep circling back to is that they're too similar. They want the same things - to glut themselves on teeming millions in an ever-widening circlre of ...plants... perhaps for centuries to come. Neither is terribly useful to the other because they each have the same role. Dracula is not going to be feeding Audrey II with his own blood - he may decide to feed it with other people's blood but... why? Audrey II can't tempt Dracula with fortune and fame and the girl of his dreams. Neither is going to be especially tolerant of the other's attitude. Most frustratingly, neither one can eat the other. Well, Audrey II physically can eat Dracula (if someone's been feeding her up to this point), but I doubt Dracula would fall for "come close enough to trip and fall into my open mouth" you know? Especially with the shape-shifting and the mistform and all that.

Okay wait I think I've got it. Dracula and Audrey II is kind of a non-starter, but Dracula isn't the only person who lives there. I think the Girlies and Audrey II could come to some kind of arrangement. They'd feed it their leftovers, and in return the world's Most Interesting Plant might be an ally for them against Dracula. Again though, nobody is going to respond well to Audrey II just hurling abuse at them when she doesn't get her way. But I am enchanted by the idea of the Girlies and their Green Best Friend moving to London in Dracula's place and opening a little flower shop and then just happily eating people together forever. Maybe they can set up next door to that pie shop in Fleet Street

I am gonna call this one at I really don't know

#little shop of horrors #audrey ii #botanica #aliens #opera and musicals