#deadname etiquette

[ghosthoodie]

Hmmm can you tell us a lil about Sicily’s post OE recovery?

SURE! let’s do it!

TW: vomiting, broken bones, violence

During the campaign

sicily, passed out from the fall, is woken by the sound of a rescue signal on her communicator. she doesn’t know what in the world is happening, but she starts to head toward the signal out of habit.

once she wakes up a little more, she can hear the sound of captain cuttlefish on the other line! knowing that, she starts to really pick up the pace towards where the signal is coming from.

she bursts through the roof of the central station, and lodges a punch towards the blender with so much force her forearm breaks in two.

the eights are saved, but soon after she passes out due to shock.

in cuttlefish’s negligence of her, his attention rightfully favoring the eights trying to escape, a sanitized octoling is able to sneak three away.

the octoling sacrifices a nearby octarian, crushing him into mush and plastering it on to sicily’s right side, the sheer thickness of the ooze rewiring half of her brain in favor of tartar.

during the fight with 8, she’s sort of in a dreamlike state, only feeling sensory abnormalities in or around herself, such as the lingering taste of hand sanitizer or the burning in her nose, and the ink that makes contact with her skin.

The Hospital

she’s comatose for 3 days before she wakes up. her dreams are still filled with sensory changes and the sound of voices around her.

when she wakes, she’s greeted by Caroline(4), Marie, and Aachi(Kaity, 8), who immediately swarm her asking if she’s okay!! caroline clings to her unbroken arm for the rest of their conversation.

when all is explained to her, she immediately is all over aachi, asking if he’s ok and stuff!! he’s like nono i’m fine ;o;

during her treatment at the hospital, she learns that too much excitement will make her vomit ooze, resulting in bouts where she can’t talk for a bit afterwards due to throat scratchiness.

she’s slowly being treated by extracting the sanitized ink from her body and replacing it with normal ink that matches her blood type, the only problem is her blood type is pretty rare, and the hospital soon runs out of their supply. they’re able to produce more, but they need a sample first.

everyone in the NSS is tested to see if they’re a match, and the only matches are callie and marie. marie, surprised, states that this type of blood pretty much only runs in their family.

marie donates her blood to be cloned, and soon after sicily learns she’s marie’s half-sister.

(BOOM!!!!! EXPLOSIONS!!!! I’M SO FREAKIN CRAZY!!!!!!!)

Recovery

after about a week in the hospital, sicily is discharged and lives in her apartment until she’s cleared safe. captain cuttlefish assigns aachi to live with her and monitor over her as she adjusts from her weakened state.

aachi’s still not quite over his rivalry with sicily, so often they’re snarky with each other, and aachi pokes at her over her unclean apartment, neglected because of the sheer time she spends as an agent.

most of the time it just ends with ‘whatever,’ ‘whatever!’ and sicily conks the fuck out and aachi secretly cleans up for her.

aachi discovers some photos of her and ryley and takes note of the fact that they’re in a relationship. all of a sudden he’s questioning: why am i jealous?

ryley comes to visit a few days after she returns to her apartment, and isn’t happy when he discovers aachi watching over her. blinded by his distrust of octolings, he starts viciously attacking 8. this continues, sicily screaming and begging for them to stop, until her mind has taken too much stress and she vomits all over herself.

the fighting comes to a standstill, and a bloodied aachi takes his opportunity to shove ryley out the door and shut it, screaming “Don’t come back!”

after a few hours, ryley calls off their 3 year relationship. sicily doesn’t know whether to be mad at aachi, ryley, or herself for starting all of this, but either way she’s pretty depressed.

regardless, she patches up aachi, sews his stitches and tells him about icing the swelling.

after that, sicily starts to teach aachi more about the world, including using her savings to buy him a phone, getting him hooked on starchy foods, and introducing him to lots and lots of board games.

they get pretty close after that. aachi begins to ponder just how pretty sicily is to him.

eventually sicily also teaches him about being queer, and tells him she’s bisexual. aachi, putting a finger on why he’s so obsessed with sicily’s appearance, realizes he desperately wants to be a girl.

sicily’s like fuck yeah! and thus, Kaity was born!

Training/Confession

after that, not a lot of interesting stuff happens except just a lot of training to try and gain back her strength!!

kaity’s crush on sicily begins to grow in size until it’s absolutely unbearable. it’s to the point where if sicily pins her during a spar, she’s left a flustered mess.

sicily begins to catch on, and knowingly teases her until she’s finally left to blurt out “I FUCKING LIKE YOU SICILY!!” and lots and lots of smooching ensues.

out of breath and kissed silly, sicily says “wanna be girlfriends?”

kait can only dramatically fall into her arms with a lovestruck stare and another kiss.

THAT’S ALL!! HOPE YOU FOUND THAT SILLY!

#sicily literally suffers so much shes my suffergirl #also i hope it’s not wrong to address kaity as her deadname/dead pronouns for this!! i’m really not sure what the etiquette for that is #anyway time for tagging #tw vomit #tw violence #tw broken bones #wooden speaks #kait(8) #sicily(3) #caroline(4) #marie cuttlefish #captain cuttlefish #agent 3 #captain 3 #agent 8 #agent 4 #splatoon oc #splatoon #octo expansion #digital art #artists on tumblr #my art #ask #anonymous

[transenbyconfessions]

Today in class my teacher said that the rules of etiquette say that if a person is transgender, you should address them ONLY by their NEW pronouns and name, and nevermind if you met them before their transitioning and know their old pronouns and deadname, AND I'M SO HAPPY TO HEAR IT, OMG, AAAAAAAAAA

Submitted June 5, 2023

#transgender #trans #enby #nb #nonbinary #non-binary #non binary #chosen name #pronouns

[brnineworms]

My thoughts on the trans rep in "The Star Beast"

This episode is haunted by the spectre of Good Representation™. Representation is a topic too expansive and nuanced for me to interrogate fully, so I'll just say I'm sceptical of the approach and the way it reduces trans (or otherwise marginalised) characters to plot points or blandly by-the-book portrayals. Also the idea that any single character can accurately represent an entire demographic is tenuous. Anyway.

Throughout the episode there's a huge focus on how beautiful Rose is, which is... I mean, I'd hardly be the first person to point out how Weird people (cis people especially) can get about how trans people look. And I get that this is probably a deliberate attempt to counter transphobia, to stress that trans people are cherished and deserve the world. It is a sweet sentiment I suppose, but it can come across as a bit... insincere? patronising? fetishistic, even? You have to recognise that correlating a person's worth with how beautiful you think they are is problematic in and of itself.

I actually really like the scene where Sylvia is stumbling on pronouns and worrying about whether or not it's okay to call Rose gorgeous. It's cute. It's genuine. I wasn't sure about the boys on bikes scene that preceded it – I thought deadnaming Rose was a clumsy way to establish that she's trans – but I've watched the episode again and my opinion has softened. I think it works well to have the malicious misgendering side-by-side with the accidental misgendering, showing that, yes, there is a difference. I know this already, but cis people who get confused about terminology and etiquette might benefit from watching this.

Speaking of pronouns... haha. Yeah, I did not like the "are you assuming he as a pronoun?" "my chosen pronoun is the definite article" exchange. Very awkward and nonsensical. It could have worked with some tweaking, but as it stands it feels more like a transphobic joke than actual dialogue. Ditto "male-presenting Time Lord."

Side note: why are some people so thrown off by the Doctor's gender? It's really not that complicated. The Doctor's pronouns vary depending on whether we're talking about an individual incarnation or the Doctor as a whole, encompassing all incarnations. If we're talking about a specific Doctor, they've all been he/him so far except for the Thirteenth and Fugitive Doctor (both she/her). If we're referring to all Doctors as one entity, it makes sense to use they/them since they're not consistently one gender or another. The Doctor is technically nonbinary I guess but only because they have the ability to regenerate into any gender. They're genderfluid only if you squint.

ANYWAY.

Is Rose nonbinary? Again, the "binary, binary, nonbinary" line just felt like a joke. Plus it doesn't make a lot of sense as a plot point/reveal. Rose's gender shouldn't actually be relevant because what's important for the meta-crisis thing is that she's Donna's offspring. There's also the fact that Rose had been presented as a trans girl until that point – no indication that she's nonbinary. Yes, it is possible to be a nonbinary girl, but it seems more likely to me that RTD just thinks nonbinary and trans are synonymous. Which is not the case.

The thing is, as I've alluded to already, Rose is an example of trans rep written by cis people for cis people. RTD's heart is in the right place, for sure, but he doesn't really know what he's talking about. I would say I appreciate the effort? But I don't know what the effort was in aid of exactly. I suppose it's nice for cis people to be told it's okay to stumble on pronouns sometimes, and to be shown that transness isn't a horrible and scary thing. I dunno. It's frustrating that trans people in life and in fiction have to educate and inspire and reassure cis people all the time... but we live in a society, don't we? And I'm sure there will be plenty of young trans people thrilled to see someone like them on TV, even if the execution could have been better.

#doctor who #doctor who spoilers #the star beast

[tijuanabiblestudies]

... why did a butch chew your face at the club?

*deep breath* OK SO

i am 19 years old and a freshman in college. my egg is not even lightly chipped at this point; for all intents and purposes i am a girl. it is a friday night and i am sitting at my dorm room desk, probably on livejournal. my roommate comes in and says "hey [deadname]! wanna come to [local nightclub]? it's gay night!"

(during my girl years, i largely identified as bisexual. my roommate, a straight girl, knew this, hence the invitation.)

"sure," i say, "what the hell," and proceed to doll myself up for a night on the town. my outfit is perhaps not strictly relevant to the tale but i am going to describe it anyway. from bottom to top, i am wearing:

knee-high silver boots

black fishnet stockings

black miniskirt

red-on-black My Chemical Romance off-the-shoulder top (Revenge era; iirc it had some cool art of a graveyard on it)

on the face: black eyeliner, red lipstick

and to top it all off: red-on-black pinstriped fedora. or trilby, i guess, if you want to be pedantic, but everyone at the time called them fedoras.

thusly prepared, i join my roommate and several others from our dorm and we pile onto a bus and head downtown. we get to the club. the music is bad, but i start dancing anyway. as i do, i notice a butch gal standing on the edge of the dance floor, looking at me. i look back, make eye contact, smile a little bit. i am not expecting anything in particular to come of this. clubbing etiquette is unfamiliar to me.

the next thing i know, she is RIGHT up on me. bumping and grinding ensue, followed in short order by kissing. rather intense kissing, in fact. by which i mean she is biting me, repeatedly and not at all gently. lips, neck, collarbones--pretty much everywhere above the tits seems to be fair game. bite bite bite.

i...have no idea how to handle this situation. in retrospect, the solution seems obvious: use words and/or body language to convey that i am not fond of what is happening and would like it to stop please.

i do not do this. my entire brain freezes up like the proverbial deer in headlights and i just sort of accept my new life as a chew toy.

it goes on for a while. time loses all meaning. i have long since lost track of the people i came with. i am vaguely aware that straight men (it's "gay night" at a club in a college town, of course it's lousy with straight tourists) are appreciatively watching me get eaten alive. my, uh..."dance partner" (neither of us is even pretending to move to the music) speaks to me a few times; at one point, she laughingly says "you're so serious!" and i have less than no fucking idea how to respond. at other points, i can't hear her over the music and just sort of make what i hope are appropriate faces and/or noises. all the while, the biting continues. it hurts rather a lot.

finally, finally, 2am rolls around and the club prepares to close. my masticator mercifully releases me. i do not even bother trying to find my roommate et al. i retrieve my coat from the coat check and get the fuck out of dodge.

it being late, the buses have stopped running. i have no way of getting back to my dorm short of a long hike, and these boots were not made for walkin'. it is cold and i am tired. i find an unlocked door in a university lecture hall and sleep on a bench inside, for some value of "sleep."

after sunrise, i head back to the bus stop. in is now the weekend, so the buses don't start running until later, but luckily there is a girl at the bus stop who is also trying to get to the same general area as i am, and she calls a cab and lets me share it with her.

when i get back to my dorm and check myself out in the mirror, i find that i am covered in bite marks. remember the red lipstick i had on? it's gone now. my lips, instead, are purple.

i wish i could end this with a moral about underage drinking, but i was stone cold sober the entire time.

#storytime with jonas

[anti-abuse-culture-is]

Antiship culture is knowing several names of several groomers in the anti proship community (NAFEDUDE, Dr Pizza, princessxemnas, id0lomantises to name a few), coddling to them, thinking that the Reddit post is fake while attacking a lesbian who hid their art on a private account, stalking (in real life), deadnaming and misgendering a transgender person over a meme about fictional characters, outing a queer person to their homophobic family (in a country where being queer is illegal) over a sfw drawing of two MHA guys bathing, trivializing real child abuse by calling it child porn and not csam, trivializing the severity of it and sexual abuse in general by comparing it to drawings, distributing real csam or sending gore to people while joking about how it’s “just pixels/words on a screen”, telling a CSA survivor that they were “pedo bait” at the time of their abuse because of the way they dressed but people, including psychologists and fandom goers, who are for proper tagging, for blocking people and for upholding basic respect & fandom etiquette, for acknowledging that someone’s tastes in fiction are absolutely no indicator of their real life morals, who understand that fiction CAN but does not affect reality on a 1:1 reality are the problem and the art or fanfics they like or make has a bigger effect on reality than mainstream media.

Anyway, when was the last time you “normal people” have looked outside of your bubbles and realized that the shit you’re doing is the same as qanon and gamergate cultists who are going after marginalized people? Same rhetoric, same arguments, same way of thinking after all. They’d welcome you with open arms…

we do not know shit abt this and barely use this acc anymore. if you can provide sources we'll happily reblog them because we geninely think everything you listred is abhorrent! please do not assume we are okay with those people!

[why-its-kai]

man an interaction that really ingrained in me permanently was in like 2007 or so when i was about 13 years old and it was one of the first times i was in an online chatroom thing (it was on deviantart) and i was just so excited to be talking to people so quickly instead of just replying comment threads and i had a lot to say and i was so excited and talking a lot. perhaps not the best chatroom etiquette but i was so new to this kind of communication and didn't really know better (not to mention my undiagnosed and untreated lds affecting my social abilities in general). but then in the midst of the chat one person says to me something like "(deadname) STOP THAT YOU'RE SO OBNOXIOUS"

and so i stopped talking

left the chat

i don't think i ever used that part of the site again

and after that, i just totally avoided chatrooms altogether. i did one on one chats on aim with friends on occasion but never touched chatrooms on websites or even joined group chats.

started using discord in like 2017, initially just for the one on one chats i think but i don't remember at this point. over time joined a few servers and a select few became regular places i visited and feel like i am a part of. but still sometimes i catch myself talking a lot in the chat, infodumping, going on offtopic tangents, and while no one has ever been rude to me about it in any servers, i always have that old message pop up in the back of my mind. i'm being obnoxious.

and so i stop talking and back out for a while.

telling myself not to be so obnoxious next time. to shut up and just stop saying things that are irrelevant to the main chat that no one cares about. not to be annoying.

i don't remember the name of the deviantart user who told me i was obnoxious in the chat. i don't think they meant it to hurt me like this, i think they were just frustrated with my lack of chatroom etiquette interrupting a conversation they were having. they were probably the same age as me too. we were just kids on the internet still developing social skills. but still, this interaction managed to lodge itself so deep into my brain that it continues to regularly affect me 15 years later. funny how that kind of thing happens huh.

#long post #sorry just. gotta talk about this right now bc i am experiencing the I'm Being Obnoxious Guilt #and i guess its explanation for anyone who happened to be in a server with me where i do this and have noticed lol

[cilan-radical]

I FUCKING LOVE GEOCACHING

Just a little reminder

If there's swag (something we all get) in there, make sure to trade your own item!!

We've found twelve so far

Ah. Yes, I am familiar with the etiquette of geocaching. My system used to do it regularly with the family, but apparently exhausted all local ones. I simply made a new account that is not attached to our deadname.

#[[asks]] #~ anonymous #it is enjoyable as a concept. however moreso when there is more reward than merely marking it as found.

[awkwardwriterpilot]

What I’ve Managed to Gather about Pronoun and Deadname Etiquette in writing/dialogue:

I’ve been thinking about the fact that this way of speaking and writing seems to be the norm among the trans people I’m friends with in general, but the rest of the world hasn’t been told clearly how to talk about us (in conversation, journalism, fiction, etc.) It’s a pretty simple linguistic rubric to follow, probably more so than the “mumbling and looking scared and swapping pronouns every five seconds” routine I see from people far too often. 

1) Err on the side of what is correct in the present. Don’t use old pronouns in any context, (unless given specific permission in the moment by the person you’re speaking about), even if directly quoting from a past interaction.

Yes: “John went to elementary school in the next neighborhood over, his favorite subject was math.”

No: “Allison-- I mean he used to use that name- before she was a he- remember her? you know- went to elementary school in the next neighborhood over.”

So many cis people make their lives so much more difficult than they need to be. Sigh.

This applies even if it’s a direct quote from before someone has come out, or from someone who refuses to acknowledge the person’s identity, and the quote’s strict accuracy might be skewed by your retelling. That doesn’t matter. It’s about respect. Goddamnit.

Yes: “And then her Mom said: ‘Look over there at Ashley! She’s got your surfboard!’”

No: “And then her Mom said: ‘Look over there at Adam! (that used to be her name, she was a guy)! He’s got your surfboard!”

2) Don’t use neutral pronouns and terms of address if you know that the person you are talking about uses different ones. I cannot believe the amount of people I hear and read doing this in the year of our lord 2020. 

Yes: “This is my sister, Thalia. She recently came out to us as transgender, and now uses she/her pronouns and has changed her name.”

No: “This is my sibling. They have chosen to go by the name ‘Thalia’, and they used to be my brother and they are using the pronoun ‘she’.”

Bonus Content--> It is acceptable to use neutral pronouns in these instances: - When you’re not sure what a person’s gender identity is, and they have not told you their preferred pronouns.  - When the person in question is nonbinary and/or has asked for you to use they/them pronouns and neutral terms of address, like sibling, spouse, and child rather than brother/sister, husband/wife, son/daughter.

Unless you have been given specific permission by a specific trans individual in a specific setting, these are acceptable rules of thumb when interacting with and writing about trans people whose previously used identities you (or your readers) know. Other people please add on things I have forgotten. I’m so tired.

~ Mr. Taylor

#trans stuff #lgbtq #grammar #english #you know #I ought to write an english grammar book but everyone has already written those #linguist brain snaps On at 3am #i guess #!! I just like words #I'll stfu #deadname etiquette #pronoun etiquette

[deadlytrans]

Basic Trans etiquette

In light of Elliot Page coming out, I’ll remind you of basic trans etiquette. Media, takes notes.

Never use their birth name, there’s a reason we refer to it as our “dead name”

“She is now a he” or “he is now a she” is hurtful and one of the worst things to say

Use the right name and pronouns and correct the people that don’t

Don’t ask people about their genitalia or their sex life

Don’t ask trans people what surgeries they plan on having or what surgeries they have had

Don’t “out” a trans person (remember trans people get murdered for being themselves)

Use terms like “cisgender” instead of “normal”

Don’t ask a transgender what their “real name” is

If you know someone that’s trans, be a good ally, learn more about trans people by your own initiative

#trans #ftm #mtf #trans rights #transgender #trans male #transition #lgbtq #lgbtq community #lgbtquia+ #trans etiquette #elliot page #deadname #birthname #i feel like all of these should be in bold #lgbtq positivity #lgbtq+ etiquette

[chaotic-neutral-toga]

good job deutsche welle

#elliot page #deutsche welle #trans etiquette #deadnaming

[magdolenelives]

(via)

#trans #trans etiquette #mlop #elliot page #transphobia #deadnaming #pronouns #mogii #lgbtq

[iamnot-theboynextdoor]

man. as much as i complain about my mum on here, she's started trying. she's gone to see a psychologist. she's being more open with me (and i'm finally able to listen since i'm on the right meds). i think we're both starting to understand each other

we watched *the long call* yesterday, which was her idea (since she likes crime dramas) but most importantly, she said she wanted to watch it with me because the main character is gay, has a husband, and has moved back near his extremely religious mother (she's in a cult)

and there were some very important scenes where he confronts her about how being raised in shame and fear fucked him up, how her abandoning him and kicking him out when he said he wasn't religious fucked him up, how if "only god can judge" why was it *her* place to keep telling him he was going to hell?

like. two years ago i don't think my mum would have touched this with a ten foot pole without retching profusely. and now she's the one who found this show and asked me to watch it, not the other way around

and there was this funny moment - the only moment when being deadnamed is hilarious. she didn't do it on purpose and immediately apologised for her mistake. for context, she hasn't deadnamed me in *years*, she struggles with pronouns but she's good with my name even though she hated me changing it (and i should have been giving her more credit for that, really). the character was talking about his fucked up childhood and i know she was probably thinking of me as a kid because when she saw me crying she said "i'll hug you, [deadname]- wait- NO I'M SORRY" and it was actually so funny, like it was hilariously terrible, like the worst possible thing she could have said, like a comedy sketch. like i'm crying over my own shame of being queer and in an effort to comfort me she deadnames me. i know it's just because she was picturing me as a little kid (and she hasn't quite got the etiquette of "use my current name even when talking about my past") and the tension kind of immediately broke and i pissed myself laughing. i wanted to give her a "you tried" sticker.

anyway *the long call* is a good show and the guy who voiced bob the builder played a character which is funny

we also had a funny moment when she referred to the main character's husband as his "friend" (she always does this with gay couples) and i was like "husband" and she said "that's true they’re wearing rings my bad" and then i said "...you and your friend [my dad]" and she laughed and said "okay i get it" and then "my frenemy really" (they bicker constantly due to constantly misinterpreting each other) and that was also funny

and afterwards she said "i think god made everyone different (read: me trans, my brother intellectually disabled) for a reason, and it's not a bad thing and i think all that matters is that you have a good heart and he sees that" and i appreciated that!

and then we watched a bit of wallander because tom hiddleston was in it and she teased me about maybe??? being gay. LISTEN I WILL TAKE TEASING ABOUT HAVING A GAY CRUSH ON TOM HIDDLESTON. i squirmed and performed embarrassment a little but secretly i was like "yes! this is what a parent is supposed to do, tease you about your celebrity crush and find it cute!"

anyway yesterday was a good day

#GOOD NEWS #I'M PROUD OF MY MUM

[enbies-and-felonies]

Recently I saw a post on trans etiquette (how to treat trans people), and it mentioned not acting like you deserve a medal just because you did the bare minimum by using the right pronouns and name, and I would like to say something on that.

It is true!! Using the correct pronouns is important!! Deadnaming is extremely bad, and harmful, and using the correct name is also really important. It’s not going out of your way to make someone feel better, like holding a door open or paying for someone else’s coffee in the line behind you.

It’s not really right to think you deserve a medal or a special shout-out for using the right name and pronouns, but it is okay to be proud of yourself for using them!!

Sometimes I still forget and view trans people as their agab, or their gender presentation, so I have to make a point to tell myself ‘no, they are this gender, and these pronouns’. It can be confusing sometimes, to know something as one thing and then find out it is a different thing, but it is so important to give yourself some positive reinforcement by being proud of yourself when you get it right :)

#in light of Elliot's coming out :) #and a post based around it #trans #transgender #pronouns #nonbinary #enby #agab #afab #amag #gender presentation #trans positivity #deadname mention #please spread so people know not to hate themselves for this

[dreadfutures]

We lost Joan Didion, in the same year that we lost my step-grandmother, and it feels like the world lost something that made it tick.

Like a room in the hallway I was walking down has been closed and locked away. Like the restaurant I was hoping to try someday has been shuttered before I ever had the chance. Like this brand of woman is an endangered species, a pedigree I have by adoption alone. Is it nature or nurture? Is it still attainable?

My step-grandmother was both supremely cool and also deeply invested. And she was kind. Cool in her interests, which were many--she was cultured, well-read, well-traveled, well-educated, both in the avant-garde and in the academic and classical; she had been to as many crass and crude plays as she had been to high-brow operas--and cool in attitude.

She was classy. Someone could have thrown a brick through her sitting room window and she’d have continued reading the NYT unphased. She was a tiny, tiny elderly Jewish woman and yet she navigated New York City with no fucks given. She was high-class, widow of a real estate mogul in Manhattan and owned her own brownstone in Greenwich. She employed the etiquette of Michelin star restaurants that was second nature. She owned her own. Her grandchild came out as trans before it was remotely acceptable and she never deadnamed him once. She got on her hands and knees to play with the train tracks beneath the pool table upstairs when the grandchildren were visiting. She was the kind of woman people would spend money just to spend the afternoon with.

She was supremely New York, in the way that somehow Joan Didion was supremely LA to me. Which is weird to think about, given how Joan Didion is also quintessentially New York to me as well--moving there, living there, dying there. But she was steeped in California and counterculture, and had this brand of removed, un-self-important reflection and observation that is, in my mind, supremely LA. There are plenty of plastic people in LA, and to be in or from LA is to be one of them, and yet it’s a cultural pastime to reflect and regret and scrutinize the part we play. Play It As It Lays resonated with something deep in me and played a role in getting me into therapy.

To hold oneself and one’s life at arm’s length and turn it around, let different facets catch the light and reflect the self back, flaws and all. To be able to raise one delicate eyebrow at what you see and say with dry appreciation and chagrin all the same: “Oh, wow.”

To move on. To shake life off like water on a duck’s back and keep going--course correcting a bit but living without apology, learning to divorce worth from the eye of the ones who behold.

I don’t see it. I wish I saw it, but I don’t see it. I strive for it but maybe I’m too young and care too much about the journey and the destination both. Maybe time will coat my feathers and age will soften the hard edges of my heart. Or maybe not.

#personal #rambling #navel gazing #idealization and fragmentation are the fate of celebrities and mothers #{joan didion #i'm 25 and trying to find my place and purpose GO FIGURE

[deathbutwithfuzzyanimals]

My dad is the literal best dad on earth and let me tell you why. My cousin recently came out as trans. He has been having a bit of trouble with his family thinking “it’s just a phase” and trying to “wait it out” and “not encourage her”

My dad on the other hand came to me and started asking about gender and gender politics. He was under the impression that there was either trans, going from female to male or vice versa, or genderfluid, flowing between genders. He was under this impression I think because the major non-cis person he knows is me, and I’m genderfluid. We had a conversation where he explained to me his only previous experience with trans people, an ex boss, and where I explained to him how non-binary is not necessarily genderfluid, and how just because my cousin hasn’t started fully transitioning yet doesn’t mean he’s not a trans man. I introduced him to the term “deadname” and explained that it was proper etiquette to refer to people both in past, present, and future as their currently preferred name and pronouns. He listened patiently, and I mentioned he can come to me for any other confusion, and he said he would, and he was happy that I understood this stuff.

Anyway, just wanted to brag a bit about my dad because I love him and I missed him but now we get to hang out again and it’s great.

#dads #good parenting #parents

[jukemaid]

callback to my last job where i was one of two trans employees and i actually had the pleasure of explaining to a cis coworker why using deadnames is a bad thing. and she was one of the most friendly people working there and we got along great, being in the same age range and all, and she genuinely didn’t know and had never been taught most queer social etiquette (being cishet and all) so she just defaulted to the age old “wow she used to be x” because she didn’t know any differently.

online she would have gotten fucking eviscerated but irl? we were at work and working. i explained what a deadname is and why it’s bad to bring it up and she understood and it all took like 45 seconds and we continued working. whenever she had a question about my gender stuff i would answer her as best as i could, and the result was a positive learning experience that she quickly picked up on and i have no doubt she would never deliberately mess up again.

#i didn't even know being trans was a thing until adulthood #i didn't know i was trans until around 21 #i simply DID NOT HAVE the information and nobody around me ever had it #i can't blame cis people for not knowing shit i as a trans person didn't know most of my life #younger members of the queer community have no idea how to handle these situations #and they resort to anger and straight up bigoted rhetoric