#like I genuinely cant tell if its written by someone whos trans or transphobic

[vindictar]

WRITING WITH A TRANS MUN AND A TRANS MUSE

there is a post going around about avoiding transphobic microaggressions in rp but it's kindof out dated and written with a focus of advising cis people on writing a trans character...  and since i know literally zero (0) cis people currently writing a trans muse i thought i would make a post that’s with some pointers specifically about proper and acceptable behavior when writing with a trans mun who writes a trans muse.  

DO:

just be respectful!!  

listen to trans people!!  respect their voices and don’t speak over us!  if a trans person corrects you on something it is not a personal attack on you.  so often cis people will get defensive and overly apologetic when they are corrected--  which,  intentional or not,  makes trans people feel guilty for standing up for themselves and requesting the common decency of having the right name and pronouns used.

ask questions!  if you are coming from a good place with a genuine intent to learn or clarify something that is going to come up in a thread it’s always better to ask.  but, before you do be considerate and think:

is the answer listed somewhere on their blog?   more often than not the information you're looking for is either in a blog's about page or their hc's! check those first before you ask!

can my question by answered with a cursory google search?   trans people are not your personal dictionary and are not obligated to educate you

is this invasive? is this a question you would want asked of you or your muse?  ( esp in regard to "what's in their pants?" "so no dick?" "how do they have sex?" ) unless you're writing explicit smut it's not relevant!  and you don’t need to know!!  please stop fixating on trans genitals it is genuinely none of your business

have and dialog with your partner!!!  this is especially important if you are writing smut with a trans muse / mun!!  sex usually involves genitals and explicit description of them,  so if you’re going to write smut with a character  ( and do!  trans people can have sex just like everyone else ! )  ask the mun what words are okay to use your writing and descriptions.

value trans comfort.   you don’t have to justify your existence and explain it every single day,  we do and it’s exhausting. 

respect a trans persons boundaries and privacy.  if a mun does not want to talk about something or it makes them uncomfortable they will tell you.  respect that and drop it the subject.  do not continue to press the issue after they have expressed discomfort.

take no for an answer.  when someone says they don’t want to write or talk about something listen to them.

pay trans mun’s for the emotional labor!!!  trans people do not owe you anything,  and everything we do is for your cis gender benefit to help you understand at the cost of our energy and mental health and many trans muns are in difficult financial situations and have a place somewhere on their page where they are accepting donations.  if it’s not listed ask. for example:  consider paying me,  a transgender person struggling to pay for hormones,  for making this post and educating you. 

DON'T:

don’t assume every trans person’s experience is the same and every trans person is comfortable with the same things.  non-binary people don’t not have the same problems as a trans woman and a trans man will not have the same problems as a trans woman,  every trans experience is unique and while things overlap you cant assume its the same

don’t assume you know what terms someone will be comfortable.  every trans person is comfortable with different things and it’s always best to ask,  especially in regards to anatomy.  so before using a term to refer to a trans muse ask first!  

don’t assume your muse knows their muse is trans just because you do.  you can’t tell if a person is trans by looking.

don’t assume a trans character is out to your character unless you’ve discussed it with the mun

don’t assume because a character is trans they are bottom during sex.  this is especially relevant for trans men who are often fetishiszed in this way

don’t assume every trans person has physically transitioned or wants to.   not every trans man has had top surgery and if they haven't touching there isn't necessarily welcome.  in the same way not every trans woman has had bottom surgery.  not every trans person wants to physically transition,  it all depends on the person *so ask*

don’t assume every trans person experiences the same dysphoria. 

don't like outright ask us what a muses deadname was!  it might be something we’ve thought of but even if we talk about it in a thread or a head canon post-  don't just start using it without a reason and a long conversation with the mun.  

don’t use your muse to vicariously alleviate your cis guilt.  like trying really hard to like over-ally and insist on their muse being super supportive of yours' trans-ness.  it’s cool if that's specifically what you wanna do and establish that in a relationship but there there’s supporting someone and then there is tokenizing them

everyone is invited and encouraged to reblog this post,  especially cis people!  i asked around the trans rpc about other mun’s experience writing a trans character and what they thought some important points were and pet peeves they had when i made this post,  with special input from @prodigil​  /  @cardshcrp​  /  @demonslayvr​,  but if you’re trans and write a trans character and have something you’d like to add to this post please do! 

cis people if you have something to add:  please don’t

#okay to reblog #rpc #tumblr rpc #public service announcement #trans rpc #( ooc tag. ) #( psa. )

[cardigans-and-bowties]

Lots of 2-4am feelings 

CW: transphobia, murder, ableism, police brutality, and a lot of worldsuck. Also religious/spiritual stuff toward the end apparently.... I didn’t plan it, it just happened.....

I'm literally talking about researching anti-trans murder ... .Also very emotional and therefore unnuanced in ways that it might be if I were to actually discuss these issues with someone......

I don't really know who to talk to about this because most of my friends that I would tell are asleep or just really shouldn't be put through the emotional labor of listing to this. So I'm mostly just venting. I'm editing biographies for my LGBT group's Transgender Day of Remembrance event. It's certainly not the first time I've stayed up at some ungodly hour recording things about people we've lost (the first 1000+ on the list we have and then some), but it's not like it stops being sad. I've felt different about it throughout the year and a half I've worked on it, but the anger is sad, the defeated is sad, the hope that we can make it better is sad, the numbness is sad. 

I'm not sure there's much more disheartening than trying to find the birthday of a dead person despite the fact that you know that you probably won't find it. This also isn't the first time I've done this. There are a lot of folks who don't have recorded ages, let alone birthdays. But I thought maybe *just maybe* in the age of technology I could find the birthday of someone who died in the US in 2010. But after seeing an article about how the murderer's lawyer made a joke that killing a trans sex worker wasn't that bad, I had to stop. And this was after spending a half an hour reading and rereading the details of Simon Bush's murder (and finally finding the sentencing date of the murderer) and thinking about how many ways it could have been stopped and how fucked up the whole system is. 

Just in the US, if the legal system gave a shit about the mentally ill, Simon's murderer wouldn't have been able to kill them. If the legal system gave a shit about the mentally ill trans people, Kayden Clarke and Sean Hake wouldn't be dead. If the legal system gave a fuck about mentally ill trans women of color, Kiwi Herring and Laverne Turner wouldn't be dead. If the legal system gave a shit about trans people of color, Rae'Lynn Thomas's killer - her mother's ex-boyfriend who was apologetically transphobic towards her - would have been investigated as though he had committed a hate crime and Marsha P Johnson's murder wouldn't have been written off as a suicide despite a still unknown murderer bragged about killing her at a bar the day after. If the legal system gave a shit about transgender people, most of the people on this list wouldn't (in all likelihood) have murderers who have never seen a night on the inside of a jail cell for what they did. 

This really doesn't even scratch the surface of the tip of the iceberg in a glance of how trans people are abused by the US legal system (and I didn't even touch on how people are treated in jail... I know there are people that I've read about who died misgendered and ignored in jail but I just don't have the energy to dig that deep right now). This isn't even looking at the role that class plays. This isn't even looking at it on a global level - nearly every fucking country is guilty. Thousands of deaths aren't acknowledged because they are legal in some countries. Over 800 trans people have been recorded as being murdered in Brazil alone. European countries aren't exempt either. People are still murdered - still pushed to suicide. 

Shit like this doesn't happen out of nowhere. A bunch of people don't decide "hey lets kill that person that look trans" for no reason. Boyfriends don't kill their girlfriends because theyre scared of their friends discovering she's trans by some fluke one-person "crazy"-man decision. Multiple doctors don't just refuse to treat a dying trans person because they're an asshole in the vacuum of space. There is context for everything. An infographic went around recently about rape culture and how passing comments reinforce the jokes which reinforce the catcalling which reinforces larger, more physically violent acts. Its the same thing here. 

Cis people still wonder why trans people have to make such a big deal about pronouns or names. Or complain that they "can't enjoy anything because all the LGBTs are so fucking sensitive". I’ve seen three separate fucking facebook threads about gender reveal parties - all of which featured a pack of Cisgender Susannes saying “we just can’t enjoy anything anymore” or “well I don’t see a problem with it”. Your joke is not more important that someone's mental health. Your comfort is not more important that someone's safety. 

I was angry for such a long time. I still am - but anger used to be the main emotion - I was in a rage at everyone. I was hopeless. Now I'm trying my damnedest not to be. I've gotten to the point where I am forcing myself into some kind of hope. I am reaching for anything to make me feel like this world doesn't hate queer people. I am doing everything I can so that my walk on this earth can make it easier for the people who walk on it after me. Sometimes it is fucking hard. When it's 1am and I still cant so much as find a last name and age for someone killed in 2010 (because she was trans and homeless) it's hard not to be pissed the world. When it's 2am and I'm looking at Leelah Alcorn's last typed words again, reading for the 1000th time her age and thinking for the 1000th time "she was so fucking close to being able to get out of that house", remembering the names of the other teens who died the same way she did because the world around them treated them like they were sub-human, remembering that 41% of transgender people attempt suicide because of this shit place, remembering that we don't have anything close to accurate number to know how many actually do commit suicide, it's hard not to be pissed at the world. 

I worry myself fucking sick worrying if one of my friends could be next. They take public transport,  they go to protests - my best friend has sent me pictures from an STL police line featuring full riot gear. Most queer people I know are mentally ill. I am worried fucking sick. I see the numbers and I just have to suppress what I can as far as this personal worry goes. 

I think the only reason I'm not completely jaded (if you can believe it) is God and the fact that we were made and that we are loved and that we are all connected to each other through that. We are bigger than us and we were made to love each other - to be each other. Everything is connected. The systems I talked about earlier - they're all connected. But they were created broken. I have no faith in that. But if we were created by something perfect, that means there is hope for people. As fucking cheesey as it sounds, if we loved each other - genuinely listened and tried to understand - there would be so much less pain. I think a lot about how this connection goes both ways. That's how empathy works. That's why oppressions are connected. The genuine understanding and emotions and ability to help each other so deeply is so beautiful. That is the main thing that keeps me from being hopeless. If we focus on healing ourselves and each other it has the potential to reach others. If I spread good in this world, it will affect more people than I know. And that is how change can happen. It starts from the individual and it spreads. Each person affects each person and that has the opportunity to be so beautiful and I have to hold on to that hope. The world only changes through people. As shitty as everything seems, it can be less shitty if more people are trying. By God’s grace, we can find still love in a world that produces this many volumes of pain.

I dunno, ya'll (I say as if someone will have read this far down this wall of 3am rambling). I'm just having a lot of feelings. I've got to keep doing what I'm doing - helping people, being a better person, trying to do what I can to do anything to help this fucked up world, keeping just one person from having to feel as much pain..

#personal #also possibly triggering - I'm talking about reading about a ton of trasphobic murders and suicides

[lilrookie]

9-25-17

So this is just a personal vent I sent to a friend and I’m putting it here for my own record keeping stuff so feel free to read it if you want lol it's pretty long, but just please do not reblog this, or send me any messages or anything about it. I do not want to talk about the issues I go over in this at all right now and some of the stuff I have written is kind of mean/not pc because these are just raw unedited and un-reflected on vent thoughts ok. Thanks yo.

I'm going to type this vent to you because I need to talk about it sort of and I also don't want to write in my journal and my phone is messed up again but I've been feeling so weird at college because growing up is fucked up and I'm just really not sure where I'm supposed to fit in and there's so much I want to get done with my life but I also really want to be happy and have a family and just explore the world and be like a regular person and not have to worry about all this shit and going to pride club makes me feel like crap because I don't talk to anyone and i just sit through the meetings like some weirdo

probably bc everyone thinks I'm a cis white guy and its so hard and weird because I am not??? and everyone is tumblr quierdos and I just feel like I haven't met anyone who genuinely likes me and who I genuinely like and I miss our friends so much because I feel so understood and loved with you guys and  I don't have that here yet which I know is normal but I just would like to anyways! and I'm so nervous for growing up because I have no idea what I'm doing and the world is probably going to end sooner than later anyways bc of war or bc of climate disaster so whats the fucking point in even planning for a nice future because our generation is probably not going to even have a chance to!

and on top of all that existential life shit, I'm constantly thinking about I'm also really uptight and overthinking the romance sector of my life and I haven't dated or done anything remotely romantically oriented since yasmyn and I broke up. and like keep realizing over and over again that being with her for so long really messed with me in a lot of ways and kind of squandered my years for experimenting or something because I have no idea what I'm fucking doing dating wise even though technically I have more experience with romantic endeavors than the average person because of what I  went through with her

AND ON TOP of that I'm fucking trans! so I'm not even like regular/standard in that regard and I know being trans doesn't mean I'm not normal but I still feel that way and I feel like people will think of me in that way even if they aren't transphobic just because of internalized bullshit and whatever and that scares me so badly. bc like any normal person I just wanna have a connection with someone and mess around and be just fucking normal but I don't even know how to do that I never got a chance to have a normal relationship for someone in our age group I had to go straight to the heavy hardcore shit like really why. its like if right now me as someone who has never drank or smoke or anything else illicit went right to shooting up heroin and had to recover from that it feels like. and I don't know how to handle any of this stuff Fuck!.

and like obviously bc in me and my brain works paranoid I keep thinking about what my romantic life is going to be like when I'm older. like i really really want to have a kid and I know I cant have kids of my own so bc it totally makes sense for me to be worrying about this right now I'm like weighing the different options to like be able to get a kid and it's so hard to adopt as not a perfect heterostraightciswhite person in America and I'm so stressed about that! like why the fuck am I stressed about that! I'm not going to have a kid until I'm like 30! so why am I actively genuinely stressed about the adoption process right now. it doesn't even make sense to me

moral of the story is I'm having a hard time making meaningful connections with people at college mostly because I'm afraid of talking to strangers bc of what if I don't like them! less of what if they don't like me bc really I don't give a shit if someone doesn't like me when they are a stranger but what if i don't enjoy them and get stuck with them as friendship  bc that's kind of already happening and I just want my secure stable reassuring friend group  back instead of having to start from scratch with people who know nothing about who I am at the same time I am learning that I know very little about who I am even though I thought I did lol.

wow what the fuck I'm writing a lot

I just wish I could feel less like I'm floundering around and i know everyone else feels the same way but still I'm ready to feel stable and settled in here and find at least one person like you here even though I'm not trying to replace you buddy i just need an interim anchor person since you are 5 hours away and not coming home for fall break and spending time with people who  i don't feel completely good about in the majority of ways is so fucking exhausting and for some reason i feel like the easiest way to have someone like that is through a romantic interaction bc those kinds of relationships get like intimate quicker both in the physical emotional way and the mental way like good friendship does but good friendship takes so much longer to happen and I'm really looking for a quick fix tbh

growing up and being independent is so hard for so many reasons and people only ever really talk about monetary and responsibility hardships they don't tell you about how hard it is to be a living thinking entity on your own. like the hardest part of growing up is probably definitely losing your emotional support system like fuck how did people do this at all before instant communication was a thing

anyways i know I'm going to be fine and that everything will work out well because I'm going to work so hard to have a good future but honestly that kind of makes it harder to be in this space right now since I just want to skip forward to a place where I am good and feeling good and feeling content and secure this like wishy-washy period is not really fun in all aspects

#post #college #vent #please #do not reblog #do not interact #read this if you want but im just putting this up as a record for myself so dont message me about it and shit this is just a vent