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lucienne-thee-librarian · 7 months

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I truly think it would solve so many problems with intra-community bigotry and even just community infighting as a whole, if people could learn how to unpack their own personal traumas and insecurities around their gender/sexuality/life in general without projecting it constantly and obviously onto other people instead of purely blaming the people who yknow. Actually hurt you.

Like, you see this all the time where people have understandable and legitimate issues but they see other queer people whose lives and choices remind them of the things they feel inadequate or insecure about. That's entirely normal, and human and to some degree inevitable, and not what I'm criticizing. You can't help your initial knee jerk feelings, all you can do is learn to work through them and eventually hopefully heal and learn how to manage them in the meantime.

Where it becomes a problem is when people have no self-awareness about this at all or when they take these feelings as fact every single time and make other queer people responsible for their own trauma. Like, you see it all the time with...just to name a few examples:

Bisexual women who end up in long term relationships with men being treated as like. Just Barsexual or see people expressing angst about Becoming Them. And like...I get where it's coming from, bisexuality is constantly erased so especially if you're a woman in a relationship with a man. Being with the right man who'll Fix You is something dangled over every queer woman's head, it's what society expects us all to do, so I can see why people would think "we need to prove them wrong" and also be rightly afraid of the prospect for themselves being essentially quietly repeatedly pushed out of the queer community. But...that's not the problem of random bisexuals. And repeatedly apologizing for your attraction to men and making ball and chain jokes is not gonna fix the issue. The whole problem is bi people's personal lives being forever treated as a political statement or a pledge of loyalty in an eternal stupid, regressive on multiple levels Battle of the Sexes instead of...just their personal lives, right? They're not responsible for society's bi erasure.

Flamboyant or "feminine" gay men are not the reason the guys who picked on you because they guessed you were gay despite your masculinity picked on you. They didn't invent stereotypes, they're just trying to live their lives, and there's nothing wrong with being a "stereotypical" gay man anyway. Your own internalized shame and rightful annoyance at being stereotyped is not an excuse to shit on other people for something harmless. Same with feminine queer women and butches. Like...yes, we've all been terrorized with the Mannish (and therefore Ugly) dyke stereotypes but maybe the problem is equating gender nonconformity with ugliness and violence and lack of worth??? And cishet people's willingness, again, to stereotype??? Shitting on butch women is not going to fix society, it won't go back in time and undo your own personal anguish. They are not responsible. They're just trying to express themselves the way that best fits them.

And on the even more extreme and inexcusable end:

I see the same impulse in a vocal minority of lesbian terfs (a lot of the people who clain the loudest to be Lesbian Allies...aren't lesbians lol, hi JoRo 🙃🖕🖕🖕🖕) making it out like there's an Epidemic of all these lesbians who are being Brainwashed by Self Hatred, Misogyny and Lesbophobia into wanting to be men rather than be lesbians. One of the most memorable examples being, the reaction by some to Elliot Page's second coming out.

Of course, this kind of overlooks...a million fucking things, like how just as many trans men if not more, do not in fact follow this narrative because they did not identify as lesbians before their transition and came out as gay/bisexual trans men instead...or the fact that you have to be seriously disengenous or just. Not Live on Earth to actually say that trans people of ANY stripe including transmascs, as a group somehow have it BETTER than cis people even cis women and face less discrimination...or that for every "lesbian" who later came out as a straight trans dude/nonbinary transmasc like Elliot, there are a thousand cis lesbians still out here around the world *waves* hiiii...

I honestly think the biggest issue out of all of it, because these facts don't seem to MATTER to these loud online terfy lesbians, ia that these people are fundamentally just. Making the world about them. They're projecting their ideas and experiences onto everyone else. Elliot Page isn't just a thirty-something adult with his own opinions and feelings and thoughts and life experiences separate from these people, who should be deemed the #1 expert on their own body and life and what decisions to make about it. Not to these people, to them he's an expression of...the trauma they've faced in THEIR lives living as lesbians, as women, and a tragic story about how Sexism and Homophobia Wins Again. He's a cautionary tale to them, not...a person. So Elliot Page's actual happiness and well-being, or simply their own opinions and words about their life, and their motivations...don't really matter to these women, because their own grasp of their own identities depends on other people doing what they think should be done, and staying Loyal to a label for life. And someone choosing to leave that identity behind triggers those old insecurities that they've repeatedly refused to find a better way of dealing with. Their sense of self is THAT fragile. Which is sad...but obviously doesn't excuse their alignment with a goddamn hate movement whose rhetoric has only grown more violent in the last few years.

Idk, I just think so much pain and harassment and...bullshit would be better if we could all actually learn, repeatedly, through mental habits and patience and therapy and growth etc etc...to see other people AS PEOPLE in their own right without being reflections on us.

#lgbtq community #biphobia #homophobia #acephobia #transphobia #if anybody starts clowning in the notes I'm just gonna block you or turn reblogs off if it gets bad #so don't waste your time #no I didn't cite Every Possible Example cause this is long enough already #also I just wanted to cite the stuff I felt most comfortable speaking on #I'm not actually trying to resurrect every stupid bit of Discourse over the last 20 years #just trying to make a larger point about how we should treat each other #and if trying to win old battles is all you take from this Congrats!!! You missed the point!! You get an F

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malicious-fisheeves · 3 years

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Anyway here’s the dumb fandom shit manifesto but here’s the whole thing under the read more

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WKjpOTU7D-JkiXD1gqYNJcjzGI691WXWRj4CJ3mI5UU/edit?usp=sharing

Honestly this is for myself personally, everyone has their own barometer, but I hate all of you and will hit you with my tonka truck

It’s incredibly telling that most of the people who proudly call themselves “anti antis” and “problematic” don’t see this as a serious issue. They’re more concerned with their right to jack off than having--not even compassion, just basic decency, for children / abuse survivors in fan spaces. Harassment campaigns against minors who are rightfully uncomfortable with how ‘big’ artists and other fan content creators interact with them are incredibly common, and it’s incredibly ironic to hear these same people bemoaning how their right to free speech is being taken away, or how “antis should care more about real people” -- people against pedophilia and incest shipping do care about real people of course. For example, real children who are hurt in real life when people create grooming content for real pedophiles, or abuse survivors trying to navigate their own road to recovery who are barraged with content that makes them relive their trauma (especially in the case of vocal survivors, who are often specifically harassed with content meant to trigger them). It’s also laughable that these people are always talking about how they “properly tag” their works so that it can be avoided, all the while continuing to follow creators who specifically outline their discomfort with these “anti antis” and say they don’t want to be followed by or interact with them. These people have no regard for other people’s boundaries. There’s also the hilarious (/s) instances of these people proclaiming their therapists think that them making child porn is just fine. Most often, these incidents are either blatant lies from “fandom therapists” (who quickly accumulate clout and then ~mysteriously~ disappear to side blogs once they’ve stroked enough people’s wounded egos.) While there are some forms of treatments that do involve creating art or writing about your own personal experience so you can work through the complicated emotions that come from being a victim of abuse, these are supposed to be in tightly monitored situations, not posted to widely used social media and fan works sites where that material can be used by groomers. Your 50 yr old therapist, Kelly, doesn’t know what AO3 is, and even if she did, who’s to say she’s right in the first place? Adjacent to this argument is one from legality, which already sets off a million red flags for anyone who’s discussed real-life instances of abuse where it was ‘alright’ because a predator waited until their victim was of age. Legal? Yes, maybe, but morally justifiable? No. Of course, this itself will ring their incessant whinging about how “fiction =/= morality.” Yes, of course, the things we create do not necessarily reflect our own morals on principle alone. However, writing dark subject matters requires a clarity of purpose--if you’ve ever been on the side that representation is important, because it influences how we think about certain groups of people or subject matter (like war), then you understand this principle already. There are certain ways of portraying these things that have a real impact on how a reader interprets them. Yes, violent video games don’t make people violent, but they can make war seem much more palatable, or make the enemy less human. The torture porn in many horror films in the 70s/80s wouldn’t have made men more violent towards women, but it did contribute to larger misogynistic ideas about women(this doesn’t even touch upon the sub genre of trans horror, which of course does have real effects on how trans people, mainly trans women, are viewed, and contributes to violence against them).

This argument that “fiction =/= reality” really misses the forest for the trees when it comes to these discussions, quite frankly, because it’s rarely about “you read incest porn, you are therefore going to commit incest” and moreso about the wider impacts that the masses of fan works aggregated onto websites as opposed to you, personally, being ~*problematic*~. Quite frankly, I would probably be less vocal and less ~mean~ about it if people I knew, and myself included, weren’t put on the end of harassment campaigns, made fake callouts for, or lied to by people I thought I was at least on good terms with. When fans perpetuate racist stereotypes--making black and latine characters hypersexual aggressive or borderline (or, yknow, just actual) rapists to their petite white ‘romantic’ interests, or making asian characters submissive waifs and abuse victims--it has a real effect on how people of color interact with fan works. If you want to talk about being ~pushed out of the fandom~ maybe shut up forever. One thing I did want to note upon is that it’s already quite ridiculous to claim that “fiction doesn’t effect reality”, one, for the claims above (you simply cannot claim that representation is important and then dismiss fans of color saying your slavery non con fic is racist) when it’s very obvious that these “anti anti” spaces attract predators on the reg. This is most plain on twitter, where a cursory scroll through popular “anti” dunking blogs are filled with self proclaimed pedophiles (some claiming to be “no contact” which is basically useless if you speak to victims of CSA). Because those blogs make them feel good. You’re not actually hurting anyone, what you’re doing is fine. Children can consent. Beyond that, it also gives them a network to meet other pedophiles and distribute their child porn, and a way to meet children, especially for blogs that post mainly about children’s television shows. Children want to feel mature and respected, and blogs like these give them this avenue, because to many children sex is a taboo, mature topic. They can’t talk to their parents, because they’re afraid of getting in trouble for talking about sex, and that’s what predators prey upon. It’s the perfect grooming environment. Regardless of whether or not you think that reading child porn, or rape fics, will make you, personally, a rapist, these places have created an environment where children are put in danger. This isn’t a hypothetical--multiple predators have been outed from “anti anti” discords, where they return with regularity.

TLDR fuck all yall

#its all just talking about incest/abuse/pedophilia in fandom it is. once again #mainly just for myself but also Im Right #i could say so much more but i dont care to

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lesbiankermit-moved · 5 years

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as a butch lesbian, how does someone tell the difference between actual body dysphoria (hating my secondary sex characteristics in a trans way (?) versus body dysmorphia (hating them because they don't conform to society's expectations of me as a woman/the male gaze? I've been thinking about binding, but i'm not sure how that fits into my butchness/womanhood? This is a lot of questions that you don't have to answer I just really connect with the way you present and communicate your ideas. Thank!

(im v tired so lemme know if this is too rambly or messy to understand by the end eeeee)

it’s hard to define, especially for me as an outsider to your personal experience, because there isn’t yknow.. a Trans Test. there’s no right or wrong answer to the way you interpret your feelings and choose to label them. we all just out here tryna survive the bullshit that is Gender. and i don’t think dysphoria is necessarily a trans specific experience either, there are a LOT of women/lesbians and especially butches who experience dysphoria because of the trauma and hardships of living as a woman, living as a lesbian, etc.

and it’s not mutually exclusive either since yknow, there are a lot of butches who currently or formerly identified as trans, trans ppl who currently or formerly identified as butch, there’s butches who consider themselves nonbinary, or on the line btwn considering themselves exactly butch or exactly trans. there’s often a huge amount of overlap for our communities, and even the phrase “cis butch” still surprises me to see at times bc it’s just so far away from how i and a lot of other ppl conceptualize butchness. and i think it’s kind of a recent terminology too. like dysphoria and alienation from womanhood are like uhh butch staples tbh, and we don’t experience womanhood the same way feminine women do a lot of the time.

but yes yeah. the expectations of womanhood are a very odd, alienating thing when you’re butch/gender non conforming, and when you’re a trans masc/trans guy, or nb. if you do choose to bind your chest, that definitely “fits” with butchness and gnc womanhood though. there have been butches binding and taking hormones and getting top surgery and transitioning to varying degrees for a long time! you won’t be kicked out or anything for doing so. and if anyones ever a dick over it, they’re just not worth having around.

that being said! definitely make sure you research binding before you start, if you do end up doing it!. don’t use duct tape or ace bandages, get a proper tanktop style binder (i recommend gc2b or underworks), don’t sleep or exercise in it, don’t wear it longer than 8 hours, give yourself breaks and let your body rest.

the other thing i rec too is researching in the sense of like, even when binding safely, it’s still not a Safe thing to do exactly. it can have long term effects on your breast tissue, some people lose feeling, it can fuck up your back, etc. it’s generally not the most comfortable thing physically, esp if you have other health issues. it’s like a good tool if your dysphoria is so bad you can’t do things without it, or if you absolutely need to pass as male for smth.

but also there’s nothing wrong with seeking out other means of dysphoria management too - personally i’ve been working more on the mental side lately and like practicing self love and self healing and self care.. like when i was always binding it kind of made it worse for me, bc i was used to that image of myself, so when i wasn’t binding i felt even more dysphoric if tht makes sense? but now i just try to focus on like, adjusting myself to the reality of my body, letting myself exist, reminding myself i don’t need to be perfect or skinny or appealing to men; my body is just a home and i should appreciate being it.

this might be dorky but i think a lot about the mary oliver quote “let the soft furry animal of your body want what it wants” and it kinda grounds me n reminds me like.. i’m just an animal! i don’t need to be “feminine” or “womanly” or anything at all, i can just Be.

sorry this went REAL long n longer than i meant it to but aaaa i hope this was at least kinda helpful!! hfjf

#asks #anonymous #dysphoria #binding #long post #SOZ FR THE LATE ANSWER TOO BTW

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jackednephi · 5 years

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Hello! Apologies for sending in an ask so late. I just wanted to reach out because I'm not in such a great place right now. I was wondering, if you found out about your being queer at a fairly young age, how you managed to stay in the closet?? (And, you know, remaining alright, mentally) my parents are extremely homophobic, and it's tearing me apart, especially because I really care about them. Any advice would be great, even if it's not much. Best of luck in everything, and thank you so much ♥️

so tumblr doesn’t always let me know when i have messages >(

that said, i’ll do my best to respond but like it’s going to be long and convoluted so imma include a cut to save dash space. PLEASE KEEP IN MIND i am polyamorous, agender/trans, pansexual, and demiromantic. so like there are various facets of my queerness and they all played into my life differently

feel free to skip close to the end for like “how to stealth” if you don’t have the spoons for like a 20 page autobiography with annotated bibliography

so finding out about being queer is a question that has both a yes and a no answer. it’s more like i was experiencing queerness but didn’t have words for it, then repressed it, then dealt with it. so it’s less “i knew ever since i could form words to describe it” and more my journey was in no way linear

see when i was little, like really little yknow when you start getting your first crushes right around prek and stuff, i had all kinds of crushes. i had crushes on multiple people at once and this has continued straight into adulthood. so, like, sign one of being poly. my friends would have one person they would hardcore crush on whereas i was crushing on people around me, characters in fiction, just like so many people. i remember listing crushes in my journals every now and then and i’d have lists of upwards and over like 20. :/ so i am in no way surprised i’m poly

so far as my sexuality, i didn’t realize i was feeling for certain female friends what i was feeling for boys. partly because i’d be like “oh i want to hold his hand” and because i saw m/f couples holding hands all the time i was like ah! yes! obviously romantic! but i never saw any f/f relationships so i didn’t make the connection that the hand holding wasn’t a friend feeling. i had INTENSE crushes on girls too, just as intense as on boys. but i was used to the media portraying rival nonsense like hannah montana and whatnot so i was like “oh. this is my situation”

there was also a lot of repressing going on because i just didn’t see that reflected around me from media to adults. all i saw were m/f relationships. i knew gay people existed but i thought they were all gay men. when i was somewhere around like 10 or so, give or take, i realized i was crushing on my best friend at the time (a girl) and was like “no. absolutely not” shoved that as far back as possible and ignored it

my demiromanticism is more born of trauma than me being born that way and that’s ok. one of my close friends found out about one of my crushes in the second grade and i was RELENTLESSLY bullied for it. every time i got a crush on somebody, i would end up HARDCORE bullied or they would get weird and things would be awful. i also had boys shove their crushes onto me and not take no for an answer. like i’d have my bra snapped painfully, bugs shoved down my shirt, my stuff vandalized, hair pulled just because i wasn’t interested

like when i was 12, somebody started a rumor that i was pregnant :/ and that’s not even covering my abusive ex or the sexual assaults so like everything kind of came together for that

then there’s my gender. which is its own bucket of worms and kind of played in with my sexuality in certain ways

my parents are boomers, born in 50 and 58. “but vann,” you say, confused “you were born at the end of 94″ and you are correct! i inherited pcos from my mother so i’ll let you put 2 and 3 together as to why i was born in 94 and my brother in 96. i say that because, unlike their peers, they raised my brothers and i radically different from the accepted cultural norms

if i wanted to wear baggy shorts, that was cool. pretty dresses? whatever. same (kind of) went for my brothers. if they wanted to spend a lot of time on their appearance, that was fine and not shamed at all. in fact, it was encouraged because it made them feel good. i played with army men, barbie dolls, cars, a train set, tools, swords, sports stuff, had tea parties with stuffed animals, drew and crafted, etc etc. my younger brother played house with me (and often suggested it himself) and would play with my baby dolls. like had my younger brother wanted a doll, they would’ve gotten it for him. but i had them so he didn’t bother asking for one cause he could borrow mine

so like there was no gender segregation of toys or activities. and that sounds kind of like the bare minimum of parenting but you have to remember that both of my parents grew up in the rural south as boomers. gender roles were violently enforced for them. but they didn’t think about enforcing them for us so far as play and, to a certain extent, dress/grooming was concerned. this created a safe environment for us to be our true selves

so for a very long time, i was comfy saying i was a girl. i played basketball after school and then afterwards would find my prettiest dress and watch scooby doo. gender expression was fast and loose in my house

i contribute that a lot to the fact that my father was too disabled to work. even before then, he had been a nurse and a damn good one. my father has ALWAYS been the go to for when we were sick, injured, etc. my mother had this disconnect with how much concern to show. it was either too much or not enough and was pretty much never helpful. even after retiring, when my nephews came around he was the go to caretaker for them. even now at 70, he frequently goes back to where the children are during family gatherings and keeps watch. much like a mother hen

so he stayed home and did the cleaning and other “wifely” duties. not cooking though because his brain just cannot. my mother worked as a high school teacher so typical roles were entirely reversed. when i was tiny and wanted nothing more than to be a parent? you go, sweetie! when i was older and wanted to be a scientist? achieve your dreams, kiddo! like they were very supportive of my goals no matter what they were

so i just??? didn’t realize????? until i hit puberty somewhere around 9

talk about body dysphoria. i went from looking like my brother and every other kid my age to wow ok there’s hair now??? and my face is all weird???? and oh no why does my tummy feel funny?????????? (sexual arousal was a TRIP to discover as a third grader that i would not wish on any child ever) oh my god WHAT IS ON MY CHEST!? and grown men are hitting on me now??? oh no i’m in fourth grade and bleeding!?

it was not a fun time by a long shot. i started wearing the baggiest tshirts i could possibly find. anything to hide my freakish body, really. so many hoodies. i would swing wildly between hyper feminine expression with tight clothes and heels and hiding everything as much as possible. part of me was smug about being ahead of my peers, for adults to be treating me as more than a kid. but a LOT of me felt like a freak

maturing (mentally) into an adult was a wild experience. i was 13 and looked like i was 21 except for my face. i did everything possible to find comfort with myself from goth/emo expression ro masculine stuff people threw “dyke” at me for and then finally, weaponized femininity. tight tops, tight pants, shortest skirts i could get away with, eyeliner so sharp it could cut god, heels as often as i could including uniform days, perfect hair. i made myself look like a hot, unapproachable goddess

finally, people were too intimidated to approach me and comment on my appearance. i wore makeup like a mask and people who had known me for YEARS were surprised to find out just how big my chest really was. but i walked with murder in my eyes and i was finally treated the same was i was before puberty - completely unapproachable

ALL THAT IN MIND, here’s how i figured my shit out

i was on facebook seeing “gay, straight, black or white, marriage is a civil right” and being typically “it’s a sacred ordinance shyaddap” about it. i ended up on tumblr about idk 15 or so? note, i’d already discovered porn by this time so i was aware that lesbians existed. like just to throw that out there that i wasn’t like totally in the dark when i made my tumblr account. i did it for school to blog about shakespeare for an english assignment. and that’s when my world expanded

bisexual? wow ok! that was a thing! and oh. oh no

there were pretty girls

and pretty boys and pretty people whose gender i had no idea. cosplayers cosplaying as the opposite gender, trans people, and a whole rainbow of people i was suddenly finding attractive. and i had a HARDCORE identity crisis

i liked girls? but was it the same as boys? was i bisexual? that didn’t seem to fit. there was more than two genders right? and trans people existed? bi? was i bi? bi?

bi. probably

but it didn’t feel comfortable like at all. but i discovered a fanfic writer who talked about being pansexual and i looked it up and everything just clicked?? into place????

not to be overdramatic or anything but it was like the stars finally aligned. it felt SO good! so many genders! and it meant all and aliens are a thing, right? who was i to say no to the possibility? but, more than anything, it felt comfortable. like a hug from my grandma. like home

i wanted to scream from the rooftops that i’d figured it out! i found myself! pansexual! I WAS PANSEXUAL! THAT WAS ME! HOME!

and then the reality of living in our society crashed down on me. i continued to talk about the guys i liked around my family but never EVER the girls. i hid my relationship with the person who eventually became my wife. to be fair, i’d hidden all my relationships prior cause i was an IDIOT and had been dating before 16. so that wasn’t hard. but what was was the breakup

previously, i’d been like “you remember that guy i like? he’s a jerk” or some other excuse to cry to my mother. but i couldn’t about cake. so i cried to my bff/twin/sister like i had everything else and moved on. and i just kind of shut up about it to everybody except those closest to me

except that hurt. here i was knowing i was queer and happy about it but people were being homophobic. i don’t know how often i cried myself to sleep after hearing about “those dirty f*gs” cause of the marriage thing. i ended up quietly coming out to my favorite teacher and she dismissed it as trauma response to my then recent sexual assault. she had seemed safe but that was her reaction so i shut up about it

up until, ironically, coming out day october 2011 just before turning 17 that next month. my mother and i were at chilis, she was being homophobic, and i screamed for the whole restaurant to hear that i was queer and the whole base found out. hard to stay closeted after that

i was pretty much out until college when i started going to church in a new place. i just didn’t talk about my sexuality. ever. period. and it was “easy” because i was dating guys. and pretty sure i was a cis woman. so i was stealth passing. and that was ok with me because i was out on campus, vocally and unapologetically

in high school, i dated a trans guy. he introduced me like in a personal way to transness, to binding. i knew i wasn’t a man but it intrigued me. and in college where nobody knew me, nobody knew me as femme fatale black widow i had a chance to explore my gender. i discovered that loose tshirts made me feel really good. as did other comfy things like shorts and sweats. sometimes i wanted to look fancy or felt like wearing a dress. really, i kind of reverted back to who i was in childhood

i felt weird when i heard my birth name. i’d gone by a nickname for so long, i just chopped off the y (vanny) to vann so it sounded more adult. it felt good. so i identified, tentatively, as nonbinary. it was around this time the trans dude i dated and i fell out with each other because he thought me playing around with my gender was like mocking his transness. or something. idk dude was toxic trash

so i wasn’t male or female then? nah that didn’t feel right. i wasn’t some third androgynous gender. but sometimes binding and passing as a man felt good and sometimes passing as a woman felt good. genderfluid then? was i a man who liked to wear dresses? no. didn’t feel right. made me uncomfortable

eventually, things clicked for me with agender the way they had with pansexual the fall of my third year of undergrad. stars aligned, the universe smiled upon me, and i was THRILLED. like gender euphoria is REAL and never before had i felt so comfortable in my own skin. i remember literally weeping with joy. like i’d been going with they/them/their for a couple years at that point

i came out to my parents about that one pretty shortly after realizing it because i was OVERJOYED. they’d been working on calling me vann for awhile at that point and the pronouns. i’ve since learned that so long as soebody has my name, 90% of the time i legit do not care what pronouns somebody uses. im aware that people perceive me differently and it’s fine. i mean neutral pronouns fill me with euphoria but like it’s fine. so long as somebody doesn’t mistake me for cis

my parents are like so great about it now. they correct people who deadname me (except my grandma cause she’s like 85 and i gave her permission years ago) and my mother straight cut contact with family members who refuse to respect me. except my brothers but like she makes it clear whenever they’re going to be awful that she WILL NOT tolerate it. like they don’t dare trash me in front of our father. he’s old now but he will backhand one of my brothers for that and they know it. so they try it with our mom and she’s like “try it again and you won’t hear from me until you apologize for trashing your sister”

i realized i was poly when cake came back into my life. that was a serious mess involving their abusive ex girlfriend but we clicked and it ended up working so yknow. that was my easiest coming out actually. my parents were like “yknow, you always seemed to love people when you were a kid. and you had SO many crushes. makes sense” which was awesome. it was the most difficult emotionally but the easiest because i’d already come out twice before so it was whatever

the demi thing was discovered in therapy. and like it doesn’t have much in the way of impact like the other things do. so i never really came out about that? there wasn’t really a point? like i talk about it when it comes up but it’s just whatever. i honestly have no idea if i ever told my family?????

WITH THAT NONSENSE IN MIND, HERE’S HOW TO STEALTH AND BE OK MENTALLY

you said homophobic so im gonna assume you’re not straight. no idea about gender and, honestly, so far as gender goes i’ve seen it’s safer to lean into masculinity than it is femininity. so if you’re amab, i don’t really have tips or tricks for that as i’m afab. with being afab, lean into the tomboy aesthetic so you seem acceptably (safely) your assigned gender. i recommend fun lipstick and nail polish colors. sparkly nails did wonders for me honestly

but for like not straightness. that’s a tightrope that is but a gossamer thread to balance. like there are ways to stealth gender expression and feel affirmed but queerness is a different animal or it was for me

so i had AT LEAST one space in my life where i was 100%, unapologetically, loudly out. like i’m here, i’m queer and flying my rainbow flag and not at all sorry about it OUT. for awhile, it was just my very closest friends in the whole world. then it was tumblr. then i made a facebook for people irl i could trust. 0 family and 0 people who couldn’t be chill about it

like having a carved space for you to just be the authentic you, whatever that is. for me, that’s all this queer mess, the polycule that is my family, my faith, my absolutely foul mouth, my mental illnesses, my love of good coffee or a glass of wine every now and then as a rare treat, the good and the bad the ugly and the uncategorizable all together. the struggle with the word of wisdom AND the love of my spouses. all of that

it’s affirming to have this space where you’re yourself and people accept you for who you are rather than what gets your engine revving. but you’ve also got to try and stealth that into wherever you can. you want a dyke spike? go for it and say it’s a pixie cut. plaids are in right now which is a lowkey signal to other queers you’re a queer too no matter your gender. just depends on what shoe you pair it with and other queers will take notice while non queers will just think you’re trendy

it was also fun for me to get that pan flag aesthetic wherever i could. like blue/pink galaxy type eyeshadow that wasn’t too peacock flashy so it looked Hot without being Obvious and a pink lipstick and yellow nails. like it was subtle but i knew what was going on and it felt good. i did the same with rainbows but i had more to work with there. like i’d have an inconspicuous notebook where i’d paint/paste a rainbow on the inside cover so that it was Normal from the outside and BAM! GAY! on the inside. did that with highlighting my notes too

i just kind of stuck it everywhere i could possibly get away with. people were excited to see me go from emo to bring colors becuase “oh wow! you’re finally not sad!” lol no i’m just stealth queer over here

i also wrote SO MUCH queer fanfiction. i didn’t publish any of it just in case but i have notebooks full of stuff. i also rped with people as a way to live vicariously through characters. i also READ a lot of queer fanfiction actually. i saved all kinds of fanart and photo manipulations of certain pairings together. like i couldn’t be out so i could have fiction where others were

i also poured myself into hobbies. i fenced, did karate, learned japanese, participated in drama club, played in a band, took piano lessons, taught myself to draw, journaled, learned to cook, read amazing books, played video games, learned to sing. like i’m sure there are other things i’m forgetting? basically, if it was EVER covered in a young women’s activity pretty much anywhere in the world, i learned at least those basic skills. like i can embroider now even

so like that’s how i stealthed and stayed sane. i was also in therapy where i was out to whatever therapist i was seeing at the time which ABSOLUTELY helped. i also made like queer playlists i would listen to. like same love, i kissed a girl, born this way, etc that i would listen to when i needed to just sink into it. music in general is super cathartic and i’ve gotta say green day, acdc, evanescence, bon jovi, etc got me through some tough shit

i also yelled at god. i yelled at god a LOT actually. like i know we get told “pray for comfort” but sometimes you need to bawl your eyes out and just SCREAM at the almighty. dude can take it. he’s god after all. he can handle our anger. it isn’t disrespectful. like if you ever do cross a line, he’ll let you know. like your thoughts will hard stop. you’ll know

but empty your lungs screaming in pain. let him know it isn’t fair, you’re not happy. beg for relief from the nightmares you’re living. demand to know if or when it’ll ever get better. burn yourself out yelling and crying and fall asleep drenched in tears. then wake up the next day and live your life and you know what?

you’ll feel better. maybe not a lot sometimes and maybe everything is cool for once in forever. but it definitely helped me a lot. like dude listens and you WILL feel better even if the things around you dont get better. you get some strength to get through and be ok and it’s super helpful

but that’s what i got. also bear in mind that i came out to thousands of people by yelling at my mother in a restaurant when all the ships were in because everybody in said restaurant texted everybody they knew and my texts were flooded in like an hour of “DON’T TELL ME YOU CAME OUT TO YOUR MOM LIKE THAT OMG” and “you’re queer!?” so like

i’m not the best when it comes to stealth queering so take my advice with a grain of salt

#long post #like reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllyyyyyyyyyy long post #i cannot overemphasize how long this post is #advice #i tried :/#Anonymous #anon #vannswers

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