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ettucamus · 2 years

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having lots of Gender feelings today. i’ve been on T for a while and just had my top surgery and i am genuinely the most comfortable i have ever felt in my body in my entire life, and more importantly, the most *healthy*. for the second reason, it actually really upsets me when people discuss medical transition as an “unnatural” thing “society pushes” upon people and not a legitimate medical treatment. i’m not going to pretend i understand why and where my dysphoria comes from but i have been acutely aware of it before i had even heard the word lesbian or butch. i have wanted to pursue top surgery and HRT for exactly a decade, as of this year. and i know for a fact all medical transition i have pursued has tangibly improved my health in multiple ways.

i was so dysphoric to the point i was agoraphobic, it was agonizing to leave my house without binding and i would come home crying because of all of the homophobic things i’d hear for being perceived as a cis butch and how uncomfortable it was to be seen as a cis woman by the greater cishet society. i also have a blood disorder, in which having menstrual cycles exacerbates clinical anemia and basically leaves me bedridden for the entirely of the cycle. T? completely fixed that. my small, sickly blood cells actually got larger and increased in count to the point where i am no longer clinically anaemic, i have a ton of energy to do the things i love, and am not relying on financial assistance to pay rent or buy food because i’m so sick.

also, i can just go about my business and people largely leave me alone because i pass as male. sure, i could spend years of my life trying to make sense of why i have these feelings and why my general existence being perceived as a Cis Woman used to feel so painful, but to be honest it feels a bit ridiculous because i know myself and my identity fairly well now. i feel great identifying as a butch knowing i can be as muscular, hairy, deep voiced as i want to and i can have a femme lover who still sees the softness, still sees my butchness and lesbianism, and doesn’t think i’m a man. and the people who think that i’m “too manly” are really just parroting the same butchphobic and misogynistic bullshit that has been circulating for forever. i don’t necessarily identify as a WomanTM but if i did, there’s absolutely no reason why a woman can’t enjoy being hairy, muscular, flat chested and deep voiced. so what if you weren’t born with it? i wasn’t born with my tattoos or piercings either but i’m still happy i have/had them.

honestly, i love being a passing butch in the 21st century. i love being able to stomp all over men, be a dominant and masculine person, and to not be ridiculed or isolated or fired for it. maybe it’s the easy way out but honestly, i’ve had such a fucking difficult life in so many ways that i feel like i am allowed to not want to experience daily discrimination and hate crimes. i love the fact i can come home to a femme who sees me and loves my butchness and understands how *hard* and how much *work* it is to exist as butch no matter if you decide to medically transition or not. either way, there are going to be people who don’t understand my identity and don’t understand who i am, but (if i had one) my femme sees her butch, other lesbians and queer people mostly still recognize that this person isn’t a man, and that’s more than enough for me. at the end of the day, being a passing butch means i’m not looking for cis/heterosexual approval in my transition, but looking after my physical health and safety in a world that still absolutely wants to kill and hurt people like me.

#???.txt #lesbian #butch #nonbinary #thinking Thoughts #i hope this is helpful to others #either for your own understanding of yourself or for the femmes and other lesbians who don’t relate but empathize #im just angry because i feel like a lot of convos are so wrapped up in ableism re: medical treatment #honestly ive been experiencing dysphoria for over twenty years and if i havent figured out how to get rid of it by now #might as well just do the shit to my body that makes me happy #i already have tattoos my body is already permanently altered it’s really not all that different #also i just want to stress how BADLY doctors fucked up my body by trying to control my menstrual cycles via birth control #like i was SO unhealthy and put on all these experimental birth control types #and all of them had terrible side effects #whereas T is like. the only side effect being actually good for my other health conditions and ljke. people being mean to me on the internet

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gay-otlc · 1 year

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the people harmed by the 'save the poor confused daughters' rhetoric are trans WOMEN who are seen as the predators. if you are TME maybe shut the fuck about oppression you benefit from? 'oh no i am seen as the people who need to be protected from the evil bad transfems :(' you are the villain here

While trans women are seen as predators and the "save the poor daughters" rhetoric affects them in things like sports and bathroom bills, this ideology is specifically wielded against trans men & mascs. Because- and this may come as a shock to you- transphobes hate all of us and we are all harmed by their bigotry.

Specifically, in the post you're likely referencing, I was referring to the way TERFs are upset about people who were assigned female at birth, discovered they were attracted to women and identified as lesbians, and then transitioned into straight trans men. This isn't a made up thing. This is actually very common rhetoric.

They see trans men & mascs as lost butches. They see transmasculinity as the lesbian holocaust (which, in addition to being transandrophobic, is antisemetic as FUCK. but i won't get into that)

And this rhetoric is seen in trying to "protect" all afab children, not just lesbians. Conservatives have recently become outraged that an American Girls book marketed towards young girls, or young children perceived as girls, explained gender identity and advised readers to talk to a trusted adult if they were experiencing gender dysphoria, because a doctor could help them be more comfortable in their bodies (namely puberty blockers.)

Here are screenshots. This shit is real.

I am not seen as someone who needs to be protected from the "evil bad transfems." I am seen as a traitor to womanhood, a violent misogynist, a nazi in the so-called lesbian holocaust, a stupid girl who wants to mutilate her body and trick other girls into mutilating their bodies too.

And even if I was seen as a victim, if I was seen as a little girl who needed to be saved- that would be misgendering me. I'm not a fucking girl. It's not a privilege to be misgendered, and quite honestly it's transphobic to claim I should feel grateful that I'm getting misgendered.

Also, that's bullshit to say that I'm TME and I benefit from transmisogyny. I am not transmisogyny exempt. I have been harassed for going into a women's bathroom because I looked too masculine and the women in there thought I was an evil bad predator. So yeah, not sure how I benefited from that, considering it left me with nowhere safe to use the fucking bathroom.

You have no right to tell me I'm not harmed by transphobia. Go fuck yourself.

#transandrophobia #whooo i got an anon telling me i'm the villain for speaking out against transandrophobia!#transmasc rite of passage i think #you know what? i *had* been saying it was too long since my last anon hate. thanks anon

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gatheringbones · 1 year

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[“If I were growing up now, I might consider myself trans too,” says my friend Kate. She grew up in the Texas Panhandle during the 1950s and gravitated toward feminism in the 1970s like many of her peers. She adds ruefully: “I’m glad I didn’t have that option.”

Nadia has absorbed those fears, and she wonders whether her friends will see her top surgery as an act of betrayal. Before they left for Florida, Nadia implored her girlfriend, Flora, not to tell lesbian friends of theirs that she’s “getting rid of [her] boobs,” joking that she’d “be out of the club.” Flora says she feared losing access to her lover’s body. Never having undergone surgery before, she was afraid of the unknown. “Will it really solve her problems?” she wondered. Why put yourself through that? And why go to a doctor who specializes in transmale top surgery if you’re not trans yourself?

Nadia has stayed in touch with some of the lesbian-identified people she met online who told her they were having top surgery. A few have since “decided to go on T and now identify as male,” she says. It led Nadia to question her own motivations: “Will I begin to identify as trans? Is removing my breasts some sort of internalized misogyny? Am I betraying the lesbian community?”

The fact that transitioning is now an option for women who identify as male means that Nadia must consider how she wishes to identify herself. Flora reassured her: “Having tissue removed from your body is not going to make you a man.” Several months after she had undergone top surgery, Nadia still sees herself as a woman—albeit a woman without boobs. She has a new job and a new girlfriend—someone she used to work with at the employment counseling nonprofit, who worked with her in her union. Her involvement in the union has energized her in new ways, renewing her commitment to social justice organizing. When we speak, she seems happier and more at ease with her life. Top surgery hasn’t changed her life radically, though it has helped her intimate relationships, she says, and has made her less self-conscious about her body. She goes to the beach or to the Y locker room topless now and no one bats their eyes. “I now look how I’m supposed to look,” she says.

Recently, when she was at a union conference in Las Vegas, Nadia spotted another person at the hotel pool who also had the familiar scars of someone who had had top surgery, who was also there with a girlfriend. Though they didn’t say anything to each other, they looked at each other and shared a glint of recognition. Her story suggests that after being estranged from one another, younger butches and trans men are finding one another and making common cause, welcoming gender-crossers into the Lesbian Nation.

In an effort to blur the boundaries between butch lesbians and transgender men, some have suggested the label “transbutch.” When I ask Nadia whether that label is meaningful to her, she seems unconvinced. “It seems too ‘second wave,’ ” she says. Nadia sees herself as part of feminism’s “third wave,” which is more aware of queer issues and racial diversity, and which refuses to “put people in categories.” Unlike her second-wave feminist foremothers, who, in their enthusiasm for remaking the world, seemed at times pretty prescriptive, she’d prefer to “let them decide for themselves how they identify,” she says. So for now, she’s calling herself “butch and queer.” Or “whatever.”]

arlene stein, from unbound: transgender men and the remaking of identity, 2018

#arlene stein #lesbian literature #gender stuff #currently reading #Joan nestle saying what a young woman from another generation chose to call herself would never threaten me

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mack-anthology-mp3 · 1 month

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tell me about christopher ecclestons doctor vs david tennats doctor

or explain what the hell is goin on with the daleks

or you could tell me about (insert musician)’s influence on music

just some options for you to lore dump to :)

RAHHHHHHH OKAY THANK YOUUUU this will be um. super spoilery for doccy whomst.

okayyyy so christopher eccleston plays the ninth doctor who tragically only gets one season AND HE'S SO FABULOUS he's really funny and sarcastic and he says 'fantastic! :D' a lot and is also a massive dork and yayyyy i love him - the interesting thing with nine is that we dont see his regeneration. like we don't see him come into being but its implied that the incarnation before him was horribly injured in The Time War and then became nine, who wanders around alone for a bit racked with guilt and lonely and full of regret and all that fun stuff until he meets ROSE :DDD who pretty much says you're super weird & offputting but also the most interesting thing that's ever happened to me and he's like cool uhm. maybe i do need friends after all so then he takes her on a date to the destruction of her planet to show off that he wasnt kidding about the time machine bit. he also has a really cool leather jacket. and a northern english accent and a sliiiiightly butch lesbian buzzcut. anyways he's very fabulous and also kinda tragic but yeah!! i love him.

BUT THEN universe under massive threat from daleks etc the only way to save the world will be massively catastrophic etc etc so he sends rose home to save her. and she is understandably super upset by this so she ABSORBS THE HEART OF THE TARDIS (pro tip : usually people dont survive that) so she can get back to him, resurrect this other guy who kissed them both and rewrite time so that this will definitely always happen & also destroys a whole lot of daleks. this is called BAD WOLF (<- the capital letters are important. to me.) and its killing her so nine kisses her to pull it out of her (she doesnt remember this) so it kills him instead. then *magicical girl transformation* he explodes into golden light and becomes david tennant!!!!!

david tennant is the tenth doctor and I LOBVE HIM FORVER ADN EVER my specialest little scrunkly girlboy pathetic wet cat terrifying alien guy-shaped-being <33333. rose is understandably like wtf who're you (because the doctor Never does timelord 101 and tells them about regeneration and the two hearts thing) and he is sad about it. so he takes her home. then passes out in front of her mother and sort-of-boyfriend who're also like wtf. anyways he's fine and rose pretty immediately is like wow this guy is actually beautiful & way less grumpy now and they go n do a whole bunch of stuff and they very clearly love each other A Lot (like she loves him when he's nine too of course but it changes) and in my head it's teenage lesbian undefined relationship mutual obsession b/c those be the vibes. a Thing happens and she end up trapped in an alternate universe from which she can never return and the doctor manages to hologram himself in there for a minute to say goodbye and HE ALMOST SAYS I LOVE YOU TO HER but the connection runs out. a lot of other stuff happens and ten is actually pretty scary at points in a way that nine never gets to and A Lot happens to him. my beautiful babygirl she has Every Problem.

see cos the doctor is actually massively emotionally repressed and while nine was a lot closer time-wise to destroying his own planet, ten was coping a whole lot less. ten is often described as the most emotional and most human of the doctors and thats probably true but he's also the most afraid of that vulnerability - he just cant help showing it. he's full of love but he's also full of a desperate sadness and guilt. a lot of guilt. nine has this guilt and the love he just has found a way to not be so raw with it. he is far more measured with his emotions. i reallllllllyyyyyyyy wish we could have seen what would have been done with his character had we got more time with him but alas t'was not to be.

like a good example of that is when we meet nine he's been alone for some time and appears to be more or less okay with that, maybe not super happy but more or less adjusted and functioning. when ten is alone for a while he sort of loses it a bit until he find someone..... like after he and rose get separated, and i mean IMMEDIATLY AFTER, he meets donna who I LOVE :D but he's still so racked with grief that he kills a whole race of spider things and canonically would've destroyed himself along with them if she hadn't been there to tell him to stop. (like legitimately there's an episode, Turn Left, about what would've happened if the doctor died and it's uhm. its unnerving to say the least). ten can't deal with being alone but Also can't deal with loving someone. especially when he is so very aware that he has to lose them.

ten has three seasons & then a year of specials, and he has and then loses the most companions of the doctor and the way he deals with this is Fascinating. he is separated from rose, martha leaves of her own volition b/c she realises that she cant spend her whole life living For Him and that she deserves her own life too, and then he has to wipe donna's memory to save her (she gets it back like. fifteen years for her and ~1000 years for the doctor later but thats a whole thing). like nine does the whole 'no one can get close to me because i will always end up hurting when they die/leave and that will usually be my fault' thing BUT TEN. TEN feels the same way he just can't help himself from making friends and falling in love (grayaroace) with everyone he meets and still being emotionally destroyed when they die. nine's way of coping with the guilt of the time war is to push people away in the first place and ten's is Never Stop To Think Never Stop To Examine Feelings. so yeah. lots of fun.

ALSO the daleks!! theres a ton of lore to them as well, but in short they're genetically modified creatures who have been selectively bred by this guy davros (who has major darth vader vibes. down to the voice and the mechanically supported body) to only feel hate and want to destroy everyone who is not a dalek. they're these weird little things that kinda look like rubbery octopuses inside the metal thing (they're not robots they are actually alive) and they suck. also they're really hard to get rid of like. i swear at least five times the doctor says 'this is the last of the daleks' like bestie just you wait about half a season. the daleks and the timelords (the doctor's species) fought The Time War which really really sucked and they're mortal enemies. so yeah!

#heheheeeee my favouritest very expansive fiction universe yippee ^.^#doctor who #hi anon thank you for the ask <3 #this kinda long lol #tenth doctor #ninth doctor #rose tyler #<- i love them <3

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kattahj · 10 months

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The next half-dozen queer Thai shows I have watched! This time around, it's not just boys' love, but also girls' love and polyamory. Also, there's a lot more action-adventure this time around, with three plot-heavy, rather violent shows! Those are the ones I like best of the bunch, btw. :) And don't worry, they still have happy(-ish) endings!

Manner of Death

What's it about? City doctor moves back to a small town and immediately gets involved in a murder mystery. Also, the prime suspect is really hot.

Genre: Crime drama

Watch if you enjoy: Plot-heavy stories with twists upon twists upon twists. Seemingly nice towns being dens of corruption and vice. (Shit gets pretty dark!) Speedrun romance – no need to wait until the end for a kiss here!

Gayer version of: Somewhere inbetween Blue Velvet and L.A. Confidential

Recommended? Yes! Just make sure you can stomach onscreen murder and offscreen rape. Truth be told, I was a little iffy on it at first, but then it ate my brain, and now it's among my favourites.

Watched on: Dailymotion

Trailer: https://youtu.be/a4b-d_XyLV0

I Told Sunset About You

What's it about? Teh and Oh-Aew are childhood friends, but their love for acting causes some friction when they're competing first for the same part, and later for the same university position.

Genre: Coming of age

Watch if you enjoy: Low-stakes drama. Heavy focus on the central pairing and its romantic complications. Genuine, emotional acting (lots and lots of crying). Characters making foolish, selfish decisions that nevertheless make perfect sense for them to make. Very nuanced secondary love interests.

Gayer version of: My So-Called Life

Recommended? Yes, but I actually ended up NOT wanting these two to be together.

Watched on: Dailymotion

Trailer: https://youtu.be/KIylNdQuR-w

GAP the series

What's it about? Mon idolizes Lady Sam and is thrilled to start working at her company. Her dreams are soon crushed, though, when it turns out that Sam is a cold and demanding boss. The truth is that Sam is under pressure from her grandmother to uphold the royal image.

Genre: Melodrama

Watch if you enjoy: The grumpy one loving the sunshine one. Supportive girl gangs, including a butch lesbian hottie. Tentative attempts at a first relationship. Gossip mills in action.

More lesbian version of: Starts out as The Devil Wears Prada, quickly moves into Young Royals territory.

Recommended? Kind of? It's nice to see some lesbians for once, and the leads have good chemistry. I also really like Sam's catty girl gang. The story is a bit weak at times, and I wasn't always convinced that these two were right for each other. The humour isn't my style either. So it's a bit of a mixed bag, but definitely worth the effort if you want some girl loving!

Watched on: YouTube

Trailer: https://youtu.be/f7Kso0QOaiE

Together With Me

What's it about? Best friends Korn and Knock have a drunken one night stand. Afterwards, they try to forget all about it. After all, Knock already has a girlfriend. Meanwhile, their friends have relationship troubles of their own.

Genre: comedy (mostly)

Watch if you enjoy: More MaxTul after Manner of Death (but in a vastly different genre). Lots of double entendres and also single entendres. Bitchy girlfriends and sassy girl friends. (Yiwha and Faii ftw!) An ensemble cast where everyone makes terrible decisions and no one has even heard of boundaries.

Gayer version of: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Recommended? I would say it is highly entertaining trash. :) It takes a while to kick into gear (but no time at all before sex), but then becomes kind of addictive. Just be aware that every single person in this is some flavour of Problematic (tm).

Watched on: YouTube

Trailer: https://youtu.be/lxX9UkhTCO0

Triage

What's it about? Young doctor Tin finds himself in a time loop. In order to make it stop, he has to save the life of a specific patient. His only help is an annoyingly cryptic angel.

Genre: supernatural mystery/medical drama

Watch if you enjoy: The same writer as Manner of Death. Plot-focused show. Lots of tense medical situations, and even tenser interpersonal situations. Social issues. Assholes learning to be less assholish (except the ones who are just irredeemable). Romance that is simultaneously slowburn and speedrun, and also folds in on itself.

Gayer version of: Russian Doll

Recommended? Yes! More for the plot than the romance, though. Also, if you're anything like me, you'll need tissues for episode 10. (Knowing things will turn out okay doesn't prevent the sad stuff from being sad!)

Watched on: Dailymotion (search for Triag3)

Trailer: https://youtu.be/QeXnXV3FStg

3 Will Be Free

What's it about? Male sex worker Neo has been sleeping with the wrong woman – namely, a mob boss's wife. Now he's running for his life, along with club hostess/pickpocket Miw, who has killed a hitman by sheer instinct, and the mob boss's son Shin, who... well, he just happens to like Neo better than his dad, is all.

Genre: Action/thriller

Watch if you enjoy: Canon OT3. Nuanced trans representation on the side. Chased by the mob. Very high death count. (Don't get attached to any guest characters!) Moral greyness all around, and some sympathy even for the bad guys.

More polyam version of: ...I can't currently think of a chased-by-the-mob film that isn't a comedy, and this is very much not a comedy.

Recommended? Yes! With a warning that all the cliffhangers makes it hard to stop watching, so you may just as well pause in the middle of episodes. (Sidenote: the YouTube comments are more annoying than usual.)

Watched on: YouTube

Trailer: https://youtu.be/ct9fPlMJSDw

#manner of death #i told sunset about you #gap the series #gap #triage #triage the series #together with me #3 will be free #3wbf #katta's ql reviews

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autisticwho · 7 months

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i’ve reached a new level of autism where i’ve just turned doctor who characters trans in my head for no good reason; here it is!

rose tyler — non-binary, any + star/stars + wolf/wolfs

she would learn about more gender and pronouns and how different it is in other planets through travelling with the doctor and would experiment with they/them at first, but would still use she/her. then they’d use he/him & eventually learn about neopronouns + xenogenders and most likely would use star/stars & wolf/wolfs.

mickey smith — transfemme, she/her + they/them

(i’ve been vibing with mickey being transfemme & a butch lesbian for a minute) (i’m obsessed)

SO. i think mickey figured out she was trans early on, she just didn’t know what the feeling was. she saw rose & jackie shopping and was fascinated by it all. they thought dresses and skirts were pretty & was very upset when they got told she couldn’t wear it.

then she meets sally and everything changes. she knows what being trans is & she knows that those conversations are on the table. so, after a lot of research, mickey learns that’s who they are. (in my head they identify as demigirl, but are comfortable with the non-binary & trans labels too)

also small hc that mickey helped cleo with their coming out journey, since rose used to babysit her teehee

donna noble — agender, all pronouns

donna has way too much going on to worry about her gender, however after rose, donna learns some people just don’t really feel a connection with gender & don’t really “care” about gender, which resonates with him, so they adopt the agender label & welcome all pronouns, including neopronouns as well.

bill potts — genderfluid, any pronouns

this was possibly the first head canon that came to mind & it happened before i ever really thought about using the trans beam on any other character.

you see a character called bill potts and you go well that can’t be a cis person

i feel like bill has just always known they were genderfluid. she’s always known their gender fluctuates and he’s always been okay with it, once they found the label it filled them with an insane amount of gender euphoria (which only intensifies after learning the doctor & missy are trans too)

amy pond — transmasc, he/him & rory williams — transfemme, she/her + they/them

to me, amy and rory go on very similar journeys & they go on them together. amy figures out his gender through her kiss-o-gram jobs, he feels sexualised as he’s seen automatically as a woman and that makes him dysphoric. then he researches (as we’ve all done, why do we feel wrong in our bodies!!!!) and finds comfort in the transmasc label.

as for rory, it all starts when amy asks her to dress up as the doctor — she loves this person more than life itself, so of course she’s going to do it but something feels wrong. she wants to rip the clothes off and never think about the situation again; but then it starts happening with their regular clothes — it makes their skin itch and they do not like it. eventually they talk to amy (or rather he figures out somethings wrong with rory and convince him to talk), and the two have an honest conversation about what it all means. (obviously this changes nothing in their dynamic + relationship & they’re very supportive of each other)

#doctor who #amy pond #bill potts #donna noble #mickey smith #rory williams #rose tyler #autism is autisming #the t in tardis is for transgender #also also #the a in tardis stands for autism #mac.txt #i think i’ve forgotten someone #i shall add it later if i remember #enjoy <3

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therubymuse · 1 month

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Women's History Month 2024

While International Women’s Day has been and gone this week, we are still in the midst of Women’s History Month, which happens to be every March. That’s good for yours truly the slackass, because it means I have had some time to organize my thoughts; to sit with them and really get a feel for what needed to be said.

It’s also worth noting that it’s been awhile since I could pickup up the metaphorical pen. The last time I shared something I wrote was last summer, a piece about how important it was for me to be a dyke. It was a good piece, but the words have been all jammed up since. Like logs in a river. The only way to get out of a rut like this is just to let my consciousness ramble, and to accept it’s output as just as valid as any authors or people I look up to. And that’s a hard ask some days.

So today, let’s talk about what being a woman means to me. And why it’s a label and a cause I’ll gladly give my life for as necessary. The first thirty years of my womanhood was denied, in equal parts by those around me who said I was an effeminate man who needed to be toughened up, and by myself, having buried those traits so I could fit in with others. It also didn’t help much that I was born with a penis, so the doctor naturally assumed I was a boy. I’ll forgive him, it was 1986.

I believe I was born a woman, and that I’m biologically female. What we know about science backs up claims of both. Sexual characteristics do not solely present all as male, or all as female, in most of the animal kingdom, so why should we be any different? Many cultures outside of our nightmarish puritanical capitalist hellscape not only recognize genders outside the traditionally masculine and feminine exist, they celebrate our existence.

And yet, there are those who recoil at my claim to the word, and who claim my existence is erasure. These people virulently insist that me and any of my trans sisters are in fact just delusional men. But here’s the thing. Feminism has long sought to define a woman as more than just a birthing machine. We are strong, capable, smart, creative and wise in ways that extend beyond our recorded history and agreed upon definitions. We have always been here, in all the different ways. The true erasure is demanding women occupy only a box of preconceived notions of what others think we are.

It’s shocking to me that so-called “feminists” will fall over each other to tightly define who is allowed to call themselves a woman. Trans women have always been subjugated by this behaviour. We were at the forefront of the modern Pride movement over fifty years ago, and yet it took only a handful of years for cisgender feminists to push trans activists out of said movement, and we’ve been barred in varying degrees from doing anything like that since. Now that trans women can be visible enough to ask to be treated better, that’s seen as appropriating women’s rights for ourselves.

But women’s rights are our rights. Because we are women.

Cisgender women stand to lose a lot more than they gain through the targeting of trans women with hateful legislation and incendiary speech. Increased scrutiny and policing of appearances in public places will lead to mistakes ranging from the embarrassing to the traumatizing. This is already happening, with gender-nonconforming folks and butch lesbians being harassed in washrooms because they look trans, So are a lot of perfectly cisgender and heterosexual individuals who just don’t happen to dress and act in the prescribed way.

All of this puts you in just as much danger as it puts me, if bigots think you’re a tans woman too. And it matters to me that you, me, and my trans sisters are all safe, no matter what.

The label of “woman” means so much to me, because as it turns out, I fit the definition just fine. No matter what shape I contorted myself into, I never neatly fit into my expected gender roles. I was a mousy husband and an effeminate boyfriend. It was visible to everyone except me, and once I started knocking down the closet walls, I felt suddenly like I’d come home. When I said it out loud for the first time, I wept. I was standing in front of my mirror, in my bedroom. It was February 1st and I was getting ready for work. And I had to have a full-on ugly cry over the realization that I had known all this time, but for lack of a matching label, I had been unable to explain it to anyone.

Nobody can take that from me now. It has shaped me as a person, and I’m extremely proud of that person. I have parented my inner child, as we’re making progress on a lot of very deep, very old trauma. I have showered my body in affection and positive language, now that she doesn’t cause me such pain and discomfort via dysphoria. I have learned how to love more fully than I’ve ever known, and more patiently than I ever thought I could. I have allowed myself space to be vulnerable again. And all the while, I’ve been me; a gloriously unhinged disaster lesbian who is growing, changing, and finding a little more of herself every day.

And, of course, I’m a woman too. And as I wipe a tear from my cheek finishing this up, I have to admit that hits me just the same as it did all those years ago.

Photo from Summer 2019.

#women's history month #transgender women #transition

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arttuff · 2 years

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Okay, so I've wanted to get top surgery for years, but I have no idea how to get it started? Do you just like, call up your doctor and be like "hey can you cut off my tits thx?" How did you get started? (And how much did it cost...) Hope this isn't too personal, thanks.

this is gonna be real informal cuz im just some dude im not a professional

here’s a super basic overview of how I went about it :) let me know if you have any questions anon! I’ll be happy to take a stab at answering

disclaimer is i live in australia so this is probably very specific to australia but if it helps, medicare (our public healthcare) didnt cover much except a couple hundred off the anaesthetist’s fee (but i wont include that in my estimate ily americans)

also this is just how i did it im sure everyone goes about it differently

but my first step was hrt (you dont need to go on hrt for top surgery but if you do it's recommended 6 months on testosterone before you get the surgery so you can get pecs goin beforehand and have more natural looking results. my pecs were juicy as hell by the time i got top surgery, so much so that my mum was surprised lol truly living up to my artstyle)

to do that i had to get a letter from my psychiatrist (this was covered by medicare) saying that i have a documented history of gender dysphoria and am mentally sane enough to seek treatment for it (this is just because of my medical history im pretty sure that not everyone has to do that plus you can look into informed consent)

with that letter of gender confirmation in your hot little hand you can then google around to find who it is you want to be doing your top surgery! i am so insanely lucky that i live in the biggest city in my country, meaning i had some good options. i settled on an award winning plastic/cosmetic surgeon that specialises in gender reassignment-- i love his results, and im so glad i went with him everything looks better than i expected it's so worth it!!!!

anyway once you choose a doctor you ring up and ask for a consultation-- this is not bulk billed but medicare can rebate a bit i think

thanks to covid all of the openings for consultations were full so i rang back once a week for 6 months (oh my god that's obsessive as fuck now that i put it together) until they had an opening

at the consultation you pretty much talk to your doc to let them know what you want, your identity, etc. im a nonbinary butch lesbian and i wanted some pecs but no nipple reconstruction (no nips no worries mate xx) and he made sure i was certain that's what i wanted and that i know the risks associated

the doc gives you an estimation and you decide whether you want to go through the public system (i think this is australia specific) and get put on a waiting list for 3+ years depending on demand, or do it privately (medicare, which everyone has, plust any private healthcare-- i have none)

i decided to go private because i do not think i could handle that wait, and ended up just being able to make it through with overtime at work heehee :) but good lord my wallet is starving

the cost is split up 3 ways between the doctor’s fees, the anaesthetist’s fees, and the hospital fees. there’s more expenses if you stay overnight at the hospital, so it’s better if you have someone to take you home and look after you

so all up i saved money in 2 places: the surgery itself was shorter because there was no nipple reconstruction, and i didn’t stay overnight so i didn’t have to pay that massive amount

all up my cost of surgery was around $11 000 aud (which is around usd $7 600) and the estimate he gave me was $14 000 aud ($9 600 usd)

that’s a vague and rambly overview! let me know if there’s anything you’re confused about anon! or if there’s any questions you have about top surgery recovery etc :) remember i can only give my perspective from how it’s done in australia I’m sure it’s way different elsewhere in the world

#not art #sorry for the massive spam anon i hope this answers your top surgery questions #anonymous #ask #ask to tag my friends

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babydarkstar · 6 months

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help i literally cant/wont shut up about medical misogyny in my classes rn lmfao. good thing one of my profs is a butch lesbian with a doctorate in feminist studies and another one is also a woman who focuses on social justice and oppression so i wont get scalped for constantly bringing up my feminism

#i feel like im so annoying just being like #‘well it’s funny that u asked abt how this reading ties into our current political climate bc actually blah blah blah’ NDNSJDJSJ #like for everything smnfnsndbd #my interdisciplinary prof is so cool she exudes lesbian swag #in like a nerd way. u know how it be

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sillyroundkatie · 1 year

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Who the hell is this grumpy butch??

(OC info under the cut!)

(Retro) Clayton | She/Her | Butch Lesbian | Human | ~30? | 187 cm / 6'2" | Australian Before Clayton turned herself into a cyborg - she was just a simple post-doctoral researcher with an urge to study... how one might turn themselves into a cyborg. Being younger doesn't mean she's any kinder, as she's still her usual grumpy self. If anything, she's at her most violent and impulsive, because she's much more vulnerable, lacking her later modifications. For now, a bad attitude and a loaded gun will have to suffice. Common activities/hobbies: Clayton is often busy performing her experiments, and she doesn't really understand the concept of 'hobbies', but she does enjoy running long distance to keep her cardio refined. She has a hyper-fixation on spiders, especially Huntmans, and will stop what she's doing to watch one. She has a problem where she wants to study internal organs in greater detail, but they're - you know - internal and she can't study her own - so she has to find unwilling participants. She's often doing maintenance on her Land Rover, which faces the wear and tear of being constantly driven out into The Outback so that she can dispose of the evidence of her studies. ...And her cousin Disturbia is often roped into helping her, though she'll make her fur coats in return. Setting: Set in the 70s, when Clayton is a younger woman. She is a post-doctoral researcher at an Australian university. Clothing style: She is a butch woman, and dresses almost entirely in suits. If she's getting her hands dirty, she will take off the blazer and roll the sleeves up past her elbows. She only wears non-black suits, for some reason. You can draw them with:

Sera (But a 70s AU version) (student) - Clayton is forced to contribute equally to the department by finally supervising a master's student, lest she be fired. She demands that she'll only take a good one, and (un)fortunately, Sera is quite the budding genius. Clayton is pleased that she's actually useful, and she alters Sera's project to research an early battery prototype, one that could perhaps, power something like a cyborg one day. The two clash frequently, with Sera on the receiving end of a lot of snarky put-downs. Sera learns over time about how many crimes Clayton has been committing, and has no choice but to go along with it.

Disturbia (cousin) - A weird lanky freak with two puffs of hair at the front and an otherwise shaved head is a good description of Clayton's cousin Disturbia. However at this point in time, Dissy has not yet made it as a fashion designer, and instead spends most of her time smoking weed and otherwise bothering/mooching off of Clayton. She'll pay her back. One day.

Additional stuff to keep in mind: This is an alternate universe version of Clayton, because I love her too much and there is too much fun to have with her in her younger days (Also I just really like the 70s aesthetic, and 70s Australia is an extra good setting). Some random trivia:

She inherited her Dad's gun and now uses it frequently (you are NOT allowed to touch it.)

She is an excellent shot.

Despite being a stuffy researcher who spends most of her time at a desk, Clayton is very physically fit at this stage of her life. She is a long distance runner and has insane cardio abilities.

She drinks her coffee black. Further information and images of her main AU version can be found at her Toyhouse page at the link below!: Clayton's ToyHouse!

#sillyroundart #sillyroundkatieOC #Retro Clayton #lesbian #butch #butch lesbian #suit lesbian #dyke #original character #digital art #OC art #70s #category 5 grumpy autism incident #5 dead 12 injured #everyday i go to work i become more like Her

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tailsrevane · 1 year

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my favorite queer relationships in media

this was another patreon-exclusive post that i'm posting here now because i'm not on patreon anymore. this one was a belated pride month post from july of 2022 where i listed my favorite queer relationships in media. i would probably list some of these in a different order today, but i'm just gonna share the post in its original form. enjoy!

what up, gay nerds!

today i’ll be talking about my favorite queer relationships in media. we’re talking couples, we’re talking throuples, we’re talking polycules, and we’re also talking non-romantic queer chosen family. this is obviously a topic that’s very near and dear to my heart, so i’m super excited to talk about it!

also, because of the relative dearth of queer relationships in mainstream media, i’m also going to talk about characters i ship. this will be in a separate section, though, so let’s start with the main event.

my favorite canon queer relationships

14. piper/alex (orange is the new black)

i’ve only seen the first few seasons, but yeah, at the time having actual gay relationships on a tv show i was watching was such a blessed relief.

there’s a line early in i think season 2? where piper and alex are being all domestic together and piper says, “this is so nice, and so gay!” and it more or less sums how i felt about the whole thing.

13. david/keith (six feet under)

six feet under is a very slice of life show, and the romantic relationships it depicts are accordingly presented with an aching realism. david and keith have their issues but they deal with them responsibly, engaging in couples counseling and doing their best to get better.

it’s a very healthy portrayal and it doesn’t seem like the show is going for brownie points or anything, they’re both just valued characters whose stories the show wanted to tell.

12. lady tohru/kobayashi (miss kobayashi’s dragon maid)

this would be higher, but tohru and kobayashi have never really been the main draw for me? i’m hella into the family vibes between the two of them and their adopted child kanna. kanna is just a gloriously adorable child and she’s so sweet and her family is so good and argh. feelings!

the show (and presumably the manga it’s based on) is so well-written, though. they always put kobayashi in a position to just be the sweetest butch mom and it’s so freaking good.

11. violet/allie (her story)

this was rather by the numbers, i get it, but seeing a trans girl in a healthy lesbian relationship helping escape from her abusive boyfriend was super life-affirming to me for… reasons.

actually, just seeing another trans person on screen was so what i needed at that exact moment in time, it actually helped light a fire under me to get started on hrt.

10. ivanova/talia (babylon 5)

literally the only thing holding this back from being higher on the list is that thanks to 90s homophobia it had to be largely implied, and that it ended tragically.

in her last appearance on the show, talia slept with ivanova, and in a later episode when everyone on the crew has to tell a deep, personal secret ivanova says that she loved talia. so it’s more than you might expect given the limits it had to work within. and ivanova is my favorite character on the whole show and always has been, so yeah, this meant a lot to me.

9. nomi/amanita (sense8)

the joy of seeing actual transgender people on screen in a mainstream streaming series directed by two trans people is matched only by the joy of that trans character getting absolutely railed by the best/prettiest doctor who companion with a strap-on in her first scene. fuck yeah.

and then their whole first arc is about nomi’s bodily autonomy being threatened and amanita coming to her rescue and she rescues her in the most emotionally satisfying scene ever and oh my gosh you guys it’s so good.

8. dev/lee (out of position) & volle/xiller (argaea)

at my first furry convention i discovered that there was a thriving small industry publishing specifically furry books. we’re not talking zines here (though those are also awesome in their own right), we’re talking novels, anthologies, short story collections, etc.

at the time i was still hella into sports, so i was immediately drawn to one that had a buff tiger in a football uniform hoisting a fox femboy onto his shoulder with one arm. ironically at the time i was a tiger (though certainly not the dumb jock musclegod dev is), and today i’m a fox femboy? funny how things work out.

anyway, turns out the author of that book is one of the most prolific (and definitely the most popular) furry writers, and i actually liked his argaea series even better than the football nerd one. argaea is set in a fanciful renaissance-ish world and full of palace intrigue and mystery and kidnappings and whatnot. very fun stuff there.

7. baz/simon (simon snow)

there’s been a harry potter-shaped hole in my heart for years now, so when i heard about this series i was immediately in.

the way magic works in this certainly doesn’t really square with how i think about it, but it’s definitely a creative approach. and i super approve of how these books handle the enemies-to-lovers romance of the two dumb gay boys, as well as how it depicts one of them having crippling depression and how they navigate the relationship difficulties this often results in. extremely good stuff here.

(also i’m almost done with the last book and i’m pretty sure there’s a couple of useless lesbians happening!!! exciting!!! there’s also one het couple in the last book if you’re into that kinda thing.)

6. galo/lio (promare)

what if we were a dumbass himbo and a powerful femboy and did an enemies to lovers thing to become an incredible anime power couple and just kicked all of the ass. all of it. what if that?

5. harley quinn/poison ivy (dc comics)

honestly the only reason this isn’t higher on the list is because i’ve seen very little of their actually in a relationship stuff, and that’s a me problem that i really need to fix asap. but i’ve shipped them forever, basically ever since that animated series episode. you know the one. so when i heard they were canon i squeed so loudly.

4. luz/amity (the owl house)

the owl house feels like it was made specifically for me. this show also saw the harry potter-shaped hole in my life and came along and was like “okay but what if we made something drastically better and more imaginative instead and also basically everyone was gay?” and uh, yeah! obviously!!

so obviously it’s being canceled because some dumbass homophobic executive had a problem with it and omfg disney is the fucking worst. can they please just stop.

but yeah i’m so glad kids get to grow up with stuff like this and she-ra and etc, but also i’m so glad i get to watch it too okay? witchy gay bullshit is entirely my jam.

but yeah amity and luz are the sweetest useless lesbians and i love how flustered they get around each other despite having no problem having badass magic fights and just ugh they’re so good i love them so much.

i also want to give a shout-out to lesbian wine aunt eda and her ex-enbyfriend/hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-ex-enbyfriend raine, i’m really rooting for them!!!

3. adora/catra (she-ra)

no big deal just the main hero and main villain of a science fantasy swashbuckling magical girls show who swordfight like literally all the time and are super blatantly gay for each other the whole time and have emotional turmoil over each other and constantly try to assert their dominance over each other.

also there’s a prom scene in the first season where the villain shows up in a messy tux and dances with the hero girl while verbally needling her and dips her really low and it’s so gay and i’m so jealous because i want a villain like that to be all homoerotic with.

and then in the last season of the show catra finally switches sides and apologizes to adora and then adora comes and rescues her and she has this badass transformation scene and it’s one of my favorite scenes in television history and ugh i am so gay and in the last episode they kiss and confess their feelings for each other and fuck i love these two and this show.

there’s also another canon lesbian relationship between netossa and spinnerella, and the series creator said rogelio, kyle, and lonnie are a polycule! and they’re all such good boys and one of them is a really hot lizard boy and aaaaaaa.

2. basically every relationship (dragon moms)

so uh yeah one of my partners is an author and basically all of her characters are queer (with a few exceptions) and a lot of them are trans or nonbinary and i love her writing so much, if you have similar tastes to me you’ll probably like it too. everything is just very emotionally satisfying and character-driven and just… she’s the best, guys. i’d be a fan of her writing even if i weren’t dating her.

anyway her most popular and probably best work is dragon moms which she serialized online but also published as an ebook with extra content and it’s so good and so gay and yeah, she also has a lot of other short stories and stuff on her website and a few other ebooks available and i unreservedly recommend anything she’s written she’s so good.

1. star trek: discovery’s queer chosen family

i’ve gushed about them a bunch in my discovery reviews so there really shouldn’t be any surprise here, but yeah. when lieutenant stamets and dr. culber were shown as a couple in season 1 of discovery it belatedly fulfilled an almost 31-year-old promise by gene rodenberry. in season 3 of the show, they also introduced gray (a trans guy) and adira (an enby) and made them gay for each other on top of that, and i love them so much, i would die for them. and on top of that they all came together as a surrogate family with stamets and culber just being amazing surrogate space dads and jet reno popping in every now and then as their weird butch lesbian aunt and i am so, so glad i lived long enough to see star trek get this gay, guys!!

while i’m talking about star trek i do want to mention that i didn’t forget about seven and rafi, and i do love them, but i don’t love that them getting together basically happened off screen? like they get plenty of screentime in season 2 but that was in full figuring their shit out mode and idk i just don’t like that all we got for them becoming a couple was them holding hands at the end of season 1 like it feels like you skipped the whole romantic part of their relationship and that kinda sucks?

queer relationships i ship

(cw: some of these characters will have canon age gaps and/or are minors in some canons, just assume there's an element of au-ification here. cool? cool.)

14. finn/poe (star wars)

look i don’t care about star wars anymore but wow how could you not make these guys gay come on.

13. bella/alice (twilight)

again i don’t really care but especially in the movies alice is literally the only person that seems right for bella like seriously their relationship is so much better than her relationship with either of the two boys.

12. kota ibushi/kenny omega (professional wrestling)

to be super clear this is very much about their characters, not them as a people, i don’t ship real people that’s creepy.

their characters have this amazing wrestling love story and i just want it to be even more explicitly gay than it already is, but also it’s already kinda explicitly gay??? and that’s amazing.

11. femshep/jack (mass effect 2) & pc/kaliyo (star wars: the old republic)

this one is moreso about two times bioware queerbaited me, like i met both of these characters while playing female characters and was immediately like “wow okay they are totally lesbian doms like you can tell me they’re bi and i’ll believe you” but i was just so sure they had to be romanceable for my female characters and then i found out they weren’t? and in both cases i was just like, what the fuck guys, this is cultural appropriation.

10. riker/worf (star trek: the next generation)

this started out as a joke but i’m kind of firmly committed to it at this point. there is at least as much reason to think that riker and worf are hooking up on the regular as there is that riker and deanna are, and riker and deanna got married later sooooo…

9. georgiou/burnham (star trek: discovery)

i mean, burnham has more feelings about georgiou than she does about any of her actual on-screen romantic partners, whether it’s for her gentle mommy domme prime universe georgiou or her badass mean domme mirror universe georgiou.

8. dick grayson/jason todd (dc universe)

i literally wrote fanfiction about these two when i read nightwing: year one and jason kept bratting the fuck out of dick to the point where dick literally tied him up.

jason is a bratty power bottom and dick is a service top. i will not be accepting questions or feedback at this time.

7. garak/bashir (star trek: deep space nine)

i don’t even give a shit about bashir when he isn’t interacting with garak. he might as well be a non-character.

i fucking love garak he is such an amazing bratty dom. i love watching him play with his food (his food being bashir).

6. legolas/gimli/aragorn (lord of the rings)

it’s that thing where you take a very homosocial book and add expanded roles for some of its female characters to make it less homosocial but you change exactly nothing about how emotionally intimate the homosocial relationships are and y’know whoops they’re clearly gay now, we decided.

5. bruce/clark (dc universe)

how is this not canon? there is so much blatant textual support for it, holy shit, look at literally any interaction they’ve ever had with each other.

4. neo/trin (the matrix)

yeah they’re on-screen canon, i just mean i headcanon both of them as enbies. so like. they aren’t actually queer in their portrayal onscreen (but like, come on, this is the gayest “straight” couple ever), but they are in my headcanon? if that makes sense.

3. tim drake/jon kent (dc universe)

yeah, they both have boyfriends who aren’t each other, but tell me you didn’t immediately think about these two cute superhero boys kissing the second you heard they were both openly bi. i don’t believe you.

2. flick/cj (animal crossing)

i actually questioned whether to put this as a canon relationship considering that the game frequently seems to stop just short of saying it and i’m reasonably certain that the creative team considers them an item. but i’ll leave it under this section because they don’t just come right out and say it.

1. sonic/tails/knuckles/shadow

i mean, this is a pretty obvious one right? i mean okay polycule shipping is pretty rare, but like, sontails is obviously correct and sonshad is obviously correct and sonknux is obviously correct and knuxtails is obviously correct and shadtails is obviously correct and i’ll grant you there isn’t as much on-screen evidence for knuxshads but still just put it all together and there you go. like i said. obvious.

please don’t ship sonamy it’s so creepy she’s literally a stalker it’s not okay. i mean do what you want but i’m judging you. my favorite interpretation of amy’s feelings btw is a comic i saw on twitter once where amy is coming out as a lesbian and she apologizes to sonic for being all weird and overcompensating by being over the top into him and he’s super understanding because he’s gay and he gets it and idk it just feels so real and good to me.

anyway, yeah! happy belated pride! i love gays and being gay.

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sapphos-darlings · 2 years

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I used to identify as a butch lesbian, but I stopped due to dysphoria. I no longer can ever see myself identify as a woman and seeing the word is enough to make me cringe. I'm a lot happier saying I'm a straight trans man because I know there isn't any room in womanhood for people like me and that a lot of it is empty promises. I'll never be good enough for any woman and I'll always be lesser than cis men.

My darling Anon. I'm sorry to hear that you feel like you're in such a tight spot. I hope there will be happier times ahead of you soon!

I'm wondering though why you sent us this message. Of course, we are always happy hear from anyone in the WLW community, and we treasure all experiences! But I hope I can say something meaningful and useful to you.

I hope you don't mind me saying, but you sound depressed. You speak of things that stem from self-hate and feeling attacked and marginilized - and let me tell you, I hear you! We are living through hard times, politically and economically. One main reason this very blog exists is because I as a lesbian have felt silenced, erased and harassed, and Sade as a febfem likewise, so we wanted to carve out this space for us and women like us. We didn't want to be silent and invisible, so this is how we speak up, and hopefully make women like us visible too!

I'm telling you, as a lesbian and a woman with a mental health history, that you are in control of yourself, and your problems can be tended to, your pain can be eased, and you can get better. We can't fix the world, but we do have affect on our own surroundings, our lives, our relationships, and ultimately ourselves.

Now, if you are genuinely happy and content with transition, that's up to you. Many people are. Please note, we are not medical professionals, and all serious medical decisions must be made together with your doctor!! We are not qualified to advice you on treatment or cover the risks of any medical procedures!!

I have friends who have gone down that path, with varying results. But through them I also know that the process is long, hard, mentally taxing, and that you must check your expectations. My oldest friend, with no mental health problems prior or after, had to go through six months of evaluations with a psychologist before any treatments. Even though he didn't think he needed that, he said afterwards that it was really helpful just in general.

One thing was, you have to realize that transition isn't going to change you. It won't fix you, it won't magically change your life, and it won't give you your 'dream body'. You are still going to be you, with this personality, these feelings, and living this life. Your body will look different, yes, but it's still you, and your problems are still going to be there.

So take care of yourself and your mental health, Anon! There absolutely is room for all kinds of women. Even the butchest butch is still a woman like any other, just in her own way. Being a woman isn't wearing dresses or being meek and pretty or whatever else patriarchy is demanding of us today. We're all born naked, not with pink bows. There's also so much love, so many wonderful women in this world, and so much beauty. You haven't met all the people who will love you.

You are not doomed. You are not lesser than, not as you were, as you are now, or as you will be. No matter what.

You deserve someone to talk to. I'd recommend you seek out a mental health professional to help you cope with the stress, the pain you see in the world, and your feelings of isolation, depression and dysphoria alike. Talking about it might reveal stuff you never thought about, and it could bring order to your feelings and relieve that burden. From experience, just talking about your feelings can bring immense relief, and you'll get to focus on yourself and learning about you. There's more there than you might even imagine!

Other mental health hacks that can make you feel better and improve your quality of life in surprisingly efficient ways include:

Get enough sleep. Go to bed by midnight and get eight hours of sleep.

Eat regularly and well. Two hot meals in a day should be standard. (Tip: if you struggle with little energy, cook large portions at once. A big stir-fry or a casserole can feed you for several days, and you can always freeze some so it won't go bad.)

Limit social media time. Stop doomscrolling and stop feeding your anxieties. Let your brain rest, so for example don't start and end your day by bombarding it with a limitless social media feed. Disengage from discourse and anything that is making you frustrated, angry or depressed. Conciously dig yourself up from rabbit holes.

Go outside every day. It's a proven fact that spending time in nature eases anxiety and prolonged stress.

Exercise! This is especially for body issues. Start a new routine or start going for runs. You could also use the company of other female people, so look up local sports teams or hobby groups. Get those endorphines!

Spend time with your friends. You don't need to talk about things you don't want to, but just being in the company of others can be helpful. Connecting with people you care about, having fun, laughing; all this can lift your mood and get you out of your head.

I know these seem very obvious, but really they do work. You'll be amazed how many things are linked, how just rest, food and human connection can help you right now.

Don't give up, Anon! Be a friend to yourself. All the best on your journey!

-Lavender

#reply #mental health advice #self acceptance #dysphoria cw #body dysmorphia cw

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gatheringbones · 1 year

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[“Alex tells me he had long been aware of the existence of transsexuals, and he had even contemplated transitioning earlier in his life. He had known a couple of people over the years who had transitioned, but he had no idea of how to go about doing so, and he lacked the money and the wherewithal.

In the early 1990s, “the conversation changed,” he says, making it possible for him to contemplate transitioning. He heard about support groups for transgender men. FTM groups were forming in San Francisco and Seattle. A burgeoning “queer” movement was challenging the dominance of radical feminist ideas and was offering female-assigned individuals who wished to embrace their inner maleness a way to do so affirmatively, with a sense of pride. Writers and activists like Sandy Stone and Kate Bornstein were talking about a different, more expansive understanding of the radical potential of gender switching, rejecting medicalized notions of trans people as having the “wrong body,” or as being mentally deficient. The term “transgender” was established as a way to move beyond the medical model of “transsexualism” and to include a broad array of gender-variant persons who wished to challenge the binary. It enabled Alex to call himself transgender.

“I did not want to have to say I was ‘crazy.’ I don’t even like saying I’m dysphoric, though I fit the narrative,” says Alex. “I didn’t start T until I found a very good doctor who didn’t demand a letter from a therapist. I wouldn’t confess dysphoria in order to get access to top surgery. I won’t do it. Why would I want to make myself even more marginal?” However, once there was a “weakening of pathology, of judgment,” he decided to move forward.

Meanwhile, Kristin, Alex’s closest friend, settled in Seattle after graduation, where she found an accepting culture and a lively butch presence in the lesbian community. She worked for a state representative, and when she visited the state capitol to lobby on his behalf, people sometimes perceived her “as a boy.” But mainly she felt okay about looking different, and she fell in love with a woman, Jennie, who affirmed her right to be who she was. Kristin is pretty flat chested and small hipped, and “looks like she wants to,” more or less. She presented as a masculine female. It helped that her family tended to be supportive. “Even though I don’t really operate as a woman, I operate in the sphere of women, and there were a lot of really strong women in my big Polish family!” Also her dad, now deceased, was queer, and her brother (who appears in this book) is a transgender man.

Because Kristin, unlike Alex, received a lot of support for her gender nonconformity, she said it never became a major source of distress for her—which isn’t to say that it hasn’t been a challenge at times. She contemplated transitioning for a while but eventually made peace with her body. Being in therapy helped. “I thought that my anxiety was special and everyone else was normal,” she tells me. But as she found ways to ease her generalized sense of anxiety, she became more comfortable with her body and her gender nonconformity. “I thought, ‘Why do I care so much about what other people think about my gender?’ I have a right. I have a fucking right to be who I am,” she tells me, her voice cracking.

And as she became more comfortable with herself, she found ways to deal with bathroom confrontations. “Now when people come up to me and tell me I’m in the wrong bathroom, sometimes I look my body up and down and look at them quizzically and say, ‘Oh, really?’ Thanks!” She makes light of it. “The more comfortable I am, the more likely they are to think I’m in the right place and leave me alone. Now it’s even funny at times.” But airports, she says, are still particularly challenging. Heightened security seems to extend to the policing of gendered bodies in bathrooms. The other day, a blond woman in her fifties came over to her as she entered a bathroom stall and started yelling, “You’re in the wrong place—the men’s room is over there.” Kristin just smiled and said, “Thank you,” and the woman left in a hurry.

“I get why some people transition,” says Kristin, “to be normal, and not have people gawking at you all day. It takes a whole lot of energy.” Still, she came to the conclusion that transitioning would not solve her problems, and that it might open up new, unknown challenges.

Alex, on the other hand, made the decision to modify his body and present as a male, and it has made his life much easier. He no longer gets harassed walking down the street, and he’s no longer as angry. “I still look young,” he tells me, “but at least the beard and receding hairline prove I’m through puberty!” He is much happier now, he says. “I honestly don’t feel I’ve changed that much. That is, ‘transitioning’ didn’t change me so much as it forced others to see me as I saw myself. Yes, the bodily transformations were welcome and comforting. I felt that I was finally ‘home.’ But how do you separate that feeling from the sense that you’re finally recognized by others for how you see yourself?”]

arlene stein, from unbound: transgender men and the remaking of identity, 2018

#arlene stein #gender stuff #currently reading #trans literature #lesbian literature

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the-winter-jedi · 2 years

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I need to put this somewhere I can organize my thoughts.

In about a month, I'm getting ready to start my HRT journey. This is something I've been mulling over for the past 11 years. When I was 18, that's when I first really started to question my gender identity. At first, I wondered if I was transgender because I never quite felt like a "girl." This was well before I had the vocabulary and understanding of gender as a spectrum. After some self reflection, I didn't quite feel "truly" trans because I had no desire to completely become a man. I've always been fond of my feminine body and have no desire to physically alter it, save for starting hormones.

Looking back on my past, experimenting with my different gender roles started as young as kindergarten for me. I'd always want to play the chivalrous prince or other male-centric roles, but I also loved being the cute, girly princess. Age 12 was when I really started to experiment with my gender presentation, but I never felt like I could be (birth name) and be a boy at the same time. So, my solution was to create an "alter ego" and call him Scotty (thanks to watching EuroTrip at the time lol). Before I fully developed and went through puberty, it was so much easier to be androgynous and gender fluid, but growing up in a small town, I didn't have the vocabulary or the knowledge to understand what I was going through at the time. Keep in mind, this was also between 2005-2011 when gender identity wasn't widely talked about either.

Throughout my late teens and early 20s, I discovered genderfluid as an identity. Around age 24 or 25 was when I started to give up trying to look masculine, because I never felt like I could "pass" and trying to look masculine caused me to feel more body dysmorphia than the gender euphoria that I craved. So, for a while, I started presenting more hyper feminine, and only occasionally playing around with a masculine-type presentation if I was really in a mood on any given day, but I would never go out in public, unless it was in a queer space. Even then, I always felt insecure about being perceived as a "butch lesbian" rather than genderfluid.

Around May or June of this year, it dawned on me that I very well might be agender. This idea came to me when my roommate asked me what gender I felt like when we were dressing up for an event. My only response was "no" as I laughed it off. However, now that the ball is finally rolling for me to start HRT, I'm wondering if I might start leaning more towards being genderfluid again if my meatsuit can match the way I feel inside. Part of me wonders if I would feel more comfortable in my femininity if I had at least the option to present more masculine when I want to. In addition to HRT, I'm also looking into getting a good quality binder from For Them (forthem.com) once I get some spending money.

I've always had an attraction to femboys, not as a fetish like a lot of people seem to have on this site, but more out of body envy. From age 18, I found myself wanting to look like a twink and dress girly if I want to. However, being assigned female at birth, all people see is a cis woman, and not a femboy. It also doesn't help that I have an hourglass figure complete with 36DD breasts and an ass like a peach. With this kind of body that I have, I also turn to weight lifting and bodybuilding as a hobby, because if I'm going to be perceived as a girl, I may as well be a muscle girl because a lot of people do perceive them as masculine. Hopefully once I start T, I can actually start building the kind of masculine body that I want rather than building up the feminine body that I have.

It feels better to get everything out in the open like this. Hopefully things will start coming together in a month once I get my antidepressants stabilized and start on my hormones. I have an appointment with my doctor to talk about it soon and it was a huge relief to know that she has extensive experience treating transgender and gender non-conforming patients. Wish me luck!

#transgender #non binary #gender noncomformity #they/them #fae/faer #gender dysphoria blues

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