#which is a wonderful thing to be and i'll use the term ''masc'' for myself as well [some butches will not; and will exclusively use Butch]

[meirimerens]

please disregard this if it’s too personal but i was wondering how you knew being butch was right for you?

signed, a 21 yr old going through a life crisis x

i don't think being (a) butch is something that one registers as being "right for you" in the same way you'd find a painkiller that works, in the same way you'd get "ask your doctor if [...] is right for you" ads on american television. every butch will have a different story as to how they got to coming into their own, to self-actualizing and finding solace/comfort/recognition in the word butch. every butch will put something else to the name, but we all have similarities, and it's in these similarities that i "self-recognized through the other(s)" in many ways.

i, personally, have a history of being really uncomfortable in typically feminine clothing. (this is not a butch thing. feminine clothing is manufactured to be uncomfortable. however, for me, it is part of a pattern.) i, personally, remember competing with boys at a young age, consciously to prove myself as, if not more worthy than; subconsciously for girls' attentions. i, personally, have a history of trying to be feminine in order to compensate a feeling of deep wrongness and feeling, consistently, genuinely monstrous doing so, which only stopped when i dropped that shit completely. i found i related to other butches' ~gender troubles~. i found i related to other butches' relationship to their own selves, bodies, and ways to navigate relationships. many butches are not particularly into femme girls, but butch/femme is an important part of butch history, and this part deeply resonated with me. butches' writings about their butch lovers, butch friends, and butch selves resonated with me. femmes' writings about their butch lovers and butch friends resonated with me. many butches do not have a particularly deep or long history or present of dysphoria, or of feeling of straddling the line of womanhood and (trans)masculinity, but equally as many do, and this resonated with me. butchness put a word on that feeling of cusp, of brink or boundary, which made sense to me, but might not make sense to others.

mostly i stopped staring in my own face trying to decipher its meaning and stared into others' instead and found my own here, and these others were butches. it's a word that makes sense to me. we do not have it in my mother tongue, we have other things, but lesbians Like That have existed across times and cultures, and when i use english, write english, speak english, in the way i'm going with you now, i'll use that word, because it exists, and it fits me in this tongue.

my last piece of advice is like. there are plenty of other things to be than butch. there are also plenty of things to be that are real close to butch but are not it. the butch-femme scale is not a thing. the vast majority of lesbians are neither butch nor femme.

in my personal experience, the more you obsess about your identity and the more you try to look into all the folds & wrinkles of your navel in order to find your reflection, the less authentically you live, and the less likely you are to find an answer. i know it's easy to say "just don't have an identify crisis ^.^ just vibe!" but like. you Are gonna have to vibe. you're gonna have to let the waves batter you for a bit and carry you upon rocks and shores. the more you struggle against the sea the less it'll relent, and it's stronger than you. go out in the world and see how it embraces you and how you feel like embracing it back. the answers will come in due time.

#being honest. ''ask your doctor if butchness is right for you'' kind of slays as a slogan. should put it on a pin #^ wrote all this assuming you meant butch as in A Butch as i think i wrote about somewhere #& not about the like. general ~aesthetic~ of being masc #which is a wonderful thing to be and i'll use the term ''masc'' for myself as well [some butches will not; and will exclusively use Butch] #because if it was about the general ~aesthetic~ of being masc [which. you might have noticed i don't think Butch is exclusively about that] #you can try it and see if you feel better. you can just do that. see if it makes you feel truer. sexier. more confident. #ring ring (answers) #anonymous #as i've Aged in my twenties my main and constant advice has been: see the world and the people in it. #whatever you do avoid navelgazing as much as you can. also invest in hiking shoes. waterproof ones. i like the boots but some like the low. #[10 packs a day voice] my final message

[jamesunderwater]

Hello!! I was just wondering if there is a difference between being transmasc and being a trans guy? I tried searching for it but other than knowing that there seems to be a difference, I couldn't really put my finger on what exactly makes them different from eachother - I thought maybe you might be able to help?? Is it to do with gender expression vs gender identity??

Hey! first, just wanna say that I appreciate you trying to find the answer yourself and then asking for clarification so genuinely.

I couldn't stop myself from giving a few caveats before answering your specific question, so bear with me.

Language around gender identity is tough because it really does mean different things to different people, so questions like "what does transmasc mean?" or "what does it mean to be a trans man?" (and so on) are essentially the same thing as asking, "why do you call yourself a woman?" -- every cis woman is gonna have a different answer to that.

Which is to say, definitely don’t take my answer or any other answers you find on things like this as definitions. If you meet someone who describes themselves as transmasc, what that means to them might be different to what I'm going to say here. And, this isn't me saying to ask every single trans person what the terms they use mean to them. The important information to have is: what is their name, what are their pronouns, and when do they want you to use that name/those pronouns (for safety reasons). But it isn't necessary to know what their gender identity is (especially not based on their pronouns), or what that identity specifically means for them. They might share it, or maybe it's part of some organic conversation that is happening, but in the same way that you don't need to know what being a woman means to a cis woman, you don't need to know what being transmasc (or whatever) means to a trans person.

Okay now that that is out of the way!

I'll also share what my experience of these terms is for some context, but in a more general sense... The terms "transmasc/transfemme" do, kind of, sometimes, indicate gender expression, but they are still also about gender identity, too. Because you wouldn't see a cis gay man who is effeminate describe himself as a transfemme person, and similarly a cis gay woman who presents more masculine might describe herself as masc (or a number of other terms), but wouldn't call herself transmasc.

Really it's more of a catch-all term to indicate that you're trans and what your assigned gender at birth (AGAB) is -- so transmasc, at base level, tells someone I was assigned female at birth (AFAB), and I present as a masculine person. What my actual gender identity is, though, this doesn't tell you at all, and that's where you can have a room full of people who all describe their gender differently, but the term "transmasc" could still be an appropriate term for all those people.

For me, transmasc vs. trans man has been a really important distinction. Because for a long time I just did not see myself as/feel like a man, but I wasn't simply nonbinary, and I definitely wasn't a woman. So the best way to describe myself was a "transmasc person."

I still really love that language and it's probably still the best way to describe me within the confines of binary terminology. But more recently I've settled into the fact that I do also see myself as a man. So, I'm okay now with referring to myself as a trans man. And the term transmasc is still 100% accurate -- it's just that now, it doesn't totally capture the experience I have of feeling like a man.

I hope any of that made sense. The more I tried to explain, the more difficult it became, which I guess is why you had a hard time getting a clear answer with your own research. If any other trans babes want to hop in here, please do. And thanks again for the question, anon, I hope I helped at least a bit!

#didn't even get into the nuances of transitioning but it honestly isn't even related. it just CAN be related. and was for me. #but transitioning is not at all related to these terms to be clear. #trans shit #you've got mail #transmasc #trans man #ftm #transfemme #trans woman #mtf

[fictolotus]

faq

q: what's self shipping? what's an f/o? what a s/i?

a: self shipping is exactly what is says on the tin - shipping yourself with fictional characters. for many people, including myself, it's a coping mechanism. f/o is short for "fictional other", a play on s/o or "significant other", n it's a character you self ship with. s/i stands for "self insert", or a character who is basically you that is in the source's universe.

~

q: why do you go by multiple different names?

a: well, my actual name is rory. i used to go by keith, n key is a shortening of that (kei, but spelled differently). lotus is just a cute nickname based on my url. i've gone by several other names in the past, most notably cas and cash, but i don't really use those anymore.

~

q: i'm confused about your sexuality!

a: i'm multisexual, mlm/vincian, nln/diamoric, and wlw/sapphic. i call myself both omni + bi!

i'm aromantic, which means i don't experience romantic attraction. i'm aromid, which means that i share experiences with alloaros + aroaces due to me being acespec (greyace, specifically)!

i am also fictosexual + fictoromantic. i know these are controversial labels to some people, but they're very important to me; n as they were originally coined for aspec people, i refuse to feel guilty about using them.

i am attracted to fictional characters regardless of gender, but i have a preference for men + enbies, probably due to my irl preference in attraction.

~

q: wait, if you're transmasculine and agender, how come your s/i(s) look so feminine?

a: i'm extremely gnc (gender non-conforming) and i'm a femme. i actually dislike looking super masculine - the only reason i wear masc stuff irl is so i pass. however, since my s/is are fictional, i can have them wear anything i want, and they will never be misgendered no matter how feminine they are!

also, all of my s/is have had or end up having top surgery (or the magic equivalent), so i don't usually draw them in binders unless i'm drawing a backstory. this is partially to relieve my dysphoria (i desperately want top surgery lmao) and partially to open up new outfit options. but hey, if you were wondering what the scars on my s/is chest in every canon are from, now you know!

~

q: what do the acronyms on your f/o list stand for?

a: they're acronyms for the source material! here's a list of the full names!

NDRV3 - New Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

SDR2 - Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

DR: THH - Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

BNHA - Boku No Hero Academia

DDLC - Doki Doki Literature Club

UT/DR - Undertale/Deltarune

YTTD - Your Turn To Die

MC - Minecraft

SDV - Stardew Valley

STH - Sonic The Hedgehog

~

q: why do you use [certain pronouns] for [f/o]?

a: as a trans + nonbinary person, i headcanon a lot of my f/os as trans and/or nonbinary. here's a list of my (headcanoned) nonb f/os, the gender headcanon, n the pronouns i use!

Izuku Midoriya - Bigender - Any pronouns

Rantaro Amami - Genderfluid - Any pronouns

Sayori - Demigirl - She/they

Mina Ashido - Feminine Xenogender - She/xe

~

q: you said you're neurodivergent/mentally ill, but how?

a: i have the following conditions (in order of how much i use this blog to cope with them):

madd (maladaptive daydreaming disorder)

bpd (borderline personality disorder)

hpd (histrionic personality disorder)

trauma, possible c-ptsd (complex post-traumatic stress disorder)

anxiety disorders (generalized and social)

schizophrenia/psychosis

mdd (major depressive disorder)

did (dissociative identity disorder)

also, as mentioned in my about, i'm on the autism spectrum.

some of these are professionally diagnosed, some i'm in testing for, n some are self diagnosed.

~

q: you said you're disabled, but how?

a: i have scoliosis + other crap that causes me chronic pain. a lot of activities are difficult for me because of that. i tend to be very self-consious about my disability, n hide it well, even when my symptoms and pain are really bad. i would consider myself to be "invisibly disabled".

~

q: what is [insert group on my dni]?

a: it's probably a discourse term for a group of bad peope. please ask off anon or message me if you need an explanation; but keep in mind that this is a coping blog n it may take me a while to answer questions abt negative things.

~

q: i have a question that's not on this list!

a: send me an ask or a dm! please understand that interaction with others is hard for me n i run out of spoons very quickly, so i likely won't answer right away. it's nothing against you, i'll get to it!

#faq #lotus.txt