#asab language

[taliabhattwrites]

On the limitations of 'AFAB' and its attendant epistemic anxieties

Like, let's actually talk about the shortcomings of these linguistic tools, and how we--all of us--have been failed by those at the supposed bleeding edge of gender theory.

[granulesofsand]

I know when people refer to their sysmates as AFAB/AMAB, they’re referring to something like the visualized characteristics of the member or the felt sense of identity they hold.

But it’s funnier to think that another sysmate is ominously pushing up their glasses and clicking their pen ready to assign some newbie their sex.

[sydmarch]

I forgot to post these the other day but "outsider" pants aka my dad's old Levi's lol. want to paint more onto them but don't have other ideas rn so suggestions are welcome

[styrofauxm]

Let's not forget that in the "two genders" executive order, Donald Trump explicitly banned certain government literature and publications on intersex people and bodies.

Erasure is never a good thing. It just makes sure that bad things happen in the shadows. Do not contribute to it.

really not sure when it happened or why but personally I'm pissed that the queer community at large seems to have given up ground on the "people with penises/vulvas/testes/ovaries" language to sex & gender essentialists in exchange for the much less precise, much more demeaning "AGAB" language.

is it because you're scared of the word vulva? of acknowledging out loud that some people have penises? of recognising that many many people, including but certainly not limited to trans people, have mixed sex characteristics that cannot be accurately summarised by "afab/amab" as shorthand for "female/male"?

"in [GENITAL RELATED] situation AFABs will need to do X and AMABs will need to do Y" there are "afabs" with penises and "amabs" with vulvas. Saying this shit makes you look so unserious & honestly transphobic (given the ongoing erasure of post-op trans people within broader community). Intersex people and GRS have both existed for long enough (fucking forever and, decades, respectively) that we should well past making this basic fucking mistake.

quit referring to people by a vague & often violent event that happened at their birth as though it defines ANYTHING about how they & their body currently operate, and start using precise language so you at least look like you know what you're fucking talking about.

[t4tails]

we need to take asab language away from x reader writers "female bodied reader" JUST SAY THEY HAVE A PUSSY! im done being nice. you are being cissexist

[communistkenobi]

the other day I was going through the blog of a self-identified terf who had shown up in my notifications, and I saw them say that they wanted people to stop using asab terminology (assigned sex at birth) and instead use osab (observed sex at birth). which like at a basic level is very funny - don’t like the words being used to describe your body, hm? I can’t imagine what that feels like - but it does reveal this very particular commitment that anti-trans and anti-intersex reactionaries have to insisting that sex is just a natural objective fact, that all sexual and gendered violence is a result of men neutrally observing and then responding to the self-evident sexual properties of women. As if the act of observation is not political! It is a request to naturalise the assumptions of the people doing the observing. More fundamentally, it is a request to enshrine through language the assumptions of patriarchy, that sex is a complete and distinct property of the body that can be observed without interpretation, that it is self-evident. Observation itself is defined as a complete process; any part of the object under investigation that is not in view of the observer is rendered irrelevant. Thank god we’re just talking about sex, a very simple element of the human body that is easily cordoned off from the body its attached to!

And of course this wilfully ignores an obvious part of why trans and intersex people call attention to the assigned nature of sex. “Observed sex at birth” is already the first step in the assignment process, it is already implicated in the act of assignment, because the ritual of observing sex at birth is based on the assumption that this is a part of the body that is uniquely worthy of observation. The obvious follow-up question is why is sex worthy of observation in the first place? What assumptions go into the calculation of ‘worthiness’? If it’s so worthy of observation, who gets to be the observer? What are the consequences of this observation process? And if this is so important, how you do record the results of this observation process? Through a series of administrative, medical, and legal assignment procedures, perhaps? What if someone makes a mistake carrying out these procedures? What if the observer observes something they aren’t expecting (and where do those expectations come from)? What if they can’t observe anything? What do they do?

If you take this distinction seriously, if you insist ‘observation’ is somehow less politically or socially contingent than ‘assignment,’ you are advocating for a horrifically nihilistic worldview, one in where the ‘observations’ society makes about sex are all made natural. It is a request that is based on a political pursuit to fully enshrine patriarchy as a natural part of human life. I observe that the subjugation of women produces adverse educational, social, economic, and medical outcomes for them - I guess it’s just because women are naturally inferior. I mean what else could it possibly be? The doctors did a genital inspection on them when they were a baby. It says F right here on the birth certificate

[perisexpeoplebullshit]

i will drop kayfabe really quick - i think it's inappropriate as fuck for perisex people to use asab (assigned sex at birth) or casab (corrective or coercive assigned sex at birth) and while i am aware that you cannot "stop" people from doing whatever the fuck they like, i like to pretend that if i explain myself really well, people will have the empathy, sympathy and compassion required to make simple changes to their vocabulary.

because asab was termed as such by the medical practitioners mutilating our bodies in the name of normalcy and science. we are referred to as "a societal emergency" by surgeons because of our ambiguous genitalia or mix of sex characteristics.

and casab was our attempt at making new language when trans people decided that asab = observed sex at birth and populated it like crazy.

if this is confusing: if you are observed a sex at birth, they do nothing. if they have to assign you a sex, they correct you until you fit that assignment.

we came up with corrective assignment because that placed more emphasis on what the "ASSIGNED" part of assigned sex is.

i know it seems complicated but i promise that it isn't.

but if you're pretty sure you didn't get corrected medically, you weren't fucking assigned a sex. you were just looked at and deemed normal. not all intersex people have an assigned sex. the "assigned" sex you see in these old med textbooks is talking about the literal process of IGM (infant genital mutilation) and HRT (hormone replacement therapy) as well as blockers, because it was determined that you were abnormal and required sexual correction.

also? "i'm afab! i'm amab!" no, you're not. i mean, unless you're undergoing medical intervention to correct your intersex condition?

the correct use is "i was afab" or "i was amab" because it is a course of action(s) that happened to you, not a freshly printed laminated label they slap to your fucking forehead.

an assigned sex is active, an observed sex is passive.

i don't think many people will listen to this at all, and i do think our language has been so over-written that trying to get people to stop misappropriating terms is a lost cause. but just fyi, i'm intersex, and every single time someone says "i'm assigned sex at birth!" i go "oh yay i didn't know there were any other intersex people here!!!" and if you can feel things like shame and embarrassment then maybe be careful about what you're saying around other people

i have met people who use asab, and i have said "what do you think that means" and i have come away from conversations with people who now know more about the world, and that's great, but i'm tired and google is fucking free and how the FUCK are you taking "assignment of sex" from a book full of pictures of mutilated intersex infants and going hmm... i think this is for me! like... the colonizer jumped out idfk

and like, if you didn't know, you didn't know, right. we all learn and unlearn, all the time. but if you're not open to that then i can't help you. no amount of pleading or being nice or fucking painstakingly breaking everything down step by fucking step will not get you to listen anyways. so if you're angry that my tone is aggressive, consider perhaps the several decades of bullshit i have dealt with on the topic of my body and then consider that i might be entitled to that grief.

here's the book, by the way.

Neonates with Abnormal Genital Development Assigned the Female Sex: Parent Counseling 1994

"The assigned sex at birth based on the external genitalia of the newborn and the influence of the conviction of the parents that the child belongs to the assigned sex (Roeske & Banet, 1972; Money & lewis, 1979; Slijper, 1983)."

Moeny and Lewish 1979? oh, like John Money? if you don't know who john money is i never want to hear another word out of you about intersex people point blank. you're gonna learn today, if you don't already know.

"A team consisting of an endocrinologist, an urologist, a surgeon and a psychologist, all specialized in pediatrics, counselled eight pairs of parents of neonates with a 46XY karyogram and an external genital organ that was either completely female or hermaphrodite. These were children whose genotype was not in accordance with their phenotye. The authors discuss policy in regard to counseling and support of the parents from the time when the child's genital abnormality is first observed to its adulthood. The aim of the policy is to create the conditions required to achieve a good female gender identity for the child."

so.... tampering with someone's internal and external reproductive systems to make sure they're a female? i sure hope john money isn't a literal pedophile who mutilated and tormented his clients until they committed suicide

A 1997 academic study criticized Money's work in many respects, particularly in regard to the involuntary sex-reassignment of the child David Reimer. Money allegedly coerced David and his brother Brian to perform sexual rehearsal with each other, which Money then photographed. David Reimer lived a troubled life, ending with his suicide at 38 following his brother's suicide.

oh great. yeah we should definitely misappropriate the language of this group that is overwhelmingly sexually abused in the medical fields! i think it would be great to take language from the oppressors of a group you don't even fucking belong to. please rethink your lexicon, friends, because this language is loaded for people like me, people who were cut open repeatedly at their genitalia to be "cured" or "fixed". i have scar tissue, lack of feeling and i am unable to have sex.

He screened adult patients for two years prior to granting them a medical transition, and believed sex roles should be de-stereotyped, so that masculine women would be less likely to desire transition. Money is generally viewed as a negative figure by the transgender community.

so why are we still using language he helped write in blood?

Believing that gender identity was malleable within the first two years of life, Money advocated for the surgical "normalization" of the genitalia of intersex infants. Money proposed and developed several theories related to the topics of gender identity and gender roles, and coined terms like gender role and lovemap. He popularized the term paraphilia (appearing in the DSM-III, which would later replace perversions) and introduced the term sexual orientation in place of sexual preference, arguing that attraction is not necessarily a matter of free choice. Although often misattributed to him, Money did not coin the term 'gender identity'. Despite the pain and turmoil of the brothers, for decades, Money reported on Reimer's progress as the "John/Joan case", describing apparently successful female gender development and using this case to support the feasibility of sex reassignment and surgical reconstruction even in non-intersex cases.

In one paper, Money described trans women as "devious, demanding and manipulative in their relationships with people on whom they are also dependent" and “possibly also incapable of love.”

read his wiki page because this isn't half of it. he was an openly out pedophile. and they let him rape and abuse children because they needed to be "corrected".

watch Intersexion for free on YouTube, because it is by us, about us, FOR YOU. TO LEARN FROM.

tldr; if a doctor cuts your fucking genitalia open as a minor you're probably asab. if you are perisex and have no idea you're not actually supposed to call intersex people "hermaphrodites" anymore, you're most certainly not asab. you were observed at birth or in utero via an ultrasound, but nobody assigned you anything because nothing had to be assigned.

[velvetvexations]

Hey, I’d like to gently push back against some of the ways you use ASAB language. I know this isn’t intentional, as you’ve spoken in favor of transfems AFAB and transmascs AMAB before, but saying that transphobes see trans people as their ASAB excludes intersex trans people, who get misgendered regardless of the letter on their birth certificate.

I think it might be more accurate to say “perceived ASAB” or “whatever sex they (transphobes) believe someone was assigned at birth” instead.

Thanks for everything you do, btw. The only reason I feel comfortable sending this is because of how receptive you’ve been to criticisms like this in the past, and how supportive you’ve been to intersex people in general.

That's fair anon! I for sure wasn't thinking of that and will try to keep that in mind.

Intersex people are still very new to me, tbh. When I was on Tumblr the first time, I don't remember intersexism ever coming up during all those years, so it was something I was just thrown into the middle of when I came back about a year ago. I continue to try to work them into my perspective.

[everything-transmasculine]

[Different Anon] Following up on that ask mentioning how trans men are for some reason encouraged to go into women's bathrooms to one-up the transphobes, even though we have been submitted to various forms of severe violence for doing just that:

I'm honestly surprised how this talking point is repeated so often both by supposed allies and even by other fellow trans people, with virtually no opposition coming from non-transmascs. Even by relatively prominent figures who should know better.

To put an example, maybe a month ago I was in bsky and there was some discussion about bathroom bills in the US, and I noticed a couple of things: 1) no mention at all from non-transmascs on how the bill also impacted trans guys negatively, and 2) only mentioned as rhetorical gotcha about how "big buff manly passing trans men" should storm the capitol bathrooms in a display of whatever the reverse of "owning the libs" is.

This completely ignores that the most likely result of such an action would be them getting accused of being creeps and then getting brutalized by police. Our erasure is not an accident, the point of erasing us IS cruelty, and IS a way to limit our access to resources, or even limiting the existence of said resources in the first place. It should not be mistaken for anything else, especially not as a "feature" of being transmasculine, because it's just not, the same way being hypervisible and transfem isn't a perk either.

But this, pardon my language, idiotically asinine and ignorant "hot take" got passed around and echoed by people like Alejandra Caraballo and Michael Hobbes, who have an enormous following for leftist bsky standards, and now I hear it repeated like clockwork by uninformed people every time bathrooms come up in the conversation.

And the response when they're informed that telling transmascs to put themselves in danger for the sake of a fruitless gotcha point is not a good idea? That transphobic violence is not targeted anywhere nearly as bad at transmascs. That we should sacrifice for our community to make an useless point since we're not vulnerable. Because we are men, and men are not vulnerable to the violence of the State, apparently.

I am mixed black and latino, and honestly, it couldn't anger me more when people pretend that when we transition our problems just vanish away, and especially the pretense that some of us can just walk into a women's bathroom to protest and still have the assuredness that we'll come out breathing. Hell, I would argue for some of us who experience intersectional oppression because of our race, the State violence against us increases with transition, not lessens.

Anyways, I'm branching out too much from my original complaint, so I'll leave it here. Thanks for hearing us out man 👍🏽

anon youve completely summed up my feelings on it in a way i havent been able to be consise with before. when someone transitions, that does not mean that they should de facto be the “shield” for others against attack - similrly to how one cannot compell another to donate organs, transmasculine people should not be compelled to endanger themselves in the name of “owning the bigots.” thats not how any of this works - a bigot is not someone who follows facts, or logic, or sound reasoning. someone who passes is not going to change their minds just by virtue of being in the bathroom that matches with their asab. a bigot isnt going to see a trans man in a womans bathroom and immediately go “aha! i see the error in my logic! of course this man needs to have access to the mens room!” theyre going to physically or sexually assault us because we are transgender, and they hate transgender people.

and thats without even touching on the intersectionality between race and transition - i fully agree with you that the risk of violence increases with transition for nonwhite transmasculine people, as the added scrutiny of the state and the society at large is going to increase with proximity to societally defined “manhood” as a whole.

[transfemme-shelterdog]

This isn't meant to be rude or anything, just a soft correction as an intersex person. While the popular term is "AFAB transfem" etc. is definitely the more popular way to refer to someone who was assigned female and identifies as transfem, the use of AGAB/ASAB in this context is technically incorrect/a bit intersexist.

"Assigned female at birth transfem" just doesn't make much sense grammatically, and it insinuates that ASAB is an identity or current state of being. That's not what ASAB is. ASAB is a past event. The correct way to refer to this would be at least "transfem AFAB" or more preferably "transfem who was afab." /gen /info

Noted. My apologies. Wasn't my intention to come across intersexist

I shall correct my language from here on out. I appreciate the correction.

[lesbiangodsam]

HELLO!

Sam, Sammer or Kody! ageless & ageapathy

they/them , ⭐/🌙 & fem-masc-neu terms !

Radqueer , citrus rq , rad freak , doki queer pro transid, pro para, comp-c , rq4rq , ASAB (assigned stupid at birth)

We have NO DNI but we block freely!

LABLES!

Sexuality: Bi-lesbian, aroace, necrofluid (probably!)

Gender: multigender !

transIDs: TransCat , TransCodo , TransAge , TransFurryArtist , TransInterest , TransHobby , TransDigital , TransShipChild , TsansDDLCChars , TransRussianSleepExperiment , TransRussian (I don't support putin or smth!!!!!) , TransTatar , TransUkrainian , TransPolish , TransAccent , TransOtherParent , TransHealty , TransStar

CisIDs: CisPoorEyesight , CisProsopagnosia , CisDeaf , CisStupid , CisSociophobic CisParanoid , CisDelusional , CisHarmfulLesbian, CisHarmfulBi

trisIDs: TrisSomnophilia , TrisFemcel , TrisC.aiAddict

PermaIDs: PermaCozy , PermaVacation , PermaCodo , PermaScars , Perma2019 , PermaSleepy , PermaStable , PermaWeird , PermaSilly , PermaSH

BYI: We have some mental problems that make us a little bit slowpoke... Please be gentle and be patient with us! Also, we use English and russian language but here we talk mostly English!

[phiphieee]

A complete unknown

A/N: disclaimer english is not my first language! :) The reader is asab other than that i don't think there are any tw needed but pls tell me if i missed anything! Thanksss

The video starts with a clip of Timmy and Y/N laughing before abruptly stopping. Timmy clears his throat and Y/N bites the inside of their cheek side-eyeing him and raising an eyebrow.

"Hi guys I'm Timothy Chalamet" he said pointing at the girl sitting next to him.

"And I'm Y/N L/N" she says giggling making jazz hands.

"And we're here to answer your questions on..."

"A complete unknown!"

"A complete unknonw!!!" They say together laughing.

The screen flashes with the first question, Timmy is reading a cue card "how did Y/N join the project? Interesting, interesting, you wanna take that one?" he throws the cue card and she snorts at that. "Well" she says tucking her hair behind her ears "Timmy was already cast, and I think it was during the actor's strike?" she looks at him and he nods "And I was staying at Timmy's place at the time, I think most people know I'm not really an actress or anything I just happen to be friends with" she gestures vaguely with her hand "these types of people" Timmy laughs shaking his head and saying "she sings as well". Y/N shrugs "but yeah obviously, being the voice for joan was crazy, and uh, it pretty much all happened because the director heard me doing her harmony parts on a video Timmy sent. I don't think I match it perfectly to be honest i think it's just because I'm a soprano too. Not too say that the way Joan Baez sings is just like a soprano, she's got a much nicer rounder voice than me I think, and yeah" she turns back to Timmy to see him smirking. "Yeah her Joan is better than my Bob".

The screen flashes with another question: "What was the funniest moment on set?"

Timmy’s face lights up. "Oh, I’ve got one," he says, leaning forward conspiratorially. "So, there’s this scene where I’m supposed to be really intense, right? Like, full-on Dylan brooding mode. And Y/N’s just off-camera, watching. But instead of staying serious, they’re doing this..."

Timmy turns to Y/N, gesturing for them to demonstrate.

"No way," Y/N says, laughing nervously.

"You have to," Timmy insists, grinning.

Y/N sighs dramatically but gives in, puffing out their cheeks and crossing their eyes in an exaggerated parody of deep concentration. Timmy doubles over laughing, clapping his hands.

"Exactly that!" he says, pointing at them. "So, I’m trying to stay in character, right? And she’s just—" He imitates the face again, sending Y/N into a fit of giggles. "I cracked every single time. The director was ready to murder us both."

Y/N wipes a tear from their eye. "In my defense, you were way too serious. It needed some levity!"

"Levity, sure," Timmy says, shaking his head fondly.

The next question appears on the screen: "What’s the most surprising thing you learned about each other during filming?"

Y/N raises an eyebrow at Timmy. "Oh, I’ve got a good one for this."

Timmy groans, throwing his head back. "Here we go."

"So," Y/N starts, leaning in like they’re about to share a deep secret. "Timmy has this really weird habit of—"

"Don’t you dare," Timmy cuts in, laughing but also clearly nervous.

"—eating cereal with orange juice instead of milk."

The room erupts in laughter, Timmy covering his face with his hands. "Okay, first of all, that was one time!"

"Once was enough," Y/N says, grinning. "And it wasn’t even like, a weird experimental thing. You ran out of milk and just... decided orange juice was the next best option. It was unhinged."

"It was resourceful!" Timmy protests, though his ears are bright red.

The two dissolve into laughter again, the kind that comes easily between close friends, and the video fades out with a montage of bloopers from the shoot.

A voiceover from Y/N plays over the clips: "If there’s one thing I learned working on this project, it’s that Timmy Chalamet is just as chaotic as he seems... and I wouldn’t have it any other way."

Timmy’s voice cuts in, mock-offended. "Chaotic? That’s slander!"

The screen fades to black, leaving only the sound of their laughter as the video ends.

[tmasc-confessions]

FAQ!

This list will be edited as seen fit <3

“What is the purpose of this blog?”

This blog was created with the idea in mind to give transmasculine people a space to speak about their issues and struggles without our voices being drowned out by the rest of the trans community, considering how we are a smaller niche within it that often gets suppressed.

“Why didn’t you make the blog for all trans people?”

Most trans spaces have a very high focus on trans women and nonbinary people, even if it’s a subconscious bias. The point of this blog was to create a trans space where trans men and transmascs were in the spotlight.

“I’m not transmasc, but I’m [x], can I confess here?”

No, you can’t. Sorry, but this is a blog meant to give voice and prioritise trans men and transmasculine individuals. I can’t make exceptions because then I’d have to make exceptions for everyone. There are other blogs (@tfem-confessions, @tneu-confessions, and/or @intersex-confessions) for people like you!! And you’re always free to open one of your own for another specific niche if you’d like :)

“Am I allowed to give advice in the comments of a post?”

100%! In fact I encourage it! A very important part of what makes a community is being able to support each other. So feel free!

“Who are the admins/why won't the admins reveal their main accounts?”

Running a confessions blog, especially one subject to so much intracommunity discourse, gets you a lot of harassment. On this blog, it can be contained, and it doesn't have to spread to our mains or even worse, someone who may identify us in real life. We keep our mains private for safety reasons.

“Why hasn't my ask been posted yet?”

Both of the current admins are teenagers. We have our own issues. This blog is not a job and it's not a convenience; if your ask hasn't been posted, it's most likely we just haven't gotten to it.

Alternatively, your ask may have contained either rhetoric or language that is considered bigoted. (Some examples of dangerous language are the unironic use of TMA/TME, "transandrobros" or the variants, derogatory usage of slurs towards either us or other users, misuse of the term "C-ASAB", and such).

[arlosworld91]

Ask me Anything!

feel free to reblog to get people to ask you questions from this list.

General Questions:

Do you have a favourite time of day?

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

What’s your favourite food?

What’s your least favourite food?/most disliked?

What’s your favourite TV show?

What’s your favourite movie?

Do you consider yourself religious?

Do you eat meat?/Are you vegetarian or vegan?

Do you celebrate one of, if not all of these holidays: Christmas, Easter, Halloween?

What’s your favourite colour?/Favourite shade of colour?

Are you able to see all the colours?/Do you have visual disabilities with colour?

Do you have a favourite sport?

Do you have a favourite game to play?

What’s your favourite piece of clothing you have? What’s an integral part of your every day outfit?

Do you work/study, if so what do you do? (Note anything can be considered work)

What’s your favourite form of transport?

Can you speak other languages?

What number language is English for you?

Love Questions:

Do you currently have a partner or partners?

Do you desire to have a partner?/Desire to have multiple partners?

What’s something about love that you desire?

What’s something about love that you don’t desire?

Would you consider yourself to have close friends?

Would you say you love your friends to their face, or at least want to say that you love them?

Do you desire platonic connection over all forms of attraction?

What do you look for in a friend?

What do you look for in a partner?

Do you love your family? (This can include pets)

Do you fall for people easily (romantically, sexually, alterously, queerplatonically)?

Do you need a connection before attraction?

What do you find attractive about someone?

What do you not find attractive about people?

Do you experience aesthetical attraction easy?/Is aesthetic attraction your main form of attraction?

What is your ideal date?

Do you like the idea of kissing?

Is sex something you desire?

Queer/LGBTQIA+ Questions:

Note if you don’t consider yourself LGBT feel free to skip over this part.

What’s your main identity/identities?

How long have you been identifying as how you identify?

Do you consider yourself to be queer?

When do you first figure out your LGBT identity?

Do you plan to come out to people?, if so who to?

Do you consider yourself to be genderqueer?

Do you like the representation in media of your identity?

Do you think that your identity should be represented more?

Do you experience attraction?

Have had the need to coin a term because a term for your identity didn’t exist?

Do other parts of your identity influence your LGBT identity?

If you have had identities in the past but don’t use them anymore, why do you not?

Do you consider yourself queer with your pronouns? (For example: If you’re masculine or a man but use she/her*)

Do you like the pronoun set you were given**?

Do you desire surgery/transitioning into a certain identity?

If you have a complex identity system, do you have certain terms you just use 100% of the time because you know no one will understand or you find it hard to describe?

*Pronouns don’t necessarily equal gender.

**This can be referred to with your ASAB or the societally given set.

Comfy Questions:

How do you make yourself feel good?

Who or what makes you feel happy?

What’s something that you are looking forward to in life?

Do you have stuffed animals?/Anything soft?

Do you have fairy lights?/Do you want fairy lights?

What’s your favourite gift you’ve ever received and what’s your favourite gift you’ve been given?

Is there a movie/video-game/book character you wish you could be/meet?

What’s your favourite compliment you’ve been given?

What’s your favourite compliment you’ve given?

What do you love right now?*

What’s a smell that makes you feel at home?

What makes you blush?

What makes you laugh?

What’s something cute a friend does or that you do?

What’s your favourite memory?

What’s on your playlist right now?

What are your hobbies?

*Can be a person, a movie, a show, food, etc.

Celeb Questions:

Who is your celebrity hero?

Do you listen to celebrity gossip?

Do you care about celebs?

What constitutes celebrity to you?

Do you think there are celebs that are deserving of being celebs?

Do you have a favourite band?

What celebrity fandoms would you say you’re apart of?

Is there any celebs you think should be more well known?

Do you think there’s too much of a focus on celebs?

[tfem-confessions]

ive been reading more abt intersex experience lately and altho im perisex i rly feel for what intersex people have gone thru, both how it mirrors my own experiences and also how it involves deep trauma i could never know. i wanna raise a few thoughts that come up, which i raise in good faith and with a hope for resolution, abt the afab transfem conversation.

firstly... maybe we dont take seriously enough the gravity of intersex oppression. even if we say someone who was coercively assigned female, coercively reassigned male, and then transitions (back?) to womanhood is cis, thats still a horribly difficult experience, structurally deeply marginalised, that really aligns that person with trans womens struggle. maybe if we emphasised more that cis intersex women, however we define cisness, are very oppressed and share a lot in common with trans women, being The Exact Same Thing wouldnt be as pressing?

or... on the other hand. if youre coercively reassigned as male as a minor, arguably that cancels out your birth assignment. for perisex people birth assignment has a static significance, as the state and medical establishment measures you by it even after transition. we cant conceptualise being reassigned and that impact on our lives. if someone is coercively reassigned male when their body starts presenting testosteronised characteristics, thats going to be more defining to how theyre treated than the 'cancelled' birth assignment. could it be that we can understand someone to be AMAX (assigned male at x) even if AFAB

is any of this making sense or remotely helpful?

I understand where you’re coming from, but the only real answer to this is just to do away with the binaries of trans identity altogether. Assigned sex at birth should not be a consideration in whether or not someone should be “allowed” to identify any one way.

The only way to be a safe person for intersex people IN GENERAL is to expunge ASAB/AGAB language from your vocabulary and from your general consideration.

The only thing you can or should do is listen, respect, and live and let live. If an intersex person who was cafab, reassigned male and then transitioned back to womanhood calls herself a trans woman then she is a trans woman. No ifs ands or buts.

People— especially intersex people— deserve absolute and unquestioning authority and autonomy to decide and enact their own identities. The only person that matters in the conversation is the person whose identity it is.

As an intersex trans woman myself, I do not trust automatically anyone that places any significance on ASAB/AGAB language. I don’t trust anyone who argues about whether someone of any kind is “allowed” to identify in any way. Because the moment you are willing to question someone on their own identity, you are no longer safe for me to be around.

Absolute and unquestioning respect or bust, non.

- 🐺

[velvetvexations]

You know, I've been thinking about how trans men keep being accused of not having any culture and terminology and "stealing words" from trans women like "femboy" or "tranny". So I've been thinking about the transmale-specific terms I know from the 2000s and 2010s, and whether or not I think they should make a comeback. Here's some of them, since I think a lot of people don't even know they existed :

"Hefemale" : Starting strong with the worst one. Pretty rare, never seen that one be reclaimed or used by trans people themselves. I've only encountered the word when cis dudes were being obnoxious and doing that "would you rather fuck Bailey Jay or Buck Angel ?" thing (which apparently has now been remixed as "Megan Fox with a dick or Hulk Hogan with a pussy"... Cis people really keep cycling the same 3 trans "jokes" huh). Still, there's a Wikipedia page for the word in more languages that I would have expected (Czech, Swedish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Egyptian Arabic and even Esperanto) so I guess there might be more occurrences of the word that I'm not aware of, or other countries using it differently...?

My thoughts : Not a fan at all, especially since I've only seen it used like the transfem equivalent, as a derogatory word and porn term by cis people. You can't argue that it was transmascs copying transfems because they wanted their very own porn slur, that was definitely a cis people thing. I guess some people could still reclaim it if they wanted to, but it's still a shitty "pronoun + ASAB" word, so... Hard pass for me. 1/10.

"Guy with a pie" : The lesser-known brother of "chick with a dick". Still well-known enough to have been mentioned and discussed in 2010 in Savage Love (Dan Savage's sex advice column). Not sure who came up with it, probably cis people again, but it was used by some trans guys in a light-hearted way, although that trend seems to have mostly died out by now.

My thoughts : I kinda like it, it's fun...! I feel like there are way worse, cruder and more dysphoria-inducing alternatives for terms mentioning trans men's genitals out there... So I'll take pie, pie is tasty, I like pie. I feel like it has potential for in-jokes, we could bring it back. 7/10.

"Trannyboy" : What happened to the word "trannyboy" ? It used to be a self-identifyer in the 00s and 2010s ! Trans men called themselves trannyboys, trans women called trans men trannyboys, it was our in-group word, it was seen as positive ! Gay trans men were even called trannyfags... The first porno featuring a trans male cast (and also directed by a trans man) was tittled "Alley of the Trannyboys"... And now all that terminology has pretty much fallen out of use...

My thoughts : We should definitely bring trannyboy back ! That's our word, that's our history ! Also it would definitely piss off the "trans guys can't reclaim the T-slur" crowd, which is a bonus. 10/10. Trannyboy ! Trannyboy ! Trannyboy ! I feel like a Trannyboy Renaissance has been long overdue !

As a trans woman I have no opinion on these nor should I!