#because it did devastate a lot of trans communities and experiences

[detweilerboy]

Anyway i do think being trans comes with an unhealthy obsession with the past and history (both personal and in general) thats just completely unnecessary. Because in the end anyone can end up with any neurosis (that also highly depend on how we interpret and frame them NOW based on gender identity and cultural context). but there genuinely is no way to prove there's any kind of personal history that leads you here and now that isnt projected back from your current identity so what probably matters more is what specific form the universal oppression of children took in your life than how its retroactively gendered. Then this personal issue gets projected onto others and history in general and in the end. Whats the point

[markrosewater]

I want to speak out against the whole push towards DEI. I feel that ever since you made the push to make identity the forefront of a character it has hurt the stories you tell. Captain Sisay's race was never the focus of her character and she was a complete badass! And I fear if you did it over again Gerrard would be trans, black and disabled just because. It also cheapens the stories of world devastation when characters worry more about their gender than Bolas destroying everything.

The reason I started this blog is so we can have frank conversations about things, so please let’s talk about this.

Imagine if every time you turned on the TV or watched a movie, no one looked like you. For some of us, that’s never happened. We see ourselves constantly, so it’s hard to truly understand what not seeing yourself represented in media is like.

I do have a personal window to this experience. While I am white and male, there’s an area where I am the minority - my religion. Jews are just under two and a half percent of the US population. I have had many experiences where I’ve been in situations where everything is geared towards a group I do not belong to, and zero consideration is given that not everyone at that event is part of the majority.

You just feel invisible and like an outsider. It’s not a great feeling. And I just experience it a tiny portion of time, only things that are geared specifically towards something religious. Most minorities have this feeling all the time, whenever they’re outside their personal community.

Now imagine, after years of not seeing yourself ever, you finally see someone that looks like you, but nothing about the character rings remotely true. They don’t sound like you, they don’t act like you, the facts about their day-to-day life are just wrong. It’s clear whoever wrote the character didn’t truly understand the lived experience of the character, so the character feels fake.

You bring up Sisay. Michael Ryan and I didn’t technically create Sisay (she played a small role in the Mirage story), but we did do a lot to flesh out her character as the creators of the Weatherlight Saga. We turned her from a minor character into a major one.

And while I’m proud, in general, of our work on the Weatherlight Saga, I don’t think we did justice to Sisay as a character. Neither Michael nor I have any knowledge of what it’s like to be a black woman. Nor did we ever talk to someone who did.

And if you’re someone like us that has no knowledge of that experience, you probably didn’t notice. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

Imagine if we made a movie about your life, and we just made everything up. We invented people you never knew, we gave you a job you never had, and we had you say things you’d never say. The movie might even be a good movie, but your response would be, but that’s not my life - that’s not me.

Now imagine we put the movie out, and people that never met you assumed that was what you were like. When people met you for the first time, they assumed things, because, you know, they’d seen the movie.

That’s what misrepresenting people does. It not only makes them feel not seen, it falsely represents them, spreading lies, often stereotypes, making people believe things about them that aren’t true.

Our move towards diversity is just us trying to better reflect the world and the people in it. We’re trying to do to everyone else what a certain portion of people get every day without ever having to think about it.

But why are we “making it the forefront of their character”? We’re not. We’re making it a part of their character. But in a world where you’re not used to ever seeing it, it feels louder than it is. Things that are a natural part of the world that you’re used to feel like the background of the story because you understand the context to it.

If a man kisses his wife before going off to a battle, that’s not a big deal. It’s just a thing a husband might do to his wife when he leaves. It’s not the forefront of his character. It’s just part of his life. But you’ve seen it hundreds of times, so it feels normal.

When someone does something that isn’t your lived experience it pulls focus. It seems like a big deal, but only because it’s new to you. It’s just as mundane a thing to that character as the man kissing his wife is to him.

Even the turn “pushing” implies that it’s unnaturally here, that we’re forcing something that naturally shouldn’t be. But why? That thing exists naturally in the real world, and it doesn’t make the real world any less. Maybe you’re less aware of it, but is making you aware of how others live their life “pushing” something on you?

How you live your life is represented constantly, everywhere. Why isn’t over-representing your experience at the expense of everyone else’s “pushing” it? Why is media only being the experience of those in power the “proper way”?

Having more depth and variety doesn’t lessen stories. It makes them deeper, more rich, more nuanced. In short, it makes them better stories. In my former life, I was a professional writer. I took a lot of writing classes. One of the truism of writing is “speaking truth leads to better stories”.

There’s another famous quote: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” You’re used to being over-represented, so being a little less over-represented feels like something has been taken from you. But really it hasn’t. Having a better sense of the rest of the world comes with a lot of benefits.

I’ll use food as an example. Let’s say all you were ever exposed to was the food of your heritage. Yeah, that food is really good, but sometimes isn’t it nice to eat foods of other nationalities? Isn’t your life better that you have a choice? Isn’t your exposure and access to the food of other nationalities a positive in your life?

Exposure to variety is a positive. It allows you to learn about things you didn’t know, experience things things you’ve never experienced, and get a better sense of understanding of your friends and neighbors.

Our actions are not to harm anyone, and if you think that’s what we’re doing, please take a minute to actually absorb what I’m saying. You’ve spent your whole life metaphorically eating one type of food, and we’re just trying to show you how much you’ve missed out on.

And while this might not impact you directly, we’re making a whole bunch of people felt seen. We’re bringing joy. Think of it this way. We make a lot of cards. Not every card is for you. But if it makes someone else happy, if they get to include it in a deck, and it makes Magic better for them, how is it harming you that we include it? You have so many cards that you can play.

To this poster or people that share their viewpoint, the narrative that a gain for someone else is an attack on you is just not true. As I just pointed out above, you play a game all about personal choice, about players getting to choose how they play and enjoy the game. Why should life be any different than Magic?

Thanks for reading.

[frooogscream]

And stop calling Con queer he’s just a white gay men from an extremely colonialist country who never bothered to check his privileges! There’s nothing queer about him!

To pre-phrase this: You don’t need to bother sending more of these unhinged messages, at this point it’s pretty clear that you’ve completely lost the plot and I’m not gonna answer to further asks on this topic.

We do not know if Con is gay (hence using the broader term of queer is extremely appropriate here), we only know from himself that he is part of the queer community and from a ("I just look straight") T-shirt he wore and him mentioning his husband that this is in regards to his sexuality not his gender identity.

Gay and queer are not mutually exclusive terms like you are pretending here, there are a lot of gay men who consider themselves queer. If we use the commonly used queer as a more inclusive way to say LGBT+ then that by definition includes all gay men (unless they specifically say they don’t want to be labelled as such). If we use the more political and/or queer as in ‘at odds with cis heteronormative society’ then there are as well many many gay men who fit into that category.

Con personally also does fit the "political" definition of queer, since he is very openly and loudly supportive of trans people, calls out shitty anti social and racist politics in his home country, (as much as you guys love to completely ignore all of this and comment about the one single time he liked a post by a Zionist four years ago when the topic of the post wasn’t Palsatine/Israel instead) has posted ONLY in support of Palestine, directed the talk towards queer right and what we can do to keep them on convention panels etc. etc.

A person being privileged in one area dosnt erase their belonging to a marginalised community or that they have potentially experienced discrimination in other areas. And yeah him being a middle aged white gay/bi/pan/whatever man in the UK might mean that he has a relatively "easy" life compared to other parts of the community NOW. Do you know what else it means? It means that in his early twenties he witnessed the hateful crusade of Thatchers government against queer people, not only did section 28 happen but it also didn’t happen in a vacuum, it was born from years of political fear mongering that framed gay men as dangerous and perverted! It means that Con was about 15 when the AIDS epidemic devastated the queer community and in its wake didn’t only brought death and the loss of you loved ones but also a giant wave of homophobia! I’m not even taking into consideration personal experiences of homophobia (and let me tell you as someone who has friends in the UK, 40 years ago people were beaten up with baseball bats for "looking gay") that Con maybe has. There probably is a reason that he only publicly came out at age 56! I HATE nothing more than young queers (because if you’re cisstraight dear anon, then fuck off so much, this would make it so much worse) policing the "right way to be queer" for older people in the community or invalidating their experiences. Frankly the only reason I’m publishing this ask is that I hope even the last clown sees how incredibly ignorant the "Con does queerness wrong"/"Con being kink positive/having dirty humour/showing his body is predatory" -people sound.

[askanautistic]

Trans Rights in the UK

There is a bit of an alarming thing happening in the UK right now. Recently, five judges in the Supreme Court ruled that the word 'woman' when used in the Equality Act 2010 applies to 'biological sex'.

This led to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (!!!) very quickly releasing some interim guidance that basically excluded trans people from using any single-sex facilities! There was no guidance on how this would be enforced, which was also concerning.

Basically, the UK has introduced a segregation law!

From what I can gather, there are glaring issues with this ruling and the subsequent guidance, both legally and morally. There are lots of law breaches, contradictions, and fairly weak arguments for the judge's ruling.

No trans people, trans organisations, or even specialists from the trans-related medical field or were consulted with. Almost solely anti-trans organisations were represented in court.

In practise, this ruling breaches the Human Rights Act 1998.

In practise, this ruling actually beaches the Equality Act! (The ruling states that for the purposes of the EA, trans people are to be considered their 'biological'/assigned at birth sex. However, possibly owing to the obvious absurdity of having trans men forced to used women's toilets and trans women forced to use men's toilets, the EHRC have said that trans people cannot use toilets either in line with their legal/acquired sex, or with their 'biological'/assigned at birth sex.)

It's in breach of the Law of Goodwin.

It's in breach of the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

The word 'woman' in the Equality Act did include trans women - it was specified that the word 'woman' included trans women who have a Gender Recognition Certificate. So it's unclear why this is being ignored and the word (within the Act) being redefined.

The word 'biological' when used in the ruling is not a scientific or legal term. There are only two legally recognised sexes/genders, yet there was also no regard for the fact intersex people exist (or how this might impact on them).

Many of the reasons they gave for why a trans woman can't be discriminated against for being a woman are things that also apply to many cis women (not all cis woman are able to conceive, for example).

The fact trans people have gender reassignment as a protected characteristic was used to support the idea that trans women don't also need to be protected from sex-based discrimination. However, people can have multiple protected characteristics.

The Good Law Project has decided to challenge this decision, but they need help funding the legal costs.

Removing rights from a marginalised group that has such a devastating and quite disgusting impact is wrong. It's also terrifying. If they get away with this, whose rights will they remove next?

The Good Law Project states:

We believe that the Supreme Court – which disgracefully refused to hear from trans people before handing down a decision with the profoundest possible consequences for trans lives – has placed or revealed the United Kingdom in breach of its obligations under the Human Rights Act. In a 2002 case called “Goodwin”, the European Court of Human Rights said: “A conflict between social reality and the law arises which places [a trans person] in an anomalous position, in which he or she may experience feelings of vulnerability, humiliation and anxiety” and found the UK in breach. Following that case, the UK introduced the Gender Recognition Act to make us compliant. The Minister introducing the Act said it was intended to alter the definition of man and woman in equalities legislation but the Supreme Court, because it refused to hear from any trans people, appears to have been oblivious to this critical fact and decided references to men and women were to “biological” sex. [...] The Nazis forced the LGBT+ community to identity themselves as “degenerates” by wearing pink triangles. Labour’s policy means that for trans people to move through the public sphere they will need, similarly, to identify themselves as trans in an increasingly violent and transphobic world. We believe the UK is now in breach of its obligations under the Human Rights Act and the European Convention of Human Rights and we plan to ask the High Court for a declaration of incompatibility. We believe the legal arguments are strong – but we must also point out that the Supreme Court has revealed a readiness on the part of our courts to disapply, in the case of trans people, normal legal and procedural safeguards. We have put together a legal team involving several KCs and at least one trans barrister. The legal team will be supported by heavyweight policy specialists in equalities law and will be informed by the lived experiences of trans people. We will publish the legal documents in the case as they become available and as the law permits. This is no small undertaking – but, for the trans community in Britain, it is literally existential. We would be grateful for your help. 

This might not be directly related to what this blog is about, but I'm aware that there are a lot of trans Autistics. I'm also aware that many cisgender Autistic people might present as gender non-conforming in some way, and therefore might also be at increased risk of prejudice from the transphobes empowered by this ruling.

Besides, regardless of whether this might also impact the Autistic community, if we don't stand up for other minorities now, it will just bolster bigots to continue trying to take us back in time. Marginalised communities deserve to have rights, and to be properly protected instead of having to rely on the benevolence of service providers, educators, employers, society.

Please, please, let's not let Britain become the kind of country that demonises minorities and legalises their segregation, exclusion, and abuse of their rights.

If you can't donate towards the legal fund, please do support them in whatever way you can (share their articles, videos, posts etc.) and take whatever direct action you can:

Write to your local MP.

Write to the PM.

Complain to the Supreme Court.

Complain to the EHRC.

Join any protests or sign any petitions that you can to make it clear that this isn't acceptable.

Always fight for your rights and fight for other people's. Let's not make it easy for the bigots. If people try to dictate what toilet you/someone else can use, insist that they are violating your/their human rights. If your employer has a segregated toilet they expect trans people to use, insist that they are violating your/their human rights. If you're in hospital and you are, see or hear a trans person having personal info disclosed or being segregated or made to use the incorrect facilities, insist that they are violating your/their human rights. Make a fuss, be a nuisance, make this difficult for them to enforce. Make formal complaints whenever these things occur. Take up their time and resources with paperwork and investigations. Take legal action whenever possible. Don't make it easy for them by complying.

[roguetelepaths]

Just based on recent discourse in the Severance fandom I feel like we need to have a similar conversation about miscarriage/infertility plots to the one the internet has been having about sex scenes so here I am, your friendly neighborhood sex averse aroace who cannot have children and is truly very happy about that fact, to start that conversation

(disclaimer — this is a post about writing. it is about real human experiences only inasmuch as it is about the tendency of online communities to decry any representation of these issues as inherently sexist and regressive. do not be weird on this post I swear to FUCK)

So here are some facts about plotlines that center conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and the inability of a person to do any or all of those things. please try to enjoy all of them equally💧

if you live in a childfree bubble you might not know this but these are experiences that affect real people. not everyone just has children because they feel like they have to. some people actually want kids

yes even queer people

if you are a person who wants children, not being able to conceive or carry a child IS ACTUALLY A VERY EMOTIONALLY AFFECTING EXPERIENCE

(and not even in the ways you would think! there are trans people who have dysphoria around not being able to get pregnant or father a child)

miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy is devastating. infertility can be just as devastating if it happens to certain people

there IS a sexist way to write infertility/miscarriage plotlines! see Joss Whedon's weird trashfire in Age of Ultron which probably ignited a lot of the hatred for infertility plotlines we see today. but there are wrong ways to do lots of things.

there are also non-sexist ways. see Yennefer in The Witcher as an example— it's not even really about wanting a child for her, it's about wanting a choice— but also, desire for a child being part of it doesn't automatically make it a Bad Plot

there are a lot of things Severance did right— the decision to try fertility treatments was Gemma's decision, and Mark not only does not resent her for not being able to conceive, he's the one who suggests she stop when he sees it's becoming too much of an emotional burden on her. people who think Mark resented Gemma for not being able to get pregnant are seeing what they expect to see.

people who are unilaterally against infertility and miscarriage plots sound the exact same as people who are unilaterally against sex scenes in movies

what we need is a wider variety of them, written by women and queer people, about varying experiences with those topics, because they are experiences that need to be openly talked about and destigmatized

and that includes experiences like my experience of being a 14 year old closeted ace kid in a very evangelical family and feeling genuine relief at being given the news that it was medically inadvisable for me to try to have children

but it ALSO includes the experiences of people for whom that same news is distressing and heartbreaking

anyway that concludes our wellness session goodbye

[rodolfoparras]

Since everyone is talking about their cod ocs, I wanna join (this is so long, I'm so sorry)

So basically my little guy is autistic and trans (I'm projecting) and a huge mamas boy. His name is Everett (I just realized I NEVER gave him a last name😭) and his callsign is Rabbit and he's an Alaskan native (I'm pretty sure this is what they prefer to be called because they don't fuck with being called americans and shit? I'm not 100%)

His ma picked out Everett by force, she was like "?? I'm literally your mother, I'm picking your name" and he was so worried she'd pick something awful, turns out!

(side note, I love rabbits and use them for symbolism a lot. They represent rebirth, so I use them in trans related pieces. I did an art piece of myself pulling a rabbit out of a hat with a bunch of rebirth symbolism and shit, love the piece, may send it here to show it off)

But his callsign comes from being a rabbit hunter growing up and his ability to blend in, he specializes in undercover operations and stealth missions. (Some hares, like a snowshoe, change coats in the season to blend in from predators)

He's voluntarily mute most of the time and does not do expressions very well. Most of his childhood photos are him just 🧍‍♂️😶, gotta be reeaall close with him to have a convo with him

Because he's so quiet, he hears sooo much shit and does like weekly shit talking sessions with Ghost and Roach in their barracks. No body understands how he knows so much because fucking no one talks to him and turns out the rodents are stalking the base and listening in on conversations

Idc how overused masks are, they're so fun. He wears one at home (and at work) because he's got a huge family with lots of little kids, and he's scared of scaring them and doesn't want to "traumatize" his nieces and nephews with his scars on his face and body. Everett misses out on a LOT of family events even though he really wants to go and misses them so much because he's scared

He carries and makes a lot of rabbits feet charms because he firmly believes in their ability to bless you with good luck. He does the metal work himself and personalizes them and gives them off to people he truly cares about.

Everett believes it because his ma said so (duh) and because he narrowly missed a bullet that took a chunk of his ear inside of blowing his brains up while he carried one, so all his favorites get one to protect them.

Later in life, he wound up too close to a bomb and a piece of shrapnel went straight into his face and blinds him in one eye

He was so utterly devastated when he got medically discharged and was scared of totally losing his sight and never being able to communicate with Roach again

I'm a firm believer in polycule 141 so it just becomes scarier when Johnny starts losing his hearing from all the explosives and shit and so many of them experience wear and tear in this hand joints from working with guns

Gonna copy and paste my polycule 141 disability headcanons that I've talked about with my bf

"Ghost's got horrible horrible nightmares and sometimes will react in his sleep. Night terrors or physically reacting, but that one's very rare."

"Price definitely gets respiratory issues, half because of his cigars, and half from breathing shit in before he could get a mask on. Probably gets asthma the older he gets."

"Roach gets chronic migraines. They're basically debilitating, can't get out of bed for days and keeps all light out of his room. Takes meds for it that usually work."

"Most of them have joint issues. Half of them creak and groan like a fucking million year old house on its last leg."

"Gaz gets degenerative arthritis. I think he'd be in the force the longest and since he was the youngest to join SAS, he probably overworked himself beyond belief when he had joined. Wore him down fs"

With Johnny being hard of hearing:

"I don't if he'd be able to get hearing aids, his cochlea probably too damaged so that if he did get cochlear implants or something, they probably wouldn't do much but piss him off. Because sometimes if you get cochlears, they just make an annoying noise. So he'd just wind up pissy over it so he'd probably opt not to get them - (also the surgery is invasive and obviously doesn't work sometimes depending on person)

-141 would have to install flashing light systems through the house to alert Soap and half of em probably walk heavier to warn Soap so they don't scare him"

Since he grew up in Alaska, he was very used to it being day or night for weeks or months, sometimes finds it a little jarring when he sees the sun actually setting and the moon coming up or vise versa.

One time, after a really shit mission, he woke up in the hospital to see it was nighttime when he distinctly remembers it being day the last time he was awake. And it's like "OH SHIT HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN OUT FOR." nearly sends himself into a panic thinking he'd just woken up from a fucking coma.

Shit there's so much more I could say but this is already so long, I'm so sorry 😭😭😭 I was so hyper fixated on him for a good few months with my bf

-🐧

Wait the fact that she picked the name is kinda cute and that the reason behind it was bc she’s the mom here idk it’s nice when parents are properly involved in their kids life

Also I’ll forever love yalls background story for your call names bc they’re always so thought out and so interesting genuinely y’all are so creative 🥹

I love that he has shit talking sessions with ghost and roach bc I absolutely think they’d get along well soap info dumps sm gaz overshares and price uses Everett to complain so he knows sm and randomly shares the info😭

Does his mask look something akin to a rabbit or does it represent rabbits in any way? Also now I’m imagining him walking around on base all excited about handing out charms😭 oh my goodness imagine each charm having something that represents the members that wears it?

Oh man although it’s sad he went blind in one eye I can imagine he’d lock sick in a prosthetic eye!!

Also I like how the disability hc actually makes sense especially prices and soaps but especially prices bc I know that man has coughing fits and snores horribly and you can hear a certain rasps in his voice when he talks 😭

And I love them being a polycule and taking care of each other in this way 🥹 like I know this is what you do in healthy relationships but idk it’s sweet ? Like price giving gaz massages bc his wrists hurt a lot? 🥹

Also don’t apologize sugar it’s okay!! It was a really interesting read genuinely I wish I had the ability to create ocs but not just ocs-, but ocs that have so much depth and backstory it’s absolutely amazing that y’all have this ability!

[painfullymeta]

I wrote this in June of '22 on the tweeters

and I'm going to rescue it because of reasons. The fact it was originally on the tweeters is why the syntax is what it is.

Me and queerness, as inextricable from theology, autism, and occasionally having throw-down arguments with people online:

(Please keep in mind that neurodivergent folks are known for being fucking unable to manage a linear narrative. This isn’t tidy. Life isn’t tidy. Making life look tidy when it isn't is super weird.)

My first Pride, I thought I was straight and cis. (I knew I was acespec but had never encountered terms.)

I was doing a study abroad in London and was invited to Brighton Pride by some friends from alt.polyamory. [waves]

It was unspeakably beautiful. A bright sunny day in a park filled with people who were, at least in that moment, free and unafraid. I wanted to be like that.

I didn’t even know what I was afraid of and I wanted that.

So there’s me, sharing a picnic blanket with a glorious tangled heap of bisexuals, one trans guy who seemed even more shy than me, and the femmest straight guy I’ve ever met, awkward, unknowingly autistic, and basking in this sense of a community that I was not part of.

I saw someone commenting in a discussion thread recently that she’d (just checked pronouns) felt the most welcome at Pride when she thought she was straight, and remembering Brighton makes me wonder.

My second Pride, I still thought I was straight and cis. I was helping staff a local polyamory booth, with a water bottle with a splash of vinegar in it because I am bad at hydration, and it wasn’t magical like Brighton. I don’t know why. It was still good.

Sometimes things are only magical the first time, mind, or magical like that: once you know the Mystery it’s hard to capture the thrill of learning the Mystery. It could’ve been that.

Time passed. I had a lot of ace arguments on usenet, with various people in predictable roles. (“All human interaction is fundamentally erotic, if you don’t perceive that in others, you’re dehumanizing them!” “Have you tried casual sex to get over this problem of yours?”)

I did manage to get somewhere by the point that I could articulate that just because someone is attractive to look at doesn’t mean anything more than “They’d make a nice wall hanging.”

(Years later I learned “demi”, in the context of people mocking it as worthless claptrap.)

Eventually my arguing on the internet migrated to the fringes of the feminist blogosphere, where I learned a lot about TERFs, SWERFs, and KERFs, who made me very tired.

And got me seriously gnawing on questions of identity.

(Thing I didn’t - couldn’t - talk about when it was going around the tweeters, how fucking devastating the Tiller murder was when heavily pregnant with Oldest. Knowing what that man did to balm the wounds of people who were suffering unbelievable pain.)

(Still not really capable of talking about it. I blogged it at the time.)

(He was the one who cared enough to make sure they could have a funeral.)

(Fuck.)

Anyway.

There’s a lot of intensely eggy flailing in that blog, in between snarking at the various flavors of ERF. Processing the massive dysphoria of pregnancy. Wondering if issues with gender were distinct from other forms of ‘I can’t figure out how this social shit works’.

Those people were exhausting, so full of furious categorization. Women Are And Must Be Like This. The Mysteries Of Shared Girlhood. That lot didn’t go in for a lot of The Spiritual Experience Of Menstruation but gods know as a pagan I didn’t need a supplement.

When I talked shared girlhood experiences through the person I had the most in common with was a trans woman.

And I can't separate the sexual violence I’ve experienced from being targeted for being autistic.

(That was also a whole thing: “But that abuser might be a socially awkward autistic guy!” “… what about the socially awkward women?” “They shouldn’t be abusing people either har har har.”)

(Thanks. That’s a big help.)

(I’m just gonna sit here trying to take my social cues from people who are ignoring what’s happening to me, because that’s what I gotta do to survive….)

(Masking sucks. Whatever my gender is it is also autistic.)

I came into the blogworld with “geek as gender” in my back pocket and a sort of complex ambivalence about a lot of conversations, as well as a habit of picking Discordian fights with homophobes in alt.sports on usenet. (Which did get me sent highly photoshopped dick pics.)

(Look, dudes, if you’re going to call people “cocksuckers” on the internet I’m absolutely there to ask you why you think that’s an insult if you like receiving oral sex.)

Anyway I came out of the blogworld with enough experience that I occasionally consider lapsing into a massive clickbait rant entitled, “I was transed by the TERFs.”

They defined “a woman is” at me so hard I realized I couldn’t be one.

Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have figured it out without them.

I don’t have a clean, categorizable experience of gender. I simultaneously had an intense spiritual/physical calling to bear children and found the experience at times so horrifyingly dysphoric that leaving the house was literally unmanageable.

A gay man in a Craft training group asked me if I was aware I had a lot of male energy, which I chalked up to my astral/energetic penis. It made my day and I had no idea why. I’m not sure I even believe in “male energy”.

Someone once told me that I was just butch because something and I spent a while going, “Am I butch? Am I fucking butch? I am pretty sure on the butch/femme axis I am definitely multiplied by i, and possibly ???”

When I stopped thinking of myself as female, I started learning about eyeshadow.

Literally never touched the stuff before aside from getting enthusiastically femmed by a friend of my mother’s for senior prom and this one time a Mary Kay lady came to the house.

The thing about cosmetics is when I was a woman I could do it wrong, and being autistic I was just fucking tired of all the things I was doing wrong, socially, so I included me out.

When I stopped trying to be a woman I could have fun.

(Pretty sure I’m not butch.)

(When I did a clothing purge I kept this one blue dress in case I’m ever man enough to wear it again.)

One of the most surreal days of my pandemic life:

Extra-super-epic dissociated from extensive mammography, got back to the car in my mask and Boston Flowers blaseball cap and the parking lot attendant said “You have a good day, sir” as I left.

My Craft training got hung up on a point of theology and focus at one point. My teacher corrected me and suddenly—suddenly I had a beautiful, intimate relationship with one of the gods.

An explicitly transmasc god.

The seeds sleep in the dark until the season of emergence.

There was also the time I was doing some reading on the nephilim and wound up with a visitation from a transmasc angel.

The nephilim gave weapons to humanity, you know. Swords and cosmetics both.

They’re weapons.

Never forget that the makeup palette is a weapon too.

Some people know that in their bones.

(It’s really all about the copper. Copper alloys, copper pigments, hello I’ve tripped over a Hetharu mystery while I’m trying to articulate something about queerness, thanks Mum.)

(Copper connectivity, copper electromagnetic, the attractive-repulsive powerhouse of life.)

I struggle a lot. I still struggle. I know now what I was afraid of that first Pride, that beautiful day in Brighton, and I am not yet free.

I am not yet legible even to myself.

A while back someone was doing a survey of women in public/online gaming spaces, and it made me angry. Not because it was trans-exclusive - it explicitly called out that anyone who was identifying as a woman was welcome to participate.

But I’m not a woman.

There was no space for me to talk about the experience of being perceived without being—of the Vent suddenly falling silent before the raid and someone whispering, “There are *girls* here,” a little too loud–of the rest of it.

Not without betraying myself.

The complexity of the narrative isn’t *there*. I wasn’t “always a man”, or even “always a pretty boy” (I am better with ‘pretty boy’, I don’t know that ‘man’ is what I am.) I’m a middle-aged whatever-I-am with a history and it’s not clean or tidily genderable—and it doesn’t, looking back, produce any “And now, it all makes sense!”

Okay, the autistic thing did that, but the gender thing? No. It’s always been a giant fucking mess. Best I’ve got is “ah, that’s why my attraction to men felt more like a similarity-thing than a difference-thing, I thought it was just that I only fancy geeks.”

I feel like what I have is an experience that exists, that has broader meaning, this complex interaction in which I have Done As Much Female As I Intend To and am now swirling into the arms of a different god, but my culture does not have words for this.

That is the thing that makes me angry, that this sacred queer liminal “I have been here, and that is not where I live, I am in motion, I am other than you expect” feeling is not something for which there are *words*.

There is no ceremony. There is no ritual.

I could make one, but that is just me, it is not the ceremony of the people who are like me.

I am not alone, but I’m also a white person on stolen land and my people mutilated away our spaces for sacred queerness a long time ago.

Things that have been built are not for me. Or… I cannot feel they are for me and whether that’s that I don’t fit or that neurodivergence makes me presume rejection or what, I don’t know.

I have built so much to house my spirit, but souls are a community work, damnit.

I talked to my minister at church a while back about this, awkwardly, not knowing how to articulate it.

I was glad to do so, to feel safe doing so. He retired, though.

Maybe I’ll join the relevant committee. Ha ha UUjoke.

I wind up muttering about wrasse a lot, helplessly, into the void.

Also, unrelated to personal stuff, but because I cannot resist a factoid, some varieties of slime molds have thirteen sexes (when calculated by mitochondrial inheritance). I believe others have more or less.

I need a new binder. I need to figure out hormones and my medical stew. I need to deal with being afraid of transition, because one thing I have neurodivergently learned is that change is extremely high-risk, even if there is a potential of good in it.

I need a nap.

When I was in my early twenties, I was on the pill, as is not uncommon. It fucked me up in many ways, also as not uncommon.

I got a new formulation that fucked me up much less.

It was a high-testosterone version.

What is a man? (A miserable pile of secrets.)

Someday maybe I will know a thing about this.

(Have at you.) /fin

Oh yeah I should add a note that I have a reasonably large pile of queer-affirming and queer-analysis Christian exegesis because, uh.

Well, I didn’t know why I wanted them when I got them.

Funny how that works.

[deusluxuria]

long-ass post with random headcanons about dio dea (because female villains) and his her children

( Warning: Pregnancy, stillborn, miscarriage, hypersexuality/sex addiction. )

-It took one hundred years to complete, but once Dea had attached her head to Jonathan's body, it started morphing into her own original body.

-She has technically had five children total. The "green baby" from Stone Ocean was her first, born shortly after she took over the mansion in Egypt. The other parent was one of the men on the boat who had recovered Dea's casket from under the sea. The child was born very prematurely, and she didn't even know she was pregnant, nor did she understand that she could even get pregnant using Jonathan's body to begin with. (From self-harm and dangerous hypersexuality, she was not able to get pregnant while she was still alive with her own original body.) She gave birth alone, and very suddenly, in a lot of pain. The baby survived only minutes. They were cremated, and Dea put their ashes inside of the bone that eventually fell into Pucci's hands. Dea had named the child Alnabatia.

-Dea could never go to a hospital, knowing there was no way to communicate that she needed blood for sustenance and was unable to be in sunlight. She also suspected that hospital personnel would be dumbfounded by any test results from her, as she still didn't completely understand how her immortal body worked herself. She was afraid of what they might do with her child if they were born with anything unusual about them.

-Giorno was her second child. His other parent was Aori Shiobana, a trans woman from Japan, who Dea had an extremely toxic (mutually) relationship with (which had mostly been exclusively sexual to begin with). Dea went through a huge personality change when she found out she was pregnant, and Giorno became the only thing on her mind. But Aori didn't want Dea to have a child, and they fought about it. Aori was not fond of children and made it clear that she could not be expected to be involved in Giorno's life.

-However -- Aori did later change her mind. Months later, one day, while the sun was out, Aori suddenly stole Giorno away. Aori's final words to Dea were about how Giorno could never have a normal life with someone who can't bring him into the daylight. Dea was even more devastated after these words, because she knew Aori was right. At the time, it felt like Giorno's best chance was with Aori, so Dea didn't chase after her.

-Although, the absolutely gutting experience of losing Giorno turned Dea even more cruel than she had been before he was born. Worse than how evil she had been towards Jonathan. Giorno had given her an entirely new purpose that had nothing to do with power. Later, when Jotaro came to fight her, much of her violent rage towards him was influenced by the phrase in her mind, regarding Holly, "I need to make someone else feel the torment of losing a child."

-Donatello and Rykiel were twins. (Their father was Hol Horse, of no warm circumstances -- a rather sad, desperate, random encounter in the library of the mansion. His thoughts afterwards were "Well, that was weird."). Dea was heavily sedated throughout Donatello and Rykiel's gestation, during their birth, and afterwards. She doesn't remember much about them, except their names and when they were born. Though, as with all her children, if she had still been alive when they became adults, she would recognize them. Enya saw that Dea clearly was not able nor willing to parent them, so Enya placed them in foster care. They were separated when Donatello was adopted, and Rykiel remained in foster care until he turned eighteen.

-No one knows where Ungalo came from, except for Enya, who didn't know who his other parent was. Dea's usual bedmates of the mansion were asked about it, but they all agreed that, in their circumstances of timing and method and contraception, it was not possible for Ungalo to be any of their child. Truly, it had been someone who was no more than a passerby tourist in Egypt, and Dea did not even know their name. Ungalo, Rykiel, and Donatello had all been products of Dea's grief about Giorno, where she couldn't have cared less about anything, and could barely feel.

-Dea finally stopped mindlessly having children after she got over the initial agony of losing Giorno. The near fugue state she was in subsided, turning to pure rage. Ungalo was her last. She had only been lucid enough to name him, but didn't remember when exactly he was born. She had only held him once, before he was placed in foster care. Vanilla Ice, Terrence, and Enya would recall that there had been absolutely no trace of light in Dea's eyes when she let go of him. When she was lucid enough, Dea had Vanilla Ice use his Stand to remove Dea's uterus completely.

-N'Dour had been by far the closest person to Dea during her life in Egypt, and he would say that, while Dea had been very different while she had Giorno in her care, there had still been a great deal of her soul present. But after Giorno was gone, N'Dour would say, "There was nothing left of her. She had been like a soulmate to me, but suddenly I didn't recognize her anymore. She became a shadow."

-Giorno is transgender and his pronouns are exclusively he/him. Dea and Aori had not socialized him as any specific gender, and he started realizing himself to be male around age nine. He was a rather gloomy child, and still remained mostly that way, but he did start seeming slightly happier once he realized that he was a trans boy. That was when he started being more creative with his sense of fashion, as he overall felt more comfortable in his own skin.

-Dea was actually the one who named him Giorno. Aori tried to rename him Haruno, but he identified much more closely with the name Giorno. Dea had named him "day" because, the moment she first saw his face when he was born, she thought about how it was like seeing the sun again.

-Giorno remembers her, very fondly. He has nothing but good memories about her, and remembers the songs she used to sing to him. Giorno's connection to nature came from how Dea used to bring him into the garden at night and talk to him about the plants, the animals, the sky.

-At some point while Giorno was living in the dormitories at school, Aori sent him a box of his remaining old things, saying she would just throw them in the trash otherwise.

-In this box was a large envelope he had never seen before. Oddly, it had the name "Giorno" written on it. Aori had always refused to call him that, and his stepfather never knew that name. Startled, Giorno immediately opened the envelope.

-Inside were photos of him from infancy with Dea and her housemates who had helped take care of Giorno (Enya, Vanilla Ice, N'Dour, Terrence), and even some very old photos of Jonathan, Dea, George, and one of Dea's mother.

-There was also a very long, detailed letter from Dea herself, explaining everything about Giorno's infancy, Dea and Aori's relationship (how she had never loved her, and the feeling was mutual), the ambiguous circumstances of his conception, and his difficult and uncertain birth. And, everything about Dea's parents and childhood, about Jonathan and George, very much including how Dea had killed her own father and had been very cruel to Jonathan before killing him and his father. She left nothing out about her evilness.

-She sent the envelope to Aori a while after she had taken Giorno, and Aori forgot about it until years later when Giorno was fifteen. Dea wrote at the end about how she would always love him and how he was "her sunshine." But that, if he never heard from her again, it was likely she had been killed, as she had been determined to one day meet with him again.

-Giorno accepted her evil, though he did not forgive it. But his immense love for her didn't change. He read the letter over and over that night, and he fell asleep clutching it with tears in his eyes.

[redheadbigshoes]

Hi!

Based on personal experience, I am pretty sure that trans women can experience comphet.

While it's true that I was never told that I specifically have to marry a man one day or that I have to give some guy a chance (yet, I am closeted and only starting to transition, those who are out can tell a lot of stories about this), it didn't stop me from internalising it, even before figuring out who I am.

We still live in the same society and are exposed to the same ideas. It's true that majority of narratives we are exposed to, be it fiction or biographies of famous people or mainstream sociological and psychological theories, feature heterosexual people and focus on heterosexual relationships. It's true that normative understanding of gender roles largely defines womanhood through sexual and romantic availability to men, even if sometimes not that explicitly. It's also true that most women are just straight, and being a lesbian may make one feel like outsider or at least meaningfully different, which when combined with dysphoria and lack of connections otherwise may make one feel alien and try to "fix" this. Even awareness of existence of homosexuality and its acceptance by one and their surroundings not necessarily change things, because societal structures stay the same.

What you were told about initial assumption after the realisation is also pretty true for a lot of people. It's also worth to note that in a lot of places being heterosexual is required to medically and legally transition, so while in most places people can just lie about it, its an additional incentive to try to be heterosexual, and if someone internalises medical criteria of transgenderism as the final truth, it can have even more devastating effect. There is also a semi-popular narrative about trans women who were attracted only to women becomming bi or straight after going on hrt due to whatever (I really never heard about its equivalent with regards to trans men even when my social circle didn't consist almost entirely of trans lesbians, but I am hesitant to say that it doesn't exist). I did hear first-hand accounts of this, but I did hear plenty of stories when it was the opposite, so I can't say how much of it has any foundation in reality.

All of this combined certainly made me try to force myself to be attracted to men, starting from not yet conscious attempts to alleviate dysphoria ending with feeling of failing at (trans) womanhood for being a lesbian. I think that it's pretty fair to call it comphet.

It's also true that while I was never shamed by others for being attracted to other women, I successfully did it myself. All of the aforementioned reasons contributed to this (but in reverse), but it was also because it felt wrong and predatory, thank you combination of lesbophobic and transmisogynistic narratives and intrusive thoughts. Neither I thought about being in relationships with a woman before realising who I am, because someone being attracted to me in a misgendering way was one of the worst feelings even before I understood why.

It has gotten a bit too long, but what I want to say is that overall perception of heterosexuality being the norm does impact trans people, even if the exact mechanisms may differ sometimes.

Thank you for sharing your experience. Yeah I totally agree with you, heteronormativity affects basically everyone (not only in the LGBTQ+ community, but in some ways it could also indirectly affect allo cishets).

And I had no idea how in some places is required to be straight to be able to medically and legally transition… That’s horrible. It shows how people don’t seem to understand gender identity and sexuality are separate things.

[thewasteland]

hope you dont mind me sending in this ask!!

a lot of syscourse just reminds me of transmedicalism- if you dont suffer, you arent really a part of that community; if you are "cringe" you dont deserve support or acceptance; if you are open about your experience and love yourself, you make the community look bad.

so much of it is bullshit. we all have different experiences, and all experience plurality in different ways. we should be able to be ourselves openly and unabashedly and not be afraid of people finding out about the system. people who already hate systems arent gonna hate them any less bc you suck up to them lmaoo.

support eachother and love eachother, thats all i can say

Don't mind at all! love getting asks, although my response might disappoint. We really are of many different minds about the issue. We can all agree that the way things are now are toxic, but other than that it's all different opinions, so we mostly try to stay out of it to avoid pissing off everyone at once lol.

The issue with the "sysmed" thing tho is that like, I've never met a trans person who experiences their transness as a mental illness. Their dysphoria, maybe, but not their gender identity itself. Trans people being seen as mentally ill, or mentally ill people's transness being seen as a symptom of their mental illness, has been a stigma they've been trying to fight for a long time. I'm cis but I have witnessed it and it's so shitty. But DID/OSDD *is* considered a disorder by those who have it. So that's where the metaphor breaks down for me and just seems kind of shitty and backhanded to trans people, and/or like it's ignoring the fact that DID/OSDD are real disorders.

As far as the validity of endogenic systems, that's not something we care to discuss. It's literally their own fucking business. I don't know what I would hope to gain from running around calling people a liar on the internet.

Also the whole like "but what if endogenic systems are really just DID/OSDD systems who don't remember there trauma!!! We have to educate them!!1! By forcing them to face the reality that they were traumatized before they're ready!! Cause that's what's healthy!!"

Even if a system can remember their trauma, not everyone wants to say that their trauma created their system. Systems can bring a lot of help and joy, they are like your family, your blood, and saying that they were formed because of trauma just feels wrong. Or maybe you don't want to justify your existence with a reason at all. I don't think we should be forcing people into a box they don't want to be in.

*hits blunt* just let people live, man.

But on the other hand, I don't know if I really feel like I have much in common with endogenics. If they're not experiencing their system as part of a trauma disorder, I really can't imagine what that's even like. We are so shaped by trauma, every little piece of us, to the point that it's devastating at times. It feels like we don't have an identity outside of it. Having alters can be frightening and heartbreaking at times. And overall I just feel like I'd have more in common with a singlet trauma survivor than I would an endogenic system. So we generally stay in DID/OSDD spaces, and would appreciate it if endos would stay out of those, no hate it's literally just not for you, I want to hear about other people's experiences I can learn from and relate to, and get support for my disorder you know.

Jesus this got long but anyway this kind of turned into us internally debating and switching and ranting so sorry if I derailed at all. Anyway that's about as cohesive/coherent as we will ever be able to get our thoughts on syscourse.

Big agree to the second paragraph, and yes, supporting each other is the only way to go tbh.

[hearthandhomemagick]

Food For Thought - Steven Universe

Hello there, I would like to tell you my story and journey with the amazingly beautiful, and wonderfully written TV Show...

Steven Universe.

I started watching this show when it first came out in High School. I mean, I was so excited to watch it that I anticipated the very first episode and sat down with snacks to observe it’s premier. I had become immediately enthralled not only with the art style, but also with the genuine wholesomeness and elucidations of processing emotions and life experiences. I was astounded that a kids show could express to me how to manage my emotions as well as connect with my moral standings. It’s a show I recommended to everyone, but often didn’t talk about because of it being a kids show, and me being almost being grown. It was my secret love until someone else brought it up.

This show stuck with me through the years, and helped me through some of my hardest moments in life. 

I remember watching the episode, “Mindful Education” and melting into Garnet’s lesson of mindfulness and self-awareness. I had been going through a lot at the end of 2016, graduating and going through a rough election along with having to move states for college. My opinions were forming in the extreme area and I had a fire to protect my thoughts and opinions with no restrain or any form of control of my emotional reality. I was rambunctious as much as I was head-strong and, at times, hard-headed all together. 

When this episode aired, I didn’t know why I loved Garnet and Stevonnie’s song, “Here Comes a Thought.” But I did, and it still carries with me into my life today. 

I want to discuss a specific time, though, that this episode saved my sanity and opened my eyes to a concept I didn’t understand when I first watched it. I was on social media, and was defending my opinions against quite a few people by myself. Eventually, I was getting nasty comments from a bunch of millennials telling me, 

“You’re too fucking stupid to understand, maybe you should go back to school, child.”

“You’re so emotional, and your emotions don’t matter here. Imagine being this dumb.”

“Imagine being a dumb bitch like Carly and saying you wanted to cut your penis off to look like a woman.” *NOTE I am not transgender, there is nothing wrong with being transgender and her insinuating such did not bother me. Her rhetoric insinuating trans was wrong is what irked me, this bitch was transphobic and had issues that she needs to repair in her own time. She wrote an entire post based around this context on her personal page using my real name, and she didn’t even know who I was.*

and my personal favorite, “Here’s the suicide hotline, I know your generation is prone to killing themselves and are overly emotional.”

Now, there were over 50, under 100, messages going back and forth where these people were just bullying me and I refused to back down. I wound up in a panic attack in my bedroom, literally wanting to kill myself because they were bullying me. The hotline would have come in handy if it were the actual hotline. I ended up going to my dad and older sister (my older sisters friend was the main one I was arguing with and her posy showed up on my post), because no one on the post was on my side.

Both told me, “If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” My sister told her friend to stop, and threatened the other girl for her nasty posts and comments. My dad tried to mediate on the post itself, but the people wouldn’t stop. I eventually had to take it down.

My family didn’t calm me down in this moment. Not even a little bit. It felt like a back-handed helping hand. Like they wanted to protect me, but also somewhat agreed with the people on the post.

The only thing that calmed my nerves in this moment, ultimately, was the song, “Here Comes a Thought.” 

I sat in my room, sobbing, hoping to myself that it would make sense as to why it was okay for these things to happen. The song soothed over my nerves, eventually releasing my muscles and giving me a sense ease. I was able to process and realized a few personal things as well. I didn’t realize it, but before long, I was meditating to the song on repeat. I kept telling myself, “I’m okay, this is a thought. A moment. I am not my thoughts. I am not this moment.”

This was simply one of the ways Steven Universe has helped me process and understand myself more. I bring this up because I came across and article today that disappointed me to the core.

The Steven Universe Fandom has toxic tendencies.

I was shook.

How could a child’s show be turned into something so negative? Something that was meant to promote self-awareness, self-love, acceptance of character, and understanding of others had been morphed into a gatekeepers safe haven.

Now I know this isn’t the majority, and before you get offended, hurt or start defending yourself, I want you to ask yourself if what you are defending is an action you would defend from anyone else. If it is, by all means defend your ground.

But the one concept that eludes me, and offers zero substance in terms of valid arguments, is that men can not watch this show. Let me explain why men NEED to watch this fucking show.

My boyfriend watched this entire show, episode for episode, and benefitted from it. This show offered him coping techniques, an understanding of why love should come before war, and mediating every situation so you see and understand every perspective. These are things children shows didn’t offer him growing up, he has often and openly verbalized his need for this show in his childhood because of certain traumas, and we often continue watching it even after seeing every single episode and movie.

This show was never meant for one or two groups of people, and if you feel that way then refer back to the writers themselves who were literally trying to teach the lesson in the show over and over again to NEVER EXCLUDE PEOPLE FROM YOUR GROUP. You exclude people, and you create a division, a war of sorts. You immediately have become the thing Steven Universe advocated against in the first place.

This also leads into the whole “art” situation in the fandom. 

This show is anti-bully. There are commercials for it and everything. It is expressed in multiple episodes why bullying is never a good thing in any situation. 

You simply cannot justify the hypocrisy in bullying someone out of self-expression that literally harms no one. You can’t justify it.

Think about it. You draw or sketch a piece of art that took you hours, or even a few minutes. It’s your favorite character, and maybe you yourself are going through some mental thoughts regarding your weight that lead you to draw the character thinner or bigger. Size shouldn’t matter in any capacity when relating a character to ones self. 

If you’re skinny, you’re beautiful. If you are thick or curvy, you are beautiful. If you are obese or overweight, you are beautiful. Weight doesn’t matter, but representation of body types in different characters does matter.

Imagine a child falls in love with a bigger character, but is experiencing body challenges where she is being picked on for being too thin or scrawny (it happens, I’ve seen it with my nieces). Who are you to say that making her favorite character look like her own body is wrong? Especially if art is a coping mechanism they use for mental health reasons.

Like Malachite, a fusion that was devastating and abusive in every way, you are taking the choice and voice of an entire being to make your actions and opinions “right” or “okay”.

There is so much more I could say on this show, and so much more I could say about the fandom. And I know it is not the majority of the fandom, but I did want to make everyone in the fandom aware that we are human.

None of us are stoic and balanced like Garnet, and even Garnet had problems in her relationship. None of us are strong and laid back like Amethyst, and even she had self-love issues. None of us are as analytical and organized as Pearl, and yet she had problems throughout the series. 

None of you are perfect, and to act as if you are is defeating the purpose of a show trying to teach you how to be responsible for yourself and your actions. I’m not perfect either, and preaching about a fandom I’m not a huge part of sounds counter-intuitive, I’m aware.

But my nieces want to watch this show. My nephew watches this show with me. My boyfriend’s niece is going to start watching the show. 

Please do not make a toxic environment for kids who need this show to grow up. Kids who experience trauma, and learn from this show deserve a safe space without people trying to justify bullying or force them to think that because they are a boy or girl, they can or can’t watch the show. Without people making people feel bad for being themselves.

Why don’t we create a new space? A space where everyone is accepted as they are, and negative behavior is addressed the same way the gems or Steven would address them. With education, perception awareness, and PATIENCE. 

I know some will say, “It’s not my job to raise your child.” and “It’s not my responsibility to make people aware of their tendencies.”

You’re right. It’s also not your responsibility to bully people into changing themselves to fit your dialogue. Simply put, you’re responsible for yourself alone. But you have no right to complain on someone's behavior, art or experiences if you are not willing to be patient with correcting said behavior in yourself first.  

Who knows, maybe I’m in the wrong here for not knowing the full story. All I’m saying is, if you see someone being a bully, being mean or even being a hypocrite, call them out in the sweetest way possible. Let them know we are facilitating a safe space for people who need a community rather than a closed off club.

Be the change you want to see in this world.

Learn, grow and prosper. 

I wish you all well and genuinely hope we can all expand our perspectives to fully understand each other in healthier and more communicative based ways. We deserve that sort of kindness from each other.

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

You said we can ask you questions so here goes( hope they arent invasive)

-at what age did u realise u were lesbian?was it easy/hard to accept?

-how was your coming out like? How did your family and friends react?

-were you ever/are you religious?do u believe one can balance between being homosexual and religious?

- were you always masc or is it something that came with accepting your sexuality?

-do you call yourself a stud?

- how hard/easy has it been being an out and proud black lesbian?

- thoughts on the stigma against stud4stud/butch4butch lesbians

-were you ever a TRA/libfem? If yes, what made you peak?

-ive had ppl talk about how masc lesbians being touch-me-nots is problematic/toxic and how its more about upholding a "status" than it is about preference. What do you make of that?

Not invasive at all! I'm happy to answer and thank you for asking :).

- I realized I was a lesbian at age 12 when I developed a HUGE crush on my gorgeous English teacher. I also got a small crush on a girl in one of my classes. I didn't grow up around much homophobia so it wasn't hard for me to accept that I was gay but what was hard was the absolute intensity of my feelings towards my teacher. I used to pray to god to have my feelings for her taken away because they were just so intense and I didn't know how to handle them (she was my teacher so I clearly wasn't going to ask her out. There was literally no outlet for what I was feeling so I kept it bottled.). My parents never brought up gay people in any positive or negative way and the kids I grew up around didn't really either. So me being gay wasn't something I beat myself up over. Once I accepted that I wasn't an overly invested straight ally, the road to acceptance was a peace of cake tbh.

-My coming out was... Well. I first started coming out to my friends when I was 13 and they were accepting of it. It honestly wasn't that interesting to tell you the truth 😅. All the peers that I gave a shit about never gave me shit for being gay. I never lost a friend for being gay. Coming out to my parents took me until I was 16 and the reason for that is because I genuinely didn't know how they'd react. Like I said, they never said anything about gay people point blank period. However, I was kind of forced to come out one particular night because my heart had been fucking shattered by a girl I was strongly crushing on at the time. I was pacing up and down my house, my best friend wasn't answering me, I could hear my dad's TV playing, it was late, I was tired, I couldn't sleep, I had school tomorrow, I was freaking out, I was devastated... I wanted to be comforted so I went to my father, threw my head into his arm and started telling him how my heart felt broken. He asked me if I had a boyfriend and when I said "nope" there was some silence and he was like "it's okay, I've known for a long time". I never actually said the words "gay" or "lesbian" during my coming out but I guess I didn't need to. The next morning, my father asked if it was okay if he could go tell my mom and I said yes. Long story short, my mom was even less surprised than my dad and she's the more progressive of the two so it wasn't really an issue (though she did tell me to keep an open mind in terms of liking men 😅 she seems to think I'm bisexual which is whatever because she never bothers me about it).

-Hmm. I don't like to completely cut out religion from my life. My father was extremely religious and now that he's gone, I feel it's disrespectful for me to say God doesn't exist. Like, "dad, you spent practically your whole life believing wholeheartedly in God but guess what! It was a waste and the thing you dedicated your life is something I think is a fairytale!" that doesn't sit right with me at all. I've been baptized and I used to go to church when I was younger. I think that there's no reason to shake my head at the possibility of a God. In terms of being gay and believing in God, I once watched a video by a devout Christian gay man who went through all the homophobic stuff Christians love to quote from the bible and gave the actual meaning behind them. I, personally, do not think that God is homophobic. I think that God's love is not something we have the capacity to understand. So, I, personally, think Christian gay people are perfectly fine and are already balanced. Here's to hoping that they stay away from homophobic churches!

-No, I wasn't always masc. As a child I was a huge girly girl. Like, legit, I wasn't a tomboy in the slightest lmao. I'm not sure when I started being masc. But what I do know is that I've grown far more masc over the years. I used to not want to dress too manly (no tuxedo's and no clothes from the men's section and no boxers) but nowadays I love all of those things and that's genuinely what I want in my wardrobe so I have no problem going into the men's section for my clothes.

-No, I don't call myself a stud. Love those guys though. The label I feel that's most accurate for me is masc.

-Um, I'm not sure how to answer this since I don't have experience being any other kind of lesbian. I guess it's just kind of tiring. I'm black, female, and homosexual. That's a LOT of different topics to give my attention to. The hardest part of being a black lesbian is knowing who to give my camaraderie to. Do I give it to black women? Black women AND black men? Lesbians? Only black lesbians? The lgb community as a whole? It's just a lot to think about. I will say, though, I think that it's a lot harder to be a masc black lesbian than a white one. Black women are already perceived as manly just based off of our skin color. So for me to willingly present masc can often be... A non-pretty picture in the eyes of society and I'm hyper-aware of that which is why I often have trouble going all out with the wardrobe I truly desire. That's my biggest challenge navigating the world as the black lesbian that I am. On a more positive note though, it's great being a black lesbian because I can have an opinion on everything and nobody can tell me I'm being racist/homophobic/sexist or stepping outside of my lane 😂. I'm on a three-lane road motherfucker and I'm not afraid to use all of them.

-my thoughts are that you should leave people alone. I will say though, I once read something that was like "if you call yourself a femme but the idea of being with a butch disgusts you, you're not a femme, you're just a feminine lesbian" and that rang true to me so it feels hypothetical (and nonsensical) if the reverse wasn't true as well. If a butch/stud shits on femmes and assumes they can't be as feminine as they are and ACTUALLY gay then I do have a problem. Butches and femmes have a history that's damn near inseparable from each other so for a butch to shit on femmes... I'd argue that they're probably not butch but instead just masculine lesbians. However, I don't care if two butches or studs want to date lmao. All the power to them, I hope they're happy.

-I definitely used to support trans rights more than I do now. I would correct people who misgendered others. I thought trans women were women. I was in support of bathroom laws. I never made posts about it, but I very much did believe it. Magdalen berns made me peak. I started realizing that gender makes no sense. I did some research and came to the conclusions I hold today. Even when I want to go back to my ignorance, I can't because I've seen too much by now.

-I honestly don't know. I think that some masc lesbians don't want to be put in that "feminine" position of being touched by their partner. It could stem from upholding a status but at the end of the day, sexual boundaries are sexual boundaries. What are you gonna do? Force your touch on to them? Yikes. Leave them be. If you're upset about your partner not wanting to be touched by you then get a new one. Clearly you're not sexually happy so leave. I don't think it's necessarily toxic unless they think there's something inherently demeaning in being touched by their partner or they do want to be touched but won't allow themselves due to trauma or feeling like there's a certain persona they must uplift. Other than that though, I don't see the issue.

Thanks for the questions, buddy ❤️

[fuzziemutt]

Oooh, how does the whole family dynamcis work out on the Purp guy and the other guy that's his partner?

Okay so there's like 3 sections to how it worked out as it changes dramatically ! I'm focusing on will and henry since you said him and his partner (this is also written in like one go so i apologize for any nonsense)

First off tho: William and Henry married in my au. This is because I'm a gay trans man and i see will as being a gay man and henry as a gay trans man. I also thought it would be more devastating™ if will killed their shared children than it being his best friend's kid and his own kids personally

Also: Charlie is still Henry's bio daughter but Michael, Chris and Elizabeth are adopted (chris and eli are twins btw)

Also also: Henry isn't going to be an all rainbows and sunshines guy so beware that he does some pretty shitty things as well

Pre Murders and Deaths:

They were very happy ! Prior to everything Willy was actually a decent guy and husband ! Will used to be a more stick-up-the-ass type guy but Henry brought his more humerous and silly side out over the course of knowing and dating each other. Of course they'd sometimes have small petty fights but they were adults and would work it out and such. Pretty healthy of a dynamic and they had great communication skills so Henry knew when Willy was getting frustrated and Willy likewise with Henry. Henry was the more advice dad and dad™ personality such as bringing a bag of everything they'd need whenever they went on trips to the park and dad jokes. Henry was also referred to as 'papa' by the kids! Willy was more of the morals and teachings (yes i know quite ironic) for the kids and was more strict than henry on certain things but he also would play a lot with the kids too even after a long day of work. Will was referred to as 'dad'.

Post Chris death & Pre Murders:

This is when their relationship went from healthy to pretty toxic and abusive. Henry and Will coped with Chris' death in different manners. Henry would start heading out to the bar a lot while Will became more reclusive and hardly left the house as he became severely depressed. Their communication ? Tanked. Will would still insist he was fine no matter what despite everything clearly showing other wise. Henry became more i guess snappish in that he'd fight willy on everything. Like he'd get home and see will playing with the kids, even if it was less enthusiastic than before, and start yelling at him for it. He never physcially harmed will and was nicer to the kids but he def became emotionally abusive. There were times at first soon after the death that henry was still his old self and would help will with his depression and was very loving but as time went on those moments became more rare. Will clings onto those momente which is why he doesn't want to leave and would later desperately believe henry still loves him.

Post Murders and Deaths:

Elizabeth was the 2nd one to die as she was taken by Baby when Will started experimenting with the idea of souls bonding to the suits; Charlie followed the next year as he was testing if personal connection was the reason for the bond. Henry was already sus with Will when Eli "happened" to die via an animatronic and when he found Will's diaries that had all his ramblings about his theories and work he became more sus when noticing the pattern of "child soul" within it. It wasn't until Henry found one of their basement hammers hidden and spotted with black material and blood on one of Will's sweaters after Charlie's death did he realize what Will was doing. He then picks up Michael and a couple items and books it basically while ignoring will's cries to come back. After this Will and Henry stop all communication. Will believes henry left not because of the obvious child killing reason (he doesn't enjoy killing but sees it as a necessary evil for his "science") but rather because Will didn't have solid answers to his "scientific work", so he believes that if he just works hard enough Henry will return. Will does believe, however, that Henry betrayed him in a sense. Henry rightfully doesn't want anything to do with Willy after what happened. Even in my good ending (will doesn't get spring trapped) if henry ever saw will again, he'd have a very volatile reaction. Family wise: Will still keeps a lot of his fatherly instincts, even when he meets Michael again and internally blames him for "ruining" their lives, he still sometimes does father stuff™ subconsciously like stopping mike from crossing the street without looking. He's still a major bastard man tho don't worry ! Think like john mulaney's dad if he was also was like a murderer. Henry, however, became quite neglectful towards Mike and mainly mourns over Charlie's death alone.

Overall: *pats will and henry's head* these two bad boys can fit so much emotional constipation and poorly dealt with grief

They're both shitty and not shitty in their own rights like will arguably treats mike better than hen (ignoring the whole sl incident) but he still y'know is a murderer ???? And general bastard ??? Henry while he didn't kill their kids (or anyone), still became quite abusive towards Will and later towards michael.

This came out really long holy shit; if you want any further delving into anything specific just send another ask !

[jesawyer]

Hey Josh. What was the worldbuilding process like on Pillars of Eternity?

This could be a very long answer, but I’ll try to be succinct.  In my mind, there have been three worldbuilding phases for Eora.  The first one occurred during the Kickstarter for Project Eternity.  The second occurred during the development of Pillars of Eternity.  The third was during Deadfire.

The first phase was quite ad hoc and a little unfocused due to the extremely fast pace of the Kickstarter campaign.  In that phase, the goals were largely to create something that felt generally comfortable and familiar for people who wanted a Baldur’s Gate-style experience.  I would not consider it unfair if people thought of this as cynical or uninspired; I was specifically trying to meet general audience expectations.  So we had folk (humans), elves, and dwarves, but also godlike (aesthetically genasi-esques), orlans, and aumaua.

There were a few shreds of integrity in me at that point, because I didn’t want to have an “evil” player race like orcs or to directly take hobbits/halflings from Tolkien.

I also pulled at various bits of historical inspiration, e.g. the Drummer of Niklashausen for St. Waidwen.  I thought it would be interesting (to me, at least) to push the setting toward the equivalent of Earth’s 16th century in terms of technology and social expansion.  So we had trans-oceanic exploration and colonization, firearms, mercantilism, and a lot of cross-cultural contact and conflict.  Aedyran, which is effectively contemporary English, was conceived as a colonial blend of two imperial/trade languages (Eld Aedyran/Old English and Vailian/Italian-French-Occitan) with a local language (Glanfathan/Cornish-Welsh).

The second phase of worldbuilding was more structured, though I still had to deal with whatever decisions I had hastily made during the Kickstarter.  Eric Fenstermaker (who wrote the main story for Pillars 1) and I worked through the implications of the Hollowborn Crisis on social trends and daily life in the Dyrwood.  This phase of development was also more fundamentally materialistic in its methodology, though not enough in retrospect.  I would have liked to have put more thought into the relationships between the various erldoms, their communities, and the duc in Defiance Bay.  The disconnect between rural and urban Dyrwoodans does largely come out of this materialistic approach: rural communities are affected by the Hollowborn Crisis more than urban communities.  This is both because more children were affected (due to proximity to the machines Thaos was using) and because rural communities’ labor pools were more dependent on local family members.

There were also certain limits I placed on technology during this phase, like limiting the ability to teleport material (including people) due to the incredible effect that would have on so many aspects of trade and culture.  Its inclusion in Deadfire was only allowed after a lot of discussions of its limitations (e.g., requiring a Watcher linking adra pillars and the use of massive, expensive Vailian technology).

Overall, the third phase of worldbuilding was the most thought out.  Deadfire had many more designers contributing to the worldbuilding process, more discussion and critique of that worldbuilding, and more iteration.  I think that the factions in Deadfire are very well-developed due to the time and attention all of the designers put into them.  At the root of all of this was a materialistic approach to considering how people in power used their power to try to take control of the Deadfire - and why.  It wasn’t articulated in those terms during development, but that was how I directed the development: thinking of each culture and factions in material terms first and foremost.  Ultimately, even small factions like the Dawnstars were driven by material concerns (the post-Saint’s War Readcerans were devastated by crop failures and other economic hardships).

Developing fantasy worlds can be very difficult because of the implications of magic, huge creatures, powerful species of intelligent creatures that are viewed with hostility by dominant cultures, etc.  I think we did a better/more thorough job on Deadfire than Pillars 1 in part because the process we used on the sequel had more time for deliberation.

[bearsfakedthemoonlanding]

dating boys while (pre)Trans

[[ a definition: by “pretrans” i don’t mean pre-T or pre-transitioning, I mean pre-revelation.  just a handful of experiences from trying to date as a trans masculine kid who had no idea he was trans masculine, who just thought he was some fucked up version of a girl ]]

[CONTENT WARNING: mentions of sexual activity, of the BDSM community, of physical abuse.  vague mentions of sexual abuse.  a lot of self-doubt and internalized transphobia (or at least, non-accepting ideology.

DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 18]

the boy I dated in eighth (and then, tenth) grade deserved better.  we’re still friends.  it wasn’t his fault that I didn’t want his tongue in my mouth, that the feeling of his hands down the front of my pants made me feel about as stimulated as a rarely used emergency radio clinging to its last bit of battery.

he wrote me love poems, bought me flowers, called me beautiful, and wondered why i wasn’t as into it as he was.  i don’t know if i would have liked him better had i realized back then that i was a boy.  all i know is that dating him made me feel a hell of a lot like a girl, and i couldn’t figure out why that felt so wrong.  ah, boyhood...

---

i was nineteen and he was something like thirty-five.  we met in the BDSM scene, and he was the first person i let talk me into anything*.  i didn’t know the true vastness of my options back then, so i figured i ought to take what i could get.  for the most part, it was good.  being controlled was good.  being hurt was good.  being called “sexy”?  “good girl”?  and “petite”?  not as much of a turn on.  he spun lectures about embracing my femininity and the power of my sexuality.  he grabbed at my breasts.  once, pre-scene, he didn’t let me take off my own binder.  tried to do it for me by pulling it over my head (it was one of those cheap, terrible amazon binders with a dozen little clasps up the ribs, ergo-- it didn’t work very well).

he asked for photos, asked me to be prettier, sexier, gentler. i couldn’t figure out why i felt so disappointed while getting everything that i wanted.

---

a year later, and a new partner.  i said “don’t call me that” and he paused. 

“okay, no problem.”

“you can... um, if.. you can say ‘good boy’ instead, if you want. or.  just not girl, okay?” 

“you like being called boy?”

“i’d like to try.” 

“okay, no problem.  thanks for telling me.  good boy.” 

it was friends with benefits, except that the benefits were getting the shit kicked out of me whenever i asked.  he called me a boy, let me have that fantasy, and i was comfortable enough in the way he perceived me that i behaved in ways i wouldn’t otherwise.  dug out my old catholic school skirt for a scene.  he was the first person to ever see me topless.

and he still saw me as a boy, because i asked him to.  it was like a lightbulb flashing on.  i didn’t know who i was yet, but i knew that in this strange little corner of my life, being a boy was awful damn comfortable.

---

i lost my virginity to a different one. 

also lost five months of my life, a lot of confidence, a good amount of tears, and a bit of blood.  i can’t explain to you how he did it, or how i fell for the tricks, but somehow he broke me down until i was doubting just about everything. 

i had four sprained wrists, a dozen limps, twice bruised ribs, and more impressive bruises than i’ve ever worn before, all with the same man.

he hit me-- sometimes in a game, whether i wanted to be playing it or not, but sometimes for real.  he laughed either way.  he resented everything about how i presented myself, thought i was too masculine, too low-maintenance, too much of a “tomboy.”  he asked me to change things, and i did.  he was always trying to teach me things.  he didn’t respect my opinions.  didn’t think my knowledge was genuine.  he wanted me to be “sweet” and liked that i was “submissive.”  said i needed to be punished, said it would teach me to act like a girl. 

i didn’t know i was a boy back then, and any trust i’d gained with my previous play partner was shattered.  he touched me when he wanted and where he wanted, sulked when i tried to deny him, persisted until i stopped saying no.

called me his girlfriend.

and while i’d had discomfort with my gender before, felt an inherent “wrongness” with the identities “girl” and “woman,” he put tangible doubts into my mind.  flawed thinking.  toxic ideas.  i felt weak, said it was because i was smaller, because i was a girl.  i felt powerless, said it was because i was weaker, because i was a girl.  abuse will turn you into a dangerous person.

the boy that dated him was petrified, confused, ashamed, and very unhappy.  in the rebound following i threw myself into the lesbian identity, felt safer there being butch, being “a fighter.”  i started lifting weights, started picking fights, went to bars and asserted my masculinity to anyone who made eyes at me.  i felt powerful, and fake, and still so fucking scared. 

---

my first date back home in the midwest-- we met at work and he smiled at me the way boys smile at girls they think are pretty.  i never understood how that happened to me, with my choppy hair, splotchy face, baggy clothes.  i worked so hard at being undesirable that i couldn’t understand where i was failing at it. i never saw the appeal.  

eighteen months after leaving the devil, i was still startled enough to overcompensate.  for our date i wore thick jeans and a sturdy belt and heavy leather boots, put on my binder and a nice black t-shirt, got to the bowling alley early and paid, got us both beers.  you cannot imagine the confusing energy the entire date radiated with. 

he was bisexual, in the end, and more feminine than i was even without all of my pretending.  said he’d never dated a butch woman before.  i didn’t know why i still felt so fucking uncomfortable.  he was terribly sweet, and respectful, and he didn’t treat me especially like a girl

he waited for me to make the first move, and i didn’t.  i put my arm around his shoulders during the movie.  walked back to my truck without so much as hugging him goodnight.

---

when i look back on those boys i have to wonder how it would have been different, dating them with security in my own identity.  to have boyfriends while being seen as a boy.  how those experiences would feel.  who i would have grown into now.  would things have been better? harder?  would devastating things be even more devastating?

i’ll never know for sure, but we can’t waste time mourning what could have happened.  who i was as a kid is still who i am now, just without the right words, without the comfort.  it’s all a part of growing.  if i’d known i was trans at an earlier age, there would have been different problems.  probably more difficult problems. 

i’ll save the rest for daydreams.  at least, now, i get to be a young man.

[lilybaud]

So I'm curious what oppression do asexual people face? I do understand there are some minor discrimination similar to homosexuality like being told it's a phase, but there have 0 laws against i, very few if any deaths because of it, few forced marriages. Maybe there have been cases of corrective rape?

sorry i took a few days to answer this -- i wanted time to give you a thoughtful response! this is kinda a version of an ask i answered last month, but i hope it helps answer your question!

here are some good posts that explain better than me:

https://livebloggingmydescentintomadness.tumblr.com/post/148453657895/the-aphobia-masterpost (This one goes into ace history, as well as many other topics – big recommend)

https://newt–x.tumblr.com/post/183606679191/a-spec-people-dont-experience-oppression (includes more comments/edits on the above)

So how are aces oppressed?

Let’s start with medical discrimmination: asexuality is classified as a mental disorder that you can get diagnosed with.  Although the DSM-5 says that asexuality is a valid identity, it still lists hypoactive sexual disorder as – well, a disorder.  This is basically defined as when someone is disinterested in sexual activity, and this disinterest causes them distress.  This is the same boat that homosexuality was in until a few decades ago – and obviously, aphobia (and homophobia) are very likely to make people feel “distressed” about their sexual identity (I know that I do!)  Imagine going to a psychiatrist and having them tell you that your orientation is a disorder that needs to be fixed: not great.

Even when ace people are not being explicitly diagnosed with Being an Asexual Disease, asexuals can often get into hostile medical situations, particularly in mental health settings.  I have had several appointments with psychiatrists, counselors, and the like that were meant to be about unrelated topics, but when it came out that I was ace, the conversation turned to why this was a sign of isolation/pathology/other fuckedupedness.  Other aces might be able to better speak about their experiences in this area, as I often avoid bringing up the topic in medical settings for this reason.

the discrimmination you’re talking about

Asexual people, particularly (but not only) female-identifying aces, have also long (long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) been targets of corrective rape and sexual assault. Here’s a good (altho far from exhaustive) HuffPost article on the subject.  Corrective rape is a huge issue.  This is a very prevalent fear for a lot of ace people, who also face other types of violence.  A really horrible and tragic example is the murder of ace teen Bianca Devins last year by a man that she refused to sleep with (I won’t post links because they’re pretty upsetting) -- a death that aphobes online are still making terrifying comments about.

So yes! Ace ppl do actually face violence and death!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here’s a post that talks about why it’s hard to be an ace PoC (like me!)

Tl;dr, many people don’t know what asexuality is – it’s sometimes called an “invisible identity.”  But that doesn’t mean ace people aren’t discrimminated against as aces.

Exclusion from the LGBTQIA+ community

As I’m sure you know, many fellow people in the queer community hate ace people.  There’s a perception that ace people are being special snowflakes, that we are basically straight, that we are not oppressed enough to be part of the community, that we diminish the importance of other sexual orientations, and on and on.  This is really hard for ace people, because we seek queer spaces, spaces that are supposed to be safe for marginalized identities, are often those that are most explicitly anti-ace.  

In addition, some in the queer community used to identify as ace because they had internalized homophobia or other things, and view asexuality as a cover for those feelings based on their own experiences.

From queer tumblr bloggers I follow to comments by queer friends and acquaintances, I’ve personally had spaces that I thought were safe revealed to be aphobic.  That’s a pretty upsetting experience – I don’t talk about being ace very often, but it’s devastating to know that people you encounter in your everyday life spend so much time thinking about how much they hate people like you.

All this leads to many ace people being scared and unhappy.  In a UK government survey of LGBTQIA+ individuals, asexuals were the group least likely to be “open” about their identity (at 89% reporting that they were not open).  Cis aces were the least comfortable being queer in the UK, and had the lowest life satisfaction scores, out of all cis responders (the survey did not break down the responses of trans responders into allo/ace).

(Side note – many ace people emphasize other parts of their identities in order to participate in queer spaces.  For example, if pressed in a pride group or seminar or friendly gathering or etc., I might just say I’m bi.  This sucks too!  All parts of your identity are legitimate and that should go without saying?)

Personally, there are few environments where I am comfortable with people knowing that I am ace.  I don’t wear obvious pride gear, and I don’t call myself ace when I’m in LGBT+ groups.  I’ve never come out to a romantic or sexual partner as ace.  My sexual experiences have been highly traumatizing in part because of my identity.  Only a few of my closest friends know that I’m ace.  The negative perceptions of ace people, particularly those in the queer community, are main causes of this.

Why do we need to be oppressed to be let in?

One of exclusionists’ favorite sticking points is that aces aren’t oppressed enough to be part of the queer community.  We do face discrimination in major ways – see above.  But this raises a question: why do we have to be oppressed to be welcomed into LGBTQIA+ spaces?  What qualifies as oppression?  Is societal oppression “enough,” or does every ace person have to be personally subjected to a hate crime?  I’m not sure if this line of thought comes from a genuine belief that society has to personally take a shit in your bed every day for you to even think about feeling comfortable in queer spaces, or if it is just cover for an instinctive dislike of ace people.  Regardless, it’s something to think about.  To quote the first masterpost linked at top:

“Nobody is trying to say that asexuals have it “as bad” or worse than gay or trans people, but we don’t HAVE to “have it worse” to be included and for our experiences to have merit without being compared to anyone else’s. Let me say that again: our experiences have merit without being compared to anyone else’s. “

Anyway thanks for your question!  I don’t know if this helps or changes your mind on the topic.  Please reach out if you have any other questions about my experiences as an ace person!