aesops-boy

[aesops-boy]

okay but why do they need to make emails and phone calls so scawy 🥺

[aesops-boy]

They have never seen me as I am. Before any trans realization, before the egg cracking, they never saw me.

They saw happiness where there was suicidality.

They saw joy where there was pain.

They saw contentment where there was only a strong desire to leave this world forever.

They have never seen me.

“I think one day you will be the happy child you used to be.”

Yes, perhaps when you accept who I am. Perhaps when you stop denying me. Perhaps when the world stops saying it would rather smother me than let us “all just be human.”

What disgusting words. “Can’t we all just be human? Can’t we all just get along?”

I’m trying to. I’m trying to just get along and mind my own damn business in my own life.

Yet others decide that minding my own damn business isn’t enough.

They have to make my business their business. They have to get in my face and shove their lifestyle down my throat.

All I have ever done is exist. All I have ever asked is that you respect my existence.

But instead, it’s stamped down at every opportunity. Suddenly, I become a “woman hater” for wanting to change my name. Funny. The name I would change it to is still often thought to be a woman’s name.

But we never even got that far. You won’t listen. Immediately, it goes to yelling. Immediately, it goes to blame and making it all about yourself, how I must hate you, how I’m undoing generations of feminist progress, how I will regret it.

The only thing I regret is being born in this fucking world. But I’m here, eating the shit sandwich, and no matter how much I want to throw it up, push away my plate, and take my leave, I can’t.

I promised someone I would stay for dinner even though we both hate the other guests and dishes.

I will be happy one day. One day, I’ll be the most beautiful queer person in the world, like every other queer person. I’ll have my partner and my peace. You can either be a part of that peace or another regret of mine.

Your choice.

[aesops-boy]

Trump: writes EOs to stick it to “dangerous gender ideology”

Bioessentialist doctors: desperately trying to figure out how to force zygotes to produce big or small reproductive cells immediately at conception

[aesops-boy]

in happier news, my orchid is starting to recover from both lower-half-drowned-in-its-pot-and-the-top-literally-snapped-off-ria and cat-ate-the-leaves-when-i-left-the-room-itis. finally getting a proper green air root <3

[aesops-boy]

I hate the language of scientific articles that are focused on “correction” of natural human variation. Such a disgusting mentality. Autistic children not emoting “correctly,” intersex babies being “incorrectly developed” or “mutated” or “disfigured…” and so much more.

(Not shocked, just yet again disappointed.)

[aesops-boy]

Hi, it’s me.

Yeah… you’re completely right. I was being a huge (a HUGE) ass. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. I should have sat down and thought for like 5 seconds before posting about how it sounds and honestly just what I was saying. I did make a different post somewhat explaining, but mainly I want to make it very clear: I incredibly fucked up. I majorly fucked up. I was being an asshole among assholes, and once I just opened my own goddamn eyes and stopped being bitter, I realized it. I deleted my original post in order to hopefully stop the spread of harm, but I know I can’t stop reblogs.

I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you directly, but I didn’t have your user. And then I got a milestone for reblogs (yikes). But at least I was able to find this again. I think it’s really cool that you’re doing research to help people, and I’m very sorry for making you feel like shit (and everyone else who saw my post).

I can’t take back the hurt I’ve caused, but I promise I will do better. I have a lot of stuff to learn and relearn. No one deserved to feel like trash because of my ignorance and assholery. And I’m sorry.

Here’s the thing right: If a person is somehow tasked with ascertaining whether someone’s sex is only female or only male at conception, like… how? How are they going to do it? How can that possibly be determined in such a way that results in absolutely no exceptions to what these people are trying to define as “male” and “female”?

Not a single person I have ever heard who has been staunchly in the camp of “you are either male or female, determined at birth” has been able to satisfactorily answer the question “Well then how do we categorize intersex individuals?” in a way that doesn’t end in “Well sometimes there’s just exceptions!”

No. Don’t pull that shit. If you’re going to keep imposing your stupid standards that don’t even hold up naturally, if you’re going to give power to a party or make people’s lives miserable just because you think somehow “gender ideology” is the most dangerous thing in America, fuck you. You decided to claim time and time again that everyone is either male or female and nothing else exists. You cannot just fall back on “exceptions.” Nuh uh. Nope. If it’s determined from fucking conception, no takebacksies. You’d better ready that fucking X or whatever else we’re gonna come up with for each and every intersex identity.

And if we’re taking away gender affirming care, then I’m sorry cis women with PCOS that grow facial hair and above average testosterone. Suck it up. No shaving. No treatments. Cis dudes with gynecomastia? Fuck you, too. No reductions. Take progesterone to feel better and like your old feminine self post menopause? Take treatments for erectile dysfunction to feel more manly? Nah. Fuck all y’all. (We all know you’ll probably still get your treatments. But somewhere, even if just in insurance because we all know they’re greedy bastards, you’re gonna get screwed. Or you’ll know someone who gets screwed. And I hope you’ll realize you aren’t fucking immune. Not completely. And it will get worse for you.)

I’m not sure if this is even possible (my understanding is that it isn’t), but maybe at most with technological advancement, we could figure out chromosomes shortly after conception? What are you going to do when we inevitably find instances outside of XX and XY (you know, combinations that already exist)? From the very beginning? This isn’t even getting into changes and what can affect those changes further into development.

The sad answer is that we already know what’s going to happen because it’s what has been happening for years: these people are going to stick to their “exceptions” and “must be a defect” mentality and continue operating on intersex babies just so that they can slap down an F or M on a stupid piece of paper that really isn’t any stranger’s business.

And I’m sorry. I know it’s unfair for intersex people to always get used as the “oh but have you considered” group when advocating for perisex individuals but rarely with the same energy for, y’know, intersex people themselves. It really fucking sucks. Maybe fighting the recent bullshittery can help perisex people learn more about intersex people and do more for intersex people.

[aesops-boy]

If you’ve seen my recent posts, you’ll know that I went on a rant about Current Events TM.

And I got a response that made me go, “Wow, that’s not what I meant.” So I reblogged and made an addendum, thinking (for some reason) that “clearly this will clear things up so that they know I agree!”

But then I got another response that made it very clear: my og post isn’t doing what I meant it to do. I don’t know if my reblog would have made it better or not, and honestly, I’m not sure how much that matters.

More specifically, in said og post, I had put a section that was meant to highlight hypocrisy in what’s considered gender affirming care, the whole “trans people are the only ones receiving gender affirming care, so if we actually applied full logic of “banning gender affirming care” it would really screw over those people, too, which is bad”-type statements that people make a lot.

…Except I didn’t word it like that. I didn’t come at it from a reasonable, sympathetic approach, rather an angry one. I was angry because I was thinking of the people I know who don’t give a rat’s ass about trans people (intersex or perisex) or intersex people (trans or cis) even if they are intersex themselves. Why? Because the specific people I know don’t consider themselves to be intersex at all, even though they are.

These people make up a small subset of their larger groups. I thought it would be clear that I was angry at this subset. After all, I’m also angry at subsets of trans people (especially perisex) that have rancid attitudes, too. <- EXCEPT… I didn’t include that in the original post.

And I thought about it. And I read the feedback. And I thought, “Why is my first instinct to write about this particular subset? A subset of cis intersex people?” Maybe it’s because that’s who I know. Maybe because their hypocrisy stings especially hard. But then, I should have ranted more at TERFs since I (nonconsensually on my end) know them, too. Or the subset of trans people, like I just said in the last paragraph. Plenty of hypocrisy there.

Are there assholes everywhere? Yeah. Sure. But right now, I could have had my rant without this, or if I really wanted to, I could have ranted about a subset in a group I belong to.

I came in swinging. I burst into the room angry and hurt, but what matters is that I ended up hitting vulnerable people. I ended up hitting people I didn’t mean to. I didn’t need to write something that could be read way too easily as “all these people are bad because I think they have privilege in some way!!!” I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of rancid attitudes like that. I didn’t need to make others feel the same way.

And I need to reiterate that this isn’t an issue of “other people not understanding,” but rather “yeah maybe some people can understand what I meant, but it is unclear and it’s my responsibility to be as clear as possible especially around a topic where people’s bodies and existence are at stake.”

In ranting about assholes, I became the asshole.

And I realize I shouldn’t have started swinging in the first place.

I’m very sorry.

(I have deleted the posts from my own account in hopes to limit the spread of their harm. I know it doesn’t make them go away completely, given that they’ve been reblogged by others. If you reblogged my post(s) telling me what a huge dick I was being, you were right.)

(And if you saw my posts before and reblogged/liked them because you think cis intersex people “don’t count” or other such bullshittery, fuck you.)

[aesops-boy]

To all the trans people in America but especially my trans sisters right now:

This, too, will pass. I promise.

We will get through it.

I’m… not sure how.

But we will.

[aesops-boy]

(This contains Garten of Banban spoilers.)

There are some key things that Bittergiggle says in his apology when you meet him again after he royally fucked everything up:

1. Explicitly states that he is sorry. I cannot overstate how important this is. Upfront, Bittergiggle tells the player that he is truly sorry, indicating that he knows he fucked up and that he’s coming to you to acknowledge that. And his apology is based on his own actions; there’s no, “I’m sorry you’re upset about the Naughty Ones,” or any similar language that puts the onus on the player, as if it’s your fault and not his.

2. Acknowledges that the player may not forgive him (and doesn’t guilt trip). As part of his apology, especially given the severity of the consequences of his actions, he makes it clear that he’s not expecting you to forgive him. He has offered some explanation to his actions and his regret, but this more a statement as to what he did rather than an attempt to manipulate you to forgive him immediately or make you into the “bad guy” for being upset. He does tell you that he will be thankful if you do forgive him, but he doesn’t do anything to further push you to forgive him.

3. Promises to do what he can to help from now on (and then actually does help you). This is really important. He knows he has done something that has royally fucked everyone, and now, he is going to do whatever he can to help. He may not be able to fix everything (in fact, he probably won’t be able to), but he is going to try. And importantly, his help is not just to get your forgiveness but because he has done wrong. He has hurt others (both the player, whom he doesn’t know, and his friends) and is going to do whatever he can to make it right. And then he actually does help! (Well, he “helps” as much as any other Garten of Banban character, but he does it.)

I wasn’t expecting a good example of an apology to come from Garten of Banban of all places.

[aesops-boy]

hey, ur allowed to believe in the evil god btw.

[aesops-boy]

I wasn’t expecting a good example of an apology to come from Garten of Banban of all places.

[aesops-boy]

https://twitter.com/isabelunraveled

[aesops-boy]

I’m so angry. So tired. So depressed. So sad. So everything. I wish I could change people. I wish they would see me as worth changing for. They haven’t come around yet. I don’t know if they will. It doesn’t seem like it.

[aesops-boy]

i need to find out which of my siblings was an exaggerator as a kid because it led to our mom never taking any of my problems seriously, and now i have lifelong trauma i’ll never fully recover from.

[aesops-boy]

Oh, boy, time to make some people mad.

Look, I’m ace (that’s actually not usually the term I use, but it’s accurate). Of course I wish there were more explicit representations of asexual and aromantic characters, especially ones that could show how those identities can be complex and/or simple. Naturally, I wish that popular shows, books, video games, etc. could show ace/aro relationships, show characters that are ace but not aro, aro but not ace, both, etc. in varying ways. It sucks that friendships and the incredibly close relationships (that aren’t always sexual or romantic and can’t really be described well in one word that can get across how meaningful and close and important these types of relationships are) are considered less important, less valid, etc. than romantic and sexual ones.

But when it comes to fandom and debating the canon identity of a character and relationship, do not pretend for a second that saying, “Why can’t characters just be friends?” isn’t the rhetoric that has been consistently used to deny queer characters and relationships of non-ace/aro identities. Those words have not been used to validate ace/aro identities either; in the same breath that homophobes will say, “Why can’t they just be friends?”, they have then belittled, denied, and/or been hostile to ace/aro identities.

There are two keywords here: “canon” and “just.”

I’ll go back to canon first. Shipping has rarely cared about the explicit relationships or identities of the characters. Fans will play with characters like dolls, and that’s the beauty of it; they are free to do as they wish. Of course fans will defend their headcanons; they’re what make the media more enjoyable to them personally, and perhaps they find community with others doing that. Fans make ships to add more to the media in question that they wish to see. Smut is smut; it rarely gives two shits about the canon. It’s really pointless to debate that.

(And it really should go without saying that seeing a character in one type of relationship doesn’t suddenly define their sexuality to be “straight” or “exclusively gay to their same gender.” Imagine forgetting that a multitude of sexualities and romantic identities, of which bisexual/biromantic and pansexual/panromantic are, outside of “homosexual” and “heterosexual” exist… Also, did we stop using “gay” as a blanket term for different sexualities and romantic identities? I usually prefer to use other words because of the aforementioned bi/pan erasure, but it’s not like “gay” as a blanket term magically stopped being used.)

And the second word here is “just.” Why use the same word as those that wish to belittle the importance of ace/aro relationships? As much as it shouldn’t, “just” unfortunately carries this belittling meaning from the homophobes who used it in the first place. And it’s not fair. And the characters I usually see where this discourse even comes up would never in any universe be “just” anything. The characters I see this come up for are shown to have an incredibly close relationship to the point where it is ambiguous to most people. Are they gay or are they “the secret third thing?” Because no, “friends” in the day to day use of the word does NOT cover it. It is not a relationship on the same emotional connection as most friendships. It is one of those close things that we don’t have one neat, tidy word to describe. (“Queerplatonic partner” was the closest, I think, but it keeps getting dunked on, like most other terms people aren’t familiar with.)

In the same way that acquaintances, peers, friends, and besties are not considered emotionally the same, neither is this. It is something closer than all those. And that’s the point. That’s why people are getting confused. It’s the relationship that is demonstrated to be so close compared to the regular friendships of the characters. The canon characters of the ship do not in fact treat each other the way they do their friends. Are they romantic? Sexual? In an incredibly close platonic relationship that “just friends” is inaccurate for because they canonically don’t treat their “just” friends like this?

Who knows? And that’s the fun of it. Consume the canon.

But do yourself a favor; don’t put their relationship down as “just” friends. You know it’s not the same as their other friendships, or else this wouldn’t be ambiguous. If they’re platonic, it’s in the way of that thing we don’t have a word for, but “just friends” doesn’t cover. If they’re sexually or romantically involved, then okay. And guess what? These things don’t have to be exclusive. Relationships are complex. Relationships change. One person might not feel the same way as the other(s) but have an incredibly close relationship nonetheless because that’s what their closest relationship feelings are.

[aesops-boy]

even if it turns out that my brain is “just paranoid” and “making things up,” with all the other bullshit this mf has done, i think i’ve earned the right to not be on speaking terms.

[aesops-boy]

trying not to let the Bad Thoughts win trying not to let the Bad Thoughts win trying not to let the Bad Thoughts win trying not to let the Bad Thoughts win trying trying trying trying trying