dylanndr

[dylanndr]

When movements like Stonewall erupt, it's often because of currents that have been swirling under the surface for years or decades. And yes, the bursts of queer/trans liberation (1970s, 1990s, 2010s) are routinely met with viciously cruel backlashes (1980s, 2000s, 2020s), so you do have to keep defending your gains, and expanding them where you can

letter from a mother of a gay man. sent to ONE magazine, 1958.

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This post was flagged as adult content and the original poster was deactivated so I'm bringing it back.

[dylanndr]

Pride: Hope Amongst the Horrors

This year marks the 25th anniversary of my coming out as trans. I know the attacks against us are vicious and relentless. And yet, despite this, people continue to come out as trans even now, even as the hateful rage against us reaches a fever pitch. There's a very simple reason for that.

Trans is truth and freedom. A piece of information that makes your whole life make sense, that shows you a path to personal peace and joy, if you are willing to walk it.

What our oppressors offer are nothing but lies. Propaganda they made up out of literally nothing to frighten people, including themselves. Bullshit designed to brutalize you and shrink you, to make you miserable and compliant.

And so people keep coming out as trans in spite of the horrors, because that truth and that freedom are so compelling they can't be ignored. Once you know, you can't un-know. Once the eggshell is shattered, it will never have structural integrity again, even if you try to glue it back together.

Transphobia is a load-bearing pillar of fascism, because the truth and freedom that transness represents are incompatible with fascism. Every trans person who comes out despite the horrors is another crack in that pillar. Every ally who vociferously defends trans people cracks the pillar.

This is what Pride about. I am proud to be trans. I am proud to be queer. I am proud of these aspects of myself because they are the fundamental truth that I live in spite of those who want to eradicate that truth. With 25 years on the front lines of trans liberation, I see more and more and more people embracing that truth by coming out. And that ongoing, escalating embrace gives me hope.

[dylanndr]

I see your lump and raise you one (1) blanket fort

Lump ( positive)

[dylanndr]

Circa 1900 Cabinet Card, NYC NY, considered Trick Photography in the Victorian Era.

[dylanndr]

This is tricky because it gets into the weeds on what "counts" as country or goth. I actually think it's easier to find country-inflected punk (Bad Religion, Butthole Surfers, The Clash, to name a few), but goth and punk live in the same neighborhood, so maybe you could count those towards the original ask? I dunno. And a lot of stuff with country motifs tends to get labeled as "alternative" or "folk" since the label of "country" kinda got overtaken by a very specific flavor of good ol' boy two-steppin', in the same way that hardcore so culturally dominated punk that people forgot there were other flavors of punk.

But I guess if we're using Johnny Cash as a vibes guide, I'd add:

Orville Peck

Gillian Welch

The Gourds

Guy Forsyth

k.d. lang

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

White Widow

Wye Oak

Dear Goth Auntie,

I tried searching your blog to see if this has been asked before, but alas, the tumblr search function does not function. So apologies in advance if this has, in fact, been asked before.

Is goth country music a thing? If so, do you know of any artists you could recommend? Thanks in advance!

Sincerely, a Country Baby Bat

This is SUCH a great question! And my answer is, “I’m sure there are artists out there, but I don’t know who they are”.

Yes, we have Johnny Cash, The Man In Black, but he’s the obvious answer. So I open the floor to everyone else: goth county music suggestions? We all need them.

[dylanndr]

I think one of the reasons drag kings aren’t as popular as drag queens, aside from the fact that straight women don’t like us, is that people are uncomfortable acknowledging masculinity as a performance. Like we as a society know that femininity is a performance, with its own costumes and rules. Masculinity is also a performance, and nothing makes that more clear than someone making an exaggeration of it

[dylanndr]

Plus his commitment to serving the needy would be heart felt

I was trying to find out if Kermit was eligible to be pope and I found a blog that says he's the perfect example of a catholic priest

[dylanndr]

I came out as trans 25 years ago. At that time, it was *in no way* a sure thing that medical science would land on "transition is the correct treatment, actually." There were three (3) surgeons *in the entire USA* who would do top surgery for trans mascs. Things feel very difficult right now because we're under so much scrutiny and have so little political power of our own, but please believe me when I say we have more allies now than we ever have. This is a winnable fight.

What are we supposed to do now? By ‘we’ I mean UK based trans women and transfems. How are we meant to continue? Knowing the country hates us. The law refuses to accept our existence. Everyone wishes we would just shut up and disappear. How are we supposed to live like this? I know I can’t.

Let me tell you a very funny story that might make you feel better.

Not long ago I called the su*cide hotline feeling exactly the way you describe. The volunteer on the other end was an older cis lady, and I was like, "Hey, I'm trans - all this stuff is happening, the government says blah blah blah, the court says XYZ, and I feel like I'm living in this really hostile country that hates me, and it sucks!" I told her how angry I was, how much all this makes me hate by fellow human beings, how much I wouldn't care if Britain sank into the sea or was burned away to ashes along with all its inhabitants, and how ashamed I am of feeling such venom and cynicism.

And there was a bit of a pause.

And the volunteer lady says, "What's trans?"

I - Joker makeup bursting from the pores of my face - explain to her what being transgender is. She has questions like, "So, what was the legal process like, what do you have to do?" and I'm like "Oh HO HO HO! Let me tell you the hoops I had to jump through!" and she's like "Wow, that sounds so difficult?" and I'm like, "HEE HEE HEE I haven't even gotten to the difficult bit yet!" I'm ranting, I'm pacing my living room like a tiger, quoting Merchant of Venice and Coriolanus down the phone to this woman on the su*cide hotline, like "If you prick us do we not bleed?! If you tickle us do we not laugh?!" "I banish you, and here remain with your uncertainty!" (She's like "I remember this Shakespeare from school!") It feels like I'm vomiting up this black sludge of hate that I've built up, like people spit on me and I've absorbed all that spit and now I'm burning with it.

So at the end of all this the volunteer lady's like well yeah of course you feel angry, that makes perfect sense! Anybody with a heart would feel the way you do! Of course you feel cynical and bitter and despairing! And she tells me that she hasn't seen any of this, but it's shocked her. She thinks this court case sounds like a really backwards step; she thought Britain was progressive. And I'm like, "I used to think that too, and the loss of that illusion hurts."

But then she goes well look - these judges and politicians, they live in a bubble. They don't really know what life is like for ordinary people like me and you. There are plenty of people in Britain like her, who just don't really pay attention to this stuff. There might be some who throw things at me in the street and treat me poorly, but there are also a lot of people who are just... normal? And fine? And who are just doing their own thing, and who are appalled to discover this kind of thing is happening? And I'm like oh yeah - I guess if the country was destroyed all those people would go too... It's not true that everyone wants us to disappear.

And she says she's going to go home and look all of this up because it sounds like trans people are really being mistreated, and she's like "Thank you for telling me all this. I hope you feel better."

And I'm like yeah you know what, I kinda do. It helped to have someone else go, "I understand how you feel." So, y'know, we've got one more ally at least.

[dylanndr]

Thanks, Anon!

-submit your poll!-

[dylanndr]

[dylanndr]

I'm just glad to know people are still reading it! The print edition sold out several years ago, but folks can still snag a digital copy (deets on my website here).

Transposes was written in 2008-2011 and published in 2012, so some terminology will probably feel out of date. But each chapter is a narrative vignette of a queer trans masc life, so the terminology is what was common usage for the time periods represented. I guess it counts as trans history now? But hey, look, we weren't just invented five years ago or whatever.

THIS IS GONNA SOUND INSANE BEAR WITH ME--i was reading Transposes and when I got to the end and the author mentioned your username I was like-- 'hey that username sounds familiar", i looked it up and IVE BEEN READING UR TF2 FANFICS FOR LIKE? YEARS? HAHAA it was so cool seeing you in the comic!! I loved your segment!

That doesn't sound nuts at all! I put my username in there because I WANT people to read my writing.

Transposes is by my pal @dylanndr , and thank you for reminding me of its existence. If anyone else wants to read a comic biography of a handful of queer trans guys, it is available on his website, StudioNDR!

[dylanndr]

Motherfuckers talk too much about the Megaladon as if it’s the scariest thing to ever exist in the ocean and “ooo wouldn’t it be nuts if it’s still alive down there today!?”

As if there weren’t vastly more terrifying animals already living down there.

I present: The Humboldt Squid.

Don’t think it’s all that scary next to a gigantic great white shark?

Well… it averages about 5ft in length (i.e. about as long as most people) and weighs an average of 110lbs.

They travel in shoals of 1,200 individuals, have a reputation of being aggressive towards humans (although this may only be under specific circumstances), and have been seen migrating as far north as Alaska from the warmer waters off of Mexico.

Colloquially, they’re sometimes called “Diablo Rojo” or “Red Devil” for their tendency to flash red and white colors while attacking.

Fuck the (extinct) giant shark, there’s much scarier things in the ocean as is already.

[dylanndr]

This week-long arc Peanuts arc ran when the measles vaccination was first developed and widely administered in 1967.  GoComics republished it as part of their rerun strips late last year, but it could obviously stand to go around again.

Big slow claps to everyone who made a 50-year-old PSA relevant, good job everyone we’re doing GREAT

[dylanndr]

I did not deliberately choose the Ides of March for my initial foray into HRT, but it sure does make my Tranniversary easy to remember!

This is a diary comic I drew a few years ago to mark the occasion. Not a single thing about it needs updating [unfortunately, as far as those last two panels go], so I'm just gonna reblog it for my 24th Tranniversary. Cheers!

Tranniversary autobio comics

I’ve been posting a series of sketch diary comics over on my Patreon to mark my 20th anniversary of transitioning, or my Tranniversary, if you will.

Trans Day of Visibility did not exist when I first came out, but I have to suspect it would have helped me if it had been a thing 20 years ago. Simply knowing transness was an option would have been an improvement over “something about me is wrong, but I don’t know what.”

Unfortunately, a lot of people have confused “people getting the information they need at a younger age than previous generations were able to” with “trendy badness that is bad,” so visibility is not sufficient in and of itself.

[dylanndr]

"Trans men and women are both suffering" and "trans women are often specifically targeted by bigotry and harassment even within their own communities and deserve to be able to talk about their own unique challenges without being talked over" and "trans men are often erased from conversations about how bigotry and transphobia targets them and are not exempt from all the horribly draconian laws transphobes are attempting to pass" and "being trans doesn't make you immune to participating in horrible transmisogyny even and especially if you aren't aware you're doing it" and "holy shit don't reinvent bioessentialism but for trans people like holy fuck men are not destined to be evil and women aren't automatically incapable of harm" are all opinions that can and fucking SHOULD coexist

[dylanndr]

My partner and I went to the one in Denver, which I found out about the day before by word-of-mouth. I had seen nothing about it on socials anywhere.

And despite the cold and snow that day, and the lack of widespread publicity, and the fact that my partner and I got there two hours late due to transportation woes, we still saw a couple thousand folks out there protesting at the capitol. Lots of people decrying the maltreatment of federal employees, lots of queer and trans support, lots of support for immigrants, lots of people noting how the the racism and the transphobia are intertwined, part and parcel of a full-scale assault on anyone who isn't a white cishet conservative Christian man.

There were also several older white men carrying American flags who were protesting alongside us. I didn't see any counter-protesters at all. (Perhaps they were there, but left before we arrived; and if that's the case, it means our opposition is going to scurry back inside as soon as it starts snowing.)

To get that kind of turnout with NO publicity, in bad weather, and to have that broad a coalition of people marching together against this regime? Means we can, in fact, do an end-run around their efforts to manipulate and control the media environment.

[dylanndr]

Hey everyone, I know it's going to be a busy day for a lot of people, but Google enrolled everyone over 18 into their AI program automatically.

If you have a google account, first go to gemini.google.com/extensions and turn everything off.

Then you need to go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini and turn off all Gemini activity tracking. You do have to do them in that order to make sure it works.

Honestly, I'm not sure how long this will last, but this should keep Gemini off your projects for a bit.

I saw this over on bluesky and figured it would be good to spread on here. It only takes a few minutes to do.