genderkoolaid

[genderkoolaid]

so many people want to be angry. they're scrambling for reasons to be angry. and with some of them it doesn't matter who they hurt in the process.

I know shit is tough. but there’s no excuse to lash out at others. if you see yourself in this post, it’s time to stop and evaluate your life.

[genderkoolaid]

Cis people trying to police my identity as a trans guy only made me want to get weirder with gender so thank you for the opposite intended effect🥰

[genderkoolaid]

Teen LGBT Squad

Another Hometar Runner fancomic for pride month, this time starring the Teen Girl Squad.

This was mostly an excuse to make that “ow mein kampf” joke

[genderkoolaid]

butch in lace ✨

[genderkoolaid]

Happy pride month to my dad. When I came out as bi to him, this man googled what it ment, look at me and said "ohh. Yeah. You get that from me. You'd have far more siblings of I only shaged women." And went right back to his work emails.

[genderkoolaid]

In the last two decades, there has been a growing body of literature on trans health in India. However, most research is limited to HIV/AIDS and primarily focuses on trans women. Studies on trans men or transmasculine identities and their healthcare needs and experiences in India have received little scholarly attention. Even globally, the literature on trans men’s health is relatively scant, with existing studies conducted mainly in Western countries. There exists a dearth of government data and statistics on trans men in India. The only attempt to enumerate the transgender population was made by the national census, which categorised them as ‘other.’ The census estimated 4,87,803 transgender people in India. However, several transgender activists have argued that this number is a considerable miscalculation and an inaccurate representation of the entire transgender community in India. Moreover, the lack of official data on trans men also risks under-allocating funds for much-needed welfare programmes. Moreover, trans men experience direct and indirect discrimination in healthcare settings. Such experiences include being asked invasive or inappropriate questions about their bodies, invalidating their gender identity via misgendering, deadnaming, and being denied healthcare or receiving low-quality care. Sometimes, it also includes physical mishandling and verbal harassment by the hospital staff and co-patients or not being allowed to enter certain hospital wards or spaces. [...] For many trans men, the family becomes the first space for mental and physical violence and outright rejection of their identity, with instances of forced heterosexual marriages or corrective rape. Vinay (name changed), a 30-year-old trans man from Punjab, says, “Family says ‘you’re ruining our reputation, get married, have one-two kids and then everything will be fine.’ They even use rape as a measure saying ‘you don’t know who you are, and when it happens, then you’ll know [your true sexual orientation].’”  Many have to deal with uninformed healthcare providers unwilling to treat them because of their gender identity. Lack of knowledge amongst medical professionals and poor social understanding of trans men means that trans men often have to self-advocate and explain their health-related issues and gender identity to medical practitioners who constantly challenge or dismiss their identity. This self-advocacy and mental effort to explain or justify one’s gender identity and expression often leads to emotional exhaustion. Soham (name changed), a 24-year- old trans man from New Delhi, recounts his experience of going to a hospital,  “The doctor came and shouted my dead name. There were a lot of people in the emergency room and I remember feeling numb for a second…He shouted, ‘Is this you? Yehi naam hai aapka?’ (‘Is this you? Is this your name?’)…Then he literally pointed at my chest and said your chest is so flat, do you have your periods? I was numb and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t get my medicine, I didn’t tell him my problem, I just went home and I locked myself in my room for a week.” 

— I Didn’t Get My Medicine, And I Locked Myself In My Room For A Week (Trans Men Are Invisible in India's Healthcare) by Arushi Raj and Fatima Juned

[genderkoolaid]

Fat aromantics have the right to identify as aromantic without people trying to dismiss their identity as the person being unlovable due to fatness. Fat people are lovable in every way, and a fat person is allowed to reject any amount or form of love they don't want. Autonomy is not granted based on the size of your waist.

-Mod Worthy

[genderkoolaid]

don't forget to be the way you are

my first commissioned work! thanks so much to my client who had great ideas that matched my style. hope you enjoy the artwork! if anyone wants a commission hit my dms :)

instagram post

[genderkoolaid]

”trans men are the weakest links of the trans community” my trans male friends and I have lived a lifetime of having our bodily autonomy stripped away to the point of sexual harassment. people talk about our bodies like everyone except us owns them because no one can handle the idea of precious female bodies being “mutilated” by gender affirming care. we are treated like traitors by women and as confused, silly girls by men. we have no spaces in which we belong because even the queer community tries to control our bodies. if we pass as men then we get ousted from queer-friendly spaces, and if we don’t pass as men we’re treated like cringe, theyfab trenders. everything we love is considered annoying. we’re called ugly and sad and “what a shame you guys are men haha”. We have to watch as society uses us as an excuse to ban gender affirming care for young people because our bodies belong to the government, because our bodies belong to our mothers, and because our anatomy is the only thing they see us as. And then we have to sit back as the trans community blames us for these bans. “All of these fake transtrenders are the reason they all hate us” when we’re busy having the women in our lives scrutinise our bodies to make sure we’re not being “infected” by the trans contagion. There’s no space we can belong in. No space that tries to make us feel welcome because either they treat us like women or they treat us like dangerous, cis men.

Every trans man I know has been sexually assaulted. Every trans man I know has been brought to suicide attempts, either due to their families or due to people online bullying them to death. Our struggles are constantly diminished and yet behind the scenes we’re fucking exhausted from fighting attacks from every single goddamn side. How fucking dare you call us weak. We’re going through fucking hell like every other goddamn trans person out there and our bodies are being abused and controlled and scrutinised every day of our fucking lives. Have you seen how TERFs talk about our bodies? How they lament us “mutilating” our breasts, our fertility, our anatomy, all in the name of feminism. That’s sexual fucking harassment, and it’s disgusting. But that’s all they fucking see us as. We’re not human, we’re just defected specimens. Cis women give themselves free passes to harass our bodies because they see us as “one of them”. One of them, but wrong. One of them, but need to be fixed. My mother regularly checks my chest to make sure I’m not trying to flatten it, and she can get away with it because “that’s what mothers do to their daughters.” Even when I’m not her daughter. Even when I’m screaming at the top of my lungs wanting to die because my body doesn’t belong to me. My body stopped belonging to me as soon as I came out as trans, because female empowerment doesn’t apply to me anymore. Female empowerment is now about “correcting” me, to restore my body back to its former glory, because only then was I worth something.

We are not weak. We are strong as fuck for dealing with the shit we have to deal with. And the worst part is, so much of the bullying comes from other trans men. We’ve been taught to hate ourselves so much that the only way to get ahead is to put down our own brothers and treat them in the way we’ve been treated.

There is no weak link of the community because we’re all dealing with absolute shit from all sides, but don’t you ever suggest that trans men are somehow the whiny babies who have nothing to complain about when we’re constantly holding back from screaming our guts out because there’s nothing else we can do.

[genderkoolaid]

I get really confused, and even angry sometimes at lower support needs people who don’t understand the true meaning of autonomy and when it comes to caregivers and guardianship.

I mentioned ONCE in a group about wanting to go into assisted living and looking into it. Immediately got dog piled by people saying to absolutely not go into assisted living because itd “take away my autonomy” and “I should just live with others for as long as possible.”

Assisted living, group homes, guardianship, whatever, can very much mean that someone actually GAINS autonomy. And independence. The goal is for quality of life. We should be focusing on quality of life instead of what YOU want. What YOU want as a lower support needs person because you’ve heard bad stories.

Higher support needs people often don’t get the decision. It’s life or death for them. Y’all HAVE to realize that.

Stop forcing your narrative on young higher support needs people who are looking into different options for their care. Yes. It’s SCARY to be put in a bad situation, but often times it’s trial and error for us. Y’all HAVE to realize that. We don’t have the privilege to pick and choose between if we just live independently or go in a group home. It’s group home, or death, or living in a fucked up, maybe even abusive situation already.

Stop it.

[genderkoolaid]

why are people so disturbingly okay with using the r slur. I thought we had outgrown this years ago.

[genderkoolaid]

people who say "smash the hate the gender binary!" & joke about their blorbo being a boygirl as soon as they have to interact with an actual real life multigender person

[genderkoolaid]

Trans History: A Graphic Novel: From Ancient Times to the Present Day

Listen on Audiobook

Alex L. Combs (Author), Andrew Eakett (Author)

What does “trans” mean, and what does it mean to be trans? Diversity in human sex and gender is not a modern phenomenon, as readers will discover through illustrated stories and records that introduce historical figures ranging from the controversial Roman emperor Elagabalus to the swashbuckling seventeenth-century conquistador Antonio de Erauso to veterans of the Stonewall uprising Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. In addition to these individual profiles, the book explores some of the societal roles played by trans people beginning in ancient times and shows how European ideas about gender were spread across the globe. It explains how the science of sexology and the growing acceptance of (and backlash to) gender nonconformity have helped to shape what it means to be trans today. Illustrated conversations with modern activists, scholars, and creatives highlight the breadth of current trans experiences and give readers a deeper sense of the diversity of trans people, a group numbering in the millions. Extensive source notes provide further resources. Moving, funny, heartbreaking, and empowering, this remarkable compendium from trans creators Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett is packed with research on every dynamic page.

(Affiliate links above)

[genderkoolaid]

I was more or less stunned by what had happened. I had been prepared for criticism and ridicule - I was accustomed to them. But it had never occurred to me that people might want to hound and persecute me for my change in role. I had lived as a woman because that was my social standing, and had been made fun of and called 'half-man', and now when I had faced the situation and righted the grotesquely false position in which I had lived so long, it seemed that the public would damn me because I had once, perforce [by force, by necessity], worn skirts. I tried to get other hospital work. I went to the men who had been my chiefs and told them the truth and asked their aid in securing another position; to a man they turned me down. I tried to get other sorts of work and failed tor the same reason as soon as I gave my name. Then my family employed counsel and instituted proceedings to have my name legally changed; and the medical school from which I had been graduated served notice on us that if we persisted they would rescind my diploma and have me disbarred from practice.

— excerpt from Letter from Alan Hart to Mary Roberts Rinehart, August 3, 1921, on the subject of his transition from female to male and the impact of being publicly outed by a woman who recognized him. Alan Hart was one of the first men to get a hysterectomy in the US, and pioneered the use of X-rays in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, which ended up being crucial to treatment as the disease was asymptomatic early on.

[genderkoolaid]

this is a water is wet observation but it's funny how obvious it is that in order to say stuff like this you have to be so incredibly intellectually dishonest.

people only know about top surgery because of trans people talking about it. trans people have actively had to fight to get access to top surgery. top surgery scars are commonly derided and view negatively by mainstream society. for most of modern history the norm has been actively trying to avoid any scarring. it is only recently, as a pushback done entirely by trans people with great resistance, that top surgery scars are remotely seen as desirable. even outside of a trans context, mastectomies are frequently treated as extremely tragic because the idea of getting your breasts (symbolic of potential wifehood) removed is culturally derided.

to act like top surgery is at all on the same cultural level as BBLs or lipo is a genuinely absurd claim. BBLs are pushed by major magazines, paragons of mainstream cultural for decades. top surgery scars are romanticized by a bunch of random trans people on the Internet. i know online these things can feel equivalent in influence, but they really, really are not.

even puting aside the whole "but what do people REALLY feel? can people be trusted to know their own desires when We Live In A Society?" question. traditional cosmetic surgeries are driven by the demand by the patriarchy to seek sexual desirability. top surgery is used constantly as THE symbol of transgender destruction of women's sexual desirability & wifehood. the fact that screenshot op thinks these things are comparable is proof in and of itself of how deeply mired in unchecked bias their arguments.

This is such a curious way of thinking bc…. Do you really think I want top surgery because someone TOLD me to get it? Fuck no. The minute I started developing breasts before I even knew what transgender meant, I wanted them gone. I starting binding in elementary school. I would cry hysterically when my mother wanted to measure me for bra size. no, I was not fucking molested. No I didn’t have any trans family members. No I did not exist on any trans spaces online. I simply just don’t want breasts, I have never wanted them. This does not make me “mentally ill” or some sort of sexual deviant. It’s as simple as that I don’t want breasts. I don’t give a fuck how other people perceive me or any sort of fashion trend. I know my body more than anyone else and top surgery is truly and deeply what is best for me and my mental health.

[genderkoolaid]

MAJOR TBOY NEWS ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

click here for a link to the article

For those who don't know Glenn Copeland, he is an amazing trans elder who has made some absolutely stunning music over his long career. I love him and his art so fucking much and you should ABSOLUTELY listen to his music—its gorgeous and meaningful and so full of love. He is such a good choice for this type of show. As both a fan of his and a lover of puppet-based edutainment I'm fucking over the moon. GO SUPPORT HIM NEOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[genderkoolaid]

we shouldn't overlook how gender plays a role in the fact that it has been largely immigrant men being kidnapped and imprisoned, how patriarchal views on maleness is fundamental to the racist fearmongering around immigrant criminality and violence towards specifically white citizen women & girls. just as much as patriarchy is always a factor in how society interacts with people seen as women, it is always a factor with people seen as men. labeling all immigrant men as violent gang members looking to rape and murder white american girls is gendered racism & xenophobia. this is just as much patriarchy in action as anything relating to birth control and abortion and trans healthcare. patriarchy has always sought to enslave & kill marginalized men.