#I want to complain abt specifics but im like what if this identifies me or something

[cruelsister-moved2]

met a neopagan in the wild today and it was a psychically disturbing experience im feeling psychically disturbed is all I can say. my psyche is disturbed

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi! its incredible/intrusive tjoughts anon. honestly its nothing serious i just want advice lol.

so basically i identify as pan(tomantic) and non binary (transmasc).

basically i have this cousin who im REALLY close eith since shes the only family close to my age (we have a year differencs)

basically i do live in a very homophobic place, as i think ive said before but i think that she might be queer (bi specifically)

and here are my proofs:

1) the subtle one being, when its just the both if us watching something all she points out is how beautiful/amazing/gorgeous wtc the women look. nothing abt the guys. (not that im complaining cz women serious do slay)

i know that she also likes men because i remember watching this scene with her and one other cousin where the guy (wesrung a ehite) shirt fell into the water and was coming out (of the water).

me, personally, i was disgusted and i thiught my cousins would share the same opinions. nope. they rewatched the scene twice i think, their eyes were glued onto the screen ans they were both red.

2) the second one being, as ive mentioned before, i am a religious person qnd so is she. but we have this tradition where we go onto the roof and just talk about stuff we normally would never talk about. we basically kid of vent to each other too.

and there we've talked alot about queer people, and being a religious queer person and its clear that our views on the topic are very similar.

(i never bring up queer people bcz im scared of giving myself up, and usually people do not go around asking others abt their opinion on them. and yeah i feel like she was relieved when i explaijed that the last thing i wanted was for them to die)

niw into the veey obvious tells:

3) my cousin and i were bored so i took out markers and we decided to draw on my leg (dont ask me how we decided that that was the best thing to do.) but basically out if everything she couldve drawn, she drew the rainbkw but as a bi flag.

i saw it and when i pointed it out, she kind of looked panicked? so i just left it.

4) this one is like glaringly obvious tell. basically obv everyone knows, the tt algorithm works overtime and honestly i rarely get anything im not interested in.

so me, obv i have short hair, and when im sleeping/when im alone with other women you could easily tell that wtv is happening is not straight cis shit.

but basically i was changing so i just shed off my outer layer, underneath i was wearing this like sleeveless sweater and i had tracksuit bottoms underneath. my hair was oulled back in a half bun.

tell me why she says oh you look like thise masc lesbians in my tiktok fyp.

like FIRSTLY what are the masc lesbians doing on ur feed?? how have you watched them eniugh to know the specific terms??

basically idk if im maybe reading inti this but sometimes i genuinely feel like im going mad and i want to kind of come out ti someone irl cz i litr need someoen to see me, and recognize my efforts.

so. i just need advice, cz she knows quite alit if the terms as well, and ive noticed that homophobic people usually do not. (e.g. my brother does not know anthign other than gay and lesbian and queer cz he likes to throw them out as insukts)

but she does know, not all, but quite a few. (i only know nearky all cz for a while my obsession, idk what people call thus but basically i become obsessed with a tooic, research alot about it and then just leave it?. was like all the different types of labels and which umbrellas they fall under. so ive done alot of research on this matter which actually freaks alot of people out)

ive just realised i actually ramble alot so thankyou for making it this far lol

(also i just got hiccups wriitng this and theyre OISSING ME KFF)

Hi!

I feel like it's a pretty good assumption that your cousin is open-minded. I think it might be a good idea, next time you guys are having a rooftop conversation, to bring up queer people you know. Celebrities, mutual friends, etc. Ask her how she feels about those people. If she's cool with it, that's a good signal that you can come out.

Also think about- if you've told her other secrets, has she told other people? If not, then you can trust her with something like this.

As far as your cousin's sexuality- I'm not sure if you're reading into it. But remember, even if you come out to her, she might not return the gesture even if she IS queer. She might not be ready, and that's okay! Just continue to be a safe space for her no matter who she likes.

[aeide-thea]

very much an off-the-cuff post so there may well be bugs, i'm still workshopping my thinking here, but—

i seem to see posts fairly regularly in which a member of some marginalized group A is objecting to attempts by less marginalized group B to make connections between discrimination against A and harm experienced by B (the main thing i have in mind here is when people attempt to align themselves with visibly-trans people by pointing out the ways that transphobic legislation also impacts gnc cis people, theatrical crossdressing, &c, but there are definitely also examples along other axes)—

and like. the main objection i've seen from A is 'why do they have to connect my experience to their experience in order to care about it? why can't they just agree that i shouldn't be discriminated against as a matter of, like, compassion for fellow humanity?'

and this reaction does honestly always just seem a little, idk, naive to me?? like, i don't know, it's gotten very popular ime to complain about normies' clumsy attempts to Understand Instead of Just Accepting [this feels potentially linked to like. the way many of us now prefer silently clicking 'like' to producing our own original, maybe clumsy, responses? but don't @ me on that point], probably because a lot of the time they aren't genuinely seeking to Understand but just to point out all the ways our queerness &c doesn't fit their received (unexaminedly conservative) understanding of the world, which feels to us (very reasonably!) like renewed pressure from the establishment to make ourselves fit that established framework, and so we resist… but at the same time, idk, maybe i'm just outing myself as lesser-than-thou here, but for every sort of person i was raised to distrust and have since arrived at genuine loving acceptance/appreciation of, it's involved first coming to understand their frame of reference at least a little? not to say that there isn't a place for shutting up and listening while you're still working to understand, because there definitely is! but i do kind of think this idea that's become popular in certain liberal circles of like, 'you don't have to understand my experience, you just have to respect it,' is fine and true for keeping peace with strangers, but really isn't a recipe for winning friends or influencing people—it's a recipe for keeping people at arm's length where they can't hit you. and then people turn around and want to apply that rule to coalition-building, and get all shocked-pikachu-face when others seek to identify more active points of connection.

...

another ~Radical Objection to Liberal Approaches~ i've seen, though often not specifically in this context (of discussing the way attempts to oppress A have knock-on effects for B), is like—'there's no point in deconstructing their logic because it's fundamentally illogical! insert that sartre quote abt anti-semites!' and like. no, there's absolutely no point in debating their logic with them. but fundamentally when people assert a logical resistance to bigoted positions they are not doing it to Own The Bigots, imo, or at any rate shouldn't be; they're (we're) doing it to reaffirm the basis of their/our own camp's position, namely, we see your knee-jerk fears and reject them; we substitute instead a patient allegiance to logic, that reasons its way into compassion.

that said, obviously there's a conversation to be had here about, like, platforming bad positions, and to what extent deconstructing them is implicitly platforming them! but. i do think that complaining that logic won't win over bigots is missing the very fundamental point that the logic isn't for the bigots: it's for us. we're talking to ourselves; we're affirming ourselves. and yeah, we need to understand that this sort of intra-party discussion doesn't, on its own, constitute sufficient activism! messages need to be communicated beyond the bounds of the party! but i do think i disagree that there's no place for it.