5, 7, and 8 <333
AH! Thank you for the ask! :D I'm going to assume that it's for the trans ask game.
5 - What is your favourite part about being trans?
I like that I can more or less do whatever I want when it comes to my presentation and pronouns. I have a very, very long name list that's a little over 130 names. I have a few neopronoun sets. I also, in addition to my name list, have a list of epithets for myself. It's really fun! The epithets can come off as a little pretentious, but what I like about being trans is that I don't really take my gender too seriously. The Herald of Fall enjoys hoarding dice and making bad puns. It's silly. It's so fun and freeing to not be constrained to binary gender norms, but also just to other social norms, like... I dunno not having epithets for yourself.
7 - What is a specific positive memory related to you being trans?
Shoutout to my freshman English teacher, I guess, and also my Latin teacher.
Freshman year was the first time I was out as trans at school, and I really had no clue what to expect from teachers regarding that. I didn't know if they would be respectful of my pronouns or name, if they'd be dismissive of me, or if they'd be receptive—and to what extent. Should I expect my teachers to accommodate my changing pronoun sets?
Cut to my English teacher! The first day of school, along with all the standard Getting To Know New Students questions on a Google Form, he asked us about our pronouns and preferred name. Most of my teachers asked about pronouns to some extent, I think, but after class, since I had put something along the lines of "he/they, but it switches around," my teacher asked me specifically if he should alternate between pronouns, pick a set to use for a day, etc.. I told him that I was genderfluid, and my preferred pronouns switched around kind of arbitrarily. I was probably a little apologetic about it, like "oh you can just pick a set I know switching pronouns can be a hassle" or something like that, but my English teacher told me that I could just let him know when it changed, and it wasn't a hassle at all.
I guess on the Where The World Ideally Should Be spectrum, it wasn't a big deal, but it really helped set the tone for my expectations from teachers. I got that, hey, this guy was respectful of my pronouns, so all of my other teachers can and should be, too. And I'm still really appreciative that he went out of his way to make sure he was using the best pronoun set for me at any given time.
I actually mentioned how impactful that whole experience was for me at the end of the year, and he said that he still remembered one time on the first day of school that he used the wrong name for me and he still felt bad about it. To be honest, this still amuses me to this day. Usually, the axe forgets but the tree remembers and all that, but I genuinely had no recollection of it (also it was the first day of school he was probably going off the attendance sheet) and I think it's a little funny that he did.
I feel like that's a very long story, so I shan't go into the Latin teacher stories too much, but I will say that I only had that English teacher for one semester, and I've had my Latin teacher for four. I have so many cool stories from my Latin teacher being ally as hell.
8 - What is something you wish to tell cis people about being trans (in general or specific to you)?
HAVE FUN WITH YOUR GENDER!!! YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE TRANS TO CHANGE YOUR NAME!!! YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE TRANS TO DRESS IN A GENDER NON CONFORMING WAY!!! DO YOU LIKE THAT DRESS, MR. DUDE??? WEAR IT!!! HAVE FUN WITH IT!!! I guess this doesn't strictly have to do with being trans, but it's something that I feel like cis people should be told, and I'm in a position to tell them, being trans and all.
2 notes
·
View notes