#I'm like essentially cis idk

[littleaxoltotlisabouttokill]

is girlflux trans?? It's not right? Cause I said I was genderqueer once (easier than explaining girlflux) and then someone said "this trans person" it makes sense in the context I swear

Anyway.like I'm not right? cause I'm still a girl but umbrella terms confuse me

[immortalarizona]

for pride month I am haviiiiing. an itty bitty gender crisis

[aeide-thea]

i get a little on my high horse sometimes abt the way in which cishet+ culture will sometimes (usually implicitly) link, hm how to put this, gender hypersaturation with attractiveness—like, dialing up the level of eg Manliness gets framed as inherently also dialing up someone's level of sexiness

this has always seemed totally nuts to me, as someone frequently attracted to very effeminate men+ and very androgynous women+

but i definitely do kind of frame my own self-criticism in terms of like. 'failing at masculine model of attractiveness, failing at feminine model of attractiveness, guess i gotta just go sit by myself in my miserable little mudpit'

which is like. literally what even, self. like. is 'thumbing my nose at all binary standards' not. the nominal objective actually. and yet!!

[pawberri]

thank you for all the posts you've made, your takes are always so refreshing to hear.

I want to know your thoughts (if it's okay with you, you can also totally ignore this) about all the "men hate" I see online. like I (poc transmasc non-passing) get it, there are genuine societal gender problems. transmisogyny does exist-women face more challenges than men do. but it genuinely hurts when women, especially trans women, think it's funny/quirky to call men trash or say they want all men dead or whatever. idk I just am hoping someone else understands, you know?

There's a lot of nuances to this question. First, I just want to caution against focusing too much on trans girls as the perpetrators of this. A lot of the asks I get from trans men seem to really fixate on trans women as the perpetrators of hard line gender essentialism. I really think trans girls are not the main people we should be focusing on here. If a trans woman is saying this stuff, take the time to analyze her ideology outside of that pithy comment and consider how much trauma and how little power she has in the world. That said, trans women are affected by this kind of ideology just like us, and they rarely have the power to wield it against others in the way cis people can. I know it hurts to feel isolated by your own community, but that kinda gets into my second point.

Part of dealing with this is learning an impulse progressive cishet dude have had to get used to over the decade. Sometimes, "men are trash" or even "kill all men" are not literal phrases. They are things women say when they're in the throes of trauma to vent their frustration. "Men are trash" in particular is generally pretty lighthearted and used to complain when you have a bad date or something. You have to get used to analyzing what someone actually means and airing on the side of empathy. You, as a man, are the one with some amount of systemic power over that woman, so you are the one who needs to prove you are dedicated to not being a misogynist. The same thing happens when my friends say they hate white people. I have to assume they don't hate me given that I'm their friend, but that I still have some of the negative traits of whiteness. I need to care enough to be a good friend by being anti-racist and checking myself on my behavior. I need to be willing to prioritize their comfort over mine. That includes not becoming this meme:

Now that that's established, there ARE times when "all men are evil and should die" is an actual ideology. It's an ideology that hurts tons of minority groups before it hurts the most powerful, but it's also not really great if we assume it only hurts cishet white guys. Following it to its logical conclusion, it just proposes a reversal of oppression dynamics. This gender essentialism is a key part of radical feminism, trans exclusionary or not, but it leaks out of that community to general feminism all the time.

As a young person on Tumblr and Twitter, this deeply affected me. I internalized the idea that you can "just be a girl." It was repeated by some trans girls, but also a LOT of TME people. It was framed as trans inclusive, but it's trans inclusive in the way "political lesbianism" is lesbian positive. It posits gender as a moral choice that is completely up to the individual and unrelated to biology. It's the lazy version of "gender is a social construct." I felt sick and disgusting for wanting to be a boy because tons of well-meaning friends of mine had made it clear that "being a boy" was a choice, and it was the wrong one. "Boy" was a social category that could and should eventually be eradicated. Trans women were conditionally supported because they, in theory, made this future possible. This didn't amount to actual support, of course. It was an ideology mostly spread by afab queer people that mostly benefited afab queer people. There were a few trans girls who spread it, maybe some due to genuinely believing in the ideology and some due to social pressure, but there were also a lot of people straight-up grifting as trans girls who used this thinking to feel powerful in a niche community of teens. Remember fucking Yandere Bitch Club???

At a certain point, I genuinely thought of being a man as an unambiguous moral failing, and I lashed out at out trans men because of it. I wanted to feel powerful, and here was a type of man in my community I could shame and exclude. I still feel bad for making a bunch of ~girls only~ stuff in HS that excluded the one out trans dude at our school, my friend, because he was just a ~binary man~ and leaving him with no friends and no community. I treated transphobia like it wasn't a real oppression on its own and, in doing so, perpetuated transphobia. It happens a lot.

I wasn't really able to accept that there was nuance to the concept of manhood until I read this article while struggling to accept my own gender:

This is a pretty seminal piece of writing. It has its flaws, of course, but the empathy and intersectionality it highlights was life-changing. It also shows that this kind of thinking is largely perpetuated by TME people and hurts trans women greatly.

Gender essentialism is a bad ideology, it's a transphobic, transmisogynist, racist, etc etc ideology. It's literally essential to patriarchy. But it's also very easy to repackage into leftism and easy to dogwhistle. As a result, it's natural to be hesitant when you see someone saying they hate all men, but you have to tread extremely lightly and actually care what they're attempting to express. Because, yeah, men as a social class still hold power over women. They still have reason to fear and hate men.

I'm writing a comic about this stuff, actually, so look out for it in the future..........

[genderkoolaid]

and the thing is i dont think the barbie movie could really avoid discussing feminism and patriarchy directly, because a movie about Barbie's relationship with real women (and Gloria is essentially a stand-in for the perceived audience of cis women) and Barbie has always been a contentious figure in feminism, and how she is specific has contributed to or helped resist misogyny. but like idk maybe Mattel kept them from being able to actually make interesting points about feminism, but like. i still cannot believe there are people who see the patriarchy plotline of that movie as revolutionary. i'm pretty sure they copied Gloria's speech from a 2010s feminist facebook meme page.

and i wish we as a culture didn't settle for such lukewarm feminist takes. i may disagree with radical feminists on most things and a lot of modern radfems are pretty bad at their own ideology anyways, but there's a reason a lot of cis women are attracted to radfeminism: they have a real desire to see Feminism, a radical social movement that challenged how people thought, and not the sort of pop feminism where people haven't even really read any feminist theory and view "feminism" as essentially just "when women do things for themselves." like idk its 2023 is popular feminism still not allowed to move on from explaining that misogyny exists.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for liking horny text posts about trans girls?

Probably low-stakes but I do want to make sure. I'm a cis guy dating a trans girl. Being on tumblr, a lot of blogs I follow are also trans women, and some of them reblog/post NSFW text posts, which I often essentially self-insert to with me and my girlfriend. However, I know a lot of these may be meant in a different context than that. Am I overstepping boundaries? It's not like any of the posts specify "cis men DNI" or anything, but IDK

[sleepyboywrites]

Hey there, do you wanna do yandere headcannons for the creepypasta characters? (Specifically Trans or Cis Male Reader) whichever once you want, I did it with the TF2 characters and it was tons of fun

Hey! I hope it's okay if I just do an in general Male Reader because I don't like to use specifics unless it's necessary, like for trans/cis exclusive experiences ie: dysphoria/euphoria, overly descriptive nsfw if I ever end up doing something like that, and/or things like periods which cis men don't experience to allow more people to relate. In short I just don't want any male readers to feel excluded if it's not an exclusive experience if that makes any sense.

Also I apologize for not posting in a bit and taking so long to respond to this turns out I have too many thoughts about this particular prompt actually so this will probably turn into individual series/posts after this one

Yandere! Creepypasta x Male!Reader.

Tw: yandere behaviors kidnapping, murder, physical or psychological abuse, slightly spicy? for a couple Idk, it's nothing descriptive just mentions of a perverted mind and could possibly be interpreted in that way

Eyeless Jack

• obsession obsession obsession. Beastlike has things he stole from you in a nest. Kills people who interact with you. Almost wolf-like if I had to put a fine point to it.

• At first it's just people who were mean to you, hurt you, or made you feel badly about yourself because surely a boy like yourself would praise him for being so helpful to you, right?

• Then it's anyone who gets too close or appears to like you romantically.

• Then it's anyone you spend too much time with which interferes with time meant for him.

• He's delusional, but in the practical sense.

• Think, "I'm doing this to protect him" , "Those people would hurt him eventually", "He's not safe on his own, he needs me to look over him." "The outside world will tear him apart."

• Stalks you 24/7. You are never without eyes on you but you also don't have a clue he's watching at first.

• After all he only steals things you haven't worn in months or you could chock up to misplacing.

• And he's a hunter so he specializes in stalking whether for food or in personal matters.

• You won't know he's there until it's too late.

• He'll make his move to kidnap you once you've essentially isolated yourself out of fear to those around you dying. He'll treat you gently during his kidnapping.

• Using his medical knowledge he'd give you anesthesia as you sleep and take you home.

• May remove an organ or two as souvenirs, treats if you will to add to his nest.

• Once you are in his possession he will add you to his nest and you'll wake up pressed firmly into his chest as he mumbles incoherently.

•If you ever try to leave he will make you pliant in anyway he can think of. He's not above physically harming you if that makes it so you can't leave him. He worked so hard to retrieve his mate and he won't lose you even if he has to hurt you or you end up hating him but you will stay.

Ben Drowned

• A lot like EJ he's also always watching difference is you are always overly aware of his presence.

• He wants you to know that he's watching. He wants you to interact with him. Even if that interaction is you yelling at him and begging him to leave you alone.

• He is 100% playing some sort of sick game with you that he knows you'll lose. Think you'll develop Stockholm syndrome before he even kidnaps you.

• If he ever leaves you alone for a few days you'd find yourself missing the teasing remarks and add ons normally added as you went about your day.

• All due to his tendency to drive people insane of which you are not immune but the trail of your insanity leading directly to his arms.

• He knows this and is overly cocky about it both to your face and to others. Think, "oh poor you, you love me, what an unfortunate situation." To your face the first time you fall asleep around him with a stupid sick grin or "I'm going to kill you and he's going to come to me for comfort and protection when he finds out." when talking to someone he's deemed bad for you.

• He wouldn't go on a murder spree without a trigger but then like Jack that'll devolve into killing anyone he disapproves of which is everyone else.

• He has a general distaste and distrust of people due to the nature of his creation and will find an excuse to kill anyone around you should his murderous intent be triggered which can happen in three different ways you're constantly distraught by someone, you start ignoring him to be around someone else, or you've failed to keep him entertained so he needed a more entertaining situation.

• Possesive with a capital P, if he does not know your precise location or have you within arms reach at any given moment he will lose it.

• Clingy but veiled with indifference. He'll act as if he doesn't care but insist on keeping some kind of contact at all times. Once he physically has you this would be physical contact and before hand just following you everywhere saying he doesn't have anything better to do.

• Will use psychological and emotionally harmful methods to keep you in line if you ever try to reject him or his advances but claims won't hurt you physically in anyway.

• His vice grip on you reveals otherwise though. Enough so to encourage you to go along with him.

Laughing Jack

• I feel he'd court you in cat-like ways. If you've been in his box more extravagant shows with him as the lead, carrying you around places. (Being weary to let you leave until he eventually stops letting you leave.

•Leaving you gifts that go from sweet to scary really fast. Think your favorite treats and then your loved ones' hearts carved from their chests so you never have to leave him again.

• He's the king of being delulu and reacts poorly to ungratefulness so do try your best not to scream or hit him when instead of cotton candy he has a loved one's head on a stick.

• You can try to gently coerce him to stop killing your loved ones in order to isolate you and making you stay forever/to let you go. But he'll say "you're being silly" and "here is where you belong you goofball of a boy. " covered in your loved ones blood as he ruffles your hair.

•The accidentally kill you for being ungrateful/not accept him and keep your corpse like your still alive type.

•Keep it lighthearted and the Jester is your friend. If you don't and mention troubles he'll fix them violently.

• Is constantly coddling and cuddling you.

• Since he was once a guardian angel and he believes his murdering of ungrateful children is God's work, he sees you as a present for all his good work.

• Like a child being gifted a puppy on Christmas.

• Bone crushing hugs and grips that bruise your skin and make it so it hurts to move but he acts like he didn't mean to and gets moody if you push him away or say he's hurting you.

• It's an act though, he likes seeing you squirm in pain and the expressions you make trying not to cry when he holds you.

• He thinks it's cute. He thinks you're cute when you're in pain.

• On a lighter note, he 100% is the type of clingy to hold your sleeve going places or to poke you (mostly) lightly in order to get your attention.

Homicidal Liu

•The softest in this lineup.

• I believe the term is dormant Yandere? Yeah. It is, because you wouldn't guess something is off until something starts getting between the two of you.

• You remind him of before his traumas, whether that be you look like someone who was kind to him before or upon first meeting you were genuine, honest, and kind. You make him feel safe and calm or as calm as Sully gets and he's never letting you leave him.

• He'd incorporate himself into your life truly getting close to you. Like this is months if not years long in the making. He becomes the closest person to you in your inner circle and you're the same for him. He plays the long game.

• You guys live together and you probably already like him the same way he likes you but both of you are too awkward to talk about it and Sully has been forbidden to say anything or Liu threatened to take his meds. Or you guys are in a long-term committed relationship already.

• Protective, possessive, and obsessive but fairly level headed. He is aware of the reality of the situation. Ie: his possessiveness is giving you his clothes and repetitive thoughts of "mine" during times of physical contact or seeing you in his clothes and needing texts or where you are, why you left, and when you plan on being back as well as if anything changes. He obsesses over your likes, dislikes, mannerisms, emotional cues, and interests so he essentially knows you even better than you do. Protective being watching over you as you sleep in situations where it's acceptable to do so and setting up security systems for the house.

•More likely to grab your arm or hug your knees and sob "please don't leave me" than he is to ever hurt you. The most agressive he gets is when Sully is fronting but even then the likelihood of him hurting you above holding you a bit too tight is 5% and reserved for extremely specific occasions which virtually don't happen. Ie: you find out he's a murderer and react too poorly in a way he didn't expect, you leave him cold turkey, you treat him poorly

• Clingy always needs some kind of contact most of the time this equates to holding hands/pinkies in public and ensuring the two of you are essentially attached at the hip. Though because he's entered your inner circle you just think it's because you two are close and that's the product of your closeness.

• His hunting turns into stalking and killing those who've been bugging you and you've talked poorly about whenever he feels his bloodlust bubbling over.

•'Cause if he kills people you've said that you wished would die or that you hate you'll be able to forgive or even praise him right?

• Unlikely to kidnap you unless he gets caught/found out then he'll probably relocate the two of you but he'd rather talk to you about it beforehand so it'd be a last minute emergency type thing. Or if you spend too much time away from him.

Jeff the Killer

• Doesn't play games of any kind. He'll observe you just long enough to learn about you, your schedule, who all knows you, and how frequently they check in. Then he'll remove obstacles and he'll just just take you.

• Impatient and the shortest fuse known to man.

• He's not afraid to hurt you in fact he enjoys it so the more perverted side of him wants you to push him and his expectations.

• The chain you up in a basement type

•He'll kill anyone involved with your life so when you beg him to let you go with tears in your eyes saying you have people waiting for you he can tell you with certainty that you don't. Not anymore. Laughing as he tells you and stroking/tugging at your hair.

• Degrading and mean to the point where you can't tell if he hates you or not. Uses pet names in a derogatory way as well.

• Pretty distant and cold even after you warm up to him and he lets you wander around a contained and highly surveillanced area, though it's probably just the torture basement he chained you up in to begin with.

•Most affection you'd get is a pat on the head or shoulder.

•Any other form of affection wouldn't really feel like affection.

•Wants to break you into a mindless doll essentially for him to love, use, and abuse. But the breaking you into it is very important to him.

• Will torture you severely for any mishap.

•The only way you can tell he's attracted to you beyond physically, is if he goes too far with the torture, when he's patching you up, or when he brings you something you like/he likes.

•Though he talks to you sweetly sometimes after you pass out and/or are slipping into unconsciousness. "You were made for me, sweet boy." "So good for me." It wigs you out though.

•you will feel like you live on eggshells as try your best to accommodate to him.

• you are most likely to go insane and learn to crave his mistreatment.

Ticci-Toby

• Delusional. He is convinced you and him are in love and have the white picket fence dream. Complete with a German Shepherd and two adopted kids.

• And because of the way his brain is scrambled once he starts thinking about you regularly he can no longer tell what really happened or what was a daydream.

• Hopefully he has a good enough grip on reality to have actually interacted with you before his delusions convince him that you need to be with him at all times and he kidnaps you.

• 'Cause if not he's going to be really confused as to why his boyfriend who told him this is what he wanted is freaking out to the point of needing restrained. You'll hurt his feelings and he'll probably successfully gaslight you into believing his delusions himself.

• Also the lock you up type but more in the paranoid of others stealing you from him way, so if it's not together you aren't going.

• Like Jeff he allows you to roam around a highly surveillanced and locked up area but unlike Jeff it's an actual house and not a basement.

• He will hole up with you for weeks until duty calls or the house runs out of supplies

• Very "I love him I love him I love him I love him" coded and needs you to be just as enthusiastic.

•The hurt you on accident and profusely apologize immediately after but loves how you look when you cry and tremble as he patches you up type.

• Think someone telling him something that insinuated his affections towards you didn't count so he grabs your arm and squeezes it as you try walking away, asking "Toby... you're hurting me." He says wide-eyed struggling for only a moment as his kidnapper/partner tightens his grip with steel cold eyes. "Tell me it counts. It counted right?" (may or may not be my first ex-core as in my experience based)

•He feels really guilty about it too and periodically he will be crying into your lap forcing you to comfort him after an outburst because he feels just like his dad and he hates it.

Tim/Masky

• Much like Homicidal Liu and Hoodie he is actively incorporating you into his life. Difference is he's trying to manipulate you into thinking he's the only one you can trust.

• Uses the White Knight Method, which in case you're unfamiliar is a highly efficient manipulation technique in which they solve your problems while unbeknownst to you being the source of said problems until you become obsessed with or fall in love with the "knight" protecting you.

• If you feel like someone is watching you, he's toying with you. In fact he'll probably show up shortly after from the opposite direction of where you think watching is coming from and ask you if you're okay. Revelling in the look of fear on your face as you gush to him about what's bothering you and promising to protect you as he walks you home.

•He'll sabotage your relationships by making you think that they're the ones who've been leaving disturbing gifts on your doorstep/trying to hurt you.

• It's very much so a game to him and you're the prize.

• He's the type to want to see every emotion you have to offer.

• He's also the likes when you smile and likes when you cry more type

• But his need for you to need him and seek him out basically nukes the previous headcannon and makes it so he settles for comforting you when as far as you know something/someone else made you cry.

•Essentially by the time he's done with you, you'd beg to never leave his side, for him to keep you close and keep you safe but you don't have to because that's right where he wants you.

Brian/Hoodie

• Stalker alert! He's watching you sleep and following you everywhere

•Also uses the White Knight method but he uses what would have been a one time scary occurrence and uses that occurrence as a scapegoat to make more situations/scenarios which isolate you and bring you closer to him.

• In fact, his protection is a gateway to you, his foot in the door.

•It starts with him stepping in when things get scary then you see him somewhere you frequent and you talk to him or he talks to you and numbers are exchanged.

• After of which you are his clearly. Obviously, you just don't know it yet.

• Then he starts staging more scary, making your loved ones hurt you/turn on you/are the culprit in a scary situation until he's all you have. Until you need him.

• Mans has hidden cameras all over your house.

•You know where most of them are after all it was his idea, he said it was for your protection. What you didn't account for is all the hidden cameras in the gifts he's got you.

• He's the quiet, doting, infantilizing type.

• As in he genuinely believes you are too small, weak, and pure to know any of his intentions and he treats you as if you have no clue about anything always. Babies you constantly at a gradually increasing weight until it's suffocating.

• He wants to lock you up and protect you.

• Gaslighting king, if you catch on or try to leave him he will gaslight you into staying.

• Think "Baby boy what are you even talking about everything I've done was for your protection and your protection alone. There's no secret cameras you don't know about you're being silly." Or "Sweet boy, I've never done anything you didn't want or need. I'm very intuned to your needs and you need me. You need to be protected, you aren't safe unless I'm near."

• So genuinely and heartfeltly said that you'd clearly be the bad guy for even thinking like that and with how deep he has you you'd believe him too.

[validdisaster]

I Probably Won't Watch MisMag, But I Think I'm Glad It Exists?

I don't know if this is a valid feeling or some kind of misplaced trauma reaction, but when I hear American leftists/liberals joking about jkr or performing reparative or critical versions of Harry Potter, I sometimes feel a deep... I dunno, unease? I could be wrong, but I'm not sure a lot of international people really understand the kind of grip she has on the UK.

This is a country where transgender people were banned from the panels and review boards for the 2024 Cass Report that would define how trans children were treated in schools, the healthcare they have access to, and the support they have, then gave recommendations that will pave the way for making it more challenging for trans people as a whole to move through society with general dignity, respect, and essential medical care. Meanwhile, the new (leftwing) prime minister, who has refused to make any declarative claim about his beliefs on transgender people, made special time for a meeting with jkr in a bid for votes just a few weeks before the election to assure her he would do basically whatever she said to 'support women and girls' (whatever that means to a woman who has designated herself the arbiter of who is 'too masculine' for girlhood). Now, I'll be honest, that was before her descent into minor Holocaust denial and the Olympics bollocks, but long after she started paling around with people in far-right white supremacist circles. Her voice was considered more important than any medical professional who happens to be trans.

Personally, (and this is just my anecdotal experience) I've had family members, colleagues and even an ex-partner parrot lines almost word-for-word from her essay as an excuse to get away with some pretty nasty behaviour, despite never having read it and not knowing where that was where it came from - that's how much she has permeated British society. I have a difficult, strained, or nonexistent relationship with people who meant a whole lot to me and I don't know if that would still be true if J K Rowling hadn't decided to go off one day. People hurt me who might not have. She's able to use the fact that she's the writer of the Harry Potter books as a kind of cover to gain this legitimacy that lets people hand-wave away or not look closer at some of the most unambiguously bad stuff you can do and say. Again, I do have to say, I'm from a not-very-liberal area and the work I do is mostly manufacturing or call centre (so full of not-very-liberal people). Idk if other parts of the UK are different, but I sure as shit can't afford to live in them.

This might be a personal despair that I need to work through, but I'm just not sure any reparative stories set in echoes of Hogwarts can possibly do any good. She's still here, she's still hurting us, she still has more of a voice in British politics and discourse than the rest of us working together can possibly muster and her past seems like more of a shield to the bad things she's currently doing than something that can be reimagined correctively.

To be fully clear, I'm not criticising the mismag crew here, and I'm not criticising international folks (trans or cis) for not knowing the detailed minutia of what's going on in my very unimportant neck of the woods. I'm just trying to work through my feelings about a person who's done a lot of demonstrable harm to me and mine, and the kind of casualness that I feel like her impact gets treated with sometimes.

I get the sense that a lot of (particularly cis or non-british) leftwing circles treat her like such an obviously-bad punchline gremlin that they forget she's still a bogeyman to some of us, I'm still scared of what she'll do next. And it's weird to see people having fun in the funhouse-mirror version of her passion project. Maybe it's jealousy. I loved Harry Potter and Hogwarts for a long time. Maybe I just miss feeling safe there.

I hope there will be a day I feel safe enough to laugh about her. Maybe it's not such a bad thing that other people are there already?

[cainsign]

it feels craaazy transitioning in an exclusively male workplace. even the guys who are okay with me transitioning and even see me as male (or male-lite) are constantly like This Is What Men Do, you must do this now that you are a man. it does feel kind of affirming because they see me as one of the guys! but it's also like. yeah we have to talk about your sex life and objectify women now that you're on t. what do you mean you don't want to do that. idk it just serves as a reminder to me that being ftm DOES afford you with male privilege & you're often pushed to conform and participate in misogyny to affirm your identity "as a man." if anything, you're encouraged to participate more, because you have to prove your masculinity to your peers if you want to be accepted.

most of all, it proves to me that so-called transandrophobia is absolutely bullshit. there is nothing unique about the way i'm being pushed to socialize with my male peers as i transition, the only difference is that i'm being pushed into it later in life than a cis man would have been. my male coworkers, who probably consider themselves my allies, are trying to teach me how best to punch down at women and other minorities as proof of my masculinity. i can't speak to a transfeminine experience, but i assume that a part of the social aspect of transition is the exact inverse of this. but for me, i'm essentially able to move past the oppressive system of misogyny, as long as i agree to benefit from it.

[carlyraejepsans]

So I'm about to ask something that might be personal ? And it deals with some personal baggage that you as someone on the internet might not be interested in hearing about ^^' so you might not want to talk about it as is your right obv !! So uh feel free to tell me to fuck off, but, how did you know you weren't cis?

Ya see, I've been questioning my gender for a while now, and I can't really come up with an answer. I'm a lesbian, that's a pretty big part of my identity, I'm not overly feminine but not masc either, when people refer to me as female I feel super uncomfortable, but I ain't too bothered by some of my body parts, ive daydreamed about switching to they/them pronouns online or masculine pronouns in my native language.... But all of that wouldn't fit with what people might expect of me ? And I'm scared if I actually went through those changes people might think I'm performing a form of queerness I shouldn't be privy to. And the worst part about this is, most of my friends are queer, non binary, trans... Wouldn't they think I'm trying to copy them ? Even though ive had those thoughts long before we met ?

Kinda feel like I'm stuck, and I don't know how to be myself, because myself might not align with how i act or how i seem to be on the outside. idk if you feel the same, but it's especially shitty living in a country with a heavily gendered language you can't escape adjectives forever lmaooo

listen to me. i am holding your face in my hands. nothing and i mean nothing you decide in regards to your gender and/or sexuality will ever be anyone's business but your own. the idea that you can "appropriate" someone else's experience with queerness is a gross bastardization of the discussion on CULTURAL appropriation, which is a false analogy and can devolve into gender essentialism fast.

you have no idea how many trans people (gay people too, but especially trans people) locked themselves in the closet because of that same feeling. of "not beeing privy to those experiences", especially for trans women. i promise, as long as you stop at establishing what a certain label means TO YOU and don't try to decide what it means for other people, then you will never hurt anyone. anyone who says otherwise is a cop.

there are trans men out there who lived as cis lesbians for a very long time, and because that was such a big part of their life, they still think of themselves as such, at least in part. for some it's out of kinship. for some it's out of genuine attachment to the word. same thing with gay men who grew on to become trans women. and trans people in general who still carry their younger selves right by their heart. genderqueers who ended up being cis after all, but who still feel like that period of exploration was crucial in shaping their identity. butch and femme alone, while particularly dear as lesbian identities, encompass all genders and sexualities. wanna know something funny? i throw terms around a lot in english, but if you asked me in italian what my gender identity is, i would say "bisexual". because almost every person in my life who's ever called me bisexual actually meant "nonbinary", or "whatever weird thing those transgendereds got going on lately" (some of them probably meant intersex as well, which just for the record i am not. as far as i know, at least). is it an outdated definition? sure. but unlike the literal italian word for nonbinary, bisexual is actually a neutral noun lol. and after all, my experience with gender does inform my sexuality, just as my sexuality informs my experience with gender. it's not wrong, technically. but if someone somehow assumes I'm a lesbian (which happens a lot lol) i don't usually correct them i just... go with it too, y'know?

anyway, what it sounds like to me is that you're obviously going through a period of questioning your gender and or presentation, which you took notice of, but you also feel some kind of peer pressure or societal expectation from other queer people that is denying you a safe, healthy form of self expression in this new period of your life that you obviously wish for yourself. please, try not to pay it too much mind. try out whatever label or description calls to you. change it without notice if you find something better. and if anyone gives you trouble for it, eat them. good luck buddy.

[endreal]

Ayyy a fellow dual E & T hrt user! How do you like your set up and do you wanna share what got you there?

Privacy is important please don't feel compled to provide personal information

Sure! I guess in some ways I'm surprised I don't get more questions about this.

I first realised I was Not Cis in...actually probably 2004 but I didn't have language to describe it at the time - all I knew was that David Bowie Pissed Me Off for incomprehensible reasons that had nothing to do with his personality or his music. I just Could Not Look At That Guy without feeling Extremely Complicated Feelings.

Anyway, a lot happened in the end of that decade and I started my first binary transition in the '10s. It actually went pretty stellar, all in all. It's just that...after 3-4 years I realized I wasn't any happier about myself than I was beforehand. It didn't "fit" right, y'know? Anyway after a lot of internal turmoil and some blessed insightful words from @kipplekipple I finally accepted that hey, maybe this whole binary thing isn't for me and I'm agender. Or possibly bigender. Idk. Even more Not Cis than initially assumed.

Anyhow, from there I kicked off some scary-to-me conversations with my Dr. (who, to her credit, was impressively supportive) and got the second course added to my hrt regimen. And after about 2-2.5 years of periodic adjustments and calibrations to my hormones and blood tests (which I've become quite good at sitting the draws, if I do say so myself!), my levels have basically stabilised, which has been great in almost all ways... even tho it does mean that I now experience period-like cycle every 3ish weeks preceding injections. 🤦🏼

A lot of this happened...not exactly under the radar, but I also didn't beat drums and yell about it from the mountaintops. A big part of this is because I had other life shit going on and a still-ongoing global pandemic swept thru everything in a major way, but I also have to acknowledge that part of it is because I had always been fairly open about being queer and trans, and I was afraid (yes, afraid) that my story might get picked up by bad-faith actors as a detransition narrative when in fact it was anything but that. So this is probably the first time I've said all the pieces of this all together and "out loud" even tho I've made plenty of passing mentions about different parts of it over time. So thanks for asking directly!

PS. for what it's worth, I later realised that my Complicated Bowie Feelings were essentially jealousy. I've accepted by now that I'll never be a vaguely luminous avatar of human androgyny (sorry David Bowie. sorry Grace Jones and Annie Lennox. sorry Link Legendofzelda.)... but I still give it my best try, in the ways that I can. :)

[sunaria-bees]

Undertale/deltarune head canons because I'm keeping all my fandom shit here and I'm bored as hell

One off fact: Undertale and Deltarune bot take place in Minnesota, why? Because I said so

Undertale facts

1: frisk is infact not an orphan, but just a really kid who was on a hike with their parents and got sidetracked

2: frisk does eventually reunite with their parents while living with toriel, toriel (and maybe ashore idk) become frisk godparent(s)

3: Chara spirit is especially spiritually bonded with frisk, whatever pain frisk experience, Chara does as well, however dulled considering their a ghost,

4: frisk has done only the neutral and pacifist runs in my main au, they were going to do genocide but bailed out after killing papyrus from guilt

5: the "player" is just frisk intrusive thoughts, the curiosity in them essentially

6: sans is slightly more aware than others about timelines and shit but he can't tell when one happens, he just gets that same feeling of deja Vu if that makes sense

7: Sans is aroace (he's too lazy for love) Papyrus is pan, alphas and undyne are lesbians, toriel and asgore are both cis and straight allies, and frisk is agender non-binary

Deltarune facts

1: Kris is selectively mute, they only talk to people their close with (toriel, asgore, Asriel, etc..)

2: Susie is infact poor but she does have parents, they're just at their jobs a lot

3: Ralsei has abandonment issues due to the fact that he was alone for so long, he likes having people around him

4: Asriel is a English major, mostly because he has a very vivid imagination!

5: I ship Kris x berdly buts it's very much one sided (guess which side it is!!!!)

6: Kris is non binary and asexual, Susie is bisexual, Noelle is lesbian, berdly is gay (in very much fucking denial), ralsei is trans masc and gay

7: spamton and jevil are ex boyfriends<33333

[dykrophone]

Hi! Can you please talk a little about your pronouns? I googled a set I think might work for me and your blog was one of the two results. The other was a clinical psychology major at some university. She seemed nice, but I'm not sending a personal message to somebody's work email, y'know? Anyway, have a great day! 😊

sure! so basically im gender non-conforming and believe gender is a social construct that I personally don't like to subscribe to. I feel uncomfortable with being gendered most of the time and lowkey wish it wasn't such a huge part of how im perceived (side note i don't have a problem with gendered terms like bro/dude/girl/guy or anything that's used commonly enough in a non gendered context i personally LOVE stripping words of their gendered connotations lol). i hate that everything i do has a connotation of being associated with one of three arbitrary boxes (fem, masc, androgynous). I feel pretty alienated from all of them, tbh.

in an ideal world where biological sex and appearances didn't matter at all I'd be agender but for better or (tbh mostly for) worse being afab affects a lot of my life in how I interact with the world so there are ways I connect to womanhood a lot. I love women-dominated spaces and female solidarity. my experiences with cis men have been overwhelmingly horrendous and traumatizing and I've learnt to be kinda wary of them. so i kinda stick with girls by default. especially in a goddamn engineering college. and I really fucking adore and admire so many women and want to be like them and...it's confusing, because at the same time I don't feel like I really fit in with cis women either. idk the older I get the more alienated I feel from womanhood. like I LOVE women but whenever we do "girl talk" or whatever I feel like such an imposter. I relate to a lot of women's experiences but I don't feel like a woman lol. at the same time I don't fuck with a lot of stuff associated with womanhood that most cis girls i know relate to. I think being a lesbian and growing up with severe body dysmorphia for me is kinda very tied to my disconnect from girlhood. I relate to trans girls more than cis girls and trans guys more than either of them now. and ig I do relate to manhood in some ways but also I don't?? relate to cis guys??? it's complicated. but tldr my gender PERSONALLY is very fluid and idk this shit is all made up anyway and I kinda relate to everyone and no one at the same time. I'm agender 90% of the time but I do randomly get gender euphoria or dysphoria sometimes. I'm not entirely sure if that's because of my gender or something else but yeah essentially since I feel equally connected to each of the most commonly used pronouns in different ways I'm cool with all of them. so I picked the most common ones and assigned one to each form (active, passive, possessive) so they'd all get used equally somewhat lol. it fluctuates but this stuff is complicated and different for everyone. I love fucking shit up and actively going against gender norms. so...yeah

[kaydeefalls]

65 for Carthaginians, 66 for fic of your choice, 67, and 69 (always be fishing for recs)

Here we go!

65. If you wrote a sequel to [Carthaginians], what would happen in it?

LYKON MY BELOVED. Not the obvious answer, which I guess would be the followup of Yusuf and Nicolò searching for the lost Carthaginian children, but I honestly don't know how much of a story I have to tell there. However, the later ramifications of this particular canon divergence are fascinating to me, and having essentially swapped origin eras for Joe&Nicky vs. Lykon, I would love to dive into his alternate origin story. I spent way too long trying to pinpoint where in the early medieval period Lykon could have become immortal instead (for a single throwaway line in the one flashforward to present day scene), and it would be fun to explore that further. Or how the events of the movie play out differently with Lykon still part of the team - would he be the one to lose his immortality instead of Andy, since canonically he IS the first to die (and at only around 1000 years old, which is right around movie era in this AU)?

66. What’s a fun fact about [insert fic]?

I guess I'll go with what dreams may come (TOG fusion!AU with Inception), since that's the most recent fic I've posted. IDK how we define "fun fact" here, so here's something that pleased me when it finally came together. The fic alternates between past and present day scenes, and every single one of Nicky's dreams we see in a flashback shows up again in the nightmare Quynh traps him in. I did not plan that going in. I did not have the faintest idea how the final showdown was going to play out until just before I wrote it, and then had the absolute delight of patchworking all the prior dreams together into some kind of Frankenstein's monster of a dream. I'd struggled with writing most of that fic, but that section came together SO easily in the end. Love it when I subconsciously lay my own breadcrumbs trail.

67. If a fic was titled [insert made up title], what would this story be about/how would you write it?

...I'm not sure how to answer this one without the made up title of choice! But titles rarely come first for me. When I'm very, very lucky, they come relatively early on in the writing process, and not in a desperate scramble at the last possible minute. Though I do sometimes have titles sitting in the back of my head for years, waiting for the right fandom/fic to show up for them. Always satisfying when one of those finds a home. (I do currently have one of those on the backburner - a line from my wife's favorite poem - but the WIP in question hasn't coalesced properly yet.)

69. What are your favorite fics at the moment?

Okay, so I'm currently doing a deep dive into Heartstopper fandom, which uh I'm not sure anyone else here would care about, and I'm kinda casting the net pretty wide at the moment in that sort of new(ish) fandom haze, where I'm not as picky as I normally would be, but also everything I've read is kind of starting to blur together? I wish I thought to bookmark fics more - I use author subscriptions instead of bookmarks for my own personal reference, but that's uh less helpful in a new fandom where I don't actually remember any author's username out of context. The most recent fics I've bookmarked (in ANY fandom) are:

like in the dramas by shoutowo (Heartstopper) - canon divergence where Charlie and Tao start fake dating after Charlie gets outed, and the ensuing complications once he meets Nick; it's just super charming and a fun subversion of the fake dating trope, and Charlie's repeated attempts to fake-break-up with Tao amuse me greatly.

That Was the River, This Is the Sea by @what-alchemy (TOG) - modern AU for Joe/Nicky, I fucking love the way this fic depicts them both, and how REAL they feel. I can't speak from a cis gay male experience, being a queer woman, but the depiction of Joe and Nicky's desire for each other in this fic is the closest I've ever read to the way my many queer male friends talk about sex and relationships, it just rings so unbelievably true to me. And also it's just lovely.

...apparently I've only bookmarked two new fics in 2024? Ugh. I really need to use bookmarks more often. But genuinely I'm just in a weird Heartstopper reading haze at the moment and I don't know what to rec because I'd have to track them back down again first, and my brain is not capable of that at 1am, whoops. 🤦‍♀️

[lazywitchling]

Review: The House Witch by Arin Murphy-Hiscock

3.5/10 - This could have been a zine. As it stands, I was not the target audience for this book.

Maybe I'm just being mean since I read this one directly after Queering Your Craft, but my goodness I don't think I was the target audience for this one. I am cis-adjacent girl-not-woman, single, living at home with my highly conservative christian parents, and keep my craft in the closet. This book is for a cis-woman who is probably married, runs a household, has a couple of children, and is the spiritual-head-of-household who teaches the kids to say their prayers to the abstract Divine every night before they turn on their essential oil humidifier for bedtime.

It sure would be lovely to live in the world that Arin does, where I could consult with the other family members about their particular Spiritual Beliefs (TM) and integrate those into an Altar in the kitchen where we all make our offerings and say our prayers to the household spirits, but that is not the world I live in. If I tried to start that conversation at home, I'd very quickly wind up with a very aggressive visit from the local pastor who spoke at a rally for 45. Thanks, Arin, but I'm... gonna skip the build-an-altar-in-your-kitchen-and-invite-your-family-to-participate step.

So here's the thing. (And I'm starting to notice that this is a pattern with a lot of the witch books I read...) I would probably have loved this book if it were more of a personal memoir than a How To Witch 101 guide. And I get the feeling that this was more of a problem with publishing than with the author. I mean I could practically feel Arin bursting at the book-seams to tell me about how she practices her witchcraft spirituality in her home, but instead she's stuck trying to write about Hearthcraft (TM) as if it's a universal thing, since that's what's easiest to sell. The whole book feels like it's formatted and marketed to be a Witchcraft 101 book, but it doesn't do it well at all. In fact, in the beginning of the book, Arin practically scolds the reader by saying 'this is a spiritual path, not a magic one, and if you want a magic one, go get a book about magic.' Like... Arin, honey, your book is called The House Witch. I thought I was reading a book about witchcraft.

Furthermore, it feels like this book is filled up with a whole lot of pillow fluff to fill in the gaps. Did we need a whole chapter of cauldron mythology that we never ended up tying into anything else in the book? Did we need that? It seems like there's a lot of stuff in this book that was just put in for a page count; something to make the book seem like it has the wide-appeal of a Witchcraft 101 book. But it just came across as... idk, not genuine.

I just keep coming back to how much I would have loved to hear about Arin's own personal practice that she's so clearly passionate about!

Hey, but also... this book was an organizational mess. Why was the cookie recipe in the chapter with the cauldron lore instead of in the recipe chapter? Why were the instructions on making a clay figure of a household spirit in the chapter with the imaginary altar instead of in with the chapter on household spirits, or the chapter on crafts? Why was there a section on ethics sandwiched in between a section about talking to a tree spirit and a section about talking to a blender spirit, instead of in with the cooking chapter when we actually referenced ethics?

-sigh-

Look, while there wasn't really anything in this book that made me go "Oh wow that's a great idea, I need to use that!" there were a few sections that made me say "Hey, that particular thing is not of use to me, but the idea behind it absolutely is, and I should look into that." Which, once again, comes back to how much I wish this book was a personal memoir. Finding the little nuggets of information that told me what Arin does and how and why were so much more useful than the vague-and-generic step-by-step instructions of... whatever the instructions were for.

BTW, I read through this whole book, and I still am not sure of the definition of "spiritual" nor of "hearth" that we were using. I never did figure out if "hearth" meant "fireplace" or "center of the home" or "kitchen" or what.

Ultimately I came out of the book more confused than I was going in. It's not the worst witch book I've read -- [waves to Skye Alexander] -- and I did get at least some things out of it that I can ponder on my own. But man... idk what that book was for. I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

[dotster001]

Hi, dot!

You mentioned "queer platonic relationships." Legitimate question (and I really hope I'm not being insensitive by asking; I genuinely don't understand and wish to): is that not just a friendship? Or is it more just specifying the fact that it's friendships with non-cis and/or non-hetero people?

It can be just a friendship? The way I view it, is a friend who you do stuff that would be reserved for a romantic relationship usually. Almost friendship, but more, and maybe your friends and family always assume you guys have a crush on each other.

Or like, a bonded pair of animals. You separate them, and they die of the big sads.

My dream qpr, is that we live together, we raise our adopted kids together, we take care of each other when we are sick, we're emotional support for one another, we go everywhere together... Someone who we both know each other better than anyone else in the world knows us. We play house together... Basically, my dream qpr member is essentially a romantic partner...but without the romantic part.

Idk if that made sense, it's kind of a tricky concept. As someone without romantic emotions, I see the vision, but I get how not everyone would...😅 And, like everything that the aro aces like, it's a spectrum, so different people would like different things in their qpr

Idk, if other people wanna sound off in the comments or in reblogs that might help 😂

Tbh, I think anyone can have a QPR. We all knew those kids at school who were childhood friends, and inseparable, and they still are to this day, and you'd almost think they could date, but you know they don't feel that way about eachother...I think that's also a QPR, just without a label?