#Trans stuff

[lizardho]

So, I was a Theater Gay in HS (I didn’t know I was gay but I got like one too many piggyback rides from tall strongfat theater guys to be heterosexual, like, let’s be realistic here) and I ended up with a TON of good memories from my experiences in theater. Not enough to make high school a good memory, but enough to make it enjoyable for at least an hour every day. And those friendships meant (and still mean) a lot to me.

Well, like a good little Mor(m)on fuckup I went on a mission and lost touch with a lot of people I really REALLY cared about. So when me and my gay thoughts got back from my mission and went back to BYU, I was THRILLED to find an old friend from my theater class! Like, woohoo right? And because we were close before I asked if he wanted to grab dinner and catch up, and he said “yes!” and I was like “NICE” because I got to spend some time with a familiar face after way too long.

Then, two days before the fucking dinner was set up he calls me and says “Hey, I asked a girl to come with us and I’d rather this be a double-date,” and I said “I don’t have a girlfriend man” and he said “Well, find a date or don’t show up because I don’t want you third-wheeling.”

Objectively, that is the dickest of dick moves, but I REALLY wanted to catch up with this guy so I decided I’d give it a shot. The next day in class I explained the situation to some girls I was friends with and asked if they could come with me as a “date” – I promised I’d pay for everything and it’s a No Strings Attached sort of deal so it was not a serious thing – they said they had plans already, which, fair, it’s the weekend, why wouldn’t they?

So I just kept asking people I knew, but I was SEVERELY depressed so I had like 6 people I could talk to who I knew, and they all had other plans already, so I figured, “Fuck it, let’s see what happens” and started just asking people at random (which is weird but a little less weird at BYU). I got a bunch of “No, but good luck” responses which was fair because I wouldn’t have dated me either tbh I was falling apart and I went to all my classes in PJs so I didn’t exactly look like I’d be a fun person to spend time with.

I go home and tell my (gorgeous) roommate I had asked out something like 25 women that day and been turned down by all of them. One of my roommates tried to roast me but he was a bigger loser than I was so he got shut down quick. My roomie’s gf asked if I wanted her to set me up with someone and I said I’d be fine with that if she could find anyone. He texted me later saying she couldn’t find anyone who didn’t have plans and I just figured I wasn’t gonna get the chance to catch up with my friend.

I went for a walk to think about options when I bumped into ANOTHER familiar face – it was @inbabylontheywept ‘s ex from high school. She had really disliked me for some reason in HS but she recognized me and I recognized her and we started talking. She asked me what I was doing and I explained the situation and she said

“Oh, that guy is such a jerk, I hate that. Do you want me to go with you?”

and I was like,

“Yeah”

So we exchanged numbers and I went home and then thought about it and called Babs and he was like “That sounds like a sucky situation all around but that’s cool she’s willing to go with u” and I was like “slay” and that was it. We went on the ‘date,’ it was actually pretty nice, me and Babs’ ex caught up and cleared the air and that was good, I caught up with my friend who had become a militant shartflop on his mission so I didn’t really feel too bad about losing him as a friend later. We ended the date and I went home.

I have no moral to this story besides “Mormon dating is a shitshow” and “friends from high school sometimes become catastrophically altered for the worse and that’s just a thing you have to deal with” I guess?

Anyways, hope y’all are doing OK – I love y’all and appreciate that my Tumblr is turning into a place to talk about my weird stories. On the topic of Mormons being weird about sex, I should unleash the tale of my Niceguy™ roomie one of these days.

[transvispostsxoxo]

Hey 👋 sweet boy 😇I’m bored and lonely here 😇💦🍆

Reblog if You find T girls attractive? HMU if you can keep my little secret 😇 Hit me up so we can get to know each other🤗🍆

Inbox 📥 me privately:

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My Signal 💬 AllGloryontop.38

[so-i-did-this-thing]

how has T affected your voice? When did it stop changing? How does it feel, i gues? (this is one of the main things I'm scared of, any insights whatsoever would be greatly appreciated!! ps love your style and you seem very cool!!)

Howdy, and thank you!

I have a 3 vs 15 year voice comparison here. I wish I still had my old pre-T voice clips, but they are likely on one of any number of external hard drives I have lost track of.

My voice dropped a bit in pitch, but mainly gained resonance and a reedy quality. Even though my voice makes me dysphoric, I pass on the phone, sound a lot like 2 of my cis male co-workers, and even more masculine-sounding than a third.

Most of the major changes happened within a year, though my singing range took years to settle. I had a very fun period where my singing voice was very scratchy, perfect for singing rock operas. I still don't have a very good falsetto, and if I don't put enough power behind my mid and high range, it's absolutely dreadful sounding. If singing is important to you, get a vocal coach that understands the trans masc voice.

It feels strange when you lose the upper range, like you're climbing what you thought was an 8' ladder, but you discover it's only 6' - you reach for a note and nothing comes out.

The lower pitch and resonance are fun, and I enjoy when I'm able to rumble, usually in the mornings and when I've got a cold. I have noticed, though, that if I stress my voice too much with shouting (say, trying to be heard in a noisy bar), my voice will strain and do the same teenage-style cracking like it did when it first began to change. Rather embarrassing, as it takes a full day or so for me to go back to normal.

The worst for me, though, was that my sense of pitch got destroyed and I had to rebuild it. Most of us sub-vocalize, which means we set our throat when we speak in our heads, close to the way we'd set it as when we speak aloud. (Try it - think a few sentences in your head right now and see if your vocal chords shift around a bit.) But when your voice changes quickly, like it tends to do on T, your internal voice is still catching up to your external, so there is a mismatch between what the ear hears and what the brain expects. It's like playing a very poorly tuned piano, to where you hit the "C" key, but an "A" comes out, instead. As a professional musician, it fucked me up to the point where it affected my playing (I'm an oboist), and I had to re-train my ear. Luckily, I was capable of doing that on my own, as a teacher of many years.

tldr; I suggest a vocal coach who is familiar with the trans voice, if certain qualities are important to you. It's still a crapshoot what you'll end up with -- some of it is fun, some of it embarrassing. And it can take years to fully settle. It isn't painful, but it is a change that happens fairly early into HRT for most of us, so you need to be prepared to deal with that.

[cappuccinoandglitter]

BE CAREFUL WITH THIS IF YOU'RE IN THE US AND RELY ON HEALTH INSURANCE!!

I started HRT 20 years ago. Back then, my doctor HAD to use unspecified endocrine disorder to get the prescription through the insurance. And it was a pain in the butt even then.

Things changed since then, gender affirming care became more accepted and available. Especially with the ACA (remember Obamacare?).

The last time I changed jobs and insurance changed with it, my hormones got denied because they didn't have it in my records that I'm trans and they only cover it for trans people.

Changing it back might end up being necessary, who knows? But don't jump the gun unless your insurance changes their policies or you can afford your meds out of pocket.

I know people aren't here for the news, but trans folks, I'm thinking of you tonight and how you deserve better.

[beautifultransqueen]

Dm if you can go down on your knees and get some sucking work done🍆💦

My telegram link below

Zangi 1003817524

REBLOG TRANS LOVERS 💏

[earlgraytay]

So the "don't call trans women dude" discourse is back on my dash, and I just read something that might explain why it's such a frustrating argument for everyone involved.

TLDR: There's gender-cultural differences that explain why people are arguing about this- and a reason it hurts trans women more than you might think if you were raised on the other side of the cultural divide.

I'll admit, I used to be very much on team "I won't call you 'dude' if it feels like misgendering, but also I don't really grok why it feels like I'm misgendering you, especially if I'm not addressing you directly." But then I read an academic paper that really unpicked how people used the word 'dude' (it's Kiesling (2004) if you're curious) and I realized that the way I was taught to use the word was different from the way most trans women were taught.

... So the thing about the word 'dude' that's really interesting is that it's used differently a) by people of different genders and b) across gender lines. This study is, obviously, 20 years old, but a lot of the conclusions hold up. The gist is, there's ~5 different ways that people use the word "dude":

marking discourse structure- AKA separating thoughts. You can use the word 'dude' to signal that you're changing the subject or going on a different train of thought.

exclamation. You can use the word "dude" the way you'd use another interjection like "oh my god" or "god damn".

confrontational stance mitigation. When you're getting in an argument with someone, you can address them as 'dude' to de-escalate. If you're both the same gender, it's homosocial bonding. If you're different genders, it's an attempt to weaken the gender-related power dynamic.

marking affiliation and connection. Kiesling calls this 'cool solidarity'- the idea is, "I'm a dude, you're a dude. We're just guys being dudes." This is often a greeting or a form of address (aka directly calling someone dude).

signaling agreement. "Dude, you are soooo right", kind of deal.

Now, here's the important part.

When [cis] men use the word 'dude', they are overwhelmingly using it as a form of address to mark affiliation and connection- "hey, we're all bros here, dude"- to mitigate a confrontational stance, or to signal agreement.

When [cis] women use the word 'dude', they're often commiserating about something bad (and marking affiliation/connection), mitigating a confrontational stance, or giving someone a direct order. (Anecdotally, I'd guess cis women also use it as an exclamation - this is how I most often use it.)

Cis men use the word 'dude' to say 'we're all guys here'. It is a direct form of male bonding. If a cis man uses the word 'dude' in your presence, he is generally calling you one of the guys.

Cis women use the word 'dude' to say 'we're on the same level as you; we're peers'- especially to de-escalate an argument with a cis man. Between women, it's an expression of ~cool solidarity~; when a woman's addressing a man, it's a way to say 'I'm as good as you, knock it off'.

So you've got this cultural difference, depending on how you were raised and where you spent time in your formative years. If you were assigned female at birth, you're probably used to thinking of the word 'dude' as something that isn't a direct form of address- and, if you're addressing it to someone you see as a girl, you're probably thinking of it as 'cool solidarity'! You're not trying to tell the person you're talking to that they're a man- you're trying to convey that they're a cool person that you relate to as a peer.

Meanwhile, if you were assigned male at birth and spent your teens surrounded by cis guys, you're used to thinking of 'dude' as an expression of "we're all guys here", and specifically as homosocial male bonding. Someone using the word 'dude' extensively in your presence, even if they're not calling you 'dude' directly, feels like they're trying to put you in the Man Box, regardless of how they mean it.*

So what you get is this horrible, neverending argument, where everyone's lightly triggered and no one's happy.

The takeaway here: Obviously, don't call people things they don't want to be called, regardless of gender! But no one in this argument is coming to it in bad faith.

If you were raised as a cis woman and you're using the word the way a cis woman is, it is a gender-neutral term for you (with some subconscious gendered connotations you might not have realized). But if you were raised as a cis man and you're using the word the way a cis man uses it, the word dude is inherently gendered.

Don't pick this fight; it's as pointless as a French person and an American person arguing whether cheek kisses are an acceptable greeting. To one person, they might be. To another person, they aren't. Accept that your worldview is different, move on, and again, don't call people things they don't want to be called.

*(There is, of course, also the secret third thing, where someone who is trying to misgender a trans woman uses the word 'dude' to a trans woman the way they'd use it to a man. This absolutely happens. But I think the other dynamic is the reason we keep having this argument.)

[uwuppa]

[lugarn]

The idea that all men are dangerous and all women are perfect angels destined to be future victims if they spend time around men is tied so deeply into fascist thinking and second-wave feminism. If you see somebody saying things that align with these ideas, even if they're not spouting transmisogynist shit at the moment, you can be assured that they believe these things because the ideas of men as predators and women as helpless.

Anybody who starts talking about inherent behaviors based on gender/sex, even good things, should be steered well clear of because they are already two-thirds of the way to the beliefs needed to support transmisogyny.

The most frustrating part of being trans is that you can't win.

My uni has quite a few all-gender washrooms. (Specifically all-gender, cis people are absolutely encouraged to use them). And despite the fact that there are womens washrooms everywhere on campus as well, I've had cis women treat me with borderline disgust when I use the all-gender bathroom. I've had people tell me that "sure, its all genders, but when a cis man uses it its just weird".

And like. Thats the point! Even IF a cishet man using a washroom he is specifically allowed in was weird. Even then. You have to understand that no trans or nonbinary person can safely use an all-genders washroom if using it means they are either trans or female.

Like to be very clear- I am a cis-passing trans man. There are so many reasons I feel more comfortable in a non-gendered washroom. Even if I was cis I woild likely want to, because I am gnc and don't always feel safe in purely male spaces. And even if I was the cissest, hetesst, most gender conforming man on the planet, I might still want to use it because its closer to my classes.

And really, this all comes back to this deeply transmisoginistic idea that Men Are A Threat to Women in Womens Washrooms,, which. If I have to explain to you why this is purely a propagandistic falsehood I really think you need to do a gender 101 course.

Gender neutral washrooms cannot be "women Lite washrooms". In order to protect trans people, at all stages of coming out and transition and of all presentations, for the love of god stop dictating who can use all-gender washrooms.

[my-castles-crumbling]

Tbh my favorite part of pride month is saying “AND DURING PRIDE MONTH TOO?” at every slight inconvenience.

[yournonbinarypal]

[comicallyqueer]

Old art :))

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Doing my part to wear suits/sportscoats and not look like a Business Bro.

Tagging @havinghorns for his wonderfully colorful throwback style

"the worst part of being a trans man is wearing boring plain masculine clothes" skill issue, i look cool as fuck

[assumptionprime]

I’m not yet used to the obstructed view (we made gingerbread houses today)

[thegoblinwitch]

scottish trans/the equality network have shared a how to and templates to email your mp/msp about the supreme court decision from april 16th if you're living in the uk. they have templates for both trans peeps and our allies.

if you live in the uk, please take a few minutes to do this (they even find who are your representatives so you don't have to do it yourself) and if you're from outside the uk, please take a moment to reblog for visibility. thank you.

[lizardho]

Before I knew I was bisexual I was just insanely dramatic and weird around guys I liked. I had a crush on this guy in my ward - he was older than me, he played bagpipes and had a cheerful dog and an old Volkswagen bus that he worked on all the time. He also had nice scruff and unnaturally attractive hands and a good sense of humor, so I was like FULLY smitten.

I talked about him a lot and about how he was just so dang COOL, dang it, because he was so frickin’ cool. And I really liked him. I thought he was funny and smart and interesting and cool and fascinating and a bunch of other weird feelings I barely had the attention span to think about (I think my ADHD may have prevented me from coming out for a while tbh).

One day, I’m like 14-15, his dad is called to be my Sunday School teacher. His dad is this ex-military hardass with a chip on his shoulder for absolutely no reason and unattainable standards for his children. He spent most of Sunday School talking shit about his eldest boy and how he was rebellious and didn’t listen to him and how that was going to make him a bad adult and a bad son forever. How his son was too lazy and unmotivated to be successful because he didn’t listen to his advice on how to read the scriptures. He complained about how our generation was too weak to do things right and that our generation would surely be the one that brought the world’s downfall because of our laziness and sin.

And like, first of all, that guy can already go fuck himself for that. To clarify, that’s already stupid. BUT. He was talking about the man I had uncomfortable dreams about at least once a month. I couldn’t stand it. I’d get so mad I’d go home shaking sometimes because how fucking DARE he insult his hardworking stunning son by calling him lazy? For not reading the Bible the way his dad wants? When he’s already spending his time learning bagpipes? And fixing cars? And being cool? And cute? Who the fuck even cares if he uses the footnotes in the Book of Mormon? Who gives a rotten rat’s ass if he doesn’t use the scripture study manual his dad uses? He’s so cool he doesn’t even need it? So fuck off?

And eventually I got fucking Sick Of It and decided to mutiny. And by mutiny, I mean skip class. I’d just not go. And after a bit, adults started noticing and bugging me about it. At first, this was put off by small talk and excuses, but as my absence from Sunday School became more well-known, my excuses began to be rejected.

“Oh, Lizard, why aren’t you in class?” Uhm idk because my Sunday School teacher is mean to his kid and that makes me so mad wtf do you want from me? 🫠🤔

“Where’s your class, I’ll go with you!” Oh no ty I’d rather peel my own eyes than have my taste in men critiqued tyty 🩷

“Lizard, you should go to class, I’m sure they miss you!” And I miss the innocent days where my stomach didn’t hurt when a cool boy I knew was being belittled but unfortunately for us both those days are LONG gone and all that’s left is a budding psychosexual clusterfuck that will render me almost fully incapable of functioning for the better part of a decade so Bye Bye, sister Smith 🙂‍↕️

It had gotten to the point that ward leadership was involved. I was being approached by members of the Young Men’s presidency and the Bishopric to try and make me to back to class. They were telling me God had told them to find me and instruct me on my rebelliousness. This is where I implemented my secret weapon - women. Mormons are weird as hell about a lot of things, but especially about women. And I was GREAT with women. So to combat the leadership’s attention, I started helping women.

Our ward had a lot of new moms with babies who were, as babies tend to be, fussy. But for Mormon women the church is often their only social outlet, so they try to power through as long as they can even if it means enduring the exhausting ordeal of taking care of a fussy baby at church.

For what it’s worth, I have a lot of sway with babies. I got baby street cred. Me and babies have a rapport. I have always known this. I have always loved this. And in this crucial gay time in my faggot life my baby mind powers came in clutch - Every time I saw a member of the bishopric getting close, or a young men’s leader giving me side-eye, I’d start walking slowly towards class, passing by relief society. I’d wait until a mom’s baby had gotten too fussy and needed to leave the room, and I’d swoop in like a knight. “Oh, don’t you worry sister, I’ll bounce him a bit. You go back and hang out with your friends in class. You deserve a break.”

If it was a diaper change or something they’d tell me no. But if it was just some good old-fashioned baby fusses, I mean, they’d be moved almost to tears. They just got their social time back AND a free babysitter who is renowned as the Baby Whisperer. And because I was holding a baby as a favor for someone else, I of course could not reasonably be bothered to return to class.

So just like that, I was out of everyone’s sights. This went on for about a month before the straw that broke the camel’s back, which was that without my class participation the classes were quiet and awkward. I’d often take the brunt of Sunday school lectures by answering questions impulsively and over explaining myself enough that the clock could run out without anyone needing to do or say much. My absence meant everyone else was getting hit with the full unpleasantness of this guy’s bullshit. And so slowly, one-by-one, I had a group of about 8 kids on baby-holding duty. These new moms were so overjoyed, they and their husbands were both so actively in our corner that now chastising us was untenable. Now we had bargaining power. So the Bishopric approached us, confused beyond confused and uncomfortable beyond uncomfortable, and said,

“What’s it gonna take to get you back to class?”

The POWER I possessed in that moment was addictive. By being kind to the women of the ward and ignoring the Mormon de facto Rule of Law of following rules en-masse so the rule breakers feel left out, there were now so many people breaking ranks that we had effectively enacted a church boy labor strike. And they crumbled so fast it was almost like we had swayed God himself to our cause.

“I want brother assholedad gone. He sucks at teaching.”

I didn’t even have to say it. One of my rebels said it for me. I just nodded sagely and said “Yes, his class is not edifying. It’s better to not go and hold babies.”

And just like that, with a snap of my limp-wristed, Christ-wounding, bottom-brained fingers my faggot will was enacted. God’s revelation that brother shitdad was his chosen Sunday school teacher flipped on a dime. Suddenly brother shitdad was asked to be an usher and the fun dad of another one of my crushes was called in to teach us. I still stayed to hold babies a lot, but the rest of the class returned and all was well again.

Although I didn’t recognize it then, I think that was a formative moment for me in a lot of ways. I learned that being really persistently annoying will get me what I want from authority eventually. I learned that God’s will can be swayed by going in strike. I learned that ignoring men’s made up authority forces them to level with you as a person. I learned that caring for women, especially vulnerable women, can make a whole world happier. I learned that letting women rest can help them feel more love for the things that matter in their life. I learned that social bonds make everyone stronger and happier. And I learned that loving others in a gay way can change the world.

Be gayer. Read Terry Pratchett. I love y’all 💕