#US out of my uterus

[lenbryant]

Making it illegal to use the roads to travel to a free state is so authoritarian dictator.

[wis-art]

I was busy doing commissions and dealing with chronic pain, but it's still lesbian visibility week so i hope you all feel seen :)

Both characters are trans women (she/her)

[nose-coffee]

ur supposed to get one period a month yea? not me. i'm periodmaxing. we're on the fourth month of the year and guess how many periods i've had. brother, we are solidly on no. 7

[soldier-poet-king]

Will my suffering never cease

- went to good Friday evening service even tho it's not a day of obligation, didn't go yesterday evening to Maundy Thursday for a variety of reasons

- priest manages to fit homophobia and transphobia into his sermon. Not even gay marriage. Just unions, that let ppl share taxes and have hospital visiting rights. And big bad scary surgery. Like. Completely unrelated to the matter at hand. Says SO LITTLE abt the Passion, managed to talk for 10 minutes without really saying ANYTHING. Takes Pilate's 'what is truth' and instead of engaging in the long philosophical and theological discussion around that question, decides to use it as a rallying cry against wokeism and a godless progressive society.

- my two ex best friends were there. Ran into them. + One's husband, who I introduced her to a decade ago. Like I'm mostly over that, no longer shitty and resentful, fully know that it was partially my fault and born from my own terribleness at 19 and undiagnosed untreated mental illness. Still uhhh hurts tho??? As a reminder?

- music bad. Ok I'm petty. I'll give the trads (1) point. I don't like guitar mass. I will NOT agree with the trads in assigning moral weight to my aesthetic preference. It's simply a preference, which does not make any musical form inherently superior to the others. But the triduum really lends itself to Latin hymns and chants, in my heart. My other fave church music is traditional Black spirituals. I would greatly prefer either. But just. If it sounds like an acoustic version of a pop love song. I just. I can't. I KNOW I'm the weird about Jesus romantically girlie. But I am not vibin with this folks

Literally would have simply Walked Out. Hit da bricks during the homily. But was with my family so 1) cannot out myself 2) did not have house keys on me, so I was suck regardless

Anyway I said I wasn't going to do fun things today but I'm so upset and cranky and I did chores all day, I am going to catch up on dungeon meshi. Marcille is my best favourite cringefail girl I'm obsessed with her and surely the wlw neurotic fussy mage who loves her friends will not betray me like this

[derpinette]

when i exchange a message whether i receive or send one i have to immediately shut off my device & walk some laps for a few minutes to shake off the adrenaline rush

[fandom-blackhole]

Being on your period is all about sitting in the weirdest off the wall positions just to find a modicum of comfort

[hella1975]

“hello, it’s maintenance” NOOOOO

[aeide-thea]

As soon as I stopped talking about myself in second person, it sucked the defensive posturing, language, and energy out of most of the conversations I had with people, both in person and online.

Quick recap on first, second, third person

First person uses: I, me, mine, we, etc. Second person uses: you, yours, etc. Third person uses: they, she, he, her, him, their, it, etc.

What the hell I mean by “talking about myself in second person”

“Oh, you know, when you’re trying to get out the door for work in the morning, and it’s just one thing after another. First you break your favorite coffee mug, then you can’t find your keys, then you drop your purse and spill everything out. You know that kind of day?”

I’m not actually talking about “you” in that paragraph. Not until the last sentence. I’m actually describing ME, a morning I experienced. But, I’m not simply describing my day and asking if “you” (the person I’m speaking to) knows what I mean. I’m, with my speech, assuming they’ve shared this experience, and talking about it as if it’s a shared experience that they do know. Further, I’m assuming, with my language, that they feel about it the same way I do.

Some experiences ARE universal. … I think. Maybe. If we take care to talk about them vaguely enough and don’t include details which vary from person to person. Many experiences are NOT universal.

The BIG and UNNECESSARY gambles that talking about myself in second person takes

When I project my experience onto someone, unless my projection “feels good” to them, chances are they’ll want to defend themselves against it.

It could be that they have a negative perception of the experience, or the kind of person who has had that experience. Some really put together not-clumsy folks (whose hands don’t occasionally just spasm open and launch something across the room for no reason) look down on forgetful, clumsy experiences like this morning I just described. Some people feel shame when they themselves are clumsy. When I describe THEM as being clumsy and forgetful that does NOT feel good to them.

It could be that I’m describing something as negative that they don’t believe is negative at all. For some people, this is a relatively NORMAL morning, which I’m describing as being abnormal and bad. Hence, I’m calling them abnormal and bad, and assuming they feel abnormal and bad about themselves.

It could be a dozen other scenarios I’ve not thought of.

THE ONLY way this kind of communication is successful is if we both share my experience and also my feelings and perception of the experience. And they’re open to sharing those feelings with me.

There’s no reason for me to make that one scenario the only successful communication scenario. Nor to leave so many possibilities for defensiveness.

What I can say instead

I can just use the first person. That’s it. It’s that simple.

“Oh, man, I’m having one of those mornings I do sometimes. Just trying to get out the door for work, and it’s been one thing after another. First I break my favorite coffee mug, then I can’t find my keys, then I drop my purse and spill everything out. You know that kind of day?”

In this scenario, I’m not asking the other person to picture themselves having this awful day. They don’t think about their coffee mug breaking, nor having trouble finding their own keys. I’m not insinuating anything about how put-together or not-put-together they are. Or what they feel about this kind of day. I’m just sharing what happened to me, and letting them picture me instead of themselves as I describe it. When I say “you” in this version, I actually DO mean the person I’m speaking to, and NOT myself.

With this version of the story, my communication has a much better chance of being successful. That is, of me being able to accurately paint a picture of what I’m describing without introducing unnecessary barriers to the information.

If someone CAN imagine this happening, and they’re willing to keep talking, then I’ve succeeded. They don’t have to respond to their own emotions about my assumptions about them. They can instead just listen and respond to me.

It CAN sometimes be good to speak about an experience in this way, assuming it is shared

It actually CAN be a useful bonding tool, to assume with my language that the experience and my feelings about it are shared. It can feel good to both of us not to be alone in this life and all the crazy, horrible, beautiful things that happen to us in it.

It’s just that that’s ONLY helpful to do when it’s TRUE.

This has been a weirdly hard habit to break, but soooo worth it

Turns out, when I’m really craving to know I’m not alone in something, or when I feel vulnerable, I WANT it to be a shared experience. I really, really WANT it to be true that it HAS happened to the person I’m talking to, and that they share my feelings. At least, that’s why I think this habit really took hold of me. It’s also true that this was the way adults around me spoke when I was a kid, and I just learned it the same way I learned all language.

The payoff in breaking this habit has been HUGE though.

My sloppy language use in mixing up what is “me-stuff” and what is “them-stuff” had meant I actually never had to THINK about the possibly different experiences and perspectives of myself and people I spoke with. Assuming, with my language, that both our experiences and perspectives of those experiences were the same meant that I was actually ASSUMING these things were true in reality.

Turns out, as soon as I stop to think about my word use, and sort out if I am talking about me or them, I actually have to STOP and THINK about the two of us as being different.

This has been a goddamn gold mine. For real.

It allows me to be open to other people sharing something different about what I say. I don’t feel closed off and defensive if they don’t share my experience. I’m already entertaining the idea that they might feel differently about this kind of experience, or that they might NEVER have had it at all, and have only an outsider’s perspective of it.

I end up holding FEWER assumptions about other people, because I’m not making those assumptions about them when I speak about myself. Because I’m making fewer assumptions about them, there’s fewer things for them to feel defensive about.

I also am able to feel so much more clarity, in my own mind, about when I *am* actually talking about other people, and not myself. This has been additionally really helpful to my healing from codependency.

So there it is, my favorite communication life hack: When I’m talking about me, my experience, my life, I talk in the first person. It means I’ve stopped projecting myself onto the people I speak with, and thus, they don’t have to defend themselves against my projection onto them.

[1zashreena1]

Alright I'm gonna say it

I don't want "mess free" period sex. Menstrual cycles are messy. There's pain and bullshit intolerance and cramps and weird sensations and headaches and cravings and mood issues and swelling and uncertainties and poop. The reality of a period IS messy. Stop perpetuating the patriarchal myth that women/uterus bearers/period havers should be neat and clean and prim and proper

If you wanna have mess free period sex then by all means do what you gotta do! Put that rag towel down! Use a disc/cup! Do it in the shower! Don't use insertion! Refrain entirely if that's your thing!

But ffs can we stop with the societal expectation that periods need to be palatable and nonthreatening to people who don't have them?? That our bodies are not consumable and marketable objects to those who simply want to use us??? Unfuck you because you ain't getting access to mentruating bits if you can't handle the menstruation part

[jessie-tries]

Roman and Remus switching color schemes for a day because yes

[chaoswillcalmusdown]

ngl i'm obviously grateful for the fact that medication exists that can make me function as a human without the extreme period cramps once a month and without the vomiting due to pain.

but the fact that the medication instantly and very obviously also made me. like. fully numb to life. is really not fun and i really don't think it's fair that those are the two like........... options... that exist

[churchydragon]

I fucking hate pre-menstrual and present-menstrual rage. I want to explode into a million crickets

[casual-eumetazoa]

I’m having surgery on Monday (it’s elective and I’m very glad to be having it) which means I will spend all of next week and possibly more laying in bed and doing nothing. 

Therefore I am collecting suggestions for TV shows, YT video essays, YT videos in general, and podcasts (fiction and non-fiction). Sci-fi and horror are my go-to genres for everything fiction. For video essays / podcasts: science and literature are my preferred topics but I am willing to watch 10 hours of someone talking about, idk, competitive dog grooming or 17th century Hungarian folklore if the essayist really cares about it. Though I am kind of tired of super political/depressing/heavy topic video essays tbh. Not in fiction! In horror, I go as hardcore as it gets.

So yeah, if anyone has suggestions, please throw them at me. Not taking recommendations for books cause my TBR is 47 positions long :) And it terms of games I’ve been playing nothing but Hollow Knight for the last 2 months and I don’t see that changing any time soon. 

[belfryprepz]

My period is gonna fucking kill me

[fruitvault]

Depression week concluded, I can be depraved again

[spoonyruncible]

I’m following the Roe v Wade horror show like

I promise you, in this one very specific thing we are as a meaningless sidenote. No one who is anti-choice is going to go, “Oh fuck, a bunch of queers I already hate and don’t consider men can get pregnant too? We have to put a stop to this immediately and give them their well deserved male privilege.” The pro-choice camp is more mixed, sure, but they don’t matter either because we are entirely irrelevant to any part of the equation.

There is a time and a place for this discussion. There are absolutely times when transmasc voices need to dominate a conversation, where that perspective is valuable and helpful to the issue at hand. Now is not one of them. This is a legal issue where gender is irrelevant and the only thing that matters is whose body has the necessary ingredients to react with sperm in a certain way. It’s nice to hear ‘people at risk of pregnancy’ or ‘people who menstruate’ but it’s not the end of the world if some otherwise well meaning person just says ‘women’.

Basically, if I see one more fucking post that says, “Ak-chewally, it’s a men’s issue too. Ur cis villagers are showing,” underneath a thinkpiece or comment on the erosion of women’s rights I will scream and upset my dog. If I see one more person attacked for saying “This wouldn’t happen if men could get pregnant,” then my dog will scream and upset me.

So many folks out here are for real seeing mpreg jokes about this very serious shit and responding with an earnest, “Not all men!”

To be perfectly clear, I’m not talking about voicing your personal feelings on this or about how it will be bad in a specific way for trans men or how you wish you didn’t feel left out of the conversation. I mean, very particularly, the multitude of people who have decided that the single most important thing, the main dog they have in this fight, is that trans men can also sometimes experience pregnancy. It keeps reading like, “Stop calling this a women’s issue! Infertile women, trans women, and women past the age of menopause have nothing to do with this!”