#and drag queens just have to have been amab

[renthony]

In which I'm angry about intersexism from trans people. Again.

"AFABs don't experience [thing experienced by intersex people of all assigned genders]!" is getting really fucking old. People re-inventing the sex and gender binary through their weird fucking fixation on "are you AMAB or AFAB? Are you TMA or TME?" is exhausting.

I'm tired of existing in trans spaces as a trans person, only to realize how actively hostile those spaces are to intersex people. I don't bother to go to the local trans support group, because my experiences there when I first tried to attend were fucking rancid. Trans people of all assigned sexes and all genders act like I don't belong there, and I hit my limit on that shit real fast. It's exhausting, it's alienating, and it's fucking miserable!

Trans people, you have got to fucking stop acting like intersex people don't exist. You have got to fucking stop acting like you own the concept of sex and gender based violence. You have got to fucking stop acting like transfem and transmasc are a set, incorruptible binary. You have got to fucking stop acting like your fucking bullshit in-fighting isn't affecting people who aren't you.

I'm tired of intersex people discussing our own experiences only to get shit all over by perisex trans people who want to put everyone in a binary.

I'm tired of watching intersex people get treated like shit by terfs and transphobes, only for perisex trans people to accuse us of "appropriating trans struggle" when we talk about it.

I'm tired of talking about my experiences as an intersex trans person only to get constantly hit with endless variations on "shut up, theyfab" or "um, you're TME."

I'm tired of talking to my transfem friends and partners, us relating to each other on our similar experience, and then having random other trans people on the internet decide that, actually, I'm a raging transmisogynist who doesn't value trans women and is trying to "appropriate" their struggle. Never mind how many of my own experiences I've been able to articulate thanks to the support of trans women in my life.

Perisex trans people, do better. Y'all fucking suck! Y'all fucking treat intersex people like total shit! Fuck you for using us as rhetorical devices against transphobes and then ignoring our actual needs and struggles!

I go outside and people call me a tranny with a freak ugly beard. I get targeted by all the same bathroom bills and public policy trying to force trans people out of the public. I get people asking me if I have a dick. I get people aggressively calling me "sir" in public. I started getting called a "he-she" when I was a child. When I started developing breasts, a family member told me they weren't "real titties, just extra fat." I have had total strangers tell me I "look like a fat man" when I got upset at being misgendered. I get "helpful advice" from strangers about how to shave "properly," even though I didn't fucking ask, nor do I intend to shave my beard. I've had people tell me I have "tranny feet" and tell me to "try the drag queen shoe store" when I talk about how hard it is to find women's shoes that fit me. I have been the subject of nasty rumors about what's between my legs and why I "try to look like a woman." I'm not a woman, mind you, but I still get treated as a "wrong woman" by society.

But when I talk about all these things? When I seek support? Trans people of all genders call me a TME theyfab who is appropriating transfem struggles.

I still don't understand how I'm the one "appropriating" when it's the outside world calling me a tranny he-she freak.

But whatever. I guess I just have to accept that intersex people are subhuman to perisex people, even the trans ones. 🤷‍♂️

[snekdood]

Ur gonna hafta rip drawing my ocs in fashionable designs from my cold hands, even if theyre cishet

[littleeyesofpallas]

Bleach’s Issue with Queer characters (2/3)

...

Dordonii might seem like a weird one to point out here, compared to some of the more overt examples, but I think he had a fairly evident queer codedness to him.  His more overwhelming quality was his kind of Spanish flair, what with the tap shoes and Flamenco-esque poses and gestures, the devil horns in his greased hair and on his mask shard, and his little Mephistopheles mustache and beard.  But the ear ring, and Flamenco adjacent sex appeal mixed with the way he kind of baby talks Ichigo strikes me as contributing to a certain daddy-ish gay character type.  Also, I’ve never been 100% sure that it’s not just crosshatching, but I’ve always read it as some chest hair peaking out from his low v-neck.  But I feel like that assessment needs some qualifying context...

Western sensibilities tend to read effeminate features on men as a chief indicator of homosexuality, Japan has never been quite as narrowly focused with its own gay stereotypes.  There is definitely a particular character type in anime and manga that pins the preening vanity of smooth faced and long haired effeminate men on homosexuality, but it’s not really the go-to.  Tracing back to media trends of the 1970s the long haired, smooth chested pretty boy (even the gay ones) very much became the domain of female audiences and creators, where as the prevailing trends of gay portrayals by and for men actually settled more firmly on the hairy and muscular image that bara is associated with now.  I'm not about to do a whole big breakdown of the japanese gay subculture behind the bara thing, because that deserves more time and attentio that i can give it here, but you've got a keyword to work with now, so I encourage you to do a little googling yourself.

Also he has his right ear is pierced?  I don't know if this was ever a thing in Japan, but in America it became kind of a wide spread myth(?)  Originally it actually was a functioning kind of code within the queer community in the 1960s and 70s, but after it became somewhat more generally well known the practice more or less stopped, for pretty obvious practical reasons... but weirdly enough by the sheer power of stupid homophobia, straight people continued to scrutinize and be paranoid of men with pierced ears for decades following.  Again, though, I have no idea if either the original intent or the misinformation of that trend was ever anything that had any kind of Japanese presence...

Anyway... What I’m getting at is Dordonii feels very queer coded to me, just not in ways that everyone picks up on.  But speaking of muscular hairy gays...  Let’s talk about an elephant in the room:

Charlotte Chuhlhourne:

Obviously, Kubo doesn’t quite have the tact to make use of queer identities in a totally respectful way, so it’s hard to tell how much is attributable to Kubo making a character exactly as they appear, and what could be argued to be a character’s theoretical self-identifying terms filtered through Kubo’s limited vernacular.  But the word to know here is Okama[オカマ], which has traditionally referred to gay, AMAB transvestites.  Obvious stumbling point here is that prior to more widely codified and accepted trans identities this term applied to both transwoman and drag queens.

Granted until fairly recently(by which I mean within the relatively short spand my own lifetime) even the queer community at large didn’t always differentiate the two very well; presentation was presentation, the circumstances for it and the specificities of achieving it were personal choices, not taxonomical crossroads; some moonlit as queens and that was it, others would’ve lived as women and never walked a show in their life if that had been a practical option, others still were happily gender fluid, but the scene had one look and one label.  We made due with what we had.

Anyway...  point being that Charlotte’s character is specifically a play into an Okama stereotype.  That is to say, the archetypal look of Okama in Japanese media for many years has been a middle aged, square jawed, often broad or even muscular, drag queen.  Although Charlotte doesn’t actually have one, they are also frequently shown with a muzzle of stubble growing in.  Despite what you might think about jabs at the beard as a masculine feature betraying their feminine presentation, it’s actually not (usually) the reason...

The image comes out of Japan’s gay bar scene --in Tokyo, Shinjuku-Nichoume in particular-- which has long been a cultural centerpiece of Japan’s gay culture.  The larger Shinjuku ward as as whole is itself a commercial district.  So, to the general public who didn’t have any interaction with gay culture itself, the small glimpse they had was from the crossing paths of salarymen commuting into work as straggler okama headed home from the bars the morning after, still in drag and makeup but with unshaven stubble growing in after a long night.

(Also, just a side note on this, but if you’ve ever seen an older (usually bigger) woman with a deep, brassy voice in kind of sultry night attire at a bar referred to as “Mama,” it’s because that’s the owner of a okama bar.  She’s not literally anyone’s mother, she’s the defacto den-mother of sorts for the patrons of her bar.)

It’s still definitely not a flattering portrayal, but it’s one with a very specific history that doesn’t communicate to Western audiences at all.  But there is a certain strangeness to how the Japanese handle this, comparatively.  While Western rhetoric has its hangups with moralist preaching and bitching and moaning about “degeneracy” and “deviancy,” those judgments just aren’t baked into Japanese culture in quite the same way.  In fact, while most of these okama caricatures by and for cishetero creators/audiences are definitely not what anyone would call “good” representation, they do lack a certain expected malice.  Sure, flamboyant bafoonery is a constant in exploitation of gay culture on either side of the Pacific, but where as the West uses this as a means to disarm gay men --to make them non threatening, or to rationalize not taking them seriously-- anime manga and even videogames tend to fixate on the curiosity of it.

(although one enduring, generally positive case of this that actually seems to fly super under western audience’s radars are the great fairys in Zelda. which have maintained their extremely obvious dragqueen inspired look since OoT)

One of the first encounters with the okama charactertype that I only learned to identify looooong after the fact is the Magypsies (haha oh boy that localized choice of slur...) in Earthbound. On the one hand they were treated as a bizarre spectacle and literally not human, but they were magical and benevolent and a little comical but not in the way where they were relegated to being the punchline of a joke and nothing else. And I've found over the years that that tends to be the tone of these kinds of characters.

Another very similar case of this is Ivankov in One Piece, the Kamabakka kingdom Okama and Newkama, including Bonclay/Mr.2. (His "okama way" gimmick being a play on the hardboiled gritty actionhero cliche of a "man's way.")  Where on the one hand, it’s a disgusting, tacky use of the familiar okama cliches, but also their very existence as okama is painted as the basis of their unique form of super power?  Really, it’s just so wildly divorced from reality that it’s hard to even call it “representation,” harmful or otherwise...  Still, in impossibly poor taste based on optics alone, though.

This all is not to try and sweep under the rug that these are still ultimately problematic stereotypes and caricatures to have to debrief each new generation of viewer on just to avoid the slippery slope of total misinterpretation, but I've noticed that there is a distinct difference in how that tone is read. The overwhelming attitude I see from these creators is that these long standing cliches are how okama look and act, but that it makes them interesting or funny, and yes “other,” but rarely lesser.  Obviously that's still rooted deeply in ignorance on part of these non-queer creators, but you can see how it lacks the teeth that the western equivalent has, where such caricatures are explicitly there to defame and demonize, and I think that’s an important distinction to make.

(And let’s not even get into the issue of fake “woke” white people struggling to wrap their tiny brains around the idea of another culture by framing it as that culture’s unique idiosyncrasies as if they’re just failed attempts at conforming to white anglo-centric western values, because THAT is a whole other can of worms...)

To maybe put this into some better perspective here, Tier Harribel has blond hair and tan skin, and given what the Arrancar are and how they live she is presumably naturally dark skinned, and naturally blonde.  But her design is clearly based on gyaru/gal (or possibly ganguro) fashion, which makes use of fake tans and bleached hair.  She looks the way she does because she's made to look like that aesthetic, but looking the way she doesn't doesn't imply she bleaches and tans(presumably those colors are both natural on her in-world). 

That same relationship of image inspiring image while being divorced from meaning is just kind of how Kubo makes these kinds of aesthetic decisions, all across the board, problematic or not.  But of course no one really cares about it when it’s a weird recontextualization of the gal aesthetic because no one’s offended on their behalf.

And in general, I think a lot of these things are just so outside the Western perspective that even when they definitely are problematic, some people can’t even begin to grasp what about it is, and end up fabricating just nonsense arguments against it to rationalize a kneejerk kind of discomfort and confusion over the subject...

Anyway...  having said all that, the next one actually IS a huge problem...

[1][2][3]

[sawthatmountainburn]

I mean, I do think it's useful to have a way to articulate who transmisogyny affects cause like it's not "everybody" as some might want to claim, but it's annoying that even the pro tma/tme distinction side cannot decide on what it actually means. like the thing that made me lose faith in it was this

like ok, let's accept the premise that TMA doesn't just mean transfem (a loosely defined term anyway) and can include non-transfem drag queens, which are mostly cis queer men with some exceptions. following so far.

but then what makes someone TME is the ability to wield transmisogyny against transfems, which means cis guys are TME. and that's also perfectly reasonable, but it does cause issue with the previous statement that non-transfem drag queens are TMA. Ru-Fracking-Paul himself has been very transmisogynistic on numerous occasions and somehow, I don't think he's an outlier! there's also an argument to be made, and has been made by some transfems and even drag queens, that ceasing to be in drag is more akin to taking off a costume, whereas trying to stop being trans is straight up life threatening. and like, sure, there's nuance to this, but it's a very stark and obvious difference, right? so clearly not all, if any, non-transfem drag queens are TMA. hell, I think there's an argument to be made that drag is actually being attacked because it's a queer artform, like "degenerate art" was attacked by the original Nazis; something related to transmisogyny, but distinct from it.

so like, it's infinitely nuanced as a lot of things are, which would be fine except for the fact that people demand others identify themselves as TME/TMA in order to participate in these discussions. and if you're a binary trans person who doesn't crossdress in anyway, the distinction is easy to make, but for others not so much and sorry if this hurts anyone's feelings, but declaring that it's just not worth talking about those "others" because they're such a minority, is just classic marginalization.

and like idk if there's a real solution to this. in my mind, it makes more sense for TMA to apply only to trans people who were AMAB. then there can be a broader term for stuff which includes that + drag queens who don't fall into that category + femboys who also don't + ditto butches + intersex women who are perceived as more "mannish" + whomever I might be forgetting idk it's 6am. but idk I'm just one guy with a particular (autistic) way of understanding the world so the models I find to make sense, might not resonate with others, nor be particularly useful in analysis. but jfc I'm tired of this wishy-washy nonsense and I'm even more tired of how allergic its proponents are to criticism.

[newhologram]

”he/she/they” and wears female clothing all the time

Oh no, you caught me being femme! The worst crime!! How dare I be comfortable being feminine no matter where my gender lands on a given day. Quick, run, hide! I’ve been found out! Gender expression isn’t the same as gender identity, silly goose. You thought this was such an epic slam dunk on me but you’ve just embarrassed yourself by announcing how little you actually understand about anything at all. 😭 That’s okay though, I really love teachable moments like this. Thank you for the opportunity for me to give my followers the vocabulary needed for these kinds of interactions. So, duh, but being queer takes tremendous fortitude and thick skin for many reasons. Even coming from a place of privilege (born and raised in Los Angeles, not the kind of visibly queer that gets me in dangerous situations, etc), I went through multiple un-fabulous “coming-outs” since age 12, because you never really just come out once. (The Merry-Go-Round of Coming Out🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️) I get comments like this both from actual transphobes or from people within my community accusing me of being a “transtrender”, questioning my validity based on how I look, my body, my fashion sense (which is lit, but okay? Sorry it upsets you?), my pronouns, etc, blah blah. The point is, I did not spend 30 years on this earth coming back to myself for a pitiful little anon like this to invalidate my entire lived experience. (The transphobes found my channel! 😱 Let's challenge them 🏳️‍⚧️ sex ≠ gender) And that’s a hard boundary in all of my relationships, online or offline: My lived experience with my gender, my body, my Self, is not up for debate. Period. So I’m not here to try to convince you that I’m Legit! I’m Actually Trans and Genderfluid, Please Believe Me or I’ll Just Die! I could try until I’m blue in the face and it wouldn’t matter to someone so miserable that they get mad at me over being comfortable with my own femininity. (Weird thing to get mad at an enby for? I serve cunt even on my low-spoon days and you’re mad? Are you okay?? If you have a therapist, this is something that could be worth investigating.) Let’s break it down:

1. You take issue with me being an all pronouns cutie.*But why? Is there something wrong with not having a fixed sense of gender? Because if I were AMAB, I’d be… the same. I’d also be all pronouns and I’d also be cute as fuck in things considered feminine. My experience with gender is fluid, it’s not something I can pin down or grasp or even really explain well. And that’s okay, because it’s not clear-cut for everyone. I love the mystery of it. Embracing it has been a huge part of coming home to myself. I don’t express in masc ways very often, it’s definitely more subdued, but uh… If you think that the only Real Trans Way is to like go totally 180 on the expression, then thaaaat’s weird and not even true to most people’s experiences. (Obviously since tomboys and femboys exist who aren’t trans.) I wasn’t feminine growing up. I wasn’t comfortable with it for a million different reasons. So coming to a place of gender euphoria with myself has been about reclaiming femininity on my terms. Not because it’s being forced on me as the “correct” gender expression but because it’s just who I am. I’m a fairy princess and I’m not gonna “try to be more masculine” so understimulated troglodytes like you will accept me. This is actually a common experience with a lot of AFABs! So many trans men become drag queens or finally feel comfortable being feminine once they’re out or starting transition. It’s a thing. *(Journaling prompt: Are you insecure? Does it trigger some kind of wound in you to see me live the way you’re too afraid to even try, even if you’re not queer/trans? This is often the case when people accuse me of having “fake pronouns” or being a transtrender. A lot of projection. The brain goes “if I were like them, I’d get hate for it! So I’m gonna send them hate!” I cannot imagine such misery. Please be free.) 2. “Wears female clothing” Hold up. Clothes are not sexed, so I assume you mean “feminine” clothing. Even then… Do you think that someone has to dress every which way in accordance with pronouns? This may be an education deficit on your part, which can be corrected with effort if your empathy or desire to be a better person ever exceeds your IQ. (Sorry, T got me sassy today.) 3. “All the time” – Oh, are you, like… in my room right now? Do you go to work with me? Errands? So you see what I’m wearing literally all the time? You would totally know what I wear all the time! Come on. You gotta admit this is pretty silly. It’s like when random guys on set would tell me, “You know, you look way better without all that makeup.” HUH? SIR? Were you in my room this morning before I beat this mug? No? Then what the hell are you talking about? So… My big question that I don’t expect an answer to is: Just what do you want me to do? Do you want me to ONLY be cool with all pronouns if I’m ONLY very distinctly presenting in more extremes of any gender? What’s the gender checklist that would make You Personally Comfortable with Me? Do you want me to completely drop he/they because I’m so pussy power? Orrr what? What’s your endgame for sending an anon like this? Or was it something you just did in the moment to try to offset whatever internal discomfort you’re battling? Because all you did was remind me of how far I’ve come. Maybe 10 years ago this kind of anon would’ve sent me back into the closet, because it was still so fucking hard to be out and proud as genderfluid in the 2010’s. The kind of invasive and invalidating shit I had to deal with on a daily basis was wild. Because no, I don’t want surgery, no, I’m not transitioning. I’m just me. Whoever’s reading this, wherever you’re at: this is also a good reminder of why it’s important to love yourself. And to get therapy. Because good lord, anon, if you haven’t tried it, PLEASE. There are options out there. I want you to not be this miserable.

Bye!

[irlkisukeurahara]

Wait how is Giselle transphobia

no seriously how

The "Trap" trope.

A character in an anime is presented as female. With a girls name and she/her pronouns. then suddenly, as a "twist" it's revealed she's "actually a man," which tends to be revealed through someone going "she has a dick! She's a He!"

The entire nature of the trope implies that transgender women are men "pretending" to be women. Because they're not crossdressers or drag queens, the "trap" character is attempting to pass as female. Which, in pretty much all cases except like, Nagisa Shiota, is a trans character getting outed. And well, you know how Giselle and Yumichika's meeting went.

A female characters is "revealed" to be male as if it's some "interesting" twist. Kubo hasn't exactly been great with any sort of lgbt representation in general, Yumichika shows it. While Yumichika isn't hatecrimed or anything for being clearly queer (to the best of my memory) he just so coincidentally is always paired against another queercoded villain with the purpose of tearing them down. It shows Kubo's true colors.

Not to mention, despite Giselle being presented as female, she uses "Boku" for herself and Kubo called her a man. He is fully going all in on the trap trope and it's honestly gross. Do you expect anything better from a shounen anime? I wish I could expect better, but this is Japan.

The entire premise of her is built of a transphobic anime trope, and to top it all off, she's an abusive freak! Have you seen the arguments transphobes make against trans women? Claiming they're perverts, or evil, trying to groom your kids, all that... And there's Giselle, an amab character presenting female and referring to herself as female, so therefore she is a trans female, being portrayed as sexually abusive. Only furthering the stereotype that people push.

The way Giselle Gewelle is written is rooted in transphobia. To that I say fuck Kubo, this is just how shitty Shounen writers are, and as a transgender person I have a right to feel disgusted. I also have the right to acknowledge those faults yet still indulge in the content because I'm the one affected by that issue.

[bubblebbunch]

Muse List

❃ LUCA // PINWHEEL

tag | art | hcs | musings | aes | fashion

Demiboy [afab] // he/they // 29 // Drug Dealer & Celebrity Lookalike/Performance Artist

Luca, or "Pinwheel" as most call him, lives in a ratty little apartment in New York City, Queens, and makes most of his money off of selling drugs. During the day though, he'll go to Loo Loo Amusement Park [Remake of Luna Park on Coney Island] where he plays the role of a celebrity performance artist which he is a lookalike of.

He fucking hates the gig, but he looks so similar to him, he has the energy and dexterity to pull it off, and well... the owner blackmailed him, threatening to report him to the authorities for his drug dealing, and Luca needs to Not end up in jail.

So he finds himself doing it despite not getting paid. He's rarely sober, often on some kind of pills, and barely keeps enough cash on him to pay rent. It's honestly a bit of a miracle that he still lives at the apartment complex. He reeks of booze and nicotine and whatever else he's been smoking, and doesn’t have a single friend.

✒ FUMIHIRO

tag | art | hcs | musings | aes | fashion

Cis Male // he/him // 29 yrs // Therapist

Fumihiro works as a therapist in NYC and is not doing... that great money wise. College absolutely ruined him, his family often wants him to help them fund their own projects, and he's terrible at saying no. He takes on more work than he's capable of, and he often works for free. He complains, but he just needs to grow a spine. Life IS pretty ridiculously unfair, though... and it doesn't help that his roommate Corwin is incredibly overbearing and suffocating either.

✚ CORWIN

tag | art | hcs | musings | aes | fashion

Demiboy [amab] // he/they // 28 yrs // Dentist

Corwin is Fumihiro's childhood friend and has always been an outcast. With a morbid interest in teeth, he was also struggling with depression and unhealthy coping behaviour. He's obnoxious, is unabashedly himself, and he's got crazy ADHD... but also RSD. And he's so lonely... he craves intimacy something fierce, and he Clings to Fumihiro as the only person who ever gave him a genuine chance. He occasionally performs in drag, and he gets his fix at the bar several times a week where he hooks up with whoever wants to give him a try, but nothing ever goes anywhere... Why won't anybody just love him already?

დ MINNIE

tag | art | hcs | musings | aes | fashion

Trans Woman // she/her // 26 yrs // Online Personality

Minnie is a weeb and an amazing cosplayer, YouTuber, and she spends a lot of her time online making silly videos for people who simp for her. She doesn't mind, it pays the bills, and her OnlyFans is doing good, thank you guys!! During the day she works as a server at a local cafe that does dress ups at times (the maid outfits are her favourite). Minnie is a sweetheart, but a bit of a doormat... having came out of a physically and emotionally abusive relationship not too long ago, she's still working on loving herself. She's still recovering, doing her very best...

☽ SABRINA

tag | art | hcs | musings | aes | fashion

Genderfluid [amab] // any pronouns // 25 yrs // Babysitter

Younger sister to Luca, who can't stand him. She felt abandoned by her only remaining family member when he was becoming a chore to look after, when his substance abuse and illegal activities only increased and escalated while she was left alone at home, fending for herself... So she ended up moving out. He now works as a babysitter, it's rough and the family takes advantage of their charity, but it's nice to feel... needed. To be a part of a family. She has a lot of spice, but below the sour exterior, he's got a big heart.

♠︎ MORDECAI BARNES

tag | art | hcs | musings | aes | fashion

Cis Male // he/him // 51 yrs // Funeral Director & Mortician & Coffin Maker [hobby]

Mordecai has been pretty rooted in place for the last 51 years... Growing up in Oklahoma, he eventually moved to eastern California where he set up a funeral home and a stable. Death wasn't really fascinating to him... but rather, he had seen it happen many times in his life, and found that the end of a life... had to have meant something, for those left behind. He wanted to lift the spirits of those who remained, and celebrate the life that had burned so bright, and either suddenly been snuffed out, or slowly dimmed down. He wanted to make the funeral peaceful. The passing natural. The communication between the dying, the dead, and the living, easier. So he started his business.

Moving to New York, he did so to keep a family member company during her final years before sickness takes her life, setting up a new business in the city to keep on doing what he was always doing... but city life is quite different from the mountain ranges of Oklahoma or endless deserts of California.

Mordecai doesn't say more than he has to, the quiet sort who notices everything but says nothing. When he does speak up, his southern drawl is almost distracting, but his words always carry wisdom.

$ NOEL CAMPBELL, second name GURUMARRA

tag | art | hcs | musings | aes | fashion

Trans Man // he/him // 36 yrs // Business Tycoon, owner of several clubs across NYC, Manager of Loo Loo Park. Also deals with money laundering, espionage and is a loan shark of course

Noel is an entrepenur and a visionary. Starting off at the bottom of the barrel like so many of us, he figured out how to work the system from a young age, always having a nose for business, and a feeling for when to strike. What opportunities were lucrative and which ones were a waste. Quickly, he went from a simple office rat to team leader, boss, CEO, and now he manages more businesses than you can count on one hand.

His current "project" is the Loo Loo Park (alternate version of Luna Park on Coney Island) in NYC, and while he sits comfortably in Manhattan, he makes bank without much effort anymore. Noel is smug, careful in his wording, and will come across as quite lighthearted if you don't know any better. He's always five steps ahead, but his confidence in his own ability can also become his biggest weakness. Oh yeah also he's Luca's boss/blackmailer.

⚙ Nergüi

tag | art | hcs | musings | aes | fashion

Agender [intersex] // they/them // 21 yrs // College Student

A young student at one of the many colleges across New York, currently studying robotics in hopes of becoming... something. They feel so in tune with these machines, at times it feels like they're also running on a program, that they don't actually know what they're actually Meant to do except for making these things work... like life has no meaning. Are they only doing this because their parents wants them to? Because they think robotics are the future? Because they know better and this is what's best for them? Do they even have a mind of their own..? Or are they exaggerating? Should they just settle... they don't know. Time to dissociate.

¿ Loo Loo Bot

tag | art | hcs | musings | aes | fashion

No gender // it/they // A few years old // Clown Mascot/Spy/Bodyguard Android

An android Noel has placed in "Loo Loo park" to play the role of a pierrot-themed mascot named Loo Loo. It has some other dubious functions as well, such as the ability to switch its face, voice and build around, hide weapons on its person, and of course, record conversations. It is rather uncanny to look at, its voice a bit off and its behaviour a bit too inhuman... at least when it is at the park. When it's working undercover by Noel's side, it is near indistinguishable from a real person.

The android is generally soft spoken and gentle in its mannerisms, supposedly it'd make it approachable, but is just seems to creep kids out.

[digitalsmokebreak]

Identity Crisis: Labels

April 19, 2021 I've been kind of having a second wave identity crisis ever since I heard Bob the Drag Queen say that they don't have any preferred pronouns. He, she, they, etc., as long as you're coming from a place of love and are recognizing them as a human, you can use whatever pronoun makes you the most comfortable. That's really stuck with me and it hit me that, deep down, I feel the exact same way. Yes, I may have felt offended in the past when someone would refer to me as "ma'am" over the phone or whatever. But that was fueled from the social norms placed upon me, being AMAB.

I still don't have a label for what I'm feeling and I'm still figuring out if I even "need" a label for it. Because at the end of the day, I am Me. I don't feel like I'm constantly shifting in between the spectrum of male and female binaries, so I'm not gender fluid. And I don't feel stuck in the middle or feel trapped in the male gender binary. So I don't feel that I fit in the non-binary label either. This brings me the main issue I have with labels. Labels were created so that those who don't feel they belong somewhere have somewhere to go when they feel out of place. But our individual uniquenesses are what makes us who we are. Sure, growing up, labels help us navigate the vast spectrums of sexuality and gender. However, I feel that I'm at a point where I don't feel the need for labels. I truly believe that labels hold us back from owning our true identities.

There's a certain power in being unapologetically yourself, and that scares the hell out of people. I always get asked, "Why did you choose to be gay?" ... This is repeatedly the most ignorant question I've ever been asked being openly queer. It's baffling. What you're implying with that single question is that I chose to be hated. I chose to get bullied. I chose to live in the constant fear of my rights getting stripped away from me. That I chose to be afraid of being myself. Unfortunately being a people pleaser, I need to constantly remind myself that I don't owe shit to anyone. As long as I am confident in who I am, I can conquer anything.

September 28, 2023 A lot of what I wrote has stuck with me since. I'm just me and I don't need to label it. While I may not feel comfortable with an introspective revelation in the moment, that's the beauty of living. Feeling, experiencing, learning. All key aspects of the human experience and are what shape us into the people we dream to be. I just hope that in the future I'm still in-tune with my emotion so that I don't lose myself.

[noandpickles]

oh how awful that terminology to discuss transmisogyny makes it harder for you to understand fandom posts about a shitty horror podcast. we should have thought about the horror podcast fans first.

That is definitely not my biggest issue with the TME/TMA (transmisogyny exempt/transmisogyny affected) dichotomy.

I get the motivation behind the creation of these terms. It sucks that so much discussion of trans issues focuses on our genders assigned at birth. Much like medical discussions that refer to "women" when they mean "people with breasts," "people with vulvas," "people with uteruses," etc, attempts to discuss the particular issues faced by different trans people often make unjustified assumptions and generalizations, lumping large diverse groups together as either (binary) AMAB or (binary) AFAB. It would be great if we had specific language to help us talk about the groups that are actually relevant to any given discussion, rather than falling back on popular generalizations.

But that's not how TMA and TME have been used. Instead of being used as specific terms for discussions of the ways transmisogyny affects different trans people, they've become substitutes for the AFAB/AMAB dichotomy. And rather than allow for a nuanced understanding of the way different prejudices can harm people outside of the "target" group, these terms have reinforced the idea that AFAB trans people cannot experience transmisogyny, which is frankly as ridiculous as saying that cis drag queens aren't experiencing transmisogyny when the right makes them a political target.

And that last point, the insistence that transmascs can't experience transmisogyny, is the reason the TME/TMA dichotomy has caught on particularly among a subset of radical feminists. It helps them pretend that the "ultimate" form of prejudice is restricted to them and theirs, that they are the most victimized people in the world by definition. And (along with simply denying the existence of transandrophobia) it helps them pretend that all masculine people are completely protected from suffering under this "most extreme" form of bigotry.

Maybe if the primary use of the terms wasn't just radfems playing the oppression olympics, I'd have a better view of them. They could've been used to advance a good goal, but instead they're just the worse version of the terms they were meant to help replace.

[just-your-average-tangerine]

I am, once again, amused by how much transphobia against trans men from within the queer community is based in denying our transness while simultaneously using our agab against us.

[youarestellarverse]

[image description: a purple banner that has the words “work in progress” on it. end of description]

Epistolary fic/fake reddit post, take 2 - Percy at r/relationshipadvice.

Notes: I process things through a layer of separation, which is part of how this was born— Jason seems to me to be a good candidate for the same kind of "overwhelmingly matches with AGAB....except" that I have. It took me until I was halfway through it that I realized I got carried away working on it is because Halloween is coming up, which means I dress in my Gender Euphoria coat, and apparently I have anticipatory event feelings I had to work out!

So yeah, this happened.

It can be read as a standalone, but it does take place in the greater stellarverse (if you remember with cream, firstly holy wow I'm so happy you're still here and secondly it's a little after that). No powers.

More notes and pinging at the end! This one got kinda long.

So I (26M) have been with my fiance (25NB, AMAB) since high school. He came out to me last year. (Usually he uses he/him. He describes his gender as 85% guy, 10% lady and 5% pop princess drag queen. Sorry, pronouns might get confusing.) 

We got engaged a few weeks ago which I am still completely losing my mind over. The ring I got him is really nice. It has abalone and amethyst on it and it's made of tungsten. Except for the amethyst it matches mine (I have a pearl, which I am just now realizing is funny for reasons that will become clear). 85% of the time, he's deliriously happy showing it off to anyone who will look. The thing is, it's really masculine because when he's feeling masculine he feels really masculine. 

He's still pretty new to the whole nonbinary thing and kinda anxious about everything, so we've been using codes to talk about it. It's a little easier to tell me "I'm in ten percent mode" than "I feel like a woman today". He came up with a nickname for her, too. We call her Pearl (not the real nickname but close, it's something you can wear as jewelry). 

So anyway Pearl definitely likes the ring, but she's conflicted about it. She hasn't complained and she never will. But last night we went on a date to an opera, and she wore this absolutely stunning floor-length gown and silk gloves and a wig that went all the way down her back. I was so busy gaping like a horny fish I didn't even notice she was wearing the ring on a chain around her neck instead of her finger. 

I didn't ask her about it. I'm pretty sure it would have embarrassed her and she would have put it on and sucked up the dysphoria because she thought I was unhappy. But it gave me an idea. 

I want to take her out to a really nice restaurant and give her a ring that matches her name. Something feminine and pretty she can feel good in. I want her to feel like Juliet on her balcony. Like Taylor Swift in the music video for Love Story. 

I just don't want to put her on the spot, you know? I don't want to draw attention to it if it'll make her feel crappy, but this is super new for both of us so I have no idea what I'm doing. He did drag shows for two years before Pearl perked her head up and let him know she was a part of him. 

She has a hard time expressing herself because she grew up with a lot of very strict pressure to adhere to gender norms. She's one of those people who can easily see that it's bullshit, except for when she internalizes it. She makes herself the exception to her own acceptance. 

It breaks my heart. Sometimes she cries about it, which is actually a huge improvement. Before Pearl, he couldn't cry except in literal life or death situations. He kinda still can't, but she can. 

She likes the opportunities to have a few milestones, like coming downstairs in a beautiful dress while I'm waiting at the door in a tux with a bouquet of pink hyacinths. He went to prom with me, but she's never been to a dance. My housemate helped me buy her a (not-actually) pearl bracelet for her birthday, and she cried and laughed and told me she loved me and demanded I put it on her. (My hands were super sweaty so it took me a couple tries, lol. It looks great on her.) 

I imagine myself taking her hand while we wait for dessert. Telling her how beautiful she is. How much I love her, that I can't wait to introduce her to people as my wife, that she's as knock-out drop-dead gorgeous as he is knock-out drop-dead handsome. Tell her how proud I am to be seen with her on my arm. How much her happiness means to me. 

I imagine getting on one knee and taking her hand and asking "Antoinette Pearl Smith (not her real full name either), will you do me the honor of being my bride?" 

I imagine her crying. That's where my imagination starts letting my insecurity interfere. 

Sometimes I see her smiling and crying and laughing and asking me to put it on her. Sometimes I imagine her bursting into tears and having a panic attack because I reminded her. I feel like there's a pretty even chance that it's either exactly the validation she needs from me or it's the worst possible plan I could come up with. 

She's incredibly elegant, classy and sophisticated, but she has a distinctly glam edge to her style. We get stares when we're out in public and it's a Pearl day. She's convinced it's because she doesn't pass (she can sing high bass parts and she's over 7 ft tall in her 8-inch dagger pumps and yes that turns me on), but I've seen the way people look at her. Most of them are staring for the same reason I do: because she's an Amazonian bombshell who leaves you breathless and makes your heart race, just by entering your field of vision.

When I say she's outrageously attractive, I mean the second word very literally. People are drawn to her. They can't help it. It's natural when a goddess walks among mortals, I guess. ;) 

(And yeah, sometimes people are horrible and we've heard plenty of slurs, but we live near a liberal city steeped in queer culture and history, which helps. I've taken a few punches, but I've thrown them back too, and there's always somebody nearby who checks in with us and makes sure we're okay afterwards. All things considered, we could be in a much less trans-friendly situation.) 

I guess I really want to make sure she knows I'm attracted to her and in love with her, and that I would be even if I'd never met him— honestly, if I'd met Pearl first, we probably would have started dating a lot sooner because I already knew I liked tall, blonde, brilliant, sophisticated women, and that's exactly what she is. 

I want her to feel like I'm not just going along with it for her sake. When I picture our wedding, I get choked up whether I'm imagining him in a suit or her in a gown. I want her to know that there's no facet of her I'm not captivated by. 

Am I overthinking this? Am I being ridiculous? (Yes.) Should I ask her girlfriends for advice? Should I ask my girlfriends for advice?? Should I go hang around at some gay bars and see if I can find any elders who can talk some sense into me??? 

Should I talk to her mom (actually her sister, long story)? My mom? Maybe my kid sister can lend me some of her childhood wisdom...she's very, very good at keeping surprises (never secrets). 

I don't know. I'm rambling. I started writing this post because my BFF (27M) is teaching her to sew bc she's way too tall even for most plus size shops and she just finished her very first circle skirt. she's been spinning around all day like a toddler in a cinderella costume. It's so fucking cute. Please help. I may actually be dying.

I'm going to go dance with her now so she stops giving me the sad baby kitten eyes. Thanks in advance if you made it all the way through! Yikes, me. 

MORE NOTES: The nickname thing is honestly mostly so I can keep my head on straight as a writer. Her actual nickname is Ruby, which I was not consciously clever enough to remember fits perfectly because ruby is July's birthstone!

Percy's BFF is Grover, and "Antoinette" is a reference to Jason's middle name, which in this 'verse is Anthony.

(Incredibly, this is less than half of what I have written. Whoops.)

Pinging @perseusjackson-jasongrace, my dear beta @elaborateruses and @starlightshadowsworld because you have all encouraged me to do this in the first place and it's been great. 💜💜

[diana-prince-s]

I thought that drag was supposed to be inclusive and for everyone. I always thought it was meant to be full of love, so why is it wrong for Maddy to be on drag race? Or should straight people just not do drag at all? It just seems strange to me because what if Maddy is embracing the feminine side of his identity? Does that mean he should be ashamed of being straight but still feeling feminine? Then what about a bisexual or asexual? Is it a prerequisite that drag can only be done by gays or lesbians?

Unless your point is just that straight people should not be on drag race?

I’m not being angry or a hater, I’m just genuinely curious and want to understand why.

Okay let me just start in the middle -- because comparing a straight identity to a bisexual identity is just... wrong and feels a little invalidating and, dare I say, biphobic. If you are straight then you are not queer. If you are not straight, then you are... queer. So, yeah, bisexuals and anyone in the LGBTQ+ community can do drag.

I don't think Maddy shouldn't be doing drag. I honestly was less angry about his whole situation when he said that he started doing drag to explore his gender identity because I resonate with the feeling of exploring my own gender identity through drag. And I'm sure there are trans men who do drag who identify maybe as straight, and of course they can do drag -- but they are queer because they are part of the LGBTQ+ community, and I think it would be more welcomed for them to do so than a cis straight man.

I'm sure Maddy is a great ally and a great part of her drag scene. And in a different world, and on a different Drag Race, I don't think it would have mattered that Maddy is a cis straight guy. But this Drag Race is a Drag Race of exclusion, and Maddy's casting is a symbol of just how deep that exclusion runs.

RuPaul is a misogynist, a transmisogynist, and a transmedicalist. From the show being riddled with transphobic language (and Ru refusing to change it despite several queens speaking out about it for YEARS) to saying that post-op trans women can't do drag because it's "performance-enhancing drugs", Drag Race has been out of sync with what real drag communities across the world look like. Real drag communities are vibrant spaces led by Black and brown trans women in all stages of transition or of not-medical transition (because having a dick doesn't make you a man and having boobs and a vagina doesn't make you a woman). Real drag communities accept and showcase drag kings, afab queens, genderqueer and genderfuck performers. Notice how all of the queens on Drag Race (before Gottmik) who identified as non-binary or genderqueer were amab. My guess is Ru doesn't personally view non-binary people or trans women as validly and solidly their gender identity unless they undergo a full medical transition. And I wonder if Gottmik would have been cast had he not gotten his top surgery.

Maddy’s casting and my anger about it isn’t about Maddy. It’s about how RuPaul is more comfortable being in community with a straight man than he would be with a lesbian or bisexual woman. RuPaul would rather give a straight man a platform and an opportunity to represent his “community” than give the other half of the LGBTQ+ community that same opportunity. RuPaul basically wants only gay men to do drag, not gay women. And that should tell you a lot.

If you're asking why Maddy can't be on the show, maybe you should be asking why Tenderoni, a fucking amazing drag king, can't be on the show. Maybe you should be asking why there are no afab performers, whether they identify as cis women or as non-binary people. A straight guy doing Drag Race feels like a "fuck you" to all of the incredible, talented, queer performers who STILL are not allowed to do Drag Race. Ru thinks he's being revolutionary by casting a straight white man in drag, when he really could be revolutionary and let the entire drag community compete on Drag Race.

[cervidaedalus]

Favs at the start of Dragula S3: 1. Yovska 2. Landon 3. Dollya+Maxi (tied) Favs by the end- 1. Priscilla+Evah (tied) 2. Landon (but close to 1) 3. Lou-Lou I also really disliked Maddelyn's cocky attitude in the beginning, but she really grew on me. This season was a wild ride of starting out *worse* than S2 with interpersonal dr/ma, but most of that evolved into more emotional vulnerability and people really discovering their place in the Queer community. I liked Dollya and Maxi for their specific style at the start. Dollya seemed to pull inspo from that uncanny valley Living Doll trend of a decade ago, Maxi had that characterization of some sort of blue... fish alien. I don't think it was ever explained where the inspiration came from or what it was supposed to be. Part of me is like "Nooooo, girl! Don't cover up your blackness!" but without knowing the origins of the look I can't really comment. Sadly we just didn't learn enough about Maxi for me to really appreciate them beyond their drag, and Dollya is just... weirdly self-focused to an unsettling degree and I kept losing respect for her. Like Abhora and James had some issues last season but they showed exponential personal growth. I wanted to like Hollow for representation's sake and she had a couple good looks and started out strong, but I've been burned so many times by those types. Combined with their IG rambles, they seem to have this tendency of going OFF before spending the time to think critically about what they say and end up preaching bigoted and even TERFy ideals despite their queer enby identity. I'm not fond of Dollya but I agree I got the impression that Hollow had this pretentious "You just don't UNDERSTAND my ART-" attitude and it came off with this palpable air of "-Because you're all MEN." Allegedly the Boulets won't work with them at all anymore because of their attitude and them calling the Boulets "cis white gay men" in a belittling manner. People have called them out but I just can't hold a lot of confidence in someone whose slip-ups are frequent. The meltdown during the Trash floorshow was... whatever honestly. That can be explained by pressure but it still wasn't cool. Having an emotional moment under the stress of a competition and vocalizing it is one thing- sometimes we say things in the heat of the moment we don't mean which happened two other times from other queens this season- but the IG meltdowns are like... You took some time between the events which triggered this, took the time to write that, and still hit Post without a single thought of "Actually, this sounds really bad." I don't know if they've grown since then since this was 2-3yrs ago, but I just felt while their heart may be in the right place, there's this stone wall (heh) of ego and self-aggrandization that needed to be dealt with first. I thought Evah's trash look was reminiscent of a Night Elf with the brows, and sure enough she plays FFxiv (not sure about WoW too but it wouldn't surprise me). Super proud of Priscilla's self-discovery, Yovska is adorable and I wish we could have seen more of them (Resurrection 2 with Abhora and Yovska when pls). I really like how hard this show goes in repping diversity and it's made me dislike Roople even more. More drag shows should take the torch, too, since I know with the Jackass-tier elimination challenges in this show aren't for everyone. I wish we could see even more rep of more kings, genderqueer drag performers, and different cultural groups, but Vander herself has said that they've tried to reach out to nonwhite and non-AMAB drag performers and have largely been met with "no thanks".

[cakesexuality]

What's wrong with Ru Paul?

There's several problems with RuPaul, the main issue people tend to have is the things he's said about women and trans people, but there's some other stuff too. Buckle up, this is a long one.

For a long time, people who were AFAB couldn't compete on Drag Race. There have been AFAB queens on the show now, but not until 2021 so we've only gotten 2 so far in the form of Gottmik, a trans man on US13, and Victoria Scone, a cis woman on UK3. Some people compare Drag Race to Dragula, which has had 3 AFAB competitors in only 4 seasons, while Drag Race has been running since 2009 and there have been international spinoffs for more than 7 countries, which totals to 28 seasons (not even counting France or the Philippines, for which we haven't gotten a cast announcement yet, or All Stars, which is all queens we've seen before).

For a while, we didn't know if we would ever get an AFAB queen on Drag Race bc RuPaul had said that it stops being "punk rock" when a drag queen is AFAB bc it's socially acceptable for someone perceived as a woman to put on makeup and a dress, and that real women just look like drag queens anyway. He's also said that drag queens don't look like real women, trying to have it both ways. Every AFAB queen I know of intentionally makes herself look not like a real woman (e.g. Mik's white face paint, Victoria's giant costumes), and wouldn't it be "punk rock" for an AFAB person to do something that society thinks is only for cis men/AMAB people??

RuPaul has said that the difference between a trans woman and a drag queen is thousands of dollars and a plastic surgeon, and that trans women were only allowed to compete on Drag Race if they hadn't had any transition-related surgeries like FFS or SRS bc then it would be like athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. The problem with this is that it's equating something that would improve someone's mental health to something that would make someone better at a sport, and also the fact that they DO allow queens on Drag Race to get things done to improve their drag, so long as they aren't part of a transition, like Eureka getting lip filler, Trixie getting veneers, or Trinity the Tuck getting surgery to exaggerate her hips.

Trans queens tend to be discouraged from discussing their genders on the show, though this problem also exists in versions of Drag Race where RuPaul isn't heavily involved. I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that Peppermint on US9 was asked to butch it up so she looked more like a feminine man, and that Kylie Sonique Love wasn't allowed to discuss being trans on US2 until the reunion at the end of the season.

The funniest part of all this is that one time when he tried to walk back one of his transphobic statements by tweeting about how he only casts for "charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent" along with a green and yellow artwork titled "Train Landscape"... so he would've Googled "trains flag" and wouldn't have double-checked to be sure whether or not it's actually the trans flag.

Outside of his sexism and transphobia, there's also the issue of racism on Down Under, a version of Drag Race where Ru is the host. The US show is usually quite racially diverse, but Down Under only had 2 POC out of 10 queens, both POC were early outs, and when production wanted to bring back one of the first 3 eliminated queens, they picked the white girl over the Native Australian girl or the Fijian girl (not at all Art Simone's fault, but suspicious on production's part that she was chosen instead of Jojo Zaho or Coco Jumbo). The winner of the season ended up being a default win bc of issues created by production. Kita Mean is lovely and I think she's a suitable winner, but it's frustrating that the options were Art, who fans felt had been carried to the top 4 by production; Karen From Finance, who used to collect blackface dolls and had a tattoo (that's now thankfully covered) of one of the dolls; Scarlet Adams, who has a history of doing multiple types of raceface; and Kita, who was the only person in the top 4 who could have been crowned without huge backlash. The show called out Scarlet's raceface, but only after Coco and Jojo were no longer there, and RuPaul forgave her on behalf of all the groups she imitated, even though Ru is just one black person and also isn't part of the other groups Scarlet did raceface of, like Native Australian people. Ru claims to have the final say in every elimination, and Scarlet was allowed to compete until the very end when many fans think she should have been disqualified. An Australian YouTuber called Rifenstine did a video talking about the mess that was Down Under.

Another problem is that RuPaul and Drag Race hold people's careers in their hands. Many queens who go on the show end up having to suck up to RuPaul if they want to maintain that level of fame. Ru recently made a song making fun of queens who "blame it on the edit" aka they got unfavourable edits on Drag Race and have publicly said bad things about the show. Unfavourable edits can have a huge impact on someone's career and Jaremi Carey (formerly Phi Phi O'Hara) still gets nasty messages to this day over a TV appearance he did a decade ago where he was given a villain edit.

There's also a whole thing about how RuPaul and his husband have a ranch in Wyoming where companies frack for oil, though I'm not sure whether consent is required for fracking on their ranch or if RuPaul is paid for it. Someone else would know more about this than I do.

[thewolfofthestars]

Questions to Ask When You’re Questioning Your Gender

So I'm trans myself and I've spent a lot of time thinking on this subject and talking to other trans people, as well as people who are questioning their genders. I've learned a lot over the past couple of years about what gender is, what it means to me, what it means to others, what it means to society, and most relevant to this post--how to figure out what your gender actuallly is. Cuz this shit ain't always easy. In fact, most of the time it's pretty hard. So I'm putting together a list of questions you can ask yourself if you're questioning your gender.

Please keep in mind: you probably won't relate to everything on this list! There are trans people who don't relate to this stuff and there are cis people that do relate to this stuff. Not every single thing on this list is a 100% surefire sign you're definitely trans, and you don't need to agree with every single point on the list in order to be trans. I am merely making this list in order to get you thinking in a more helpful and productive way to figure out your gender. Additionally: You do not have to figure out your gender if you don't want to! If you're perfectly content just to call yourself by a big umbrella term like "nonbinary" or "genderqueer", or if you just don't want to put a label to your gender at all, that is absolutely fine. This list doesn't need to be for you.

Highly reccommended reading, btw: The Null HypotheCis--https://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/04/17/the-null-hypothecis/

-Do you ever find yourself wishing that you were another gender? How often? How intense are these feelings when they arise?

-Do you ever find yourself wondering what your life would be like if you were born as a different gender? How often? How do you feel when you think about it?

-Do you find yourself looking at or admiring people of another gender very often? Is this admiration not really the same as romantic/sexual attraction--it feels different, somehow? Do these people just look really good or cool to you, in a special way that you can't really explain?

-Do you find yourself feeling jealous of other genders at all? Why do you think you feel this jealousy?

-If you are not otherwise LGBTQ+, do you find yourself feeling connected to or attracted to the LGBTQ+ community in a way you can't really explain? Do you feel attracted to the trans community in particular?

-Do you feel more comfortable or happier around trans/nonbinary people? Do you feel as though you can relate to trans/nonbinary people better than you can relate to cis people?

-If you are attracted to people of the same gender as your AGAB (Assigned Gender At Birth), does "gay" feel like the right word for that attraction or not?

-If you are attracted to people of the opposite gender as your AGAB, does "straight" feel like the right word for that attraction or not?

-Do you have trouble understanding your sexual/romantic orientation? Have you changed your labels several times, or perhaps never put a label on your attraction at all? Have you just kinda slapped a label on at random until further notice?

-Do you feel very uncomfortable engaging with your sexuality at all? Do you identify as asexual or sex-repulsed, because of this discomfort?

-Do you experience distress or discomfort when in sexual situations, for no otherwise discernable reason (i.e. nonconsensual situations or dealing with past sexual trauma)? Do you find yourself dissociating during or after a sexual situation? What about anxiety or panic? Do you find yourself becoming depressed after sex or masturbation?

-Do you find that you need to "get into a different headspace" in order to have sex or masturbate?

-When you wear clothes commonly associated with your AGAB, how does it make you feel? Happy? Sad? Do the clothes feel like you, or does it feel more like a costume, like you're cosplaying or performing in a play? How does it feel when you wear clothes more commonly associated with other genders?

-How do you feel when you imagine yourself far into the future, living as an elderly person? Do you find it hard to imagine yourself in old age as your AGAB? How does it make you feel? What about as other genders?

-Do you find yourself coming up with excuses for reasons that you aren't trans that, when held up to scrutiny, don't actually work? Phrases such as "Well, I didn't know when I was little, I didn't start questioning until I was X age (people of any age can question their gender and figure out they're trans)", or "I don't have genital dysphoria, so I can't be trans (trans people can have all sorts of feelings about their genders--no particular kind of dysphoria is required to be trans, or even any dysphoria at all)".

-Do you find yourself thinking things like "Well, statistically, trans people are so rare, there's no way I'm trans"? What about "I'm already (other marginalized identity(ies)), I can't possibly also be trans"? What about "I have a friend/family member/someone else in my life that's trans, I'd just be copying them"? (None of these things need to mean that you're not trans!)

-Do you have a very "mind over matter" mentality? Were you more of a smarts or arts kid than you were a sporty kid in school? Are you the kind of person who wishes your consciousness could be uploaded to the cloud or something like that, so you can leave this fleshy body of yours behind?

-Do you find yourself frustrated with society's emphasis on gender and gender roles? Do you ever feel that gender doesn't even matter at all, and you're confused as to why everyone cares about it so much?

-Do you feel constrained or trapped by being your AGAB? Do you feel like you would be so much freer and happier as a different gender?

-If you could press a button right now and wake up tomorrow as a cis member of the opposite gender, as if you'd always been that way, with a body of a cis person and with everyone referring to you like that, would you press it?

-Do you believe that everyone of your your AGAB probably wants to be a different gender, at least a little bit? Are you baffled when people of your AGAB don't agree with this sentiment?

-Did you ever wonder if or secretly hope that you were intersex? Did you ever get tested by medical professionals for an intersex condition? If so, how did the results make you feel? Were you happy to learn that you're intersex, or dissappointed to learn that you aren't?

-Does it seem difficult for you to be your AGAB, like it doesn't really come naturally to you, and you have to learn how to do it and actively try to be it? Have you felt like you've needed to construct and maintain an identity for yourself as your AGAB? Do you think being a different gender would feel more natural to you, and you wouldn't have to work at it?

-Do you find yourself thinking thoughts like "Well, I don't hate being my AGAB, but I would prefer to be a different gender/would be happier as a different gender"? (I'll give you a hint--you don't need to hate being your AGAB in order to justify being a different gender! You can just be a different gender if that makes you happier.)

-Do your genitals or reproductive organs upset you? Do you wish you didn't have them? Do you think you'd be happier having the opposite set of genitals/reproductive organs? What about having no genitals/reproductive organs? What about having a mix between the two?

-Do your genitals or reproductive organs not really feel like they're a part of you? Do they feel like a seperate entity that's just attached to you or inside of you, but they aren't really you? Do you dissociate when you look at or think about your genitals/reproductive organs? Do you try to avoid looking at or thinking about them?

-Regarding the above two points--ask yourself these same questions about your secondary sex characteristics (i.e. breasts, body hair, hips, the pitch of your voice, etc.)

-Do you only feel these feelings sometimes? If so, when you don't feel these feelings, do you actually feel good about these aspects of yourself, or do you just feel less bad?

-What if I told you right now that you are absolutely, definitely, 100% a cis person, and that you're not trans at all? How does that make you feel? What if I told you that you're definitely, 100% for-sure a trans person? How does that make you feel?

-Were you a particularly androgynous child or present yourself in a gender non-conforming way when you were younger? Did you ever have a "phase" of presenting in this way?

-Alternatively, did you ever present yourself as a very gender conforming person when you were younger (i.e. hyperfeminine if AFAB or hypermasculine if AMAB)? Did you ever have a "phase" of presenting in this way?

-According to the last two points--did you ever alternate between these two modes of presentation? How did these types of presentation make you feel?

-Are you afraid of the idea of this "trans phase" or "questioning phase" being over? Are you afraid of going back to identifying as the gender you were born as?

-Do you like the idea of being a crossdressing or GNC person of the gender you were assigned at birth, or does the thought of being a different gender make you feel happier? (i.e. if you're AMAB, are you happiest when you think of yourself as a crossdressing boy/drag queen, or do you think you would be happier if you were a girl instead? Or perhaps some other gender?)

-Have you ever taken a "guess your gender/am I trans" quiz online, even just for fun? What were the results? How did the results make you feel? Did you intentionally try to skew your answers toward or away from a particular result? Did you go back and take the quiz again, wanting to get a different result?

-What sorts of gendered terms are you happiest and most comfortable being called by? Do you like the idea of being "mom" or "dad" better? What about "brother" or "sister"? "Girlfriend" or "boyfriend"? Or do you dislike both gendered options, and prefer gender-neutral terms like "parent" or "sibling" or "partner"?

[gascon-en-exil]

It's still somewhat astounding to me that a single offhand comment about trans headcanons for a Three Houses character got me a torrent of verbose anon hate, all presumably from one very loudly opinionated person. I'm not going to bother responding to those directly or any of the many that will assuredly follow - although I am old enough to be amused by the thought that the same whining the troll makes about trans headcanons contributing nothing to fandom could have been ripped right out of 2000s-era discourse, except back then it was about gay headcanons/fic - but a combination of candor and spite has nonetheless prompted me to put my current project on hold for a moment and talk a little about why I would have trans headcanons at all, and more specifically the kind that I do.

I have in the past suggested that, while I generally identify as cis, my gender has become more fluid in certain circumstances over the past half decade or so. Sexual circumstances, to be precise, to the point that I do now describe myself as "genderfluid in bed" for men who display an interest in such things. The common term for that is feminization kink, and for the men who are into that it usually manifests in little more than a desire to see me in lingerie and/or the use of associated wordplay during sex (ex. calling my hole a pussy/cunt, expressing a desire to impregnate me). I can understand why that might be appealing for some men; gay men collectively have a bunch of hangups with regard to straight men, and while that more often manifests through lewd fantasies of celebrities or watching porn where allegedly straight guys jack off for the camera I can also see in encounters with those men a desire to in essence RP as straight men fucking women. I get that from some bi men too, men who have explicitly enjoyed my natural androgyny and in some cases have even used their sexual experiences with cis women to add some extra flavor to our time together. Obviously this isn't a thing for all or even most gay/bi men - and guys who are looking for more masc partners are unlikely to start talking to me in the first place - but anecdotally speaking there are men of varying self-identified orientations who are into feminized AMAB sexual partners.

Now of course this comes to what is probably a more salient question: am I into that, or is it just one of several types of kink I'm willing to engage in because it broadens my appeal? There's no shortage of that in my sexual CV; I've let men suck on my toes, piss on me, tie me up, flog me, on occasion done all of the above to them, and more - but I'm sufficiently aware of my own interests to know that none of those things really turn me on. Feminization however I do like, so much so that I've noticed that I'm more genuinely attracted to men who treat me in what I perceive to be a feminine way, who take the lead in social situations and in intimacy and who enjoy the contrast in our bodies (these men almost always being bigger, hairier, and hopefully more well-endowed). The concept of treating me as feminine alone carries a ton of culturally specific baggage. The French are traditionally perceived as a more feminine/effete culture in the English-speaking world. Créole women like my female relatives and ancestors are notorious for the way they control their husbands, lovers, children, and (back when we had them) domestics while still constrained by the bounds of patriarchal society. It is through them that I learned most of how I conduct myself around men both in and out of bed, that the easiest way to control a man is to appear to be controlled by him while simultaneously enslaving him to his passions - passions that I intimately understand because I too have a dick. Most of my sexual partners come from backgrounds very different from that, so they have trouble understanding how I approach sex even if I'm trying to form an actual relationship with them. Still, some of them try, and I enjoy it when they do.

I've had trouble opening up about this before on my blog, not because of any trolls (although pissing off trolls is always fun) but because I've never been quite certain of how welcome talking about this would be. Most of the content and resources by, for, and about trans women online I've come across has concerned lesbian trans women, or otherwise centered around trans women's relationships (sexual or otherwise) with other women. As someone who still conceptualizes my gender identity first and foremost in relation to my sexual availability to men, those resources are unsurprisingly not going to speak to me very well. General trans content on Tumblr and other fandom spaces is similarly of little personal appeal, with the users skewing heavily AFAB and therefore more likely to feature trans men. I fully understand why that is, and on occasion I've been known to enjoy M/M porn where one character has a vagina with no explanation. God knows I've fantasized before about having an orifice that lubricates itself, doesn't need to be flushed out before sex, and is naturally built to take a cock. The philosophy behind most trans headcanons does elude me a bit though, as it seems to me like it'd be easier to keep a character's canon AGAB and change their gender identity rather than the reverse. Apparently that approach is much less common, but I can safely say that all of the handful of trans headcanons I've had involve canonically cis male characters imagined as trans female and sexually involved with cis male characters - big surprise there, right?

I get the impression that my perspective could easily be considered antiquated in several ways: that I emphasize sexual activity over the more nebulous sexual attraction when it comes to discussing orientation; that I prioritize my sexual activity over my gender identity; that I believe there exists a liminal space between fem cis gay men and straight trans women, and that there is historical precedence for such a space in pre-modern/early modern queer communities; and that to the extent that I've internalized a feminine gender identity I do so in the context of my relationships with men. Again, a lot of that comes down to culture, to the myriad ways in which queerness in New Orleans has retained its own history and character independent of other queer cultures in the English-speaking world. Maybe some of it sounds outdated, or misogynistic (I've seen that criticism lobbied at drag queens, and it would probably apply here too), or most bizarrely of all transphobic...but it's all nonetheless a part of who I am, and at the end of the day the only people whose opinions on this subject really matter to me are the men who want to take me to bed. To quote a particularly fitting verse from "Sugar Daddy" of Hedwig and the Angry Itch:

So you think only a woman Can truly love a man? Well, you buy me the dress, I'll be more woman Than a man like you can stand

Indeed.