#and needs to be changed and change happens with every gnc woman and girl who stands her ground and says fuck you to the gendered expectatio

[scentofpines]

have you ever considered...that identifying out of woman/girlhood because you don't relate to the societal implications, expectations, etc... contributes to making womanhood (feel) even more restrictive? maybe you feel better when thinking of yourself as anything but a girl/woman because you do not feel like a woman (what does that even mean?) but in my opinion you just added another brick into the prisonwall that is gender.

[lostryu]

i need gay rights because literally not a single self-proclaimed cis/het 'ally' understands the alienating experience that comes with being the only gay person in the workplace.

i am a gnc butch lesbian. i use he/him pronouns. when i came out to my manager regarding my pronouns (i had been an open lesbian since the moment of my hire), she told me that she supported me, but she could not enforce or ask our clients to use the correct pronouns for me. she told me it was something i would have to learn to deal with. she never uses the correct pronouns for me unless a person from a different department (who also happens to be LGBT+) is present. she is our HR in addition to manager.

none of my coworkers in my department ever remember to use my pronouns. if i remind them, they go over the top with the "im sorry's" and the "im still learning" and "you know i try my hardest's!" and "i swear im not homophobic!", it has been over 6 months since i came out. if i say nothing, they continue to use she/her (unless that other lgbt+ person from the other department is present, then they miraculously get it right).

sometimes they call me 'girl'. they always flounder and correct to "man-boy-uh youknowwhatimeanright". they laugh it off. they never bother to ask what terms i am comfortable with, or if i even cared in the first place. they don't care about my gender, they never bother to ask. somehow the subject gets changed every time i try to tell them, or set a boundary.

once in a while in a slow shift, the conversation will hop to our dating lives. somehow, it always jumps to how men suck and how dating a woman must be so much easier. they wish they could be gay and not straight. every time, they'll stare at me expectantly, like i am an animal at the zoo. no matter what i say, positive or negative, i must be lying. i cannot be that happy in my relationship, or if i have any issues, they must be minor. if i say 'why don't you try dating a girl then' to their remarks, they'll laugh, say something like "there is no way i possibly could" with that special tone of disguised disgust.

i am a prop, at work. they tell me about how much they love their kids. how they could bring anyone home and they wouldn't care. "they could be black, brown, or purple," they'll say "it could be a woman or a man! I support gay rights!" Then they will talk about how hungry they are, and how they will be going to Chick Fil a for the 4th time this week. 'as a treat'. it is thursday. they talk about going to Hobby Lobby again for christmas decorations, or another sale. sometimes i think i can taste blood.

its june. they talk about the pride parade and how excited they are to see the queens and their 'funny costumes'. they talk about how fun it is to go and watch, how they like the free things the corporations hand out. they don't want to bring their younger kids though. they're not old enough. they do not know that the first pride was a riot. they do not know what happened during the AIDS crisis, how many died. they don't really care when i try to tell them, they'd rather focus on the fun parts of the parade. the spectacle.

i wear a pronoun pin, to make it easier. still somehow no one can get my pronouns right. a client notices it. commends me for "being brave" and "coming out." she never uses my correct pronouns. i stopped wearing the pin after the 11th person asked me if my name on my name tag was my real one, and after the 45th person went out of their way to use incorrect pronouns every sentence. my manager, the HR, did not care.

i need gay rights, but somehow everything got resolved when they allowed us to marry in 2015. to our allies, the work is done. somehow i am left more alone than when we started.

[sciderman]

I've been having some gender-confused thoughts recently and I've been kinda hoping you could weight in on this (as i kinda see you as an expert on gender™ stuff), as sometimes i kinda think like "I wonder what it would be like to be a girl" or "I kinda wanna try if I'd like being a woman and percieved as such" but also partly i am unsure, as i got noone to try stuff with irl (like make-up and clothes and stuff like that) and my parents, mainly my dad, aren't really the most open thinking people out there, and also because part of me wonders if part of my brain is still sexualizing women because most/basicly all of those thoughts are connected to sexual stuff or something physical (even if just cuddling or making out) so i dunno what to think. Sorry for venting but i dunno who to ask tbh. (Where's a Vanessa where you need one, eh?)

i don't think there's any sort of a thing like an expert on gender™, and i don't know if i could at all really weigh in on the validity of your feelings or whether you "qualify" for the right to experiment with your gender – you really, really don't have to "qualify" or feel like you're any sort of anything! if you're curious about what it would feel like to present as femme, then - by god, try it and find out. it might feel amazing, and you'll do it again - you might not like it, and never do it again. or, it might just be a thing you feel that week, and not the next week, and then you'll feel it again in a couple of months, then not.

it doesn't hurt to just - treat it as something easy and free. it doesn't hurt to - buy something pretty and try it in front of the mirror. you're not signing a contract or applying for status as a full-time trans... you're just trying something new. just like you'll try a new entree at a new restaurant. you might never go back. or you'll love it so much you'll go there every week. until you find a new, better restaurant. it's not an all-or-nothing sort of deal - it's not any sort of commitment at all. it's just clothes, and words, and feelings. they can change at any moment, and you should let them be strange and inexplicable and unexplainable - don't take it too seriously. it's all play. treat it like play.

everything in life should feel like play. i think it hurts everyone - absolutely everyone, cis or trans, or anyone - to think that they have to be a certain way. like they have to be this much of something, and cannot be anything else. be free, be comfortable, and be as much of something as you want to be. you don't have to be more, and you don't have to be less than whatever it is you want to be. just - just be.

if you think it'll be fun to put some tights on, put some tights on. if you think it'll be fun to put some make-up on, put some make-up on - sure, it'd always be nice to have someone to guide you through that journey, but - ultimately, whether you have someone else or not, that journey is going to be initiated by you. you have to want to take that first step - and you don't have to wait for it to happen. you can do it any time, whenever you're comfortable and ready, and feel safe to do so.

i think, also, if you're sincerely thinking about gender beyond the binary and asking these sorts of questions then the issue of "sexualising women" becomes much more multilayered than you think. but i don't really - i don't know, i don't really understand where you're coming from. i think there's a very harmful argument from terfs and the like where - they demonise transwomen and accuse them of fetishising femininity and coopting it as a way to penetrate female spaces and - i don't know, maybe that's a mindset you're internalising? if so, i'd really ask you to reexamine that - if you're thinking that about yourself, are you thinking that of transwomen and other gnc people? just - something to reexamine. make sure you're not internalising a rhetoric like that. i'm pretty sure you're not that horrible bogeyman that terfs like to conjure to get people to fear transfolk. and i'm pretty sure that you taking the time to explore your identity and ask questions and getting to know yourself and your relationship with the world is a pretty harmless and wonderful thing that you shouldn't feel afraid to do.

good luck anon! and don't feel afraid to slip back into my inbox with any exciting updates, if you do decide to be so bold!

[orkbutch]

“Shar (real name Sharon)” for the bad nun au is so fucking genius im screaming. Also, SH’s cult being full of radfems is very interesting considering that in-game she’s (or was) super supportive of one of her peers who’s a trans woman (Nocturne) so I like to think the same happened in the AU

Oh yeah, these are also like 70's radfems so their politics are antecedents to modern GC, but distinctly different! More Andrea Dworkin but also homophobic. The Sharrans in Bad Nun are basically a tiny death cult started in a catholic girls school by one charismatic alumnus. Also Shadowheart was like 13 when she was groomed into it. By 16 she was already like, "Oh, this isn't GOOD huh."

At first I considered having the Sharran equivalent be Catholicism the whole way through, but honestly, it just didn't feel true to Shadowheart's trauma in the game! Catholicism is terribly destructive, but it doesn't have the vital Thing that Shadowheart's cult experience had that informed a lot of her trauma: a small, secretive community that was able to be extremely controlling, and a focus on her being "special". As a cult survivor, I think this latter element is really important to distinguishing between general religious trauma and cult trauma.

Cults make you feel special, important - so important and special that other people outside the cult could never understand you, including your family. (Side note, SH's final scene with her parents destroyed me because I think it captured an emotional experience specific to cult survivors that I have very rarely seen captured in fiction! It was brutal!) Simultaneously they are trying to destroy every unique and important thing about who you are. That takes focused manipulation and social control that you don't get so potently from most Catholic communities, because they involve families that are still together and well rooted in their larger, non-Catholic social context. Also only a weird fucked cult leader is gonna change your name to Shadowheart.

That said, her time in the cloister as a nun is an extension of that trauma - its the period where she's still processing her trauma by reproducing what she's learned, not at Shar's whim but because this is all she knows with how to cope. At 27, after 10 years in the cloister, a few years accepting her queerness and a new group of supportive people, she finally begins to move beyond just coping.

Oh man NOCTURNE UGH I LOVE HER I NEED TO DRAW THEM TOGETHER SO BAD .... But in Bad Nun Nocturne starts as a penpal she made while in boarding school though a school letter exchange program! She had a few penpals but Nocturne is the only one she kept up with because they ended up commisterating in their letters about being queer and confused about it. By the time Shadowheart was 5+ years a nun and had started sneaking out into the queer night life, Nocturne had changed her name, moved to London and was living her sexy trans life. Shes an ex-catholic kid herself and a hot goth, which Shad immediately loved, so they're super tight and occasional fuck buddies. Nocturne kept all their letters and helps her remember shit because The Trauma has left Shad with huge memory gaps. (Side note in Bad Nun Shadowheart usually goes by Shad because its a little gnc and makes her feel her femme dykism real good. Jenevelle is basically like... the name of her inner child, who she has a non existent (but hopefully in repair!) relationship with.)

[doodlepede]

We dont really interact much but you usually interact with my posts about whipping girl and i just need to get this out to someone because I'm going crazy you don't have to respond or anything I'm just ranting "Of course, feminine traits that arise from our adult hormonal makeup are relatively easy to categorize as biological, as one can experience the corresponding changes firsthand via hormone therapy. In contrast, other feminine traits that have biological input —such as those that may be hardwired into our brains from birth—are more difficult to discern. Two possible examples of this include feminine aesthetic preferences and ways of expressing oneself. Evidence that these tendencies may be hardwired comes from the fact that they typically appear very early in childhood and often in contradiction to one’s socialization (both for children whose parents attempt to raise them in a unisex or gender-neutral fashion, and for boys whose families actively and aggressively steer them away from feminine expression). This indicates that some aspects of feminine verbal and aesthetic expression precede and/or supersede gender socialization" And I have so much to say this is fucking wild it feels like she sees masculine expression as the default and so feminine expression is automatically different and must have some explanation Its weird to be that she thinks gender expression is hardwired into brains when it can and does change for people its not just a static thing she ignores trans men/masc and gnc women only mentioning boys also weird to me that she puts kids being raised gender neutral or gender free on basically the same level as literal abuse like it just seems like more enbyphobia like she expects everyone to fit in masculine and feminine and man or woman and people who don't are somehow bad and contributing to transphobia and transmisogyny its so weird to me and not at all seemingly based in the material reality that many people face

i saw a massive text wall in my inbox and got Scared for a second LOLOLOL okay my thoughts as i read

yeah i would say that traits which are affected by hormonal changes are biological. its a biological process occurring in a biological organism. its the way we (are compelled to) label them that is sociocultural. breasts happen because estrogen, female is just a useful functional label, and when you remember that intersex people exist, you will find it less and less functional for anything outside zoology and even then, masisve fucking asterisk im not gonna get into right now. ah well theres your issue, there are no feminine traits hardwired into the brain. youre prescribing a sociocultural label to a biological system. that's "brain gender", flawed and borderlike hack science and cornerstone to most transmeds of old (2018). "motherly instincts" are the same, applying sociocultural labels where they don't belong. many many many many mothers outright kill their children through neglect or abuse, so wheres the hardwired instinct gone? single fathers exist and are often superior parents than the mothers so wheres the femaleness gone? we are already doing a LOT of conflation between "female" and "feminine" and biology vs sociology but im getting a little ahead of her....

"feminine aesthetic preference" that's sociocultural. "ways of expressing oneself" sociocultural. yawn. "appear early in childhood" because they are taught by parents and peers who are 100000% aware of the need to conform to society because humans are a social species. i was Very aware of the way my female peers were trying to get me to conform from as young as FIVE. and before preschool, my parents were the ones making me wear pink dresses, when I preferred blue and orange. gender performance is learned behavior. even if your parents try to bring you up gender neutrally, you still have to go to school and interact with every other kid who very much isn't. kids are way more aware than shes giving them credit for, they want to fit in, and every second of gender neutral raising is defeated the instant that child meets two members of the same sex as themself, because those others will know he is male and treat him like one of their own, and they will learn that they're a he and boys are like them. or maybe they'll decide that theyre nothing like them. who knows, but the illusion is shattered regardless. am i strange for literally remembering my thoughts and feelings from the age of 5ish? because i do. + people can change their fucking minds later in life and its no less legitimate as people who made up their minds in their single digits. who are you to fucking tell them otherwise?

(notice the way she singles out boys for being aggressively steered away from feminity without a second of consideration for girls aggressive minding to be feminine? her lack of perspective or consideration for anyone's pov but her own is showing again, it really is no wonder transradfems fucking worship this shitass book)

yeah no god she 100% sees male as default like girl stop you're reinforcing patriarchy

if she were ftm, tumblr would see her for the transmed she is and be over it. i genuinely feel as though she and authors like her are given the benefit of the doubt because of her transfem bias and female gender like be so for real with me.

[distant-screaming]

okay I have to know more about the tinngun wlw au but I can’t think of what yet so I’m thinking as I type, apologies if this is the most incoherent thing you’ve ever read

tinngun they are women they are lesbians you said there are slight changes in the ways they treat each other and stuff or something like that bc there’s society against them now which sucks but anyway what was I saying uhhhhhhhhhhhhh rIGHT

can you give some specific scenarios that are either new or changed? like the pool scenes, or if there’s any differences with the scenes in gun’s mum’s milk cafe?

ALSO from some of the things Astro said about their art (WHICH WAS FREAKING INCREDIBLE BTW) I’ve gathered that gun is more gender non conforming, less feminine and stuff? So I was wondering, what brought you guys to that conclusion, and also could you elaborate more on how her character changes at all? What kinds of clothes does she wear? Does her personality change at all? Is she suddenly more fierce and has to stand up for herself a lot because she doesn’t “look like a girl” and because she’s the only girl in the band and because she’s a lesbian? Does she break/bend rules as often as canon!gun? Or does she try to keep a low profile because she already gets a lot of stares and whispers for being who she is?

sorry I think I love this au too much but pls tell me everything you possibly can about it bc I just need more of it fjfjfjfjrjfirj

AJFSKFKFK THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASK we will literally take any excuse possible to talk about the au <3

Bee (@transpran) and I had so much fun answering these, we ended up rambling a bit more than was probably necessary. I'm not gonna apologize though. They're lesbians, come on.

some specific scenarios that are either new or changed?

Dee (that's me!): In terms of specific scenarios that change, pretty much most of the scenes change at least a little bit - but I don't want to give too much away, because I'm working on a couple drabbles that explore some scenes! Please look forward to that :)

What brought you guys to [Gun as more gnc], and does her character change at all?

Bee: as far as gun being gender nonconforming, i think she grew up naturally into it from being around so many boys, obviously that doesn't happen to every girl who has mostly dude friends but it does tend to be more common among them. especially with being the leader of an otherwise all-boys band, i think as a result she developed into someone who's fierce when she needs to be and able to play around easily (boys are ROWDY at that age generally), someone who can blend in and be "one of the boys." and i do think she enjoys her life that way; i don't think gun consciously cares much about gender at all. but what happens when she meets tinn is that she realizes what she likes about her, and some of it is focused on their differences, on tinn's careful femininity, her gentleness, her lack of a temper (with a few exceptions, as we know). and she admires all that a great deal. part of the differences in the story would be, i think, about gun seeing all that and wondering if she's doing it wrong herself, if not caring about her gender has been mostly just out of convenience so she wouldn't have to think about hard questions, etc. and how she comes out on the other side loving herself as she is and understanding herself more, and that the beauty of being a woman, or anybody, is the power of choosing who you are regardless of what's expected of you by society.

Dee: pretty much all of that! Plus, I think Gun has always been allowed to express herself however she wants (by her parents, Chinzhilla) so she's never really had to like, come up with reasons for anything. She just is! She also has to unpack a little bit of 'do I like this about Tinn or do I want [gender thing] for myself' which is, I think, a common question that often pops up for queer people (or at least it seems to do so for me ajdkd). In terms of character changes, I think one of us said at some point that girl!Gun is more of a 'crunchy' character. Even from a very basic perspective - Fourth's face is very prominent and strong, which, while considered attractive on a guy, could make for a girl!Gun who is often considered rude or grumpy - which can lead to some very interesting changes in the character and choices girl!Gun would make in comparison to canon!Gun.

What kind of clothes does she wear?

Dee: I think Gun is a lot more varied in terms of patterns and style because she'd get more freedom to explore clothes in the first place, but it would end up being pretty similar to canon!Gun's outfits anyway. She also wears more jackets and hoodies as a way to cover up more thoroughly.

Bee: clotheswise, i don't think gun's outfits would change much from original gun. maybe they'd be more form fitting if she doesn't outright shop at the boy's section, but the general vibe would be the same. i think she'd also enjoy loose crop tops on top of sports bras though, and similar stuff.

Does she break/bend rules as often as canon!gun?

Bee: rulebreaking: i think part of gun and friends being outcasts is the rulebreaking and the being bad at studying and school thing. so if anything she'd double down on it. gun has been shown to be very much a "i'll be exactly what they expect of me, and then i'll prove them all wrong" kind of character, if that makes any sense, and girl!gun pretty much has to pick between behaving and not - straddling the line is more dangerous for her cause it could ruin her future and reputation no matter what she did. so she either does what society expects, or says to hell with it with all her chest. we know what she'd choose.

Dee: something else I think is an aspect of Gun's character is that she's very used to center stage. She's been singing and performing since very little, and she enjoys it, so I think she's pretty oblivious to some of the attention she attracts. Obviously she's not wholly unaware, but still. Also, in some ways, I think Gun is even more likely to bend rules because she's so used to having to loophole her way into certain spaces and having to command the room to gain the same respect her male friends seem to get. Girl!Gun is more likely to play with technicalities because it's what she's had to do for ages. Also, she gains a bit of a fan club due to her brazen nature, especially younger queer kids (though this doesn't click for her until much, much later).

Thank you again for your questions! Feel free to ask more, we're both super normal about this au, promise! <- blatant lie

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

tw// vent, cocsa, gender dysphoria, bad body image

Since I was a kid I’ve felt like I was born to be a guy, (as a cis girl). Someone close to me groped me at a young age (we were close in age).

She’s very feminine. Short, small face, neck, and shoulders. She looks like a woman. I’m tall (5’7), lanky, with broad shoulders, a long face and deep voice. She’s a tomboy, while i try to look feminine.

I wear any shoe that doesn’t have support to be shorter, flowery earrings and lipstick, dresses or loose clothing. I still look like a guy. My small breasts don’t help at ALL i’ve tried every diet, exercise, subliminal but nothing ever works. i hate looking like this. there’s always a thought that its her fault. she touched me so my body thought i was a guy. i know thats immature and makes no sense.

i want to look like a female. i want to look up at everyone instead of down at them. i want guys to like me instead of looking at me and whispering “i thought that was a dude” i tried telling my dad but he doesn’t get it. all my siblings look like girls. they’re all so pretty. i’m so masculine and revolting. i hate this.

Hi anon,

I'm sorry about what happened to you.

As a GNC AFAB I understand the frustration in being misgendered frequently. But with this insight, I would ask yourself what makes you feel like you have to prove your gender identity to people who misgender you. It's not necessarily something you should tolerate but sometimes it is inevitable. Although gender expression is often dependent on others' ability to perceive it, I personally try to remember that people who misgender me, their perception of my gender isn't essential to me, and my gender exists independent of whether or not they comprehend it.

Another thing that may be worth exploring with yourself is asking yourself what is so revolting about your masculine traits, and if there are any experiences that reinforced these ideas for you. Because while it's understandable to want to eliminate these masculine features due to your more feminine gender identity, there may be features that you interpret as masculine that may not be able to change. For example, I have been told by transphobes that my jawline is so thick that I must be AMAB. I'm not going to go out and get cosmetic surgery to refine my jawline, I'm going to redefine my jawline as feminine, or whatever is most comfortable to me. I'm going to remind myself that AFABs will have physical traits others interpret as masculine and that doesn't make them any less AFAB, feminine, or whatever describes them best.

While it's okay to associate femininity with being petite, it can also be useful to think of feminine as taking up space. You don't have to be short, small, or slender to be feminine. You also don't have to have big breasts to be feminine. You can define femininity on your own terms.

I also just want to say that it's not immature to say that "she touched me so my body thought i was a guy" and in fact this can make a lot of sense. This may not be exactly what you're experiencing but for some people, trauma can affect the ways in which we perceive and express our gender identity (and sexuality).

I think ultimately it's about learning to love yourself in your totality, and potentially finding ways to reinterpret the parts of you that you deem to be masculine. This is definitely easier said than done.

I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[lostandfem]

there’s something i want people to understand as i blog about my detrans experience and thoughts on feminism: i wasnt someone who was wrong about being trans and now i have the wrong idea of the trans community. you have to understand that i was trans. i am trans. i still have dysphoria. i had every making of a trans person. i lived in that community for 5 years. i lived with that ”trans experience” my whole life, and detransitioning now doesnt mean all of that never happened

but transitioning wasnt the answer. maybe transitioning is the answer for some people, but i think its the answer for a lot fewer people than we think.

i was a young girl with an ED. i was a young autistic girl who was inadvertantly emotionally neglected because no one understood what i needed, nor did i know how to connect to other girls. i was gnc. all i knew was ”i am not enough, i want to have a community. but i dont want to be like those girls. im nothing like them”.

i was under the impression that the way women presented were all ways women wanted to present. i thought it was like a natural instinct to them. all the makeup, the dresses, the jewelry. i thought i was the only one who hated it.

i didnt get crushes like the other girls. i didnt want the attention of the boys. i developed breasts and got my period younger than most. i hated every minute of it, i hated having breasts, but i thought other girls were excited about it as a mark of ”womanhood”

what i needed as a young girl was feminism. i needed to know that there was nothing wrong with me. that these are ways to be a woman; that everything i thought womanhood was was artificial and forced on us. i needed a community of women that wasnt built around those artificial constructs. maybe then i wouldntve come to the conclusion, in the lowest point in my life, that maybe i just wasnt a woman. and coming to that conclusion felt freeing. it felt like id found a space to be myself without all the bullshit i thought i ”had” to be. i didnt have to be a woman anymore. but dysphoria eats you. its never satisfied. it wants change after change after change. more surgery, more hormones, lose some weight, gain some muscle. i got tired and burnt out.

with all the trans people i connected to over the years and shared similar stories, i feel like some are in this same boat as me. this is a trans experience. so i think it deserves weight in discussions about trans people

[that-stone-butch]

Hi can I ask for some general advice? I’m femme and single and every day that I don’t have a lovely butch in a leather jacket smooching me is another day wasted. I just want a older butch to call me sweetheart, change my oil, and roll us a joint while I make them dinner while wearing a pretty dress so when I bend over they can see I’m not wearing anything underneath! Is that so much to ask!! Where are they?? How do I flirt with butches when my friend turns into Silly Putty around hot women?

Or, more specially, how would YOU like a femme to approach you/ask you out/express interest? Granted, most of it is online at the beginning, cause there aren’t very many if any queer spaces in my area that are open, and even then they were 97% gay men anyway. I’m very much a bottom and a sub so being the one to break the ice and get the ball rolling is very strange and difficult for me, but I also know that a lot of butches can be shy at first so I gotta Just Do It. Help me Jasper, you’re my only hope….. to get laid.

I'M your only hope? oh NO! i'll do my best! obviously i'm not every butch but i'll do my best to bring my perspective into this. i've never participated in hookups and casual sex, all of my flirting experiences have been geared towards building a relationship. but for the most part, i'd wager the 'showing someone you're interested' credits transfer. on that note, if anyone has input on more casual experiences, i genuinely invite them to add on to this post.

okay so it seems like we should separate the advice into online flirting, and irl flirting. let's start with online.

it's always better to make a good first impression rather than come on too strong, in my experience. start with a compliment, keep it light and respectful. in general, i find that the best compliments are things that someone *chose*. as someone who gets constant online 'compliments' (spoiler alert it's actually catcalling), i'm NEVER flattered when someone opens with talking about my body. 'your jawline is incredible' isn't the ice breaker it sounds like; maybe i'm self-conscious about my jawline! you don't know, you're literally introducing yourself with this. like so many people compare me to men and male actors, and they think i'm going to take it as a compliment? the very POINT of opening with a compliment is that you DON'T know what people do and don't like about themselves. maybe you like tall girls, but just because you do doesn't mean the person you're interested in is proud of the fact they're tall. ESPECIALLY in trans and gnc spaces, you just don't know what relationship strangers are going to have with their own bodies, and opening with that is just going to display a level of entitlement that is a bit of a turn-off, personally. so compliment people on things they chose, like their attire or aesthetic or tastes. it's really flattering to hear someone say 'hey, i also like that thing you *chose* to make part of your whole deal.' from there it might be the case that someone likes and enjoys hearing compliments about things they didn't necessarily choose, but you really should test the waters first.

additionally, compliments like this break the ice because it's also a thing you would say to a friend? it's my experience that good relationships always grow from good friendships. even if your conversations don't end up in a relationship, or casual sex or whatever, you can still end up with a friend which is a great thing (butch/femme friendships are something we don't talk about a whole lot as a community, because we focus a LOT on sex, but they're life-changing like my femme friends make my fucking day). it can be difficult online to make your intentions known; you don't have the subtext, body language, all the things that help you further communicate your intentions in person. that's why, online, it's good to make your intentions known after you've built up a good rapport with someone. strike up conversation, find things in common, and after a little bit it's perfectly respectful and okay to tell someone you're interested in them. however, and i cannot stress this enough, do NOT be vague about your intentions online. at least in my case, it's very easy to misinterpret people over text. (who am i kidding, tumblr is the internet capital of people misinterpreting each other). be plain about your intentions. from there you might talk logistics, trade phone numbers (use encryption! use signal!), agree to focus on building a friendship together, part ways, etc. get to know people, ask them questions about themselves, show them you're engaged and interested.

i want to take a second here, especially for younger people reading this, just because someone is gay and/or you're into them doesn't mean you should be unsafe with your information. play it close to the chest, if you're going to meet up meet up in a neutral location. DON'T meet people from the internet in your home, or theirs. exchanging addresses is something to do well after you know you're in a safe situation. ALWAYS be ready to bail. be safe.

as for in-person, i'm sorry to say but in my experience you ARE likely going to have to make the first move. for a lot of butches (and femmes) being out and about is kind of a gender battleground. the LAST thing i want to do is make someone uncomfortable, especially as a masc woman. a misread signal can be dangerous. additionally, i want to say you should NEVER hit on someone who can't leave the situation. never hit on someone just doing their job (unless they're stating very clear intentions toward you from their position. it's sometimes okay to flirt *back* with people on the clock, but still give them space to back off) because you're putting them in a VERY uncomfortable situation.

in-person flirting for wlw is kind of fraught with some difficulty in that you need to signal that you're gay. for me, as a butch, if someone hits on me and they don't signal very hard that they're gay, i'm left wondering if they even knew i was a woman. i've had straight girls hit on me, it's the weirdest fucking thing. now, i'm not equating femme presentation with looking plausibly straight or whatever femmephobic brainrot is floating around out there, femmes ARE gnc and do so in a unique and beautiful way. but being wlw, especially what feels often like a 'gender outlaw,' you're often plagued with self-doubt. sometimes it's easier to believe you're misreading someone as gay and they were just being friendly (or just being friendly AND are gay, as i said earlier that happens and that's a GOOD thing).

i find, in person, it's a good idea to open with a compliment that specifically recognizes someone's butch presentation. if someone says 'i love your hair, by the way' i'm IMMEDIATELY in blush mode. it feels so good to be recognized when i'm out and about, when so many people just decide i'm a man to validate their own worldview, or think they have to compensate for my presentation, assure me no i'm pretty i look very feminine, to validate me as a woman. meeting someone in-person, that you're interested in, it's validating and refreshing to just be seen and shown that someone's interested in the way i'm putting a lot of effort into presenting.

that said, never push people. if you see someone at a coffee shop, campus diner, bookstore, etc. that you're interested in, as with online it's a good idea to aim to leave a good impression. chances are, you might see that person again. i'd rather have someone see me, flirt a little, and then approach me *again* the next time they see me, then go all-in intense the first time. obviously it's smart to play it by ear but if you feel like you're coming on too strong, it's a good idea to back up a little. but that's just me.

above all, remember to have fun with it! flirting is fun, and if you're trying to tactically align your flirting with someone too hard toward a relationship, it kind of loses a little something? i find it's usually a good idea to approach people with the genuine intention of making a connection, and seeing where that takes the two of you, rather than trying to *get* someone to reciprocate. keep it fun! keep it light!

i hope that helps! i'm sorry i don't have more experience, if anyone has something to add, they're welcome to!

[bestworstcase]

farran re-reads lost lagoon: chapter 1

- there is a vibe here that i really don’t know how to explain. it might just be a juv fic thing where nuance gets flattened on the assumption that younger readers won’t or can’t understand such subtleties but i am immediately remembering that something about the way rapunzel is portrayed in the novels gets my hackles up. tts was evidently limited in how it could flesh out rapunzel’s character, and some of her flaws are glossed over accordingly - but in tts, rapunzel does have flaws, and toxic positivity is one that is repeatedly, if lightly, examined. in lost lagoon it feels like this trait has been dressed up in a party hat and presented to me as her best trait with a rah rah girl power cake to go with it, and it irks me. we’ll see how this holds out through the rest of the story, because in all fairness i have never met a juvfic first chapter whose character establishment i liked. lmao

- to give an example - in tangled and tts, pascal functions as rapunzel’s voice of reason. he encourages her to get out of the tower, and likewise encourages her to be cautious of eugene and check for ‘red flags’ (such as pointy teeth). in tts he regularly displays emotional awareness and sensitivity well beyond what rapunzel can grasp, and makes his doubts known when he feels rapunzel is behaving poorly. here… he’s afraid of heights, for some reason, so rapunzel can look carefree, spirited, and brave while teasing him for having this fear. she even lampshades the fact that it makes no sense for pascal, who grew up in a seventy-foot-high tower, to be afraid of being in a tree perhaps five or six feet off the ground. 

then this is underscored by means of guards rushing up with a ladder to ‘help’ rapunzel down from the tree, followed by her laughing them off and jumping to land ‘as always, on my strong bare feet.’ while it makes sense for rapunzel to think and feel this way, it has a distinctly different energy from rapunzel cracking under pressure in before ever after. in bea i feel like i’m supposed to sympathize with rapunzel’s distress whilst also recognizing the importance of the shoes she has been asked to fill, and of making her ready to fill them; that is… not the impression being crafted here.

- lost lagoon is one hundred percent structured as a coming out romantic novel wherein rapunzel identifies and comes to terms with her identity as a gay woman by cheating on her perfectly nice but unexciting male love interest with another woman, and this is endlessly hilarious to me regardless of anything else. i mean:

Not to mention true love with Eugene—sweet, funny Eugene! […] And yet something wasn’t right. Something was missing.

leila howland said “get fucked, fitzherbert”

- the treatment of friedborg here is a small step up from tts, where ‘haha weird and ugly’ is literally the punchline of every scene she’s in, but nevertheless it is distinctly uncomfortable to have a mute character portrayed as communicating in grunts and pointing. surely corona has some sort of sign language? surely someone could get this poor woman a slate and a piece of chalk, or if fine motor control is an issue that makes writing or signing prohibitively difficult then at the very least a booklet of cards with common words and phrases she could use to convey her meaning? but…no. instead she becomes a device to illustrate how opaque and confusing rapunzel finds palace etiquette to be.

- rapunzel thinking “manners are overrated” is extremely funny. i am not sure it’s supposed to be funny, but it is.

- lost lagoon eugene is suffering the great indignity of being made to learn something. this is one of the first signs that the book is fanfiction, which now that i think of it is also sort of hilarious.

- also: “I’ll join a dishwashing club or participate in a meatloaf-eating competition if that’s what it takes to make your dad accept me.” eugene what

- re: romance novel: “I watched Eugene walk back toward the castle. Why couldn’t I be as happy as he was? I wondered. We had everything anyone could ever want. Was there something wrong with me? It was almost like I didn’t even know I was lonely when I was in the tower, but everything had changed now. I could feel the places inside me that had been empty for so many years and I wanted to fill them all up.”

- amusing as this is i also can’t help but feel… a little irked, that tts rapunzel’s zeal for the outside world and her discovery of it has been transmuted into mere loneliness. rapunzel is a lonely person, absolutely, but i think far more pressing than that loneliness is her longing for newness after a life spent in the tower. moreover, in tts we see that it takes six months for rapunzel to start really chafing within the confines of her new life—in beginnings, which is the canon lost lagoon equivalent, she is still overwhelmed with wonder and delight in all the new things, cassandra included. i suppose what i’m getting at here is i don’t quite buy that the shine wore off this fast. it’s been less than a week.

(i promised myself i would keep bitter snow talk to a minimum for this but i do feel the need to say - benighted happens in a far more compressed amount of time than canon, and there rapunzel does indeed begin to feel overwhelmed and anxious within a single week. but her response to that anxiety is to think “well, i overestimated how easy this would be just a little!” and it isn’t until several more weeks have passed that she begins to feel dissatisfied and unhappy and uncomfortable as a consequence. whereas here, the vibe i am getting is more “manners are dumb, shoes suck, the guards suck, i’m miserable and i don’t know why” which just… it doesn’t feel like rapunzel.)

- rapunzel asks her security detail to give her some space, and when they refuse, she takes note of their sweaty brows, thinks to herself that they must be roasting under their armor—and uses this observation to deftly manipulate them into leaving her alone by suggesting they go dip their feet in a fountain to cool off. “It would make me really happy to see you happy.” 

i would argue that this sort of conscious manipulation is not at all out of character for rapunzel - she learned it from gothel and certainly there are examples of manipulative behavior from her in tts as well - but for it to happen so clearly in the very first chapter of the story casts everything else that happens in a sort of interesting light. for rapunzel to do this suggests a basic grasp of, at least, how people can be made to do things by appealing to their physical needs or comfort—yet she will also struggle to grasp social nuances and as in canon much of her conflict with cass is grounded in rapunzel’s dismissal of or blindness to what cassandra wants or needs from her. manipulativeness and social ignorance is an interesting combination of traits for her to have and it is nice to see the manipulativeness borne out so overtly in the text. again, we’ll have to see how this holds up later in the story because i do not remember it very well.

re: romance novel: the dissatisfaction and loneliness established in chapter one and explicitly not filled by the male love interest are, of course, answered by a fascinating glimpse of the one (1) gnc woman in all of corona. whom rapunzel only glimpses because she is climbing a tree to paint the view out of hopes that it will “fix” how out-of-place she feels. ms. howland you are not subtle, and also, how did she slip this past the disney censors?

[sapphos-darlings]

Tips for the women out there who wish they were more GNC but are afraid to live the dream:

Giving up the feminine routines that exhaust you and which you don’t want to carry on with essentially only stings once. Let’s talk about shaving: few of us enjoy shaving. The feel of smooth skin can be enjoyable, but I’ve rarely met a woman who thinks it’s worth the effort it takes to stay smooth and hairless every day of your lives. Face it: this is not the natural state of your body, and the expectation that you meet this unnatural and frankly pedophilic standard is ridiculous. But you can’t just drop it, can you? People will stare at your hairy legs. You can’t go out with your legs exposed anymore if you stop shaving them. And even if you cover your legs, people will notice your arm hair. You might be WOC, and your hair is not only judged for being there in the first place, but being there so obviously, and you’re not only going against the current as a woman but as someone whose worth is already questioned in our society even when you do everything they ask of you. You’re already told that you’re never quite good enough, and more than just your own reputation hangs on you. Doesn’t it? The truth is, the vast majority of the people you pass by in this life will not care about you, hairy or otherwise. And the people who do are either not worth your time to begin with, for example the men who demand that you bow to their desires, or they need to mind their own business and cannot dictate how you exist in your own body, such as your friends, coworkers or other women in your family. Maybe you can’t shut them out, but you can resist, you can and you should question them. How are you bad for being how you were meant to be as a human being? What material, spiritual benefit does a beauty routine and the constant outside eye on yourself to judge whether you’re performing properly bring you, as opposed to all the other things you could be focusing on instead? They might call you ugly or say that you’re letting yourself go. This is social conditioning talking, and is not the truth of it. Your body was made to be a certain way - letting yourself exist as you naturally are is neither ugly nor lazy. It’s not a crime. In fact, demanding that someone alters herself for aesthetics every single day of her life is a horrible thing to ask of somebody: you are essentially told that you’re not good enough as a person, only as an object. Your worth is not tied to how desirable you are to the male gaze. Especially as a wlw, the best thing you can do for yourself is reject the male desire and the male standards such as hairlessness and the expensive, often painful, beauty routines. Re-evaluate everything you do for your looks, figure out which things you’re really doing for yourself, why you’re doing them, and how they help you - if they do - in your everyday life. Choose convenience and comfort and real confidence over the safety of conforming. Your womanhood and your personhood are not dependent on how well you perform the role of a sex object, a decoration. You are human.

Now, you’ve done something that seems radical: maybe you stopped shaving, or you shaved your entire head. Maybe you wore something you wanted to instead of something that makes you look beautiful. You expect repercussions. They might come, and they might sting hard the first few times, but you’ll learn quickly that you do not die. There are no cosmic consequences for unshaved legs or a makeupless face, or for cropped hair, or for wearing a pair of comfortable shoes that don’t make your feet ache and sting. God herself will not descend from the skies and smite you for your disobedience. The world is, in fact, quite silent - and you may feel more comfortable in your own skin already, even if you face consequences. After all, words are just words, but what you feel and how you carry yourself are your material reality, your whole perspective to this world. This is your point of view. You’ve made it more comfortable for you. You’ve made the vessel for all that you experience here better for yourself. Who else matters? Or maybe you’re actually just itchy, because regrowing your hair might irritate your skin for a while, much like breaking it open with microcuts with the razor would. The ends of your body hair are sharp, and the stubble doesn’t bend with your body. It’s like a thousand needles digging into your skin. Use lotion or oil on it - body safe, of course, especially if we’re talking about the genital area - or take a bath every now and then to soften the hairs, but remember not to dry your skin needlessly. The itchiness will go away with time. You may notice you smell less, too. Battling against your body odours gets easier with more fluff here and there to regulate your skin’s bacteria. The rewards aren’t instant, but they’re there... other than for the relief you’ll feel for not having to wake up early or spend time you’d rather be watching Netflix by performing a routine that demands your obedience every single day, or else. That one comes for free and it comes the second you decide to desist. Else what, you’ve asked it. And nothing happened. You’ll get less comments about your changes over time. People are very resistant to change and nonconformity scares them; stepping out of line will always make others nervous around you. But they’ll learn, as you do, that what you’ve done is in fact quite harmless. Your body will feel more comfortable. Your confidence will grow once you realise that you are good the way you are, and that the world will not collapse around you if you stop adhering to rules written for somebody else’s pleasure.

But surely, no one will love a woman who’s not beautiful - and you can’t be beautiful without makeup, without long and well-maintained hair, without manicured nails, heels and a thin body. Right? Look around you. Look at real women, women who haven’t been rendered mere Barbie lookalikes by the powers of Photoshop and extensive cosmetic surgery. She’s fat, and she still has a boyfriend. She’s got bags under her eyes, she’s got wrinkles, and she’s engaged to marry her wife-to-be this coming June. It’s like those around her don’t care she’s “let herself go”. And she’s muscular, mannish, everything you were taught was wrong or unattainable for women - and she’s adored by women all over the internet. People share her pictures with that emoji with the heart eyes, all over. “I want to be like her.” “I wish I was that brave.” Maybe you said the same thing when you saw her before, before you did what you’ve done now, before you decided to become like her. Who’s in the wrong here? These women who have committed the cardinal sins of breaking against the laws of objectification, or maybe the laws themselves, this expectation that you change yourself to be desired? Desired by who? Who is this invisible spectator in your life you so desperately wish to please? Do you love him? Does he love you? Do you want him? Question him; change him to her. What does she want from you? When I ask the trapped girl within me what she wants, she answers “freedom”. To be herself, to do what she wants, to wear what she wants, to be comfortable and safe. She wants to be seen for the human person she is, to be respected for what she can do, not for a plastic body detached from our mammalian reality of stretchmarks, curves, wrinkles, layers of fat and the little fur that keeps her clean and dry and regulates her temperature. So your mother or your sister or the man you work with told you that you look sick today, or that people will feel ashamed by you because you’ve let your leg hair get out of control. Ask them why does it matter - who is the audience for your performance? Maybe they reply: “it’s basic hygiene.” If it’s basic hygiene, why is it only expected from women?

You can prioritize your comfort and your needs over this commercialized idea of “beauty”. There is no wrong way to be a woman. Love your body. Wear what you want. Perform for yourself only. If someone won’t love you for what you don’t provide, find someone whose love is worth your time and not dependent on your performance in a full-time reality show. Someone will love you for who you are, because you are a human being in a human body, and anyone who demands you to be something else is out of their mind. The cardinal sins of womanhood and attractiveness are a lie imposed onto you to sell you products and beat you down every day so that you won’t question whether the pain and shame you endure is justified or realistic. Fat women, thin women, women of colour, hairy women, petite women, “masculine” women, “feminine” women, non-conforming women are all women, we’re all proper women, we’re all good enough, and we were all made to be jiggly, we were made to be fuzzy, we were made to be rough around the edges, to have smells, to have desires, to mature and show the signs of our maturity. There is nothing wrong with the way nature created you.

[werevulvi]

I feel like I should get deeper into my choice to take on the nonbinary label. Is it based on misogyny? Yes. Absolutely, yes. But a woman simply protecting herself from misogyny is not complicit in the misogyny that she is forced to face. Radical feminists should know that, I think. However, I realise that I may have missed to communicate that clearly. Allow me to try better, and dig deeper into my wounds.

Identifying as nonbinary does give me a sense of relief, a sense of wholeness - a relief to be whoever I want and feel allowed to just exist as my authentic self, free from either fucked up gender stereotype, thgose of both men and women - which might sound good on the surface level... but looking deeper, through my radfem eyes, what it means, is this: Why do I feel like I cannot be my authentic self as a woman, all of a sudden? There we have it, the big bleeding wound in my heart, and that's what I feel a need to elaborate on. I'll stay out of the nonbinary tag this time. This isn't for them. (Although anyone can reblog, comment or give a like.) What do I actually want, for myself, if it wasn't for society? I wish to continue transitioning. I wanna go back on testosterone as I deeply miss it and I'm panicking about my body hair thinning out and decreasing. I do not want to lose it for the world! I'm holding onto every single one of my vanishing hairs, for dear life! At the same time, I still wish to get new boobs. I still miss them sorely and I just need to have those kinda body parts again. I feel broken without boobs, I panic without T. I cannot explain it. It's weird alright, but I don't give a fuck! Without societal imput that's just how I want to look and love looking like. It's just body mods. At core, that's what it is: just body modifications. You know that as radfems - I know it just as well.

I love my body when it's masculinised yet retaining all of my originally female parts, such as curves, breasts and my pussy. That makes me feel very positively connected to my body; so to the point that it makes me feel entirely at peace with that I'm female, and very comfortable with that it makes me a woman. But I cannot be okay with being female if I had to be a traditional looking woman, or even a butch-looking woman. That is not ME, neither of those would be my authentic self. So, my medical transition deeply matters to me, as body mods, and I will not walk away from that. I believe that continuing my medical transition while still honouring my female body and womanhood is what is right for me personally. I understand that there is an issue with the beauty industry affecting me too, but I'm clearly not making myself beautiful for men - nor am I making myself ugly for them. What I'm doing is making myself beautiful for me, in an unconventional way, even though it makes me also ugly for most other lesbians. Can you understand then, from that perspective, how deeply important it is for me, that I willingly make such a sacrifice? (I'm already in a happy lesbian relationship, so maybe you can't, but alright.) I do not believe that I mod myself out of self hate. Not anymore, because I did in the past, and I believe that I can tell the difference between living as a man while actively attempting to escape one's female biology - and living as a male-passing woman while actively honouring my beautifully modified female body. You may think I'm mutilated, but I'd disagree. I am beautiful and my high self-esteem greatly surpasses such rudeness.

Is a heavily tattooed woman self-hating for her mods? I don't know what you may think, but if not, then neither am I with my beard and deep voice and future fake tits. An intentionally virilised (fancy word for masculinised, I like it quite a lot), modified woman is what I am, want to be and remain as. I do not have any "social dysphoria" accompanying my body/sex dysphoria since I recovered from my traumas, and thus I feel no need or wish what so ever to call myself a man, and I feel good calling myself what is true in science: female, girl, woman, she/her, lady, ma'am, miss, etc.

I believe that I have somehow managed, against all odds, with the help of radfems on tumblr... to balance transitioning my dysphoria with being a self-loving biological woman. Thank you for that. So what's the catch? I mentioned misogyny. Well, socially, as a male-passing, yet suspiciously curvy and overtly effeminately styled person - I have effectively lost my right to be a woman outside of radblr. I want you to understand this, especially other radfem's, so please listen carefully if you've got a few minutes, because this is important, as it absolutely has to do with both female oppression as well as trans ideology bullshit (and I'll try not to scream this time, but I can't make any promises, because this is deeply painful and upsetting to me.) Can't women take testosterone and like it and still be women? That's what's so complicated, and I need to be upfront and clear about why. Technically, yes of course that is possible. No one can or should stop women from taking T if they truly want a beard and permanently deep voice, right - but is it possible socially? No, in my experience it is not, and I will now try my best to explain to you what I mean by that, as it's kinda abstract. There are two aspects to this. Firstly, any female person claiming to want those physical features is going to be told that they then cannot be a woman. They are told that is incorrect thinking, that they are a trans man or nonbinary, that they have internalised transphobia or that they are indeed a "cis" woman but confused and should NOT take testosterone, implying that will make her dysphoric if she really is a woman. Because trans ideology says so.

Secondly, living as a male-passing woman who does not want to pass as female, was something that I found to be so difficult in practice that eventually it became too much for me. It isn't dysphoria-inducing, not at all. But it's very, very frustrating and constantly challenging. I can no longer access women's spaces so I have to put up with using the men's including locker rooms, convincing people of my still female sex is next to impossible (even doctors!), other women view me as a threat and an imposter, I'm frequently barred from lesbian spaces unless my girlfriend invites me to them first, I am frequently mistaken for being a poorly passing trans woman, and so on.

I'm effectively forced to either live as a trans woman (which I'd feel is degrading, untrue, and deceptive) or to claim a transmasculine label to at least be able to infer that I'm "afab" - but a WOMAN? No. Woman, in the eyes of society as it is today - cannot be a happily male-passing, dysphoric female. That is deemed an oxymoron. Gender has taken presendency over sex. People assume, wrongfully, that my "gender identity" is woman - and they assume, just as wrongfully, that my sex is male - and they make both those assumptions at once. They then refuse to accept that they are wrong, no matter how hard I have tried to explain it, over and over ad nauseum. I don't even understand why that keeps happening!

Therefore, I've come to the sad conclusion that I'm simply no longer welcome into society as a woman, based on my choice of looks, as I am indeed happily transitioned and do not wish to change what testosterone improved on my body. I completely refuse to. Not to be dramatic, but... I'd rather fucking die. My body is not a property of society. It is MY property. My ONLY true property. And I'll decorate it however I so damn well please. But what can I do about it, being treated like that? Realistically, in actuality, what CAN I possibly do about it? Honestly, not much. I can either suck it up and "admit" to being a man, or I can fight endlessly and keep explaining how I'm really a woman, or choose some kinda middle-road like nonbinary, but I cannot win that fight. Perhaps (hopefully) radical feminism can, but me, as a single, individual person? No, I cannot win that battle. I stand defenseless against a massive army, and that enemy has worn me out. I have essentially lost my right to be a woman, by being my authentic self. That is very, very sad. It scares me, it honestly mortifies me, but I have to deal with it somehow. I can't just slump down and cry about it, no matter how tempting that is.

I do not think that my experience with this is entirely unique. I believe I probably share it with tons of other gnc and/or male-passing women, but I am new to this.

I'm 30 years old, and have only lived as a male-passing woman for one and a half year. I grew up as a typically feminine girl, dysphoric about my sex traits, but never dysphoric about my feminine expression. My gnc mom taught me well, to separate sex from gender expression, and I thus never confused the two as I see sooo many other gnc and trans people do. I do not blame them, because so many people infer that my femininity=woman and my masculinity=man and that the sum of my whimsical androgyny equals nonbinary. But I cannot, do not, WILL NOT and have never in my life... seen it that way. However, big however, I STILL turned out dysphoric about my sex, despite being a happily feminine female, and lesbian at that, and that is something few seem to understand. I get that, I totally do. It's probably rare. Just see for yourself how empty the "dysphoric femme" tag is. Yes, it exists, with a whole whopping three posts. And I struggle to explain it.

It's very hard for me to live as a male-passing woman because it is entirely new for me and I'm struggling to adapt to facing this extreme level of misogyny. I break down from it, I do not know how to handle it. Perhaps most gnc/dysphoric women have lived with that crap since they were young tomboys, but I haven't, because I was never a tomboy. I suppose it will get easier, as much else does, and that is why I'm pretty sure that me using the nonbinary label now is only going to be temporary. Because I do not know how to deal with this. I'm sorry... I'm sorry for breaking down and admitting defeat, I'm so fucking sorry. I just want to be treated with the dignity and respect that I give to others, or at least just an ounce of politeness. So am I actually nonbinary, then, genderwise? No, I am not. Neither my choice of gender roles, nor my androgynous blob of a personality, not even my strange dysphoria is evidence of a nonbinary gender. If that’s how others see it: fine, but I cannot force myself to actually believe that THAT's what makes me nonbinary... No matter how much I keep getting that forced down my throat. All I do is choke on it. What I am is a woman, sex-wise, as I've always stated. Me taking on the nonbinary label is indeed a choice. A reluctant, but very deliberate, active choice.

Problem is that I cannot live authentically while at the same time calling myself what I literally am, without getting brutally punished for it. Yes, I believe the ones to blame for that... are the TRA's. Trans activism slowly changed society to overlook sex in favour of gender. I believe that is why I am being denied my womanhood, because it is based on my invisible sex. If you look clearly female in your day-to-day life, I do not think that you could possibly experience this. To clarify: I do not mind passing as male. In fact I like it quite a lot. What I do mind, is being treated like crap for who I am, and not being believed to be what I am. I had no idea that this would happen upon my detransition. I am shocked, and I am hurt. End notes: I wish that someday I can truly reclaim my womanhood, without having to change my body to fit societal standards, or claim a trans label to dodge the societal standards. I miss my womanhood, and I need it... but it has been snatched from my hands. The enemy won't let me have it back, unless I comply to the rules and (sell my soul to the patriarchy) turn myself into a conventionally attractive barbie doll - and my attempts to reclaim it without complying to those rules, are utterly futile. I am an incorrect female... deprived of my right to be a woman, and it hurts. Man, it hurts sooo bad!

Honestly I don't know what to do about it, but for now I need a breathing break from this constant battle, because my enemy has exhausted me. "Nonbinary" is such a breathing break. It is my retreat, but I will NOT surrender. Someday I will charge back into battle again, and shove down people's throats that I'm damn well a woman regardless of what they think of it. Because this bearded bitch ain't fucking dead yet!!!

[a-romanian-gender]

okay so basically, I identify as a cis girl, but I don't actually know whether I'm trans or not. I keep finding myself wanting to constantly be other people (which always happen to be guys), for example : I wish i was the guy in front of me, or I wonder what life as that other guy will be like. not because I want to see what their lives are like, just because I want to be a guy. I'm not even sure what names I want to go by. I think it might just be dissociation or something of the sort so (1/2)

if I end up getting diagnosed with cisgender disease I really won't be surprised. I'm not sure if I have dysphoria or not. I keep finding myself wanting to change my genitals but I'm fine with my upstairs if it makes sense? I don't know. my brain also keeps telling me I'm not manly enough constantly. I don't have a preferred name or pronouns but I keep forgetting my current name and pronouns lol. These feelings come and go, because one day I'll want to be the girliest girl and then the (2/?)

one day I'll find myself wanting to be the girliest girl and then the next I'll want to be a guy and idk why that happens. I understand you probably didn't expect me to dump all this on you so don't feel forced to respond. thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about this with someone who knows more abt it than I do 👍 (3/3)

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Gender is more complex than we like to think. Before I say anything else, I wanna say that some trans people aren't (that) dysphoric and in my opinion I don't think you need dysphoria to be trans, but rather some degree of gender euphoria. From what you said, I think you can honestly be nonbinary. Here are some genders I think that fit your description:

Nonbinary: a person who is outside the gender binary (male and female). It can be an umbrella term but also a stand alone identity. People who are nonbinary can be aligned with a binary gender or unaligned

Genderfluid: a person whose gender changes every day. The common kind of genderfluid person is fluctuating between male and female, but a genderfluid person can fluctuate between other genders as well, even more than two genders

Demiboy: a person who partially identifies as a boy and the other part can be any other gender. An example of a demiboy person could say that they identify 75% as a man/boy and 25% as a woman/girl, but these percentages can change and the gender they identify as in the small percentage can be any other than girl/woman

Solarian: a person who is nonbinary and male aligned. These gender is part of the galactian system. There are some differences between demiboy and solarian, mostly when it comes how people feel comfortable identifying as

GNC/gender nonconforming trans man: a person who identifies as a binary man but dresses not traditionally manly/a binary trans man who is more feminine in style. Not a nonbinary gender but I think it also fits

These are some of the identities that I thought they would work for you, but there are many other genders out there. I advise you experiment with your gender for a bit and try different labels and pronouns and names and see what sticks to you and get as informed as possible. I hope this helps!!

[aizawa-yamada-shinsou]

Out of curiousity, why do you think a person needs to be dysphoric to be trans? I want to better understand where you're coming from.

Thank you for being rational about this, well I would say reveal but I’ve never hidden the fact I’m transmed, instead of calling me names. I appreciate the chance to talk this out like adults.

Now it’s late where I am and I have an early morning since I’m at a family reunion, not to mention I’m on mobile since there is no wifi so I’m not going to link any sources but I’ll paraphrase what I read and what I believe. If you really want me to find sources, then send me another ask and I’ll get back home in a few days. I may word this a little awkwardly since I want to explain this to the few dozen asks I’ve been getting too if they didn’t just send nasty anons and then block me completely. My explanation is under the cut. 

The definition of Transgendered is “denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.” 

Transgendered people sense of personal identity and gender not corresponding with their birth sex, the literal definition of the medical condition known as being transgendered, is Gender dysphoria. This comes on many different levels, from mild irksomeness to crippling heaviness, but it has to be present otherwise the person is not transgendered by medical definition. 

Like many words nowadays I believe the word Trans gets thrown around way too much anymore.

I’ve heard dragqueens called trans, I’ve heard GNC called trans, hell I’ve heard someone claiming that girls that preferred pants over skirts were all actually nb at best, closeted trans men ‘at worst’ (praying that one was a troll but honestly it sounded like they were serious). Trans is not any of those things, hell I was very tomboy when I was growing up, loving everything dirty, slimy, and gross and hating frills and cutesy things, now I dig makeup and getting dressed up. Even if I have masculine interests still, it doesn’t change the fact I am a cis woman. 

What I do believe can happen if you aren’t someone who just hates gender roles, a very common thing I again have seen mistaken for being trans, is not realizing you have dysphoria. This is often easily seen by someone having gender euphoria with the gender they identify as. 

Gender Euphoria is feeling happiness or a sense of freedom from someone correctly gendering you, such as using the correct pronouns, or a chosen name. If you feel this for your identifying gender, then you had/have gender dysphoria for your birth gender. As I said before Dysphoria is not just hating yourself and crying all the time like some people claim and every trans person experiences it differently and at a different level, so finding a good description past ‘a disconnect with your birth gender’ is near impossible, but the fact still stands. You might not even realize you have Dysphoria but Cis people don’t enjoy being identified as the other gender unless it’s a clear act like with Drag or theater, though many are chill and will just politely correct you or maybe laugh and rib you a bit.  

Euphoria and Dysphoria are a dichotomy, having one means you don’t have the other. If one gender gives you Euphoria, the other gives you Dysphoria or if your nb then both give you Dysphoria and being either or both or whatever else you identify as give you Euphoria. 

So if you’re feeling Euphoria form identifying differently then your birth gender then I’m so sorry, you have dysphoria in relations to your birth gender, Go see a doctor when you are able and see about transitioning so you can feel Euphoria all the time. 

[gottaenjoythelittlethingzz]

Character Creation Tag

I wasn’t tagged directly, but I saw @kainablue do this and it looks really creative/cool. I love talking about my OCs (mainly my MC, but I’ve just created two more to add to the canonverse).

I’ll be filling this out for Schuyler, of course, since she’s the MC of her long winded tale.

1) What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)?

Her gender. She’s in a male dominated society/community/organization with some backwards or outdated views of women. Her being such a strong and prominent woman in the story is going to change those views. Next would have been backstory as I had to fight tooth and nail against canon in order to get her introduced to the canonverse. Then character. Name was last and actually the hardest. I knew the general character I wanted nearly from the beginning, but the name had to fit and really mean something.

2) Did you design them with any other characters/OCs from their universe in mind?

Most canon MCs because I knew I wanted her to have deep relationships with each on an individual level as well as her parents who I created as OCs to fit into the canon story.

3) How did you choose their name?

I knew I needed a generic western European name. One that was strong and looked cool helped. I also wanted one that could be easily turned into a nickname. Schuyler (Sky) fit perfectly.

4) In developing their backstory, what elements of the world that they live in played the most influential parts?

The culture surrounding the club. She was designed to be the black sheep, but she also had to be accepted if she was ever to be allowed to join. It’s a balancing act to say the least.

5) Is there any significance behind their hair color?

I just like blondes. Also, for her character design I wanted the “Idealistic” or “perfect” female lead in terms of her looks for American/white standards. Spoiler: The progression of the story shows that she is anything but idealistic as far as her personality/character.

6) Is there any significance behind their eye color?

Again, blue eyes. Kinda typical white girl or idealistic. Operating in an non-idealistic or unsophisticated world.

7) Is there any significance behind their height?

Good height beside her partners and other characters I suppose.

8) What (if anything) do you relate to within their character/story?

I love the canon story and the characters she adopts as family. She’s a strong female lead that I, as a reader/creator, respect greatly. Her love of animals and food for sure. We’re also both from Texas, but this has standing reasons in canon.

9) Are they based off of you, in some way?

Blond hair, blue eyes, curvy, stubborn, from the south, GNC. But she’s way stronger and way more confident than myself. She’s a leader which I really respect.

10) Did you know what the OC’s sexuality would be at the time of their creation? 

For the most part. Sex is part of the culture she was raised in. Of course, she’d be a player because she was raised by players alongside players. Her best friend is a total lady’s man. Sex became a competition between them. She doesn’t see gender, race, or size. Sex is just a common everyday occurrence. An activity or a fun thing to do to pass the time. Because her whole club is into the “casual sex” scene it is also expected as part of the culture.

While she respects her partners to a certain degree unlike her brothers she still isn’t capable or interested in commitment at the start of the story which is very similar to the rest of the cast. And I started the story idea with the intention of, spoilers, her ending up in a poly triad relationship with two men (I’ve always been interested and curious to tackle such a relationship dynamic in writing), so her being bisexual made the most sense for her story.

Her gender orientation is a different subject. I knew she had to be female to break the social norms of the canonverse. However, she’s not a priss or a girlie girl. And I wanted her character to be more meaningful than a normal ‘tomboy’. Not that there’s anything wrong with writing either character type. Yet, starting with a closeminded group and having no previous experience writing for NB, agender, or transgender characters, I decided that GNC was the term that fit Schuyler the best. It’s a term I believe she herself would be the most likely to use and thus it was chosen. 

11) What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)?

Creating her voice in dialogue. I know how she thinks, but as a writer I’m kinda new to dialogue. I’m getting better and it gets more natural with every edit or new scene, but creating a voice from scratch (not a FF/canon character) has been an experience.

12) How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?

From Schuyler’s birth to canon. Including family linage and setup for canon events leading into the story. As well as several weeks after canon ends. I’m planning on adding a few chapters in between canon time jumps which would also deviate from canon and maybe lead to some changes, but have yet to draft them as I’m still in the drafting phase of the project.

My WIP TROD follows the story of SOA from the pilot to the final ride. With this in mind, though I plan to use a majority of storylines and respect the canon, it can be viewed as a sort of AU and I plan to add as many original characters/scenes/maybe a story arc(?) to make it my own and interesting to fans who have seen the show a million times. I want my readers to be entertained from start to finish.

13) If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

1) Respect canon & 2) Schuyler is a leader not a background character or follower 

14) What is something about your OC that can make you laugh?

She’s generally suppose to be a funny character with a good sense of humor. Being a woman, she’s suppose to be level headed and fight with words before using fists. However, she has a habit of taking on the biggest guy in the room and hilarity ensures.

15) What is something about your OC that can make you cry?

Her backstory maybe? It has some dark spots. As far as the actual story, nothing (has yet) happens to her, but many things happen around her that she can’t always control or that effect her/her family deeply.

16) Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

I'll let you know when I find it. Still in the drafting or honeymoon phase with her character. I just thinks she’s great all around!

17) What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC?

She has a sweet tooth! While she’s attractively curvy and built a little bigger than the other females in the story she never gains weight no matter what she eats. This is most likely due to the fact that she tends to have a healthy relationship with food even when she binges sweets.

18) What is your favorite fact about your OC?

It takes a long time and a lot of trust for her to form real lasting bonds with people, but once they form there’s no going back. She’d kill or die for those she loves and deems as family.

I tag: @failbetterwriting, @boredwriter-16, @themildestofwriters, @squaaad-goals, @turtwig387, @thatfizzyyyy, @sashathewriter, @tiredbard, @moony-wolfstar-padfoot, @rhikasa, @allisonilluminated, @annelaurant-writing, @leave-her-a-tome, @durzarya, @ryebbread, @aspire2bu, & @lone-mezzo-of-the-mezzorealm, as well as anyone else working on a WIP/OC who sees this and wants to participate!

No pressure if you’ve already done this or have no interest in doing so. I’m just saying hi! This is a list of some of the blogs I often see in my notifications and some writers who I know are in the middle of some cool projects of their own. Have fun!

[jameseros-blog]

My personal struggle with GD

**Trigger Warning -- talk of genitals, sex, transphobia, and misogyny** This is a vent post about my feelings surrounding my gender dysphoria, how I figured out I almost definitely have it, and why my family would probably think I'm faking because of tucutes making trans people look like clowns. It is unorganized, entirely too long, might not make sense, and I'm positive I'm forgetting big details. I just need to get this off my chest though.

All throughout my life I've hated my body, and even though I could try to blame it on other problems, I had some pretty clear signs of gender dysphoria even before my life got fucked up. It all seemed normal to me though. I could rationalize it. I'm too masculine to fit in with girls; autistic females have a tendency to function on the same social level as neurotypical men. That makes sense. I hate my body; I definitely don't look like the girls I would like to date. That makes sense. I feel like cutting off my female chest and sometimes guiltily wish for a horrible disease that requires its removal; I'm a CSA survivor and was bullied in elementary school for my early development. That makes sense.

In middle school something started to happen that I couldn't explain though. I developed a "phantom penis". It actually felt like I had a fully functioning dick. I asked a guy friend what a boner felt like and he described what I felt perfectly. I never told anyone what I felt though. I just made a joke out of it. Whenever I felt a "hard on" I'd whisper to my friends "Suck my dick" or "My dick is hurting". We constantly made dick jokes so nothing seemed off about it. I liked the feeling of it. It upset me that it wasn't real. The feeling came around less often in high school and I wrote it off as nothing.

The inkling of negative sexual habits was already in place in 4th grade, but I fell into truly self destructive sexual habits in high school. I felt unsatisfied with life and everything regarding my existence. Every day was a chore I could barely manage. I wanted something to fill up how empty my life felt. I started using my tits to get free food in 4th grade. I would tell a couple of guys that I'd show them my tits on the last day of school if they would give me what ever food I wanted from them for the rest of the year. This took place up until 7th grade where they stopped believing me because I never held up my end of the promise. It didn't matter too much though because at this point they were already used to giving me food.

As 8th grade ended I noticed how unnaturally masculine I felt, even more so than before, like it didn't really fit my body. It was getting harder to blame it on my autism. That scared me so I went seeking some sort of validation that I was a woman. I found my first boyfriend. I've never really been one for romance, so our relationship quickly turned into something sexual. The entire thing made me uncomfortable. I hated the whole ordeal. I didn't really find him all that attractive, but I pretended to fairly convincingly. Neither of us wanted to be purely sexual, but it was the only thing I knew how to do so I kept being this sexual creature I hardly liked and barely knew. He broke up with me because we never really talked anymore and when we were together I always ended up sucking his dick. It was fine. I never stayed true to our relationship. I was sending nudes to people on the internet. They made me feel like I was a pretty girl, the kind I fantasized about. I could escape my real self and be someone else on the internet. It always felt like I was catfishing them. I never felt as feminine as I portrayed myself online.

My 10th grade year of high school I dated one of my ex boyfriend's best friends. The same thing happened as my last relationship. I'd try to change how unnaturally male I felt by being in the most misogynisticly feminine role I could think of. The first time I had "real" sex it felt good, but something was off about it. And I don't mean in the "the first time always sucks" kind of way. I'm a firm believer in if you are fully comfortable with a person and you both know each other's boundaries and there isn't any judgment between you, then there won't be anything uncomfortable about sex. We had all these things, but I still felt uncomfortable. Then he went down on me. I had another "phantom dick" moment; I could imagine him sucking me off as if I had a penis. That's when the discomfort ended. I couldn't explain that so I told no one and wrote it off as nothing.

I've always heard mentions of trans people in passing throughout my life. In 3rd grade I heard my friend call another boy a "he-she". When I asked him what that was he said it's a guy who dresses and acts like a girl. In middle school I learned there were surgeries to give males female genitals. In 9th grade my science teacher corrected a girl when she said "they have to cut off their balls and turn their dick inside out" in reference to mtf bottom surgery. I saw an article that same year about a man that gave birth and learned that ftm trans people exist. In that same 9th grade science class a girl mentioned the size of my chest when expressing her desire for bigger breasts. I spilled my guts about how much I hated having them. I realized that it wasn't a natural thing when other big chested girls told me it wasn't nearly as bad as I explained. It confused me that they didn't feel the same. At this point I still didn't know what GD was or what it actually meant to be trans.

I started to watch Blaire White. That set me on the path of finding more and more trans YouTubers. I connected to them in ways I didn't really understand. I felt less like an alien while watching their videos. I never connected this to my being trans though. They all had the same story of knowing when they were young. I never questioned my identity when I was young. I always just existed. When I look back at it I think I honestly should have questioned myself. If I weren't autistic I probably would have.

When I was young, about 4 or 5, it was the easiest thing in the world for me to just drop everything about being a girl so I could become James. This was done after hearing my dad say he wished he had a son. I insisted I was James for almost a year. Now that I'm older my nana has told me my dad was worried I might actually be trans and he didn't want me getting bullied when I go to school. He died when I was 5 or 6; this explains something that I'll touch on later.

Even after the James phase ended I prided myself on my masculine tendencies. I was proud to be "basically the son" of the family and "basically the brother" of my sisters. With my step dad we would make jokes about having a "guys night out". I would even try to dress as boyish as possible to get mistaken as a boy. One time I cried when a boy told me "I know you're a girl". When I found out girls could have beards I was extremely jealous and was confused by the fact I couldn't grow one. I've always hated long hair I always wanted it cut short in a boy's haircut. In middle school my friends told me I write like a guy as an insult, but I thought it was a genuine compliment. I've always had an obsession with extreme body modification. The idea that I could escape my body and look however I want was always appealing to me.

When I was young I held the belief that my thoughts and personality were exactly the same as a boy's. That was the reason I preferred to hang with guys. That was why I would feel happy when I was described as one of the guys. It was why I didn't connect with girls the same way as guys. When I was diagnosed with autism, I thought it explained why I felt like an alien among other girls, and why I fit perfectly with guys, and why my thoughts were so male to me. When I learned what GD was, it fit me too, but I thought I couldn't have it cause I didn't recognize it when I was young. Then I started watching the podcast 'You're So Brave' hearing the way they found out they were trans hit closer to home than any other time I heard stories of people discovering they're trans. I was still very iffy on if I had GD or not though. Kovu uploaded a video recently it basically sealed my belief that I have GD. I decided to list off all the ways I wish I could look. The look I created is absurdly masculine; tall, hairy, tatted, and rough. I couldn't be exactly that though. I'm far too short. Besides I'm not as one dimensional as that. I love the elegance of romantic goths and muted pastels are my favorite aesthetic. I love crop tops and even dresses. I'm very effeminate for a man. A lot of people hate on gnc trans guys, but honestly I relate to them hard. I'm still not 100 percent sure of my gender though. The only thing I know for sure is that I need my female chest gone.

Before I even started to question myself, I've heard my step dad's opinion on trans people. "There is no such thing as a third gender! I don't understand why these trans people keep trying to push this idea!" he says in reference to a completely binary trans woman who only wants to be seen as a woman and not a third gender. I defend them by saying the vast majority of trans people are completely binary, don't believe in three genders, and want to be fully recognized as the gender they transition to. He continues to think tucutes are the only kind of trans people there are and generalizes all trans people saying they all have the "76 genders" ideology. He thinks all trans women are instantly recognizable by their adam's apple despite the fact there is a reduction surgery and lots of cis women have prominent adam's apples. I won't even try to bring up non binary people to him. He'd never understand. My mom has backed him up on this multiple times. I can't come out to them. It's too dangerous. My step dad is a violent man that gets into lots of fights. (He's never hit me or my family; don't worry.) He has threatened to kick me out before and I know he and my mom have seriously considered it within the last year. I don't know if me coming out could result in my homelessness.

You may be thinking "You're 18, just move out." To that I say: I absolutely would, if I could. I'm autistic. It's a disability that leaves me unable to drive and makes it difficult to maintain a job. Not to mention no one has prepared me for living alone. I have a friend I could go to, but I don't want to live somewhere and not be able to give back to them in some way.

All I really want is to know for sure whether I have gender dysphoria or not. The only problem with that is all of the gender therapist in my area (deep south Alabama) have practices that sound eerily similar to conversion therapy. Even if I do come out and move in with my friend, I won't be able to get therapy or a diagnosis.