#and understand our communities have always overlapped

[androgynealienfemme]

"Although important discontinuities separate lesbian butch experience and female-to-male transsexual experience, there are also significant points of connection. Some butches are psychologically indistinguishable from female-to-male transsexuals, except for the identities they choose and the extent to which they are willing or able to alter their bodies. Many FTM's live as butches before adopting transsexual or male identities. Some individuals explore each identity before choosing one that is more meaningful for them, and others use both categories to interpret and organize their experience. The boundaries between the categories of butch and transsexual are permeable."

-"Of Catamites and Kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries" by Gayle Rubin, The Persistent Desire, (Joan Nestle) (1992)

[thespacesay]

i find it fascinating (/negative) how people think there's some clear and present divide between physical and mental disabilities, and treat it as if the only overlap is when you have both.

like... for one, can we acknowledge that there is not, in fact, a binary of types of disabilities? how do you describe cognitive disabilities that affect both physical and mental function? what of disorders that originate in exclusively physical ways (ie, post concusive syndrome) but present with strong mental symptoms (anger, change in personality?)

how can you claim to support neurological disabilities and claim that ADHD is not, in any way, a physical disability? why is it different only if the presentation of a disability is seen as mental?

like... genuinely speaking, when I see posts insisting that movements around disabilities are meant for only the physically disabled, all I can believe is that you too have fallen victim to ableism. You are using a baseless categorization to separate and divide when the border is always going to be fuzzy, and always going to be used to hurt rather than help on a systemic level.

[conarcoin]

So Elon bought Twitter. I'm honestly not gonna push away Twitter newcomers, but if you're in the MCYT fandom you need to understand that the social etiquette and expectations and culture here are very different than over on Twitter. So as someone who's been an active part of mcytblr for two years now, I'd like to offer some thoughts and advice!

One: Shipping. MCYT communities on Tumblr have always tended to lean more tolerant towards shipping of roleplay characters due to the idea that this is a space for fans primarily. The creators who visit or actively use Tumblr like Eret and Martyn understand that this is a fan space primarily, and don't bother us for the content we make, and we don't bother them with it.

The number one worst thing you could do is share shipping content with creators who have not asked for it. This is a huge social faux pas here. Secondly, on the other end — writing callout posts for shippers here isn't gonna fly. Even for RPF shippers and people who may ship boundary-breaking pairings, our default is usually to not engage with these people rather than publicly call them out. It makes the space a healthier place for everyone and makes it much less likely that CCs may come across content they are uncomfortable with. It's also considered a social faux pas to ask CCs their opinions and boundaries on shipping, since that's bringing it up when they didn't ask!

Speaking of shipping, people typically don't mind you maintagging ship content so long as you also tag it as shipping so people can filter it. For Hermitcraft the tag is hermitshipping, Life Series has trafficshipping, and the lesser known DSMP tag is dsmpshipping.

Two: Reblogging. This is something a lot of newer users tend to struggle with. There is no algorithm on Tumblr, at least not one that works, so content creators rely on you reblogging their work in order for it to spread. If you see a fic or piece of art you enjoy, please reblog it! I often reblog art for MCYT fandoms I'm not even personally in.

Three: Tagging (again). There are a wide variety of tags you can use for your content! The most common tags you'll want to use are "mcyt" and "mcytblr", and any relevant series, pairing/group or character/CC names. However, please don't use the tag "minecraft"! Minecraft has an entirely separate fanbase on Tumblr that we co-exist with and have some overlap with, but don't necessarily appreciate seeing MCYT content in their tags. Any tag with "minecraft" in it is also a no-no, such as "minecraft youtubers" or "minecraft championships". Please use shorthands!

Four: Opinions on MCYT drama tend to be very different here than they are on Twitter. For instance, you should assume by default that most bloggers here either like or are completely neutral towards "problematic CCs" like Schlatt. But also, we tend to be very against spreading anything originating from leakers, and we also tend to not be fond of making posts "holding CCs accountable" for things they did years ago. Generally, mcytblr prefers to be a more drama-free community, and if you do engage in discourse, many would appreciate you tagging it as such!

Five: CCs do not need you to babysit them.

Generally speaking you will see a lot of jokes and memes on mcytblr that wouldn't fly on Twitter, and it is generally looked down upon to try to speak on behalf of CCs personal boundaries — they are grown adults, and you are a stranger! Calling out or harassing people for "breaking boundaries" is mostly just going to get you looked at strangely, especially if you don't have a source for your claims. Most of us will stop doing something if asked, but we don't need stans to tell us to! CCs can speak for themselves when uncomfortable.

Six: Most mcytblr blogs don't want CC notices. There are quite a few CCs who are active here, but the community is chill with them as they don't tend to talk about us elsewhere and allow us to do our own thing. We do not, however, like encouraging CCs to join Tumblr or to follow us or reblog our posts — many people here actually prefer being out of sight of CCs and many of us consider it rude to seek out attention from CCs outside of sending the occasional ask.

Please treat CCs kindly and don't gawk at them like you just saw a celebrity on the street — the ones who are active here are just Tumblr users like the rest of you! Seeing Eret reblog fanart or respond to an ask isn't something to point out.

While we joke about Twitter users joining, we don't actually have anything against you guys, it's just that we've built a very different community here and ask that you respect it and the etiquette we've come to establish! Thank you, and I hope you enjoy your stay on mcytblr ^_^

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

So, you have been in a relationship for a while and you’re ready and eager to take the next step - but your partner isn’t. What now? 

The “next step” I’m referring to here could mean a lot of different things because relationships do not all follow one specific timeline (and also because my readers may be of wildly different ages and live in wildly different situations) but I am thinking of any “deepening our commitment” things here: for example introducing them to your friends or your family, moving in together or (if you are in a situation where that’s a legal possibility) even marriage or having a child together. 

Whatever the step actually looks like, you may have this romantic idea of “If they’re right for you, you’ll always naturally want to take these steps at the same time”… but that’s not really how relationships work in real life. Even in the healthiest relationship and even if you absolutely feel like they’re your soulmate, you may still disagree on when to take those steps or even on whether you want to take these steps at all. 

In fact, it’s uniquely frustrating if everything else is going well. If their refusal to meet your mom is just another point on the long list of behaviors that make you feel like they don’t really care about you, that’s also painful but it’s easier to give advice there: maybe you should think about breaking up. It’s tempting to believe that you can make them love you more if you move in with them or that they’ll treat you better once you get engaged, but that won’t work out. You can’t fix a broken relationship by deepening the commitment - commitment needs a stable foundation to grow. And this doesn’t only go for outright abusive relationships: they may be a wonderful person but you two just have entirely different goals and needs, and those won’t suddenly overlap more just because you moved in with them or married them. 

With all that being said: if there IS a healthy and stable foundation, if you are happy in every other aspect and they’re just hesitant about this one specific step, then jumping straight to “break up with them” would obviously be pretty unhelpful advice. Differing opinions occur even in the most compatible couple, you are both whole people with your own individual feelings and those do not necessarily doom the whole relationship. It’s important to see this situation in the context of the relationship in general. 

You may be able to guess that a big portion of the advice is just gonna be “Communicate with your partner” - but first of all, I’d advise you to have an open and honest conversation with yourself. Why is this step of commitment so important to you? What does it mean to you? Do you feel a sense of urgency in taking it and if so, why? Is this specific step the only possible path for your need to be met? Are you open to alternative approaches, are you open to waiting (and if so, for how long)? The purpose of these questions is definitely not to convince yourself to give up on your needs or to talk yourself into a compromise you’re not really happy with! The opposite of that, actually: It’s helpful to reflect on what exactly you want and why you want it, so you have the clarity you need to discuss it productively. You don’t want to agree to something that ultimately leaves you unsatisfied and bitter, but you also don’t want to push hard for something you later on realize doesn’t even mean that much to you. 

When you feel confident enough about your own stance to discuss it with your partner, the most important thing to remember is: you’re on the same team. The goal here isn’t to “win” or to change their mind, but to see each others perspective better and find a solution you’re both happy with. Listen with an open mind. Try to understand before you try to influence. Remind yourself that your partner isn’t your enemy, they also want the best outcome for both of you - otherwise you (hopefully) wouldn’t want to commit to them! 

Something you should get clarification on during your conversations: is it a hard no (do not want to do that at all ever), a soft no (open to alternatives or adjustments), a no for now (want to do it but not yet), a yes but (want to do it but only under certain circumstances or in a different way than your original plan) or a I don’t know? How does this affect your feelings on the situation? (I’m sure that even just while reading these different scenarios, some instinctively feel better or worse than others! But it’s still important to take some time to sit with any new information that comes up during those conversations. Neither of you should feel pressured or rushed here!) 

You may find that they just never considered that there may be multiple approaches to that step (an example for this would be that they are not actually opposed to the idea of being married to you, just to the idea of a wedding, and didn’t consider yet that eloping is also a possibility) - but don’t set yourself up for disappointment by expecting the conversation to 100% go that way. It may also be a hard no, and that wouldn’t make them a horrible person. People can deeply, truly love someone and still do not want to take certain steps with them. It’s a good idea to remind yourself that you’re not “in the right” or “the better person” for wanting to take those steps. While certain steps may be a big part of your own future plans or even of your identity and self-image (and that’s valid!), they are just personal preferences. It’s not a moral obligation to want them, and your partner isn’t mean for not wanting them. But, of course, at this point we also need to say: if you can not imagine a life where you never get married, you are not a horrible person for breaking up with a partner who can not imagine to ever marry. “Irreconcilable differences” are a common breakup reason for a reason. 

So, to summarize: Building a strong foundation is crucial before taking big steps. Communicate openly with yourself first - understand why you want to take this step and if there are alternatives. When talking to your partner, remember you're a team; it's not about winning but understanding each other. Be open to different responses, from a clear no to conditions on a yes. Do not pressure your partner but do not completely give up on your own happiness either. 

The journey of commitment should be a shared adventure - not a battle or a competitive race! 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[pearwaldorf]

I have heard of Hbomberguy and the "why Sherlock sucks" but had not actually watched any of his stuff until today. The recent plagiarism video is long and extremely good:

The main bulk of the video is about James Somerton, a video essayist who I was only vaguely familiar with. I watched the Our Flag Means Death video he made and thought it felt kind of flimsy, and moved on with my life.

Turns out he's been lifting words from other published sources, many of them queer writers who were paid freelance rates or possibly nothing at all. This is a screenshot of the transcription of the video he did on queer horror (ID in alt):

I have legit never seen this level of plagiarism before. I am honestly surprised these videos sound thematically coherent at all, given the variety of sources he's cribbed them from. (There's a lot you can say about queer horror, and not all of it is going to overlap.)

The thing I don't understand is that given how much work it must have been to compile these sources, he could have done all the fucking reading himself and synthesized it in his own words. He could have just thrown up a Pastebin of links he consulted and nobody would have noticed.

One of the reasons plagiarists steal is because they have no respect for the effort put into the work or people who do said work. A (presumably cis) white man stealing the words from other queer people, many of them economically marginalized and/or of color? I'm going to say that probably figured into it.

I don't know how much he made, but it was a significant fucking amount. That's money he took from the mouths of other queer people who are probably way worse off. That's discoveries of ideas and words people have been denied because they thought they were his.

(Hbomberguy is donating proceeds from this video to as many people who Somerton ripped off as he can track down. It's absolutely not his problem, and I imagine it's going to be a bitch and a half to identify and contact all these people. It is a mitzvah, in both the colloquial and religious sense, to do this.)

And as marginalized people, we know that context (historical, global, personal) is important, sometimes essential. Removal of that information greatly hampers comprehension and understanding in ways we are already limited or denied.

It feels like a deeply personal betrayal because we like to think we (as in people who have this particular trait or share a community) are all above cynical sociopathic bullshit. But [trait/thing] people are people, and sometimes people fucking suck. I regret to say that despite knowing this in my head, my emotions do not always remember.

[accio-victuuri]

4/29 candies to enjoy ^^ 🍭🍬🍩

this was a busy day for us cpfs. so i’m gonna compile some bits that made our cpn-senses go off! 😂

the most obvious, and my fave, because of how it follows the pattern is them not overlapping their releases. i thought gg was gonna release the gucci stuff at his usual 10:05 or 10:10 but he didn’t. that’s because wyb had jeanswest release on 10:30. i love how that was given it’s time till 13:00 when gg posted the ad. i’m clowning cause 13 is yizhan! and then 13:20 will be the weibo live for FPU, which was kinda delayed too when it went on. some more materials for GUCCI was released throughout the day but moreso on international platforms.

it’s hilarious cause i saw a hot take from an xz anti before who said he is “afraid” of doing stuff alongside wyb. that is their perception. lol. but i think even if you don’t believe in the whole cp thing, maybe it’s professional courtesy? maybe these two are friends and have this unspoken rule? 🤷🏻‍♀️

tho i was very happy to see them both pop up on my weibo opening screen! and to experience them having these international campaigns, for wyb, lacoste recently— makes me proud. 😌

a funny cpn from today is this parallel. in a segment at FPU, there was a moment where a fan said jiayou and wyb said cheering is not always necessary. It reminded us of that time xz was told to jiayou when he was about to go to the restroom and he’s like???? why do i have to jiayou???

oh these two. 😂😂😂

yibo is the resident gremlin who always has a smart ass reply or some savage comeback for you but xz usually doesn’t. but we know what he has that in him too and i wish we could see more of that!

bonus cuteness before we proceed, this edit of them looking like they are doing the choreo for jisoo’s flower 🌸 and they are BP fanboys so it fits!

now some double standards. in the movie channel interview, they were asked where they first met, and wyb couldn’t remember. compare this to how he was with xz! he was always very proactive that they met in ttxs!!!!

there was also a part where they were asked to give an example of what they wanna learn from each other. and if they communicated to learn. so HJY said street dance and WYB said jiu jitsu but they both weren’t able to learn from each other. in the meantime, wyb taught xz a dance routine 😂😂😂 among other things. i’m sure yibo will be more than happy to help someone out, but i think you have to be at a certain level of closeness to him. or he is really comfortable with you.

this last section is for the beaded bracelet. i think it’s time to discuss it again because this is the 3rd time he is seen with it. so this looks like something personal for him. tho i have to say, you have the coco crush which is both personal and part of him promoting chanel too. i’m invested in this cpn and at the same time frustrated because of the questions.

( p1: him wearing it for the fpu bazaar magazine shoot // p2: worn during the movie channel interview // p3: what so/os are saying is the bracelet not that it matters cause i can clown this too )

1. i hate how no wardrobe accounts have confirmed what it is. and i kinda understand cause we never see it fully, plus there is cpn attached to it so they are extra careful. which is also another source of my frustration. why does he wear it when he has long sleeves on??? he was wearing a shirt earlier and his arms were bare! but wait.. he changed his clothes and as soon as he had something to sort of cover it, the bracelet was on. 💀💀💀💀

it’s like he is purposely clowning us!

2. if this was a jewelry to show off and promote Chanel, why can’t we see it well? and i want to see the change in the beads’ color to confirm if it is what the solos say it is.

i’m also side eyeing international solos who are proudly commenting how wyb’s bracelet is luxury and not some cheap buddha beads like xz’s. what? it’s such an insult to a culture that is important to yibo. those bead bracelets made in specific temples for protection is part of his culture. he knows it’s importance and respects it. but what can i expect from solos really? lol. the bar is already very low when it comes to them but they still manage to disappoint me. 🪦

3. and if it is Chanel, i can still clown by thinking GG bought it for him so they can match. 😂😂😂 atleast with the aesthetic.

bonus: the bone necklace!!!!!

another bonus, i saw this photo of like a celebration i guess for queen of tears. and the cake! the way the actors are cutting it! lol. reminds of xz and wyb! 😂

banner edit source 圣衣雪琳

-END.

[multbasa]

The Sonic community has an issue with calling every relationship a "sibling" relationship when the relationship is literally just friendship or companionship.

Like, I don't even know if a lot of people really understand what it is like to grow up with siblings by the way they slap the label on everything.

Take it from me: I'm an identical twin, so for my entire life from even before birth I was sharing a space with my twin. As adults, we have chilled out considerably and I consider her my closest connection now, but there was a LOT of growing pains with a lot of fighting before that.

There were times that we didn't even want anything to do with each other which was difficult because other people kind of treated us as a match set. The point is that we sorted out our differences and conflicts because we had to since we shared a home and even shared a room for many many years. People see us now as insanely close but they never saw the biting, hitting, yelling and tears that preceded that.

For people around the same age, I would consider a sibling bond as those who sorted out their differences in time.

As for siblings with larger age gaps, there's a bit of a different dynamic. Sometimes older siblings have to act as parents to their little siblings for instance, but there is still a difference between them and a simple friendship or companionship.

Yes, there are siblings out there who never really had much conflict growing up, but it is more likely than not to have conflict due to the situation of sharing a space for many years. There isn't often much opportunity to have time apart when you have to share a home.

So to me, a good sibling bond is one built on past tension that has resolved simply due to time. We laugh about our past spats because we see them as insignificant now and sometimes we can't even remember what the conflict was in the first place.

Even if a friendship or companionship appears similar in shape to a sibling bond, that doesn't mean that it is a sibling bond. There will always be overlap among good platonic and sibling relationships simply because they are not romantic.

It's fine to hold headcanons about characters where you consider them like family to each other, but it is absolutely unacceptable to go around imposing that headcanon on others who see the relationship differently. You have all the control you need to curate your online experience through blocking people or content you don't want to see and simply not engaging with it. To do otherwise and whine at people minding their business is incredibly infantile, and I have to wonder if those who do this have nothing important going on in their lives.

Even for stuff that really rubs me the wrong way like "twincest", I don't engage with people who post content like that because I just do not want to see it and I have more going on in my life to spend time obsessing over it. Yes, I find it gross, but I can avoid it so I don't have to see it. I'm sure people who are getting twisted over ships that aren't even incest can learn to curate their online experience so they simply don't engage with or even see what they don't like.

[leafofkudzu]

Happy Halloween, everyone! The first Saturday of November is next week, which means it's time for another art party hosted by my guild, [VS] Verdant Shield! And, since that's also the last Saturday of GW2's Halloween celebrations, let's combine the two into our first official themed party!

The theme for November's [VS] Art Party will be Halloween! Bring your spooky best, be that a costume for a 'normal' character, or an existing character who already fits the theme!

For those who aren't familiar with art parties, they're a concept carried over from Final Fantasy XIV - in-game get-togethers for artists/writers/creatives of all types to hang out, chat, and create together! Grab your character of choice and head to the location, find someone who catches your eye, and create! Afterwards, everyone posts their creations in a shared tag (ours is #VSArtParty) so others can see, interact, and share! Tl;dr: the ‘goal’ of an art party isn’t to be drawn, but to draw others, and share with the community!

I'm putting this above the cut this time for emphasis: please note that due to EU rolling their clocks back a week before NA does, this month's party will NOT have the usual 1hr space in between, and for those in NA who will be attending the EU party, it will be one hour LATER than usual because of this. Otherwise, if you're only attending one party, things should happen at the same time that you're already accustomed to! Thanks for your understanding!

Now, as always, details and /squadjoin info below the cut!

Location Details:

I had to fight myself to not put it in Lion's Arch, but since I do still want to have it in a Halloweeny setting, we'll be using the small Halloween display in Queensdale as our staging area! Simply head to the Village of Shaemoor Waypoint, mosey a smidge southwest, and you're there!

Time & Squad Details:

As we usually do, we'll be having two parties - one on EU servers and one on NA ones. However, as was mentioned before the cut, since EU will be rolling their time back a week before NA, we'll be forgoing the hour-long break in between to ensure that both parties happen at their usual respective times. This may lead to some awkward transitions from one to the other, but even if I'm not at the NA party yet, feel free to start setting up shop without me and I'll join you as soon as I can!

The first party will be on EU servers and begin at 9pm Central European Time (aka 4pm Eastern Daylight Time or 4 hours before in-game reset). I’ll be hosting on my EU alt account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Runa Gravemourn for an invite.

The second party will be on NA servers and begin at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time (aka 12am Central European Time or 1 hour before in-game reset). This one I’ll be hosting on my main account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Shrouded Horror for an invite.

Closing Words:

Going forward, should an art party overlap with an in-game festival, it'll probably be safe to assume that another themed party will pop up, just to shake things up a bit. This means we might see a Wintersday themed one in the next few months, hmmm....

But anyway! To anyone who has or will come out to these events, thank you so much for making them so special and fun! These events are all about you guys, and even though I don't chatter much during them I'm always glad to be around to help organize the chaos. Here's to another memorable party - I'll see you gets next week! ♥

[knifedog-machina]

Daemons To Systems, And The Ways They Intertwine

Hey, I’m Max, he/they - I’m the host of our system, the guy who lives in the front and has only ever lived here, the one who identifies our body as my body specifically. A few nights ago, we realized something about our system origins while talking to some other systems, and I’ve honestly never heard of it happening before, so I thought I’d talk about it.

I used to think that I was a singlet before Jude and Gavin walked in. Now I’m pretty sure I wasn’t. See, before I was the host of a system, I was a daemian. I had three daemons, over the course of my time practicing daemonism, interacting with the community. And they were all a little weird.

The first one was Charlie, affectionately longformed as Charlemagne. Xe appeared in January 2018 as a red fox, said that was xir settled form, and never changed from that. That’s an option for daemons - I know other daemons who chose their forms, independent of how well that form represented their daemian, and stayed that way - but it was in contrast to how most people seemed to do it. I never really felt the need to find a form that fit my personality, not when xe was so confident that this was what xe was.

I didn’t try to make xir do anything, I didn’t decide to give xir faux autonomy - xe just did things xirself, with or without my prompting. Xe was playful, optimistic, a cheerful presence always willing to race around and perk me back up. I really needed xir, back then - I was going through a lot of stress in high school, and I needed someone around to remind me of the whimsical little joys in life. Xe fronted sometimes, and I loved when xe did, conjured phantom tail and paws and big fox ears and an unstoppable zest for life.

My next daemon, Martin, appeared in May 2019 after a fever dream. Really. I was sick and tired and miserable, and I didn’t want to do anything, including things that would make me feel better, and a new internal voice appeared in my head. She told me to drink some water and get to sleep. The next morning, she was still there, lounging around as a large black dog, and she stayed.

This became her role, her purpose in our mind, being a shepherd for my needs. She ran our faulty executive functioning, told me to take care of myself when I forgot important things, encouraged me when I failed to meet expectations. She raised her hackles when anyone tried to overstep our boundaries, and advocated for doing what we needed to protect ourselves, regardless of whether it was nice or polite.

Charlie and Martin overlapped in existence for a while. Charlie loved having a big sibling to play with, and Martin was fond of xir. So I had two daemons for a while, and the arrangement was nice. As I transitioned out of high school into college, my circumstances and environment drastically changed. Charlie was sweet, but xe stopped having a function in my life, so over the months, xe popped up less and less, until xe faded away entirely. Xe wasn’t upset to go, and xir memory is a comfort to me - xe served xir purpose, brought me joy, and had a life well lived.

In October 2021, I created a new daemon, compartmentalizing my emotional dysregulation and disordered anxiety into something that was Not Myself, so I could talk to it and understand its needs without being overwhelmed with distress. This became the feral shadow of a dog that we named Cortisol, nicknamed Court - and if Martin was our Freudian superego, who provided guidance for my decisions and stability when I got stressed, Court was our id, feeling all the explosive emotions that I couldn’t externally express and curling up for scritches like a beloved pet when it got what it needed.

We stayed like that for almost a year, getting familiar with the rhythm of life together. Then, in August 2022, my current headmates walked into my brain. My daemons vanished for the duration of their stay.

They only stayed around a few days, that first time - I was moving to a new place and having new people in my brain simultaneously was overloading our mental RAM, so I was forgetting a lot, and I decided that I’d rather live with them some other time. They understood, we said our goodbyes, and they walked out the next morning. (Recounting this to my friend Tanix was hilarious, by the way. “what the fuck (positive)” he said, his own headmates unable to do this. The joys of being a gateway system.) Once the headmates were gone, my daemons returned into my life.

They came back in March 2023, after I settled down into college for a while, and the memory didn’t jam up like it did previously, so we didn’t part ways this time. Martin and Court vanished overnight, again, and looking back on it, I’m noticing some patterns.

Gavin is basically performing the same role that Martin did - he’s the guy reminding us about our responsibilities, talking through the emotions when we feel like garbage, telling me to eat when I forget, or encouraging me to eat when I have enough sensory issues that I can't stomach anything. He consistently fronts when talking to people we don’t especially like, because he feels protective of us and tends to be the most patient with annoyances.

He’s also literally just some guy, just a decent human person who wound up in here because his partner arrived in my brain five minutes before him and understandably got really upset about it, so he followed them in. Somehow. We don't know how it works, but I also don't know exactly where the first two of my daemons came from, so I’m fine leaving it as a mystery.

(He has a lot of complicated feelings about the position he's in, playing a daemon’s role as a completely different person from me, and will probably write his own post about it some time.)

Jude is, unfortunately, kinda in the same role as Court. And since Court held the emotional dysregulation in my brain, Jude also holds the grand majority of the distress and anxiety that we feel on a regular basis. We all really wish it was split more evenly, because Jude tends to not only lose the ability to talk when they panic, they also get stuck in the front, completely unable to talk to me or Gavin.

(It’s not even that they feel the stress that directly affects them, it’s that on top of the stress that we get in our daily life. They regularly had panic attacks over my grades and exams last semester, and they weren’t even the one studying for it at all! It’s fucked up and I don’t love it for us.)

And there are other interesting little coincidences. You know how Court was a sketched-in sort of black dog? Jude only really realized they related to dogs upon arriving in the system with me, and the archetypal form they identify with is, again, a stylized black dog.

It’s really interesting, the ways my brain decided to be plural, because I didn’t think I was a system back then. I had a daemon, then two daemons, and they were daemons because I considered them parts of myself - no matter how autonomous they were, we were bound together in the same identity, as parts of the same person. They were reflections of me, and I loved them like I loved myself, and they loved me with the same ferocity.

With this realization, that my daemons effectively merged into my system, I did have to ask - are my headmates also parts of me, since they’re falling into the same functional compartments in my brain? We don’t think so, or at least, we don’t think it’s that simple. 

They’re completely different people from me, people who arrived here with their own lives and memories and identities. They aren’t autonomous reflections of my psyche like my daemons were. They’re my weird roommates who moved in with me, and my boyfriends, and I guess you could say we’re life partners - because hey, what’s a partner if not someone you share a life with? What’s more intimate than sharing the same body, hearing each other's thoughts and feelings? They aren't parts of me, but we live the same life together, and I think that counts as something just as significant.

[samuraipussy]

not to be rude on my first day in this fandom but saying the trans experience is mutually exclusive with any of mizu's experiences IS a modern western view of both trans identities and women's struggles and maybe if you were willing to earnestly engage with trans people you would realise that trans identities do not erase, overshadow or contradict mizu as representation for women but you see gender as a mr potato head game instead of a complex system of cultural norms and understandings of the self within and apart from the cultural system that governs it so maybe it's all of YOU who need to shut up for a moment and have a think about the cultural norms you are pushing on mizu's narrative arc

I genuinely don't think this should be an argument in the first place precisely because we are you and you are not apart from us. Our struggles are inextricable from each other, always have been and always will be. This show is a wonderful opportunity to discuss and explore the way those struggles overlap and emerge from the same oppressive systems and the intricacies of gender identity beyond "woman has man essence/man has woman essence" but instead you've convinced yourselves you're right through repetitive use of meaningless buzzwords and a forced separation of our struggles and our communities so you can get a leg up in the tumblr oppression olympics or something idk exactly what the goal is here and I also don't care

I mean this in the friendliest way possible, just grab yourself a cup of tea and take a moment and come back to the conversation with an open heart, we are not enemies.

[intersex-support]

Something that has been helpful for me when having conversations about what counts as intersex is to really engage in enquiry about what the label means and how we're using it. To me, it's been more helpful to think through questions like:

What purpose does labeling a variation as intersex serve?

In what ways is societal understandings of "typical" changing?

Why was the label of intersex created and has our use of the label shifted?

What ways are we building intersex community? What do we want intersex community to look like?

How do our experiences of oppression impact our understanding of intersex as a term?

What sources are we drawing from when we develop definitions of intersex?

What is the history of the way intersex has been used?

What ways has intersex community been exclusionary in the past, and is that in line with our current values?

Definitions of intersex have always been tied up with what the medical world decides to classify as differences of sex development, but especially in the past twenty years as intersex community has grown more connected, we've started to have a lot more self-determination in our communities. But I think a lot of people still really have a misconception that intersex is a biological "third sex" that is strictly medically defined, and that there are clear cutoffs between intersex and endosex.

Instead, I'd like to bring in the concept of compulsory dyadism to introduce a framework where intersex is an intentional political label used as a way to build community for the people whose variation of sex characteristics are most impacted by the stigma and violence associated with compulsory dyadism.

Sex diversity is not just limited to intersex people. Even within the boundaries of dyadic/endosex bodies, people have variations like different amounts of body hair, penis size, hormone levels, breast size, as well as things like disabilities affecting any of those traits. For example, very few people actually have all the "ideal" traits that line up with this constructed idea of an endosex body that has the exact "correct" amount of estrogen, the right size chest, the ability to bear children, "normal" periods. Many endosex people might have a variation in one of those aspects at differing times during their life, such as during menopause, for example. And this framework can help us understand how diagnoses such as endometriosis are not intersex, but people might still notice overlaps in certain experiences.

But the reason that not everyone is considered intersex and the reason that having a separation between endosex and intersex is important is because of the stigma and violence associated with straying further and further from that dyadic norm, and intersex is a label used to describe people who are the most impacted by that stigma and violence. We have been socially labeled as "deviating" the most from the "normal" sex binary, and consequentially face intersexism both on a systematic and personal level. Our collection of sex variations becomes located entirely outside of the sex binary, and as a result, we often face curative violence, social stigma, and systematic exclusion from many parts of society.

This definition isn't a perfect definition. I think we need to have room to develop more nuance around the fact that many intersex people might not feel like their experience of being intersex has brought them any personal stigma or violence, as well as understanding that there isn't going to be a universal intersex experience. Even when discussing how intersex people are the most impacted by compulsory dyadism compared to endosex people, I think it's important to recognize that within the intersex community, our additional intersecting identities are absolutely going to influence our experiences with oppression and that it's vital to intentionally uplift the members of our intersex community who are most impacted by oppression. In the United States, the creation of the sex binary was an explicitly racist process, and racialized intersex people are subject to additional layers of stigma, violence and scrutiny. (Check out chapters 4-6 in the book Cripping Intersex by Dr. Celeste Orr for a really in depth discussion of how antiblackness and compulsory dyadism are forces behind why the Olympic sports sex testing has pretty much exclusively targeted Black women from the Global South, regardless of whether or not they are actually intersex. Also recommend reading The Biopolitics of Feeling: Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth Century by Dr Kyla Schuller.) I also have talked with many intersex people who are tired of us always being represented through trauma narratives in the media, and who want us to be able to build a definition of intersex that isn't based around violence or tragedy. And I think that's really important that we also share our stories of intersex joy, and pride, and healing. I think that claiming intersex can be something really radical, and that's super valuable to me.

Overall I think that if we build our discussions around who is intersex on concepts to do with our social and political location, and take into consideration concepts like compulsory dyadism, sex diversity, and disability, we are going to be able to understand why any of it matters better than if our determinations of intersex identity are based solely in medicalized concepts of a third sex.

TL;DR: Although endosex people also have diversity when it comes to sex traits, intersex is still an important label that not everyone can claim. Compulsory dyadism is a force that affects all of us, but intersex people are the most impacted by compulsory dyadism and face intersexist stigma and violence for our intersex variations. As a result, intersex is an important label for us to claim so that we can build community and solidarity around our experiences. I think it is better understood as a sociopolitical label that describes the relationship between our biological bodies and the cultures we live in, rather than as a medicalized term that described a coherent "third sex."

other intersex people feel free to add on to this post-I'm only one person without all the answers, and would love to hear other perspectives!

[magnetothemagnificent]

Sorry if this is an inappropriate or rude question, you don’t have to answer.

I’ve been dealing with internalised negative feelings about religion, due to being raised by very Christian family, when I’ve never believed what they said. It made me think that religion is an awful thing, a cult by sorts.

A few years back, I made a friend who is Jewish and he’s really cool and I respect him a lot. I also am trying my hardest to respect that he is religious but I can’t help that voice in my head, saying he’s corrupted. I don’t think I believe it anymore but I kind of want to ask, a reassurance I guess, what your views are in religion as a whole? Why do you believe it’s good?

First of all, it is not marginalized people's jobs to prove to why they deserve humanity. If you had asked any other Jew this question, they would have every right to ignore this quesiton and/or call you out on it.

However, I do put myself out there and try to educate people, so I'll answer your question.

Religion is part of human culture and history. For as long as humans have been humans, we've always had symbolic representation, taboos, and imagination. Paleolithic humans burying their dead with body paint and bead ornamentation- that's an example of spiritual belief. To be human is to be illogical, superstitious, and imaginative. Even other animals can sometimes act according to superstition or seemingly illogical motives. Humans are incredibley intelligent, and with our intelligence comes questions we cannot answer and fears we cannot explain. Where are we from? What is death? Where are we going? What is our purpose? These are all answers we seek, and having a religious belief set can help answer these questions. Religion is just a world view in the same way Western science is a world view, and they're not incompatible with each other. Many scientists are religious, I myself am a student of science and am religious.

Religion has brought people together for all of human history- it allows the sharing of ideas and resources. Harvest festivals, weddings, coming-of-age ceremonies, funerals, all these religious events serve to reinforce the bonds in a community. A relationship must be maintained and reinforced, or it becomes stagnant. Having a shared spiritual belief system and coming together for ceremonies reignites communal bonds. Religion also allows for a community to have a shared moral system. While religion isn't necessary for morality, it definately helps define the values and morals of a person and community. If a community can come together and agree on a system of values, then there's less potential for violence due to incompatible values. Religion is a social contract. Religion is also a comfort, and can help with the immense wait of loneliness we face. If the trees and water have spirits, then you are not alone. If your loved one goes to an afterlife after death, then they are not alone.

Religion has as much potential for harm as any world view. Just as there have been countless atrocities committed in the name of religion, so too have there been countless atrocities committted in the name of science. Does that mean we should just toss out all of science? No. In the same way we shouldn't get rid of religion.

Additionally, "Religion" isn't a monolith. It's not one world view, but a category of world views. There are many forms of religion and each religion is different. Monotheism, polytheism, animism, ancestor veneration, etc- these are all different kinds of religion that can overlap with eachother too. A bad experience with one religion doesn't define all religions. With all due respect, your experience is anecdotal, and you can't apply your singular lived experience to every since religion in the world.

And for Jews, our religious identity is deeply important to us. We've been persecuted for thousands of years for our identities, and we've miraculously not disappeared from the face of the earth. You don't have to understand why your friend is religious, but you need to unpack why you think he's corrupted and why you think you have the right to apply your experience with religion to every religious person. The fact that you were raised Christian might be another contributing factor to your bias towards your friend- antisemitism is often deeply ingrained in aspects of Christianity.

[asexual-society]

This is weird and I don't know if it's a question per se, but here it goes. I'm ace and probably arospec but not sure and not in a hurry to find out. I have no problem saying this at all, anywhere, to anyone. But when confronted with the word queer, or being part of the lgbt+ community, I take a step back. I've been going to pride for years and have a lot of queer friends. but for some reason, in those spaces I don't feel like I fit in. I don't know if it's because we don't share the same closet experience, and unless we say it, out loud, no one would know about us. And is the same in hetero allo spaces, I don't belong there. So I feel like I'm in this limbo, where I don't belong anywhere. I guess the point of this is, am I alone in this?

That seems pretty understandable to me, especially if your other queer friends aren't ace or aro, it can be pretty isolating not to fit into the queer spaces that by all accounts you should fit into, and even though there is a lot of overlap between the experiences of aspec people and allo queer people, there can be parts of their experiences that we don't fully relate to, just like how a lesbian might not totally fit in with a group of only gay men, or a bi person might not totally fit in with a queer person exclusively attracted to the same gender. Equally, there's this sort of misconception that aspec people aren't clockable as queer like gay or bi people are for example, or that we don't face any discrimination like they do, which just isn't true. Not that oppression or trauma are requirements for entry into the community, but we can tend to diminish what our community as a whole goes through when we're asked for credentials as to why we should be allowed in queer spaces.

You don't have to call yourself queer or lgbt+ or any other label if you don't want to, if you don't feel a community with those groups you are under no obligation to join in, and the same is true for any non-cis/het individual. But, if there will always be space here for you if or when you want it.

~ mod key

[notexactlyrocketscience]

Mini “Should I consider whether I may actually have ADHD?” masterpost:

“The lost girls: ‘Chaotic and curious, women with ADHD all have missed red flags that haunt us’ ” by Noelle Faulkner for The Guardian

“The Lost Girls of ADHD: Getting diagnosed as an adult hasn’t been the relief I thought it would be” by Kara Eva Schlegl for Human Thoughts

“ADHD Is Different for Women” by Maria Yagoda for The Atlantic

“Failing at Normal: An ADHD Success Story” by Jessica McCabe for TEDx

“Should You Be Assessed for ADHD?” by Dr Stephen Humphries for Harley Therapy

Bonus: “The Results of My Brain Scan” by Laura Clery

There are a growing number of similar articles and resources that you can easily look up now, but the above list, starting with the first article (shared by a woman of colour friend with ADHD), is how I dove headfirst into a rabbit hole in January 2021 that's become a years-long journey.

I grew out of my selective mutism and into an incredibly organised student as a teenager, but my productivity and focus quickly went downhill halfway through twelfth grade before I took my IALs.

The first time I considered having ADHD was in August 2019, during my freshman year in university. After a friend (who grew up with far more prominent mental health struggles, including depression and anxiety that affected her grades) shut me down saying I was probably just “demotivated” instead, I quickly dispelled the thought. I didn’t want to be yet another neurotypical person trying to use mental health issues as an excuse for my laziness. I grew up with crippling, alienating social anxiety, and it had gotten worse with my move to the US for university—I wondered if I might have autism; I had always been so different from other kids. But I didn’t get a high probability on the free quizzes on the internet, and that had been the end of that.

I didn’t know at the time what masking was, and how ADHD and autism symptoms can overlap—how the two are often mistaken for one another. I didn’t know that ADHD can present differently in women and people of colour because of the environment we grow up in, and because of how we have been excluded from medical research from the moment of its discovery.

In Bangladesh, we’re expected to grow out of our neurodivergence, which is euphemised as personality quirks. There is a great stigma around having children with disabilities, and around mental healthcare in general, so parents often live in denial about their neurodivergent children. There is a very stereotypical view of how a child or adult with autism is supposed to appear, and about the occasional “hyper little boys” that will usually grow up to become quiet, calm, mature and shy. Girls are raised in an extremely regulated, structured environment with high expectations. We begin developing masking skills from the moment we develop a sense of gender.

If you are struggling to understand yourself, look up your symptoms. Do a deep dive. Ask your friends—multiple friends. Trust your instincts. Be patient and forgiving of yourself. There is so much more dimension to mental health and neurodivergence that may not be well-known within your community. There is light at the end of the tunnel, I promise.

[blood-choke]

you know. since learning what butch actually means. im starting to think that maybe. just maybe. im just....butch and not a trans man. just a thought i've been having after learning more about butch from you.

❤️❤️❤️

there are lots of experiences that some butches and trans men share (and a lot of other queer people for that matter) and as i've told other people before, there's absolutely nothing wrong with reconsidering your identity and self-reflecting.

if you're looking for more to read i always recommend Stone Butch Blues (though it can be heavy as a first read), and anything by Ivan E. Coyote (Gender Failure w/ Rae Spoon is my biggest recommendation for you). on the other hand there’s Lou Sullivan’s diaries, which i haven’t read myself, but he was a major pioneer & activist as an out gay trans man & i know a lot of people that love his work. more recently i read Chella Man’s little pocket book & he has dozens of articles published in various publications writing about his experiences. Stone Butch Blues is honestly something that i know both butches, transmascs, and trans men have all related to; like i said, a lot of the experiences overlap, and i know people on all sides that believed they were one and came out as the other later.

and there is no one singular way to experience your gender. particularly with SBB & Sullivan’s diaries, they’re dated, the community has changed a lot since they wrote those books, you may relate to some but not all. Ivan E. Coyote is butch and nonbinary, Rae Spoon was a trans man before coming out as nonbinary in 2012, Leslie Feinberg was butch and proudly called hirself a transgender lesbian, Lou Sullivan was a gay trans man, Chella Man is a pansexual, deaf, trans man of color.

no one experience invalidates the other. we do have similar experiences and we share similar language and we should celebrate that. and we should also respect and celebrate our differences, too, and support each other despite these differences. it's worth it to explore these feelings you have, even if they lead you back to where you started, you'll have a better understanding of yourself in the end; it wasn't wasted.

wherever you end up, sending u lots of love!! 💗

[thisismisogynoir]

If i may hope into your inbox rq to rant,i think there's a special kind of masculinazation queer black women go through specifically.There's this weird thing white cis wlw have where they automatically assume 'black women with a queer gender/orientation=masculine presentation' even if the bw in question is blatantly femme(remember the tomboy Megan Thee Stallion allegations💀)and it's highkey insane how they can't wrap their heads around the fact that black women can be girlypops and softgirls as much as any other queer women and i can only imagine how much worse it is for femme black trans women

Like for me i'm bigender and genderfluid along with being bi so i understand why people would assume i want to be masc on first meeting but a quick look at my blog or talking with me will make it very obvious i'm a dude but not the slightest bit masculine and that's absolutely influenced by my black womanhood but white woman fragility makes the idea of unlearning misogynoir 'scary'🙄Ntm my white trans girl friends have been way more normal about me and guys like me than cis girls so that adds to my opinion that transfem and black woman friendships are almost inherent and the overlap between transmisogyny and misogynoir.They think it's 'allyship' but the thing is almost no black woman ever asks to be masculineized

All of this is so true!!!

And then there's the fact that whenever you see Black wlw rep in media, they are almost always butch/stud or on the androgynous/masculine side, and while that does deserve rep, you hardly see femme Black wlw nearly as much, especially when they're paired with a non-Black or lighter-skinned Black girl who will almost always be the femme to their butch, it feels like Black wlw almost never get to be the feminine one.

A lot of white wlw I've seen tend to assume that Black wlw must be masculine, often so that they can be the more feminine one and it's unfair. Plus I feel like Black femme lesbians in particular face a DOUBLE form of femme invisibility that other femmes do not, because while femmes in general are read as straight or seen as having straight-passing privilege(which we do not), Black femmes often face both where we are assumed to be straight feminine girls or we are seen as not being "lesbian" enough because we're femme when Black lesbians must be studs. And it's unfair. And also I wish there was a term specifically for Black femme lesbians the way Black masc lesbians have stud, that was common and widespread, but I also just know that if a term like that did exist, then it would just be co-opted by non-Black femmes anyway, just like non-Black mascs try to do with stud.

I feel too that my femmeness is def influenced by my Black womanhood as well so I see where you're coming from. And I also agree that Black girls and trans girls(esp Black trans girls) should be friends because our oppression, although not identical, has a lot in common on the grounds that we are both denied womanhood by the white gender binarist society.

I wish this was a thing people talked about more, a lot of people act like femmes don't have any unique problems or that we are privileged for being straight-"passing" or having "so much representation" in media, when that is not the case and especially ignores the reality of being a femme of color, especially a Black femme who has to fight to be allowed to embrace her femininity and not be seen as man-lite due to white supremacy. I feel like only other femmes and butch lesbians care about our struggles but that the wider non-lesbian/non-wlw society doesn't? Especially with a lot of lgbt men/male-aligned people saying that the lgbt community has a "fear of/aversion to" masculinity which is complete bullshit(unless you're referring to butch/masc/stud women of course). But we need to start having this conversation! So thank you for bringing it to my attention!