#as a lesbian myself who convinced myself i liked men for so long

[cowboy-heart]

'interview with a butch' - a fake interview reflecting on butch-femme dynamics! inspired by the amazing piece by @llovely, which you can read here :)

(ID below read more)

[an original, interview-style poem called 'interview with a butch':

when did you know you were butch? I knew by the time I was sixteen, but that’s only when I found the word. I’ve been butch since the day I was born, at least since I was just a few months old and threw an earth-shattering tantrum whenever my mum tried to put me in a dress. (both laugh) your poor mum!

I remember being a little butch knight, chivalrous even before I was double digits. my best friend only lived up the road from school, but her parents were running late and she was scared to do it herself. so I walked her up the hill, her arm linked in mine, pride balancing on my chest. and when I got her to her door, I said that we should kiss like adults do when they say goodbye, and we took it in turns to kiss each other on each cheek. when I walked home I felt something the size of a boulder in my stomach, but I didn’t know what it meant yet, just that there was something about myself that set me apart.

how did you feel with your first femme? oh, man, even for a writer that’s hard to find the words for. (laugh) let’s put it this way: before I had my first femme, I always felt like something was missing in my relationships – not just in the relationship itself, but in me. I felt broken and wrong, unsatisfied and selfish. I thought that maybe I just had too high expectations or something. hell, even with sex I felt like something was missing, like I couldn’t find my own desire.

But then, then I had my first femme. How graphic can I be here? (laugh) as graphic as you want! okay, good!

watching my stomach hang over my harness, long nails in my hips, I felt like I had a second sexual awakening. I felt the most present in my body I’d ever been, and like I could be in them forever. I didn’t feel dissatisfied, or wrong. when their hand held mine and played with my fingers I felt lightning shoot through me. it was like realising I was a lesbian all over again. but even outside of romance, femmes are my friends, my family, my community. talking to femmes, being around femmes, I’ve never felt so seen and loved. I can handle every sharp look, every slur thrown my way, just because my armour was polished by femmes.

do you find your roles restrictive? they’re liberating. I think sometimes people see me and think that I had to fit into this constrictive box, that I disallowed myself to enjoy anything feminine. the reality is that for butches, we find the word we’ve been searching for our whole lives. I can’t even remember finding the word, isn’t that crazy? it felt second nature. it somehow perfectly described everything I’d ever felt, exposed me to a community of people who were just like me outside of my Tory town! (pause)

I think there’s a tendency even in leftist, LGBT spaces to think that masculinity is oppressive, and femininity is liberating and oppressed. but it’s really not like that. we’re punished for deviating from our assigned gender, whether you’re a masculine woman, or a feminine man, or something in between the two. I’ve had gay men try to convince me to let them do my makeup, I’ve had gay women tell me that they’re “so glad” I don’t have ‘toxic masculinity’ like “other butches”. femininity was a cage for me, something I had to imitate to survive the perils of high school, but it was never me. masculinity liberated me, and it’s not inherently toxic. I love to carry the bags, hold open the doors, cry in pride, protect those I love. and there’s nothing like coming home at the end of the day to a sweet femme, ready to rub my tired muscles. man, I’m not good at concise answers, am I? (both laugh) no, but I love it!

what do you think of people who see your relationship as heteronormative? they’re twats! (both laugh) now, that’s a concise answer! no, no that’s not fair. here’s what I’d say to them:

I see it as…a complex gender performance. no, that makes it sound like it’s play pretend. they’re complex gender…expressions, dynamics, play, desire, euphoria. a butch and a femme together is no more heterosexual than a bear and a twink, a top and a bottom. it’s a dance that we know in our bones, like we knew each other in a previous lifetime and we’re just falling back into our favoured rhythm. even every fumble and awkward gesture is a part of it. we fall into sync and into each other, we tenderise each other’s gender, affirm it, and love every minute of it. we’re not two sides of the same coin, you talk to any butch-femme couple and chances are our priori (edit: interviewee meant propositions) are the same but our conclusions are not; we’re the same side of the same coin, just one is the top of the tail and the other is the bottom of it. is that a euphemism? (laugh) take it as you will!

I’m no man, my femme is no woman, and I’m no less butch when I’m wearing a kiss-the-cook apron and cleaning their kitchen, and they’re no less femme when they’re putting together a shelf or driving me to work. To look at us and see a heteronormative imitation of cisgender predetermination is proof of their own lack of nuance – do you think all dogs are boys and all cats are girls, too? (both laugh)

I think in a lot of ways, butch-femme dynamics are inherently transsexual. or, in the very least, good friends of transgenderism. If you can’t see us for what we are then chances are you’ve got your own internalised gender biases to unlearn.

I’ve always been butch to my bones, but when I’m with my baby I’m on cloud nine. I feel desired, my gender revered and loved.

so, what you’re saying is, you feel seen? I do. we see each other and nurture each other. I’ve never really liked being called ‘beautiful’, but when it falls from the lips of a femme, I know that they’re not seeing me as feminine. I feel most comfortable to explore the depths of both my femininity and masculinity with them; I don’t feel restricted to a role.

maybe that’s what people are missing about it: our homes are temples of gender exploration and devotion.

end ID].

[deepcolorobserver]

I really want a terf lesbian to coax me into detransitioning

At first she pretends to support me and my transition, pretends to be a trans ally, says all the right things to befriend me and we hit it off. She's cute, funny, and for a while we're just friends.

We flirt a bit, always silly and joking and friendly. The kind of thing close friends do, until one day she admits she sees me as more than a friend. And god it's exciting, it's exhilarating, it makes my heart flutter. Who cares that she's a lesbian, maybe I'm the exception. Someone she likes enough to look past conventional desire.

So we start dating, a casual fling, but the sexting is HOT. She doesn't use preferred terms for my anatomy, always says clit instead of tdick, always asks for tit pics, but it's okay, a lot of the transmasc terms are a little clunky in dirty talk anyway.

She tells me I would look good with long hair. Men can have long hair right? I would be so pretty, such a pretty boy, so I grow it out for her. My hairline starts receeding on T and I'm worried about it, I confide in her, and she suggests stopping T. I got the changes I wanted, right? It's better that I don't hate myself for the changes I don't want, and she's right, even if she says it's mutilating me now. So I stop.

The whole relationship has been digital, and we talk a lot about meeting in person. Joking around, of course, neither of us have plane ticket money. But one day she asks for pictures in panties and a bra. I don't own those anymore, so she offers to buy me a pair. It's not feminizing, and I'm into degradation, she says. Men in lingerie can be degrading, and it would suit me. So I agree, because the idea is kinda hot, and I dress up for her. She's right, it is hot, even if it feels so wrong.

Slowly, she starts to introduce terf rhetoric to me. Very subtly, starting with ideas I can agree with and pushing more extreme views onto me. It makes me hate myself, of course, for transitioning and living as a man. There are lesbians that use he/him, she tells me. And if I were a lesbian, we could make "I'm in lesbians with you" jokes. The rhetoric swims in my head. I'm a lesbian, yeah. I still identify as a man, for a while.

One day it comes to light that we live in the same city. We can meet up easily. And it's like a revelation, a sudden flip. I'm with her almost every day, I'll stay over several nights at a time. Always in the lingerie she keeps buying me. I'm wearing it all day, wearing it to work, just so she can take off my clothes and see it when I get to her place. It's not long before we move in together. She calls me girly pet names, things you would never call your boyfriend. And the wrong feeling, all it does is turn me on and endear me to her.

The day I bring up top surgery, she spends a very long time sucking on my tits, kissing them all over. Don't do it, she tells me. I look so good like this. It compliments my body type, I'm meant to have tits. She makes me say it, say I love my tits. She makes me say that I love my pussy, I love all the things that make me feminine. I'm crying as I say it, but I tell her I think I might be a girl. She says I always was, and always will be. My biology was made with a purpose, and I'm meant to be a woman. I ask her to use she/her pronouns, to use my dead name in bed. We scissor and I cum harder than I ever have, all because she uses my deadname. If it feels this good, how can it be wrong?

She misgenders me outside of bed anyway. Soon everyone is using my deadname and she/her. I'm so wet all the time. She takes my body every night and uses me to pleasure herself. She makes me cum while telling me what a beautiful woman I am.

She convinces me to get pregnant with a surrogate. We both want kids, and this is the only way to do it. The whole time she talks about how beautiful the process is, what a lovely woman I am, fulfilling my purpose. She holds my hand as I birth our child. I forget all about wanting to be a boy.

[stillarandom-radfem]

This post is going to cause controversy here on radblr. I already know that, and I'm ready for it. But there is something that I've just got to get off my chest, here. It's been bugging me for a long time now, but for the longest time, I couldn't quite find the words to describe my feelings.

Here's the thing. It's not that female separatists are wrong, necessarily, with regard to their arguments about male violence. OSA women like myself are at a greater risk of interpersonal violence from men, intimate partner violence does make up the majority of domestic violence statistics, men are the most likely people to rape or murder us, and yes, living without men therefore probably would improve straight and bisexual women's lifespan/overall quality of life in most cases. BUT. The way many female separatists (who are most often lesbians) go about presenting their arguments is not only unnecessarily rude to women who have done nothing to deliberately harm them (and, when it includes such colorful monikers as "dick worshipper" and "cock rider" in it, reasonably comes off as an attack), but it includes many of the same tactics that homophobes use against LGB people to make their point. I'm sure that homophobes doing that stuff to you is hurtful, but I'm also at least 99% sure that heterosexual women who are radfems (or rad-adjacent, if you prefer) aren't the ones leveling those attacks, and don't therefore deserve to be responded to with such ferocity. Two wrongs do not, in this case, make a right. And it needs to stop.

For example, you ask?

Acting like heterosexual relationships must be purely sexual, with no actual love involved whatsoever.

I see LGB people complaining about homophobes doing this to them all the time. "You think our relationships inherently obscene or kinky because you can't picture us actually being in love; all you can think of is the sexual part! You think a sizable chunk of the population is incapable of love or human connection, and that is dehumanizing!" Yes, I have no doubt in my mind that it is. But then look at what you do when you try to call out heterosexual/bisexual women for being with men, and you are doing exactly the same thing to us. You talk about OSA relationships, and the first and, often, only thing you ever bring up is the sexual aspect of them. The word "love" almost never comes up. It's like it doesn't even occur to you that OSA women might actually fall in love with or have very deep romantic feelings for their male partners, not unlike you, as a lesbian, may have or have had towards any girlfriends you have ever dated, any women you have ever crushed on, or, if you're lucky, your wife. Now, do OSA women have sex with our boyfriends or husbands, if we have them? Of course we do! Have you ever had sex with your wife or girlfriend? Or, if you're single, would you, if you had one? Of course you would, and you know it! Does that negate your feelings for her, somehow? No? Your relationships are not purely sexual just because there is sex involved? Then why would you assume that sex being involved would make heterosexual relationships suddenly be only sexual? Also, news flash: vibrators exist. So do dildos. Or women (including het women) could just use their fingers or a pillow. There are many ways for a woman of any orientation to get off without a man if getting off is all that she's after. If she is choosing to be in an actual serious relationship with a man, it's most likely because she's in love with him. You are trying to convince her that there is something more important for her to consider, in spite of her feelings. So, perhaps instead of insinuating that she is some kind of sex-obsessed slut who is screwing over her entire sex deliberately for the sake of a few orgasms, you can start start there, instead.

Acting like other people's sexual orientations can be changed (not yours, of course, just, you know, everyone else's).

I see homophobes acting this way towards LGB people all the time, claiming that the sex(es) you are attracted to is a choice somehow, shaming you for preferring the "wrong" one (or the "wrong" one at the moment, if you're bi). Which, personally, has always struck me as kinda weird, because they never seem to apply the same logic to themselves. They never stop to suggest whether their own orientation is a choice or not. I guess it's pretty obvious why they won't, because then it comes down to two possibilities: if they are with strictly the opposite sex by choice, then it's very probable that they are actually bisexual, and behave as they do towards gay people due to internalized homophobia, whereas, if their strict opposite sex attraction is not a choice, then they have just admitted that their own orientation is innate, so why would they assume everyone else's not to be? It makes no sense. And incels will take it a step further, yelling slurs at lesbians for only wanting to have sex with other women instead of them. It's all pretty fucked up and illogical, and just for the record, I think you all deserve much better. Of course your sexuality isn't a choice. And yet... I mean, I can't even begin to count how many lesbian separatist blog posts I have read full of women acting as if heterosexuality is a choice. "Ew, moids are ugly, dicks are gross, what's wrong with you, why would you choose that?!" Newsflash, gyns: we didn't. That's just our sexual orientation, and we didn't choose it any more than you chose yours. We may still choose to be celibate in spite of our orientation, or, if we're bi, we might still decide to only date other women. But we will still always have the capacity to be physically attracted to/fall in love with men, and for those of us who are straight, we can only experience that with men exclusively. That's just the way it is. We can't control that; it's innate. Some of you, upon grappling with this fact, immediately jump straight to the incel way of doing things and begin slinging the aforementioned colorful monikers (ahem, sexualized anti-woman slurs aforementioned in this blog post) for only being attracted to men instead of you. It actually smacks of sexual harassment, and then you wonder why so many straight women stop following/won't follow you. Or, leap right into calling us lesbophobes because we don't want to take sexual harassment like that from anybody, man or woman alike. Call me crazy, but the last time I checked, a "lesbophobic woman" was a woman who hates lesbians for only being attracted to other woman, not a woman who simply refuses to date/sleep with you. What, you have a right to bodily autonomy, but straight/bisexual women don't?! And yeah, I know, I know. "Stop comparing us to incels! Lesbians aren't predatory!" Well, true, most of you are not. The vast, overwhelming majority of you are completely fine and normal. But I always give the side eye to any notion of an entire group of people (any people) being all perfect, pristine angels carte blanche (a scant few people in every large enough group are going to be creeps), and if a scant few of you don't want to be compared to incels... Well, then maybe you should stop behaving like them. Because, when you explicitly resort to their same tactics, even I get the ick off of a few of you, and I'm probably the least homophobic straight person I know. 🤨🤨🤨

They call you "c*rpet m*ncher", "qu**r", "f*g", "d*ke", etc., over your orientation. You then call women (who probably didn't even call you that!) "dick worshipper", "cock rider", etc., over ours.

Enough said. Do I even need to point out (again) that these are almost all just a bunch of sexualized, anti-woman slurs? Do you really think that this is going to bring women over to your side, as opposed to just driving them away? And do you actually think that your female separatist movement is going to have any kind of major societal effect if you would rather drive women away from it, rather than bringing them in? It won't have any impact that way; it will only die out. And, look, I don't think that homophobes should be treating you like that, either. They most definitely should not. I have no doubt that them slinging those slurs at you constantly over your sexual orientation (which you can't control) is extremely hurtful and probably even scary for you. You deserve so much better than that. But, again, last time I checked "lesbophobe" means someone who hates you for only being attracted to other women, not a woman who refuses to date/sleep with you, and, from what I can tell, radfems appear to be, by and large, very pro-gay. Even when we, ourselves, are not. So, it seems very unlikely to me that we're the ones calling you names like that (unless you can show me receipts or something, in which case, go ahead). Until that happens, it occurs to me that people of all sexual orientations are pointing fingers, accusing each other of being sex-obsessed perverts, and calling each other names because, idk, maybe the drama is more interesting to some people than minding their own business? Or they literally can't wrap their minds around being attracted to that sex, so they attack anyone who is? Idk, it all seems very juvenile, and I should think there would be better ways to tell someone that some aspect of their lifestyle is unhelpful to the movement and/or mentally unhealthy to them than merely resorting to often sexualized mudslinging attacks. Honestly, no matter what your views on female separatism or sexual orientation are, can we all just agree to a ceasefire on the relentless mudslinging on all sides?? Please??? This is middle school shit, and it's really getting annoying. Everyone. On both sides. You're like a pack of schoolyard bullies. Stop it.

Again, I'm not saying that female separatists' arguments against dating/sleeping with/marrying and/or having kids with men are entirely wrong. Male violence is a problem for a lot of women, and refusing to be in relationships with them probably would reduce it greatly. But acknowledging heterosexual and bisexual women as being capable of romantic love towards whichever sex(es) we are capable of experiencing attraction to, acknowledging all sexual orientations as something innate that can not be changed and not a choice, and refusing to resort to juvenile mudslinging attacks will not take away from those facts in any way. So, I guess I just don't see what the reasoning is for so many female separatists to refuse to even consider them?

[genderkoolaid]

It's honestly really validating to read your thoughts on butch identity. I kept myself from fully accepting I might be a gay trans man for a long time because being a butch woman was so integral to my identity (I wept after finishing Stone Butch Blues. It was like being seen for the first time) and I hated that it felt like there was no way I could be both. So I was sort of performing trans man comphet and trying to convince myself I liked women just so I wouldn't lose that word. There's so much gender nuance to being butch that I feel like gets lost when we only focus on the sexuality aspect of it.

"There's so much gender nuance to being butch that I feel like gets lost when we only focus on the sexuality aspect of it." Yes!!!!!!

I came out very young (elementary school) as a lesbian, and cut my long hair to a pixie in the same year. And then shortly after began realizing was I was trans as well. I spent essentially my entire life being visibly queer and visibly queer-masculine a lot of the time. And this affected so much, because I latched onto "butch" extremely young and that became my model for my gender. I never shaved largely because, due to reading about butches, I felt that it was part of my path, even though I also knew it distanced me from others. My sense of masculinity and masculine fashion has always been deeply butch, regardless of my gender. Its such a deep and integral part of me and has been my whole life. I truly feel that I can't not be butch. I don't relate to a lot of "female socialization" both due to being autistic and being visibly queer; I always knew that, while being categorized as "girl," I was also never going to be a "real girl," and everyone knew that. Becoming a butch adult felt more natural than puberty.

Which is why its so annoying that people center butchness on sexuality, and specifically romantic-sexual attraction to femmes!!!! Because while I have, in fact, dated femmes (arguably I dated too many cis femme women who I felt I had to walk on ice around to avoid scaring them with my butch gender), like I said, my butchness is a natural part of me. Being queer is a part of being butch, but the way we talk about butchness makes me feel like people can only view it existing in relation to romance (and femmes). And obviously because of radfeminism, trans men & mascs' unique relationships with butchness have been largely ignored in any way besides "I used to be butch, but now I'm a Normal Straight Man!" & also the general erasure of transmasculinity in lesbian history. Lesbian spaces have always been a haven for trans people, because for a long time in the West, your options were generally "move to a new town and go completely stealth for as long as possible" or "find your local lesbians and be a dyke within a community." There's a reason "butch" has always held so much gender nuance. Radclyffe Hall, who wrote the famous lesbian book The Well of Loneliness, has been argued to have been transmasculine- but the idea that butches may truly call into question the gender binary causes too much anxiety, so we have to constantly re-affirm that butches are above all else women. I'm a firm believer that butch4butch relationships have long been a way for gay trans men to indulge their desire for men within the context of lesbian identity (because all the trans guys are fucking each other and always have been).

Anyways. yeah. let butches exist beyond our sexuality. Understand that "butch" carries so much color and cannot be reduced down to a simple binary concept.

(Also anon, if you haven't, you should read this article about transmasculine comphet wrt gayness).

[icespur]

Akiren choosing to wear a wedding dress for Akeshu/ShuAke wedding: 

very late Part 2 to this post below:

I've had this sitting in a Google Doc for a while, I've just been too lazy to post it

(Mementos Mission Manga Scene Spoiler warning)

So while Unapologetically spoiling myself on Persona 5 content, I came across a Manga Spinoff called Mementos Mission. There's a scene where Akira (Protagonist’s name in the Manga canon is Akira Kurusu), teams up with Akechi on an investigation and he's advised to come in disguise and Akira’s version of disguise is “Oh, I just happened to have a female cop uniform in my wardrobe, along with curly hair extensions, lipstick and makeup. I'll wear that.” 

Akechi reacts like most people would, and after recovering from a laughing fit, questions what the heck he's wearing. 

And Akira is so nonchalant about it “You said to come in disguise and this is what I had on hand 🤷‍♀️.” 

The outfit is also available as a DLC costume pack in Persona 5 Dancing In Starlight. 

Point is, Akiren canonically crossdresses and has no issue with it. 

So what if he willingly wears a wedding dress to an Akeshu/ShuAke wedding scenario? 

Originally, the Wedding Dress option was just supposed to be plan B. If for some reason the Metaverse proves to be too dangerous to hold the wedding and they're forced to have it in the real world, Akira could just crossdress as a female and take the role of The Bride. 

Luckily Metaverse Wedding is manageable enough. During the private dressing process the Girls took it upon themselves to play Bridal Boutique for Akiren. 

Fast-forward to the Wedding. Akechi is waiting at the altar, Grim Reaper officiating (it was originally supposed to be Yaldabaoth but Grim showed up and it seemed letting him be a part of the ceremony was the only way not to get K.O.ed by him). Random assortment of shadows sitting in the crowd that the group managed to convince threaten to attend. Sophia is playing the role of the pipe organ, humming a wedding tune. Ryuji is one of Akiren’s best men, Yusuke is busy in the role of Wedding photographer—-um, “Artist”. Since cameras don't work in the Metaverse, Yusuke has to hand photograph the moments by painting them which he is more than enthusiastic about, this man is going to paint the most detailed works of art ever, who needs a silly camera? 

Morgana is on ring bearer duty. unfortunately since Sojiro can't enter the Metaverse, Cop PeePaw Zenkichi Is playing the role of “father that gets to walk Akiren down the aisle” 

Jose is the flower boy. 

Sumire is one of the girls not playing “Bridal Boutique” and is instead one of Akechi's best—-women? She felt bad for him barely having any Bests on his side so she insisted. The rest of Akechi's Bests entourage consists of docile cognitive beings of Sae Niijima, and a couple of his agents. 

Since fashion isn't her area of expertise, Futaba also willingly opted out of playing Wedding Boutique and stood next to Ryuji in Akiren’s Bests line up, along with Lavenza. 

Akechi didn't have anyone close to walk him down the Aisle. Shido was an obvious no go. “Absolutely Mcfucking Never In This Lifetime Or In Hell, Docile Cognitive puppet version or not” - in Akechi's own words. 

So Igor happily decided to fill that void. The long nosed hunchback was an unsettling sight for Akechi but Akiren reassured he's a decent dude. 

The moment comes, doors swing open for the second Groom to reveal—-

Akiren in full wedding dress and veil, hair extensions to further sell the feminine look, along with black lipstick. He's wearing a casual warm smile, absolute zero sense of shame in this man. 

Zenkichi and Ryuji do double takes, Futaba bursts out in a fit of cackles.

Behind Akiren, the girls, minus Futaba and Sumire, stand behind him, all with varying expressions from defeated, embarrassed, and holding in laughter.

“For the record, we didn't force him to wear this. Once we managed to convince him that wearing his Shujin school uniform is not appropriate attire to get married, he suggested a wedding dress. Despite us explaining it's not necessary and a Tuxedo will do just fine, he was already picking out dress options, so we just went along with it.”

“He also pulled black lipstick and curly black hair extensions out of his pocket and ominously claimed “My time has come.” He wouldn't give us an answer as to where he got them from, I can only assume they've been in his pocket all day.” 

Akechi just lets out a defeated sigh, and facepalms. Oh, that's right. His soon to be husband is a fucking dumbass

A lovable, amusing, cute, undeniably sexy dumbass, but a dumbass all the same. But—--he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

[theoldlesbianwithcats]

i like your writings on gold star lesbian experience. it is so isolating, we are so alienated all our lives and then non-gold stars accuse us of being privileged.

i also tried to convince myself im heterosexual and capable of being attracted to men like u. i would try to imagine myself in a heterosexual romance and tell myself it could be okay. but even the sight of a man in a photo would make it too real for me, let alone the thought of physically interacting with him. so i cant really understand how non gold stars can do any of that. its one thing to think you may be ok with it, but the reality of a male is so diffierent.

even though i never once spoke of being attracted to women everyone throughout school was able to pick up on my disinterst in men and treat me as a freak because of it.

i dont care if the non gs want to talk about their experiences. right now i dont even care if they call themselves lesbians bisexuals pansexuals, whatever. but when they accuse us of being obsessed with sexual purity, or being privileged it makes me feel so furious at them.

i dont understand their double standards. they will say that not sleeping with men and everyone assuming theyre a ugly dyke was so hard, thats why they had to sleep with men. but at the same time they are also claiming that us women who didnt do that are privileged? how can both be true? we endured what u said was too difficult for u? but that makes us more privileged?

its so disgusting. i dont want to say anything and stir the pot because i know 9/10 people are non gold stars. i should swallow my discomfort and take care of everyones trauma. what about my voice?

i have pride in what i am but i am also tired of this. sorry this became more long than i wanted. but ur voice is much appreciated. thank u

Hi anon!

Never apologize for speaking up! You asked "what about my voice", well I want to hear it and other gold stars do too. The isolation and alienation we feel can be so painful, every time one of us speaks it makes things a little bit better because it reminds us that we're not alone :)

Their arguments make no sense, I agree. It's part victimization contest, part silencing us because they know that if we share our experiences, it will be obvious to everyone that they're not lesbians.

And I completely relate to keeping your mouth shut and playing free therapist for the fakebians (who will then tell us to shut up because our lives trigger them). They say that we're the ones destroying lesbian community and creating drama, but I'd argue that accepting fakebians was the first step of the very slippery slope that led us to "sexuality is fluid", "sexuality is a political choice", "non-men loving non-men", men identifying as lesbians, and actual lesbians being bullied even within the community. How absurd is it that we're harassed into silence by "lesbians" for never having touched a dick consensually and never wanting to?

I truly hope that breaking the silence will motivate us to be free from all that guilt-tripping and create a real lesbian movement :)

[cowboyjen68]

howdy jen!

I’m a younger butch, 22, and i only recently came into this label in the past year or so. i cut my hair and started embracing myself and am so much better for it, but it’s also brought a lot of struggle. primarily, i have a really hard time feeling desirable. i don’t know if it’s something to do with where i am or just my age, but i feel like it’s so much harder to meet people who are into people who look like me. it’s hard to look visibly queer, and it’s hard to be masculine. a lot of the time i feel pride in my roll as a protector and safe person, but it becomes so exhausting when i never feel safe myself. when i never feel desirable. i wonder if this is a common thing amongst butches, and if so, how do i get past it?

You could be me talking when I was 23 and just coming out. My first thought, once I really realized that I was a bit different from many of my female friends, was “What lesbian is going to be attracted to me? Lesbians like other women and I kind of look like a boy”. I truly thought that my stature, the way I walked, whatever energy or movement got me consistently mistaken for a boy (or man) was the very reason why I would never find love or passion with whom I most desired, another woman. 

In college I toned it down, I kept my hair long with a sort of short in the front mullet. I wore generic jeans and a sweatshirt to try to be somewhat comfortable but also unremarkable in my clothing choices. Looking back it made no difference. I was clockable as a lesbian, and butch, long before I fully admitted who I was to myself. 

I felt unattractive. I refused makeup and more feminine clothing and convinced myself it was because I was a “feminist” or didn’t want to invite the gaze of men because I wanted to focus on college and not date. I just knew I would be alone forever (which sounded better than being with a man in any case) and no woman would look at me as anything more than a goofy friend. 

Years later, after talking to my old friends and nights chatting with my older lesbian friends in my early 20’s I realized we all shared very similar experiences. Very few women think of themselves as desirable to others. It was the rare one, usually traditionally attractive and outgoing, who had some idea that she was interesting to the opposite sex even if she had no desire for that. Most of us had this idea that we were just plain, or ugly or just not attractive, especially to the demographic we most wanted to desire us as a romantic partner. 

The fact is, many women have a similar feeling to what you are going through regardless of her sexual orientation. 

On to the good news. The greater Western culture tends to portray butches in the media either ugly and rude or stoic or as some perfectly physically fit woman who wears a sports bra to show off her muscles and is brimming with a snarky confidence. That is show biz and not real life. 

I hear young butch4butches and young femmes and garden variety lesbians lament all the time that they can’t find butches today. “Where have all butches that love being butches gone?”  they ponder. So as a butch there are plenty of women out there seeking you and wanting to see and meet you. 

We are quite visible and it is hard to hide our lesbianism when we are in public. And most of us don’t want to. We want to be comfortable as ourselves so we put on a stiff upper lip and go into the world looking as confident and sometimes as tough looking as we can muster. Once you meet the right friends and date a woman with whom you connect you will find a feeling of safety if you let it. Allow your friends to carry some of the burden. Listen to them when they say they have your back. Let the woman you are dating stand up for you and talk about how wonderful you are. 

Take a look at my tiktoks or posts here on tumblr and you will see that butches are loved and appreciated but a vast majority of the LGBT Community. 

Wear what makes you feel confident. Get out to events at the gay bar, concerts, even non profit fundraising events. Take the time to go to places that require you to dress up and put some effort into picking an outfit that suits you. Looking good can truly lead you to feeling good. You can boost your own confidence by getting a good haircut that you love, shining your boots and putting on some light cologne. The best way to get past the feeling of being inadequate as a dating partner is to get out and meet more women to befriend.  The more women you meet the more you can see you are not alone 

As you meet more people,  and form more community connections, you become more comfortable as yourself and you feel much less endangered in public. You learn that much or your fear is thinking others are watching you when in reality most people are just trying to get through their day. This is not to say it is not important to read your surroundings, it certainly is, but you will feel much more at ease if you feel confident in yourself.

[a-faggot-with-opinions]

I just wanted to drop in with some links to some now-deleted but still very good articles on Transmasc Comphet (which is a term I think needs to be spread around more when discussing Transmlm social pressures)

"Transmasc Comphet (and the road to faggotry)" the original article - web (dot) archive (dot) org/web/20210109231028/https:// medium (dot ) com/@neilklein/transmasc-comphet-and-the-road-to-faggotry-62ed750f391f

"Transmasc Comphet — the Followup" - web (dot) archive (dot) org/web/20210124071417/https://medium (dot) com/@neilklein/transmasc-comphet-the-followup-46fddbda7c4

I think a lot of it is stuff you and others who discuss anti-transmasculinity already touch on but I think it's another piece of language we really should be using (even though I know someone is going to find some reason to hate us more over it). Thanks so much for everything you do on the blog my guy

Every gay trans man on the planet needs to read this.

In all my many years of being alive, there has not ever been one other article that I have read that has resonated with me even close to the way that these two have. I used to think I was either a lesbian or a bi woman and would pretend to myself that I'm attracted to women when I am now, and also was at the time, repulsed by the idea of being romantically involved with women. I remember for a while I called myself a butch lesbian because it felt like the closest thing to what I thought I was (a masculine woman).

But something still wasn't right, because I'm not a masculine woman, and it didn't feel correct even at the time. I brushed it off and kept going on with my life as one does. For a long time after that, I thought I just had a fetish of myself as a man. But I think that accepting myself as a gay trans man was inevitable after I got really invested in the FOB fandom. Now, I am a gay trans man, and I feel so much better than when I identified as bi or a lesbian because this is who I really am.

Talking to a lot of other transmasc MLM has made me realize that my story is not unique. So many baby trans men identify as bi or straight for this reason before realizing that they are actually gay. And that's not to invalidate straight trans men—they exist—but I am saying that so many of us are convinced that we're straight because as men, that's what society pushes onto us. And even before we know that we're men, we subconsciously know that we are in some sort of societal role where we should love women, which is why, I think, so many gay transmascs identify as lesbian or bi before even realizing that we're trans.

One other thing that I resonate with that Klein brought up is the fact that it's impossible to separate my homosexuality from my transness because sexuality and gender don't exist in a void separate from each other. This is the main reason that I identify as nonbinary and am uncomfortable describing my gender as a man unless I'm making it clear that I'm oversimplifying my actual experience. By saying that my gender is male without elaborating, what I'm saying is that I'm like other men in some way, and that my experience of gender is similar to other men.

But that just isn't the case for me. I tend to think of myself internally as a third gender, separate from male and female, largely due to my experiences with being gay. In the framework of maleness, I'm GNC, femme, or whatever else you want to call me that basically means the same thing. The simplest way to describe my gender identity, and in my opinion the most accurate, is that I'm gay. I am like others who are gay, and I fit into that community. My expression, then, is built around a framework of being gay.

Often when cis people talk about people like me, they tend to put our transness first, and think of our homosexuality as being something that exists because of our transness while in my experience transness and homosexuality are equally important parts of my identity that can't be separated. I am not me if I am not trans and gay. To put it in simpler terms, there might be an alternate universe where I am female due to my transness being something innate to my being that I feel would still exist even if I was amab, but there is no universe in which I am not exclusively attracted to men.

[our-transgender-experiences]

Hello everybody! (CW: LGBTQ-phobia is mentioned)

I only wanted to know whether I'm real transgender or transTRENDER... Let me explain now. Sorry for being so long, but it's my most honest confession.

I was a stupid boy ("girl") till I was 8 and never realized I was not cishet 'cause my parents "censored" everything connected to LGBTQ+ and "unobtrusively" convinced me that I was a straight girl (tbh, politics and sex were also forbidden topics in our house; interestingly enough, my family ain't religious, all of them are atheists). I didn't even have a thought that a boy could like boys and "a woman may want to be called a man." I gave no thought that I might not be what my parents want me to be: a straight girl who loves her husband and has children.

I only learned the word "lesbian" when my aunt accidently said it (I was 8 y. o.), and after I asked my dad the meaning of this word. He got absolutely furious and only said, quoting, "These are mentally ill girls who need to be rap... ahem, who need to have s*x with men." So, like, you know now how it was in my family.

I "had" a "crush" on my best friend when I was 9-10. It was totally made up by me because EVERYONE (our parents, friends, classmates, and even teachers) would ship us, not even listening to our "no." My dad was absolutely happy that I "have found a future husband, like every normal girl," and I just felt disconnected from this. Not only with the "found a future husband" part but also with "every normal girl" part, too. Nonetheless, I suppressed every thought like this.

I only got internet access when I was 10-11 y.o. I was getting into puberty and hated my chest: I couldn't find a reason to explain this to my parents, who knew about me disliking my growing breasts. Subconsciously, I wanted to be like my the most favorite guitarist (he's a man) from the band of my childhood. I couldn't understand what was wrong with me and why I couldn't be like him. But I quickly thought it was because of my chest and was actually right.

The first time I saw the word "transgender" was when I turned 12. I learned about the pronouns and felt a strong connection to she/they and he/they set. I tried using "he/they," but I stopped in a day due to the simple fact that it felt unusual. I immediately banned myself from thinking of this, putting a limit: I can only be an ally. The problem was that I never had any strong position because my parents were constantly brainwashing me. So, I have seen some posts about radical feminism... and sooner became a TERF.

Honestly, radical feminism helped to accept my aroaceness, but it's the only good thing it has done to me. I started hating men simply because they were men, and I also started wishing death on all trans people for "supporting gender stereotypes." I had no reason for this: I was just brainwashed by TERFs when I was 13. I didn't support the whole feminism: I only hated trans people because... why? (P. S. I still hate myself for this period of life) TERFs forced me to think I am proud to be a girl, even though I MYSELF (!) never believed in it. Also, it is worth saying that being radfem was actually quite popular (if I can say it) in my country in 2020-2021 / 2022 (maybe it's still popular now, idk), so many girls were (or are) into that.

Deep down, when I looked through the photos of my favorite guitarist and thought he was handsome... and I felt jealous since I'm not like him, but I quickly restricted myself from thinking of this. I didn't know it was gender envy.

When I was turning 14, my ex-friend helped me to realize I had masculine features. And then I realized I was a guy with he/they pronouns (I go by he/him now). And I felt... relieved? It’s as if my life has acquired colors that weren’t there before this moment. I had no idea what my name was... My deadname always seemed to me so usual, but not mine, and my inner boy was almost killed with TERF's f*cking ideology. I googled some boy names and... I found an amazing one, which was the best for me (even if it wasn't typical for my country).

I went to the psychologist (who turned out to be an impostor and did not have a diploma). She said I was the girliest girl she had ever seen, and I'm faking it.

I have changed SO many labels, trying to find the most suitable one, but now I just label myself transgender man and don't give a damn. I have two names now: the one I have chosen when I was 14 and the most recent one when I realized nobody's gonna call me by my first chosen name. Both feel nice for me, and I'm even thinking of getting the other two (I'm fascinated by Janick, Dariusz, and Friedrich, honestly, but I believe 5 names will be too much for me). The guitarist I adore is still my gender envy. 🤣

I WANT to look like a man and transition... but I always think I'm not trans enough. I nearly killed my real self, letting my parents and TERFs decide who I am. What if I'm not trans and just faking it? What if the internet has brainwashed me, and I'm not real trans? I don't wanna be a "typical masculine man" or a "typical feminine woman," I wanna be myself. And my real me is dead. What if I'm just a gendervoid and can turn into everything: girl, boy, nonbinary, bigender, etc? What if I have lost in my dreams and I'm a girl? What if I'm just a transtrender?

Sorry for being so long. Thanks for reading. Sorry for taking your time.

you are 'trans enough', and even if you decide your not later, thats fine. you can be whoever you want, forever. i'm happy that you figured it out, despite terfs and parents.

also, you dont need to apologise for sending something, its what this blog is for!

[curseoramiracle]

Kathryn I’m scared. I think I might be a lesbian but I’ve literally been with the same guy for almost 3 years and I really do love him and we’ve built a life together but I just… I think about women and I. I feel something different. AUGH

hello my love!

the only one who can say is you, but i'll share a bit about how i figured it out for myself, okay?

first of all, it has its problems and controversies, but the lesbian masterdoc really helped me in a lot of ways. i recommend skimming through it and stopping if you see something that resonates with you.

the biggest thing for me was to do with performance. my relationships with men (whether that be hookups, dating, or just talking to them on dating apps) have always been something i've had to convince myself i enjoy. my most recent relationship, i found myself regularly telling myself that i was enjoying it, that i was happy to be his girlfriend, that i liked his touch and wasn't repulsed by it. (repulsion can look like many things, too, not just disgust - it can be discomfort, feeling like you want to cry afterward but aren't sure why, having to fake it every time, etc.) i wanted my relationship with him to work so badly because i thought i was doing everything right. i found my husband and we'd get married and i'd be doing what every girl is meant to do. when he broke up with me, i was devastated, and it took me a looooong time before i realized i didn't miss him, but what he represented. i thought my life was going the way it was meant to go, and now it wasn't, and my future was in flux, and i wasn't doing what everyone wanted for me. i remember even asking a friend of mine one time, "do you ever feel like dating is a performance built out of the expectations others have for you?" and she was like ?? no. a youtuber i admire put it differently: "if you could have a week with a man, the most attractive man you can think of, in a honeymoon suite on a gorgeous island, but no one would ever know - no photos, no telling your friends or family - it would only be you to ever know, would you still sleep with him?" my answer was a resounding no.

someone on tiktok also helped me a lot when they said that if the world was reversed and women liking men was seen as disgusting/a sin/gross/whatever, bi women would still be interested in men. that was the final straw for me; i absolutely would not be interested in them if there weren't a societal advantage to being with them.

this is super long and maybe none of it has helped, but ultimately you know yourself. trust your intuition, whatever it's telling you, and if you decide you're a lesbian and need to leave him, remember that it's not selfish to free you both for lives that you deserve.

i love you!

[queer-advice-hotline]

Hello! Soooo long story incoming...

CW For homophobia and religion

So, for context, I am a 20 y.o autistic lesbian living in a small conservative and religious town, and I live with my parents and my teenage sister. My mom is very religious and homophobic. The type of homophobe to say that they would never hurt a gay person, but still thinks being gay is unnatural. She already knows I'm gay, but refuses to accept it. My dad just doesn't give a fuck about either helping me or being against me, so he is just very neutral.

Recently I was planning on leaving my home town to study on college, maybe in another state or at least in the capital city in my state. Partly because I want more oportunities but also because I want to leave my home, have my own space, and a little bit of privacy, without my mom's watchful eye judging me all the time. I didn't tell my parents about that last part tho, I just told them I wanted to go to college to certain places and they were trying to support me.

But my mom started to catch up to my plan and asked me if I just wanted to leave the town, and I was honest and I said yes. She asked me if it was because of my sexuality and I also said yes. She started to try to convince me that bad people from the internet made me go to the "wrong path" and that I just had to meet the right man. I was already so tired because we had these types of conversations for a 100 times already. I barely even argued with her because I didn't know what to say anymore.

The she started to cry, saying that she was suffering too much, how she probably did something wrong and this was all a punishment from God. When she started to realized I did not want to change and give a chance to men, no matter how much she tried to convince me, she started crying really hard and left. It was almost as if I died. Apparently not marrying a man and not wanting to have kids is that devastating to my mom to the point where I am basically dead for her. I feel guilty and horrible. I feel like I'm a mistake.

I just locked myself in the bathroom and cried. I had no idea what to do. I only have my girlfriend who lives in another state (who is trying to help me as much as she can, dispite not being able to do much outside of giving emotional support), only a single friend from high school and a few mutuals.

My mom will definitely not let me go to college somewhere else after this, or at least she won't help me financially. I am basically alone and also broke. I don't know how much longer I will be able to live in this house without becoming completely insane, so I still wanted to leave, but I am not sure if it's a good idea.

I am not sure what options I have... I would like to get help from more experienced queer people on that matter.

(Also, for more context, I don't live in the US, so I need general advice that doesn't apply only to people from the US)

If you’re comfortable lying, you can always try and go back on what you said, just so she will financially help you to move out.

I’m not sure what the options are in your country, but you could look into scholarships and other forms of financial aid from the university you want to go to. They may offer assistance with housing and payment so you can still go. You can also look into other universities that may offer that sort of thing.

You can see if any friends of yours are willing or able to help in any way. If you can stay with them temporarily while you find work to support yourself, that could at least get you out of the house.

[snapeingturtle]

Rating some of the Marauders era / snera™️ ships (ships involving ppl the Marauders and Severus went to school with) I've been exposed to because I'm drunk and feeling spicy. Romantic ships only, I have different opinions on the brotps. I could talk about this all night but I chose not to make a long post.

Disclaimer: this is heavily influenced by headcanons I've convinced myself are canon and generally my opinions. Not in order from best to worst because I am drunk and I'm not proofreading this.

Prongsfoot/Starbucks/James x Sirius 10/10. James is just as inobservant as Harry. Of course he didn't notice that Sirius had a crush on him. James didn't even notice he himself was into Sirius. Love it.

Jily/James x Lily 2/10. In my heart Lily is a lesbian. Jily has some potential as a comphet storyline where they're both actually gay and think of each other as the man/woman they're supposed to like. Other than that it's a no from me.

Wolfstar/Remus x Sirius 1/10. Unpopular opinion again, I know. I see Remus having a one-sided crush on Sirius before the prank, but honestly I'm a Ronks stan because I can project my insecurities on Remus and have been in love with Tonks for years and I hate the idea of them being in a relationship with anyone else but each other. Plus, I really don't see Sirius committing and definitely not to Remus. Sirius is a bachelor for life and I identity with that. Another reason to dismiss this ship.

Snily/Severus x Lily 1/10. The only reason I don't rate this at 0 is because they're one of my favourite brotps. She's gay and not his type, they're sister souls, just look at the doe patronuses, they found security in each other like does in a herd etc. and I hate it when people say there were romantic feelings involved. I could accept this with fem!Snape though.

Starchaser (wtf is this name)/Jegulus/James x Regulus 4/10. I think it's funny to have James falling in love with his best friend's brother. I don't have any negative feelings about the ship itself. HOWEVER. As someone who has been exposed to Jegulus content despite not looking for it and Snily content despite not looking for it. Jegulus feels like m/m Snily for people who hate Snape. The content (I've seen) has the same vibe and I cannot get over that.

Remus x Lily 3/10. If I were able to see Lily as not a lesbian I would love this, not as an endgame thing but more as a teen romance that ended on ok terms before they both moved on. No strong feeling about this tbh.

Snegulus/Severus x Regulus 4/10. They're definitely not in love but they're both sluts so they probably fucked and it was probably hot. That's all.

Lily x Mary MacDonald 3/10. I would consider this as another one-sided crush situation. Mary is the token straight in their dorm and that's unfortunate for Lily.

Snucius/Severus x Lucius 8/10. They're not endgame. But they fuck. I refuse to consider Sirius calling Severus Lucius's lapdog anything but calling him his sugar baby. I don't rate this higher because Snucissa is better than just the men.

Lily x Pandora Lovegood 10/10. I don't know if they ever interacted or if they even went to school at the same time but I'm in love with the idea of them together.

Severus x Mulciber 3/10. Another one-sided crush sitch. Snape was infatuated with Mulciber at a certain point, Mulciber (forgot his first name sorry) knew and took advantage of it. That's Snape's slut origin story.

Snupin / Severus x Remus 3/10. They would never date. Doesn't fit my fantasy or the reality of their relationship. But hate-fucking in one of their offices while Remus is employed at Hogwarts? I see that. I dig it.

I also headcanon Dorcas as queer but I don't see her with Lily but I don't have any feelings about that ship in either direction so 3,5/10 maybe?

[maxzinn]

Damn why is the HSR fandom becoming way worse than genshin? And whenever there is any controversy aventurine is always somehow involved like leave my boy alone 😭

I'm a cis straight woman okay and no matter which fandom i interact with they always look down on me and assume shit about me even though i try to be nothing but understanding I have had so many tell me that I can't like a certain male character romantically because he is only for the boys/gays. Even like when you tell them you like a certain game/franchise/anime/singer or band they're like 'you have to be queer for liking this' and for some reason they try to convince me that I'm queer even though I'm not and they think that me being cis and straight makes me 'basic' and 'boring' I love jjba, Nana, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Hsr and genshin impact but literally every fandom I've been is filled with a bunch of judgemental pricks which is sad because I was so excited to talk about my interests :( at first i thought they were being like that because I'm asian but then i realised it's because of my 'basic and boring' sexual and gender identity

and for some reason when I tell them that I'm cis straight they immediately assume I'm a white privileged woman (like i said I'm literally Asian) and i haven't struggled a day in my life which isn't true at all it's so ignorant to assume all of this about me just based off my sexual and gender identity and when I try to speak up they tell me that they're just 'giving me the taste of my own medicine' like what??? What does that even mean?? I'm not even homophobic i come from a conservative country and family but I have done proper research and educated myself on this topic and i treat everyone with respect so why can't they also be decent human beings and respect me too? I still try to be understanding but I can't stand the air of superiority among these people and they're usually under the age of 25 too because other queer people I have interacted with who are older than me don't behave pathetically like these people

(sorry this was so long you can ignore it if you want and sorry if my english is bad it's not my first language 😭 anyways I hope you have a good day/afternoon/night)

(This post is also long sorry hehe)

No cuz for real, it’s getting way more annoying in the fandom (no offense) and it’s even worse on twitter and hoyolab.

In my opinion, I think the toxicity mainly starts with people forcing to everybody that every character in hsr is queer coded and all that stuff. I keep seeing all that posts and comments that this certain character is “implied” which is not true??? It makes me wonder if they even know what the word “implied” means, cuz it basically/indirectly means that it’s canon.

I’m so done with those posts that claims “robin is lesbian and girlkisser so gtfo men” like stfu?

If you have seen the replies on tuonto’s twitter post, there’s like a LOT of people saying that. Like, hc her as lesbian if you want but DONT act like it’s canon and stop forcing your hcs on other people pls.

And when others reply to them saying that it isn’t canon and that they shouldn’t force it, they just straight up say that those people are “homophobic and lesphobic”.

I have no problems with gay/lesbian ships cuz I support all ships equally (except the illegal and problematic ones), but these delulu people are ruining it for the fandom tbh.

It’s funny that being straight/cis is seen as basic and boring now. And that part where you’re being forced to be queer is funny af 😭 are they ill?

You can like all the male characters that you like, none of them have canon sexualities and they’re certainly not canonically gay. If some person says that you shouldn’t like a certain male character cuz they’re only for the boys… then they’re ill, don’t listen to those bs.

It’s so weird that people now argue and force a sexuality onto fictional characters and just assume a certain character’s sexuality based on stereotypes (like aventurine for example) then claims that they’re a queer representation when said “representation” is just based on stereotypes.

It’s weird that a character’s sexuality matters so much when it doesn’t even matter that much, just enjoy the game and the plot? Stop projecting yourself onto them, they’re their own person and they have their own personality. They have nothing to do with your sexuality. And most of all… they’re literally PIXELS

And pls, liking a certain franchise doesn’t reflect anything on your sexuality. You can be a straight woman and like drag shows, you can be a straight woman and like BL and GL. Men can be straight and love skincare, men can be straight and like fashion/makeup. ITS NOT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND?? Just stop stereotyping people 💀

[butchladymaria]

11, 12, and 16 for the violence asks!! I need to know

OG POST HERE!!!

11. number of fandom-related words you’ve filtered

actually all 36 terms i have filtered are fandom-related lmao. honestly i use the filtering system as a way to clean up my dash. i sometimes filter a tag if someone i follow gets into a new thing that i’m ambivalent about or unfamiliar with. it means i can keep following them without seeing stuff i’m just not all that interested in yet but also (and especially) to avoid having something spoiled for me if i want to check it out in future! it also means that i can click the “show” button if i’m in the mood for something specific or want to learn more about it — go to their blog and just look for anything filtered :) this is literally the only way i know of to search a tumblr account for specific shit because the actual search function is Actually Useless Shit

16. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

man there’s so many picks here but i’d have to say annalise. she’s not unpopular as in actively disliked afaik, just more generally overlooked. i need to post more about her but like — she’s such a key piece of bloodborne’s themes around gender and motherhood and its a goddamn shame it doesn’t get talked about more!!! she feels like a foil to miss doll in many ways (editor’s note: i Went Off on this but it needs to be its own post, so rest assured i will elaborate lol). she’s such a goddamn tragic character. in so many ways it feels that she retreated into the role of the queen to cope with the loss of her people: there’s nothing left of her home besides that. she calls herself “we”, not “i”. she is the queen of cainhurst before she is a human being and it feels like a very visceral reaction to the bigotry of the church. she is trapped in the throne room in a nightgown — evidenced the fact that her portraits show her wearing period-typical gowns, and the attire she wears looks like historical sleepwear. it makes me fucking insane. she was wearing her nightgown when the executioners attacked. despite seeing everyone she ever knew and loved be butchered before her eyes, despite being reviled as a corrupted subhuman monstrosity, despite being imprisoned in complete solitude for god only knows how long, she still fucking demands your respect and i love her for it. she is canonically some flavor of queer on account of the fact she rejects your marriage proposal in an identical way regardless of gender. i am able to fulfill my fantasy of a beautiful vampire woman bossing me around thru her questline. what is not to fucking like!!!!

17. you can’t understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc.)

hands down probably the defanging of the women characters: chiefly maria, miss doll, and adella/arianna. like, i know WHY it happens (misogyny) but it’s still baffling to me. why are you making them waifus. follow up question is your taste honest to god just that boring, and if so get better soon. they’re so much cooler than that. shut the fuck up. maria is such a complex character and if i see another clown reducing her to some soft maternal wifey because… what, she was compassionate to the research hall patients and felt bad about doing uhhh *checks notes* A Whole Ass Genocide???? i will staple myself to the ceiling. like some folks will do the most absurd mental gymnastics to call a woman in any media maternal for the most basic things 😭. in a similar vein are the people who shit themselves to death trying to claim that she TOTALLY COULD HAVE BEEN a femmey little uwu housewife even though she has a canonical and marked preference for masc presentation, and actually a woman conforming to victorian gender roles and being attracted to men is an EPIC FEMINIST WIN, actually. usually this comes from cis and/or hets who are convinced they are personally oppressed because like 3 queers on tumblr said maria is a butch lesbian. having said that there are so many amazing artists and theorycrafters that when i was trying to link specific posts/art the list was actually a million years long. some people are annoying but MORE people are so cool and thoughtful and creative!!!!! shoutout to nishihii saintadeline butchjolyne and pretty much all the lgbtqs in the mariadeline tag, all of your work is like oxygen to me 💕 yall are amazing :)

it’s the same with miss doll. either their complexity is painted over by making her the butt of those insufferable sex doll jokes or they’re made out to be this pure innocent mommy/housewife. usually this is hand in hand with just blatantly ignoring the misogyny inherent to the dynamic between her, maria, and gerhman and i just have to wonder how anyone manages to so spectacularly miss the point. i wrote a forty page paper on this. needless to say it makes me insane. i’m also a big fan of YOUR theories on the matter for a different yet equally neat perspective :) also i think marble did a post on it but i cannot for my LIFE find it

also i cannot stress enough how lame it is that adella gets reduced to a flat stereotype. they took a violently traumatized woman who was groomed into loathing herself by the catholic blood cult and who desperately clings onto the hunter for showing her justo the most basic decency of not Leaving Her To Die and decided instead of any of that it would be way cooler to water her down into a “yandere”. same can be said for arianna. like istg if they were men ther would be ESSAYS. but then again if they were men their themes would literally not even be half as cool AND they couldn’t be lesbians so i am writing the essays myself. tl;dr i am absolutely OBSESSED with both @/jurasicass and @/undefeatablesin’s portrayals of both these ladies. finally some good fucking adella/hunter/arianna dynamics‼️‼️‼️

[redheadbigshoes]

I’m having some pretty bad anxiety about being a lesbian (probably maybe) right now.

I’ve thought I was one for a minute but long story short one of my male friends I h th ought had a crush on me and who I think I was having like a comphet crush on (as in like I didn’t like him but wanted him to like me and internally felt similar to a real crush except the liking him) has said that he thinks he’s gay. Fully gay. He used to identify as bi.

And at first I was a little disappointed which I feel really bad for lol because I wasn’t even interested although I convinced myself that maybe I was and maybe I did like men a little

But then like shortly after…I felt free. He didn’t like me (odd because he really seemed to like me, like a lot). So I didn’t have to think about it anymore.

but oddly I’ve gotten anxious about it again, I think because one I really opened up about my sexuality confusion to him and a few other people and everyone thinks yeah I’m a lesbian. And I don’t want to be. I want to be normal. I want to like men.

but also and I feel really bad about this I do feel slightly anxious maybe because he doesn’t like me, which I don’t know why. maybe because I liked the validation. maybe because him liking me and me thinking maybe I like him or we’d be a good couple (when I have these “comphet crushes,” I somehow end up thinking that I’ll just end up dating them and magically like attracted to them now) he was kinda my crutch out of homosexuality, maybe I’m weird and insecure and I don’t like that he isn’t attracted to my gender, maybe because hearing him talk about his attraction to men has made me take a step back and realize I don’t think I feel like that, maybe it’s because I’m non-binary or something, I ’m really not sure.

Sometimes I wonder if I do like him but I really don’t think so. It feels almost like an instrusive thougjt when it crosses my mind.

I also don’t feel like I had this anxiety after my inital disappointment faded until around now, some hours later. I do notice that after seeing him previously like during the interaction I’d be like “yeah I don’t like him lol” but the longer and longer I hadn’t seen him, the doubt would creep in

I feel kinda like when I lost my religion rn tbh, and I’m not even certain why. The anxiety won’t go away. And I’m not sure how to deal with it or what it’s source is.

I feel bad for saying it, but I really just want to be normal. And like boys. I don’t want my life to be…just so different from how I thought it would go. I really wish I had someone I could talk to rn, like, one of my loved ones like my childhood best friend who’s like a sister to me or my parents, but I can’t.

Have you thought that maybe the reason why you feel disappointed that he realized he’s gay is that it makes you question more whether you’re attracted to men or not? And that if you’re actually not attracted to men - therefore not attracted to him - these intrusive thoughts you’ve been having (from what you said especially after he came out as gay) might be your brain only being comfortable with the idea of “liking” men when you know they’re not available/unattainable?

I truly get what you’re feeling right not, that feeling of wanting so much to be “normal” and like men, the fear of recognizing and accepting the fact that you might be a lesbian, therefore you might ruim the expectations you’ve put in yourself (as well as a lot of people around you).

This is a safe space to vent about being a lesbian. I know that someone like you (questioning your sexuality) probably needs more than anyone else somewhere to go to vent about your sexuality and to try to come to terms with it. You’re not alone ❤️

[butchbarbieagainstterfs]

ok, here we go: Breakfast Anons Experience in Radfem/Terf tumblr (long post) (tw terf/radfem ideology, transphobia, homophobia, sexism, mentions of rape/SA)

so, earlier this year, i got pulled into the terf/radfem side of tumblr and was active in it, on and off, for about 3-4 months. i dont remember how i got in but it was lilwly something inoffensive that most would agree is a fundamentally good and important perspective to have, like how damaging the porn industry can be, female genital mutilation and abortion rights. looking back, i think it was that unrestrained defense for women that made me start going through their blogs because of course i dont think women should be mistreated or abused simply because they are women. i was never able to be pretty and easily feminine like the girls i grew up around so seeing that comradery around women who felt like i did made me feel seen.

unknowingly, that arguement for women spiralled into men being the sole problem, then men being useless scum that only perpetuate the patriarchy and then it was "all men are monstrous, porn-addicted, misogynistic, rapists in waiting who will do whatever they can to belittle, abuse, use and destroy women whatever chance they get so they should be eradicated for the greater good".

the radfems, the small circlejerk group that they are, would all reblog from and follow one another, and when i eventually got convinced to join the circle by making a seperate account for my own blog (yeah it was that bad) i found myself seeing the same posts over and over from the same 30/40-odd blogs that all agreed with each other and said the same things. that blatant and unquestioned hatred for men is extremely central to their beliefs, which i understood because, even besides the radfem mindset, im generally uncomfortable around men too, and they gave tangible reasons why i should be.

near all of them are lesbians or febfems (female exclusive bisexual females) and being a lesbian myself, the idea of being with a man romantically or sexually repulsed me like it did them so i felt accepted, finally, for who i was. theyd post and repost articles upon articles of "men pretending to be women" who had been charged with assault or rape of children and women and female prison inmates; they'd post and repost pdfs of famed radfem theory by Adrienne Rich (?) and books like The Scum Manifesto which is essentially their "bible"; theyd explain and reexplain society, the patriarchy and the world according to their logic, and because of that, I didnt question their calls for womens seperatism, for women to only be in relationships with other women (romantically/sexually or platonically), for male babies to be aborted without second thought and for all men to be wiped out from existence entirely. and of course THAT spiralled into trans women also being a big problem.

they preached that men are rapists and abusers who get off to it, and trans women are also rapists and abusers who get off to it so much they need to "pretend to be women" or, even worse, "pretend to be lesbians" to force "actual lesbians who dont like dick" to sleep with them. but at the same time, they kept preaching that trans men and afab nonbinary people are lost, innocent, manipulated, self hating lesbian girls/women who couldnt deal with the internalised homophobia and internalised misogyny so mutilated themselves to pretend to be men. and the trans men who "called themselves gay" are homophobic straight girls who have an addiction to gay porn and want to force "actual gay men who dont like vaginas" to sleep with them. there were even some "tehms" or "trans exclusionary homosexual males" in the group but they were few and far between.

the ideology is a self consuming and never ending spiral of despair, hate and misery. and one thing i learned from it is it is so, so easy to hate.

while in it, as much as part of me felt understood and finally seen by other women who experienced certain things and had some of the same thoughta as i did, i also felt so grimy from all the hate and bitterness and cruelty i was reposting and eventually posting myself towards trans and nonbinary people. i would log out and go back to my normal inclusive blog and feel so much guilt and disgust, partly for thw reasons i mentioned but also because i knew i was attracted to trans women and nonbinary people (not that i ever made that clear), both things of which the terfs claimed made me actually bisexual "because trans women are actually men" when i know for a fact im not. im gay through and through.

i knew it was all wrong but they explained awat my guilt too, one of them told me the guilt was because id been brainwashed to blindly support "trans activism" so it will feel incongruent but what im doing is in fact the right thing. so i couldnt or didnt do anything. i felt part of a community that was actually fighting for something tangible, something rooted in apparent reality. i felt like what i was doing was important for society. i was speaking out for the rights of women. how could that bw wrong? it's wrong, but doing so at the expense of others is wrong

eventually, the guilt got to me more than that self-appointed importance did and i ended up deleting the account after it spiked my depression. i couldnt believe what id done, couldn't comprehend the hate id perpetuated and the people i may have hurt. i felt horrible being part of a movement that attacked innocent people who just wanted to live for the sole reason that the way they wanted to live was different from the assumed norm.

and then, by some magical move by Fate, i came across a recently published horror novel by a trans woman named Gretchen Felker-Martin called Manhunt, which is the story of two trans women, an indigenous trans man, nonbinary people, a black female doctor, and a terf who all have to live, fight and survive through a biological apocalypse where men and anyone with high testosterone become cannibalising monsters. and it literally changed and saved my life. i mean that with all seriousness.

now my favourite book of all time, it opened my eyes to so much internalised transphobia i didnt know i had, gave me actual pride about my gender and sexuality and, despite how brutal and painful the novel is (while i highly recommend the book SERIOUS tw for rape, intense transphobia and general crimes against trans people and people of colour), it gave me hope beyond anything id ever felt. i felt truly seen, understood, and loved as a trans and queer person, and a person of colour (i am black), by that novel and it was the key to me finally leaving the radfem/terf mindset and ideology behind. and while im still on a journey towards healing, i am now of a mindset and belief that is inclusive, kind, loving, exalting and full of love for the ENTIRE intersectionl lgbtqia+ community.

and, scene.

Thank you so much for sharing! I’m glad you were able to get out of that space ❤️

I feel you on the guilt element as well. I wasn’t ever a full blown TERF, always respected trans folk for who they are, but I was an ace exclusionist and a “queer is a slur!” person - both of which terfs are often involved in - for a while up until I saw the damage that was going on, stopped and reanalysed. Now I’m way happier and a better, more inclusive person ❤️

Thanks for the book rec as well! I’ll deffo have to look into that ❤️