#because you were right about butch being a gender in itself

[synonymroll648]

oooh genderfluidity?

yeah i went to prom and i did makeup which i'd loved the day before when practicing for the real thing, but when i did it i looked in the mirror and felt super dysphoric and washed it off as soon as my partner i wanted to impress saw it.

and then i was like 'hey babe what are the signs of being genderfluid' and they were like 'well i judge it by liking my boobs one day and wanting to rip them off the other' and i was like 'ohhhhh shit you were right back in january when i cut my hair and told you about it and you said what i was describing was just like your genderfluid awakening weren't you-'.

to which they were basically like 'dude you're only just figuring out you're genderfluid??' and uh. yeah. i'm not sure about being genderfluid yet but it would definitely explain some things

[johannestevans]

Okay so similarly to last anon about topping as a trans guy/trans masc, how do you build the confidence within yourself to top someone with a penis? Cause my partner is super kind and willing to let me learn but I struggle with my own mental barrier of lime not being "manly" enough or confident enough for topping. I know a lot of it is internalized transphobia but I just wasn't sure if you had any past experiences that helped you over come that or other fears surrounding newness and such.

my directory of work / / tip jar

That sounds like a tough set of feelings that are all mixed up together!

I'm gonna unpack some gender stuff and ungendering things first, and then specifically get onto feelings of masculinity, because I think those are two separate mental processes that are (understandably) tangled up.

Before I go on, though, there's a lot of thoughts and exercises I'm going through in this essay, and I just want to say that more valuable than anything I'm about to say re: your sexual relationship with your partner, is to talk to them.

]Everything below is ontological gender thoughts and then feelings about your own confidence and masculinity, but given that the important thing here is your sexual chemistry and dynamic and relationship while the two of you fuck, their feelings and thoughts might well be super valuable here!

Even if you just say, "Hey, I asked this pretty writer fag for advice because I've been feeling these feelings and it's been tough for me, would you also like to read what he said?", that might be very helpful and valuable!

All these big feelings and big problems often feel less big when we share them with those we love and are intimate with. A problem shared is a problem halved - an insecurity shared with a trusted someone is one that can be soothed and be specifically treated with gentle gloves. If your partner doesn't know about it, they can't do that!

Anyway, on to me talking too much:

Me and my boyfriend were at a kink event yesterday that was very straight-dominated, and one thing that sort of occurred to us that we don't tend to think about, because we're not really in community with cishets and their sexual culture, is that for a lot of cishets, "pegging" - a cis man being penetrated with a strap-on, by a woman or by someone else without a cock, is in itself considered a kink.

And Lewis was like, "And that's ridiculous because it's just like... It's the woman topping. It's not special or important because it's just two people in a relationship and she's the one topping, but because they're straight, it becomes about him being humiliated and her dominating him when it's literally just normal."

And he's obviously right, like...

People often assume that in a sexual dynamic:

the top = the dominant partner = the more masculine partner

the bottom = the submissive partner = the more feminine partner

But the act of topping or bottoming (which I'm using in this context to refer to someone being the penetrating or penetrated partner, although "top" and "bottom" are often used to refer to a partner acting versus a partner acted upon, which is explored and discussed a lot in this glorious piece, Top or Bottom: How do we desire? from The New Inquiry a few years ago) is not in itself an act of domination or submission.

You mention not being confident enough to top, and link that confidence with your masculinity - do you think of topping as an inherently more confident act than bottoming? Is there a certain security you associate with topping, or a certain certainty of thought or intention, that you might not ascribe to bottoming, because you think of bottoming as passive and topping as active?

To be penetrated is not to be subjugated, nor is penetration in itself an act of subjugation, or emasculation, or even domination.

But while we still think of penetration as domination, we automatically association that act of domination with masculinity, with butchness, with being (as in the essay) the brute, with being the actor upon the acted, with being the "active" (as opposed to passive) partner, etc, because in cishetero ideals of sex, sex is something done by the man to the woman.

But you know trans girls that top, do you not? Whether that's them fucking boys or girls or other people entirely, there are trans woman who top. They are not less feminine for doing so, they're certainly not less womanly.

And you know cis men that bottom, yes? And not just twinky, effete, fairy boys who are fruity with lisps and grabbable hips and pretty eyes - there are big, hypermasculine butch men with glistening muscles and thatches of thick hair on their tits who just stepped out of a Tom of Finland poster who love to be fucked. It might well be those ethereal fairy boys who are doing the fucking.

Perhaps they like to be bent over and fucked - perhaps they like to lie back and cup the faces of their partner and coax them into fucking him, smiling sweetly, saying, "That's it, come into me, you're doing so well, yes," and treating it as an act of love and tenderness, but also, one in which he is still undeniably in control and the dominant party, but not by way of typical masculine, patriarchal performance. It can be anything it wants to be, depending on what the parties involved are intending, what they're thinking, feeling.

What the fucking signifies and what it means is in the eye of the fucker.

Is a cis woman topping her cis man boyfriend masculine? Is she actually taking away his masculinity, or is she having any for her own? Is she less or more feminine because she uses a strap-on? Is it more or less so if it's matched to the colour of her flesh?

What if it's pink?

And all of what I've just said really assumes a binary of tenders, of the transfeminine and transmasculine as extensions of the cisfeminine and cismasculine, as parallels of their gender thinking that in themselves are, you know, constructed by the dominant culture - white Western imperial culture, where that binary was constructed and where those boxes exist to oppress and to control, through a flimsy defence of "biology" and also through constructed social roles.

How much do you believe in that stuff?

Play it out as a mental exercise - make a list (you don't have to write it down, you can just think about it in your head) of the sex acts you and your current partner do together, and the sex acts you've done with other partners, and other sex acts that you've dreamed about or fantasised about, and ask yourself...

Do I think of this sex act as more masculine or feminine or is it gender-neutral, or do I think it's genderfucky in some way? If it's genderfucky, in what ways is it genderfucky?

Is it genderfucky because it particularly adheres to or particularly subverts certain gender roles in or outside of the bedroom? Is it genderfucky because it exists in some way outside of the gender binary for you, whether that makes it genderless or genderful, or abstracts it to some entirely different kinds of gender?

For example, if a cisgender man is penetrated by someone else's homegrown cock, how does that feel, genderwise? What if it's someone else's cock as a strap-on? Does the colour or consistency or size of that cock matter in the equation? What if the person penetrating him is an android, and their cock is part of their body, but it's metal or silicon or otherwise matched to their robotic body? What if the person penetrating him is someone who's had a phalloplasty, and their penis was made via surgery and a cool skin graft from their arm? What if it's a fantasy universe where the person did have a clitoris, but they drank a potion and it turned into an average or more-sized typical cock? What if the person penetrating the man is a tentacle monster or some other kind of alien creature, and they do not conform with the bipedal constraint of the human form?

What if all of that is the same, but the cisgender man being penetrated is now a transgender man? What if all this happens to a transgender woman? What if all this happens to a cisgender woman? What if all that happens to a nonbinary person?

If that nonbinary person was assigned female at birth, or if they were assigned male at birth, does that change your feelngs or your assumptions? Why? If that person has had different surgeries of their own - phalloplasties or vaginoplasties, penectomies or mastectomies, metoidioplasties, or any other kind of genital reconstructive surgeries? Does that change anything?

And that's just the act of penetration, but you can think of any other kind of act that you do during sex or as a lead up to sex - kissing, massage, biting, frotting, using a vibrator, nipple play, spanking, dressing up, etc etc. How does gender play into it? What are you gendering, and what are you not gendering? What about the language you use? Say, calling a cis man's chest his tits or boobies or breasts or his mommy milkers, but calling a cis woman's chest her pecs or her chest, or even her man boobs?

What acts do you see as adhered to specific gender identities or presentations or ideas of gender, and which acts are more flexible or unattached? Why are they different? What makes them different?

So that's part one of this, yes?

And all of that is. A lot of thinking and a lot of ruminating, and by no means am I saying you have to sit down and get it all done tonight like it's homework due tomorrow - that's more a set of thoughts and ideas that you can start unpacking as they come to you? As you think of new things, you can play with those thoughts and unpack them, and compare them and contrast them to each other, and see how much actively thinking about and deconstructing them in your head changes your feelings about them - and how much your feelings stay the same.

No matter what thoughts come up as you go through this, no matter what biases you find you have, or thoughts you find that you don't agree with once you start examining them, that is okay. There is nothing wrong or bad about how you think or feel.

None of the above is intended to lecture you, none of the above is intended to make you feel bad or insecure or like you've done wrong by having different thoughts or feelings about the different genders of things.

You have not transgressed by holding a bias, or by thinking of a sex act as masc or fem rather than neutral, or anything similar.

You have not transgressed. You have not sinned. You have thought thought bad thoughts, and subsequently are a bad person, or a bad queer, or a bad trans person.

This business of unpacking and untangling gender and sexuality from specific sex acts, of ungendering things or adjusting our lenses of gender, is hard and difficult and complicated work. Many thousands of essays have been written on this subject by other queer people, by BIPOC, by disabled people, by trans people, by intersex people, by everyone who has not been written into the constructed white imperial gender binary and its associated ideals of sex (which themselves have been escalated and fine-tuned and commercialised because of capitalism and other forms of white cultural supremacy), because it is hard and difficult to do. Because these are things we all have to unlearn, which is difficult!

A lot of these feelings, when we start unpacking them, cause us pain and make us feel discomfort, nausea, dysphoria, shame, uncertainty, fear.

They make us feel that way because by our existence, we are transgressing - because we exist in the way that we do, outside of this constructed binary (and unwilling or unable to conform to it, or at least feign / perform conformity), we disrupt it and we break its rules and we twist it and we bend it. Simply by being, we do those things.

And then when we start to look inward and really start doing that work, it can feel insurmountable and impossible and agonising, because how are we to unpick a framework which we've been sewn into our whole lives? How can we unpick our threads from a tapestry when we're sewn into it with surgical thread?

It's not our fault. It's not your fault or my fault, it is not our partners' faults, it's not even our parents' fault or our teachers' fault or any individuals' fault.

But it's a process.

So. Coming away from the broader thought exercises and zeroing in on your personal feelings about your own body, your own gender, your own role during sex.

How do you feel more manly? How do you feel more confident? How do you get past that barrier and feel "ready" to top?

If you want to top while feeling in control...

Does your partner normally top you? What positions do they usually top you in? Are there any positions they top you in that make you feel more vulnerable in some way, more controlled by them, in a way that you enjoy? Do you think that using those positions, you would then feel more like you're in control?

Would you feel more confident, for example, topping doggy style rather than in missionary?

Have you considered fingering your partner first and penetrating them not while fucking them, but during some other activity? So, blowing them while also fingering them, or using toys on them? Using a vibrator or a dildo on them while giving them a handjob? Even watching them fuck themselves on a vibrator or dildo while you give instructions - so not touching them or moving them down on it, but they only move as instructed by you?

All of those are playing with you being in control and dominating while they're also being penetrated, but is not necessarily topping them while fucking them with your own cock - you can use them to ease yourself more into the mental role or more of the confidence of what you want, rather than plunging directly in (pun intended).

There's roleplay, where you could play out a specific fantasy or wear a particular costume or outfit or something similar, that lets you feel more or at your most manly and confident, so that it's easy to really lean into a butch persona if that doesn't normally come naturally to you?

If you think you'd be more confident topping while ceding some control, have you thought about different positions for that? For example, you lying back and your partner riding you, and easing themselves down onto you?

Or you topping them while they instruct you exactly how to move, or you're being guided by them, acting more in the service top area?

Another option is double-ended dildos! I'm not sure how comfortable you are bottoming or being penetrated, but if you do enjoy such things, a double-ended dildo means neither of you are topping, but you're both bottoming, and that can be somewhere interesting to start that's focused on the sensation and experience together.

All of the above you can then use to transition into topping your partner more the way you first envisioned, or first fantasied about.

Sorry that's a lot to chew on, Anon, but I hope it helps and I wish you love and luck! Like I said to the other guy that asked about topping, so much of this is like...

Because it's new and because you haven't done it before, it can feel like it's a huge and impossible thing, and then once you do do it, a lot of that mystique and that sense of infinity (infinite things that can go right, infinite things that can go wrong, infinite emotions one way or the other) fades away a bit!

[multigenderswag]

Multigender Survey Results Dec 2023: Anything else relevant

Participants were asked "Share anything else about your multigender identity that you find relevant" and had the option to respond with long answer text. Some notable responses include:

As a m+f bigender person who uses he/she pronouns, I sometimes feel like the "he" refers to my female side, and the "she" refers to my male side

I am no longer religious/Christian, but the expression “God is Change” resonates deeply with me and my approach to gender as experience. I accept that my gender (holistically) is an amalgamation, something that breathes new life into itself repeatedly and often unexpectedly, sustained by its own willingness to grow past its bounds and taste richness anew. Teaching is part of my work, and as such I consider myself an eternal student: gender is just one avenue for discovery and learning for me.

I feel so boring but it is what it is, name wise I use one (completely feminine) with group A and one (completely masculine) with group B and hope and pray that they never interact

I identified as a 'tomboy' (gender wise) as a child and transmasc as a teenager. As an adult part of my being multigender is honouring these past versions of myself and acknowledging that who I was is an important part of who I am today.

I like to describe my gender like this: imagine there’s a house on a street. the house represents being a boy/male, and being *in* the house means you’re binary male. The road represents a neutral, non-male/female gender. My gender is like the driveway — both part of the road *and* the house

i think this is relevant-ish, but the way i experience gender kind of feels like. there's a man and a woman in my head at all times, not in a system way so much as a (this is very obviously stupid but i can't find another comparison to articulate it) inside out way. they're both always there, and they're both separate, but at the same time, they come together to make the same person, me! nonbinary is a label i understand and identify with, mostly to simplify the matter for others, but in reality, it kind of feels like a... superbinary of sorts. i'm 100% a man, and 100% a woman, but because the binary only "allows" you to choose one, nonbinary is technically correct, isn't it?

I'm multigender in the "one gender that fits into several categories" way than being multigender in a "has multiple genders" way

My gender is the intersection of butch dyke and trans man. I'm questioning things right now, but I'm somewhere in that region, with a foot in both at once. I've always been drawn to butchness and sapphicism as well as transmasculinity. I think most of my journey to understand my gender has been a balancing act between identifying as enough of a guy to feel comfortable in my skin but non-binary enough to not have to abandon my identity with butchness. Recently I've adopted the label multigender, and it's helped a lot. I'm only even a little bit a girl if I can be a boy first and foremost, and I could be just a boy or just a dyke but I would have to kill part of myself to do so. I'm trying to find a way to exist in my gender without blood on my hands. I think I'm getting there. It's hard but I'm getting there.

It is complicated but I love it

Yay I love multi gender people we are so cool. <3

A number of participants also referenced being autistic and how that has influenced their multigender identity, so it is possible that autism may be included as a question on the next survey.

[genderqueerdykes]

sometimes you really don't know if something is right for you until you experience it and it's okay. i lived as a binary trans guy for a long time because my friends were all cishet men and i was doing what i had to be seen as "not a woman" by these people, as they didn't acknowledge non-binary genders.

it took until i began dating and spending a lot of close and personal time irl with a lot of trans men for me to realize their experience wasn't mine, and that i was going through something different. i appreciate that those men taught me something about myself, and that they live their truth. i will never stop being happy for those men finding themselves. there's nothing wrong with trans guys on the whole, it was me who couldnt fully find myself

for me, it took seeing other trans men up close and personal, then meeting a big group of transfem people for things to really click. once i started talking to my transfem friends i actually felt a sense of community, like something actually clicked, like i found people who actually understood me and felt the struggles i went through, and that's okay. it took meeting people who revel and experience elation in femininity for part of me to heal and realize itself. i went from feeling like i had to present as a binary guy in order to ever be seen as trans, to suddenly feeling seen and heard as an intersex genderqueer butch weirdo, and feeling like i no longer had to present as the closest approximation to cis. i was simply just in the wrong place, identifying with terms not meant for me.

sometimes you really do just need a change of scenery. sometimes it takes a while for you to find your place. it's okay if you need time or even just actual exposure to other people and their stories to fully understand yourself. it's okay if you need to experience. it's okay if you need to see with your own eyes. it's okay if you feel strongly one way for a while and then realize it wasn't totally right. it's okay to find yourself

[v-anrouge]

i almost never draw men despite being a gay homosexual fruity man so genderbends just really tickle my pickle however twst fans are so egregiously bad at doing genderbends??? do. people just think genderbends are longer hair, boobs, and an hourglass figure? fem!vil would not just be vil but with allat YOU WANKERS RAAAGGHHHHH. vil is feminine because hes a MAN and is breaking out of the norms of being a man. his femininity is crucial to his identity as a man. whatever he may be, he'll always be gnc, because the whole point about him is that he DESPISES stereotypical expectations of gendered presentation. he owns his masculinity while also being comfortable in his femininity. so if vil were a woman she'd have short hair, dress in typically masculine clothes, call herself a king-- fuck, vil would probably use he/him pronouns. all that wouldn't negate fem!vil's identity as a woman because her womanhood is based off being her truest self, of embracing the energy that makes her, her, even if it isn't stereotypically feminine, and breaking out of the norms is what gives her power and comfort in her identity. her womanhood IS breaking out of the confines that shackle women to this paragon of submissive perfection. it makes me mad when people waste the potential of genderbends especially since gender can add different and interesting nuance to a character given how the concept itself can shape and affect people's lives on the whole. not to mention, women are often given more shit for doing the exact same thing men do so it'd be interesting to see these characters changed to adapt to that. more people might be anti's of fem!vil than of og!vil. call her a manhater and a feminist that's weakening society and so much more horrible shit because every weak man just NEEDS to drag a strong woman down and humble her and though og!vil is already headstrong, full of confidence, and ready to give anyone shit, fem!vil would have to build her resilience even more against the raging misogyny she'd receive. she knows just how much the world hates women and gnc people like her and that's what motivates her even more to destroy society's narrowminded perception of gender. and you just know how butch women aren't even perceived as women by many members of the queer community-- she's a woman, and she's butch, masculine, etc etc and you'll know it. she won't take shit from both heteronormative people AND prejudiced queer people.

maybe im just speaking yappanese because twst doesn't really have the history of misogyny and sexism as the real world does however there is proof that there is toxic gender norms where we can see the toxic masculinity from the real world being reflected in epel so id take that as an indicator that we may share similarities in some of their societies.

anyhow point is that if you genderbend gnc characters like vil to just be the stereotypical representation of the gender you're bending tjem to, you're the person they hate the MOST. you're putting them in the box they DESPISE because you refuse to see all the effort they've put into their non-conforming identity and seeing them as nothing more than what you expect from them-- perceiving them in the constricting standard they're fighting to break. STOP MAKING ALL FEM!CHARACTERS SHORTER AND THINNER AND MORE CONVENTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE YOU SCAT STAINS!!!!! WHILE A PART OF WOMANHOOD AND UNDESERVING OF HATE, ITS NOT THE PARAGON OF WOMANHOOD BECAUSE THERE IS NO STANDARD TO IT AND TO DEPICT ALL FEM!CHARACTERS AS A MONOLITH OF THE SORT IS AN INJUSTICE TO THEM AS A WHOLE!!! you want a girlboss but can't even do girlbosses right what makes you think you can handle girlfailures or girldisasters OR GIRLINSANITY. women are not there for you to draw them pretty. they can be just as complex as their masc counterparts if not more than in some scenarios.

like fem!jamil would be even more tragic. fem!riddle too. fem!leona too. not to say that they aren't already full of existing nuance because they ARE and it's GREAT but fem characters are just so full of heart wrenching potential AND NO ONE TAKES IT UP RAGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

anyways im not even a girl kisser but i would kiss fem!rook because i fucking love it when girls are unfiltered and creepy and off-putting and disturbing and covered in blood. maybe im bisexual. who knows.

also i just think fem!malleus would be super cool like ahagha girllll you're SO autistic and strange and frightening pleasseeee talk to me about gothic architecture while i explode.

ANON U ATE LIKE HIGHKEY OH MY GOD PLEASE IM PUTTINGTTHIS IN THE MAIN TAG

i never quite understood why i always disliked vil genderbents specifically until like some time ago that i realized the reason i hated it it's because the way people draw it (hyperfemme) doesn't make sense for vil's character, it doesn't make sense that vil, as a man would dress feminine to fight gender roles yet if he was a woman that wouldn't happen and she would still be dressing feminine. genderbents r such an :/ topic because most ppl that make them take the characters make them shorter, skinnier, puts then in tight short clothes, gives them long hair makeup and idk man it always puts me off like being a woman is way more than that and despite the fact a lot of women do present themselves that way, making EVERY character be like that is just idk it FEELS wrong. i feel like most genderbents r just copy and pastes of the same gender roles slapped into a character carelessly just because and honestly it fucking sucks

[blubushie]

what you said about being intersex hit close to home.

im intersex as well and for a long while ive felt like im not cis or trans enough to be fully either.

because of my condition, i hit puberty really early developing both male and female sex characteristics. for this i was mocked during my entire adolescence as i was seen like a freak.

currently i guess i identify as nothing. gender as a construct has always been incredibly alienating, nonsensical and cruel and having autism on top of it never helped.

i dont think i will ever understand gender, but now i am not the only one

Yep, I was mocked too. Kids called me a girl and all that, and I started going by another name (the name my parents were going to name me if I'd been born female) by the time I was 14. And from 14 to 16, I was living life as a girl because it was what society expected of me. And I kinda went back and forth for the longest while, hence the idea of bushgender. Plus side of the bush is that I can do feminine things and not worry about people judging me for it. I didn't really know what I was and even doctors couldn't give me a definitive answer.

I'm content being a bloke, and I'm glad my outward appearance reflects that. I don't reckon gender itself is a purely social thing--a lot of it is rooted in biology--but most gender roles are purely cultural or societal and change depending on what culture you're looking at. And I like that about that bush. It's just nature out there. I can be incredibly masculine in the bush and do things associated with being masculine without people thinking I'm compensating for something. And I can knit, or bake, or do the few things considered more feminine that I actually enjoy, and I don't have to worry about what people might think if they see a bloke knitting.

It's a weird thing when you've lived in the middle for so long. I got treated like a bloke and I got treated like a chick. For my first year in Australia before I really grew the beard out I just became... apathetic to it all. I looked like a butch chick. Someone would approach me and not know what to use. "Whatever you're thinking is the right one." That usually made people assume I'm nonbinary but I'm... not? I've always been a bloke. But I just got tired of correcting people. It was a losing game. Luckily my voice is deep enough that most people assumed male once they heard me talk, but I can't count how many time I've been at a B&S and been approached by a bloke who just thought I was really flat-chested for a chick. And that part sucks too.

But it's less of an issue as I've gotten older. And in time I've also just gotten less involved with gender in general. Everything feels so performative on both sides, and I hate performances. Blokes act overly masculine (becoming obsessed with fitness and pickup games, becoming obsessed with The Grind, etc) because they feel they need to and they're pressured by other blokes and chicks. Chicks act overly feminine (becoming obsessed with makeup and skincare routines, becoming obsessed with clothing and such) because they feel they need to. And you can tell when someone's actually passionate about fitness, or bettering themselves, or fashion, or skin health compared to them doing it because they're trying to live up to gender standards. And everyone is so goddamn materialistic. So I just don't worry about gender anymore. I'm Blu, and Blu's already weird enough, so what's a little extra added to the mix?

Anyway! This has turned into a rant. Gender is weird, people are weird, bodies are weird, you do you and don't worry about the rest. :]

[youturningintodust]

I will never not be baffled and disappointed that even in a chat group entirely centered around talking about Xena: Warrior Princess -- and one that billed itself as "the gay subtext one" that mocked "maintexter homophobia", even --

I still faced negativity for:

being transmasc/genderqueer and not hiding it

rejecting/gently mocking the idea of my having a hetero relationship with a cis man, basically mildly showing my homosexuality rather than being a full bisexual

as an extension of 2 -- being uncomfortable with male main characters (i.e. Joxer) continually sexually harassing female main characters. talking about it. (everyone else tolerated this and froze out my comments. in a fandom for a lesbian-couple-centered show?!)

Most members of the group were bi cis women, gender-conforming and while there was one who was nice and normal towards me, the rest just went silent and got weird whenever either of the above were just like... Not hidden. Not stifled.

I remember one or two talked about being in a hetero marriage with a cis straight man, and that that was their "only exception" and if they were single again tomorrow -- that they wished they were with women.

One of the Big Names there, in a "TMI" convo, admitted that she only felt comfortable talking to women when she was drunk, and barely even then. She also referenced "fucking (women) through men in a threesome", which to me those two put together shows strong fear of doing things that people like me (fully gay, butch, masculine to the point of trans) are known for doing: using a strapon to fuck your female partner yourself. Of course someone who secretly desires to do this would have that kink, if they were frightened to even talk to women.

Essentially, half the discomfort was deep jealousy. Because they did not have the bravery to live the life I was living. The repression there was SO REAL.

It also taught me how much fandom is an expression for painfully awkward, self-closeting women. (i.e. not forced to be, by abuse or shariah law or something.) One would say things randomly like "omg they're so gay" and I thought it was just fangirling. Later, she said that that was code for "I felt horny when I wrote that". This explains soooooo much about how online fandom works to me that I just didn't pick up on before. I was always feeling more of a nonsexual, sentimental, romantic emotion or just...general enthusiasm for the story's gay writing or whatever. Not something sexual.

Just. So many layers to that scene. Makes me glad I'm not a part of it.

But sad that it didn't work out in the end.

Right before I ended up leaving, a member joined whom I remembered from an older chat group. She would predate on the teens in the group, asking highly personal questions, preying whenever someone said something about their IRL that sounded sad (zeroing in on them at that moment and asking a lot about it). Like. Abuser behavior. She was in her 40s-50s, original era X:WP fandom. I almost publicly called her out, but my rep was already in the trash for just...being transmasc. So again I felt that I couldn't.

Just a shame. A literally lesbian-populated fandom that couldn't survive without it, for a show with multiple trans actresses in it and one actual trans episode, which embraces cis women characters' masculine side and puts it on proud display... which embraces their homosexuality (for Gabrielle) and bisexuality with a strong gay lean (for Xena).... Shouldn't be the place where this kind of shit is allowed to fly.

There was just so much petty, high-school-girl behavior and energy, too. Not possible to have direct conversations, seen as rude if you tried, meanwhile they were all headfucky and game-playing.

No place for a stereotypically blunt butch that likes healthy, direct discussions about life, fictional themes, and keepin' it real. Too below-the-surface, catty, etc.

Just. Ugh.

[bylertruther]

I think ppl mix up gnc with androgynous too! Its pretty easy to confuse in this era but the distinction is important

you're absolutely right, mal! i drafted a long post about this earlier this morning, but i'll copy and paste it below now that you gave me the opportunity to stand on my soap box again hehe. :p

gender nonconformity is not just a man painting his nails, a woman refusing to shave, or someone being transgender. gender expression and variance do not start and end at one's physical presentation, nor is it directly tied to your gender identity itself. cis people can be gnc, trans people can be gnc. you can be a man that dresses like a lumberjack and still be gnc. you can be a woman that wears makeup and still be gnc. you can transition and still be gnc after. gender nonconformity encompasses behavior, interests, and appearance, and it has to do with how an individual interacts with gender roles, which we know are based on stereotypes held at large by society—stereotypes that are still largely common today. and this is a modern definition, by the way, not one plucked from an eighties textbook. not everything is about physical appearances and just because people associate gender nonconformity with one rigid and specific thing does not mean that it is that thing. the same way that androgynous does not only mean a skinny white person that is either a butch woman or a man with long hair, gnc does not only mean said skinny white man painting his nails or said skinny white woman getting an undercut and letting her pits grow out. gnc does not HAVE to be ONLY how you groom or dress yourself. gnc has A LOT to do with behaviors and interests, and the world is not nearly as liberal as it is on tumblr.com lol. some people know better, especially as many millennials start to rear newer generations, but we're still not at an at-large cultural shift, and the gender norms discussed in psychology and psychosexual textbooks have not changed too much as a result. high levels of sensitivity and empathy are still presently seen as being aspects of male gender nonconformity. it is still something that many gay and nonconforming men, as well as their parents, state in studies and surveys about this. sensitive men still face homophobia and misogyny. american men are still expected to not show emotion, work hard, and be the big bad protectors. many people are starting to see that it's a load of bullshit, but it's still considered the norm! gender roles are culturally specific and i think it's just unrealistic to act like western culture, specifically and especially mainstream traditional american culture, doesn't promote the idea of the aggressive, red-blooded alpha male lol. i don't agree with gender norms bc i'm a dirty leftist but that doesn't mean that they don't exist and that society does not push them on everyone and punish those who dare to say no. some things have changed, but not nearly as many as people think and taking a look at how people vote or just talking to people outside of your immediate bubble will show you that pretty quickly. we're unfortunately set to wait a good while before the tides start to really change and we start seeing these less conservative views prevail. and until then... yeah, sensitive men are still assumed to be lesser men and gay and feminine and so on and so forth by young and old people alike in 2023. literally just look at the knee-jerk reaction that so many people have on here and twitter when you talk about how will actually acts on the show. i just. hewwo. gnc is not just looks 😔 and it doesn't automatically make you trans either. 😔 and unless some of you were raised in a literal bubble on a leftist commune somewhere, i know that you know that the world is not as kind and open-minded as you're acting like it is.

[air3d3lalm3na]

some of my thoughts, starting off inspired by the last part of that last queued post — about intersex specific/exclusive language — but then going into a related ramble… Held back on this topic for a while honestly. Most of us who saw this stuff go down have just been tired of it and went silent a long time ago. might as well ramble on it now.

--

the whole Assigned (Sex/Gender) At Birth (AFAB/AMAB) framework did NOT need to be stolen and appropriated by non-intersex trans people. we all watched it happen online. and anyone saying otherwise got the tumblr treatment™…

…which amounts, to basically, got shouted down by the arrogant pricks who used basically cult tactics in their ~discourse~ around 10 years ago (Comply and subscribe religiously to all their hyper-strict and even at times wildly messed up viewpoints, or be cast out; fight everyone you know IRL on these topics until you’ve alienated them all. shit like “AFAB privilege” and “monosexual privilege” was bandied about lmfao. “butch privilege” for anyone who dresses butch, “misogyny” being framed as against anyone who dresses fem. all the bullshit.)

the people on here have been pretty good about casting out much of this nonsense as the nonsense that it is. there’s still a hyper-religious-about-it MOGAI-esque core (and i feel bad for some of them, at least those not in it for power/clique reasons, for how tied up in it they still are.)

but one thing that never got really dealt with was the fact that this language was outright stolen from intersex people, a word to talk about the actual physical abuse against them. on a site that loved to talk about appropriation, they appropriated this willfully and spited anyone who said something.

but yeah it’s dishonest. i was not medically, surgically and socially FORCED/ASSIGNED into something like (many) intersex people were. i am not “assigned” female at birth, i just was female at birth. i get shit every time i don’t tack on the “assigned”.

and they did it because they felt that being born the way we all were, was dysphorically, deeply, uncomfortably wrong. and i get their rationale, but it doesn’t make it right. we have our own different experience and it literally requires different description and language.

like, if you feel that the body you didn’t choose to be born with was that wrong? the trans community already made words and phrases for that. for the hardcore stealth types, there’s “woman/man of trans/medical experience” i.e. your birth and upbringing do not have to define you, and this phrase acknowledges that. for those who are ok with referencing and emphasizing their transness, “trans(gender/sexual) man/woman” with the adjective first. either way, we have words and can build on them.

not only does this disingenuous theft silence intersex people — a group probably smaller than us, being realistic — but yeah…

…the people who were always the angriest at those of us who just left the first word off, tended to HATE when those “~assigned” female at birth/raised female, talked about that experience, and the sexism involved. there were major, heavy efforts to silence us even for mildly referencing it, and even force us to apologize for acknowledging our own experiences.

this shit basically funneled a load of ftm spectrum/trans male/transmasculine people who wanted to talk about the sexism in their lives, into the only forms of feminism that would accept it. aka radfemism (i won’t call it feminism, it’s its own thing in itself tbh) — transphobic types who demanded they also acquiesce to harmful beliefs that actively hurt themselves and really, didn’t help anyone. you had detransitions back into the closet, followed by re-transitions when they figured out it wouldn’t work.

this shit headfucked so many people and i can’t help but feel that it was all social engineering. all orchestrated bogus shit from the right wing, astroturf style. to get the feminist voice out of trans activism and the trans voice out of feminism, to alienate everyone, divide and conquer stuff.

feeding people bizarre shit on both sides so that, eventually, they’d just be overwhelmed and leave and go quiet and be demoralized, in the end.

and all this supported by various twistings of language, on both sides.

and this specific piece of language, on the back of a group of people who have already been so deeply abused, by the medical institution, by their own families… yeah, more silencing is all they needed.

i’m just tired of the stupid convoluted nonsense. i support people being who they are and having a voice to talk about their lives, and talking about their lives in uncensored, authentic and honest ways. which this online nonsense was always the exact opposite of.

and back to the initial topic of the post — as to the origins of trans and probably all lgbt people, yeah, i’ve read the studies and i do think that what makes us this way at birth (even non-intersex, non/trans/cisgender gay/bi men and women), is probably hormonal, in-utero, and counts as a form of “neurological/occluded/occult (hidden) intersex/difference of sexed development” that we do not yet have the full ability to medically understand. it’s becoming pretty clear that testosterone plays a role in female at birth LGBT-ness and likewise estrogen/progesterone and male at birth LGBT people. (despite the resistance and stigma against that idea from some narrow-minded folks.) yes, there’s definitely more to be learned there. but what we experience is still so drastically different that i don’t like to put the intersex label on it… nor their other terminology like ASAB/AGAB. that’s theirs. some basic respect is and always has been in order.

it’s just so intellectually dishonest in every single way, the way that has been enforced to talk about this stuff. i refuse to be someone else’s intellectual pawn.

watching all this go down was like watching separate cults battle each other and i have no interest in membership in either, or any. i got swept up in the first one (specific flavor of ideas on queer/trans stuff), but refused to go into the second (radfemism, their distortion of otherwise could-have-been solid feminist ideas into a literal hate group against anyone who isn’t a strictly cis gay separatist woman who Does Woman Correctly/PC)……… both were like fucking nuns with their controlling rules about what was correct (groupthink) and what was incorrect (sin/thoughtcrime to be extinguished) ….

…just because one is bad, doesn’t mean another will be “better” for you. the only GOOD thing for you is mental independence. you don’t need some group ringleader doing your thinking for you, or telling you how to talk about your life. it’s so childish. if we’re all adults then we don’t need to lean on that.

…

And it bled out into IRL, off the internet.

Because of course it did. Because it was planned and fomented in probably some think tank.

So now you run into signs of it irl, you can’t escape it.

…

i feel like this makes making friends or romantic relationships so fucking hard. at this point i look for signs of THE most Normie cis straight/straight leaning people possible, who happen to have some progressive/somewhat left leaning viewpoints on life, who are open-minded rather than ideologues and snobs and nuns and…….who just live and treat you and others like a regular human being.

at this point anyone who is too plugged into the nonsense is impossible to be around. like just let me be gay or whatever (labels suck) and trans and not let it be a big thing and let us live in peace. we had our 15 minutes of being forced into fame with no protection and now we’re being culture-warred on and it’s a pointless mess and i’m just tired out of it.

and for god’s sake, while you’re climbing out of it, don’t step on someone else’s neck!

[high-theyre-frendough]

here are my thoughts so far on the icarly reboot

I would let Spencer Shay bend me over and fuck me.

The Freddy Benson product placement is so fucking weird. It stands out, not only because its essentially snippets of ad reads, but because iCarly features a lot of in-universe made up products (most notably being Pear Phone) and you can always tell what is being paid to be in the show. It's a reminder of cynical capitalism invading this television show made up of people playing out over the top cartoon characters that should never exist in reality, when they tell us about how crocs are fun, colorful, affordable, comfortable plastic shoes (actual line in the show that gave me a flashback to being a child at the mall for the first time and experiencing what advertising is).

I don't disagree with most of the social messages by this show, and I don't necessarily think that they are presented in a bad way, its just not in any way cohesive to the original show, because the original show is meaner and everyone is an asshole (though some characters are more of an asshole in the remake, but weirdly in a different way than they were in the original. like in the original, everyone is kind of an asshole to everyone else, except their friends who deep down they are loyal to. in the reboot, it is like reversed somehow? like they have artificial niceness directed towards strangers, but a meanness in replace of friend loyalty. its really weird)

WHY DOES NEVILLE LOOK LIKE A NON-BINARY LESBIAN AND WHY DOES THE FUCKING PARAMOUNT PLUS THINGY PUT THE SUBTITLES RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS FACE WHILE HE IS BEING INTRODUCED? IT FIXED ITSELF AS I WAS TYPING THIS, BUT WHEN HE WAS BEING INTRODUCED, THE FUCKING SUBTITLES WERE HIDING HIS FACE OMINOUSLY BUT NOW ITS FIXED AND I CAN SEE HIM AND HE STILL LOOKS LIKE A BUTCH NONBINARY LESBIAN IN A SUIT

there are also a lot of references to gender and sexuality in this show weirdly enough. they keep bringing it up

i want to clarify that I'm overall being very positive in my observations. i really like this show even if it is weird because that is what I am enjoying about it, i'm just explaining my thoughts

feel free to add on

[thebreakfastgenie]

I am sending this on anon because I’m not sure how you’ll take this but if you’re open to a discussion about it I can PM you also. Also I know it was a reblog but I am sending this to you rather than OP as I do not follow OP.

The post you reblogged about feminism, gender studies and trans people really rubs me the wrong way. The idea that “dudes” need feminism because they think being trans means they understand gender could be interpreted in a few ways that I can see and none of them are good. Maybe there’s another way that I am missing. Either it is misgendering trans women and suggesting that they need feminism because they think just being trans means they understand gender (with the implication being that they are wrong, and need to learn feminist theory to set them straight) or it is implying that trans men need feminism because they think they understand gender as they are trans (and the only implication I can draw from this is that if they knew more about feminism, which is for women and not for trans men, that they might just be women?? I hope this is not what this is implying.)

There are a LOT of different branches and ideology within “feminism”; not all of which have historically been inviting or comfortable for trans people of any gender or assigned gender at birth. The idea that trans people need feminism is a loaded statement that could be championing feminism as a political ideology that is inviting of all gender minorities or it could be a veiled insult.

Cis feminists have done a lot for a lot of causes including trans rights and especially for the political successes and social understanding of women. However, I think it’s troubling at best to suggest that feminist theory is going to be better at understanding gender than trans people.

If you think I’ve misunderstood something here or that there is something that I’ve overlooked that would provide different context I am open to hearing it. Alternatively if you would like to discuss my views more please let me know.

Well, I think the context you're missing is OP's bio. I'm the biggest advocate of checking bios not being required on tumblr, and please don't take this as a criticism, but if I were in your shoes I would definitely try to get that context for myself if something rubbed me the wrong way.

OP is a trans nonbinary butch lesbian.

I'm happy to discuss this with you more, but I think that by itself changes the context significantly, so I want to give you a chance to revise your points.

I will add a little bit about why I reblogged it. I have been thinking a lot lately about how in certain spaces, feminism is almost treated as something that's solved. This has led to things like a long twitter thread satirizing deadnaming trans people by writing a hypothetically situation about a married cis woman who didn't take her husband's last name. The situation was meant to be blatantly absurd, but the OP did not seem to realize that it was literally reality for women who keep their own names. I've also seen tumblr users assert that cis women don't experience oppression because of their gender and while I can take that in good faith and assume they were talking about kinds of gender related oppression that are specific to trans people, the blanket statement was still incorrect.

This intersected with another thing I've been thinking about a lot, which is people, many of who were raised with conservative beliefs, coming out as queer and thinking the work ends there. No one is automatically an expert on gender because of their identity. That's what I resonated with in that post. Trans people don't inherently understand the structural hierarchies at play in a patriarchal society. They often have unique insights because of the way they experience those systems, but that doesn't mean they don't need to consciously think about feminism. We all do.

That post doesn't mention feminist theory and I wasn't thinking about any school of feminism or particularly about theory. I was thinking about, truly, the very basics, which are increasingly lost.

[moa-broke-me]

PJO gender, sexuality, and gender presentation headcanons!

Percy, he/him: Cis, bisexual, typical masc presentation for the most part, but has had navy blue nails ever since he was bored in class one day and started scribbling on them with a blue ballpoint pen and decided he liked how it looked.

Annabeth, she/her: Also cis and bisexual, presents tomboy-femme, so like, long hair, but still prefers a suit over a dress.

Grover, he/they: Genderfluid but usually male, kinda wants to go more femme but is worried it'll look weird with his facial hair and also doesn't wanna get rid of that facial hair, pansexual (which is why they took up the pan flute in the first place, for a joke)

Jason, he/him: Cishet and hard masc ally (gay femboy in denial), he had to crossdress once for a quest and absolutely despised it, definitely didn't make him feel weird or question any certain aspects of himself, no siree bob, not this guy, nope. Not that there's anything wrong with that sort of thing, it's just not his cup of tea. And so what if he's enthusiastically, vocally supportive of other people's right to do that? It's an important social issue! So what if he gets weirdly excited when he sees his friends being androgynous and shit? He's just happy that they've found a safe space to express themselves! So what if he occasionally looks up drag shows on youtube and just watches them for hours on end, wondering what it would be like to doll himself up and get on stage, having a hundred men staring at him, captivated by him, bowing to his every whim? He just wants to learn about the community!

Piper, she/faer: Pansexual trans girl with a HEAVY lean towards girls, presents soft-butch.

Leo, he/him: Hard masc and gay trans man, hiding behind his comphet for calypso as a coping mechanism for dysphoria.

Frank, he/him: Transmasc, straight, and ace. Sort of a soft-masc, like, he's very secure in his masculinity, doesn't feel the need to put on a front.

Hazel, she/thon: Ace cishet girl, presents hyperfeminine mostly but when she found out what neopronouns were, she was fascinated by the concept and very excited to experiment with them.

Rachel, any/all (excluding it): Aromantic transfem nonbinary, presents femme because why the fuck not?

Clarisse, she/her: Queer as in fuck you. It's not your business how. (agender ursa lesbian but she's not gonna go around telling strangers that and having to have the whole 'how can you be a lesbian if you're not ~technically~ a woman' conversation, nevermind explaining what an ursa lesbian is)

Nico, he/it/xir: Gay (as is established) biblically-accurate-angel-gender, astral-gender, bone-gender, and gender-punk (but just says masc nonbinary most of the time). Androgynous to an extent, has no problem wearing makeup or even jewelry, in fact it's got quite a few piercings, but doesn't go so far as to wear dresses or skirts. Maybe heels and stockings and, ok, fine, a garter belt. When he first came out, he was kind of wrapped up in the idea of 'not being a stereotype', of being as aggressively cisnormative as possible so as not to 'give the community a bad name'. Even though he was out as gay, it didn't let itself explore the full depths of its identity for fear of 'making us look like freaks'. But after a while, and a few very deep and cathartic conversations with its friends, xe sort of realized that almost everyone at camp half-blood has been considered a freak at some point, and CHB is meant to be a safe haven for freaks like them. So he decided to lean into it more, do a little more digging, a little more exploration. Like Hazel, Nico only discovered neopronouns very recently, and again, like thon, xe wanted to try them out immediately, as well as collecting xenogenders like pokemon cards. Xir boyfriend is very supportive and happy for him.

Will, he/him: Gay demiboy, kinda masculine but not overly so. Just kind of casual and out-of-the-way, since it's not very practical to have a lot of bits and baubles on you when you're around a bunch of blood and guts. He doesn't really know how to dress himself anyway, constantly in khakis and mis-matching patterns.

Reyna, she/her: Omnisexual, demiromantic, cis girl. Generally femme presenting, but to an extreme degree.

Thalia, she/they: Aroace demigirl with queerplatonic attraction to women and women only, very androgynous. Like, right smack-dab in the middle.

If you want me to do any more, just request and I'll get to you soon!

[menalez]

Some context for the astrology in Asia thing is that there was a period (I believe in Korea) where a bunch of girls were aborted just because they were going to be born in a certain astrological year (Year of the White Horse I believe) that meant that they would be strong and independent and people didn’t want their girls to be that way. And now that that generation is older the boys in that age group know pretty much nothing about it, and the girls are being told that they should be grateful that they were allowed to live. Idk for sure if this is something that has occurred “for centuries” but if it’s happened once it’s likely it’s happened before. Actually, somewhere else in Asia (India?), women who were born in a certain time were deemed unlucky, right? And they were made to marry trees and then have the tree cut down before they married a man because the belief was that the nature of their birth meant that they were doomed to have their lover die prematurely.

But back to female-malice. Pretty much she’s saying “cars are bad for the environment so developing your personality around it is kinda not great” and “lesbians are different from each other because we’re all individual people and not copies of each other and the one thing that connects us is our love for other women, not some style or interest or hobby” and “masculine & feminine aren’t real and butch and femme are based on masculine and feminine so how do we intend to eliminate the concepts of gender roles if we use them to define our styles?”

I honestly have, for a while, wondered to myself about butch and femme and how they fit into radical feminism because of the fact that they are based in the arbitrary ideas of masculine and feminine that we are trying to get rid of, but I haven’t really thought too much on it because I’m not a lesbian so I didn’t feel like it was my place to comment on that, and since I’m not a part of the culture it’s possible that there’s something about it that I’m missing or don’t know about

Also I’m sorry we’re all bringing this drama about another person to you when you’re not even really involved in any way other than being a lesbian also

what you told me about the astrology & abortions stuff sounds familiar to me. i think i had heard of it before. but i would argue that the misogyny is not necessarily from astrology itself but rather the idea that girls shouldn’t be xyz and therefore they’re better off not being born than be those things so like. misogyny drove that behaviour rather than astrology itself? but that’s definitely messed up. never heard of the india thing tho.

and yeah i generally understood the same of her statements. i would disagree about butch being arbitrary tbh because there’s a level of gender non-conformity that butches display that makes them a visible target for homophobes and ppl that hate female gender non-conformity. yes they’re all social constructs ultimately but not social constructs that don’t play into the treatment of others if that makes sense? like i’ve seen my gf face a lot of bs from people for being an asian butch lesbian. if she wasn’t butch, they likely wouldn’t be able to guess that she’s a lesbian & be shitty to her accordingly yanno. and if she wasn’t butch, they wouldn’t be weird to her in many ways. so like i kinda agree but also i do see a point to terms like butch especially bc butches are alienated and othered and mistreated etc and so ofc many identify strongly with that aspect of themselves bc of how marginalised & hated it is. with femme, i personally do not see the point in itself besides it being a term complementary to butch or being a shortcut term.

[hakkiest]

respectfully, i think you and the people on that post are having different conversations. they were specifically pointing to behaviors they'd noticed in leftist/feminist spaces, where people lean too heavily into "men are ALWAYS scary and threatening, unlike women!" and just end up reinforcing gender roles and harming the marginalized men in those spaces. when they talk about "antimasculism", they're talking about how people treat masculinity as inherently violent and overbearing (like how you say "loud men are dangerous" as though it's a universally understood fact and not a massive generalization). the point is, they're not talking about a massive prejudice throughout society at large, they're talking a set of beliefs that cause harm in certain progressive spaces, a side effect of the patriarchy that can be harder to notice.

the point of using the word 'antimasculism' (a better known synonym that might also work would be 'toxic masculinity' imo), is to point out how prejudices like transphobia can stem from a fear of an inherently violent masculinity. trans women are hated often because they represent evil, foreign masculinity invading "women's spaces". trans men are often hated for giving up their femininity and becoming abominations, groomers, oppressors, etc by virtue of being masculine. and it's not just about trans people! leather daddies and butch women, for example, are gay subcultures which suffer from hatred as a result of how they express masculinity, being treated as threatening and unnatural and dangerous. racism is influenced by it too: just look at the "angry black man" stereotype and how much harm is caused by it. now, toxic masculinity isn't a form of discrimination in itself, but it's a contributing factor to all these other prejudices - a blunt weapon to keep people in line with their prescribed gender roles, lest they be labeled an Evil, Dangerous, Threatening, Violent Man. and it's wielded against anyone perceived to be masculine in the Wrong way: a woman with a shaved head and a tank top, a man of color being too loud at the wrong time, a man at a pride parade in a leather harness. it's not the sole root of oppression, nor is it a description of an existing hierarchy - just a factor that influences and drives prejudice, one of many.

Hm! That does strike me as a more reasonable interpretation! You might be right. I'd still maintain that calling it antimasculism isn't really helpful, if it is as such you're describing than it's far more helpful to call it what it is. If it's women exerting power over marginalized men, then it's racism, or xenophobia, or classicism. Antimasculism has a heavy 'prejudice' connotations that is just unfair. Men and masculine alligned people do suffer prejudice, but never on the basis of being masc or male. I especially think calling it antimasculism can risk legitimising the fad that masculinity can bring oppression, and that prejudice against marginalised men really is due to their masculinity and not due to other systemis biasis. I think that can be a way more reasonable and constructive conversation feminism spinning right back into being used against masculine ppl

[infiniteglitterfall]

i am officially over all the awkward phrases that attempt to include anyone who is marginalized on the basis of gender

For instance: Mills College, Spelman College, St Elizabeth's University, Scripps, Agnes Scott, Wellesley, etc, aren't "Historically Women's Colleges."

Mills didn't "start admitting trans women" in 2013. It started officially stating that it would admit trans women regardless of what their legal docs said. It was admitting trans women at least as far back as 1980.

It didn't "start admitting nonbinary students" (or what our absolute trash corrupt president inexplicably calls "gender-nonbinary people") in 2013. It admitted me in 1996. I came out in the student newspaper in 1997. I started a club, and found out there were a lot of other genderqueers already there. And we certainly weren't the first ones.

So here is my offering to you:

[a graphic stating that "gender-marginalized people are GEMS," in which the G E from gender, and M from marginalized, are capitalized to illustrate the meaning of the term]

It's a women's college. It's exactly what women's colleges have ALWAYS been.

It's a nonbinary college. It's certainly closer to being an enby college than any other kind of school is likely to be. It's flat-out common to be nonbinary here.

It's a trans college. It has had out transfem professors for 30 years. It has admitted trans men for at least that long. (Unintentionally. But that's true of almost all of this.)

But we need a word for this stuff.

Because when I see things like women's improv festivals using "Fem" instead, to be "inclusive" of enbies... or "womxn," which comes off as "women, and those of you who we think are close enough"... or all the times that orgs say "women and enbies," but in practice, are welcoming to transmascs and not to transfems.... or just how hard it is for people to do outreach because they can't quickly state who an org is for... it makes me just a little stress-barfy.

Gems, like everything else about gender, is an umbrella term. It includes intersex people of all genders, trans people of all genders, gender-nonconforming people who don't identify as trans or intersex, and cis women.

In other words, all the people originally included under the trans+ umbrella, and cis women.

anyone who doesn't like that definition can lump it. anyone who is confused by that definition can start by reading les feinberg's assorted trans nonfiction books.

Examples: "Oh! I guess I don't really know many cis men. I went to a gems' college."

"I don't know, should we open this group to all gems? I feel like we need to clarify who's welcome here, and do more outreach."

"You know that you won't necessarily read all gems as women, right? Wait -- you know that the way you read someone doesn't tell you what their gender is, right?!"

Is it a little on the glittery-femmey side of things? Yes, and I'm sorry.

On the other hand, butches of all genders, how many times have you been described as "a diamond in the rough?"

This term owes a debt to "MaGes," for MArginalized GEnderS, which I saw suggested many years ago but which never caught on. I can't find the post anymore, but I suspect it was proposed by someone at the Black Feminist Project, because people/orgs within its sphere seem to be the only ones using the term.

As the House of Liberosis explains, "Gender marginalization includes but not limited to misogyny, transphobia, intersex-phobia, transmisogny, misogynoir, transmisogynoir, or any combination thereof. The only gender not marginalized (for that factor itself) is [non-intersex] cisgender men."

If you want to define it as "trans people plus cis women," you can apply for a special Disclaimer License that explains what it really means. Or link back to this post.

also, if you were thinking "shit how the fuck do i go to a school like that" P L E E E A S E sign this petition telling Congress to investigate the shady deal that gives Mills and all its assets to Northeastern University. this is so clearly a cover-up for embezzlement and i Cannot

[nahoney22]

Hey girl, so tech was flying super smooth in that episode so naturally we need him showing of his skills. It’s just you and him and you don’t know how amazing of a pilot he is so he wants to show off. And reader starts freaking out but then starts to enjoy it. And all tech can do is smile and laugh at you. This can be gender  neutral ❤️🖤🤍

LETS GET TECHYO DRIFTING @mustluvgd

Techyo Drifting

➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵

Tech X GNeutral!Reader

word count: 700

Always missing out on the action of your boyfriends flying, you manage to persuade him to show you a good time.

warnings: None, just wholesome goodness and Tech having fun.

tags: @mustluvgd @eyecandyeoz @itsjml @gokyacetakal @by-the-primes @justalittlecloud @discofern @14mcmd1122 @milktealorian @ladydiomede @ladydiomede @archisstically-done @butch-medusae @kriffclone @captxin-rex @sw-ff @kryptoknight123 @cwarssimp

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“Pretty please?”

“It is not happening.”

“Pretty please with extra Mantell Mix on top?”

“… The answer is still no.”

You threw your hands up in the air in aggravation, a pout forming on your lips followed by the folding of your arms like a petulant child who had just been denied chocolate.

Your boyfriend looked to you, an amused glint in his eyes behind his goggles at your reaction, shaking his head. “I do not quite understand why me flying the ship is any form of entertainment for you considering the dangerous manoeuvring that is involved.”

“It would be fun for me because I am yet to experience your crazy flying skills!” You reply, “I miss out on all the action because I’m actually out in the field.” You say with a huff, turning your gaze away.

Tech’s eyes narrow from his spot in the pilots seat, the Marauder parked whilst the others were out doing who-knows-what. “You wouldn’t like it anyway, your brain will begin receiving a mix array of signals from the motion-sensing part of your body.” He said simply. This time you looked at him, arching an eyebrow.

“I am of course talking about motion sickness.”

“Oh come on Tech,” you whine, reaching over and holding onto his arm, “for me? I promise I won’t be sick.” You apply a sweet and innocent tone to your pleading voice, eyelashes fluttering as you blinked up at him with the sweetest smile you probably ever gave him.

Tech knew he should stay put on the landing pad but the others wouldn’t be back for a few hours. He should save his fuel but with the look those endearing eyes you were giving him, it was impossible to refuse.

“Alright. Just this once though, darling.”

“Yes!” You chirp in excitement, leaning across and placing a kiss on his cheek which instantly made his cheeks rosy red but a smug smile tattooed itself on his lips.

The ship started to rise, Tech taking you away from the zone that had surrounding buildings to somewhere not too far away from the others but had enough room to bring you some thrill.

“You ready for this?” Tech quipped, pushing up his goggles as he switched the controls on the panel, hands firm on the wheel.

“Let’s do it.” You grin in excitement but that smile was soon swept off your face in a matter of moments. Tech pulled on the lever, the ship jolting forwards violently, your back pinning against the chair as he began a manoeuvre so sharp you almost flipped off your chair.

“TECH, HOLD UP!” You squealed, eyes tight shut as you white-knuckle the co-pilots seat but Tech laughed heartily, a grin so wide that his cheeks burned at your reaction.

He was drifting left and right, flying straight up and then free falling back down, the ship almost hitting the ground before he pulled you both back up to safety.

Your stomach was twisting and mind was swirling as you barley managed to keep your eyes open but the sound of his laughter, a rarity, was like music to your ears. Tech was having free range of having fun that didn’t involve being almost shot down at any given moment that you found yourself enjoying it more, just by his reaction.

After minutes of him letting loose, going wild under your order, you began enjoying it yourself. Finding yourself whooping, arms up in the air as he did all types of flips and tricks. During a drifting manoeuvre, you both received a message from the ship and it was of course Hunter asking where you guys were.

You pout again that your fun was cut short but you ran through your now messed up hair and smile over to Tech who informed Hunter that you were both on their way back.

“So, what did you think?” He asks as he begins flying and you smirk, leaning against the chair.

“If this is what happens when you go blowing stuff up, you better make me come with you all the time.” You sigh, standing to your feet and stealing a quick kiss from Tech’s lips, his lips smiling against your own.

“I’ll see to it that that happens dear.”

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