#but have you considered the ways cis men are affected?

[hundilisse]

it's so cool how not a single human being on earth is exempt from experiencing transmisogyny. in fact, i think we should turn our focus away from how trans women and transfems are affected and focus on the ways it affects everyone else.

[vincentbriggs]

Hello! Transfem person here. I haven't started HRT yet, but want to procure a 1730s menswear suit (actually decided based on your video). I would prefer not to wait for it if possible, since I don't know when HRT is going to be possible. I am, however, a little concerned about my bust size changing and affecting the fit of the waistcoat. Is that decade usually pretty forgiving in it's tailoring? I am also considering having the upper back tie like some later waistcoats to accommodate if necessary (even if it's not entirely historical), but I figured I would ask you.

Thank you!

Hello! Ooh yay! Not enough people do early 18th century, so I'm delighted to hear that! (Link to the 1730's suit mentioned.)

I think the fit would be affected, yeah. The sides of the waistcoat are easy enough to let out (and we have extant examples of waistcoats with an extra strip of fabric added into the side seam) but the curve of the front is pretty important to how it sits on you. But then, it is fashionable in that era to leave quite a lot of the top portion unbuttoned, so maaaybe you could get away with it not fitting as well, depending on what changed and how much?

Regarding the adjustability of waistcoats, some of the earlier ones actually do have lacing in the back! This red one is an especially nice example, and it's separate all the way to the top.

(c. 1740's, V&A) (Though you also do see ones with the back hacked up and a bunch of ties that were likely added by Victorians for their fancy dress parties.)

The breeches also have adjustable waistbands, of course, so I think the hardest part to alter would be the coat. The back vent is edge to edge, so there's no overlap to sneak a bit more width out of, and letting out the side seams would require re-doing those massive pleats, which were the part I found the most difficult when making my coat. But fortunately those coats were worn open a lot of the time, so even if they're not quite right when buttoned, they should still look ok unbuttoned.

It's very difficult to predict how the fit will be affected, since HRT is different for everyone and things keep changing years down the line. (One comment on this post talks about suddenly getting more breast and hip growth after 7, 12, and 14 years.)

I only have experience from the transmasc side of things, and alas, I very much did outgrow all my old waistcoats and coats. My 1730's suit needs alterations, because the waistcoat is a bit too small, and the coat seams could use a bit of letting out too. (I made those the year after top surgery, but my ribcage kept expanding and my posture improving for quite a while.)

I've been putting it off because alterations are boring :/ My pre-top surgery waistcoats are all way too small across the chest even though material was removed, because my posture was kinda bad and I didn't even notice it, and I expect that the opposite could also lead to the same sort of better posture from more confidence & comfort.

But bodies keep changing forever anyways, even without transitioning. Plenty of cis people can't fit into the things they sewed when they were younger, so we may as well make things to fit us now. Perhaps you could make the suit now, but use a not-too-expensive fabric, and then maybe alter it later, or make a newer and better one with the experience you gained from the first one!

Also I know you specifically said menswear suit, but I want to add the fun fact that women's riding habits in this era looked extremely similar to men's suits!

(Left: Maria Amalia von Habsburg by Franz Joseph Winter, right: Member of the Van der Mersch Family by Cornelis Troost.)

As far as I can tell, the main differences are that the riding habits have a petticoat instead of breeches, and are made to fit over stays.

(Empress Elisabeth Christine in riding costume, unknown artist.)

So similar, in fact, that this portrait of a young lady in a riding habit was misidentified as a young man!

Most of the petticoat is out of frame, but you can still see that it's not beeches, and the stays shape is pretty obvious. Very silly of Sotheby's not to notice!

I have no idea if you're interested in wearing a riding habit, and I'm not sure how difficult it would be to alter the somewhat looser men's coat to fit over stays, but thought I ought to mention it.

[doberbutts]

I can't understand the idea that someone outside of an oppressed group cannot be victims of violence towards that oppressed group. That anon you deleted, the one who got mad and went "so cis people can experience transphobia!?!" Have you not read the news lately? What? What is happening to Imane Khalif right now? When you are past some arbitrary "acceptable range" of looks, behavior, etc., you become a target. As a cis woman who grew up in a conservative area, having "boyish interests" was enough for me to be subject to slurs and abuse. And it stuck around past that, because I have a small chest and broad shoulders, a long face. Whatever. Systems of oppression effect everyone under them because they all rely on "passing". You are required to reach a bar and to look and perform in certain ways and that bar is ever changing.

Well, that's why when someone was in my replies being upset that I asked how Khelif could be considered TME when transmisogyny was actively happening to her, one of the things I responded to said person was:

I don't understand how discussion the widespread effect of a systemic form of oppression and how it affects other things or is used as a weapon in other things, at all damages or erases the conversation that said systemic form of oppression is a problem. If anything, it's spreading further awareness.

I understand if the concern is that not enough people are caring about the trans women to whom transmisogyny happens on a regular basis, and are instead only ever caring about non trans fems and their relationship with being on the receiving end of transmisogyny. That is a problem, and it's one that does need to be talked about more often.

However I don't think any other form of oppression is specifically locked to only the people who identify as that oppressed demographic. Men experience misogyny. White people experience racism. Abled people experience ableism. "You throw like a girl" "you're not my daughter if you marry that black man" "what are you, deaf?" these are all things that are experienced by the "wrong" demographic, because in truth? The demographic doesn't matter.

These are systems we're talking about- the system of misogyny is what leads boys who fail to be masculine enough to be compared to girls as a way to state they are inferior, because the point is that with the system of misogyny, girls are inherently inferior to boys. Therefore, calling a boy a girl is calling him weaker, lesser, and not good enough.

The system of racism is what leads white parents to disown their children if their children date outside of their race. The point is that under the system of racism, interracial dating is seen as an aberration, and these racist parents then reject their own children for daring to love someone who is not white.

The system of ableism is what leads people to make comparisons to disability when bringing up someone's shortcomings. Disabled people are largely seen as failures in abled society, so by pointing to disability whenever faced with what is perceived as inadequacy, the system of ableism operates to continue to associate being disabled with worthlessness, and being abled with having worth.

Hell, it was not that long ago that "gay" and "retarded" were used as synonyms for "bad" and "stupid". Some people still use these words that way. It was a fucking Rick and Morty joke a few years ago, this isn't ancient history.

So when I'm told that I don't experience a system of oppression based solely on my labeled demographic and not on my actual lived experience, my immediate first thought is "that's not how systems of oppression work, literally everyone experiences these things in different ways, because that's what is meant when we call something systemic, it means the entire fucking system is built around this as a crux of logic"

Which is very weird to me then when someone tells me that by saying Khelif is/was experiencing transmisogyny, I'm erasing trans women. How? I genuinely don't understand how that's possible when I'm saying that the explicit hatred and fear of the trans woman boogeyman is what led us here in the first place. I am saying "this comes directly from people pushing transmisogynistic rulings for years and was always going to be the end result when they finally excluded all the actual trans women". I'm saying "it was bad logic when applied to trans women and it's bad logic even now, being applied to a [self-identified] perisex cisgender 'biological' woman and we should have put our foot down about it years ago when trans women and intersex women were actually competing".

Transmisogyny is a system of oppression. The system is functioning normally even when it fires at targets it's "not supposed to". That's what happens under systemic oppression. That's a feature, not a bug.

[faggy--butch]

I think people underestimate the effect of being fat on gender. Like tips and tools for passing for any gender often just don't consider fat people. Gendered norms don't consider fat people. Fat people are so often degendered and viewed as worth less because of it. This also affects trans people's ability to enact their gender or pass. I often see skinny trans people talking about their experiences and stuff and it's like a whole other world of experiencing gender and I don't think this is talked enough about as a significant intersection of identity (because of fatphobia and the rhetoric of weight being a choice). Like there will be the occasional mention of don't listen to passing tips that say to slim down or whatever but rarely a full nuanced discussion of how gender as a whole works differently for fat bodies

Thank you for putting into words the exact feelings I've had for a long time.The way my fat body shapes my gender is something that I can't ignore. I remember growing up in the early and mid 2000s where the titular "girl" were people like Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez, thin and cute and and completely unachievable for me.

I remember having meltdowns at the store when I saw those little pink rhinestone shirts where the curves were preset. I remember going to hot topic and seeing the clothing that wouldn't even fit one whole boob if I tried to put them on.

It was devastating. Learning I was non binary eased this a lot, making me realize I didn't have to try so hard to pass as a cis girl anymore but Even still, trying to live as a man wasn't any easier, men have the same devastating weight standards.

With the talk of Gym bros having eating disorders and everything. They have same kind of toxic gender expectation, except now It's that you have to be big and strong. You can almost get away with it if you're "Strong" fat, but having visible breasts or a hanging tummy or soft face will degender you just the same. Fat people are not allowed to have a gender until we "lose an acceptable about of weight."

We're almost On standby mode, saying things like "when I lose weight I'll finally be happy, when I can fit into those clothes I'll finally be loved and accepted. When i lose weight I'll finally be the real me"

which is reinforced by media and those around you. We have to over perform gender to be even a little bit included, and then that might not even work if you're in a larger fat body. And god if this isn't 12000% reinforced when It comes to transgender expectations.

I mean you see it when people post about how sad and fat they were pretransition, and then become beautiful thin butterflies post transition. You can see it in how tgirl tummy tuesday is only ever thin or slightly fat girls. You can see it in the expectation of trans men to be either big and strong or thin waifish twinks, the only representation we get is conventionally attractive trans people Trans people get all the cruel gender expectations that cis people get, but doubled or tripled, and the fat people are left in the dust until we can lose enough weight to be included. I'm probably going to talk about this more because I have so much to say about it.

[jenchan-writingmultis]

Sylus SFW/NSFW Headcanons

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A/n: I wanna emphasize further headcanons for Sylus cause he got me in a chokehold, NSFW isn’t a lot cause I couldn’t think of much. I hope you like this one! Also, when I was writing this, Rafayel was on my screen saying “Babe don’t move, I wanna see if I can see myself in the reflection of your eyes” I am so sorry baby boy. Also, I apologize for the separated posts, I, once again, reached the Tumblr limit. <( •̀ᴖ��́)>

Pairing: Sylus x AFAB Reader

Not beta read!

Warning: Toxic! Relationship, Stockholm Syndrome, Kidnapping, Forced Drug Usage, Exhibitionism, BDSM, Sadistic! Sylus, Cussing, Blood, SYLUS! (He gets his own warning) If there are warnings that I didn’t notice, please let me know, thank you!

Masterlist Sylus SFW/NSFW Headcanons (Part One)

Sylus NSFW Headcanons

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SFW:

✄ He wouldn’t forget about the men you keep in your life; they’re so obsessed with you that they all got impacted by your disappearance, especially Rafayel, who was the one that got you into the situation, he knows that the guy was the reason why you almost died, twice? Was it thrice? Anyways that’s too much for someone who says that they loved you for 800 years, (He’s a full-time stalker, do you think his raven wouldn’t hear your conversation when that man got hospitalized?)

✄ For his amusement... he usually tends to give them little trinkets of your possessions where they live or lets you send a message to them once in a while. Just to mess with them, after all, they're the ones who got to have plenty of time with you, and yet here you are, in his home. He considers himself the winner right now.

✄ Out of all the male leads, the one he considers to be a big threat was Lumiere, the number of times he almost got caught with you, that man is crazy. (as if he isn’t) so whenever he lets you out, he makes sure you’re not identifiable, it’s simple really, he uses a device that changes your appearance to look vastly different from your looks.

✄ In terms of Physical affection, he would do it when you still despise him, he’d force you to kiss him, planting his lips on yours while you squirm from your chains, try to bite his lips, he’ll slap your thighs with a baton, specifically your inner thighs mind you, since it hurts so much more there. Yeah, keep trying to hurt him, he’ll make sure to give it back tenfold.

✄ Does he hug you? He does, though the type of hugs he gives aren’t comfortable, it’s where you can’t move, can’t leave or squirm your way out of his hold, he’s strong enough to hold you down.

✄ Cry for him! He likes seeing your tears, angry tears, or pained tears, he doesn’t care, he just wants to see you sob. While he loves that you’re bratty, he also prefers obedient mutts as stated in the first headcanons. If he needs to punish you for that he’s very much willing.

✄ He does drug you often. He likes watching you turn into a mush, a pliant pet for him, he doesn’t take advantage of you in this state though, he just gets tired of your constant squirming when he wants your cuddle after a long day of work, he’d come back to his home, his bodyguards and servants greeting him enthusiastically (they’re forced to) while you on the other hand, just spat insult after insult to him. He would appreciate the feisty personality you have if he has the energy for it.

✄ He’d grab your cheeks in a bruising grip before he grabs a pill box, finding the right drug to put you in a state where you reciprocate his love for you, he forces your jaw open before pouring 3 pills into your mouth.

✄ “Drink” he’d ordered, you gasped, trying to push the pills out of your throat, “spit it out, you’ll regret it” his voice harsh, while he forces cold water down your throat, making sure that you drank it, the moment he lets your cheeks go, you’d be coughing and gasping for air, he drenched your shirt too cause of what he did, but he doesn’t care, you’re acting like a feral dog, be ready to be treated like one.

✄ The moment the drugs start to circulate in your system, making you tired and obedient, he’ll carry you to the bed, where you were supposed to be, but didn’t like being on since that bed reminded you that you were trapped.

✄ In times like this, he turns vulnerable, asking you to tell him how much you love him, he likes hearing it, you never told him those words, and he could only hear it when you’re drugged out.

✄ You cuddle him, breathing ragged while he traces his fingers on your back, causing you to shiver, it was cold and hot at the same time, and the only comfort you feel is when you’re pressed against his body, he is the only solace you feel when you’re in this state, and you hated it.

✄ When he tells you he loves you, you respond so eagerly, like a proper mutt.

✄ He'd plant kisses on your face, his hand gently holding your back to adjust your position on his lap. Your skin, warm from the effects of the drugs, pressed against his. Seizing the moment, he continued kissing you, his lips trailing down to your neck, where he left bites, he’d savor your whimpers.

✄ Oh, but if you mention any of the male lead’s name except for him while you’re in a dreamlike state,  he’d be fuming with jealousy, but it’s not obvious, his subtle hints would be on his body language, the way his kisses became rougher, he bites your bottom lip, breaking skin and making you bleed, if you wince in pain, he’d have a sneer on his face.  His grip on your back would go to your waist, chubby or not, he’d have you under his mercy, his hands tugging your cuffs and placing your wrists on top of your head.

“Even if your brain’s a mush you never fail to hit a nerve pretty”

✄ After you fall asleep under his “care”, he’ll take care of you, changing your outfit before he tucks you to bed, you’ll often wake up alone, but with a letter that says that he’ll be expecting proper etiquette from you next time.

✄ Does he say “I love you” to you? If you’re still mad at him, he would out of spite, He would infuse it with such sweetness that it’s guaranteed to make you angrier. Honestly, he loves seeing you try to piss him off. Keep going, love; you're at least one step closer.

✄ On the other hand, once you develop Stockholm syndrome, he won’t say it much, you didn’t become boring, he just likes seeing you desperate to please him, to get his love so he stops his affections just for you to beg for it.

✄ Is it hard to withhold loving you? Nope, it’s easy for him, he lived without your constant affection, even during the months he kept you in his home, you didn’t give him the privilege of your love, so he doesn’t mind not touching you at all, not giving you the attention you want, or the verbal affirmation if he still loved you.

✄ Once you start crying and begging, that’s where he’d hush you, petting your head before he kisses your forehead.

“I’m sorry pretty, I’m here now, don’t cry” He’d coo before you hug him as if your life depended on it.

[intersexlove]

Why your definition of being trans is exclusionary

I will be touching on the definition of trans being described to be “identifying differently from how you were assigned at birth”.

Side note: I know this is different from the intersex awareness I post, but I have a platform here and I feel like I need to talk about this. This is something that directly impacts me.

Why this affects intersex trans people

Intersex people do not have very black and white situations when it comes to their gender—especially trans intersex people.

AGAB does not always line up with biology. There are intersex people who are biologically one thing, but assigned another due to corrective surgery—but they will go through their biological puberty. This is only one example, as there are many many complicated situations for many different intersex people, but I hope this gets the point across.

Some people are raised differently from what they were assigned at birth

This is also a situation that can apply to intersex people, but not exclusively. Some people will be assigned one thing at birth but raised as another for any complicated reason. Or some people, like me, will transition very young and experience childhood—and a very long time—as that gender.

How this affects retrans people

Yes, retrans (retransitioned) people can be trans if they identify that way. You may be confused—asking, “If they just identify as what they were born as again, how are they not cis?”; well, retrans people have a trans experience. However, they can identify as cis if they would like to. Many don’t feel cis though. Sometimes their new identity doesn’t feel the same as it was once before. It’s something new, a new experience. Many have to go through the process of coming out again, many have to medically transition to align with their new identity; it isn’t black and white at all. Along with this, retrans women can, usually will experience transmisogyny—I’d consider it cruel to exclude them from trans spaces. Retrans people can experience trans struggles, they can experience dysphoria, and they need the support.

That being said, there are AFAB transfems, AFAB trans women, AMAB transmacs, and AMAB trans men.

Many situations are not black and white. Many situations are complicated. We must keep an open mind to that and respect people for who they are.

I hope this was easy to understand. If you have questions, that’s okay. Please, just remain respectful.

Love love. Take care of yourself. I know struggles with gender identity are hard and complicated, especially to do it alone. Find help and community if you need it, it’s out there. You’re not alone. ❤️

-A retrans, intersex, transfem who loves you

[pillarsalt]

hi! i was wondering your opinions on how hrt affects the body? i hold a lot of radfem beliefs but i am trans (taking testosterone). would being a woman to you have to be completely about chromosomes? for example, trans men years on T do not have the same genetic makeup as cis women. same with trans women on E, their genetic makeup would be very different to cis men, and would more correlate to cis women. does this factor in who you consider female/male or having experience as women?

Hi there, thanks for reaching out.

Firstly, I think you may be a bit confused. Taking exogenous hormones does not affect your genetic makeup. Your dna will stay the same unless you're exposed to something extreme like radiation - this is a good thing because dna mutation is bad for you and causes cancer! Your genetic sex is immutable, a person with XY chromosomes cannot have their dna altered to have XX chromosomes instead.

Hormones will affect the expression of your genes, for example turning on facial hair production in women who are taking testosterone. This is why those patterns of facial hair, even in women, differ from person to person. The genes for it were already there, but hormone replacement therapy uses the endocrine system to change what signals get sent to your genes to tell them what features to express.

Beyond chemically induced genetic expression, there are particular physical features in males that do not occur in males, and vice versa. This is a feature of the /ancient/ evolution of sexual reproduction. Despite the variety of metaphysical beliefs about identity and personhood, the truth is that humans evolved to reproduce between two sexes, and human beings cannot change sex. Every cell of your body has your sex encoded within it. This affects us physically in many ways. I and most feminists believe that this fact should be irrelevant to any person's ability to pursue their passion, be themselves, and love who they love. Even so, recognition of biological sex is something important. This is really critical in a medical context. For example: men who receive a blood transfusion from a pregnant or recently pregnant woman have an increased risk of death by transfusion-related lung injury. Another example: tracheostomy tubes differ in size depending on sex due to dimorphism in average tracheal diameter. A women who is reported as a male risks considerable injury by having a male sized tracheostomy tube forced into her windpipe. A considerable amount of medications differ in dose effectiveness and side effects based on biological sex. Something as straightforward as a heart attack has different symptoms depending on if the patient is female or male. Denial of biological sex is dangerous, and as it stands, medical science has not advanced enough to change the biological sex of an individual. If you are born male, you will stay male for your entire life. You say that a transwoman who has taken estrogen is more genetically similar to a woman, I'm sorry but that simply isn't true. A male person will always be more genetically similar to other males than to a female person.

Determination of sex is very simple, it's about the easiest genetic test to do. They have kits for high school classrooms to try out ffs. We need to leave the "meaningful sex change is possible through medical intervention" thing in the past, all we accomplish with that is giving people false hope and an unattainable goal to fixate on. Sex is real and immutable, I wish it didn't matter, but it does.

And why it matters is, maleness and femaleness have become inseparable from certain stereotypes and assigned qualities by societies in human history. Overwhelmingly, the male people subjugate the female people. Since men, male humans, discovered womens' ability to give birth could be taken advantage of, it was capitalized upon. And this is the foundation of patriarchal society. Religions were founded to justify this as the will of god. To deny that women have historically been persecuted due to their sex is, well, misogynistic. There is no "woman feeling" that makes us targets for child marriages, FGM, trafficking/prostitution, and other horrors from the minute we're born and even before. No, it's the sex we were born with that makes the world think it can decide our fate. In fact, the way that people treat male children differently from female children is so different so early, that we are genuinely unable to study human behaviour unaffected by gendered expectations. This is what feminists are talking about when they discuss "socialization". There is not a single man on the planet who knows exactly what it's like to see the world from a woman's eyes, no matter how feminine that man is. Womanhood isn't something you can achieve or acquire through effort: you were either born a woman or you weren't, just like you were either born with detached earlobes or not. It's so simple.

All that to get to my final point: Yes, I believe the definition of womanhood comes down to biology, because anything beyond that is a meaningless stereotype. Women can do anything, be anyone, look any way they want, go through any experience they do. The one thing they have in common is that they are female adult human beings. There is not way to fail at being a woman or do it wrong, you just are. Womanhood is the experience of having been a female person in this world, and nothing else. There are certain things only female human beings need, like abortion and female contraceptive rights, access to spaces where we can be safe from our subjugators (male human beings), and the ability to define ourselves and fight for our collective rights.

(At this point you may object and point out that male people who identify as trans women are also subject to violence and scorn from men: unfortunately that is often the case, but this does not make male people who identify as women, well, female. We need solutions for them that do not involve requiring women to sacrifice our comfort and safety for the sake of a particular subset of men, because of the inherent risks involved and the fact that women do not owe men anything even when those men have it bad.)

One last thing: my opinion is that prescribing exogenous cross-sex hormones is unethical (so are all elective cosmetic medical procedures but that's a post for a different day). I understand the distress that gender dysphoria inflicts on people, however the ill effects of hrt are too numerous to condone. The huge increase in risk of stroke with estrogen, heart disease and uterine atrophy with testosterone, and the way that trans medicine studies are notorious for losing followup with patients after a year or less... it's short sighted and frankly, financially motivated. The amount of trans patients who are prescribed hormones without access to an endocrinologist, it's honestly infuriating. People deserve the best care possible, not lab rat bullshit where they cut you loose when it's not working out. I won't judge anyone for what they do to themselves to cope with distress, but I want everyone, especially girls, to be aware of the lifetime effects medical decisions may have, and that you also can find happiness within yourself without hurting your body.

Thanks again for your question, be well ✌️

[start-where-i-end]

The problem with calling any form of oppression "sex based" is that none of it is actually based on sex ("sex" referring to the sum of sexually dimorphic characteristics in this context).

Most of it is based on enforced social roles for "male" and "female", regardless of the actual body parts present or identities of the people involved. And these social roles are enforced however convenient, both in a misgendering and a malgendering way. A good example is treating trans women's breasts and trans men's chests post op as equally censor-worthy explicit material, despite these body parts and the people they're attached to undergoing very different routes.

Many oppression types that are connected to sexual organs and their functions are already covered by the term "reproductive oppression", as described here:

Source uses gendered language like "women" and "girls" because it's Wikipedia, but the general principles cited are useful.

"Sex based" language in application of common oppression of cis women and trans people who were assigned female has multiple unfortunate implications:

- you can't use this framing to describe your need for reproductive rights as a trans man/nonbinary person without stating that you consider yourself to have the same "sex" as cis women (which is why terfs love this phrase);

- it contradicts the view of sex as a changeable and reassignable parameter;

- it does not leave room for trans women, transfems, and other people who undergo feminizing hrt and surgeries and become affected by the same types of oppression, including sexualization of breasts and facing medical risks, connected to poorly researched vaginal health.

It is theoretically possible to stretch the term "sex based oppression" and mean it as "oppression of sexual functions" rather than "oppression of sex as in phenotype", but this phrase already has a bad background with terfs who want to talk about sex as an inborn immutable trait.

If this is not the implication you wish to send, please consider using some other phrase, like, again "reproductive oppression" or something comparable.

[trans-androgyne]

TERFism & Transandrophobia

Hi folks, the radfems are on their shit again. They are trying to insert themselves into our conversations and spaces. They flatten transandrophobia to “just misogyny” and attribute it to transfems and other people they consider “male.” They are trying to use the backlash and transandrophobia we’ve received from some transfems as proof that “afab people” are specially oppressed by all “amab people.” They claim that trans women oppress cis women and promote “afab solidarity” against transfems. I’ve seen the radfem @/detransraichu (block them and @/vaelystrasia) talking about trying to get trans people—especially transmascs who acknowledge transandrophobia—to swallow their points better by using “afab” and “amab” instead of “female” and “male.”

If you have a moment to read below the cut, I wanted to briefly remind us all of some more crypto-TERF/radfem/gender critical rhetoric to look out for in these conversations.

1) Using amab/afab as nouns or adjectives instead of verbs — It isn’t always a radfem, but they basically find&replace “male/female” to amab/afab for the optics, so it’s something to look out for.

2) The idea of “male/amab supremacy” or “sex-based oppression” — belief everyone amab oppresses everyone afab. They use this to say trans women oppress cis women.

3) “Afab solidarity” — asking trans people afab to side with cis women over trans women. Erases the power cis women can have over transmascs. Think “trans men are my sisters.”

4) Male/female socialization — insists people are destined to become a specific way based on their agab. What they use to consider everyone amab dangerous and everyone afab safe. Always, always be extremely suspicious of anyone saying “women/afabs are safe, men/amabs are unsafe” for any reason. However, not everyone talking about their agab affecting how they were raised is a radfem. It’s acceptable to say that growing up when amab/afab affects how you were treated or how you act today. It is not okay to assume how others’ perceived socialization affects them, ever.

5) Bio women/bio vaginas/bio breasts — transphobic ways to exclude trans women or refer to their body parts in a way that implies they are cosmetic rather than biological.

6) “Afabmisogyny” — used to describe misogyny presumed to only affect people afab. Positions any misogyny experienced by transfems as less important.

7) “Kink critical” — radfem rhetoric is often very anti-kink, anti-porn, and anti-sex work(ers) as they believe all three are used to oppress females.

These are the points I thought were most relevant to transandrophobia conversations, but feel free to add on if you’re able!

[pawberri]

thank you for all the posts you've made, your takes are always so refreshing to hear.

I want to know your thoughts (if it's okay with you, you can also totally ignore this) about all the "men hate" I see online. like I (poc transmasc non-passing) get it, there are genuine societal gender problems. transmisogyny does exist-women face more challenges than men do. but it genuinely hurts when women, especially trans women, think it's funny/quirky to call men trash or say they want all men dead or whatever. idk I just am hoping someone else understands, you know?

There's a lot of nuances to this question. First, I just want to caution against focusing too much on trans girls as the perpetrators of this. A lot of the asks I get from trans men seem to really fixate on trans women as the perpetrators of hard line gender essentialism. I really think trans girls are not the main people we should be focusing on here. If a trans woman is saying this stuff, take the time to analyze her ideology outside of that pithy comment and consider how much trauma and how little power she has in the world. That said, trans women are affected by this kind of ideology just like us, and they rarely have the power to wield it against others in the way cis people can. I know it hurts to feel isolated by your own community, but that kinda gets into my second point.

Part of dealing with this is learning an impulse progressive cishet dude have had to get used to over the decade. Sometimes, "men are trash" or even "kill all men" are not literal phrases. They are things women say when they're in the throes of trauma to vent their frustration. "Men are trash" in particular is generally pretty lighthearted and used to complain when you have a bad date or something. You have to get used to analyzing what someone actually means and airing on the side of empathy. You, as a man, are the one with some amount of systemic power over that woman, so you are the one who needs to prove you are dedicated to not being a misogynist. The same thing happens when my friends say they hate white people. I have to assume they don't hate me given that I'm their friend, but that I still have some of the negative traits of whiteness. I need to care enough to be a good friend by being anti-racist and checking myself on my behavior. I need to be willing to prioritize their comfort over mine. That includes not becoming this meme:

Now that that's established, there ARE times when "all men are evil and should die" is an actual ideology. It's an ideology that hurts tons of minority groups before it hurts the most powerful, but it's also not really great if we assume it only hurts cishet white guys. Following it to its logical conclusion, it just proposes a reversal of oppression dynamics. This gender essentialism is a key part of radical feminism, trans exclusionary or not, but it leaks out of that community to general feminism all the time.

As a young person on Tumblr and Twitter, this deeply affected me. I internalized the idea that you can "just be a girl." It was repeated by some trans girls, but also a LOT of TME people. It was framed as trans inclusive, but it's trans inclusive in the way "political lesbianism" is lesbian positive. It posits gender as a moral choice that is completely up to the individual and unrelated to biology. It's the lazy version of "gender is a social construct." I felt sick and disgusting for wanting to be a boy because tons of well-meaning friends of mine had made it clear that "being a boy" was a choice, and it was the wrong one. "Boy" was a social category that could and should eventually be eradicated. Trans women were conditionally supported because they, in theory, made this future possible. This didn't amount to actual support, of course. It was an ideology mostly spread by afab queer people that mostly benefited afab queer people. There were a few trans girls who spread it, maybe some due to genuinely believing in the ideology and some due to social pressure, but there were also a lot of people straight-up grifting as trans girls who used this thinking to feel powerful in a niche community of teens. Remember fucking Yandere Bitch Club???

At a certain point, I genuinely thought of being a man as an unambiguous moral failing, and I lashed out at out trans men because of it. I wanted to feel powerful, and here was a type of man in my community I could shame and exclude. I still feel bad for making a bunch of ~girls only~ stuff in HS that excluded the one out trans dude at our school, my friend, because he was just a ~binary man~ and leaving him with no friends and no community. I treated transphobia like it wasn't a real oppression on its own and, in doing so, perpetuated transphobia. It happens a lot.

I wasn't really able to accept that there was nuance to the concept of manhood until I read this article while struggling to accept my own gender:

This is a pretty seminal piece of writing. It has its flaws, of course, but the empathy and intersectionality it highlights was life-changing. It also shows that this kind of thinking is largely perpetuated by TME people and hurts trans women greatly.

Gender essentialism is a bad ideology, it's a transphobic, transmisogynist, racist, etc etc ideology. It's literally essential to patriarchy. But it's also very easy to repackage into leftism and easy to dogwhistle. As a result, it's natural to be hesitant when you see someone saying they hate all men, but you have to tread extremely lightly and actually care what they're attempting to express. Because, yeah, men as a social class still hold power over women. They still have reason to fear and hate men.

I'm writing a comic about this stuff, actually, so look out for it in the future..........

[mtreebeardiles]

Hmm so that post about normalizing male love did indeed come from someone who’s beliefs come from a place I don’t really agree with, and in the interest of that, I wanted to quote someone else who sees the problem from a lens more aligned with progressive thinking: bell hooks.

From The Will to Change

We construct a culture where male pain can have no voice, where male hurt cannot be named or healed. It is not just men who do not take their pain seriously. Most women do not want to deal with male pain if it interferes with the satisfaction of female desire. When feminist movement led to men’s liberation, including male exploration of “feelings,” some women mocked male emotional expression with the same disgust and contempt as sexist men. Despite all the expressed feminist longing for men of feeling, when men worked to get in touch with feelings, no one really wanted to reward them. In feminist circles men who wanted to change were often labeled narcissistic or needy. Individual men who expressed feelings were often seen as attention seekers, patriarchal manipulators trying to steal the stage with their drama.

Some highlights as to how patriarchy is also negative towards men/masculinity:

The unhappiness of men in relationships, the grief men feel about the failure of love, often goes unnoticed in our society precisely because the patriarchal culture really does not care if men are unhappy.

Patriarchal mores teach a form of emotional stoicism to men that says they are more manly if they do not feel, but if by chance they should feel and the feelings hurt, the manly response is to stuff them down, to forget about them, to hope they go away.

I was gonna slap on the usual disclaimer about male privilege and how patriarchy affects men/masculinity and women/femininity differently but I don’t think the usual disclaimers really work anymore because adherence to a binary and refusing to acknowledge the intersectional realities of privilege are kinda inadequate in reality, aren’t they? It’s the same shit that takes socialization and conflates it with biological essentialism when reality is not everyone is socialized in the same way — but cultural, and specifically patriarchal, systems have a way of punishing/discouraging certain behaviors based on perceived traits both in terms of external AND internal expectations. A young trans masc, for instance, is not ‘socialized’ female prior to coming out/transitioning to whatever degree in the same sense a cis girl is — the external factors still influence expectations, but the two are engaging with it differently as their internal perceptions alter perspectives, if that makes sense. To put it another way, my engagement with femininity from a feminine lens always felt very wrong — engaging with it again now that I am more comfortable and have embraced my masculinity feels so much better.

But to ground this again in bell hooks, consider:

We need to highlight the role women play in perpetuating and sustaining patriarchal culture so that we will recognize patriarchy as a system women and men support equally, even if men receive more rewards from that system. Dismantling and changing patriarchal culture is work that men and women must do together.

You can’t change a system by adhering to ANY of its methodologies. Denying men emotional growth, expression, and the ability to communicate their feelings in healthy ways IS the same method used by the patriarchy — yes, even if it is a woman doing it.

[rouge-the-bat]

i really do wonder what ppl who tout the "non-men loving non-men" definition of lesbian think about multigender people. do they EVER consider us? even a tiny bit? bc it certainly doesnt feel like it. it feels like any one of these situations:

they already dont think being multigender is a thing, and say shit like "you can only be a man, a woman, or nonbinary, not all of the above."

they quite literally dont think about how multigender people would work in relation to sexuality. they may claim to support us, but they dont pay attention to or care about the fact our gender identity ISNT just an isolated thing that has no affect or connection to anything else about us.

they look at my gender (genderfluid between woman, man, and many forms of nonbinary, more oftentimes a mix), and say oh well youre PARTIALLY a man in some way so that means you cant be a lesbian! so, basically my man-ness just "taints" me and negates the fact that im also a woman and nonbinary? what about the days where my genderfluidity contains no bit of man at all? can i only be a lesbian SOMETIMES?

they yell about non-men all they want, but see my gender and go, "oh not YOU though :) i mean people who are ONLY a man!" and not realize how that is 1. them not saying at all what they mean in their definition if still SOME men are okay and 2. extremely comes across as misgendering and that they dont see me as Actually a man if im not mono-gendered, regardless of their intention. if you are going to categorize people as "men or non-men" and try to fit me in only one or the other, you are misgendering me no matter what. non-men is not the same thing as non-mono-gendered-men.

and all of this also makes me wonder: what would these people think if they saw me in person, holding hands with my girlfriend?

for context: transmeds would 100% consider me a faker not only bc im genderfluid, use any pronouns (esp neos), and am without dysphoria (for gender anyways), but because theyd think im just cis. im afab with no hormone changes or surgery, nor do i want any (my ideal genitals being a dick or barbie-doll-smooth aside, since i dont care enough to do surgery about it, and any of my other gender ideals would require shapeshifting), i like my big boobs, AND im femme. my fat even adds to my curves. most people would probably read me as only a girl and not think twice about it, esp if im dressing up as femme as i like being at the time.

so, if these people shouting "non-men loving non-men" at those like me all the time ended up seeing me irl, what would they think? would they see im extremely femme and read as a girl while holding hands with my girlfriend (who isnt femme but still is easily read as a girl) and think oh yeah, thats a lesbian right there? because a huge part of me says that they absolutely would have no issue with it

who knows if anyone who swears up and down by the "non-men loving non-men" definition will actually read this, but i REALLY wish more people would actually hear out multigender folks and see how definitions like this are incompatible with us. think about how our identity doesnt exist in a vacuum. realize that plenty of us ARE lesbians no matter what anyone else says, and we do not abide to your """inclusive""" definition that actually doesnt consider our existence at all.

or at least realize identity labels dont have a one-size-fits-all definition in the vastness of queer experiences, that people are going to have definitions for things that are different from yours, and you dont hold the One True Right Definition. realize that definitions are not rules that are placed upon words, theyre explanations for how these words are being used across the world, through time, and vary from person, place, and time. definitions are fluid, not static, and many words have multiple definitions.

[doberbutts]

I was typing a big long thing about the changes I've experienced in a year on testosterone and how it's affected me and all that and then tumblr ate it and I really don't feel like retyping that whole thing but I am kinda salty about it so tldr:

Starting testosterone has been the best thing for my health that I've done. Ever. Better than getting a service dog. Better than restructuring my life to cater to my disabilities. Better than any procedure or medication or otherwise that I've tried. Simply rubbing a pack of gel on my arm once a day has done more for me than anything else.

When I went to my endo to start T, I went with a suspicion that I am intersex. She confirmed it via blood test and told me that with my variation I could try two different things: estrogen to control my high levels of natural androgens, or testosterone to lower my estrogen further and make it stop arguing with my androgens about whether I'm supposed to be a boy or a girl, as it's that argument that was causing a significant portion of my health problems. Estrogen has been tried in the past and only made things worse. She told me it was my choice, and only I could choose my path forward, as I knew my body the best.

When TERFs have a fit about gender affirming care, they usually leave out people like me, or they brush my story aside by saying that I'm just an anomaly, or they claim for me and my demographic that we don't want to be part of this discussion. But I don't fit their definition of a woman- I have a testicle, and my natural testosterone was within normal range on the low end for a cisgender, perisex man, and enough male sexual partners have commented on what's in my pants to tell me that it's far from the picturesque womanly pussy, especially considering I can- and have- use it to penetrate with the help of devices designed for cis men who are a little lacking in length.

When TERFs have a fit about gender affirming care, they scaremonger about side effects and changes. But, I was already hairy. I was already growing facial hair. I already had atrophied- and by 30 to the point that it's not really possible to fix without significant medical intervention. I was already infertile. I already had an adam's apple and a deep voice. I already had belly fat and blood pressure problems. My menstrual cycle was already hellish and had interfered with my school and work schedules. A popped ovarian cyst sent me to the ER.

I'd tried no treatment. I'd tried estrogen-based solutions. These not only did not work but actively made things worse. I was fainting at school. I was calling out of work. I couldn't drive without my service dog. I couldn't go out and have fun with my friends. I spent days at a time laying in bed in too much pain to move.

TERFs say, gender affirming care turns you into a forever patient.

I already was one of those. I almost died when I was a baby strictly because of lack of access to care that accepts children who are born who are both and also neither from the womb, before anyone has a chance to develop a personality or understand the difference between a boy and a girl.

Testosterone has turned me into a "once every 3 months" patient instead of a "twice a month minimum" patient. I pay less than $15/month for my prescription and it's mailed to my house in three-month increments. Stopping my wildly irregular and incredibly painful menstrual cycle has increased my quality of life so much. My body doesn't ache for no reason anymore. I don't faint anymore. I can go out and do things and not be punished for it for days on end by fevers and chills and vertigo.

Don't let a handful of transphobic assholes scare you. If this is your way forward, then live your life to its fullest.

My only regret is that I didn't have the chance to do this sooner.

[velvetvexations]

in my opinion, the problem with transmisogyny exempt (tme) / transmisogyny affected (tma) as terms is that, in practice, it works backwards. it Assumes that only amab people who are mtf or mtx are transmisogyny affected, rather than simply being a term for anyone who can or does experience transmisogyny.

which causes issues Both because it became a new way to ask nonbinary people what's in their pants (the Same issue with how agab language can be used against nonbinary people)

And because these aren't the only groups that can experience transmisogyny. they're the Main groups of course (the ones the term is named after), but they aren't the Only ones.

there are afab intersex people who overtly experience transmisogyny because of the way that they look, some who consider themselves cis women and some who don't. there are multi-gender and genderfluid and agender people who medically transition and present in ways that aren't cleanly binary. who mix masculine and feminine traits in ways that get them interpreted as all sorts of things. there are trans men and trans masc who are gnc, before during and after medically transitioning, who will share traits with trans women.

and the argument in response to that is Usually something along the lines of "sure these groups Can experience transmisogyny, but it's Misdirected. they're not the Main Groups who experience transmisogyny so the term shouldn't be for them."

and the thing about that is ! we already Have the terms "transmisogyny" and "trans woman" and "trans fem." we Have words to talk about the issues that these groups of people face. so it confuses me that we've created a term that Specifically means "everyone who is affected by transmisogyny," that apparently Doesn't include Everyone Who Is Affected By Transmisogyny.

I feel like the term tma could be Useful as an all-inclusive term. to talk about the affect transmisogyny has on All people, without specifying any specific kind of person. but as is the only point I see it used for is cutting people Out of conversations.

the problem with "tma" is that it comes packaged with "tme." gender and sex and presentation and identity are Messy, people who are very different on paper often share spaces and experiences with each other. and being squeamish about that fact, about having to Share with people who are different from you, is often directly what leads to exclusionism.

bigots don't care if you're Really a trans woman or not, they just see someone who's visibly Other in a way they don't like and treat you accordingly. so to decide that a whole group of people is Exempt from being interpreted as a trans woman by a bigot misses the point.

straight people can be Affected by homophobia, whether that straight person is cis and perisex and allo or trans and intersex and aro/ace. and it doesn't hurt anyone to acknowledge that the same is true for transphobia and transmisogyny (or transandrophobia or exorsexism)

This is all really, really well said and you put a lot of thought into dissecting this inside and out, it's a really good analysis of why and how it doesn't work. I think ultimately it comes down to the fact that this vocabulary does not actually exist to solve any problems in the first place.

[gandalfsbignaturals]

what is tme/tma? (sorry i’m cis)

they stand for transmisogyny exempt and transmisogyny affected. nominally they are supposed to label people who are targets of transmisogyny (tma) and people who are not targets of transmisogyny (tme), but in practice they are typically instead defined to mean "trans women, trans femmes, and (sometimes) gnc men" (tma) and "literally everyone else" (tme)

unfortunately, as i have tried to argue, this... isnt really how oppression works, especially considering the queer community necessarily resists hard categorization, and especially binaries

whats more, people who are supposedly tme are frequently the victims of transmisogynistic hatecrimes, something the proponents of the terms usually call "misdirected transmisogyny." i have gripes with this, though, because misdirected bigotry is... well, its still bigotry.

when sikhs (and whats more, any brown person who looked a certain way) were facing a monstrous amount of misdirected islamophobia in the wake of 911, the muslim community did not come out and say "well, they arent really muslim, so the islamophobic attacks on them dont count." nor did the sikhs and others use it as an excuse to attack islam! instead, they recognized that the bigots didnt actually care about the specific labels of the people they were attacking. all they cared was that someone was brown, and that they practiced a foreign religion, and that was enough.

likewise, when gentiles are attacked by antisemites for defending or associating with jewish people, those jewish people do not say, "you are not jewish, and therefore this doesnt count." instead, they acknowledge that, once again, the bigots in this instance dont actually care about the specifics of the lives led by those theyre attacking. i cannot imagine a jewish synagogue denying aid to a victim of an antisemitic attack, even if they are not jewish.

similarly, when a queer or gnc person is attacked by a transphobe for performing gender wrong, that transphobe doesnt actually care what particular label or lifestyle the person theyre attacking subscribes too. a trans man with some stubble in a dress is the same as a non-passing trans woman to them. a burly woman with higher than average testosterone going into the womens bathroom is the same as a non-passing trans woman to them. a masculine black woman in baggy clothes is the same as a non-passing trans woman to them. and they will attack accordingly, and no matter how the victim protests that they arent a trans woman, the bigot will not care.

this is all glossing over the fact that, by advocating that people disclose their tma/tme status in their blog description or carrd or whatever, you are effectively asking them to out themself. if you define tme as "not a trans woman," and someone has a trans flag and he/him pronouns on their profile, and you ask them to also include tme on their profile... well, then youre asking them to publicly state what their genitals are. while tma and tme are not defined exclusively based on genitals, it is undeniable that in combination with other readily available information, they can be easily used to determine what someones assigned gender at birth is.

when applied to trans people, tme/tma is just another false binary. it is a poor attempt to categorize a human experience that is simply not divisible into neat little categories, and especially not a binary.

[sundrop-writes]

Decided To Break It

Abby Anderson x Fem!Reader

A thousand promises that never seemed to help me before...

Apathy that always finds a way to break me down.

Summary:

Abby confronts your abuser, and you both come out better on the other side because of it.

Abby Anderson x Fem!Reader. Childhood Friends to Lovers. Hurt and Comfort. Can be read with or without considering the canon events.

Word Count: 5,000

The Last of Us Masterlist | AO3 Link

THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.

Detailed warnings and author’s notes below the cut.

Warnings: reader uses she/her pronouns, themes of abuse and abusive relationships, domestic abuse, childhood friends to lovers, hurt and comfort, mentions of canon deaths and incidents of canon violence, Abby has a self deprecating inner monologue, Abby experiencing some transphobic comments (even though she is not trans in this - angry cis men are just like that), the reader’s abusive partner is a man, the reader is described as having injuries from a physically abusive incident, the reader experiencing physical and emotional abuse from a romantic partner, the reader is saved from her abusive partner by Abby (and Manny), the reader is mentioned to be wearing Abby’s clothes - but Abby is a big muscled girl so I think plus sized girls could fit her clothes (especially if they were clothes that were big on Abby), Abby calls the reader ‘baby’, some romantic involvement between Abby and the reader (but the bulk of the focus is on Abby rescuing the reader form the abuse), technically cheating - because the reader kisses Abby while she is still involved with her abusive boyfriend, Abby murdering someone with her bare fists (technically with her fists and then smothering him with a pillow), somewhat graphic descriptions of Abby beating up the abuser, happy/hopeful ending. 

A/N: Title comes from a Marianas Trench song of the same name. I have always thought of it as a very Abby song (and it’s on my Abby playlist) - I think it definitely represents her following the Fireflies and then the Wolves with them feeding her blind promises that don’t work out for her, and when she ‘decides to break it’ is when she decides to break free from the mould in order to help Lev and Yara. And in this case, the broken promises and lies are two fold - her pushing down her feelings for y/n and her seeing y/n be 'happy’ with the abusive boyfriend, and when she finally snaps is when she 'decides to break it’. I like how it fits. It could also be fitting of how someone in an abusive relationship is fed lies and empty promises and it’s difficult to break away from that.

...

Abby had always liked you.

She always loved you, even if she claimed over and over again, wasted her breath telling people that it was strictly the type of love reserved for a friend. 

But she refused to admit the true nature of those feelings to herself. She refused to call it love, or romance, or affection. Maybe because she didn’t even realize that’s what it was in her own mind. But she definitely had a childhood crush on you that blossomed into something else along the way. 

You were someone that Abby’s dad was always fond of when you lived with the Fireflies at Saint Mary’s hospital. And though you weren’t studying to become a medic, Jerry always pushed Abby to hang around you more because you were sweet, good natured, and bookish, and he always thought you were a very good influence on her. 

It was something that led the two of you to become fast friends. When the two of you were still so young and the world was still so small, you were each other’s biggest priority in it. 

Abby often mourned for those days like winter days mourn for summer. But she could never imagine how the two of you might get back that kind of closeness. 

Living at the WLF, you unintentionally drifted away from Abby. 

The Salt Lake Crew was always close, especially after making the treacherous journey from Salt Lake to Seattle with nothing more than a tiny glimmer of hope for their safety after the bloody massacre at Saint Mary’s. 

Abby protected you the whole way, made sure you never had to carry a gun, would have thrown down her life to save yours at any moment during the journey - especially when she was stuck in such deep depression after her father’s death. In a lot of ways, you kept her alive during those days. You kept her spirit alive, made sure she held onto the good memories of her father instead of throwing herself headfirst into the darkness. 

But when everyone integrated into the WLF, things changed. It was a very rapid shift from the group spending 24/7 together, watching each other’s backs, to everyone having different jobs based on their skills and having colliding schedules that caused them to part and spend less and less time around each other. 

Manny and Abby were the ones who ended up staying the closest - ironically, even closer than the romantic couples of Mel and Owen, and Leah and Jordan. Mostly likely because they roomed together, and they often patrolled together. 

Abby was always regretful of the fact that she didn’t get to see you more often. 

Whenever Abby saw you around, in the cafeteria or during the rare occasions when the old crew could work their schedules to get together (usually using someone’s birthday or another celebration as an excuse) she mourned the fact that the two of you were drifting apart. It seemed like the two of you were becoming more like strangers as the days went on. 

You had taken a job as a dog trainer, wrangling the many pups that the WLF raised and kept on hand, so Abby saw you most often in passing if she was checking out one of the dogs for patrol. 

She often found herself with a pang of yearning in her chest if she saw you cooing sweetly at the pups, petting them, knowing that they could tear out the throats of enemies with their teeth but cuddling with them and calling them ‘baby’ in the same breath. 

(Deep down, she was reminded of herself - how she felt rough and horrible and she often felt unlovable, but she thought someone as soft and sweet as you could still love her. She hoped that you would.)

Very often during their conversations, Manny insisted that Abby had a crush on you. He said that she always had and that he had seen it for years, and Abby was being dumb not to pursue her feelings for you. These conversations usually ended with Abby rolling her eyes and pointing the finger back to his love life, asking why he didn’t just settle down with one of the many nice girls who frequented his bed. 

The topic came up so often between them, but it was something that Abby tried not to think about. The two of you dating. The two of you being anything more than friends. It felt so fictional. Often when Manny spoke about it, it felt like a joke in her ears. 

It was something that was latent in her mind until she saw you with him.

He was some random scumbag - some new trainee who had come in from a settlement outside the city that Isaac had broken up. He had allowed some of their people in (“strength in numbers” he always said). But seeing you with him, Abby gave less of a shit about where the guy came from, and started thinking about where he was heading to and how quickly she could get him away from you. 

Seeing the way you looked at him, with stars in your eyes, entirely lovestruck, while he tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear - it just made Abby nauseous.

Abby had been working with some of the new recruits. Fucking morons. Isaac had asked her to whip them into shape, her experience and skill vs their idiocy. 

It was the only reason she knew the guy. It was the only reason she could pick out his stupid face among the seemingly endless sea of people at the WLF. 

She remembered this idiot specifically. He had made sure of that. He was too cocky, but didn’t know his way around a gun. When he had gotten his hands on one of the semi-automatics, he got trigger happy and put several bullet holes in one of the concrete walls. He would have blown away half the squad if his dumbass had been two inches in the other direction. 

When Abby had snatched the weapon out of his hand and began reprimanding him about gun safety, he had gotten in her face and called her a ‘meathead’ and made some rude comments about her possibly having a dick. Clearly, he was intimidated by her size. She let him be. 

(And yeah, she did have a dick. In a box under her bed. One that the girls she and Manny shared around often joked was better than the real thing.)

It was immediately clear to Abby that you didn’t have a clue what the guy was really like. You wouldn’t have any interest in him if you knew what he was like in the field, if you knew how he had spoken to some of your friends. 

You kissed him sweetly on the mouth before you parted ways. Clearly completely unaware that Abby was watching with rage boiling inside of her veins. It was only when Abby looked at the crushed water bottle in her hand that she realized why her shoes were wet - unconsciously, she had been imagining that it was his head.

Manny chalked up her hatred of your new boyfriend to jealousy. And maybe it was. She had no other reasons to hate the guy. No good ones, anyway. Incompetency aside, he learned fast and got over his major flaws, and he quickly learned to only trash talk Abby behind her back so that she couldn’t take any real complaints about him to Isaac. 

When you brought him to Jordan’s birthday party and introduced him to the rest of the group as your boyfriend, they all seemed happy for you.

They didn’t suspect anything when he glared at you with absolute fire in his eyes as you joked around with Owen - someone you thought of as a brother. The cause of a very funny story (that the group still brought up often) when you ate literal dirt rather than kissing him during a game of truth or dare when you were all teenagers. 

Unfortunately, Abby didn’t have any evidence to back up her horrible gut feeling when you and your ‘new boo’ disappeared from the party so suddenly. When she had asked Nora, apparently you left because you were complaining about being tired.

Over the next few weeks, Abby watched you fade away from a distance. 

Your glowing smile became a dull, fake one. Whenever she saw you, you avoided her gaze. And the rare times when you would look her in the eye, she could see you crying out for help from within.

She thought she was being paranoid. She thought it was her pure spite of the man you were dating - some jealousy, a childhood crush bubbling over, the fact that she hadn’t gotten to you first. The fact that she hadn’t been brave enough to confess her feelings to you that she hadn’t even admitted to herself. 

She wanted to believe that you were fine, that you were thriving and happy in your new relationship, before she let herself think that you were actually being hurt by someone who claimed to love you.

Until one night when she was alerted by a knock on her door. 

She and Manny had just come back from a thirty hour patrol shift, and he was already dead asleep. Abby had just gotten out of the shower, combing through her long, wet tendrils as a characteristic Seattle storm thundered outside.

She rushed to put on a tee shirt along with her form fitting boxer briefs to look decent. Even though the only light in the small apartment was currently the flashes of lightning from outside as she walked across to the door. She thought perhaps she had imagined it, the sound of knuckles, the sound of someone trying to grab her attention. It would have been easy to mistake. The thunder rumbling and the rain pounding on the windows was certainly distracting. 

Nonetheless, she opened the door to check if her mind was really that far gone after such a long shift. 

She gave a small smile when she saw you standing there. Usually you didn’t take time out of your busy schedule to come and see her. 

But when the next flash of lighting came, and fully illuminated you where you stood in the hallway, it made Abby’s gut curl with a unique sickness. The look of pure fear in your eyes, the swelling of purple around one of them, the distinct marking around your neck that looked like fucking handprints, marks of thumbs attempting to press into your windpipe.

Abby felt the rage of god and intense pity, mourning and regret, her love for you swell up inside of her all at once.

“Y/N.” 

She said your name in a voice so gently, a timid kindness that you hadn’t been treated with in weeks - it instantly broke you.

You broke down in sobs, muttering out ‘I’m sorry to bother you’ - but Abby didn’t let you get out a moment of apologetic self pity before she swept you up into her arms, pressing the uninjured side of your face against her chest as she ushered you into the apartment and closed the door behind you.

You clutched onto her like a lifeline when stranded at sea, balling your knuckles into the fabric of her shirt as she put her strong arms around your quivering body, cradling you. She had a heavy suspicion as to what had happened to you, but she was going to wait for you to point at the suspect before she went spinning out of control.

The commotion - the echo of your cries - easily woke up Manny, and you began to profusely apologize before he trampled over this with his worry for you. He instantly reminded you of the big brother figure who used to slide you his pudding cups before he went to arms training while living at Saint Mary’s. 

He made you a cup of tea while Abby sat you down on the edge of her bed, cradling you against her chest and waiting for you to calm down. 

When Manny saw the marks on you, he exchanged a look with Abby. He knew that whoever had harmed you would soon be experiencing infinitely more wrath than they ever thought to bring upon you.

Eventually, your sobs calmed enough for you to explain the situation to them. 

Just as Abby suspected, you ended up telling her a long tale about how this once dreamy boyfriend had turned into a monster; he had shed his skin and shown another face, and he had been abusing you for a few weeks now, hurting you in the worst ways, right under everyone’s noses. 

Abby felt a stinging type of guilt splash up into her throat, and she had a feeling that she was never going to forgive herself for letting you be around that man. 

It had started at Jordan’s birthday party. That night, he had accused you of sleeping with Owen behind his back, and you had nearly scorched your throat trying to explain to him that Owen was your long-time friend, more like a brother to you. But that had only ended with you having a busted lip for ‘lying’ to him. 

And things had only gone downhill from there. 

The most recent incident being him coming home from a patrol to find that the dishes in your now shared apartment weren’t done, and he had called you a sloppy, lazy pig. The ensuing fight had ended with him nearly strangling you to death until you broke one of those dirty plates over his head.

Abby pulsed with anger, and when she went for the door, Manny stopped her. 

He nodded toward where you were still sitting on her bed, your body still visibly shaking as you stared at the floor with a completely blank look. Thunder rolled outside and the loud sound caused your entire body to jolt, and more tears rolled down your cheeks. 

Abby’s insides ached for you. She felt guilty for not following her gut feelings sooner, for not trying to help you sooner. 

“Abs, she needs you right now.” Manny told her. “I want that pendejo dead as much as you do.” He grunted these words with intense furocity, anger, passion. He needed to protect you as badly as she did. 

Abby almost tempted him. She wanted to encourage the bad side that she knew he had. She wanted that fucking prick’s throat under her hands, struggling for breath right now. 

“But tonight…” Manny continued, putting a hand on Abby’s shoulder, pulling her from the murderous revere that he knew she was disappearing into. “She needs a safe place to fall. Tomorrow, we can go to his place with a body bag and a shovel.” 

Unfortunately, he was right. 

So, as much as she wanted to charge out the door and bring the wrath of god to the man who had hurt you - instead, she got you to drink the rest of the tea, and then she got you something oversized and comfortable to wear. 

She put you on the inside of the bed, closer to the wall to help you feel safe. 

Abby stared up at the bottom of the bunk, cursing herself for not trusting her instincts, listening to your sniffling cries. She was entirely surprised when you spoke. 

“I’m sorry.” You said, once again attempting to apologize for ‘imposing’ yourself on Abby and Manny in your time of need. As if you weren’t supposed to lean on good friends. As if these friendships weren’t founded on needing each other. “I shouldn’t be bothering you like this, I-” 

You moved to climb around Abby, moved to get out of the bed, and Abby stopped you with a gentle hand on your waist. You froze on the spot, your body half pressed against hers. She tried to ignore the tingles it sent through her, feeling you pressed up against her so close. You were vulnerable. You didn’t need her and her stupid feelings making things so messy. 

“Are you seriously going back to him?” Abby asked, her throat nearly stripped raw with rage. 

You let out a quiet whimper, and She wanted to kick herself. Of course you thought her anger was misdirected at you. 

“I’m sorry.” She doubled back, entirely quiet now. She reached up, gently cupping the back of your head, trying to soothe you. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant, I’m sorry-” 

“It’s all my fucking fault.” You sobbed, dissolving into more harsh cries. “I should just listen better. I can be better, I can be better, I know, I just-” 

“No.” Abby growled, now entirely insulted by the idea that you would ever think it was your fault. Even if you swung first, no one ever had permission to hit you. Not on an earth where Abby was breathing. If anybody ever laid their hands on you, no matter their stupid reasons, they deserved to have it come back on them twice as harsh. “It’s not your fucking fault. Not a chance, baby.” 

‘Baby’ - the word slipped from her lips before she could stop it, and at first she hoped that you wouldn’t hear it over your own chest shaking cries. 

But it seemed to soothe you. In a moment, your sobs quieted down, and you melted into her, your body going lax against hers, laying on top of her in a way that she had quite literally only dreamed of. 

“Abby-?” You croaked out, not daring to ask if your ears had been mistaken. 

“You deserve so much better than that.” Abby replied, her voice quaking with passion and the intense purity of her declaration. “So much better than whatever that fucking asshole has been giving you.” 

You lifted your head from where it had fallen on her shoulder then. Your eyes were glassy with tears, the one still swollen and bruised from where he had hit you, possibly worse now as the injury truly set in. Abby reached over and grazed a thumb oh-so-lightly over the ring of the bruise, cursing it for existing in her mind. You bored into her soul as you stared her down, looking for any trace in her eyes that what she was saying was a feigned comfort, rather than her undeniable truth. 

“Like you?” You posed, the words so quiet on your lips that the breath barely escaped. 

It was a fantasy. It was a far-off dream. 

But still - Abby put a hand on the back of your neck and pulled you into a gentle, entirely sweet kiss. It was a promise. She was never going to let anyone hurt you again. 

In those moments, laying in her bed in the dark, it felt more like a dream. She was too perfect. It couldn’t be real. 

When you pulled back from the kiss, your gentle breaths puffing across her now wet lips, the words got caught in her chest. 

‘I’m going to kill him.’ 

That’s truly what she wanted to say to you. In her mind it was a comforting promise, but she knew that to you, it would sound much more like a foreboding threat. 

She chose something else instead. 

“It’s okay.” She told you quietly. “Go to sleep now.” 

You nodded lightly, and relaxed against Abby once more, tucking your face into her neck. She felt comforted by feeling your gentle breathing against her skin. You fell asleep curled up tight to her body, clutching fistfuls of the blanket and her shirt as the anxiety crept back in while you slept. Abby continued to fitfully go over it all in her mind, wondering how she could have let this happen to you. 

Sometime that night, she did fall asleep (likely from the pure exhaustion of a thirty hour tour). When she woke up - you were gone. Somehow, you had sunk around her sleeping body and disappeared. 

The mind games of your abuser were in full effect; the things he had said to you dancing around inside your head. Even though Abby and Manny didn’t know it, you were on your way to apologize to him for supposedly starting the previous night’s argument. 

Both your friends were struck with worry, and they dressed quickly in order to search for you. 

They thought the best game plan would be to head to the cafeteria, to start asking around to find out if anyone had seen you. Abby was surprised when she got to the cafeteria and easily spotted you among the faces. 

She found that rage boiling in her stomach once again when she saw that you were talking to him. 

It was a feeling that quickly turned blinding when the word ‘whore’ was thrown at you. 

Apparently he believed that because you wearing one of Abby’s shirts (the clothing you had slept in and kept on) it meant you had fucked her, and you were cheating on him yet again. It was a grand conspiracy, because you had never cheated on him with anyone before. (Other than when you had kissed Abby, seeking comfort the night before.) 

But all of that was a mere blur at the back of Abby’s mind. 

She felt herself snap when you moved to walk away from him and he grabbed your wrist with an abrasive roughness, jerking you back toward him. 

Without hesitation - without even considering any earthly consequences, Abby charged toward him. When you saw her large, intimidating form appear behind him, your eyes lit up like a deer in headlights, but he didn’t seem to notice her coming. That would be his demise. He was too hellbent on torturing you to pick up on anything else. 

It gave Abby the perfect opportunity. 

She grabbed the back of his collar and lined up a punch. The impact to his nose caused him to drop the grip on your wrist, and you cupped your hands over your face to muffle a gasp as you watched the fountain of blood spatter out from the hit. He screamed out, starting on some kind of protest, but Abby landed another hit on his jaw with a curled fist. This sent him hurtling toward the floor, landing flat like a starfish on his back, only semi-conscious at this point. 

She had gathered the attention of everyone in the room by now; random strangers who stared with shock and awe as she stepped toward him and put a knee in the middle of his chest. Some people began to cheer at the very one-sided brawl as Abby continued to brutalize the man, pummeling his face with her fists, completely fuelled by her intense rage, intent on punishing him for even thinking about hurting you. 

You yelled a protest, and moved toward her, wanting to stop the violence. But immediately Manny thought better of anyone getting between Abby and her target, especially in this state of intense blinding rage, so he caught you by the shoulders and held you back. He simply let you collapse into his chest and cry as Abby continued to bruise her knuckles on the man’s stupid face. 

Owen was the only one brave enough to push through the crowd, grabbing Abby’s elbow and screaming her name. He dared to pull her off the unconscious, nearly dead man as she continued to pant like a raging bull. 

Abby didn’t even have time to bandage her knuckles before news of the incident got back to Isaac. And then you, her, Manny, and Owen got called up to his office at the FOB to explain why one of the newbies was in a coma after being beaten half to death in the middle of the cafeteria. On her way to the trucks, Abby caught Nora by the elbow and tried to convince the medic to smother your ‘boyfriend’ with a pillow. Nora said she would if she could get a moment alone in his room in the medbay. Naturally, she trusted Abby’s judgment enough to know the guy was a scumbag without having to ask why. 

Abby was the first one to be called into Isaac’s office while you sat in a chair in the hallway. You were still crying hysterically; upset that it had come to such intense violence, shocked that you had witnessed something so bloody, and terrified that Abby was now going to get in trouble with Isaac because of you. 

Manny and Owen waited with you; Owen trying to get the full story out of you and Manny sheltering you, trying to get Owen to lay off his questioning, seeing as you were still sensitive and shaken from almost being murdered the night before. 

When Abby sat in the chair across from Isaac, she crossed her arms and slouched, spreading her legs wide, her jaw still absolutely tight with anger. She made no effort to hide her bloodied knuckles. 

Isaac cleared his throat loudly before he spoke. 

“Now I know, if you tried to kill that man, you had a damn good reason to.” He said, giving Abby the benefit of the doubt. “What did he do?” 

“He knows what he did.” Abby huffed out, almost too angered to think about it without spiraling out into another rage fit. 

Isaac glared at her, obviously wanted a better explanation than that. 

“If he’s unfortunate enough to wake up, you can ask him about it.” She gritted through her teeth. 

Isaac sighed hard. “Now, that’s not very helpful, Abby.” 

Hatred churned in Abby’s chest. She hated having to speak it aloud, but she supposed it was necessary. She hated that Issac was putting you through this, rather than simply believing that Abby knew what justice was when she saw it.  

“He tried to kill Y/N.” Abby said, hot, rage-fuelled tears gripping at her throat. “He’s been abusing her.” 

Isaac did need to confirm the story with you, and you insisted that Abby sit in the room with you while you talked to him. Isaac was someone you found vastly intimidating because you rarely had to deal with him. 

Abby stood behind your chair with a comforting hand on your shoulder while you spelled out the entire thing, Isaac listening quietly - the bruises on you were more than enough proof for him, and he had Manny come to collect you and get you some water and some tissues while he told Abby how the whole thing should be taken care of. 

“When you get back, tell Nora to pull back the young man’s medical care. I don’t need him wasting resources.” Isaac instructed, firm and simple. 

He was a practical man, and Abby admired that. 

“If he somehow miraculously pulls through, we’ll… deal with him then.” Isaac continued. Abby nodded. “Next time something like this happens, deal with it more privately. Shooting a rabid dog in public frightens people. You know I trust your judgment on these matters, but… I don’t need others questioning you.” 

“Yes sir.” Abby quickly agreed. 

They took you back home and Manny took you back to their apartment to help you get settled, saying something about ‘right way to cook eggs’ as he took you down the hallway. Abby knew he would keep you distracted while she took care of business. She then visited the medbay to give Nora that note about ‘withdrawing’ the scumbag’s medical care. Which in reality, just meant that Nora guarded the door while Abby smothered the guy with a pillow, not to take any chances. 

Over the next few weeks, Abby made sure that you would be safe. She moved you into her and Manny’s apartment, ensuring you would be close by to start you on a road to better healing, and even though it was tough - things did go up from there. 

You found it easier to heal and get back to being your old self while being close by to your friends, and if you realized the feelings you’d had for Abby the whole time - that was just a bonus. 

It was something you reflected on one morning as you tossed a tennis ball to one of the dogs. You weren’t expecting Abby to come by - you didn’t think she would be collecting a dog, you didn’t think she had a patrol that day. 

“Are you checking someone out?” You asked, reaching down again to grab the tennis ball from Bear’s mouth when he brought it back to you. You took a moment to pet him, scrubbing behind his ears as he gratefully leaned into the touch. 

“It’s my day off.” She reminded you. “I just wanted to come check up on you.” 

You gave a grin at this. Even if you hated what that man had done to you, done your mind and your life - you did like how it was bringing you and Abby closer together again. 

“This is the easy part of my day.” You told her, looking down at Bear with fondness. “If you treat them right, they never bite you back.” 

Abby’s expression faltered from lightness, just for a moment. She knew it had a double meaning. You still believed that the whole thing had somehow been your fault. 

She gently reached out and took the tennis ball from your hand, tossing it far to the other end of the fenced in yard, causing Bear to run after it. It was a temporary distraction away from the dog so that you would have to face her. 

Abby knelt down beside you, where you had been crouching at Bear’s level, and cupped your face very timidly in her hand. You leaned into the touch, now locked in her precious gaze as she gathered the right words for you. 

“You are a good person, Y/N.” Abby told you firmly. “You deserve nothing but goodness in return. And anybody who treats you with anything less than kindness is someone who has evil in their heart. And they deserve to suffer because of it.” 

Tears clouded your eyes at the pure sincerity of her words. 

“Abby-” You croaked. 

Before you could get caught up in possibly arguing with her, Bear came barreling back, and dropping the ball in your lap once again. He then licked a large stripe up the side of your face, and you dissolved into laughter because of it. 

Abby wanted to get used to hearing that sound.

...

A/N: This is a standalone one, so please do not ask me for a sequel to a continuation to it. If you enjoyed this, please comment about the body of work that I have already written, and if you want more, feel free to check out the numerous other Abby fics that I have on my TLOU Masterlist. Thank you!!!