#but i can’t say ‘trans woman’ when the correct term is man

[cats-in-the-clouds]

it’s important to try very hard to be as patient and understanding and reasonable as possible and i tell myself aw c’mon how hard can it really be to just chill out and be nice? but every now and it hits me again how we’re all being subjected to a mass gaslighting campaign and then i’m like ah that’s why i’m exhausted deep in my soul all the time. i’m being made to think i’m utterly insane for wanting words to have actual meanings so maybe that makes me a bit cranky y’know

[genderkoolaid]

The transandrophobia brainrot has hit tiktok hard. There's a sound going around right now that uses the T slur in a reclamatory way, but whenever a transmasc person uses the sound people lose their minds saying it's transmisogynistic for them to use that word. But when cis male drag queens use the audio it's a slay.

My answer to those people is Get Kate Bornstein'd:

Tranny. Many people don’t know the history of the word, they assume it was an assigned hate term or slur along the lines of the “n” word. That’s not how it happened. Tranny was invented by us in Sydney, Australia in the 1970s where drag was a big deal, and still the best drag shows ever are in Sydney, Australia – they’re amazing. So a lot of trans-identified women who were assigned male at birth did drag, that’s how you made your living. And so they were transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, and they were all doing drag to make money. They all bickered amongst each other who is better than who, “Well the drag queens are better,” “No, the transsexuals are better.” “You are all freaks, we’re better.” And on and on and on. But they worked together and they were family together, so they came up with a word that would say family and that was tranny. In Australia they do the diminutive, that’s how they come up with words. So tranny. I learned the word in the mid-1980s, late 1980s from my drag mom in San Francisco, Doris Fish, who was the city’s preeminent drag queen and she’d come from Sydney. And she schooled me in this word tranny, she said, “This way it means we’re family, darling.” “Thank you mama.” [...] So we used it and we were trannies together. And F to M was just beginning to start, the trans men were just beginning to become visible, Lou Sullivan was a neighbor of mine around the corner, and he was the first big out trans man, wrote his book. So trans men and cross dressers . . . cross dressers were also family. Transsexuals, we were all trannies and that felt good. That got into the sex industry and became a genre – there was tranny porn, there were tranny sex workers – chicks with dicks, she-males. [...] And, my only guess is that people who . . . because the only way they would have found out about the word is if they were watching tranny porn or having been with a tranny sex worker and then hated themselves so much that they turned it into a curse word. So it’s not really technically correct to say we’re reclaiming a word – it was always ours. So, many people mistake the word for the hatred behind the word and, in my generation, and I’m sure in future generations of trans people, tranny is going to be a radicalized, sexualized identity of trans in the same way that faggot is a prideful identity in the gay male community – not all gay men are faggots, but those who are are proudly fags and those who are dykes are proudly dykes within the lesbian community, trannies are proudly tranny within the transgender community. Does that mean we can’t call ourselves that because some trans woman does not want to be called a tranny? No. I’m going to keep calling myself a tranny. To the trans woman who gets called tranny, I’m sorry – as soon as . . . you’ve got to look at why you’re getting called tranny and if you don’t pass, you’re going to be read as a transgender person and then you fall back on the cultural view of trans folk which is freak, disgusting, not worth living, we can hurt you. It has nothing to do with the word, it has everything to do with the cultural attitude. So the word has stirred up a shit storm, but it’s not the word.

^ From this interview

Four weeks ago, Bear posted a call for submissions on his blog. In the interests of keeping the call as open as possible, we agreed to include as many trans-identities as we knew, so we used the word "tranny." And that's where the activist shit hit the postmodern fan base. People have been pissed. Here's their argument: FTMs are co-opting a word that belongs to MTFs. The word "tranny" belongs to MTFs, reason those who were hurt by our use of the word, because it was a denigrating term reclaimed by MTFs—ergo, only MTFs could be known as trannies. I spoke with Bear, and we agree that’s wrong on several counts:

Tranny began as a uniting term amongst ourselves. Of course it’s going to be picked up and used as a denigrating term by mean people in the world. But even if we manage to get them to stop saying tranny like a thrown rock, mean people will come up with another word to wound us with. So, let’s get back to using tranny as a uniting term amongst ourselves. That would make Doris Fish very happy.

It's our first own language word for ourselves that has no medical-legacy. 

Even if (like gay) hate-filled people try to make tranny into a bad word, our most positive response is to own the word (a word invented by the queerest of the queer of their day). We have the opportunity to re-create tranny as a positive in the world.

Saying that FTMs can’t call themselves trannies eerily echoes the 1980s lesbians who said I couldn’t use the word woman to identify myself, and the 1990s lesbians who said I couldn’t use the word dyke. 

At one phase in the evolution of transpeople-as-tribe, it was the male-to-females who were visible and representative of trans to the rest of the world. They were the trannies. Today? Ironically true to the binary we’re in the process of shattering, the pendulum has swung so that it's now female-to-males who are the archetypal trannies of the day. The generation coming up beyond the next generation, i.e. my tribal grandchildren are the young boys who transition to young girls at the age of five or six. They’re the next trannies. None of us can own the word. We can only be grateful that our tribe is so much larger than we had thought it would be. How to come together—now that’s the job of the next generation of gender outlaws.

^ From Who You Calling A Tranny?

We've been having this debate forever and its been stupid forever.

And its an increasingly outdated debate. More people know about trans men&mascs than ever and there are plenty of TM&Ms who have been called tranny by transphobes who don't give a shit about this distinction. And not just people who have been mistaken for transfems, either, but men like Andrew Jonathan Blake-Newton and Saye Skye who were attacked by people who knew them. Do they have more or less of a right to say tranny than a trans girl whose never been called it by a transphobe? (Neither. Because no one owns this word.)

[olderthannetfic]

Speaking of fetishization and all that jazz, recently the term fujoshi came up in real life for me and a friend asked me what it meant. For transparency I’m only 25, didn’t really fall into fandom until covid. Essentially I said it was a japanese term sometimes used in fandom so it depends who you ask. It could be 

Rotten women: this is the most technical translation and I’m pretty sure the actual word is a pun about rotten eggs or something. It means rotten as in spoiled, as in “spoiled for marriage” 

A derogatory term for women who are ruined for marriage because they like gay porn 

Women who likes gays porn 

Women who like BL/boy love. The male equivalent is fudanshi. BL is gay mlm romance genre for manga. GL is for girl love, but I think GL is less popular of a genre/not really a thing. I’m pretty sure the porn equivalent is yaoi for gay porn and yuri for lesbian porn(still talking about manga/anime) but I could be wrong. BL and yaoi might mean the same thing I’m not sure. The important part here is fujoshi is for women who like BL and fudanshi is for men who like BL. This is the most correct term unless someone is trying to use it as an insult. I’m pretty sure this is what comes up when you google it. 

Straight women who fetishizes gay men

Transphobic term for a trans man that actually just a “straight women who fetishes gay men” 

(me still talking to my friend) 

Now if you’re wondering why all this exists we need to go back to the early 2000s and I’m pretty sure 4chan. If I’m right, fujoshi already meant rotten women and was used to describe a woman who was ruined for marriage, but around this time it started being used specifically against women for liking gay porn/ BL manga. An intersection of misogyny and homophobia where women aren’t just ruined by jacking off, but even more ruined if they jack off to gay porn. Oh no the horror! How will women ever marry straight men if she masturbated to gay men? She is now ruined for straight men. I find this whole thing absurd, but honestly I forget that people “aren’t supposed to even masturbate” before marriage. Got to keep yourself completely pure I guess. Like I understand the concept of not having sex before marriage(even if I really don’t agree) because I grew up hearing that but the idea that you shouldn’t even masturbate or you’ll be ruined is so stupid to me it makes my brain short circuit. And of course it's misogynistic as all hell. At this time it's a Japanese term used in Japan against Japanese women and it's later reclaimed by Japanese women. Reclaimed as in “wait you guys can have porn and be horny but we can’t!? Well fuck you then I am rotten woman and you can go fuck yourself” At least thats what I think they mean when they say its a “reclaimed word” All I know is that its a misogynist term used against japanese women then reclaimed by said women. This is when “it just means women who like BL definition starts” 

Short time later it slowly but surely gets used in western fandom by people(mostly women) who ship mlm and by women who like BL and in the latter case it literally means that. This is when “it means a woman who fetishes gay men '' crops up Now I wasn't around at this time and there's a lot of mud throwing and shit when people talk about early tumblr and shipping culture. From what I can tell lots of time it was just used as an insult against people who shipped gay stuff, but there were women who would act gross towards gay men. My opinion is that is kinda like lesbian porn. I don’t give shit if someone like lesbian porn. I give a shit if someone is gross to me personally, like a guy wanting to watch me giss my friend, but its non of my business what kinda porn someone likes. What a weird thing to give a fuck about. And shipping isn’t even always porn! Lots of times its just porn, but lots of times its just about the most interesting relationship on screen which normally isn’t the romantic one. I have a whole theory that the most popular ships being between friendships not romantic leads is because romantic story lines aren’t great. Take zuko and katara vs aang and katara. Zuko and katara have a whole arc where they learn to trust each other and we see their relationship grow and change, but with aang and katara we mostly only watch them crushing on each other which is just not as interesting. 

I said more about how the term gets pretty transphobic and how fetishization is a good criticism lots of times but i’m pretty sure I’m out of words lol 

--

腐女子 is a pun on 婦女子. They're both 'fujoshi'. The 'fu' character means 'rotten' or 'fermented' as in tofu: 豆腐.

English-speaking antis are just morons about language along with everything else and completely misrepresent this word.

Yeah, it was 2chan crying that girls liked something other than them and then women being like "Joke's on you: I'm proud of that".

(In general, insecure douchebags dislike their partners masturbating because they foolishly assume that if a partner has zero experience, they won't be measuring the douchebag against anything. In reality, you can tell if sex was bad without anything to compare it to.)

BL is a genre term for m/m stuff aimed at an assumed female audience. It tends towards romances, but that's not the definition AFAIK. I imagine that women who like gei komi probably also call themselves fujoshi, but the point of the 'fudanshi' term is to denote men who like the "for girls" stuff, not just gei komi.

Is GL used much? I usually see queer women using 'yuri' to talk about f/f manga.

You can drop that "porn equivalent" nonsense though. Aside from some English-language fanfic, there has not been a consistent terminology for softcore vs. hardcore. Both 'BL' and 'yuri' can cover the full spectrum of content.

[femmeroi]

You SHOULD talk about Manjoume Jun's queerness, he's an icon and that's an essay I'd love to read

I SHOULD !!! Jun is my (4th) favourite nasty dude hes so hes so hes o so so so. His gender game is so immaculate and he is only maybe a he/they on a good day. He’s playing 5d gender chess in a uno world. He has so many layers even he isn’t ready to pull them all back yet. His he/him pronouns are an unanswered prayer. He pays child support for masculine terms, they're all he has left after the divorce. I think he always has one foot in the closet, I don’t think he ever really got over his brother's abuse, and if he didn't have friends like Fubuki he’d never accept himself. Even when he accepts himself it's in a very limited way. He's flamboyant, he's unapologetic, he's afraid. To ME he is a nonbinary trans woman gay man, he's a faggot woman, and I think that's beautiful. 

GX as a whole can be read in a very queer way when you consider the ties between familial relationships, duel spirit relationships, and personal acceptance. This tie is most obvious in Jun, who has a solid and obvious arc centering these three aspects. Even then, I feel like people often misinterpret or waterdown his. Everything.

Under the read more is a very long breakdown of my thoughts. If something doesn't make sense, sorry, I have divine madness and a fever.

I’m going to start off with his family, everyone knows them, everyone hates them, and everyone misunderstands them. People often fall into the belief that after his duel with Chosaku, Jun obtained some kind of absolute freedom from his family, often even saying he cut them off. I don’t believe this is entirely correct or incorrect, it’s a belief that's in the right direction while missing the nuance of his situation. Jun’s familial arc isn't about severing ties or escaping abusive structures, it’s about easing the pain by gaining respect. Jun still has a role within the Manjoume Group after his duel with Chosaku, the difference is that after their duel he got their trust. It’s with that trust he got a semblance of freedom, and I believe people often conflate that freedom with absolute liberation.

Jun still works for his family, he is still under their influence, they are just more hands off about it now than before. I say this because his role in the Manjoume Group clearly means a lot to Jun, this is seen through his displays of wealth and his insistence to be called “Manjoume” long after everyone is on a first name basis. He's even seen using the Manjoume Groups money and name to renovate facilities within the school, and if you think that's something an estranged family would allow I have. Serious questions. Like what's your estranged parents credit card number. His connection to the Manjoume Group is only reinforced in season four, where his intention isn’t to get away from his family rather it is to prove himself worthy to his family. His role in the Manjoume Group is also recognized by other characters, which shows that even publicly he is affiliated with them.

All that said, Jun’s brothers are still extremely controlling and abusive people. My dearest mutual (also the very person to send the ask. Hi friend <3) Ren Krakenshaped said one of the minor themes of GX is, “[The] negative influences in your childhood [and how they] can affect you liberating yourself from those negative influences.” I absolutely love the way they worded it and I can’t agree more. I’m putting this here not just to hype her up but also to expand on it in relation to Jun. While I believe Jun's familial arc isn't about absolute liberation, he still gets a semblance of freedom as I mentioned before. He's able to use the cards he wants and he has less pressure to be absolutely perfect, but he still acts as a representative for his family.

The pressure he's under is still present, showing itself in a lesser way through his self-deprecating comments, inferiority complex, and his fear of failure. I think it's important for people to recognize the presence and control that the Manjoume Group still has on him even after his moment of “liberation” against Chosaku. Not everyone can and not everyone will escape the negative influences in their life. There's a lot that can be done with the balance Jun has achieved with his family, but he still does have to play by their rules. 

Now that I got the familial situation outlined, it’s time to talk about his duel spirits ! And I promise I WILL bring this all around to his queerness. I prommy. Hold on with me for another couple hundred words. Unlike Johan, Yusuke, and Judai, Jun didn't have some innate connection to duel spirits. His ability to see and interact with the spirits appeared later in life, more specifically during the worst part of his life up to that point. Jun was under pressure to be the perfect child, and then he got demoted from the Obelisk Blue dorms, and then he got stranded at sea, and then his deck got stolen. And at some point in all of that, he started seeing duel spirits.

I think two things were integral to his awakening, the first was his need to grow as a duelist, and the second was isolation. His need for growth comes from him failing to live up to his family's name, but the growth itself happens when his family is absent. After getting stranded at sea, Jun had no line of communication with his brothers, and he didn’t regain communication with them until he went back to the Central Duel Academia campus. On top of that the people in North Academy seem not to know- or care in case of the headmaster- about Jun’s family name. With this Jun is temporarily freed from the expectations his family and peers place onto him- and instead he is able to focus on growing in his own way. It’s at the North Academy Jun is able to solidify his persona, and it’s at the North Academy he is able to start building his own deck instead of using whatever his family provides.

His individualism and desperation leads him to Ojama Yellow, his need to keep his family life and dueling life separate leads him to the other two Ojama brothers, and his first steps in the professional field created the card Pride Shout. His growth as a duelist, and his relationship with his spirit partners, is linked to the distance he has from his family. His communication with duel spirits, while a physical reality in the show, also functions as a device to show Juns road to self actualization as he comes to terms with his own identity.

And then we get to the actual treatment of his duel spirits. It's made clear through the anime that he does like his duel spirits, and that they know it. He has several decks, not because he's some great duelist like Daichi, but because he cares for the spirits attached to them. And if a card has no purpose he will make them one- either through strategy or by making a whole new card out of pure will.

Despite all this, hes a fucking asshole to his duel spirits. He writes on their cards, he yells at them, he hits them, he throws them in the dirt. While a lot of this behavior is easy to write off as “typical tsundere Jun” or as a gag, I can't help but wonder what's so different between Fubuki, for example, and Ojama Yellow. They're both flamboyant, loud, and annoying. Maybe it's because Ojama Yellow is pathetic. Then what's the difference between Fubuki and the Dark Scorpions ? As a duelist, the decks function as an extension of his character, and his fate more often than not relies on their performance. All things considered, he should be treating them with respect.

I think, specifically for his deck, his distaste comes from the fact that they are an extension of him. Not because he has a horrifying inferiority complex, but because the spirits then function as a part of his identity that he can not control. He can choose the cards in his deck, for the most part, but he can not make the cards act in any specific way. And I don't necessarily think he wants to control how the spirits act, instead he happened to meet them during a time he had no semblance of control after spending years of his life curating a very specific image for himself and he had a hard time coping with the fact that everything he worked for may very well disappear soon if he doesnt start acting in a specific way once again. This is also why he starts being nicer to his cards in season four, the moment he gets his identity back, the moment he has a direction in life, he calls Ojama Yellow his ace. Love !

So like. Why did I say all of that ? Well, I feel like outlining how his familial relationship actually works and how he manages things like duel spirits is really important to understanding how he’d approach a queer identity- and thanks to bandit Keith homophobia is ambiguously cannon and I’m going to accept all the baggage that comes with. I see a lot of queer readings of Jun’s journey begin and end with Chosaku’s duel, or be reduced to “well the card's name is Pride Shout.” And that’s. Not it. To me, Jun’s queer journey never did begin. Not on the outside at least. The duality between his flashy attire and self image issues, the contrast between his free going deck and his need to uphold the family name, the lingering control that the Manjoume group has on him through Chosaku and through public perception, it all just feels so closeted to me. I love that Jun was able to find a part of himself, but he was never able to fully embrace it out of shame until the very last duel of his. I love how he holds onto fear even after that moment. I love how much Jun does without actually doing, I love how he found a way to be himself despite living under his family's expectations, I love how genuinely stifling it is for him, I love how he never stops trying anyway. I think his character is best served in the closet, I think he needs to leave his family, but I dont think it's that easy for him. It's really hard to grow past the negative influences in your life when you set them as your goal.

Anyway nonbinary trans woman gay man Manjoume Jun realness !

[elbiotipo]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

Honestly? I have no idea. The answer to your questions could take whole books. Indeed they must have.

I actually don't understand what makes sexuality or gender, on its current definitions, work. I doubt we will ever get a single answer. For sure there is an inborn component to it, I have gay friends who have told me they had same-sex crushes from kindergarter. I also don't think one can't discount cultural or enviromental developments. I'm not sure, for example, how strong my own same-sex attraction is, but I know I wouldn't have even considered it if I didn't know about the possibility (many people on my own friend circle don't even understand how something such as bisexuality exists). I don't believe sexuality or gender can be defined in "boxes" or even clear cut identities. I have a lesbian friend who tells me she has lots of men who are 'an exception' to her, I've met people who cross-dress without thinking of themselves as transgender, or a trans man who considers his life as a woman as just another phase and dislikes the "deadname" concept.

From a purely biological evolutionary perspective, I think that sexuality, as in, sex for pleasure, is a bonding activity. It's a parallel of what surged in lion prides or cat colonies "why fight when we can love instead", except humans were descended from social beings, so sexuality was inherent to us. As for gender, despite obvious anatomical differences, humans are rather similar between biological sexes, we really don't have that much differences beyond those found culturally. We are more like wolves than lions in that aspect.

As humans are cultural beings and we take what we find in nature and process it into abstract terms, we have created a large "structure", is that the right word? around gender and sexuality, among different cultures and times. I don't believe there is a single correct way to interpret such things, only that it seems inherent to us, obviously, as biological beings to seek sex for procreation and also for pleasure and social bonding, and from there all the complexity arises.

I don't want to say most humans are "pan/bi" because that makes no sense, but I will say that people seem to be inborn with certain preferences to a biological sex or another, but that those traits are more flexible than we think, and that they can be changed to a certain extent by cultural and enviromental factors.

I'm sure there are authors that have explored these topics better than me.

[starry-skies-116]

Times I should've realized I was trans af-🏳️‍⚧️⚧🏳️‍⚧️

Back in 3rd grade, when my hair grew long enough, I’d tie it up into a ponytail, drape the hair over my head to make it look like a masc haircut, clip it so that it would stay in place, and then place a beanie over it to cover the clips. I’d always be in the school restrooms, pretending to be a man. One time I even walked into the boys restroom during recess- that moment for me was the most euphoric moment in my entire year of third grade.

One time, I wanted to a little social experiment at 13- this was before I got my first period. I went out masquerading as a boy with my Mum, and the shopowner called me ‘handsome’ and praised my mom for ‘raising such a good son’. I felt so happy until my Mum corrected the shopowner that I was a ‘girl’. Thanks, Mum. /sarc

I LOVED pixie and boycuts, but my mom forbade me from getting one (hence me doing the shit I did in number one).

When I learned the term ‘transgender’, I thought that it couldn’t possibly me me due to the stereotypes that have been implanted forcibly inside my head about gender roles. Then, as I watched more and more trans youtubers and videos and learned more and more, I realized “Hey, this shit actually fits me”. Sometimes I didn't feel any gender at all (agender moment-)

One time, I accidentally walked in on a guy peeing in first grade because his dumbass forgot to lock the door. I got chewed out by my disgusting and toxic first grade teacher way more than I should have, but it was in that moment that I realized “Damn. I wish I was born a guy.”

My original favorite colors were purple, blue, yellow, black and white. I was just brainwashed into being forced to like pink by my family because “OH YOU’RE A GIRL YOU HAVE TO LIKE PINK.” I was so uncomfortable with that statement, and aggressively tried to follow it to please my family until my friend said “There’s no such thing as boy or girl things, you do you.” So thank you, friend from elementary school, I owe you everything. 😀

Over Christmas, I’d always watch my cis friends get what they want as gifts. I’d ask for legos and dolls, they’d give me the ‘feminine’ version. I’d ask for new shoes, they’d give me those god-awful neon pink and purple ones. I’d want transformers action figures, they’d give me Monster High dolls. Not that I don’t like Monster High, but still. TF my mates.

I’d always want to attend the parties and community gatherings of the men in our community, and my Dad would jokingly say he’d bring me along if I was a man. My heart would never fail to NOT sink at such a statement.

MULAN.

Doesn’t matter if you think of Mulan as transmasc, transfem, nonbinary, cisgender or literally anything else. Every trans child watching this literally went *vine boom*. INCLUDING ME. YOU CAN’T DENY THAT, BUDDY.

Whenever my Mum would joke about me getting married to a man and having children, I would feel incredibly uncomfortable and ask to change the topic. Of course, they obliged, but the sour taste wouldn’t leave for at least an entire week- and that’s rich coming from me, because my ADHD ass usually forget things very quickly (could also be an intersex moment- I have a weird-ass relationship with ‘biological sex’).

When I got my first period at 13 years old, it was very light, just barely noticeable bleeding. It didn’t make me feel all too dysphoric, and I thought to myself: “Y’know, maybe having a period isn’t so bad.” That is, until my parents threw a Voni ceremony, a ceremony celebrating when an AFAB has her first menustration and she’s deemed physically and spiritually a young woman. It was SO awful, dolled up in makeup and jewelry and dressed up in all the saris they forced me to wear. I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror, but it would’ve broken my heart to shatter the happy expressions of my grandparents. Why couldn’t I have just been their grandson and not their granddaughter…? Actually, y’know what, screw it- even if I was born a guy, I probably still would’ve been trans. (enby moment-)

I was actually happy when me and my mother learned from my doctor that I had PCOS and was thereby intersex at 14. There was an explanation for my hair growth! I liked my body and facial hair- but then came when my mother subjected me to torturous monthly waxing appointments, diets, and forced birth control pills. They even told me I had a ‘high testosterone content’, discussing estrogen treatment, and referred to me as a ‘young lady’ throughout it all. It took all my effort to not cry on the way home.

One time, all my loose shirts were in the washer, so I had to wear a tight shirt. Not only was my autistic ass screaming at how tight and uncomfortable the fabric was, but at how it showed my chest. People were staring- they never commented, but I could already imagine their thoughts. I never wanted to perish more than in that very moment.

The only things I like about my current body are my hips and thighs. Oh, and my thick-ass sideburns, facial and bodily hair, and eyebrows.

I really want to be broad like an AMAB, have a deeper voice like a guy. I’d occasionally ask my parents ‘well what if I was a boy’ or say shit like ‘I wish I was a boy’. I still do.

[woman-defined]

non-passing trans women and men are included lol i literally pointed to muscular and masc amab women.

you can be hyperfeminine, have boobs and a vagina yet still be male. because male is a social perception, a construct. it is not a body type, it is a masculine identity and many bodies with vaginas can be perceived as of sperm producing origin. same vice versa.

when i say cultural meaning of woman, i mean like being seen as a feminine ova producer. (btw femininity is not pink and dresses, its an essence)

Your entire definition, if I actually managed to get it because your definitions are so confusing and circular that I’m really struggling to follow, is that being a woman means being perceived as being an adult human female. You’re free to correct me about that but, again, I’m not expecting anything because all your definitions are so convoluted and purposefully confusing because you can’t admit that it’s basically just stereotypes because you don’t want to admit that it’s stereotypes.

Anyway, this means that non-passing trans women aren’t women because they are not perceived to be women/female by the vast majority of society. That’s the problem with relying on other people’s perceptions as part of your definitions: you’re basically saying that other people must perceive trans women as being female (or an ‘ova producer’ as you say) and that’s blatantly untrue and the only way you can deny that would be to deny that misgendering exists.

I then asked you what you meant by cultural meaning without including stereotypes and you then provided me with a definition which literally has stereotypes in it (‘feminine’). You literally said being seen as a feminine ova producer which is just fucking stereotypes, despite how much you deny it!

All in all: you definition relies on stereotypes, despite how much you want to deny it because it’s all about cultural and social perception which is just stereotypes. And non-passing trans people are inherently excluded from your definitions of man and women because society will perceive them as their biological sex, not the way they identify. You can’t just say that words mean exactly what you want them to mean and expect people to just go along with them, especially when you refuse to provide coherent definitions for them.

So I ask you to provide a coherent definition of the word woman once again. Here are the restrictions I’ve put in place (these are mostly set out in my pinned post):

-You cannot use vague phrases like ‘it’s a feeling’ or ‘having an essence’. If you use these phrases, you must then describe exactly what that feeling/essence is

-You cannot use circular reasoning (eg: a woman is a woman)

-If you define woman as being female or experience womanhood, you must then coherently define what those terms mean. Otherwise, I’m going to assume it’s circular reasoning and therefore incoherent.

-You cannot use stereotypes. That’s misogyny. This includes anything about femininity or being feminine (unless you want to specifically describe what a feminine essence is without using stereotypes)

-If you use anything like social or cultural expectations/perception, then I’m going to write this off as stereotypes and say non-passing trans people are excluded. (Again, unless you can specifically describe what you mean by these terms without circular reasoning or stereotypes.)

-You haven’t included this anywhere, but anything like ‘brain sex/gender’ is also off the table as this has been debunked

It shouldn’t be hard for you to write one post with just your definition(s) lined up, right? I think it’ll provide a lot of clarity rather than me trying to pull out definitions from the multiple posts that you have provided. I’ll even get it started for you:

Woman: [insert definition]

Female: [insert definition]

Social Perception: [insert definition]

Cultural Meaning (of woman): [insert definition]

Feminine Essence: [insert definition]

[livingecho-arch]

GENDER . . . . . again probably idk if i wrote this before but im sure its changed . gender is very fluid . is like soup . got noodles in it . heres his pronoun page again . 

you can’t masculinize vis that's illegal but feminizing is okay but only sometimes . when he loves a woman it’s more like lesbians but when hes with a man it’s not like two gay men but its not straight either . dating him makes you gay somehow . anyway i hope that clears that up ♡. 

in a more serious sense ⸻ pinning down his gender is very difficult i don’t think he even knows how to express it . he’s not a man even though most people use he / him to address him . but not really a woman either . but to try to place him so neatly in between is wrong as well . there isn’t a right answer because this isn’t a question . it’s just how he is . 

vis enjoys being feminized because to him , that means you don’t think he’s a man . he would rather take the more ❛ feminine ❜ role in relationships rather than the ❛ masculine ❜ one . simply put he does rather lean slightly closer to being seen as a ❛ woman ❜ but when beau forced that role onto him it was utterly suffocating . vis needs to be able to be fluid , ever changing like the seas . he likes it when you remain gender neutral with him but i think he would like it more if you mixed the gendered terms . call him miss but then use he / him . say she but then call him handsome . you can’t insult him by using a wrong pronoun . he will , however , correct you if you call him a man & say ❛ person .❜ not so much if you called him a woman . he would feel giddy at the idea you think he’s womanly enough to be called such . but he’s not a transwoman . he just leans a little closer to the feminine ?

i think if you asked him he would just vaguely gesture with furrowed brows & then go back to doing paperwork . 

gender neutral terms to use are : person , being , shadow , shade , professor , alpha .

tiny note : gender roles are stupid but as a trans man some stereotypical man things make my heart do the smiley face emoji so like ya know ........ they are only good when they make you happy !

[duckprintspress]

Advice for Writing Trans Male Characters

Hi everyone, and welcome to our second guest post! We approached a trans man, and fellow writer, to put together a list of suggestions for cis people who want to write trans male characters! He has chosen to remain anonymous. Always remember, there is no one trans experience, and no one trans person’s knowledge will reflect the range of ways that trans people live. Our post author writes from his perspective, based on his knowledge and research, and much of this is relatively specific to the modern United States. Always use multiple sources when writing a character with an identity or identities that you don’t share!

*

So, you want to write a trans male character but you're not a trans man yourself. Good! We need more trans male characters out there in the world. There are a few things to consider, however. This is not a perfect list (I would never claim to be perfect), but here are some thoughts from a trans man about writing people like me.

Trans men are men. They talk like men, think like men, and walk like men, except where socialization as women has forced otherwise. By this I mean that descriptions should not include things like “he walked delicately, like a woman”. However he walks, it's like a man, because he’s a man. Other characters should not note that he “thinks like a woman” or that he “acts like a woman.” If you talk about a trans man transitioning and you mention that he is working on ways to masculinize his speech patterns or walking, that's fine, but make sure it's done from his perspective, e.g. “Michael tried to lower his voice, attempting to sound more like his father.” Do not use “Michael tried to lower his voice, not wanting to sound like a woman.” It's his voice and he sounds like a man. Also, many woman have deeper registers and many men have higher registers, and there's honestly not that much difference between a woman who speaks in a low alto and a man who speaks in a high tenor. Avoid gendering voices, mannerisms, and other things. A good rule of thumb is that if it's a concept, idea, or an inanimate or non-sentient thing, it is physically and/or emotionally incapable of having a gender and you should not assign one to it.

1. A trans man who has decided that all he needs to do is come out to be a man is still a man, with a man's body and male genitals, because he says he's a man. Even if he is not out, he is a man. He can be uncomfortable with his body, or with how others perceive his body, but it should not be described in terms of “womanly” aspects.

EX: David's breasts made him uncomfortable, reminding him that others looked at him differently than how he would have liked.

2. 72% of trans men do not ever want full gender reassignment surgery, and this doesn’t make them “less of a man.” The surgeries are expensive, invasive, and don’t always result in a fully functional genital apparatus. Also, there are a lot of them. A trans man, to have a full semi-working penis (one that will not be useful for sex but will at least be useful for urination), is looking at at least three surgeries: to remove the labia, to 'bulk up' the clitoris, and to move the urethra. There are also surgeries to remove the cervix and/or the uterus, to create a scrotum, and to add a pump inside the scrotum attached to a surgical implant in the penis to assist with arousal. Even if a man has all these surgeries, the penis he gets loses most of its sensitivity and won’t become physically aroused (as in, achieve erection) without medical intervention. He may also need electrolysis to remove pubic hair. Ultimately, many trans men opt not to deal with it. Many still want top surgery, or a hysterectomy, or both, and often testosterone is used to help deepen their voice and change their body shape (but, again, gendering a trans man's voice by suggesting it's “feminine” because he's not on testosterone or because his voice hasn't dropped yet is not a great idea). It depends on the type and amount of dysphoria a person experiences, versus their financial and mental ability to deal with the different choices. Some trans men are happy with no hormones and only top surgery. Others want or need everything. There is no “correct” way to be trans.

3. Unless your story revolves around their transition (which, as a cis person, maybe it's best you don't do, honestly), there’s no reason to go into detail about your trans male character's surgeries. If it’s not plot relevant, it's probably not necessary.

4. If you’re writing porn, make sure to always use male pronouns for him, even if he has chosen not to go through surgery. If he has gone through surgery, what he has will be indistinguishable from a cis male penis except that he may need viagra or a surgical pump.

5. Reactions to testosterone are different for every trans man. Some men never have their voices drop, never grow a beard, and/or never bulk up and get all muscle-y. Some men are on testosterone for two weeks and have a Gandalf beard with a voice low enough to sing bass. It just depends, mostly on genetics. If your character's father is a super hairy mountain man who sings bass in his lumberjack quartet, then your character is more likely to end up similar. If your character's father is basically an elf, then he's likely to be similar to that. Also, for a number of reasons, a trans man may choose not to or may be incapable of taking testosterone. Most doctors won’t prescribe it if the man wants to carry his own children in the future, for example.

6. Keep in mind that the order in which testosterone produces effects on a man’s body isn’t predictable, so don't worry too hard about 'getting it right.' Even trans men can't predict what they'll look like after being on testosterone for a while.

7. Also, a note: If your character is transmasculine and nonbinary, and taking testosterone, it's likely they will be on a lower dose than a trans man. That's not always true, but testosterone can be given at a few different doses, depending on how drastic a change a person wants and how quickly they want that change to occur. There’s still no guarantee: a trans man may never be able to grow a beard on a full dose, while a transmasculine nonbinary person might be on a very low dose and have a beard within the first month. But, generally, lower doses are meant to bring out smaller changes over a longer period of time, while higher doses are meant to bring out larger changes over a shorter period of time.

8. A non-fluid trans man is going to consider himself a man at all times, and always use he/him pronouns for himself, whether or not everyone else does. If you're writing a trans man point-of-view piece where he's not out or where he's not fully accepted, make sure he or the narrator always uses the right pronouns when others don't. That helps remind your audience that he's not the person other people think he is.

EX: Daniel was frustrated. His grandmother insisted on calling him “Sarah” no matter how many times he corrected her.

9. Menstruation is a difficult topic for a lot of trans men. Some men lose their ability to menstruate when they take testosterone, while others continue to menstruate. If they retain their uterus, however, the possibility of a menstrual cycle is always there. If/when menstruation happens for a trans man, it's often a time of major dysphoria. A trans man may have a lot of issues surrounding menstruation. Having a cervix also means yearly Pap smears, which can also be uncomfortable or dysphoria-inducing. Dysphoria can also happen during ovulation, when a person is most fertile. The body during this time is “getting ready for a baby” and the changes can be very triggering.

10. Testosterone may stop menstruation, but it doesn't necessarily stop pregnancy. Also, some trans men will go off their testosterone in order to carry their own child. During their pregnancy, it is important that they are still referred to as men. A trans man will generally prefer to be called “father” even if he carried the child, but some may prefer the term “mother.” If a cis person wishes to write a pregnant trans character, it would be better to err on the side of caution and use “father.” A trans man who has gone through top surgery will not likely be able to nurse his own children, but a man who has chosen to use a binder instead will be able to (probably - some people don’t/can’t lactate for other reasons). Whether or not he chooses to will be up to him.

11. Gender Dysphoria is the medical diagnosis given to trans people who want to do any form of medical transitioning. Being transgender is not in and of itself a diagnosis. A person can be transgender and choose never to transition medically. Dysphoria is generally most clearly understood as a form of discomfort in the body you possess. Sometimes a person experiencing dysphoria is uncomfortable with their body no matter what. He doesn't like his breasts, for example, unless they are bound, no matter what his setting is, who is looking at him, etc. His dysphoria takes the form of nausea at the mere sight of them. Alternatively, some people only experience dysphoria relating to how others see them. For example, a man may not mind his breasts when he's alone, and he doesn't usually bind, but on a specific day while he wasn't binding someone glance at his breasts before calling him 'ma'am' and now he can't uncross his arms in case someone else looks his way. For some people dysphoria comes and goes, and they have good days and bad days. Also, images can be dysphoria-inducing. For example, seeing a pregnant person might remind a man that he has a uterus, and make him extremely uncomfortable all day. Other people may go several days, or weeks or months, without experiencing dysphoria, but when it hits it affects them for a long time or very severely. Or a person might experience dysphoria every day, as kind of a low-level mental fog they can't shake.

12. Gender Euphoria is as valid as Gender Dysphoria. Gender Euphoria is the idea that a person might be content in the body given to them, but will never be truly happy unless they make a change. These people can live their whole lives as the gender assigned to them at birth without severe mental issues or physical problems, but it's like living a life without color. They can do it, but if there's a way to get color back, why wouldn't they?

13. Changing names is complicated and takes time. It also differs in every state/country, and may need to be re-done when a trans man moves. In some states, all they need to change their name legally is a court order. In other areas, a trans man needs to have lived using their new name for a period of time, or have doctor’s notes and authorizations. Once the character has changed their name legally through the courts, they need to change their driver's license, banking information, insurance, work papers, social security information, passport, birth certificate, and any other documentation bearing their name. It can take anywhere from a month to a year or more, and is expensive, sometimes prohibitively so. It's okay to have a trans male character who goes by “Mark” but whose parents or grandparents refer to as “Melissa.” The important thing is to make sure narratively you are confirming that those people are wrong.

EX: “Melissa! It's nice to see you come to visit!” Mark's mom said. Mark cringed, hating the sound of his deadname, but he hadn't yet been able to convince his mother to use the right one.

14. Do not portray a character binding for more than eight hours or with unsafe binders in a positive light. Just don’t. Binding, even with professional/high-end binders, is not safe. It's a stopgap - safer than not binding at all for some people whose dysphoria is really bad. It constricts the lungs and can break ribs if not done properly. It can permanently alter a person's chest cage if done for an extensive period of time. It's a necessary evil for people who are waiting to get their surgery done, in order to keep them alive to have that surgery. It's not a permanent cure-all. Binding also can cause dysphoria. A person who doesn't have dysphoria surrounding his chest can develop it after wearing a binder. So, have your character bind safely, or discuss the issues surrounding unsafe binding. (And yes, this applies even in a fantasy setting or world where the technology may be different. A story is a story, but the impact it could have on a real trans man is potentially dangerous, so write with consideration, and if you do introduce a magical or technological solution to this, maintain awareness of the reality.)

15. Transitioning without an in-person support group is one of the most common factors in transitioning regret. Give your character someone to go to the doctor with them, someone to hold their hand when they get scared, someone to talk them through moments when they're unsure. No one who goes under the knife is always completely 100% sure all the time. They need a community. Surgery and hormones are scary, even if a trans man knows he wants them, and trying to go it alone can spell disaster.

16. Given that a trans man will consider himself a man, it can be challenging to make it clear to a reader that he’s trans. If he's the main/POV character, you can write him dealing with some dysphoria. For example, if you decide your character binds, mention that his breasts are bothering him particularly badly one day. Have him adjust his binder. Describe putting a binder on. That kind of thing. If he's a minor character, it can be more challenging, but you can still have him do things like adjust a binder. You could also mention surgical scars, if a character takes off their shirt. Another thing you can do is just have the main character remember a time “before Mark went by Mark” (for example). Another way is to have the character mention some way in which they are fighting for trans rights, and acknowledge that the issue is personal to them. Try not to use the deadname unless he’s facing an actual microaggression by another character. The narrative or narrator character should never deadname the character.

17. FTM is not an accepted term anymore, as it implies that a person was one thing and changed. Generally speaking, if a trans man is not genderfluid, then he was never female or a woman. Likewise, the phrase ���born in the wrong body” is not acceptable for use by cis people. The only real use it has is to explain dysphoria by transgender characters to cisgender characters who aren't inclined to listen or try to understand. The accepted term is AFAB, or Assigned Female At Birth. Keep in mind that terms and labels change with time, so do your research. For example, if you’re writing a historical piece, different terms may be more appropriate, and if you’re writing a modern current-day piece, understand that in ten or twenty years the terminology you use will likely have grown outdated.

18. The proper way to write the term is always “trans man” and never “transman”. Trans is an adjective describing a type of man, just like you might say an Asian man or a muscled man or a gay man. This comes back to the idea that a trans man is always a man, first and foremost.

19. An easy pitfall to avoid if your trans male character's setting is modern or modernesque is: Don't make the story all about their oppression. We are aware of the many ways in which the modern world is trying to oppress and harm the trans community, but trans men can still be happy and interesting people. They can have dysphoria without being depressed. They aren’t necessarily the “down in the dumps” character. Also, trans men have a long history of being activists, and are often erased in history, so don't be afraid to make your trans men an out-and-loud activist. Yes, terrible things have happened and continue to happen to trans men, and any trans man who has done any research into trans history will know about individuals like Brandon Teena. Trans men know the dangers they face. Knowing that bad things can and are happening doesn't mean a trans man can't find his own joy in life, despite things not being perfect.

20. Keep in mind when writing in historical settings that trans men have existed for as long as people have existed. Many trans men were able to go through life completely “undetected” until they died and those around them conducted culturally-common burial practices. It’s not unreasonable to have a trans man in Regency England, Yuan China, or Roman times. If you're writing about non-European-centric history, many cultures acknowledged those who didn’t present the way their AGAB (assigned gender at birth) would suggest, and do your research. Also, keep intersectionality in mind, and tread especially carefully when writing a trans man from a culture and period other than your own. This post is mostly applicable to trans men in the modern era, and especially in the United States. The trans male experience will be different in other places in the world, for people of different ages and of different religions and ethnicities and races, so the more traits your trans man has that are outside your own experience as a cis writer, the more you should consider if it’s wise for you write the story you have in mind, or if it might not be better to allow in-group members to tell those stories. And never forget - trans men can and are all things - all races, all religions, abled and disabled, etc. People have nuanced identities and multiple identifiers and trans is always only one of many.

21. In fantastical or science fiction settings, please always ask yourself if oppression of trans people or bigotry against them is even needed. Maybe a society doesn't assign gender at birth, but waits until a child is old enough to tell the society where they belong. Maybe a society reveres those who are under the transgender umbrella. Maybe children are considered genderless until they reach puberty. You have a million and one options; why limit yourself to what modern predominantly Western white Christian society says? If you do make a society that doesn't look anything like the modern world, for example they assign gender at age five, think about how that would affect society as a whole. What kind of pronouns would be used for children under five? Are young children genderless, or are they seen as genderfluid? What about people who age past five and are still genderless or genderfluid? What are the naming conventions for children?

22. There are mixed feelings regarding how a science fiction or fantasy setting should treat transitioning. Should it be an easy fix, with magic or advance science doing it instantly or nearly so? Or should it be difficult, reflecting the modern situation where the process often years before a person can feel “finished?” That's up to you. Trans people themselves are split on this, so there’s no pleasing everyone. Do your best, and whichever way you choose, make sure to tag it accurately or, for original fiction, be clear up front what approaches you’ve chosen, so people can choose not to read something that may make them uncomfortable at best or trigger them and profoundly harm them at worst.

Ultimately, your trans man is your character and you can do with him as you wish. Write responsibly, and do your research, and if you can, get a sensitivity reader or a beta who is a trans man.

So, go, diversify those stories, write the things, and present good representation! Happy writing!

[bardicbird]

gender/pronoun hcs for the mighty nein + essek because i am legally obligated to hit every character w/ my queerification beam

caleb - was born a guy and is comfortable being called a guy and using he/him but someone asks him if he’s a man and he’s like “uhh????? sure? maybe?” has that very Neurodivergent connection to gender where he doesn’t really understand the purpose or practicality of it so he just. doesn’t think about it. if you reallyyyy made him think abt it he’d probably say he/they pronouns are fine.

fjord - transgender babeyyyy. he transitioned somewhere around the time where he chilled w/ vandren a lot, and vandren was very supportive. fjord was the kinda kid who grew up aggressively not thinking about gender until someone went ‘hey if you want to be perceived as a boy that much than you probably are one’ and he went ‘oh . oh fuck.’ uses he/him !

beau - 100% nonbinary lesbian. definitely has that ‘i grew up in a household that forced rigid femininity on me so now I’m uncomfortable with it’ vibe. pretty much cool with all pronouns and will just kind of. shrug if you ask, but there are definitely situations where she does not want people to refer to her as a woman (especially around strangers or male authority figures). she’s totally cool with the nein using she/he/they .

yasha - guess what it’s another nonbinary lesbian. yasha has kinda just. demigirl vibes. where she’s fine being called a woman but she just doesn’t super see a point in connecting to any femininity or feelings of womanhood. views her gender similarly to caleb but in the girl way ! i think she would use she/they :]

veth - i mean., if you give me a whole trans allegory backstory I’m going to hc her as trans 😌 no one in the nein is cishet. probably transitioned pretty early in her life , before all the goblin shit went down, and probably even before she met yeza. uses she/her !

jester - trans girl jester !!! i also hc marion as not-totally-cis so she definitely had a supportive household growing up, and probably transitioned very early. even picked out a new name with her mom ! i think jester would just have a lot of fun with gender. she identifies solely as a girl, but looooves to fuck around with neopronouns and different expressions of her identity. she would probably go by she/her as well as just. a whole list of neopronouns that i can’t think of right now. maybe some themed around cute creatures and sweets :]

mollymauk - genderfluid legend. his gender is literally just ‘fuck around find out’. he is every gender at once, and likes to express this in many different ways. doesn’t give a fuck about pronouns: he uses all of them. and he will absolutely refer to himself as a man and a woman in the same sentence to confuse people. i don’t particularly think molly would be okay with it/its but he’d definitely be cool with other neopronouns ! xe/xir definitely comes to mind with him.

caduceus - gender??? we don’t know her. cad’s just vibing. pretty agender as things go but doesn’t use labels. everyone sort of assumes he just goes by he/him and he doesn’t bother to correct them because i mean. they’re not technically wrong; he just likes other pronouns as well. he would definitely call himself a man casually and then take a solid minute to laugh at himself because ‘oh my god that sounds so silly’. would mostly go by he/they but wouldn’t mind a she thrown in there from time to time !

essek - there is no way this floating dysphoria hoodie of a man is cis. i hc him as transmasc ! which creates some.. interesting connotations in terms of drow tradition. i’d like to think that that’s part of the reason why he keeps his hair short? bc traditionally drow men have long hair and when essek came out he was just like ‘ugh fuck this I’m not growing my hair out thats too much work’. i think he’d primarily use he/him but would be pleasantly surprised at an occasional they.

[manstrans]

the transandrophobia/transmisandry argument is so fucking exhausting because like you don’t really see this in other communities, at least not rn anyway. for example, and as a tmoc the first issue that pops up is obviously on the topic of racism, as a nonblack Latine i would never tell a nonlatine Black person that calling specific antiblack racism antiblackness is wrong or that they’re anti-Latine for it, and likewise a Black person would never say that calling out anti-Latine racism specifically is being antiblack. we both recognise the need to fucking call a spade a spade. it’s important to have the overarching umbrella of “racism” to describe general racism and xenophobia to describe xenophobia, but that doesn’t mean that words like antiblackness, anti-Latine hate, anti-Asian hate, or anti-Indigenous hatred/genocide/erasure are therefore unnecessary. that’s not how it works. but maybe this kind of thing is less common in communities of color because we have more overlap (for example, you can be AfroLatino, but you can’t really be a trans man and a trans woman in the sense of having the lived experiences of BOTH a binary trans man and a binary trans woman, and while bigender trans people who consider both their manhood and their womanhood to be trans do exist, it’s not the same as having your lived experience mesh both worlds together in the same way as being a mixed poc)

so maybe for a closer example, like, yes this was a prominent belief previously on queer tumblr, but now if someone says biphobia is “misplaced homophobia” or something in the year of our lord 2022, i would simply have to laugh because biphobia involves very specific things that aren’t directed at gay men and lesbians (the idea that we’re all cheaters/sluts, that we can’t pick a side or are confused gay/straight people, bi erasure, etc) as well as things that stem from general homophobia… or for example, if someone refused to acknowledge the fact that while homophobia specific to gay men and lesbophobia are related, they do have specific differences in the way they manifest (for example, lesbians having a higher risk of SA from cishets and corrective SA in particular, and being fetishised, while gay men are fetishised it’s in a different way and less mainstream because the cishet male gaze doesn’t allow for it, and gay men have a higher risk of hate crimes resulting in injury or death and not involving SA). and it’s the same with transmisogyny and transmisandry, they both stem from transphobia and misogyny (because newsflash, all transphobia was misogyny the whole time, asshole!), and they have a lot of similarities, but the way that transphobia manifests is different depending on the perceived sex of the victim. recognising the differences is important, and i see a lot of arguments against the use of the term(s) transmisandry or transandrophobia where people (and notably, this is mostly cis people who have no fucking stake in this at all) claim that trans men are saying transmisogyny doesn’t exist or the word is not important, which is far from what any of us have been saying—we’ve been saying that we ALL need language to talk about our specific issues without it being derailed to talk about how transphobia affects other trans people. we just won’t stand to let our issues be silenced or dismissed, because they frequently are and have been since people started even acknowledging trans people exist at all. i’ve met many, MANY people who don’t even know that trans men exist, much less any trans person who isn’t a binary woman or man. now that i pass, when i tell people im trans, if i don’t SPECIFICALLY say something about, like, idk casually mentioning my menstrual cycle or something specific to being transmasculine, ive noticed if i just say to someone “i’m trans” and they know my masculine legally changed name, they ask me what my name is because they assume i must be transfeminine, and the idea that i could be transmasculine doesn’t cross their mind for a damn second.

my point ran away from me a bit here but the point is, you should never, EVER try to take away the language a marginalised group uses to talk about their oppression, even if you’re also marginalised, but especially if you have privilege over them (ie the cis people who are involved in this argument, who, again, greatly outweigh the trans people opposing this language both in number and especially in social privilege, which honestly i think they’re intentionally leveraging both against us to tear the trans community apart because if we can’t stand together we WILL buckle under the weight of cis supremacy). and ESPECIALLY groups that are erased and shoved to the side in discussions of oppression, like bisexuals, intersex people, asexuals/aspecs and aromantics/arospecs, and of course also trans men in particular and transfeminine nonbinary/genderqueer people in particular. honestly noticing the similarities between the treatment of trans men and more visibly ‘masculine’ nonbinary/genderqueer people (including those who are transfeminine or transneutral with masculine secondary sex characteristics) is something that i think could help a lot to bridge the gap, because both trans men/transmascs who aren’t men but can pass as men at least partially, and transfeminine/transneutral nonbinary/gq people who can’t or don’t want to pass as women, are highly erased and silenced in the trans community and the queer community in general, from all sides. but idk. it just feels like we are starting here by asking for help and receiving so much rage and accusations of bigotry simply for asking to be recognised that i honestly worry about if this damage is already beyond repair :(

Thank you for sharing!!!

Yeah there's a lot of problems that some people intentionally exacerbate, but I don't think it's beyond repair even if it can seem like that sometimes

There's a lot of trans people of every demographic who support us! It can just get drowned out sometimes

I think it's important to seek them out so it's easier to form that solidarity

[thewhizzyhead]

a non-filipino's guide to trese: ep 1

So some of my mutuals decided to check out Trese aka the Netflix adaptation of the Filipino horror comic book series that I keep rambling about here and then since well um most of my mutuals aren’t from the Philippines fshfs I decided to make a long-ass post that basically consists of me rambling about the cultural context present in Trese with fun little tidbits about Filipino folklore. I’m not an expert on Filipino mythology so um I just typed out the stuff that I know and the stuff that I looked up on Wikipedia so um take this with a grain of salt aaaaa I’ll save the extensive google scholar research ramble on folklore present in Trese for another day.

I’ll try to find the sites where I got some of the information from cause um yea I kinda had a bit of a hard time finding the other shit so um once again, take the stuff here with a grain of salt. Also, feel free to add more info if you guys got any!

SO ANYWAYS ENJOY ME RAMBLING ABOUT EPISODE 1 OF TRESE WOO

+ MRT and LRT (Manila Metro Rail Transit and Light Rail Transit) are train systems in NCR (the capital region) and yea them suddenly stopping and malfunctioning in the middle of the goddamn rail is a daily occurrence and we have been trying to deal with this bullshit for years but alas, corruption and negligence are sweet sweet drugs.

+ When the MRT broke down, you'd see a red bee in the flashing billboard right? Well that's Jollibee and that's probably the most well-known fast food restaurant chain here heck there are even branches of it abroad!

+ According to many youtube comments along with other social media posts that I am way too tired to link here, the opening theme is an Ifugao ethnic song called Balluha'd Bayyauhen but with modern accompaniments and I think the song is about a fruit called a balluha that the character in the song tries to it but cannot swallow. (someone please correct me if I’m wrong here fjkfs)

+ The first um monster that we see Alexandra interact with is the White Lady of Balete Drive. White Ladies or “Kaperosa” are a type of female ghosts typically dressed in ghostly white dresses or similar garments. According to legend, she died in a car accident while driving along Balete Drive (a two lane street formerly lined with Balete Trees which are said to be a home for spirits and mysterious creatures) in Quezon City while other accounts say she died waiting for the arrival of her lover; others also say that she was a teenage girl who was run over and killed by a taxi driver at night and then buried around a Balete tree while another variation of the tale claims that a student from the University of the Philippines was sexually assaulted and killed by a taxi driver nearby and so said ghost haunts the street in search of her murderer. There are many other variations but according to local rumor, the legend was fabricated by a reporter in 1953 in order to make an interesting story. What remains consistent in many variations is that apparently taxi drivers would be stopped by a beautiful lady asking for a ride and if one would look at the rear window, they would see that the white lady in question is bruised and drenched in blood.

+ There are a lot of mentions about "lakans" and stuff in reference to Alex and her father right? In precolonial times, the term is used to refer to the paramount ruler or the highest-ranking political authorities in Tagalog communities (so um NCR and some parts of Region 4). In Muslim communities, they are called sultans while communities with strong trade connecitons with Indonesia or Malaysia called them Rajah. Datu is umm the more generalized term though when it comes to discussing the leaders of the precolonial Filipinos.

+ So, Alex’s mom is a babaylan and back in the pre-colonial period, each barangay (which a native filipino term for a village or a district; said term is still used today to describe um divisions in municipalities like) had them and these are basically Philippine shamans and they specialized in communicating with the spirits of the dead. To my knowledge, the role of babaylan went to women and yea people assigned male at birth but then identified as female were also allowed to become babaylans and they would be treated with the same respect given to any woman back then (honestly I dunno much about lgbtq+ stuff back in the precolonial times but all I know is that precolonial Filipinos were much a lot more welcoming towards trans identities bUT THEN THE SPANIARDS CAME AND UM ERR RUINED THAT); also the writing Alexandra's mom did in that one scene with the dagger is in Baybayin - preHispanic Filipino script. I dunno what she wrote down though. .

+ Also I kinda find it funny that the people here esp those who were at the White Lady scene are um,,, not at all surprised? Like yea quite a number of filipinos have their own superstitions and beliefs and all that but um yea the people in Trese seem very used to the bullshit,,,which in retrospect, isn't at all inaccurate fsdfd I MEAN WE DEAL WITH UNSURMOUNTABLE AMOUNTS OF BS ON A DAILY BASIS SO I DON’T THINK DEAD GHOSTS WOULD EVEN FAZE MANY FSKJDS

+ The one that appears right before Alexandra talks with the duwende (the one in the manhole) is called Laman Lupa (which i guess translates to um "What is in the earth"? just um YEA THEY ARE DIRT CREATURES). normally this is an umbrella term for duwendes and nunos but in Trese they are servants of these aforementioned creatures.

+ Duwende (which came from the Spanish phrase "dueno de case" which means "owner of the house") or dwarves in Filipino folklore are known to be mischievous and magical environmental guardians. They are believed to reside in trees or under earth mounds (those that live in the latter are called nuno sa pundo or old man of the mount) which is why quite a lot of Filipinos say "tabi tabi po" or “excuse me” when wandering around a forest or earth mounds as a sign of respect and in the hopes the duwende won't torment them. If the person is friendly, the duwende can also be friendly in return and will bring that person good lucl; otherwise, those who destroy their homes by stepping on them will face their wrath in form of heartless curse and predictions of ominous and disastrous fates. A duwende's color also depends on their budhi or conscience: to my knowledge, white duwendes are kind, red ones give protection amulets, green ones are firnedly with children and the black ones give nothing but trouble.

+ Chocnut aka the snack Alex bribes the nuno with is a very yummy chocolate snack made of coconut milk, crushed peanuts and cocoa powder. They are umm about an inch in length and maybe half an inch in width so it's fairly small; that being said I WANT THE CHOCNUT THAT ALEXANDRA HAS CAUSE HOT DAMN THAT'S A BIG CHOCNUT

+ In Trese, the creatures in the MRT scene and in the warehouse Alexandra visits after she talks with the duwende are called "aswang". In Philippine folklore, it is an umbrella term for any kind of monster so um an aswang in Luzon would be very different from the aswang in Mindanao. According to what I saw on wikipedia, they can be classified in 5 categories: the vampire (self-explanatory um they drink blood), the viscera sucker (the manananggal, i'll get to that next time), the weredog (cats and pigs are also possible but um yea they target pregnant women), the witch (self-explanatory boom curses and stuff) and the ghoul (they gather near trees in cemeteries to feast on human corpses). Aswangs are often described to have a long, hollow tongue, sharp claws and sharp teeth, although they do also have human forms.

+ To my knowledge, Ibwa, the leader of the aswangs in the warehouse, is a creature from Tinguian or Itneg mythology (they, like the Ifugao, are an indigenous ethnic group in northwestern Luzon) though I could be wrong about this dksfsf Ibwa seems like an ethnic filipino term tho wah I can't remember where I once read that. But anyways, Ibwa often stalk sthe house of a dying person to steal its body. In order for the ibwa to NOT succeed in that, some people burn holes in the garments of the dead and put a sharp iron object on top of the grave since those are most powerful weapons against aswangs which is what Alexandra uses to subdue the Ibwa and kill all the other aswangs (the knife alex uses is named Sinag which means "ray of light".)

+ ALSO I AM SO SO GLAD THEY KEPT THE FILIPINO SWEARS IN THE ENGLISH DUB YES YES THIS IS A VERY GOOD JOB so lemme discuss the versatility of tangina-

+ Also umm Bossing is a nickname of Vic Sotto - one of the three pioneer hosts of Eat Bulaga! which is the longest running Philippine noontime variety show. Over time, most probably due to the show's popularity, the term "bossing" then became um slang for "boss" or "chief"

+ Translation of what Alex says when she's stirring the eye inside the cup: “In the eyes of others, secrets will reveal themselves.”

+ Sidenote: The English dub's pronunciation of many of the tagalog lines are um yea they r pretty good but they could use a bit of work but then again I'm really not that good in speaking in Tagalog so who am I to judge gkdkf sorry po guys conyo po ako-

+ Maria Makiling is arguably the most famous of all the diwatas (ancestral spirits, nature spirits, or deities) in Philippine Mythology; she is associated with Mount Makiling in Laguna as the guardian spirit of the mountain. Mount Makiling is said to resemble a profile of a woman and people associate the profile with Maria herself. She is also known as a goddess by the name of Dayang Masalanta and people would pray to her for safety and to stop storms and earthquakes. That's the goddess Alexandra's mother mentions right when she tells Alex to hide. (Translation to what she said there: Maria Makiling, goddess of the mountain, bless us.)

+ ALSO YEA THAT MAYOR IN THE MRT STATION IS UMMM RATHER REMINISCENT OF MAAAANY POLITICIANS AND PUBLIC SERVANTS HERE LIKE BELIEVE ME I CAN THINK OF SO MANY NAMES RN. THEY WOULD FLAUNT THEIR MACHISMO AND PROMISE THAT THEY THEMSELVES SHALL PUNISH THE PERPETRATORS HARSHLY BUT IN THE END THEY DONT MEAN SHIT AND ARE IN OFFICE TO SERVE ONLY THEMSELVES AND TO SHIT ON THE REST ESP THOSE OF THE POORER SECTORS AND *NOTHING IS DONE ABOUT IT*. WE LIVE IN HELL OKAY. also hmm how the police are represented here is umm,,,interesting,,, like i know there are sOME good police officers like the ones alexandra assists but like,,,our current sociopolitical climate + the many cases showcasing the corruption in the police force + tHE SHEER AMOUNT OF POLICE BRUTALITY HERE would ummm beg to differ. but um anyways-

+ Also Mang Inasal posters can be seen in the MRT station backdrops and um it’s a very famous restaurant chain here and they serve lots of barbecue and other filipino stuffs and i miss them a lot God their halo halo is very yummy

+ Santelmo - oki so this is the fire face thingy that Alexandra summons inside the ruined train. This is the shortened version of the term "Apoy ni Santa Elmo" or "St. Elmo's Fire" - this is a weather phenomenon wherein plasma is created from an electrical discharge from a rod like object in an atmospheric electric field. This phenomenon was used to warn of imminent lightning strikes or storms (there is a chapter in Noli Me Tangere where Pilosopo Tasyo talks about that bUT I'LL SAVE THE NOLI ME TANGERE RAMBLES FOR ANOTHER DAY). But according to Philippine folklore, santelmos - which are said to be souls of people lost as sea - are balls of fire that appear where accidents or big arguments happen. In Trese, santelmos (alex's santelmo being "The Great Spirit of the Binondo Fire") can be called to assist in supernatural investigations

+ Translation of what Alex says when she draws the circles to meet with the purple ghosts: "Souls, where are you off to? I'll be entering too, so please open the door."

+ Remember the scene at the train with all the purple ghosts and the woman in a veil? Yea the woman is an emissary of a goddess named Ibu and she is the Manobo (again, another indigenous ethnic group but this time they're from Mindanao; fun fact we have around 134 ethnic groups) goddess of deceased mortals and the queen of the underworld; she also serves as a psychopomp and guides the newly deceased souls to the other side (having an MRT be the ride to the underworld isn’t in the legends tho so fkkjsf)

+ The aswang in the top hat is called Xa Mul and according to the Isneg/Apayao people (yay another ethnic group but this time in northern Luzon - the Cordillera regions to be specific), they are an evil spirit known to swallow people whole.

+ Alex has two henchmen right? Yea they are named Crispin and Basillio and No I still don’t know who’s who and I'm really sorry about that fsfjs so anyways the names Crispin and Basillio are actually those of two brothers featured in the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo novels (Crispin is younger and Basilio is older) which are basically the national novels here cause um yea written by national hero Jose Rizal as sociopolitical commentary about the Spanish regime here. I don't know if I want to spoil this cause I kinda want other people to read the novel too fskfs BUT ALL IN ALL, ONE OF THEM DIES IN LIKE THE 10TH OR 11TH CHAPTER OF NOLI ME TANGERE (and the novel has 64 chapters btw) AND UM YEA-

+ OKI SO TO ADD MORE CONTEXT TO THE SQUATTER STUFFS MENTIONED IN TRESE (we r gonna use the tiny font here because holy shit this rant is long): So,in the Philippines, especially in the capital region, there are lots of slum areas called squatters. These are dense urban settlements made of compact makeshift housing units that aren't really officially recognized by the government. This is um very reflective of the poverty situation here and there are maaany factors that come into play here and if i were to go into depth about this topic, that rant would probably turn into an academic paper so for the sake of brevity, let's just say that Things Are Fucked Up Here. Oftentimes the poorer sectors are being ignored and left to their own devices despite tons of campaign promises to make things better and easier for them. The communities that live here are incredibly vulnerable to floods, fires, and the like and afaik no concrete solutions have been in effect to protect these people and their settlements. There have also been many times where squatter areas are dismantled or demolished despite protests of people living in those areas and yea I understand the need to make space and the need for renovation but the people should still be offered some sort of temporary settlement or financial compensation thingy that doESN'T fuck them over but alas, we have an anti-poor government. That being said, I really like Trese Ep 1's portrayal of governmental negligence, but I also have some thoughts, especially in regards to the mayor being arrested THAT FAST which um believe me, NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS BECAUSE MANY MAYORS AND A LOT OF POLITICIANS HAVE THE POLICE IN THEIR POCKETS SO UM ERR YEA JUSTICE IS RARELY A THING HERE BUT UM ANYWAYS YEA THE GOVERNMENT LIKES TO SHIT ON THE POOR WOO LET'S SAVE THE USE OF SOCIOLOGICAL LENS ON THIS MATTER FOR ANOTHER DAY

+ The news channel reporting the arrest of the mayor is ABC-ZNN WHICH IS AN OBVIOUS REFERENCE TO ABSCBN aka the top media conglomerate here (that has been fucked over by the government so many times to the point that they had to shut down operations last year which is all sorts of unfair so seeing them being referenced here kinda made me happy gksfks)

[bungoustraypups]

it’s honestly so funny to me when like. terfs and/or radfems try to claim afab trans people are only trans because patriarchy or whatever makes them “hate being feminine/hate their womanhood” like. bro idk how to tell you, not only do i love being feminine as an effeminate gay man (yknow, the thing a lot of gay cis men are also punished under the patriarchy for because the patriarchy simply views all femininity as bad no matter who is doing it, yes, that includes those “xy males” you keep going on and on about who don’t perform masculinity the way the patriarchy demands it be performed), i also do not hate “my” womanhood because it never existed? i can’t hate being a woman if i never was one and am not one???

even when i thought i was cis that was literally only because i didn’t know there was any other way to identify like. when i thought i was straight, i wasn’t doing it because i really was, it was because firstly i hadn’t realized even yet i was a non-binary man and very much not a woman (in fact i at first thought i was a lesbian! turns out i wasn’t attracted to the women, it was actually specifically masculinity in those women, not even the women themselves), and secondly because i simply hadn’t heard the other terms yet! it wasn’t even that my family wasn’t accepting i just didn’t know any other words because uh yknow that’s. how life works. you don’t know things, and then you learn them, and now you know them! wow! K-12 educations system basics summed up in a single sentence!

i wasn’t brainwashed or convinced by some nonexistant transgender genderist cult or whatever buzzword terfs and/or radfems are using for today’s news cycle. i literally had not met a single trans person in my life when i started identifying as trans! not in real life and not online either! it was a cis person actually who told me, upon hearing what i was feeling and had been feeling for as long as i could remember, that “hey you might wanna look up transgender resources” and i did it on my own!

oh, and guess what? at no point did me being trans, on its own, cause me suffering. i was dysphoric at one point because i had pre menstrual dysphoric disorder, which can affect cis women as well as anyone who is not a cis woman who also menstruates and has that disorder, but once i got the right combination of meds and such, my dysphoria lessened and eventually disappeared, and i don’t have it anymore. (i was on birth control for several years of the hormonal type but i’m not anymore, but even now i still don’t have PMDD symptoms and haven’t in like seven or eight years at least, my periods are also not as bad, but i’m also on like different meds in general from then so maybe some of it is that too idk really but i just don’t have it anymore)

i don’t want to “mutilate” myself or anything, i literally don’t want any surgery at all lmao. aside from general fear of surgery, i like my boobs, they’re fine and not that big a deal and honestly fun to play with too, i don’t want to “chop them off” or w/e, i don’t want a penis, i like the vagina i have, it works just fine and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it lmao, and a penis doesn’t make me any more of a man than your vagina makes you a woman (that is to say, penises don’t make men men and vaginas don’t make women women, no matter what your middle school biology textbook told you). all i really want is testosterone to achieve like... the standard of passing i wanna have, so that if i meet someone new, they won’t automatically assume i’m a woman without asking me and misgender me, which does actually bother me, because it’s disrespectful, not because of anything else. i don’t care about like, forcing anyone to accept me, idgaf if you accept me! you can use my name and correct pronouns without giving a single damn shit about me! it’s about basic human decency and respect and treating each other like human beings because that’s what we are unless yall wanna start claiming trans people aren’t human beings now which. man if you do that i can’t help you anymore LMAO so

[onlyfangz]

i know i’ve made text posts up to my ears on this, but trans men aren’t allowed to have external identities, and we aren’t allowed any type of gender presentation without it being criticized and forced out of us. we just aren’t.

the softboys had the safety of their identities ripped away by cis people taking it too far and applying softboy culture onto all trans men, and in turn caused a bunch of backlash from non-softboy trans men (specifically but not limited to tr*sc*m), and now softboys are seen as infantile, even when they’re not. at the same time all of this was happening, cis people started taking that culture and applying it to their fav cis characters, and then everybody decided because it was cis women applying the label to their soft fem cis male favs that it was cringey, and the cis girls cried sexism for shaming them of their interests, and trans softboys were pushed out of the conversation all together.

the fems have had their identities as trans men erased by cis people and other trans people alike, and spend their whole lives being reminded that if they’re not even going to try, they can’t expect any stranger to gender them correctly as if trying would even help. the same people who praise GNC cis men condemn GNC trans men because they don’t see us as men, they see us as women, and there’s nothing subversive about a woman dressing in womanly clothes. it’s so blatantly obvious, and yet everybody pretends like its’ not, especially when it’s pre-t trans men. there’s a difference between choosing to perform gender in a certain way, and being forced into a gender presentation by society. learn that difference, and listen to fem trans men when they speak.

the chaotic trans men, which probably isn’t the term for them but idk what is. the trans men who associate themselves with mess, and dirt, and cryptids, and “gross” animals, and androgyny, and well, chaos, are accused of stereotyping the rest of the transmasc community as being into that as well, when in fact it was cis people who can’t confront that no two trans men are the same and just because you see one subsection being really similar, everybody else isn’t automatically the same. they’re seen as cringey, or freaks. (much like the reaction to softboys, but i feel like the reception was different.)

the passing trans men, who don’t really tie themselves to extra identities listed but are still and always will be trans are told that their experiences don’t matter and that they’ve got access to some super extra special privilege that they use in the name of Evil, as if transphobia starts and ends with a stranger’s ability to tell that you’re trans. they’re held to impossibly high standards, higher than any cis person, woman or man, and if they slip, well isn’t that proof enough that they’re dangerous gender-traitors who were fated to be evil the moment they “decided” to be men? not to even start talking about the erasure of intersectionality some passing trans men still face, as if being a man lessens those struggles.

the hypermasc trans men, - and no, i did not say the toxically masculine trans men, they’re two different things, and the fact that i need to pre-emptively point that out is just a great way to start, - are seen as predators in their own community. are seen as traitors who uphold a gender binary. people get tunnel vision around hypermasc trans men and forget the goal of dismantling the patriarchy and the gender binary and all that jazz is giving people the option to present however they want, not forcing mascs (and fems, although not what im talking about here) into androgyny (which we’ve already discovered isn’t acceptable either) lest they be accused of sexism. the way bigots think of hypermasc trans men are that they’re actually women who have done the unforgiveable, they’ve actually became men, and therefore, should be forever scrutinized, because if we turn our backs for a second, they’re going to be raping and murdering our innocent little cis girls and forcing them to become men too.

i’m sure there’s so many other transmasc subsections and subcultures and presentations out there, but one by one, they’ve all been ripped away from us regardless of where you sit. if you’re closer to the fem side of trans masculinity, you’re a cringey straight girl in disguise, if you’re on the andro side of trans masculinity, you’re (again) cringey, a freak, who needs to stay away from polite queer society, and if you’re on the masc side of trans masculinity, you’re a dangerous predator that needs to be kept in line, bc otherwise you won’t be able to help yourself and become an evil dirty man for real. 

this isn’t my original thought, but to echo a reblogger from another text post of mine, these aren’t isolated incidents, or freak happenings, it’s a system at work, and that system believes that the only correct way to be a trans man is to not be one.

[neworleansspecial]

Summary: An instagram post Marjan makes is interpreted as a coming out post. This was not her intention.

WC: 1.6k | AO3

Warnings: Internalized Homophobia

This is quite possibly the worst outcome Marjan can think of. She posted the roller derby photos because her feed has been quite dead since the whole “cancelling of firefox” thing that happened. It’s something non-controversial, and she loves to show off her brilliant team mates in the way that she assumes most people feel about their friends. She wants the world to see these talented, confident, beautiful women the way she sees them. Marjan spent a few minutes meticulously tagging each member of the team in the photos she posted, lining up each black bar with the correct face. She figures it’s a good appreciation of these women.

What happens instead of her friends being showered in compliments is speculation Marjan could have never, ever predicted. She knows that many of her fans are gay, particularly gay young women. Young lesbians. It’s a fact that she keeps in the back of her mind for no reason at all other than to just know it. This majority, however, make themselves known in the aftermath of the photos being posted. 

Marjan reads a comment that simply states, “ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!” followed by a bunch of heart emojis and wonders what it means. One of what? She scrolls through the thousands of comments on her post and tries to make sense of them when she realizes the error she’s made. 

The team photo on the first slide was when they all went to pride together, since most of the members of the roller derby team are LGBT+ and wanted to go as a group. Marjan went as an ally, but failed to clarify this point when she posted it. The thought smacks her in the face. 

People think this post was her coming out.

And it’s too late to take it back, but Marjan deletes the post the moment she connects the dots. Her first thought is for her family, who follow her on instagram. Her mother. Her siblings. They likely already saw. Marjan can just imagine the horror in her mother’s voice over the phone, asking Marjan if it’s true. One of her little sisters is still in high school, she could get bullied if anyone thinks that she might be related to a gay person. It’s going to be a disaster. 

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

“Marjan?”

She looks up to see Mateo peeking into the bunk room. He looks concerned. 

“Cap sent me to get you for dinner. Are you okay?”

“It’s nothing,” she lies, quickly putting her phone into her pocket. “Paul cooked, right? So it should be pretty good.”

Mateo easily moves on from his first question, chatting about the salad he helped make to go with dinner, and Marjan is able to just nod along to his words without really paying attention or responding. She’s in so much trouble. The last time she checked, there’s already a handful of articles about her photo. People know. It’s only a matter of time before everyone she’s ever met to know about the alleged coming out. Just thinking about it has Marjan’s eyes stinging with tears. 

By the time she sits down in her seat at the table, she can feel all their eyes on her. Being calm and collected is kind of her thing, and she feels so unbearably seen right now, in ways she’s never wanted to be. They all wait for her to speak, but once they realize she’s not going to on her own, Paul reaches across the table to take one of her hands. 

“Marjan, what’s wrong? We’re all here for you.”

She glances around at them. They could dismiss her in disgust easily. But she knows TK is gay, and everyone seems okay with it. At the very least, she knows TK won’t let them say anything too bad about the situation. 

“I posted some roller derby photos, on instagram. Um, one of them was from pride.”

Mateo’s face lights up. “That was such a cool day! It was my first time going to pride, since I wasn’t, like, out before. I can see why you’d wanna post those photos.”

“People think it was a coming out post.” She glances around the table to see neutral faces. “They think I’m gay.”

At that, TK stabs his fork particularly hard into his dinner and shoots a look at her. “And what’s wrong with being gay, Marj?”

His words get Mateo’s attention, honing in on the hurt and the concept that Marjan could be something less than accepting. Mateo’s self-discovery of bisexuality is recent, recent enough that he’s still rather insecure in his open identity. She doesn’t want him to think she cares about this sort of thing, even if she kind of does. But only when it’s her. Other people can be gay, or bi, but she knows it’s not something that’s allowed to her. Her family would be devastated.

“Is there something wrong?” Mateo asks. 

Marjan rushes to say no as Judd lowers his head and folds his hands like he’s praying. 

“It’s not that, it’s just… I…”

“Are you?” Paul asks.

Everyone’s attention snaps to him, and then to Marjan. She can almost feel the blood drain from her face as they all turn with the same look on their face, the same question. It’s all a given what they’re asking. What they want to know. She can’t handle their rejection for this. 

“Marjan,” he says gently, “it’s okay if you’re LGBT. You know that us, of all people, are going to love and support and defend you no matter what.”

Marjan stands up from the table, her chair scooting back loudly. “I need some air.”

She all but runs to the stairs, hopping down each step to get to the doors on the first floor to the cool outside air. It’s a relief against her suddenly flushed cheeks. She knows she can’t be gay. It’s not allowed. She had a fiancé for most of her life. It was always a given that she’d marry a man, one of her family’s choosing, without much of her say in the matter. Of course she could veto someone, or say they weren’t right for her, but the fact is that her husband was always going to be chosen for her. There’s been no room, no time, for her to consider any other romantic pursuits, especially with a woman.

For the very first time, Marjan allows herself to think about that. About women, and the possibility of being in a romantic relationship with a woman. In her mind’s eye, the woman is generic. Dark hair, big eyes, soft skin. There’s no face, just the imagined feeling of curves under her hands, perhaps the softness of a breast pressed to her palm. Thinking about this for the very first time as a possibility overwhelms her with its suddenness. She feels especially guilty when the imagined woman begins to take the shape of one of her friends. This isn’t right. This is perverse, an intrusion, worse than peeping. 

She feels sick to her stomach as she sinks to sit against the wall. This isn’t okay. She should’ve never posted that picture, and then people wouldn’t be saying these things about her. If they never said those things, she wouldn’t be having the most upsetting realization of her life right now either. 

Marjan isn’t sure how long she’s sitting out on the asphalt before Paul comes out and joins her, taking a seat at her side. His warm shoulder meets hers in a silent comfort for nearly five full minutes before he speaks. 

“I was already an adult when I realized,” he says to her. “I didn’t ‘always know,’ at least not in my conscious mind. It wasn’t until I was already out in the world as a firefighter that I truly realized who I was, and that was really scary. I had a long road ahead of me, with a lot of self-discovery, and I had a lot of people to tell. I was terrified.”

“How did you know?” Marjan asks. “That you really are trans?”

Paul sighs. “I didn’t. I questioned it a lot when I was first beginning my transition. For some people, they just know, and they have for a long time, but I was both certain that I was a man and worried that I was doing it for attention. It was hard. I went to therapy for a long time, to understand myself and to help me do what was best for myself. I had a lot of internalized transphobia to work through. On top of that, I had thought I was a lesbian for a long time before I realized I wasn’t, so I kind of understand what you might be going through. Questioning your gender and your sexuality are really similar in a lot of ways, but incredibly different in others. Regardless of your journey, Marjan, whether you’re straight or not, it’s going to take a lot of reflection. All of us here at the 126 have your back. If you need to listen, or talk, or just be distracted, we’re all here for you. We love you, Marj. I love you. And if you need anything, I’m here.”

She leans into his side and he puts an arm around her for the closest approximation of a hug they can manage while sitting side-by-side on the ground. Marjan knows she has a long path ahead of her of understanding her sexuality, and not just in terms of orientation. What she wants in a relationship and how to have one are things she doesn’t really understand yet, and that’s something she’s going to have to confront to move forward in her life. She’s scared of what it means for her future. She’s scared of what her family will think. She’s scared of what the world will think. But as she sits beside Paul, it is clear that there are people who are going to support her no matter what. 

With that, she may be able to learn this about herself.

[porcelaintoybox23]

I just watched two really great retrospectives on Danganronpa 1 and 2 by NezumiVa and it got me thinking about Chirio and Yasu from Umineko.I’m hesitant to count either of these two as trans, Yasu especially. Note: I’m not attacking anyone’s arguments since I’ve read only Nezumi’s, which I think is great. These are just my thoughts on how these games mishandled these storylines.

Let’s start with Chihiro. I understand where the people who see him as trans are coming from, but the game has nothing supporting it. The people drawing an analogy to the trans experience remind me of those who do the same with Danny Phantom being trans. I see it, but if you think the creators were trying to put a subtle trans reference in these franchises I-Umineko has a much stronger case for this but gets it bungled. Chihiro doesn’t want to be a girl, he felt bad for “failing” to fit into society’s masculinity standards. This is not a feeling unique to the queer community. Many people, cis or otherwise, feel that they don’t fit into these expectations. I, for one, often feel less feminine due to my very small chest and lack of curves and that I’m bad at makeup and doing my hair. For a time I thought maybe I’m gnc or more masc aligned, but I felt uncomfortable when I changed my style. I’m not saying that this feeling isn’t a sign of being trans, just that it isn’t a definitive sign. The example is just my experience and only a perspective. Chihiro wearing “girl’s” clothing doesn’t make him a girl and he’s uncomfortable with being perceived as female. Honestly, it feels like another case of Japanese media pushing things way too far into the realm of insulting and offensive. Chihiro wanted to present as a man. Still not handled well.

Yasu…Yasu concerns me. I personally consider them nonbinary but their story is very problematic, for lack of a better term. Yasu didn’t make the conscious decision to identify as a woman (in the sense of discovering their gender as they grew up), it was forced upon them after an admittedly necessary corrective surgery. Yasu has male and female alter egos. I feel like a trans/nonbinary narrative was being put into the story intentionally as evidenced by the ambiguity of Lion’s gender. I would be fine with Yasu if it wasn’t for the surgery aspect since it hedges into the corrective surgeries done to intersex people.

Japan has a very problematic history with LGBT+ representation. Ryuji being kidnapped by those two gay men in either version of Persona 5 is horrendous and a serious stain on the game. The trans representation often is perverted or creepy. I think Danganronpa was just offensive. It’s not too out of line considering the treatment of Mikan and the chef guy who’s name I forgot. Umineko… I feel like the creator wanted to create genuine representation but was so vague about it that conflict arose. Creators can’t leave this stuff up in the air. If a character is trans, make it clear. I know High Guardian Spice traumatized the world, but you gotta be specific. Representation is so sparse that a “wink, wink,” just gives the creators plausible deniability.