#cis people not knowing the nuances of how trans people relate to their genders and agabs isn’t even—

[pensivetense]

I saw a post and it and (mostly) its comment section annoyed me and now I shall vague about it, sorry

[spacelazarwolf]

ngl i fucking hate most conversations around “socialization” bc there’s like three ways it goes: 1. they assert that all trans people were socialized as whatever gender they were assigned at birth with no nuance or exception, 2. they assert that all trans people were socialized as whatever binary gender they most closely relate to, or 3. they assert that all trans people were “socialized trans.” and like. idk how to get it through y’all’s heads that socialization is a wildly fickle and individual experience.

i am autistic. i am also a trans man. i was socialized female. the mask i developed, the social rules i was given to follow, they were for women. the way i learned to speak, to interact with others, the way my life was supposed to go, it was based on how a woman should sound, should look, should feel, should act, should live. i didn’t realize i was some flavor of trans until i was in my mid 20’s, and didn’t realize i was a trans man until i was 28. i’m only 7 months on t and still do not pass. there is literally no planet on which i was “socialized male.” i was also not “socialized trans” because i didn’t even know being trans was an option until well into adulthood. i was given no other option than to conform to gender norms, so i didn’t spend my youth and teen years being bullied for being gender non conforming because i quite literally was just not allowed to be gender non conforming. when people insist i wasn’t socialized female, it erases the trauma i experienced from growing up with such strict gender roles, it ignores the fact that i have had to put in active effort as an autistic adult to start the process of unmasking (which is exhausting and traumatizing) before i can even begin to learn a “male mask” that will be safer in public if i start to pass. it ignores everything about my individual life and boils me down to my genitals, which i could have sworn we didn’t like when ppl did.

does that mean that everyone’s experience has to be exactly like mine? fuck no. there are plenty of trans people who come out very young and do get to grow up presenting as their actual gender and therefore are “socialized” as that gender. there are plenty of trans people who have always been gender non conforming and therefore experienced a lot of backlash that gender conforming cis people of the same assigned gender at birth wouldn’t have. there are as many trans experiences as there are trans people. and this doesn’t even begin to take into account things like race or ethnicity or fatness (hoo boy did that affect gender shit for me) or disability or any other kinds of intersections of identity.

basically, we have got to stop acting like there is a way to determine what a trans person’s experience has been based on nothing but their assigned gender at birth or gender identity.

[chriscassarcentral]

I had a new follower on my hobby blog that stated “radfem sympathizer”, which my first reaction is to become a question mark, thinking “I guess maybe they didn’t see enough of my blog or fics to realize that ideology does not sympathize at all with mine”, shocked me so much I had double check into their blog if somehow I’m not reading wrong their bio, but nope I did see stuff that confirmed they agree with stuff that made my figurative hackles rise. Like, you know, invalidating trans women, trans “ideology”, or the inclusion of intersex people in the community.

There was one thing, however, that made me pause, because it raised a point I never thought deeper into, which has a certain irony because they accuse of not thinking deeper into something, but it’s their post that personally made me think deeper into it and think of counter argument. Which, you know, is opposite of what the post meant to do since supposedly they’re proving we can’t state two specific things at the same time (while using a trans woman as example, because of course that's going to be their target).

So the post in question criticize supposedly double thinking that doesn’t make sense, where you can’t state “gender is a social construct” at the same time as stating you are trans (or in this case, trans woman). That if you state the first thing, you’re supposedly “a man who likes to dress feminine, since gender is performative according to you”, and if you state the second thing, you’re “a woman in nature and it’s not performative/a construct”. What made me pause isn’t that I agreed, but that I realized I personally hadn’t thought about the nuance between the inherent feeling of your gender, and the aspect that is purely socially constructed.

Note that, obviously, this is what I feel like, it was a bit hard to word but I hope it’s expressed well enough. I realized that the statement “gender is a social construct”, for me, relates to the expectations others have about each gender, whereas the statement you personally make about how you feel about your gender, it’s just you expressing how you feel.

In other words, gender is an identity, the way you inherently feel about yourself, however gender has been given a social construct when we were weighed under expectations of how you are supposed to dress like, behave, etc depending on who you feel you are. To be specific, the social construct aspect of gender started as placing expectations on each newborn based on whether they were considered born masculine or feminine, then when the community made us aware of the rights of people who aren't cis, the social construct still remains lurking because it still places expectations on what you’re supposed to wear, be like, etc depending which gender you express your identity to be.

For example: expecting non-binary people to appear androgyn is a type of social construct since others expect people of a certain gender to “perform” a certain way to “fit” their perception of what the gender identity is. Another example: expecting trans women to be feminine is a type of social construct, as again, other people expect them to “perform” feminine. Not all people who have expectations mean ill, or might realize it, and it can be hard when you do realize it and try to not place expectations. Because for many generations our societies have placed expectations so it’s kind of hard programmed into us to expect all sorts of things. It’s a matter of recognizing all of that, and working to self-check, recognize that people of any identity can express themselves in any way they want.

So yeah, my conclusion is how “gender is a social construct” is a statement about others (the expectations others have of how each gender is supposed to be like is what “social construct” means), whereas gender identity and gender expression is all about you, and only you: who you feel you are inherently, and how you wish to personally express this. And how you wish you express who you are should not be limited in any way, you are who you are no matter what.

On a side topic: I do believe people can take time to figure out their identity, in large part due to all the social expectations, however the experiences of individuals does not invalidate the experience of others. For example, someone who realize they might not be cis, and identify as trans, yet later realizes they aren’t trans and are cis, does not invalidate all the people who are genuinely trans or “prove” anything in regards to this “just being a phase” or “just cis people trying to escape social construct”. This can be the real experience of cis people where they are uncertain, and I dare say it’s specifically because they spend time identifying as trans they were able to affirm they weren’t trans, and if they were never allowed to do this, they would have stayed uncertain. Still, ending up returning to identifying as cis doesn’t invalidate people who identity as trans and never change that, the same way never changing your identity doesn’t invalidate people who do end up changing the way they identity as.

So yeah, I didn’t expect myself to make a post like this today, but hey, I guess the timing is perfect, right? Happy Pride to all of you, whether allies or part of the community, closed or out, remember that your personal feelings of who you are and your experiences are valid, and how you want to express yourself is for you to choose!

[owlbelly]

not to trans-post like it's the mid-2010s again but. thinking about how impossible it still is to have a real conversation about varying forms of social pressure as they relate to medical transition, due to the entire concept being poisoned by cis scaremongering & gatekeeping of access to trans healthcare. trans people can barely even have nuanced conversations among ourselves because someone might still use them as evidence that

a) trans people don't actually need or deserve access to HRT & surgery - which we know is bullshit but it doesn't even matter who "needs" it, wanting should be enough, bodily autonomy is a human right

b) trans people as a demographic have enough social power to exert pressure (on "vulnerable young people" mostly) on a societal scale re: medical transition - i don't even need to dignify this with a refutation right? this is nonsense

c) if literally anyone has ever felt pressured to go on HRT or get surgery & ended up regretting it even a little, that means trans healthcare on the whole should be shut down

so of course there are people falling through the cracks & unable or unwilling to talk about it. you can't tell me there's no pressure at all anywhere to medically transition. transmedicalism is a real thing that's still going strong (though these days i mostly see dogwhistles) & its very existence creates pressure on folks who can't or don't want to transition that way - not on a societal scale! literally nothing any trans people can do will ever match the cis societal mandate to just Not Be Trans - but it's a real issue within specific trans communities or friend groups or social spaces

there's also a kind of pressure created by the lack of access to medical transition - if the financial/bureaucratic stars have to align & you only get one shot at something rather than it being freely available anytime, that's gonna make you more likely to just go for it when you get the chance even if you have doubts. then there's pressure to medically transition for safety reasons - needing to pass or come closer to passing, regardless of how you personally feel about your body!

idk where i'm going with this exactly i'm just kind of fucked up over the idea that to a not-insignificant portion of people, non-medically-transitioning folks are still "trans lite" or "not actually trans" & also these days that we're somehow "preferred" by cis mainstream culture - which again, really just wants you to Not Be Trans! but if you have to be trans you should be ignorable. that might mean presenting totally as your assignment or it might mean passing perfectly, but if you're trans & visible in any way you are a problem.

what i want is for anyone & everyone to be able to access HRT/surgery, & for it not to mean anything beyond feeling good in your own body. it shouldn't mark you as a gender, it shouldn't even have to mark you as trans! let people just fucking live

[jaggedteeth]

as the u.s. tour comes to a close, i want to take a moment to talk about a phenomenon i’ve seen taking place within mcr internet fan spaces these last few months, my thoughts on it, and how i think it relates back to digital media literacy.

(before we start, i want to make it clear that i’m just some guy and i am definitely not the most qualified person to talk about this, but i think some of the things in this post really, really need to be said. my hope is not necessarily to change your mind or to “get you on my side,” but to encourage you to think critically and independently, even during your daily scroll on social media.)

————

so, what is this ominous phenomenon i’m talking about? i’m referring to some of the comments i’ve seen mcr fans make regarding gerard’s gender—specifically the public, speculative, and seemingly unironic ones that attempt to put a label or a semblance of a label on his gender nonconformity.

(i think now’s a good time to mention you should read this entire post before engaging with or commenting on it. stay with me. we’re in this together.)

here is a post that i think does a good job of explaining this a little more in-depth for anyone who’s out of the loop.

regardless of my personal opinions on all of this, i understand why it’s happening. much of mcr’s fanbase is trans and/or non-binary, and seeking out representation from familiar, comforting figures is not out of the ordinary. i don’t think anyone involved means harm, and this isn’t a callout post. i’m just adding to a discussion i think has been largely one-sided up until recently.

————

what is the point of me making this post? to put it bluntly, i disagree with how much of the discussion around gerard’s gender identity and expression is being conducted.

(again, please stay with me.)

what is it, specifically, that i disagree with? is it the celebration of gerard’s gender nonconformity? is it the possibility they might not identify, partially or wholly, with their gender assigned at birth? is it the joy their gender expression has inspired in many mcr fans?

no. it’s none of those things; not even close. i can’t even put into words how i, a gender nonconforming trans man, felt when gerard wore his cheerleader dress in nashville. it was a special moment and i was so happy to see him happy.

but something that bothers me about the “gender wars” narrative is the idea that anyone who’s not all-in is, if not an outright transphobe, someone with deep-rooted biases they need to work through. i haven’t seen this from everyone, but it’s floated around here and there.

nuance in conversations like this is incredibly important. the human experience is rarely black and white. and i believe the notion that it must be, especially when it comes to topics such as queer identity, largely stems from closed-mindedness and fear, conscious or unconscious.

i have certainly witnessed people online assert that gerard must be cis, and there’s no way he can’t be cis, implying if he ever identified as anything other than cis that would be bad and gross and weird. i strongly disagree with that viewpoint because it’s transphobic and gerard is a real person who none of us know personally who can do whatever the fuck he wants. in the same way, i disagree with the viewpoint that gerard must be trans, and there’s no way he can’t be trans, implying anyone who disagrees is a transphobe who refuses to pay attention. because gerard is a real person who none of us know personally who can do whatever the fuck he wants.

i’m aware gerard has also made comments in the past about his journey with gender identity, the connection he feels to women and femininity, and even his experimentation with drag while he was in college. he’s said he should be referred to with either he/him or they/them pronouns, he’s an earnest supporter of the trans community, and he’s historically rejected the sexist shithead rock-dude stereotype.

i’m not here to downplay any of those things, nor am i trying to invalidate anyone who has taken comfort in or identified with those things. just a couple of points i would like you to think about, though:

some cis people also question their gender identity and/or use multiple sets of pronouns for a multitude of reasons (i’m not saying gerard has to be cis, i’m just giving you an extra viewpoint to chew on);

i’ve personally met plenty of men or male-aligned people who strongly identify with women and femininity. i strongly identify with women and femininity and i’m still 100% a trans man and will throw anyone who tries to tell me otherwise directly into the sun (again, i’m not saying gerard must be a man or male-aligned);

gender nonconformity and transness are complex, nuanced topics. labels can be useful, but they are not a be-all-end-all;

and i’m going to be blunt here—assuming and/or declaring someone is transfem when they haven’t publicly referred to themselves as such, just because they are comfortable discussing their own femininity and sometimes have a feminine presentation and feminine mannerisms, is basically an upgraded form of gender essentialism and completely disregards the existence and experiences of amab cis-passing queer people and gender nonconforming people. i understand it’s a tough pill to swallow, but intent doesn’t always equal impact, and just because someone may not see it that way doesn’t mean that’s not what they’re doing.

even if gerard is transfem, he’s still a real person who has a right to privacy and autonomy, and he never has to publicly label himself if he doesn’t want to. no one is entitled to seek out the details of his identity, but least of all us, a bunch of strangers on the internet who will probably never have a full conversation with him.

not one of us is an “authority” or “expert” on gerard way or my chemical romance. we can learn about the band’s history and public personas or laugh at the funny, quirky parts of their lore or cry when we think about how far they’ve come in the public eye, but what gives us the right to dig into every tiny crevice of gerard’s work and interactions and public existence searching for “clues” as to whether or not he’s trans? what gives us the right to label his gender identity for him—a process that is incredibly personal? i know “parasocial” is basically just another hollow internet buzzword at this point, but let’s not forget the very real consequences that parasocial relationships can certainly have.

do i think it would be fucking awesome if gerard came out as trans tomorrow? absolutely. do i also think it’s fucking awesome that they’re an older gnc person? that so many queer people have discovered and accepted themselves in part because of them? that they now exude joy onstage and bravely dress and act the way they do? one million times yes. and we can celebrate those real, concrete, factual things without tinhatting, overstepping boundaries, or jumping to conclusions. if they were to come out as trans tomorrow, that wouldn’t invalidate any of my arguments or make the behavior i’m critiquing acceptable, because the point isn’t about whether or not gerard is trans, the point is about how some of mcr’s fanbase is treating them.

gerard has uplifted and respected us time and time again without even knowing us as individuals. so i want you to take a moment to sincerely reflect and ask yourself this question: where is our respect for him?

————

alright. i’m glad you’re still here. let’s talk about what can actually be done about this.

i think a lot of this problem boils down to a lack of critical thinking. yes, that’s thrown around a lot as a clapback on this website, but i don’t mean it as an insult. we’re all guilty of not thinking critically, myself included. especially in the age of the internet, it’s impossible to be perfect all the time, when we’re bombarded with information from every angle.

this is why learning about and consistently practicing media literacy is so important. it’s something i’m passionate about because i’ve seen firsthand, time and time again, how it can make or break a person and their worldview, to the point that i spent hours writing about it for my upper-level journalism courses (before i dropped out lol) and worked for two semesters as an editor for a college newspaper.

if these conversations about gerard were happening in private group chats between friends who already know one another, my opinions on the topic itself would still stand, but it wouldn’t be any of my business and i obviously wouldn’t think to write an entire post about it. but everything changes when these discussions are had on a public platform with little regard for nuance.

“misinformation,” or the unintentional spread of false information—not to be confused with disinformation, where the person spreading it knows what they’re saying isn’t true—might not be a totally accurate descriptor for some of what’s going on here, honestly. none of us can prove what gerard is thinking or feeling. but based on what we do know, what he’s publicly and concretely shared with us, i think it’s as close as we can get. a lot of the posts i’ve seen don’t read to me as “hehe funny celebrity headcanon that’s obviously just for fun.” or even “i relate to this person’s art and/or publicized experiences, but i understand i don’t know them and at least some of that is just projection.” rather, they seem to make invasive leaps and use inaccurate vocabulary while simultaneously taking themselves very, very seriously, and that concerns me more than if a random tumblr user was just trolling to start fandom drama or something.

to put things into perspective, this is why every single one of my journalism professors drilled it into my head that you have to get your news from multiple sources. those sources must have differing perspectives and you need to look at every single one with a critical eye, no matter how trustworthy they may seem (listen, i get it’s way more complicated than that and i could go off on a whole other tangent about the glaring problems with mainstream news media in the united states and not in a cringefail right-wing way, but this is an mcr blog, so let’s just focus on the basic principle here).

obviously, i don’t think anyone should engage with transphobes unless it’s for the sake of making stronger counter-arguments, because their beliefs are provably harmful and false. but someone making good-faith criticisms of speculating about a stranger who has not publicly come out as trans and/or non-binary is markedly different. i’m not the only person who’s written something like this, and i encourage everyone to seek out similar posts and think about the points they’re making, even if you don’t agree with every single one of them.

this speculative commentary on gerard’s identity has spread like wildfire and created a polarizing echo chamber, from what i’ve seen. i understand why. but it’s still deeply worrying to me. seeing as this is primarily happening on tumblr, i’m concerned less because i think gerard will ever see or care about these posts (that’s obviously still important, though), and more because of what this says about how people in mcr fanspaces view celebrities they feel strongly about and engage with information they see online at large.

please do research on digital media literacy, and please use reputable sources with authority on journalism and communications to do so. don’t take what you see on social media at face value. don’t trust any one social media user to feed you commentary or shape your viewpoints, and that includes me. read with a critical eye. think about the possible implications and intentions behind the words other people use, big or small, and why those might be there. be aware of your own biases and blindspots. remember that you’ll never be perfect, not even close. and while you’re at it, learn more about the experiences of gnc people, and the experiences of queer people of all different ages, backgrounds, cultures, races, identities, perspectives, lived experiences, etcetera. if you can, engage in diverse irl lgbtq+ spaces. they put things into perspective in a way the internet never will.

but i still use tumblr in 2022, so what do i know?

————

if there’s anything you think i overlooked or misconstrued in this post, tell me! i want this to be a living, breathing conversation, not a monologue. these are important issues and they deserve our time and attention. thank you so much for reading.

[nothorses]

ive seen a few posts talking about gender socialization as a terf idea, and im not sure I understand... I was wondering if you could help? I understand gender essentialism is a dangerous tool they use, and I see how "socialization" gets used as a more acceptable way of framing hatred of trans people.

but also, im a trans man and I do genuinely feel like my being raised "as a girl" affected my personality and interests, especially in childhood. particularly things like being taught to be quieter and more polite than my classmates and stuff. is there something im missing here?

The term "gender socialization" generally implies that socialization relies strictly on gender, and I've seen this defined either to mean AGAB (trans women are socialized and men, and trans men are socialized as women), or the gender you actually are (vice versa). Either way, it's an extremely reductive and restricting view on what is, yes, at least related to a real phenomena.

The thing is, "socialization" is different for everyone. The factors that play into it can range from the gender other people think you are, the gender you think of yourself as (which might change over time), the gender you actually are, to things completely unrelated: race and ethnicity, disability status, religion, the culture you grow up in, and so many others.

What's being discussed is essentially the impact of one's culture, and their culture's view of gender, on the way they think of themselves. Boiling that down to "male or female", even if you're not calling trans women "men" and trans men "women" to fit them into that model, is still a massive oversimplification that denies any possibility of variation in experience.

For example: I also internalized a lot of misogynistic ideas about myself growing up. But I was raised by a single mother who believed in some feminist ideals, and in a progressive area, and without the influence of religion in my family; so some of the ideas I grew up with were "you're a bossy bitch who talks too much", and some of them were "Never Rely On A Man". And while I didn't know I was a trans man yet, I also felt dysphoric about things like crying; not because I believed men couldn't cry, but because my mom encouraged me to fake cry because crying (white) women get their way.

That's not really a comparable experience to one that, say, a Christian cis woman in the US south might have.

The other flaw in this theory is the implication that "socialization" is static. Once you reach a certain age (which is never really defined), you magically stop absorbing messages from the world around you, and become cemented forever as Socialized Male or Female.

Aside from the fact that this obviously isn't true, you have to wonder: what about trans people who transition when they're children? What are they socialized as?

This isn't just an inaccurate view of the way people develop. It's a form of gender essentialism- the idea that gender determines certain immutable qualities in a person- which is itself related to, and supports theory underlying, sex essentialism; i.e., TERF and otherwise transphobic ideology.

Buying into the same idea that "man" and "woman" are stagnant categories with no overlap isn't good when you allow trans people to be categorized by their actual gender instead of their AGAB. It's still the same core philosophy, and it's still just as damaging- to intersex and nonbinary people in particular, but also to all trans people. The gender binary doesn't serve any of us.

Trans liberation means understanding, or at least leaving room for, the nuances and complexities. It means allowing people to exist in complicated ways, and to define and categorize themselves. The strict, static, and binary understanding of gender presented by "gender socialization" theory only works against that.

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Y'know, transness** isn't really about changing yourself. That's an important part of it for many people, but more than that, it's about BEING yourself.

Sometimes that means moving towards a more authentic self.

Sometimes that means standing still and telling others "my authentic self is right here, look at me and see that this physical form IS me, and not the expectations you've forced on it".

Sometimes it means a bit of both, moving towards something no one expects and saying "this is me, no matter how you're trying to force expectations of the simple, palatable thing you want me to be, onto me".

No matter which case it is, I think that last phrase is most important. People want you to be simple, easily digestible, and will ignore the beautiful nuances and complexities of your identity and shove you in whatever direction makes your identity make sense to them.

They'll look at you to your face and tell you that your gender is about what you do with what's in your pants. Or they'll say that all genders fall into a binary spectrum that's still based originally off the idea that there are two sexes (or, only two that matter) no matter how much they pretend that "these two categories are different!!" because it's only about some vague spiritual ideal of masculinity (divorced from maleness and manhood but still ABOUT a quality relating to that which relates to manhood) or femininity (same thing but with femaleness/womanhood).

Yes, I know queer masculinity, butchness, queer femininity, femboy identities, and such, exist. But let's be honest, that's not what most people mean with those words, and excepting self-labeling, they are usually based in gendering of nongendered things based on stereotypes, either via acceptance/reclamation or rejection of said stereotypes.

Anyway. You are not less trans if you don't transition, if you transition in the "wrong" way, or otherwise have an experience that's basically "I'm right here, my body isn't [gender] because you say it is". Whether someone is gendering you based on the features you are born with or choosing not to change them/changing them "weirdly", that's on them, not on you.

Your identity is real. Your choices don't just not contradict that, they are part of what MAKES your identity. That's important.

**Also, I use transness in this post, but this also goes for anyone who may identify as nonbinary without IDing as trans at all, or outside of the cis/trans binary in general. Please excuse my imperfect language, I couldn't find a better way to put this.

[genderkoolaid]

That's the problem though, nonbinary identities are always seen as "academic" and not casual. Cis people love to say that we're too complicated and only academics understand us, trying to turn nonbinary identity into a classist thing, when nonbinary people need to be included in casual things too. Saying "nonbinary inclusion is only important in academics and not casual stuff" is the real classism here because it keeps people from understanding us. And you do that too, by saying "transfems don't experience higher rates of violence" but only bringing up transmasc as a counterpoint, ignoring all other trans and nonbinary people. We exist outside of adademics, and to say that non-binary inclusion doesn't really matter outside of that is exorsexist and actively plays into the narrative that nonbinary inclusion is hard or impossible. like other queer people get to exist and be recognised in casual too but non binaries are confined to university

Waist why are nonBinary less casual than transmasc or transfem? Exist as casual and lower class as trans mascs and femmes. Are you really saying nonbinary inclusion is more important in colleges than in casual social media like... you don't need a degree to not be exorsexist. sincerely an agender who never seen a college from the inside. Sad seeing you get more more exorsexist.

These asks were all sent very close to one another, so I'm responding to them all as if they were one ask.

I never said that nonbinary identities are "academic" or "less casual." Also, I rarely ever see anyone use "academic" to describe nonbinary people- maybe in relation to queer theory, but honestly? It feels like you are stretching here to try and conflate me saying "I don't feel like its worth getting angry about binary language in people's casual Tumblr posts that aren't meant to be in-depth analyses of gender" with "nonbinary people are too complicated" by acting like I was talking about nonbinary people in academia?

When did I say nonbinary inclusion is more important in colleges than social media? Where did I say that sentence?

If you are referencing that recent reblog of the baeddel-txt post, that was specifically in reference to anti-transmasc violence, which is why I only brought up anti-transmasc violence. But additionally, It is frankly quite hard to find good studies focusing on abinary experiences transphobia. Very often, nonbinary people are just grouped into "transmasc" and "transfem," and other times nonbinary people are separated in data by AGAB. I have never seen a study or paper focused exclusively on exorsexism. This sucks! I know it sucks, because a lot of my life has been negatively affected by exorsexism and its very frustrating how little in-depth discussion there is of exorsexism. But honestly when it comes to data around the violence experienced by trans people, the conversation is binary because so much of the data is binary. And, to a certain extent, a lot of nonbinary people's experiences are colored by the binary; exorsexist violence is very real, but a lot of nonbinary people's experiences are anti-transfemininity or anti-transmasculinity or both, even if their experiences can also be different than binary people's generally are with those forms of violence. It is important to be inclusive of nonbinary identities in the discussion of transphobias but frankly there's a lot more nuance when it comes to nonbinary people and transphobic violence, not to mention how a lot of exorsexism (like attacking a person for not being obviously male or female) is seen as synonymous with "general" transphobia, so it gets discussed without being named as exorsexism or misandrogyny.

Anyways. Idk. I think maybe you are reaching a bit with your interpretations of what I'm saying. I said it in that other ask but online communities are pure communication, so language-as-activism is the most obvious and easiest thing to focus on. But I am in fact a nonbinary person who Does Things In Real Life that you do not see. If you are really getting this hanged up on me not caring that much about the language people use in Tumblr posts maybe like. get some perspective?

[orangerosebush]

People online refer to Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity frequently. Understandably so! But to understand the idea, it's valuable to not just rely on random people's (often well-articulated and helpful) presentation of their individual understanding of the theory.

All too often, the role of heterosexuality in gender performativity is ignored -- which is a pity. Understanding the link between "correctly" performing one's gender and heterosexuality is key in contextualizing how and why it was difficult historically to, for example, access any form of medical transition unless one played the role of a heterosexual during intake interviews with clinics. Ray Blanchard, the father of many transmisogynistic discourses today, specifically divided trans women into two categories: heterosexual trans women (whom he "pitied" and deemed "worthy" of a tenuous, conditional validation) and bisexual/lesbian trans women (whom he deemed as being incapable of "truly" being trans).

And this did not just play out in medical contexts, as I know I have somewhere on my blog Lou Sullivan's correspondence with another queer trans man regarding the ways in which their shared experience of queer attraction called their transness into question socially -- even amongst other heterosexual trans men, who saw their political brothers' attraction to men as somehow incompatible with masculinity.

I think that this article also highlights that the process of being 'taught' the kind of ways we should perform our gender occurs both in public and in the privacy of the family. This process is neither passive nor harmless, regardless of whether one is cis or trans. Butler highlights extensively that this process is key to assimilating each generation into patriarchal modes of relating to one another and patriarchy, sensu lato -- an example being how (many) little girls are punished throughout childhood within a family unit for not adhering to the specific roles they "must" play within the family; roles that, in fact, are not at all specific to any family, but rather are roles that are particular to the prejudices within the society they were born into.

To be clear, I do not take Butler's writing on gender performativity as a dogma with how this accounts for the historical complexities of politicizing and policing the body. Many academics, activists, and everyday people have built upon and transcended the ideas articulated in Butler's work here. However, I think it is always helpful to know the legacy we inherit from the thinkers who came before us!

"Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory" (1988)

“Philosophers rarely think about acting in the theatrical sense […]

When Beauvoir claims that 'woman' is a historical idea and not a natural fact, she clearly underscores the distinction between sex, as biological [...], and gender, as [...] cultural interpretation or signification [...]. [T]o be a woman is to have become a woman, to compel the body to conform to a historical idea of 'woman,' to induce the body to become a cultural sign, to materialize oneself in obedience to a historically delimited possibility, and to do this as a sustained and repeated corporeal project.

[…]

The contention that sex, gender, and heterosexuality are historical products which have become conjoined and reified as natural over time has received a good deal of critical attention[.]

[…]

Surely, there are nuanced and individual ways of doing one's gender, but that one does it, and that one does it in accord with certain sanctions and proscriptions, is clearly not a fully individual matter. Here again, I don't mean to minimize the effect of certain gender norms which originate within the family and are enforced through certain familial modes of punishment and reward and which, as a consequence, might be construed as highly individual, for even there family relations recapitulate, individualize, and specify pre-existing cultural relations; they are rarely, if ever, radically original. The act that one does, the act that one performs, is, in a sense, an act that has been going on before one arrived on the scene. Hence, gender is an act which has been rehearsed, much as a script survives the particular actors who make use of it, but which requires individual actors in order to be actualized and reproduced as reality once again”

[cthulhu-with-a-fez]

Hey how do u know if u wanna be a boy in a cis way or a trans way? I’m a girl btw

alright so i'm gonna preface this by saying that i'm... probably not the best authority on What Makes A Man(TM), considering that i'm not one, and that no answer i give is going to catch every relevant topical nuance? but i know i've talked a bit in the tags about my personal blend of cis+ gender-woogity, so i'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that's what you're asking about!

it got pretty long, so i put it under the cut :D

there's two ways i tend to approach my assessment of my gender, which for purposes of this ask let's call "diagnostic" and "diegetic".

the diagnostic approach is more or less what it sounds like - comparing and contrasting what i understand gender to be, denotatively and connotatively and culturally, with what my sense of my own gender is, and trying to figure out what feels closest to me and why. this has been influenced pretty heavily by two posts i've seen floating around over the years but can't for the life of me find right now.

one of them is just a quote to the effect of "consistently wishing you were a different gender is a pretty strong indicator of being that gender." and it makes sense, right? human intuition, gut feeling like that, is made of a million little deductions about the world relative to yourself that you don't consciously process all of, but which make themselves known however they can. if you're a girl but you keep finding yourself thinking "man, i wish i was a boy," that might be your brain doing behind-the-scenes pattern recognition about being a boy and trying to flag your attention towards it.

which isn't to say that it's an infallible tell, gut feelings are not always correct, let alone accurate! even when they are, you're getting, like. fortune cookie amounts of information about things that might require thesis paper amounts. but that's where you have to take a level in metacognition and think about why you think about or respond to something the way you do. or, to quote discworld,

“First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.”

― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

figuring out the why of your own responses is good for tons of non-gender-related reasons, but it's especially helpful with those kind of vague but persistent I Feel A Way About This thoughts. if you're a girl and you keep thinking "man, i wish i were a boy", there's a lot of reasons you might think that! for legit gender reasons, yeah, but it might also be "i wish i were a boy because their clothes look better" or "i wish i were a boy because then i wouldn't get cat-called" or "because they get paid more" or "because no one assumes they can't pick up heavy things" or more. some of them are aesthetic things, some of them are cultural misogyny things, all of them are relevant and valid! but it also makes it a little harder to tell how heavily gender-weighted they are in general - you can be mad about the pay gap and and explore a more masculine silhouette while still robustly being a woman.

(though, pro tip about the clothes? regardless of your genderfeel, men's section jeans are where it's at. huge pockets. not made of tissue paper. sized with actual waist/inseam measurements instead of a random number revealed to a women's fashion exec in a vision. cannot recommend them strongly enough. have pocket. be free.)

that brings us to the second post that i regrettably can't find, and another excellent diagnostic tool!

it was a comment written by a trans man in a longer thread about gender identity, talking about something that helped him distinguish between 'cultural misogyny sucks' thoughts and 'i am not a woman' thoughts. he definitely explained it more eloquently, but his rule of thumb was "would this upset me if it happened to me, but not to a female friend?"

for example, if someone holds the door for a girl and calls her "ma'am," all courteous manners, that would probably not be an issue for most women! but if you aren't a woman, or you're starting to not feel like one, it might not feel so comfortable an interaction.

i've learned to use that as a baseline for a problem management system for "i wish i was..." thoughts like those - it really does help to distinguish between external circumstance thoughts wearing a gender envy hat vs actual gender envy thoughts hiding under an external-circumstance hat, especially when there's multiple confounding factors involved. for example, let's go back to the clothes thing for a second!

i've always had a bit of a contentious relationship with clothes shopping, which in hindsight was a combination of personal aesthetic, sensory issues, body image issues, and gender issues. trying to develop my aesthetic was hard, especially back when "department store girls' section" was my only real choice and the best i ever hoped for was a grudging least-worst option just to get it over with. this has since changed! i have experienced presentation euphoria! i have a style now that feels comfortable and makes me happy! but it was a steep climb to get there until i learned how to identify what made the least-worst option least worst and move closer to it.

sometimes it's easy, like "this fabric is soft but the color is hideous" so find a different color, or "it's too tight across the chest because it was designed for someone skinny" so try a different size, or "this is just blatantly not-my-aesthetic" so move on. but sometimes it's "i'm getting steadily more upset trying to find a dress that i don't hate on my body despite them looking and feeling just fine on the hanger," and that one's a little tougher.

because on one hand, part of it really was the body image issues. i don't need to shop plus-size, but there's still something really disheartening about basically every retail outlet's 'normal' size range heavily implying that i'm only barely thin enough to be worth catering to, you know? fatphobia in the fashion industry is a whole different other conversation that we're not having right now, but it heavily contributed to some non-gender-related body dysphoria that's played first-chair tuba in my brain for a long time.

but on the other hand, looking at myself in a mirror wearing a dress and really hating it wasn't entirely about my body in a dress - it was also about my body in a dress. it didn't really click until a good friend of mine invited me to be in their wedding party, and said "we're not doing bridesmaid's dresses, just bridal party colors, wear whatever you feel most comfortable in as long as it matches!" and i spent ten seconds mentally gearing up for another godawful harrowing misery gauntlet of dress shopping -

and then stopped. because.

if i can wear something comfortable.

and a dress isn't.

...... what if i wore a suit?

and lo, i went to men's wearhouse and got slacks and a vest and a buttondown and a tie and it was amazing. i feel so fucking good in that outfit, i feel handsome and classy and confident in a way i literally never once in my life have felt while wearing a dress.

most of the time, people want things or don't-want things for a whole blend of reasons, and if there's one reason yelling loudest (hello, body-dysphoria tuba) it's often hard to tell what the rest of the factors are. but it's really, genuinely worth it to try and figure it out, even if you have to dig through a big old lump of stress and misery to get there - understanding yourself better and accepting what you find will only ever lead to quality-of-life improvements. sometimes it's as simple as refining your aesthetic some more, realizing "i can do better than grudging least-worst options" and navigating towards a wardrobe that you actually like!

but sometimes, it's realizing that your clothes don't make you feel good in the first place because they're expecting a kind of gender performance out of you that you can't comfortably give.

and that's where the "diegetic" part of my self-analysis kicks in.

the definition of "diegetic" is (of sound in a movie, television program, etc.) occurring within the context of the story and able to be heard by the characters. the score of a movie is non-diegetic, whereas the song playing on the radio during a driving scene is. how does this relate to my gender, you might ask?

well... perception.

i can be on as many levels of Advanced Gendermancy as i want, but that's all non-diegetic. myself as i am, occurring within the context of existing in public and able to be seen by the other people out there living life? i'm gonna get perceived as a gender, and i'm gonna get perceived as "girl," with maybe an addition of "... queer?" when i feel like making a statement with flannels. and that's okay with me. it's not a hardship to have people assume i'm a girl, because yeah, i'm a girl! ish! mostly! girl-lite, girl-as-default, noncommittal-wiggly-hand-gesture rounding-down-to-the-closest-answer girl.

but the thing is, i'm a carpenter. blue-collar union carpenter. women comprise... i think 2% of the construction workforce in my area. which means that just by existing on-site, i'm making all the guys remember that the gender binary exists because there's now a "them" for them to be an "us" about. i get called "miss kelly" like that's my whole name by the guys from my company who know me, and i get called "young lady" by guys from other companies who don't, and it's all very respectful and courteous, but... i don't want it. what i want is access to the "we're literally all men here so it doesn't even matter that we're men" gender space they have without me, which i can't have, because i am diegetically female in a male-dominated field. and if gender is a fluid, i'm a water balloon deforming under pressure, because the more frequently i get Gendered on-site - even when everyone's been nothing but polite about it, and certainly not intending any insult! - the more stressed-out i get in the same direction as wearing dresses made me feel. it's too much, too constrictive of an expectation that i do not meet, and i don't like it, and you know what helps?

chasing masculine presentation a little harder to make up for it.

being seen and Gendered masculinely, even if it's a little more than i would normally want, feels good because it's balancing the pH of my gender fluid again, and getting to have that is entirely dependent on someone else perceiving you and acting on that perception.

so that's part of it as well, beyond any interior exploration you can do. it isn't just about what you feel like, which is certainly important - it's also about the way people treat you relative to what you feel like. and it's hard, it's really really hard, to figure out what's right for you in that balance, especially if you don't know what's wrong in the first place.

it's like being blindfolded on a beach and told to find wheat grains scattered in the sand by touch alone. you know there's something good out there but not where it is or how to find it, only that you don't have it, and if you find wheat at all it's mixed in with so much sand you can hardly taste it anyway. if you're lucky, you bump into someone who's gone through it already who can take the blindfold off and show you how to sift for wheat instead of just eating a handful of sand and hoping, and that makes it easier, but for every one person like that there's a hundred more who've never had to try to pick wheat out of sand and can't tell the difference anyhow who think you're just not trying hard enough to live off of the """wheat""" you've been given.

i can't really tell you what it feels like to want to be a boy, because i'm not a boy and i don't really want to be? but i can tell you how i worked out the gender that i've got right now, and i hope it helps you anyway.

[evegwood]

I was rereading your breakdown of the playlists and I was kind of intrigued by how you outright stated that David's insecurities are not related to his transness but to the power things - because, like, I don't think it's all meant to be a 1:1 metaphor, but specfic stories like that exist very much in conversation with more mundane issues people face so that distinction stood out to me? (cont.)

(cont.) Like, people such as David get detained in places that feel and work and look like the institutions in Inhibit IRL for various non-specfic reasons, and stories like this are a bit of a dialogue with these issues, especially one like this that goes into the mundane little miseries of it all. Would it be correct to say that that was your way of saying "I don't want people to reduce his character entirely to transness"? Thanks, love the comic!

Hey that's a good question! For sure there are real-world counterparts to a lot of the themes of Inhibit, but specifically when it comes to my queer characters I wanted the story to be completely neutral about their queerness. I do have a lot of thoughts on this so this might be long haha. Hopefully I cover everything I want to cover, I wrote this whole thing out and then hit ctrl+z to delete a line and Tumblr deleted the entire post without letting me ctrl+y because this is a working website that doesn't suck ass. I had to retype it all so I'm sorry if any of it is disconnected, I couldn't remember the exact order I said everything argh ANYWAY

When I started writing Inhibit I didn't realise I was trans, and then I came out as nonbinary, and then I started to transition, so I've had a whole spectrum of thinking "how should I handle transness in this comic?" over my time working on it. Pretty early on I decided that none of the characters would suffer because of being trans, they wouldn't have any anxiety about it, other characters wouldn't treat them differently etc; the story takes place in a world where superpowers are real, so it wouldn't be crazy for transness to also just be normal and accepted there lmao

However now I think that this is a pretty reductive way to represent the trans experience. Like it or not, being trans informs almost everything about you, and I didn't let my trans characters have that nuance. Vic being a white, seemingly cis* seemingly het** dude is pretty central to his character arc***, so actually examining queerness in this society would have been interesting. There was room to do that; something that is canon and just has never come up is that Urquhart sponsors their trans officers' HRT etc so they don't need to go through the NHS, meaning those officers are reliant on Urquhart long past their service. You're right: what would a conversation between the mundane and fantastical elements of Inhibit look like? I, 2023 Eve, would like to have that conversation! But this far into the story, I kinda missed the train on it.

* he uses any pronouns, he is shrug-gender ** he is bi *** spoilers wow he is privileged actually

I honestly think that I haven't done a good job at highlighting my trans characters, particularly for an audience that doesn't expect to see trans characters. I don't think I've done David and Masha justice as trans characters beyond little nods that readers could miss or not even understand, and there are some characters whose nonbinary/trans identities have just never been mentioned (Holly is nb, Jezza and Toby are trans - again just hasn't come up because of scenes and lines changing or being cut, there's so much that you can't fit into a story even when it's as long as this). So to finally answer your question, it isn't that I didn't want people to reduce David to his transness, because I don't think there's enough of his transness in the comic for that to even happen. I don't think anyone reads Inhibit and thinks oh yeah, David, you know, the trans one. It really was that at the time of writing the playlist breakdowns, I was firm that none of the Inhibit characters had anxiety or neuroses about being trans. Instead, all their neuroses were about their superpowers, because that's the fun angst.

Now looking back on Inhibit, there is actually an excruciating amount of evidence for the story kind of being a trans narrative ("oh god i can't control my own body oh god", "oh no people think my body should do this thing" etc). It's so interesting how creators have these themes that they continuously go back to in their work, even unintentionally, and mine is oops all trans. If I were to rewrite Inhibit from scratch now, I'd probably try to include more of that nuance and actually engage with those themes because I realise that they're there haha.

I hope all this answers your question? Kind of? A little? My ultimate conclusion is that I thought what I was doing was writing good trans characters, when ultimately I think I failed to write characters that are truly explicitly trans. On the other hand, maybe characters like David and Masha are the exact kind of trans rep that some people want and are looking for. Either way I'm actively working to write better trans characters in the future because trans people rule, and this was a really interesting question to reflect on, thank you!

[beta-adjacent]

If transmasc is an umbrella term for transmen, masc nonbinaries, etc and transfem is an umbrella term for transwomen, Fem nonbinary etc and trans neutral for those that feels they’re neither Fem or masc etc. what would be the equivalent to trans dynamic Alpha/Beta/Omega? Cause I know while biology wise it would fall under these terms it seems so restrictive and just focusing on the sex biological parts which may be the point of a/b/o, but like idk as an asexual I feel like they would be separate terms due to a/b/o not being the ‘normal’ human. Yknow?

I am not a linguist, so I wouldn’t be the person to turn to for crafting some new terminology, haha. But this did get me lost in some philosophy sauce so here’s the product of that:

For the sake of establishing a foundation, let’s say the following are the “original/traditional/common” transdynamic terms:

General: Transdynamic, adynamic*, dynamfluid/dynamifluid

Transition states (in the format of the primary notion “mtf”): atb, ato, bta, bto, ota, otb

Some thoughts on these terms:

The terms don’t have to solely equate to a change in sexual organs, because secondary biology isn’t exclusively sexual. You could focus on a surgery that stops the formation of a knot, sure. But you could also focus on HRT that alters the hormones that make you smell like your adab (assigned dynamic at birth?), which is arguably very non-sexual. I think it’d be hard to change the non-sexual without changing the sexual, but you can still make the non-sexual elements the emphasis. So I’m actually rather ok with the terms we have now if the argument is they seem too sexual, because they don’t feel very sexual to me

That being said, these terms do feel very biologically driven and limiting. You only have about 6 options in the transition states? That’s quite binary

*I don’t think I’ve actually seen the word adynamic used. Instead, authors refer to an adynamic person as a delta. And this classification is where the mindfuckery starts for me

Because tertiary dynamics cover a level of transness in secondary dynamics. By definition, a tertiary dynamic typically describes someone who biologically aligns to their adab, but not socially. Or, in some cases, they cover the “miscellaneous” category of secondary genders, ie experiencing all 3 dynamics, or none of the dynamics.

So now we have to question: how intertwined are the ideas of secondary body versus secondary instinct/soul? Below are some examples of people with this “body vs instinct” nuance:

Skye is a cis male. They were born a beta. Skye biologically feels no discomfort/dysphoria in their current body. But socially/instinctively, they have the soul of an alpha. What do we call Skye?

Dusk is a cis female. They were born an omega. Dusk feels extreme dysphoria in their body because of their dynamic, but their omega instinct feels calming/natural to them. What do we call Dusk?

Star is intersex. They were also born with mixed dynamic biology. What is the term for that? Would it be two intersex conditions (primary-intersex and secondary-intersex), or would we classify it as intersex and a tertiary dynamic?

Moon experiences all three dynamics at once bodily but does not relate to any of them socially/mentally. What do we call Moon?

Gender labels are limiting —regardless of if it’s primary, secondary, or tertiary— because they’re an attempt to classify something that often can’t be classified in a simplistic/binary way. Having labels to describe every complexity is impossible because complexity is infinite. Having umbrella terms is almost guaranteed to be limiting and/or reducing to the complexity itself.

Soooooo…… fuck labels! Or make them whatever you want in your verse, just stay consistent and, more importantly, make it meaningful when it’s not consistent. Include characters with nuanced dynamics and let readers struggle with the material alongside you

[antiterf]

I saw a terf upload a trans woman's tictoc to make fun of what they said, but what they commented was so oblivious to the struggle that plenty of women go through and the video itself can actually bring nuanced discussion so uh... separate post so the adults can speak.

So here's the tictoc, basically they talk about how putting on makeup, doing skincare, getting dressed, etc is both a pain and affirming. They ask if any other trans people in general go through this.

For me, not so much anymore. Before it was a bit of a process because I needed to hide my hips and my chest, figure out how long to wear a binder, when can I take it off, should I layer instead, should I pack, etc. Now after being on T for a while, a lot of gender affirmation I get is my deep yawn after I roll out of bed and the shirt that's curled up a bit and shows my body hair. Shaving my face is annoying but it's nothing compared to shaving my legs or body. I rarely bind even though I haven't had top surgery because while it bothers me a bit, binding sucks and men can have boobs. And I do take a bit long to get ready bit that's because of two skin conditions and isn't gender related.

But I'm a trans man that presents as masc or gender neutral. Men aren't as expected to take a long time to have the acceptable appearance as men. There's a certain type of masculinity in lazy appearance alone.

So while what they talk about is related to being trans, it's also related to our misogynistic culture. Women can be seen as masc simply for not spending hours doing those things.

And having something be gender affirming to us trans people is generally seen as positive, but I'm sure a lot of us notice that society has an influence on that. Being able to dress in a tuxedo for prom was gender affirming to me, but we can all recognize that's from the expectation of men to wear that. Wearing a dress or skirt would've been more upsetting, but I know that men should be allowed to do that without being seen as any less of a man.

As trans people we still take joy in these little things because they're not granted to us the way they're granted to gender conforming cis people. I can't say for sure with nb people, but us binary trans people want to be included in the boxes of man and woman, and its relieving to get that after being denied. We can learn the general lines of what to do and what not to do, and feel rewarded for following them (may be specific to allistics).

But those of us who know gender roles and know how society influences gender, know that its ultimately fucked up.

Basically, between the expectations for women being pushed hard in society, and trans peoples relationships to being denied gender identity, that's their pain in the ass gender affirmation.

[remove-the-stairs-bitch]

A tangent about myself, corporations, and absolutes, or My Experience.

I am going to speak on my own experience as a now cis white woman, previously a transgender/nb person. I might say things that you won't like, and that's fine. I know that there are people who don't like what I'll say. And that's good. Disliking certain things about people is a great opportunity for growth. It teaches nuance and depth, and there are things about even my closest friends that I don't like and yet see past. I still love them. My best friends are either far left or far right or wholly centrist, and that's okay. Because they're people. And we need to be able to see people as people, instead of just mirrors of our flawed selves.

As a disclaimer, this includes what some might consider transphobia, but I don't. Like parents keeping someone from transitioning bc of their age or someone breaking up with a new trans person. Also includes a death in the family. My own views on topics are heteronormative and based in Christianity, my parents views, my peers views, and the things I've seen and experienced, online and off. Don't discount my views for any of these, and if you do, please explain why.

I'll start with 2020, the year I joined tumblr and started doubting my identity as a woman/girl/female person. It was a rough time for everyone, and my 15 year old egocentrism did not help. At the time, I was dating a man of 16 years. I call him a man because he was wise in many ways, and in my mind he earned the title. But when I started questioning my gender, I told one of my friends about it. Consequently, she told her parents about it. And they told the man I was with about it. Because of my egocentrism, I was blind to how much it hurt him to think that his potential future wife was intent on becoming a man. I would have left him, as it's called, a trans widower. I say would have because there are nuances to this story that I'll explain later on here.

After a while of thinking that I was either a male or something between the genders, I eventually began identifying as a demigirl. The reason I thought I was a man or between the two at the time was my isolation from others, the natural desire to rebel at that age, and the fact that I was seeing so many trans men on YouTube tik tok compilations. On top of these was my stress from school, my stress from switching chores with my younger brother, and the stress of transitioning in itself. I blamed all of my problems on my gender. This did not solve anything. Because it didn't solve anything, I blamed the others around me, growing more and more abrasive towards the people I cared about until my mom pulled me aside and told me that there are people in my life who had it far worse than I did. It was not an actual of transphobia. What she did opened my eyes to the idea that I was not the center of the world, not even the center of my own. She told me that one of my best friends had been the victim of a violent crime, and while I was caught up in my own gender, I completely ignored her pain. I was a worse friend, a worse child, and a worse person, because I was focused solely on my problems and my image. That was when the facade began to break.

I began detransitioning in 2021. It was easy, free, and more freeing than trying to cram who I am into an agender box. I'm very glad that I wasn't able to find hormones at the time, or I'd be suffering the effects to this day. It was an emotional drain for the pressurized bottle I had built up in myself. And it was a struggle. There were times when I'd look in the mirror and think to myself, "I'm very masc presenting today," and then realized that's just how I normally dressed when I was younger. When I completely identified as a girl. It was hard because I saw other people transitioning. And when they finished transitioning, nothing changed. Their circumstances did not get better. Their grades sometimes dropped. Their quality of life went down. Their already strained relationships with their families broke entirely in some cases. It hurt to see.

My ideology then changed. I returned to my religion in August of 2021, and was able to find some peace. It was a great comfort to me, even when tragedy hit. My older brother left the family in pursuit of a narcissist. They were trans as well, but had multiple mental illnesses that made them arguably unfit to take care of another person, much less the polycule they had amassed. This hit my family hard, almost as though my brother had died. (I say this with the experience of losing a parent, not with the intent of coming off as saying "he was dead to us.") He left on a sour note, not telling us that he loved us anymore. I started a D&D campaign in the hopes of having some small connection to him, and it succeeded. Eventually, he was a victim of the very person he left us for, and he came back, traumatized. We have a place for him to this day, and he's at least slightly more comfortable with himself and his gender than he was when he returned to us. He doesn't lie when hardship strikes anymore, and he knows that we love him no matter his choices or his struggles.

In 2022, I got high grades and was nearly able to graduate. I had no need for other curriculum, as I had already met and exceeded the requirements for my state's high school graduates. I was undecided, so I opted to go through the summer of 2023 and see which way the wind blew. Over that summer, my father died. It was during a family trip that we had been planning for a while. It was unexpected, but wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. This may just be because of my religion, as it gives an answer for what goes on after death, and gives anecdotes of folks being brought back to life. I understood that no tears would bring him back. But I also understood that I was his legacy. And that he died proud of himself, his family, and his peers. In all likelihood, he died contentedly.

I quit my part time job and decided to try school again, if for nothing else then for the social security benefits. This proved to be a bad move. The friends I had there promoted unhealthy lifestyles, and although I loved them, I couldn't stay and let them affect me. So I left school, which wasn't something the teachers wanted me to do (I'm sorry Ms. F, I'll come back to show off my sewing projects!), but it was necessary in order to push myself to grow up. That was immediately stifled by a knee surgery (which was prescribed basically the week after my dad's death, bc I dislocated my knee right before going to the hospital to see his cadaver). It is now December, and here I am yapping about my personal life online.

I intended to speak on the near-widower that left me after I came out. We're back together. He still loved me. I just needed to grow up to see that.

There are people out there who might hate you as a trans person. But there's a solid difference between hate, ignorance, and concern. Hate is active oppression. There is oppression, and from what I've seen it's on a systemic and corporate level. But it's not on a personal level. On a personal level there's either ignorance or concern. What I experienced when I was struggling with my gender was concern. There was no ignorance in my case. The people who left me left for the same reason I left my school. It was because they saw the path I was taking and did not want to be shouted over while I was wandering. People can leave people they love because it's better to give a situation to the authorities than it is to try and fix it yourself. If my fiance hadn't left me, my mental and emotional state would have rubbed off on him and hurt him. I could have done more harm if he didn't cut me off when he did. For that, I think I'll forever be grateful. The people who stay stay because they know you need support while you'd still say they're toxic or hateful. That's what I thought of my parents until I was able to see the bigger picture. If your parents are actively beating you or shouting at you or gaslighting you, of course don't stay. But I recommend taking a second to ask about what's happening around you instead of within you. Because of today's culture, I took the notion that the answer was always inside me far too seriously. Sometimes the answer is in the people who care about you.

But this brings me to the second part of my little rant here. I came to the realization that the less people identify with solid and tangible things, the more the corporations in control of our country can manipulate us. There's pridewashing, virtue signalling, deflecting when serious issues are brought up, and we ignore it for the sake of letting these corporations remain the one stable thing in our lives. There are far more tech jobs these days than agriculture, and because of this, we could end up starving while corporations pull an Orwell on us and say there has never been a steady supply of grain. Or that there has always been a poor AQI. Or that we need the new Juicero Pro to do our taxes instead of making juice. I don't feel like America itself is the problem, but the corruption within it. I still rely on a device created with slave labor to share outlandish opinions and borderline radical ideology with you few, but I don't want it and I don't need it. I could just as easily toss this thing against a wall and be fine. (I won't bc my mom would be rather miffed if I did, but you get my point.) I could survive for a good long while without it, and probably be far happier. Same with all the trinkets and plastic I've accumulated, in my bloodstream and otherwise. I have no need nor desire for these things, and yet I keep them.

But there's a need and desire for at least a little tradition, which is expressed by many women who are sick and tired of being lumped into the modern idea of "man, woman, or nonbinary," and just want to be allowed to be tomboys again. Or just want to be allowed to be a wife. There's nothing inherently wrong with desiring a home with a working man and kids. There is something wrong with telling women what they can and can't do, according to modern feminism, and yet the women who want to be homemakers are silenced and shouted down, along with detransitioners among the lgbt. Aren't these people valid too? Isn't their plight just as understandable? But they're pushed to the margins as low statistics that really don't matter in the long run. Along with trans widows/widowers. Is it not wrong that we're ignoring the people who we harm with our movements? Isn't the point that we help the hurt? So why aren't we helping the people we're leaving behind? It's concerning is all. A society based on a single voice is no society at all.

Sorry for the rant. If anything here has resonated with you, feel free to comment about it. Same with anything that has struck a nerve. I miss being able to speak about the things I disagree on in a kind manner. I miss the good that disagreement brings.

[feeshies]

also someone just tagged my gender/genre post with "love letter from binary trans to nonbinary trans" and that hit me so hard

it's true! i do love you all! there was a point in my life when i thought the nonbinary label would work for me, but ultimately it wasn't the right fit. but being able to interact with and understand nonbinary people (to the extent in which i can) has been nothing but a privilege.

some people did reblog that post disagreeing by saying that binary people can also relate to the gender nuances i described and i wanted to use this post to say i actually agree. i made that post bc i wanted to explore how it was difficult for me to understand microidentities until i was able to use music to wrap my head around the concept. i was willing to go "well if someone identifies as x, then that's the end of story", but i wanted to go deeper. actually, i was afraid that nonbinary people would think it was insensitive for me to compare their gender to something unrelated like music, but it has actually been incredible to see how many people found comfort in my post. and yes, of course binary trans people or even cis people can find comfort in my post. but of course there is nuance and it's been a delight being able to read through everyone's experiences

i just hate this divide that seems to be pushed between binary and nonbinary trans people. i'm not "one of the good ones". i actually suck in a lot of ways lol. but i won't accept the support of anyone as long as it excludes the support of my nonbinary siblings, no matter how niche or cisnormative-unfriendly their journeys are. if i cared about cis feelings over anything else, i would have stayed closeted. the dragongenders know how to party. get rekt.

[nothorses]

how do i, as a stealth transmasc, misdirect people who call me a (transfem) egg without coming off as transphobic? often they think of me as an egg because i care "just a little too much" about trans issues and trans hcs, and/or because im very gnc and gay. i want to project the vision of a cis binary gay man that's very comfortable in his gender but respects trans rights, but i don't know how to make people respect my gender without either sounding like i would NEVER consider the idea of being transfem, or without them coming away from the interaction still thinking of me as a "potential girl". i should clarify that most people do not outright call me an egg, but that seems to be the impression i get from a lot of trans people that i interact with online, and some have even told me "if you're not trans now, you will be later".... for now ive resorted to the excuse that i have trans friends and family members (which is true) and that for a time i did actually question my gender as a transfem and decided i was not one (which is not). but its frustrating that i have to lie and explain myself like that for people to leave me and my gender alone. it sometimes feels like being stealth on this website is harder than just presenting as trans.

I don't know if I really have The Correct Advice for you, because I think there's really only so much anyone can do to dissuade nosy internet strangers from being way the hell too in your business (from personal experience and observation, lol).

But something you might try is leaning into the gay aspect of your identity, and the historical connection and solidarity between gnc gay folks and trans people; the idea of gay men's gender as Different from straight men's gender, even if both are men, and the nuances of that relationship to maleness under patriarchy.

Maybe also just, like, expressing discomfort with that interpretation of you through that lens- which I'm sure you've done, but some extra questions to try asking might be: Why do gay men need to Actually Be Women? Why can't they be gay? Why do men who care about trans people need to Actually Be Women- why are we setting the expectation that cis men are actually incapable of trans solidarity? Why can't cis gay men have nuanced and well-considered relationships to maleness that are different from straight men's, without Actually Being Women?

I mean even aside from the fact that their perception of you as "potential girl" is nosey and invasive and invalidating (not to mention condescending), it's also genuinely ignoring a lot of historical context, and nuances in the gay community & gay identity. Our communities are more related than they want to think, and it's reductive and binary to insist that gnc gay men can't be the way they are and still be men. Even if you're coming at it from a Support Trans Women angle, it's still just "gay men aren't real men" in a trans hat.

(Which of course isn't to say that a lot of folks do start their journey that way; as "gnc gay men who care a lot about trans rights" to transfemmes. That's a common path, and for good reason. I'm not invalidating that. But jesus, not every horse girl turns out to be a trans guy, and not every gnc gay turns out to be a trans girl.)

Idk!! I'm sorry you're dealing with this, and I really hope you find a way to get people off your back about it. I can imagine how invalidating it must feel to be perceived that way.