#even if i dont identify as masculine

[sammygender]

the thing thats always missing in conversations about gender in general is the fact that 'cis', as an identity, is not a innate Thing Some People Are, but rather a state of acceptance society grooms us into from birth

[mejomonster]

As I get older and older I more tangibly realize why queer individuals in older generations than mine might prefer words I wouldn't use for myself, and likewise why younger generations preferences would be different too. Like it was always clear you know, a person knows their identity best and what labels they prefer best and even if you don't get it you should respect it. But I guess the older I get the more I realize I really don't know and never can know the background another person has for their perceptions and meaning for labels and why something in particular helps them to use or not

[theguardianace]

gender my beloved behated

[schizowitchic]

also like i partially found out i might be intersex because i was looking at trans stuff and there was like "(however many) months on t and finally seeing some bottom growth" and like pictures of t-dicks and i was like.... um.... that's kind of just what my clit looks like anyways. so i was like "hey google give me a quick rundown on this" and learned what clitoromegaly was and then i was like. hm. intersex resources. and it's like a sign? symptom? side-effect? of certain intersex conditions

[lillyviarabbit]

if only wishing could change things, but i'm too paralyzed to act

[gin-juice-tonic]

I know technically ALL my trans comics could be considered 'cringe' by some and im probably strange for worrying about something like this in the first place

but there are more genuine aspects of stan and ford being trans that i think about but dont talk much about cause im worried if im too genuine it will come back out the other end

Would a trans Ford have felt locked out of girl-ishness due to his hands? Would his "freak" label make him feel at odds with being a girl even before he realized he wasn't one? Would he have to grapple with identifying which feelings come from what?

I HAVE actually touched on the idea that even before any kind of transition Stan feels like he's never looked enough like a girl anyway. But does he ever wrestle with that? Does he lean harder into masculinity because he felt like he could never achieve being feminine in the first place? Does he ever feel like or worry he's some kind of fraud that just failed at being a girl like he fails at everything else?

Of course as they get older they know they are the men they say they are, but when they were younger, was it hard?

these are things that run around in my brain, but i am unlikely to make comics about

[genderkoolaid]

hey about that ask and post about how trans lesbians dont have any real in to the community to start figuring out their identies i think your missing a bit of the point because yes trans gay men dont have an automatic connection either and mlm and fandom spaces are pretty bad about 'cishet women' consuming alot of mlm content or relating to mlm ships and characters but while theyre there they are kinda (probably in a harmful way) learning about queer identites at least hearing the words to look up and research on their own but thats a different thing to trans lesbians not even having a space to get that close to queer people if at all without being kept out of conversation about queer identies and so never or much more rarely having space to find out about trans lesbians or given space to relate to wlw or queerness

of course most trans men in either of these spaces are celebrated for coming out unless they find groups of transmen in fandom even but i dont think that makes these experiences all that similar i think we should appreciate these as diffrent experiences without lessing eithers impact

I mean. there are closeted trans lesbians who have an awareness of queer identities through their friends or through online communities from the perspective of an ally. This is not the same as being able to identify oneself with queerness and feeling that you are accepted as an insider in those spaces, but that feeling isn't necessarily handed to closeted gay trans guys being read as heterosexual cis women either. And still, it's not as if there aren't any "straight" "cis" "men" who have queer friends or engage in communities frequently by queer people.

And I feel that having this conversation on Tumblr biases us, seeing as this is The Website for "straight" "cis" "women" who get really into MLM shipping. What about gay trans men who aren't chronically online in that way? Who live their lives as "normal" straight cis women, and whose only exposure to transmasculinity is the vague concept of "butch lesbian becomes masculine straight man"? Outside of Tumblr culture, I do not see gay trans men being given much visibility, with the "ex-lesbian" narrative still having a strong grasp over how most trans men are perceived.

I just feel like this argument is working off a very specific and local-to-Tumblr idea of the experiences of a gay trans man. Like, there are (in my experience), more gay trans men active in Queer Tumblr than gay cis men, and the same is not true for cis lesbians vs trans(fem) lesbians. But if you go to the vast majority of areas, where gay cis men dominate, gay trans men are not always being given space or visibility.

[officialspec]

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?

- [ ]

first off i hate this ask and i think youre a freak. in any other world i wouldve blocked you for this but unfortunately for both of us i actually like this type of philosophy. dont send this shit to anyone else though

i dont think its right to compare human sexuality to the same thing in animals, to get that out of the way. im sure until a certain point it comes from the same biological impulses, but human beings have way more complicated social structures and reasons for coupling that just do not exist in other animals. our social behaviours are what make us unique in the animal kingdom and that definitely extends to gender and sexuality. so theres that

people love to tout 'gender is a social construct' around like its a criticism in and of itself, which i think betrays a misunderstanding about social constructs in general. theyre the foundations we build language on to better understand each other, and affected by a whole host of cultural and historical factors. just because theyre subjective and complicated doesnt mean they arent real. in terms of the effect they have on peoples lives they may be the most real thing that exists

for example, 'kindness' is a social construct. the definition and ways it is enacted differ greatly across personal and cultural lines. but no one would ever suggest a world where kindness doesnt exist or loses meaning, because its an essential part of the way we interact with each other (in the same way i dont really see a world where gender entirely ceases to exist, mainly just one where people have more fun with it. im not a psychic though so who knows)

similarly, sexuality in humans is another social construct. i think the driving biological forces behind it are very real, but the labels people attach to those impulses are subjective attempts to express their inner world to the people around them if that makes sense. and those same biological impulses are ALSO subject to social ideas of gender, because those ideas are established at birth and reinforced over a persons entire lifetime

to use myself as an example, im a gay trans man. ive identified as other things in the past, because i was trying to pick apart feelings i had and express them to others in an attempt to find community. my identity might change as i get older and experience new things, or it might not. i identify as gay because im not attracted to the social concept of women, and someone i would otherwise be attracted to might lose all appeal after i find out they fall under that concept (this has happened before w transfems pre and post coming out lol)

of course, the real REAL answer to this is that trying to give queer identities rigid and objective definitions is a fools errand, and also lame as fuck. someone might identify as gay and be more attracted to general masculinity than men as a social category, maybe they fool around with a couple of butch women without considering themself any less gay. two otherwise identical people might be a butch lesbian and a gay trans man without either of those identities coming into conflict. they might even be the same person at different times of the week

the labels people choose to use are communication tools, not objective signifiers. if you dont understand them, they probably arent talking to you

social constructs are everything. we as humans have the unique ability to interpret our own messy desires and impulses into words that other people can use to form an idea of someone else in their mind. its how we build connections, and of course it isnt perfect because trying to squeeze someones entire personal history and the centuries of context that defined it into a handful of syllables is going to leave some room for error. but its all we have, yknow? so we keep trying. and i think thats much more human than any imposed objective 'truth' could ever be

tldr we live in a society dipshit. get with it

[pansy-picnics]

A vat7k related question.

What do you think is Hugo's gender identity? Cus I want to hear what you think Hugo's gender is and the story behind it.

EHEHEHE personally i think she’s genderfluid and uses he/she/they pronouns…….I think he was kind of an uncracked egg up until the trials though. like, he’s been in survival mode for so long that he’s never had the time or luxury to really think about himself or his identity….i think he’s had a lot of different disguises over his career though, and those personas are either male or female depending on what the situation calls for so he’s not a stranger to dressing femininely either.

but yeah…i think for a long time hugo just identified as male by default cuz like…what else would he be LOL. if he had any doubts at all they weren’t significantly hindering him or anything so he just buried them with all the other of the emotions he doesn’t want to feel. but like the closet is made of GLASS and this becomes especially obvious when she teams up with 3 other teenagers who are also transgender so sometimes she’ll just Say Shit and they all turn around and look at her like “…….🤨”

i have this very vivid scene in my head where varian comes out to the gang as trans and hes clearly really uneasy abt it. and hugo doesn’t know what to say so he just tries to relate by saying the first thing that comes to mind and goes “oh yeah i get it i mean. sometimes i wish i was a girl but like not all the time yk” and nuru and varian both just stop and stare at him

hugo, getting nervous: …Sorry that’s probably not the same thing forget i said anything

nuru: No i think we should talk about this?

anyways yeah….other than her traveling party giving her some weird looks nothing actually really came of these conversations bc hugo would refuse to think about herself even if you put a gun to her head

fast forward to post-trials though, and hugo’s been living in the castle with varian for about six months…it was REALLY messy for both of them while she was adjusting, but at this point shes finally started to let her guard down a little, and all of a sudden she has SO much free time and she has no idea what to do with any of it. she’s stealing collecting things, tinkering with all kinds of useless little gadgets, rapunzel is teaching her tons of little arts and crafts projects. overall shes pretty content despite everything. So anyways then the gender crisis hits them like a fucking freight train

honestly i’m like half joking when i say i think it started bc they just kept forgetting to cut their hair. like one day they looked in the mirror and they’re like “wow my hairs getting so long i kinda look like a girl lol. Wait”

AND AS FUNNY AS IT IS ITS SO. WILDLY UNFAMILIAR TO THEM. like all of a sudden theyre SO insecure for as far as they can tell, NO reason and it drives them CRAZY. i dont even think that hugo dislikes their masculine features after coming out, i think they embrace them if anything but its just like…going from 0 to 100 so fast and suddenly being so hyper aware of themselves in a way that they NEVER were before…having to realize that they’re definitely Not cis. it’s fucking TERRIFYING!!!

not to mention it hits him all at once during a time when he’s still frankly really paranoid about him and varian’s relationship, and he’s kinda walking on eggshells bc deep down he’s convinced that var’s just gonna get tired of him eventually and kick him out. its like he’s just waiting for the final nail in the coffin despite the fact that there is literally no coffin.

All that being said i think it takes him a while to work up the courage to talk to varian about it. and he knows he won’t like. hate him for being trans or anything (I sure hope he wouldn’t, at least, seeing as he is literally also trans) but varian’s already done SO much for him and helped him through literally everything already….he doesn’t want to burden him any more than he already has. he also cant comprehend that someone can just Like him, like, as a person, so he’s convinced himself that varian must see something specific in him right now and he’s afraid that if he changes himself drastically in any way then whatever varian saw in him just. won’t be there anymore. If that makes sense

as for who he actually goes to first- honestly i think it’d have to be lance. at least in my head lance was the first person hugo really started to bond with aside from varian….he didn’t start letting his guard down with rapunzel until quite a while after that. also i think he’s worried that if he tells rapunzel she’d end up accidentally spilling something to varian (which is like. Valid bc she’s a horrible liar) he’d definitely write a letter to nuru, too, but nuru is also in another kingdom, and that message takes a while to get to her, so it’s more something they talk about after the fact

when he finally does get a letter back after dumping this revelation on her it’s just like

“dearest hugo. upon reading your letter i desperately wanted to tell you that i told you so, but i realize that would be in poor taste, seeing as you are clearly struggling right now. Moreover,-“ /j

regardless of who she tells first, they obviously all support her and encourage her to talk to varian as well…And ofc varian hypes her up to no end when she finally does. i wanna say it’s a sweet emotional scene but i feel like varian was also under the assumption that she figured out the gender thing like a year ago /j

hugo: ,,,,so like. i don’t think i’m a guy

varian: . yeah?

hugo:

hugo: TFYM “YEAH”?????!!!!???

varian: D. DID WE NOT ALREADY KNOW THIS?

hugo: ,???? NO???!!???!

jokes aside though as soon as hugo does decide he wants to explore his presentation more varian immediately consults rapunzel who gets WAY too excited about it and it kind of scares hugo a little bit. /j like Do you want to cut your hair? Dye it? Do you want new piercings? TATTOOS????

they eventually just settle on getting her a few new pieces to add to her wardrobe and that works out fine. varian sees his girlfriend in a dress and loses his mind etc etc. All is right in the world

[echoes-of-mia]

okay this is a long ramble and kinda personal, so bear with me, but i want to talk about being aspec in the joker out fandom bc I'm full of emotions and i need to share them somewhere

(just a short warning for internalised aphobia before i go on)

for context, i identify as aspec, more specifically asexual and some flavour of aromantic. I've known about the ace part for about 3-4 years now, the aro part is more recent and I'd say that before, lets say, a couple of months ago, I'd always seen that as something negative, something that makes me miserable, a deficit that will always be there and that others will never understand

and then i joined the (tumblr) joker out fandom around... june of last year, probably? and at first i thought "theres no way there are many queer people in this fandom, its essentially a boyband, and other aspec people? no way"

well, oh boy was i wrong

because not only is this fandom, like what, 90% queer? (i know someone made a poll at some point but i dont remember the percentages) but it's also around 50% aspec. and there's just this general positivity and support surrounding the a-spectrum in the fandom. like, some days ago there was an aphobic comment somewhere and before i even saw it my dash was FLOODED with people defending aspec people and i was just sitting in the kitchen reading through the posts and crying.

and yes, this is tumblr, i could have seen this coming and it's probably different on other platforms, but so many aspec people in one place, in one fandom, is still something that I've never experienced before.

so why are so many aspec people drawn to a slovenian indie/shagadelic rock band that, at first glance, is just 5 very good-looking probably-straight guys making music? that doesnt really make sense, right?

and then you see how much more they are. how they interact with each other. how comfortable they are in their sexualities, in their masculinity, in being themselves. you see a group of friends that love each other so unashamedly it's a bit unbearable to watch sometimes. you don't see them holding back because "thats not their partner!" or "that's reserved for romantic relationships!", you just see love. you see them supporting each other, being physically affectionate, looking out for each other, laughing together, even living together. vse kar vem could easily be a romantic song, but it's about their friendship!!

and what is all of that, if not THE dream of many aspec people? to be okay with not feeling sexual or romantic attraction because you have your group of friends that you love the same amount as allosexual/-romantic people love their partner(s) and to show it, and to know that they love you the same (and won't replace you with romantic partners) because they also show it, without thinking twice about it, without thinking about how others might interpret your relationship because it just doesn't matter as long as you love each other.

so of course aspec people see themselves in joker out. we see hope for ourselves in them, we are probably a little (or in my case very) jealous of their friendship, we want what they have or we just love to finally see real people live with the sort of affection we would like to have. (just to clarify, this is based mostly on what i feel, so other aspecs might feel completely different about this, idk why I'm trying to generalise this)

and this is about all five of them, but to take jan and nace as an obvious example: they love each other so much that the fans start to speculate, and they know about it. but instead of hiding their affection, they just keep on doing what they're doing. because they know how they feel for each other, and it's no one else's business, and they won't be stopping their love just because of "conspiracy theories". and to me it doesn't matter how they love each other (platonic, romantic, whatever), it matters that they do and that you can't help but notice it, because they show it in every interaction we see of them. the damon baker photoshoot just confirmed that, they look at each other and the amount of love makes me cry, it's so incredibly beautiful.

(just some other things i want to mention: them probably cooking mostly potatoes because nace is glutenfree. nace calming down bojan after his panic attack in summer. jan and bojan casually kissing on the lips during a concert. the jure and bojan getting married photoshoot. bojan touching kris's hair during concerts. kris being carried around during a photoshooting. jure and jan drawing a heart together. them gathering around jure's drumset during concerts. i could go on but for my sanity and yours i won't, there are so many moments that just make me soft)

I'd love to be more physically affectionate with my friends, but every time there's this voice in the back of my head saying what society has conditioned it to say, which is that that kind of affection is reserved for romantic relationships, and this voice stops me every time. i feel like bojan, jan, jure, kris and nace either don't have that voice (anymore?) or they've just managed to ignore it, they don't hold back and i admire that as much as i wish i could be like that.

and while i still have a long way to go until i can be affectionate with my friends without worrying about it or holding myself back, joker out have shown me that it's possible, because of them i finally have days on which i think that i can be aspec and actually happy about it. being aspec finally feels as freeing as it should feel and I'm just grateful

joker out has allowed so much queer joy into my life without intending to and although i don't think anyone i know irl will ever understand this, i hope that some of you can relate to this in some way.

I've said this a lot during the past two weeks but i can never say it enough: all the love to my fellow aspecs, and also to all the non-aspec people who support us <3

feel free to add to this if you want to; my dms are always open if you want to talk about it without posting about it, i love hearing other people's thoughts about stuff like this ^^

[genderqueerdykes]

so im transmasculine nonbinary and identify a lot with masculinity and butchness, im also over a year on T. i dont consider myself a woman at all, but i find that my attraction to women feels FAR more like being a lesbian than being straight. at the same time, i prefer not to label my sexuality because lesbian isnt a term i want to use, but i did use it when i was younger. is it weird that i still want to date queer women who ID as lesbians sometimes? it makes me feel predatory when im attracted to lesbians, like those cis guys who think they can "fix them," but its really not my intention to be gross.

nope that's not weird!

i really need to stress the amount of nonbinary & transmasculine people who feel this way, it's really not uncommon or weird! i know this website is heavily populated by terves but this is such a common part of the butch & lesbian experience that it's totally normal and SHOULD be accepted! it's okay if you want to use the term lesbian for yourself, and it's okay that you want to date people who identify as lesbians! there's nothing here stopping you from doing so!

again the overlap between transmasculine and lesbian identities is so strong, not every single transmasc person is a butch lesbian and not every single butch lesbian is transmasculine or a trans man, but the overlap is so high that it's totally normal for this to happen and it's a beautiful thing to embrace! you're not being predatory, you're just expressing the fact that your attraction is sapphic- sapphicism and lesbianism are not locked or tied to genders. nonbinary people especially may do whatever they please, but even male identifying people can in fact have these identities! nothing wrong with that!

hope that helps! good luck in figuring yourself out! it sounds like you know what you're about! go ahead and use what feels comfortable, you're not hurting anyone, especially if you inform wheover you'd like to date about how you identify up front- if they choose to date you, you're not being predatory, that is an agreed upon relationship! it's not predatory to want to date people you're attracted to. take care of yourself!

[lexithwrites]

i’ve been having a very little thought abt OF wolfstar. how u said that a lot of ppl misgender sirius or don’t care abt how genuine things may make him feel (like clothes or names) and i’ve been thinking abt how remus being there would reinforce that sirius is a man!! cuz obv he uses the right pronouns and calls him sir and stuff.. which is nice !!

oh for sure. people online suck, even people that support sirius, and its because they just dont get gender expression. OF sirius is very fluid, whilst still identifying as a trans man, and online he likes to be more feminine, its just his preference. outside of his job, he's more masculine presenting because he isn't putting on a show and dresses more comfortably, but i can also see him trying it out on dates and stuff with remus because remus is attracted to sirius himself, not how he chooses to dress or act, its fun to write a character thats so comfortable in himself as someone that isnt comfortable haha it feels like giving myself a look into what i could achieve one day

and the day remus starts calling sirius sir in videos is gonna change lives the audience wont expect it and sirius is gonna be so hot UGH

[dateamonster]

the good weed will have u waking up the next morning like theres a connecting thread of monster hunting shows where the main characters are simultaneously symbols of the status quo charged with identifying and often eliminating the Others of the world while being othered themselves in such a way that upholding the institutions they do can be read as acting directly against their own best interest. this is especially obvious in something like x-files where the characters are literally agents of the fbi and the show is structured more or less in the format of a police procedural, while half of the main duo is defined primarily by his love and fascination with the paranormal, a curiosity about the greater world which the very powers he serves we know would seek to contain, to secret away, or to destroy. or even like supernatural where monster hunting has this inextricable tie to a sort of stereotypical rugged masculinity and stoicism that is supposed to appeal to the audience even while we see it emotionally and physically destroying the characters who most strive to embody it. within both of these shows, and im sure others within the genre (looking at you buffy, tho i dont have time to unpack all that rn), there is this vein of suppressed queerness that runs through the narrative, as if in embodying this role as the defender of hegemony and eliminator of that which disrupts the perceived natural order, the archtypal monster hunter is made to recognize and subsequently repress the aspects of that cultural deviance that manifest within themself. going back to supernatural, this i think is especially evident in the conflict between the text of show and its large queer fanbase, who seemed to recognize within its otherwise pretty cut and dry story of a manly man who likes cars and guns and follows almost blindly the demands of his patrilinial inheritance a sort of self-parody, the conformity to the role of this cishetpatriarchal protector ideal so complete and almost excessive that it doubles back and becomes a kind of drag, yet so fragile that continuing to uphold it appears to be a constant source of pain and conflict for its characters.

im not saying such and such monster hunter show is inherently a secret queer narrative, but i AM saying every monster hunter is a huge fucking closet case.

[dingodad]

if blood/caste = troll gender, then what would that make karkat? off the top of my dome, it immediately reads to me that he would be considered intersex or trans, both even, and at a glance, narratively that feels cohesive. i dont have anything to counter this reading, just curious on your thoughts!!

generally speaking i find it kind of a waste of time to try to identify "exact equivalents" in any given fictional allegory. blood castes are very much like troll genders and i think that's the most pertinent interpretation to homestuck's core themes, but the benefit of inventing a fictional system rather than straight up saying the trolls are segregated on the basis of sex is that the analogy doesn't have to be perfect and it can be used to represent different things at different times - the hemospectrum being a gender spectrum isn't mutually exclusive with the fact that it is also an economic hierarchy, for instance. a lot of discussions about "coding" in fiction end up languishing in the shallows by ignoring this.

so in terms of what the hemospectrum "makes karkat" i don't really think of it in terms of the exact thing that he would be on earth, bc i think the story adequately communicates the broad strokes; that whatever he is, in society's eyes he believes the circumstances of his birth cause him to fall short of the expectations that come with the strict categories alternia expects all trolls to fit into. i have to assume a lot of readers picking up on this is what led to trans guy karkat being such a hugely popular headcanon (besides trans guy headcanons having simply been the most popular thing full stop for a long time), which i think makes complete sense. i also think there are clear lines to be drawn between blood colour and biological sex in the way that biology never cleanly lines up with the social expectations associated with it, and even if i'm not totally sure terminology like "intersex" applies in the same way in a culture with 10+ genders as it does in a culture with just 2, the fact that trolls have a linear "spectrum" of genders clearly lends itself to this kind of thinking.

(this kind of harkens back to a years-old homestuck discourse: a lot of readers took issue with the suggestion that, despite being called a spectrum, in spinoff stories the troll blood colours are always depicted as fitting into twelve discrete categories. but long before i even began to explore the direct intersections between gender, sex and blood colour, the logic behind this seemed clear to me: surely all trolls ARE different and DO have subtly different shades to their blood, but in order to maintain a caste system where each blood colour has its place in the social order, alternian society has to act like there are only 12 colours. this is, after all, exactly how astrological signs are assigned; you can be born on any of 365 days in a year, but for the sake of neatly dividing the population into easily-described groups, each of these days is split among 12 basically-arbitrary signs. this clear parallel homestuck draws between gender and star sign is also why i find it so hard to take class and aspect seriously.)

so even if i don't think either of your options are necessarily what karkat's character is "intended" to convey in the same way i believe caste-as-gender as an intended reading, the versatility of the caste analogy makes them both very organic interpretations. BUT TO ACTUALLY GET TO YOUR QUESTION LOL: like i said in a previous ask, karkat comes across to me as being closeted. in conjunction with his chronically unorthodox approach to troll romance and the role he plays as homestuck's introduction to LGBT themes long before "trolls are bisexual" establishes itself as a canon fact, karkat reads as "the troll version" of a gay guy hiding this fundamental "flaw" in his being because he feels it's standing between him and the all-american ultra-masculine role he sees for himself among the threshecutioners. so like i said above i don't think it necessarily has to be about his "gender" so much as it is about his relationship to expectations of gender, just as troll-caste genders exist across a whole spectrum of expectations rather than in a strict binary.

[our-trans-youth-experience]

hello. i need help. sorry if yhis is venty.

i know this seems like a bad question to ask but i just dont get it!! i mean this from the persoective of someone trying to figure themselves out.

how do you know you're trans (masc or a trans guy)?? i dont understand. do you get a feeling? is it just "yea thats me"?

i think want to be a boy and i want to go on T but part of me just thinks im a confused girl and this will all pass one day but it hurts so bad because i want to be masculine and i want to be a boy and stuff and i wish i was just born a cis dude or something.

idk, im just confused. sorry if this comes off as offensive, i just dont get how people know :(

Hey kid, this does not sound offensive at all, tbh you sound like me a couple of years ago, but over time i promise you'll become a lot more secure in your masculinity.

Being trans is an individual experience. That means "transness" means something different for different people, and there is no one way to be trans.

If you want to be a guy and think you would be happier as one, then you're a boy. If you wish you were born a boy so you could have a flat chest and feel comfortable in your own body, then you're trans. If you don't want to be a girl and it doesn't feel right, then you're not a girl.

Personally, I'm transmasc, because I feel like a boy but not a man, kinda like one step away from binary but I don't really call myself nonbinary either. Its kinda like i'm a trans-guy and the two words aren't really seperable because i'm a queer dude and that is my gender. My "transness" is a part of my gender and who i am.

And even if its a phase? Something being a phase doesn't make it any less valid! Before I was transmasc, I identified as nonbinary for a while and that's ok!! Gender does not have to be static and people change overtime. 50 year old you is not going to be the same as you right now, so what does it matter if your gender is one of the things that changes? <3

[danielcalmdown]

ok i might be actually crazyyy for oversharing to a stranger on the internet but im desperate (?) to tell you:

i found your account a while ago because of your AMAZING disco elysium art and then sort of got lost in the rabbit hole of your posts and now you're constantly on my mind lol.

I'm also polish & im transmasc, have been identifying as "Some Type Of Trans" since like 2019 and it's only been evolving ever since; currently i use a different name and pronouns on uni, with friends, when outside of home and work basically - my family found out and had a field day with me about it. the dysphoria only gets worse year by year, and i dont really have any "older" trans people around me to tell me, like, anything. i only know that going to the ONLY specialist here in silesia and telling him "hey so im non-binary and don't even use masculine pronouns (i use ono/jeno) but i need to get ahead with some type of hormonal therapy or im going to go insane" will get me nowhere. what im getting at is "how do you cope" basically 😵 being trans in poland is the last circle of hell

aw thank you! i'm happy you like my art so much <3 BUT i might not be the best trans person to answer the "how to cope" question. everything went smoothly for me after i decided to go forward with transition. my family is fine with it, i pass without a problem and i had financial support to do everything required before they let you take the hormones. (it's a lot of money sadly, because all the good doctors are private n full price). if you need help with figuring out how and where to start, you can find all the information on trans support websites. like a list of recommended doctors in every city, all the necessary examinations n so on. i used this site a lot all the way thru! you should give it a try: https://tranzycja.pl/ btw if u plan on getting top surgery i highly recommend the clinic in Warsaw called Timeless. they did an amazing job with me!