#gave me secondhand gender euphoria

[transenbyconfessions]

so I'm a gay (aroace-spec technically, but also identify as complicatedly alloromantic) transmasc. pretty sure i lean heavy into attraction towards masc non-binary people especially those with more male-aligned genders.

so i was scrolling Tumblr and saw a couple of..... idk how to describe it but?? like thirstposts??? just like . really nicely framed photographs. obviously face was cut out cause it's Tumblr and why would you show your face on here. so it was mostly of their torso. crop top, boxers visible, no bra, really masculine pose, little bit of breast showing under the top.

kind of gave me secondhand euphoria to look at and i thought they were really attractive so i got curious and checked their blog to see if they listed their gender, and while their gender wasn't listed, they did tag the post with like, lesbian and butch and dyke, and now it's like. orientation crisis part 7. i know it's ridiculous to be like "omg am i ~allowed~ to feel attraction to a lesbian", and that's not quite what this is, it's more like.... im reeling. i don't think i'm a transmasc dyke myself (though i know they're out there!) but now this has me Questioning. like.... i know I'm 0% woman, but a part of me feels like it could be like, weird fake synthetic woman if that makes sense?? like if you took the concept of a dyke and made that into a xenogender, like that could be in here but definitely no straightup woman. this is just.... very confusing for me, so I'd definitely be curious to see if other people out there relate to this

Submitted April 5, 2023

[tittyblade]

hello op do tell me what is the wangxian fic you mentioned in the tags of this post https://www.tumblr.com/tittyblade/711997184926711808?source=share i am very much interested in a fic with lots of gender

thank you so much and hv a great day <3

(x) HELLO IM SOOOO GLAD YOU ASKED BC IT MIGHT BE MY ALL TIME FAVORITE WANGXIAN FIC SERIES <3333

See all this and more for just ten dollars a month! by ScarlettStorm

its a modern setting OF au. wangxian met in college and theyve been friends for 10 years, obviously pining like hell and cant do anything abt it for the fear of it messing w their friendship LOL. then things change and they change.

the first book focuses on how their relationship comes to be. its got good conflict n even better conflict resolution <33 if you’re specifically asking for what the post says that doesn’t come until the second book i think? there are still QUITE gender parts in the first book too tho. especially if youre into fuckin around w gender presentation <3 there are certain scenes where reading it gave me so much secondhand gender euphoria. reading this series (n im not even done yet!) made experimenting w my gender both identity and expression wise so much more fun. its definitely a comfort series for me <3

some of my favorite bits abt this series:

lan zhan is autistic and his autism is written rlly nicely. making me reconsider trying to get a diagnosis bc of how relatable he is to me LOL

same with wei ying and adhd

they both fuck up but work thru it together. theyve got really good communication and honestly its so refreshing to read people in a genuinely healthy relationship (it gets worse before it gets better)

^i should add to that. its written from lan zhans pov and quite a few of the first chapters are. anxious. the narration reflects the mental state of the characters so reading those first chapters were a bit uncomf for me but TRUST me. it gets so much better. its still definitely worth to push thru it and keep reading it.

the gang goes to therapy bass boosted! not getting into more details bc spoilers. just read it. its written very realistically which i adore.

nie huisang is nonbinary n goes by they/them <333 incorporating it into my belief system. they’re also a. sort of indie fashion designer WHICH??? I LOVE???? they work w burlesque performers so you can get a sense for their creations <3333

ScarlettStorm, the author, is a burlesque performer herself!! she know what shes writing. which shes Good at. (shes also on tumblr so if youre seeing this HI. i adore your fics)

in the second book, you get social commentary thru the characters’ dialogues abt things like being queer, being a sex worker, etc. which to me felt INCREDIBLY satisfying to read. even just writing queer characters living a good life is a form of resistance.

the smut is like. really really good LOL. thats all im gon say abt it find it out for yourself

[ojirocardigansniper]

took me a couple years but i did finally manage to articulate to myself what about carlyle foster gave me secondhand gender euphoria (tl;dr oh fuck i CAN be afab and transfemme (and also transmasc but thats not the relevant bit).) now we try to solve what the hell going on with the starscream emotion

[upwardsonwards]

unironically the best part of tua s3 was the karaoke scene because the pure joy of seeing viktor dancing with his brothers genuinely made me tear up

[pixelcurious]

I guess I knew it, intellectually, but when I watched this I thought “Huh! Yeah, you can do THIS with makeup, too!” I think it gave me secondhand gender euphoria. 

[my-darling-boy]

Just coming into your inbox to second the person who said you gave secondhand gender euphoria. I'm a very short transmasc person and like... the POSITIVITY you put out is infectious and always makes me feel more comfortable in my own masculine side. (I also really appreciate what you said about long hair-- mine's somewhere between 'viking' and 'elf prince', and it's a feature I love and am proud of, hate when people try to gender long hair)

Oh my days I’m happy you feel that way! I always do hope something I’m saying or doing can help someone feel better :0 And yeah you go and ROCK that hair!

[sunderedazem]

Wow, I did not know that... I'm so sorry that you were made to feel that way, I hope things are getting better for you, Fandom can be your greatest friend and your worst enemy but for every 1 negative review their will be 5 positive ones to go with it

The problem isn’t reviews, honestly. I can tolerate people wanting to tell me shit I’ve ‘done wrong’ - the only one that looks like an asshole is them, and I’m not afraid to clap back and tell them to shove their shitty opinions and asshole attitude where the sun don’t shine. They don’t (usually) come for me twice. 

(warning, vent beneath the cut. Its…emotional. I’ve tagged it for some shit. Read the TWs in the tags, and move on if you don’t want to see that shit)

The problem is how cruel people are to other people over stories. The problem is just how many people on the internet hide behind a screen and say AWFUL stuff to each other over fucking fiction. Over shit that isn’t real, never will be real, and can never excuse how they’re treating other human beings.

Like. I wrote Transition Period when I was a kid dabbling in queer and lgbt+ stuff for the first time. The main character is a genderbent Hitsugaya that’s gender-questioning and takes advantage of the genderbend. At the time of writing it, I was decidedly homophobic. I told my (one) gay friend that I “supported him but not his gayness.” (I have since sincerely apologized. He poked fun at me, as was his right, and forgave me, bless him)

Now, at the time I hid every mention of fanfic from my parents. But Transition Period I didn’t even save to my COMPUTER. I kept it on a google drive, under a gmail I never told them about, and only wrote it on school computers at lunch, or in my room with the door shut. Transition Period was the fanfic that my parents would have confiscated my laptop over, because it depicted a trans character, and that was (and still is!) sin to them. 

Nowadays, Transition Period means a LOT to me, because it was baby’s first steps into ‘huh, maybe mom and dad are wrong about this’. As a queer person, it has a shit-ton of sentimental value to me, and honestly I still relate to the gender euphoria Hitsugaya experiences in a female body - because I experience gender euphoria in the same way, when I look at myself and see androgyny. It was the beginning of my journey to self-discovery.

And then I come into fandom proper - tumblr, twitter - two years ago and see people absolutely screaming over genderbends being transphobic. Doxxing, hatred, death threats, the WHOLE nine yards. Stuff that would have absolutely destroyed me as a kid. Even now, I read that shit and feel secondhand pain from it because- I wrote that fic for fun. To explore something I could never DARE think about exploring in real life at the time. It was NEVER meant to be ‘representation’ - that’s for mainstream media to provide.

And yet, here people were, willing to tell others to die over that shit. 

I’ve seen people bullied off the internet in my two years here. I’ve seen people told to kill themselves. I’ve seen people treated as less than human. Called awful names. Falsely accused of shit they didn’t do, and then dogpiled for that thing. 

There’s no kindness here. No empathy. Not even the decency to block and ignore. It’s all hate, all anger, all empty accusation. 

And this place that was once my escape has become hell. 

This place that taught me that it was okay to be queer, this place that taught me to accept myself, to stop viewing sex and intimacy as this sacrosanct thing that even thinking about (unless the purpose was childbearing) was evil - it’s gone. Fanfiction gave me a place to question Catholicism and its views on literally everything. 

And now, I’ve wanted to kill myself over it. I’ve picked up a knife and hurt myself over this. I’ve nearly jumped off a roof over this. Because I’m so sick of being here, so sick of seeing everyone hate each other, hate things I love for not being woke enough, or whatever BULLSHIT reason people want to give for tearing other people down.

And yet, I can’t leave. It’s the one place I’m completely out of the closet. It’s the one place I can say “Trump sucks” and not be given a lecture in Real Life Hatred Propaganda. It’s my escape from my family’s homophobia and transphobia, my escape from being dragged to a Catholic Mass and having to pretend to pray to a god that would tell me to go to hell for existing how I am.

It was supposed to be fun. This was supposed to be the place I could do anything, be anything, explore anything - especially shit that I could never touch in real life. 

And now, every day I see this shit, I feel a little closer to just ending it completely.

I know this is entirely the opposite of what you wanted, and I’m really sorry for responding like this, anon.

But fandom is hell. It takes so much energy to create, to write, to do things I used to love now. 

I really appreciate everyone who loves what I write, what I draw, what I create. But for every one of you, there’s another who can’t even take the time to realize that words can hurt. Really hurt. And I’ve been at a breaking point for a long time.