#how are actual trans people falling into this

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

would you like to tell us about your research on virginity?

but also...wdym STIs aren't as scary as we think??? I was told most of them are incurable? I know you can make aids untrasmittable and that they've even succeded in curing it a couple times but that's about it. I would love to be educated about this

yeah, the basic idea with the virginity project was that the whole concept of virginity is pretty bullshit in the context in which it was initially significant, namely cisgender women being penetrated by cisgender men, so as soon as you take it outside of that context by introducing gay and trans sexuality it totally falls apart. I mean, hell, it stops working if you even look at two cishet people doing literally anything OTHER than penis-in-vagina sex. I tripped up so many people initially when I started asking questions like "okay, so you don't think a woman loses her virginity from a man going down on her. so what if it's two women? what's the difference?" and just really getting people to face down their very penis-centered view of the sex, to the result of several people telling me that it kind of made them reevaluate what they actually think of as the first time they had sex. it's also fascinating to either read other people's accounts or discuss firsthand how queer people have either tried to make themselves fit into the binary of virginity - queer man disagreeing over whether or not you have to have penetrative anal sex to lose your virginity or oral sex is sufficient, a fascinating case of a lesbian who felt that have sex with other cis women didn't "count" and asked a cis male friend to have sex with her just so she could feel satisfied that she'd lost her virginity - or abandon it entirely. Hanne Blank's book Virgin was a formative starting point, and it really exploded for me from there.

as for the STIs - hey, bad news! you fell victim to the scare tactics used to make people afraid of sex! almost all sexually transmitted infections are very easy to treat and cure with the right medicine, which is why it's important to get tested regularly and check in with your healthcare provider at the first sign of something amiss. pubic lice, scabies, trichomoniasis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis - all of those are pretty easy to get rid of with some help from your doctor and a run to the pharmacy!

the major exceptions are the 4 H's: herpes, HIV, HPV, and hepatitis B.

herpes is with you forever but is an incredibly mild companion to share your body with, considering most people never experience any notable symptoms and those who do can curb the severity with medicine.

it's also worth noting that herpes is so common as to be virtually ubiquitous; the World Health Organization consistently estimates that somewhere around 80% of the world's adult population is carrying herpes simplex virus 1 or herpes simplex virus 2. a great deal of those people don't even get it from having sex, but rather by catching HSV-1 from a parent or other people they come is close contact with as a child.

you're actually thinking of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) when you mention AIDS becoming untransmittable, but that's still a very good thing! the care available for people with HIV has come incredibly far since AIDS first became known and claimed so many lives, and today it's more than possible for people infected with HIV to live long, healthy lives by taking the proper medication to manage their viral load.

with management, people with HIV will not develop AIDS (which happens when the immune system is sufficiently depleted by HIV) and by consistently taking their medication people with HIV can become undetectable (the viral load in their body is too small to be detected or measured in tests), at which point they are unable to transmit the virus to other people.

HPV (human paillomavirus) comes in many different strains, most of which are absolutely harmless and go away on their own after a couple of months or years of freeloading in your body. I cannot emphasize this enough: HPV is so common that virtually everyone who has sex has, will have, or has had it in their lives, and the vast, VAST majority of those people will never be troubled by it literally at all.

the trouble comes from a few strains of HPV that can cause genital warts, and a few others that can cause cancers in the throat, anus, cervix, vulva, vagina, and penis. while HPV can't be treated, you can reduce your risk of developing cancer by getting the HPV vaccine if you haven't already and, if you have a cervix, getting regular Pap smears to catch early warning signs of cancerous developments.

hepatitis B is a viral infection that targets the liver. in rare cases it can cause chronic health problems that can be very dangerous, but I have to emphasize that's not common. in most adults who get hep B, there will be no symptoms and it will resolve itself in a matter of weeks. the infection is riskiest in children, but at least in America most people have received vaccines against hepatitis B as babies since the 90s.

in conclusion: get your shots, take your medicine, use protection, get tested, and talk to your doctor, but know that if there's one thing humans are good at it's figuring out how to manage STIs. we've been doing it for a long time - most sexually transmitted infections and parasites have been with us since before we we became modern humans - so we're really good at it!

[potofsoup]

So.... I kind of accidentally fell into a Batfam fic hole for the past 3+ months and ... ::checks:: read >1000 fics??? Ooops?

Anyway, a fic rec list below the cut -- don't think anything is particularly surprising for anyone who is actually in the batfam fandom, since I stuck to the greatest hits, but in case you're like "Soup, how did you fall into a hole this deep for this long", under the cut are ~20 fics, organized by length. Mostly Tim-centric hurt/comfort because I'm basic like that. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

- Hot Cat on a Tin Roof by Arsenic (4k) This one is super cute -- basically Tim is an omega who has been hiding his heats because his parents were shit and never taught him otherwise, but then Jason finds out and of course mother-hens aggressively.

- phantom pain by envysparkler (5k) A great entry in the category of "Jason finds out that Tim's home life is miserable" -- in this case, he finds out that Tim's dad beats him through an accidental pain transference spell. Tim's dad gets his comeuppance.

- transaction by envysparkler (7k) The one where kid!Tim is touch-starved and goes to pay prostitute!Jason for hugs.

- The Second Stage by nightwalker (8k) Short and full of feels: basically Tim is touch-starved and determined not to bleed on anyone. Unfortunately his family finds out and he gets lots of cuddles.

- Brother Wanted by Vamillepudding (11k) Hilarious one where Tim puts out an ad for a brother and Jason accidentally answers. I love the little!Tim characterization here.

- 1-800-ROBIN by spqr (12k) A great entry in the "Jason Todd finds out and forcibly adopts Tim into the Batfam" category, all told through a series of phone calls. Great Jason Todd voice.

- Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines by SilverSkiesAtMidnight (13k) Tim's parents remain horrible! In this one, they make Tim food-insecure by cutting his food-buying budget and Tim, of course, tries to solve the problem himself. Eventually people figure it out and Tim ends up in a much better place.

- Tell Me I Am by potofrogs (15k) Basically trans!Tim gets kidnapped by Ras and made his "queen", saves himself and comes back to Gotham, and ... manages to recover, confront the Bats and stake out his own life in a generally healthy manner?!! I like that in this one, he doesn't immediately fall back into the Batfam gravity well and instead figures out what he actually wants.

- A Meditation on Railroading by eggmacguffin (25k) Wow this is an amazing fic about gaslighting. It's about Tim being abandoned in Atlanta by his shitty dad and deciding to train-hop his way home. I feel like I understand gaslighting better now.

- The Lone Ranger Never Had to Deal with Bruce Wayne by theskeptileptic (25k) This is a fic where Tim plans to fake his own death and run away to Canada to start a new life. Features hilarious little!Tim logic -- I love how his plans are both very smart but also very stupid at the same time, because he's 11.

- Missed Calls by nightwalker (26k) 5 times that Tim's dad didn't pick up the phone and one time he did. A particularly good rendition of the "Tim's parents are neglectful" trope. A good 5+1 really explores the range of the premise, and this fic delivers.

- His Head is Bloody, but Unbowed by gunpowder_and_pearls (26k) A great Jason POV fic! I love the way this fic captures what Jason's life would be like if he didn't end up getting adopted by Bruce -- the precariousness of trying to hold down two jobs as a 16-year-old and also dealing with a not-healthy home life. (It's okay, he befriends Nightwing and Robin)

- exception by cassiopeia721 (27k) A good character piece where Tim is taught that he's the "exception" -- exceptionally bright and mature, and therefore "kid" rules don't apply to him. Which doesn't do well for his emotional development, of course, as he deals with family neglect and also getting beaten up by Jason Todd.

- a Robin by any other name by redrobin1989 (33k) I love me some identity porn, and in this one, Tim still becomes Robin but refuses to tell Batman who he is. It really does some fun stuff with the "Batman and Tim!Robin is just a professional relationship" premise. (They figure it out in the end)

- Red Letter Day by silverwhittlingknife (41k, 9/? chapters) This is a wip, but deffo worth reading! Basically Dick is trying to be single-parent to Damian and barely keeping all the balls in the air. There's a mysterious calendar date that's marked as super important but he can't remember what it is. He thinks it's for Damian (but it's pretty clear by chapter 2 that it's for Tim). It's got an interesting Dick & Tim dynamic in that they hang out and obviously care about each other, but also there's too many things left unsaid (but Dick is really trying his best!)

- Banshee In A Well by liverobinreaction (bugbee) (43k) In this one, Tim keeps dying and coming back to life. It doesn't leave any emotional trauma around self-worth at all, no sirree. Nor does it feed into Tim's self-sacrifice tendencies at all, either, of course not.

- Dead Boys Don't Scream by Year_of_Summer (49k, 15/26 chapters) Wow I love this fic. Tim feeling neglected by Batfam? check. Tim running off and trying to solve problems himself with an overly-convoluted plan and zero survival instinct? check. Tim making friends despite himself? check. Super cool siren/merpeople mythology? check. All the angst upon Tim's return? check. This fic hasn't hit the comfort part of hurt/comfort, but it's expertly written and I definitely trust the author to deliver! Definitely worth a subscribe.

- The Return by lurkinglurkerwholurks (52k) So lots of fics have this arc of "Tim feels shut out from the Batfam and eventually does something so drastic that the Batfam is forced confront their issues." Which I love! But sometimes I want the Batfam to notice earlier, for them to try to fix things but it's hard and rocky because they're different people with different traumas and hangups. This fic delivers beautifully.

- buy back the secrets by sundiscus (71k, 5/6 chapters) I love the characterizations in this one, particularly Kon! It's a super cute Tim/Kon fic where Kon doesn't know that Tim is Red Robin. Great plotting, too! It only has 1 more chapter to go, so you know things are going to be resolved and okay :)

- Northern Attitude (I Was Raised on Little Light) by theskeptileptic (79k, 16/18 chapters) I absolutely love this writer. Tim is, of course, miserable in this fic (because he wants to be part of the Batfam but his parents basically blackmailed Tim into staying with them and continuing all the child abuse), but everything eventually works out! Tim is a great self-rescuing princess, and my heart of hearts goes out to the AMAZING Jason POV in chapter 20 (which works as a standalone, though it slightly spoils a bit of the plot), where you really FEEL how much Jason loves literature and uses that to guide his life.

[and two bonus super long ones:]

- Liminal Space by Calamityjim (77k) Oh man this fic series has such great comics-style plot! There's inter-dimensional travel, time travel, an utterly manic!Tim who comes up with the best/worst plans. I also ~love~ the YJ!Bart from a dystopian future who uses "crash" and "mode". Oh, and Tim is deeply flawed (and should not be allowed to do dimensional travel), but he still finds a loving, supportive family. (Warning: if you do go further in this fic series, the last fic of the series, "Collapse", is aggressively NOT kind to Clark Kent.)

- Finding the Line by Miss_Lazy_Tuesday (130k) In this one, Dick actually catches Damian trying to kill Tim, and as a result, actually gets Damian and Tim to reconcile before Tim runs off. Then the Batkids basically work together to bring Bruce back, find a magical macguffin, defeat the League of Assassins, and stop a complete re-write of reality. Great characterization and a fun comic plot.

[genderkoolaid]

its. not okay to use slurs just because you insist they are only about people you hate.

and like this is a slur yeah? this is an insulting term applied to members of a marginalized group to shame/mock/insult them. and idk about you but I have always, always seen it used BY transphobes about ANY nonbinary person who was AFAB. it has never been a term used for transmisognynistic NB people (and why would we have an AGAB-specific term for that? what the fuck?) like there is no getting around this. you just want an excuse to call other trans people transphobic slurs.

you don't need to call people "theyfabs" to talk about their transmisogny. you don't need to use transphobe's language to hurt fellow trans people. you are not being silenced because people are asking you not to use transphobic insults.

[princessefemmelesbian]

Transandrophobia truthers are so damn racist and white oh my fucking god y'all actually piss me the fuck off every time you tokenize Black and brown men for your stupid as fuck "mra but make it trans-inclusive" ideology created by a creepy guy with a corrective rape fetish(something I'll never let up on for as long as I live, btw). If I ever see another one of y'all say "Black and brown men face discrimination because they're seen as overly masculine and that's why masculinity in men is oppressed in this society" I will literally kill myself. Stop using Black and brown men as brownie points for your bullshit arguments about misandry being real when you don't have the slightest idea how racialized oppression works. White boys are so annoying and dumb istfg.

@punkeropercyjackson @punknicodiangelo @pinkpinkstarlet

[eroticcannibal]

Regarding that whole terf being like "I can totes tell which is a real vulva just by looking at it" thing, people are covering the transmisoginy but I've noticed no one is talking about how anti-porn views are playing into how this terf views bodies

Like, their is clearly a reactionary "only bigger inner labia are real, everything is surgical" thing going on here which obviously stems from the (legitimate!) Complaints about lack of genital diversity in porn (and inner labia size was a huge point of discussion a few years back). And like, radfems being radfems, decided at the time that the appropriate response was to decide anyone with this more favoured-by-mainstream-porn kind of vulva are evil and should be mocked and probably got surgery (even if they didnt) which makes them a traitor to women etc etc

And this is not to say that this specific instance is actually an attack on anyone but trans women (though the "real vs fake women" narrative *is* something also applied to sex workers of any gender, including cis women, by radfems) but rather I feel it is something to be aware of especially considering how anti-sex work sentiment affects overly sexualised groups (trans women) and groups who engage in sex work more frequently (also trans women)

[post-futurism]

It is very disappointing to be connected to Australians on this website only to quickly discover they are terfs.

[noisemastter]

so,

its like that

[i-will-always-love-the-jedi]

More happy and not at all angsty firebrand doodles :D

the first one is them on a speeder chase after a mission went wrong and everybody is just losing their mind (Avar actually lied about having a drivers license, Elzar memorized the map for the wrong planet and Stellan is sooo done)

otherwise, yes, nothing angsty at all... did y'all read the announcement for the new phase three book in november? pretty sure they are going to kill avar and elzar too...

...

[snekdood]

Quite honestly, i think people just dont like to acknowledge how many times i have been victimized bc it doesnt work for their narrative of the Scary Bad Trans Guy With No Regard For Others And Likes To Kick Puppies And Doesnt Know Real Pain Or Trauma

[brothersonahotelbed]

when you're talking to a trans person about their identity & the way they view themselves, there comes a point when you really just need to take a step back and say . i will not, and probably never will be able to understand exactly what this person is feeling. i need to accept that, as much as i want to interrogate and question and throw hypotheticals into the air like they're rice at a wedding, i won't understand what they're going through. i just need to trust that they understand themselves enough to make decisions that are good for them.

[killbenedictcumberbatchagain]

patriarchy and biphobia really go hand in hand

[theteaisaddictive]

my mother’s transphobia never ceases to enrage me.

[swagging-back-to]

i really want to like wendall and wild but theres trans propaganda so i cant even bring myself to pirate it </3

[nothorses]

do you know why people say trans women and trans men cant both be targets of misogyny? I was told that saying trans men are oppressed by misogyny was bigoted because it implies trans women aren't

imo it mostly comes from a binaristic and cis-centric understanding of gender.

"Oppositional sexism" (coined by Julia Serano) is a handy term here: the idea is that men and women are inherently rigid and mutually exclusive categories of people. Anything one category is, the other cannot be, and vice versa.

Here, oppositional sexism holds that if women are harmed by misogyny, then men benefit from it; women can never benefit from it, and men can never be harmed by it.

A lot of transphobia is rooted in the ways in which trans people fundamentally defy oppositional sexism, and thus endanger the gender binary. Men are supposed to be big, and women are supposed to be small; but trans men assert that men can be small, and trans women assert that women can be big (to use one overly-simplistic example).

A lot of trans people and trans allies still adhere to oppositional sexism, but claim to do it in a "trans-friendly" way: sex can be changed, but gender is instead rigid and mutually exclusive. Or- perhaps more commonly- gender can be expressed in any way, but the ways in which gender is experienced are instead rigid and mutually exclusive.

Which is how we arrive at this insistence that trans people fall into one binary gender experience, even if they don't actually identify as a particular "binary" gender. "Trans women are women" might mean trans women can look and act any way at all, but it also means they experience womanhood in the same way that all other women do, and that experience is rigid and mutually exclusive of "man" experiences.

It's also why so many people are so eager to create new "inclusive" ways of sorting trans people into the same gender binary using increasingly contrived language: People insist on knowing the gender someone was assigned at birth so they can categorize them as AFAB or AMAB, and thus conclude what gender experience they have: man or woman. People insist on categorizing nonbinary people as either transmasc or transfem so they can conclude what gender experience they have: man or woman. People insist on categorizing trans people as either TMA or TME so they can conclude what gender experience they have: man or woman.

The idea that trans men experience misogyny only implies that trans women don't if you believe that man and woman are rigid, mutually-exclusive categories.

[dalekofchaos]

JK Rowling is in full Holocaust denial now.

Harry Potter fans, here is your favorite author doing Holocaust denial that I've only ever heard from the most farthest of far right idealogues. She's been posting about this continually after being presented with documentation of repression and murder.

There is evidence that it happened.

The source of the article

The Nazis targeted and burnt valuable trans research. This is fact. It’s concerning how far she’s falling down the extreme anti-trans rabbit hole & denying reality. She encourages disinformation that’s harming trans people.

“In the midst of the burning, Joseph Goebbels gave a political speech to a crowd of around 40,000 people”

They literally had a political rally in the middle of burning the institutes library. The fact that Rowling would try to deny this is really sick.

But at this point I'm not surprised about anything this vile woman says. She surrounds herself around with Neo-Nazis and her beliefs has led to actual deaths of Trans people.

Let me be perfectly clear. If you are denying the Holocaust in any shape or form, you are a fucking Nazi. JK Rowling is a fucking Nazi.

Update. George Takei came for her ass

[aptericia]

Not proud to be here.

--

Ok, here goes draft like 5 of this fucking post. I spent 4 hours tossing and turning in bed last night thinking about this, and then this morning I found a tumblr post that really helped me understand what I was trying to say.

The post talks about how aromantic "advocates" claim that "aros don't take up resources, so there's no reason not to include them!" And if that's actually what people believe, I think I can finally articulate why it is that I feel so alienated in queer spaces.

It's because aspecs in general aren't "welcomed" by much of the queer community. We're tolerated. We perhaps get the luxury of not being contradicted on our own identities, or not being specifically kicked out of LGBTQ-only spaces, but that's the whole point: what we get out of the queer "community" is people NOT doing things, not actually doing things FOR us. And that, frankly, is not enough. We deserve conversations about us. We deserve to have others consider our feelings, even when making lighthearted jokes. We deserve varied, respectful representation in media. We deserve the active deconstruction of amatonormativity in society. We deserve to have space made for us, rather than at most being told we should "go take up more space!" ourselves.

Of course, the reality is that my being aspec is a personal matter that does not inherently affect anyone else. But the same can be said for literally any queer identity. Your being gay doesn't say anything about me, so of course I shouldn't hurt you for it, but why should I help you either? Because your happiness and comfort are important. The same goes for aspecs.

And most of the time, I don't even need anyone to make space for or expend resources on me; I can live fine in everyday, non-queer-specific places without mentioning my identity at all. But it's the queer community that claims it will make that space for me, doesn't, and then acts defensive and morally pure if I call out the hypocrisy because "we're queer too, you can't erase our identities to advocate for yours!!!!"

Again, this post isn't about specifics. I have queer friends who are incredibly thoughtful and supportive about my identity, just as I have non-queer friends who are. I find more solidarity in aspec-only communities, as well as trans/genderqueer ones, although there are still many exceptions. This post is also not about amatonormative ideology, which is extremely common from queer and non-queer people alike. This post is about the reason I've felt so betrayed by the queer community.

--

On a personal note, I remember being so excited when I started identifying as aromantic (and later asexual). Fitting myself into labels has been a lifelong struggle for me; to this day I still can't confidently say if I'm White or PoC, neurotypical or neurodivergent, abled or disabled, cisgender or not cisgender. I continue to struggle making friends because I don't fall into social cliques. To discover that I officially, certainly, was LGBTQ+ lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. And now I'm just so sad to find that despite that, I'm still stuck in the middle. I didn't get rewarded with a community. I still feel alienated from both queer and non-queer people. I know it was silly to get my hopes up when there's such vast diversity in both groups, but it really was a disappointment. Going to my first Pride parade last year was really the moment where I realized this.