#i never felt any actual attachment to my agab

[keeps-ache]

happy gender thoughts :D

[catgirl-kaiju]

i'm saying this as a trans man and someone who has watched this infighting that seems to be brewing for a long while so don't think i want to continue it further by dragging you in the mud of it all especially after seeing that you already get targeted by terfs i for one don't even follow genderkoolaid and have a lot of bad takes but i know that their good ones do circulate in my circles for things like databases for trans man hate crimes and what have you things that are invaluable to trans people to have as support in the community the baggage behind a lot of these words that get thrown around like "transandrophobia" just leave a bad taste in my mouth and i feel like if they will have any validity in academia and social justice all the theory will get ironed out in the next few years and so i just don't see any use defending THE WORD let alone THE SLUR THAT MANY USE but i think that it needs to be understood that the word """"transandrophobia"""" is not a organized school of thought with everyone attached to some discord group that has secret infighting targets and takes pot shots at trans women all i ever see is people using the word, talking about WHY THE SLUR IS A SLUR, and wanting to talk about problems trans men face without always having to use the word "misandry" because it is deeply upsetting that in so many ways we are born women, we live as women, and will never escape womanhood i feel like not being able to escape the things people perceive you as and the assumptions and fears (especially the fears people think are justified when they are very much not) are a universal trans experience and so it really hurts to just see people spot a basic word like "transandrophobia" being used in a post and deem an entire group of people bigots i see trans mascs and intersex people do the same for "tme/tma" where they just totally avoid anyone who uses these terms its tearing the community apart and making it harder to remember how much we have in common and bigots want us to be alone and defenseless like that... sorry that this was long winded, i'm sure you've heard all of this before i just felt i needed to vent because its really not about the blog its about the general way people navigate in fighting genderkoolaid is not someone i'm really willing to defend, let alone the other blogs that get tossed around that have been in heavy water so i hope i've made that clear here at the very least

hey i don't really follow what you're saying here. i'm not sure what slur the slur you're referring to is, and i'm very unclear what your point is abt transandrophobia. i'm also confused abt which intersex people u are referring to that don't like the terms tme/tma. i'm intersex and use those terms, and i've seen other intersex folks actually prefer those terms for discussions about transmisogyny because of how it shifts the focus away from very binary way that sex is talked about in the AGAB model.

this is, in general, confusing and makes me uncomfortable in ways i can't really articulate atm. i think chief among them is a kind of "but, what about me" vibe i'm getting from this at a time i am being more vocal than ever abt how transmisogyny affects me and other tma folks.

although i'm not sure what your stance on the term "transandrophobia" and the ideas behind it are, i can say that very much disapprove of it for reasons others have articulated so much better than i could. i think issues that uniquely affect trans masc folks are worth talking about, but i think the framing of conflating those issues with the way transmisogyny functions is just the wrong way to go about it. much like how "misandry" is not really a helpful way to talk abt the ways that cis men are affected by patriarchal systems, as those issues are not equivalent to the way misogyny functions. very telling that before the term "transandrophobia" was used, the same ideas were being described with the term "transmisandry"

[thewolfofthestars]

Questions to Ask When You’re Questioning Your Gender

So I'm trans myself and I've spent a lot of time thinking on this subject and talking to other trans people, as well as people who are questioning their genders. I've learned a lot over the past couple of years about what gender is, what it means to me, what it means to others, what it means to society, and most relevant to this post--how to figure out what your gender actuallly is. Cuz this shit ain't always easy. In fact, most of the time it's pretty hard. So I'm putting together a list of questions you can ask yourself if you're questioning your gender.

Please keep in mind: you probably won't relate to everything on this list! There are trans people who don't relate to this stuff and there are cis people that do relate to this stuff. Not every single thing on this list is a 100% surefire sign you're definitely trans, and you don't need to agree with every single point on the list in order to be trans. I am merely making this list in order to get you thinking in a more helpful and productive way to figure out your gender. Additionally: You do not have to figure out your gender if you don't want to! If you're perfectly content just to call yourself by a big umbrella term like "nonbinary" or "genderqueer", or if you just don't want to put a label to your gender at all, that is absolutely fine. This list doesn't need to be for you.

Highly reccommended reading, btw: The Null HypotheCis--https://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/04/17/the-null-hypothecis/

-Do you ever find yourself wishing that you were another gender? How often? How intense are these feelings when they arise?

-Do you ever find yourself wondering what your life would be like if you were born as a different gender? How often? How do you feel when you think about it?

-Do you find yourself looking at or admiring people of another gender very often? Is this admiration not really the same as romantic/sexual attraction--it feels different, somehow? Do these people just look really good or cool to you, in a special way that you can't really explain?

-Do you find yourself feeling jealous of other genders at all? Why do you think you feel this jealousy?

-If you are not otherwise LGBTQ+, do you find yourself feeling connected to or attracted to the LGBTQ+ community in a way you can't really explain? Do you feel attracted to the trans community in particular?

-Do you feel more comfortable or happier around trans/nonbinary people? Do you feel as though you can relate to trans/nonbinary people better than you can relate to cis people?

-If you are attracted to people of the same gender as your AGAB (Assigned Gender At Birth), does "gay" feel like the right word for that attraction or not?

-If you are attracted to people of the opposite gender as your AGAB, does "straight" feel like the right word for that attraction or not?

-Do you have trouble understanding your sexual/romantic orientation? Have you changed your labels several times, or perhaps never put a label on your attraction at all? Have you just kinda slapped a label on at random until further notice?

-Do you feel very uncomfortable engaging with your sexuality at all? Do you identify as asexual or sex-repulsed, because of this discomfort?

-Do you experience distress or discomfort when in sexual situations, for no otherwise discernable reason (i.e. nonconsensual situations or dealing with past sexual trauma)? Do you find yourself dissociating during or after a sexual situation? What about anxiety or panic? Do you find yourself becoming depressed after sex or masturbation?

-Do you find that you need to "get into a different headspace" in order to have sex or masturbate?

-When you wear clothes commonly associated with your AGAB, how does it make you feel? Happy? Sad? Do the clothes feel like you, or does it feel more like a costume, like you're cosplaying or performing in a play? How does it feel when you wear clothes more commonly associated with other genders?

-How do you feel when you imagine yourself far into the future, living as an elderly person? Do you find it hard to imagine yourself in old age as your AGAB? How does it make you feel? What about as other genders?

-Do you find yourself coming up with excuses for reasons that you aren't trans that, when held up to scrutiny, don't actually work? Phrases such as "Well, I didn't know when I was little, I didn't start questioning until I was X age (people of any age can question their gender and figure out they're trans)", or "I don't have genital dysphoria, so I can't be trans (trans people can have all sorts of feelings about their genders--no particular kind of dysphoria is required to be trans, or even any dysphoria at all)".

-Do you find yourself thinking things like "Well, statistically, trans people are so rare, there's no way I'm trans"? What about "I'm already (other marginalized identity(ies)), I can't possibly also be trans"? What about "I have a friend/family member/someone else in my life that's trans, I'd just be copying them"? (None of these things need to mean that you're not trans!)

-Do you have a very "mind over matter" mentality? Were you more of a smarts or arts kid than you were a sporty kid in school? Are you the kind of person who wishes your consciousness could be uploaded to the cloud or something like that, so you can leave this fleshy body of yours behind?

-Do you find yourself frustrated with society's emphasis on gender and gender roles? Do you ever feel that gender doesn't even matter at all, and you're confused as to why everyone cares about it so much?

-Do you feel constrained or trapped by being your AGAB? Do you feel like you would be so much freer and happier as a different gender?

-If you could press a button right now and wake up tomorrow as a cis member of the opposite gender, as if you'd always been that way, with a body of a cis person and with everyone referring to you like that, would you press it?

-Do you believe that everyone of your your AGAB probably wants to be a different gender, at least a little bit? Are you baffled when people of your AGAB don't agree with this sentiment?

-Did you ever wonder if or secretly hope that you were intersex? Did you ever get tested by medical professionals for an intersex condition? If so, how did the results make you feel? Were you happy to learn that you're intersex, or dissappointed to learn that you aren't?

-Does it seem difficult for you to be your AGAB, like it doesn't really come naturally to you, and you have to learn how to do it and actively try to be it? Have you felt like you've needed to construct and maintain an identity for yourself as your AGAB? Do you think being a different gender would feel more natural to you, and you wouldn't have to work at it?

-Do you find yourself thinking thoughts like "Well, I don't hate being my AGAB, but I would prefer to be a different gender/would be happier as a different gender"? (I'll give you a hint--you don't need to hate being your AGAB in order to justify being a different gender! You can just be a different gender if that makes you happier.)

-Do your genitals or reproductive organs upset you? Do you wish you didn't have them? Do you think you'd be happier having the opposite set of genitals/reproductive organs? What about having no genitals/reproductive organs? What about having a mix between the two?

-Do your genitals or reproductive organs not really feel like they're a part of you? Do they feel like a seperate entity that's just attached to you or inside of you, but they aren't really you? Do you dissociate when you look at or think about your genitals/reproductive organs? Do you try to avoid looking at or thinking about them?

-Regarding the above two points--ask yourself these same questions about your secondary sex characteristics (i.e. breasts, body hair, hips, the pitch of your voice, etc.)

-Do you only feel these feelings sometimes? If so, when you don't feel these feelings, do you actually feel good about these aspects of yourself, or do you just feel less bad?

-What if I told you right now that you are absolutely, definitely, 100% a cis person, and that you're not trans at all? How does that make you feel? What if I told you that you're definitely, 100% for-sure a trans person? How does that make you feel?

-Were you a particularly androgynous child or present yourself in a gender non-conforming way when you were younger? Did you ever have a "phase" of presenting in this way?

-Alternatively, did you ever present yourself as a very gender conforming person when you were younger (i.e. hyperfeminine if AFAB or hypermasculine if AMAB)? Did you ever have a "phase" of presenting in this way?

-According to the last two points--did you ever alternate between these two modes of presentation? How did these types of presentation make you feel?

-Are you afraid of the idea of this "trans phase" or "questioning phase" being over? Are you afraid of going back to identifying as the gender you were born as?

-Do you like the idea of being a crossdressing or GNC person of the gender you were assigned at birth, or does the thought of being a different gender make you feel happier? (i.e. if you're AMAB, are you happiest when you think of yourself as a crossdressing boy/drag queen, or do you think you would be happier if you were a girl instead? Or perhaps some other gender?)

-Have you ever taken a "guess your gender/am I trans" quiz online, even just for fun? What were the results? How did the results make you feel? Did you intentionally try to skew your answers toward or away from a particular result? Did you go back and take the quiz again, wanting to get a different result?

-What sorts of gendered terms are you happiest and most comfortable being called by? Do you like the idea of being "mom" or "dad" better? What about "brother" or "sister"? "Girlfriend" or "boyfriend"? Or do you dislike both gendered options, and prefer gender-neutral terms like "parent" or "sibling" or "partner"?

[irkenheretic]

What’s your favourite twincest ship? 👉👈

ok im gonna take this as an opportunity to talk about ANX’s own resident twincest couple because i love them theyre amazing and TO BE FAIR they are my favorite

under the cut bc its long and yknow. about incest. in depth lmao

ok so a little backstory: irkens can inbreed without genetically imploding like humans do- if they EXCLUSIVELY inbreed for too many generations then there are problems but that would like. never happen normally. because of this, there is no cultural taboo against incest

on the defect sanctuary planet, family units are just starting to become a thing. so there are mates, and smeets, and hatchmates etc. being multiple of those things at once (i.e. hatchmates and mate-mates) is seen as a little odd- but only a little. anyone who has a truly big problem with it is seen as an asshole. (good luck to any humans that move there!)

which brings me to The Couple:

their names are purin and pelle- purin is a boy and pelle is a girl. but that’s not how they were hatched! kind of? irkens choose genders in smeethood, there’s no agab. originally, purin said he was a girl, and pelle a boy, but they switched around because they both realized they picked the wrong genders (which happens sometimes lol)

they each kept their original names

so growing up they were always..... those kids. the weird as fuck kids. even on a defect sanctuary planet, there’s a bit of stigma against defects who are too defective. think a zimlike temperament- they’re looked down on for being too weird, as opposed to the Good Defects who are like Normal Irkens, just a bit different

and they were always attached- they never went anywhere without each other, they just.... felt at home with each other. of course since theyre on the defect planet, they DO have a family- and their family does accept them! it just hurts when everyone else treats them as pariahs

so in their teenhoods, they started to distance from each other and tried to be more “normal.” purin has a bit of an easier time, but pelle, who’s more outspoken and loud, did not

and neither of them were happy. they missed being close to the other in a way they never really understood? they thought it might be a twin thing at first, but that never..... felt right, yknow?

and of course their family realized smth was up. they have an older sister who ended up confronting them separately about it and they evennnnntually realized what was going on ya dig

and theyve been mates ever since. they talk in a very particular echo-y way and- ok ok hold on lemme- 

“We’re twins,” she clarified, “from the same egg.”

“It was a big egg.”

“A really big egg.”

“Almost killed our dad.”

“We have a really small dad.”

“He’s great! Have you tried the restaurant?”

“You should try the restaurant.”

“He works there.” 

“But we don’t work there.” 

this is OOOOOOOLD but this is how they talk (tm)

they really play up the “creepy twins” aspect of their personality and act like a singular hivemind unit, and only let their true personalities shine more in private

pelle is the more outspoken one and purin is the quietly mischievous type. theyre both bastards dont get me wrong lmfao

they’re EXTREMELY codependent on each other and the fact that they isolate themselves from everyone is a Bad Thing

its not the focus of the plot but in the background you can kinda see them going thru development on their own; showing up separately and not talking in that echo-type way all the time. but they stay mates! the fact that theyre mates isnt unhealthy in of itself, the fact that theyre so isolated was

a lot of people on their home planet kinda see them being mates as a “what else couldve happened?” thing. like, they’re both too creepy and weird for anyone else to love them outside of, well, each other

idk i love them. theryer good. my fiance is working on a oneshot starring them and im gonna beg him to at LEAST put it on tumblr

also inb4 “do they have kids?” yes they do actually. er, they’re identical twins so that means identical genitals, but they did have a threesome with a surrogate (a drone they paid handsomely) and have a kid that way

kid’s lost in the empire tho lmao, rip purin and pelle

once their planet has this tech, they’re gonna try again with a tube-grown science.... thing.... that lets same-sex irkens have a kid

(which is tech that exists, its just not gonna be on that planet until after ANX)

anyway thats them.... i should draw them theyre cute

also if u peep the red-eye family tree youll see that they’re red’s aunt and uncle lmfao. their older sister is his mom

[drukhari]

As a nb person, how did you figure it out? Right now it feels like gender is more confusing than ever and I'm just trying to find my slot on the spectrum, but i feel super lost. What kind of questions did you ask yourself while discovering your gender? It's more than just how you dress obviously, its about how you feel. But i feel like all the lines are blurry and ive been trying to solve this puzzle for so long. How did you do it? P.s. you are absolutely stunning and an inspiration to me

Figuring out my gender identity was...a process to say the least. I never felt right when identified by my AGAB, like ever since I was a kid that just used to make me super uncomfortable but I had no clue why until I got to college and actually learned “oh shit there’s a word for this - there’s actually a bunch of different words for things” 

When I really started to get down to brass tacks and dig into the question of my gender identity, I actually didn’t know there were options outside of the “traditional” gender binary of male and female...so my earliest questions were geared towards determining whether I might actually be a guy. Stuff like “hey how would it feel if I woke up tomorrow as a cis dude, and everyone around me just read me as a cis dude like that’s who I’ve always been..would that feel more or less comfortable??” Kinda felt like going to the eye doctor though, when they hold up a lens and go “now which is better? option 1 or option 2?” and you’re mentally like “lmao they’re the same, it’s the same damned lens and I STILL CAN’T READ THE SIGN DOC”. 

Wasn’t too long after that though that I learned there were in fact other options outside of just male and female. When I learned what nonbinary was, or rather, all that it could be - since it does vary from person to person as to what being nb means for them - I decided to try that on mentally for starters. I was asking the same “more or less comfortable” question but I was doing it throughout the day, particularly when I felt physically or socially dysphoric (which was pretty damned often). Then after that went really well I opened up about it with a few people who know me irl to see if things still felt right when other people were the ones referring to me as nonbinary. 

Whereas every other identity that I had tossed around in my head and tried on for size had felt like there was this big ol’ asterisk attached...when I said to myself and to others that I was nonbinary, it didn’t feel like there was any caveat to be added, no “buts” to the statement..it was just right. Now that whole process of learning about different identities, trying some on in my head and deciding they weren’t for me, finally arriving at nonbinary and settling into that one - that all took a couple of years when all was said and done, a lot of that was my own hesitation and fear getting in my way though!

It’s still hard to really express what being nonbinary means for me personally, because my gender does feel inherently chaotic on any given day, but it’s a chaos that I now have a name for...and I kind of realized that I was causing myself more pain when I tried to over rationalize it and define it using words that felt too small for what it is anyways. 

So I guess my best advice here would be don’t be afraid to try out different identities if you think that there may be something there for you - even if it’s only in your own mind at first! Worst case scenario, it isn’t the right fit for one reason or another, and then that’s one new thing you know about yourself. Even if it feels overwhelming and confusing right now - just remember there’s no way to get it wrong in the end, not really. You’re the only one who can decide who you are, what that looks like, and what language is involved, so explore the options and don’t be afraid to embrace something new if it feels right to you, or to let something go if it doesn’t feel right. 

I hope this helped a bit, and that it wasn’t too much of a mess, but if you ever need to talk more in depth about it or ask any specific questions you can totally feel free to DM me or shoot me another ask (if you’d rather). Wishing you all the best anon!! 💚😊