#i've been thinking (no surprise) about how i feel abt myself now that i identify as nb

[keeps-ache]

happy gender thoughts :D

[ryansjane]

Hello! Idk how to approach this bc it's a sensitive issue. But I have a question. If you dont want to answer I understand. warning upsetting and sensitive subject ig. 

Was there ever a follow up on the ''drake is a potential transphobe'' issue? Bc i learned it from your blog, and the last thing i know abt is that he made a sorry a$$ excuse of an 'apology'. I just got rmded abt it when you rbed your 'my tee' gifset (damn that show was a rollercoaster of ‘wtfs’ lol). 

And since the actor ''O**.Pa***'', I want to be cautious about these issues (bc it came out of nowhere and slapped me in the face and I’ve been disgusted with him(O.Pa) ever since). 

I am asking you bc I dont know Thai ppl on here, and I learnt it(the drake situation) with you. I also know there is something culturally that could potentially also apply. That in country n1 (here Thailand) smthng happens is different from country n2 or 3 or 4. (like I rmbr abt the thing with cis actors who talked abt trans actors and everything). I agree abt the fact that we, I, come from NOT the same culture and we, I, have to take it into account.

 But in this case I'm REALLY not sure it’s about a ‘’different culture’’ situation. Bc you know, it was very transphobic and also yah andr** tat*... So ig I want to be sure abt the media/ppl I'm involving myself with. 

If you answer this thank you, and even if not.

hi! I've addressed the drake issue when a follower sent me his apology, which I personally thought was good bc he took accountibility & did say he respects everyone. the one thing missing was an explanation though, which is annoying bc it's what misses from most thai actors controversies. but personally, I did think he was being genuine & not a transphobe, though I am definitely biased since drake is one of my favorite thai actors. I've talked multiple times about the cultural differences between "ladyboys" (katoey) & trans people: though now most "ladyboys" now identify as trans women bc they've learned about the western term for it, they were historically considered as a sort of third gender in thailand. that means it is more globally accepted to say things about them in thailand that would be seen as insensitive in the west, and thai trans women themselves have grown accustomed to mocking their own transness to be successful in the thai entertainment industry. this means that the "____ is transphobic" controversies only ever regard international fans, while thai fans don't even bat an eye. it's not my place to say what's wrong or right in those situations, but that's why I feel hesitant to condemn ANY thai person as transphobic when the cultures are so different & sensitivities so opposed. trans rights are under attack everywhere in the west, meanwhile "ladyboys" have existed openly (somewhat safely, I'm sure there's attacks & discrimination on them, but I couldn't find any data about it) for literal centuries in thailand.

NOW THOUGH, I find it quite staggering that you can kind of put most of these thai actors in the same box. drake laedeke for liking (or reposting? I forgot sorry) an anti-trans video, for which he apologized, joss wayar for following andrew tate, who he unfollowed once the backlash against tate peaked, ohm pawat for being a homophobic bully (which some have argued that it's been disproven in my comments but I don't really believe it, it's giving delusional ride or die fan), and lastly foei patchara who reblogged anti-lgbtq far right content & (to my knowledge) never apologized or backed down. all four of these men present themselves as very straight, they all work out & have stereotypically very masculine & attractive bodies, and all of them are successful. I'm not surprised that men who watch fitness content would end up on hustle culture videos, leading to alpha male videos & eventually far right content which is currently obsessing about lgbtq+ people. and I'm not saying this to justify them or whatever, but I think it says a lot about masculinity & the echochambers created around this hypermasculine content which led to these actors clearly doing something wrong.

in the end, I'll say what I always say: everyone can choose to remain fans of actors that have done something wrong, or unfollow them, ignore them, hate them, etc. I do think things need to be taken with nuance, and for me I look at repeated behavior & lack of accountability to try to guess an actor's true nature. I say GUESS because none of us will ever truly know them. maybe there's an actor that has never publicly done anything remotely problematic, yet thinks the most awful things in his head. so yeah, it's up to each individual's judgment to decide what to do with those actors & what they've done wrong, but I do think we have to take cultural differences into account bc the world does not revolve around the west.

xxx

[beulf]

you know those sentimental posts ppl make abt detransitioning, but how gender exploration was still really fun/worthwhile and the community was nice? i realize that's the way i feel abt asexuality; for the majority of my adolescent and young adult life i IDed as ace and it was honestly a really big and important part of my identity for me. in retrospect, the label fit me partially only cuz i was young and a late bloomer in all aspects of my life, but definitely also exacerbated by years of SA by my first bf, and all the chasing of bad things that followed that because i just had no idea at all how to navigate sexuality in a way that was legitimately pleasing to me. even today ~10 years later thinking abt the SA it is really really weird to evaluate, it feels like every couple of years something new opens up to me about it and i'm like "wow, that was actually worse than i previously thought" and i have to process some other aspect of how it's affected this or that about my thinking. even now, when i see consent in media, it surprises me as a novelty; i watched a kids movie w my current SO a week or so ago and i remember thinking "it's interesting how that character can be so repulsed by romance with one guy, but totally into it with the other guy. that is so interesting!" as though this isn't like a pretty normal way to think i guess.

it wasn't until 7 years after my first bf i had i think my first healthy sexual experience, and in the 4 years since then things have been really great and smooth sailing. i realize now that i don't identify with being asexual at all, grey or demi or any sub label, and it feels strange because of how core it was for thinking about myself for so long, and it feels a little bittersweet to leave it behind, but this is the first time i've really felt clarity in how this label has changed completely for me. obviously no part of this post is supposed to imply that other aces will necessarily grow out of it or anything, but it just surprises me how it is something i felt was static for so long, but internal changes can really surprise you

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

is it possible to be super connected w your assigned gender on childhood and just start having gender dysphoria once you hit puberty? I've been identifying as nb for abt a year now and I suffer from v bad chest dysphoria and plan on having top surgery on the future, but second my mom when I was little I was super worried abt not having breasts and close to my 10/11 yrs-old all I wanted was for them to grow more. that's not how I remember it being but now I'm doubting myself again, thanks to her

Lee says:

Yes, that’s normal! When I was a kid, I felt similarly.

By late elementary school, I was taking off the bras my mom made me put on each day and hiding them in my locker because I didn’t want to wear them. When we changed for gym class, I was proud to have a flattest chest among my 4th and 5th grade peers in the locker room. But at the same time, I was writing in my diary about how I wanted to grow breasts and go through puberty.

That’s a weird contradiction, but in my mind, I really wanted to grow up and look attractive. And all my life, society was saying to me “You’re a girl, so growing up and looking attractive means having breasts.” So I thought “gee, I guess I want those!”

I knew I was supposed to want them, and all of my female friends wanted it and were always talking about it and I wanted to be normal and fit in, so at the time, I really believed I wanted to grow breasts. Because what kid doesn’t want to look good and be more mature?

Then I actually went through puberty and got them. And at first, I was okay with it. But as time went on and I realized I was trans, I got increasingly more uncomfortable with them. I was able to start seeing past what I thought I wanted because of what society was forcing on me, and started to think critically about how I actually felt about my body deep inside. I didn’t have chest dysphoria all of the time, but it became more frequent and more severe.

Looking back on that diary where I said I wanted breasts was surprising to me since it was so long ago I didn’t remember it, and I felt the urge to just ignore that and tuck it away because it didn’t align with how I feel now. But it’s okay to acknowledge that we’ve changed and grown over the years.

When I was a kid, I was terrified of going to the doctor, and that anxiety and obsession was a core part of me for a long time. Now I’m pre-med. There are a lot of things that change when you grow up and you don’t have to re-write your past to come to terms with the incongruence. It’s okay to simply accept that who you are now is different than who you were then, for whatever reasons that may be.

In the end, I decided top surgery would be the best choice for me. So I got top surgery when I turned 18, and now I’m much happier, my mental health has improved a ton, and I have no chest dysphoria at all.

Wanting to grow up when you’re a kid is normal, and for a lot of us, we’re told that growing up means going through puberty, so we want that too. We want to look attractive because nobody wants to look ugly, and society says “attractive women have big breasts” so we decide we want them too. Internalizing those messages as children before we knew we were trans doesn’t make our current dysphoria any less real or valid.

To conclude- yes, it’s possible to feel connected to your axab as a child and only experience dysphoria after going through puberty. And that’s a super common experience! A lot of us don’t realize in advance that we are uncomfortable with certain gendered traits until we actually have them.

So it’s totally possible you wanted your chest to grow more when you were younger, but that doesn’t mean you should doubt yourself when it comes to how you feel now. If you have dysphoria about your chest now, that’s valid!