#it's just that i've seen a lot of people gender them and then get really upset when people are rightfully upset by that

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

First of all, I love your blog. Thank you so much for your in-depth and well researched replies. Anyway, I always read about Meghan wanting William for herself and I've seen videos of her making googly eyes/trying to flirt with him. Does Meghan really want William or is she just like that with all men. Some say she is now behaving like a woman scorned towards William. What is your take on this? Thanks a lot!

An anon asked me something very similar in a DM when I had asks closed so I’m just going to put in what I said to her since my answer is still the same.

Meghan is the kind of woman who sexualizes her relationships to all men, especially when she wants something, and she definitely wanted things from William - he was the one refuting her and Harry’s claims that she was just like Diana, she wanted him to walk her down the aisle at the wedding, and she wanted Diana’s jewelry, for starters.

So because Meghan sexualizes every transaction and interaction with men, she’s very flirty and over-attentive to every/any man she meets - just look at how flirty she was with the Colombia VP’s husband in the one video, or look at the way she draped herself all over the tour guide when she was like 14 or 15. It’s learned behavior, and (I suspect) from Doria, because she’s not a natural flirt. You can see her calculating what she needs to do to “win” someone’s attention - it’s her choices to wear short or skin-bearing outfits (or to alter her outfits to show more skin, like she did at Trooping 2018), to invade people’s personal spaces with the claws or her overly-touchy hugs, and how she always laser-focuses her attention on one specific person instead of the whole group around her. That’s not natural flirty behavior; it’s calculative. (The most telltale sign of a natural flirt is that they’re flirty, playful, and attentive with everyone around them, not just one specific person or one specific gender.)

And specific to the way she’s treating William — she sees him as the one blocking Harry’s (and therefore her) path back to the BRF. It doesn’t read scorned woman to me; it reads desperate. She’s literally throwing everything and the kitchen sink at William to get him to speak to her or at least acknowledge her. She tried flattery. She tried compassion. She tried using Kate. She tried to provoke him with anger. She tried silence/grey rock William. She tried using William’s kids. She tried using her own kids. She tried using Harry.

[themthistles]

i think that while micro labels can seem useful and affirming ultimately they're isolating and kind of an obstacle to your understanding of self. that's because you can never find a word specific enough. there will never be a label or two labels or even ten, twenty of them to perfectly capture and describe all of your thoughts, feelings, experiences, preferences, needs, interests, identities, etc. because you learn more and more about yourself every day and then you change and your wants and needs change with you. having to hop between labels, fearing that you don't 'fit' into a label anymore (both in your own and others eyes), worrying how soon your current label will wear out, questioning if you'll ever fully fit a single one. all that causes a lot of uncertainty and anxiety which could be avoided by just picking a more general thing and molding it according to what it means to YOU. because words will always mean different things to different people, you will never be understood immediately and maybe never completely by anyone but yourself and that's fine

[kowabungadoodles]

How to spot a (heart wrenching sad cat) Charity Scam

So I've been get a lot of requests for money in my askbox lately, from users I have never seen before! Usually sad cats, sometimes gender affirming medical bills, a queer person being made homeless etc etc... and guess what? None of them are real! It's scammers who have learned how to work tumblr's userbase and prey on our general sense of community and charity.

Here it is, so sad! So tragic! But let's note a few things:

It's generic. They don't know me, I don't know them. it's addressed to 'friend', no use of nicknames or usernames.

Even the cat and the problem are generic 'little kitty' who has 'urgent needs'. This is not how real people talk, this is because this scam is being used over and over with different accounts a different 'cats'.

Praying (uh huh.)

Asking you to reply privately- This is so people don't spot the scam and point it out the mark and because if too many people posted replies to the same message it would beome really obvious that this is a scam. If they're looking for 'boosts' so badly, then why do they need you to reply privately?

Now that I'm suspicious, let's investigate.

Sent me an ask and then followed me! Sounds like they're just hitting up anyone and everyone, but even more likely they have a list they're working from.

(I get so many, I'm probably on a mail-out list a mile long, just being hit up for cash. Likely I fell for one of these once and got my name added to every scam list for miles, but oh well.)

So let's see if they're a bot or a real person!

The blog looks genuine enough, they've got a bio, a fandom etc. And it says they're an artist!

And of course there's that sad cat post, pinned right to the top, so I don't have to look any further through the blog for verification... Looks super legit, pics of the cat, pics of the bill... of course anyone can print out a bill and take a picture of it...

As I do scroll futher, it's full of reblogs making this look like an active user. So how can I tell it's not genuine?

Well, if they're an artist they probably post right? Doodles? Pictures? Let's have a look at their origional posts.

The fastest way to do this is by using an outside tool like Original Post Finder.

just type in the suspicious username and go...

Voila! As suspected, the only post this bot account has ever made is Sad Cat Post.

Confirmed: Scam. Do not give your money to these guys, it looks so real but they're just here to make you feel like a bad person for not handing over everything you can. Charity is wonderful, supporting friends is wonderful, but tbh save it for people you actually know irl/ mutuals you have an actual relationship with. Don't believe any rando who comes knocking!

Love and kisses, stay safe out there.

[trans-axolotl]

one of the reasons it's really hard for a lot of intersex people when intersex topics are on the news cycle is because the public's reaction reveals how little anyone knows or cares about intersex people, including people who call themselves our allies. almost every time intersex topics are trending, the discourse surrounding them is filled with misinformation. people who only learned today what the word intersex means jump into conversations and act like an authority. endosex/dyadic/perisex people get tripped up over things that are basically intersex 101, with tons of endosex people incorrectly arguing about the definition of intersex, who "counts," DSD terminology, and so much more. i've seen multiple endosex people say today that they've been "warning intersex people" and that we should have known that transphobia would catch up with us eventually, which is an absolutely absurd thing to say given the fact that consistently over the past ten years, it has often been intersex people sounding the alarm on sex-testing policies and also the fact that many, many intersex people are also trans, and already are facing the impacts of transphobia. there is an absolute failure from the general public to take intersex identity seriously; people seem not even able to fathom that intersex people have a community, history, and our own political resources. instead, endosex people somehow seem to think they're helping by bringing up half-remembered information from their high school biology class which usually isn't even relevant at all.

and this frustrates me so fucking much. not because i want to deny the impacts of transphobic oppression--i'm a trans intersex person, trust me when i say i am intimately aware of transphobia. this frustrates me because there is no way we can achieve collective liberation if our "allies" fail to even engage with basic intersex topics and are seemingly unaware of the many forms of intersex oppression that we are already facing every fucking day. if you are not aware of compulsory dyadism, if you are not aware of interphobia, if you are not aware of the many different ways that intersex people are directly and often violently targeted--how the fuck do you think we're going to dismantle all of these systems of oppression?

if you were truly an intersex ally, you would already KNOW that this is not new, and would not be surprised--interphobia in sports has been going on for decades. you would know that we do have a community, an identity, a history--you would have already read/listened/watched to intersex resources that give you the background information you need for allyship. you would know that although there is a really distinct lack of resources and political education, that intersex people ARE developing a political understanding of ourselves and our oppression--Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr and their framework of compulsory dyadism is one example of how we're theorizing our oppression. It's absolutely fucking wild to me how few people I've seen actually use words like "interphobia" "intersexism" "compulsory dyadism" or "intersex oppression"--endosex people are seemingly incapable of recognizing that there is already an entrenched system of oppression towards intersex people that violently reshapes our bodies, restricts our autonomy, and attempts to eradicate intersex through a variety of medical and legal means.

you cannot treat intersex people like an afterthought. not just because we're meaningful parts of your community and deserving of solidarity, but also because intersex oppression impacts everyone!!! especially trans community--trans people will not be free until intersex people are free, so much of transphobia is shaped by compulsory dyadism, the mythical sex binary, all these ideas of enforced "biological sex" that are just as fake as the gender binary.

it makes me absolutely fucking livid every time this shit happens because it becomes so abundantly clear to me how little the average endosex person knows about intersex issues and also how little the average endosex person cares about changing that. i don't know what to say to get you to care, to get you to change that, but we fucking need it to happen and i, personally, am tired of constantly being grateful when i meet an endosex person who knows the bare minimum. i think we have a right to expect better and to demand that if you're going to call yourself our ally, you actually fucking listen to us when we tell you what that means.

okay for endosex people to reblog.

[trashycosmos]

Hu5h

[genderqueerdykes]

as an intersex trans wo/man, i've noticed that unfortunately it has become painfully obvious that not only do radfems and terfs try to abuse trans men into falling in line with their beliefs, but unfortunately, this happens to trans women and transfemmes as well. i've unfortunately seen several trans women fall down the the "men evil, women innocent, trans men have cis male privilege, trans men don't struggle, trans men aren't men or trans they're just confused butches," pipeline really quickly after transitioning or their eggs cracking, and it's not necessarily that transfem's fault, but rather an abusive person sweeping in to take advantage of someone who needs and wants validation in feeling like a woman. the person who put the terf ideals in their head during this crucial stage in development is to blame, it is not inherently the trans woman's fault.

vulnerable transfems and trans women become indoctrinated into these things. trans women and fems are not inherently bitter, shitty, hateful people. it's a select few who become groomed by radfems who push this belief, and push it hard, because that's what you do when youve been indoctrinated into a cult. it's not an issue inherent to trans women and transfeminism at all- it's vulnerable people being groomed. this is a serious issue of trans women and fems being groomed and brainwashed.

this is a huge deal and we have to stand up for each other, because the transfems getting groomed into this need support and help to get out of this cult. it is not okay for women who are just trying to find their footing to almost instantly get sucked up into a literal hate group. we have to help trans people who become indoctrinated into gender essentialism, antimasculism, and transandrophobia just as much as we help other trans people unlearn transmisogyny. these issues are both damaging our community on the whole.

radfems are aggressive and will try to indoctrinate anyone they can into antimasculism, transandrophobia, and gender essentialism. a lot of trans women in the early stages of transition really want to be validated as women and such, will become groomed by these groups of cis women who will gladly feed them toxic ideals like women can never be wrong, women are always innocent, men are always harmful and evil, it just benefits the radfems, not the trans woman. this behavior grooms yet another person into spreading radfeminism without realizing it. when one espouses these beliefs they become a spokesperson for radfeminism and terfism

i'm plain tired of seeing this argument, because it is nothing but gender essentialist binarist bullshit:

"transphobia is worse for trans women than trans men because of x, y, z."

its not worse. its different. but equal.

i understand that many folks have not lived the life a trans man leads, but whenever you try to speculate on what it's like, you will always be wrong, no matter what, because you weren't in that person's shoes. it's impossible to see the nitty gritty of how a specific group of people are treated unless you are that person or spend lots of time around large groups of those types of people. trans men face homelessness at a disproportionately high rate compared to other groups of queer folk. we also deal with forced detransition. we deal with being dehumanized by she/her pronouns. we deal with having lesbianism and butchness weaponized against us. we also deal with sexual violence. we also deal with physical, mental, and emotional abuse. we deal with gaslighting, lying, being robbed, abandoned, injured and killed. its virtually impossible to find support if you're a pregnant trans man.

trans men have a lot of unique struggles. this is not a comprehensive list, but rather to show you that ALL trans people struggle. we are united under the same banner of transphobic treatment. we are struggling, but we are struggling together, and we can uplift each other without tearing each other down. punching down on another trans person hurts us all.

belittling the trauma of other trans people is a form of queer infighting that terfs want you to do in order to fracture our community further. queer infighting doesn't help anyone whatsoever. trans men do not have it harder than trans women. trans women do not have it harder than trans men. amab and afab and intersex enbies don't have it worse than each other. these are all completely different and unique struggles that deserve to be acknowledged for what they are. you cannot use the same scale of severity for a totally different problem.

people love to completely gloss over the issues trans men face for the sake of believing that all men benefit from patriarchy. saying that trans men are not affected by specific kinds of transphobia is spreading the radfem belief that only women struggle under patriarchy. queer men, men of color, intersex men, gay men, bisexual men, trans men, polyamorous men, genderfluid men, bigender men, gender non conforming men, feminine men, men who crossdress, disabled men, neurodivergent men, mentally ill men, and other marginalized men suffer under patriarchy as well.

i'm not tolerating radfem gender essentialism being woven into queer ideals anymore. this behavior has to go. when you genuinely believe these things, we all lose.

[aplpaca]

thinking about how I've seen OCD get talked about now, but haven't really seen many posts that actually explain what it is. And like, obviously people shouldn't get all their info about mental conditions from posts, but u can't deny that internet communities and stuff play a major role in people recognizing and putting names to their own experiences.

But like since the general public has like absolutely no idea of what OCD actually is (no thanks to popular media), and a lot of things I see talking about intrusive thoughts don't mention OCD (either bc they originated in OCD circles or bc intrusive thoughts aren't Exclusive to OCD or for some other reason), there should prob be more explanation put out on what OCD actually consists of.

Which is kinda hard in some ways, bc there are so many ways OCD can present in terms of what "themes" a person experiences, so someone talking about what their themes are might not ring a bell with someone who experiences different ones. But like, the core thing with OCD isn't the presence of certain themes, it's a specific pattern of spiraling thoughts and reactions.

Like. OCD is a mental condition/illness where people experience stressful, unwanted, repetitive thoughts. These are intrusive thoughts are what make up the "obsessions" part of the disorder. In response to these intrusive thoughts, a lot of people will perform certain actions or think certain things in an attempt to neutralize or disprove the threat they represent. These are the "compulsions" part of the condition.

For a more "traditional" example, someone experiencing intrusive thoughts that they might catch a communicable disease may obsessively wash their hands or google their symptoms to try to lessen the anxiety. While someone who is worried they might hurt someone (even though they very much do not want to hurt someone) may avoid being near sharp objects or may avoid the people they're afraid of hurting.

One of the issues with OCD is that performing the compulsions provides short term relief, but in the long term it only strengthens the stress caused by the intrusive thoughts, thus furthering the thought spiral and actively making it worse, to the point where, depending on your themes, you may be (almost) convinced that your intrusive thoughts represent the truth or the inevitable or something permanent.

Intrusive thought themes cam be literally anything, but some of the common ones are stuff like

Questioning your sexuality, gender, etc (what if I'm actually straight/gay/bi/trans/cis/etc?)

Being worried about losing control and hurting yourself or others physically, sexually, emotionally, basically any way (what if I want to kill someone? What if I'm a pedophile? What if I'm an abuser? What if I want to stab myself? Etc)

Fear of becoming or being sick

Worrying something bad will happen to you or people you care about

Worrying about your spiritual beliefs or lack thereof (what if I'm actually Christian? What if I'm actually atheist? What if i don't believe in the faith i ascribe to? Etc)

Worrying about relationship status (what if I don't actually love them? What if they're not "the one"? What if they're cheating? What if *I'm* cheating? Etc)

What if I'm a bad person?

Fear of losing things

Fear of things not feeling right (this is often be related to other themes via magical thinking. ex: if I don't have my things organized Just Right then something bad will happen)

Fear of unreality

Compulsions vary by theme a lot obviously, but some common ones include

Hand washing

Organizing things until they Feel Right

Checking and double checking and triple checking to make sure you did something correctly

Obsessively reviewing your memories to disprove a thoughtor make sure you don't believe something

Arguing against the thoughts in an attempt to disprove them

Testing your mental reactions to a thought or to certain kinds of content, to show yourself you don't actually believe or feel something

Obsessively googling symptoms, testimonies, things related to your thoughts

Obsessive prayer

Repeating phrases, mantras, affirmations, etc in an attempt to make thoughts go away

Avoiding things and situations that set off your intrusive thoughts

Repeatedly asking for reassurance from others ("I'm not being xyz, right?")

But yeah this obviously isn't exhaustive but, just, if this kind of thing sounds familiar, you should probably do some research on OCD, bc while intrusive thoughts can occur with other conditions, the intrusive thought-compulsion spiral is the core of OCD and isn't really a subaspect of depression/anxiety/ptsd/etc. and the treatment and management of OCD can look different from other stuff, so its a good thing to look into.

(Also it's important to keep in mind, esp if you're someone that doesn't have it, that someone's intrusive thoughts Are Not "secret desires" or "repressed urges" or anything the person even remotely wants to act on. Someone having harm-related intrusive thoughts is not at risk of actually acting on them, no matter how worried they are of doing so.)

Anyway this was a long post and I don't have a neat way to wrap it up and also I accidentally added a poll and now can't get rid of it so here's free poll. I'm running on nyquil and a small amount of straight gin (which works very well at numbing a sore throat) rn gnite

[mr-ribbit]

gonna rant again bc im seeing a lot of trans women on my dash having to carry the heavy lifting to argue for their basic respect and a lot of other queer people who want to ??? get mad about that apparently. for the record as usual: im tme, im not speaking for anyone besides myself and my perspectives, but I am trying to reach out to fellow tme people to level with y'all from inside the house.

i thought we all got past the 'calling people gendered terms when theyve asked you to stop' thing in like. 2012. i swear we were allllll on board with not calling women dude anymore, nerfing sir and ma'am, neutralizing collective terms for groups, and all of that was like, during the onceler era. that's how we got off-putting shit like folx into the mix - remember???? why are we here again.

to those who I've seen claiming that they REALLY genuinely don't want to offend anyone, and that theyre trying to understand the dude thing, and they don't want to be seen as transmisogynistic when they aren't: ok. let's talk about it. step one, stop sending that really loaded anon to a trans woman you don't know, and close that in-group hatepost with 100 replies from people name-dropping trans bloggers they don't like. try to open your mind and assume for the duration of this post that I am not cynically trying manipulate thousands of tumblr users into making Bro the next big swear word, but a fellow queer human being who thinks you're all being pretty intentionally obtuse about an upsetting trend in our community

to be clear: this post is about the issue of trans women being called bro, dude, man, etc., particularly in recent tumblr discourse about transmisogyny, and the backlash they face if they get upset about it. this is also maybe moreso about the shitty ass excuses I see tme people make for why they supposedly can't stop doing this.

so let's go through some of the things I've been seeing people say they don't understand, supposedly in earnest, about this issue

"I DIDNT USE DUDE AS A MASCULINE TERM. I CALL EVERYONE BRO. MAN IS A GENDER NEUTRAL TERM"

I'm not actually going to exhaust my list of reasons why dude/bro/man are not strictly neutral, but you should be pretty aware that all words have context. Dude might be seen as neutral in many contexts, sure, but 'woman who is frequently called a man by others' is a situation where the context adds extra meaning to your words, just like calling someone "sweetie" might be neutral in some cases, but if you've got the context of knowing that's your coworker who's half your age, it's a bit less neutral. If you're not capable of reading that context and being tasteful about when you say dude, then you need to at least be ready to respond gracefully when someone asks you to stop. This is the part I'd rather focus on.

"BUT I DIDNT MEAN IT THAT WAY. IM NOT TRANSPHOBIC"

I think you should consider broadening your perspective *beyond* your intention behind the word. people may already understand that you meant the word neutrally and therefore didn't have transmisogynistic intent, but that's not really the entire scope of what people are saying. if that's your only concern, you're just trying to clear your record, not actually listen to what they're saying.

there are lots of words people don't enjoy being called, and in most cases, when they say 'pls don't call me that', people respect that and move on. even if the word isn't a slur, if it hurts someone's feelings, we all as a society have agreed that it's pretty shitty to keep calling them that. if your friend asked you not to call them 'buddy' anymore because their dead grandparent called them that, or something equivalently personal, you'd probably respect that instead of telling them 'but I call everyone buddy!!' right? even if you didn't really understand why it bothered them so much?

there is a prominent tendency for trans women to be denied this privilege, and when they ask not to be called dude or bro, people don't seem to respect this request as much as they would in other situations. when I accidentally use a gendered word and someone tells me they don't like it, I try to respond with something like "my bad, I didn't mean it as misgendering but I can see you were still bothered by it, so I'll try not to keep saying it. sorry!" and most people are willing to accept that. when trans women ask people this favor, a lot of people get VERY defensive, and treat the request as inane or unfair, instead of just apologizing and moving on. this is why people are upset when this happens, and it's why people are calling your actions transmisogynistic

also like you might not be doing this, but a lot of people DO use dude and bro in an intentionally gendered way to make trans women uncomfortable. it's a power play bigots use to talk down to them or otherwise maliciously harass them. do you know what arguments they use to defend that behavior when called out on it? 'oh I call everyone that' 'dude is gender neutral calm down' 'dont overreact its just a word'. by acting like this, youre all just giving credence to those same arguments.

"WELL THEY SHOULDNT GET SO MAD AT ME WHEN I DIDNT MEAN ANY HARM"

they can get as mad as they want!! also, are you sure they're 'mad'? or are they just expressing their feelings about a negative topic to you, and it makes you feel bad, so you have to make them out to be unreasonably emotional? how do you think they should have phrased 'dont call me that' to better spare *your* feelings?

also like, in most cases, these women do not knowww you. if your main response to someone saying you disrespected them is to say "I didnt mean it that way, I meant it in a friendly neutral way", well that's NOT YOUR FRIEND! she has no idea what your opinions are or what you think of her!!! she has no reason to assume you only upset her in a friendly way and not a bad unfriendly way! but she did get upset, and she did the one thing she can do which is *tell you what upset her* and your response is to say "well actually you shouldn't be upset at all"??????

and another thing:

it's not just the issue of using the word 'dude', it's because you're coming off extremely dismissive of women who have asked you to stop doing something that harms them, and because your argument is basically that they just shouldn't be so bothered by it. or that they're stupid, irrational, or otherwise crazy for telling you that it bothered them at all, just because you Technically used a gender neutral word according to Your Rules. be honest, does that seem fair? If people were calling you something that bothered you enough to ask them to stop, and they responded like this, how would it make you feel?

focusing solely on your intent and what the words mean when you use them is the same thing as saying "just get over it". no woman should need to Prove to you that 'dude' is gendered for you to care about what she's saying. the fact that you're asking people to do that sucks and makes you look bad, which is why people are arguing with you and calling you a misogynist.

especially those of you who are only doing this with trans women who are actively arguing with. you're wielding misgendering as a cudgel and we can all see it, grow up please.

[collaredkittyboy]

Well it's come up multiple times today so I'll make a post about it.

I think the popularization of the word "twink" has ultimately been really bad for people in general.

I know it's hard to track the positive and negative effects of language but I don't think it's hard to see how creating a word for a group of people wherein the most consistent qualifying trait is "being skinny" is healthy for people's self image. Obviously people have lots of ideas about what it means to be a twink- gay, lacking body hair, feminine, beautiful, young, white- but the most consistent descriptor I've seen is "skinny." Hell, it's even a body type on Grindr; the size below "average."

So it kind of functions as a code word in the gay community: anyone can say that they're only interested in twinks and they don't have to look shallow by saying they only like skinny guys. It's such an accepted attitude that no one really bats an eye when they hear it.

I'm not even going to get into how it's become part of the larger issue of people turning "top" and "bottom" into gender roles 2.0, but that is closely related, because people with any internalized homophobia can look at a skinny, feminine man and turn off their fag alarms by viewing him as a woman or not a "real" man, and it makes twinks more acceptable to society at large.

No, ignoring all of that, one of the biggest issues is that gay men are taught by society that they are only attractive while they are skinny. Just having the label "twink" reminds a boy that people are looking at his body and judging it. There were countless times when I was growing up that people would tell me, "You're such a twink," or argue about whether or not I qualified as a twink because I had body hair. People around you, unpromted, judge your body and give you a label based on it, and that label has a large influence on whether or not you're seen as objectively attractive. I know many other gay people who say they wish they were a twink so they could be more attractive to guys.

So think, you have all these kids growing up being told whether or not they qualify as a twink, and then we have the gay community as a whole where it's completely acceptable to say you're only attracted to twinks. I think its because of all of this pressure to be a twink (in other words, to have a below average weight) that many of the gay people that I interact with struggle with a negative body image or eating disorders.

I mean, people talk about "twink death" like it's an actual event that makes a gay man much less attractive, and no one thinks that, maybe, it's harmful to tell a guy that the very day he stops being young and thin and pretty, he will stop being attractive and celebrated?

I'm not qualified to speak on fatphobia in physical queer spaces because I don't have the ability to frequent them where I live, but I can't imagine that these aren't issues at social gatherings as well. I also can't speak on my own experiences with weight discrimination because so far in my life I have had a naturally thin body, but I have experienced a lot of outside pressure to be thin that have caused me to pick up unhealthy eating habits to reduce my weight in fear that I could become fat later on. Thankfully that is something that I've mostly been able to work past. I'm not an expert, but idk, I just wanted to rant on my silly tumblr blog.

Obviously it's impossible for a word to be inherently bad. I'm not trying to imply that saying "twink" is a magic word with evil powers. Obviously the real issues at play here are fatphobia and harmful beauty standards and body shaming. But in my opinion, the popular use of the word twink has made it much easier and acceptable to express fatphobia, etc, in the gay community by turning "skinny person" into a "type of guy that you should try to be so you can be attractive."

[fatliberation]

If its ok to ask; how do you feel about fat kinks? I havent seen any fat acceptance blogs talk abt it. /genq

I know it's a sore spot for a lot of fat liberationists (and yes, I'm quite familiar with why so please do not take to my inbox), I think people are scared to talk about it. personally, I think it is crucial that people with fat kinks are able to access fat liberation spaces so long as they leave the kink at the door. I say this not only because the majority of them are fat people, but because that community is steeped in a deep shame and feeling of brokenness for taking delight in fatness and/or weight gain, which perpetuates rampant fatphobia. and fat liberation is what will heal those wounds. I don't understand it when fat activists tell kinksters/fetishists/feedists, whatever you want to call them to stay out of the fat liberation movement. because what is the alternative? do you want them against the movement? that doesn't make sense at all. I think people are so uncomfortable, disgusted, or afraid of this community they don't understand, that they just wish they wouldn't exist. they aren't going away. kink is akin to sexuality, to identity, to queerness. I think what people really mean when they say feedists should stay out of fat lib is, "kink should stay within spaces designated for kink." we aren't talking about kink when it comes to who can belong in a movement, we are talking about people. it is wrong to equate every person who has a kink or a fetish to a predator. it causes very real harm to those people, because they internalize that message that their kink makes them a bad person who is inherently worthless, who has to hide. if feedists aren't welcome in fat liberation, they aren't welcome anywhere.

I think that people who love fat people, love feeding people, love their own fat bodies, who see their fattest selves as their most satisfying selves, would be natural allies to this movement once they find their way to it and feel safe and accepted here. I want to make it absolutely clear that ANYONE is welcome on this blog as long as they aren't harassing or harming anyone. so many of my followers and biggest supporters are kink blogs. some of my closest friends and fat liberationist allies are feedists. I know feedists who are way more educated and passionate about fat lib and body politics than most people I've met. I don’t wish for anyone to feel alienated on my blog - especially fellow fat folks and fellow fat allies. we are 100% FAT POSITIVE AND SEX POSITIVE on this blog, babey‼️

In fact I feel really glad when I see fat kink/feedism blogs engaging with my content bc it means that person is putting the work in to understand systemic fatphobia, how to be an ally to fat people (if they aren't fat themselves), but also healing their community through education and acceptance. and HOT TAKE, BUT: when it does happen?? when feedists aren't shrouded in internalized fatphobia, shame, and isolation, and instead start embracing this innate, powerful appreciation for fatness, it's literally so fucking beautiful? and so very queer?

choosing to gain weight on purpose as an act of self creation. because it feels Right for you. gaining weight to affirm the relationship you have with your body. getting fatter because you feel so much of your identity (even gender presentation!) is attached to your fat body. feeling sexiest when you're fat. someone else worshipping that about you. giving unlimited permission to nourish yourself and/or others - and taking carnal delight in it. releasing food rules and food guilt through centering pleasure. food and fatness as an erotic and sensory experience. finding feedist partners who also have this ingrained love of fatness that can't be replicated, partners who are willing and eager to support and adore your fat body, NOT merely tolerate it. reclaiming tropes used against you through kink, and turning a loving gaze inward. saying "fuck you" to the system and choosing to take up more space in a world that consistently tries to shrink you. never denying yourself pleasure even though everyone is telling you you don't deserve it. feedism is such an interesting facet of the endless spectrum of human sexuality and I think that once people in that community find liberation and heal their relationship to the kink, it can be one of the most radical forms of self acceptance and exercising complete bodily autonomy.

I already know that a love letter to feedism coming from a fat lib blog is gonna piss people off. I'm going to lose a lot of followers, I'm going to get a lot of hate. but. kink in general is SO demonized and SO misunderstood and as liberationists we should also be open to sexual liberation. so much of this discomfort around feedism comes from a lack of education and understanding about kink in general. feedism doesn't = fatphobia in the same way that bdsm doesn't = misogyny or abuse. quite the contrary, if practiced ethically, with informed consent. every community has assholes. especially when those communities are small, ostracized, and so young that there are next to zero resources for self acceptance, safety, education, and accountability. in fact, the assholes are the ones that you're going to SEE because every respectful person is staying away and out of your business. if you've been harassed by someone with a fat kink, that is so shitty and I'm sorry that happened to you. I know it happens a lot. try to remember that what you experienced was abuse, not kink.

what consenting individuals choose to do with their bodies is entirely their business and there is nothing wrong with kink. (and I will not stand for sex-negative, puritan bullshit in my inbox, thank you very much.)

reminder: fat pleasure is fat liberation.

[syrupyy]

Vivian finally being out as trans in the new Paper Mario remake hit me like a truck and it took me a while to fully understand why (light spoilers for chapter 2)

it's like.. I don't know how to describe it. I play a lot of indie games and I've gotten used to many of them having the full array of LGBTQ+ representation, and at this point I look at it and smile and then move on

with a huge corporation who has everything to lose like Nintendo, it feels like an entirely different world. here, I step back into this game I've owned on disc since I was a kid, and everything's the same if not slightly better... and then I start noticing the changes, one by one. picking up all the little clues, when suddenly I get to this line

I had already been spoiled on her full confession by Twitter, but... when I saw even this much with my own two eyes, it felt like something that had been hiding in my mind for 12 years just leapt out. the subtext is now text. the characters of this world that I've thought about all this time, that I would doodle in my notebooks, that I used to read so much fanfiction about... are canonically going through the same real struggles as me and so many others I know

and I just felt... seen. like, as if I'm finally allowed to be a real person, like I'm not crazy for telling people to use gender neutral terms around me, like I'm truly nonbinary and not just in writing

I never really talk about my gender identity in public because I've never had that validation telling me that it's not just in my head. my friends will reassure me, my mom won't hate me for it... but at the end of it all, Nintendo raised me since I was three years old, and that was a pillar of my life whose approval I never expected to have

so when I saw this, I just... sat there, staring, for a full minute. processing these emotions I never even realized I had. it's just one little sentence in a 30 hour long video game, it shouldn't mean that much, but... it did to me. the writers actually cared. they stuck their faces out the window that is the trans experience and they came back and rewrote the script to match. they left the Fire Emblem toad the same, not even changing "GBA" to "Switch" or "3DS", but they knew to change this

thank you, Vivian. I understand how you feel now

[inkskinned]

there's this video you've probably seen already where a woman is shaking in front of a microphone and delicately tries to ask - how can i make my husband listen to me, i've tried everything, i don't want to seem ungrateful and the other man laughs - the problem is that you married a man, we're only listening 25% of the time and we only understand 5% of that! and the audience laughs and the woman laughs and you just sat there, phone in your hand, letting the sound of it echo

and the thing is that people make think-pieces about it (isn't this one of them) and satire versions and "flipping the script" which is good and fun but at the end of the day, there's some truth in that man's response about men-not-listening. and you have tried to language that feeling for years, this sense that you can only take up 33% of a conversation before others view it as being "dominating".

it's not that they aren't listening, it's that the action they're taking is purposefully silencing. it's different. you accidentally-don't-listen a lot; just because the world is loud and you're distracted. you don't mean anything by it. and the truth is that the man who spoke is relying on that to be true of you; the way it's true of everyone. but there is a different undertone to his kind of not-listening. what he means is they don't respect you and you shouldn't expect them to. there is a difference between oh shit i forgot to take the trash out and why didn't you remind me to do it, just like there is a difference between i didn't realize you wanted to go out this weekend and why do you expect me to plan things why can't you just tell me where we're going.

and the thing is that it isn't just him, and it's actually not just because of your gender - your skin, your class status, your weight, their ableism - it happens often. so often it feels like a tightness around your throat and a weight in your stomach. you're not even "really" allowed to be upset about it, because to them it's a joke. and they laugh. and you know exactly the amount of work that goes into every conversation. how you have to work to condense down your thoughts into intelligent, crisp soundbites; worried someone will try to swoop in and cut you off. and there's this sense from everyone else - oh stop being so sensitive, are you really upset just because they weren't listening and you don't know how to say the way that feels when it happens constantly.

there's that video of the science summit where a woman in the audience finally says let her speak please! and the whole crowd bursts into applause and the man leading the summit holds up his hands and bows his head and says oops, sorry! like what he did was awkward and embarrassing, a little social gaffe that happens easily. later in your meetings, you're asked to take notes, and you don't say anything, you just hear let her speak please! ringing in your head and know that you'll never be brave enough for that kind of thing. and besides. think of all the people who agree this was a one-off, he just got excited and all of the people who say one man is not indicative of all of society

at the dinner table you're talking about someone you don't like and how he's not good to his girlfriend and how she always has to remind him to put the effort in and before him, she was glowing with curiosity and passion but now she just seems... tired, unhappy. that he likes the way she burns out; she stays home and takes care of him and their 2 kids. and your father sniffs and says that men take a while to learn those kinds of things. and you just stare at him and think about your childhood and are like - no wonder i turned out like this

and you want to say - there's no fucking secret school or mystic form of communication. i was not sent to Rearing a Child University. i did not graduate from Getting Chores Done College. i ask questions and i listen and i pay attention, because that's basic fucking human decency. it stems from respect, and how i respect others and their agency. i clean the house because someone should clean. not because it comes "naturally".

hell, you had to google "how to boil an egg" the other day, just because you usually make them scrambled. you can never remember which of the 2 bathroom cleaners make chlorine gas, only that two of them definitely do. you've accidentally bleached your clothes. it took you like 3 years of self-teaching before you figured out how to actually cook things correctly - for that whole time, you burnt or undercooked everything. but you did teach yourself; just like you taught yourself how to listen with empathy. just like how you taught yourself to think before you speak. to be kind first, to be better at communicating. it seemed like a good thing, an adult thing.

the joke the man in the video makes is that women say i'm fine! when they are not fine. and you think about the 150 conversations that happened around that; about how she probably has had so many arguments with her husband. how she said i'm upset you don't take me anywhere and he got mad at her because of course i do, you made me go to that stupid restaurant like last week and she probably said that's not what i'm saying and he said now i'm supposed to be psychic or something and she said no of course not and he said how am i supposed to know what to do when you don't even like everything and she said i do like things and he said well how am i supposed to win? and her pastor probably told her to be more grateful because they do things at all, even if she has to plan them and her mom probably told her that's just how men are honey and she probably cried over her journal, trying to figure out why the fuck she "has everything" and is still so bitterly, horribly unhappy

and how, in your life, for so many reasons, you looked down the barrel of another argument; of explaining yourself and being vulnerable and begging for help again. how many times you just said i'm fine because it was better than doing that again; it was better than wringing yourself out when it's literally easier to just pretend. because he wasn't going to listen. your father wasn't going to be better and your boyfriend wasn't going to be better and your boss wasn't going to be more respectful.

and you sit in front of a video of a woman shaking, looking horrible and guilt-wrought that she's even asking this question. and you know; deep in your heart - that's you. in a different life, you are her. you've stood in her spot. and you had to listen while someone else cackled - why would we bother to notice when you talk?

[needle-noggins]

(CW for SA, suicidal ideation) Here we go. My favorite and simultaneously least favorite panel of Vash and Knives.

I've seen a few interpretations of this scene and before we dive into the one that really struck me, let's start with the more... chill one. We're finally introduced to the third gun of Trigun, Vash's angel arm. And the way we're introduced to it involves Knives forcing him to pull the trigger. Of course, since no one knows anything about Knives, the people of Noman's Land blame Vash for Fifth Moon, and Vash likewise blames himself (this is kinda a spoiler but if you've been paying attention, it's just par for the course). However, he's not the one who pulled the trigger, Knives is. It brings up an interesting moral question of blame - do we blame the gun (and Vash, who is being used/objectified as a weapon here), or the person who wanted it to happen? Guns don't kill people, genocidal twins do!

Now for the awful interpretation, the one that makes me cry and wish Vash was real so I could hug him and pay for his therapy. And really highlights how awful Knives is and how far he'd go for his brother in his own, fucked-up way. I touched on this in a previous post about Legato and the Murder Cafe, and the whole time I was thinking about Fifth Moon but didn't want to say anything for the sake of spoilers.

So. Pay attention to the way Vash and Knives are standing. Knives, when he first grabbed Vash's head, was standing in front of him. He moves behind him to better control him and yeah, he's still controlling him via hand on head, and now he's got his other hand gripping Vash's chest, where feathers/wings are manifesting. Knives is assaulting him. If you wanna get crazy with it and say that the angel arm is kinda phallic, you could say... yeah. This is rape. I heard that specific interpretation once and while I accepted it I also don't know if that would be generally accepted or if I'd be called out for it, so I'm trying to tread lightly here.

It also doesn't escape me that of course the angel arm has feminine features like the plants - the plants that, again, humans are exploiting for their ability to create. There's a lot of feminist commentary to be made here but many people have said it better than me. Specifically I'm thinking of this one post I saw about gender fuckery and Tristamp Vash. Anyway.

Also, the atomic bomb/black hole/sun/whatever that is in the middle... It's just so powerful. It's terrifying. The eldritch body horror here is a punch to the gut. What the fuck, Trigun? I thought this was a funky space western!!!

Oh, and here's more commentary on the following few panels:

Vashussy shot, Knives is still right behind him. Yeah, I wasn't kidding about how bad this pose is for them. Knives, you sick fuck.

Vash shoots himself in the leg (a key difference from '98 trigun, lol), because of course he does, but it doesn't free him from the arm.

The arm's getting darker/the light inside is getting lighter! Stampede did an awesome job with their interpretation of the angel arm and I don't think I would have understood it without that. Also, on my first read I didn't notice that Vash is literally levitating, which is cool, but also terrifying because ?? he's not in control of that either??

Finally. A super painful, minimalist, double-page spread. Nightow loves 'em. Vash thinks he's dying (maybe?) and he wishes he had never existed. It's not suicidal ideation per se, but he wishes he didn't exist at all because he's already caused enough suffering. This is a low for him, because he believes so strongly in the concept of the Blank Ticket. (Come on, soupy brain bitch boy, get it together!) He's a monster, it's just how he was born, and he's not in control. Very specifically too, he says "we", and then changes it to "I"... he doesn't blame Knives at all, and that's very him. I want to shake him! Stop playing the martyr, Vash!

[frillsand]

Hi Frillsand I wanted to start off by saying I adore this au and love all the art you've posted for it..

Secondly and Sorry if this has been asked before but I was curious about how Wally in you au feels about his masculinity? I've seen a lot of people mention how the ai for him is insecure about it at times. The idea is very compelling I think too since I've seen many instances where men who are both shorter than average and enjoy things that our culture deems as feminine are seen as somehow less masculine.

In regards to Wally you've said he adores the attention he gets for being cute but has he ever been really frustrated at not being taken seriously because of it? Both as a man in general or possibly even a romantic partner?

Though as I think on it his diva personality could be interpreted as a response to not being taken seriously in general. People like Max have the option to lean in to the cultural expectations of masculinity and be taken seriously whereas someone like Wally needed to adopt the diva personality for it.

Sorry for rambling a bit I just thought it was an interesting aspect to the character and wanted to learn more! Hope your having a lovely day regardless!

Wonderful question , I’m so so so glad you asked. In regard to his masculinity, Wally is privately very insecure about his appearance not being “traditional”

I know I make a lot of jokes saying how fruity he is and honestly Wally has no problem with how he looked. But something about seeing the differences with him and other men, makes him self conscious.

He doesn’t have broad shoulders, he isn’t tall, he isn’t considered to be attractive in ways men want to be.

He’s always just CUTE.

What more can he do but go along with it, he’s cute, it’s a fact. And there’s times where the thought pisses him off.

Of course it doesn’t help that he loves doing things that can be considered feminine. His job being one of them, like his role in the show as a nurturing figure and his love for teaching kids. (Being flamboyant doesn’t help). He doesn’t care for gender norms and that helps a lot but not completely

Looking the way he does, comes with perks. He’s more likely to get things he wants and no one ever suspects someone like him can do wrong. Truly, he likes the way he looks, it’s just that he can’t help but think about what it would have been like to be different

He’s learning to accept it

I so wish I can ramble more , I want everyone to understand what’s going on in my head so badly but i can’t articulate my thoughts and I won’t be making sense

[neil-gaiman]

Hello! Not a question, but I've seen a lot of people commenting/sending asks about GO season 2, so even though theres a very high chance this won't get seen, I wanted to let you know how happy it made me seeing 'the spouse' in the show. I'm non-binary, and while I do consume a lot of content with gay characters in it, it's very rare for me to see anyone under the trans umbrella. Then when I do, they're almost always a straightforward she/her or he/him kind of character, which is fine, considering they're getting represented at all, but it can be a bit frustrating. I never see anyone who's closer to my wavelength in terms of the whole gender thing

I know there's a lot of 'they's' in the show, but if I'm right, up until this person, most, if not all, of them have been either an angel, a demon, or a horseman of the apocalypse, and why would they have a solid binary view of gender? These characters did make me incredibly happy to see, but seeing a human character shown in the same light, so casually, like it was something completely normal that happens all the time, genuinely made my night (even if the rest of the season's ending did wreck me /lh)

Genuinely, it's about 8 hours later and I'm still thinking about this character. This is the first time I've seen someone like me represented in media, and to see it from a show I've been watching and adoring since it came out is incredible to me

This may not mean as much to other people, and it may not have felt like that big a thing to include, but I wanted you to know how much this truly touched my heart . I admire you and your work so much, and, i hope that your day/night is as lovely as you are

I'm really glad. I loved being able to ask Andrew to come in and play Mutt's spouse. (Also I loved the way it happened: I had no idea when I was writing Mutt whether the character would be male or female and so cheerfully wrote the spouse line to keep all our options open in casting Mutt. Once Mutt was cast, and was male, I realized that I'd grown rather fond of the "spouse", and liked the idea of casting someone who used "they" and could just be themself. This is Soho, after all.)

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

will you please give us examples of resources to look at if we want to learn more about the concept of gender and maybe even transness in Medieval Europe? thanks!

whooooo boy right, there's a lot! I wanna start this by saying that I am very much not an expert, and I only have access to stuff I can find for free and the handful of books I can afford to buy second hand. Most of my research has been around gender as it relates to transness and GNC people. I am absolutely missing stuff, or have forgotten stuff, or simply lack the know-how to find stuff.

There's a few bits I've got on a TBR but haven't read yet - some I've included and some I haven't, depending on the source and how established it is.

Also: this is medieval Europe. The way pronouns are used to describe people don't really align with modern views of sex and gender. Also be aware of old-fashioned language use (for example, some texts talk about "hermaphrodites"). Remember that the way we talk about gender and trans identities is far different to how we even spoke about it 20 years ago.

So with that out of the way... I am chucking this under a read more, because it's long:

---

GENDER

Medieval ideas around gender were different to how we now think about it. The Hippocratic view of gender saw gender as a sort of wet/dry, cold/hot spectrum upon which men were at one end and women the other (and in the middle were intersex people). The male body was seen as hot and dry, and the female as cold and wet. The cold, wetness is what made women try to seek out heat from guys. A lot comes down to humors rather than genitals - if you're hot and dry, that innately means you grow a penis, because the heat sorta forces it out. So the marker is that penis = man, but you only have that penis in the first place because of your hot, dry humor.

Some people believed the vagina was an inverted penis - as in, the penis turned outside in. Some schools of thought believed that both men and women produced "seed", and that both were needed for conception. These thoughts and ideas shifted around a lot.

The Hippocratic view shifted towards Aristotelian ideas around the 12th Century, where the male/female divide was a lot stronger. There were also surgeons throughout all these periods who sought to "correct" intersex genitalia with surgery (how little things change).

This podcast (I've linked to a transcript, because I have more time to read than listen to things) with Dr Eleanor Janega is super interesting. In fact, I'd recommend reading her whole blog, which is fascinating. She also has a book out (but I've not read it so I can't give a yay or nay on that one)

The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages by Joan Cadden seems to be a good source on this, but I've not read it so I can't vouch for it 100%.

I've listed below some real people who could fit into our modern interpretation of transness, and the fact that all of these people were only "outed" when arrested or at their death makes me think that there were probably a lot more people at the time who would also fit into this category. It does feel (to me, a layman) that you could rock up in a new town and go "hello I'm Jeff the Man" and people would just accept that.

It's also important to note that the majority of sources I've found are about people we could define as trans men (FTM). I've only found one person who could be described as a trans woman. If anyone out there has more sources for trans women, I'd love to hear them - specifically in medieval Europe/England.

There's also a big discussion to be had around the idea of women dressing as men to achieve a goal. People love getting into arguments about it. My general rule is that if someone lived as X gender, and was forcibly outed against their will or at death, then I feel we can more safely assume that their experience maps more closely onto a trans narrative than it does one of a woman taking on the "disguise" of a man.

---

TRANS & GNC ACADEMIA

Here's some of the sources I've been using that examine medievalism through a trans or trans-adjacent lens.

Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography, Alicia Spencer-Hall & Blake Gutt - a deep dive/collection of essays about medieval religious figures/saints through a trans lens, specifically about cross-dressing figures. Really fascinating, and available on open access.

How to be a Man, Though Female: Changing Sex in Medieval Romance, Angela Jane Weisl - goes into detail about medieval texts in which characters change their sex.

Transgender Genealogy in Tristan de Nanteuil, Blake Gutt - trans theory in the story Tristan de Nanteuil.

Trans Historical: Gender Plurality before the Modern, edited by Greta LaFleur, Masha Raskolnikov & Anna Kłosowska - A great big examination into trans history/gender. I desperately want this book.

Clothes Make the Man, Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe, Valerie R. Hotchkiss (book, no online source available) - Another look into women dressing as men and gender inversion.

The Shape of Sex, Leah DeVun (book) - A history of nonbinary sex, 200 - 1400BC. Not read this one yet but it's on my TBR.

In fact, I'd recommend all of Leah DeVun's work, which I'm currently making my way through. I'm currently reading Mapping the Borders of Sex.

The Third Gender and Aelfric's Lives of Saints, Rhonda L. McDaniel - An examination into the idea of a "third gender" in monastic life based around chastity and spiritualism

Erecting Sex: Hermaphrodites and the Medieval Science of Surgery, Leah DeVun - an essay about "corrective" surgery on intersex individuals in the 13th/14th centuries. (I've not fully read this one yet but the topic is relevant)

----

TRANS FIGURES

Joseph/Hildegund (died 1188) - A monk who, upon his death, was discovered to have a vagina/breasts.

Eleanor Rykener (1394) - A (likely) trans sex worker arrested in 1394 (and another source that isn't wiki)

Katherina Hetzeldorfer (killed 1477) - An early record of a "woman" being executed for female sodomy. Katherina dressed and presented as a man, and some scholars read them as a trans man.

Marinos/Marina the Monk (5th Cent) - A monk who was born a woman and lived as a man in a monastery. Marinos was accused of getting a local innkeeper's daughter pregnant. Their "true sex" was discovered upon their death.

-----

ROMANCES* & GENDER

If you're interested in the idea of gender presentation and trans-adjacent stories, I very much recommend taking a look at some contemporary sources. I've tried to take a sort of neutral approach to pronouns for these descriptions, but it's hard to marry the medieval and modern ideas of sex and gender! The titles are all links.

*Romances here means Chivalric Romances: prose/verse narratives about chivalry, often with fantastic elements. Not, like, falling in love Romances.

Le Roman de Silence (13th Cent) - in order to ensure inheritance, a couple raise their daughter as a boy. The baby is called Silence/Silentius/Silentia. The poem features the forces of Nature and Nurture, who argue about Silence's "true" gender - Nature claims they're a girl, and Nurture claims they're a boy. Silence has a variety of adventures, largely referred to in the text as a man with he/him pronouns, and at the end their "true gender" is discovered and, as a woman, they marry the king.

Yde et Olive (15th Cent) - to avoid being married to their own father, Yde, a woman, disguises themselves as a man and becomes a knight. They end up in Rome, where the king marries them to their daughter, Olive. After a couple of weeks, Yde tells Olive about their "true gender", but the conversation is overheard. The King demands Yde bathe with him to prove they are a man. An angel intervenes and transforms Yde's body into that of a man.

Iphis and Ianthe (Greek/Roman myth, but also in Ovid's Metamorphois, which first came to England in the 15th Cent) - Telethusa is due to give birth, but her husband tells her that if the baby is a girl he'll have it killed. When she gives birth to a girl, she disguises the baby as a boy. Eventually, Iphis is engaged to Ianthe. (Incidentally, this is also a really early example of same-sex romance, as Iphis struggles with their love for Ianthe "as a woman"). Before the wedding, Iphis and Telethusa pray at the temple of Isis, who transforms Iphis into a man.

Tristan de Nanteuil (11th/12th Cent) - from the Chanson de geste, after his alleged death, Tristan's wife, Blanchandin/e, disguises themselves as a Knight. Clarinde, a sultan's daughter, falls in love with them. Blanchandin manages to hide their "true sex", but when Clarinde demands they bathe with her to prove they are a man they flee into the woods. There, they meet an angel who asks if they want to be transformed into a man. Blanchandin accepts and he is turned into a man for the rest of the poem. (Incidentally the angel gives him a giant cock. Yes, the text specifies this).

Le Livre de la mutation de fortune (1403) - written in the first person by Christine de Pizan, the poem describes how the narrator is transformed by Fortune into a man after the death of their husband during a storm at sea. They maintain that 13 years after the event, they are still living as a man. (They also mention Tiresias, a Greek mythological figure who was a man transformed into a woman for seven years).

Okay, for now - that's about all I can think of. Happy reading!